Ferry Tragedy

 Photo courtesy of independent.co.uk 

Four days ago, the Sewol, a ferry traveling from Incheon (in the northwest, near Seoul) to Jeju Island ("Korea's Hawaii," south of the mainland) listed and capsized.  I'm sure most of you have heard by now.  There were nearly 500 people on board, many of whom were high school students on their way to the island for a school field trip.  As of now, 174 people have survived, 58 have been found dead, and 244 are still unaccounted for.  This is four days after the initial incident.

Divers have been going down as often as possible (which isn't often due to bad weather and a strong current) with the hope of rescuing those who may have survived in air pockets in the ship.  They have been faced with bad weather and zero visibility, though, and haven't been able to get inside the ship until today, when the weather cleared up a bit.  Today, divers recovered the first 20 bodies from inside the sunken ship.

Meanwhile, parents and relatives of the students are grieved and enraged.  They've been camping out at a gym near the scene of the accident, waiting for news, but haven't gotten much.  Several reports of parents physically attacking officials have surfaced.  The vice principal of the high school has hung himself.  Police barricaded a bridge as parents attempted to cross it; they intended to march several hundred kilometers to the Blue House (Korea's version of the White House) and demand to know why "nothing" is being done.

The Korean news constantly covers the accident, but hasn't had much to say since the day the capsizing occurred.  They replay footage of the ferry sinking, show clips of parents camping out and scenes of students holding vigils; they compare this accident to previous ferry accidents; they show the hospital and the morgue; they attempt to interview the Captain, continuously casting the brunt of the blame on him for reportedly instructing passengers to stay seated before the sinking; they show models of the Sewol and explain possibility after possibility in immense detail.

A terrible tragedy has turned to hopelessness and chaos.  Continue to pray for calm waters, that good may surface in spite of the bitter badness beneath.

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Thanks for reading :)

Christmas and My Birthday!

That's the thing about living in a different land... Certain commodities become delectable delicacies.

When these boxes full of Western goodies arrived at the start of this week, I couldn't quite calculate whether it must be Christmas or instead could possibly be my birthday.

In the end, I determined it must've been both!

 Packages from HOME! 

 And look at the CONTENTS!!! 

 These are actually the result of online shopping,
but 3 big ones at about 10 bucks a pop is really a
steal of a deal in these parts! 

 And Mom made cookies!  I could cry............. 

 But I won't!  I'll just eat one instead! 

Thanks for reading :)

In Seoul... again

Last weekend, I decided it was time to step outside of Yanggu -- on my own.  I hopped on a bus as soon as the last bell rang on Friday and, just after dark, was dropped deep back into the heart of my old stomping grounds.

In mid-November of 2011, I moved into a brand new apartment near Olympic Park and began teaching at my "permanent" location.  As it turned out, I was only there for a total of 10 months.  Still, though, that was the first apartment that I moved into without having a move-out date already set.  So, on the 3rd floor of a small "villa," I stayed there for the longest period of time that I've stayed in any one place (in Korea), to date.

 Olympic Park 

A couple weeks after I moved in, a down-to-earth, outdoorsy spirit from Seattle settled on the 2nd floor.  We had a lot of good times together and, when I was shipped off to kindergarten the following August, she stayed.  She has been there since, and that is where I, too, was last weekend.

So, as you can see, by old stomping grounds, I really do mean old stomping grounds.  Several of the stores in the area had changed, but many were still the same.  One delicious little underground restaurant was replaced by a fad diet company.  The small, independently-owned supermarket now had an big business label added to its sign.  The rice cake store, the soup shop, and the bus stop hadn't aged an ounce, and there had been built a brand new, big, bright Starbucks on the corner of the main intersection.  (A welcome addition, if you ask me!)

 Back in old stomping grounds 

Saturday morning, I strolled around Olympic Park and somehow my intuition got me to where I wanted to go to meet a friend who I'd met last summer in Portland.  Over lunch with coffee, her and I got caught up on the happenings of the last few months, cracking jokes about how it used to be and throwing around suggestions for how it will continue.

 Lunch with Sunny 

Now solo, I subway-ed to the heart of Seoul: the shopping district.  I'd been there several times before, but suddenly the buildings seemed taller, the lights brighter, the music louder, and the crowds thicker.  I was suddenly a tourist, an awestruck foreign tourist -- all -- over -- again.  So I wandered the street and bought a snack from a vendor and popped in and out of a few shops, following the beckonings of salesmen and signs and sometimes just swaying with the massive human swarm.

 The subway is to be ridden in style... 

 If you don't know what style is, just look around; they've all got it. 

 Myeongdong: the shopping district 

Finally, evening approached.  Exhausted from a day of chit chatting and mob surfing, I decided that dinner with co-workers (fellow foreigners who had come to the city on accords of their own) didn't sound too appetizing, so I grabbed a slice of pizza to-go, replied, "yes," not realizing that I'd been asked if I wanted it warmed up, and sat down on the subway with a shopping bag, a condensation-covered piece of pizza, and two sore feet that realized they weren't as used to doing all this everyday as they must have been a couple years back.

The following morning, I slept in, sipped a cup of coffee, and boarded the bus back to Yanggu.  Passing through the tunnels and staring at the all-so-similar farmland, I didn't realize, but finally reaching the 3rd floor, dropping my bags on the bed, and opening the window to see one single road and a solitary row of single-story houses, all surrounded by billowing, tree-laden mountains, I realized that this is why I chose to live in the type of town where there's only one bus an hour, and sometimes less.

 The Yanggu Skyline 

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Thanks for reading :)