Living the Daydream: Months 8, 9, and 10

Okay, first things first: I know I’m really dropping the ball on these monthly recaps. In my defense, the weather has only just warmed up, there have been little to no holidays off of work, and it’s been a hard few months! Hopefully this will catch you all up with everything that I’ve been doing for the last three months here in Korea, and if you want to go read through all the rest of the monthly recaps to see exactly how this journey has panned out, you can look through them all here!

On the bright side, I’m currently in the midst of planning a three month stint through Southeast Asia for when my contract ends in September, so get ready for some really cool content that will explore lots of new countries. And planning is what I do best, so that’s definitely been exciting for me.

Where I’ve been

Jinhae - 1 perfect day at the Cherry Blossom Festival

Daegu - 2 days of complete and utter shambles

Gaedok Island - 2 days of a very wholesome birthday celebration

Busan - 3 months of hard freaking work and jam-packed weekends to make up for it

Highlights

Spring in Korea

I thought the fall in Korea was beautiful, but I had no idea what I was in for when spring came around. To put it simply, spring in South Korea is absolute magic. Between the cherry blossoms in the trees and the azaleas that bloom shortly after as well as the yellow canola flowers that just litter every green space, it is downright stunning.

My hay fever was at an all time high, but literally nothing could stop me from going outside every chance I got to marvel at what was taking place around me.

I also happen to live in one of the best places to see cherry blossoms in the entire city of Busan, which definitely made it even more enjoyable! I didn’t even have to take a bus to appreciate the cherry blossoms, all I had to do was look out my window. We visited the iconic Jinhae Cherry Blossom festival, where my jaw hit the ground and didn’t come off until we left; I’ve never seen anything like it! I feel very privileged to have been able to see something that bucket-list-worthy.

Buddha’s Birthday

Spring is by far the best time to visit South Korea, because as the cherry blossoms begin to fall off the trees, paper lanterns begin to be put up all over the city in celebration of Buddha’s birthday. The Buddhist temples really pop off, and they put up scaffolding that lets them absolutely cover any open area with a ceiling of brightly colored lanterns.

It was absolutely gorgeous, and something you should definitely time your visit around, if you ever have the opportunity to travel to South Korea! The best places to see these lanterns in Busan are Samgwangsa Temple and Beomeosa Temple.

Quarantine Lifting and Outdoor masks coming off

Two months ago, Korea officially got rid of the mandatory quarantine upon arrival! They were one of the very last countries to eradicate the quarantine, which made me feel very isolated. Unfortunately, flight prices from the US to South Korea are soaring upwards of 2k a piece, so although I won’t be having any visitors from home, it means I can plan a little international vacation for the 10 days I get in August, instead of spending them in Korea!

I’m so excited. I came to teach English in Korea to see this region of the world, and I have done literally nothing of the sort so far - so this just opens doors and opportunities and I can’t wait to have a break from South Korea lol! I do love it here, but it is starting to feel very small.

Celebrating officially 9.5 months in Korea and planning the next steps

To be completely honest, I’m ready to leave Korea! I’ve been here for 9.5 months, which is longer than I’ve spent out of the country than probably all of my international trips combined! While I do love South Korea for the most part and have cumulated some of the greatest friendships I’ve ever had in my life here, work is absolutely burning me out and I’m ready to move on. I have exactly 3 months left here, and I’m officially starting the countdown! I cannot wait to finish my contract.

After a huge life change (check the lowlights section) I’m rethinking literally every plan I had for the future. While lots of deadlines for things like teaching jobs in Spain or grad schools have long passed and I’m feeling worried about not having a solid plan, what I do know is that for a few months after my contract ends, I’ll be frolicking around Southeast Asia!

Planning trips is literally one of my favorite things to do, and in the midst of the exhausting work days followed by a forced workout and yet another day of cooking my dinner and eating it completely alone, there are little flutters of excitement that come from the idea of setting out on a new adventure in the next three months. It’s overwhelming and a little bit stressful thinking about money and coming home after traveling and having absolutely no plans, but at least I know what I’m doing until the end of the year: teaching through the summer, traveling through thanksgiving, and laying on my parents couch and eating my mom’s cooking through December:)

The Boat

One of the best days I’ve had in a long time came yesterday, when Victoria and I spent our Saturday on a boat! I’ve never been one to have the privilege of being on a boat all summer long like some of my friends, and this was honestly the best time ever. It was a perfect way to meet even more expats from all over Korea and just use our hard earned money to having the most relaxing, fun, carefree day. I definitely just ~needed~ a day like this, and it couldn’t have come at a better time.

We booked through Enjoy Korea, my yoga instructor’s company that plans all sorts of trips for expats in Korea. There were free drinks, two different DJ’s, a stop where we could jump off and swim, and it was perfect. 10/10 recommend if you ever find yourself teaching English in South Korea and are looking for fun things to do on the weekends!

Lowlights and LOLs

Victorias Birthday

While Buddhas birthday was fantastic, Victoria’s birthday was decidedly less so. We got all dolled up, forwent the jackets in favor of the cute outfits, and even decided that we would tough it out with cute shoes as well - something that rarely happens when you know you’re going to be standing the majority of the night and have the possibility of people spilling drinks on you. We had a nice, intimate dinner, and then headed to the bar.

Long story short, we end up at the club, Victoria’s feet have been absolutely trampled, her feet are bleeding, and she also managed to lose her phone, her all of her debit cards, her metro card, and her Alien Registration Card simultaneously.

We honestly weren’t too worried, with Korea being a very honest and safe country (one weekend our friend left her phone in the middle of the street and she still got it back!), so we hit Mcdonald’s at around 3 in the morning and decided to call a taxi. Unfortunately, with the lifting of the curfew and outdoor mask requirement being lifted in South Korea, everyone is hitting the bars and the clubs. And let me just say this: when I say everyone, I mean EVERYONE.

There we were, no jackets, in mini skirts and heels, calling a taxi and fighting literally hundreds of other people who were also requesting taxis. We consistently called a taxi on the app for 3 hours, before we decided to just head to the subway and wait for the first train at 5:40 am. Everyone else was fine, but I was crying like an absolute loser bc not being in my bed by at least 2am is literally the most stressful thing for me for some reason LOL.

We got on the train and went a few stops before Victoria declared we were going the wrong way. We get off the train, try to go through the gate where you don’t swipe your metro card (as at this point Victoria has a single ticket that we bought her by literally counting our pennies due to the loss of her metro card, so she literally couldn’t swipe if she tried), and subsequently landed ourselves in subway jail.

Very long story cut short, Joy had a meltdown and verbally assaulted the workers, they decided it was too early to be dealing with us, they let us go, we realized we actually WEREN’T headed in the wrong direction, waited for yet another train, and ended up at Victorias house, cold and with our bloody feet, at 7:30 in the morning, after trying to get home for nearly 4 and a half hours.

It was a NIGHTMARE in the moment, but now it’s hilarious. 0/10 will never happen again.

Oh, and she never got her stuff back.

Hair Dye Fiasco

So obviously I live in a country where natural blonde hair is a little hard to come by, So when my highlighted roots started to grow out, I started panicking a little bit. When it got to the point that they were absolutely atrocious, I started looking for a salon that specialized in blonde hair - and I didn’t want to have to travel all the way to Seoul for it, as hair appointments are already expensive enough as-is. Surprisingly, some people on a Facebook page recommended one that was actually very close to me!

Also surprisingly, they quoted me 400,000 won to do my roots, which is about 370 dollars. for ROOTS. I’ve had a less expensive full head, hand-painted balayage. Shocked, I went back to facebook, asking the “women of Busan” if that price was normal for hair salons here, and respectfully asked for another recommendation, as I am broke broke. I put down my phone and went to sleep.

I woke up to the hair salon threatening to sue me for defamation, and after a horrifyingly fake apology message on facebook, I decided to cut my losses and just head to a Korean hair salon that a friend recommended to me (my mistake was that this friend has never gotten her hair actually dyed there before).

There, in the Korean hair salon, they slathered my hair in bleach, washed it out, and sent me on my way with bright yellow hair. Not blonde - YELLOW. After a SHAMEFUL 30 minute subway journey home, multiple purple shampoo washes that actually turned some particularly porous spots of hair blue, and 3 weeks, it is looking decent.

I know it doesn’t seem like much, but it really affected my self-confidence and had me feeling terrible for a really long time! I will, from now on, be journeying up to Seoul to get my hair dyed. If you would like to contribute to the train ticket, the “buy me a coffee” button in the sidebar will let you do so LOL.

The End of an Era

Unfortunately, these past two months have been some of the hardest months of my life, due to the end of my long-distance relationship. Obviously I’m not getting into any details, as there’s still nothing but love between us, but sometimes things just end, no matter how much you love the person. All at once, I lost my boyfriend, my best friend, my future plans, the person I call when anything remotely exciting or bad happened to me, and the past month has felt so empty without our hour long Facetime calls in the mornings. Now I just sit on the floor with my coffee, all alone.

Heartbreak is never easy, but being 7,500 miles away from a hug from my mom or dad makes it a thousand times worse. With the end of the relationship also came the task of rethinking literally every plan I had for my future, and although I’ve been lucky enough to never have struggled with anxiety until now, I’m finding myself having to step into the bathroom at work to simply remind myself to breath. I’m feeling very lost, I feel like my future has never been this uncertain, and it’s just not a feeling that I wake up looking forward to.

I’m doing my best to remind myself that everything happens for a reason and to trust God through the times of uncertainty, but I don’t think I’ve ever struggled like this before:( Doing my best to find joy in every day but finding it is much harder than it used to be.

Fitness

Instead of what most people do in the midst of heartbreak (start going to the gym), I, Unfortunately, have done quite the opposite. I’ve really fallen out of love with fitness, which is definitely not where I wanted to be with summer literally a few days away, but I have been making moves to get myself back on track! I’ve started doing new things and pushing myself to do things I don’t really like, so that when I accomplish them I make myself really proud.

For example, my record on the stair master used to be 11 minutes (pathetic, I know), but now I’m pushing myself to do 20-25 minutes at least twice a week, as I really never used to do any cardio in addition to weightlifting! I’ve gotten so bored of weights so that’s taken a back burner, but I started doing ashtanga yoga which is really intense and builds upper body strength really quickly.

I love my yoga teacher and I’ve made lots of other expat friends through her class! Ashtanga yoga is definitely something I see myself continuing with in the future, I really have a desire to be able to do all of the really advanced postures and jump-throughs and inversions! I would love to become yoga teacher certified but only want to do a training like that when I’m really happy with where my practice is at, so I’ll keep that going.

Blog

Okay so there’s good news and bad news with the blog. The bad news is that google will literally refuse to accept my blog into their ad network due to “low value content”, which is really upsetting and frustrating, as I have a lot of helpful posts that people read and love and use to plan their own trips. I also put a lot of work into creating good, original content for you guys! Ads are a huge way blogs make money, so I’m really discouraged with that and don’t really know how to fix it. If anyone has any tips, I’m literally desperate!

But the good news is this: I got my first comped hotel stay!!!! In July, I’m working with this amazing hotel in Busan that I pitched in March, and I’m going to be writing a blog post and posting on instagram in return for a night staying in the penthouse suite of their hotel! I’m literally so excited, It’s a brand I can put on my media kit to show other hotels in the future, and it shows that I really can do this! I’m very excited, so keep an eye out for that post and be sure to show it some love!

Additionally, I made my first affiliate sale this month! I made a whole $9.91 CENTS PEOPLE!! Obviously it’s literally the smallest amount of money, but hopefully as travel starts to make a comeback, lots of people will choose to book their travels through my links. (easily found through the resources tab on my navigation bar for when you book a trip! No cost to you but means literally everything to me). Hopefully I can keep this up and start to make more and more as the months pass.

What’s Next

What’s next? I have the summer left here in Busan, with and exciting 10 days of vacation in August. We’re thinking that we might spend that vacation in Japan, and we’re in the trip planning phase of that! (Maybe I can get a comped hotel stay there haha!). Three more months left in Korea, three more months left at this stressful job, and then some really exciting adventures coming up from September until Thanksgiving! Stay tuned:)