interesting stories while living abroad

right now M & i are on our way to manhattan, getting ready to take over the city. we may never come back ;) today, chelsea is taking over my blog once again. it's no secret that her blog is one of my favorites, so i might be biased when i say -- if you haven't met chelsea, you must be living under a rock -- kidding, but seriously, make sure you head over to her blog & say hey! today she's sharing some interesting {& hilarious!} stories from her years of living in korea. be prepared to laugh & become instant friends with chelsea, like i did :)

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Hey there! I’m Chelsea and I blog over at Lost in Travels. While Laurie is off exploring NYC with her man (I admit I'm a tad bitter she's not on a plane to see me in Korea right now!), I thought that I would share a little bit about myself and some of my most...interesting stories from living abroad. First things first. A backstory. After my man and I got hitched two years ago we started getting cold sweats every time we thought about ‘settling down’. You know, buy a car, a house, start making mini me’s. The things that I always thought that I would be chomping at the bit to do. So what did we do instead? Sold all of our belongings that wouldn’t fit in two 50-pound bags and took the first flight to South Korea to teach English to snot nosed adorable little kids. So as you can imagine, living and traveling abroad can be a good source for lots of interesting stories and experiences. Some of my favorites have been:

That time we went Geisha hunting-We had heard that in the area of Gion, in the city of Kyoto, Japan, a hard looking tourist could see geishas roaming the streets. Well, with plenty of time to kill we decided to try our luck…every night. With the old streets of Kyoto lined with lanterns and crowded with camera carrying tourists, and still no site of a Geisha, I was starting to think that this ‘geisha’ character was just a mythical creature created by Japan to boost tourism. We never were able to find any but I did manage to freak out some innocent ladies as I tracked them down, waiting for them to turn around so I could confirm whether or not we had accomplished our goal.

That time when my student tried to cop a feel- I’ve come to learn that the Korean culture is a little...blunt (I’ve learned this the hard way by students telling me I look pregnant or bosses telling me I’m wearing too much makeup). So I shouldn’t have been surprised when the following scene took place: One day in my 6 year old kindergarten class, we were playing a simple game of 'find that shape,'  I was yelling out triangle, square, rectangle and they were all doing really well at finding that particular shape in the room.  When it came time for 'circle' one little boy, John, ran up to me and grabbed my boobs.  Later when a Korean teacher asked him why he would do that his answer was simple.  'They're bigger than my mom's.'

That time when we were awoken by soldiers- We decided to take a road trip up the east coast of Korea, stopping to camp along the way and end up at our final destination:the DMZ, which is the separation between North and South Korea. Well, when you drive towards the northern part of the country, barbed wire starts to surround the beach front for protection against the North. This made finding a camping area more difficult but after much searching, we finally found a gem complete with a pristine beach and sunset views. We decided not to go to the main area of the beach and instead found a side road leading to a more secluded spot. Little did we know, we were nestled right in the middle of two military outposts. Our first encounter with the soldiers was when I saw two shadows walking down the beach...and then realized they had huge military rifles slung over their shoulders. Even if they were part of the military, it's still not the most settling sight. Later that night as we were getting ready for bed we hear a 'Shilehamnida' (excuse me). Once they saw hubs head peak out of the tent and realized we were foreigners, I could hear the soldiers start laughing and give him the go ahead to sleep there.

Everyday is a new challenge, a new adventure, and a new story to be told. We can't wait to see what happens next!

Thanks so much for having me Laurie! And I hope you'll stop by my blog where I talk about our daily lives as expats in the land of kimchi, along with documenting our world travels. Be sure to say hi, I would love to hear from you!
(you can also check out Laurie's guest post on my blog HERE and my previous guest post on Laurie's blog HERE)