A Chinese classmate who had kindly sent me a pdf version of our textbook, albeit with Chinese translations, wasn’t able to make it to coffee the first time I invited her. She did follow up and continue to text me so I figured she might be interested enough to try meeting again. We ended up going for milk tea (“this really tastes Chinese, do you think the barista is Chinese?”). She invited me to dinner with two of her Chinese friends and asked if hot pot was okay. Absolutely! I usually collect Chinese friends over hot pot. My classmate has short hair and was wearing comfortable, gender neutral clothing so…

I haven’t been sleeping much these days now that my cycle was thrown off from weekend shenanigans but even the tiredness couldn’t stop me from the excitement of possibly getting a Costco card. I took a city bus which made me carsick and then a local bus which made me fear for my life and crossed my fingers that Costco wouldn’t need an actual ID for me since I don’t have one to show them right now. The process luckily was fairly straightforward and I was done within five minutes. And to my great surprise my picture is not terrible; it does look like a mug shot but it looks…

When we were randomly assigned to our Zoom breakout rooms during online Korean class today, my German classmate popped up in frame. The first thing he said was, “Oh thank god, someone who speaks English.” Oh honey. He’s only a month into living in Korea, and he hasn’t yet realized the depth of English fear. We chatted as quickly as possible, a relief for both of us to talk in English before the teacher popped in to observe our Korean practice. This guy winked at me at least five times. And honestly? I didn’t hate it. C once told me that Germans are so good at English because “English and…

I saw the mess my male roommates had left upstairs and had a white hot flash of memory to remind me why I haven’t had roommates if I couldn’t help it. My male Korean roommate, to sum it up politely, is “a funny guy”. The house owner made this observation wryly as she unboxed a giant styrofoam case of popsicles he had ordered via delivery. I’ll admit I felt validated in my initial assessment of him. Later, I headed upstairs to the communal kitchen table to find him already there, listening to a morning music mix too loudly and writing in a journal. “Can I join you?” We sat and…

I have a confession. I woke up this morning with only a slight headache and thought to myself, I kind of miss Seoul. But let me start from the beginning. The local expat group here is pretty active and seems less cliquish than that of Seoul. To drink wine and eat some tapas I ended up meeting a few young women in a more central area of the city. We started out at a Spanish tapas place where one bottle of wine, croquetas, and paella did not suffice for dinner. Our next stop was a western style bar with cocktails under six dollars (no tips required) and a fried food…

Here we are, September already. I may have asked aloud if 2020 had anything else in store but I cursed us all as a super typhoon formed and hit Korea last night. Luckily the guesthouse suffered no damage and the storm brought cool and windy fall-like weather. The day stuck to a schedule that is now becoming routine: attend online class, scoff at the students who still can’t use Zoom, eat a snack, finish class, have lunch, do homework, go to the gym, eat dinner. Throw in cafe trips, rooftop lounging, and beach visits somewhere in between. Today I spent the better part of the afternoon laying in a hammock…

The weather was threatening to rain as I stood at a corner of the intersection waiting for the light to change. An older woman paused her loud vocal advertisements for a local studio apartment to hand me a free sample. Normally I don’t accept handouts but hey, it’s a new town. She stepped in close to hand it to me. I took it from her extended reach and then asked what in fact she had given me. “Wet tissues,” she said, not moving out my space. She continued to look at me from her vantage point of 8 inches away until I awkwardly said “uh, thank you”. She turned to…