2012 has arrived much faster than I thought. Feels like time in Canada flies by much faster than it did for me living in Korea, but I’m sure it’s just me getting used to differences in routine and lifestyle here. Now that 2011 is laid to rest I can definitely say that it went well, actually smoother and better than expected.
The last couple of days I’ve been going through my photos for 2011 putting together a 2011 year in review photo book and it’s hard to believe everything we’ve done.
I’m not much for New Years Resolutions and in fact almost never set them, preferring to set goals when I come up with them. I’d rather do it that way than having to dust off gym memberships of yesteryear, promises to diet and make yet another pronouncement to start that project I’ve been meaning to start for the last 15 years. However this year coincidentally I’ve achieved all the goals I’ve made and it’s time to make some new ones so here goes.
- Push my web development skills to the next level. I’ve learned a lot since I started working full time at an agency in August, but I really need to take it up another notch.
- More time with the kids. We do a lot more together now that communication is no longer an issue. However I am now working 2 jobs and this is interfering in my time with the kids. Must find a little more time for the kids somewhere.
- Read more – my reading has seriously dropped off since I came to Canada. I blame it on my tablet and smart phone. Far too easy to check facebook, twitter and other internet distractions while on the bus/subway rather than reading a book.
- Get back into photography – photography died in November when I started working a second job. Must try to get back into it at least on the weekends.
Now that I’ve been back in Canada for 5 months, I thought it would be a good time to reflect on life as a returnee after 15 years abroad: what I like, what I don’ t like, things to do, things not to do and how things are different than expected.
If you are a short term expat, probably less than 5 years, then much of this will not apply to you to the same degree of someone who has lived abroad for longer than 5 years. The longer you’ve lived abroad the more this will apply – at least in my mind that’s how it works
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A couple of weeks ago I went to New York for a conference related to web development. The conference was excellent and I wrote up my thoughts on the conference on my company blog.
I really enjoyed my time there and found the city much easier to get around than Toronto. The subway in New York is very good, but not quite as good as that in Seoul. New York is really a great place for photography and I truly wish I had more than one day to roam around as I didn’t get enough shots in. I did upload two sets to flickr – one on general New York and the other on the Conference and venue.
And here are a few of the pics that I really like.
Manhatten from the Staten Island Ferry
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since I arrived in Canada in June I’ve gained 6kg. This is definitely not good and I’m now having some trouble putting on my pants – yikes.
I attribute this to two factors. First lifestyle change. I no longer walk anywhere to do anything. Living in Seoul I walked everywhere. Up and down stairs daily while riding the subway, to the supermarket, to the dry cleaners, to coffee shops, to the movie theater, up the big hill at work (my office was at the top of a large hill on campus).
In Canada there is nothing within a reasonable walking distance. The subway in Toronto is not nearly as extensive as it is in Seoul and consequently I don’t need to take it nor do I have any opportunities. In my neighborhood the nearest store that I could walk to is Shoppers Drug Mart and that would take at a minimum 20 minutes to get there. So walking isn’t happening much here – that’s a big change in my physical activity which isn’t using up nearly as many calories as it should.
next and probably more important is food. In Seoul there wasn’t as much availability of foods that I could easily cook. Additionally the restaurant food that I did eat had smaller portions and was generally healthier than what I can get in Toronto (assuming I ate Korean which I usually did). Since I’ve returned to Canada I have tended to eat much more than I did in Korea because I could finally cook stuff that was not easily found to cook in Korea.
For example – didn’t own a bar-be-que in Korea so couldn’t have burgers, steaks, ribs or other grilled food easily.
Steaks
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I’ve been in Toronto just short of 3 months now and it’s time to post about the things I like about living here as compared to living in Korea – here’s the first 5.
- supermarket selection
I love going to the supermarket as I can buy anything I can imagine and it isn’t going to break the bank. The selection is staggering and is almost too much, but it’s really great to be able to buy avacodos that don’t cost $5 each if you can find them. While living in Seoul I never made a lasagna because I could never find all the ingredients I needed at the same time. Sure I could find all the ingredients but they were spread across 4 different supermarkets and 1-2 blackmarkets effectively making it impractical to actually cook.
- grass
Yes grass.
My kids playing in a park 2 minute walk away.
- courtesy
Yes common courtesy here is, well, common. People for the most part will say “excuse me” if they bump into, stand to one side when one gets into or out of an elevator or subway train. I’ve actually had to re-learn some of this behaviour including smiling and greeting strangers which feels so odd after living in Seoul for so long.
- clean air
I didn’t really notice how dirty the Seoul air is because in the 15 years I’d been there it had improved dramatically (blue sky days had at the time I left been close to 50% vs essentially non-existant in 1997)and I felt that it was close to how clean the air is in Canada. I was wrong. Living in Seoul we would clean our apartment floor every day, sometimes twice a day, but it would still be covered by a fine black dust that would inevitably stain ones feet/socks a dark gray. I also found it was necessary to clean my ears every second day with cotton swabs (q-tips). Here in Toronto (arguably Canada’s most “polluted” major city) I’ve not noticed any amount of dirt on the floors or my ears.
- quiet
It’s so quiet here. I live in Toronto itself (not downtown, but not North York, Scarborough or one of the burbs that make up the GTA). It’s so quiet here. I mean completely silent as in you can hear a pin drop. When living in Seoul the density of the urban landscape made it so that it was always noisy either through traffic, construction, neon buzzing or just plain people noise. The noise pollution is overwhelming. The thing is over time I stopped noticing it. I guess one can get used to anything. I thought my neighborhood in Seoul was quiet (and it was relatively speaking) but now that I’m living in Toronto I know what silence is. In the same way I feel that there is little to no light pollution. I Seoul I could get up in the middle of the night and walk around and see everything. Here in Toronto if I wake up I almost need a flash light to see the door out of the bedroom.
Bonus Driving
I’ve previously written about driving. here, here, here and here. All I can say is that driving in Toronto is fun and easy compared to driving in Seoul. When driving in Seoul I could not go 5 minutes with out dropping a number of f-bombs and other curses. I’ve been driving daily, and for the first month about 3-4 hours a day, since I arrived and have not dropped one f-bomb in that whole time. Last week I did mutter under my breath about one driver, but it was only something slightly dodgy – not running red lights which I saw happen at every single traffic light I was stopped at in Seoul. One thing to say is that highway drivers in Toronto are just as crazy as the highway drivers in Seoul – insanely speeding, weaving in and out of traffic and tailgating. it’s not quite as prevalent as in Korea, but it’s much higher than I remember from when lived in Winnipeg and Vancouver.
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