I'm alive!

Greetings from South Korea!

That's right, I've made it. The plane landed late afternoon on Tuesday (Korean time). When I was still in the airport this random Korean guy came up to me and took my picture! It was really weird. Welcome to Korea! Here I am exotic when back home I am so normal! I was driven from the airport to the motel I'd be staying at. I was pretty dazed and tired at this time but it was so amazing just looking at the window at South Korea on the drive. I saw mountains, cities with skyscrapers, towns, the sea. Strange trees and vegetation. Everything was so beautiful and strange, like I had stumbled into a dream. The grass was so green compared to back home where there was a drought. No lack of moisture here. It has been hot and humid. 

I met the school manager at the hotel. Motel? The room is impressively small. I will post a picture next time. I will get my studio apartment on Tuesday when I get back from Jeju so that will be good. The manager showed me around the area and got me dinner. In the morning I met two people from the school in front of the subway station. This was really nice because they showed me how to get to work! We took the subway a couple stops. I was talking excitedly with another foreign teacher when a Korean man told us (in Korean) to be quiet. Huh?! Apparently this happens a lot. The subway is so nice here compared to Philly. Much smoother, quieter (in Philly the subway screeches loudly when it stops which hurts your ears), cleaner, and overall more pleasant. It has signs and announcements in English.

The school is very nice. I am in training right now. Yesterday, I was pretty dazed all day because I was running on such little sleep thanks to extreme jetlag. Thankfully last night I slept really well so today I feel much better. It's good that I have mainly just been observing lots of classes and getting a feel for the school. There has been a lot to process. 

I will have a homeroom class called Mickey. All homerooms are based on Disney characters so I'll be in Mickey Mouse. There's 12 kids and they are six. We go to a morning meeting with the whole school, learn the date and sing a few songs. Then I will be teaching three Phonics classes in a row to three different classes. After that there is a class called Theme. There are special classes such as science or cooking. And after 2:30 I switch to teaching elementary kids who have come after their other school. I will be teaching social studies I think. I have another training day and then a week off before I start teaching. 

The food has been pretty good so far. I am just trying lots of new things. I get lunch for free at the school which is good. Kimchi is very tasty but so spicy it burns my mouth! I'll get used to the spiciness with time though. 

Overall I'm having a great time and I'm really excited. Everyone has been helpful and nice. I am going to a restaurant with some coworkers today because we are having a goodbye party for the teacher that I am replacing. It's also sort of going to be a welcome party for me! I'll tell you about it next time. 

안녕히 계세요. (Goodbye).

The final countdown!

So, my flight is on Monday. I have less than two days until I am in South Korea. And it’s feeling much more real now that I’ve got the plane ticket. Now that I’m packing. Now that my passport has the visa!

I am very excited but very nervous too. I can read all about Korea but I mostly don’t know what my own experience will be like and can’t really know until I get there. I can tell you that Anyang, the town I will be living in, is connected to Seoul via subway. It is a nice suburban area, with a Stadium that has sports and pools and things like that. There are places to hike close by, it is surrounded by mountains, and the downtown area has good shopping places.

The school is a preschool and kindergarten and in the afternoon come the elementary kids. The class size is usually under 12. I do not know what age group I will be assigned to. I am used to little kids so hopefully Korean kids aren’t too different. When I arrive, I will have three days of training. Then I get a week off! I am planning on seeing my friend Vanessa and go visit Jeju Island during that time because I won’t get many vacations like that.

I’m pretty impressed with myself because I can now read Hangul (Korean writing) at about the pace of a five-or six year old learning to sound out letters. The good thing is, Korean letters are more uniform than English letters, and so they’re pretty much always pronounced the same way. So I might not know what it means but I can read Korean writing! I know some Korean words and phrases too. I am learning through TalktomeinKorean and through other language sites I come across, but that’s the one I like the most. The podcasts are fun and break the language down into bite-size pieces. I do not know very much but I should be okay. I’ll keep trying to learn more for my own benefit. 

Anyway, I'm sure my next post will be actually from South Korea so I'll see you on the other side. I wonder what this year will bring.