My first weekend through Tuesday.

My first weekend.

I shadowed a series of teachers Tuesday through Friday at LCI. It was extremely confusing because of the schedule the Korean staff gave us to “help” explain how the classes were taught. Basically, the Korean staff makes each week or month’s lesson plans ahead of time and gives them to us to teach. The lesson plans are very hard to decipher because 1. There are multiple classes I teach, 2. There are multiple books I’m using in each class. Anyway, I finally got a grasp (kind of) on how everything works by Friday.

The weekend was a long holiday weekend. Monday was the Korean Independence Day from Japan, so there was no school Monday or Tuesday. I was definitely happy because the first week had absolutely drained me and I was ready to relax. Friday night the school director, Melanie, took all of the teachers and staff out for dinner and drinks. The dinner was a send off to the five teachers that were leaving us, and a welcome to the four new teachers coming onboard. We went straight from school to a western style restaurant called VIPS. It looks like it is part of the same corporation as Cold Stone and some other American chains. I ordered the ribeye steak. It cost about 36,000 ₩ which is about $30.00. The director was paying for everything so all the teachers were looking for the most expensive steaks possible. Plus, they said it had been about a year since they had had regular American style steaks. I sat with all the guys at one end of the table. We drank all the Cass beer the restaurant had, then drank all the Hite beer they had.  Then we drank all the Budweiser they had. I can’t even imagine how expensive the bill was since there were at least 20 in our party. Fun fact: you do NOT tip in Korea. It is actually impolite to tip when eating out. Because of this I felt bad for the waitress. She spoke broken English, was very confused most of the time, and was constantly running to get more drinks for everyone. She would have walked with over $100 easy if it were the US.  After dinner four of us got in a cab and paid a whopping 3,400 ₩ ($3.25) total to get to a Noreabong (I don’t know if I spelled that correctly.) A Noreabong is a place that rents out rooms by the hour for you to sing karaoke in. We sand karaoke and drank Soju for probably a couple hours. The school director was there with us, she sang, and the Korean staff sang. It was a really good time. After that we went to a place called Batman Bar. The Koreans all left us at this point. Batman Bar is pretty much a western bar. They had the staple western drinks on hand. I got a shot of Makers Mark, which I definitely did not need. I didn’t stay too long as I had overdone it so I walked back to the hotel I was staying at with one of the other new teachers. I got home at the perfect time because I was able to skype with a bunch of friends back home. c

Saturday was a very, very, very long day. I was supposed to move into my apartment on Saturday at 2:00pm. I was downstairs ready at 2, and my ride was not there. Thank GOD I received a cell phone earlier that day so I could call my supervisor at the school and see what was up. Long story short, my ride didn’t show up until after 4:00pm. They took me and another new teacher to her apartment first. It was right where I figured it would be since all the teachers live in the same area. When it was my turn, they drove me to another part of town (which was cause for concern) and I only vaguely knew where I was in relation to the school and the other teachers’ apartments. So these guys drop me off at this high rise, take me up to the 13^th floor and put my stuff down at a door. I had keys, but this door required a PIN number to be put into a PIN pad. These guys spoke NO English so I stared at them, and they stared at me, and I tried to get it across that I had no idea what number needed to go in the pad! So I call my supervisor again, she says there should be no pin pad on my door and that I’m in the wrong place. MEANWHILE the guys that had dropped me off had left! So here I was on the 13^th floor of some random high rise. I went back downstairs, and preparing myself to start walking with two very large and heavy suitcases. Luckily the supervisor must have contacted the guys who had dropped me off because they came back and picked me up and took me to my correct apartment. The apartment is small. It is like living in the dorms again. I have a short refrigerator, sink, two burner stove top, no microwave, no oven, bathroom that had a shower head coming out of the sink, bed, desk, closet, drying room, and washing machine. The internet and TV do not work as of Wednesday. Hopefully I get Internet going this week. I don’t care if the TV gets set up, I doubt I’d find anything to watch. So Saturday was very stressful. And to top it off I had started to feel sick on Thursday, so I was fighting a cold. I was drained. I needed some good food for dinner that I knew I would like. So we went to E-Mart, which is a huge 5-story target/Wal-Mart/mall a few blocks away. I had Popeye’s chicken, and it was delicious.  There was also wifi in the food court so I could check my email on my iPhone.

Sunday I tried to sleep in but was unsuccessful. I tried to figure out the thermostat/water heater contraption on my wall and ended up taking a cold shower. I just kept telling myself “it’s just like camping, it’s just like camping” and dove in. Two other new teachers and I went to Lotte Mart (low-tay) where we got a bunch of stuff for our apartments. We also ran into one of the other veteran teachers and her boyfriend and they suggested we go into Seoul for the night. So we got directions, bus numbers, and names and went that night into Itaewon, which is neighborhood in Seoul, like Manhattan is to New York. The bus took about 35 minutes. After going into Seoul, I realized how small Suji actually is. Itaewon was filled with foreigners. There were TONS of American (soldiers) out and about. It was shocking – I could understand what people were saying as they walked by me! And I could read the majority of the signs! There were a couple Starbucks, and other American restaurants and stores. We went to a place called Gecko’s. It was probably split 70-30, the majority being Americans. I had a few Cass beers, but wasn’t really excited about being out since I was still exhausted and fighting my cold. We called it an early night and tried to take a taxi back to the bus station. The taxi driver didn’t really understand what we were asking and drove right past what I assumed was our bus stop. I didn’t feel like trying (or even knew how) to explain that we needed to turn around so I just said “Suji-gu! Suji-gu!” which is where we live. I wrote down “straight, left, right, and stop” from my dictionary so that helped us once we got back into Suji since I knew where we were. The taxi from Itaewon to Suji cost about 28,000₩. Not bad! Especially after being split three ways ($7-ish.) A cab ride like that back home would have been over $50.

Monday was more doing stuff around the apartment. Just trying to get settled. Another trip to Lotte Mart. I found the other Portlander, Nick, living not too far away. It was nice talking to someone from home that knew the places that came up in conversation. We found a really good Chinese-style restaurant. We had no idea what the name was so we called it Red Lantern since there were a hundred red lanterns out front. I hope no major expenses come up because I’ve blown through about half of the 500,000₩ I brought! I should be fine. I spent over 100,000 on Sunday alone because I was buying apartment stuff, which is a one time expense.

On Tuesday I went into the school. There were no classes but I wanted to take a look at my lesson plans and take a look at my classroom. I am teaching five? classes. I teach morning kindergarten 7-1 Monday-Friday. Which means they are seven years old and are first year students. (7 really means 6 in US years, see my first or second blog.) I have four other afternoon classes that rotate between M,W,F and T,TH. I’m excited about the social studies class. They are 3^rd graders and should be speaking English fairly well. I stayed for 5 hours or so then went to get dinner. I wasn’t that hungry so I got Subway to take home for later. It was actually very good. I was scared they were going to screw it up. I also recharged my phone with minutes at one of the 12 phone shops (literally) within two blocks of the school. 10,000₩ ($8.90) should last for about a month. It is also cheaper to text than call here, contrary to the US.

I’ve had many conversations with the other teachers about Minnesota. Carla (from Arizona) and I are the only teachers who aren’t from Minnesota. Its nice having been there multiple times so I can connect with them on some level, other than pointing out their accents. They asked if I saw “the game” when I was in Seoul over the weekend. I was like…uhh what “game?” The hockey game between US and Canada, of course!! Somehow I was completely unaware of any such game. Oregonians and Minnesotans obviously have different pastimes.

I’m excited to be getting along just fine in a totally different country where few people understand what I’m trying to say. I started studying my Korean dictionary in earnest yesterday after having spent the entire weekend without any of the veteran teachers around to hold my hand. 

 

Ok do the blogger webpage stopped letting me put pictures in my text. So the above is us at Noreabong.

  

This is in Itaewon. The name of the store is Athlete's Foot. HAHA!

  

Taco Bell coming soon. You know I'll be back!!

Dandelions anyone? 

Wood chips anyone? (These are in the produce isle.)

Looking into my room from the hallway.

 

My bathroom. All of it. Notice the shower head attached to the sink. I have to turn the water heater on 10 minutes before showering if I want a hot shower. Korea is very energy efficient, heating water 24/7 in a tank is not an option. 

My desk. I'm lucky because I actually have a desk.

Looking to the left of my desk. A TV that I will probably never watch. 

 

The kitchen. Notice the two feet of space between the bed and stove. No microwave or oven. I am also lucky to have a medium sized fridge. 

This is the washing machine. It is to the left of the desk and closet. I have no idea what settings it is on. I just turned it on and hoped for the best. There is only cold water going into it so I figured nothing could get too screwed up.

Opposite of the washing machine in the "drying room." The window opens to the outside so the wet clothes can dry. 

Can you figure this out? It took me four days and three cold or barely warm showers to figure it out. The top dial is room temperature in Celsius. It warms the floor with warm water, I believe. The middle dial is a timer for something I haven't figured out. The bottom is the hot water temperature. The top button on the right should be on when heating the room. Dont know the second button. The third button needs to be pushed to get hot water in the shower. Dont know the fourth button. The red button resets everything.