As promised!

So as you have surely come to understand, a lot happened during the month of August.

First i'll try to write about my trip to Namhae Island, although it may be somewhat brief, as details tend to escape a person as time goes on.

So there was a 3-day weekend in August that I was determined to take advantage of. While I was on my rafting trip with the tour group Adventure Korea, they mentioned this Namhae Island trip that would take place in August. It sounded like fun so i went ahead and booked a seat. It was 3 days for only about 120 bucks, including food, transportation, lodging, and activities. A good deal. And since most of my friends were going to be on their summer vacations to all corners of the globe during that time, it was a perfect time to get out there and do something exciting and meet some new people.

I was a bit unsure about going alone because when you get a big group of ex-pats together like that they are all either going to be really cool and welcoming and fun or really cliquey and weird. Really it's always one or the other. Luckily for me this group of 40 or so was definitely among the former. Another lone girl sat with me for the 5-hour bus ride and we quickly became really good friends. We ended up forming sort of a group of 4 but the group dynamic was such that we could intermingle with people we didn't know well and everyone was friendly and welcoming. So I made a lot of new friends which was a great experience.

So we stayed in two villages during this trip. Both on the coast of the island. The first was on such a steep and rocky coast that it wasn't conducive to fishing, so it is a farming village. As you may remember from the pictures, it is basically built into the side of a mountain so all the roads are very steep and the rice and garlic fields are terraced into the hillside and are very small and/or narrow.

We went swimming in a cove with a pebble beach the first day. The weather was kind of crappy, a bit rainy, but we didn't let it deter us. We swam in the sea and rode a raft and swam out to a big rock which at high tide it was perfectly safe to dive off of. That was really fun. I was a bit wary of diving off a rock because i've spent enough time on the water and in swimming lessons to know you never should dive if you don't know the terrain. But our local guide said it was ok and others did it so i just went for the exact spot they did and all turned out fine.

My new friends and I wandered the streets in search of the homemade magkoli that the town is known for. The first place we found was sold out. We couldn't find the second place. Luckily we ran into our guide who took us to the place and we got the guys last 2 bottles. He was an old man and we saw him in his house just laying down for a nap, but a call of 'yogi-oh!' roused him and he went to his kitchen to server up some bottles of magkoli for us. We drank it on a picnic table one his terrace while we waited for dinner to be served in the town hall.

If you don't know, magkoli is a fermented rice drink. Alcoholic, of course. Unlike what my brother referred to it, it is NOT 'rice beer' (that would be bud light, wouldn't it?). It's color is milky/creamy off-white. It is kind of sweet. After drinking homemade magkoli from two different recipes (we later found another maker where we bought a third bottle) you can really tell the difference in taste. I want all those present at Paulapalooza to know that the stuff you drank had most certainly gone bad. It is particular stuff. It needs to be refrigerated at all times and needs to be consumed within a week or 2 of purchase. And my friends have tried bringing it home and said even drinking it right away it tastes funky, so they think that it just doesn't transport well. So don't let that experience sour you to the drink. I find it quite tasty.

Anyway what else did I do...oh, I plowed a field with an ox! It was one of the highlights for me. I was excited to see a real animal and get to touch it. There is an extreme lack of wildlife here so seeing something as big as an ox was exciting for me. Also i was really interested to learn about the farming practices. It's something that I guess coming from a rural area is more interesting to me that I thought it would be. Since the fields there are so small, and the terrain so steep, tractors and machinery are useless/impossible to use. So they do it the old-fashioned way. They all plow and harvest their fields with oxen. And i tell you it's much harder than it looks! It's difficult to keep the plow in a straight line and you have to be careful not to plow too deep or too shallow. It was a cool experience.

We moved on to the next village. This one was a fishing village. When we first got there we joined the other tourists (mostly Korean) in a barehand fishing competition. So we all got some gloves and a small net and went into the tide pools to try to catch some fish. there were traps set up so as the tide went out the fish couldn't go out to sea so as to make it easier to catch them. Foreigners and Koreans were working together to try to chase and trap the fish, or to spot them for others. I nearly caught one. But i didn't get a good enough grip on it. And another swam between my legs but from behind so i didn't see it in time to catch it. Early on I lost my sandal, so i was walking around the tide pool with one shoe. Which made me a bit nervous as the crabs and garbage and sticks came into clearer view as the tide went out. But at the end someone found it for me. And I found a little Mickey Mouse figurine. So that was my catch for the day. He is now my mascot so I will, if i remember, take pictures of him in different places on my travels.

After fishing, our group took our catch to a local restaurant. Some extra fish was purchased to be sure to have enough to feed all of us. And we waited while the chefs made our fish into sashimi (raw fish) and smoked/grilled the rest. I was a bit unsure because as a rule I don't like fish. It all tastes the same and the taste reminds me of the smell of dead carp on the shores of Sisseton Lake. But I was amazed at how delicious this fish was. The sashimi was soft and tender, the grilled fish had the perfect smoked flavor. it was DELICIOUS. I guess what they say is true, that fresh fish really makes a difference. Luckily all the fish we ate that weekend was pretty fresh (Although the fish we had caught ourselves by hand an hour before was by far the freshest), because we ate fish every day, 3 meals a day.

I forgot to mention the party we had in the farming village. The foreigners and Korean tourist children were invited to a party on the school grounds at night. We had games and relay races, foreigners v. Koreans. That was really fun. We ended up at about 2 to 2 so it was never determined exactly who won. But afterward some locals came and performed with traditional drums and dancing. And then they brought out a flatbed truck full of barrels of shellfish. mussels, clams, scallops, all caught that day along the rocky shore. We all marveled at this. These delicious, FREE all you can eat shellfish would have cost a crapload of money back home. And here I am eating scallop after fresh scallop, the size of my palm, for free. It was really cool.

So back at the fishing village, that night a group of about 5 of us to start, set up camp on the beach of the tide pool where earlier we had been fishing. The tide was in. We drank beer and played charades. Then as the group grew larger as others saw the fun we were having, some of us went swimming out in the bay. It was a full moon so we had plenty of light. It was a great time.

The next morning we all went sea kayaking. Most of the kayaks were for 2 people so my new friend and I went together. I sat in back since I knew how to paddle and she was amazed at the speed and quick turns I was able to achieve. So we paddled along the cliffs and rocky shore. It was really beautiful, and the first day of actual sunshine. After we had gone a while we started to turn around. By this point a good half or more of the group was feeling seasick. Even me! I was surprised, because i don't think i've ever been seasick before. But i think it was the swells coming from behind me where i couldn't see them coming so it threw me off a bit. Plus i think most of us were dehydrated from the night before. But despite the seasickness it was a cool experience. I was excited as always to be on the water. It's the thing I've missed the most this summer.

So that was about it for our weekend. We headed home shortly after the kayaking. It had been a really fun weekend. Everyone agreed that the food, activities, and especially the people had made it one of the best weekends anyone had had in Korea.

So I returned to Gimpo. At this point I had 4 days left in my contract at Tomato. And no job lined up for afterward. I had managed to put it out of my mind during the trip to Namhae but it quickly came to the forefront. The public school jobs had fallen through and the only options were 1) another hagwon in Incheon or 2) go home for the month of September and look for something that would start in October. This second was appealing, since September would have been a good month to be back in Minnesota. But 2 problems...one, letting my visa lapse would require a lot more paper work and going through the whole visa application process again, and two, most hagwons I would find hiring would be kindergartens. Which I was positive I didn't want. So on Thursday, I called my recruiter and said yes, let's go with Avalon in Incheon. So Friday I got the contract and signed it and sent it on.

So now I had a job that I wasn't too sure I wanted but it was a job, and not too far from Gimpo where I lived. So the plan was that weekend to pack up and clean the apartment and move to my friend/Korean co-worker Hannah's house for a week until my new apartment in Incheon would be available. Also I had agreed to my boss' request to stay at Tomato through Tuesday so I could help train the new teachers. I figured I didn't have anything else to do, so why not. Also the plan was to take my black belt test at the Taekwondo world headquarters in a week. So things were happening quickly but I was ok with it.

So on Sunday I was finishing up my packing and cleaning but suddenly was feeling really tired and feverish. I had already packed my thermometer but was pretty sure i had a fever. So I lay down and ended up sleeping for 2 hours. Finally Hannah came to help me move my stuff and an hour after I had left the apartment the new teachers were in it. At Hannah's I took my temperature and it was 102.4. Pretty high. So i took some nyquil and went to bed early.
Next day still felt sick but had to go to work to help train. And had to go to taekwondo after work in preperation for my blackbelt test.
By Tuesday I found going up the stairs at work winded me more than it should. And by Wednesday I told my taekwondo master I really can't run, I'm sick. So luckily they complied. Wednesday night I had promised to introduce the new teachers to the other foreigners so after taekwondo we went to meet them for dinner. I was back to feeling feverish so didn't stay long. I had held off going to the doctor because since I don't speak Korean i needed someone like Hannah to go with me, But with our schedules there wasn't time. My friends that night told me of an English-speaking doctor in our neighborhood. So Thursday morning I decided to try to find him, because by this time I'd had a fever hovering around 100-101 for 5 days with little reprieve, and I had found the night before at dinner that talking too much left me winded. I figured I probably had influenza or perhaps bronchitis, although i've never had bronchitis and the flu is pretty rare for me. I had trouble finding which place was the doctor they had told me about. The one on the 6th floor, where they had said it was, was a gynocologist. I was pretty sure this wasn't correct. I was frustrated and felt really sick so i was about to go back to Hannah's and just try to sleep it off. I called her and she came over to help. So we found it. He listened to my breathing, and I couldn't really take the deep breaths he asked for to listen with the stethoscope. So then I had a chest x-ray. Then I went back in to talk to him and he said 'your disease is called pneumonia'.
So he gave me some antibiotics and told me to come back in 2 days, Saturday (the day I was planning to move to Incheon) and he said if I hadn't improved I would need to be checked in to the hospital.

So now I was concerned. True, as far as pneumonia goes this wasn't as bad as I had always thought pneumonia to be. Yes I was pretty sick but not in the hospital yet. I knew though that I definitely had to stop going to taekwondo which of course meant not doing the black belt test on Sunday. So I called Hannah and she told them for me. Also I was supposed to go meet the headmaster of my new school that afternoon but I called my recruiter and explained. (he was supposed to warn them of the possibility of my having to go to the hospital and thus postponing the start of my new job but the idiot didn't understand and didn't!)
So i went back to Hannah's and tried to sleep and drink water and do nothing.

However in Korean culture they believe if you are sick you should 'eat well'. Whereas when I am sick I have no appetite and just want to drink water and do nothing. But her mother, bless her heart, kept trying to feed me. Do not underestimate the amount of food I was expected to eat now that I had pneumonia. Vast amounts. Huge quantities that I would not be able to eat were I in a perfect state of health. I tried explaining to Hannah that I didn't want to eat and in my culture generally when someone is sick they don't eat a lot. Small amounts of healthy food and water are fine. But she kept insisting too that I 'eat well'.
I thought I would die. I didn't want to be rude but i did NOT want to eat!

Anyway come Saturday I felt much better. I could breathe a bit beater and my fever was gone. So I went ahead and moved to Incheon.
and on Monday I started my new job.

I've been on a regimen of 5 pills 3 times a day and returning to the doctor every 3 days. Luckily it's close enough I have plenty of time to do that in the mornings before work.

It's been about 2 weeks now. My last chest xray showed improvement and I can definitely tell I'm improving. Although exercise is still clearly out of the question. Which has been tough, because i bought a new bike and just want to ride aorund and explore my new home! But I can't. Then this week I caught a cold on top of the pneumonia so felt crappy again. But that's going away now too and for the most part I feel fine. I can take deep breaths again and am definitely on the mend.

Which is good because on Saturday I'm going to Hiroshima for 4 days, because it is the Korean holiday of Chuseok (kind of like Thanksgiving/harvest). When working in a hagwon, you get very little vacation time, so long weekends need to be utilized as much as possible.
I got my visa and alien registration card updated yesterday so I am all set to go. I had hoped to go to Vladivostok but with everything that happened I wasn't able to plan far enough in advance to get the Russian visa. So that trip will have to wait. One of my friends from Namhae and I were going to go to Osaka together but the tickets were out of her price range. So she is going to Dokdo with the Adventure Korea group. I was sick and without internet access so wasn't able to sign up in time. So I decided last week to go to Hiroshima. I don't really have a lot of plans as to what I will do, other than of course the Peace Museum and atomic bomb-related sites. I'm staying in a hostel and I'm sure I'll find plenty of things to see and do. I'm just excited to finally get another stamp in my passport.

Of course there is more to say, about my new job and co-workers and home, but I've been typing for an hour now and need to move on with my day. So you'll have to wait. I haven't really done much since I've been here because of course I'm still sick. But hopefully one day I'll be cured and will be able to get back to normal activities.

So don't worry, the pneumonia is under control and my new job is going well. Sorry for the lack of posts but I'm sure you understand. I'll try to be prompt with a post about Hiroshima.