The honeymoon is over!

This blog is all about my experience as an immigrant in Korea. Culture shock...hmm I guess that's what i'm experiencing...but it's much more subtle and slow approaching than it's name suggests. Much like the various immigrant communities we see back home in Canada, us English speakers tend to stick close to one another and have definitely developed a sense of community amongst ourselves. In today's blog I just want to talk about how important it is to have that sense of community when you arrive in a strange new world.

I feel really lucky to have the friends that I have here. Last night I had an aggravating experience at the end of my night, which resulted in me wanting nothing more than to just go home. So I hopped into a cab and showed the driver where to go by pointing to a map and pronouncing it almost perfectly (my coteacher says I have a very good korean accent). Not only does he not understand but he says he has bad eyes. I live near a very famous beach and hospital...why the hell is he a cab driver if he doesn't even know his own city??? I find that to be a general trend with the cab drivers here. Also people in general, will stare at you with a dumb look on their faces if you don't pronounce everything 100% perfectly. Like really...take a guess DUMBASS! And i'm sure you'll figure out what I mean. I've been dealing with that since I got here and I think yesterday I was simply push to my limit. But today is a brand new day and one of the main reasons I feel a lot better is because after having heard or seen that I didn't have such a great end to my night, I had several friends call me in the morning to make sure I was feeling better. Last night I felt so alone, living in a ridiculous country where people, simply put, seemed retarded. But I woke up this morning to a slew of messages and calls reminding me that I'm absolutely not alone and that although I have only met many of these people a month ago, they have my back.

Still, having friends here is not the same thing as having family that knows you better than you know yourself, and this is why nothing comforted me more than having Flav to talk to last night and of course Wally as well. I love you guys and I'm so glad that even though we're miles away from eachother I can still count on you to be there for me during my weakest moments. I think things will be a lot easier on me once Walter gets here and it feels like I have some family with me again. I'm going to talk to my coteacher about the size of my apartment and try to see if there is anything bigger in the same building. If that's the case I will ask to move. I doubt this will happen but I guess it doesn't hurt to try!

Yesterday I was ready to hop on a plane and come back to Canada, today I'm still a little angry at Korea, but I'm sure we'll make up soon enough =)