Back in the States...about to move, AGAIN!

Hey everyone!

It's been eons since my last post, but I'm sure you're used to that by now. :-)

It has been a week and a half since I arrived back in Oklahoma from Korea, and I'm pleasantly surprised to report that I really haven't experienced reverse culture shock. It has been a great time to unplug, relax, and enjoy spending time with my family. Just last night, I sent my adorable and rambunctious niece and nephew back with their parents—it was especially nice meeting my nephew properly because he was only 3 weeks old when I left for Korea! My niece already knew who I was, but he now identifies me and knows that I'm "uncle." YAY!

My nephew likes to put on his
"mean face" whenever...well, just all
the time, really :-P

My adorable niece tries to do a mean face, but then
I tickle her and she breaks out a huge smile!
Uncle Willie wins!

On another note, I'm about to start packing...again...this time, to move to Washington D.C. There may be more updates after I get settled, but for now, my next "home" (there are quite a few of those) will be near the seat of the U.S. Government...

If New York is the concrete jungle where dreams are made,
then D.C. is the comparatively green yet still concretized jungle where laws are made! 

Until next time,

~Willie~

LASEK Eye Surgery in Korea (Part 2)

Summary of my last post: The LASEK operation itself didn't hurt at all. I didn't even feel the laser. I got a great deal on the operation and I'm excited!

Now to talk about recovery. *picks up where journal entry left off*

I wake up at 3:15pm, and put in the first of my eye drops. I have four sets: one to be put in every 10 minutes, another every 30 minutes, and two others every half hour but separated by a five-minute gap. I listen to Orwell's "Animal Farm" (praise the Lord for audiobooks!) and later venture downstairs to the Outback Steakhouse from which I would get all my meals. I walk into the hallway with the trepidation of an orator going into his first public speech, and place my order. I'm wearing sunglasses indoors despite the evening hour, and am surprised to find that no one is throwing me the furtive, examining, suspicious glances that I expect. I eat dinner and go back to my audiobook.

Since the hotel doesn't allow food delivery,
I just went to Outback! #lunchspecial

Day 2 (the day after surgery)

I wake up at some unholy hour, maybe 4 a.m., and feel a pang of hunger. I finish the other half of my dinner and spend the morning continuing my audioread of H.G. Wells' "The Invisible Man." My eyes are still Water Works Central and I've already run through the bedside box of tissues. I wash my face (very carefully) and brush my teeth — even if no one will see me all day, that's no reason not to keep myself in order. 

Now for the awkward moment: The doorbell to my room rings while I'm asleep. Thinking that the sound emanated from next door, I still lie there. Something tells me to get up and I make my way to the foyer, where a housekeeper has let herself in with her master room card. Both of us are surprised. She tells me in Korean that it was past checkout time, and I tell her that I'm not scheduled to check out until tomorrow (I thought it would be best to buy a second night at the hotel. Thanks, Orbitz, for the discount). Her cell phone rings; apparently, the front desk has called to give her the update that she shouldn't be in my room because I'm not checking out today. She apologizes, empties the trash cans and leaves.

I can see a little more clearly than yesterday but that's not saying much. The pain today is mild and goes in and out, but is only a minor annoyance. 

Day 3

Not going to lie, I was miserable for the first half of this day. This is all I wrote in my journal...

And that was all he wrote...

Day 8

Fast forward to a week after the surgery. I haven't had any pain since day 3, so I'm super happy about that. Since arriving at home, I've mostly been lounging around, audiobooking/audiobibling, and doing some light stretching (since I can't do "strenuous exercise" for another month). 

I've been responding to text messages via voice note, which is AMAZING! I can't see well enough to type yet, but I'll be there soon.

Three days ago, my small group went out to dinner at a shabu shabu place. My friend Aaron came to escort me to the place, and was surprised that I could see well enough not to get hit by a car (there was that one time I fell into a hole, though...but that's an aside). It was great to see my boys again and to interact with someone outside a vision clinic.

I can see fairly well now, definitely better than pre-surgery. As I walked to the nearby clinic for a checkup today, I was AMAZED at how I could read everything outside — names of buildings on the other side of the street, all sorts of things. Oddly, my vision is still fuzzy indoors and my eyes bend color light a bit, but nothing major. My peripheral vision is SHOT, so I have to physically turn my body around to check and see, for example, if a car is coming when I cross the street. The computer screen is still a problem, although it's sort of bearable if I wear sunglasses and zoom the text up about 300%.

Recovery has gone much faster than expected! 

3 Weeks Later

I'm basically normal now! My vision is pretty great and I can use the computer without a problem. I have been breezing through books and am enjoying waking up and being able to see the numbers on my alarm clock across the room. I only have two sets of eye drops now, and as long as I use them regularly, my eyes don't get irritated.

My vision is better than 20/20 and still has some improvement to go! I've finally gotten back into a normal sleep schedule and can go outside freely (although I'm still wearing sunglasses to follow the doctor's orders). I'm so happy that I had LASEK and even convinced a friend to have her own surgery the other day.

Advice and Total Cost

Here's a breakdown of what I spent on the whole LASEK process. As a personal finance pundit in training, I'm always interested in total cost of ownership:

• Operation: 800,000 KRW
• Post-op checkups & medicine: 200,000 KRW
• Train tickets & food: 102,000 KRW (yes, I kept the receipts)
• Hotel: 140,000 KRW (One $200/night stay was free due to the clinic's promotion)
• Total: 1,240,000 KRW (USD $1,158)

In short, my entire LASEK process still cost $300 less than it would have in Daegu. Considering that a six-month of my contact lenses in the States cost about $300, this made loads of sense for me. The recovery wasn't a tenth as bad as I thought it would be. It really only "hurt" for one day, and other than that, recovery is just annoying and limits your activity. Honestly, it's been nice having a mandated break and not being able to be as active as normal, but now I'm raring to go again.

A few pieces of advice for anyone considering taking the plunge: Don't watch YouTube videos of the operation being done because they will most likely make you freak out. Don't overthink it. Do take at least a week (or more) off if you go for LASEK because you'll need it. Finally, pick a reputable surgeon and get ready for perfect vision for life! 

Bye bye, contacts! Here's to never needing you again!

LASEK Eye Surgery in Korea (Part 1)

I finally took the plunge in January and had LASEK eye surgery. I'm sharing detailed info about the operation to help those who are considering the operation, especially fellow expats. Initially, the thought of someone lasering my eyes was...well, it just wasn't something I considered. Now, however, it has been over 3 weeks since the operation and I feel GREAT and can see more clearly than I think I've ever been able to in my life.

Why'd I Do It? 

Umm...because I wanted to see better! *casts aside sarcasm* Actually, I was setting financial goals for 2014 and realized that LASEK would pay for itself after 10 months because of the money I would save on contact lenses/glasses/accessories/vision insurance/eye checkups, etc. Also, South Korea has built an amazing reputation for its medical services and is a huge medical tourism hub. Finally, the price here is ridiculously low! You can have eye surgery, along with all the necessary checkups and medications, for far less than the price of having one eye done in the States. 

The Basics

LASIK, LASEK — what's the difference? The main differences between the two are the actual surgical procedure, pain, and recovery time. LASIK is by far the more popular option because it involves minimal pain and advertises a two-day recovery time. The surgical process involves the cutting of a thin layer of your cornea, lifting it to one side, and replacing it. There's one little problem: There is a very small chance that the flap on your eye could one day come undone if you happen to be, let's say, hit in the face by a tennis ball. Since I lead a fairly active lifestyle and am pursuing a career that may take me to various developing countries where I can't just walk into a surgeon and have that fixed, I opted for LASEK.

Now, that's done.

Where I Went

At first, I was hesitant about having what I perceived as a major medical operation in a foreign country, as my last experience with hospitals abroad (in Argentina) was...well, let's not go there. But after seeing my next-door neighbor and several other friends go under the beam (pun intended), I knew I could do it. After copious research, I decided to make the trip from Daegu to Seoul to have my surgery at Glory Eye Group in Gangnam. 

It's about 30 seconds outside of exit 12 of Gangnam Station.

One salient point about Glory Eye Group is that most everyone there speaks English well enough for you to conduct business. I mean, I speak Korean at a functional level, but I have no time for something to be mistranslated and to have my operation go wrong — you only get two eyes, after all — and specifically sought out a place where I wouldn't need a translator.

Ironically, this actually happened to me at a post-op
checkup in Daegu. Yay for linguistic clarity! 

The clinic had rave reviews, the surgeons trained at Harvard Med and spoke fluent English, and they were running a special sale to attract foreign residents, so I decided it was worth the two-hour ride to Seoul.

This clinic offered such an amazing deal, but I'll detail all that in the next post.

I went for my initial consultation in December, since I was making a trip to Seoul anyway, and knew that I had found the perfect clinic when an attendant brought me delicious organic juice (for free) as I waited. 

Initial Consultation

This went very smoothly. I went in and after a short wait, was called to an impressive row of testing machines in the back. If you've ever had an eye exam, you'll be familiar with some of the machines. The people at Glory have an assembly line of machines for you to go through, and you finish with the typical wall chart. You then meet with your surgeon, with whom you will make the decision for what type of surgery to have. If you have thin corneas, you'll be ineligible for LASIK and will have to have LASEK—sorry! Fortunately, I wanted LASEK anyway and my corneas are apparently some of the thickest in Korea (haha), so he told me I could have whichever surgery I wanted! After a cursory three-minute meeting, you set your surgery date and you're off! I knew I'd need time off, so I opted to return a month later during my vacation time so that I could properly recover. That said, they're perfectly happy to have you do your consultation at noon and then laser you up immediately afterward!

Oh, Korea, your efficiency never ceases to amaze me.

The Surgery

I returned to Glory with butterflies in my stomach...no, they were more like mammoth moths who were consuming me with a vengeance...as I thought about what I was about to undergo. However, the staff soon allayed my concerns as I went through the battery of optical tests again. The clinic was extra crowded on Jan. 9th, but even so, they processed us all quite quickly. After the tests, I went to the pharmacy to pick up my medicine and the first set of eye drops. 

*At the risk of sounding overly prosaic, I'm going to share what I wrote in my LASEK journal instead of recounting the story the boring way.*

On the first few days after the surgery, I wrote down everything that happened, so here's my LASEK journal:

As I sit in the pre-op waiting room, my heart began to beat out of my chest so loudly that I was sure half of Seoul could hear it. I decide to flip through the photo books on the table to seek encouragement from the faces of others who have completed the surgery successfully. I do this for about one minute, just long enough to note that most of the people pictured were staring out into space (not at the camera), seemingly transfixed upon some faraway object nebulously floating just past the photographer's face. They look dazed, confused. I put the book down.

A young woman emerges from the sliding glass doors to fit me with a surgical cap — that's when I knew it was real! I said several prayers and practiced breathing deeply for a few minutes to calm my nerves. Shortly, she calls me in for surgery. 

I lay prostrate on a surgical bed with my face under a machine producing a really bright light. A nurse applied some sort of cold numbing solution to the area around my eyes. It must have done its job because I felt zero pain during the surgery. My surgeon enters after a few minutes; I actually haven't noticed him because I've already started to doze off. Flanked by several aides, he gives me cursory instructions and then says that we'll get started. He puts a device on my right eye to keep it from closing. I don't like this contraption because it hurts a little in the corner of my eye, but it's not that bad. He proceeds to apply some alcohol solution and other things into my eye, and reminds me to keep my eye open (as if I could close it with that clamp on it!) and my chin straight because the laser is next. 

"It will last 20 seconds," he says

My job is so stare at the green light through all of this squirting, pouring, and lasering. The laser comes on and my heart thumps. I stare at the green light and the doctor gives me a countdown.

"15 more seconds...ten...five...one. Finished."

We repeat this process for my left eye, and the surgeon says, "The surgery was successful. Congratulations!" as he switches off the laser. I mumble my gratitude and follow him outside to slip back on my shoes (a struggle because I can't see the buckles). He says, "You will have pain 30 minutes from now, and then severe pain for the next two days. Take a rest." GRRREEEAAAT! 

We head back down to the lobby. My vision is ridiculously blurry and I can only just follow his tall shadow down to the elevator. I arrive downstairs and take a seat in front of the reception desk. I'm not fully sure what I should be doing at this point, other than "taking a rest."

My veins feel as if some thousand-degree liquid is coursing through them, my stomach has started to do backflips, and I feel as if I could vomit at any moment. An attendant comes over to put in the first of what will be countless eye drops. I'm grateful for this because I can't be trusted right now to bring anything within two feet of my eyes. "Are you sick," she asks. How did she know that I feel like this, I wonder. The feelings subside and I sit there in supposed recovery, wondering why I'm in the world's brightest lobby instead of a dark back room somewhere. I push the thought out of my mind and grab tissue from the bathroom to wipe my eyes, which might as well be Niagara Falls by this point. 

 I wait for half an hour, not in terrible pain but not exactly feeling like a million bucks either, and as I glance at my watch — a habit that's laughable at this point because I can't read the face well at all — I was met with a flash of pain through the eyes.

"30 minutes. He said the pain would start after 30 minutes." This made me consider the prospect of sitting in my hotel room in intense pain without attendants swarming around to help, so I head up to the pharmacy again to get some more pain medicine (it was just Tylenol, but it helped later). I wait in the same spot in the hopes that Jeff, the man through whom I'd set up the surgery and hotel stay, would appear soon. After what feels like an eternity but is actually only another half hour, a blue-suited man (I could at least see colors!) comes to my rescue. Jeff. I make my final appointment with the clinic, and Jeff and I head downstairs. He helps into a taxi, giving me the Eye Group card that would cover the cost of my first night in the room. Provista Hotel is on the same street as the clinic, so the ride is only 5 minutes. The taxi driver, who was obviously accustomed to driving surgery patients, gingerly warns me in Korean to move slowly as I get out of the car. Only when I pick up my small suitcase do I realize that I was a bit weak; it took some effort to lift the bag. I check in and head up to my room. I'm pleased to see...well, I saw it later...that my room is actually a nicely appointed loft studio apartment.

My hotel room. The best bed I've slept
on in quite a while. 

There's another bed upstairs!

Ten points for the kitchenette, complete with
pots and pans! This is basically the size of my
kitchen in Daegu, so I was right at home.

Quite tired by this time, I change into pajamas and doze off for three hours, but not before closing the curtains, which are allowing an extremely painful ray of sun into the room. I had taken off my sunglasses when I reached my floor, and the sun seemed to sear right through my eyes. IT HURT! I can't help but think that this is what vampires must feel like. I look at my phone for the first time, an act I immediately regret because this pain is five times worse than the sunlight. I navigate my phone by touch to call my mom and tell her that the surgery went fine before falling into a deep sleep wearing my flashy new sleep goggles, which are designed to prevent you from rubbing your eyes or irritating them during the night (I promise, they help).

They're all the rage in Paris these days! 

That's enough of my rambling. The second half of this post will cover the not-so-pleasant part: LASEK recovery!

A Roman Holiday (Part II)

Now that vacation is fully a month and a half behind me, it seems like a good time to finish blogging about my vacation in Italy. :-)

Picking up where I left off, Ameedah and I left the Isle of Capri and returned to Rome.

Tuesday
Here's another one of those funny stories. We decided to change our train time to arrive in Rome later than we'd originally planned. I went to one of the automatic ticket machines and reprinted what I thought was a new ticket for both of us.

This is what the machine said to me when I thought
I'd printed out new tickets!

Upon closer examination, we realized that the machine only printed one new ticket...I'm still not quite sure what the other person was supposed to do. Anyway, we hop in the line to change the ticket manually and get ticket number 378. Since the line in front of us had barely breached the 300 mark and there were two people working it — count em, two! — we knew a hot, volcanic mess was eminent.

See the throng of people in picture 5? Yep, that was the ticket
line. 

Minutes before the train was to pull off from the station, I went to find someone else who could help, and bumped into a Frecciarossa (train company) rep. Print a new booking? Psshh. He just wrote a new seat number on my old ticket, and I prayed that no angry Italian man would come shout at me because I had stolen his seat. Fortunately, no such event occurred, and the ride was otherwise uneventful. We arrived at our newest lodging, Hotel Fellini, and bumped around in the streets.

We thought we'd have been able to hear the Pope's audience in St. Peters' Square, but alas, the Pope had jetted off to Brazil. We went gladiator training instead, which was hands-down one of my favorite experiences in Italy. Touristy? Yep. And that's fine! I'll let the pictures do the talking...

Paolo, our friendly gladiator trainer, first relayed a solid dose of Roman
history as a backdrop for our fight. Did you know those huge helmets
on our heads weighed 8-15 pounds?

After the history lesson, we headed out to an obstacle (no photos ㅠ.ㅠ) whose task was to run through a line of five or six swinging sandbags without getting hit. Both Ameedah and I did it with no problems, but a lady in our group was having a little trouble...she kept getting clonked by the bags at the end! We, along with her husband and kids, cheered her on and told her to "feel the sandbags." LOL. She did it, though!

Both of us are vicious in the ring, but my short-lived college fencing days helped me knock
Ameedah out a few times. :-P Thanks, Maestro Gettler! 

No gladiator fight would be complete without a trip to the Colosseum.

#PicturePerfect! 

#Colosseum

A beautiful day to check out Palatine Hill

After the quintessential pasta and gelato break, we headed out for an evening of Roman shopping, which proved interesting. Thanks to Google Maps, which had literally just been added to the App Store that week (good timing, Google/Apple), we found our way to the shopping district nearest Trevi Fountain. Ameedah was bubbling over about going to H&M in Europe — totally legitimate because it is about 293491x better than the ones back home — but was let down hard because the store was small and had a poor selection. I was even more put off because they didn't have a men's section at all! Zara was also a fail because their offerings were similarly sparse and monochromatic.

Mildly defeated and unusually hungry, we sought the counsel and advice of the front desk host, who pointed us to a nice restaurant just two blocks away. Gioia Mia turned out to be one of those friendly neighborhood places with more locals than tourists (always a good sign). The owner, an Italian gentleman in his 70s with sparse hair and glasses, came over to everyone's table to make sure you were enjoying your experience.

A little preview of the artisanal pasta at Gioia Mia. It wasn't
a mind-blowing experience, but I definitely wouldn't mind
dining there again.

Wednesday/Thursday
AHA! The big day! My long-awaited, "I'm going back to Europe to replenish my wardrobe" day had arrived. The EWSD (European Withdrawal Sadness Disorder) that I had been experiencing since my days in Spain would finally come to an end. Milan is a great city in many regards, from architecture to food to nice weather. Exhibit A of architecture: Il Duomo.

But I'd be remiss if I didn't mention its well-deserved reputation for being a world fashion capital. Numerous men riding bicycles in 95 degree heat while wearing three-piece suits and sporting perfectly slicked back hair were a testament to this.

We decided to take the serendipitous route and hop onto the first trolley that came our way, getting off when we saw something that looked interesting. We were in luck, because we just happened to hop on a trolly that took us right to Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, an incredibly designed shopping complex constructed in the late 19th century that is home to many of the world's most haute designers. We were fortunate to have an extensive insider's guide to the city provided by another one of my favorite people, Daphne.

I'll spare you the details, but basically, Ameedah ended up tolerating me for about three hours in Burberry, whose flagship store in Milan is like a metropolis. The tailoring specialist, Simone, was super helpful, bringing drinks for us and pulling shirts and bags for me from other floors. Fortunately, Ameedah kept me from spending an obscene amount of money, and I left with one of the seven items on my list: a new wallet. Since I use cash much more in Korea than I did in the States, this was a productive purchase; stuffing money into a thin card case isn't a good idea. My old wallet, which I had relegated to the inside of a suitcase, was so tattered that if I turned it upside down, all the cards would fall out. One point for upgrading!

I'd love to share pictures of Leonardo da Vinci's "The Last Supper" painting, but photography wasn't allowed inside the church. It was an unexpectedly magnificent creation whose engaging history led me to pick up an oil canvas version that I will display when I move somewhere where the humidity won't destroy it. If you get the chance to see The Last Supper, don't miss it. Tickets were only about 12 euros, and it was well worth my while. Never had I heard recounted how the bodily positions of each of the disciples reflected his particular reaction to Jesus' news that he would be betrayed by one of them. It's a history worth checking out.

Friday/Saturday
We headed back to Rome for a final evening. After exploring the Via del Corso shopping area, where Ameedah made some great finds, we made a seemingly interminable journey back to Trastevere, the neighborhood that housed out hotel. We walked, trammed, taxied, and generally struggled for several hours. I journaled about this on the day of, and here's the summary:

We took a tram in the hopes that it would carry us back to central Rome...nope! We ended up in Random Rome, an area so named because it's so far out that there weren't even any more piazzas in the area. We thought if we could just find the elusive gold line train, it would take us back. We found a schedule and learned that the trams had stopped running at 6pm...things stop running early on the weekends in Rome. Go figure!

While on this journey to neverland, we asked a pizzeria owner how to get to Trastevere via bus. He released a guttural but not unpleasant laugh and said (half in Italian and half in English) "Trastevere is very far away. On a bus, it is impossible [to get there]." Welp. We found a taxi and asked him to take us to the nearest metro station on the red line. We intended to transfer to Trastevere, but noooo...the Roman subway, which Ameedah and I decided was designed by someone using several illicit drugs at once, didn't take us there. We were stuck, and again in need of a taxi. After 40 minutes of standing on opposite sides of the road in an attempt to hail a cab — mind you, we still had our shopping bags from that afternoon —we went to a restarant and asked them to call a cab.

Funny story alert: We walked in, and the waiter asked if we want a table. I proceeded to ask him if they had a phone we could use. As we made our way to the back, a hostess took one glance at our faces and said "Do you need us to call you a cab?" Clearly, their restaurant was strategically placed to attract lost passersby.

The next morning, we headed back to the Fiumicino airport with destinations of Seoul and Atlanta. The previous day had been a whirlwind, but the vacation overall was refreshing, relaxing, and altogether just great.

Till the next vacation...

~WTRJ~

A Roman Holiday (Part 1)

A year ago, one of those people who thought "Why don't expats update their blogs more often? It doesn't even take that much time! Geez!" And then I became an expat, and that all changed. :-P

I am finally recounting the details of my very pleasant vacation in Italy, which I took with one of my closest friends, confidants, and motivators, Ameedah. We had an amazing time, and it made me so happy to be back in Europe after my time in Spain at the University of Salamanca three years ago. 

Saturday
Anyway, once I made it from Daegu to Seoul to Moscow to Rome, an only mildly exhausting journey, I did a bit of wandering to find a taxi that wasn't charging an extortionate price to take me the <10 minutes to my hotel, which was eventually a successful endeavor. 

We pulled up at the hotel, where Ameedah was waiting for me at the front. Everyone seemed to be expecting me, as when I entered the lobby and she told them "My friend Willie is here now," the people addressed me by name. Haha. We ended up talking for several hours about our trips there, looking at pictures of the friendly Italians she had met during the day, and then hitting the hay.

The Fiumicino hotel, Torre del Moro, was rather basic but not terrible by any means. The shower stall was broken, which was a little janky, but other than that, it was fine. We had a nice breakfast and then headed to the airport to catch the shuttle to Termini Station, from which we would take a train to Napoli (Naples), the birthplace of pizza.

First stop...Napoli!

Sunday

Then the fun part. We were looking for our train when a guy who ostensibly worked for the train station (he had on a shirt with the logo on it but I had forgotten that that doesn't necessarily mean anything) approached us. I thought he was just going to point us to the right train, but instead he walked us down to the right train, wheeling Ameedah's bag behind him. When we got into the train carriage, I was amused that it reminded me of the Hogwarts Express. It's laid out the same way...three seats facing three seats. Anyway, the train guy said that we should give him a tip, which we anticipated. But then he said "20 euros, 10 euros each," to which Ameedah immediately raised a fight before I could say a word. She said, "20 euros?? No! You'd better get outta here with that! You're trying to get over on us!" Let me just point out that the whole train ride itself didn't even cost 20 euros, AND that this guy failed to take either of the bags on our backs; he merely wheeled a rolling bag along. He stood there for a minute and kept saying 20 euros. I pulled out my wallet and handed him a five, closed my wallet, and Ameedah continued to tell him that that rate was unacceptable. After a minute, he sighed and left, defeated. One point for us (more Ameedah than me), 0 points for the guy trying to rip us off!

On the train ride, we were seated with a friendly Irish mom and her three daughters, with whom we ended up playing a card game called Stop the Bus. This was not only fun, but also useful, because I ended up using that game in my classes this week! Props to the Irish lady in car 110!

After taking the first of what would become many riposos (siesta/long lunch break and/or nap), we walked around, got some authentic pizza napolitana, and walked around some more.

Authentic Napolitan margherita pizza. It was simple and
may not look perfect, but it was indeed probably the best
pizza I've ever had. Good job, Napoli! 

Tuesday

We decided to ferry over to the highly-recommended Isle of Capri from Napoli, so we woke up at 8:15 (not a vacationable hour!) for breakfast, which was delivered to our semi-private terrace.

Sometimes you need to stay in a proper hotel and not a
 packed hostel to feel like a real person.

What's funny is that this semi-private terrace was housed inside one of the sketchiest looking (from the outside) hotels I've EVER seen — and I won't lie, I've seen some pretty seedy hotels. When we first arrived, we were sure the driver had taken us to the wrong place. The door was something out of A Knight's Tale, and when we walked through it, we found ourselves in what can only be described as a not-so-secret lair where some evil person used to run his experiments. We took the 10 cent elevator up, went through another door, and almost died of surprise when we saw how much nicer the hotel was than the bottom floor indicated.

Lesson learned: Don't always judge a hotel by its front door...or the foyer/lair thing...or the elevator...you can judge when you get to the front desk, though. If that's a mess, then you should leave.

Our faces when we first walked into the bottom floor of the building our hotel
was in (#1). LOL. That little dwarf door in #2 is the heavily spraypainted, ironclad thing
 you had to walk through to enter the lair. Once we got past all the foreboding
concrete and metal, we found a great hotel with a friendly keeper who
helped us navigate our way around Napoli. 

Note: For all the photo collages below, pictures are numbered L to R and top to bottom :-)

A collection of Ameedah's Instaphotos from Napoli. We ended up meeting the father and brother of our super friendly water, who is in the second picture. #allinthefamily

We spent the afternoon at the Isle of Capri, which we reached via ferry from Napoli.

The rolling hills of Capri.

#2 shows the hot mess...I do mean HOT and sweaty mess...of a bus ride down the mountain. #4 illustrates that the beaches of Anacapri are too touristy for pictures! And the ever-annoying and omnipresent pay bathrooms that force you to scrape in your bag for euro coins is in #7. And #8 shows Peroni, Italy's second-best selling beer (and a favorite of Ameedah). It tasted like any other beer to me, but I hate them all, so I'm not the one to ask for reviews #wineisfine :-P

More of Capri! #5 shows the taxi ride we ended up taking after enduring the fruitless struggle of trying to walk up the mountain. LOL

While on the train, I saw something bothersome and interesting happen. An Asian man stepped onto the train. Before he could even find his seat, an Italian man who was already seated pulled on his shirt sleeve and said "You...Chinese, or Japanese?!" Visibly vexed but not angry, the Asian man's face cast an expression that succinctly told me that he had even asked these types of questions many times before and was thoroughly tired of them. He hurriedly said "Hong Kong" and proceeded to walk down the aisle, but not before the Italian man tried to stop him and get more information. He said, "So...China?" but the man had already gone.

This experience just reminded me that foreigner stereotyping and annoying questions can happen across any ethnic group.

Back to the main story...our original intention was to take the chairlift up the mountain at the Isle of Capri, and to see what else there was to do on the island. First of all, it was hot! Not "painful, heat advisory-inducing, 116 degrees F heat in Oklahoma" hot or anything, but definitely the variety that makes you feel like you are being slow-roasted in a convection oven. We walked around awkwardly for a bit, trying to rent a scooter to explore the island. We visited three scooter shops, all of which denied us rental for various reasons — such as not possessing an Italian driver's license (despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of the people who rent these things aren't Italian!!). Whatevs. So, we footed it.

We ended up walking for half an hour before just taking a taxi to the top of the mountain, decided against the chairlift, and then took a crowded bus ride back to the bottom. Let me explain what "crowded" means on a Capresi bus.

Crowded (noun): A situation in which you are packed so tightly into a public transportation vessel that your sweat is sweating, and you are not sure whether the random girl sitting on you — because there is a random girl sitting on you — is twerking on your leg or merely unable to balance because of the bumpy mountain descent.

We strolled down the insanely crowded beachfront to snap pictures of the ocean. En route, we passed a throng of swimsuit-clad people who reminded me why staying in shape throughout life is so important (if you get my drift)!

We took the ferry back, taxied to Napoli Centrale station, and hopped on the train.

Part 2 coming right up! Well, it'll be coming up in the next week for sure!  

The Elephant in the Room: Suicide in Korea (Part I)

The following post was birthed out of a need to attempt to understand the lives lead by Korean school-aged students. It follows ten months of deep contemplation, intense observation and short conversations. It is a response to a growing epidemic that can neither be isolated to a single part of a student's life nor credited to any particular section of society. It is also but one of what will shortly become a series of posts on the same topic.

In the past week, I received the horrible news that a sixth grade boy in Daegu committed suicide. One of his teachers wrote a public message on Facebook about the struggle that this boy shared with countless peers all across South Korea. Her message and this singular instance, however, are not what lead me to write this post. Just two weeks after the beginning of this school year in February, one of my Korean co-teachers informed me that a second grade high school (junior) student at our "partner" school had committed suicide, and that he had left behind a note detailing his decisions for taking his life. Apparently, this young man had been studying for the College Scholastic Ability Test (hereafter the "KSAT")--the uncharacteristically pivotal examination that literally decides the future of students in this country--and felt overwhelmed because he foresaw that he would not perform well on the exam. The KSAT was only the endcap of a series of difficulties he had faced with regard to education, societal and parental pressure, and the intense "need" to succeed. He felt that he was no longer worthy of existence and that the exam had taken over, and he ended his life. Less than two months later, I learned of a very similar story with another student at a nearby school. These ostensibly isolated incidents point to a pattern succinctly described via the following statistic:

South Korea has the highest suicide rate among all OECD countries, and the suicide rate has doubled in the past decade. 

Before I proceed, I should issue a few disclaimers:

1. I acknowledge that my perspective is limited as a non-student, non-Korean person observing the situation from the outside;
2. I am not attempting to minimize the extremely high suicide rate among other populations--such as the Korean elderly--or in other parts of the world; 
3. I acknowledge that my students are only a small sample of all Korean schoolgoers and that their median academic level and socioeconomic background quite possibly give them more pressure than other students; and 
4. I am not certain of the most effective way to remedy the feelings of despair that students experience, but I am more than confident that this is a far-reaching, deep-seated problem that will require intervention from governments and schools, love and concern from parents, and hope and understanding from society at-large.

With that, let's go.

During the past academic semester, I have endeavored to learn more about my students' personal lives. While having 42 sixteen year old girls in a classroom at once does not lend itself to intimate discussion groups by any stretch of the imagination, I've sought out ways to get to know them better. Fortunately, I've had a modicum of success (I think) through instruments of the very grading system that so harshly bears down upon students: speaking tests and graded essays. The essay portion shall be detailed in a later post. 

Two weeks ago, I was in the middle of teaching a lesson when two of my students walked in halfway through class. I didn't want to interrupt the learning process for the other 40 girls, so I proceeded as if nothing had happened and they quietly found their seats. After class, I asked my co-teacher why the students were so late, and she informed me that they had been visiting the suicide prevention counselor because they took some sort of test and had been identified as being at high risk for attempted suicide; moreover, both of these young ladies had attempted to take their own lives in the past year. My co-teacher expressed that it was a sad situation and left the room, leaving me in a state of awe that has never completely disappeared. 

1. Why do my students feel this way about themselves?
2. What can I do to help?

I predict that answering the former question will prove to be more labyrinthine than I ever could have imagined, and that the answer to the latter is: not much. 

Fast forward two weeks to today*

I've been administering two-minute speaking tests over the past week and have taken every available opportunity to gain even the most ephemeral insight into my students' lives...after, of course, they demonstrate that they've at least halfway paid attention in my class over the past four months. Two minutes isn't much, but anyone who has spent time in public speaking knows that it can be an eternity. Through seemingly ordinary questions, I've grown to understand the challenges that my ~700 sophomores face on a quotidian basis. I'll list several of the questions on the exam, along with a few "follow-up" questions that I often pose:

• Do you prefer going to bed early or waking up late? (Yes, I know this is a false dichotomy, and that's fine.) Many start with "I prefer going to bed early, but I can't really do that because I have to study until so late at night." I politely press them and generally find that they're more than forthcoming with information, which I suppose is partially because they never get a chance for someone to hear them out. My students generally fall into two camps: those who stay at our school until 11pm or midnight before going home and also have hagwon (private after school academies) to attend on the weekends, and those who only leave school earlier because they have to study at hagwon on weekday nights as well. Across the admittedly not-very-wide swath of social and economic backgrounds from which my students hail, I've found the story to be nearly always shockingly similar:
• They attend some form of school to study until between 10pm and midnight on five, six, or seven days of the week. If they have an empty evening at home--a rare occurrence, as demonstrated by one student today who told me that she only sees her family twice a week because she is so busy--they typically have to study through EBS. EBS is the national "educational TV" channel complete with video instruction and an endless supply of things that students should know. By the time they finish all this, they go straight to bed because they're exhausted from what has essentially been a 15-18 hour workday. Since they ate dinner at school, where they have all their meals except breakfast, they can skip that time-consuming process at home. On average, they sleep about 5 hours a night. Of course, since the lovely Korean adage says "Sleep four hours, you pass; sleep five hours, you fail," this will probably change by the end of their junior year, by which time they will be more occupied with the KSAT. In summary, they're highly sleep deprived, which makes me marvel that more of them don't just totally collapse in my class (which, in the grand scheme of things, is less important than other courses because it's not as large a part of their grade). 
• What are your hobbies? What do you do in your free time? Lots of answers here, but often I hear "I like ________, but I can't do that because I am too busy studying." These responses were a dime a dozen until Tuesday, when one of my girls told me that she's passionate about singing but that she never has time to sing because she goes to school every single day of the week. I told her "You can have a little time to sing now, if you like," and she proceeded to produce an absolutely beautiful rendition of Anne Hathaway's "I Dreamed a Dream" from the Les Misérables soundtrack. She only gave me two lines, but that was all I needed--she has a surprisingly stunning voice. To hear that she is too busy with studying to even sing sweet melodies to herself is heartbreaking; these talents should be cultivated, not extinguished between poorly-translated phrases in a book. 

There are other questions, and much more to explore. In the next post, I'll discuss the various attitudes toward suicide displayed by Korean teachers and others, and how this plays into students' feelings of hopelessness. All of this shall come in the following posts. For now, this is fodder for intense discussion and consideration, particularly for teachers and parents. 

Until next time,

~WTRJ~

Emoryunion + Ziplining + Daegu = Best Weekend Yet!

Last month, my friend Dana -- a fellow Emory alum -- came and visited me in Daegu, which was GREAT! He, his friends from Daejeon and I made the most of every moment of the weekend. Starting with...the Cat & Dog Café!

This dog wasn't half as friendly as the wolverine dog
that kept climbing on me and trying to eat my phone :-P
But after catching up, we headed off to other
events...

It was a rainy day-gu, but that didn't stop this
 crew from turning the city upside down.  

After an adventurous trek to the shooting range, I showed
the Daejeonians...Daejeoners...anyway, we went to one of
my favorite galbi restaurants downtown! 

Anyone who knows me knows that I loathe this place,
but I felt I'd be remiss if I didn't showcase one of Daegu's
most waygooky zones ever--GoGo Vinyl. With sparklers.

We danced the night away and then crashed in preparation for
the next day's adventures. 

We had planned on visiting Herb Hillz on Saturday, but the rain
canceled that. No matter--it was a beautiful Sunday!

 Herb Hillz, which I hadn't heard of before we went there, is an eco-park. The online description makes it sound like an outdoorsy nerd's paradise, but it's actually really cool. They offer several
different obstacle courses, complete with ziplines and all-Korean-language safety instructions sure to make you feel like you're fluent if you don't die by the end of the course!

Not sure what's going on with the upside-down
statue...but hey, it's Korea!

Oh let's do it!
*Ironic note* Dana and I actually first met on an outdoor
ropes course type of experience called Crossroads in college! 

They wisely make you practice clipping your
suspension hooks so you are at less risk of
doing something wrong while in the trees. 

Kate conquering the stair-stepping obstacle (harder than
it looks!!)

  

This was one of my least favorite parts of the
King Kong course (code word for hard and kinda
dangerous). It was like skateboarding on a tightrope. Oh wait,
that's what it WAS! 

Dana zipping through Herb Hillz like a boss! 

That splash of red is Kate on (I think) the longest
zipline on the course. 

Giving "tree hugger" a whole new meaning. 

After the course, we were really excited and wanted to do it again, but decided to take a break to snap some ridiculous pictures.

All aboard the ratchet bus! 

Rachel got us all excited about zorbing, but then the
park decided to enforce a height & weight limit so we
couldn't go! ㅠ.ㅠ 

That didn't preclude Herb Hillz from having this
oh-so-culturally-appropriate activity, though.

Sarah & Rachel are much better at getting there faces at just
the right angle.

After all that zipping and swinging, we were hungry. Where
better to enjoy a meal than my neighborhood of Suseong Swag?  

Doesn't everyone just have planes sitting about in
the neighborhood lake? 

This oddity is actually a little café on the inside. 

En route to the airplane café, we caught a glimpse of this.
Back home, people go on romantic horse-drawn carriage rides.
In Daegu, people go on robot-Hello-Kitty-drawn mini carriage
rides. Whatever floats your boat!
But really, this robot thing was sketch! 

After packing all of this into just over 24 hours, it was time for the Daejeonians (I'm really going to give them a different demonym each time) to head back home.

Till the next adventure...

~WTRJ