Sorry for the delay in posting! This past week has been crazy busy
with training, getting to know people, and moving in to my apartment
(finally).
My first weekend in Seoul involved a lot of alcohol, a lot of laughter, and a lot
of chicken. Chicken is kind of a wonderful drinking food. All kinds.
Fried, baked, spicy, mild, everything. Chicken and soju, chicken and
beer, chicken and whatever.
Not that I'm complaining. I like chicken.
Friday
night a bunch of the teachers and a few friends went out to an outdoor
restaurant that had some absolutely wonderful rotisserie-cooked
chicken. It was juicy and delicious, the atmosphere was fantastic, and I
will definitely be going back there. It's probably going to be one of
the places I take my family when they come to visit. It's a really long
(uphill) walk from where my apartment will be, but it's also hard to
get lost since there are no turns. I literally just go to the closest
intersection, turn right, and walk straight for a while and the place
will be on the left. Dead simple.
About half the group
left when we reached the apartments because they wanted to sleep. The
rest of us headed out to Yeonsinnae (which is the hip and happening part
of my neighborhood) and went to our favorite bar. Yes, I have been
here for a week and already have a favorite bar. It's a cozy little
place where the bartenders are super friendly and know a fair number of
the teachers by name. Plus they make wonderful drinks and speak enough
English that even the people with no Korean ability can have a
conversation with them. We left and hit up a noraebang (karaoke room)
for a little bit, then went back to the bar where I promptly started
falling asleep at the table because it was 3am and I'd gotten up at 4:30
to go to immigration.
Saturday I met with my OSU
conversation partner and a friend of his who I met briefly in Ohio. We
got 냉면 for lunch (cold noodles) and then walked around Seoul. They
wanted to show me all the fun parts of the city, but they were surprised
at how many places I'd already been. I told them I was up for going
back to any of them because it had been a whole year, but they wanted to
take me somewhere I hadn't been before. We started by walking around
Hongdae and some of the surrounding area, then took the subway to
Samcheong-dong, which has a lot of boutique shops and cool buildings. I
know I should have been speaking Korean, but I'm still very nervous
about my speaking ability. I've gotten minimal practice since arriving
because the vast majority of my day is English-only, so I really didn't
feel comfortable talking in Korean. We did come to an agreement, though
- I would talk in English, while they would talk in Korean. It worked
out really well and I was very happy to realize that I understood most
of what they were saying.
Saturday evening involved dinner
and shopping in Gangnam and clubbing in Itaewon. Itaewon kinda weirds
me out a bit because it's like stepping into a foreign country. Well, a
different foreign country. There are more foreigners than Koreans in Itaewon, and even though I use English all day at school and with my friends, it was really weird to be surrounded by English (and various other non-Korean languages) on all sides.
I really should be taking more pictures, but I usually get caught up in the midst of all the fun and completely forget. I'll try to do better~
Saturday, August 30, 2014
Sunday, August 24, 2014
Immigration
So all I've heard about immigration are horror stories of long lines and all-day waits. It's not that the actual application process takes a long time. There are just so many people there every single day, and this is a really busy time of year because all the new NETs (Native English Teachers) are arriving. Myself included.
The office didn't open until 9, but we were told to get there by 7:30. Ingrid and I left the motel a little before 6am and made it to the building by 6:45. The man working the desk had us sit next to the only other person in the lobby and pointed at each of us in turn. "1, 2, 3." So we were numbers 2 and 3 in line and had just over 2 hours of waiting in front of us. Awesome.
We didn't see anybody else until 7:30, and around 7:45 things got nuts. Some people were getting pissed at the length of the line. Honey, if you show up to immigration at 8:30, there are bound to be people there a lot earlier and you're going to have to wait. Our wait time was based on the clock, yours is based on the number of people. Deal with it.
Ahem. Anyway. Submitting the paperwork took about 10 minutes, and we were told to come back in 2 weeks for our ARCs (Alien Registration Cards). Once we have those, we can get phone plans and bank accounts and we don't have to carry our passports everywhere. I'm a little impatient.
We didn't have to get to school until 10:30 and we were right by Cheonggyecheon, so we walked along it and took a few pictures.
This is actually one of my favorite places in Seoul because it's just so beautiful, day and night. Here's a picture from last year that I took when some friends and I stumbled upon it after dark:
We also took some pictures by the fountains up top, which is a really nice place to sit and drink coffee or tea.
And yes, we did make it back to work on time.
The office didn't open until 9, but we were told to get there by 7:30. Ingrid and I left the motel a little before 6am and made it to the building by 6:45. The man working the desk had us sit next to the only other person in the lobby and pointed at each of us in turn. "1, 2, 3." So we were numbers 2 and 3 in line and had just over 2 hours of waiting in front of us. Awesome.
We didn't see anybody else until 7:30, and around 7:45 things got nuts. Some people were getting pissed at the length of the line. Honey, if you show up to immigration at 8:30, there are bound to be people there a lot earlier and you're going to have to wait. Our wait time was based on the clock, yours is based on the number of people. Deal with it.
Ahem. Anyway. Submitting the paperwork took about 10 minutes, and we were told to come back in 2 weeks for our ARCs (Alien Registration Cards). Once we have those, we can get phone plans and bank accounts and we don't have to carry our passports everywhere. I'm a little impatient.
We didn't have to get to school until 10:30 and we were right by Cheonggyecheon, so we walked along it and took a few pictures.
We also took some pictures by the fountains up top, which is a really nice place to sit and drink coffee or tea.
And yes, we did make it back to work on time.
Thursday, August 21, 2014
Day one
Day one started early - we met at 8:40am to go to the hospital for
medical checks. Chest x-ray, blood test, urine test, and EKG test. It
took about an hour from start to finish for two people, so it wasn't too
bad.
After that we got to the school and got our full schedules for training. I won't go into much detail about it, but basically I start at 10:30 and finish around 7:30. The morning is learning about the different classes and tracks, and the afternoon/evening is mostly observation. I have a mock lesson at the end of this week, which I'm pretty nervous about, and then I'll be assigned to my classes. Next week is all lesson planning, observation, and learning about teaching the specific classes that I'll be taking over.
After finishing my first day of training, I ran back to the motel for a very brief nap before heading out again to meet some of my new coworkers for dinner. Dinner was really tasty, but the lack of sleep was making me feel a bit sick so I mostly just sat there while we talked. After dinner, I collapsed in my bed and managed to get a few hours of sleep, but I could not for the life of me figure out how to turn off one of the lights. It wasn't tied to the light switch and none of the buttons on the remote said anything about "light." In a lot of Korean hotels, you have to put the key in a slot by the door in order to turn on the lights or A/C. That left me with two options: sleep with the light on, or take the key out of the slot and shut off the A/C as well. I ended up with only about 5 hours of sleep, but it was better than the night before.
Tomorrow is a suuuuper early day - Ingrid and I have to go to immigration and lines are horrendous this time of year...
After that we got to the school and got our full schedules for training. I won't go into much detail about it, but basically I start at 10:30 and finish around 7:30. The morning is learning about the different classes and tracks, and the afternoon/evening is mostly observation. I have a mock lesson at the end of this week, which I'm pretty nervous about, and then I'll be assigned to my classes. Next week is all lesson planning, observation, and learning about teaching the specific classes that I'll be taking over.
This is the view from the windows across from the front door of my school. Olivia likey.
After finishing my first day of training, I ran back to the motel for a very brief nap before heading out again to meet some of my new coworkers for dinner. Dinner was really tasty, but the lack of sleep was making me feel a bit sick so I mostly just sat there while we talked. After dinner, I collapsed in my bed and managed to get a few hours of sleep, but I could not for the life of me figure out how to turn off one of the lights. It wasn't tied to the light switch and none of the buttons on the remote said anything about "light." In a lot of Korean hotels, you have to put the key in a slot by the door in order to turn on the lights or A/C. That left me with two options: sleep with the light on, or take the key out of the slot and shut off the A/C as well. I ended up with only about 5 hours of sleep, but it was better than the night before.
Tomorrow is a suuuuper early day - Ingrid and I have to go to immigration and lines are horrendous this time of year...
Monday, August 18, 2014
Getting to the motel
Going through immigration was pretty painless, baggage claim was quick, and customs was a breeze. I changed most of my cash at the counter before walking out to the main part of the airport. There were a bunch of people with signs so I scanned for my name but didn't see it. I wasn't surprised - I was told I would be met about an hour after my flight landed and it had only been about 30 minutes. (Yes. 30 minutes for immigration, customs, baggage claim, and money changing. I wasn't kidding when I said it was easy.)
I made my way over to the exit where I was supposed to meet people from the school and sat down to collect myself. I really wanted to go to the restroom and freshen up a bit, but I didn't think I was supposed to take my whole luggage cart in...so I had a great mental struggle for about 10 minutes before I decided I was just going to do it anyway. I no sooner got my cart in the door than I heard my name over the announcements. Gah. I checked the time - I didn't think they'd be here for another 10 minutes or so, but if they were using the announcements they had probably been waiting for a while.
I found them pretty quickly...turns out the sign had two names on it and I had only read the first one before moving along. Whooooooops. It didn't look like two names when I was scanning over it. My bad...
But I found the people I was supposed to meet, and that's what matters. I met the other new teacher (there are only 2 of us) and we got along right off the bat. She wants to do a lot of traveling as well and our personalities seem to work well together. We had the whole taxi ride back to Eunpyeong-gu to chat, which was nice. She's fluent in two languages and has intermediate proficiency in two more, and I'm definitely jealous. She doesn't know any Korean though, so I've been helping her out with that and I'll be giving her more resources once our schedules settle down. She also hasn't been to Korea before, so I've got plans to show her some of my favorite places after work over the next couple of weeks.
We got to the motel and lugged our suitcases into our tiny rooms. We were there for about 5 minutes before the owner of the school showed up to make sure we made it in okay and get us settled in. She gave us the schedule for the next day and told us we'd get a more detailed schedule once we got to school. Her husband brought by bread, bananas, and milk for both of us so we would have food for breakfasts, which was really nice. She also said she'd be calling in the morning to remind us that someone else from the school would be meeting us around 8:40 to take us to go get our medical checks that are required for our visas/Alien Registration Cards (ARCs).
After we showered, Ingrid and I went out to explore the area around our motel a little bit. We found a few restaurants that looked promising, a Paris Baguette, multiple cafes and clothing stores, a couple small grocery stores, an E-mart where we'll be getting stuff for our apartments once we move in, and a pretty little park. We didn't stay out very long since we were both exhausted, but it was nice to get out and about for a little bit.
I did try to sleep, but my body was having none of it. I slept from about 9:30 to a little before midnight, but then couldn't sleep after that. After a certain point I just gave up and stayed up all night, knowing full well how difficult it was going to make the next day.
I have to get ready to leave for work now, so I'll write about day one in another post. Bye for now!
I made my way over to the exit where I was supposed to meet people from the school and sat down to collect myself. I really wanted to go to the restroom and freshen up a bit, but I didn't think I was supposed to take my whole luggage cart in...so I had a great mental struggle for about 10 minutes before I decided I was just going to do it anyway. I no sooner got my cart in the door than I heard my name over the announcements. Gah. I checked the time - I didn't think they'd be here for another 10 minutes or so, but if they were using the announcements they had probably been waiting for a while.
I found them pretty quickly...turns out the sign had two names on it and I had only read the first one before moving along. Whooooooops. It didn't look like two names when I was scanning over it. My bad...
But I found the people I was supposed to meet, and that's what matters. I met the other new teacher (there are only 2 of us) and we got along right off the bat. She wants to do a lot of traveling as well and our personalities seem to work well together. We had the whole taxi ride back to Eunpyeong-gu to chat, which was nice. She's fluent in two languages and has intermediate proficiency in two more, and I'm definitely jealous. She doesn't know any Korean though, so I've been helping her out with that and I'll be giving her more resources once our schedules settle down. She also hasn't been to Korea before, so I've got plans to show her some of my favorite places after work over the next couple of weeks.
We got to the motel and lugged our suitcases into our tiny rooms. We were there for about 5 minutes before the owner of the school showed up to make sure we made it in okay and get us settled in. She gave us the schedule for the next day and told us we'd get a more detailed schedule once we got to school. Her husband brought by bread, bananas, and milk for both of us so we would have food for breakfasts, which was really nice. She also said she'd be calling in the morning to remind us that someone else from the school would be meeting us around 8:40 to take us to go get our medical checks that are required for our visas/Alien Registration Cards (ARCs).
After we showered, Ingrid and I went out to explore the area around our motel a little bit. We found a few restaurants that looked promising, a Paris Baguette, multiple cafes and clothing stores, a couple small grocery stores, an E-mart where we'll be getting stuff for our apartments once we move in, and a pretty little park. We didn't stay out very long since we were both exhausted, but it was nice to get out and about for a little bit.
I did try to sleep, but my body was having none of it. I slept from about 9:30 to a little before midnight, but then couldn't sleep after that. After a certain point I just gave up and stayed up all night, knowing full well how difficult it was going to make the next day.
I have to get ready to leave for work now, so I'll write about day one in another post. Bye for now!
Sunday, August 17, 2014
I. AM. HERE.
I made it safely to Seoul! But my flights...ugh.
The first one wasn't bad - I checked my 2 suitcases, brought my backpack and small carry-on through security (and I do mean small - this is relevant later), and made it to my gate with plenty of time. There was a slight mix-up where some dude got his row wrong so my seat was taken, but it got sorted out pretty easily. Quick flight, no problem.
But Chicago.
Maaaaaan, screw Chicago.
No, I like the city, that's not fair...but last time I flew through Chicago, it was super easy. This time it was not.
For starters, I couldn't find a freaking board with flight info for forever, and when I did I couldn't find my connecting flight on it. I saw no United Airlines employees at any of the gates, and I was hoping to ask them how to find terminal 5/the shuttle to it. I walked around following signs, but they suddenly ended and it seemed like the way to go was out, as in outside security. Yeah no. I turned the other way, but it didn't seem right....blah. I knew I was crunched for time and this was not going to end well if I kept wandering. I saw a group of police officers standing around and figured screw it, they might not know where I need to go but they seem like they're in here a lot, so they might be able to point me to someone who does. I explained what was up, and one of the officers started to tell me how to get to terminal 5 but then changed his mind and decided to walk me over to the shuttle. I'm really glad he did - turns out I actually did have to go out past security and I would never have done that on my own. Random CPD officer, you're the best. I'm sorry I don't remember your name but I only got a fleeting glance at your name tag.
So I finally got to the terminal and tried to go through security, but I was informed that Asiana Airlines requires their own boarding pass and the one I had was through United. Balls. So I ran over to the counter hidden waaaaaay down towards the end (they need a bigger sign!) and asked for a new boarding pass. It was actually going smoothly (finally) until the woman at the counter said my carry-on was too big. Um, what? This is nowhere close to the size limit. What. What what what. Apparently my backpack was "too big to be a personal item" so that was my carry-on. I was in too much of a hurry to argue more than a little so I asked how much to check it...and she wouldn't give me a straight answer. She kept asking what was in the bag, could I make it smaller, oh you have makeup in there I don't want to check it makeup is expensive and I don't want it getting lost blah blah blah. For crying out loud, lady, my flight boards in half an hour and I haven't even seen security to know if I should be panicking about the lines or not. JUST TELL ME SO I CAN PAY AND GO! (No, I didn't say that. But I was thinking it.)
She eventually checked my bag for free even though she was supposed to charge me, so I was grateful for that. I guess she felt bad about my trouble. She was pretty nice about the whole thing and seemed genuinely concerned, so I did my best during the exchange to bottle up my panic and not freak out at her for doing her job...even though I'm still skeptical that I really wouldn't have been allowed my carry-on.
Security was pretty quick, thankfully, and I ran down to my (super-crowded) gate with a few minutes to spare before boarding. I guess this is what the travel agents were worried about when they told me I would need to hurry.
The flight itself wasn't bad. I was stuck in the middle of a row (ugh) but the people on either side of me were really nice. The guy in the window seat (well, the wall. He had no window. Kinda disappointing.) was very friendly and started chatting with me right away. Turns out he's teaching in Seoul through EPIK just like Ashley. I was a bit worried about the woman in the aisle seat...she reminded me a lot of the woman I sat next to on my last flight to Seoul, and that woman scared the crap out of me. I was afraid to even breathe. She wouldn't stop giving off an air of utter hatred starting from the time I walked up and said excuse me so I could get in to my seat. This woman, however, was much nicer and much more relaxed. We didn't really talk, but I didn't feel bad about breathing in her general vicinity and she was really nice when either I or the guy next to me wanted to get out of the row.
I managed to sleep on and off, but it was hard for me to find a comfortable position. The chairs were shaped all wrong for my back and if I didn't have something supporting my lower back, my whole back would start hurting in about 5-10 minutes. Ugh. I ended up putting my neck pillow on the seat-back tray and faceplanting into it for most of my attempts to sleep. It worked well enough.
Also, in the in-flight entertainment, I found Tangled with the option for Korean dubbing...and Phineas and Ferb with the same option. SCORE.
Up next: finding the reps from my school in the airport, meeting my fellow new teacher, the end of travel day, day 1 of work, and my first full day in Seoul.
The first one wasn't bad - I checked my 2 suitcases, brought my backpack and small carry-on through security (and I do mean small - this is relevant later), and made it to my gate with plenty of time. There was a slight mix-up where some dude got his row wrong so my seat was taken, but it got sorted out pretty easily. Quick flight, no problem.
But Chicago.
Maaaaaan, screw Chicago.
No, I like the city, that's not fair...but last time I flew through Chicago, it was super easy. This time it was not.
For starters, I couldn't find a freaking board with flight info for forever, and when I did I couldn't find my connecting flight on it. I saw no United Airlines employees at any of the gates, and I was hoping to ask them how to find terminal 5/the shuttle to it. I walked around following signs, but they suddenly ended and it seemed like the way to go was out, as in outside security. Yeah no. I turned the other way, but it didn't seem right....blah. I knew I was crunched for time and this was not going to end well if I kept wandering. I saw a group of police officers standing around and figured screw it, they might not know where I need to go but they seem like they're in here a lot, so they might be able to point me to someone who does. I explained what was up, and one of the officers started to tell me how to get to terminal 5 but then changed his mind and decided to walk me over to the shuttle. I'm really glad he did - turns out I actually did have to go out past security and I would never have done that on my own. Random CPD officer, you're the best. I'm sorry I don't remember your name but I only got a fleeting glance at your name tag.
So I finally got to the terminal and tried to go through security, but I was informed that Asiana Airlines requires their own boarding pass and the one I had was through United. Balls. So I ran over to the counter hidden waaaaaay down towards the end (they need a bigger sign!) and asked for a new boarding pass. It was actually going smoothly (finally) until the woman at the counter said my carry-on was too big. Um, what? This is nowhere close to the size limit. What. What what what. Apparently my backpack was "too big to be a personal item" so that was my carry-on. I was in too much of a hurry to argue more than a little so I asked how much to check it...and she wouldn't give me a straight answer. She kept asking what was in the bag, could I make it smaller, oh you have makeup in there I don't want to check it makeup is expensive and I don't want it getting lost blah blah blah. For crying out loud, lady, my flight boards in half an hour and I haven't even seen security to know if I should be panicking about the lines or not. JUST TELL ME SO I CAN PAY AND GO! (No, I didn't say that. But I was thinking it.)
She eventually checked my bag for free even though she was supposed to charge me, so I was grateful for that. I guess she felt bad about my trouble. She was pretty nice about the whole thing and seemed genuinely concerned, so I did my best during the exchange to bottle up my panic and not freak out at her for doing her job...even though I'm still skeptical that I really wouldn't have been allowed my carry-on.
Security was pretty quick, thankfully, and I ran down to my (super-crowded) gate with a few minutes to spare before boarding. I guess this is what the travel agents were worried about when they told me I would need to hurry.
The flight itself wasn't bad. I was stuck in the middle of a row (ugh) but the people on either side of me were really nice. The guy in the window seat (well, the wall. He had no window. Kinda disappointing.) was very friendly and started chatting with me right away. Turns out he's teaching in Seoul through EPIK just like Ashley. I was a bit worried about the woman in the aisle seat...she reminded me a lot of the woman I sat next to on my last flight to Seoul, and that woman scared the crap out of me. I was afraid to even breathe. She wouldn't stop giving off an air of utter hatred starting from the time I walked up and said excuse me so I could get in to my seat. This woman, however, was much nicer and much more relaxed. We didn't really talk, but I didn't feel bad about breathing in her general vicinity and she was really nice when either I or the guy next to me wanted to get out of the row.
I managed to sleep on and off, but it was hard for me to find a comfortable position. The chairs were shaped all wrong for my back and if I didn't have something supporting my lower back, my whole back would start hurting in about 5-10 minutes. Ugh. I ended up putting my neck pillow on the seat-back tray and faceplanting into it for most of my attempts to sleep. It worked well enough.
Also, in the in-flight entertainment, I found Tangled with the option for Korean dubbing...and Phineas and Ferb with the same option. SCORE.
Up next: finding the reps from my school in the airport, meeting my fellow new teacher, the end of travel day, day 1 of work, and my first full day in Seoul.
Saturday, August 16, 2014
Sunday, August 3, 2014
Waiting is stressful
I leave in 12 days.
What.
Whaaaaaat.
I have so much I still need to do, but I know I'm not going to get all of it done before I leave. I need to study, but no matter what I do I'm going to feel unprepared when I get there. I feel like I should be trying to put together lesson ideas, but I have my fingers crossed that I'll be working from a textbook and just need to put a creative spin on what they give me...so there isn't actually a lot I can do right now. I definitely should be getting my suitcases together and getting rid of most of my stuff that isn't in them, but I'm mostly just staring at them thinking "where do I start?"
On the plus side, I've amassed a number of free ebooks on my Kindle (most of which will probably be complete crap but hey - they're free) and have started a list of the stuff I'm planning to take so I don't forget anything important. That's progress, right?
What.
Whaaaaaat.
I have so much I still need to do, but I know I'm not going to get all of it done before I leave. I need to study, but no matter what I do I'm going to feel unprepared when I get there. I feel like I should be trying to put together lesson ideas, but I have my fingers crossed that I'll be working from a textbook and just need to put a creative spin on what they give me...so there isn't actually a lot I can do right now. I definitely should be getting my suitcases together and getting rid of most of my stuff that isn't in them, but I'm mostly just staring at them thinking "where do I start?"
On the plus side, I've amassed a number of free ebooks on my Kindle (most of which will probably be complete crap but hey - they're free) and have started a list of the stuff I'm planning to take so I don't forget anything important. That's progress, right?
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