A trip to the Post Office == no big deal!

So I went to the Post Office today, and realized on the bus home that I didn't even think anything of it! You might be thinking "....uhhhh, so what?" Well, I've always said to myself and to other people that doing the smallest things (like going to the post office or getting a haircut, for example) while in a foreign country can be a BIG DEAL! Where do I go exactly? What do I say to them? OMG, what if I get lost!?!? Well, today after stopping by the post office, on the bus ride home I realized, "You know what? That wasn't a big deal at all!" So this, for me at least, is evidence that by now (9 months into my adventure), I am pretty comfortable with daily life and its adventures here in Korea. I'm no longer nervous about taking a bus somewhere rather than directly from school to home. Going on weekend trips doesn't scare me at all. Even small talk with strangers is a-ok. This is a pretty neat realization. I've done the whole traveling and living abroad thing several times before, but this is by far the longest time I have been abroad. It's neat to see the "2nd half" of culture shock. Only being gone 3.5 months got me through about the first half of the culture shock spectrum, but I'm confident that in my 13 months here in Korea, I'll get all the way through the experience (well, most of the way through?). At many times throughout this year I have quite literally kicked myself in the foot and said "WTF were you thinking when you decided to move to ASIA for a YEAR and TEACH BOYS?!?" But overall, it has been a wonderful and empowering experience. (Now, I think the chocolate cookies I'm eating right now are making me think positively, but hey! It's true!)

A few cultural notes to wrap things up:

1. SPRING TIME. What do Americans think of when they think of Spring? It's refreshing. It's time for a new start. YAY, sunshine! (Well, at least that's what I think). Koreans, on the other hand, widely believe that Spring time makes everyone tired and sick. I just find this to be a completely different way of looking at Spring than what I am used to. Anytime I say that I am a little tired, people tell me "Oh, it's because it's spring. Spring makes people very tired and have no energy."

2. Body love. Typically in America, when people have an ache on their body they don't beat on it to make it better. Instead we either gently, or sometimes not-so-gently, massage it. I've witnessed the polar opposite here in Korea. If they have a stiff muscle or a sore neck, they ball their hand into a fist and pound the crap out of it (or, better yet, have someone else do it for them!). I even noticed this last semester when I was taking dance classes. The warm up for our Korean class involved us sitting on the floor in a very loose cross-legged style, and just pounding up and down our legs, necks, arms, chests, etc. Usually in dance class we do stretching to loosen up our muscles. I mentioned this in my teachers workshop today, and they (somewhat jokingly) said that Koreans just need harsher techniques to loosen up their bodies!