SEOUL-LESS: A JOURNEY FAR BEYOND THE TOURIST TRAIL (chapters 6-11)

Highly recommend you read chapters 1-5 first HERE or this will likely make no sense at all.

PART 2

I could delete every chapter of this book and change it to the same “this terrible thing happened, but then this wonderful human did something amazing for me”. Every bad thing that happened to me was somehow cancelled out by something kind someone did for me. So let’s re-write the last five chapters that way.

I found myself in a big legal mess, but the guy I just met at my hostel (and his father) stuck by me.

I was told to pay $10,000 but my amazing parents offered to pay it so I could be free.

I had to deal with the worst situation of my life in a 6 bed dorm room, but my cousin paid for me to move to a private room.

I couldn’t get back to my friends, so my friends connected me to their friends in Seoul.

I missed my trip to Hong Kong, so my friend in Hong Kong decided to come to me.

It goes on and on this way.

I don’t know what I would have done if I didn’t have so many loving and supportive friends. After posting my story on Facebook I got an outpouring of helpful advice, support and donations. I was apprehensive to accept money from people (being an independent person, I’m not all that interested in looking for handouts) but in the end it became obvious that it was impossible for me to survive in Korea indefinitely without help.

Eventually, my mum set up a Gofundme to help me and the donations soon got out of control. So many people showed me a kindness and generosity that makes me feel grateful and blessed to this day.

My Gofundme was soon shared on GirlsLOVEtravel and Korean expat Facebook groups which lead to strangers making donations which was extremely unexpected as well.

Money was collected in all of the schools that my boss owns and I was sent a very generous donation.

I was really shocked and overwhelmed by the generosity of humans.

I was getting thousands of messages a day from both friends and strangers and the care that people gave me was amazing. I spent most of my free time responding to these messages.

Honestly no words can ever express how grateful I am for the people around me.

Eventually it got to a point where I really did need to get legal advice. So I went to embassy and they provided me with a long list of English-speaking lawyers and a phone. The embassy told me they couldn’t directly recommend a lawyer for me. I flicked through the pages feeling lost, how was I supposed to choose a lawyer alone? I’d never thought in my life that I’d be in this position. After a long time of confusion and conversations with my mother. One of the embassy staff came back into the room and handed me a business card for a lady called Catherine, saying it was for a lawyer they had used before.

So I decided to call her.

That was the most nerve-racking phone call I’ve ever made in my life. 

But, luckily Catherine was amazing. She asked me to come into her office that afternoon. So I took the train to Gangnam and nervously took the lift to her office. And it was fancy! So fancy that I didn’t want to touch anything and I definitely did not know how to act in there.  

From the visit to the lawyer’s office, it seemed like my case wasn’t that difficult so I felt kind of hopeful that they would find a solution and that it was all a matter of time.

A few days later I was called back in and had a meeting with the team of four lawyers. It was in a big fancy boardroom and it felt so serious and scary from the beginning. The lawyers informed me that in fact, the case was difficult and I was advised to prepare “as much money as possible” to negotiate with later. It was completely different from what Catherine had said before. I was also informed that we only had a few days left before the Chuseok (Korean thanksgiving) holiday which would mean that everything would close and my case would halt for ten days. According to Tim it was very unlikely that I’d get out before then and also extremely unlikely that my travel insurance would pay anything to do with the incident in general. Things were bleaker than ever.

I stayed completely calm in the meeting (because I didn’t know if I was allowed to cry in such a fancy boardroom) but as soon as I got out of the building I called my mum crying and shaking. It was that moment- probably one of the all time lows of my life- on the side of the cold street in Gangnam that I decided to become a zombie.

It was necessary to zombiefy myself. I couldn’t deal with the situation and the emotions at the same time so I consciously decided to not be emotional and that I could put off dealing with my feelings until I was back safely in Surabaya.

So I detached myself from the situation completely. I ate for the nutrition, not because I enjoyed the food at all. I did what I needed to do, followed exactly what my lawyer and my mum told me to do. I sometimes chatted to other people staying in the hostel but rarely spoke about myself, I answered any questions they asked me as vaguely as possible (never talking about my situation) and changed the topic from me as soon as I could.

I passed time on my phone, answering messages from family and friends (though I asked them to mostly talk about themselves because it was getting too stressful to talk about myself all the time), listening to podcasts, visiting a nearby pet shop to see the kittens and eventually methodically colouring in a “Kakao friends” postcard colouring book.

I didn’t feel anything and I didn’t cry again.

I was a zombie.

I spent my 28^th birthday (and also the 2 week anniversary of the accident) in Korea, far from the party I had been planning for myself to have in Surabaya.

My lawyer asked me to come to her office. So I had a little birthday breakfast at Starbucks and headed back to that fancy place. Catherine presented me with a gift: A memory stick. She told me it was a “very lawyery gift”, but I don’t have enough experience with lawyers to really know.

I was to spend my 28^th birthday at the court with my other lawyer- Mr. Moon. Writing out my official statement of the accident. Mr. Moon and I were standing on the side of the road waiting for a bus to the court. He barely spoke English (don’t worry my other lawyers did) but he could kind of understand it. So we communicated by him trying to say something, me guessing what he was trying to say and then him saying “yes” when my guess was correct.

Standing there “chatting” to Mr. Moon, reality suddenly hit me.  He was incredibly handsome.

So there I was, a (just turned) 28 year old woman in a very adult situation being completely ridiculous and childish texting my mum about a cute guy (who happened to be my lawyer).

Then the second reality hit, I suddenly recognised that ridiculous giggly, silly person sending the texts as…. myself. This made me a little sad to wonder who I had been for the last 2 weeks. I also felt suddenly aware that my trauma must have been pretty bad. It seemed impossible that someone wouldn’t immediately recognise how handsome Mr. Moon was! I suddenly realised how messed up I actually was.

Mr. Moon was cute and smiley which seemed extremely appealing after 3 weeks around the cold, too cool for school Koreans I usually saw around. As we walked through the metro station Mr. Moon made a phone call. After talking on the phone for a couple of minutes he handed it to me. When I took the phone I heard a girl’s voice “Hello, I’m a friend of your lawyer. He wants to tell you that he’s sorry about your situation and sorry that he can’t speak to you well but he’s going to look after you and get you out of there”.  This was adorable.

I started to imagine the “Korean husband” scenario again and truly it could have been the beginning of a beautiful romance aside from the fact that Mr. Moon was a Korean lawyer and there was nothing I hated more in that moment than Korean law. Sometimes it’s just not meant to be.

So I spent my birthday in a court, with real-life prisoners walking around, wondering how likely it was that I’d be imprisoned like them. I wrote my story by hand on 9 A4 sheets of paper, while a translator typed it up in Korean. The translator was initially super serious and professional until he started reading my story and at several moments I heard him mutter “fuck!” and “are you serious?” under his breath as he translated it. It seemed quite supportive.

Later, I said goodbye to Mr. Moon and returned to my hostel. Lee messaged me and told me to meet him upstairs. As I walked upstairs and slid the door open there was a massive “SURPRISE!” and everyone in the hostel was sitting there with a cake, presents for me and some snacks. I was so overwhelmed and amazing by their generosity, especially as most of them only knew me as some sad, zombie-like girl moping around all the time. I spent the evening with them, eating Korean BBQ and drinking cocktails at a rooftop bar.  

I’d say it wasn’t the worst birthday I've ever had, but that would probably be a lie.

My real birthday gift came just two days later, the last day before the Korean Thanksgiving holiday was to begin- the deadline to settle my case before the ten day break. I had already started to prepare for the likelihood of another two weeks at least in Korea, by making plans to do things instead of moping around. That morning Catherine called me up, asking me to come to her office.

When I arrived at the office, Catherine told me that there was a good chance we could make a settlement that day and have my travel ban lifted. Of course, after 3 weeks of ups and downs I could hardly believe it was real. She told me that the family’s lawyer was on the way and that I should go have a coffee. So I went to Starbucks, somewhere between nervous, excited, not wanting to get my hopes up and too zombiefied to actually feel anything concrete. It took longer than an hour for the lawyer to arrive, so I wandered around the area around the lawyer’s office anxiously fantasising about not being in Korea, about smelling the sweet smells of Surabaya- durian, humidity and pollution, but really I didn’t care where I was as long as it wasn’t Seoul.

When Catherine called me back to the office. The documents were there. We signed them, fingerprinted them and before I knew it, it was done. Mr. Moon bowed for a final time as he exited the room, rushing to the court with the signed contract to have my travel ban lifted. My hero.

I said a sad(ish) goodbye to Catherine and Tim (my other lawyer) but I kind of regretted never saying anything to Mr. Moon. As I was leaving Tim suddenly said “when our partners visit from abroad we usually take them bike riding. We might change that now.” I guess I made an impact, in a weird way.

Catherine called later to let me know that my travel ban was successfully lifted and that I was free to leave Korea. Finally, after 3 weeks my 5 day “holiday” was coming to an end.

I arrived at the hostel and handed the Korean version of the contract to Lee. I’ll never forget the smile on his face when he read it.

Due to Thanksgiving almost all flights out of Seoul were sold out until Tuesday, so I booked a flight for Tuesday morning, I was so happy to know I only had 3 days left.

That evening I met with my Indonesian friends Lina and Farah and ate Indonesian(ish) food. We celebrated the end of my case and my birthday. We also saw a billboard of a Korean artist who closely resembled my dear lawyer, Mr. Moon (see the photo in Chapter 9 for reference).

My wonderful friend Bethany decided to come over from Hong Kong to spend the weekend with me. It was such a blessing. We did all the great touristy stuff. She was impressed at how well I knew the city, whenever she mentioned a place I’d reply why “yea, I know where that is, it’s near the police station” or “ohhh, that’s near the Australian embassy”. I guess my idea of Seoul is quite different from most tourists.

The night before I left I went for a Thanksgiving picnic with Lee and a few others in a different area of Hangang Park. Not long after arriving, someone fell off a bicycle on the bike path in front of us. Lee and I only exchanged traumatised glances. Luckily the person who fell didn’t face the same consequences. But there’s some kind of meaning there, in seeing a bike accident right before I left.

As I hugged Lee goodbye that night, I felt a sadness wash over me. It didn’t make sense. For weeks I’d been trying to leave Korea and now that I was leaving Korea I was sad about it. It’d been a long time since I cried or felt any kind of emotion, but in that moment I just let it flow. I sat for over an hour in my room in the hostel I’d lived in for more than three weeks sobbing and thinking the tears would never stop.

A few hours later, at the hideously over-crowded airport I found a new anxiety. I was so scared that there would be a problem and I wouldn’t be able to leave. I checked into my flight and made my way through the long immigration lines. It felt like I was waiting hours. As the officer passed me my passport and allowed me to enter the airport lounge, I felt so much relief. I started sobbing, crying tears of happiness, relief and hope as I made my way to my flight out of my jail.

It was not easy for me, flying alone to Jakarta. It was the first time I really felt alone. I’d always had my phone at least to text or call someone but for the first time I felt the weight of my situation and trauma on me and me alone.

So there I was, the girl who moved to another country alone, who had solo-travelled extensively and who just survived three horrible weeks in Korea, barely coping with a 6 hour flight home.

When I arrived in Jakarta, I felt extremely cheerful. I asked inane questions (in Indonesian) to as many random staff in the airport as I could while I waited for my flight to Surabaya (“where is my gate?” “where can I buy food?” “what time does the flight board?”) I asked in Indonesian, even though I knew the answers. It felt so comforting to be able to take care of myself and communicate to people around me without Google translate and I couldn’t get enough of it.

Arriving at work the next day, I plonked an assortment of random souvenirs on a desk writing on the whiteboard above “please take a souvenir of my nightmare”. My friend commented that “Souvenirs from my Nightmare” would be a great name for an album and I agree. If the fake movie version of SEOUL-LESS: A JOURNEY FAR BEYOND THE TOURIST TRAIL needs a soundtrack, that will be the title.

But the longest lasting souvenir was the Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder which made me into a lifeless zombie a lot of the time, gave me persistent nightmares and flashbacks, made me afraid to be alone and left me crying over pointless things and not caring about important things.

Luckily, I was able to fid a psychologist in Australia who could give me counselling via Skype. The reassurance from her that what I was experiencing was normal was the start of the healing process which I’ve made great progress into.

At the end of December, more than three months after the accident, I received the money from the insurance. I could hardly believe it even as I was staring at the largest sum I may ever see in my bank account because I had never once thought the insurance would actually come through. Paying my parents back and returning to being a debt-free human was another weight off my shoulders.

And time is healing most of my other issues.

Still to this day, I panic if I see bicycle coming towards me. Still I cringe when the accident flashes through my mind (though the flashbacks happen less and less regularly) but mostly I am okay.

A few weeks back I was joking about Korea to some people I hadn’t seen since before the accident. One of them commented “Oh, you just joke about it like that?”

Yes! Yes, I do. It has been almost 10 months since it happened and I don’t plan to sit around feeling sorry for myself. I carry the awareness of how lucky I am with me constantly, I’m eternally grateful for the people I have in my life. And yes, I would rather laugh about my handsome lawyer or crazy French roommate than ever cry about it again.

EPILOGUE

On the last day at my lawyer’s office, my lawyer Tim recounted my experiences in Korea. He told me that things just kept happening in the worst possible way, over and over again. He told me that he felt sorry for my incredible bad luck. From an unlikely bicycle accident itself to a legal system that disfavors foreigners and on to all the problems I encountered along the way. When I look back on things, I recognise that I was very unlucky but I was incredibly fortunate too.

I know that not everyone has a support system like I have. I know that not everyone is blessed with family, friends, co-workers and strangers who were willing to give time, prayers and financial support. In the end, I would have gotten nowhere without them. Things could have been much worse.

When you can be at the lowest point in your life which seems to get worse and worse, but the people you have in your life can still cancel out that amount of bad luck, I think you have to admit that you are lucky.

And I know I am.

SEOUL-LESS: A JOURNEY FAR BEYOND THE TOURIST TRAIL (chapters 1-5)

If you don’t own your trauma, it’ll own you.

That’s what I figure, that if I don’t make this story into some funny anecdote (or promo for the importance of travel insurance) then it’ll own me. But it’s mine. I let it rule my life for several months, turning me into an emotionless robot (though I’d say of all the times in my life, it was the best time possible to be a robot) but that is actually no way to live.

Yes, it was hard. Hopefully one of the hardest things I’ll ever have to go through in my life. I’m not saying it’s some trivial story I can discuss on my blog like some dumb cultural misunderstanding in Indonesia but I’m saying that it’s better for me to treat this as a funny story than bury it inside as a trauma.

I’ve tried for months to write this but failed due to getting caught up in the details. My challenge was expressing how challenging and devastating this experience was for me, but also trying to remember the good and funny things that happened and also to reassure everyone that I’m fine.

Last week I remembered that when I was going through counselling for the PTSD my psychologist set me the homework task of breaking my experience into a novel and the main points into chapters. I of course completed my homework as sarcastically as I could. Let’s stick with that.

Welcome, to my debut novel (that will never really be written). A sure to be imaginary bestseller and the inspiration for a fake movie with the same name. 

"If I don't laugh,
I'll cry."

dedicated to my family, friends and Mr. Moon

For years I dreamed of going to Korea.

I thought it'd be so magical- I'd go there and play around in a shiny city. I'd fall in love with a handsome Korean man, we'd get married and I'd move there and get a high-paid teaching job. We'd have adorable Korean triplets. It was like a fairytale (or at least my own weird version of one) and I was ready to finally live it out.

  

I landed in Seoul one Sunday evening full of excitement.

How long did that excitement last? About two hours. It immediately felt lifeless to me. I don’t know why exactly but it just seemed so organised and structured that it felt immediately uninteresting to me. People seemed to be like beautiful robots going about their daily activities without emotion. The first night I went to bed early, trying to remain positive about what I would find in Korea the next day.

And I found something pretty quickly. 

I was the first one in my hostel up for breakfast (that's how I found out I was staying in a party hostel, apparently my seven o'clock start was unusual) so I sat alone with Lee, the Korean guy who worked there. He gave me tips on what to do for the first day, we made awkward small talk and he invited me for dinner and drinks with the others in the hostel later that evening.

That night after playing a load of drinking games I didn't understand (and obviously losing) and eating copious amounts of chicken feet, the awkwardness faded. In a Korean karaoke bar we talked over the sound of "What does the fox say?" and it was really nice.

This lead to walking back to the hostel together, plans to hang out the next nights and then, the worst days of my life.

But for a few days, I was fulfilled- the days spent getting lost in the cold streets looking for something to like about South Korea, the evenings spent opposite the cute Korean guy temporarily indulging the fantasy of finding my Korean husband.

What could possibly go wrong?

My fourth evening in Korea was spent in Hangang Park. I was happy to be leaving soon but also happy in the moment. Visiting the park with Lee felt like a romance film aside from the fact that a lady we bought some snacks from gave us some kind of fried bugs for free and they tasted fairly disgusting.

But otherwise it was amazing: a beautiful park lit with colorful lights. a cute Korean guy, a flight out of the city two days away.

It was his idea to hire a tandem bike, and I found it overly romantic and therefore hilarious.

It was my idea to sit at the front of the bike as I had more experience riding bikes.

It’s strange to think that we were laughing and joking and saying things like “we’re gonna die on this bike” and “it’s okay I have insurance” moments before we made a wrong turn. Minutes before a lady came speeding around a corner on a bicycle and I could do nothing to stop us from hitting her (a moment that has been replayed through my mind 1000 times since… trauma is real.).

And then the holiday ended and the nightmare began. 

We saw the lady slide across the ground towards the river, a pole just stopping her from going in. Lee and I rose from the ground we'd fallen on and rushed to her. Some stunned witnesses called an ambulance. 

We thought she was dead for a moment. 

But in those tense moments following the accident the woman sat up. By the time the ambulance left she was already standing. She was in pain but it didn't seem to be too badly injured. The ambulance took the lady away to hospital (not before they completely unnecessarily stuck a Band-Aid on my scraped knee).

How many police did you meet during your last holiday? I bet the answer is zero. I can't even count how many I had to deal with. The first police officers I met came soon after and took Lee’s phone number. The police told us to return our bicycle to the store we hired it from so I shakily returned us to our starting point even though the last thing I wanted to do was ride a bike.

We collapsed into the grass by the river bank, feeling shaken but relieved that things weren’t more serious.

Little did we know.

The next morning was my last day in Korea, so I got the train to Myeongdong to do some last minute souvenir shopping, thinking my minutes in Korea were numbered. As I walked out onto the street, I glanced at my phone and noticed a million panicked messages from Lee. I called him and he told me that the lady had fractured her neck and we needed to go to the police station.

I’ve never watched a K-drama but I felt like I was watching one from the inside. As we navigated around various train stations in Korea making calls to my mum, my travel insurance and the Australian embassy along the way.  I was calm, because I didn’t know what to do.

The K-drama continued.

Everyone was shiny. Even the police officers were handsome. Sitting in that cold police office for 7 hours, reality slipped further and further from how I imagined my time in Korea to be. This was my non-fairytale version of Korea- Lee stepping out for a cigarette and me being shouted at by a policeman in a language I didn’t understand, a security guard (the only person in the vicinity who spoke any English) trying to translate, me crying because I felt pathetic, useless and alone.

Lee’s father confusingly called Mr. Lee showed up to help. He was incredibly angry at his son for getting involved in this situation, but very kind to me. Those hours in the air-conditioned police station went on and on, getting bleaker and bleaker. 

I eventually left, feeling broken. My passport was blocked, the family asking for US$10,000 in compensation, my travel insurance not getting involved, the embassy offering no support and the police threatening jail time if I couldn't somehow magically sort it out.

I was supposed to be flying to Hong Kong the next day, but as my plane took off I was sitting in the Australian embassy sobbing staring at the beautiful view of Seoul from the window.

The embassy couldn’t do a lot for me. They let me use their phone. One heavily pregnant Korean woman gave me a hug. They recommended I pay the family compensation if I wanted a timely solution. Otherwise I was on my own.

Luckily my parents are amazing and were willing to help pay my way out of this situation. My mum transferred the money to Mr. Lee's account to ensure things would go as quickly as possible, but things were still going to take time.

I spent the weekend in bed. I felt hopeless and could barely get up. I had no appetite, feeling physically sick and having no energy because I hadn’t eaten. That’s when Lusie arrived.

Sharing a 6-bed dorm room in an apparent "party hostel" with a crazy French lady isn’t great at the best of times, but when you add this to what were already going to be the worst days of your life, it's a disaster.

I sat in bed sobbing as Lusie tried to spark inane conversation with me. And I learnt a lot from her. According to her in 100 years Korean people will be sterile and “they won’t ask people in America to help because they’re racist.” The conversation often centered around the future of artificial uterus's but her knowledge of reproduction also extended to the idea that “blood makes people attractive, so that’s why you might be attracted to family members in some way and that’s why my family members aren’t attracted to people from Holland”.

Another time after two hours of silence she suddenly exclaimed “so that’s how we know America won the war”. When I replied with a confused “huh? how?”. She told me “I don’t know, I guess their weapons were better”. I laughed awkwardly to which she replied “don’t laugh, it’s a very bad thing”. Things went on like this for a few days. If I were capable of getting out of my bed, I would have run as far from her as I could have.

Once when Lee and I were quietly discussing the "situation”, Lusie interrupted to tell me that she knew something was up with me and concluded that she knew I was pregnant. I don't know which problem I would have preferred.

Around the same time another roommate accidentally knocked the safety rail off the top bunk of the bed. It fell and hit my leg, as I was sulking in the bottom bunk below. Looking over the side of the bed, she noticed the large bruise on my leg (from the bicycle accident) and told me I should tell the hostel that the safety rail caused the bruise and that I should sue them. I told Lee I wanted US$10,000, but to this day they still haven't paid up.

In those days, all I could do is go along with what I could do. I felt so sorry for the woman I had injured. I took responsibility for the accident but it also was an accident. I was threatened with jail but I felt like I was already imprisoned. My anxieties and the sick feeling in my stomach basically chained me to that bed in the 6-bed dorm room, long after even Lusie checked out and went on with her life.

My experiences during my first weekend in Seoul was a far-cry from what I'd planned to spend my time doing in Hong Kong. 

“Hi this is Mr. Lee, father of Lee, can I speak to Lee?”

I got this phone call several times a day. Lee’s phone was broken so Mr. Lee called Lee through me regularly. Later Lee would translate the next complication of the case:

"The family don’t believe that you were riding the bike."

"The police need to look for CCTV footage to prove that you were."

"They’re asking for more money now."

"They aren’t willing to negotiate now."

On the Sunday afternoon, “Mr. Lee father of Lee” met us at a coffee shop near the hostel to discuss the next steps. He had sought legal advice and I felt safe knowing that he was on my side. In the middle of a short explanation about what we were going to do next, Mr. Lee informed me that he had withdrawn US$10,000 from his account (the money from my mum hadn't arrived yet but he'd taken his own money out so that we'd be ready to pay as soon as the family was ready to negotiate again). To prove this, he pulled the wad of $100 bills out of his bag. I guess it’s the only time in my life I will be in the middle of a cafe in Seoul, sitting in broad daylight with a Korean man waving more money than I'd ever seen in my life in front of my face. 

Mr. Lee was the hero at that time. He always had a plan B, some kind of legal-loophole that would at least give me some hope before it was destroyed again by reality. But I trusted his ideas and followed his advice. A few days later he told me to meet him at courthouse across town to try another option and I went there, optimistic that this would be the day everything got resolved.

"So what exactly is your relationship with my son?" he asked me as we walked into the court. Awkward silence ensued.

"I'm just a guest at the place he works" I told him, knowing that my hopes of Korean triplets had already died. Nothing kills romance more than a super complicated legal situation.

I spent that full day with Mr. Lee, attempting to get papers written up with an official offer to the family. This proved complicated, took hours to do and required walking long distances between different offices. He stuck with me “the guest at his son’s place of work” and a relative stranger for the whole day and always treated me well.

When I asked him why he was willing to do so much for me, he just explained that he'd traveled a lot and he wouldn't know what to do in my situation. If that’s not touching, I’m not sure what is.

When Mr. Lee and I were finished in the court, he told me I should take the paperwork to the police station. So I did.

My body felt like it was falling apart. Navigating the maze that is three train lines after not eating for days was too much. I handed the policeman a contract from the court, which he immediately declined. I almost broke into a million pieces in that moment.

I’d never been to Jonggak Police Station alone, and the only way to manage was for the police and I to type things into Google translate and pass our phones backwards and forth. That is how the police informed me that I wasn’t allowed to leave the police station as the family of the lady were on the way there and I needed to talk to them.

So I waited for the amazing joy of sitting with the daughter of the woman I hit, passing a phone back and forth. For the first time in my life I was threatened via Google translate. She demanded I pay US$100,000 (without any proof of what it was for) and repeatedly told me that if I didn’t pay, I’d go to jail. This got angry and repetitive, so eventually I kept Google translating the phrase “if you have nothing else to say I’m going to go home now”. Eventually she let me leave.

Outside a massive storm was in full effect. As I was about to step out into it, the daughter suddenly asked me if I had an umbrella. This made me incredibly angry. She wasn’t feeling guilty about asking for $100,000 or threatening me with jail time but was for some reason worried about me getting a little wet in the rain.

So I got the train back- wet, cold and exhausted, feeling completely overwhelmed, in those moments of desperation I knew at least with Mr. Lee, father of Lee on my side I still felt like I had at least a little hope.

Tune in next week for zombies, hot lawyers, plot twists and a jailbreak in chapters 6-11 of SEOUL-LESS: a Journey Far Beyond the Tourist Trail.

Weird stuff that happened in Jember

I'll be honest, I wasn't thrilled to be heading back to Jember. The echoes of my last visit were still ringing in my ears (but let's leave the past in the past). I was scheduled to spend a month in Jember for work and I was depressed about the idea of four weeks in a village. Well, I guess it's a town but anything that has no McDonalds or J.co feels pretty village to me (Jember's first McDonalds rudely opened less than a week after I left Jember).

I had low expectations.

I spent the day before downloading movies so I would "have something to do", eating my last "non-Indonesian meal" for a while and complaining about the 4 weeks ahead (I'm so sorry Jember for what I said about you). My housemate in Surabaya set me the challenge of sending her a photo of something interesting in Jember every day and it felt like it would be impossible to find that many interesting things.

Luckily, I was wrong.

Immediately I found myself surrounded by a bunch of seriously lovely people, enjoying a social life far beyond my mall-hopping lifestyle in Surabaya. After work I found myself eating delicious local food (as well as some foods suspiciously named "balls dog" and "nugget stick"), watching movies and visiting local cafes.

Look at my social life

The weekends (and many, many public holidays) were packed with trips to beaches, lakes and a waterfall driven by my "fast and furious" manager Puri. On the first Sunday at 6 AM we did "Zumba" (and by that I mean a super weird and hilarious aerobics workout) at the town square which usually I would have opted out of but the thought of "when will I ever get the chance to do Zumba in the town square of Jember again?" won and I have no regrets. 

My eventual trip to Papuma beach was also a highlight as I'd wanted to go for years and even more so because they charged me the local rate instead of the normally strictly enforced tourist rate. That made me feel like I really fit in in this country (but in reality the ticket man probably just didn't notice me).

We met this man who brought his cat to the park too

Work was great as well. The students were fun and positive. Some highlights include teaching an Indonesian celebrity, a 7 year old excitedly asking "miss! Are you a bule?" as I walked into the classroom and having my students roleplay having a bicycle accident in Korea (more on that topic next week).

The first week at work went very smoothly until during a game of 'change chairs' one of the larger students sat down and the chair legs gave way. Thankfully he wasn't hurt but I felt pretty bad that he could have been. Immediately after, I was called into my boss's office and I felt even worse about the broken chair. I was freaking out that I’d made my boss angry only after a few days but luckily again it was for an unrelated matter.

During my time in Jember, I stayed in a boarding house which was great aside from two things- the son of the owner's incessant flirting and finding out the hard way that I had a curfew. Actually, the owner's son was probably the reason it took a week for me to realise I had a curfew as he was left in charge while his parents were out of town. Every night when I got home late he didn't mention it, he only asked me to sit downstairs with him for a few minutes. So I did. He didn’t use that time to inform me of my curfew-breaking, instead he told me I was beautiful and asked why I was single ("because I want to be" didn't seem to sit well). He asked me to be a model for his photography, which I politely refused. He then let me try the perfume he'd made himself telling me that my friends would compliment the scent the next day (ummm, nope, I plan to shower). He told me he was going to make me a special perfume as a gift before I left but I guess he lost interest in that because I never got his "special perfume".

When his parents returned, the flirting stopped but I was abruptly told off by his mother when I arrived home at 11:30 and informed that the curfew was 10:00 and that the gate would be locked after that time. I was confused by this as I'd never been told (and it was probably the 5th time I'd arrived back later than 10). Later it seemed to be that it was okay to come back after 10 on the condition that I called them to ask permission beforehand and that I didn't do it all the time. So the next day, I went straight home after work (I don't like causing problems) and was planning to walk straight up to Brian's mother smugly at 9:30 and allow her witness me following the rules. Disappointingly she wasn't home when I arrived and no one got to see my rule following. To make matters worse I heard the bell ring at midnight as someone else arrived late. Tsk tsk, some people have no regard for their curfews.

Getting around by Gojek (an online motorbike taxi service) daily quickly got my presence in town circulating through the relatively small "Gojek gossip ring" which I didn't believe existed until I heard about one driver telling my co-worker that there was a foreigner in town and trying to understand "how she could love Indonesia". Other Gojek drivers asked for photos, I shared my life story daily- why I'm here, why I like this country etc. and while walking by a load of Gojek drivers at the train station several yelled “Miss Sasa, remember me?”. (I used the name "Sasa" on Gojek for privacy reasons but mostly because most Gojek drivers thought Sammi was a man's name and I got tired of the 'jemput dimana mas?' messages.)

The second week at work felt even more comfortable, with some time for guitar sing-a-longs to Indonesian pop songs between classes. I also got to observe a class where a 5 year old was asking the teacher to translate random sentences of her day into English, starting from "mister, what is the English of 'saudara saya nangis' (my relative was crying) escalating to translations of 'I'm going to the graveyard after class' and 'my relative died today' which luckily prompted the teacher to stop translating. Dark stuff.

Loving Jember...

Then it was time for Ramadan to start, which I was kind of nervous about as I wasn't sure if it's be difficult (or even possible) to buy food. When I asked my boss where I could buy food during Ramadan he told me he didn't know where as he'd never bought food during Ramadan before. But in the end it was fine. One cafe with an extensive menu near my office remained open so I went there everyday. At the beginning of Ramadan, the wife of one of the teachers went into labor which he informed the teachers of incredibly casually while eating a banana at his desk, and when sent home instead stopped at the shopping centre across the street to casually buy snacks first.

Not long after that, I took a short trip to Bali. I’d thought I would need the break after two weeks in Jember but I felt oddly sad about leaving (despite the fact I’d be back in 5 days). But 5 days went by quickly and upon returning, I found a new resident in my boarding house- a black chicken. Well actually, I didn’t find it as much as I heard it at 7:00 AM making a load of loud chicken sounds. I came downstairs to find the chicken in a small cage downstairs, eating its breakfast and assumed (wrongly) that she was to become a treat for the boarding house owners come the end of Ramadan. Sadly, Chicky didn’t last that long. The next day I came downstairs to find a man I’d never seen before with a large knife. I knew immediately he was there to murder someone. As I was getting on my gojek, the maid was holding Chicky upside down and the man was lining up his knife. “Go, go, go” I told my gojek driver, but as I drove away I knew what was happening to Chicky behind me.

R.I.P Chicky

Things got louder around the 3rd week in Jember when my boarding house started running English classes downstairs in the mornings. From 8:20 AM I could enjoy the sound of terribly pronounced phrases such as “I take a pee” and "I don't speak English" (pronounced Anglish). Luckily, I had picked up my earplugs in Surabaya, strangely I was perfectly ready for the unlikely event that my boarding house opened an English course.

I also got the opportunity to visit GM around that time. In Surabaya "GM" equates to the modern Galaxy Mall, but in Jember "GM" is Golden Market which, as the name implies, is quite different to the GM of Surabaya. Golden Market is quite simple- the ground floor is a supermarket, the first floor a cheap department store and the top floor is absolute chaos-foodcourt/timezone/car riding place. I went there to buy some more creme-coloured "khaki" work trousers but was shocked to find out that in Jember I'm a size XL (weirdly the XL trousers are slightly smaller than the S ones I bought it Surabaya). Of course buying this caused a massive amount of giggling and staring from the staff at the store. To make matters worse, the XL trousers were so tight that when I was wearing them ten minutes into my class, the button popped off entirely as I sat down. My friend, Maltha and I spent to break between classes frantically watching "life hack" videos and then eventually stealing a button (that's usually used as counter in board games) and sewing it on minutes before class time.

I also found the perfect T-shirt in GM

I also had the honor of seeing Maltha perform live in concert on two occasions and got an autographed copy of her CD. I was so involved in life in Jember that I even started to know the local bands.

In my last week or so in Jember, things got busier. My social life really reached it's peak as I found myself eating pizza with a nun (Maltha's friend) and discovering and falling in love with a gelato cafe named 'Bvgil' (how to pronounce the name I have no idea how). Somehow, my friends and I ended up visiting Bvgil on three consecutive nights (I couldn't say no to the salted caramel gelato). I felt kind of weird about the fact that we'd been there so often but then I decided "I don't think the staff remember us" forgetting that I am one of very few (I saw 2 others in my 4 weeks in Jember) foreigners in town. I actual forgot that I wasn't from Jember for a minute. 😂

In that highly social time, I felt like I was always rushing back to my boarding house to meet my curfew. I often found myself running back home and arriving right on the line at 9:59 PM and I also often found myself missing my curfew completely. I just stopped caring so much because I knew my days in Jember were numbered.

I felt a little anxious during the last few days in Jember. On the Monday, I felt overwhelmed and was looking forward to my lesson (I usually forget about my anxiety when I'm teaching). Unfortunately, that happened to be the day that one of my four year old students decided to bring 2 small birds in a cage into class. I thought they were fake but as she was handing me the cage and I reached out to take it the birds suddenly started flying around and I almost screamed. Yes, I have a phobia of birds, but I never thought it would effect my work as a teacher.

My anxiety got worse on my last day at work as I suddenly found out I had to get back to Surabaya earlier than expected to report to the immigration office. Because my passport was in the immigration office in Surabaya and I'm supposed to have it to take a train it became a bit of a logistical nightmare. In the end my work's solution was to edit the expiry date on my old Indonesian ID card so that I could use it.

In the evening, after my last classes were done, my co-workers surprised me with cake and gifts, which was really unnecessary seeming how much I had already gotten out of the experience of working there. I'm so blessed that so many people have been so kind to me and that Jember turned out to be a beautiful place.

After work, I packed up and said goodbye to the owner of the boarding house (and luckily not Brian). I felt oddly sad on the motorbike, seeing the sights for one last time. I spent my last night in Jember with my friends, enjoying my social life one last time before it was to all get away from me. We hung out until midnight when they dropped me off at the station and we said our goodbyes. Puri handed me the print out of my fake ID which was accepted by the security guard and I went through to the train.

25 beautiful days in Jember

And in the end, the only thing I hated about Jember was leaving it and when you can say that about a place you didn't want to visit in the first place, I think it's a pretty good sign. 

SuraBYEya and SuraHIya

“I began to feel that the country was one giant Bad Boyfriend. It tickles the senses and elasticates the thinking. It prompts laughter, produces the warm fuzzy feeling that goes with familiarity and slightly embarrassing shared intimacies. Then it forgets the important anniversaries, insults friends and tells endless low-grade lies. Just when you think you are really getting to know it, it reveals some hidden secret or reinvents itself completely. With Bad Boyfriends you know full well it will all end in tears, and yet you keep coming back for more.”

-Elizabeth Pisani “Indonesia Etc.”

Well, I left my Bad Boyfriend (kind of).

a goodbye party is pretty serious right?

Late last year, in the middle of crippling anxiety and coping with PTSD (which is a story for another time) I started to blame Indonesia. After one too many issues, I made a decision. After five years of ups and downs, I broke it off with my Bad Boyfriend.

gifts and love from my beloved students made it even sadder

I sold my motorbike, gave away the majority of my possessions, cried for weeks, permanently tattooed my company’s mascot into my skin (as you do), had a goodbye party and got on the one-way flight towards “moving on with my life” and “doing something new”. It was all on track.

Even the tattoo artist laughed at this.

I didn’t think I could. I didn’t think it was possible. I’ve booked so many one way flights only to book one way flights back. From the day I told my boss I was quitting through to the day I left, I thought something would change my mind and I’d stay.

But, I didn’t. I left my bad boyfriend and it sucked.

when you ask your student for a "goodbye selfie" but he tickles you as you take the photo 

I know what you’re gonna say: it doesn’t count as leaving when you go running back. But it does. I had no intention of going back. When I said goodbye to Tria at the airport crying like a baby (while everyone stared at me) I thought it was the end. But somehow I still got on that plane. 

this "welcome home" hug from my cousins was pretty great though

And I kept it up. I spent hours looking for jobs in Hong Kong. I dressed up in (non-khaki-coloured) office attire and sat in my room nervously answering job interview questions, in the awkwardness that is Skype interviews. I tried really hard, determined to move on from my Bad Boyfriend.

But the interviews didn’t impress me. I’m passionate about teaching and was looking for an opportunity to improve. Being told by one interviewer that I could “make my lesson fun by playing a board game at the end” and that “kindergartners can’t make full sentences in English” made me question my choices. I explained to the interviewer that I believed the end of the lesson should be reserved for the most important, freer practice activities and that I had successfully taught three year olds to make short sentences in English within a few meetings. I went on to ask a million questions about their teaching methodology and opportunities for career development which the interviewer was unable to answer.

no khaki allowed

I realised later that I was being kind of condescending. 
This took me back to a time in Surabaya when a foreigner with "tidak abadi" tattooed on his arm accused me of being condescending (though I’m still not sure which of the two times I spoke to him was the condescending one- the time I explained my lesson plan or the time I helped him order a Gojek) but I saw for the first time that maybe he was right about me. 
When I still got offered the job after being the condescending interviewee, I was even more worried about the quality of the school.

Other than interviewing for ridiculous jobs, I was contending with the part of me that always fights for Indonesia. I forgot that that voice inside my existed but from the first time I visited Indonesia in 2011 that voice started screaming at me. Immediately after returning from Yogya, I came home to find him screaming at me “you need to go back to Indonesia!” with urgency and determination that I was unable to silence. The only cure, a flight back to Indonesia a year later. I gave him a five week holiday in Indonesia but immediately back in Australia, he started screaming again. 

I hadn’t heard from him in about five years, because even when I came back from Indonesia between work contracts, I had a flight back to Surabaya booked so he never said anything. But when I arrived home in February he was back immediately, louder than ever.

I tried to ignore him for as long as I could but slowly my thoughts switched to “as soon as I have holiday in Hong Kong, I’ll go to Surabaya”. Then “I wonder if I can fly to Hong Kong via Surabaya?” (because that's such a reasonable flight route) and finally, “If I don’t get a job in Hong Kong soon maybe I can work in Surabaya for a few months so I don’t run out of money”.

Yes, I’m weak. I emailed my boss in Surabaya a massive 3 weeks after I had left.

In the meantime, I had more job interviews for Hong Kong. I hadn’t given up. I ate Indonesian food increasingly regularly. I sent regular ridiculous postcards to my old office. I cried in the middle of a food court when I got a copy of a job description that seemed promising but wouldn’t give me enough holiday to visit Indonesia.

I was gone 2 months (and that's not even all of them)

It was adding up to one thing. So I booked yet another one way flight to Indonesia 

I don’t know how this makes me look, I might seem like one of those super-clingy ex-girlfriends who can’t move on.

looking thrilled to be back in khaki

But I don’t mind. Me and my Bad Boyfriend have something good going on over here. I know he can be super confusing and annoying and sometimes I really have no idea how to understand him. I’ve let him hurt me more times than I can count and there are things I really hate about him. He isn't perfect.

But, I love him and I always will. He’s made me a better person, helped me to grow up, to be kinder, more patient and more understanding. He takes me on adventures that would be impossible without him. He surprises me, challenges me and inspires me almost everyday. 

So no, I’m not really ready to let him go for now and maybe I never will be.