baby showers and hair-cuts

between last week and this, i had a baby shower, a vet visit, and a hair cut. and while that may sound rather mundane, ordinary life here is quite outrageous and surprising at times. i never know quite what i'm getting myself into. 

first, the baby shower. i offered to help a friend get things ready for her sister's baby shower (the babe is due in november). i cut things out, and did a lot of gluing, and it was a lot of fun for a thursday night, and they fed me chips and salsa, so i was quite happy. the actual baby shower was sunday afternoon at a coffee shop near ssangyong: the coffee mission. we blew up balloons, and played games, and cut strings to guess belly sizes (i accidentally got two of them right). it was a good group of people celebrating a good thing. it was a pleasant way to spend an afternoon.

back up a little bit to saturday. my only tasks for the day were taking the cat to the vet for a shot and skyping a friend that evening. co-teacher had called before, so they knew i was coming. i show up with an unhappy cat and julie to translate. the vet was in surgery. for two hours. julie had things to do, so i left the cat and sat in a coffee shop for hours. i was upset and a little bitter, but sitting there was quite refreshing and renewing. i was in my big lake michigan sweatshirt in a comfortable chair drinking an extra large latte. and when you think about it, that's not a bad situation to be in. so i dealt with it. i kakao'd people and pinterested and all-in-all, it wasn't terrible. but what should have been an hour long endeavor ended up taking more than four hours. it was frustrating. 

eventually, we got back home. there was some whining in the taxi. but we spent the afternoon relaxing, cleaning, laundering, doing things i had neglected to do all week. looking forward to skyping. but there was miscommunication as there almost always is, and i thought it was my saturday night his saturday morning, and he thought it was his saturday night, my sunday morning. and we didn't end up skyping. that was frustrating, too. saturday was frustrating. sunday was sweet. 

along comes monday. i needed something for myself. a change, something different. i had actively avoided korean hair salons during the twelve months in korea. i'd heard horror stories about how they couldn't handle foreign hair, and my curly, blonde, fine hair is surely foreign. but after almost nine months without a haircut (and a bathtub trim somewhere in the middle), it was time. for a brightening and a lightening and a trim. i found as many pictures as i could on pinterest to show what i wanted, how i wanted it (there were actually ten that i cycled through). in the end, it was beneficial, i swear. 

korean hair salons are another world. actually alien, this is what i walked into.

they took our bags, offered us free beverages. sat us down in the waiting area, taking our names and a brief description of what i wanted (the pictures would come later). 

j made me take a before selfie, to show my dreads, tangles, and uneven sides, i'm sure.

it was a short wait (they don't take appointments) and i was guided to my stylist around another side of chairs. i showed her my pictures, every single one of them. and through hand motions, broken english, and j acting as translator, we picked bits and pieces from all of them. the color of this, the length of that, the layers like those. i decided to go all out and get the ends of my hair lightened and try something to lighten my head of hair. (i was apprehensive about the blonde color because koreans don't have any natural blondes or even remotely close). she combed and cut my hair dry. brushing through the tangles and making me look like someone from a scary movie with my hair everywhere. then she started putting the dye on the ends and sponging it upwards so it would look more "natural" (because in korea, they tend to have straight lines of dye and i really didn't want that). two things i understood throughout our grunting discourse: my hair is naturally wavy and my hair wasn't the same length on both sides (oops). then she foiled me and took me to another chair where a hot machine flew around my head for fifteen minutes (you can see the metal contraption behind my head, it was moving 360 degrees). 

after the time was done. i was taken by another woman to another area, where she covered my eyes with a tissue and proceeded to wash my hair and give me a head massage. she then returned me to my original chair where another woman gave me a back massage in passing. my stylist returned and started fluffing and drying my hair when another woman came and asked if i wanted a hand massage. i nodded my consent. she curled my hair and petted my head (at least that's what it felt like). 

now some selfies. 

the whole experience was other-worldly and i left on a cloud having only paid 55,000 won. everyone should go to korean hair salons at least once in their life, and i should definitely go back before another nine months pass. 

in retrospect, the baby shower was delightful, waiting for the vet was bearable and turns out i even needed to sit and people watch and drink coffee and curl up in a big comfy chair, and the hair lady was brave to tackle my mess of hair (with a smile, even) (i can't imagine what she was thinking when she saw my head of tangles). 

this "ordinary" life of mine is absolutely crazy sometimes (most of the time). 

day-to-day, i never know what to expect.

but i'm thankful all the time, every day.

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the big, comfy, fluffy chair at the coffee shop was worth everything, the emotions, the waiting. because i haven't had a chair like that in far too long. and everyone needs a chair like that once in a while. to make you feel small, and forget things that don't really matter, and put things in perspective. because even chairs can do that.

walking home

yesterday, i had a kind of small adventure, a daily adventure, an adventure between school and home. yesterday, we planned to go the lake, to run. but yesterday and the night before, it rained and rained. so yesterday, we watched as the weather went from dreary to the sky lightening to a fresh breeze to puddles evaporating to a temperature that was pleasant and bearable and i almost forgot humidity existed. 

it was in the happy place and at this happy moment, that we decided to walk home for school. it's an idea we've tossed around before. the idea of it. because sinchang isn't that far from onyang. because they are both a part of asan. and the bus makes a lot of stops and still only takes 30 minutes on its round-a-bout way. so at 3:38pm yesterday, we began walking. we took the most direct route, following the route of the 451 bus that we take home normally. map-quested, the way was upwards of eight kilometers. further than i thought it would be. the way consisted of little sidewalks, frequent lights, many buses passing, beautifully yellow green rice paddies, our friend j passing us twice in his granny smith apple green car, flowers that looked and felt like mini velvet brains, a monster spider with the biggest butt i'd ever seen, crossing a highway, and a stop at a toast shop to celebrate our survival with peach smoothies and ham and cheese sandwiches.

things i liked stopping and noticing: the way that the yellow green rice paddies looked like wheat when up close. that tiny roads cut through the rice paddies. the color of the sky and how quickly the clouds moved through it. watching the spider weave it's web, slowly, perfectly, one spoke at a time, around and around. seeing flowers i hadn't even imagined existed, how velvety they felt, and how convoluted they looked, like sulci, brain folds, wormy things, but were still a bright, pleasant fuchsia color. such a strange flower. how bus drivers kept offering to pick us up because they didn't know why we were on the side of the road, walking. how every piece of available land has something planted in it, and most likely will be or already has been, replanted. how there are several ways home that we still have to try (and will). and that blessed, blessed breeze that blew on my face and through my hair the entire way home.

more mountains, less mondays

a phrase i resonated with strongly (but just this week, i normally enjoy mondays). last weekend, i went with seoul hiking group to juwangsan and the east coast of korea. i took a train up to seoul to meet the midnight bus on friday. and we drove and drove through the night. no sleep on the windy roads. we arrived well before sunrise at jusanji lake, pond, reservoir, call it what you will. we parked it for an hour or so, sleeping bags spread at random, taking over, taking space. some napped, some snacked, some were in a daze. as the sun started to rise, the lake began appearing among misty mountains. steam from the warm water blew across the lake in waves. and this is what we saw: 

afterwards, we started hiking through the valley, across and back over a river, stream. warned to watch for snakes, we saw four babies. where were the mothers? crossing, crossing, slipping on rocks. i fell several times. but the valley was lush and a green i haven't seen in a long while. even now, i crave that green. trail started upwards. steeply. for an hour. climb, climb. through the beautiful trees. feeling like i was in the appalachians or the pnw. to the peak. at the top. jump across to another rock. stand alone. lowered myself to the edge. no fence, no boundary. the edge. and i sat. and admired. and who could not be amazed at that view.

back down. the long way. to the waterfalls (there were three). in the fairy forest. straight out of game of thrones or the elves domain. ghostly. beautiful. eerie. 

waterfalls. rocks. canyon. to the bottom, again. treated with apple makgeolli and various kinds of pajeon (pancake). mushroom and spinach. another round of makgeolli. back on the bus. to the coast. for a coastal jaunt along these rocks.

back on the bus. to a middle-of-nowhere town. with a beautifully empty beach. to camp. for the night. bonfire. fireworks. sleeping to waves. waking to the sun. peaceful. rejuvenating. 

my new favorite view in all of korea. the mountains go for miles and miles.

one of my favorite trips. i always dread wrenching myself into sleepless weekends. but afterwards, i am always so glad i did it. especially this weekend. it was worth the restless nights. the long drives. the windy roads. for this. climbing mountains. seeing things. seeing far and seeing wide. and meeting like-minded people who enjoy this just as much, and get just as much out of it, and are in awe, too. because we 

talk about these mountains for hours and days later. they become a part of us, of me, these people, these weekends, these mountains. these glorious mountains and trees.

uprooted

i called this blog "uprooted" because that's how i felt life was happening last year. but it sounds a lot more violent than it is and was. even dictionary.com defines it violently: "to pull out by the roots", "to remove violently or tear away from a native place or environment", "to destroy or eradicate as if pulling out roots." but the last definition is this: 

"to displace, as from a home or country; tearaway, as from customs or a way of life."  that's what this really was. i was displaced. i was moved. it was painful. i left my way of life behind and went to try someone elses. i was moving to a different country. over an ocean, a new continent. i was leaving behind everything and everyone i knew (give or take a few) to try something new, gain new perspective, see things from a different side, reevaluate. i wasn't running, i wasn't hiding, i was exploring, i was taking time for myself, to see, to hear, to feel, to dig. 

so i did it to myself, this uprooting, this upheaval of change and strangeness. it was a lot less violent than it sounds and felt like back then. it sounds like i ripped myself from my state of comfort, it sounds like i tore apart relationships in order to establish myself elsewhere, it sounds like i needed to start over. in reality, i just needed a big change. new roots. something to jump start my perspective and thinking. i needed to look at the bigger picture of my future. what would i miss? who would i miss? how would things change? how would i make my life different? where would and could i take myself? how far could i really get? how far could i push myself? how tall could i grow? how deep could i plunge my roots? what soil could i dig my hands into? where could i invest? 

and so i like to compare myself to a tree. it's one of my favorite metaphors, the tree. how it grows strong, and weathers change, and i like to think i'm like that. i weathered the change of uprooting from what i knew, i grew fledgling roots in this new place, i started new friendships, and learned how to go out on a limb and take greater risks. i learned about what i needed and what i could go without (and what i'm desperately craving now). i learned about freedom and feeling the wind in my hair. i learned about climbing high and long and far and wide. and this whole life is about being uprooted. this place is about it. i went to dig elsewhere. being uprooted is all about change. for the better (for me). and it really isn't all that violent. sometimes change just looks that way and maybe even feels it. but once you get through it, you realize it wasn't. and you're stronger for it.

breathe in, breathe out. and drink some water, too. your roots need that to grow.

new

i have nights where i sit at home and think about a lot of things. sometimes with my lamp on, sometimes petting cat, sometimes laying in the dark. and sometimes it stresses me out, and sometimes it inspires me, and sometimes it frustrates me. but most of the time, it just prevents me from being productive with things i actually need to be doing. right now, i should be studying for the gre or at least reading the library book i checked out on my kindle more than a month ago (oops, i turned my wifi off so they couldn't steal it from me, mom's probably in trouble with the midwest collaborative). but instead i'm thinking about how this week is so full of new. yesterday, i got my nose pierced. it was a twenty minute decision, i didn't think about it. i just wanted it, so i got it. and now i'm thinking about whether it was the best idea, but i like it and my kids don't notice that my nose has a little sparkle. and today was new because i wore a hanbok around the classroom for a while (luckily did not run into any students) and tonight, it's raining. making the ground new. and i'm looking at hiking trails around the globe. wishing i were there. but being thankful that i'm here and could afford to go there if i wanted. i'm thinking about future trips, and how i'm going to fit everything in. i'm trying to prioritize. it's not working. i'm just making a long list of everything i want to accomplish at some point in my life.

and surprisingly, it's not daunting or scary, it's awesome. it makes me excited. it makes me look forward to doing these things. with people or on my own. alone or surrounded. and then i start to think about being alone and being surrounded and how i'm surprisingly comfortable in both. how i've gotten used to both. and adjusted to both. and how i like both. a little of each. some of this and some of that. and even that makes me excited. because it means i've changed and grown and morphed and filled and emptied and everything is tying together and it's all tying back to God. and i love when things come full circle. or i make connections or i find patterns. i like when i can make some sense out of things that make no sense. like this blog post, does that make sense ? i should probably get back to house of mirth and the gre and eventually i'll get back to thinking. full c i r c l e