It's almost time.

In 42 days, we will be done working in Korea.

In seven days, we go on a Bali vacation.

In 43 days, we leave for our trip around Southeast Asia.

I haven't updated much but I really want to do it in Asia.

Here's our itinerary:
1 week in Japan (because it's probably going to cost us more than all the other countries combined)
2 weeks in Nepal (still need to work on this part)
3 weeks in Vietnam
1-2 weeks in Cambodia
2 weeks in Thailand.

We have 90L backpacks into which we will pack all our worldly possessions and yesterday we sent home enormous 35lb. boxes by ship. They'll take about 2 months to get there but we'll be on our adventure then anyway. When we got to the post office with them, the women working there had us fill out three different forms not because it was necessary, but because they kept giving us the wrong shipping form. It was like a circus watching them try to figure it all out. Just another reason we're ready to go.

Why are we so tired of working in Korea? We accepted long ago that the only reason our school makes so much money is because there are white native English speakers there. That's how so many schools here make their money. But it wasn't until recently that we realized at our hagwon we're kind of like migrant workers: we do the job none of the Koreans would want to do because it's simply too many hours. Yes we got our flight paid for and enough money for a tiny apartment, and yes our boss acquiesces to some of our requests since we're considered "veteran" teachers at the school. But not one of the Korean English teachers has as many classes as we do in one day, and we really work at two schools: 6 classes at the Kindergarten in the morning, then 4 classes at the after-school academy in the afternoon. We also teach the most hours out of all the foreign teachers at the school. I asked our boss a while ago if he could please take away one of my classes at the afternoon school so I don't feel like I'm running a marathon every day and his response was a typically vague Korean "Well, you guys asked to be off by a certain time every day, and I give my best teachers all the classes, but maybe after the semester change" which basically translates to "haha fuck you, no way." So we're over it. Other hagwons have better setups where you only work at one school and a 45-minute class is treated as an hour of work. But not our hagwon, nope. Forty minutes of class time is 40 minutes, and a lunch break is a lunch break, and the 20 minute snack time is not teaching time. So much working makes us bitter toward everything inconvenient around us, like the old lady in the grocery store yesterday who was staring at me and when I looked at her she looked away, but as soon as I stopped looking at her she looked at me again. I confronted her gaze and she smiled and said "pretty!" in Korean but I know she's just curious about my different features and whiter skin. We will always be the "others" in Korea. The Korean word for "foreigner" is pronounced "waygook." It's also the word for "alien." The word for "monster" is "gwaymool" and I think it's no coincidence that there are some similarities. But I was never really bitter about a foreign country before I came to Korea. Look at me!!

It's OK. Really. 42 more days. In planning our trip around Asia, I'm getting so overwhelmed with happiness that I just drift into that little world whenever I start getting stressed out. More, happier, updates soon.