Going with the flow

It's been a helluva few days. As I said in my last couple posts, there was the brief possiblity that I might have gone home early. To be honest, I'd love to come home early because I've completed everything I came here to do - my interviews, B-roll (although you can never have too much B-roll), visiting friends and places. If it weren't for Chang's unfortunate situation with his students, I'd be on my way to traveling to other parts and seeing other interesting things. So instead I'm here in Ulsan until Friday, then hopping a bus to Seoul on Friday and staying there two nights to catch my plane back on Sunday.

Over and over again a theme has presented itself during this trip, and actually even before the trip itself. When I let go of any and all illusions of controlling the events and the outcomes, amazing things happen! Serendipity befalls me when I put out the "call" to the universe and let things happen the way they happen. Now this should come as no surprise to me. Five years ago, when I was first contemplating the idea of coming to Korea for a year, I asked one of my Buddhist teachers, a Tibetan lama, if it would be a good thing for me to do. He said I needed to allow the situation to arise and go with the path that felt the most natural. In other words, stop trying to over-think it and control it, and go with what feels natural. It's not a "throw your hands up in the air and stop thinking" approach, nor is it a meandering go where your nose leads you sort of approach, although at times it resembles that. It's more like knowing that I want to have a good expeience, asking for the experience to present itself, and then being open to the experience coming in a form maybe I wasn't expecting.

This is crucial to having a successful life, and particularly a successful life in Korea, I feel. There are so many last minute changes here - it looks like utter chaos to a Westerner, but to a Korean it seems to be life as normal. Fighting it, complaining about it, getting steamed over it will only make it worse. Now if it happens to cross the line of personal integrity, that's one thing, but in general, finding a way to be flexible is the best way to find happiness here.

Today I went to the sauna (the hot-spring fed public bath) and it was a bit of a challenge to find it. I asked directions of the hotel staff and three different sets of people on the street. Once I was inside, it wasn't 100% comfortable because of course everyone's staring at me, and not to put too fine a point on it, but western female bodies are generally more, um, padded, than Korean bodies. Korean women dont' have much in the way of hips and bums. Anyway, point is, I was clearly an outsider - but no one was rude to me and the woman who worked there was very helpful. As I was soaking in the bath (I can't tell you how wonderful it feels!) it occurred to me that maybe there was some reason I'm still in Korea.

Not necessarily some cosmic reason, but maybe there was still something I need to do here for myself. At the least, I'm not going to waste the time I've got here, even if I don't feel there's much purpose in it. Anyway, I will be open to the possibilities that my last 3 days in Korea might bring. Maybe this is my vacation and I shouldn't squander it!

For example - yesterday I did some shopping and general hanging about during the day, trying to figure out how I was going to spend these last few days. I got a text message on my phone from one of the teachers I'd interviewed in Seoul. This is the holiday season, so a lot of people travel - he had just arrived in Ulsan from an overnight stay in Kyungju and needed a recommendation for a place to stay. I did my best to direct him to an area that would have a good, clean, cheap place for a night, and then after he got settled in, we went for dinner (Japanese sushi/sashimi) and a couple good beers in probably the only place in Ulsan that serves really good beer (German, Belgian, English, Irish, etc.). We talked about religion and the meaning of life - what better way to spend an evening as two foreigners! We also stopped into the pub that used to be my old hangout here, called "The Royal Anchor." It was absolutely empty when we got there, and we ordered Irish Coffees (with Baileys) and hung out for a bit. Some Koreans straggled in, but clearly the oegugin (way-gugin -- Korean word for foreigner) crowd was all on holiday traveling around Korea.

So the moral of the story is -- don't stress, don't force, don't try to control. Maybe there are goals to be achieved, but be open to the ways in which those goals might be attained. Go with what feels most natural and right in the moment. And don't squander the moment because it's not something you've been able to define according to some set of expectations!