Yangyang and Provincial Orientation

Our provinical orientation was heaven. Not a lot of people had it good, but we were treated like royalty. It all began with our closing ceremony and lunch at Jochiwon. The lunch there was exquisite! We all said our rushed goodbye's to the friends we had made. Personally, I was very sad to be leaving them. I had made some very strong bonds with my fellow TaLK scholars and now I was forced to leave them!? For the most part, I think I handeled it well.

Then we piled all of our suitcases into the buses and headed off. Of course, my bus was late because we had tried to pack everyone's suitcase into the bottom of the bus. Somehow, the driver thought that would have worked. Nope. Instead, it looked something like this.

Of course it was the men who had to pack that tetris game of a wall. :P Honestly, it wasn't too bad. Working together helped us all have something in common. Yes, we did all know each other from Jochiwon orientation, but a majority of us still didn't really know each other well. It was like restarting orientation all over again.



The view from the bus was awesome. We knew it as soon as we reached Gangwon-do. As soon as I saw the country side I let out all of my, "Fuck yeah"'s for my excitement at my own genious for picking Gangwon-do as my province. Yeah, it's close to North Korea, but it's cooler weather and effing beautiful landscape. There's mountains, the ocean, forests and rivers. This place rules!

As soon as we arrived we had dinner. That too, was extravagant. There was so much fresh sushimi and nagmyun and bulgogi! It was fantastic. Regrettibly, I didn't bring my camera to dinner. :/

Then we got to see the rooms! :D





Compared to Jochiwon, our rooms were gigantic! That, and my roomie was awesome! He was the best roommate I've ever had...not that I've had a plethora of them. He was the first roommate I ever had good talks with. Thumbs up Jonathan Lee.

That night we were supposed to play soccer. :/ Luckily, they switched our activity last minute to going to the stream/river. Now that was a fantastic idea!




It was very pretty there! There was even a natural spring near that had naturally carbonated water! It tasted like rust :P, but you got over it. It was really healthy soooo :P.

We also got the chance to make rice cake in the traditional manner. Let me tell you, if you ever have any pent up anger while you're here in Korea about the fact that everyone around you speaks another language and that they put poopie toilet paper in trash cans and stink up the bathroom and that everyone eats squid like no one's business, then you need to try this out. You litterally take Thor's fuckin' hammer and beat the shit out of some rice. I felt so manly!

Then afterwards we got to roll up the rice cake and eat it! It was delicious, especially the ones with red bean paste in the middle. Mmmm :).


Jonathan (my roomie!) holding some rice cake. What does that look like to you?

Red bean pastein the middle. So efftastic good!

We also went to a Buddhist temple. I went once already. The first time sucked so much penis. But the second time, it was ballin' (thanks Pat for allowing me the chance to pick up Canadian slang :P)! It was right next to the water. This Buddha statue used to be the biggest in Asia, but then someone else decided to say "eff you" and build a bigger one. :P

Of course, I left out the other rather boring things we did. We made pottery at a pottery museum, we went to a dam museum and GILI (pointless). If you want to know about it, look it up yourself :D.

Then we had our closing banquet with our co-scholars and tons and tons of soju. In Korean culture, if you want to be good friends with someone, you offer them a shot of soju in your own shot glass. I had 16 or so shots of soju that night. So plastered O.o. I'll have to be more carful at Hweyshik (company dinner were there is comparibly as much soju as there is food...and there's lots of food).

And now I'm in Chuncheon, trying to get used to the town and transit system. I missed by bus (AGAIN!) today. I found out later that I was standing at the bus stop but I actually had to flag the dude down. I had no idea. Hopefully tomorrow I will actually be able to take it and not be a re-re about it. Fuckin' Korean bus system! :D

I'm kidding. I think I'll enjoy my time here.

Edit: Oh man! I almost forgot to share this. This was the poster for the Order of Ceremony for provincial orientation. Oh Korea. :P

Apartment

My time in Korea has been short. Despite that, I have felt in love with this country, and have felt twinging pangs of distaste for it. I've both enjoyed learning Korean culture, and found it revolting. I've eaten delicious foods, and wondered why anyone would think of eating that!

For the majority, I believe it has thus far been a positive experience. I miss my friends I made back in Jochiwon and Yangyang orientations, but I'm glad I'm slowly but surely getting to know my way around Chuncheon.

I've been having trouble with my camera, hence the lack of pictures, but I'd like to begin integrating images into my blog in an effort to make it more interesting.

Let's begin with my phone.

Cute right. Despite it's obvious brickishness, it works well enough for what I need. The charm on it is my bus pass for Chuncheon bus transit system. Trust me, I've had my bad experiences with transit systems, but never quite so bad till I reached Chuncheon.

My mentor teacher failed to tell me that there are two number 67 buses, one that goes in one direction, the other, in the opposite direction. Regrettably I got on the wrong bus and rode it until the driver told me to get off in broke English. There I was, in a foreign city, unable to speak any words aside from kamsahapnida (thank you ) and ahneyonghaseyoh (hello), giant books in toe, walking the streets of Chuncheon.

Frustrated, I climbed in a cab and said Namchuncheon Yok, which is the nearest landmark to my apartment, a train station. The previous day I had missed the bus and tried to take a taxi to my school. Unfortunately, the taxi driver had no idea what I was saying in my poor pronunciation of Korean, and so tried to take me into the heart of the city. Instead I changed to Home Plus and walked about 3 or 4 miles to my school. Shit.

Thankfully it's all figured out now.

But now I'm in my apartment and it's pretty rad.

I hope everything turns out well while I'm here. I'll put another blog about my Yangyang orientation. My timelines suck because it's easier to talk about what happened recently :P. That and I'm limited to five pictures per blog, so I can't put too many more up.

I'll keep you posted!

English Camp

My time at English camp astounded even I. I went into it with as positive of a mind set as I could. Even still, it wasn’t as bright as I was attempting to trick myself into. It didn’t work in my favor that I had the most unresponsive child there (that’s purely an exaggeration).

Alex. That was the English name dubbed to him by yours truly. I presented him a list of generic names like John, James, Adam etc. When I said Alex he jumped and nodded since he refused to speak English to me despite the fact that he spoke English very well. Later I was told that there is a famous Korean singer who goes by the English name as Alex. The truth behind the name!

Surprisingly, young children are so much like puppies that sometimes I almost picture a leash on that tiny little neck. :P I wish I had had one for Alex; all those times he ran off and taunted me for not keeping up got under my skin. I understand all the numerous times I was told not to take it personally, but it’s harder than you think to just brush it aside. In fact, I had this rather annoying scholar actually complain to me about his perfectly receptive, cute Korean kid because she liked to hang out with her friends and didn’t pay him enough “attention”. I had no remorse for anyone except Shalini, who had a kid that actually swore excessively in Korean and thew fit after fit.

Our days were meticulously planned by Group four coordinator, Tee. Luckily, I was part of group four. Previously we had divided into teams. I belonged to team 3, my team leader: Stephen Christopher Low, a very interesting Brit/Kiwi with a shock of red hair. The first days consisted of game that, to be honest, none of the kids in my team hardly participated in. In fact, my rambunctious cheek-squeezer was off in the corner playing with a mock, orange football (soccer ball). From that day on, I would learn that if I ever needed to find Alex, that I could just look for a brightly colored football and find him not far in toe.

The next day we had textbook rotation. We were incorrectly informed that we had to make a lesson plan for our child for two hours straight. We were allowed to be in groups of two, so me and my friends Leanne, teamed up to teach our living, breathing Korean child. I need to preface that Leanne is fucking awesome! She helped me so much to plan for our lesson and was such a great break from working with my kid. She’s from New Zealand. For some reason the Kiwi’s grouped together a lot, so Leanne sort of helped me make headway into the Kiwi scene. There are a shit ton of Kiwi’s here!

Anway, so Leanne and I planned this rad lesson involving colors that we had to scrap when they told us that it was a rotation style lesson. I would get to work with 4 kids, including mine, through a rotation about every 10 minutes. Working with my kid was...well, honestly, it left nothing to be desired. He sat there, staring at me, no matter how hard I tried to get him to repeat me and learn with me. After a long and grueling 10 minutes, I was gifted with three of the sweetest, most responsive kids! The last, Justin, even gave me a sticker with Korean written all over it. The sticker said, “Thank you teacher! My English isn’t very good, but I feel that I’ve gotten better being taught by you. Thank you.” It was so fucking cute I almost puked.

The rest of the classes were pretty lame. We had traditional Korean music, cultural experience where we made Aboriginal dot art from Australia/New Zealand (even though they are two separate countries), a football jersey from UK, or a board game from America (I know, I had the same reaction. What the fuhhh!? Is America land of board games or something?), English through theatre (I was the director. I was told I treated the kids like dogs. :D), and English through music.

We were also required to eat our meals with our kids. Cute, except that I would always have to ditch my meal to take my kid back to the dorm because I didn’t know how to get across that he needed to wait for me to finish.

Our rooms consisted to 10 scholars per room, two showers and one toilet. Not only that, but we slept on palates on the floor, not on beds. I thought this would be bad, but honestly I slept so well on it that I can’t complain.

After three days of constant silence from Alex, watching everyone enjoy their adorable Korean pets/kids and being exhausted from 12 hours a day of children and classes, I think a majority of us were pretty stoked for it to be over. We had a talent show near the end, where the groups separated into two divisions and got a song together to perform. Highlights were definitely Thriller and Jump on it. It was so rad. We actually were told that our talent show was the best that a lot of the supervisors had ever scene. It was great! Then we had our closing ceremony, in which Alex was playing a game on my phone because he was bored. A lot of the scholars and their respective children were teary eyed.

Despite my bad experience at English camp, I did enjoy myself quite a lot. I got to be around really great people and we turned the negatives to positives as much as we could. That, and we ate so much ice cream thanks to a convenience store being right next to our dormitories. And even though I had a bad child and had to sleep on the floor and share a shower and work and work and work, I really enjoyed it. I feel so much more prepared for my class room now. It is my first time teaching, so I know that I still have a lot to learn, but I know one thing. My classroom is so going to have a disciplinary system. 100%

1st 1/2 of orientation: Korea so far

Lecture, lecture, lecture, lunch, lecture, lecture, lecture, dinner, lecture: as such the way some of my days have gone in this whirlwind of an adventure. We've only just begun, and yet I can tell it's going to be quite the winding road, full of pit falls, good times, and lots of 소주.

So far it's been a blast despite how drained I am after lecture after lecture. You just have to grin and bear it for the most part. The dorm rooms are lush but cramped, especially with mine and my roommates giant suitcases littering the space. O.o...so intense.

What's gone down so far? Well, aside from lectures and food, I've met some of the coolest, motley array of people I think I'll ever have the pleasure of meeting again. There are soooo many people worth mentioning, but I'll refrain to keep the creep level of this blog to a minimum. O.o

So, in lectures we've learned how to handle rambunctious kids, teach them through music, drama and magic, learned the need-to-know's for creating lesson plans and the norms of Korean culture. Though usually riveting, they got a little redundant to the point I was beginning to nod off. But do not fret my friends, I persevered.

I've been exploring 조치원 (Jochiwon) as much as I can in my free time with friends. We've gone to 노래방 (Karaoke) and to bars and just walked...a lot. Taxi's are remarkably easier to use than you'd think. As long as you speak slowly, they usually get it. Of course, I like to look up the Korean word for wherever I want to go before doing it. It's safer.

This past weekend I experienced the culturally diverse city of 서울 (Seoul). I say city, but I really only stayed near 합정역(Hapjeong) station where our hostel was. We explored a little bit, but I really cant remember the names of the other stations/streets we went to. But we didn't go too far lest we became directionally challenged.

My experience in 서울 was intense. While me and my friends were having dinner we got front row seats to a fight between four Korean business men who were out having a good time. One pushed the other, another broke a shot glass on his friends head and cut his hand, then some three-on-one action of kicking and punching another guy in a corner. Good times. What was best was when they would hug and be best friends in between these surges of excessive anger and violence. The entire time, blood is staining their white shirts and pristine ties and their scuffing their well shined shoes. I for one was devastated that one of the guys was ruining a fine pair of silver dress pants. Sad, sad day. :D

Aside from that horror-show, the city wasn't bad. Most people were very warm and welcoming to English speaking foreigners. Even if the Korean didn't speak hardly ANY English, as long as you said hello and thank you in Korean, they were game for the charades that ensued when asking for directions, where the bathroom was and what you wanted to order for lunch. I literally pantomimed peeing into a urinal to get some guy to understand what I meant. It works, so don't judge.

I really intend to learn Korean while I'm here. Not that charades aren't fun, it's just a little degrading and a little...umm...ridiculous...yeah, that's the word I want.

The hostel wasn't too bad. Rock hard beds, two bathrooms, 20 + people. What's not to love? Honestly, the place was really safe and I really enjoyed it. Here is a link to the website of the Hostel. It's really safe and the guys are really accommodating. Trust me, you'll like it if you go.

I went to a few clubs, learned a Korean dance move or two (and taught some Koreans a little bit of what Western dancing has to offer), ate a bunch and soon was on the train back home. Honestly, 조치원was a relief. It's so much easier to navigate with significantly fewer people.

So, here we are. I've packed and I'm all ready for English camp where I'll be working with a Korean student for 12 hours a day for 4 days. A lot of people I've talked to are being pretty negative about it, but I'm trying my best to stay positive. I just hope I get a responsive, sweet and adorable kids and not some rowdy little shit who wont at least try to communicate with me. Either way, I'll learn what I'm supposed to do.

It looks like, up to this point, I really enjoy Korea. I'm not sure how long that feeling will last. For now, I'll take it and run with it.

Good Morning Korea!

(Edit: Btw, I thought it may be pertinent to tell anyone that I've found my man-bag since my last blog! Phew!)

All of this build up and now it’s finally that time. I’m sitting here in my dorm in the University of Korea, looking out over the cityscape of the town I’m in (I won’t even try to butcher it’s name. I’m about an hour and forty-five minutes from Incheon airport, let’s just say) and it all seems pretty surreal. I’m actually in Korea.

To be honest it really isn’t that much different from the U.S. For some unexplainable reason I thought that it would be significantly different. My assumptions were proven incorrect. Honestly the largest difference is the fact that everything has Hangul written all over it.

...hmm...so I guess I’ll tell you about some things I’ve had to learn were a bit altered from their American counterparts. Namely, the dual elevators that only go to even numbers on the left, and odd numbers on the right. At the ground level I made the sour mistake of hoping aboard the odd numbered elevator. Regrettably my room is on the eighth floor so I had to take a trip back down, still carrying these monster bags in toe, and then through the other elevator and then back up. I didn’t realize I had to switch elevators till I was up on the seventh floor of the odd numbered elevator. Bother.

Then of course the shower that isn’t really a shower. In fact, the bathroom really isn’t a bathroom, it’s a shower room. The shower head isn’t blocked off or in a bathtub or anything. It’s just on the wall in the middle of the room. That’s fine by my standards, I don’t mind getting everything wet...except for my dry clothes that I carry in to change into once I’m done. I almost got them entirely soaked when I placed them in the far corner of the room and didn’t realize the water was slowly creeping up to it. Note to self: don’t leave anything on the floor of the bathroom, anywhere, while showering. It will get wet.

So I’ve experienced a minor amount of culture shock. Silly thing is I sort of new about these things already and am still interested at the fact that I’m still a bit shocked by it...that and I have to take my shoes off every time I enter my dorm. Not a biggie, but I keep forgetting! Sigh.

The flight itself ruled though. There were really nice Korean ladies that brought us awesome food. That was pretty much the best part of the flight, oh and the fact that the in flight media player ruled! I saw so many sweet movies that I’ve been wanting to see. They even had Imogen Heaps new album on it. Score. And they had these really awesome roll things with sweet meat in the middle. I was scrumptious.

Now all I need to do is get my time schedule set. Annoyingly so, my circadian clock is forcibly hardwired to Central Standard Time. I was wide away at 4:00am this morning (2:00pm in the U.S) and had the most horrible time trying to go back to bed...most likely from the air conditioner that isn’t working for some reason, being off and burning me to a lovely sweat all night long.

My roomie seems nice enough too. David from Chicago, Korean-American, what’s not to like? :) He says he can speak enough Korea to get by, but I don’t think he realizes that if he spends any time with me, I’ll be asking him to translate a lot. I hope he’s better than he says he is :P. First things first though, I’m going to see if he can read the Hangul on the thermostat. I’m burning up!

Alright, now I guess I should get in the shower and great ready for breakfast. Hamburgers and french-fries is what I’m told the people who already arrived have been having for breakfast. Man, Koreans know Americans so well.