Experiences teaching for a year in South Korea. Traveling the country and taking pictures everywhere.
Thursday, September 30, 2004
Bukhansan
(click to enlarge)
On Tuesday, the four of us decided to hike Bukhan mountain, which is just outside of Seoul. Our leisurely hike soon turn into the workout of the century. Climbing rocks bigger than my body, holding on the ropes for my life. Even unbreakable Gabe was shaking by the end of his climb up to the top. We soon realized that Bukhansan wasn't a mountain that you can finish climbing in a matter of a few hours. The Pictures.
I know it's been awhile since I wrote, but I'm just getting over a pretty bad cold I developed after going to Osaka. I lost my bigget asset to the school - my voice, so I've been trying to rest in order to regain it back.
Thursday was our monthly field trip with the morning kindergarden kids. We went to a park, just outside of Seoul. There's not a lot of wildlife in Ilsan or Seoul, so the kids were pretty excited to see animals such as fish, butterflies and bees.
Saturday, Matt, Craig and I went into Seoul to take a look at the Gyeongbokgung Palace, the markets, and the rest of downtown Seoul. There's actually an English book store nearby, which is good to know. We went out to dinner, then checked out the markets. It's just a huge maze of booths, selling cheap shoes, clothes, food, anything you can think of. We later went up the mountain and looked at the Seoul Tower, as well as check out the view of Seoul. It was just amazing to see the city from above. Amazing to imagine that 14 million people live in that city. Half of Canada living in one city....it's hard to grasp sometimes.
This week is Chusok, Korean Thanksgiving. Many families go back to their hometown to wipe off their ancestors graves and the women prepare meals for a sort-of 3 day family reunion. Everything is closed during that time, so we all get Monday to Wednesday off. Matt, Craig, Gabe and I are planning on hiking one of the nearby mountains tomorrow. I'm looking forward to that, to take lots of pictures of the view.
I added two more links to pictures of the field trip and of Saturday, so enjoy!
Yesterday, Craig and I went to Osaka to get our working VISA to be able to work in Korea. We were going to go for the weekend, but due to many Korean and Japanese holidays this month, it was hard to get a plane booked for the weekend. So, we had to get it done on a Tuesday.
The problem was, we had to get our visa documentation in the Korean Embassy by 2pm, in order to pick up the working visa at 4pm to catch our 7pm flight home. Sound complicated? Oh, it gets better.
On Monday it was a holiday in Japan, so Tuesday, all the business men from Korea who work in Japan came on the flight Tuesday. Craig and I were in immigration waiting in line for over an hour. We missed the fast train over to the Embassy, which is a 30 minute train ride away. We got on a train somehow and ran over to the subway, which we needed to take. After getting off the subway, we had 10 minutes to find the Korean embassy and filled out our documentation papers. We got there at 2:05.....and just made it to pick up our visas at 4pm. It was my worst nightmare come true. In a foreign country...whole new language...whole new city...and we were under time pressure to not only get our visas, but to be able to get back to catch the 7pm flight back to Incheon Airport.
When picking up our visas, we met other Americans and Canadians doing the visa run from Korea. We stayed together, caught the train home together, and flights home. Funny enough, met a guy from Belleville who went to Brock.
I guess through the whole experience, I can say I've been to Japan, even if it was only for 7 hours, and most of it was in immigration and the Korean Embassy. I got some interesting pictures....and had a good story to tell when I came back to work today.
It's usually radish, egg, carrot, cucumber and crab rolled in rice, then seaweed. Kind of like sushi....only if you call it sushi here Korean's will be offended. There's a love/hate relationship here with Japan. You can get tuna kimbap, or kimchee kimbap (kimchee is aged spicy cabbage...popular here). I would say 80% of my meals here are Korean. There's a lot of Americanized restaurants here, but I'm staying away from those.
Tomorrow, Craig and I will be going to Osaka, Japan to get our working VISAs. I'm a little nervous....it's a little tricky to find the embassey. A lot of traveling by bus, plane and train. But at least we get a day off work.
We have a new teacher at Swaton. Blaine has gone back to Regina; Gabriel from New York City will now replace Blaine as the new English teacher. Matt, Craig and I took him out for dinner last night. At the table behind us, the woman at the table had a dog with a cast. Now I've seen it all.....
Tonight, Matt, Craig and I went to the big shopping, restaurant, entertainment area of Ilsan called "La Festa". Matt had been telling us about these places called DVD bongs. They are places where you can rent a movie and watch it there. For 5 bucks, you can rent the movie and go into a private room with these big couches and watch the movie on a big screen. They have a bunch of American movies you can watch, but we opted for the Korean movie with English subtitles. The guy who owned the place recommended "The Classic", so we picked that one. It's hard to get used to subtitles, but it was interesting because you can learn a lot about their culture.
Matt, Blaine & Craig: Not your average teddy bear prize... (click to enlarge)
Here's one for the books:
Last night Craig, Blaine, Matt and I went out for drinks and met up with some women who used to teach at Swaton with Matt and Blaine. As we were walking home, I saw one of those machines that usually has stuffed animals in them...the ones where you put in a coin and grab the prizes; and if you can grab onto it with the claws, you can keep the prize. As I looked into the prize box, I couldn't help but be surprised to see prizes such as knifes and razors. My favourite was the big bottle of whiskey. To think that anyone, any age could win these prizes....
Today was parents day. Every 3 months, each kindergarden class puts on a play and performs it for the parents. My UPenn class did Goldilocks and the Three Bears. And Melody was Goldilocks: the girl with the golden hair. It was really cute....too bad half the parents couldn't understand it because it was in English. :)
I've been creating some online albums of photos I've taken so far. You'll be able to go to the photo albums either through this entry, or through the links posted on the right side under: "Pictures".
The first weekend we were here, the 2 other Canadian teachers we teach with took us out Saturday night. Blaine has been here for almost a year. His contract is almost up (3 more days to be exact) and he's flying back to Regina. Matthew is orginially from Welland, but hasn't lived in Canada for a few years, traveling and working mainly in England and Ireland.
Ilsan is on the Seoul subway system, but since Seoul is so big, it takes about 20 min-1 hour to get to the main areas of Seoul. Matt and Blaine took us to a part of Seoul called Itaewon. It's near a U.S. army base, so there are a lot of "foreigners" with lots of shops, bars, and restaurants accommodating our English. Many non-traditional Korean girls come here to meet foreigner men. Usually it's a "no-no" for Koreans to hang out with foreigners, let alone date them, but the younger generations of Koreans are becoming more accepting of us foreigners.
Blaine knows a few people from Regina who are here teaching, so we met up with them. We all went out for dinner at Ho Lee Chow (yes, a North American Chinese restaurant....) and went to a bar afterwards. Blaine is dating a girl from Korea named Jamie. He met her at our school. She was one of the Korean-English kindergarden teachers there. We were all sitting in the bar, when suddenly Jamie jumps up and pulls out her camera. Park Shin Yang was there and just went into the bathroom. Matt told us that Park Shin Yang was a famous movie/tv actor. He's on a very popular soap oprea that 1 in every 2 Koreans watch. I was surprised that he would be in the bar where we were, but Matt said that Seoul is like the L.A. of Korea...actors everywhere.
Blaine got his autograph for Jamie, and during their conversation, Blaine mentioned he was an English teacher and Park Shin Yang said that he is interested in learning English better. He gave Blaine his home phone number and email. Later that week, Blaine received a phone call from Park Shin Yang, and they are going out for dinner before Blaine leaves for home. If this all works out well, Blaine said he might come back for another teaching contract, and teach Park Shin Yang on the side. I still don't believe it.
In the mornings, I teach kindergarden. There is no national kindergarden program in Korea yet, so a lot of parents send their kids to Swaton to get a head start. There are 5 kindergarden classes, grouped according to age and English level. My homeroom class is called UPenn (all classes named after Ivy League American schools - weird? yes). There's only 4 kids in the class, but they test my patience everyday. At 12, I feed them lunch and have to eat lunch with them until they are finished. No one brings a lunch, we are all fed Korean lunches by the kitchen staff. I haven't found a meal I haven't liked. And I also like it because I will always get a different Korean meal everyday to taste and discover.
I have a little boy in my class, whose English name is Daniel. He's cuter than anything, but I find myself constantly yelling at him because he's distracted very easily. Lately, he has discovered the word "delicious". For the past 3 lunches, he has been constantly saying, "Mary teacher, this not delicious". At first I thought it was funny because it's humourous to see a little boy use such a big English word to describe something. However, today the kitchen staff were sitting on the couches outside my classroom. And there goes Daniel yelling, "teacher, thisnot delicious!". Grr....it'll be a miracle when he finds these meals delicious.
Since I'm here for a year, I figured I should have some central site that everyone can come and look at. Over the next little bit, I'll learn (aka beg Craig to teach me) how to post pictures, different sites, etc that I find interesting here.
I'll learn a little more tonight, and maybe post some pics.
Anyway, welcome to my site, and I hope you enjoy it over the next year.
|
