Kids' Camp

Well, it's that time of the week again. For those of you who remember, or have just been paying attention, seven weeks ago I decided to start video blogging. Every week. On Tuesday. And I've been very good about it.

However, I am currently teaching extra classes, yesterday and today we had testing - which meant even more work (11 hrs total each day), and I was gone all weekend at a summer camp.

Summer camp would have been a great opportunity to take videos, right? And I thought I took a few, but I think that a couple of them may have accidentally been deleted (alternatively, I may have just imagined them). Consequently, here it is 11:00 pm on Tuesday night and all I have to share with you is one rather pathetic excuse for a video clip. In the spirit of consistency, I'm going to upload it anyway and supplement it with a few pictures and a blog about the camp, ok?

So here it is, the camp report.

Camp was great. I'm really glad I went, even though I didn't know anyone before Friday. Two weeks ago, I saw a notice in the bulletin saying that they were looking for volunteers for Vacation Sunday School for the weekend of Aug 8-10. I assumed that it was VBS and they just needed someone for a few hours during the day. I tried to talk to someone after church, but nobody was available. So I tried again after church last Sunday. This time I was able to talk to one of the children's church leaders and later, the children's pastor. At this point I found out that it was a children's camp. The leader that I talked with was very excited that I was volunteering and said that they needed more volunteers. They were heading out on Friday morning, but he said I could carpool with some other people who weren't able to make it Friday night.

So after work on Friday, I met up with some other volunteers and headed out to the camp. By the time we got there, it was nearly 11:00 and most people had gone to bed. I was fortunate enough to be sharing a room with three other women, rather than a room full of kids. Don't get me wrong, I love kids. But after teaching all week and having extra classes, then spending the weekend at a kids' camp - it was nice to at least get a break at night!

I had a group of 6 six kids - 3 boys and 3 girls. But most of the time, we combined our group with another group. A lot of the kids were friends and a few of them could be a bit difficult, so it was easier for Misol (the other counselor) and I to combine the groups. Here we all are!:

On Saturday, we went on some waterslides. We only had about an hour, though, so I decided that it was not worth the effort for just an hour and I wasn't going to participate- I'd just go alone. But when we got there, I saw that these were not your typical waterslides. Behold:
It appeared to be astroturf with hoses spraying it down. After a bunch of people went down, they told us that you really don't get all that wet - just a sprinkle on the legs - but it was a lot of fun. So Misol and I caved. Naturally, just as we were about to go down, tons of water started spraying everywhere. We got wet.

It was fun, though. I'm glad we went.

Kids' camp in Korea was a lot like kid's camp in the states. We had Bible stories:

In this picture, the kids were acting out the story of Jesus coming to see Mary and Martha after Lazarus died. The kid lying down isn't just taking a nap - he's supposed to be Lazarus.

We had crafts and games:

Our group won the games on Saturday night, which meant they got all the snacks they wanted. You can see that they were pretty happy about that.

We even had a campfire. Alas, there were no smores to be had, but this kid seemed to be enjoying the fire anyway.

We also lit candles to symbolize a commitment to share Jesus with our friends. This is where my ever-so-brief video comes in:


Campfire from Marianna Willey on Vimeo.

Like I said, I'm really glad I went. I haven't really been involved in my church since coming to Korea. I didn't know anyone before this weekend and I basically just go to church and leave right after the service. But helping out at kids' camp showed me how much I miss being involved and now I know some people, too! It was also a good opportunity to spend more time hanging out with Koreans. Including me, there were only three foreigners at the camp this weekend. I have a few Korean friends, but I spend most of my time hanging out with foreigners. So it was nice to get to know more Koreans.

I said that kids' camp here was a lot like kids' camp back home, but one thing that was a lot different was the food. Although I like Korean food, after eating kimchi and rice with every meal for two days, I was happy to come home and have a salad for dinner and breakfast food for breakfast the next morning.

So that's it for today, folks. I'll do my best to have a better video for you next week!

Burgers of Mass Destruction

This is one of my favorite things about teaching. The kids are hilarious. Click on the picture to enlarge it.

Galbi

Galbi (갈비) is one of the best things in Korea.

Really.

Watch the video.

Intro to Galbi 101 from Marianna Willey on Vimeo.

Wanna try some? All you have to do is come visit me, and we'll go enjoy some hot, tasty 갈비 on me. That's right, I'm offering to buy you dinner! How can you pass that up?

So, who's first?

Eeewww...

Monsoon season is here.

Before coming here, I was somewhat nervous about what the summer in South Korea would be like. I had heard that summers in Korea were very hot and very humid. Summer is my favorite season. I love the hot weather, the beach, sunglasses, flip flops, the beach, iced coffee, barbecues, and I even kind of like the beach. But I CAN"T STAND humidity. Actually, it's okay if it's at the beach. Because, well, it's the beach.. With all of that water, humidity is inevitable, but the breeze totally makes it okay. And anyway, it's the beach... so.. yeah. Did I mention that I like the beach?

It actually hasn't been as hot here as I thought it would be. But humidity? GROSS. It tends to hover around 90-100%. And as much as I love the rain (shhh.. don't tell), I do NOT like the rain when it is 85 degrees out. Today I was walking around in shorts, a tank top, and flip flops... in the rain... carrying an umbrella. So of course, my feet are getting wet, I am in immediate danger of eating pavement (flip flops are not built for traction - at least not the $4 (actually ￦4,000) flip flops that you buy at - you guessed it - the beach), and my arms are getting wet because the rain can't follow the rules and keeps sneaking under the umbrella. So I have that nice, cozy, cold, wet, sticky, hot feeling. It's great. I'm a really big fan. Not.

But I can deal with all of this. My A/C works well and I'm quite comfy in my little home. I ought to be - my utilities cost me $100 bucks more last month than they did the month before - I can only attribute this to the A/C.

So what's my real issue? Clearly I'm not a fan of humidity. Or monsoon season. But I've just stated that I can deal, so what's the point?

Cockroaches. I CAN'T DEAL WITH COCKROACHES. Seriously. I can deal with a lot of things, but I am TERRIFIED of cockroaches. I'm not kidding. I realize that the extent of my fear may be a bit irrational. Although cockroaches are gross, they probably won't kill me.* Also, I am much bigger than them and if I could overcome my fear, I would have a fighting chance of killing one. But my attempts at being logical are not helping. I live in constant fear that I will discover one in my apartment. Just writing this is giving me the heebie jeebies and I want to climb up on something where I know I'm safe. I don't like spiders, bees, or most other bugs and creepy crawly things but I can deal with them. If there's nobody else around to do it for me, I'll kill the nasty little things. But I'm afraid if I ever find a cockroach in my apartment, I'll be more inclined to just move out. I don't know how much longer I can talk about this, or I won't be able to sleep tonight. I'm totally serious here, guys. You know me, I've held snakes before, caught lizards, pet a tarantula once (this wasn't a pet tarantula, it was one a friend found in Mexico - admittedly, petting it was ill-advised), killed many spiders and bees, but I don't do cockroaches.

I'm scared because I feel like there isn't much I can do to protect myself. I know there are precautions I can take that will help, but I can't really prevent cockroaches from getting in my place. It's like when everyone around you gets sick, you think it might be a good idea to take vitamins, and get plenty of rest, and eat healthfully. And it is a good idea. And maybe it will keep you from getting sick, but there's no guarantee. THERE IS NOTHING YOU CAN DO TO GUARANTEE THAT YOU WON'T GET SICK.

Part of what has me so paranoid is that last week, there were a few cockroach sightings at work. One of them was at my desk. Fortunately, I wasn't sitting at my desk at the time. But my friend Emma (who sits next to me) said that a cockroach was running around on my desk and hers. Then they discovered that it had LAID EGGS UNDER MY KEYBOARD. Yeah. Really. Suffice it to say that I cleaned my entire desk area (fortunately, someone else cleaned up the eggs and cockroach remains first) and for the rest of the day, whenever I was at my desk, I was sitting with my legs crossed in my chair and my iPod turned up to drown out the fear.

Writing this at night was not a good idea. Now I need to go to sleep but I'm too creeped out. Maybe if I clean my living room (which is also my summer bedroom - the A/C is in the living room) while watching some TV, I'll be able to sleep in an hour. If I have roach dreams tonight, I'm going to be VERY unhappy.

* According to this website, "Cockroaches can carry pathogens that cause asthma, allergies, abscesses, boils, bubonic plague, diarrhea, dysentery, gastroenteritis, intestinal infections, leprosy, lesions, typhoid fever, urinary tract infections and more."

Science Class

As I mentioned in my last blog, we're currently in the middle of intensives.

What are intensives?

I'm glad you asked. Let me tell you...

In Korea, the school system is year-round. There is a one month break in January and a one month break in August (actually late-July to late-August). So during the school break, kids take extra classes. That's right - for vacation, they spend more time at academies.

I'm not sure if I've really explained this before, but I teach English at an academy. There are academies for all kinds of subjects - my students have mentioned Math, Science, and TaeKwonDo as some of the academies they attend. I think most of my students attend at least 2 academies. They do this in the evening, after spending a full day at school. Where I work, the kids are there for almost 3 hours, 2-3 times per week. Kids here study hardcore. They have school on Saturday, too!

Anyway, back to intensives. They're a lot different from our regular classes and a lot more laid-back. I'm teaching two science classes and two literature classes. Anyone who knows me very well knows that I hate science and love lit. So my reaction was a bit like this, "Ugh....Yay!"

But actually, I don't mind the science class. I guess when I really think about it, it's mostly chemistry that I hate.

So anyway, we did an experiment in one of my classes last week. I thought it was worthy of a video. What do you think?

Science Class from Marianna Willey on Vimeo.

In case you're wondering, I do usually keep a bit more order in my classes, but there are only 4 students and like I said, it's intensives. These poor kids are on vacation, for heaven's sake.

One other little note, did you notice the cute kid playing the part of class clown? He's one of my favorites, even though he acts up. Anyway, I made him cry yesterday. Yep. Way to go, me.

Get Down

Work lately has been NUTS. We haven't gotten a replacement for a teacher who left three weeks ago, so a few of us (ahem... me) have had to pick up an extra class. Then last week, we had two teachers sick on Monday, one on Tuesday and Wednesday, and one teacher left for vacation on Wednesday. I taught an extra class every day except Friday. Yuck. We have another teacher leaving in a couple of weeks and two more teachers have vacation next month. All I can say is that they better get us a couple of new teachers soon!

On top of this, I have essays coming out of my ears. They're all between 300-600 words and Definitely Not Fun Times to grade. Then yesterday, intensives started. This means that I teach an extra 2-1/2 hours per day. So right now, I'm teaching about 6-1/2 to 8 hours per day - which wouldn't actually be that bad if it weren't for all of the prep work.

But anyway, with all of the craziness last week, there just weren't enough teachers to cover all of the extra classes, so we ended up having to combine some of them. One of my friends had to teach one of these combined classes and was determined to make it fun.

Behold the results:


D.O.W.N. from Marianna Willey on Vimeo.

Neighborhood Tour

Today's video clip is a tour of my neighborhood. Please be forewarned that I am not a professional cinematographer and anyone susceptible to motion sickness might be better off skipping this week's video clip.

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Coffee in Korea - Episode 1

Coffee.

It is a wondrous thing.

Naturally, in moving to Korea, one concern at the forefront of my mind was, "How will I get my hands on some decent brew?"

Fortunately, I have found some great coffee here.

I have also found some crap coffee.

Join me, on my quest for the bean in Korea.

It may be a bumpy ride, but we are sure to be rewarded in the end. If we are lucky, we might even find a nice cup of medium-bodied South American coffee with mild acidity and cocoa undertones. Or perhaps a rich African coffee with citrus notes?

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Still Getting Back into Blogging

K, let's try this again.

I'm not sure what else I was going to talk about in that last "to be continued" post. Besides teaching and running, the rest of my life is pretty standard. I buy groceries, clean my house, take out the garbage, pay my bills, watch movies, hang out with friends - pretty normal stuff, right?

But then again, because I'm living in Korea, this "normal stuff" can be slightly different from what you're used to. So here's my latest idea. I'm going to blog a video every Tuesday. These videos will contain bits of my normal, everyday life as a foreigner in Korea. Any thoughts? Ideas? Questions? Feel free to leave a comment with your two cents worth!

And without further ado, today's theme is...

Eating Out.. Korean Style - Part 1

Video Credits:
Starring: Marianna Willey
Filming and Narration: Veronica Navarro
Random Side Comments: Walter Demesa and Brittany Maxey

Getting Back into Blogging

Ok, so, I was absent for a while, due to lack of internet connection. Then I got wired, managed a grand total of 3 posts, and went AWOL again.

I'm not going to say that I didn't have the time to blog. We all have 24 hrs per day, and how we spend those hours is up to us. Ouch. I'm not gonna dwell on that right now. I'll save that for post-blog.

Anyway, I definitely haven't been bored recently. Want to know what I have been up to?

Running - I've been running recently. I started running as a way to exercise without having to pay for a gym membership. I've always run on a treadmill because I am very goal-oriented. Knowing how far and how fast I am running and being able to measure my progress every time I exercise motivates me.

But there is a river just a few minutes walk from where I live, with a path running alongside it. The section that I run even has the kilometers marked out on the ground for you, and it is about 3.5k long.

Let me tell you, I don't think I could have asked for a more conducive atmosphere in which to run.
It is beautiful.
I usually run after work (around 10pm), so the sun has set, it's starting to cool off, and there are streetlights illuminating the path and the river. Even at 10 and 11 at night, there are generally quite a few people, young and old, out walking, biking, rollerblading, and running. The path features a basketball court at one point, and exercise machines at another. These are fully taken advantage of.

So, anyway, I discovered that I can run a whole lot farther than I thought I could. On the treadmill, I would never run below a certain speed and I was always very aware of how far I had run. Running by the river has allowed me to focus on running at a pace that is comfortable and distract myself with the scenery and my own personal soundtrack (read: iPod Cardio Mix). So now I'm planning to run a 10k (6.2miles) with a few friends in about 3 weeks. My personal goal for the race is 1 hr 5 min. I've only run 10k once so far, and it took me several minutes longer than that. But honestly, it still surprises me that I can even run for an hour without stopping. That's something I never thought I could do. So even if I don't make my goal, I'm happy.

Teaching - Duh, It's kind of my job. But at my institute, the terms run in 3 month sessions. My first term started the day after I got here and just ended last month. The next term started last week. And it has been quite a switch for me. I had 7 classes last term and 4 of them were practically the lowest level our school teaches. Each lesson has a story, and for this level the story went something like, "The frog is hot. He stands under a tree. He is still hot! He lays on the grass. He is still hot! He jumps in the pond. Now he is cool." The stories are a little longer, but you get the idea. This term, my classes are way more advanced. In fact, I am teaching a debate class. At this point you may be saying, "What? Debate? I thought you were teaching English. Do you even know how to teach debate?"

No. I don't. Never even took a debate class. Yet this week, my debate class and I are discussing the KORUS FTA. That's the free trade agreement between the US and South Korea. Thinking back on the weeks prior to my arrival in South Korea, it's funny that one of the questions I was asked the most was, "How will you teach them English if you don't speak Korean?"

Instinctively, people assume that if you are teaching a person English, that person doesn't speak English. Makes sense, right? The thing that people fail to consider is that there are levels of fluency and teaching English as a second language is not necessarily rudimentary. A few of the words that came up in my debate class last week were charlatan, proliferation, vitriolic, and sycophancy. I had to look up sycophancy. And I'm the teacher. Ahem.

Other things - There were some other things that I wanted to mention, but it's 3 am. So rather than rushing through them, I'm going to refer to them here as "other things" and hopefully elaborate tomorrow.

It's barely May!

I'm going to melt.

Two or three months from now, I won't show up to work. My boss will call me to find out why. I won't answer. My coworkers will become concerned, because that just isn't like me. So someone will come to my place to check on me. When no one answers the door, they will break in. They will call my name and look for me, but all they will see is a puddle. I will have gone the way of Frosty the Snowman. The sun was hot that day.

We're only three days into May, and it was 82 degrees today. With about 75% humidity. Well, during the middle of the day, anyway. It's 100% humidity right now, but fortunately, it's cooled off to about 60 degrees. My apartment is equipped with air conditioning - such as it is. I try not to use the A/C more than necessary, and it's amazing to me how hot it gets in my apartment if I don't. I haven't turned on the heat since I got here at the beginning of March. It was cold then. But I'm on the 5th floor of an 8 floor building and I guess my apartment absorbs enough heat from the surrounding apartments that I don't actually have to turn the heat on. Back then, the temperature gauge in my living room typically read 22-23ºC (72-74ºF) - a little warm, but I would have felt foolish using the air conditioning when it was so cold outside. So I opened my windows. But then I discovered that if I left my windows open at night, my living room floor would be covered with tiny little bugs the next day. Ewww. So now I only open it in the mornings.

Average no-A/C temperature in my apartment has risen over the last few weeks - as you might imagine. It's been hovering around 26ºC (about 79ºF) for the last couple of weeks, but as of today, it's hovering around 27ºC (about 81ºF). So that's fun. I generally just turn the A/C on when I'm really hot and shut it off when I'm comfortable. It's amazing how fast the temperature rises again, though. Especially when it's already warmer inside than it is outside. I usually turn the A/C off at around 25ºC (about 77ºF), but even at night, it doesn't take long for the temperature to shoot back up.

I'm also mildly concerned about the functionality of my A/C. My system is one of those little one-room jobbies that is mounted on my wall. My concern is that although the display may tell me that we're shooting for a temperature of 18ºC, the air coming out of the machine is only slightly colder than room temperature. So I'm wondering - if it gets up to 90ºF in my apartment, and I turn on the AC - will I have 88ºF air "cooling" the room? Hmm.. maybe I should make some inquiries.

P.S. I realize that the listing of temperatures and going back and forth between different units of measurement may seem a bit excessive and ridiculous. But everything is listed in Celsius here and I (as well as most of you) need to convert the temperatures to Fahrenheit in order to have a better grasp on their significance. So why didn't I just simplify things and omit the Celsius temperatures? For the sake of accuracy - I'm a little OCD. In order to convert Celsius to Fahrenheit, you must multiply by 9/5 and add 32. So 26ºC (which I translated to "about 79ºF" above), is actually 78.8ºF. So if I round the temperature in Fahrenheit and don't give you the Celsius temperature with it, it seems inaccurate to me. Yes, I do know how ridiculous this sounds. But I admitted that I'm OCD, so back off.

Straight hair

Just over a week ago, Saturday before last, I got my hair permed straight.

This is something I've thought about doing for a few years, but I was always afraid to actually try it. I had heard negative stories about people having their hair ruined, or having to spend an hour on their hair every day before they could dare go out in public, etc, etc.

But I went to get my hair trimmed a couple of weeks ago and therein lie the catalyst which caused me to finally take the plunge.

The hair salon I went to was great. It looked really upscale - I was impressed just sitting in the waiting room.
They served cappuccinos, smoothies, and other assorted beverages.
The traditional pre-haircut-shampoo included a scalp massage.

But when the time came to actually cut my hair, I was simultaneously amused and annoyed.
I said that I just wanted a trim.
As the stylist began working on my hair, he commented that my hair was really curly. He seemed a bit mystified at how curly my hair was and noted that the texture was unusual - he said that it seemed like permed hair. I thought this was kind of funny and chalked it up to the fact that I was in Asia. I figured the guy had never actually seen naturally curly hair.

But then he asked me if I had a straightener, I replied that I didn't.

His response?

"Oh, you should get one."

"You need one."

I had been thinking about asking him to blow it out straight for me - I frequently do this when I get a trim. But I didn't. I didn't have to. He just straightened it. Because how else would I wear it?

He also asked me if I had thought about straightening it. I told him that I had, and asked him how much it cost. He wasn't sure how to say the amount in English, so he told me in Korean. I was still working on figuring out the counting system and thought he had said it was $150 (actually, 150,000 KRW). But my friend told me that she had heard that you could get a perm in Korea for $30, so I started wondering if he had been saying that it was $15. That seemed ridiculously cheap to me, but it's always surprising how prices vary in foreign countries.*

So I started thinking that at that price, I would go back the following Saturday and get my hair permed. But when I got to work, I told a friend how much they said it would cost, and she confirmed that it was $150 :(

So I was sad. Because at that point, I had gotten all excited about getting it straightened.

But then she said that there was a place I could go in Seoul to get it done for cheap. And she was thinking of getting her hair cut the following weekend. So we went together!

This is my friend Emma (actually, her name is Min Jong, but Emma is her English name - I use both names :) ) She took me to this salon to get my hair straightened. It cost under $40!

I haven't had too many pictures of myself taken in the last week, and consequently don't have a lot of pics of me with straight hair - but a few of us went out after work on Wednesday, and I have some photos from that. I don't know what everyone else's reasons were for going out, but I was celebrating my recent acquisition of internet. And by "recent," I mean it was connected that day while I was at work, and I went home to internet for the first time.


Not the best shot ever, but you can see my straight hair, and that's the point, right?


I like this shot (except for the fact that Jess is a bit distracted) because I'm eating french fries with chopsticks. Only in Korea, right? But here's a random fun fact: Koreans eat rice with a spoon, not chopsticks.

So that's it for now. Expect more pics of me with straight hair in the future.

Because there will be more pics of me.

And my hair is straight now.

* I typically spend $4-$5 on dinner out, but it costs me $2 for a quart of milk

We interrupt this silence to bring you -an update!

I HAVE INTERNET! HOORAY! I got it on Wednesday, at which point I made the comment that I felt like I had just won the lottery. I realize that seems a little bit ridiculous, but I think the last time I lived without internet (at home - I did still have access at work) for 6 weeks, was when it didn’t exist. Unless you count the time a few years ago when I spent 2 weeks hiking in Spain, 2 weeks traveling in Morocco, a week in London, then a week in Ireland. But I was traveling - plus there was a day in Madrid and a week in London where I had internet access at the place where I was staying. So, yeah...

Ok, so now I feel like a spoiled brat.

Umm.. I’m just really happy and thankful to have internet at home. I realize that there are millions of people in the world that have much bigger things to worry about and home internet access isn’t actually vital for life - but I’m happy to have it. K?

So anyway, I’ve been pretty busy with work, but Wednesday and Thursday nights I stayed up way too late taking advantage of my internet access. I had lofty ambitions for what I would do within the first 24 hours of gaining home internet access: Skype every single one of my friends, post 27 blogs, catch up on all of the news for the last 6 weeks from my 3 favorite online news sources, etc.

So what did I do?

Randomly surfed the net. Tried to find an online tv schedule for South Korea. Researched training schedules for runners.

Hey - that last thing at least seems beneficial, right? But the week before last I ran 6 days out of 7. Haven’t run since I got internet... ouch.

Then Friday night, I came home and went to bed soon after. It was a long week, and my school had an all-day workshop thingy on Saturday. But Saturday morning (yesterday), I woke up with a fever and a stomachache, so I slept pretty much all day - didn’t even use the internet. Then today, I slept about half the day and am feeling 100% better now. I guess it was just a 24-hr bug.

Speaking of being sick, this is the second time I’ve had a stomach bug since I’ve been here, in addition to the worst cold ever, which lasted about 3 weeks (I actually think that I got a second cold about a week after I got the first one - I had felt like I was starting to get better, then BOOM - it hit me. I actually went to the doctor. This was the first time in my life that I went to the doctor for what I believed to be a cold). Anyway, hopefully now that I’ve adjusted to living here, I won’t keep getting sick.

But I digress. Repeatedly.

I’ve managed to catch up on some of my blog reading and decided that it was way past time I blogged.
The problem with going 6 weeks without blogging - especially during the course of something eventful, like..oh... moving to a foreign country - is that it’s difficult to know where to start.

Consequently, I decided to just jump on in there and ramble.

I think I'm going to shoot for a basic overview of what my life is like in the ROK (Republic of Korea - not to be confused with North Korea). If you want to know more about any particular aspect, just leave a comment.

The teaching is going pretty well. It was a bit nerve-wracking the first couple of days. I taught my first class the day after I got here. I had less than 2 hours of training and wasn't even able to observe a class before I started teaching. By the end of the week, though, I was pretty comfortable with it. The curriculum requires very minimal preparation - so that helps. I work with about a dozen other foreign teachers and a dozen Korean teachers. Out of the foreign teachers, one is Australian, two are Brits, and the rest are about evenly divided between Canucks and Yanks. They're all pretty cool.

My apartment is pretty cool, too. It's very small, but I do actually have a bedroom, so that's nice. Most teacher apartments are studios. The commute isn't bad, either. I just have to cross the street :) My church is a bit farther away, though. I have to cross the street, then turn right and cross the street again. It's a really cool church, though, so I don't mind going the extra distance. It's called Global English Ministry, and they have English services every Sunday morning. I like the worship, too - we sang Days of Elijah a couple of weeks ago, though - that threw me for a loop. Anyone who was in MC from '99-'00 knows what I'm talking about....

The food is awesome, too. I like it a lot more than I thought I would - not that I thought I would dislike it, but I was a little afraid of kimchi and wasn't sure what to expect from the rest of Korean cuisine. It's good stuff. Me likey. There's about a bazillion types of kimchi, I like some of them, but some are downright weird. My favorites are kimbap, bibimbap, and jajangmyeon. Oh! And curry. Curry donkasu.

I have so much more to say - it's probably going to be a while until I get you up to speed after 6 weeks of silence. But it's 1:30 am here and I want to go for a run tomorrow morning before work. I've been running by a river about 10 minutes from my house. There's a path alongside it which even has the distance in kilometers marked on the ground. I've been talking with a couple of friends about running a 10k in a month or so. Fun times.

But anyway, that's pretty much my life in a nutshell.

Oh - and a week ago, I got my hair permed straight.

Ahhh, before I go, let me leave you with one food pic:

curry donkasu - pork cutlets with curry sauce and riceYummy

The Korea Report, Part 1

I'm here! Yay!

Yeah, so, I've actually been here for almost 2 weeks, but hey.

I was supposed to be getting internet access at my apartment by the end of the first week, but I guess procedures just changed. Like, within the last week or something. So now, I have to have my ARC (Alien Registration Card) before they will let me sign up for internet access. But once I do, it's going to cost me $15 PER MONTH. No people - we're not talking dial-up. We're talking high speed internet. I wasn't planning on getting cable while I'm here, but then I found out it will set me back a mere $5/month. So how could I turn it down?

The sad thing is that it will take me another 3 weeks until I actually get internet and cable at home, so the blogs may be pretty infrequent until then.

So that's my excuse for keeping you in suspense for so long. Now here's my story, from the beginning.

On May 7, 1980, a wondrous thing occurred...

Just kidding, we won't go back that far. Hows about we start with the flight?

The baggage limitations said that I could check 2 bags of 50 lbs each. So one of my bags was 51 lbs and the other was about 68. I knew this ahead of time because I have a handy little bag weigher thingy. But I figured - I'm moving to another country for a year and it would be prohibitively expensive to ship stuff, so I'll just hope that they don't charge me to much if my bags were overweight.

They charged me $25. Score!

Then they gave me an aisle seat in the exit row. Double score!

So I got on the plane, settled in, and wasted time sleeping. I say "wasted time" because I later found out that they had personal movie players with a huge selection of movies, and I only had a chance to watch 2 before the plane landed.

My plane got in a little early, and I collected my bags and got through customs in about 45 minutes. Then I met up with a dude holding a sign with my name on it, and he took me to my apartment. He told me he didn't speak much English, then he called the director of my school and spoke with him for a minute. Then the director told me that the driver would drop me off at my apartment and the next day, one of the teachers from my school would come by my apartment at 12:30 to take me to school.

It was about an hour drive to my apartment, so we got there by about 7:30 pm. Not bad. He basically helped me take my bags up to my apartment, showed me how to unlock my door (with a code, not a key), shoved my bags into the entryway and hightailed it out of there. By this point I was starting to get hungry, but I hadn’t wanted to take up any of my packing space with food. Fortunately, the person who lived there before me left a bottle of orange juice in the fridge. Unfortunately, that was all I had to last me until Monday afternoon. I thought about trying to go out and get some food, but I didn’t even have any cash. So I drank some orange juice, spent a couple of hours unpacking my things and collapsed into bed at around 10:00.

Much to my surprise, I slept straight through until about 7:00 am! I have never adjusted to a time change that quickly before! So I spent some more time unpacking, drank some more orange juice, and got ready for work. At about 1:00, I started wondering if someone was really coming. I was starting to get tired, too, so I thought I would just lie down on my bed and rest while I waited for someone to show up.

My doorbell rang at about 2:00. One of the directors and another new teacher were there waiting for me. Joe didn’t actually work at our branch, he was just bringing us to the school. Veronica also flew in Sunday night.

So Joe took us to work, which was conveniently located across the street. Then we got a crash course in teaching so that we could start that day.

So much for getting a week of training.

Speaking of teaching, I have a class in about 10 minutes, so I guess this is the point where I leave you hanging...

I'm off!

AAAHHHH! I'm so excited, scared, nervous, happy, anxious, sleepy, crazy, (insert emotion here) - basically I'm just a big ball of nerves and emotions. I can't believe I'm really moving to Korea tomorrow/today (it's past midnight, but I haven't gone to bed yet).

I'm basically done packing. But I grossly miscalculated how much stuff I had. I can't tell you how gross my miscalculation was.
It was Seriously Gross.

The plan was to pack all of my clothes, shoes (please don't ask me how many pairs of shoes I have), and other necessities, then fit in books and movies as I had room. I have a ton of books that I haven't read yet and it's always nice to have a few favorite movies.

Suffice it to say that I am grateful to know that there are good places to find English books in Seoul and I can buy movies on iTunes.

I found myself pulling articles of clothing out of my bags left and right - if I wasn't positive I would wear it more than a handful of times, it came out of the suitcase. It seems a shame to leave all of this perfectly decent clothing behind, but I suppose it will be as if I had new clothing when I return a year from now.

Now I'm just hoping that I won't have to pay too much because my bags are over the weight limit. I was blessed enough to get my visa in Seattle yesterday, so I didn't have to make an extra trip today, after all. Who knows? Maybe they will just waive the extra charges tomorrow... or better yet, bump me up to first class :) Then my bags would be within the weight limits.

I'm going to sign off for now - I've got to figure out what to do with all of the stuff I'm leaving behind!

Annyonghi kaysayo!

Woot woot!

Oh yeah, baby! I've got my plane tickets and I'm flying out on Saturday!

Somehow it doesn't seem real until the flight is booked.
Would you believe that I just got the tickets this evening?
And that's only because I wouldn't stop harassing the recruiter to book them.
He kept telling me, "Oh, it's no problem, there are plenty of seats. We've got time." In fact, I think those are exactly the words he said to me over the phone last night.

My response was, "Yes, I understand. But I would like to know when I'm flying out..." So he finally gave in and called the travel agent to book my flight. Lo and behold, there weren't any seats available for Friday night.
Hmmm...maybe it would have been wise to book the tickets more than four days in advance? So he said he would book them for Saturday. He told me that he would book them the next day (today) and send me the itinerary.

And he did! I fly out Saturday afternoon. They've booked me nonstop to Seoul (flying time is just under 12 hours), so I will arrive Sunday evening.

Yes, I know. Saturday afternoon + 12 hours does not Sunday evening make.
But Seoul is 17 hours ahead of PST, so we're talking Saturday afternoon + 12 hours + 17 hours. AKA Sunday evening.
Kinda trippy.
It'll be cool on the way back, though. I'll leave Seoul, fly for 12 hours, and get to Seattle 5 hours before I left.
hehehe

I'm going to get back to packing - I'm actually way ahead of the game and may not end up scrambling around the night before, hurling things haphazardly into suitcases.

Hmm..that'd be nice.

Tomorrow I'm going up to Seattle for my visa interview.
They'd better accept me, cuz hey - I've got plane tickets.
It seems to be more of a formality than anything else. I just have to try my best to not act crazy, and they should give me a nice shiny little stamp in my passport.

Of course, the shiny little stamp takes 24 hours to process, so unless I can sweet-talk the interviewing officer into speeding things up and returning my visa'd passport to me tomorrow, I'll be schlepping back up to Seattle on Friday to retrieve my little blue book.

Including the trip to the airport, that would make three trips to Seattle in as many days. For anyone who hasn't noticed the price of gas recently - it ain't cheap.
Here's hoping I can charm the folks at the Korean consulate...

I know that I have been woefully remiss in my blogging lately.
I would apologize, but it's my blog - I do what I want.
Also, I haven't seen you folk commenting recently, so... yeah.

There seems to be something about coming home that sucks the blogginess right out of me.
Call it catching up with family and friends.
Call it slow internet access.
Call it laziness.
Call it what you will.
But I can tell you right now, that new adventures breed blogginess.

Well, new adventures and comments.

So the new adventure are coming, now it's up to you, citizens of Townsville! Comment away and watch the blogs of new adventures pour in like...
like...
blogs...

Errr... right...

Onward!!