A nice cup of tea and a sit down.

I have three more weeks in Korea before I begin a nice, meandering trip home via Australia, Amsterdam and the UK, and as the departure date draws closer I find myself remembering my last trip home.
There was a single activity which highlighted more clearly than anything else, just how long and how far I had been from home.
It was the humble cup of tea.

Irish people take our tea very seriously.  We are very fussy about the tea itself  and while the ritual of making the tea may lack the aesthetics of, say, a Japenese Tea Ceremony, make no mistake - it IS a ritual.

Irish people drink more tea per capita than any other country in the world. Think about that for a minute.  We drink more tea than the Chinese, the Japanese, even more than the English for crying out loud!
Though now that I am living in Asia, I think this is explained by the fact that in the U.K and Ireland when we say tea, what we really mean is black tea, whereas here in Asia you can make tea out of anything even vaguely botanical. So while we beat them out drinking black tea, they have the market cornered in consumption of say, Chrysanthemum or Quince teas.
The blends we drink in Ireland are mostly Indian and Kenyan teas which are very high in tannins. This makes for a very strong tea to which we add milk and often, sugar. A notion that would have most Asians turning green at the gills.

The ritual comes into the making of the tea itself. Now, most households in the Northern Europe know how to make a decent cup of tea, but my parents elevated it to an art form. A precise dance of intricate and measured steps.

First, boil the kettle and choose a teapot of a size appropriate for your party. My Dad, the Science teacher, drilled us that  while making tea the kettle should only be boiled once - as each successive boiling reduces the oxygen content of the water and oxygen is necessary to draw the tannins from the tea leaves. ( I DID say that my parents take tea seriously, right?!)

The very second the kettle boils, pour some of the water into your teapot and swirl it around - thus 'scalding the pot'. This must be done quickly and deftly (it's all in the wrist). You want to heat the pot while not taking so long that the water has gone fully off the boil.

Put one or two scoops of tea leaves into the pot. In our house, tea bags are for sad losers who drink alone.
Fill the teapot, place it on the pot stand, cover with the tea cosy and leave to 'brew'.

While the tea is brewing, gather the rest of the required paraphernalia; the cups, milk, sugar and of course something to eat.

In the words of my grandfather, "You can't ate tae without bread!"

To have a cup of tea in one hand and no cut of cake, no bit of brack, not  even a fig roll biscuit in the other hand..... well! That's simply unthinkable! Barbarous, even!

By now the tea is well brewed to the color of aged amber. The next step in the ritual is serving it up just how everyone likes it.
This is done with knowledge which has accreted though the thousands of tea ceremonies which have gone before.
Who likes the first cup out of the pot? Who insists on having the last and therefore strongest cup?
Who likes the milk to be poured in the cup first and who likes no milk at all - though I hesitate to even type that last option, as it happens so rarely.
We brew our tea so strong that drinking it without milk is hardly feasible.

Once that mysterious alchemy has been performed the cups must be handed around according to a subtle hierarchy. This might explain why the Irish, when we actually bother ourselves, are quite good at diplomacy. Years of figuring out who gets the good china cup and the first serving without starting a family feud makes more overt forms of negotiation a cake walk.

Once the tea has been dispensed, it's back to refill the kettle for round two: The Hot Sup.  Good hospitality dictates that when the cup is down to the last quarter, it must be refilled with fresh, hot tea, because in Ireland, no one ever drinks just one cup!

Unfortunately for me, after two years of drinking delicate infusions of hibiscus blossom or chrysanthemum tea and various other blooms - whom I had previously only encountered in the titles of the more artsy kind of martial arts films - my ability to appreciate (i.e. cope with) tannins in all their glory, has been almost entirely eroded.
One Lyons teabag, which for any other Irish person will make one cup of tea, will do me for four!

Last Sunday I was at my sisters place and when she offered me a cup of Irish tea I asked her to simply dip the bag in my cup and then use it to make her own cup.
She physically recoiled in horror and the look of revulsion on her face was priceless - her nose wrinkles so adorably!

And this is why, for the three weeks I am home in Ireland, I will be making every pot of tea in EVERY house I set foot in - all the better to avoid lengthly explanations and the look of uncomprehending horror at my drinking tea which my Grandmother would delicately dismiss as 'maiden's water'!
Or as my father would say, "It's too weak to climb out of the pot!".

Or maybe I'll just stick to coffee!

Fear Factor

Fear. It's a curious beast. 
An action which may seem mundane and positively ho hum to one person will give the next person a serious case of the heebie jeebies.

Take my friend Martha* for example.  Martha is intelligent, vivacious and awesomely confindent.
When she finishes her time in Korea she will return home to set up TWO new businesses.
And yet, this powerful, independent go-getter would rather gnaw off her own foot than speak in public.

For myself, speaking in public is no problem at all. At school, on stage, in church, anywhere at all - I'll start declaming at the drop of a hat.
(if that hat could have small denominations dropped into it, well, so much the better!)
On the other hand, ask me to approach a stranger on the street to ask for directions in a foreign language, and you'll find me in the corner with Martha.....gnawing on my own foot.

For years I dreamed of moving to France, particularly to the south east, the Langue D'Oc region. 
It is a country where I speak the language (functionally), where I know the food and the history, the legends and the customs. It is a simple two hour flight from home - and yet, I kept back pedalling and postponing, telling myself, "Next year in Carcassone!"
I was afraid that my french wasn't good enough, that I wouldn't, simply couldn't, make it on my own.
"What?! Stand in front of a classroom and teach english?! And demand payment for these paltry services?! Are you mad??" 
"Rent an apartment and pay bills in another country!" That is something that grown ups can do.
I am not a grown up!  My fraud would be discovered in no time.

So I dickered about the British Isles for a few years instead, doing nonsense jobs that I wasn't particularly interested in, because I was too scared to risk following my dream and failing.

Time passed, plans fell apart, and this contrary pilgrim who is too scared to move to France, where does she end up?

Korea!!

A country where I didn't read the alphabet, much less speak the language. 
I didn't know the food or the history, the legends or the customs. And this patch of ground is a two DAY flight from home. 
In fact, so vast was my ignorance of this country that I can tell you precisely what I knew about it before coming here.
Four things.
That's it.
I knew four things about a country the size of the United Kingdom and with a history spanning thousands of years.  (hangs head in shame)
"And which four gems were these?" I hear you ask. Which four nuggets of wisdom had I garnerd on my way?

1. Korea is a country divided by war into North and South.
2. Korea hosted the 1988 Olympics in Seoul.
3. Korean high school students place very high in mathematics in international league tables. (Honestly, the flotsam and jetsom that sticks in your head from talk radio!)
4. My Dad's Korean student told him that the Koreans were the Irish of Asia - but didn't explain why.  (Then I got here and discovered, oh boy! Was she ever on the money!)

How on earth I found the courage to do this, when I spent years bottling out of the easier option, is a mystery I am still trying to unravel.
Though I suspect it has a lot to do with the fact that when I my original plans fell apart and I found myself applying for jobs absolutely everywhere in the world, I was simply too worn down to be scared.

When I tell people how I ended up in Korea, and that I could never have guessed in a million years how I would fall head over heels in love with the place, I often finish by remarking how much I relish that life can surprise me like this.

Perhaps though, what I really mean is that I love that I can surprise myself.

For here I am, on the other side of the world.

Without fear.

Flourishing.


* names have been changed to protect the innocent.

To have another language is to possess a second soul. Charlemagne

I received an e-mail this morning from a shiny, new friend, who shared something hugely and incredibly significant. (No, I'm not going to tell you what it was!) With just three short sentences I was left feeling impressed, awed, humbled and honoured.
It got me to thinking yet again, about that subject which is closest to every writer's heart - communication.

We writers have this foolish conviction, this hope masquerading as arrogance, that we have something worth saying. Something that someone out there will respond to. So we hone our skills and polish our words, before hurtling them into cyberspace. It's why every single one of us update our Facebook status with everything from the mundane, the bizarre and the downright random. We hope to connect, to hear, "Really?!", or better still, "Me too!"

This morning's email brought to a head something I have been mulling over for a while now. The message was so short, yet so effective that it brought me face to face with my gnawing inability to do the same in the language of my newly adopted home. For the past week in particular I have been increasingly frustrated by my lack of Korean.
Mostly because I have been measuring myself with the wrong yardstick. By that I mean that I have been comparing my current rate of learning with previous experiences in Europe - somehow managing to completely discount the fact that having learned both French and German in school, I had a whopping great head start for assimilating any European language I found myself in need of.
Nah, that would have been far too rational. Instead I was beating myself over the head with the aforementioned yardstick, telling myself that after four and a half months in any country in Europe I would be damn near fluent, not the stuttering idiot I am over here! From that perspective, my tiny cache of Korean words looks pathetically insignificant.

To the staff at my school, and various other Koreans I converse with regularly however, I am making incredibly impressive progress. Beauty is indeed in the eye of the beholder!
Though I deeply suspect that they are judging me not on liguistics alone but rather on my assimilation into Korean culture as a whole,
Now on that head I do feel quite proud of myself.

I can say 'Hello' in three different levels of politeness and these days automatically bow instead of shaking hands.
I know my eating and drinking etiquette and which inoffensive Western hand gestures are considered rude here.
I watch Korean dramas (fairly obsessively it must be admitted) and listen to Korean pop music - I even have my own Korean party piece for the Norae Bang!
I have started learning Tae Kwon Do and speak of my future in Korea in terms of several years rather than the standard 12 months.

I even eat the dried squid!!

All of this seems to add up to a case of my actions speaking for me when I myself cannot.

I am grateful that I can offer these gestures of good intent to my Korean colleagues; tiny acts of gratitude for their endless warmth, grace and generosity. But for an Irish girl who fattens on conversation like it was good red meat, this is a paltry consolation.

I want to speak with the women I work with - I want harmless chats about our favourite Korean actors and singers and deep, long talks about the differences and similarities of our cultures. We both come from colonised countries which were divided in civil war: add some beer and soju to that conversation and we've got ourselves an all-nighter!

In September I will begin a four month course in Korean at Ulsan University. Boy am I ever looking forward to the competence I'll have by Christmas!

Travelling to Korea has been by far the biggest adventure of my life time. I have moved entire continents beyond my comfort zone and yet landed into a state of unremitting happiness that I have never known before. The greatest cause of wonder to me is that, as deliriously happy as I am here right now - I know, that I know, that I know, this is just the beginning.

Once I have a way to fully and meaningful communicate with everyone around me.............wow! How my world here will open up!

And since you've stayed with me for the whole post - away and make a cup of tea for yourself!

Etiquette and Dried Squid

For the last few days, I have been pondering two topics that are vitally important for any tourist, traveller or indeed pilgrim: manners and food.

Let's start with manners - it should go without saying that the first thing which should be packed into your suitcase (metaphorically speaking) is a sense of tolerance, or at the very least, the ability to take a breath and count to ten before reacting to a situation.
If asked to differentiate between a tourist and a traveller, most people would probably say timespan. 'Tourists' head away for weekend and fortnight breaks while 'Traverller' has long term connotations.
For me, however, the difference between the two has always been that of attitude rather than duration. I don't want to wax too philosophically about this, so I will try and be brief!
It seems to me that the Tourist goes somewhere to relax and collect photos, sights and souvenirs as if they were on a scavenger hunt. This is probably coming off as derogatory, but it is not I assure you, I have been a tourist myself in the past and will again in the future - in fact my best tourist experiences were in my own capital city!

In my book - which has often been wildly different to everyone else's - the Traveller goes in search, not of souvenirs, but of insight. What makes a culture tick? How are we different? How are we the same?

This coming Saturday I will have been in South Korea for a sum total of eight weeks and in that time I have found tolerance and simple manners to be invaluable allies for a smooth transition.

Now, don't let the word 'smooth' fool you. I'm not some sort of Zen Travel Master who can move effortlessly and seamlessly around the world! It's been eight weeks and I still haven't crossed the threshold of a Post Office (that's a story for another day) and on Saturday I travel down to Jirisan for some hiking and that will involve....gulp.....getting from Ulsan to Daejeon on several types of public transport all by myself!

Where was I? Oh yes, manners! Mail and trains aside, those are phantoms of my own brain. When it comes to actual relations with actual Koreans, I'm playing a blinder!
This is because as a seasoned and dedicated Traveller, I pay attention to the details.
I am painfully and incredibly slowly learning Korean.
My pronunciation is probably excerable, but they are so delighted that I am making the effort, that even while they are laughing at me, I can see how pleased they are.
I hand my money to the till assistant in my right hand, while gripping my right forearm with my left hand. ( I don't know why they do this, but I do not need to know, a simple case of 'When in Rome....')
I bow slightly when greeting people, older, in authority, or simply because they have bowed first!

And segueing gracefully into my second topic, the biggest area for displaying your manners or lack thereof is at the dinner table.

I remember when I was about nine or ten, my Uncle Jim explaining to me that one should always accept food gracefully, and even if you think it is hideous, don't let your face reveal it. Be polite, and swallow! I have no earthly recollection why we were having such a conversation, but Uncle Jim had been to deepest, darkest Africa and therefore was the authority on eating strange food politely! That lesson stuck in my head and I have to say it's reaping dividends here in Korea.

At our Hagwon (private school) a cooked lunch is provided for the staff everyday by a very skilled Cook. For the first six weeks I was eating meals of which I recognised about 20% of the food. I plunged in gamely and soon had the Cook, via a translator, complimenting me on my chopstick skills and asking if the food in Ireland was like this, because I was eating so well!
Slowly I am starting to recognise the food, and lovable, beady-eyed Cook is quick to notice what I like and serve it up again! Sometimes though, knowing what the food is, only makes it stranger, so far I have eaten:

• three kinds of seaweed
• a salad leaf which in Europe is considered a roadside weed
• tree shoots - boiled - I kid you not!
  
• mountain bracken - surprisingly tasty
  
• cubes of acorn jelly - tricky blighters to pick up with chopsticks!
• a curry that no Indian on the planet would recognise
• sweet potato noodles

Today at lunchtime, I hit the jackpot. Sticking to my policy of eating and then asking, I dived into one of the seafood side dishes. Twelve hours later my mouth drools at the mere thought of it! It was delicious! I asked what it was - dried squid in thanhchan sauce (the sauce used in Bibimbap - Korean stir fried rice dish).
I love squid, but if I had been told before eating, the word 'dried' would have conjured up images of chewing leather, and I would have left it after me.

Not only did I get to meet my new favourite dish, I quite unwittingly earned the obvious and loud approval of everyone at the table. They are used to, and approve of, me trying everything, but that I should so clearly and unmistakably like this seemed to warrant an undue amount of congratulation.
To be honest, I thought they were overdoing it a bit!
My co-teacher Lucy explained that Ulsan, being a coastal city, is naturally big on all kinds of seafood but that all the previous foreign teachers didn't like the squid.
Aaaaahhhh, so it was the rarity value provoking the outpouring of approbation!

Lucy complimented me, saying "Oh, you have a very Asian taste!" I was able to tell her that I had eaten squid quite a bit in Europe, that it is popular in Spain, France and Italy, just that I had never had it dried.

So there you have it peeps, with manners and an iron stomach you will never fail to win friends and influence people!

Ciao for now!

Road Trip!

Oh boy! Have I ever been living up to the 'Accidental' part of my name again!

Those who have known me long and well are very familiar with my periodic inability to cope with (translation: read) timetables and generally assimilate travel related information.
Bit of a handicap for a girl whose major passion in life is travel! I had worked hard to overcome this disability and over the past few years had made good progress - I was even becoming used to the comfort and stress free feeling of being seated on a train ten minutes BEFORE the departure time, rather then jumping into the carriage as it pulled out of the station 'a la Indiana Jones'.

Sadly, last September I suffered a major relapse and arrived at the airport in Bratislava two hours early......and one day late.
But that is nothing compared to the snafus which have occurred over the last 48 hrs.
On Thursday night I was booking my flight from London to Edinburgh with EasyJet. I duly entered the route I wanted and the date I wished to travel. That done I scrolled through the offered flights paying particular attention to departure times. I picked the flight I wanted, bought it and went to write down the flight reservation number...........leaving at 7.15, great, number written down, fine, departing Mar 01 - wtf??!!
That's Tuesday! I wanted Monday, I clearly requested Monday the 28th!
Crap!
*Sigh* Well, it was 11 at night and I had to be up at 4.30am the next morning to catch my 5.30 train to Dublin, so I decided to wait till I was in Cardiff, then contact EasyJet and find out how much it would cost to rectify my error.

So the next day, Friday morning I get my train and head towards Dublin, feeling so tired I'm nauseous and my head feels like it's in a vice. Careful and slow consumption of Sprite and tea had me feeling relatively human by the time I arrived at Heuston station at 8.
However, by the time I was shuffling up the platform I was also in dire need of a loo! So I detoured towards the toilets only to discover that the entry price had rocketed from 20c to 30c.
I only had 20c on me.
Frick! Now I need to go get change. *sigh* Off I trudge to Supermacs, figuring if I have to spend some money I might as well get some food out of it!
I order the 'SuperBreakfast', though I only manage half of it before I'm forced by my bladder to desert breakfast and return to the toilets.
At least this time I have sufficient change.......but wait, what's this sign I see before me?
An 'Out of Order' notice taped to the turnstile. Beside it is a propped open door allowing customers free entry.
AAAArrrrrrggggggghhhhhh!!!!!!! You mean I didn't need the blasted change!!! I could have gone to the loo and then eaten ALL of my breakfast in peace??!!!

FECK!!!!

Ablutions taken care of, I head for the Airport Bus and arrive at Dublin Airport in good time at 9am. Sadly, here is where I continue to be accident prone. It's my first time at the airport since the opening of Terminal Two, so I'm keeping my eyes peeled to try and figure out where I need to get off the bus. My print out from the Aer Lingus booking leaving me none the wiser.
We pass Terminal Two first and Aer Lingus is clearly marked as being one of the airlines, so I get out here.
Once inside I check out the departure board and find my flight to Cardiff.

10.00 Cardiff Go to Terminal 1.


Are you kidding me!!!!

Off I go in search of a yellow jacket - find a member of staff who gives me directions and off I trudge to Terminal 1. I get there and find the Aer Lingus check in desk, which is unmanned. Try to check in at the Fast Pass machine, but have no joy there either, so then I go to the Aer Lingus Information desk to see what's occurrin'.

"You've missed your flight."
"What?? It's 9.15! The flight is at 10.00!!"
"Yes, but the check in desk closes 45 mins before take off, but as you're here before actual take off, for a mere €75 I can book you a seat on the next available flight!"
"And when is that?" (I ask warily)
"3pm"
"Just for kicks, how much would it cost to change my flight from Cardiff to Edinburgh?"
"€75 as well, and that flight leaves at 2pm."

At this stage I'm sore from kicking myself and wondering if it wouldn't be easier just to go straight to Scotland. I spend ten minutes weighing my options (can't take too long, cos I have to get it sorted before my booked flight leaves the tarmac) and decide that I don't want to miss seeing my mates in Cardiff, Salisbury and London, so I go back and fork over the money to change my flight.

Then settle on a seat in the lounge to while away the hours.
Thank God for my Amazon Kindle!
On the bright side I get some badly needed sleep for an hour.
Well, I say sleep,....... I mean doze, .........well, sit for an hour with my eyes closed.


Whatever, it was badly needed time out.

Come boarding time, I was in for another shock - turns out that while technically an Aer Lingus flight, they had contracted out the Aer Arann (hence the hike to Terminal 1).
They were putting us on a baby plane! It had propellers and only one door!

One of the fellow passengers made a Buddy Holly comment which was totally uncalled for and did nothing to help me nurture a sense of adventure about the affair. Then I was seated in the very first row, which had me thinking:
"Meep! If anything happens I'm toast!"
But actually it turned out to be a good thing, cos I reckon if I had been seated behind the propellors I'd have been deafened for life!

So what with one thing and another I finally got the Cardiff Central Station at 5.30 and got see my former flat mates for the first time in 18 months!

All's well that ends well!