Orient Express

Well, (as I am wont to start a post with), it's been some kind of day, lemme tell you hwat!

I got up this morning with the Peet/Spiwak household. I felt a bit under the weather, though, being better than it has been in months, the weather took some getting under. But under it I went. Unexplained headache, ague, stomach uneasiness and general lethargy. I felt as though I'd drunk the night before. Exactly as though! But I'd had not a single drop. So, I have to blame the blahs on the fantastical new developments in my life the past few weeks have fashioned for me. And the stress-induced symptoms that may or may not have been caused by them.

New paragraph for this: I AM GOING TO CHINA. Five words I had no intention of ever uttering. But here we are. Not maybe any more. For SURE I'm going to China. Life never misses a chance to say, "Nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah!" to me!

Because of that I had shit to do! I had no time for physical mutiny! I had to get rolling! So I went out to the streets of Itaewon where there are a half dozen travel agencies at least, and I determined in my mind to buy a ticket to Hong Kong no matter what! The previous day I had visited Ettehad Travel, among others, but all they could find me was a 200,000 won, (200 bucks), ticket with only one bag allowed. I talked with the guy there though and he was very nice. Wahed might have been his name. He said, "Do you mind if I ask your profession and why you are leaving Korea for China?" To which I replied, "ESL teacher," and he gave a knowing nod or two. He said, "Do you know how many times I've heard that lately?" It's not just me, folks! So that sort of makes me happy. Incidentally, he also gave me a tip on moving my stuff to China. A logistics company called C.I.L., Corean International Logistics. I went on their website and booked an appointment for them to come to my house and estimate how much it will cost to move me to China. That's tomorrow, Tuesday, September 6. We shall see... I did this when I moved home last time. There are companies for foreigners who are very professional and give you folders and free pens and stuff like that and charge thousands of dollars more than the Korean companies. I'll see if this is a foreigner company, or if they are a Korean company. What I mean by that, to be clear, is not that they are owned by foreigners, they aren't, none but the huge UPS or FedEx sort of logistics companies are, there are just some who specialize in dealing with foreigners, and charge WAAAAY more, and some who give their fellow Koreans a fair deal. I sure hope it's the latter otherwise I'll just rent my apartment for another month and leave my stuff here.

So anyway, I didn't buy that ticket because I need more than one bag. Today I figured I'd go to the travel agents at 8:30 and see if they had any better deals for me. The one I knew, which I had used several times back, WAAAAAY back in the day, Unique Travel, was closed. The sidewalk in front of it was being bulldozed. I didn't hold out any hope that it would be opening today at all. The next nearest was ABC travel and they were closed. I went to Ettehad prepared to take his ticket from yesterday and hope for the logistics company to be good, but THEY weren't even open. In fact, none of the six places I tried were open. But I called one and he said to come back at 10:30 or so. It was 9. So I went back up the hill to relate my fine morning stroll to the Peet/Spiwaks, who were earnestly attempting to get to Everland by 10. That, in Peet/Spiwak language means, "LEAVE" by 10 and at 9:30, they were still about half an hour from departure. Not bad though, 10 AM. Not bad.

They DID manage to get on the road by 10 and I packed all my crap up that I had taken to their house, like, a month ago, to do the camps, and FINALLY I was going back to my home in Gangneung. But I had to buy the ticket first because you need a ticket to show that you are leaving Korea before the pension office will release your pension money. They want to be SURE they're getting rid of you. THAT is what I had to do once I got back to Gangneung. I'd read that the pension offices pay on the 10th and it was the 5th so I figured time was of the essence. And it was. So I packed up all of my things except a few shirts that I will bring as luggage to China. I left a big hockey bag and a backpack by the Peet/Spiwak door and at 10:30, the time the one travel agent told me he'd be opening up, (and he promised to call me back), I was out the door.

It was significantly hotter than it had been on my morning stroll and I started sweating like Brock Turner's female swim teammates. I started with Unique travel only because it was the easiest place to start. I didn't expect it to be open. But it was! JUST. I mean the girl hadn't even turned on her computer or finished her morning coffee. She found me a ticket that was 173,000 won and allowed for 15 kilos of luggage. So I took it. Then I caught a taxi.

This requires a new paragraph too because although I have been in a thousand taxis in Korea if I've been in one, I've had bad drivers, roundabout routes, people who fake like they don't know where to go, the whole works. But this guy took the cake. I get in and he asks where I'm going. Nobody knows Samho Villa so I just told him, in Korean, when to go straight, turn left etc. Criticize me if you will about not learning the language after the eternity I've been here, but my taxi Korean is impeccable. EVERY THING I told him he questioned, repeated back, hesitated, hesitated, hesitated until finally at the last second, after repeating the direction a dozen times in Korean, English and Swahili, he did what he was told. We reached Samho Villa and I told him to wait for me while I retrieved by big hockey bag and backpack. He faked like he didn't understand what I was saying. I seriously thought about just getting another taxi but it's hard to find one on the hill and with my heavy load...

I get out of the house and find this dude scouring the neighbourhood for me. I guess he thought I'd stiffed him. And I suppose he didn't read the big, GIANT sign on the side of the building he was facing, the one I was exiting, that read, "Samho Villa." So I got back into the taxi and said, in polite, well enunciated Korean, for him to take me to the Gangnam Express Bus Terminal. Somewhere EVERY taxi driver ought to know. Possibly Seoul's most common taxi destination. He's blathering on about Samho Villa and Samho Garden. I thought he was saying that the place I went to was Samho Garden, not Samho Villa. As he's blathering, he's missing the more convenient turns to get to the bus station. He takes me out to the street that goes the completely wrong direction. So I start in with the repetition again. In every language I could I told him to take me to the bus station. He keeps going straight but hesitantly likes he's even putting an ounce of effort into following my directions. So I tell him, again, in Korean, to forget about Samho Villa or Garden, I want to go to the Gangnam Terminal. Body language. I start doing the bus driver dance saying the Korean for bus, which is understandably difficult for this moron to understand because it IS, "BUS-eu." So I go HEAVY on the EU to make him comfortable. Then I change my tack and start saying U-turn in Korean. Again, I have to give the guy a break because he has to make the very complicated mental transition from U-turn to "U-ton," with the "on" pronounced like the word "on." It's actually slightly different but I was saying it in proper Korean pronunciation and he continued the charade. We passed by two places he could have made a U-turn. With clearly marked U-turn road markings. I am SCREAMING at this motherless fuck to U-turn and he's getting closer and closer to the u-turn area with no oncoming traffic and then hesitating like he's going to turn then missing it and acting like there was nothing he could have done. He was also getting closer and closer to the tunnel. After the tunnel, we'll have to go through HEAVY traffic just to get back on a road to get to the bus terminal. It will add half an hour and 10 bucks to the trip. Finally, while mumbling "Gangnam," and "Samho Garden," he does a U-turn in the absolute last chance U-turn spot directly in front of the tunnel. THEN he starts explaining to me in Korean that I didn't understand how it was impossible to U-turn until that time and so on and so forth. I told him I wasn't listening, but that didn't shut him up. Then I get the, "Chhh!" and "Aisssshh!" because he has been wronged by me.

But finally he's on the right track. Or so I thought. There is an over/underpass you need to go UNDER to get to the terminal. I've been there a bazillion times and never has a taxi driver even faked like you can take the overpass. This jackwagon, hesitantly, at the last second, pulls into the overpass lane like there was nothing else he could have done. Immediately I start complaining and he's all, "Tuh mee nul! Tuh mee nul!" Saying you can get to the terminal this way. I know you can, but you need to go all the way around it, which is a waste of money. much like going all the way to the tunnel had been. But I don't argue because, geez, why wouldn't I trust this guy? There is really bad traffic as soon as we get over the overpass and it takes forever to get to the first of what should have been three consecutive left hand turns. Yeah, that's right, a circle. At least he managed to do that right. Then we come to the second intersection and at the last second he asks me what to do. He's all the way over in the right hand lane so we can't turn left. We have to turn right or go straight. I just told the stupid dingaling to let me out. So he stops, fake hesitates again, gets horns blown at us, then finally makes a right hand turn taking us farther away from the terminal. I keep repeating, IN KOREAN, for him to let me out. He keeps faking like he's going to pull over then continues driving farther and farther away. I ask him in Korean, "Can you speak Korean?" He gets as far as he can down the street without getting rear naked choked from the back seat and lets me out. "Thank you," he says in English as I give him the money he doesn't deserve. I REALLY wanted to drive this guy in the temple and throw his unconscious body off the overpass.

But I didn't. I'm leaving Korea and these frustrations. For China, and new and different frustrations. So I grab my heavy baggage and start my 20 minute walk in the hot sun cursing this asshole the entire way and thinking that this is a great send-off from Korea to me.

And if you think Koreans are getting BETTER, here are a couple more interesting things to watch.

It's not just the vastly improved job offers in China and the vastly worse job offers here in Korea that are causing this mass exodus. At least I don't think so. Don't you just love that girl? And people wonder why I am the exact opposite of what she describes white dudes in Korea as. I tried my hand at dating Korean women, but that wasn't what I came over for. And after a few short, hilariously crash-and-burn relationships, gave up on them so that wasn't why I stayed. What she doesn't take into account, is that some of us can't find JOBS in our "developed," countries. I have found that a LOT of people in under and undeveloped countries over here think money just falls from the skies in the developed countries. I hate those words too, developed and undeveloped. There are many ways the undeveloped countries have outdeveloped the developed ones.

I'm not going to generalize, like she did, and say that they are ALL like her, but I've seen way too many Korean women like this. I could talk about her below average looks by Korean standards and how she probably shouldn't be as big a princess as she seems; or how somebody should pop her dislocated shoulder back in, (seriously! anyone else notice that?); or how devoid of personality she sounds; or mention that she posted about her US military boyfriend who dumped her and that this is probably a sweeping damnation of all white men based on one bad experience; but I'll draw your attention to what I see as the most telling part of the video that reveals, really, all you need to know about this crazy little bitch: when she's talking about winners, she uses Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg as her examples of perfect white men. Immediately you know it's not for looks or personality. Neither are winners in the social sense of the word. They're standard nerds. A lot of people say Zuckerberg is an asshole. But that's not what qualifies as a loser to this girl. Hmmmm... what could it be she is looking for in a man? What is it that ties these two guys together? Why does she use these two as her models for the perfect white man?

The other vid reminds me a lot of the taxi driver. He's trying to act as though, "Sorry, I don't serve foreigners is something beyond his control." Like my taxi driver, "Sorry, I can't drive you directly where you're going without pissing you off. You're a foreigner. It's against the rules." Same at immigration, as you, no doubt read a few posts ago, "Sorry, no matter how organized you are and how perfectly you've prepared for this visit, we can't give you what you want without finding some superfluous thing to make you go fetch and come back tomorrow."

Every time I come back to Korea I remember the good times for a while and hope it's going to be a new me here, but little by little the bad stuff starts piling up. And a little bad thing to me gets multiplied in a hurry if it's something like the customary hagwon boss screwjobs. I wasn't just mad at the Shims for all the stupid crap they pulled while I worked at their hagwon. I was mad at them and all the other people who did the same crap to me. And in that way I am feeling the equivalent to a generalizing, group anger against all Korean hagwon bosses, perhaps even, to my embarrassment, to all bosses or even all Koreans. I don't think it's gone that far, but I worry that it might someday if I don't get out of here. I think the headaches I was suffering were from years and years of getting frustrated with Korean bosses, administrators, and fake educators who were turning schools into businesses. It came to a head when I got it all over again here.

Do I think China won't have schools being run as businesses and administration members who will cheat me? No. But the thing China has going for it, and for me, is that I haven't been cheated by Chinese people. At least not in China. Yet. It's going to happen. When it does, I don't think I'll hold Korea, Japan, Indonesia or Canada against them. I sure hope not. And, hey here's a thought, maybe I will be at an actual school and they'll keep the cheating to a minimum. Then I'll actually be happy and stick around for a while! There I go being all positive again.

So I got back to Gangneung and immediately went home, dropped off my stuff and went out to find the pension office. I got fluky and told the taxi driver the Korean word for pension, yeon geum, and if you know my blog, you'll know why I know that word. From Gwangju. So the driver just took me to a place I never would have found from the directions I had. I walked in and there was no line-up. I showed them all my stuff including my ticket out of the country and in no time flat I had applied for my lump sum pension refund. They told me it would be 1.6 million. Woohoo! They told me it would be deposited into my account sometime at the end of the month. NOT woohoo.

I guess what I had read about the pensions being deposited on the 10 of the month must have referred only to the Seoul office. Yet another example of the newest of Korean fads. I don't know if it's just for the foreigners or if they do this to each other too, but nobody just pays me when it's time to pay. There is always a mandatory, unexplained waiting period. My job, the camps and now pension. Every single Korean won I have made since getting here has been paid to me late. Coincidence? I think not!

I was counting on that dough. Dang it! Now I will only have a little bit to spend in Hong Kong on my layover there. And I'll have the plane ticket refund money I get when I arrive in Beijing. That's gotta get me through to the end of the month. And it probably will, but I'll have a week in a brand new city before I have to work. I might just want to do some things. Won't get that chance by the looks of it.

In brighter news, the head teacher from my school in Beijing, which, if I haven't mentioned before, is Renmin University, is coming to Itaewon on Friday. I'm going to meet him there for a beer. At a place called the Wolfhound Pub. It's a place I've said many times I need to go to more often, but it's off the main Itaewon drag so I never think to go there. So should be fun. Then one last night with the Peet/Spiwak clan and it's an early morning flight to HK.

And on to a whole new adventure.

I was hoping to buy myself a VPN before going. With the pension money. But I can't. So I will likely be postless for a while. But I've heard good things about the VPN effectiveness in China. So I may be able to keep on bloggin' and share my Chinese travels with you all. Facebook - not so sure.

Only one way to find out!