I've given this quite a careful consideration. On the one hand, I like to keep a private journal, a hand-written one, into which I spill all my thoughts, deep and intimate as may be. Writing can occupy me for hours on end, but does not leave me room to keep in touch with those whom I wish to keep in touch with. On the other hand, writing a blog is an easy way to publish my experiences to my small audience. However, it has quite severe drawbacks. First, it would take up my precious hand-written journal time. Second, it is yet another submission to popular trends. And third, and probably most important of all, heavy censorship would have to be used. Being of critical nature, I find perverted pleasure in pouring out all the nasty stuff about those whom I encounter, in addition to the good and charitable. However, due to the public nature of this blog, and to the fact that I cherish my physical intactness, I would reluctantly take care to censor and eliminate my criticism. My hand-written journal, if and when it will be reborn again, will gladly swallow it all, and beg for more. If you get the impression that I am surrounded by angelic entities, bear in mind that your are looking through pink spectacles.
The following post will be lengthy, but, as those who know me would predict, the future posts are threatened by a similar fate. This time, however, I have an excuse, petty as it may be: It has been 7 days that I have been in Seoul, and I carry quite a load of experiences to disburden.
Packing and leaving Israel was hasty. I did not have much time to research my destination, as I am accustomed to, however, I expected to compensate for it with backpacking experience. Or perhaps I've changed. At the airport of Istanbul I met my first companion, out of about 300, to the student exchange program at Yonsei University in Seoul. Emma, Finnish, yet claims to be Swedish, a business undergraduate student. We were nearly the only two western people in the waiting hall, amongst a Korean crowd, and sparkling a conversation was not a difficult task. Boarding the plane, I was seated, by request, at the emergency exit, next to (rather unsurprisingly) a westerner: Raoodik (sounds like Radik), a 23-year-old Ukrainian on his way to Japan. Raoodik is a navigation 3rd-officer on Japanese container ships. That was when I finally understood that I have stepped out of my bubble.
Landing in Seoul, Emma and I, having made reservations to the same hostel, reached it by the kind help of a Korean, who emphasized that he is a dentist. I found the hostel to be very warm and hospitable, rather backpackerish. I met another Israeli there, Shachar, here as an exchange student in a different university than mine, majoring in graphic design. Studies in Bezalel, though live in Tel-Aviv, and exhibiting the standard Tel-Avivian traits. One remarkable thing which I have noticed in the hostel, is the rather bizarre fact that nearly all tenants carry a laptop. Actually, I regret not capturing the scene with a camera - the living room occupied with young travelers, each staring zombiely into his own laptop, mostly a MacBook. A sad spectacle.
One interesting character which I have met at the hostel and who is worth mentioning is Jean-Jacque, a 40-year-old French bicycle-seller. He uses his laptop to trade stocks and earn money while traveling, yet he seemed to be on a rather tight budget. By far the most friendly person in the hostel.
The next day I have begun my agonizing quest for an apartment. Not signing up for an dormitory space proved to be a mistake, although construction work taking place by the dormitory may have driven me outside anyway. I joined a tour organized by the dormitory office to look for apartments for those who either did not sign up to the dormitory or did and wanted out. The tour proved useless, as the apartments were ridiculously expensive. The renting system in South-Korea requires a deposit to be made to the landlord, to be returned at the end of the rental. The deposit amount begins at 5000$. Lovely. I did enjoy the chance to meet some of the other exchange students - French, Norwegian, and a noteworthy German, Leo. A young business or international relations student (I forget, but they all have the same narrow range of majors anyhow: business, economics, or international relations; however, there is one philosophy student. He has a story of his own, which I will get to later), friendly, talkative, somewhat womanizing chap. At first, probably before he grew accustomed to speaking English all the time, he would speak to me in German. Rather amusing.
In the following days I have been desperately searching for an apartment, mainly on the internet. Walking around the nearby neighborhood, asking a freshly-learned sentence in Korean "is there a room", and not being able to understand the answer in case it was not accompanied by a head-shake, proved, surprisingly, to be fruitless. I would have gladly taken a bed in a shared room at the dormitory, had there been space. I was fortunate to find a Hebrew speaking Korean - working for the dormitory office, Ewan is a Korean who spent 10 years in Israel with his family, in Jerusalem, and speaks perfect Hebrew. I am grateful for his assistance, even though it bore no fruit. He walked with me through the streets of Sinchon, the part of the city where the university is located, looking for available rooms. The options were all horrible (I do admit being somewhat spoiled here, but I have grown to understand that moderate spoiling is legitimate...). The most horrible option of all was a goshiwon, which is a place with many rooms and shared baths and toilets. The size of the room is about 2x1.5 meters, including a bed, which by lying in left no room for my head-hair to grow, a chair, a desk, and a TV. No windows included. Living in there seems like a sure step toward a salvation in the form of wrist-cutting.
During the days I searched for an apartment, and during the nights I joined the other exchange students in their unrestrained drinking crusades through the bar-packed streets of Sinchon. I should have packed an extra liver with me. Many drink 'till they dumb and numb, which, in some cases, is not a dramatic change. I have been introduced to a hard-core drinking culture, the kind involving chugging (American slang for emptying a glass of beer), drinking games, and chugging. I have also learned to toast in uncountable languages.
Finally, I have come across a place to stay: an American-Korean renting a 2-room apartment within a 5-minute walk from the university was looking for a flatmate, and I grabbed the opportunity. He arrived in Korea 6 months ago, and is here to stay, as he says. He's fresh out of high school, friendly and talkative, and his place is a mess. I hope we'll get along.
What about the Korean experience, you ask? Well, since I am knee-deep in the international program mud, my contact with Koreans has been rather limited so far. Hopefully, I will change that soon. However, I can make some initial and careful observations. They all dress smart. Maybe it's a symptom of the metropolis of Seoul, but everyone dresses up. I feel rather sloppy with my backpacking boots and pants and my fleece jacket. I guess I'm not quite a backpacker now, so maybe I should behave as a Roman. That means going shopping.
Everything seems to be very efficient and the people are very obedient. They stand at red lights on crosswalks even when there are no cars in sight, or a traffic jam prevents any car from moving. Subways are incredibly clean, and the Koreans ride them silently, poker-faced. On the street everyone's in a hurry. True, true, it's freezing outside, but I have the premonition that this is a weather-independant characteristic of Koreans. Speaking of weather, it's freezing. It was around -2 Celsius when I landed last week. I walked around wearing a thermic shirt, a cotton shirt, a fleece sweatshirt, and a fleece jacket. The Korean girls, however, insisted on skirts. Fine with me.
Speaking of girls, the food is a delight. Except for the minor obstacle of many dishes being absurdly and eye-poppingly spicy, and the fact that it is impossible to avoid pork here, I enjoy the meals immensely. The Korean meal usually involves several large main dishes and many small side-dishes, from which all diners eat. This sharing tradition stands in sharp contrast to the western style individual dishes. The food itself consists nearly exclusively of rice, meat and vegetables, but, curiously, the possible combinations seem infinite.
Well, I think this will do for now. Prohibiting myself to reveal the true faces of all the characters in the current chapter of my life's ongoing novel is a major handicap. Maybe I should leave the digital world and go back to my analog journal, and just drop you a post once in a (long) while. Hmmm.
