Beijing, here i come...

i have never been to a city as populous as Beijing. i also read recently that breathing Beijing air is the equivalent of smoking four packs of cigarettes a day. this should be interesting...

thankfully, i will be splitting my time in Beijing with two parties whom i know well: Elaine (former colleague) and my parents. it will allow me to settle into the Chinese culture/language/surroundings with familiar faces.

how my parents ended up in Beijing in October, exactly the same time as me, is a random coincidence. our sojourns were independently and blindly planned of each other's intentions. there is some discussion about possibly taking a quick side trip together before i leave the Beijing area and head south.

but first, Elaine. this darling woman, with whom i've grown to love and respect in the time we worked together, will be waiting for me at the airport and saving me from total culture shock. she, the tiny Jewish-American she is, speaks Mandarin fluently.

cybercafe

it's 2:10 p.m. on Monday afternoon in Seoul. after a delicious meal of yuk-gae-jang (spicy beef soup), i'm now in a cybercafe known in Korea as a PC bahng; this translates literally to "PC room".

this brings me to another point: Koreans are more PC-dependent than Americans, meaning there is little in the way of Apples here. i was at a coffeeshop last night wherein i saw a young Korean woman with a MacBook, but it's an unusual sight indeed.

PC bahngs are everywhere - even more numerous i believe than no-rae bahngs ("singing rooms"; or in Americanese, private karaoke rooms). what you'll typically find in these cafes are: blackened windows, black lights, decently large flat screened monitors, high speed internet connections, 80% males ages 14-30 playing online computer games, and the random female gamer or plain email/internet user. each station has its own set of speakers, so you can imagine that the place is LOUD with "bang! bang! kapoom!!"

gaming addiction is a problem here in Korea. however, this is among the more innocuous addictions facing Koreans these days. there are also not-so-hidden addictions associated with alcohol, gambling and sex. so pervasive are Korean addictions that they are, in many ways, incorporated into the culture here. the sex trade is hardly hidden. blatent drunkenness hardly raises an eyebrow anymore either.

at least in public, the women in Seoul seem surprisingly tolerant of the sex-, alcohol-, gambling- and gaming-oriented culture, mostly indulged by Seoul's men. most women respond to these topics with a shrug and a "hal-su-up-ji-mo" ("what can one do?"). there seems to be a mutual understanding that this culture is about working hard and "playing" hard.

i'll have to come back to Korea's work culture, but something i read this morning in the Lonely Planet Korea: within the top 30 world economies, Koreans take first place for number of hours worked per year.

safely arrived

i arrived safely into Korea last night. the weather is good: 70s and sunny. this is a nice change from the too-early winter that is currently descending upon the PNW. i left Seattle in long underwear; i arrived in Seoul shedding layers.

with severe lack of sleep and a 16 hour time difference to blame, i'm in serious jet lag mode. a mid-afternoon nap is in order, so i will write a more detailed post in the next couple days.

the art of packing

i do not possess this art. the art i seem to possess instead is the art of re-packing, which i did three times last night.

the first time i packed, i didn't get all my stuff in. not by a long shot. this was rather discouraging because i thought i had condensed and planned well. i had already eliminated much unnecessary packaging and placed things into Ziploc bags. i also pared down my books to about 1/4 the original list, painfully taking out book by book to make more room and less weight. but since it didn't all go in, i emptied and sorted all the luggage contents onto my apartment floor.

come to find out, i am a terrible packer. among the luggage contents were a sock and a gloves without matches and a belt to a jacket i had already decided not to take. i had also packed shoes i liked, but hardly ever wore - even in the U.S. so into garbage bags these went (to store, not to discard).

three successive repacks later, i managed to shed about 25-30 pounds and about 2.5 cubic feet from my luggage. i tried to use the list/principles of OneBag, but alas - i have many excuses: work clothes, play clothes, 100+ degree clothes, -20 degree clothes, everything in between clothes, plethora of western medication, and requests from abroad.

Asiana allows 50 lbs per checked bag (maximum two). I'm still nervous...

take two, part two

so this is it. the year is different, but the season is the same. in 2005, i returned from Thailand on November 8 and settled into a life in Seoul. this year, i arrive back in Seoul from Hong Kong on the exact same day. the plan is to teach English during the winter quarter, study Korean, write poetry and freelance articles, deepen relationships, study and practice the discipline of contemplative prayer, save money, and travel more when the quarter is over.

as i said, this is Korea: Take Two. maybe God will let me know why i was led there two years ago, and why the experience was so drastically different from my expectations. maybe this sojourn is a bookend - which side of the story, i'm unsure.

Korean winters are cold - not as cold as Siberia, but definitely colder than Sarasota, Atlanta and/or Seattle. i still have my winter arsenal of clothing from last time: long underwear, cotton tights, leggings, down jacket, ski gloves, hats, scarves, wool socks, the works. i'm working on the body insulation; the endless series of goodbye breakfasts, lunches, and dinners are helping - but not quite as much as i'd like.

i have a list of goodies to bring to awaiting folks in Asia. Alan (Seoul) wants a nice bottle of bourbon and power goo for his upcoming marathon. (erm, to be clear - he does not want the bourbon for the marathon. well, actually that's an assumption. one never knows...) Elaine (Beijing) wants instant oatmeal (which was my top desire two years ago in Korea). my mom (Beijing) wants a tube of Sensodyne; the one she brought on her carry-on was confiscated at airport security. she asked me to please pack the new tube in my checked luggage.

one last note before i finish off my task list: i'm going to couchsurf in Hong Kong. yes, i recently learned that there really is such a thing and that it will help me extend my stay in HK to more than 8 very pricey hours. my host will likely be a 38-year-old social worker. upon reading her profile, i thought we might have a lot in common: older, single, traveling, social-working Asian women. (she's currently vacationing in Croatia.) so, yea - couchsurfing it'll be. i'll let you know how it goes...