Yesterday we were taken to Andong to get our ACR (Alien Registration Card) and cell phone.

(For anyone who will be in this position soon, it’s important to know that you don’t actually get your card for a couple of weeks. Basically you need the card to be able to get a cell phone. If you are willing to pay a little bit extra (it is hardly anything) then they will issue a piece of paper with the number on it straightaway. You can use this to buy a cell phone on the same day.)

Samsung phones are much much cheaper than anything I have seen in South Africa and this is mostly because Samsung is a Korean product. Unlike South Africa, you can take out a year contract, which is deducted from your account at the end of the month and there is no initial deposit. So here is my Samsung galaxy S4! A big shout out to one of my coteachers who haggled with the guy behind the counter for a better deal.

Jet lag has eventually caught up with me. I figure you can’t go solidly for 2 weeks straight. Yesterday I slept through my alarm! It was incredibly embarrassing because the PE teacher is giving me a lift to school in the mornings, but eventually left yesterday because he couldn’t see me. I woke up to the sound of my door bell and jumped out of bed. Oh shit. It was my landlady kindly trying to wake me up.

The worst part is that I don’t even know how to say sorry in Korean. I eventually got my co teacher (Erica) to phone and apologize for me. I kind of figured that I had burnt that bridge and would be walking to school this morning but as soon as I stepped outside he was walking out of his apartment door and ushered me towards the car. So in all honesty I don’t know where I stand right now. I may or may not be walking tomorrow.

Was given this at school today. How does it look? Yay or nay?

My school

Last night I went out for Korean bbq with one of the people living in my block of flats Marais and another nice teacher Farhida. Basically, you sit on tables just raised above the floor and there is a circular whole in the middle of the table where they put coles and a grill. You sit there and take turns cooking your own meat and eating it wrapped in a type of lettuce leaf with sauces or other toppings. It’s pretty delicious.

I have been really surprised by how welcoming and considerate the foreigners around me have been.  I have had more than one person knock on my door and ask if I need anything or any help. It’s great because before I left, I had imagined sitting by myself having no concept of anything around me. When in reality it is the opposite. Looking forward to going out tonight to Mokolee bar (I think that’s what it’s called).

My school

My wonderful co-teacher Erica!!

One of the hardest things for me to get used to is bowing to everyone all time. No matter who it is, you just stop what you are doing and bow to a passing teacher. It is a little tiring but it is interesting to see how the dynamics of the school work.

Woman here are obsessed with how they look all the women got to the bathroom and brush their teeth and touch up on their make up after lunch. Its seems to be perfectly normal to take your makeup bag and toothpaste to work. In some ways I enjoy how everything seems to have an order here. They looked at me a little strangely when I didn’t do it as well. So the upshot is that mascara and eyeliner come with me to work each morning.

Anyway still pretty chilled :)

My view walking home:

Entrance to school

 

Around the corner for where I live.

Hi everyone. 
Sorry for the delayed blogging- I have been crazy busy.

I found out on the last night of orientation that I was going to teach in Yeongju.

My instant reaction was where the f*** is that? So I spent the evening incredibly worried that I was about to be stuck in the middle of a rice field for the year with nothing but plants for company. In essence, I spent our final orientation night out at the local soju bar with my friends (who all seemed to have been given much better locations than I).

Last night out at the soju bar. A lovely picture of Rebecca (Lurpekka)

 

A ton of food at our EPIK closing ceremony along with fan dance!

After a couple of sad goodbyes to the friends I have made over the last 10 days, I boarded a bus that would take us to Gumi in Gyeonbuk province where our co-teachers would fetch us. Once in Gumi, we stood outside the bus with all our worldly possessions in the bags around us and waited for one of the many co-teachers to call us. Someone commented that it was like waiting to be adopted. It felt that way.

 Eventually I found an older man (one of the teachers in my school) holding up a sign with my name. I had little choice but to just smile and hope for the best. Another South African guy Marc, also got ushered into the car along with me. In hindsight I am incredibly grateful that he was in the same car along for the ride. I may have burst into tears if I hadn't had a familiar accent to talk to. Marc has come to Korea with his wife (who is teaching in the middle school and seems very nice). The teacher who drove us, explained that we were going to be teaching under the same foundation but at separate schools. I would be at Yeonju Boys' High School and he would be at the girls high school. We slowly drove 2 hours in the direction of Yeonju. I watched as the countryside became more and more rural and I became more and more concerned. 

Finally we turned the corner into the town. And we were there! And to my surprise - It was a decently sized city.  With small skyscrapers mixed in between traditional homes. Everywhere I saw shops and big grocery stores. There is a big multiple story Homeplus and Lotte Mart (sort of like Macro in SA). I instantly relaxed- I was not in the middle of nowhere. 

Next thing I knew I was dropped off at my school. It was incredibly intimidating walking around school while many high school boys laughed and pointed at me because I was foreign and new. I was used to teaching the babies, not these big teenagers. I have since decided it is not so bad to be at a boys high school. I figure you might develop more of a relationship with your students if they are older than toddlers. Although I have not taught a class myself yet- so we will see. 

After I was taken to school, I was ushered off to my apartment, my heart was pounding every time the car slowed down. I sat there thinking, no not this flat, yes maybe that one. In the end they took me to a block of flats about 20 minutes from the school. Its great. I have a double bed! Its not very big, but I am so happy with how cozy it is. It turns out that this area is mostly for foreigners.

I had about 3 seconds to feel lonely before I got a big knock on the door. A really nice guy in my block, Farzam (he also let me pinch his internet- thanx man), asked if I wanted to come up to the roof and have a few drinks with the other foreigners. I was exhausted- but I was hardly about to say no. I was elated - in a decent city and people who speak English around me. Yes!

 

Sorry not great pictures.. I will upload a video when my new phone is working!

My main co-teacher is Erica as well as help from Mr Bae.  She has been like my surrogate mother. She has done everything with me!! I couldn't have asked for a nicer lady. She is also only about 2 or 3 years older than me.  She helped me shop for my apartment, took me to get photos and open up a bank account, organised for me to go and get my acr. All while Mr Bae took us to Andong and to get new cellphones. Erica still asks me every morning how I am doing or if I need anything. All in all I am ok!

Teaching a lesson today... wish me luck! Also finding out where I'm placed.. eeek. Holding giant thumbs!!!

Learning to count to 10 in Korean.

Apologies I have been computer-less for a while- I couldn't get my laptop to charge. However, after a visit to Lotte Mart (a huge 4 level store sort of like Macro at home) I have replaced the plug. It only took my roomate, Rebecca and I, 3 hours to figure out. Oh well.

On Friday we went on a field trip to Jeonju Traditional Hanok Village. It was bucketing down but I was very grateful for the break in heat. This meaning that I only had 2 showers as apposed to the normal 3 or 4 a day. To start off we were taken to make traditional Korean boxes. I was pretty impressed by mine, but apparently I'm not a natural. I had several instructors come over and try to 'fix' my box for me. "No no" they said, speaking sentences in Korean that I couldn't understand while grabbing the box from me and trying to pull the traditional paper over the rectangular box. Oh well, I obviously wont be an arts and crafty type teacher.

The traditional Korean box

After this we gave the Korean drums a try. I was definitely a lot better at this. Clearly Im at home with banging things with a stick.  I sat there merrily for an hour with 50 other foreign teachers hitting a giant traditional janggu. "Bah bah bah" I was completely at home. Our instructor was a young woman dressed in a traditional Korean drumming clothing ( talk about a pigeon-holed outfit). Say what you like but  she could play the drums better than any rock band I have ever watched live.

Traditional Janggu drum

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For lunch we went into the traditional village restaurant, where we sat on the floor and ate bibimbap which was served with a ton of other side dishes. From what I can figure bibimbap is a type of rice stirfry that you eat with a spicy red peppery sauce. It was delicious along with the side dishes. My favourite side dish is Jap Che which are clear noodles made of potato. Pretty good. When in doubt at a Korean restaurant order Jap Che noodles.

Bibimbap

Sitting down at our table

For the rest of the afternoon we were allowed to walk around the traditional village, which was beautiful. I think it is probably very touristy as everything seemed expensive and I saw everything from Mexican tour groups to French backpackers. Along the way we visited Gyeeonggijeon, which was a commemoration for the countries founder. It was so intricately designed and quite unlike anything from home.

The shrine roof

Last but not least we were taken to tour Jeonju JungAng Elementary school. To actually see what we would be doing. I think it just reconfirmed my faith in deciding to teach.  I love the feel of small classrooms and lots of friendly, happy children running along the halls. I am now quite excited about going to actually see my school.

On another note I am still incredibly anxious to find out where I am going. Every guest lecturer who comes to talk to us, says that Gyeonbuk province is incredibly rural. So I am beginning to freak out a little. I am just praying and hoping for the best.

The last two days have been filled with various classes to prepare us for life as a ESL teachers in South Korea. We have two very lovely homeroom teachers called Scarlet (Young-ha) and Namki.

Scarlet and Namki our homeroom teachers. Scarlet is already a co-teacher while Namki (who speaks perfect English) is studying finance.

So what has happened over the last 2 days? From 9 till 8:30 pm we have had lectures. They are very long, but most of the guest lecturers are current teachers in the Epik programme who have a lot of really good advice to give. Things like, suggesting that it would be a good idea to send home a letter with the children for the parents to read, explaining that you are their new teacher and that you are very excited to be in the position etc. It seems as if most of these teachers are incredibly happy in their jobs, having planned to only stay for a year and ending up still teaching well after the decade mark.

Our class - 3 Gyeongbuk and Ulsan

Yesterday we did Taekwando. If it hadn't been so hot I would probably have enjoyed it more. However, because it was so boiling, I wasn't over the moon about it.  Although it is clearly a lot more difficult than I though it would be. I wasn't wildly impressed that they decided to not turn on the air conditioning.

If you look closley you can see a picture of me doing the exercise while being incredibly unimpressed.

It is still incredibly hot here. It is a bit ridiculous at times. In fact I have had 3 showers today. From what I can tell it will be like this for the next month or so and then it will very very quickly become cold again (which suits me). After a dinner of honey fried chicken, kimchi, salad, rice and fruit, we had Korean class. Basically, I am a verrryyy slow learner. It isn't a very difficult alphabet to master, but I figure I will need quite a bit more time to figure it out. Oh, I have a year I guess.

I also had a chance to go to Lotte Mart. It was really quite a nice relief to visit it. I had been told by a variety of people that there are so many western products that they do not stock here. I was told to say goodbye to all cheese, yoghurt and pasta. I am happy to say that Lotto Mart has just about everything imaginable - and on four different stories no less. So I am not very stressed about being able to cook. On a sinister note, they were selling live eels.

This evening I went to Paris Baguette with Saree (the New Zealander) and Rebecca (the American) and had a giant cafe Mocha. One the walk home I noticed a couple of other epik people sitting and drinking outside of 7/11. This is something that I have battled to wrap my head around. In Korea, it is legal to drink anywhere on the street. Because of this, there are a number of picnic tables set up around 7/11 where everyone sits and drinks alcohol, as if it was a bar.  In fact, every time you want another beer you just pop back inside to buy another one. So I had a drink or two at the 7/11 before heading home. (I know - in my country this is something that only homeless people do).

One of the most unanticipated obstacles is that I have had to deal with is being severely outnumbered by teachers from other countries. It seems to me that our orientation is made up almost exclusively of Americans and Canadians, with a small smattering of English. I am by far the only person from Africa in my class and because of this, my accent sticks out even more. The odd time that I have asked a question in class I can feel people listening to it.  But then I remind myself that I should probably get used to it because I will be the only English teacher in my school next week.

The North Americans and me. LOL

I still have no idea where I am being placed, and it is driving me mad! Some people have gotten personalised emails from their co-teachers, but I have yet to get anything. Oh well soon enough I suppose. I listened to a lecture from a guy who lives in Pohang. It sounds great - I am holding thumbs that its where I get put.

Tommorrow will be a field trip day. They are taking us to see a traditional Korean village. It should be really good. Im looking foward to it!
But for now,  love to everyone at home.

Claire :)

So busy! Dont have time to post! Here are some pictures in the meantime. Lots of education and Korean classes. Field trip tomorrow!

City of Jeonju

City of Jeonju

Food options

Korean chocolate milk and water

Korean won

Claire in Hanguel

 

 

My room mate and I decided to skip breakfast today and sleep in a little longer, so I only had to be awake for 9 am.  Which meant I had a good 12 hours of rest. We will after all, be at orientation for the next 9 days. I know that the culture shock will set in soon, but to be honest, I have been sooo busy I haven't felt it. It has taken a day or so to get my internet working, OMG is it fast. For all of you who know me, I take the internet very seriously. So I am loving every moment of the high speed wireless on campus.

So on the first day of orientation we had a campus tour, which would have been interesting, accept for the fact that it was so incredibly hot and humid, that no one was overly interested. It is a smallish campus in a town surrounded by mountains and hills. It is still very pretty. We are using the campus as an orientation venue while the students are on summer holidays. I can estimate that there must be about 400 people at my orientation. About 90 % of them being Americans. They all ask me if I am British. "Oh wow South Africa?"

After the tour, we had lunch, which I really enjoyed! I understand that it is not everyone's cup of tea, but I really liked the variety. Definitely a foodie's dream. It was just a bit strange to eat with metal chop sticks... everything just seems to slip off of them. I much prefer wooden ones.
Anyway lunch was rice, spicy kimchi (stewed spicy cabbage), fried oriental chicken, pork galbi, bean salad and mushroom and broccoli salad.I tried a little of everything

After lunch we had an opening ceremony which was really cool. We had a Taekwando demonstration. It seemed as if there were Asian men and women jumping around the stage, smashing wooden blocks in half, effortlessly.  Unfortunetly I forgot to put my graphics card back into my camera so I couldnt take any pictures. But it was pretty great! After this we had a class meeting and our Koreans teachers for the week gave us chocolates!

After dinner we went out to a bar and had Korea beer and flavoured soju (peach, strawberry and grape). It was all pretty good and very cheap only 3000 won (which is about R30). I walked around with Sahree and her roomate (an really nice American girl) and took a few pictures.

Anyway off to bed, got to be up bright and early for a medical exam. Night night!

Ive arrived and everything is ok. The Cathay pacific flight was not fantastic to say the least. I much enjoyed my lunch at about 1:30 pm, only to be offered nothing again until it was light the next morning at 7am. I sat there wondering- when’s dinner coming? LOL. To make matters worse my TV screen broke, and I was left with nothing to do for about 5 hours. At least they offered me a $50 voucher as compensation. I have no idea what I am going to do with it.

Leaving Cape Town international - saying goodbye to the family.

At the beginning of my Johannesburg flight I had no one on the flight with me, yet I seem to have slowly collected  a group of Rhodents who I didn’t even know where going. Catherine, Sara, Philippa as well, Rebecca who is my roommate for the next few days.  We seemed to find another South African teacher along the way as well from stellies, Jason.

Our Cathay Pacific plane at Johannesburg International Airport.

I ended up sitting next to two Chinese men who were fascinated by the way that I was eating and I secretly was fascinated by the way that they were eating as well. They watched in amusement as I used a spoon to eat my yoghurt (when they drank it like a drink).

I am absolutely exhausted... I have been awake constantly for 2 full days. My day started at 6 am on Sunday and ended at 8:30pm on Monday. So crazy. But at least I can say that I have been to China now, if only to their airport for an hour or two. I quite liked Hong Kong airport, tucked in between raining mountains and directly off the sea coast (the runway ends when the sea starts). I could tell that it was incredibly hot outside because the airport windows fogged up. As I was coming off the plane, and walking, ever so briefly, to the terminal, I could feel the sweltering heat.

Hong Kong International Airport

Hong Kong is actually a lot smaller than I thought it was. I had always imagined that it was a mega city, when in reality it is relatively small in comparison to other Asian cities. It seems like they built an airport first and then stuck a few skyscrapers in just to round it out.  When I was on my second Catahy Pacific airline a teenage girl who sat next to me told me in broken English that it was too small and that is why she needed to fly to Seoul to go shopping.

When we finally flew into seoul, I got to see a bit of the scenery. It is actually very pretty. Lots of blue and green.  After I landed in Incheon, I was met by Yunock  (from Teach Korea) who met us and gave us a present of maps and towels to wish us good luck.

Finally after a four hour bus ride and a long chat with a nice new Zealander girl, Sahree, I am off to bed. 

Here is what our room looks like. Thank the lord it has aircon. I would be dying otherwise.

The strange shower

Have to be up at 7:30 tomorrow for breakfast… should be another big day.  For now, good night from Jeonju University, in South Korea.

1 day left to go.. Getting pretty scared now! Shitting bricks.

Parents surprised me with presents before I leave. A polka dot suitcase!

So its official! Tamrin and I will indeed be gallivanting around Asia together for a year. We weren't sure where we would all be- but now I can confirm- we will be jamming to Gangnam style... and I CANNOT wait! Yes, unfortunately we have been placed on opposite ends of the country, but hey Korea is SMALL! Just a little train ride away! A lot of Soju to be consumed and.. knowing Tamrin, a lot of photos. Here's to the next year T-dawg. See you in 3 weeks :)

2012 - At the Church digs lumo party in Grahamstown.