Preparing to Leave Korea!

Well folks, somehow time has slipped by and I am in the final stretch of preparing to leave Korea. In three days I'll be boarding the airplane for my 14 hour flight home...and sweet non-rapturing Jesus, there is so much to do before then!

In hopes of helping other people preparing to leave, I thought I'd tell you about my experiences doing some of the close-out stuff we all end up going through. These include mailing things home, collecting your pension, and packing up all your stuff.

Because I am only a few breaths away from being a hoarder, I have way too much stuff here to fit into the two 50 pound bags I am allowed to take home on my flight. I knew I'd have to send some stuff home, but I seriously underestimated how MUCH stuff I'd be mailing. Last Tuesday (with the help of Feeny and Diana C) I headed off to the local post office to send two packed up size five (large) post office boxes and two unpacked lotus lanterns. This process was surprisingly easy.

There are apparently three options for mailing things.

The first, most expensive, and fastest is EMS (Express Mail Service).  EMS has special labels just for their packages. Everything on the labels is in English as well as Hangul, so it is very easy to fill out on your own. EMS packages take seven days or less to reach the east coast of the US. In fact, last Tuesday (Monday night EST) I mailed a package to my family in Maryland. They got it THURSDAY. That is absolutely ridiculous. In the package were two paper lanterns (extremely light) and lots of bubble wrap. The package weighed basically nothing...and cost me 34,000won. Benefit? If you use EMS they will come pick up your packages for "free". Too bad it costs so much that you're MORE than paying for that pick-up service. The heaviest box I sent was about 11kg, and would have cost 110,800won to send to the US using EMS.

The "mama bear" option, if you will, is Air Mail. You fill out the same labels for Air Mail and Surface Mail, but check different boxes according to which one you want. The two choices for Air Mail/Surface Mail boxes look almost identical. The only difference is that one has a red box on it (this one is for insured items) and the other does not. Air Mail apparently takes 2-4 weeks to arrive, and prices are still high. An 11kg box would cost 105,100won to send to the US via Air Mail.

Finally there is the option I've been embracing: slow and cheap. Surface Mail is an option that allows you to send massive amounts of stuff home for a super reasonable price...as long as you don't need your stuff anytime soon. Surface mail takes 60-90 days to arrive, but an 11kg package sent to the US (zone 3) was only 31,000won! More than reasonable!

The size five boxes filled completely with clothes weighed only about 9kg (about 20lbs). The heaviest a surface mail box can be is 20kg (about 50lbs) which would be hard to achieve unless you're ONLY books...or bricks. I'll post again this summer when my parcels arrive, but so far I've been really pleased with the surface mail option. I've sent two boxes already, I'm sending one this afternoon, and I'll have 2-3 more in the mail before I leave (dude, I told you I had a love of stuff).

You can find your local post office here (but it is in Korean). This site will show you the rate comparison for Air Mail and Surface Mail (here are the definitions of various zones), and here are the EMS rates.

When you get into your post office the firs thing you're going to do is get a number if it is busy. If it is not busy, I usually write out my labels first, and then get a number, to keep people from having to wait for me. No one else cares.

Grab your labels. These are your label choices. The one on the right is for EMS packages, while the two on the left are for Air Mail and Surface Mail. The lower one is for insured items (note the red box).

Write out your labels for each box. One cool thing about post offices here is that they also sell everything you need to just package up a box there. Boxes themselves are really cheap (each one of these large boxes was just over a dollar) and you are provided with free tape and free bubble wrap. Sweet deal!

Now it is time to go up to the counter where (if you're lucky) the person speaks English. This man, at the Gangdong Post Office, speaks just fine. The woman I had today...less so.

Once everything is packaged they'll weigh it, slap on a label (and some fragile stickers in the case of my lanterns) and whisk it away. You pay, get your receipts, and you're done!

Another thing on the expat returning home's checklist is getting back your pension. If you are from America or Canada, you are eligible to get a refund of all pension money collected from you over your time in Korea. Australians can apparently now also get their money back. The UK has a confusing situation all their own. South Africans don't get pension back because they don't pay it.  Kiwis have to pay it and don't get anything returned. (More information can be found here.) Each month, 4.5% of your paycheck is subtracted and sent to the pension office. Your school also pays 4.5% to the pension office, making your refund equal to 9% of your wages each month. That turns out to be quite a bit of money.

The first thing you need to do is find your local NPS (National Pension Service) Office. You can do that on GalbiJim's site. They are all over the place. When you actually go to the office, you will automatically be directed towards an English speaker. I ended up not needing my co-teacher's help at all.  You will need the following items: a copy of your one-way plane ticket out of Korea, your Alien Registration Card (ARC), your home bank account information (address, account number, routing number), a copy of a bank statement (this can be printed out from online banking), your home address, and your passport. If you have an outgoing wire transfer cable, they'll really really like you for it. It simply makes their job easier. You'll be given a form to fill out (all in English) and as you do that they'll go make copies of all of your documents. Then they'll tell you how much you're getting back, when to expect it, and send you on your way. Over the past 20 months I've accrued nearly $4000 in pension benefits. That is pretty sweet. They process pension refunds on the tenth of the month, and since I get paid tomorrow (May 24) they can't process mine until June 10. She said that by June 17 I should expect the money in my account. Couldn't be easier.

Unassuming sign for the NPS office in Songpa-gu, located right by the Jamsil Subway Station.

NPS is on the second floor of this charming building.

Necessary materials: wire transfer sheet, bank and personal information, passport, and ARC.

I'm thankful that I've been able to cross at least a few things off of my going-away checklist. Next up is cancelling my cell phone plan, closing my bank account (after pay day, of course), and making sure everything is all squared away for my severance and security deposit to be sent to my American account.

I've spent a whole lot of time preparing for Mark, my replacement. Creating new folders, organizing all my lesson materials, typing up directions to various places, detailing how do do tricky things in the apartment (turning on the hot water heater, etc), and today I think actually finished all of that. Woo! Progress!

Crawling Towards Easter!

Oh man, last weekend was awesome. I realized last week that though we were planning to do my going away party in Cheonho, we didn't really have a firm grasp of what bars there could accommodate a huge spectacle of waygooks. (Yes, we have dubbed a group of waygooks a "spectacle," much like an unkindness of ravens or a murder of crows. Embrace it.) I figure probably 15-25 people will come out for the night of debauchery so we need a place that can hold us all. Why just take the boring way and visit a bar a night for a couple of weeks when you could do a bar crawl and compare options back to back?

The result was...magnificent. Over the course of about six and a half hours Carin, Julia, Stephanie, Shannon, Jamie, Erich, Chrissy and I visited over ten establishments, having drinks in seven of them. It was SO much fun. Rarely do I drink to excess like this, but it is a blast every once in a while! We drank lots of alcohol, played some games (card based and otherwise), ate lots of strange bar food including prawn chips, peanuts, seaweed chips, those puffed rice cylinders, sausages x2, nachos, and a "quesadilla" (which Chrome just rightfully tried to change to "questionable). Just an excellent time with some of my favorites. I headed home around 3:00am and crashed just about immediately, haha.

Wa Bar is a chain through out Seoul. This one is pretty nice but very small.

Their house beer was kind of terrible. Really watery (says the girl who drinks Bud Lite).  However, their prawn chips were DELICIOUS.

And so it begins! Our theme was "Earn Your Stripes!" but it is hard to see all the stripes in this photo. Look forward to more in the upcoming ones!

Aloha (really, Ah-Ro-Ha) was great! Cute decorations, much more space. This will probably be our winner for my going away day.

Celebrity poker showdown?

Striped out!

Bar 1950s was adorable. It really is a BAR bar, where you have to sit at the...bar. The bartenders, however, were very sweet, and were surprised when we left (after drinking our sizable shots) as quickly as we had arrived.

건배! (Cheers!)

Santana was EMPTY...and perhaps wished we hadn't broken up their quiet night, haha.

Peeps! This was the prize for the stripiest person...but they really just ended up being shared by all of us. If my eyes look weird it is because I had striped eyeshadow on.

Excitement!

Hahah, creepers. 

Genius bartender couldn't figure out that my camera was too zoomed in.  Aigh. Also, CHECK OUT THOSE CRUSHED VELVET COUCHES!

Surprisingly this was neither a coffee nor Battlestar Galactica themed bar. It was Japanese themed and really quite pretty, with lots of lanterns and wood lattices. I'd go back.

Chrissy got a KGB (hilariously named vodka mixed drink in a bottle) and it came with oil blotting sheets for your face. Oh Korea. 

 

Shannon demonstrating the blotting sheets.

Super cute group photo with Carin's big hair blocking people yet again!
Carin, Stephanie, Shannon, Jamie, Erich, Julia, Chrissy and I

"I just want to say...this is still wrapped."  Famous last words spoken by Carin as she picked up a "Pine Needle Candy" from the ground and ate it. 

I could have told you it was terrible just from the name. But apparently Carin needed to eat it.

Hunter's Bar was runner up for going-away party host. They had room and they took requests, but the mixed drinks weren't great and the requested songs always came out as TERRIBLE covers of the original, haha.

Looking shocked.

Singing during our request for "Don't Stop Believin'." The waiter took like 80 pictures of us because he thought we were hilarious.

Hahahahaha.

The Funky Dunky is a perennial favorite. I still don't know what a Flair Bar is, though. Nor have I ever seen an event held there.

The "dating couple."  Hahaha.

Nerds. Love them.

Final group photo of the night. Such an excellent time.

Sunday was Easter. Now those of you who are already here probably know this, and those of you on your way might suspect it, but holidays are almost always the hardest time to be away from your family. Especially if you know your loved ones are congregating somewhere and you're missing it. Know what makes it a lot easier? Having fantastic friends with which to share the holidays and recreate some of the traditions from home.  Chrissy volunteered to host an Easter Brinner (breakfast for dinner, for those uninitiated into the breakfast-at-all-times-of-the-day cult) were we consumed an absolutely absurd amount of delicious food, dyed eggs (sort of) and enjoyed each other's company. It was wonderful.

Carin and I stopped at the store on our way and spotted these precious melons all dolled up for Easter. Festive!

Hard at work...

Jul-ya gettin her French toast on!

Carin whipping up some sausage.

Erich on (non-French) toast duty.

Dave serving as bacon boy.

The spread...not including cheesy scrambled eggs, French toast, Pancakes, Waffles, potatoes, an apple galette and a red velvet cake with cream cheese icing.  And I'm probably forgetting stuff.

Jin decorating eggs before they're dyed.

The dye got really creepy. I don't know if it was our imprecise measurements of vinegar and water, the differences that come with brown eggs instead of white, or what. The dye formed a layer on the egg and when you first took it out it looked like it had boils all over it before it settled. The problem was that the layer didn't really stick to the egg well so it got all peely and strange. Oh well...it was still fun!

Egg dying materials (see aforementioned peelyness on the left).

Emulating the emotion egg. On one side there was a smiley face, and on the other there was this unenthusiastic one. We spent a few minutes rotating the egg face in response to popular Korean backhanded compliments, such as...

 "Oh, Meaghan, you got a haircut! (^-^) 

It looks much better now. (-_-)"

Zombie/Voldemort egg made by Josephine.

Jamie and Dave deep in conversation. I swear this wasn't posed.

Happy Easter from our Seoul Family to yours!

Erich, Jamie, Shannon, Carin, Jin, Julia, Me, Josephine, 

Derek (looking like a creepy uncle), David, Dave, and Chrissy.

Lately my life has been consumed with two things. The first is cleaning and packing my apartment. When I'm not physically doing it, I'm either fretting over it or going out of my way to avoid it. What a freaking headache. I finally bit the bullet yesterday and packed my first two boxes to mail home via the slow boat. There will be another post later with how you go about doing that, so that when the time comes everyone can be all over it. Extra baggage costs $200, and mailing these two boxes via airmail would cost $179, but the slow boat/surface mail should only cost $56 for two large boxes that weigh a combined 41 lbs.

Mostly winter clothes, these two boxes should take 60-90 days to get to my house.

The second time consumer has been planning events that are happening in the next month before I leave. I just got shitty news that we can't book one of the things I really wanted to do, a night tour of Changdeokgung Palace, because Korea is dumb and imprecise in their information.  Frustrating. However the thing I am probably most excited about is a scavenger hunt that Shannon, Carin and I have planned and are coordinating for next week. We are off May 5 for Children's Day and we have put together a list of 75 items, photos, and videos that must be collected from all over Seoul. Teams have 4-5 people on them and I think it is going to be a fantastic time. So far there are six teams formed and I wouldn't be surprised if we have more singing up in the next week. I am excited, but it is a LOT of work. Especially since we decided to (at least try and) order t-shirts. We are still waiting to hear back (and there have already been some problems, as is to be expected) but hopefully we'll have them by next Tuesday. Josephine made the front design based on an idea from Shannon and I, and on the back it will say "We're on a treasure hunt! Please help me!" in Korean. There isn't really a translation for scavenger hunt, and treasure hunt is the closest approximation. This will be helpful to teams without a Korean speaker when they are asking people to help them do weird things or take a photo of them.  Anyway, I am very much looking forward to it.

Again, look forward to a blog entry with the full list (so you can do it on your own time!) and what will definitely be hilarious photos. If you're in Seoul now and want to put together a team of 4-5 people, come on over to the Facebook Page and sign up!

Today I didn't have any class because my fifth graders are camping for this half of the week (they've had terrible weather and they're stuck with my vice principal...I pity them!) and my sixth graders needed to study for a big midterm tomorrow so my class got bumped. I looked at a calendar the other day and I can't believe how soon I'm leaving and, even more, how few teaching days I have left! I only have 3 Mondays, 3 Tuesdays, 4 Wednesdays (of course, my least favorite day!), 2 Thursdays, and 3 Fridays. How do I only have fifteen days with my kids left?! Insanity.