Laziness in Korea

I’m lazy by nature.  I love to sleep.  I love to spend an entire weekend in a warm bed with my dog and do nothing but watch TV and eat Chinese food and pizza.  It’s even better if it’s been delivered.  I don’t think this is a secret to anyone who has ever spent more than just a few minutes with me.  Here’s the problem…

SoKo is like one reeeeeally long weekend.  I’ve been here a month and a half and I still feel like I’m on vacation.  A working vacation, but vacation nonetheless.  There are stressful days at work but nothing traumatic like would happen at home.  I don’t come home from work completely exhausted and mentally depleted from the day.  I have gotten exactly what I came here for.  A job I enjoy. An apartment I love.  New friends I adore.  And an incredible city and country to learn all about and experience.  All while leaving behind the distractions and drama that plagued me in Orlando.  Life seems so normal that it's often I even forget I am in South Korea.  I’m happy here.

I did really well at keeping myself busy and exploring and meeting new people my first month but I can feel the laziness has taken full grasp now.  In order to break it’s hold I am publishing my “Everything I Want To Do in Korea” list for the world to see.  It’s like when  you tell everyone you are going to stop smoking, you really have to make a valiant attempt at it. Except I’m not addicted to cigarettes, I’m addicted to my nice warm cozy apartment.  In a few weeks, Andrea is leaving me to go home for three weeks and it’s also very quickly turning to winter here.  That’s not going to help.  That’s all this Florida girl needs to kick into full-on hibernation mode.

I don’t have timelines for my list nor are they in any particular order, I just don’t want to wake up in my tenth month and realize that I’ve slept through my year in Korea. (A real possibility for those that know me.) Some are serious, some are silly, but all are real.  I’m here for at least 12 months (with only 10 1/2 remaining) and I have a lot to do.

1. Learn the language.  My Korean vocab is up to about 15 words so far…

2. Yoga.  I’ve never done yoga, but I suspect I will probably love it.

3. Dr Fish.  Look it up.

4. Mountain climbing

5. Cherry Blossom Festivals in the Spring

6. Spend a weekend in Busan

7. Spend at least a weekend in Seoul

8. Fully master the different “dongs” (districts) in Daejeon.  I live in Dunsan. The cool one.

9. Go to a K-Pop Concert

10. Study Buddhism

11. To be immediately followed by a Temple Stay somewhere in Korea

12. Read one book a week

13. Do things I wouldn’t normally do.  Like the Spring Mud Fest.

14. Love your job

15. Take lots and lots of pictures.

16. Pay off debt 

17. Blog at least three times a week

18. Eat what the Koreans eat.  Except kimchi. That’s just funky.

19. Walk Charles all the time

20. Pray

21. Get to a level where I feel comfortable being able to maneuver my way around the country via subway, taxi, train or bus and not having to rely on someone to help me.

22. Travel. Go to festivals, and experience all the things that make this Korea.

23. Spend free time in coffee shops and not in apartment

24. Expo Park and the Daejeon Zoo

25. The Theme Parks of South Korea... Purely for educational/comparison purposes of course

26. Forgive. Or at least try really hard.

27. Figure out what happens next Fall when my year contract is over.  Do I stay longer? Do I go somewhere else? Or do I go home?  Where exactly is home by the way?  I’m not sure I have one anymore.

I’ve not been doing very well on my list.

I’ve met several people that I really like, but I haven’t made any good friends in my neighborhood yet.  I think that’s my own little copout. Andrea is fantastically lovely and is right across the hall, but she has her life set up here.  I can’t expect her to babysit me everytime I get bored.  LeeAnn is just a quick 5 minute subway ride and Marisol is just a short cab ride away also.  But what happens at 1145 when I want to bug someone to go try a new restaurant for lunch with me.  Hmph. Copout.

One thing I meant to do before I came was to get back on the payroll at Disney for seasonal status but it slipped my mind.  That way I would have been able to experience Tokyo and Hong Kong Disney parks while I was in the Eastern Hemisphere.  Those parks are far to expensive without free entry.