Day 9 of Living in Korea-Sadly neglecting the blog

My darling little sister pointed out that I have not blogged in a number of days. So, since I'm actually home from school on time, I thought I'd update you all on what I've been doing!


This whole "I'm living in South Korea" thing hasn't entirely sunk in. I've been able to find enough western food to eat each day, I speak mostly English at school (with a few Korean words thrown in to impress my coworkers of course), and there's a few English channels on cable. Of course, they have Korean subtitles, but who's watching the bottom of the screen. Every time I step out of the door, however, I'm surrounded by reminders of how I don't fit in. Instead of walking out the door and stepping into my front yard, I walk into a barren, sterilized hallway. Instead of getting into my car to head to Wal-Mart, I ride the elevator nine floors down, walk across the street, and pray that I can find what I'm looking for. Don't get me wrong, I knew what I was getting myself into and I enjoy the adventure of completely turning my world upside down. For every moment that I've struggled or been frustrated, there's been another five moments of enjoyment and happiness.

My students absolutely crack me up. They're not all the stereotypical Korean student, but there are enough of those in each class to make this worth it. The other day, I finished one of my classes early. Since it was the first time this class had had me, I let them ask me a few questions. One of the obvious class clowns raised his hand. His first question? "Do you think I am handsome?" Of course all of the kids immediately cracked up. After the laughter died down, I replied that I couldn't answer that! Then he informed me that he wanted to be a model, which earned another round of laughter. All I could think of was "Good luck with that!" which cracked the kids up also.

A lot of my class time involves me asking them questions or having them fill in the blanks on a worksheet. This is the best way (that I know of) to ensure that they comprehend the subject at hand. Many of these answers have been merely repeating what we discussed in class, but some of them have been very good. For example, last week, we talked about what jobs women usually do and what jobs men usually do. Some of the kids came up with very good answers: CEO, construction worker, flight attendant. They had a harder time coming up with jobs that women usually do though.

On Thursday, I finally met another foreign teacher! I was going out to explore the town and try to find a notebook for open class on Friday (I'll explain). As I was walking to the elevator, I met a Canadian that teaches in a little town north of here, but lives four doors down. We talked all the way down the elevator and out the building entrance. He asked what I was looking for, I told him, and he said that he knew just the place. Now, on the first day I was here, my co-teacher told me that there was a traditional Korean market across the street. When I heard that, I didn't think anything of it. When you look across the street, you just see a bunch of buildings. So when my new friend said that this place was in the market, I was immediately confused. A market sells food, right? Apparently a Korean market sells soooooooo much more than that. It's a series of small stores and street vendors stretching over an area of several city blocks. I can't even describe it. It's an amazingly vibrant place, like the heart of South Korea lives there. You can find anything you're looking for and people in all shapes and sizes. We found what I was looking for and then he told me about this amazing place that serves kebabs. We walked over there, grabbed supper to go and then walked back. This was my first run-in with S. Korean ingenuity. Our supper came with sandwiches, fries, and a drink. In America, when you pick up fast food, 99.9% of the time you're in your car. But in Korea when you pick up fast food, 95% of the time you're on foot. So how do you solve the solution of lots of stuff to carry, including a wet drink? You hand out one bag for the sandwiches and one bag for the fries and drink. Here's the cool part: the bag for the fries and drink has a partition in the middle. The drink stays upright, the fries stay dry, and everyone's happy! Amazing, right?! Anyway, the sandwich was amazing, the fries so-so, and I discovered I like Coke Zero. I'm almost ashamed to admit that last little bit...we've always been a Pepsi family. But they don't have Diet Pepsi here and Pepsi Zero reminds me a lot of cough syrup. Blech.

I celebrated the end of my first week of living in a foreign country by attending an open class. Schools have open classes for a lot of reasons: it's a chance for foreign teachers to meet each other, for schools to show off their facilities, and a chance for teachers to learn from each other and from themselves. My co-teacher took me to a nearby middle school where I met two other teachers: one from the school we were at and one from a school in a nearby town. We talked for a little bit and then watched the lesson. It was very helpful to see how other teachers worked with each other as well as how other teachers presented their information. My co-teacher told me last week that we're hosting an open class in September, which TERRIFIES me! I know it'll be okay, but the thought of being critiqued is terrifying. I know I'll learn from it, but it's still hard! Oh well. I have three months to prepare, so I'm not going to stress about it now!

After the open class, one of the other Korean teachers at the class dropped me off at my apartment: an hour and a half early! I took advantage of some oddly-timed motivation and worked on cleaning up the apartment. My co-teachers and I were planning on going to Costco that evening, so I fiddled about until the phone rang. Finally they called and asked me if I knew were Mr. Pizza (a restaurant) was. It's on my way to work so I headed that way to meet them there for supper. They arrived about 10 minutes after I got there and we all sat down. We ended up ordering a "Secret Garden" pizza-chicken and lots of veggies. Two of them also ordered a salad bar, which of course is different in Korea. While we were waiting for the pizza, the two of them went up to the salad bar and brought bowl after bowl of food. I still don't have much of an appetite, but I did manage to try a Korean preparation of corn (good, but different) and a noodle dish that I later learned was seaweed noodles. Again, good, but different. The pizza was also delicious! It was a fairly typical American-style pizza until you got to the crust. Inside of the crust was a wonderfully unexpected sweet potato paste. It doesn't sound good, but you when you combine it with the crust it's amazing. One of my co-workers paid for the pizza (so nice!!) and we left for Costco!

It turns out Costco is basically just down the main street about 30 minutes to the west. But it was a quick and fascinating drive. Lots of people, lots of businesses, and surprisingly not a lot of tall buildings. The impression that I had in my head of Korean Costco was similar to something you'd see in the States-huge building, big parking lot, lots of space. In reality, I have no idea what the building looks like. We never saw the outside of it. My co-teacher made a couple of turns and all of a sudden, we were driving up into the parking garage, which occupies the 2nd-5th floors of the Costco building. The first floor is for dry goods, electronics, clothing, etc. The basement is where all the food is. We took the elevator down to the second floor, got a cart, and began exploring. Being in a Korean Costco is like being in a Sam's Club. Except everything's in Korean and everyone else is Korean. I felt like I was Alice and I'd fallen in the rabbit's hole. Fortunately they have a lot of Western food, which is why I went to begin with! :-D I found bagels, Hershey's Kisses (for the kids, of course), bread, string cheese, cheap water, sandwich meat, and most importantly CHEERIOS!!! I love Cheerios :-) They make me happy with their simple deliciousness. The reason I'm so excited about these things is they're hard (albeit not impossible) to find in Korea. I've checked two other grocery stores for Cheerios, but Costco is the only place I've found them. By the way, did I mention how much I love Cheerios???

This is hard to admit, but finding Cheerios was not the best part of the night. I had so much fun with my three co-teachers! One of the Korean teachers and I discovered that we're the same age, so we both got really excited about that because everyone else is older! I taught them some new phrases and expressions in English (for example, I told them that my blue eyes stick out here and they were very confused by that!) and we laughed, told stories, and just had fun together.

All in all, it was a fantastic first week in Korea. What an amazing place to be!