Life in Korea seems to be one big series of comedies and communication fails on a daily basis. I just know that one of these days, if I can just reach far enough down into the deep recesses of my mind, I will bust out flawless Korean like it was never lost. Until then, I'll continue to develop the art and science of body language (aka charades). Actually, I've gotten quite good at this game (particularly on the receiving end). The other day (Yes, this is a digression), I asked some students "why can't you drink the water?" and their response was fairly straight forward, "teacher, there's fire cow in the water". Now I've heard of "fire eggs"
as in "Alex, please don't hit Samo or anyone else for that matter in the fire eggs", which there's a sentence I never thought I would ever say........but "fire cow"? I'm not a doctor but I'm having a problem imagining how a cow could get in the drinking water. Well, within 2 mins. (roughly), we managed to establish that "fire cow" was actually "fluoride". Nicely done (takes a bow).
Ok, so back to the topic of this blog and the reason for my lapse in posts. Two weekends ago I decided to go to Pohang for much needed girl time with Rebecca. Unfortunately, there is only one daily bus to Pohang which leaves at 7:49AM. I was on the platform literally at 7:48 (by my watch) but the bus was already gone. My heart sank into my stomach for a second but no time for a pity party (just yet). I ran over to the dispatch office waving my ticket and out of breath I tried to explain my dilemma (by explain I mean charades) and without hesitation, the kind fatherly gentleman swiftly got on the radio and the next thing I knew, he was throwing me into a taxi and 5 mins. down the road, I see my bus pulled over...waiting. Embarrassing? Slightly. Relieved? Yes! Rebecca was at the terminal waiting for me and our first order of biz...Indian food. Mmmmm nan. We took a taxi down to the beach. Pohang is a coastal city and it has a cool feel to it, not like the other cities that I've visited. The beach was covered with patches of ice that looked like tiny icebergs floating on the sand.
We befriended two of the cutest Korean girls and had some fun taking some pictures with them. The whole time Rebecca was looking at me and I was looking at her like "Is this really happening? We are totally in Korea right now jumping and laughing with two Korean girls - does it get anymore surreal than this?".
The rest of the day was spent drinking coffee and walking around Pohang. I caught an early bus back with more transportation mishaps, left me laptop, but arrived safely back in Chungju and here I am...blogging.
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