Last Day in Korea

Today is our last full day in Korea. Movers are coming this afternoon to take away everything our schools have purchased, which is to say everything but cheap, plastic dinnerware and someone's discarded mattress I carried in from the parking lot. It is going to cost us 8 bucks (8,000 wan) to throw away the mattress. We will sleep on the mattress tonight and then get rid of it tomorrow morning.

Yesterday I had my last workout at my gym. To get there, I walked through the same neighborhood I jogged around my first week in Korea. Since then, I have walked that same rubber sidewalk painted with baby animals through snow, ice, wind and scorching sun. I probably received more stares that first day jogging than any other. No one jogs here through neighborhoods. I kept circling the same blocks and the same old men and taxi drivers peered on incredulously.


Yesterday, I received only minimal stares, or maybe it's just that I don't pay as much attention anymore. At any rate, students waved and said hi and one student's mom riding a bike even said hello and called me by my first name. Our corner shopkeeper saw me walking the baby in the Moby yesterday, trying to calm her down. I was able to speak enough Korean to tell him her name, when she was born, and when our flight is scheduled to depart. I felt progress had been made. Of course, later in the day when I went to close my bank account, the teller still felt the need to get the interpreter on the phone. No matter how long I stay, I am convinced I will always be a foreigner.

There have been many farewell dinners over the past week or so, most of which come with the dual purpose of meeting the baby now that her Korean-style 30 day isolation period is up. At every dinner people want to ask me what I have learned from living in Korea, or what is the one thing I will remember most fondly. Of course, the best part about living here has been strengthening my relationship with Sami and learning how to live a married life. That answer probably doesn't satisfy their nationalistic curiosity, so I just tell them I love and will miss the food. And it is true, the food is great. I hope that I kind find all of the ingredients I need to make Korean food in markets back in the states. I hope I can find kimchi. I won't be looking for soju.

No Do-Overs

A kid's life is full of do-overs. I can remember countless games of one on one against my dad that wouldn't end until I was ahead. Video games would be stopped and re-started if a certain level wasn't reached, and high school teachers always encouraged make-up work. However, somewhere on the road to adulthood we are forced to accept that do-overs do not exist in real life, and all of that pretending just sets us up to think of ourselves as greater than we actually are. A college professor who draws a hard line on late work, a sales pitch gone bad, and your favorite team losing a much anticipated match-up all bluntly re-enforce this harsh reality.

I really wanted a do-over this morning. Just as my friend Kyle had predicted, my alma mater lost it's season opener against LSU. It was bad. We looked unprepared, undisciplined, sloppy and (the biggest sin of all for a Duck) slow. And so my time in Korea ends just as it had begun, and while this loss doesn't hurt as bad as the infamous LaGarrette Blount punch game, it deflates the feeling of excitement for the remaining eleven games in the same way.

While most Oregon fans re-hashed the game with friends, watched highlights on the atrocity on television, and soon went to bed, I had a full day of sulking ahead of me. Fortunately, our friends Connie, Steve and Angie came over to see the baby one last time and, unbeknownst to them, take my mind off of the loss. We have known Connie nearly our entire two years in Korea. Sami met her and one of our orientations, and we learned that she lives somewhat near us on the other side of town. Angie and Steve are an older Korean couple (those are their chosen English names) that have been very kind and welcoming to the three of us in our time here. Steve and Angie have incredibly positive and infectious attitudes, and are both smitten with our baby daughter. Tonight they ordered in for us and brought over ice-cream cake. We ate one of my favorite Korean foods- haemul chim, which is a spicy mix of seafood and bean sprouts, we are talking muscles, octopus, whole shrimp and big hunks of crab.  We were sad when the three of them left and we knew it would be a long time, if ever, before we will see them again.

Ice-cream cakes! Choco, cherry, blueberry and melon

Steve holding Charlie

Sami, Steve, Connie, Angie (barely visible)

Being an adult means that there are no do-overs. But it also is to know that good can be found in even the down days. Steve and Angie don't know anything about football. Most Koreans don't. But even they understand that there are always more games to be played. Some of them you win, and some of them you lose, but you can always bounce back. And you can always order ice-cream cake.