So my contract is over on September 3rd. I was suppose to come back but it is not happening. Not until I experience fall and winter here anyway. I didn't think I would like living in Seoul as much as I do.
I have had friends say to me, "I get so bored in Korea after a month, how are you wanting to stay?" You get bored because you stay with relatives and need to see your extended family half of your stay. Living here is a whole different animal. There are a million bars and clubs to go to (OK fine, Korea's weakness is that there is not a whole lot to do for fun besides drinking but this sits fine with me), amazing restaurants, a thousand places to shop for boutique clothing, cool areas to hang out, a few cultural things. What more do I need? It is like NYC with healthier food, cheaper but well designed clothing, and a skyline that allows me to see the sun and the moon in the sky (gasp!).
The thought of getting a masters in education and moving here to be a professor has crossed my mind. I would be paid amazingly well in a city with a cheap cost of living (besides rent which is on a NYC level). Peter, in an effort to quickly kill this idea in my mind, said I would be leaving NY to be a big fish in a little pond. Offended, because Seoul is not a little pond. Seoul is the 8th most populous city in the world, more people than Tokyo, Beijing, NYC, London, Hong Kong, Berlin, Madrid, Paris. Offended because no one would say London is a little pond. Although if you take size, population density, and some other factors into account we go down the list. Let's just say size of a city is dependant solely on population for arguments sake. Go to the top of Seoul Tower and you would know Seoul is not a little pond at all.
New Yorkers have the tendency to think NY is the best. I admit I am guilty of this as well. We like to think that the world revolves around NY. John Updike has said, "The true New Yorker secretly believes that anyone living anywhere else must somehow, in a sense, be kidding." Speaking like a true New Yorker. While I still cannot say that Seoul is better than NY on a coolness level (because let's be real, there is no city as unique or diverse as NYC) there are, dare I say, other livable cities (shocker), Seoul being one of them.
So due to my surprising compatibility with Seoul, the thought of leaving American forever and becoming a lifer has been an appealing idea as of late. Peter's little pond argument didn't quite work. However, the next morning after this discussion with the boy, I woke up craving a bagel with cream cheese. A real bagel with cream cheese. A toasted sesame bagel with an inch and a half of cream cheese and maybe with a little lox sprinkled in. The day after that I really just wanted a slice of pizza, not a whole pie from Mr Pizza with sweet potato on it (although it is delicious). So while I guess you can take the girl out of NY, you can't take the NY out of the girl. I follow where my stomach takes me and ultimately it needs more variety, it's the spice of life.
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