My new school

I will be teaching at Baekyang middle school in Bukbu, one of the districts of Busan.  I wasn't able to find much info on either the district or the school for now.  This will be my last post from orientation.  We had to do presentations today, which went fine.  I got my new cell phone today, it is ok, but a huge step down from my iPhone.  Sorry for the short post, but I have to pack and then we are all going out for one last hurrah! 

Busy, Busy

Sorry for the lapse in posts, but they have been keeping us quite busy.  We have class from 9-5:30, with a break for lunch and the past two nights we have had survival Korean lessons from 7-8.  Not too much has changed here, we have received some good info in our class, but also a fair amount of wasted time.  Sunday we spent the day at the Korean Folk Village, which was pretty cool.  I posted those pictures already.  There are not a whole lot because my camera died about half way through the day.  We start lesson planning tomorrow and then Thursday we have to do small group presentations, we get our cell phones, and we find out our placement; I am pretty excited for the next few days.  Then Friday, we pack up in the morning, have a short closing ceremony and board busses to go see our new apartments.  I'll try and post the next few days, as I might not have internet access for a little bit once I get to Busan.  Hope all is well for everyone, feel free to shoot me email @ kparus@gmail.com , kparatumich is my AIM account or facebook.

First Night Out

 

With a little perseverance we had a successful first night out in Korea.  Oddly enough, on a Saturday night, we had to go to multiple establishments to find one open.  We ended up at a karaoke bar.  They are much different here than in the States.  There is no large open room with one stage.  There are a series of small, private rooms.  We proceeded to pack 11 people into one room, talk about an icebreaker; a group of 11 people who have only know one-another for a few days now being forced to entertain each other with vocal serenades.  The owners of the Karaoke bar did not speak any English, but we were able to get some sweet, sweet nectar of beer.  We continued the night, post-Karaoke, by getting some soju at another bar.  Just like the wikipedia article says, it tastes much like vodka, but a bit sweeter.

I'm having trouble uploading video at the moment, and am pretty tired, so I will get to that tomorrow.  Until then happy reading!

So far so good

Things are still going well.  We actually started our orientation classes today along with a physical and X-ray.  The classes may be a bit brutal, as some of the stuff will be helpful to me, things specifically addressing teaching English as a second language, but a lot of the info is just general teaching ideas.  Most of the people here just have degrees, not necessarily teaching degrees, so I guess it is important to go over good general practice as well.  The food has all been pretty good, Kim-chi with every meal.  the chopsticks in the cafeteria are metal, since they use them with every meal, they need to be durable and washable.  

This was dinner tonight.  Kim-chi on the bottom left, some form of salad with bright green dressing next to it, meat rounds (they tasted just like meatballs) on the bottom left, some form of meat and rice (which was quite good) on the top right and soup (which was not so good).  You can also see the metal chopsticks.  I don't ever really know what I am eating, but nothing has been too terrible thus far.

I will be venturing into the city for the first time tonight with some of the new friends.  We had one of our coordinators write directions to and from our dorm, just incase our taxi drivers don't speak any English.   Tomorrow we are taking a field trip to Korean Folk Village, it seems to be their version of Greenfield Village.  We get to look like uber-tourists.  As if we don't stick out enough, tomorrow we all have to wear our EPIC shirts, so there will be about 350 20something native English speakers walking around wearing the same clothes... but I'm looking forward to it.  We get to eat some traditional Korean food (not cafeteria Korean food) and in the afternoon we get to see some traditional Korean entertainment including, "Farmers' Music and Dance" and "Acrobatics on a Tightrope."

I have started a google web album for my pics.  I will add a permanent link.  The blog will get better as I blog more and remember how to do more things and learn new things.  Please leave comments, not just about the posts themselves but what you like about the blog, what you don't like, things I should add etc...

Welcome to Korea

I have arrived in Korea safe and sound!  The flights were long, but everything went smoothly, until I decided it would be a good idea to leave one of my bags by the luggage carousel.  It was probably a solid 15-20 minutes before I realized I didn't have one of my bags.  Luckily, I was able to retrieve it pretty easily.  From the airport, I had a bus trip of 1 hour 45 minutes to Dankook University, where we have orientation for 8 days.  Sadly, my iPhone does not work over here, but I was able to sign up for a Korean cell phone today, which I will get next week.  Once I get my new phone it will be much easier for me to call people, and I will also be signing up for Skype in the next few days (if you are reading this, you should think about signing up for Skype too, then we can talk for free!)  My body still has no idea what time it is, and I have no idea what time my body thinks it should be.  I will post some pictures in the next few days.