Reflections on home and abroad

I've been back in Daegu a week now. Back at work and back doing the same things I was before my brief holiday. The first thing my co-workers asked me was how was my holiday? OK I said. And it was. It wasn't great but it was necessity for me at the time. Nice to be back home, great to see family and friends, good to eat and drink whatever I wanted and fantastic to be away from Daegu's Summer intensity. Important too to be away from work, to be able to do what I felt like and importantly, not to have to deal with any children.

Still it is good to be back at work - I am that rarest of beasts, someone who enjoys being at work - and back at my apartment. I've been in Korea for about four and a half years. It's been my home and my workplace for a long time and there are plenty of things I like about being here. Even if I do write some negative things it doesn't mean I don't like it here.

Being home helped blow away some of the cobwebs from my eyes. From time to time I convince myself that home is great, home is the best place to be and to be living anywhere else is a poor substitute. This is not the case. There are some things that I need that are back in England but life is good here. I don't regret being here now, however gruesome this weather is.

There are certain aspects of life in Britain and the people there that I don't like so much now. Travelling and meeting different people with different stories and perspectives on life has influenced me a bit and helped to open my eyes a little wider. I can see clearly things that I don't like, the aggressive nature of a section of the population and the negativity of others. I appreciate different things these days perhaps and think I want different things out of life, though it is hard to both quantify and illustrate these.

I am going home though next year. All things being equal I will finish my next contract at the end of April. Back to living in my home country. Hoping to find a job at some stage. Going back to set up some roots for life with my wife. We are committed to going and greatly looking forward to it, no question about that. It is both exciting and mildly terrifying. Terrifying because I will be leaving behind a job with a contract and nice wage where I am able to save quite well for a period of uncertainty. Should be interesting though to stay the least. As much as I do like it here and the lifestyle is good, I have to get out of the comfort zone that I am in. And finally go home.

Waiting for the free beer

Waiting for my flight at Incheon airport. Not long to go now. Am headed to Helskini then to Manchester. Have to admit the thing on my mind is what beer will be on the plane? I've never had Finnish. Can't wait.

Some things I miss

Inevitably of late my mind has turned to things that I am looking forward to when I get back home for my all too brief holiday. Food, drink, places and people have been been on my mind for weeks and weeks. I know what I am going to eat first, where I want to have a pint and where I want to shop. I know where I will be going for the first few days and who I want to see. I'm mostly excited about being able to do all this with my wife.

I'm not someone who constantly pines for home. There has been no 'get me out of here moment'. Safe to say I like a lot of what I have here. Being older than most ESL teachers who arrive in Korea I have different needs and am perhaps mature enough to be able to make do with the things I have to deal with and the limitations forced upon me here. But, there are things I miss. In no particular order, bar the first three (and containing a lot of food), my miss-list.

My family,
The English language - accents and colloquialisms,
Weather, my weather,
Cheese,
Bacon,
Cottage cheese,
Good potatoes,
Skimmed milk,
Good curries,
Imported food that is inexpensive,
Grass/gardens, lovely green grass,
Fresh air,
Sausages,
Good bread that's not so sugary,
Beer - Bitter, Guinness and high quality lager,
Physical English language newspapers that report UK news mainly,
Listening to night-time radio,
A wide selection of restaurants,
Cheap books,
Football with English commentary,
Fish and chips,
A wider selection of clothes that fit me,
Cities being awake at 9am,
The queue system,
Grapefruit juice,
Sandwiches
And more...

I hope to meet up with some of those, given enough time next week. I'm not bashing Korea, Koreans or the way of life here. Things are different and that's to be respected but from time to time, you do miss the small things that you probably never appreciated of life back home.

The same but different

Change at work. The atmosphere is different. The two men who I sat next to in the teachers room are not there now. One, my partner teacher for nearly one and a half years has moved onto a similar position in his home town, the other has been given a temporary (I think) promotion to assistant manager so he won't be teaching.

My new partner teacher seems to be nice. No complaints but we're in a getting to know you situation. Regardless, it won't make much difference to my work life, apart from being a little bit quieter. There won't be much banter any more. She bought a Baskin Robbins ice cream cake today and everybody loved it, a nice touch. The other new face next to me seems to be a little shy. That's OK too. Hopefully she will open up a bit more as the weeks roll on.

One day down, four to go before my holiday. Today was a normal day but my mind is just not thinking about work. I keep falling asleep at around 4am because I am genuinely happy about going home. It's been over one year since I was back in England. At times I miss it and at others I am fine about being away. Right now I am really enjoying the process of getting ready for my trip, packing, deciding what to take, getting information ready. It won't be long.

One thing that clarifies the mind is the heat. We are in the core of Summer. This particular heat lasts around four weeks or so. Todays forecast wasn't for very hot temperatures but the five minute walk to work was, I have to say, tough. I got to my second class, the room I have dubbed the Greenhouse and I noticed a new face. For some reason there was a fan. for a minute my heart sank and I thought the air conditioner was broken but no, I had air con AND a fan. Now that was fun.

My new best friend

Waiting to fly

Yesterday we finally managed to buy tickets for our Summer vacation. We're heading back to my home in England for one week, spending some time in London as well as in the North. And it can't come soon enough. I've also booked train tickets for a the trip down South and am looking into hotels for our short stay in the Capital.

While most ESL teachers in Korea will be heading off to more exotic climbs we certainly wouldn't swap places with them. Firstly, I'll be able to see my family who I haven't seen in well over a year. Secondly we can catch up with some good friends. Thirdly I will be able to stock up on essential supplies for the coming months and lastly we will both be able to drop off some stuff that we intend to keep but would have to mail back to England otherwise, thus saving us a little money. Finally, oh yes indeed, good food and great beer awaits us.

We're just excited in general. I've been planning things to do, things to buy, things to take back for months because I had initially intended to go back on my own in May. I feel like all I do is plan half the time. It's now just three weeks away and receiving our tickets make it all the more real. We waited as long as we could to buy the tickets though we reserved them some time ago. We waited because there was a chance that the price would come down, and it did buy around 5%. Not bad but we are still paying ₩1,600,000 each which is steep in the extreme. That translates into £860 as things stand.

The logic of going home rather than going somewhere cultural or tropical may seem odd to some but it will be a welcome break from the intense Summer heat we'll be having here in Daegu. Away from the humidity I can enjoy life as it should be for me. A pint in a beer garden on a sunny day - can't wait. I also cannot wait to be away from teaching. The break will be good for both me and my students as hopefully I will return refreshed and re-enthused. Though right now work is the last thing on my mind.

Summer starts here

It reached 30°C today as Summer officially started for me. There's no backing off now for say three months or so. I am comforted by the knowledge that however hot it gets outside my workplace is quite cool and so far I haven't even had my fan on at home or had the windows open at night. The air conditioner was on in the staff room for the first time today and nobody was complaining. It's 11pm and I've had to buy some beer to cool off, at least that's my excuse.

And what will Summer bring for me? I've been checking out prices for a plane ticket for a trip back home and have found one that has good arrival and departure times. It comes at a cost though, some ₩1.68million, some ₩380,000 higher than quoted to me for May. Still it's worth paying to go home especially as this time my wife is coming with me. A week at home in July at the height of Summer, sounds good to me.

And turning to more sobering events on this peninsula as International investigators have officially blamed North Korea for the sinking of the South Korean warship Cheonan. My take is this, I don't see how South Korea can win this one. If they attack then can they really win? North Korea is so unpredictable to this casual observer. If they do nothing then they look very week, to their countrymen and to other countries. They are stuck it would appear to me. International sanctions being tightened will only work if China co-operates and is that really likely? Perhaps it is time for China to decide what country they want to actually be. Time to finish this glass of beer.

Volcano on my mind

This week I have to make a few decisions, not life altering ones but some that need a bit of thinking about. The most pressing one is about a plane ticket. I am hoping to go home to the UK for a week at the beginning of May. I have reserved a plane ticket (via Finland) but it's a bit pricey. The times for departing and arriving are great and represent a best case scenario. The alternative right now is a cheaper flight (via Dubai) but with worse times and a much longer in the air and in the departure lounges. The Dubai flight is on Emirates airlines which is the best airline I've travelled on but the actual flights just takes so much longer than flying over Europe. However right now I have a small temporary cash flow problem and saving money on the flight would help me out in the short term.

Another concern for me is the volcano in Iceland which has left thousands upon thousands stranded at airports and is causing a pretty chaotic situation with the UK a no fly zone as I write this. I am hoping something positive happens with that this week as I have to pay for my plane ticket by Saturday. I need a break and if the current situation does not change then it'll have to be postponed indefinitely. There are things I need to do back home and things I really want to bring back to Korea. I don't know when I'd be back home next because I have to book vacations about three or four months in advance in order to successfully get them. Everything that I am reading is saying that their is no end in sight and the volcanic ash is still spreading but that means the 'next few days'. Surely the volcano will start abating some time soon but when?