The Adjustment Period

When moving to a new country, I'm not sure at what point it stops feeling like you're a visitor and starts feeling like you're a resident. Everyday is an exciting adventure of exploring new areas, finding new places to visit and meeting new people. Much of what we do resembles normal vacation routines - getting a lazy start to the day, walking around town, taking pictures of locals doing their usual thing. We couldn't look anymore like tourists than if we were wearing Canadian T-shirts and asking random people on the street to pose for pictures. I hardly think a native Korean would be taking pictures of the pig's heads resting in cooler beds in the open air markets...but you can safely assume we would (and are)! Even the novelty of using the 4 Korean words we know makes us laugh with excitement when someone actually understands us. All of these experiences are fairly typical of visiting a foreign country. Then, a day like today snaps us back to reality to remind us that we are not on vacation. A day when a leisurely walk through town is replaced with shopping for organizational supplies and groceries.

So let's recap. Taking pictures of Korean signs and shops: Vacation. Buying pillows, kitchen supplies, cleaning products and a year's supply of garbage bags (thank you Costco!): Not a vacation. Going to sleep at 9:00 p.m. out of sheer exhaustion: Vacation. Waking up at 7:00 a.m. because you have errands to run: Not a vacation. Daring to eat at a Korean restaurant without knowing exactly what you're ordering: Vacation. Cooking your own food to avoid eating dog or live octopus: Not a vacation. Spending the day wandering around the town: Vacation. Ironing my clothes for work the next day: Definitely NOT a vacation.

I'm not really sure where we stand on the vacation to reality transition, but so far we aren't in any rush for the real world part of this journey to kick in. Once it does, it will become a lot more real that we are living in a completely different country, on the opposite side of the world, where hardly anyone speaks English. Which is a scary thought, but it hasn't really set in yet.

We are starting to realize that the feeling of being a stranger in a foreign land will never go away. When a child looks at you in the supermarket as if he's never seen a white person before, it is easy to remember that we don't quite belong here. But, I think somehow that's okay. In all fairness, we are coming into their lives, not the other way around so it's to be expected to be seen as outsiders. Now, if these outsiders can somehow navigate their way through this complicated and highly traditional town and win over the impassive Korean people, I think we'll be alright.