Snow Day!

Snow man we made at work.

Korean style snow man! And snow child, I guess.

View from my apartment!

Yesterday (Wednesday for me) was the first snow storm in Korea! It snowed a tiny bit last week, but this was the first time that it actually stuck. It snowed very hard the entire, we probably got about four inches, maybe six? I'm really not the best judge, but it was enough for my school to get cancelled!

I work at a hagwon, or private school, so while my school was cancelled, most of the public schools were not. I did not know that school was cancelled until after I was already there, so I was able to take a stroll while it was snowing the hardest. By the time I finally arrived at school, I was completely covered with snow. I'm pretty sure there was a two inch layer of it on top of my hat! Public school lets out at about two in the afternoon (or sometime in the early afternoon), so it was fun to see the children playing in the parks.

Close up of the picture above--
that's a little girl being pulled along in a cardboard box,
holding an umbrella. She was adorable.

Snow fall view from the girl's bathroom at work.

Korean Taboos and Things That Have Surprised Me

When I decided to move to South Korea, I was well aware that things would be very different. The people here have a different set of customs, way of living, and taboos. I am definitely not yet aware of all the taboos, but it seems like because I am obviously a Westerner it is not really that much of a problem if I violate a taboo, they just peg it on my ignorance. And I'm okay with that, I would rather not get into trouble for doing something I didn't even know was wrong!

Taboo #1: Never, ever write a person's name in red. Especially a child's, they are more sensitive about it. It means they will die. I've heard that some kids have cried when a teacher accidentally wrote their name in red on the board for everyone to see!

Taboo #2: Never call someone crazy. Or foolish. Or even silly. There is such a huge stigma against mental illness here that it is like calling someone retarded or mentally deficient.

Surprise #1: Wet rooms. These are definitely not as sexy as you might think! Instead of a bathroom with a toilet, sink, and separate shower, the bathrooms here have a toilet and sink that has a hose attached to the spout. The hose is about two meters long, and is attached to a shower head that fastens to a bracket on the wall. So you shower literally in the middle of the room, with a drain in the middle of the floor. So far, I hate wet rooms. The entire bathroom floor is wet for the next few hours so every time walk in to brush your teeth or comb your hair or anything, your feet are soaked. Water gets everywhere, so I've been obsessively cleaning the one mirror in my apartment because it's constantly spotted. And if you forgot to go to the bathroom before you showered, you're going to have a wet bottom if it's one of the smaller ones rooms.

Not the one in my apartment,
but a pretty standard size wet room.

Surprise #2: Don't drink the tap water, no matter what travel website told you that it's safe. I didn't realize this, and when I admitted to friends and some locals that I drank the water, they were all horrified. Especially the person who lived here. No one could really tell me why the water is unsafe, but the rumor is that it's due to old pipes that contaminate the water that comes from a very clean source. I had no after effects, but this could be because at the time I was staying in Dongtan, where everything is new because the city didn't even exist five years ago!

Surprise #3: Grocery stores sound like game shows and smell like dead fish. When you walk in, sometimes there is a person with a microphone to greet you, and there is always someone in the meat department talking on the microphone nonstop. Not speaking Korean, I have no idea what this person is talking about, but I feel like I'm about to try and get through an obstacle course. And it smells like dead fish because the meat/fish/dead animal department takes up a good 1/3 of the store.

Surprise #4: HEATED FLOORS!! Best invention ever. They don't seem to have radiators or those sorts of traditional heating appliances, they have heated floors. Which are glorious to wake up to and walk on, and they keep your apartment warm for ages. It's also probably because of heated floors that traditional Korean beds are usually mats that are unrolled onto the floor. It's nice and toasty at night, and it gives you more space during the day when you roll it up and put it away.

Surprise #5: Brooms are short. Like two feet long. I have not seen a full-length one yet! I understand that Korean people are typically shorter, but it just seems silly to use a broom that is only half your height!

That's about all that I can think of right now, I hope you enjoyed!

Catching up for the Week

Hey everyone!  Sorry I haven't posted much this week, but I'm trying to get my internet connection sorted. It seems to work for about 15 minutes every three hours, so it's a bit difficult to be productive. Technology truly hates me.

And hey, for everyone that is curious about the time difference, I am 15 hours ahead. That's 15 hours in the future! It's kind of strange thinking that the time for all of you is so different.

Anyways, this week has been quite interesting, to say the least. It's been filled with new friends, great food, and finally moving into my permanent apartment!

This is the hallway of the place where my rented room was.
There was no way to get a good picture of that tiny room, so
this will have to do!

I arrived on Monday night, and then really started at work on Tuesday. I just shadowed the three other teachers to get a feel for how they ran their classroom. It's a very strange time for me to be starting at SPOL, because it is the end of term for them. Right now, pretty much all the work is done, so the teachers are showing movies or playing games and having fun instead of instructing the students. After classes, I went home to sleep because I still felt pretty jet lagged.

On Wednesday, I had quite a busy day. Before school, I had to go get a medical checkup that is required in order to get my ARC (Alien Resident Card). George, a coworker, thankfully came with me because I had no idea where to go and I speak absolutely no Korean. They took all sorts of tests--blood, urine, EKG, chest X-ray, and the infamous boob measurement. I say infamous because apparently everyone talks about it, and it's the strangest thing because that is the only place they measure. I have no idea why. After this, George and I got bibimbap for breakfast. This is a traditional breakfast that has some rice, chili sauce, sprouts, and other vegetables topped with an egg. It was pretty tasty, but definitely not something I am used to having for breakfast!

I had classes by myself for the first time on Wednesday. This was terrifying, to say the least. I didn't have a lesson plan, and I had no idea what English the kids knew so I had to go through all the different books to find out what they should know and then construct games based on that. My coworker Dan, who is head teacher for the native teachers (meaning those who speak English as their native tongue) was greatly helpful in figuring out what to do with the class too. 

On the way to the bathroom at the galbi restaurant, and
the most likely reason they call this place General Pee's.

Galbi. So fantastic!

Galbi! And that green glass bottle is of soju
a rice vodka that is not bad after you have a couple...

After class on Wednesday, it was the going away party for Tom, which is the teacher that I am replacing. We met at Floatie's, which is a bar near where most of the teachers live. At this bar, they had all the beer and glasses in a cooler on one side so that people would just go up and grab a beer, and take the empty bottles to the cashier at the end to pay their tab. It seems like a system that is much too trusting, and I'm sure that one unlucky person gets stuck with paying for a few extra beers at the end of the night! Well, we had a beer there while waiting for everyone to arrive, then set out for General Pee to eat some galbi. Galbi is kind of like a stir fry with beef or chicken--it is absolutely delicious! After this, we went back to Floatie's and just chatted for a while before going home.

Thursday was nice, but uneventful. I got up early to meet other teachers for Youn’s going away brunch. She is a teacher at my school that is also leaving. We went to Ashley’s, which was a buffet that featured some American food like waffles! It was pretty tasty, and it was nice to see everyone outside of work. After that, I went to school, and played some more games with the kids. I think that I do not like the unstructured classes very much, it’s very difficult to fill 50 minutes with games and whatnot. I can tell you that I have not sung the song “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” so many times in my entire life as I have this week!

The big blue butt.

Friday featured classes that weren’t too eventful. After school, I met people at the Big Blue Butt near my rented room to go to a dak galbi restaurant. Dak galbi features chicken rather than beef or pork like regular galbi, but it is just as delicious. This particular place also had cheese for on top! This is a pretty big deal, because there is not much cheese in Korea. And when there is cheese, it is usually crappy American style cheese. After a pretty fantastic dinner, we went to Baby Guinness, which is a nearby American style bar. It was almost strange to walk in and see a room full of non-Korean faces, but it was a lot of fun! Next time I go, I’m definitely getting in on the foosball games.

Dak Galbi before it's fully cooked. A bunch of people who
work at the restaurant come over and stir it every thirty seconds
until it looks like the picture below!

Finished dak galbi, complete with melted cheese!

More to come soon about the weekend!

Arriving in Korea

Hello everyone!

So I am safe and sound in South Korea, just hanging out in my room before I have to leave for work. Right now I'm in a tiny rented room that is about as large as a queen bed (not joking or exaggerating) before my more permanent apartment is available December first. This is nice and cozy though, I think I like it.

Right, so getting here was pretty easy. I got dropped off at the airport (thanks Dad!) about three hours before my flight, which was plenty of time. It took about an hour of waiting in line for me to get my bags checked and get my ticket. I got through security super fast because the person in front of me was in business class, and that particular line opened about five minutes after we had been waiting. When the security guard let him through the ropes to go into that empty line, he let me go too (even though I definitely was not business class)! I just waited by my gate for an hour and half before I got to get on the plane.

While waiting in the line to get on the plane, I talked for a little bit with a guy whose father was from Kiel and a girl who was coming from Wisconsin and going to Cambodia--strange how I found myself next to probably the only two people on that flight that had connections to where I was from! I had actually talked to the girl's mother before her while I was waiting to go through security. She was ahead of me, and her mom was making sure she made it through, so I think she was encouraging me to make friends with her daughter.

So, it was a fourteen hour flight. Longest flight I've ever taken. I didn't really get to sleep that much, but I watched about five different movies and started a book, so at least I had something to occupy my time, I guess. The final two hours I just wanted to get up and run laps around the plane because I was so antsy!

When I got off the plane, I headed to baggage claim. Finding my bags didn't take too long, and getting through customs took almost no time at all! When I walked out, there was a driver waiting for me with a sign that had my name on it (star treatment, of course). He drove me to the school, where I met a lot of my coworkers, got a tour, and got a rundown of what I will be doing this week. I'll be shadowing today, and starting to teach classes of my own tomorrow (yikes!). This week is the end of semester, so it shouldn't be too stressful. The next term starts on Monday, and that is when things might get more challenging!

After school, some fellow teachers took me to my apartment. It's so tiny that we had to leave the biggest suitcase of mine at school. But there's everything I could possibly need here--mini fridge, desk, bed, shower, bathroom (I'll add a picture of it soon). And there's a kitchen, washers, ironing station, free rice and coffee!

After dropping my stuff off, I went out for a traditional Korean dinner with some fellow teachers, which was pretty delicious. They gave us bowls of a bunch of different things like tofu, kimchi, sauces, lettuce with chili sauce, sprout salad, and beef that we grilled ourselves over a bowl of hot coals they brought to the table. There was also a ring around the coals that they put a little kimchi on, then filled with eggs so it was like an omelet. It was all so tasty! I don't think I'll have to worry about finding good things to eat here.

Shockingly, I haven't really felt nervous yet. Perhaps that feeling will set in tomorrow when I get to work and realize I have to teach a bunch of kids by myself for the first time. But hey, most of you know I'm a fly by the seat of my pants kind of girl, so this will probably be the best part!

Moving to South Korea

Hello, everyone!

I haven't posted anything on here for a while, because I haven't been doing any traveling lately. I am reactivating it, though, because I am moving to South Korea at the end of this month.

I will be working at SPOL Academy in Dongtan, South Korea. Apparently Dongtan is kind of a suburb, so it's not really on any maps. According to a few resources, it's located in Hwaseong City. It does not appear on this map, but it's between Seoul and Suwon, but closer to Suwon.

The weather here is pretty similar to Wisconsin--there are four distinct seasons, and there is snowfall in winter. There is a rainy season, which happens at the end of June through the end of July.

I am set to arrive there on Monday, November 26th, so I will start updating this regularly around then.