Miss List Korea
All right, I’m posting this blog even though I feel it’s an incomplete list. But if I wait to feel that it’s complete…I’ll probably be 50 years old, right? Who knows? Anyhoo! Here’s my list!
The time has come when I’m leaving Korea. Hmm. This time…possibly for good. Maybe not. Only time shall tell. But, until time DOES tell me…I’ve decided to write my “Miss List” since I think it would be a good way to say goodbye to the country.
I will start out with what I WON’T miss. 😉
- Old men staring at me.
- Old women staring at me. (it’s different)
- Teenagers running up to me and screaming at the top of their lungs, “NICE TO MEET YOU!” 100 times in a minute. (Buuuut, I *will* miss that…it’s a love-hate relationship…what can I say? 😉
- Seeing puke (yes, that’d be vomit) EVERYWHERE…even in my apartment building’s elevator. Â Ew.
- Loud music blaring in most areas. (a.k.a. Â NOISE POLLUTION!)
- The stinky fish/trash/gutter smell…especially in the summer and especially in certain areas (Itaewon by the Hamilton Hotel…Suwon near its namesake subway station…lots of alleyways in Seoul, actually. I have an olfactory sense like a canine…so, yah. I’m sensitive to it. 😛
- Seeing the pervy sex cards thrown everywhere in my neighborhood. It makes me feel like I’m living on Las Vegas Boulevard. 🙂
- The gloomy, doomy gray skies during the winter! BLAH! Bleak and not for moi. 😛
- Meeting/making new friends and them leaving the week after we meet. And rinse and repeat.
- Waiting for the bus in a rainstorm. or a snowstorm.
- Waiting for a bus for more than 20 minutes.
- Going grocery shopping without a car…ah…the life of a lazy Southern Californian! Just gimme my car!
- The lack of certain foods from home. Ya know…almond butter! veggie burgers! cheap avocados! young thai coconuts! raw cacao. lucuma. the little things in life that keep me going. 🙂
- The heaters being blown full blast on buses and subways  in the winter…having to wear 14 layers in the winter and then having to strip once I get on public transportation because of the boiling temperatures (or staying wrapped and suffering immensely). 😛
- Being bumping into about 5-150 times per day (depending on which part of Korea I’m in)
- People stopping DEAD in their tracks RIGHT in front of me as I’m walking down the sidewalk behind them. (Although, I have become very good at weaving and dodging “road blocks” because of the frequency in which this occurs. 🙂
- Globs of spit everywhere. Double ew.
- Having old people force me to do something I don’t want to do, eat something I don’t want to eat or go somewhere I don’t want to go (because they’re older and know better and I do my best to be polite).
- Trash cans in bathrooms without lids with unpleasant odors (since you’re not supposed to flush toilet paper in most of the toilets in Korea). (ick)
- Not being able to find clothes I like or shoes that fit. I can’t pull off cutsie bunnies and ribbons and I have a wide U.S. size 9 foot…
I WILL Miss: 😀
- Being able to walk everywhere…things so conveniently located and nice walking paths…tree-lined streets. Nice!
- Living within a one minute walk of five markets. 🙂
- Rolling V.I.P. because I’m a foreigner and I stand out and Koreans love me. heh heh!!! 😀
- Getting free stuff wherever I go. (a.k.a. “SERVICE!!”)
- Feeling super rich—I’m a multi-millionaire in “Korean won”, afterall!
- Being able to easily travel within Asia.
- Great public transportation–on time like clockwork!
- Cheap public transportation!
- Safe public transportation! (OK…I DO like the public transportation…) 🙂 Especially the buses (but not when I have to wait more than 20 minutes!!).
- The general safeness the country offers.
- Not reeeaaaaallllyy needing a car.
- Oh, I’ll miss my K-Pop! I will…I will… 😛
- My sweet, polite, innocent, nutty, and fun students!
- Sticker pictures!
- Singing rooms! (Karaoke rooms/Norae bangs)
- Being able to go grocery shopping at midnight. *^_^* (I know I can do that in America, too…but it’s different in Korea–it’s a time when the store is niiiice and quiet!)
- Meeting people from all over the world.
- All of the “me” time I was blessed enough to have. I appreciated it while I had it for the most part. 🙂
- The Seoul Arts Center. There is *something* about that place… It’s my favorite place in the city and I truly believe it’s a magical place! Ahhh, I will miss it. :*( …I’m not even talking about the exhibition halls…the grounds themselves are just…peaceful and lovely. And the weather is mysteriously perfect there all the time. Really. It is. Rain will not fall over that property. 😉 I have never seen a gray sky above the main courtyard…Ok..ok! Enough about the SAC…
It's a lovely place. I'll miss it.
- Free water everywhere! At  grocery stores…the airports…dry cleaners…stationery stores…heh heh. I love free water! 😀
- Free food samples at the grocery stores. 😛 Hey, what can I say? I like samples.
- No tipping!!!!
- Cheap taxis.
- Korean rice cakes (a.k.a, tteok, pronounced like duck-Â talk…meet in the middle..dawk)…all right…I developed a slight addiction to tteok.
Yum, yum, yum. Rice with sweet beans inside. Chewy and soft. Ahh.
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Sooooo, how do you like my lovely list? I like it. If something new pops into my head, I’ll do my best to write it down and then come back and add it to one of my lists!
Farewell, my darling Korea! If only for a little while…
“No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow.” ~Lin Yutang  I know I wasn’t “traveling” traveling…but this is still fitting. 🙂
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