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Korea was great. It really was. To try to faithfully catch readers up on the final seven months would exhaust me yet, to abridge the account would not do the experience justice. I don’t care to chronicle my life in Korea at this time. I loved the experience and I miss Korea. It is a beautiful country.

In retrospect, I look at it as a developmental year and I’m not one of those that enjoys talking about how he got to ‘this place’ in his life or what have you. I grew from it and it will affect everything that I do going forward. I don’t know many athletes that like to talk about the minutiae of their training regimen; they are intrinsically aware of their training and show the results of their hard work when they perform.

More to come…

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Some of you may be curious as to what a typical weekend is like for me, here in Korea. If so, this post is for you.

Friday nights generally involve an after work hangout, in town, with some co-workers. This hangout inevitably leads to a later than desired start to Saturday but that’s all part of the game. Then comes Seoul Saturdays in which Itaewon and Gangnam have been in heavy rotation, lately. Sunday is usually a wild card day – you never know what might happen. Last weekend followed this template pretty well.

Friday

After a long day, a few of the other teachers and I met up at a local GS 25. GS 25 is a convenience store chain found all over Korea. They are kind enough to put tables and chairs out in front of most of the locations. This ritual can last for many hours, leading well into the morning. It doesn’t sound like much but, after 6 hours of talking to children, it’s nice to relax with some adults (even if we still act like children).

Saturday

I started Saturday with a bike ride over to the next town. For some reason, the roads were empty that morning, which made for a nice ride. I will be posting more about biking in Korea pretty soon.

Feeling pretty good after the ride, I decided to check out a bouldering gym in Seoul that I read about before coming to Korea, called The Top. I had been to many climbing walls but this was my first time bouldering. Wow. It is pretty intense.

I would post pictures of me actually climbing but, my photographer did not bring her 'A' game that day...

The people there were very nice to me, a first-time boulderer. The girl in pink, who looks very sweet and meek, absolutely showed me up – I am okay with this. She was a beast. After sweating through my clothes, I decided it was time to go.

The gym is in Jamsil which is home to Lotte World, the world’s largest indoor amusement park. So we went. We were able to take advantage of the 40% foreigner discount for our admission tickets, which was great. The park has two parts – indoor and outdoor – both of which we visited. When you go, you have to ride the Atlantis rollercoaster.

This may look a little familiar to you. I swear I'm in Korea, not Orlando.

Matching couple shirts are a big thing in Korea but, especially so at Lotte World.

Aforementioned photographer, left, and two random Korean women right as I rocked their world on the bumper cars.

There were many people that day but, we still had a blast.  After arriving back in Yeongtong, some co-workers were at a local ‘hof’ (a Korean-style bar) so, I hung out there with them for a little while. And that’s Saturday.

Sunday

I caught an early bus to Seoul to meet up with a friend from the university near my house. He wanted to show me Insa-dong, an area of Seoul known for its traditional Korean antiques and artwork.

It was quite nice to see so many parts of Korea’s culture in one place. Insa-dong is a perfect place for getting gifts for people back home, as well (keep your eyes on your mailbox, family).

This is just one of many places to buy handmade goods in Insa-dong.

This place could have been an all day event by itself. Floor after floor of shops with Korean antiques and goods.

After walking around Insa-dong we got some food and drink and I headed back home on the bus. I had to get ready for the next day’s intensive classes that start at 10:15 am.

It was a great weekend. I hope you enjoyed reading and I will be posting again very soon!

Satisfied after a great weekend!

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[My bad - I have not posted in a while, huh? To be fair, though, none of you have been keeping me updated with your lives on a regular basis either, so I don't really want to hear it.]

I have done many things since March 9, 2011. Highlights include: a beach trip, starting a new term teaching, a few trips to Seoul, and meeting many (okay, some) great people.

Overall, things are going great. My apartment feels more like home now since I put up wallpaper, got a couch, and a television. I also got a new bed because, as it were, the bed that came with my place was simply a boxspring. I found this new bed outside of my building one day on the way to work. Those who were familiar with my place in Chapel Hill know that this is also how I got my bed there (thank you, Ram Village 4.) It’s perfectly fine and I wake up with rashes only sometimes. So, the apartment is good other than the fact that I need to clean it.

School is so much better than it was. I think I am more comfortable being here, therefore more comfortable in class. It also might be because I just have better students this term. To many of my middle school students, I can speak just as if I were speaking with one of you – it is great.

Outside of school, I try to get around as much as I feel like I should. A couple of weekends ago, I went with some friends to Daecheon Beach for a ‘sea rafting’ trip with this company, Adventure Korea. The beach was beautiful, the food was great, the rafting, though… OK, maybe I had my hopes up but rafting sounds like it is supposed to be fun, doesn’t it? Don’t get me wrong, I had a blast but rafting felt more like a pre-introductory Coast Guard training exercise than an adventure. We did group stretches on the shore, then piled ourselves 15 deep (weight unevenly distributed, of course) into a raft that we took maybe 75 feet offshore. And then we went back to shore. One more round of that and ‘sea rafting’ was over. I wish I had been able to get pictures while we were on the water but I could not find a waterproof case for my camera.

If you look closely, you can see people on the beach in street clothes. That's the way it goes here.

Also, I have been going to Seoul quite a bit, recently. These trips usually don’t have a purpose, other than just getting out of my town – I think I did everything that you could do in Yeongtong (the name of my town) within the first week. There are a lot of people in Seoul.

This is Myeong-dong, a shopping district in Seoul. I posted this on Facebook already but the resolution should be a bit better here. You could barely walk.

LOL

The next weekend I went back to Seoul to watch an American-style football game. I have to admit, that is not something that I thought I would do here, but it was pretty fun. The game was a blowout (49-0) but, the best part had to be the halftime show <sponsored by Subway>. It was a performance by the K-pop group, f(x). They are supposed to be the cat’s pajamas but I think they were having an off day. Or, they weren’t syncing well with the tape.

The white team completely dominated the opposition.

OK, my creativity has expired for right now. I will be doing more cool things and sharing them with you all later. Look out for another post about a different beach very soon.

Also, if there is anything specific about Korea that anyone wants to know more about, post a comment and I will get back to you with either a message or a whole post (if it’s cool enough.) Thanks for reading!

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“Teach-uh, teach-uh!”

“This is homewuk?”

“Ahh, too much, teach-uh.”

These are things that I hear on a daily basis from my students.  I have about 70-80 students that I see throughout the week in 3 hour blocks. I teach elementary school students from 4-7pm and middle school students from 7-10pm.  I will let you guess which is a pleasure and from which I would get more interaction by watching grass grow.

This is my classroom!

The best part about class is when the students ask me questions about myself or tell me about their lives.  For instance, most of the students that I teach have already noticed my ‘resemblance’ to President Obama and have asked me if we are cousins.  I simply replied, “No, he is my brother.” They got a kick out of that and I’m not so sure that they don’t believe it. (Those of you already familiar, know that I do a pretty solid vocal impression of Barack, but that’s where the similarities end.)

“Teach-uh, are you married?”

“Teach-uh, are you rich?”

I wish I could record some of the things they say. It’s classic material that’s worthy of a blog all to itself.

This is one of my middle school classes taking their daily in-class quiz.

After the second class, I stick around and grade papers for about a half hour then I go back to my apartment to get ready for the next day, which always presents me with something new. Stay tuned!

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Hello, hello. I’m coming to you from a coffee shop in my neighborhood called “Cafe Two Spoonful [sic] of Sugar.” I just might make this my regular spot – it has a clean and earthy decor and they play good English language music.  It must be obvious that I’m not from around here (I don’t know what gave it away) because both times that I’ve come in the barista immediately reached for the English menu.  This does not make it easy to try to learn Korean but, hey, good service is good service.

Anyway, on Friday I arrived in Suwon to go to the branch where I will be teaching. After meeting a few people and getting my class books I spent the night at a hotel while my apartment was being cleaned.  On Saturday, I went back to the branch to learn a bit more about what I would be doing on the first day of classes.  Then, after what seemed like an eternity, I was taken to my apartment.  The neighborhood that I’m in reminds a bit of when I was in London.  My apartment, however, reminds me a bit of when I was in college – Ehringhaus dorm, in particular, for those familiar.  Now, before you look at this picture, understand that I am currently in the midst of settling in so there’s going to be some mess – it takes time.

Bedroom, kitchen, living room, den - all in one shot. If you look closely you can see the breakfast nook - it's right over there by the bay window.

I’m definitely taking suggestions for making it seem less like a jail cell.  So far, though, it’s working well.  I have been making daily trips to HomePlus (a 24 hour supermarket that has everything) to pick up different items that I need like that iron you see in the picture.  That’s not all – there’s also a bathroom.

Seen one, you've seen them all.

That’s my bathroom and shower, all in one.  In Korea, they have Western-style bathrooms which means that you shower right there in the middle of the bathroom using the shower head that you see next to the sink.  Behind what looks like the shower is my washing machine. And that’s my apartment. I think  there are 11 other people in my building and tons of other buildings surrounding mine.  The area where I live houses many other English teachers, so I’m not alone.

I’ll post again later this week about my job once I get a better grip on how things go.  Thanks for reading!

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Things are going great.  Every day this week I have training from 9 am to 3 pm at the headquarters of the academy for which I work.  The sessions and the work we have to do once we are done are rightfully intense given that we start school on Monday!  I will be instructing what ChungDahm calls Reading Par and Listening Par.  Essentially, I will hone students’ skills in picking out main ideas in passages that they either read or hear.

On the first day of training the head trainer shared with us some information that shed some light on the differences between the average Korean student and American student.  Get a load of this:

If this is how we are going to have to "win the future," things may not change for a while.

The average American student studies less than half the amount of the average Korean.  Many of us valued the after school sport we got to play growing up or even in high school.  Korean students are not afforded this luxury and, instead, spend their afternoons (6 days per week) at hagwons, which are private academies that Korean parents send their children to for specialty subjects.

My job is at one of the most prestigious English language hagwons in Korea with over 150 locations throughout the country.  I will be teaching in Suwon, which is a satellite city of Seoul – about 20 miles south.  These are all the details I have until I get there this weekend.  I will be taking and posting lots of pictures later but until then keep checking back!

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I have made it to Seoul.  The flights were great and I am all set up in the hotel.  On my flight from Japan to Seoul, I met a guy named Alex who I found out will be teaching for the same company as me.  It also turns out that we are roommates at the hotel for orientation week.  We spent today exploring Seoul (on foot…for four hours) and I must say that I do not feel like I am away from home.  This is likely a temporary feeling.

I have not been here long enough to have any substantial first impressions but I am enjoying the city.  Tomorrow begins orientation week starting at 9:30 am. I will certainly have more to talk about then and in the days to follow.  For now, stay tuned and please post comments or ask any questions that you have!  Thanks for reading.