The Jolly Postman

Some of you wonderful people have been asking for my snail mail address. This is the address of the school where I work, which they tell me is more secure than sending mail to the apartment. If you plan to send a package, please write GIFT on it, so I don't end up paying customs tax when it gets here! Letters are sweet as. The phone number is also that of the school, sometimes they ask for a phone number when you send mail overseas, so there you have it. If you want my personal phone number, you'll have to email me, because I don't publish such things in such places! If you want the phone numbers of either of my little sisters, you're asking the wrong person. You'd have to start by submitting an application and full CV to Travis Bartel, the McNab sisters' Love Life Coordinator. And anyways, their father says they're not allowed to date until they're thirty. At LEAST. (heehee... Love, Fi)

Fiona McNab

c/o ECC GEOJE

2Fl Hyowon Bldg. 208-6

Gohyundong Geojesi Kyungnam

South Korea

656-801

School's phone number: 055-637-8400

Vive la Musica

I had intended to bring my guitar to South Korea all along, but when it came down to packing time (i.e. the night before) I realized that I would need to take another suitcase as my second piece of luggage instead. It was either that or choose to bring the guitar and buy a lot of stuff when I got here, which seemed a bit foolish, as I already owned the aforementioned "stuff" in Canada. So the guitar was lovingly placed in storage, near the front of the cubby, where ma petite soeur can find it if she needs to, and I came to this new land with my tiny irish penny whistle as my only musical outlet. Oh, and my opera voice, of course! But I did slip in a set of new strings, a few guitar pics, and my little tuner for when my ears aren't working. How delighted was I to discover today, that my new friends Dan and Lindsay happened to have a random guitar at their flat, which no one was using! It had been left by previous teachers and needed... new strings! I am now happily strumming away on the freshly-strung instrument pictured above. The wandering minstrel is back in business. (My punk rock career is totally going to take off this year!)

Introducing Mr and Mrs Huffman

Guess who I bumped into today? Jen and AJ have arrived in Geoje!

Home Sweet Home

This is where I live! My apartment is in the cluster of buildings on the right. I am on the 12th floor of one of those high-rises, and all the other English teachers at my school live in the same building as well. Let me paint you a picture of my new home sweet home. We live in what seems to be a safe neighborhood, bustling with schoolchildren and street vendors during the day, mellowing out at night.

My walk to work is a daily adventure, where I am bombarded with the fresh sights, sounds, and smells of this city. The children I pass take little notice of me, but occasionally, when we are stopped at a crosswalk, they will giggle and glance at me shyly. A few of the bolder ones will attempt to practice their English phrases, gleaned from many lessons at their local hogwan, or English academy. "Where you from?" "Ooooooh... Canada!" "You Englishee teacher?" Some of the cheekier ones just yell "Hello!" at me and skitter away! They all sport the uniforms of their various schools, and often walk hand-in-hand or arm-in-arm, both the boys and the girls, at any age. I generally associate cities with individualism and anonymity, but my neighborhood here has a strong community feel.

Walking the streets involves having your eyes wide open and being quick-witted and light on your feet. There is a fair bit of sidestepping involved, as the interlocking brick sidewalks are uneven in places, the people weave in and out of each other with no apparent recognition of personal space, and the cars pay little heed to pedestrians. Colorful fruit and vegetable stands are everywhere, and I also pass a fish market that smells strongly like some areas on the Halifax Waterfront, with some of its fish, still very much alive, eyeballing me as I pass. There are street vendors selling a myriad of items, from hot, deep-fried treats to carefully hung clothing to potted plants. I crisscross over and under a series of bridges, around the line-ups at various vendors, through a park, and find myself in the heart of Geoje City. It is busy and lively here, day and night, and still quite hot for late September. I am happy to finally reach the air-conditioned rooms of my hogwan, ECC, or English Centre for Children.

The photo above is taken from behind my apartment, on a running/walking track that extends through rice fields and vegetable gardens on the outskirts of Geoje. We are nestled in among forested hills, and I have discovered many hiking trails through these hills, some more challenging than others. The photo below shows Geoje city from above, taken on one such hike, which I shall write about in another blog entry!

Where in the World

For those of you who like maps...

I live on Geoje Island, off the southern coast of South Korea.

It is the country's second largest island, and it's very mountainous, with several sweet beaches, and a major industry of shipbuilding. If you don't want to build ships, but still want to live here, you can do other industrious sorts of things, like teach English!

Night Rider

I arrived in Busan last night at around 9pm to find the owner of my school waiting, with his shy but cheerful countenance, ready to lug my ridiculously heavy suitcases to his car. His car was a night rider. The kind of car you would want to take on a long road trip through the night, like those many trips I've experienced from New Jersey to Nova Scotia, and vice versa. Dark on the outside, with dark leather interior on the inside, it had incredibly comfortable seats and chillin' music. Korean slow jams. He had even purchased a bottle of water for me, and placed it in the cupholder beside me. I know I was tired enough that I could easily have slept on a park bench and thought it was the most comfortable bed in the world, but the two hour ride out to Geoje island was lovely. I drifted in and out of sleep and conversation, with flashing headlights, signs I couldn't read, reflective oily bodies of water, and patches of deep darkness as the landscape for my half-shut eyes. Korean drivers have a bit of a reputation for driving like my dad, and this dude was cruising! Sometimes I felt like I was still on the plane... we were definitely flying.

When we arrived at my apartment, the school's director and another Korean teacher were there to meet me. They looked about as tired as I was, it was after 11pm at this point, and I later discovered they had just finished cleaning my apartment after a previous teacher had moved out of it. They were very kind to me, though, and had left some household items, including fruit, bread, cereal, milk and coffee, some clean hand towels, and a new pillow on my bed.

My poor feet. I wish I had taken a picture to show you. This is where the true Princess Fiona as an ogre comes out. They were all swollen and puffy and red, uncomfortably wedged in my polka dot flats. I did get up, walk around and stretch numerous times on the 14-hour long flight from New York to Seoul, but nonetheless, my feet were hideous. Happy to be home.

After everyone had left, I opened my suitcase to find that one of the carefully packed packages of fairly-traded Mexican Morning coffee had busted open all over the contents of my suitcase, leaving coffee grounds in my shoes, in every layer of clothing, and even in between some of the photographs I had brought. Oh dear. My apartment was heavily perfumed with the scent of coffee, which is usually a smell I associate with waking up in the morning, but I was so ready to sleep. I found my bedsheets, which thankfully had been vacuum-packed in plastic and were free of coffee grounds, made my bed, and got into it. Some messes are better dealt with in the morning!

A Fond Farewell

And so it begins. Another adventure, a new country, people, and culture, in a city with a sea-bound coast. I will be flying out of Halifax before dawn tomorrow morning, arriving in South Korea on Monday, where I have a contract to teach English for one year. My thoughts and feelings at present resemble a freshly-churned Dairy Queen Blizzard, but with all the flavors combined! (I have, on occasion, actually ordered all the DQ toppings, in an indecisive moment.) So here you have it; heightened nerves, overwhelming excitement, ready to embrace change while not quite ready to let go of home, feeling prepared one minute, and very inadequate the next... all these emotions, like the flavors of peanut butter, blueberry and mint... they don't sit together very well, as you an imagine, leaving a fairly sizeable knot in my stomach for the past three days! Yet overall, this pervading sweetness: a deepening sense that in moving with these tides, I am in "los manos de Dios." I don't know what the future holds, but I know who holds my hand. What could be sweeter than that?!!