Adventures In South Korea: February 2011

Monday, February 21, 2011

Settling In

We are really getting settled into our life in Korea. Suji is a great city to live in. We have met a lot of good friends and eaten some amazing food. We have tried a lot of great dishes such as Omurice, Galbi, Mandu, Kimbap or Gimbap, Porridge, and different kinds of kimchi. I've tried almost everything except for the little tiny fishes that are dried. It's popular with Koreans, but I'm going to avoid it. I'm not really a big fan of fish anyway. Our school serves us free lunch everyday, but if we're not in the mood, we can go across the street and find something cheap. There's a place called "Pizza School" that's really popular. It's only $5 for a pizza there. There's a grocery store next to our school called Kim's Club. We haven't been in yet, but that's where a lot of teachers go to get groceries. We also frequent Home Plus or Family Mart which is like a 7-11. We also go to the actual 7-11 stores they have here too. If we need more items, we go to E-Mart or Lotte Mart which is like going to Target. The only difference is there are a lot of floors and it's vertically spread out. So you take your grocery cart up the escalator that is more like a conveyer belt instead of stairs. Everything is within a 15-20 minute walking distance. Here are some pictures of the food we've eaten:

Our breakfast sometimes

Gimbap

Gimbap - similar to sushi

Chicken Porridge - like soup, rice, chicken, and veggies

Mandu - dumplings. This one has meat and veggies but there are many other kinds

Omurice - hard to see, but it's an omlet filled with rice

Little tiny dried fish. I didn't try this one.

Here's what we haven't eaten, but a sample of what we've seen:

Squid at the grocery store

Dried fish at the grocery store

Pre-packaged fish meal

The Dayelin School has been giving us our observation assignment each day. We mostly spend our time observing kindergarten in the morning and then the LangCon classes (older kids) in the afternoon. This week we will observe the same way but now we start watching more classes and sometimes staying until 6pm. This weekend we are supposed to have a training, but it conflicts with an even the teachers have going on so we'll see if it's postponed. Here are some pics of the school:

Outside of our school

Inside of the school

The floor we spend the most time on

The teacher's room at school

The kids also recently did an end of the term concert. It was very adorable! They showed of their English skills by performing shorter versions of plays like the Wizard of Oz, Ali Baba, and some other ones I can't think of right now. Here are some cute pics of the kids (there are more on Facebook):

Here are a few more random pics:

Our footwear for the day - slippers

What our money looks like. It takes only a day or two to figure it out.

This week is more observing at school, but soon we'll be teaching (March 2nd). I think we'll have some practice classes before March as well. Today, one of the teachers let me teach a science lesson which was just showing the students that water and oil don't mix. Very easy. This position is going to be very easy overall which is great. I can't wait to get internet at our apartment so we can stay home and communicate better, but soon we will!

More later!

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

School Days

Time for school!

We started observing classes this week at the Langcon school. Our walk to school is about 15 minutes from our apartment, but we could take a 5 min bus ride if we wanted to. So far we've just been walking. The exercise is great.

Our Korean helper teacher, Lauren, has been giving us our observation schedule each day (only Monday and Tuesday so far). We have been sitting in on Sarah's class (she's from Ireland), Deans class (he's from England), and today we go watch Graham's class (he's from Canada). They call the teachers by their first name and add teacher after - so I am Jen Teacher and Jim is Jim Teacher. There are kindergarden kids and older kids; so ages 6-8. However in Korea, they are one year older because of the Lunar calendar, so really they are ages 5-7 in American terms. They do science, math, grammar, reading and writing. We get to teach all these subjects too! Another great bonus is that lunch is brought to the school and the teachers get to eat for free. We've had two meals so far, and it's been delicous! If we decide to go elsewhere for lunch, there are a lot of great restaurants around the area for us too. Today we had spaghetti, salad, soup, bread, and a clementine. They also brought sweet pickles. I've noticed that there are pickles as sides with a lot of things you wouldn't think go together. I personally don't think pickles and spaghetti go together, but oh well!

We have another Korean helper teacher and her name is Anna Teacher. She meets with the foreign/English speaking teachers each day for a little bit in the morning. It's like a staff meeting. We figure out what's going on each day. There is also Donna Teacher, Michele Teacher, and Debbie Teacher. They are all so nice!

There will be 5 new teachers coming next week. By that time we'll be showing them around already! However, 4 current teachers will be staying for awhile so we won't be THE veterans quite yet...

We finally tried out a nore bang (nore-ay bong) last night which is a karaoke room that we can rent out with friends and sing our hearts out. It was a blast! No waiting in line for your turn, no getting skipped or missing out on a song because it's bar close. It's so fun! I can't wait to try it again. Even Jim sang a song! He's a great singer :)

More later!

A group of teachers having fun on Valentines Day

Me singing at the nore bang

Matt Teacher and Graham Teacher at the nore bang

Kim and Matt Teacher at the nore bang

Graham Teacher and Kristen Teacher at the nore bang

The Teacher's Room

Bodeene Teacher and Graham Teacher at school

School books

Me and Jim at school during lunch

Saturday, February 12, 2011

Getting Started

Today is Sunday, February 13th at about 5pm. My partner Jim and I are sitting in a PC bang (or public computer room) in Suji-gu, South Korea as I write this. We arrived on February 9th at about 6:00am. The flight was 14 hours long and we were so tired when we arrived. Our first job was to find the driver who was picking us up and head directly to the school we are going to teach for. The school is called Dayelin Langcon English. We successfully found our driver and we were there before everyone else. The school's driver, Mr. Kim, walked us over to a place called Paris Baguette (delicious!!) for breakfast. We sat and waited for the foriegn teachers to arrive but met the Korean teachers while we waited. Everyone is so fabulous! The foreign teachers are from Canada, the UK, Ireland, and MN! We were suprised to meet a fellow teacher from Rochester, but I guess there are tons of teachers from MN in Korea. Who knew.

We arrived earlier than most new teachers because our first school's contract fell through so more new teachers will arrive shortly. We'll also get a new apartment once two current teachers leave. We don't begin teaching until March 2nd. In the mean time we'll explore Korea and observe classes at the school. We are also here early so we can get our alien registration card. We won't have internet in our apartments and we won't have a phone until then. So in the meantime, it's PC bang for us!We have already traveled around Suji, where we live, and to Itaewon and Seoul. All of these places are great! We stopped at Myeondong in Seoul but only to window shop (no paycheck yet!). Myeondong is a huge shopping area like an outdoor mall. The street food there smelled so good. This was also our opportunity to see the subway, although we haven't ridden on it yet. We took the bus everywhere so far which is cheap and easy to use. There's a lot of walking involved here too, but it's so good for us! We've eaten galbi (grill-it-yourself) and kimchi and lots of other stuff. The food is amazing!

More later!