a trail of red lanterns

So I'm terribly behind in getting anything up about my trip to China - the government apparently blocks Blogger there, so couldn't do it from Beijing, and got swept into work and life when I got back. Anyway, better late ..., I guess.

So Beijing, Beijing. It's a cool place. Downright cold, actually. Those Siberian winds are really something.

But other than the chill, which was really only bad one day, Chinese New Year was the perfect time to travel there. Most of the city (population about 15 million people) clears out to go to their hometowns, so there's virtually no traffic and you can zip around to all the tourist sites. And the rest of the city turns out at festivals during the day (we happened across a major fair on our one free day) and stays home to light fireworks - traditionally to scare away evil spirits but today probably more to appease everyone's inner pyro. It was one of the most amazing scenes I've witnessed, standing at our plate-glass hotel windows and looking out over the exploding city - every block, every street, every house, it seemed, aflickering and abooming. Probably one of the biggest collective fireworks shows on Earth. The ruckus went on until about 2 a.m. every night but was totally worth the experience.

Most of the trip was a packaged tour - a great way to hit the highlights for a great price, if you don't mind a little dog-and-pony showing. Got most all the major sites done (Great Wall, Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City, Summer Palace, Temple of Heaven, Olympics area - including the Birds Nest, acrobat show, martial arts show) and a small dose of the actual city and people, and it turned out to be a fantastic intro to China. Click the red lanterns to get to my Beijing photos and captions. Once there you can click pictures individually or click the "Slideshow" button to view the pictures as you like.

Granted we were almost entirely on the tourist track, but I was really impressed overall by how clean everything was, and how much the city is obviously spending to impress for the upcoming Olympics. Everywhere, there's construction and renovation projects - more or less thorough. In just a few blocks, you might find newly-gleaming skyscrapers and sleek Western-style shopping malls, as well as hurried walls thrown up around decrepit sections of crumbling huts. And the bathroom horror stories I'd heard might all be true, but mostly there was modern plumbing and conveniences.

But the real story of China, for me, was its place at the end of a three-country spectrum: Japan, Korea and China. I saw all three within the span of a week, and through the preparations and celebrations of the Number 1 holiday for all three nations - Chinese New Year. It was like traveling backward from the spinoff to the source of the party, following a trail of the holiday's signal red lanterns.

And I find that my current home makes so much more sense in the context of its neighbors. Korea has a love-hate relationship with both its neighbors, influenced by milenniums of invasions and culture swaps. Just as Japan is markedly different from Korea, so is China, but to the opposite extent. Where the Japanese are slight, the Chinese are sturdy; where the Japanese are fashionable, the Chinese are sensible. Where Japan is all order and rule, China is color and chaos; where the Japanese are reserved, the Chinese are confrontational. And Korea fits neatly in between the two - geographically and in all other senses.

I've considered jobs in all three countries, and after traveling the others a little I can still see myself in any one. But I returned home with a new fondness for the middleman - no doubt in part because it's nice to return to a new place and realize that the foreign has become familiar. I remember the same sensation in Madrid, and any number of less exotic places I've lived. But it's also the one with the easiest language, if not the most English ... and the one most welcoming of Americans. And in the end I find that being the classic fence-dweller that I am, I like the view from here.

Japan: the Far, Far East

The sun was distant as we herded onto the swaying boat, bedecked with the typical Korean blare of colors and patterns, and the lingering smell of stomach acid. On the TV in front of the seats, a muted infomercial for a Hello, Kitty! vibrating belly buster flashed. We chugged out through a maze of rust-streaked cruise and cargo ships, and into a smooth expanse of the gray sea. The Sea of Japan, according to my seventh-grade geography teacher and most of Western history. It's only this year that I realized there were other accounts, that every Korean, down to the third grade, will cry out indignantly if you happen to call it other than the "East Sea." The decades of Japanese rule still don't sit well with Koreans, and this name debate is only part of the ongoing tension. Even the venerable National Geographic - the closest thing to a world authority on place names - hasn't ruled decisively on the matter, using both (though Japan's more prominently).

It's not the only thing separating these two Pacific Rim countries.

When the boat docked at Fukuoka, I was greeted by my friends and a world of order and sophistication. Spic and span streets are lined with methodical architecture and dazzling LCD screens. Trendy couples shield runway-worthy getups from the drizzle with clear plastic umbrellas, which they then lock in special cases at the entrances of gourmet restaurants. Potted flowers adorn temporary construction walls. There are whole parking garages for bicycles, which Japanese can maneuver while holding umbrellas AND texting on their cellphones. Crosswalks play music. Robots roll through malls, delivering advertising and information. Toilets have heated seats and an inspiring array of buttons and levers. And a plethora of English and well-thought signage makes it easy for foreigners to navigate most any system. Everywhere, things are tidy, planned and systematic.

Korea is a country in the midst of a near-miraculous rebound from millenniums of invasions and a quite recent civil war. But even the relatively cosmopolitan and enormous Seoul is nowhere close to the dazzle of much smaller cities here in Japan, or so I've seen and heard. Apparently, the rush of cash here after World War II created an economic force powerful enough to lift the country from devastation to prosperity in just a couple decades. Although its economic landscape has changed dramatically in recent years, and other nations are now making inroads on its markets, this small set of islands continues to be a world powerhouse. Japan provides a stable and modern lifestyle for its population - albeit at a high cost of living and grueling work demand.

The ferry from Busan, South Korea, takes about three hours, and Fukuoka is a common hangout for those needing to start the clock over on Korean tourist visas or change Korean visas. It's on the island of Kyushu, which also includes Nagasaki, site of the second atomic bomb. We spent one day touring there. "Hi, my grandfathers bombed your grandfathers, and now I'm here to take a picture." It was a little weird. But definitely worth going - the museum, park and memorial are both moving and educational. And although the bombing of Pearl Harbor is conspicuously left out of timelines of events leading up to Nagasaki disaster, it's awe-inspiring how otherwise politically neutral and peace-focused the displays are.

Otherwise wandered around Fukuoka sites, took a three-hour tour of the suburbs when we took the wrong bus (I was NOT in charge, surprisingly), ate lots of raw fish (yum!), discovered a hot lemon drink (yum!), checked out the rave-reviewed La Boheme Italian restaurant (a must-go if you're in the city), and crashed at the Khaosan Fukuoka International Hostel - a good place to stay if you don't mind a walk, or paying an extra bus fare.

Here's a slideshow of pictures. You can click on it to get to the full album with captions.

a glimpse of Africa, and other travels

So I'm a bit behind the times, but my friend Jimmie has finally updated his blog with some images from Sudan, and I wanted to put a link here for anyone interested in seeing some great photos. Jimmie, a college buddy and photographer extraordinare, is documenting church construction in Sudan for Samaritan's Purse. Read more about his work on his blog.

In other news, I'm heading for Beijing next week for the Chinese New Year ... but also now skipping over to Japan for a few days this weekend. Most of our vacation falls around the winter sessions, so I'm cramming a lot of my travel into these couple months. Pictures and posts to come.

Meanwhile it's been back to the routines of teaching and living in the Village, wrangling with Korean studies and boisterous kids, and the exquisite torture of making Asian children say "parallelogram" (I've been teaching math this session).

On Sunday I helped chaperone a field trip to an indoor amusement park of blow-up slides, playgrounds and obstacle courses, and then to ice skate, with meals and other logistics throughout. It was enjoyable - if not easy - extra money, but also a case study in how kid-oriented this country is. Being out in public with 37 random children, it's really clear how much people here seem to view child-rearing as a collective endeavor. Any child is everybody's child - and people go out of their way to talk with, comfort or chastise any little one in their vicinity as they see fit. In our case, many of them did their best to do all that in English, which really is a heroic effort.

It's a marked difference from the States, where many people do their best to avoid public interaction with unknown children - not without reason.

For one thing, Americans have many more fears of pedophilia and other improprieties involving children and strangers. No one knows the actual rates of such crimes in either country, but (like most crimes) it's reported far more in the United States, and people are generally less worried about it in Korea.

For another thing, Americans tend to more support the right of parents to choose how their children are raised, and to criticize anyone who would interfere that. In Korea, people may have just as strong opinions about the way things should be done - though I'd doubt it - but they will rarely contradict a senior person (in rank or age) about anything, and group harmony is far more important than individual freedoms.

And in a less concrete influence, but perhaps the greatest one, Korean culture seems to prize childhood more as a golden era, and Korean people tend to go to far greater lengths to ensure their children the most opportunities and enjoyment. It's not uncommon for parents here to work dawn to dusk to afford to send their children to the best private institutes for English and other skills. They push their children hard, but they also devote a lot of energy to making sure the kids have fun and are happy, both in daily life and weekend activities.

But I don't think this group effort to raise children happens only here (though I imagine Koreans have their own brand of it). I remember a story one of my friends told me about being on a bus in Latin America somewhere, and a woman who got on just handed her a baby to hold while the woman fished change out of her purse - and no one looked twice. And I remember children playing in the streets of Madrid becoming collective charges. And from anecdotes and writings about even other places, I think maybe this is the way most of the world works, to some degree.

There's good and bad to all these things, which you could argue forever, like most points of any culture. But everything else aside, it is extremely refreshing to feel so supported in doing your job - especially when it involves taking care of children.

Bali Top 10

A la my iconic countryman David Letterman, here's my Top Ten Things Learned in Bali.

10) Every single Balinese person needs to know where to place you on their mental maps. Where are you from? When did you arrive in Bali? Where are you staying? When are you leaving Bali? Just go ahead and print business cards with your answers - it will save loads of time.
9) You might want to consider putting a "No, not interested" on that card, too ... for whatever gadget or service they're peddling.
9) You can't put on a Santa hat or blow a noisemaker without hitting an Australian during the holidays.
8) How to add "yeah?" to the end of every sentence, like a good Aussie. (I've still got the holdout European "no?" popping up every so often in my speech, so maybe it will cancel out.)
7) Go to the Gili Islands. And Ubud. And the rice paddies. And the volcanoes and lakes. And the black beaches on the east coast. Leave the traditional beach zone (Kuta, Legian) to neighboring Java's old hats and candy wrappers, the incessant merchants and the Speedo-clad Russians.
6) Bali is a great place to gain five pounds on the fabulous banana pancakes, mango lassis, Baileys Comets, tuna steaks or the peanut sauce at Nomad's restaurant in Ubud. Bali is a great place to lose five pounds to the Bali Belly ... just don't get caught on Gili when the whole island's plumbing is out.
5) Bali is perhaps the best place in the world to shame yourself into learning another language. Even the beggars know a minimum of three.
4) You ought to suspect something when every single Balinese person says "rain" with an Australian accent.
3) Bali's rainy season is not, in fact, "no big deal," as so many guidebooks and tourists are fond of saying. Good thing we had three weeks to wait out the clouds.
2) Sea turtles are cool. Especially when seen underwater from a few feet away. Komodo dragons are freaky. Especially when they launch spittle like bullets from yards away.
1) Know when high tide is. Try surfing for the first time then. Make sure there are plenty of small children to mow down as they're playing in the shallow water, and plenty of real surfers to annoy by stealing their waves. You'll provide an afternoon of entertainment to an entire beach - and take first place in the Technicolor Bruise Competitions.

and we have visuals

So, at last, here are my first pictures from Asia - and some lifted from my friends - showing some of the highlights of our holiday trip to Bali. (Click the link above to get to the gallery of all the images, or to see them one by one as a slideshow, click the picture of the tree at right. You can change the speed of the slideshow at the bottom of the screen.)

My Christmas present to myself this year was breaking down and buying a point-and-shoot camera. It did a pretty good job, for what it is, and the fumblings of the person behind it. I swear manual settings are easier to do than programs, even though people get impressed by folks lugging around manual cameras.

I kept the pictures small and put credits on a lot of them because I have a paranoia of the images turning up as postcards somewhere and then wanting to do something with them later down the line ... hope y'all can still make out enough to keep you entertained.

so this is economics

Just a few hours remain of my three weeks in Indonesia. Having signed away my rights to a shower, and with a day's journey ahead, I'm hiding away from the tropical sun in an Internet cafe in Bali touristville, aka the Kuta beach area.

Two J-school friends and I met here for the holidays and spent the many sun and rain-filled days sampling the sites, tastes, hobbies and escape of Indonesia's Number 1 island for tourism - in fact, one of the top tourism destinations in the world. This little island - about 90 miles wide by 55 miles deep - and other neighboring locales (we stayed three nights at the Gili Islands, off the west coast of Bali's neighboring island, Lombok) house all the classic tropical-island attractions: reefs, volcanoes, beaches (black and white), famed surfing waves, ancient artforms, teeming markets, legions of resident artisans, lush vegetation, exotic animals, and that relaxed island culture.

It's a beautiful place, undoubtedly a little oversold as a tropical paradise, but still fascinating and multifaceted. Known for its tolerance in oft-militant Indonesia, Bali has the country's most diverse religious climate (Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam and Christianity), and the tourist machine there represents Indonesia's main outreach to the Western world. The Dutch have been regularly visiting for centuries - one of which they owned the place - and it's a major Aussie holiday destination. Several Japanese frequent the island; Koreans, South Africans, Russians, Brits and other Europeans come in lower numbers; and you can even find the occasional odd American. Estimates vary, but some say tourism makes up as much as 80 percent of Bali's economy, which makes the island - in the middle of an impoverished nation and region of the world - extremely vulnerable to threats to that industry, such as the terrorist bombings here in 2002 and 2005. Each shopkeeper, each cabdriver has a before and after story, particularly about the 2002 blast, which killed an estimated 200 people in a nightclub. Twenty were killed in 2005.

Since the blasts, tourism has slowly regained steam, with an estimated 5 million people visiting the island each year (statistics from the Indonesia's bureau of statistics). Bali is once again claiming its place as one of the wealthiest territories in the country. But it's still an island where poverty and luxury intertwine in an uneasy co-dependence.

And I find I am still a naive traveler.

In American eyes, I'm working-class, earning my own living in the lower white-collar trades. In European and Korean eyes, it's something at least similar. I travel, edging me into the realm of elite, but on my own it's mostly a no-frills style ... staying at budget hotels, navigating public transport and schlepping my own bags. It's a role I've felt mostly comfortable with, smugly self-righteous and benignly ignorant in. But this world is brown and (almost entirely) white, and coming here marked the first time I independently, irrevocably found myself part of the part of the rich, Western world. The served. The employers. The ones who buy adventure, who purchase culture. Who have more in their wallet than their waiter makes in a month.

I'm not sure how I imagined it would be ... can't say with any certainty that I thought about it at all, short of anticipating some sun, beautiful sights and good social time. But it definitely was a jolt upon arrival to find myself so classed for the first time of my adult, independent life. It's something that makes me uncomfortable, and yet right or wrong (some of both, I think) won't stop me from traveling, from spending, from hiring. I understand the business aspect of things, the fact I bring valuable cash and other benefits to struggling people. I just don't want to entirely lose that shock, to expect to live in this role. I don't want to relish my happenstance boon in social order, or to forget it. Mostly that.

It's a world of gray, this tourism business, especially to impoverished regions, but one I want now more than ever to explore. And I will bring my dollars, my camera, my glasses and my empathy.

back on the road again

It's been a whirlwind of a week, and weekend, but here I am in the Incheon (Seoul) airport on Christmas Eve, waiting for my flight to Bali. There's been a 7-hour delay, and I'm missing the two books that didn't make the packing cut something fierce, but honestly I can't remember being more content in months.

It was a sprint to the finish at work, a week of both angelic and hellion children ... and not much in between. Getting through it - especially Saturday school with the little ones - is something of a blur, but by 6:30 Saturday I was scrunched into the Village shuttle amid animated Tagalag (Filipino) conversation, headed toward civilization and adventure. Spent a fabulous night on the town - my first since moving to the mountain - in the company of the best tour guide/translator/cultural ambassador, aka a native friend, and caught a few hours of remarkably comfortable sleep on the overnight commuter train to Seoul. (Tourist note: in Daegu, saw a great jazz/blues band of young Korean guys at a fun club called "That," then hit an upscale bar called "AU.") Then I rambled around in the big city for a few hours, sweet-talking my way into the newsroom of one of the major dailies (which ended up being dead, being as it was Sunday), hit the Namdaemun market and ended up walking in dress boots from there to the Seoul Tower (a mostly vertical jaunt), which wasn't my brightest idea ever, but definitely memorable. Finally dragged myself over to the hostel I'd booked near the airport and found a fairly ramshackle building but clean, comfortable, private rooms/bathrooms, a kind couple running the place, and a value that absolutely can't be beat - I definitely recommend the Incheon Airport Backpackers Hostel.

Then this morning I met a fellow passenger for my Bali flight on the shuttle over to the airport, a worldly Korean doctor from the Gwang-ju area, and the airport time has been pleasant enough, chatting away for the past few hours about language, food, culture and travel.

It's the first big trip I've done, and it's great feeling like I'm finally getting to what I came abroad for ... or at least one of the major reasons - travel. But being out and about has also made me realize I'm feeling more at home in Korea - that comfortable sense of knowing transit lines, landmarks, enough phrases to get around, good friends, and the revelation that I'll miss those Korean staples kimbap and kimchi a little in the next three weeks. Even the markets don't overwhelm me the way they used to. Plus it reminds me of all the things I love about this country - mostly the kind and friendly people, and the perks of being American here (though there's baggage with that, too, but I'll save all that for another post).

And it's vacation, one in which I'll be seeing old friends at the day's end and heading to holidays on the beach. So call me Pollyanna, but I swear life couldn't be better. How did I get lucky enough to be born where I did, when I did, to whom I did, to afford me the opportunity to do this? Thinking on it too much puts me dangerously close to guilt-trip territory, especially the more I see all the lifestyles in the world, but today I feel like it's the best Christmas present ever.

^_^a

You know how sometimes computers screw up certain characters - like when apostrophes become question marks and accents turn into ampersands? For the longest time, I thought there must be something really buggy between Korean computers and American ones.

Whenever I got e-mails from Korean friends^^ (in English^.^), all sorts of strange marks would appear. Dashes, periods, underscores, random letters ... and tons and tons of carets. (You know, those things that sound like the crunch-munch-bunny kind - but are actually upside-down-Vs: ^). @.@ But then I noticed them on instant messages -_- and when someone would send me a text message on my cell phone. -.-

I just couldn't figure it out. (?_?) Could it honestly be a mass electronics bug? o.O Maybe Koreans decorate their text with symbols like they decorate their products with English words. O_o Maybe I just knew a lot of typo-prone people. @_@ Maybe their keyboards were setup in such a way that they couldn't help but hit a bunch of odd things. -_-;; Maybe they were politely cussing me out. \(>o<)/ And just what was this obsession with the caret? ^_^a Pretty sure it wasn't about beta carotene. OTL

Well the mystery was solved the other day (*´?`*) when I finally got around to asking one of my Korean friends what the heck was going on over on the keyboard there.

You know that ever-present :) that people use to show they're joking? Academics call them "emoticons," but the more common term is "smiley faces" or just "smileys." There are a few theories about where they developed, but basically computer people realized their value sometime around 1980 to clarify written messages that could otherwise be misinterpreted.

Well Americans use only a handful with any regularity, and they generally revolve around a face torqued 90 degrees counterclockwise. So, for example:

• :) traditional smiley
• =) another version
• :( sad face
• ;) wink
• :P raspberry (tongue out)
• :-) smiley with nose

Turns out Koreans use an entirely different set. The main difference is that their emoticons tend to run vertical and emphasize the "eyes" - quite frequently written as those durned carets. In fact, the classic Korean smiley is actually a pair of smiling eyes only: ^^. Variations on that theme include:

• ^-^
• ^.^
  
• ^__^
• ^ㅡ^

(Not sure about the nuances of these.)

But unlike Americans, Koreans are far from content with a piddley handful of emoticons. And once I hit up my old friend, Google, for more on the subject, I realized it's more than just a collection of symbols - it's a veritable artform. (This is the land of anime and manga, afterall.)

Anyway, here's a compilation of some of the Korean emoticons I've seen in everyday use as well as some of the more creative ones I've happened upon. You can check out my sourcelist at the bottom of this post for more. I've put them in blue so the list is clearer to read, but they're typically just in black and white. Also, it appears that the meaning of several of these is fairly subjective, so don't take this list as any sort of authority, just some examples.

• ~_~ = content
• >_< or >.< = angry
• ^_^a = scratching head
• =^.^= = blushing
• \(>o<)/ = shouting/angry
  
• (^o^) = laughing or excited
• (*^^*) = shyness
• ;_; or ㅠ_ㅠ = crying (the second one is made with a Korean letter, but it can also be done with English capital T's in some fonts)
• -_-;; = cold sweat or unbearable (basically something that is a source of stress); can also be embarrassment or chagrin
  
• (-.-)Zzz = sleeping
• o_O or o.O or any variation of this = surprise
• ^_~ or ^.* = wink
• @.@ or @_@ = dizzy or confused
• (?_?) = perplexed, wondering about something, "What?"
  
• -_- or -.- = something like "hmm" or just no emotion
• ~~~~>_<~~~~ = extreme weeping
  
• \(^_^)/ or \(^o^)/= cheers, "Hooray!"
• (>^_^)> <(^_^<) = hugging
• OTL = frustration (it's a person banging his/her head on the ground - the O is the head, the T is the arms, the L is the legs)
  
• (*´?`*) = sigh
  
• (^(oo)^) = a pig
• @}-;--`-- = a rose
• >(/////)< = a candy

Here's the best one, though ...

()()() ()()()
(-(-(-.-)-)-)

... a rabbit gang.

Know any other good ones? Feel free to leave 'em in the comments.

SOURCES: Dave's ESL Cafe forum, http://blogger.xs4all.nl, Locomote.org, Lets Learn Korean

it doesn't get any better than this

OK, so I just hit the high point of teacherdom: my first letter from a former student. Probably my only one, being as we are now subject teachers and I only see the students for 90 minutes a week each, rather than having them all week long, so not much time to form any sort of bond. (Not that I'm complaining - subject teaching makes far more sense with our constantly changing schedule, and is much more manageable.)

So this letter is on the traditional cutesy Korean paper decorated with flowers and hearts and nonsequitor, nongrammatical English ("Today is happy day." "Good things might come to those who wait." "Welcome to Flower garden"). Korean products, including clothes and stationary and mugs, tend to use English letters/words as decor rather than for meaning, and some of it is pretty funny.

The letter is from my one student, probably about 12 years old, who cut her finger in art class (no more big scissors). Her English name is Tracy, and she plays a traditional double-reed Korean instrument sometimes written as "piri." Apparently her brother plays it, too. It should give you some insight into how fantastic and cute the kids can be, and how they tend to talk very dramatically for humor and emphasis. I've tried to preserve the spellings, capitalization and spacing in typing it here.

Hello, Kristin marsh teacher?
I'm Tracy. How are you? I'm fine.
I want to see you. My finger is ok. Teacher, thank you. I'm crying. And I'm sad. Because, I miss you. I'm crying every day. I miss you, teacher!
Oh, dear. Soon, my brother's concert. It's the Pili. There is Donga shaping [shopping] 10thfloor.
Good, bye - Kristin marsh teacher!

- Tracy -

I'm prety. You are prety.
I'm kind. But. You are very kind.
I miss you.

Isn't that the best thing ever? :)

the holidays a la Asia

I'm sitting in my dorm room on a cold December night, looking out on our resident fuselage, listening to some mellow blockbusters on MySpace music, thinking about careers and tomorrow's lesson plans, and trying corn ice cream. It's not as weird as you'd think - kinda like frozen creamed corn.

We've got our first official batch of five-day kids - about 45 from a private school or schools in a more rural region northeast of Daegu. That's 4 or 5 kids per class. Last week it was 18 in each class, and we've had all manner of daycamps, overnights, half-days and three-day sessions, so we've really seen the gamut. They're all awesome, though, and what makes everything worth it. Tensions have been high recently over various things, but these kids are the best part of everything, and what make me thankful every day, if not quite every class (We are considering getting "I Survived Group 12" T-shirts after one particular crew), that I took this job. They're just fun and creative and goofy and crack themselves up with these jokes that aren't even funny, but it totally cracks me up that they find them so hysterical.

The holiday season has fallen here, too, which I'm coming to find means giant anime-style Santas and who knows what other Christmas creations parading the streets, a plethora of cooked-batter streetfoods, and the traditional merchandise explosion you find back home. Oh and the karaoke version of "White Christmas" is about the best thing I've seen yet - one long string of pictures of Korea's verdant hills and Buddhist temples. Not one flake of snow.

Mostly it's been cold and dry and rather sunny, but this weekend was one miserable long drizzle ... the perfect kind for curling up in a downtown coffeehouse with a new book (or three) and watching civilization scuttle by outside, and I definitely indulged. It's strange finding myself reading again - entranced by the bookstore and perpetually in the middle of about six books, just like when I was a kid. I guess that lifestyle of eight-hour days of staring at words is finally relaxing its grip. Now I've just got to figure out what to do with the library I'm amassing.

I get pangs for American holidays and family time every so often - like the other day when I saw pictures of the Iowa Mills' Thanksgiving, or tonight when I told a Korean friend about last year's holiday outing to Kansas City's jazz district. But I'm also looking forward to trying out this whole island holiday thing this year, spending Christmas and New Years on the shores of Bali with good friends from college, now spread around the world.

Oh but I never did quite get my Thanksgiving story put up here ... so the 20 of us Americans at the Village (with the very important help of certain Korean staff) coordinated as traditional a dinner as we could muster the Sunday after the holiday, and I volunteered to do the last-minute shopping, thinking I was being smart to avoid the chaos of climbing over everyone else in the kitchens with all their Korean machinery. Well, the short of it is that I ended up being very much the turkey and having my most fabulous "weird foreigner" moment yet in this country, loaded down with a ridiculous amount of food, answering relentless phone calls and trying to navigate Korean public transportation.

With considerable effort, I had dragged my overladen bags down to the bus stop near the local Costco (a Sam's Club-style warehouse of mostly Western things), but the bus pulled up before I was quite ready with my fare. But I leaped on anyway with all my cargo, much to the amusement of the onlooking passengers and the bemusement of the surly driver. The next bit all sort of happened at once - me fishing for change, one of my bulging bags tumbling down and various Thanksgiving offerings rolling out across the floor of the 739, the bus jolting forward and my shoe sliding off my foot into the stairwell and just barely slipping out the closing door. I don't think anyone else saw the shoe go, and I was quite the wild-haired freakshow there, still digging for a darned 100 won piece and debating the worth of a Size 12 shoe, laden down as I was and sock-footed, two busrides and one walk from home in Asia. To top it all off, my phone started ringing again.

The shoe won out.

Seven blocks later, I had found the coin, collected my things and finally managed to hit the stop button, and all the wide-eyed Korean "aunties" watched me clamber off the bus. I then hobbled back the direction I came, at one particularly poignant moment passing a true bag lady (a rare sight here, but you just can't make up the stuff that happens in real life - no one would believe you). And even in the middle of my "I am ridiculous" haze, I did realize that my lot even at that moment was something to be thankful for, because I was strong enough to huff and puff it back, rich enough to afford a taxi for the last leg of the journey when I had missed the right shuttle, and lucky enough to have an amazing, nostalgic feast waiting for me when I got there.

And I got my shoe, dadgumit.