When I first arrived, I was able to find the appropriate bus, call my boss, and meet her at the bus stop. I was very concerned as the bus driver spoke little English, but he ended up being very nice and would come back to my seat to ask me to translate things into English for him (while nice, this was a bit disconcerting as he was driving through Seoul during rush hour traffic). This was my first glimpse into being a foreigner in Seoul and since then, I've found myself being stared at regularly, and stopped at least a few times to pose for pictures with people.
My first weekend here was a bit overwhelming... it was destabilizing for me to not be able to read Korean. To direct myself from the motel to my school, I had to pick memorable buildings or any signs I could find written in the romanized alphabet as I can't recognize most signs. It led me to really want to learn the Korean alphabet which I will hopefully start doing soon. For my first few days, I stayed at a "love motel" until my apartment was available. I was expecting the worst from this, but the rooms were actually quite nice and I didn't encounter any problems.. or even any people during my stay there.
My first week consisted of shadowing a teacher at my school followed by three days of training. I am working for a company called YBM that has numerous schools all over Korea. I trained with 22 new arrivals who will all be working at different schools. It was a great chance to meet people and we learned a lot about teaching as well as a lot about Korea and how to get along here.
I have now moved into my apartment which is a cozy studio, located in Jamsil-dong (a neighborhood in the Song
pa district of Seoul.. if you are curious about the location here is a description of it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songpa-gu). The lake in the picture is on my walk to the Subway and it makes living in such a huge metropolis more pleasant.
My apartment is small but has all the essentials and suits me just fine. It is my first time ever living alone so I was pretty nervous about it but I feel very safe in my building (and in Seoul in general) so I think this will be a good experience for me.
Yesterday was my first day of teaching on my own. It actually went a lot better than I expected but it was certainly overwhelming. I teach 41 classes a week, and had 8 yesterday. I arrived as soon as the doors opened to start prepping for everything. My students range in age from 4 to 11. Basically, the school serves as a kindergarten/preschool for students ages 4-6. These students come in every day from 9:30-2:30. The rest of the students come to English school after they have finished with regular school for the day.
In Korea, this is very common as higher education is extremely competitive. I've been told that many families spend half their income on their children's education. I have one student who goes from regular school, to English school for a few hours, to math school, to Tae Kwon Do... and he is 8 years old.
I have found that the kindergartners are the best students. I have one student named Poby who at four years old speaks better English than the majority of my students. They are also the most fun... I knew I was prepared to be an Kindergarten teacher when part of my lesson plan included "sing the Hokey Pokey."
Apart from teaching and training, I've started to delve into all the city has to off
er. Seoul is absolutely massive and it will take me months to just get a handle on it. My friend Rachel, who is also over here with me, and I have visited Olympic Park (where the 1988 Olympics took place), Cheonggyechon (too hard to explain, just check it out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheonggyecheon), Lotte World (a huge amusement park/department store/hotel), and wandered around a few areas of town as well. On Friday night, my group of friends from orientation experienced our first taste of Korean Karaoke, at a karaoke house known as a noraebong. Each group is given their own room with a big projection screen and hundreds of songs to choose from, and left to sing and dance until the sun comes up. You can probably guess this was up my alley and we had a great time.
A lot of people have asked me about the food here. There is definitely an array of different foods, ranging from very good to very strange. Bulgogi is my favorite.. it translates as Korean barbecue and you essentially cook beef and veggies at your table and then wrap it all in lettuce to eat. Another thing called Shabu shabu is a meal where they bring a boiling pot to your table and you cook vegetables, meat, and noodles at the table. The other new teachers and I basically just play the "find a restaurant with a picture menu" game. We find something that looks good and attempt to pantomime our order to the waitress.
The majority of Korean food is very spicy... which doesn't go over for someone like me. The nation's famous food is kimchi, a spicy pickled cabbage. Luckily, it is typically seen as a side dish so I can easily skip it. I have found that the majority of main dishes are appetizing but the side dishes are more likely to be hard to eat. And if the meal is a total failure, there is always the peanut butter at home that every American living in Seoul always keeps in stock.
Many seafood restaurants here also almost look like pet stores. In front they have massive tank of fish, squid, and a plethora of seafood I don't recognize. You can choose your fish before you eat it.. I know they also serve some of the seafood live but I've luckily been able to avoid that one. Today at school, I noticed that what I thought was some sort of long grain rice actually had eyes...
All in all I am doing well over here so far. There are definitely things to adjust to, and less people speak English than I expected. I have luckily found that certain motions are universal and I don't leave the house without my Lonely Planet Phrasebook. Other than that, I'm just trying to get through my first week of teaching. :)
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