The Kelowna Connection

Update time

2011-03-06T18:28:00.000-08:00

Hiya folks!! Here's another update and it hasn't been forever since the last one!!!

Well it's my last week at work right now. On Thursday my contract ends at my current school and Friday I am moving to my new apartment (in another city). Looking forward to the new job opportunity. This one is stressing me out & this school really isn't for me. I don't mind the students (they're boys, they're young *shrugs*) but I struggled with working with my fellow Korean English teachers. Looking back on it all, I don't think they were really looking to keep me longer then they had to. There was never anything that had *my* name on it, the previous foreign teacher's name could be found in a few places but mine was only on documents and on the teacher's photo frame. Clearly once they knew they were getting an inexperienced teacher, I think they planned to give me a bit of support but they weren't looking to really help me. Pretty much played dirty with me the whole way but what can I do about it? Feeling more welcomed at my new school so that'll be a wonderful experience.

Had a going away/moving party this weekend with some of the local foreigners (plus my two friends from Incheon). Wasn't all that special: went to a steak place for dinner, went to a few bars in town, had some drinks & socialized with people before we did some nori bang (karaoke) to wrap up the night. Had a blast!! Before the dinner and partying happened, I hung out with one of my friends and had some girly time. Helped me figure out a make-up look for my face :) All my girls and boys loved the look.

Ah! Not sure if I mentioned this last time but my old computer died so on my trip back home, I bought a new laptop: Macbook Pro baby!! I've been playing around with it and adding new programs to it :) Really happy with my purchase. Hopefully once I get settled in & feeling more motivated (current school has killed that), I can start working on some cool projects :D

I'll update again once I've moved and settled into my new job & apartment.

No, I'm not dead

2011-02-12T23:19:00.000-08:00

So HI!!!
People have asked me if I'm alive or not since I have been AWFUL at updating my blog. Happy News Years and all that!!
In case anyone is wondering, during the North Korea attack awhile ago I was perfectly safe. My current home town is a couple of hours away from the border. Seoul will go before my home city. I made sure of that before I left I wasn't super close to the border.

Quick Summary of What's Happened

Well, last summer I spent it mostly hiding inside and teaching extra summer classes. Korea gets REALLY humid during the summer. Like I go to the corner store and come back to my house covered in sweat. Was really nasty. So I didn't go out too much. Summer vacation was quick for me. Only a couple of days. Highlight was going to the Korean version of Disneyland with a guy from South Africa. No pictures. I did take my camera but I left the battery at home ^^;; On the charger because I didn't want the batteries to die while I was there.
Fall was pretty uneventful as well. Things got crazy at work (busy and co-teachers [long story]), did some Korean language lessons provided by the city (ie free!!), socialized, did some traveling, etc. Because of the North Korea attack, the country did an attack drill, so at my school everyone had to go outside for a few minutes.
The winter. Well, I was told before leaving and once I arrived that Korean winters are typically mild (compared to what I'm use to) and not as cold. Sadly, this past winter has been the COLDEST winter in Korea!! There have been times when I compared temperatures between my city in Korea and Kelowna and Kelowna was WARMER!! Not to mention, the winter comes from Russia so it's kind of different cold. Had to remind my teachers that just because I'm from a cold country doesn't mean I don't feel the cold or I like it.
For Christmas, I spent some time with my friends in Incheon and had some traditional food: mashed potatoes, gravy, salad, and chicken. Roasts are really expensive in Korea and for our dinner size, too big. Christmas in Korea was very different, not a lot of decorations compared to what I'm use to anyways. Not to mention there aren't many sales or annoying Christmas songs being played. Also, Christmas is more of a couple's holiday. But spending it with my buddies made it feel not as terrible being away from my family. New Years.... I slept ^^;; I was feeling rather sick and tired so I just ended up sleeping on New Years Eve. I didn't even make it to midnight.
I finished teacher for the school 2010/2011 school year in December so for the rest of the month and January, I spent my time at work desk warming. So, from 8:30am to 4:30pm I sat at my desk with my computer and did whatever I wanted. Trust me, that gets REALLY old fast. But at least it gave me time to find a new job :D I could search online and do phone interviews at my desk. Managed to get a new job contract so in March I will be moving.
My new job will be in a small town but it'll be super close to a major city in Korea. 20/25min by city bus :D Plus, it'll have an express train to Seoul that'll take 45mins. My new school will be a private school and I'll get to work with cute elementary and kindi kids. Classrooms will be nice and small too (7-8). The school atmosphere seems really nice and relaxed too. After the two crap schools (well, crap male co-teacher and crap school), it'd be nice for a school that's nice and relaxing. Plus, if I want to take on some extra work in the morning (i'll be working 3pm to 9pm), I just have to ask the school owner but he'll be super cool about it.
As for February, the highlight is/will be GOING HOME!!! :D Since in Korea you get 3 public holidays for Chinese New Year, I booked my winter vacation right after it and spent the WHOLE time back home in Canada. As of writing this, it's the last sleep before I head back to Korea in the morning. Saw lots of people, did some shopping, got to see a hockey game with my dad, slept in my OWN bed, and spent time with my parents and cat. I may have forgotten to tell some people when I was coming so didn't get to see them :( But that was just bad planning on my part. Next visit I will do my best to be better organized and notify people when I'm coming.
So that's all. I probably missed some events that's happened in the last couple of months but that's more or less the highlights.

The world is not ending

2010-07-20T00:03:00.000-07:00

<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3

Quick one I swear. Just wanted to say that today I got THREE cards today while I was at school and want to post a quick reply to everyone here. Nothing really about Korea here so feel free to skip & not read it.

Oh and hi Cousin Johnny!!

Andrea/Nathan: I swear!! Postcards are not common things. Gotta make a trip into Seoul to find 'em. I've heard that there's an area in Seoul that sells them so I'll check them out there. Why postcards are so hard to find? I don't know.

Laura: You must watch season 5 of Doctor Who. Get to the end of it (it's done now FYI) and let me know if you want to face punch anyone. RTD isn't a choice now since he's been kicked off the island. Yes, watching Chuck (Accidentally spoiled some of it via Twitter. Sorry man!!). And now that Sam has joined us in the awesomeness that is Supernatural, that means we've gained a seat to heaven :D We've converted another none-believer!! This will make the Chuck-god very happy indeed

Mom & Dad: Can't say anything else but I LOVE YOU GUYS!!! Tones of hugs and kisses. As much as I am enjoying my time here, I can't wait for February when I have a chance to come home and see you guys again.

It's the final countdown~

2010-07-15T00:49:00.000-07:00

And it’s time for another entry in my wonderful ~~under-updated~~ blog!!! :D

It’s summer time in Korea. The school term is coming to a close. Since the finals, I have been teaching my students about Quebec Winter Carnival and Calgary Stampede. When I showed one of the English teachers my plan, she asked if me the Stampede was famous because she had never heard of it before ~.~ Don’t question me on my country’s heritage!! For those who don’t know, the Stampede is a huge rodeo and exhibition and western event in July for a couple of weeks. Over 1 million people come every year. I know someone who would go to the Stampede every year to work there. Anyway, been teaching them that. Oh and for one teacher, I get to throw on Doctor Horrible with Korean subtitles and just play that for them :D Well I give them a worksheet too that asks them simple questions about the movie.

This week students have been signing up for my Summer English camp, which I’m still planning ^^;;;; I keep changing my mind about the plan after talking to the teachers so it’s taking longer than it should so it feels like it’s never ending. But I have to have it finished Monday so I can present it to my teachers and explain the activities.

On Tuesday, I started my Korean language classes! We spent the first class just working on vowel pronunciation and some greeting expressions. It seemed that the other foreigners were already familiar with how to pronounce the words because they seemed to get it pretty quick. Me on the other hand, not so much. I think I might be the slow one in the class when it comes to that *sigh* I know I’ll be better at listening though. I’ve always been able to quickly figure out instructions/commands in another language, or listen to a dialogue and figure out bits 'n pieces of information about it. In Japanese class if my teacher asked us a question, I would just tell my friend Sarah what the teacher said and Sarah would respond/give the teacher the answer ^^;; Tonight, our teacher said we’d be looking at consonants. Not sure what we’ll do the second half. I think we’ll get our textbooks tonight as well. She said that it takes about 2 days to order online so we’ll get them either tonight or Tuesday, depending on when she ordered them and how long it takes to get here. I picked up a book on Korean grammar yesterday as well. I know this will just be a conversation/speaking class and the teacher said that this is the first Korean class she’s taught to adults. So I don’t think she’ll cover too much about grammar. Even though learning grammar is boring/sucks and I hate it, it is important to know about grammar points in any language. The grammar book came with an audio CD so that will be helpful too. But not until later when I can read/speak better. I looked briefly at the books for the class and they seemed like they would be really good. I think both come with a CD as well. Those books and my grammar book comes from the same publishing company ^^;; Didn’t mean that to happen. There wasn’t a lot of Korean for foreigners books at the store I went to and this was the only grammar book they had.

Well, that’s all for now!!!

There still is life here, I swear!!

2010-07-10T19:59:00.000-07:00

GAH!! I'm such a terrible updater on this thing!!

It seems that I didn't need to grab rain boots for the rainy season. What's suppose to be several days of unending muggy rain weather, turned out to be about a couple of days of light rain. So according to the Korean History Teacher (who is so cute and adorable btw), the rainy season is over for Korea. Yay??

The other day I bought my co-teacher & another teacher (I forget what she teaches ^^;) an ice coffee in the morning. My co-teacher has been giving me rides to school in the morning and one day, she said she wanted an ice coffee but didn't have time. So the next time she gave me a ride, I was waiting with some ice coffees ^^; She was so happy to get one and even happier that I remembered her saying that she wanted one. She said that she wished that I was a guy. Hahaha.

This past week was final exams for first term. On mid-terms, I only supervised a few exams so I thought I'd get the same this time. Nope. First two days, I got to supervise THREE exams. The second two days, TWO exams!! Each exam is 50 minutes and I have to make sure that no one cheats. Which means I have to be on my feet the whole time. It's very draining and very boring work. More draining/tiring then regular teaching. There's always another teacher in the room but even they find it boring/tiring. No desk to sit at & do other work. You have to be watchful encase someone is trying to cheat. Exams are four days long with 3 exams each day. After exams, the kids get lunch and then get to go home.

There's about 2 weeks left until summer vacation. But I still gotta teach classes, just not out of the book. On Friday they were very annoyed with me when I tried to teach them about Quebec Winter Carnival instead of playing a movie. They weren't interested in learning. Might talk to my teachers on Monday & talk to them about it. I do have stuff planned but if they're going to be that resistant to it, maybe I should change it.

My school recently was doing a 2 year program looking into making students more healthier due to the rise in obesity rates in Korea and just finished it. They presented their findings/results to a bunch of Principals and other administrative people at the school. Even though I couldn't understand what they were saying, I said I would go to the presentation. I already had been sitting at my desk for a couple of hours working but I wanted to support my school in this moment. Plus it wasn't far that my teachers had to go through a dull, long presentation but I didn't have to so decided to go and suffer with them. Hahaha! Spent most of the presentation talking to the Korean language teacher (Mr Bold). Lately at school, more of the younger teachers have been talking to me, trying to improve their English speaking skills. I don't knit-pick on everything but I do help them by correcting some of them. Though I do correct them when they use the wrong gender markers ^^; It's VERY important to know when to use he/her/his/her and girlfriend/boyfriend correctly. Using them wrong could cause problems with other foreigners. Anyways, sat in on the meeting and that impressed the teachers running the event so I was invited afterwards to dinner to celebrate their hard work.

The dinner was very good. Traditional Korean meal/food. And afterwards began another school dinner tradition: DRINKING! The older teachers seem to love getting drunk & want the younger teachers to join in them. So when an older teacher asks them to pour them a drink, they're trapped until the older teacher moves on. During this drinking time, Mr Bold & I have given them the nickname of "ghosts". They move "slow, slow, quick quick", appear beside you without warning, and have a ghost-like look on their face. Hahah!! The younger teachers have told me that they don't like this drinking culture in Korea but it usually forces them to get very drunk. Luckily, they only offered me shots of beer and usually just one. I've said before that I'm not a fan of drinking so I think they know not to force me to drink soju. Beer is okay though. Can take that stuff in a shot glass easily. It seemed to impress the older teachers that I was able to take the beer shots in one drink. Not sure if this was because they were drunk at the time or not. It took the older teachers awhile to get to my table because we were at the other side of the room but they got to us eventually. So we had to drink & listen to the older teachers tell stories. Since Mr Bold was my ride home, he had to get someone to drive his car home (+1 Korea cool points btw) but we couldn't leave at the same time. Too obvious. So he left first and we agreed that in 5 minutes, I would follow and leave as well. And just as I was about to leave... THREE of the older teachers (including my Vice Principal) wanted to have drinks with me! NOooooo!! One ghost is bad enough but three! *cries* I had some drinks with them, talked, and then... my phone rang!! Without even looking at it, I knew who it was: Mr Bold! MY HERO!!! :D He figured that something must have gone wrong so he called to let me know that the driver would be there soon. So I excused myself and got outside.

Now, when I left, I should have also grabbed one of the English Korean teachers with me (Ryan), since he was trapped at the time with another ghost. But A) he was trying to quit smoking and I'm his support team for it so when I went outside to have a breath of fresh air, I caught him SMOKING with another teacher. Booo~ So as a "punishment" for smoking, I left him behind. B)... I forgot ^^; I'd really like to say it was reason A but I can't ^^;

The other weekend I went to Seoul and found myself a bookstore with a good size English section to wander through :D Not that it that one is the only bookstore with English books but it was at the Express Bus Station so it was easy to find ^^; Had Ryan phone me while I was there. He gave me a hard time for leaving him alone and I told him reason A. He seemed to take it pretty well and we kinda joked about it. Asked me where I was and I told him. Had to explain to him why I was in a bookstore: to do something normal! I hadn't been in a bookstore in months but I really like books/book shopping. Yes, online has better selection and prices usually but I can't touch/hold/feel them online! You don't get the same experience when ordering online.

Starting on Tuesday, I will be taking Korean language classes :D I can't wait!! It's really hard sometimes getting around Korea with being about to read/speak the language. It'll be 2 hours classes, twice a week. There'll be other foreigners there and I know some who are taking the class so I won't be alone. Need to remind my co-teacher to show me where the class is so I know where to go.

With school wrapping up soon, Summer English Camps will be starting up. From what I understand, I've got the 1st and 2nd year students and they start just after school finishes. I feel bad for these kids. In Korean culture, it's ALL about education. They've got regular classes and hagwons (private academy classes) in the evening. Plus with classes every other weekend at school, they really have little time to be KIDS. I would love it if in the next 20 or so years, that something would change and give them a bit more time away from school. Not nearly to the level it is in Canada/US. Maybe there should be a bit more school but there needs to be a better balance between education/being a kid.

English Camps (for those who are wondering) are extra English classes held at the school during the summer/winter vacation. These have mixed levels and are "voluntary" (though in Korea, how true this is, I don't know) for the students to better their English skills. They're held at the school and are 45 minutes long. So no actual camping is involved ^^;

Anyways, after English Camps are finished, I get some time off from work. All of 8 days! HOORAY!! No clue what I'll do besides staying in Korea. After my vacation, school starts back up again. It looks like I'll be working on my birthday too :( Bugger. Normally I take my birthday off of work but I doubt I can get that here so I'll just work it anyways.

^^; I hope this makes up for the lack of posting.

It's a Tropical Heat Wave

2010-06-20T03:51:00.000-07:00

Bleh, thank god I have A/C at home & work or I would be dying in this weather ~_~ It's so muggy right now, it's hard to go out during the day. My shirt just gets soaked in sweat easily & it's so gross to feel. Not to mention how it looks. I would so take dry heat over this muggy heat. I'm not sure how it'll change once monsoon season starts up. Maybe it'll be cooler?? I can only hope ^^;

Principal decided to turn on the A/C so the students are happy now. Now they have cool classrooms though some of the rooms they've told me it doesn't work. But a few classrooms where it doesn't work is better then all of them not working ~_~ There isn't central a/c so each room has a a/c unit in the room. Same as my apartment. Just have the one on the wall in the main room. Kitchen/entrance is a bit warm & my little porch area is a sauna. Omg it's soooo warm in there!! Good for drying clothes because they'll dry faster but you don't want to be in there for long. An A/c unit can set you back a couple hundred dollars easily. Probably closer to $1000 min.

So went to Daejeon last weekend. Quick doctor's appointment. Was told that there would someone who'd speak English but in Korea, it doesn't mean they understand English ^^; Managed to check in okay & find where I needed to go. Doctor spoke pretty good English so that was good. Afterwards, did a little wandering around the city. Thought I found a bookstore but alas, it was just the major corp building, not the store. Had to take a bunch of taxis that day since I don't know the city. Next visit I will look into the subway there. Not as big as Seoul but cheaper then taxis and less scarier then buses. Still bus-shy about that one epic bus-fail day. Especially when I have time sensitive plans. Will also look into finding that bookstore. Haven't been to a bookstore since I got here. Ordering online is just not the same as buying in person. I know that store does carry English books so I should be able to find something.

Ah, went to the hair salon too. :D Cost was good & really, it was nice to have someone to do my hair who understood English. Also, she's not experienced with doing curly hair since she used the usual hair dryer: kind of an angular dryer. Not the kind you use on curly hair >.< Oh well, don't hold that against her but it just would have been nice. Now I have really short hair. Not really a fan of how short it is but it needs to be this short to survive the summer weather.

This Saturday went to Seoul again to do some shopping in Itaewon. Meet a girl who use to live in Seosan (meet her at a party here) and offered to take me around to some shops in Seoul for clothing. Cause fuck if you're not a stick, you're pretty screwed for clothes. Found some tops & jeans plus a pair of rain boots. Really happy about the boots since monsoon will be coming & I need those. Plus I have "big" feet so it makes it hard to find shoes here. So many cute shoes. Even killer heel ones. But alas, big feet screws me. Had some lasagna for lunch. It was okay. Not as good as mine but it was decent & cheap. Well decent after we took it back & got them to heat it up for us ^^; Checked out some electronic stores. They wanted to buy some Wii games but their Wii is Korean & needs to be modded to play English games. I picked up a new cooling fan for $7. Cheap price but it looks kinda cheap-ish ^^; It has three fans, props up my computer and has a cool blue light :D Also got a T-money toggle for my phone. When you travel the trains, buses, subway, and taxes, you can use a loadable card/toggle to pay instead of using cash or credit. You can use it in the larger cities & some smaller cities (not Seosan) too. Just load it up with money & go. I got the phone toggle one since I always have my phone hand & is easier to pull that out then my wallet to use a card. Plus it looks cute with my phone!

http://www.zenex.se/zenex/Blog/Entries/2009/10/15_Commuting_in_a_personal_and_easy_way_files/t-money2.jpg Here's a pic of what it looks like :D Of course, it's Hello Kitty but I wanted to make my phone look cute. At times I fail at being girly so gotta make up for it in other ways when I can.

Got asked by one of my English teachers to do a lesson on lacrosse for my students with her since I'm Canadian and it's a Canadian sport ^^;; So got to cram & prep the night before. She said she wanted me to cover everything but there are THREE types of lacrosse. Even covering the very basics, it's hard to get through it all. Plus she has lower level students *cries* I tried to explain it to her but I don't think she gets it. Three lacrosses. All three are different. Plus it takes time to translate & make sure the students get what I'm taking about. I know I can't get through it all so it doesn't bother me not to cover it all but I think she wants me to cover it all. "Just cover how it's played, players, and the rules". O.O I am but with translating & the students being lower levels (low English plus... not well behaved ^^;), it ain't happening. Oh well, the students are enjoying that. Especially when I tell that that KOREA has a national team :D With there being a world game in July & Korea going, I'll try to find some videos to the game & show them.

Missed game 2 of the World cup (I was just too damn tired) but Korea lost pretty bad so I don't feel too bad about missing it haha. Hopefully we'll do better the next game.

Gotta head back to Daejeon on Saturday so will have to make plans this time for what to do after since it'll take an hour and a half & my appointment won't take that long if the last time is any indication.

FIGHTING KOREA!!

2010-06-12T23:04:00.000-07:00

OH MY GOD!! Korea at summer is blehhhh. So hot & muggy!! Got my A/c & box fan running to keep my place liveable for me. Rainy season is starting soon so I'll have to invest in some rain boots. Going into Seoul next Saturday so I'll try to grab some then. Principal hasn't turned on the A/C yet so it's hard to teach a lot of the classes because the kids are all tired from the heat.

http://s2.photobucket.com/albums/y36/raintenshi/Korea%206/

So last Friday was my school's Sports day. The main sports were volleyball (we sucked), basketball (we rocked!), relay race (not sure...), tug o' war (missed it ^^;), and soccer (tied?). We played against a private middle school in the city. We've got something similar (kinda sorta not really) back home and those were mandatory for us to go/participate in but found out that here, it's not so much. Well, that's not true. Because of the sheer volume of students (nearly 1000) it's harder for the teachers to keep track of all the students & they only take roll twice. So students can sneak off to PC bang if they want. Even saw one of my students studying English!! Not that I would tell my students to do that (they need to enjoy themselves sometimes) but it did make me smile seeing him studying English during one of the games. Then again, it was during volleyball so it's not like he was missing anything. Hahahahah. The kids really seem to enjoy themselves. Plus it gave me the chance to hang out with them and talk to them a bit. And rough house with them too. Hahah. "Let's see if you can fly, like Superman!"

Last Saturday went to Daejeon for the afternoon. Was just going stir crazy! Since it was kinda a rush trip so it wasn't well planned. Went in, had some lunch at Pizza Hut ^^; before going to the Expo Park. For the most part, it was pretty empty. It seems more like a place Koreans go to during summer vacation, judging by the construction & lack of people. Haha. They seriously need to update their planet display. They still have Pluto as planet. Heheh. Korea failz. I wanted to check out the life & nature building but it was closed :( Checked out the Advance Science exhibit. Despite most of it being in Korean, I really enjoyed everything there. Grabbed lots of pictures! Headed over to the large tower (can't remember the name) but my camera batteries died :( The view was amazing with the weather that day. Hung out a while longer before I headed home.

Um... this week is the start of World Cup & Korea is NUTS about their soccer. I was watching the game with some friends here & on my way home, I could hear the game clearly in the streets. If I could understand Korean, I could just sit outside & listen. Wouldn't need to know what's happening either. Everytime Korea scored, fireworks went off. And not like little firecrackers. *Real* fireworks too. I shudder to imagine what it'll be like if Korea *wins* the World Cup.

Got my hair cut short again. Try #3 ^^; I think this time will be the one. Haven't had hair this short in ages. I liked it before. Don't get me wrong. But the head was still overheating. Downside to having thick hair and all. The hair salon I went to was awesome. I found it on Facebook as a hair salon for foreigners to go to. Not that we can't go to any hair salon but this one the staff can understand us ^^; No luck on the hair product but I'll just go on Ebay to grab it. I know I can grab HUGE ones on there and those should last me awhile. Not that it's an issue but really. When you have curly hair, using stuff for curly hair just works better.

That's all for me. Saturday going to Itawon (again) but this time, I won't be alone. Going with another foreigner & she's going to show me where I can do some clothes shopping here. Leave me some comments people ;)

The blah blah post

2010-06-03T07:21:00.000-07:00

So this isn't much of a major update or anything. Just thought I'd post something. I live a quiet life folks, sorry ^^;

And yes, the bike riding learning thing is still going on. Will try next week riding it part way to school ONCE. Still haven't mastered the hill part (I live in a hilly neighbourhood) but I can ride it on the flat parts.

Lesson I Learnt in Korea: if you're ever not sure if a pepper is hot or not, don't try to each it in one go >.<

Well, this past week, we just had elections here in Korea. Nothing too serious or big, but being a foreigner, it doesn't matter too much for me ^^; Can't vote either way. One difference between elections here and in Canada is that I got the day off work! Yes, school was closed for the day (along with post offices and banks) for voting day. Hell, I'm not going to complain about getting a day off just so my co-workers can vote. Another difference I quickly noticed about elections here and elections back home, you seriously cannot avoid knowing about it. Now, I'm not someone who keeps in touch with the news of the world or political scene, but even I knew it was coming soon. You've got the (huge ass) posters, flyers, etc but they've also got the trucks! Each person running for the election had a truck that would play songs about his/her (there was a woman running) greatness and how they plan to help Seosan be amazing and awesome. Okay so I'm not too sure about that last part in how accurate it is but you get the gist of it. Now, these trucks will drive around the city playing this, even in the mornings. They'll also park their truck somewhere to play it (usually high populated place) or have "cheerleaders" dance & cheer for their candidate. One guy even had someone dancing around in a bee suit. There's also small groups (mostly women) walking around trying to promote their candidate to the random people on the street. There's probably other stuff I've missed but this is what I've noticed in my regular patterns.

Tomorrow/Friday is Sports Day! That means, our school will be going to the local stadium to play against another middle from the city in a couple of sporting events. Yes, I get another day off work :D But unlike Wednesday, I'm not staying home. I might not be teaching but they still want me to go to the stadium. Maybe teach them some new English words 1 on 1 with the students. I doubt any of the students will be interested in that but I'll do what I can. Otherwise, I'll enjoy the event and cheer on my boys. I hope they do well. I plan on taking lots of pictures and hopefully will learn a lot of interesting things.

The Education Office here is going to start up some Korean classes for the native teachers in the city (not sure if it'll extend to the areas outside of Season). Looking forward to those. I really suck at learning languages in a non-classroom environment. I mean, I've picked up a couple of phrases here and there, but a lot of what people have tried to taught me I've forgotten. Mostly because I don't end up using/hearing it repeated again. Classes start in July and run until sometime in September. 2 hours/night and 2 times/week. Maybe I'll meet a Canadian foreigner at one of these classes!! Yes, I have yet to find one of those. I've heard of their existence here in Seosan but I haven't come across one yet.

Found a hair salon in another city that a) specializes working with foreigners :D and b) says they have experience cutting curly hair. Yup, getting my hair cut again. It's starting to heat up and my head is over-heating again at night so it means I'll have to get them to cut it REALLY REALLY short. I've got to head over to that city anyways next weekend to do some stuff in the morning but if it doesn't take long, I'll swing by there and get them to cut it. Maybe buy some curly hair shampoo/conditioner. I'm sorry, I'm not a hair snob or anything but it really makes a difference for me if I use stuff that's made for curly hair. I know there's Pantene Pro-V for curly hair and that works wonderfully. But I can't buy it here. Probably could find it in Seoul or even order it in but I wanna look into seeing how much it'll cost me just to buy the "good" stuff. I've got some product stuff from a line that I love and I know it has shampoo/conditioners and maybe I'll be lucky and they have some. If not, oh well, I will deal with it and move on.

Getting back into the cooking thing again. The whole drama thing I went through I think put a serious damper on that for awhile but I'm starting up again. Helps that I have a rice cooker now :D Just need a crock pot so I'll try to remember to buy one this weekend. Crock pot cooking will let me have better dinners without having to make it myself after getting home. And when I leave at 7:45am and I'm getting home after 6pm, big cooking is not something I wanna do. A crock pot will also hopefully help me with my "Korea sucks & doesn't have a lot of ovens" issue.

Wow, for nothing doing a lot the past couple of days, I sure managed to write a lot. I'll do my best to update again with my adventures at Sports Day.

Second photo upload

2010-05-21T17:42:00.000-07:00

Here's the second photo dump! Includes some shots of my apartment ;)

http://s2.photobucket.com/albums/y36/raintenshi/Korea%205/?albumview=slideshow

It's finally here!

2010-05-21T17:19:00.000-07:00

So I know people have been asking so here you go. The first of TWO mega photo posts.

http://s2.photobucket.com/albums/y36/raintenshi/Korea%204/?albumview=slideshow

The final update 3

2010-05-02T06:00:00.000-07:00

So I think this is the final story I need to tell. If there's anything else I'll post them, but I think after this, I'll do a mega photo upload.

So my main co-teacher Julia has been suggesting that I go out & travel on the weekend. Get out of Seosan and see Korea. Especially go to Seoul so I can see and talk to foreigners. I don't mind talking to my co-workers and other Koreans in English but I want to be able to speak English without having to teach it. I just want to go "blah blah blah". So Saturday I went to Seoul. I got up in the morning, got my things together and went to the bus terminal to take a bus to Seoul. It was about an hour and half trip on the bus to get there. I wandered around the bus terminal once I got there, checked out the mall next door, had some lunch, before deciding to go to Itawon. Itawon is the international district in Seoul. TONES of foreigners there! Wandered around a bit on my own before getting picked up by two guys from Nigeria. They decided to join me and took me around the area a bit. Went to a foreigner bar, had a margarita (it was soo weak) while they had some (shitty) Korean beer from a HUGE pitcher. I wish I had taken a picture of it but it was BIG and they both finished it off between the two of them. Which isn't too hard since Korean beer is terribly weak. It would be insulting to call it water. I'm sorry but Korea, your beer sucks. I'm not a beer snob or even a fan of it, but even I think it's terrible.

After drinks, hit up KFC for some food (idk why we didn't get food at the pub but whatever), walked around the main street a bit and they showed me to some of the clubs. It was still early so they weren't open yet. Now, I was feeling a bit nervous about being with them, especially when they were talking earlier about taking me out to some of the clubs. First time in Seoul and I didn't know anyone ~_~ I managed to escape going to the clubs by saying I had to get home. They were disappointed but accepted it. Took me to the subway station and one made sure I got back okay. Rode the subway with me, made sure I got my bus ticket okay. I was a bit lost but a nice lady offered to help. Had to phone one of my teachers to tell her where the city is but everything was fine. That's what I love about Korea, the people are so helpful, even if they don't understand English.

Well, I think that's everything. I'll get to uploading the pictures soon I swear!

Keeping the stories comming Update 2

2010-05-02T05:28:00.000-07:00

While I've been in Seosan, I've been in constant contact with my ex-vice principal from Yunmu, aka my Korean father ^^; Yes, he loved me so much he adopted me and despite being moved to Seosan, he wouldn't let me go. I talk to him on the phone and send him many emails. His English isn't great but we can have conversations and the emails helps him learn English.

Last month (April), him and his wife came to Seosan to visit me for a couple hours. It was a wonderful visit. We went to the open market (oh yeah, we have an open market here ^^;) , bought some crab & octupus , and had them cooked up for lunch. Ohhhh the crab was wonderful. WONDERFUL! It was like it was dipped in butter *purr* Oh that was some good crab. And it was interesting to see the octopus cooked in the dish :D That was a show in of itself!! They also bought some sliced seafood found in Korean. Those were... interesting ^^; Not something I would eat again but I was polite about it and ate them. After lunch, we walked around the market for a bit, went to Baskin Robins (first visit ever) for some ice cream before they dropped me off at my building. Even before I got back in my apartment I was crying. I was already missing them terribly. Despite keeping in contact with him often, I miss the man terribly. I went from seeing him at least 5 days a week to maybe seeing him once a month.

One night the single teachers at my school took me to a temple & traditional village to check out the cherry blossoms. The art teacher was leaving to teach in Seoul (it was just a temp job) so they were taking her there to check out the cherry blossoms and to have dinner. So we got there, had dinner and walked around the area. Gave me a good chance to talk to the other teachers. No pictures from this visit sadly. It was sudden and I didn't have a camera on me at the time. The dinner and walk around was pretty uneventful but the ride home was interesting. I got a ride home with the Korean teacher and I was sitting in the front seat. There was another teacher in the back but she doesn't speak English. So we're on our way out and he asks "left or right?". I thought he was asking HER but it took me a second to realize he was asking in English O.o; I looked at his GPS and told him what way to go. Apparently he'd never been there before. So it ended up for a bit that I was his co-pilot, helping him figure out how to get back to Seosan!! I was referring to his GPS a lot but it made for an interesting experience. It amuses the other teachers that I gave him directions. LOL! It wasn't scary or anything but a great time.

This part week the students had to write exams for the term on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Since I have Saturdays off (co-workers work every other one), instead of teaching Thursday and Friday, I got to supervise a few classes. There were only 3 exams each day so they got the afternoon off. I had to stay & do work but I didn't get around to much. Thursday I was taken to a local temple and the traditional tea house with some of the first year teachers. The tea was really sweet and had a pleasent aroma. We stayed there for awhile before heading out for dinner. It was to a fancy restaurant. Friday after I had lunch, I had to go to the bank to pay one of my bills and managed to get a debit card while I was there :D I tried to get one the last time I was there but there was some issues with the order my name not matching (alien registration vs bank account) but this time I had my VISA/passport so they just made me a new account with the right name on it. Later we went to a local mountain to go "rock climbing". Rock climbing in Korea is pretty much hiking. This mountain was really step, had lots of stairs and at times we had to grab ropes & rocks to get up. How did I handle it? ~_~ Ughghhh terrible! I'm so out of shape. I went as far as I could on, taking lots of stops. I feel bad for the teachers I was walking with because I wasn't moving very quickly and took long breaks. We ended up not being able to make it to the top of the hill because we had to wait for another group to arrive before we started and with a planned dinner, we didn't have time so we had to turn around. I was very tired and my body was very sore. Especially my knee. Even though I struggled with the hike, I feel proud because I didn't quit and completed as much as I could with the time we had. I did my best after all. I think the teachers felt bad for me about taking me because I struggled on it so much. They did suggest a few times that it would be okay to stop but I wanted to keep going and reach the top. Determination or stubbornness? I'll let you be the judge. I managed to get a couple of pictures taken of the area and those will be up eventually. For dinner we went to a speciality restaurant. What are they famous for? ... BBQ Dog. That's right. BBQ dog. I got to eat BBQ dog. ^____^ It was really good!! I mean, if I went back home today I wouldn't be missing it but it was surprisingly good. Tasted like pork and all it needed was mustard. Hahah.

Long time coming update 1

2010-05-02T04:41:00.000-07:00

AHhhhhh I’m soooo sorry about not updating!! Things have been busy for me during the week so when I get home from work, all I want to do is relax. As for the weekend…. I am lazy ^^;; I do have many pictures to share that I’ve taken but I will upload them once I get caught up to date.

Teaching has been very challenging for me. I am teaching different levels (grades and English ability) so I have to tailor the lesson material to that, plus all my teachers seem to want me to do different things ^^; Not to mention I am also teaching two different extra classes (each twice a week) so I have to come up with material for them. One of them I just focus on English speaking games (hahah) but I have to find games appropriate for their English level (middle) so that takes some time. The other English class is not only for students with very good English skills, but some of them come from other middle schools in the area! They’re entering in an English speaking competition in June so I have to prepare them for that. Still no sign of a list of topics that I should focus on but I’ve so far got them to talk about movies, violence & children, online video game addiction, WHY using the f word is a bad word (Ohhh that was fun), and different Englishes. This week I didn’t have them because they had to write exams but next week I think I will go back to different Englishes for a bit. Then focus on grammar for speaking English (as opposed to writing English). The speaking part I know but I don't know how to explain it. It's merely something I've learned from talking and listening to people. Not anything I've been taught in class so it just comes automatically. I'll probably end up looking up a lot of grammar rules while I'm here so I can teach it to my kids. I might even become a grammar master? Lol.

My usual method to getting to school is walking, its a 45mins trip to get there/home. ^^; Luckily its a pretty flat and easy trip. I'm slowly learning to ride a bike so someday I'll try biking. Yes, I'm still practising. Might try Wednesday morning biking around the city. National holiday that day so I don't have to work.

The school I'm teaching at is a pretty large middle school. Nearly 1000 students ~_~ And it's just boys! Staff is pretty large and a mix between young and old teachers. English department has 6 Korean English teachers, 5 women and 1 man. The male teacher is just a temp/student teacher. He teaches classes on his own like a regular teacher but he spends his time studying for the teacher's exam. The teachers are really awesome. Always friendly and willing to help.

Students are good ^^; I mean, they're boys so they can be a pain in the ass but they're really good kids. I get the feeling that a good portion of the students are from low/medium-low income families and/or broken families. That makes me a bit sad but I try to be as wonderful to them as much as I can. In one of my extra classes, I try to give them as many games as possible. The games get them to speak English as much as possible and sometimes they use Korean. I don't give them too much flack about it. They try to talk in English and sometimes I know they're talking in Korean to translate/offer suggestions to other classmates.

The city is apparently bigger then Nonsan but to me, it feels smaller. On the way to school I walk through the drinking district ^^; Lots of neon lights and signs. Feels like a street in a major city. Just past the drinking district is a lake park. It's a city-built lake in the middle of a park. I've walked around there a few times. Has a tennis court, outdoor exercise machines, a walking path around the lake, a small playground, a lite forest, and an open court area. The open court is for city events & whatnot. The lake has some water fountains/features in it and at certain times of the days, they give people a bit of a show. I've got pictures of it so you can see for yourself what I'm talking about. I walk by the park on my way to school/home. When the cherry blossoms were in bloom, I found it to be really peaceful and relaxing on my way to school.

From Nonsan to Seosan

2010-04-09T17:10:00.000-07:00

Okay, sorry about the whole silence thing again, but some things came up and I found myself being moved to another city, Seosan. It's a couple hours away from Nonsan. Can't tell you too much about the city since I haven't had time to explorer it yet and no pictures :( Sorry, will try to get you guys something this month.
The new school I'm teaching at is Seosan (Boys') Middle School, which is makes things on one hand easier cause before I was teaching at two middles schools. But this one is HUGE (1000+ students) and my regular classes only see me teaching the 1st and 2nd graders. They have me doing some extra conversation classes so I'll get to see some 3rd graders there plus I'm helping prep the smarter ones for an English competition in June (?) with their interview/speech skills so I'll see more there. I've got 26 classes a week now, which is more then before but I'll be getting paid for those extra classes so :D Yay for bigger pay check! There are 6 Korean English teachers, 5 regular ones (all female) and one student teacher (cute male :D). The student teacher has his own classes and teaches those but at the same time, he's studying & preparing for the teacher's placement exam for here in Korea. This past week I've being doing my observation week at school but starting Monday, I'm starting all my classes (regular and extra).
Ah!! I've got a cellphone now :D Yes, I'm finally connected to the rest of the world again. This is what my phone looks like. It was the only phone in the store that had a dictionary on it (which I REALLY wanted) and had to pay nearly $200 CND for it :( Wish we could have gone to the mega phone store. Probably would have had better selection and wouldn't have had to pay so much but oh well.
Oh! Also bought a bike so I could bike to school in the morning and not have to walk 40/45 min. Since I don't know HOW to ride still, I've been practising in the evenings to master this skill. Nothing yet but I'll try to keep you all posted.
Well, that's what's been going on. Will try to get some pictures this weekend and find an interesting story to share for next time!

Changing...

2010-03-31T01:59:00.001-07:00

If any of you are planning on sending me something while I'm in Korea, please don't send anything right now!!! There is going to be a change in address and I don't know what it is yet.

Photos!!

2010-03-27T19:21:00.000-07:00

I know its been awhile since I've been here but I've finally uploaded some pics for you all to see!!

http://s2.photobucket.com/albums/y36/raintenshi/Korea%201/ <- From leaving home to arriving in Korea
http://s2.photobucket.com/albums/y36/raintenshi/Korea%202/ <- The city where I live
http://s2.photobucket.com/albums/y36/raintenshi/Korea%203/ <- The girls' school I teach at

Pictures of the apartment will come up once I get my furniture in here & get my place better organized.

Mini Update

2010-03-24T05:19:00.000-07:00

Talked to my co-teacher the other day about getting some furniture into my place. I could really careless about the TV, microwave oven, table, two chairs... I just want the BED!! Sleeping on the floor is rather painful on my back. If I'm lucky, I'll get it on Friday :D Otherwise, it won't be until next week. Boooo! Another weekend of sleeping on the floor.

Went to immigration office today with the Vice Principal. The office is in Daejeon, a major city here in Korea. Luckily its not to far away from Nonsan so it was a quick trip. Had to apply for my alien registration here in Korea. Filed the paperwork, gave them some money & passport. Was told that I'd get my registration card and passport back in 2 weeks. Hopefully I can get them sooner. Sooner I get my registration card, the sooner I get my PHONE!! Well, might be able to get the phone this week, depends on if my co-teacher has time. I know my Vice Principal has the number I need to get my phone (to prove that I'm working here) so if I just need that, then I can get it sooner. It's sooo strange not having a working phone here. I've seen a lot of the phones have Korean-English dictionary on them so with any luck, mine will also have one.

Got a bank account here set up on Tuesday. Means I can get paid now!! I think my payday is tomorrow so with any luck, I'll get my first paycheck plus my entrance allowance (I hope?) deposited into my bank account. Cause, right now, its rather empty ^^;

I finally met some FOREIGNERS!! On my way home from work the other day, one ran into me. She called out "Hello" and with a bunch of girl HS students around me, I assumed that it was a Korean ^^; Talked to her for a bit & met up with some other foreigners who live in the area. No luck at finding any Canadians but I'll learn to deal. They seem like their a partying bunch of people so not sure how well I'll mess with them (not a partier) but they seem like awesome people. And it'll be nice to talk to some fellow foreigners. Got invited to a party on Thursday (pay day celebration) at someone's place. Will meet up at the grocery store & go over to the place.

Okay, didn't think I had so many mini updates ^^; Will try to take pics of students & school on Friday and do some long overdo uploading.

Quick Post

2010-03-19T17:44:00.000-07:00

I've gotten some people asking me for my mailing address here in Korea. If you're interested, either email me or leave me your email address in the comments below & I'll give it to you. Just don't want to post that kind of information on the blog ^^;

First Week-ish in Korea, part 3/3

2010-03-19T05:40:00.000-07:00

Monday was my first day teaching. Missed the bus I was waiting for. Lady in front of me asked the driver something, he said no, and drove off *sigh* Was a bit late already so I just found a taxi to take me to the school. Well, sorta. It seems that my school is kinda hard to find since he had troubles getting there. In the end, he just dropped me off at the high school since I knew I could walk across the grounds and get to the school. Was ~15mins late & got there during the staff meeting. Was introduced to the rest of the staff, shown around to the classrooms, filled out some paperwork, and taught some classes. Kinda bs'd my way through that since I wasn't sure what I should do or where they were, both in terms of language level and in the book. I ate lunch in the cafeteria. It seems that (at least the private schools, not sure about public) that food is provided to the staff & students for free. Well there is a mini store that you can buy things from but main cafeteria you don't have to pay. Free lunch & can experience Korean food ^_^ One less thing for me to worry about in the morning. After classes were done for the day, Charlie took me out for dinner again, this time to a seafood place close to my apartment. Had to do my physical the next day at the hospital (part of my contract, etc) so I ate up as much as I could. Tried some soju at dinner. Woowwww. Powerful stuff! Had only a couple of drinks before I felt good and buzzed. Since I was so close, I just walked back to my apartment after dinner.

Tuesday Charlie picked me up & took me to the hospital for my physical examination. Nothing too special happened. Got weight, measured, x-rayed, got some blood work done, answered some basic questions (“Have you had any major surgery done lately?” “do you smoke?” etc), and had a quick eye exam. Found out today that I checked out pretty good. It seems I'm a bit anaemic bu otherwise I'm healthy. Normally Tuesdays I'm suppose to teach at the boy's middle school but since I spent half the day getting my physical done & I hadn't eaten yet, we decided I'd just go home for the rest of the day and my first day would be Thursday. Spent the rest of the day getting ready for the next day's classes.

Wednesday was another day of teaching. Managed to get the bus this time and found my way to school alright :D I mastered the bus to work!! I was proud of myself for that. And it only took 3 tries. Some of the classes Wednesday went okay, while others, it was CLEAR they didn't understand what I was trying to teach them. Still learning what I can/can't do with them. On Wednesdays and Thursdays at the girl's school I teach some extra English classes after the regular 6/7 classes. These are mixed up of students at different levels. Now, NEVER having experienced something like this before and I'm not sure how well it was explained to me, I had nothing prepared. I reallly bs'd, no I didn't bs it. I kinda admitted I wasn't prepared (and why I wasn't) so spent those two just played hangman and mimed out jobs with the students. I asked them what THEY wanted to do in the class (cause I had no clue what to do & they'd have a better clue) and they said they wanted to watch US tv shows, movies, listen to US music, etc. Their requirements for TV shows? Pretty boys and drama. First show that came to mind: SUPERNATURAL!!! Told them that I had something in mind and would bring it next class. They seemed excited. Overall the class sucked big time, but they were understanding. Just as long as it didn't happen again ;)

Thursday was my first day at the boy's school. Was shown how to walk there the day before and managed to find it on my own alright. On a side note, it had snowed a bit the night before and it was still around Thursday morning so it was rather cold *shivers* It was the snow I like too! On the trees, grass, a bit on the parked cars but NONE on the road!!! I wish I had the time to take pictures of it because it was really pretty. Was introduced to the staff, principal and vice principal, had a brief tour before setting off to teach. Since I'm only there twice a week, I have a lot of classes at the boy's school. 5 on Tuesday and 4 on Thursday. Oh the boy's school. While the girls were really nice, well behaved (during class. Outside they acted like girls.), little problems with behaving in class, classrooms felt clean & organized, the boy's school.... well... it felt like it was a boy's school . They were loud and noisy during class, hitting each other, goofing off during lectures, etc. First time seeing the teachers actually disciplining the students (hitting, spanking, etc). It's a little unsettling to have that happening, but its really not my place to tell the other teachers not to do that, since it seems to be acceptable in Korean society. Doesn't mean I'll be doing it and I'm certain that its not expected of me to do it anyways. Taught my classes, and spent my time off preparing. Luckily they use the same books as the girl's school so that'll make prepping easier. Afterwards, I left early because I had to teach my extra classes. Walked over, dropped some of my things off at my desk before heading over to the classroom to teach. Showed the first episode to them yesterday and they loved it! I think they were scared at time but they enjoyed it. Clearly I won't spend the entire time showing them Supernatural, but I'll show them one episode, and talk to them about it before doing something else for the rest of the time. Well, after I showed them Supernatural, I played them the pilot for Aquaman. Didn't get through all of it but they seemed to like it. Not as much as Supernatural, but that's okay. Only one episode of Aquaman, TONES of episodes of Supernatural.

Friday/today I woke up tired. I'm a bit of night owl so its hard for me to go to bed and wake up at 6am. Decided to experiment and take the bus after the one I normally take. That one gets me there an HOUR early >.< Too soon! So took my time in getting ready and headed out for the bus. Found out that one is the better one because it gets me there soon enough but not too early/late. Only have two classes so spent my time prepping for my extra classes next week and getting an idea what to cover for the regular classes next week. Then spent the time being borrrred. Laptop can only last so long before the battery dies and can only prep so much without it. Ended up doing some doodling at the end before I left >.<; !! I forgot to mention, I used a Korean-style toilet today for the first time. At the boy's school, the girl's washrooms are western style (as is mine & the one at the hotel) but the ones at the girl's school aren't. Somehow I managed not to have to go to the bathroom at all while I was there this week. Not sure how that worked out, especially with my body (reference: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/29/55334697_072025edab.jpg?v=0 ). Managed to figure out how to use it okay first time without making a mess of myself.

Well, that's about it. Planning to do some shopping for food and some more loose ends, talk to mom on Skype, and will travel to girl's school to take some pictures of it without any students around. The school is only 15mins away and now that I know how to ride the bus, it will go over better this time around.

First Week-ish in Korea part 2

2010-03-19T05:38:00.000-07:00

Woke up the next day, grabbed some breakfast, got dressed and packed up the rest of my things before somehow pull my luggage downstairs. Should I mention now that I had FOUR large luggage bags? Didn't wait too long for my next ride to pick me up, load his stuff into the van before he took me to the girl's middle school. The trip from Incheon to Yunmu was about 3 hours. We stopped once (I think he had to go to the bathroom) and asked me if I had to go. I said no, that I was use to long trips without bathroom breaks cause my Dad didn't like stopping . Haha. I don't think he understood though. He came back and gave me a Coke. Maybe it was because it was Korean Coke and not Canadian/American Coke (anyone who's tried American and Canadian pop knows that they DON'T taste the same) or it had been awhile since I had pop but it was pretty good. Got a little lost to the school because the girl's middle school shares the same space as the local high school. I wasn't too worried about it.

When I got there, I meet my co-teacher Charlie. He took me around the school grounds, introduced me to some of the teachers, the Vice Principal and Principal, and told me about some things in Korea. Once we were done, he took me to the realtor's office to find me an apartment. He said I could live in the township where the school was but it would be better for me to live in the city. There'd be more stores & better chance of meeting other foreigners. He found me a place and helped me move my luggage into the apartment. It's a pretty small space, meant for just one person to live in. I have a kitchen, bathroom, and a living space (eat, sleep, etc). There's a small space separated where my washer and drying rack is. I also keep my empty luggage bags in there. My bed? Well since I don't have a lot of space, it's a soft fuzzy “mattress”, pillow, and comforter. The mattress really isn't a mattress since its not very thick/supportive. I'm still trying to get use to sleeping on the floor. I also have an armoire and a single-person size fridge. Things are still messy so once I get some more storage & better organized. Anyways, I had a little time to get set up before Charlie came back and took me out for dinner to an oyster Korean-style restaurant. The food was very good. Afterwards, we went to the supermarket store close by called Home Plus. Think of a three floored Walmart, only with good quality stuff without the people who have TERRIBLE fashion sense. Picked up a few things I'd need before dropping me off

Friday through Sunday I spent getting my things better organized, picked up more things at Home Plus, checked out the area a bit, and tried to bus out to the school. Busing experience was BADDDD. Didn't get off at the right stop so ended up riding it until the end of the route >.< I managed to pay attention so I knew how to walk back to the area where my school was. It was probably less than 10kms. Had a few teary moments but continued to trek forward. Once I got there, I looked for a taxi to take me home. Now, when I needed a ride home before, I managed to just show them the photo of my building's address and they knew where to take me. I guess the guy who drove me there wasn't too familiar with the city and got some bad directions. Or I said yes to the wrong thing. That's entirely possible. Anyways, he managed to take me to the other side of town >.< I paid him once he took me to where he THOUGHT I was going, because I didn't want the meter to run any higher then it was. Thought I could find my way home but didn't turn out that way. Got realllly frustrated and upset over it. I found a taxi & told him just to drop me off at the city hall. He seemed to speak good English and might have been able to take me straight home but I wasn't about to chance it. I knew how to walk home from the city hall since I walked there earlier that weekend. Paid him the fare and walked home. I was sooo happy to be home!!

First Week-ish in Korea

2010-03-19T05:37:00.000-07:00

Alright, so I haven't died!! I have just been busy with my first week in Korea. For a few days I didn't have Internet access because the power converter I bought at London Drugs doesn't fit in the plugs here >.< The outlets are round and deeper than North American outlets so prongs are just a bit too short and the adaptor is square. Managed to buy a power transformer at the mega shopping store close to my house :D

So moving day!! Stayed up the whole night since I didn't see any point in sleeping. One, I'd be too excited to get to sleep at a decent hour. Two, I'd have to wake up at a god-awful hour ~_~ Packed all my things, got my bags into the car, and just puttered around before I had to leave. My parents drove me to the airport, helped me get my bags to check in, bought me breakfast, and stayed around with me until I went through security *sigh* I shouldn't have eaten breakfast (even if I was massively hungry) since I was stressed out about the trip. Just before I went through security I had to run to the bathroom to throw up! Blehhhh. Now the good news is that I had a pair of pants that I had packed with me in my carry-on bag that I could change into. Bad news? They were my Elmo pj pants that my mom made for me. Yes, I got to wear Elmo pj pants through THREE airports and on two airplanes. No one said anything to me directly about it but I'm sure people noticed and were talking amongst themselves about my fashion statement.

The flight to YVR was uneventful as it was just a quick flight. Grabbed my luggage and managed to get it to the next check-in desk. Had to wait a little for them to open up since it was still early in the morning. Had to pay a nasty bill for the extra luggage. I knew I'd have to pay but I thought it was going to be way less than it was. Not that I could NOT pay it. Had no way to get it home. Walked around the airport, phoned on Skype to check in with Mom, exchange my money for Korean won, before going through security again and wait for my next flight. I grabbed some lunch while I waited since my stomach seemed better. Waited to board my plane & found my seat okay.

On the trip to Seoul, I sat beside a Korean son & mother. Judging by the languages of the announcements, there were Koreans, Canadians/Americans, and Chinese on plane. I had a window seat with a glorious view of.... the wing. There was a variety of movies, documentaries, music, news programming, and even a couple of TV episodes (just one ep of whatever show they had though). I watched Astro Boy, Cloudy with a Chance of Meat Balls, The Brother Grimm, 2 and a ½ Men, Everybody Loves Raymond, and some of Men Who Stare at Goats. I got managed to get a little sleep on the flight but it was kinda cramped and uncomfortable. OH! We all got given the softest blanket to cover ourself with. If I thought I could get away with it, I'd sneak one of them off. Not bad for standard airplane stuff. We got two meals on the flight, lunch just after taking off and dinner just before landing. For lunch I ate bibimbap ( http://www.lifeinkorea.com/food/Food.cfm?Subject=rice#Bibimbap ) and for dinner I had pasta. The food wasn't too bad for plane food. There was a little turbulence but nothing too scary or major. I guess we had really good flying conditions since we arrived earlier than expected. I went through immigration & found my luggage alright before walking over to an information desk to phone the hotel I was going to stay at for the night. Told them who to look for (shockingly wearing Elmo pj pants wasn't a good description for them ) and was told where to meet them. Asked the (English speaking) girl at the desk for directions to where I was to go & made it there alright. It was just above 2 but I was hotttttt from wearing sweat pants, a heavy shirt, and winter coat the entire trip over. Ride found me, loaded my stuff into the van, stopped to pick up another family before taking us to the hotel.

Got settled in my room, grabbed some food, and got some things ready for the next day. Tried a couple times to use the Internet cafe (PC bang in Korea) but it smelt like cigarettes & was filled with (Korean) guys playing Starcraft and maybe a few WoW screens. Now I'm pretty nerdy myself & comfortable with it but OMG, that made me sooo uncomfortable. Too much even for me. Hung out in my room, packed my things up, before going to sleep at a decent hour.

How to comment guide

2010-03-04T15:27:00.000-08:00

A few people have been asking me how to leave comments on this thing so I thought I'd post an easy guide with pictures to show you how to do it.

Click on the title of the post you want to comment on and scroll down to the bottom of the post until you reach the comment box

Now say you want to comment & leave your name on it. Click on the menu box and select "Name/URL" as seen in the picture above.

Now when you do that, this should pop up. Feel free to put in your name but if you don't have a website, that's okay. You can leave the URL option blank. Hit the continue button.

Now you should see the name you put in. Enter your comment & hit post comment. If you want to leave a comment again at a later date, you should be able to just select the name without having to re-do it.

Hope this helps you all!

New Schedule

2010-03-03T20:40:00.000-08:00

Tue
Fly out to Vancouver airport on WestJet in the morning. Wait around at YVR before flying out to Seoul in the afternoon on Korean Air.
Wed
Arrive in Seoul airport at 5:30pm KST ~_~ Phone the guest house & have them pick me up. Buy some food & go to the internet cafe to put people on things if I'm not too dead from the jet lag. Sleep
Thurs
Get picked up & taken to my school. Meet my co-teacher & principal. Maybe get a tour of the school, and see some of my students? Then, get taken to my apartment & get settled. Do my health check, apply for my ARC, and open a bank account. Sleep
Fri - Sun
Not sure if they have plans for me on Friday or not. If not, will arrange to have Internet set up, get a phone, and work on setting up my apartment. With any luck, come Monday I'll be ready to teach!

Update

2010-03-01T12:32:00.000-08:00

Alright, so I have my passport and visa at long last!! Had to phone Consulate to find out why I didn't have it & remind them to send it back but I finally got it. Booked my flight out for March 9th. Hold up is flying out of Vancouver to Seoul, probably because of the Olympics and people flying home. Annoyed that I'm STILL here but nothing I can do about the flying situation. Booked two flights out: one to get me to Vancouver on WestJet & the other on Korean Air. Emailed my recruiter the new information so probably won't hear back from him later this afternoon.

I suppose this is a move in the right direction?

VISA countdown

2010-02-23T12:30:00.000-08:00

Though I'd post this little countdown for the mail delivering my VISA here. Also including what the tentative flight plan would be for that day if I got it. I'll update this page during the week as things change.

Monday: ~~That would be awesome! Leave Tuesday, get there Wednesday afternoon~~ Failure
Tuesday: ~~Would be great. Leave Wednesday, get there Thursday afternoon~~ Failure
Wednesday: ~~Okay guys, I sorta need it now. Leave Thursday, get there Friday afternoon~~ Not sure whom I hate more right now: Canada Post, Korean Consulate, Winter Games Security, or a combination of them all. Epic failure
Thursday: ~~I *really* need this! Leave Friday, get there Saturday afternoon.~~ Smoke is coming out of my ear here people!!
Friday: AS:KJDl;akjdslakhjdlkjaslkdjalkj. Leave SATURDAY and get there Sunday afternoon

I think my first work day is Monday so the longer I have to wait, the less amount of time I have to recover from jet lag & get any prep that needs to be done for the first day of classes.

Yes, I'm still here

2010-02-18T23:02:00.000-08:00

Phoned the Consulate this afternoon to see if they received my paperwork. For some reason Canada Post wasn't updating the tracking after it left Kelowna ~_~ Looks like it got there Wednesday (should have been there Tuesday morning but Olympics buggered that up) and they won't be done processing it until next week. Unless the lady has a change of heart and speeds up the process, I won't be flying out until later next week *sigh* Didn't bother asking her to speed it up since I've been told she won't (no reason) and don't want to risk getting my paperwork delayed. She seemed to ask some rather weird questions too when I talked to her. "If someone offered you a job doing private tutoring, would you do it?" "How did you find your job?" "Who got you the job?" I answered the questions (No, Internet, and recruiting company name) but found them to do NOTHING with seeing if my paperwork was in or not. I already DID an interview to get the job. She doesn't get to interview me at all.
Did some running around town today, grabbing things I need for the trip. Tomorrow I'll probably stay home and do somethings around the house. Two days straight out in town is kinda draining, especially with the stress about if the paperwork got there or not.

VISA saga, part 2

2010-02-15T21:02:00.000-08:00

Finally received my contract this morning but it is possible that its too late. Phoned the consulate before it came to see if it was possible to speed up the process but I got a firm no. I still mailed it off to the consulate priority shipping. It will be there in the morning. Talked to my recruiter later about it and suggested that I phone tomorrow to make sure all my paperwork are in order & maybe get the whole process speed up.

Apparently the Vancouver location is run by people who are... unhappy in many ways, shall we say and the woman running the visa process doesn't take requests to speed up very often. Including requests from the Korean Ministry of Education. She's even hung up on my recruiter.

Maybe not ^^; Maybe I'll just check that my paperwork is in all order and check the processing time. He suggested that she could cause it to take LONGER, which I'd like to avoid. Also said to be nice but I'm always nice to people on the phone. Even to people like her.

He took the news pretty well. Its held up because of the shipping/handling by Customs. Nothing could have been done differently. Even my recruiter paid more money on his end to make sure it'd get here on time. I sent my paperwork to the consulate as soon as I got the contract *shrugs* It happens. He said he has to tell the ministry about the delay, but he seemed fairly calm about it all.

So unless I get extremely lucky, I'll either be out Saturday or Tuesday ~_~ Stupid paperwork issues.

Update: Forgot that with the Olympics in town that mail would get delayed for the downtown area, which is where the consulate is *sigh* Either Canada Post is behind in updating their mail status or the shipping delay is huge. Was suppose to be there this morning but its 5pm and it's still hasn't arrived yet.

Also received my TESOL certificate today. It seems that I got a B on my test ^__^

VISA rage

2010-02-14T10:09:00.000-08:00

I'm still waiting for my contract -_-

It seems that Canadian Customs felt the need to look at my package, causing it to be delayed. I *needed* it to be here Friday! Needed it so I could sent it to the Consulate to get my visa done in time!! Might get it Monday but I'll have to call the Consulate in the morning to see if they can speed up the process. I don't mind paying a bit more cause then I don't have to pay more to reschedule my tickets & deal with that madness.

It's only PAPERWORK!! Why the hell did Customs need to look at it?! RAWRRRRRRRRR

Visa woes

2010-02-11T16:46:00.000-08:00

Got an email from Korean Air. Since the name I put my ticket under and my credit card name didn't match up, they cancelled my ticket -_- I phoned them up to clear it up and seems that I could still have another problem. My visa only has the initial of my first name on it, so they could still maybe not let me on the plane! Will show my id when I get there but was told that I should bring my statement as well. I've never had problems with my visa like that!! Either ordering online or in store.

So, made a quick phone call to India visa. Getting them to ship a new card that will have my FULL first name on it to my bank branch. Should be here before I have to leave. Don't want to have to deal with this bs again. I don't even know why visa let me have a card like that *sigh* Also got them to put a note on my record letting them know about my little trip ;)

Got my TOSEL exam last night and spent most of the night/morning writing it ^^; Worked on it until 4am, slept/napped, went out for breakfast to see Leanna and did some shopping before coming home to finish up the test. Had 80% done so it only took a couple of hours to finsih. Now I have to wait for them to mark it and let me know I passed. Then I need to tell them to send it here ASAP! Need it by Thursday next week ^^; Hopefully they'll ship my certificate out of the US.

Last shift at Prospera Place tomorrow night :( I'm going to cry!! I know it. I'm sad to be leaving there. I really like my job there *sniffle* Will take my camera with me to get pics of staff, the building, and maybe even Rocky ^^;; Hopefully he'll show up. Sometimes he doesn't show up... or he doesn't swing by my concession. Haha.

Still not there yet

2010-02-10T14:53:00.000-08:00

I've booked my flight!! Flying out on Friday officially. Will fly into Vancouver on West Jet in the morning (ewwww) and then head to Seoul on Korean Air in the afternoon. There's about an 5 hour layover but I'm sure I'll find something to do. And if not, I can always kill time on WoW :D

Had an interesting phone call with my recruiter this morning (1am). First he emailed me to say that when I get my contract in the mail NOT to send it to Vancouver. That worried me since I know there's a bit of a push to get it done. I ended up talking to him and he wanted to make sure that my security check was stamped by the consulate BEFORE I got the contract offer. Because I'm not "allowed" to get offered one before hand. Told him that it was done before so that wasn't a problem.

During the same phone call a second problem came up: its Korean New Years this weekend!! Why would that be a problem? Well, he figured that the consulate would be closed on the Monday since it observes Korean holidays. Which would mean I wouldn't get my VISA processed before I needed to leave!! That'd be a problem because I'd get there late and have less time to recover from jet lag :( Checked their website and it said they'd be open but he was still not sure. So for a couple hours I got to worry over my visa not getting done and having to reschedule my flight. Called them when I woke up and turns out they're open regular hours on Monday!! Hooray!! The website was right!! Sent him an email letting him know the good news.

So what does this change? Nothing ^^;; Just means my VISA won't be delayed.

The video doesn't have anything to do with Korea or ESL, but I thought it was cute!

School & City

2010-02-07T14:24:00.000-08:00

I know I said that I wouldn't post again until I arrived in Korea, but I got some more info today so I thought I would share it with you all.

I'll be teaching at Yeonmu Girl's Middle School in Nonsan. Noticed on the wiki pages that they said that Nonsan is the strawberry capital of Korea. SCORE!!!!! While the school is run by the Office of Education, it's still a private school. I'm hoping I'm not the only foreign teacher there >.<; From what I've read, there will be other foreigners in the area, but I'd still like to have at least one at the same school as me ^^;

Links:
http://yunmu.ms.kr/ - Where I'll be teaching. Korean only. Website has some issues being viewed in Firefox.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonsan - Wiki page
http://korea.wikia.com/wiki/Nonsan - Travel wiki page

Woot!!

2010-02-05T10:13:00.000-08:00

Hey folks!!
I got a job offer to teach English to public school students in Chungnam! It'll be my first time travelling and first time teaching so I'm really excited. Anyways, I thought I'd start up a blog so I can share with you all about my trip. I'll probably talk about:

Adventures in teaching English

Adventures in Korea. What I learn about the culture, the country, where I'm living, language, etc

Living in a foreign country away from home & family

What my trip travelling to Korea will be like

Anything else that comes to mind ^^;

Next post will either be a short update from Vancouver or will be from Korea. I have to be there the 20th so I'll fly over the day before.
Things are really going to be interesting for here on out ;)