So, I'm in Korea now! A year of planning done and we're here now. Two months in and I still only know the basic critical phrases that you use so that you don't look (so) rude to others. I know to bow and smile and I know that acknowledging people goes far.

Coming here surprisingly didn't feel that unusual. For whatever reason the setting felt oddly familiar. I remember pushing through the crowds at the airport, seeing small mountains and driving over a low-low tide harbor. The first cab ride to our Seoul hostel involved trying to ask the driver where the fare meter was located. He pointed to some place by his feet.

We stayed in a neighborhood called Insa-dong, which is right near Gyeongbokgung Palace and the big statues of King Sejong and Yi Sun-Sin. On one of our jet-lagged nights we could hear cheers of what sounded like a million people. They were protesting former president Park. They ended up impeaching her just a couple weeks ago.

Insa-dong led us to Bukchon Hanok village, a neighborhood with preserved traditional hanok houses. As you walk up the hills you can see central Seoul below, and the tower in the distance.

The next day we were with a friend from LSE, Min - who was a gracious first local host, and took us to really good ramen (!! slurpy) and Seoul tower. We felt a bit more comfortable with the new places and people, and customs.

After the few days rest in Seoul, we went to Daejeon for our teacher orientation. Riding on the bus through the countryside was eerie.... I didn't know how to place the area; I've seen nothing like it before. It all felt highly industrial - large apartment blocks put wherever they can, dairy farms wherever they fit, factories the side of the highway.

Then, to Jochiwon/Sejong. Our new home base. I was worried because during our lunch in Sejong I had horrible flashbacks to lackluster life in new developments, new construction (which we'd heard about Sejong). Sejong is a brand-new city built for the Korean government, as a way to move some of the money and people out of Seoul. So they bought up farms in this area - which apparently only 10 years ago used to be considered one of the remaining very truly rural areas of Korea - and plopped down a big city. Big apartments, new shopfronts, forcing people to make something out of nothing.

Jochiwon is different. There are rank smells in the morning, sounds of fighting cats at night. There are buildings that should be torn down - "do people live there?" There's restaurants with their squid kept in tanks on the side of the street. There's drunk college students, a traditional market, and junkyards. I struggle when strangers speak Korean to me, and struggle when asking for help. Each word I use has to carry more meaning because I have limited focus and limited time. How can I best convey what I need to say?

There's a different order to it all. Things here seem really close together, and I'm never sure where the *center* of town is. Recently I've had some peaceful moments of contentment, but many nights have been restless. Public transport is exhausting. Listening to a foreign language most of the day is exhausting. Speaking in English feels juvenile and clunky.

So what am I doing? After the orientation, I was met with the surprise that I would be teaching social studies (not English), to high ability students at a "global" high school. Ok, cool. I'm teaching with 2 co-teachers who didn't want this, didn't sign up for it, and didn't know that I would be a thing until a few days before I arrived. But somehow we've managed. I respect my teachers immensely. I teach both world problems and politics, so the material is good. I'm pressured to condense and constantly summarize the material in a way that the students can understand it - in English. It's good practice for me. But the students are overworked, exhausted, and overthink the English passages that I give them. I hope that one day their lives won't be so stressful, and that they'll be able to understand these issues more slowly and more deeply.

*Let's talk about anti-Mexican immigration sentiments...*

I've been learning more about the US, and I listen to a lot more of This American Life. For class I discussed the politics of the 2016 election, and I talked about the decisive voters of the Rust Belt. We talked about the industrial food system. And now I'm learning more about 9/11 and conflicts of the Middle East. So far it's been a refreshing, humbling experience... at times I feel naive and wonder why I hadn't thought about some of these things before now. But Korea's giving me space to think, travel, and live. There's less pressure to "fix" or "do" than there was in Mississippi. I'm not trying to better "find myself" or my purpose like I was in London. I just get to do this cool thing now with someone I love and see where else in the world I'll go.

Many things have changed for me in such a short amount of time that now it's happened, it's hard to step back and realize it. I speak broken bits of a foreign language. I eat kimchi everyday. I use chopsticks. I ride a bus to work and I don't watch TV. I think about other parts of the world. Long walks can be a struggle because of the pollution. I daydream about spring and green leaves and warm weather. There's limited access to craft beer. But for the most part I'm comfortable, and I'm happy. We're happy. It's what Iain and I wanted.

In Korea

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