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.