Seoul, Korea - April 7, 2005
It has been a very long time since I've made a journal entry here! In fact its been nearly six months! I apologize to the few who do continue to read and wonder when I will be making additional entries.
In regards to an update. I am now back in Seoul, South Korea. Of course there were quite a few things which happened between my last update and this update. I will try to go through them briefly.
The previous entry I was in Castellon of Spain working on my MA degree. I have officially completed all of the coursework for that program. I am also getting near to the end of finishing my MA Thesis. I have exactly 63 pages written, and there needs to be a minumum of 80 to a maximum of 100 pages to submit to be approved. The thesis will be related to the development of dams in Third World countries, particularly within Southeast Asia. I made myself a goal to complete all of the written work by the end of this month, so let's hope I am good on my own word to myself on that.
While I was still in Spain, I also had an experience in Rome, Italy over a weekend which was briefly extended. I flew from Valencia Spain to Rome on a Friday, and when I was suppose to return on Sunday, the VOLARE AIRLINE company went out of business without forewarning ANY passengers! I saw around 100 or more passengers in Rome all looking for their flight home to Valencia for the weekend.. and the airline company essentially just went out of business stranding all of us in Rome. They didn't pass the flights to another company, the accidently did the opposite, they just ignored the problem. This had a flurry of passengers standing in front of Iberia and a multitude of other airlines trying to get back, one of which (Iberia in particular) closed their windows and shut down their office for awhile! In short, we were all completely stranded without any way to get back! I was talking to other passengers, and some were taking round about flights through other European cities and whatever they could. As for me, I found a business in the airport that let me use their computer, and I booked an online reservation through Ryan Air for the upcoming Tuesday to fly to Barcelona (instead of Valencia). I missed a few classes, but ultimately I was able to get back. Quite the contrast to being back in the U.S. where they would warn you a year in advance on your tickets if they even remotely assumed they might run out of business (over the weekend). Strange, but a nice welcome to Italy, as Volare Air was a budget Italian airliner.
Once my coursework was ultimately finished in Spain, I flew back to the United States. I spent nearly two months between Michigan and Las Vegas Nevada. Throughout most of this time I was working on my course paper, term paper and thesis paper. Concurrently I was also applying to every possible 'development' related job I saw anywhere in the world, most of which happened to be in the Washington DC area. While not receiving any interviews or any responses for them, I also began to apply specifically to university teaching jobs in Korea. Well, after two months of trying that, you can guess where I ended up.
Around mid-February after aligning several interviews for university jobs in Korea, I actually flew over and interviewed as well. I ultimately found one where I work a very limited hours of work a week (under 15) in addition to 5 months of paid vacation! You can imagine that I definetely took that position! So I am now living and working in Seoul and very happy about that. In addition to finding a great job, I was also able to find a very nice apartment. Its in one of my favorite parts of the city of Seoul, and its also one of the largest apartments I've lived in quite some time. Now remember I've been living in shoeboxes for nearly the last 10 years (mainly because I've been living in cities like New York City, San Francisco, Seoul, Sao Paulo, Busan, etc.) This is actually the first time in a very long time I've actually lived in a living space that was larger than ONE ROOM! In fact, this place has three rooms! I don't even know how to fill up the extra space! In addition, I came to Seoul with very limited belongings as I was actually visiting Las Vegas and flew from there with what I was carrying directly to Seoul for the interviews. Meaning that I hardly brought anything with me! But its all working out quite well.
In addition to all of that good news, I also had to do a visa run which brought me to Japan once again. This time I went to Fukuoka in Japan, which by the way, is a VERY nice city! Very clean and spacious with beaches and a gorgeous downtown area with some nice walkable bridges going over a main river. Great little city. I wish I could write more about it, as it deserves more, but I will leave it at that for now.
Since I've been back, (and it does feel really good to be back), there are some interesting developments in Seoul. One is a wave of 'foreign teacher' problems which many attach to xenophobia. Its been hitting the news more recently, and I hope to discuss it more in the near future. There has also been very strained relationships between the US and Korea (with protesting, a decline in US relations effecting the Peninsula). In addition to that, Japan and Korea is having some very serious arguments over an island off the coast of Korea. That is having a serious strain on Japan/Korea relations, which has always been strained. There is kind of a confusement with who Korea wants to be aligned with, and no one really knows. As usual, their is this strange assumption among young Korean people that if they are nice to North Korea, then South Korea will just automatically get all of that land and control all of those people under a united South Korean government with Seoul at the helm. It doesn't seem that any young Koreans are aware that Pyeongyang likes the reunification idea as well, but from the other perspective with Pyeongyang at the helm. In short, everything is pretty much the same as always! Koreans and Korea haven't changed much since I left!
Well, for now, my update is the most important part of this entry. Now that my life seems to once again be somewhat settled, I will also be able to much more easily focus on the little things like this website. In addition to very regular updates on Korea, I'll have 5 months of paid vacation to continue the extensive travels and share whatever other places later become my focus of interest. It will be fun!
Next Journal Entry in Korea:
August 25, 2005
You can email me at:
Wintermoon2@yahoo.com