Why I went to Korea: Seattle and Japan

You may find these adventures a tad boring compared to my last post. I couldn't really include it in the whole meeting my husband saga because there are no Korean men in this one. Yesterday I was just thinking about what I should write about and I thought I might give you some history to understand why I went to Korea in the first place.

Before I came to Korea, I had worked as a fifth grade teacher near Nashville. It was a great learning experience yet the most stressful year of my life. I'm sure I'll get to that whole terrible story later, but basically I resigned my position there after the first year because my principal was a complete dick. I was thinking of trying to get another job in the Nashville area, but my whole year teaching, I had worked double shifts at The Macaroni Grille in Opry Mills on the weekends, so I could take a trip to Japan that summer and also go to my friend Lainey's Wedding in Chicago.

I had previously traveled to Spain, Brazil, Italy, Paris, and Hungary....so as you could see, I caught the travel bug. I had planned on going to Japan during my spring break, but I had talked one of my good friends, Kaeya, into going with me and then her credit card got declined. She then changed her mind and said she couldn't afford to go with me. I didn't own a credit card at that time, so she had to pay me back. Well then looking at tickets they had become overly expensive, so I decided to just go and visit my good friend Dabny in Seattle. Her husband was in Iraq at the time and she hadn't been there long, so she was excited to have some company.

Seattle was really great. Dabney knew how much I had wanted to go to Japan, so she decorated her guest room with oriental decor and she had bought me some fresh flowers. What was sad is that it was my first year teaching, so right before spring break, one of my lovely students, (for like the 10th time that year) had given me a terrible virus or really bad cold. So, I was coughing, sneezing, I had a fever. Also, to top it off, there were storms so bad that my flight got delayed in Nashville, which then made me miss my flight from Atlanta to Seattle. There were some I think Braves games going on in Atlanta and the airline could not put me up in a hotel, so there were tons of people sleeping in the Atlanta airport that night. So I was just stuck there. I had met some friends from different places in the U.S. and I remember it was St. Patrick's day. So, we went to one of the airport bars and had some green beer. But then I had to try to sleep sitting upright and barely being able to breathe. I thought I was going to die. And needless to say, I really hate Atlanta airport now and I always dread having layovers there.

But finally, in Seattle in my beautifully decorated room. Dabny took care of me. She loaded me up on medicine and let me sleep the whole next day. Then the day after that, she and I took a bus to Seattle. We went to see the ferries. I was really big on "Grey's Anatomy" at that time and the love story of how Dereck tells Meredith of his love for ferries and of course the story takes place in Seattle, so we had to go there. We went to the fish market and Dabney and I bought these hand knitted hats. We had Seattle's Best coffee. We talked of College and her marriage and how hard it was for her to be alone in Tacoma, with her husband gone. I sadly wondered at that time if I would ever get married. We also went to see the Space Needle and we were going to go the Mt. Rainier, but of course, the time that I decide to visit, it is flooded and someone has died there, so they had shut it down. I met with Dabny's friends. She had a whole community of military wives. A lot of their husbands were stationed overseas, so they leaned on each other. They did each other's hair, went to each other for advice and they went running together. It secretly made me want to be a military wife. It was a great trip and I had so much fun with my lovely friend Dabny.

So then I saved Japan for the week after the school year was over that summer. You have no idea how Japan themed I became that year. I was watching Japanese movies. I had especially owned and watched "Memoirs of a Geisha" and "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon" as well as some others many times that year. I was a geisha for Halloween. I mean obsessed. I went to visit my friends Lorena and Garrett. Garrett was also in the Air force. I began to wonder how I'd managed to have so many military wives as friends.When I had talked to Lorena on the phone beforehand she was like, "Okay Jess, I don't think that Japan is going to be like the old Japan you've been reading about, so I hope you are not let down when you get here." And she was right, especially since I they lived in Okinawa. Which is sort of like Hawaii. It's the island right off Japan and the military base there takes up about half of it. There is still some Japanese culture there, but it is pretty Americanized. It was like I flew for 14 hours to go to a tropical part of America.

 Lorena and I caught up and talked about high school. We went to visit the amazing botanical gardens. I was still pretty religious at that time and I had had a hard year, but I was sort of seeing this guy back in Nashville. I had told Lorena at that time that I was still a virgin. She told me later that she just wanted to tell me to go out and have sex even though we were all Christians. I was almost 24 at the time. Lorena and I went to get our nails done and the Japanese are amazing nail artists. They painted Kanji and japanese flowers on my toes. The Kanji they painted meant "Beautiful".

Side story: When I got back to TN, I noticed a guy that I worked with at The Mac Grille had the same Japanese Characters on his shoulder. I was like, "Oh your tattoo means beautiful." He looked at me and said, "shhhh". I was like, "OOOkay..". Later, he came up and said, "Jessica, does my tattoo really mean beautiful?" I told him the story of my nails, and how I wasn't fluent in Japanese, but I'm pretty sure. He was like okay that's good. What the hell? Who get's a tattoo and doesn't do research to see what it means first??

Okay back to my story. Lorena and I went to the I think largest aquarium in the world and when we got to the sharks and whale, Lorena started freaking out. She has this weird phobia of fish in tanks. As if  even if the tank busted those things could come after her. They swim, so therefore they need water and I they cannot breath oxygen. This phobia makes no sense to me.

We also went on a tour to this school, where all the teachers and students had committed suicide right after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the atomic bomb of Hiroshima. Their motto was they would rather take their own lives than let the enemy take it. So they all went into this big cave and took their lives. Really sad and then they made this one of the biggest tourist attractions on the island. I felt kind of like you feel when you visit Vietnam or watch the movie "Roots," like really ashamed of your ancestors.

Also there was boy in Okinawa that I was interested in. We'll call him Denton. He was really cute. Again with the military wife thing...He was a boy from Texas and very Christian. He also had big muscles, which didn't hurt anything. I was still pretty shy at the time, trying to be modest and I wasn't there very long, so I didn't let him know. We played ultimate frisbee and I had a little daydream about him, thinking oh wouldn't it be nice if he asked me out and we got married and I moved to Okinawa? I came back to Okinawa again that fall and I had told Lorena and Garrett about my crush and they were like well Denton is not here this time. We know you are disappointed but he is doing heart surgery in Mongolia...oh yeah that makes him so much less attractive right?

Side Note: I think it's really awesome that I can tell you these stupid little thoughts I had about men in my past now that I'm married and it doesn't matter anymore.



When I left Okinawa, I had a very long layover in Tokyo. So I still got to see some real Japanese culture and I walked around different parts of Tokyo careful not to get lost and make my way back to the train. I went to museums and parks and I had some street food. I stayed in the microscopic little hotel room. When I was on the train, I seemed to the be the only white person on that part of the train. These two drunken old Japanese men came stumbling on and they were trying to talk to me in Japanese. I had listened to some language cds before I came but the only thing I could remember to say to them was "Wacati mas sin", which means "I don't speak." So after me saying that, that prompted them to say, "Oh you speak"...seriously these people were as bad as Americans. ha. If people say they don't speak English that doesn't mean you should start telling them your life story louder, they will understand. So since they were drunk and old I just looked at them and smiled as they talked to me or about me, whichever.

I remember coming back to the states and telling all my friends how much I loved Japan and I wanted to go back instead of teaching in Nashville again. They were all like, "go." I thought and do what? Wait tables? I don't think so. So I started thinking about it and I remember one of my Korean friends in University had told me, "Hey, you should come to Korea and teach English." Korea never really appealed to me though, so I didn't really think much about it. But now then I was like well surely they need English teachers all over the world or at least in countries where it's not their native language, right? So my first thought was, "I want to live in Spain!!"

I loved Spain. It's my favorite country. But I quickly found out that European countries want British English and most require a Celta. I found out later, I probably could have went there and taught English, "under the table", but then I'd still have to pay for my plane ticket and my cost of living. I needed a job. I had little money left. So I found this Korean website online and they contacted me immediately with 2-3 different interviews. I found that Korea was my best choice because they pay for your airfare and they provide you with free room and board. I also made as much money as I did here teaching plus the exchange rate was amazing then, because it was before the recession, so I actually made more. Plus, I didn't have a car or gas to pay for so I wound up saving like $1400 every month. It was an amazing deal.

So I thought to myself, "It's just a year, and anything has got to be better than the teaching year I just had."