Written a week from today's posting.

THREEDAYWEEKEND!
THREEDAYWEEKEND!
THREEDAYWEEKEND!

We still don’t have Internet or a cell phone, but we just our alien registration cards so those should come soon. We’re still living in the temporary apartment, but should move this Thursday. It’s getting a little chaotic living in a 20x10 foot room with three suitcases we can’t unpack, but we make due. All the junk food we are buying helps! (I’m currently eating a Cheeto that shares nothing in common with the American Cheeto besides the name, btw. Oh how badly I want a bright orange Cheeto now that I can’t have one.)

Without boring you with details of our week, let me just outline a few things:

On Tuesday we were taken to downtown Gwangju to the sprawling Chosan University Hospital for a battery of tests for our alien registration cards. Hearing test, eye test, dental check-up, chest x-ray, urine test, and last but not least, the blood test. From which I almost passed out. The two Korean guys who work at the front desks of two of our schools looked so worried. I felt so embarrassed.

I started teaching on Thursday for Katherine, who I am replacing. The new semester starts Tuesday. I teach a lot of elementary classes and two middle school classes. The kids are pretty awesome. Some are little brats, but most of them are so adorable. And funny. While discussing why they might become wax figures in Madame Tussaud’s museum, one little girl said she will solve World War 3. “Oh really? How will you do that?” I ask. “I kill everyone” she says and proceeds to giggle her head off. Another boy becomes a wax figure for becoming leader of the world. And stealing all the money of the world. It’s difficult not to laugh at some of the things they say.

We also figured out that when we’re hungry, we can’t go that wrong with just pointing at something on the menu and eating whatever comes out. Just standing around and observing what everyone else does helps us figure out what to do, too.

And speaking of food, there is a pizza place on the corner near our schools (which are directly across the street from one another) called Nanta pizza that is just fantastic. If the rain doesn’t get any worse we’ve got to get some tonight. If I could get garlic dipping sauce with it, I would say it’s as delicious as Papa John’s.

It’s now Saturday. Monday is a holiday that the Koreans aren’t even really sure of. Something that has to do with something that happened in the 50’s when Japan invaded. Or so we were told. Moral of the story, the kids don’t have school and we don’t have work.

Today we took a journey to E-Mart in Sangmu, which is just another district in Gwangju. E-Mart is a 4 story department store which stands out due to it’s gigantic orange sign with a Greek-looking ‘E’ on it. Right across the highway was a hiking path up a little mountain with a three-story pagoda thing on it. It was a very beautiful view at the top. The whole city of Gwangju is surrounded by mountains. Not Everest-sized by any means, but still lends a great vista.



We also visited a memorial to the May 18th Student Uprising that occurred in 1999, I believe. It was pretty impressive, if you take away the 4 or 5 teens dressed up as Japanese Anime characters posing for pictures within the tall metal poles.

The city is MUCH bigger than I thought it was. We haven’t even scratched the surface. Katherine left me a tourist map of the city and there are many cultural places to visit in just this one city. I can’t wait until we’re more settled so we can begin traveling more.


Next weekend:

Andrew and I went out bowling Friday night with some other ex-pats from the neighborhood. One of them was telling us about a place downtown called The Underground Grocer (as in the London underground, we discovered!). It's a store run by a Canadian who came here 15 years ago to teach. Now he has a Korean wife and daughter. There are a lot of American products that are super expensive, about $19 for a big box of Cheerios, but they have stuff to make tacos! And speaking of tacos, he just opened up a restaurant next door with a small menu of comfort food for all the foreign teachers from the UK, US, and Canada in the area. There are tacos, chicken and dumplings, a burrito, and some other things on the menu for now. It was a soft open, so he asked us to make some suggestions on his Facebook page. Right across the back alley is a restaurant just opened by a Chinese guy with real Chinese food, not Korean-Chinese, which we have heard is terrible. So now we know where to get what we need to be able to survive those hard times. The tacos were really good, but at about $3 a taco, we won't be eating there every weekend.

PC Rooms

I have a post all ready to go on the laptop back at the apartment about the previous week which I will post as soon as I can, but I'm currently at a PC Room down the street. They're gaming rooms that you will find all over the place. Computer games are huge over here, (Starcraft even has it's own channel dedicated to it, like an ESPN kinda thing) so we asked to use a computer for Internet instead. The guy at the counter spoke enough English to get what we were wanting, but put us at the back of the room at the very last computers with big monster monitors and cigarette burns on the tables. The other 54 computers have nice new flat screen monitors. I know those babies must be connected to the Internet too. :-I.

Today is the very first day that I have been on the verge of selling all my possesions for some tacos and guacamole. I have 365 days to go. How will I make it without? Maybe I will start up my own taco stand in Korea and be famous for bringing them their new favorite food...

Fade in.
We see Cayce sitting in bed, a bed with lavender frills and embroidered lavender flower blossoms upon a lavender quilt and lavender frill pillows.
Gwangju, South Korea. The time: 9:33 PM. The date: February 19, 2010.

It took 23 hours to get here. We flew Asiana Airlines from Chicago to Seoul, which was a 13 hour flight. I slept most of the time, minus dinner (delish), and a snack (tomato, carrot, lettuce sandwich), Surrogates (very underwhelming), and breakfast (omelet fest 5000). I surely don’t feel like I slept all that time, but I don’t remember doing anything else. I won’t bore you with all the travel details because nothing of any real interest occurred, but I will say that every Korean we have met so far has been extremely helpful and kind.

We got picked up by the airport by a fellow whose name so much resembled the man we interviewed with and had been in contact with up until this point, that we didn’t understand why this man could speak very little English when it had been flawless up until that point. Turns out it was someone different. He took us to our apartment, which is barely larger than our previous bedroom. The bed’s pieces were laying on the floor and the mattress was up against the wall and we didn’t have even a moment to look at the other 3 feet of the apartment before we were whisked away to the Avalon Kumho campus. We met two Korean teachers whose English was pretty limited. One of them (whose name we still can’t figure out) and the man who picked us up from the airport took us to lunch at some unnamed restaurant near our place. We sat in a little room with its own door on the floor on little pillows. The floors were heated and it felt great.

There was a lot of awkward silence and a lot of the two Koreans amusingly watch me and Andrew try to use chopsticks with grace. We had some kind of soup thing made of a ton of veggies and a meat which I originally thought was dog. I’d heard it from so many people as a sort of joke that maybe when I heard “duck” pronounced with an accent the idea of eating a puppy leaked into my subconscious. So the entire time I’m eating I’m try to mentally force the idea out of my head that I was eating Shiloh. After lunch, Andrew and I were left alone in the van and after I turned to him and said “I can’t believe the first thing they fed us was dog” he informed me I had misheard. Glad that’s off my conscience.

We then went to Bongsundong campus, which is the larger one where we thought we would be at and met the teachers at Reading Star and Avalon. They were all really nice and welcoming and all seemed to be having a good time. We met Sue, the director of Reading Town with whom we had previously interviewed, and Joey, who we had been corresponding with. Joey took us around and sat with us for about an hour and answered all our questions.

We were then taken back to our apartment where someone came over and installed the bed and the “closet,” which is really some poles with curtains over them. But I like the way it looks. He then took us to LotteMart where we bought some essentials and some food. Unfortunately, since we don’t live with any other teachers in our building, there’s nothing to be passed down to us. Oh well. A $2 gold pot with a plastic handle can do wonders, I’m sure.

(Interlude)

I'm currently getting a wireless signal from our small, cold bathroom. So I'm taking advantage of the Internet while we have it!

It's now Sunday evening. Andrew and I spent the weekend exploring this part of the neighborhood. Since no one knows where we live, we were on our own but passed one of the teachers we'd met the night before walking down the street. So they're around here somewhere. I think I've watched more TV in the last two days than I have the whole year previous. There is such a random mixture of English movies and shows on Korean cable . I went from watching the re-make of The Parent Trap with Lindsey Lohan to watching a marathon of Without a Trace.

It's not as foreign here as I would have thought. I feel safe here, I feel comfortable. I'm only nervous when it comes to trying to order food without knowing what I'm getting or how to order. But isn't that the fun of living in a new culture?

We met a lot of the teachers at both campuses in Gwangju. Tomorrow one of the staff is taking us to the hospital to get tests in order to get our alien registration cards. After those come, we should be able to get cell phones and Internet and finally be able to communicate. I'll post pictures as soon as I can.

Our love to everyone back home!

Kimchi!

To see just what we've gotten ourselves into, we took a trip to Asia Mart yesterday on a mission for kimchi, one of the foods Korea is most known for. Basically, kimchi is pickled vegetables. I stumbled upon a fun fact while Googling 'kimchi': It's so popular that the Korea Aerospace Research Institute developed space kimchi for all those homesick astronauts out there. The most popular vegetable to use is cabbage, and that's the kind we got.



We had to search everywhere in Asia Mart because we had no idea where to find it. Finally, I saw an older man and woman getting into the refrigerators by the fish counter and pulling out a large jar of what I thought looked like kimchi. As I stood behind them and waited, the old man turns and looks at me and says, "Kimchi! You want kimchi!?" in an excited/ surprised voice. Jackpot!

When we opened it, we tentatively smelled it to decide whether or not to proceed. It's a subtle peppery smell which is not completely foreign. I'm still not sure what to think of it. The spices are good, but the veggie taste is what gets me. I guess if cabbage is not slathered in mayo or coated in butter, I don't much care for it. However, I think it's a taste I can get used to. There are many other veggies used in kimchi, too. Perhaps I would prefer cucumber kimchi!

We also got a little juice box from Korea which was banana flavored soy milk. It was good!

Anyway, only 10 days left before we board the plane!

Things fall together

We got our flight itinerary! We are leaving on Wednesday the 17th at 8:00 that evening from the Indianapolis airport. From there, we go to Chicago and then straight to Seoul! From Incheon airport in Seoul we then have to get to the Gimpo airport to fly straight to Gwangju. I'm very happy about this, since our recruiter originally told us we would probably take a bus from Seoul to Gwangju, a 4-hour journey. Now it will only take 50 minutes on a plane. We will then arrive on Friday the 19th at about 11 AM.

We are also currently talking about living arrangements, and it looks like we will have two studio apartments next to each other in a building with the other teachers. My understanding is that if we were adamant about sharing a room, they would have to find us a bigger one in another area. I think being around the other teachers would be much more helpful to get acquainted with the new culture. Though we currently live together and having the living situation change will take some getting used to, I think it will all work out just fine once we adapt.

This is going to be such an experience. I'm getting more excited everyday!

New Pet Peeve

Andrew and I got our visas! But that's not the point of this post! I wanted to share one of my developing pet peeves with you today.

It seems that when someone finds out I'm about to go to South Korea to teach English, the reactions I get are not "Oh wow, that's such an incredible opportunity! I wish you the best of luck!" It's more like: "Oh...really? Well...good luck with the food and alphabet" or "Is that the good one or the bad one?" or "Wow, that's scary. Aren't you nervous?" or a very odd "Well I'll think about (pray for) you while you're there".

If we were going someone in Europe, you know the reactions would be far different. Americans seem to be afraid that North Korea is going to come storming the border at any moment or drop a nuclear bomb on the lower part of the peninsula. And as far as I have learned, the South does not live in fear of the North.

It just seems like an unfair stereotype to me. I'm very excited about this, and it dampens my spirits when people make it out to be another Iraq. If SOK was so unsafe, it would not be the top TESOL destination, would it?

The Visa

This past Wednesday, Andrew and I drove up to Chicago (a 3-4 hour drive from where we live) in order to interview at the Korean Consulate for our visas. Our journey was uneventful and long, but thankfully we JUST missed a major winter storm that hit that night.

I'm still not exactly sure what the interview is for, since one has already acquired a job, signed a contract, and paid for the visa. I don't know what someone could possibly do to screw up the interview and get denied a visa into Korea.

Anyway, we met some people in the lobby waiting for their interviews. One girl was going to be teaching in the same city with another school. Another girl was Asian and laughed about how difficult it had been for her to get a position teaching English in Korea because she wasn't white. She was also completely baffled about how Andrew and I and another guy in the lobby had gotten jobs without being completely TESOL certified. We told her it was because we graduated with the great old English degree. They were all nice besides the quiet anti-social one sitting next to me, and I hope my coteachers in Korea will be the same.

We are currently waiting on our visas to arrive (with our passports, plz). And we have been told the school wants us to arrive in Korea on the 19th of February. So I finally let my landlord know our last day will be the 17th, and he's only making us pay two weeks rent :)

I'm excitedly counting down the days until I get to quit my job at the bookstore. My last day is the 29th, the same day as our going away party, and I hope that goes well. Andrew and I are slowly going through our books deciding which ones to store for a year and which to sell. Goodbye my beloved books.

I'm getting more and more nervous as the time approaches. I hope this experience will be as amazing as I'm hoping.