Seoul Weekend Update

The eventful weekend in Seoul came to a dramatic close with announcement of the death of the North Korean leader Kim Jeong Il. Many people back home have been asking me what the South Korean response has been and, from what I have seen, there isn't much response. In general, the South Korean people are just tired of the ridiculousness that is their northern counterpart. There is a general fear that things will get worse, but little hope that things will get better of their own accord. There aren't parties or military parades. When asked, many students are glad he's dead but worried about the future. It's interesting. Because of the nature of their relationship with the North, the middle schoolers I teach are the most politically aware teenagers I have encountered. It's likely they are just parroting what they hear their parents, teachers or guardians say, but it is impressive nonetheless. I've noticed many South Korean students here like Busan, but have problems with Korea. They want to leave and study in England or the U.S. They do not agree with the signing of the FTA and they can provide reasons why, often. It's interesting.

Philly Cheesesteak or silkworm larvae...decisions, decisions...

Before the big news, we had a very eventful weekend. The company I work for, Avalon, had a huge end of year party where teachers and staff from all over South Korea came. We took group pictures, some teachers performed in a talent show and got cash prizes. The most surprising point of the show was when a Korean performer came on stage and busted out 'Rock 'n' Roll' by Led Zeppelin. I was pretty shocked, it was impressive! Come to find out it was a woman too! She had short hair and glasses and wasn't wearing dresses like most Korean women do. The Ceos and important people in the company gave speeches. It was a beautiful venue. The bus trip up was almost 7 hours long and we took three rest stops on the way.

Fun times but reaaaaalllly long.

After the event ended, we met up with a couple of people who had attended the orientation in Seoul with our teachers and now live there. They took us out on the town to see the sights. While Seoul was a great place to visit ful of interesting places to go and eat, I have to say I'm glad I live in Busan. Seoul seems like it'd take a while to get used to. I think it may be comparable to nicer parts of New York City but the people are quieter and less pushy. The cab drivers are still insane.

After we ate, I had my first kareoke experience in Korea. I can say it was actually really fun! Unlike in kareoke bars in the U.S. in Korea you pay for a room for an hour and it's just you and your friends with a Kareoke system. So you and people you are comfortable with are just screaming along to ridiculous songs. Oh and I played the tamborine. So my father's dream of me becoming the tamborinist in a band is semi-actualized. We stayed out very late, visiting many places because it was so cheap. We didn't get to where we were staying until 8am! At that point after walking around in the cold and lugging our bags around Seoul, it was really nice to curl up on a blanket on the heated floor and sleep. We all stayed with this guy Gary who was a hero and made us coffee in the morning and then went with us to help us get the KTX back to Busan. While the bus ride up was free, the KTX took less than half the time and cost 48,000KRW which isn't bad. At some points the train was going 300 Kilometers per hour. It was such a whirlwind of activity I didn't get as many pictures as I would have liked and discovered too late that it's easy to take video with my iPod...But lesson learned and hopefully it's easy to upload video on here.

Hope everyone back home is well. I'm working on compiling a gift box for my family, but it's likely to get there almost a month from now...sorry. My classes are fun so far, but the biggest problem I'm having is figuring out how to make the students happy by making the classes fun and interesting, while still completing the work in the workbooks to make the administration and the parents happy. It's a difficult balancing act. We shall see.

XOXOXOXO

Bukkoos Good-byes and a Snowball Fight (sort of).

After a long week of teaching, Friday rolled around and one of the old foreign teachers (Aaron) was celebrating his last day in Korea so, of course, we went to Smiley's for Korean BBQ. The name of the place is not actually Smiley's but it's called that because the owner is forever smiling.

He's aptly named.

Once we were all seated on the floor we proved ourselves mature adults by proceeding to start a "snowball fight" between the two tables by chucking our washcloths at each other. There is still controversy over who threw the first punch. The owners were good natured about our rambunctiousness luckily...We enjoyed a lovely, albeit somewhat silly dinner.

He makes this face...a lot.

I was at a table with Aaron's father and brother, Aaron, his girlfriend Namyoung, and Jay. We were definitely the cool table.

Making peace signs in pictures is cool.

After much meat and side dishes, we went to the local foreign bar HQ and talked and listened to music. I was sleepy so I went back earlier than everyone else who apparently stayed out until 5am. Such party people!

The next day we decided to have a movie night at one of my coworker's apartment. I woke up late and was starving so I went to a Vietnamese place that just opened up. It was a nice change of pace and a very trendy looking place. Maybe I'll have to visit 'nam sometime afterall.

Jess is thuper exthited for the Pho.

After a week long debate as to which movie we were going to watch, we finally settled for Robinhood Men in Tights as something on which we could all agree.

The boys are less excited about the Cary Elwes action.

We ordered pizza (not kimchi for once!) and enjoyed laughing at, and in the case of the females drooling over Cary Elwes, the movie. The next night we went to a dinner party at one of the ladies who works at HQ apartment. She made us homecooked Korean food which was amazing and we talked and watched Law and Order. It was a relaxing conclusion to a pretty busy weekend and week.

This coming weekend we are all taking a bus (possibly a train) up to the capitol city Seoul for the year-end company shindig. We are planning to stay there a night and travel back to Busan separately so that we can visit friends in Seoul (I know some people from my highschool in Vienna, Austria who live there!) and chill out with other foreign teachers in South Korea. I'm really excited to get out of Busan and see more of South Korea. In the future, we are planning on taking a ferry to Japan (or maybe the plane) and plans to visit other countries around South Korea are in the works. It's an exciting time to be alive. :)

Much love and good wishes for everyone back home <3

Xoxoxoxo

We went with a huge group of people including

Happy Barf-day to me. :oP

So last week was a whirlwind of action, good food, new places, goodbyes and, unfortunately, new relationships with the porcelian throne. On the first I was able to move out of the 'Love Motel' and into my new apartment. I'm trying to look on the bright side, but let me just say it's a good thing I have experience living in Third World conditions. Haha. Besides needing to be drenched in Clorox and vigorously elbow-greased, the apartment is very nice and the previous owners have left many items which can, at times, be confusing- tamborine anyone!? But the location is great, less than three minutes walk from where I work and literally on top of a convenience store that offers everything a Wawa would except for the hoagies (and the day-old meatballs).

Pictures of my new home. Where's Waldo?

For most of the week we newbies were thrown into teaching so we were busy during the day preparing for that and the evenings were spent trying to figure out how to get our clothes out of the Korean washers which are all in Hangul and will only let you have access to your clothing when IT wants you to. I'm on the fourteenth floor and if need be I can repel down this fire escape shoot thing that is built into the wall Batman-style....oooohhhhhh yeeeeaaaaah.

...I never liked her anyway. (Jean shop in a local mall).

The night before my birthday was great. I hung out with the other teachers at this great Korean Barbeque place and had a ball talking about our classes. After dinner we went over to one of the teacher's apartments and hung out until wee hours of the morning. Later that day, I woke up feeling a little under the weather, but well enough to greet the maintainance guy and have a conversation with him. Just as he left my health took a turn for the worst. I had been drinking Gatorade that for some reason was GINGER flavored thinking it'd help my health and that I was just dehydrated or something.

I didn't feel the need to hurl, however, until one of my fellow foreign teachers came knocking on my door asking if I wanted to come walk around with her in town because it was nice and sunny. In the middle of her sentence, I pushed past her into the bathroom, closed the door and lost the contents of my stomach. It was only seconds later that I realized that I had just closed myself in the bathroom with the light off and was standing in the dark. After a couple beats there was a tentative knock with a quiet 'are you okay?' coming from the other side of the door. 'Yeah,' I managed to splutter. She eventually said that she'd come see how I was doing later and quietly left. For the next day and a half I got to know my new toilet VERY WELL. The only thing that kept me sane was the fact that I had several good books to read in between puke sessions.

I woke up this morning exhausted but stable and made my way to the immigration office to apply for my Alien Registration Card. So, you know, I won't be deported or anything. I have slowly been feeling better and was able to eat solid food for the first time it what seems ages. As we were finishing up our meal at our favorite cheap place to eat near school, everyone started to get all shifty, but I was still tired and out of it. I didn't see the cake with candles coming until they burst out singing and it was plopped in front of me. The owner of the restaurant came over and gave me a hug. I was bright red and the cake had four (I turned 24) candles and a cute chocolate coffee cup on the top. It was heart-shaped and lovely. I was pretty touched, I nearly cried in my kimchi. The rest of the day was great. I had two gregarious classes that made it easy to teach, except this time I refrained from throwing fart putty at the kids because it sent some of the girls into hysterics.

All in all, life is good. :)

Surprise! That cake was soooooo good and cute! So nice of my new friends.

Hungry?

Health clinics in Korea are quite an experience. The government expects you to go through a rigorous and, oddly thorough, health examination shortly after arrival in the country. The thing that struck me most about the process was how open it all was, there were no closed doors and you could sit there and watch people getting their blood drawn and people shuffled through the hallways in the flimsy hospital gowns. There were different stations you circulated through with your records and got the clearance to go onto the next station. Kind of reminded me of an obstacle course. The first station was body measurements where they weighed you, measured your height, blood pressure, sight and, for somereason, chest size. This information was recorded and then you were sent to the next station where you were asked to give a urine sample and then they drew blood for testing. The doctor in charge of this station had a difficult time finding my veins in the crook of my arm. After failed attempts, he drew blood from my wrist which was unpleasant. After that it was off to the radiology lab where your chest was x-rayed. Sadly, we didn't get to see the pictures. The last station was sitting in a doctor's office while he asked you questions about your health history.

Afterwords I tried this thing:

Yup...squid jerky

It was super chewy and hard. It had an interesting flavor and consistency. I didn't mind it but not the best snack I've had since coming to Korea. The first Korean snack I had when I got to Gimpo:

Shrimp chips.

They are pretty good, have a very mild flavor and are a bit greasy, but they taste like shrimp. My first dinner in Korea was kind of a cop-out but I had been on flights for about twenty four hours and was ready to sleep, so I picked up some ramen. I was surprised to find that there is a HUGE selection here. In the States we have pretty much two flavors chicken and shrimp. Here they have ones with different kinds of noodles, bits of beef, seaweed...it's pretty amazing. I can definitely say that Korean just-add-hot-water ramen trumps American ramen any day:

But still cheap: 1,000 KRW (roughly a dollar)

Speaking of food, during lunch today all the foreign teachers went as a group to eat and after we walked down to the local market. A huge tent covered the streets and there were stands where you could buy live eels, catfish and other kinds of fish in tanks in addition to vegetables, spices and fruit:


So many smells and things to see.

The reason for us going was to get these deep fried pastries that are served warm and are similiar to donuts. You add sugar and there is syrup and chopped walnuts inside. To die for. There are places there where you can choose your fish alive from one of the tanks and they cook and serve it to you.

After work, we all went out to get Korean barbeque at a place that the veteran teachers call "smiley's" because the owner is always smiling. The tables have a small fire pit in the middle where you cook thin slices of marinated beef yourself. They bring you tons of side dishes and leaves of lettuce and sesame leaves. You put whatever side dish you want along with the beef on a leaf and wrap it up. Kind of like a burrito or something. It was incredible and a really fun experience.

And of course, there is kimchi

Twas great food in a great city with great people. All in all, a great time. :)

XoXo

Turkey Day

To my great surprise, delight and apprehension, the current lead foreign teacher let me know when I came in yesterday morning that I would be teaching. While I was nervous, I was grateful for the opportunity because I had been sitting through so many observations and was ready to jump into the water (and hope it wasn't a shark tank). So I scrambled around to locate the books, make photocopies and then plan the lesson. My coworkers were helpful and helped me print out class rosters and gave me information about problem students.

The first class that I taught is what they call a 'funeral class.' As the name implies, people are more talkative and energetic at a funeral. Including the dead guy. The class started out well, I was going to play some ice breakers which is a more structured way of getting to know the students, but that pretty much dissolved as a student in the back kept calling out random things and tried to get me to say words in Korean...which I didn't. After that point I just had a conversation with the class to get them talking. Things came to a grinding halt, however as soon as I tried to get them to pair up and work on a worksheet together. First of all, just getting the students to move and sit next to their partners was like pulling teeth. Then, getting them to speak and not just copy answers...To be fair, I went into this class at a disadvantage. I had about half an hour to find an old copy of the leveled book (because the foreign teacher I was covering is extremely disorganized and lost the book he was working on) pick a random lesson that had nothing to do with what they have been working on, and try and make it interesting.

I would say overall, that was a fail.

It is difficult because for speaking classes, one would assume that the majority of the time should be spent speaking, but I work for a business and the clients (parents) want to see that their children are filling in their book. It didn't help that the teacher they usually have has a very different teaching style.

The second class I taught went much better. It was a higher level writing class and the teacher made copies for me and printed out the roster early on so I was able to plan more extensively. Also, the teacher stayed in the room with me, which made me feel better about things. (On a side note, let me say that the simple act of photocopying something is a pandora's box of grief: Everything is in Korean and it's also the most complicated Xerox machine I have ever encountered and I'm close to a pro.) While I still have many criticisms about how the lesson went, at least I wasn't sitting in a completely silent room, naiively waiting for someone to say something...anything.

I then made the mistake of going to the Korean head teacher to ask if she had seen one of the books I was going to use for tomorrow (now today). She asked me why and I said I wanted to prepare the lesson for tomorrow. And like a flash she was over by the foreign head teacher saying I wasn't ready and that I had to observe until they said I could teach. I'm going to be honest, I kind of wanted to scream.

Firstly, I taught for slightly over a half a year, by myself, for full days, in a class of eight year olds. I spent a LOT of time and went into a fair amount of debt to get a degree in EDUCATION. I have been reading books about teaching english, I have been talking to teachers all week about teaching there, I've been taking extensive notes while in the classroom, I've been spending my stupid amounts of free time looking up information about teaching english in Korea. I came here because it was not a barely over minimum wage job at a convenience store. It was a job in the general vicinity of teaching that had the added perks of being in a completely new and exciting place. So yes, I am going to spend more of my free time writing lesson plans and grading papers. I am also going to go out and see new things and explore. Anyway, suffice to say, I was a tad peeved and frustrated. If I had known that this was experience they would take away if they knew I had I wouldn't have said anything in the first place.

Later at Thanksgiving dinner, I asked the foreign head teacher what he thought I should do and he said that he's still going to give me classes, I'm just going to teach half of them. After that I felt a little better.

On to Thanksgiving. Right across the street from the school there's a foreign bar named HQ where we all headed after we got out of work. It was naturally, the loudest place I had been in South Korea. There were no more tables or seats, so our group stood around awkwardly and talked while we waited for the dinner to be served. It was weird after being the minority for almost a week to all of a sudden be in a room full of foreigners. The TV on the wall was playing professional pool, but Ley told me that when there are Eagles games on they watch them instead. Oh, and four new teachers came today. Apparently, they have been in Seoul all week for training. Why I was the only one who didn't go to training, who knows. But I am glad. I was ready to be thrown in. Anyway, we got to know the newbies a little better and then the food came. It was mashed potatoes, and turkey covered in stuffing. It tasted like Rosemary and it was phenomenal for not being home cooked.

Om nom nom.

After we ate we sat around talking until late (one of the perks of working later) and then the other newbies and I took a taxi back to the motel we are now all staying in.

Disney-style.

Also, talking about Thanksgiving with the students was hilarious. One of the teachers asked the students how we celebrate Thanksgiving in America. One response was "You eat a turkey." Yes, the teacher replied, we each eat a whole turkey by ourselves and the kids laughed. In one class we went around and said what we were thankful for. I said I was thankful for my father who works hard to make money to help my siblings and I go to college, for having such a great family, and for the opportunity to come teach in Korea.

Xoxo

Technical Difficulties

My first day of school was not as action packed as I'd hoped, but fun nonetheless. My Avolon contact was nice enough to take a taxi with me to the school so I did not have to navigate the Metro by myself the first day (whew). She dropped me off with the secretary whom, from what I gathered didn't speak much english. This meant that when I met the director of the school I had no clue who it was I was meeting until it was too late. We sat down, he asked me about my flight, we talked about how cold it was and then we sat in awkward silence. Awesome. He thanked me for coming and I went to join the others in the teacher room. The Korean teachers were all very polite but did not talk to me much.

Once the group of foreign teachers arrived they swarmed on me and whisked me away to a seperate room to 'give me the scoop.'

There is five of us total. Ley is half Korean, half American and I was thrilled to discover that she hails from Philly. So naturally I brought up the Flyers and may have convinced her I actually knew what I was talking about. Maybe. Then I met Aaron who showed up in a sports jersey and a Canadian accent. Joel is crazy tall and frequently is pretty hilarious. Dom is from England and the kids love emulating his accent. They were all very frank about what it's like to work here and very giving with their advice which I really appreciated. It was a relief to be able to get some answers for the first time in days.

Because Ley didn't have to teach for a while and I didn't have to observe, she took me to a local place to eat that is really cheap that is literally right next door. We talked about living in Busan and working at the school. It was nice to be around someone else after being alone for a couple of days. When we returned to the office and the first thing I noticed was how so many of the middle school students wanted to be around the teachers. They would wander in and out in small groups and talk to the teachers in Korean and laugh. From what I remember of middle school, in between classes, unless you had to, you weren't talking to teachers.

During the observations it was clear that teaching here was going to be a challenge, not because the children are unruly, but most of the time they are flat-out exhausted. In Korea, the pressure to do well in school is so high that students attend almost 12 hours of school and then go home and study even more. For the most part, they spend their weekends studying. Ley told me about one of the girls who gets roughly four hours of sleep each night because she studies so much. She's thirteen. For the handful of students that do have energy, keeping them on task is a herculean endeavor. Many parents work very late and students do not get much interaction with them. Because of this, the adult validation and interaction falls heavily on the teachers.

From what I have observed, the best strategy is to laugh and have fun with the kids and entertain them. The classes where the teacher was animated, talked back and forth with the kids were the most entertaining and the most was accomplished. The style of learning is very different here too. No one raises hands or takes turns. Students call out and often interrupt the teacher. Not in a rude way, they are just eager sometimes to talk.

After passing out almost right away last night, I woke up at 4 am again (arrrggghhhh) and watched K-Pop groups on tv for about an hour before I decided to go find food. I tried some new food selections today including this triangular-shaped hunk of rice with spicy tuna in the middle that was wrapped in seaweed. Amazing. I took my breakfast down to the beach and enjoyed the sound of the waves and the peacefulness as the sun rose. I now know why they call Korea The Land of the Morning Calm. :)

The Metro wasn't half as scary and confusing as I thought it was going to be. The ticket kiosk is in English and the signs are not in Hangul. I am now at work an hour early because I overestimated my ability to get myself hopelessly lost. Maybe I'm not as directionally challenged as I had thought.

Lots of Love,
XoXo

P.S- The computer in my room has decided it serves a better function as a large, expensive paperweight. Trying to figure out why it's having this existential crisis, but everything is in Korean soo...

Seriously, you could eat off that floor

So this is happening.

After months of delays, paperwork and scraping money together, it really only dawned on me that this move was kind of a big deal as we were landing in Busan. The skyscrapers built into and up the side of the mountains, which reminded me of something out of Lord of the Rings, made it seem like this actually was some sort of fairytale. Luckily, the adorable little girl who had been singing and kicking (hey, at least it was in rhythm) the back of my chair for the duration of the flight resumed doing so and I was snapped out of it. Unfortunately, I did not have my camera out so I didn't get a picture.

The control tower at Gimpo Airport, one of the three airports I was in.

After I picked up my behemoth suitcase, I headed out the doors where the taxi driver was waiting with a sign with my name on it. After smiling and helping me roll my suitcase out the door, he then started off on a jog towards the parking lot. Luckily I had been sitting for what felt like days, so I was down for some cardio. Once we got to the van he was taking me to meet my contact in, he opened up the door and motioned for me to get in. When he saw I was trying to locate seatbelts, from the drivers seat, motioned to the passenger seat up front and said "seat belt up here." So, naturally, I unceremoniously climbed/fell over the front arm rest into the passenger seat.

Before I got off the plane, I had spit out my gum in order to avoid being the stereotypical loud, gum-smacking American (the same reason I left my stetson at home). But gum-smacking seemed to be the taxi driver's favorite pasttime. So we both smacked gum in silence as we headed towards out destination. Let me just say that I am RIDICULOUSLY GLAD I don't have to drive here. I have never been too much a fan of driving as it is, but from what I gathered the lines on the road are general guidelines and whomever is 'yielding' has the right of way. It's definitely a style of driving I'm not used to.

Some things that excited/surprised me about what I saw on the way to our destination:

1) The floor of the van was made out of wood. Yes, wood. Although I was disappointed to find that the driver didn't stick his feet out the bottom of the vehicle to make it go Fred Flintstone-style (trust me, I checked).

2) Even though we were on what appeared to be the highway, people did not speed much at all. It was nice to not have to worry about a guy in a pickup angrily tailgating you if you are going under 80 mph on a highway.

3) Most of the signs are in Hangul and don't have pictures. While I am glad in a way, this is going to make finding my way around slightly more difficult.

4) I was happy to find that in the area I am currently in, there are less Western shops and places to eat than I was expecting. I really only saw a couple fast food chains on my way in.


5) I saw this huge metal frame wrapped in green netting and was wracking my brain trying to figure out what possible purpose such a thing could serve. Finally we got closer to it and there was the word 'golf' on the side of the building it was next to and I noticed that there were targets on the ceiling of the 'cage' with points on them. How cool would it be to be able to drive golf balls in the middle of a city?

He stopped the van next to a lady who was leaning against a railing and I recognised her as my contact for Avalon. After awkward hello's, she pointed to the tall building we were standing next to and said we were going in here. She dropped me off at my room, gave me her business card in case I needed anything, and told me she'd be back to take me to work on Monday then closed the door. I looked around thinking...okay...now what!? The room they gave me is very nice and I'm kind of glad I'm here and not in an empty apartment without internet.

It took me pretty much two days to defeat the intense Jet lag I was experiencing. Today I woke up around 5 am, got dressed and headed out to do some exploring. While it was quite chilly, it was much more relaxing to walk around when there were less people and cars. I discovered that I'm about 6 minutes walk away from the beach and there are some interesting looking places to eat including, of all things, an Irish Pub, a Baskin Robins, the obligatory KFC, several 7 elevens and to my great surprise and delight an "Always Sunny in Philadelphia Bar." I guess that show is more prolific then I had assumed. Go figure.

Not kidding.

I look forward to going to work later today and hopefully get started on orientation and settling in. I also hope to get some answers to the MANY questions I have at this point.

Anyway, thanks for reading my ramblings, I'm going to go make some more instant coffee and possibly venture out to find a place with wi-fi.

XoXo Nicole