Good times.

Going back to the UK tomorrow and the last two weeks have been an awesome and valuable experience. Family and friends, places, sights and sounds, it's been so eventful it seems like a month has passed. Genuinely sad to have to go back but miss things about our home aswell. It's not the place I miss at all, just our own space and stuff, which could just as easily be anywhere. No need to get attached to a place but you do need a comfortable space to unwind.
It's a real shame that in the UK all the wealth and opportunity has been shifted well away from younger generations, as paying through the nose for eveything to support everybody from rich baby boomer landlords to pennyless layabouts gets tiring.

Just like old times.

We've met a lot of friends and relatives over the last two weeks including few old friends we have met in both the UK and Korea over the last few years. Two of those friends, one from France and one from Poland now live here permanently and it's strange to think we will be going back to the UK in a few days whilst they'll still be here when Spring comes, then Summer, Autumn and then Winter again. I feel very pleased that they've done so well in getting settled in Seoul and also slightly envious because life here seems so exciting. It's also most certainly tiring at the same time, but then where isn't these days?

After meeting and spending a lot of time with all our relatives in Seoul, I can start to feel more that I am part of their family. I'm just realising now that, subconciously, because of the distance and cultural differences I had not really felt that as well as my wife joining my family I had also joined hers. Now we kkow so many people in Korea it feels like a second home.

Adjustment.

Adjusting to life in an alien culture is always difficult. Whilst I've been living and working in the UK the time I spent in Asia seems at times just a dream, yet the reality is I have spent a lot of time in East Asia and that makes adjustment much easier. That's not to say there is no culture shock though, there's always something new to surprise and challenge you when you leave your comfort zone behind.
When we live our lives we don't always realise it but we spend much of our time becoming attached to things we find make us comfortable and push away things we don't like. That's how we build our comfort zones and we feel discomfort when they are challenged or we step too far out. So, it's nice to have things around us that make us at ease but the problem with becoming strongly attached to impermenant things such as places, people, possessions and even our own health is that the harder we try to hold on to them the less peaceful we feel as we know that however hard we try we will not be able to keep things the same forever. It is greed to try to do so and we become unable to actually enjoy the simple things in life such as the sound of the breeze in the trees or the rise of the sun in the morning as our minds are elsewhere, thinking about how we will afford certain things or what if so and so happens... this is not a pleasant state. Our mind and our attention is normally anywhere but on what we are actually doing so that we almost never notice that we are breathing or feel the ground beneath our feet. Why would that even matter we ask? Because when the mind is focused on these simple realities is the only time we feel truly at ease and have a peaceful heart. Everyone has lay on a beach and just listened to the sea or sat on a bench and looked at the grass and felt peaceful and happy for no reason other than that simple experience. Although usually it is just a matter of seconds before the next thought pops into our heads and takes us away again.
So, going out of your comfort zone is very good for you. Whilst the process of detatchment can be uncomfortable and even painful at times, it is also liberating and allows us to grow. A little bit at a time though, as it's easy to push yourself too far in one go.
Our comfort zones are at times also our prison boundaries, and our attachments are a source of future suffering.

What have I been up to in Korea the past few days? Been to a ski resort near the East coast, did some night time snowboarding, got a dodgy stomach from East Asian water and spent the whole second day of skiing in bed, recovered, visited naksansa temple on the third day and even made it onto the beach (very cold though!) then came back to Seoul. Done a lot of visiting relatives and friends and got a busy a busy schedule of more of the same for the last three days.

Food.

I've eaten so much delicious food in the last week It will be hard to go back to sandwiches for lunch everyday again.
Going to the ski resort tomorrow!!

-15!!

It's been cold and this morning it's -15 outside...

Snow!

On Tuesday I visited the place where I lived for three months in 2009. The area is called Sinchon and underneath my apartment there was a very good fish restaurant that I used to eat in often, so I had lunch there.
After that I did some shopping at Coex mall and I was going to walk around Bongeunsa temple, however it began snowing so heavily that I decided to stay in the mall before going to meet up with the others for dinner.
Because of the snow we changed the restaurant and I had to go to the other side of Seoul but it was great to see the city covered in snow on the way, especially the whole of the Han river frozen and covered in snow.

Seoul in the winter!

Had a great first full day back in Seoul (Monday). Tina has business meetings all of this week but we had some time in the morning so we went and got my haircut and had an early lunch. Since I spent a long time in Seoul before, despite it being such a different culture and country everything seems quite familiar, as though I have only been away a few weeks. It feels fascinating to experience how the mind processes the experience of living in different places, how it becomes more flexible and accepting of new surroundings and new ways of doing things. You realise that the world is much bigger than the small bubbles of comfort zones we like to create for ourselves in daily life, and how breaking out of them does you a world of good.

We are staying at Tina's sister's house which they have just moved into a week ago. I have found out that ' ondol' (the under floor heating system in Korea) is wonderful. The whole floor in the house acts as the radiator and sitting and sleeping on a warm floor when it's cold outside is lovely.

Also on Monday, by an amazing chance of fate I met Hyunwoo Sun and the other staff who work on the Korean language learning websites I have been using for the past few years. To bump into them in such a big and busy city is nothing short of amazing and later on Tina and I went to their language practice group at a coffee shop in Hongdae.

It's great to be able to spend time with Tina's family and they have made us very comfortable. It feels exciting to be in such a lively and energising city, with young people everhwhere and so many things to do. However you have to contrast that feeling with the fact that life here is tough when you are working, and that the reason everything from floors to public services is so clean, modern and efficient is because people are working very hard. Things generally don't work very well in the UK but that's because people are relaxed/lazy/not doing tons of unpaid overtime, which may well be a good thing (except the laziness which is an unfortunate offshoot of a relaxed culture in some people!)