Hazel’s Neighborhood

นั่งกินเงาะกระป๋องใส่นำ้
แข็งหน้าฮีทเตอร์

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Think I'm going to start making this a regular. During my everyday life I begin to write little letters to Korea : love letters, poison pens, hate letters and little memos of the things that make me laugh. I suppose it's because I'm surrounded by a foreign language I don't understand daily that I become quite insular when on my own and note the things I see and think in my head. I will write them down now so I can record them on my blog. This way it will seem like I'm not talking to myself in my head but merely thinking of things to put up here. 

I put one on my facebook status once, other English teachers cracked up, I guess some things are just universal over here. It went:

Dear Korean colleagues,I can tell you are discussing me because you look at me while you are doing it. Remember stealth at all times.

Here's just a few recent ones ~

Dear Korean grocery store owners, yes your basket of radishes were in the way of the apartment building entrance today. Thank you for moving them AFTER I squeezed past them.

Dear Korean student, your email made me smile after some lonely few days. Thank you ~ "You always teaching us with beautiful smile and bright eyes.You treat us very nice and well and you always prepared lessons carefully.I really love your class since you first taught us ^^" PS. I don't even mind that it is occasionally grammatically incorrect. 

I went to the Hwa Gye Sa temple, in northern Seoul with a couple of friends from the EPIK-SMOE (English Program in Korea - Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education) orientation.  It was an odd experience, meditating at 3am is strange to say the least. I can see how Buddhists become zen when dedicated, early morning meditation coupled with the chanting from the ceremony downstairs did create a funny sensation. Although fighting the impending sleep was my main object. Not to mention for 45 minutes I had McFly then Tom Jones 'It's not unusual' stuck in my head like some zenradio in my brain. While meditating we were meant to be pondering the question below, to be honest I never found the answer ... I couldn't fully understand the question. Enlightenment is beyond me I feel.

Trees

Hwa Du: "Mount Sumeru"

A student asked the venerable Master Yun-Men (d.949);

Not even a thought has arien, is there still sin or not?

Master said;

Mount Sumeru!

When thought arises, sinn also arises. If no thought arises, there should be no kind of sin or erro. But why did the Master say that sin, that is, error, is as big as Mount Sumeru?

Bell Tower in the Shadow of Trees

Bell Tower

After 3am meditation, 108 bows to Buddha (this was the week following my continual back pain so I opted out of this and watched), a chanting ceremony came outdoors work - we paid £15 and managed to get roped in having some head monks watch us sweep the grounds! We grumbled a bit but I quite liked being outside after a few hours sitting on the ground. Plus I got to talk for a bit to Simi who is really cool, and we had a chat with the head monk who used to live in America and was quite an odd chap for a zen master. He serenaded us with some Bob Marley and The Eagles before telling Kara that "American women are stronger than any man!"

Roar

Wind Chime

We had a lot more personal time than I expected, for example we spent some time in a street festival that was going on down the road. In fact, after being photographer several times as the typical foreigners enjoying Korean festival pictures, a few of us were persuaded to get on stage and dance with the singer. It was hilarious and great fun, some ahjumma really got into as well and jumped up on stage after we finished and stole the microphone from the singer lol. Later on that day some of us went on a contraband journey where we stocked up on cookies, chocolate and soft drinks in order to supplement the temple food.

Just me on a mountain!

At 7.30am in the morning I found myself climbing a mountain for some outdoor meditation, which turned into most of the girls sleeping and talking :) Have to admit found the climb a bit arduous, one bit was partiuclarly steep and I found myself in trouble until this short quiet little girl monk pulled me up. Not kidding she was half the size of me but I reckon she could have made it up there with me on her back! The sweaty rice fueled hike was kind of worth it though. I loved the biew and the endorphin filled triumphant feeling you get when you exercise and finally finish!

Chilling on a Rock

 Our weekend retreat was over and done with by 11pm on Sunday! Myself and some of the girls decided to celebrate our freedom and the ability to eat nice food again by heading to KFC. Lovely!

The thing about living in this city is that it doesn’t matter how vast it is, how many people it consumes, the speed it works in — it never seems to let me forget how many times I’ve loved and hurt and been broken, or where these things happened. It doesn’t matter how many new places, nooks, corners, high rises I discover, it doesn’t matter how many someones you surround yourself with — seeing that one flower shop, sitting in that park, watching that fountain flow, passing that church tower, running around like kids in the biggest known toy store in the city will never erase the memories you spent with the one you thought you’d spend something like forever with. And even if these places disappear, fall down, crash, or are rebuilt — you come to realize that the memories don’t go that easily, and they will stay, for however long they can, in the deepest corner of your heart, because at one time they meant the world and sometimes you’ll miss it, want to relive it, but someday somebody will change your mind and in time, the city will look anew again, ready for more adventures in love.

So, I've been using my Typepad account instead of VOX, and whenever I come back over this way I have shit loads of spam comments to delete. Surely, VOX, if you delete a spam account, it should automatically delete all of the spam comments they've left as well?

お休みなさい！

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