Last Day of Winter Vacation
This winter vacation has been…
Boring.
There. I said it! I hate to be ungrateful or even admit to boredom since I’m In A Foreign Country! Having New Experiences!
But the virus, endless schedule changes, restricted travel, and winter pollution have made for a vacation that was much less exciting than I imagined.
So to commemorate this final day, let’s reminisce about the good things I was able to do:
- Ask the market sellers in Sokcho about the price of sea cucumber and take some very travel worthy photos
- Eat 물회 in Gangneung much to the shock of the locals
- Be a photographer for a Korean family without them having a second thought that I was not a Korean
- Learn about ginseng from a very patient seller at a market in Pyeongchang who helped me through a stumbling Korean conversation
- Learn to ski (again) and get complimented by the coach on how the other woman and I learned faster than any beginners he’s ever had
- Learn that the barista in town is just as excited to see me as I am her
- Fake a Gatsby experience at a fancy hotel
- Attend a wonderful play and make one of the actors nervous
- Accidentally collect blackmail on the office staff at a chance rice wine dinner encounter
- Order delivery for the first time
- Continuously improve my Korean to the point that I fully understood a conversation in the locker room this afternoon
- Experience a true Korean spa
- Become a volunteer tutor for a refugee group (will meet my two pupils this week)
- Teach my own curriculum to an enthusiastic and adorable group of daycare students
Tomorrow is the first day of the new semester. My friend J is also starting a new job in a new city so I feel some comradeship about first days.
While I’m a bit nervous about the new co-teaching situation, there’s nothing left to do today but sleep.
Catch you tomorrow.