Keeping Busy

Date: June 11, 2010

Blog: 2

Time: 5:30pm

Ok we have survived one week in Ulsan Korea, success! I am currently sitting at our kitchen table drinking Hite beer waiting for Dennis to get home from work. We are going to head out downtown tonight to go out for some sushi. Ulsan online gave a great suggestion for sushi so we are going to go try it.

This past week has been great. I feel like we have been here longer than a week as we/ I have been very busy. I decided that it was important that I was a busy as I could be while I am here so that I don’t become a lazy sloth in my year long vacation. I decided that each day I would have to go try something new and do some more exploring.

Monday I went to the club house on the foreigners compound to see what I could see and possibly meet some people. I must have picked the worst time because there was no one around and the lady working the bar didn’t speak English so I couldn’t sign up for a membership but I did get a nice walk. The club house is great as there are yoga/ pilates classes, a squash court, pool, driving range, pool, and of course a bar, everything that expats love. Dennis and I can join and participate in all of those things for 20,000 south Korean won which equals a little less than $20/ month.

I participated in one of the classes offered at the clubhouse on Wednesday afternoon, Korean painting. I know what you are all thinking “Jennifer Gorman participated in an art class?”, well I was skeptical as well. My teacher, Mr. Park is excellent and can even make someone like me, a very uncreative person seem like an expert. For three hours I practiced making flowers that Mr. Park drew for me and then taught me several different techniques. I met several great women in this class and I am already looking forward to next week when I will start my first piece. It was so great to chat with the other women in the class and to have them tell me their favorite parts of Ulsan and some very helpful tips in surviving here.

Thursday was going to be my adventure day on my own as I was going to try to get new downtown (there is an old downtown) on the bus. This was a lot more difficult than I expected. Ulsan online has a lot of great resources for bus routes but it was still hard to interpret what they meant by some of the routes. So I winged it and headed to the Hyundai department store to try my luck. I got on the bus that I wanted to, the 1401, and realized it was the wrong bus when we arrived at a bus terminal and the driver told me to get off. So now I am in a strange part of town in a town I know nothing about. But I used my street smarts and walked up the street and found the bus stop for 1401 going the other way. The same bus driver I had picked me up and I was now on the right bus. I made it downtown and walked around for a bit. Ate lunch at a little noodle shop and decided I better get home as we were going for a team building dinner with Dennis’ co-workers.

So far so good in Ulsan Korea. The biggest “a-ha” moment this week for me was “ it is okay to do nothing”, or at least what feels like nothing. I am used to doing lots of things when I am in Canada. I work full time, have a great social life with great friends, and I am comfortable in my surroundings. I am still learning everything here and if that means my days aren’t totally full then that is ok. I have such a great life and I appreciate everything I have. I am already missing my friends and family in Calgary. It is hard not being able to talk to people I know everyday but it is making me appreciate my great friends and family that much more.

Dennis is home now and working on setting up our Skype phone so we will have better access to communication to everyone. Once he has it up and running and has explained how everything work I will get the information to you all.

Miss you all,

-J