Thoughts on Korea

I have to apologize for not posting in 3 weeks, I really intended to post more frequently when I created this blog.  Last week I got sick for the first time in Korea (food poisoning from a grilled chicken place nearby), and I spent most of the past week or so sleeping.  The weekend prior to that brought on the opening games of the World Cup in South Africa, with games beginning at 8:30pm, 11pm, and 3:30am my time.  We went out to watch all of the games both Friday and Saturday, and spent most of the following days asleep.  It's a very odd thing to come out of a bar after several hours to this sight:

Good morning?

But we did the logical thing and went for some breakfast, then headed home.  I'm working on a World Cup post, so that's all on this for now.  I don't have any excuses for the weekend before that, but I'll do my best now to make up for a post-less June.

I have been living in Seoul for 8 weeks now, and I think that's enough time to adjust, experience the city, and form some opinions.  I live in Gangnam, a fairly wealthy district of Seoul, south of the Han River.  There are towering buildings all around, lots of traffic, we have two metro stops nearby, and buses running frequently as well.  The largest building is Kyobo Tower, which all cab drivers seem to know (very helpful at the end of the night).  There aren't many trees or vegetation of any kind around us, but there is a very nice park along the river that's about a 20 minute walk away, and we found a public soccer field only 5 minutes away.  We got in on a pick up game last week, that was a lot of fun; we're hoping to make it a regular thing through the summer.

Gangnam district within Seoul

In the basement of Kyobo Tower there is a large bookstore, with a huge selection of books in English.  They have all the classics, contemporary fiction and nonfiction, and travel guides, of course.  I bought a guide of Seoul for almost double the price I would have paid in the US, but serves me right for not coming prepared.  There is another English bookstore we found called What The Book, which buys and sells used books, too.  There are movie theaters a few blocks away; I saw Iron Man 2 a few weeks ago (mostly entertaining, not as good as the first, but who expected it to be, really).  I am looking forward to seeing Toy Story 3 very soon, the reviews have been unbelievable.  My internet connection is plenty fast, and on top of that the city's free wireless is accessible with my wireless extender.  I still don't have a cell phone, but I could have had one for a few weeks now.  I'll get on that eventually.

I never thought I'd miss a hand so much...

My apartment consists of a single room that is literally the size of a large walk-in closet.  My bathroom door opens towards my bed, and opens maybe 35 degrees before it hits the frame of my bed.  I have to go in and out sideways, which is annoying sometimes (like when I'm sick).  I have a small kitchen area with a fridge, a microwave, a sink and a stove, no cabinets because of a slanted wall, and no oven (normal in Korea).  A small desk for my computer, two closet compartments, and we have completed the tour of my apartment.  I've gotten used to it mostly, it's not all bad.  I do enjoy hosting people occasionally, though, and there is simply not enough room for that in here.  Two of the teachers at my school are leaving in the next couple months, both of whom live in my building, so I'm going to ask if I can move into one of their (larger) apartments.  I'm not sure if it will be an option, but we'll see.

That's as open as it gets

Teaching at GDA has been enjoyable overall.  There are some troublemakers in most of my classes, which should be expected.  Some of the kids are worse than I thought they would be, but I've been able to deal with them fine most days.  Various reward/punishment systems are used at GDA, and I have the flexibility to use them as I see fit with my students.  Every morning I have three 80 minute Intensive Kindergarten classes, two with my homeroom and one with another class.  I teach math twice a week, and science, social studies and a science experiment once a week.  I teach those lessons to both classrooms, then I have a reinforcement period with my homeroom, which rotates through arts and crafts, music, and orda (critical thinking games).  They also have gym or cooking twice a week, so I get two breaks each week.  The IK kids can be fun some days, but they are usually the most exhausting.  These are the classes I have a Korean partner teacher for, and Julia is still amazing and making everything run smoothly.

My afternoon classes rotate, some MWF, some TuTh.  Mondays and Fridays I have a group of five kids for two 45 minute periods right after IK, and that class has been fairly easy to teach so far.  I teach them reading and grammar lessons, and all of them are very smart.  They have the class on Wednesdays too, but with a Korean teacher, so I have a break then.  After that class, I teach a group of four slightly older kids on MWF for one 45 minute period.  They are not as advanced, but they understand how the workbooks are organized so they get through most lessons well enough.  Tuesdays and Thursdays I have Afternoon Kindergarten for two hours, with 5 year olds who speak very little English.  We finished going through the alphabet with our phonics lessons, and we are working through sets of short words now.  This may have been my favorite class for the first month, but for June the class increased to 10 kids, and even with a Korean teacher there it is very difficult to keep them under control.  They have a 10 minute snack break, and a 30 minute activity in between phonics lessons, so I'm not teaching them English for the full two hours at least.  We sing songs on our way to and from the bathroom, which is lots of fun.  Tuesdays I have one 50 minute class after that, but it's with the two quietest kids in Korea, and for the most part I just play a listening exercise CD.  I start teaching every day at 9:40am, and I get off at 5:15pm MWF, 5:45 Tuesdays, and 4:40 Thursdays.  I'll post more about each class later on, with some pictures of my students.

The people in Korea are very friendly, and so helpful.  Almost everyone loves that we have chosen to come to their country, and they seem happy that we are teaching English to their children.  Our friend Ernest has been very helpful showing us around the city some, and especially with teaching us Hangul, the Korean written language.  Ernest bought books for some of us to study with, and we have been making some progress.  I have a long way to go, but I have mostly memorized this chart of characters, so I can read a lot of Korean words on signs and menus.  Unfortunately, I don't know what most of them mean, it's exciting when I find a word I know, though.

Almost everyone walking around in Gangnam is dressed very well, in suits or designer clothing.  If more than a few drops of rain start falling, 99% of people on the street open up their umbrellas, which they apparently always carry with them.  Sharp umbrella spokes can be dangerous on a busy sidewalk, I have to duck and dodge frequently.  Some stereotypes have held true; Koreans are generally shorter, quite skinny, and love throwing up peace signs for pictures.  A significant number have admitted to being terrible at math, though.  Most Koreans love spicy food, and I have found some very spicy dishes.  They are often surprised when they see an American eating their spicy food, it's kind of funny.  The Korean food has been delicious, but I do look for some variety at times.  I've had Mexican food and pizza a couple times each, two or three burgers, and several Turkish kebabs.  The local bakery has been good to me as well.  I've been able to cook some meals I would have made at home, that has been nice.

 

Some hearty American meals

I plan on a few more posts covering food, for both eating out and cooking at home, with lots of pictures. More posts on weekend excursions will be in the works, too.  Hopefully I haven't lost my readers (I'm pretty sure there were a couple) with this gap between posts, I might need some encouragement!  Leave a comment or question if you have one, and thanks for reading!

Lastly, I created an album for pictures of Engrish I find in Korea, which I will be updating from time to time.  I just added a few more pictures to the original set included in the album, so check them all out!  If you don't know what I'm talking about with this "Engrish" nonsense, click here.

Steve McCurry Exhibit

Last Sunday we went to see an exhibit of Steve McCurry's photos in the Main Gallery of the Sejong Center for the Performing Arts in Seoul.  The collection was fairly extensive, with some amazing pictures on display.  I didn't take many pictures at the museum, and none of the photographs on display, but I found several of my favorites online.  The picture he is most famous for was taken in 1984 of a young girl from Afghanistan:

In 2002, after the United States went to war in Afghanistan, Steve McCurry went to find her.  At the museum they had the National Geographic special about his quest to find her playing on repeat, we watched the entire thing.  It was very interesting, and seemed almost hopeless.  Spoiler alert, click here if you want to know what happens.  Here are some of my favorite photos:

The last one is a little boy in Peru, it was the most moving photo on display in my opinion, the little boy's emotions are overwhelming.  We also decided it is a toy gun, so the boy wasn't actually in danger while the picture was being taken, if you were wondering.  You can look through tons of Steve McCurry's work on his website, if you are interested.  Click on Galleries and you can choose from the different themes his photos are separated into.  If you just want to read a little bit more information about McCurry, and don't feel like going to a slow flash-based website, here is his Wiki page.

Also, since Youtube is not going to let me upload videos from South Korea, I signed up with Vimeo today.  All seven videos from the soccer game that I put on Facebook are now on my Vimeo page, which can be found here.  I'll also add a permanent link to it over on the right side of my blog.  My camera can record at 60 fps, so it captures any action/movement fairly well, but the quality just isn't that great.  I've been thinking about getting an HD videocamera for a while, maybe after a couple paychecks I'll buy one here.

Korea vs Ecuador

Last Sunday we went to see a friendly match between South Korea and Ecuador at Seoul World Cup Stadium.  South Korea's team is preparing for the World Cup, which begins on June 11th, so their top squad was there to play.  Ecuador did not qualify for the World Cup, so I'm not sure if they sent their B team.

The game was very exciting, and we had great seats.  South Korea rested their top few players after halftime, but it wasn't until after the half that they managed to score.  Korea won 2-0, and could have scored a few more, they really controlled the game.

Not a goal, a great shot though

After the game there was a short concert (they played my new favorite song), and then they introduced the players on the Korean team and wished them well for the World Cup.  You can see all the pictures I posted here, and I uploaded several videos too.  I can't figure out how to embed videos from my computer into my blog, I'm not sure if it will let me, but I'll keep working on that.  Youtube won't allow me to upload anything at all "because of the Korean real-name verification law," so that isn't an option either.  I'll try embedding a video from Facebook here, but I don't think it's publicly viewable.  All of the videos I uploaded to Facebook can be seen here, but only if you have an account.

Sorry I haven't been posting much this first month, I'll try to be a little more consistent in the future.  I should have another one or two posts up this week, I started working on one of them already.

Photo Album

For anyone I'm not friends with on Facebook, I just posted an album there with pictures of my first two weeks in Seoul.  It's a few pictures from a lot of different days and events, and I included descriptions for most of the pictures.  This one might be my favorite so far:

All along the huge main streets near us are these poles that light up with different colors (and ads, maybe?), and at the bottom is a giant touch screen and a camera for anyone who wants to take a picture.  You can pick a border for it if you want, and then it e-mails the picture to you almost instantly.  In the album you can see us using the touch screen after it took the picture.  From left to right, it's me, Alexa, Eric, Kristy and Ian, all foreign teachers at GDA.  Here is the link to the album.  It's a public link, so you don't have to sign in to Facebook to view it, and you don't even need to have a Facebook account.  I'll try to post future albums this way too so everyone can see them.

I'm in Korea!

Alright!  I have officially been living in Seoul for two weeks now, so I guess it's time to start writing in my blog.  I've never had a blog before, or a diary or journal of any sort, really, so we'll see how this goes.  I'll try to update it regularly, and I'll try not to be boring.  And I'll try to include some pictures and links, I'm hoping embedding them here isn't too difficult.

I guess I'll start with my trip from Detroit to Seoul.  I flew out of Detroit early Saturday morning on April 24th, and I was up most of the night packing, of course.  I forgot a few things (my whiskey stones!), but nothing I needed right away, thankfully.  We left for the airport a bit later than planned, but there was no line at all for United, and I made it with plenty of time to spare.  From Detroit I flew to Chicago, then on to Seattle, then to Seoul.  Ninety minute layovers at both stops, not too bad.  From Seattle to Seoul I flew on Asiana Airlines, which was awesome.  They served us pretty good Korean food, gave us slippers and masks for sleeping, and nothing on the flight cost extra.  While serving drinks the United flight attendants spent half their time trying to swipe credit cards, but on Asiana everything was very efficient.  The seats were pretty comfortable, too.  There was a small tv for each seat, with maybe 20 American movies and 10 Asian movies to choose from.  I watched 2012 (not great), and everything else I'd seen or had no interest in.

After we landed in Seoul, I picked up my bags and headed towards the exit.  Immigration was very quick; they took the form I filled out on the plane and glanced at my passport, then sent me through.  Mr. Kim was waiting for me with a "Mr. Mejia" sign, and we went to his car to head in to the city.  Mr. Kim is about my age, but everyone calls him Mr. Kim for some reason.  All of the supervisors and directors at the school go by their first names, so I don't really get it.  He is really cool though, and we talked about Korean food and movies, and soccer of course.  The drive to our neighborhood took around an hour, traffic wasn't too bad on a Sunday evening.  The airport is actually located outside of Incheon, a city just west of Seoul.

For the first three nights I stayed in a Love Motel near our school.  In Korea most people live at home until they get married, so there are Love Motels around for young couples to go to for some alone time.  My room there had the least comfortable mattress I have ever slept on, it was basically a slab of concrete.  I adjusted to the time difference fairly quickly, but it was hard to sleep at all there.  I tried not to unpack much, because on day four I moved into my apartment, where I finally got some rest on a much nicer mattress.  My apartment is ridiculously tiny, but my stuff all fits in here I guess.  We live in a pretty wealthy area, so all of the teachers have small apartments, but mine is easily the smallest.  It's a 2 minute walk from the school, which is nice, especially in the morning.

That first night after I arrived, Eric came to meet me and we went to get some dinner with a couple of the other teachers.  The second day here was Monday, and after being introduced to the staff and the rest of the foreign teachers I went to observe classes with the teacher I was replacing.  Jared was very helpful, explaining how things work and how the different classes are run, but unfortunately I only had two days to observe.  Wednesday morning he flew back to Canada, and I was thrown to the wolves.  I'll talk more about my specific classes in another post, but the first few days teaching were interesting.  The kids were actually really helpful for the most part, reminding me to do everything at the right time, and explaining how things usually work.  I have a Korean helper teacher for parts of my morning classes, and Julia has been amazing.  She always makes sure the kids are ready for things on time, and has made my first couple weeks much more enjoyable.

The food has been amazing, and the Korean food is crazy cheap.  In Ann Arbor I had tried six or seven different Korean dishes, and it is remarkably similar to the real thing.  I've tried several new things as well, and overall I really like Korean food.  At school I just eat the lunch the school offers (it's less than $3 a day, about half of the teachers eat it), which is always rice, a bowl of soup, a portion of the day's meat dish and vegetable dish, and usually some kimchi.  I haven't liked everything, but it's been nice to get a lot of variety and try new things.  If anyone doesn't know, kimchi is Korea's traditional dish, served with almost every meal.  There are different varieties, but the most common is spiced fermented cabbage.  Here's the Wiki page if you want to read more about it and see some pictures.  At school I had a kimchi soup that was very good, called kimchi jjigae.  I'll make a post just about food soon, with some pictures I took of my favorite meals so far.

I haven't explored the city much yet, most of my free time has been spent unpacking, shopping for things for my apartment, and resting.  Teaching little kids is tiring work, even with small classes.  We went to Itaewon a few times, where there are tons of foreigners, and foreign restaurants.  That's where we go for trivia night on Thursdays after work, an English bar named 3 Alley Pub.  The other teachers have been going there for weeks, and it's pretty hard, but my second time going our team won!  The prize was three pitchers of beer, which we shared with two guys in their fifties who had traded some answers with us.  Hopefully we can do well again this week.  I'm hoping to explore Seoul and see the cultural and historical sites, and travel around Korea while I'm here too.  We've been busy planning trips to Japan and China already, but those are a few months away.

It's time for me to sleep now, but I'll try to get a few more posts up this week.  Miss you all!