Comforts of Home

“What an odd thing tourism is. You fly off to a strange land, eagerly abandoning all the comforts of home, and then expend vast quantities of time and money in a largely futile attempt to recapture the comforts that you wouldn't have lost if you hadn't left home in the first place.” -Bill Bryson

I've been thinking a lot about the "comforts of home" that I'm missing while being here. I started this, after a new friend told me about a person she had met recently who was complaining about their new apartment in Korea. This person, she said, complained that the shower did not have a bathtub or enclosing walls (most don't in Korea). This person said they were not going to give up their "standard of living" while being in Korea. I was amazed. They sought out a teaching position IN KOREA, agreed to a year abroad, an experience away from home, but yet they want all of the comforts of home. While there are definitely certain things I would like not to live without, warm water, a lock on my door, a bug-free living space, and heat in the winter, for example, there are many unsaid things that come with a contract teaching abroad. You're signing on for the experience. It has taken a while for me to figure out the washing machine (liquid fabric softener is key) and I'm used to not seeing, or hearing, any English for the majority of my day. If I find myself frustrated, I remind myself, if I wanted all the comforts of home, I would've stayed there. Simple as that. It's a personal test. And while some victories might seem minute to most, while living abroad, alone, they are incredible personal triumphs.

I think about not having a dryer and then I realize how much energy I'm saving by line-drying. Looking at pictures on the new iron to see how it works and being thankful I've been ironing for a good 10 years and irons are pretty universal. And having a shower with no surrounding walls or tub, well, it's still a shower. It has hot water, the water goes down the drain and I feel clean afterward. It gets the job done. Period.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On a separate note- I recently found a blessing/curse only a block away from my apartment. Tous Les Jours is an amazing bakery and very cheap (at least it is here). While one of my goals in coming to Korea is to learn to cook (Chase summed it up perfectly when he said, "You don't cook."), I came up against a roadblock when my first real kitchen was crawling with roaches. Quite the deterent when thinking about cooking yummy homemade meals. So while my kitchen is being cleaned daily (and my mind, of the images), hopefully in the next few weeks I will start to bring food home and begin my culinary adventure. In the meantime, Tous Les Jours will be my daily stop.