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Hi again to everyone. I have
officially been living in Anjung for 22 days. I’m practically part of the
furniture. Ha! I still get the strangest looks walking through the street and
plenty of ‘waygooks’. That means foreigner. I’m sure worse has been said but
that is one reason to be grateful that I don’t understand the language yet. The
last few weeks have been VERY busy.
The meeting at the school went
fairly well considering I got as far as the school parking lot before being
whisked to my new apartment which was completely bare except for an unconnected
gas stove, the kitchen cabinets and a closet. Over the course of the day the
rest of the furniture and appliances stipulated in my contract were delivered
and the place started to slowly look like home. I have to admit that I am one
lucky fish (I really don’t get that saying… is the lucky fish the one that got
away?). Back to the point, my apartment is AWESOME! Most people get stuck in
tiny, dirty apartments with old stuff from the previous teacher who has since
left. I was given a brand new apartment in a shiny new building and my place
was kitted out with new everything (LG, Samsung, etc.). It’s honestly a really
awesome apartment and now that I’m done with all my shopping for the things not
provided, it feels like home to me. It is a small studio apartment. When I walk
in, I take off my shoes and place them in the little cupboard at the door which
I also use for linen and towels (storage space is a little low). It’s a Korean
custom not to wear your outdoor shoes indoors so I have separate slippers to
use at work and at my apartment. (Note to those coming over, get ones with a
thicker sole for work. You will be grateful when your socks are still dry on
the rainy days.) Directly in front of my door is my tiny kitchen but it has all
the necessities such as a kettle, toaster (not toaster oven), fridge, microwave,
gas stove, sink, small table and 2 chairs. Directly behind that is my tiny
bathroom. It has one of those freaky little showers that I was dreading but I’m
getting used to everything constantly being wet. In typical Indian fashion, I
invested in a plastic stool, bucket and jug. I find that a far more efficient
way of bathing than the crazy shower that soaks everything. On a hilarious note
my neighbour (an awesome American who teaches at the middle school next to me)
and I could not figure out how to get the hot water working in our apartments.
As it turns out there is a little panel on the wall that you have to switch on.
It would have been useful if I knew that in advance. Naturally all the labels
are in Korean like everything else in my apartment. So that first morning
involved very cold showers. Thankfully there were some maintenance people about
who explained to us (in broken English, hand signals and grunts) how to get the
hot water working. Moving on… to the right of my door is one large room (by
Korean standards not typical Western standards) that serves as my bedroom,
lounge and study. I actually like the open plan style but the downside is the
large windows (I had no curtains/blinds for a while) and there was a creepy
lady across the street who I once caught watching me sleeping. I KID YOU NOT! I
have awesome roll blinds now (worth every cent) so at least I can move about my
apartment without being watched like the unfortunate subject of a David
Attenborough special. Directly next to my bed is a small enclosed balcony-like
room that has my washing machine and a clothing rack for drying my clothes
(also great for drying my dishes when I run out of space in my dish rack). As
mentioned previously, everything is in Korean so after some help from my
American neighbour (who is actually pretty good at figuring out the Korean
stuff), the maintenance people (who also fitted a lid on the toilet seat and
fixed the leaking cistern) and the land lady, I now have little labels all over
my apartment so I don’t forget what everything means. I also have labelled
illustrations of the air conditioner remote, washing machine and iron. OCD much???
Yip, you better believe it but it comes in handy when it comes to getting
organised. So that’s my apartment.
Work has been quite interesting.
It turns out that I now work at a high school, not a middle school as I was initially
informed. Oh no! More teenagers! And it’s an all-boys school. Needless to say,
this will be a challenging year. I did absolutely nothing constructive the
first week of work. It took the school a while to arrange textbooks for me and
my teaching schedule. I see each class once a week and also have 4 teacher
training sessions a week where I help the other English teachers. Some classes
are nice. Some are bordering on evil. Thursdays make me slightly suicidal. But that’s
most jobs right? Honestly I can’t complain much. I have 6 hours more free time a week than I had in South Africa (perfect for my lesson planning), absolutely
no extra-curricular and I only have about 4 lesson plans a week. I also have a
smart board in my classroom which makes teaching really interactive but (isn’t
there always a but) it’s connected to a computer that’s 5 years old, in Korean
and has the tendency to break down regularly. The super nice IT technician opened it up today to find that
it had dust bunnies the size of dinosaurs in there and no sound card but it is
functional for what I need it to do except for the lack of sound.
Unfortunately, it can’t be changed to English so I use my personal netbook for
the most part. For my second week at school I did an introduction lesson with a
slideshow all about myself and my life back in South Africa (I strongly suggest
that all new teachers have an introduction slideshow prepared for your first
lesson). As for the teacher training, that threw me off a bit at first but
after some discussion, the teachers and I settled on a textbook and I’m
actually really enjoying the teacher training classes now. They have informed
me that they want to do a little less grammar and a little more listening and
conversation in future. Makes sense but it’s a little harder to plan as the
textbook we chose doesn’t cater for that. I’m on to my third week of teaching
now. It was a little frustrating because my classroom PC broke down again and I
couldn’t use my netbook because it, my cellphone, all other contents of my bag
as well as me got soaked walking to school today. It turns out there is ANOTHER
(yes, another) typhoon that decided to pay Korea a visit in a matter of 22
days. Helpful hint to anyone considering coming over, carry/buy a very big
umbrella, carry a big poncho as well (to cover both you and your
backpack/bag) and carry rain boots/wellingtons.
I am grateful each and every rainy day that I endured the discomfort of wearing
my wellies on the plane to have them here with me. The staff at my school is so
incredibly nice. They help me with everything from problems settling in to life
in Korea to helping me dry out my soggy computer. They are really good people.
I am constantly being given little gifts like vitamin drinks and rice cakes. It
blows me away how nice most Korean people are. I mean South Africans are nice
but Koreans take it to a whole other level. That is something that I am really
lucky to have. I seriously need to get some little gifts for my co-workers just
to say thank you for being so awesome to me all the time.
A social life in Anjung took a
while to find. Facebook groups help a lot in meeting other foreigners who can
relate to your daily frustrations and help you. I’ve met a lot of really great
people here. And I’m not the only person as brown as the dirt here anymore. I
have another Indian friend here. She’s Canadian Indian. It’s great to have
someone to talk to about curry and the funny little things that make being an
Indian person fantastic. (She is NOT replacing you dude.) I also met a lot of
random people just walking in the streets. I found a great church and through
the church, met even more amazing people. I also went to my first foreigner
night. That was great. Laughs, food and other English speaking people trading ‘battle
tales’. I’m not much of a party person which is probably a good thing. Food in
Korea is ridiculously expensive. I have a complete lack of fruit in my diet and
am only eating limited vegetables. Meat is also pretty expensive. Thankfully
the school offers a great cafeteria lunch that is well balanced, substancial
and relatively affordable (about $2.50 a meal) so my biggest meal is lunch. For
breakfast, I just have cereal and for dinner I usually cook something. It’s not
too bad cooking for one person but there are a few affordable take out options
when I feel lazy. I try to limit take out to 2 times a week (foreigner night
and weekends). Try not to convert into your home currency when shopping for
food or you will barely put anything into your trolley. You will have to just
suck it in and pay for food or risk malnourishment. I have been having plenty
of those vitamin drinks to try and compensate for my lack of fresh fruit. I
bought bananas once but due to the 100% humidity, they rotted in just 3 days.
In future I will buy fruit that can be refrigerated. I also divide everything
biodegradable into parcels for one and freeze it. It makes stuff like meat,
garlic, onions, peppers, etc. last much longer and it gets mushy when you cook
it anyway. Mushrooms and cabbage are cheap here and plentiful. I do my mini
shopping trips once a week for things like eggs, bread, milk and vegetables. I’ve
heard that there is also a local market but I haven’t had a chance to go yet. I’m
looking forward to some fruit. I was so spoiled when it came to fruit back in
South Africa. (*Downs another vitamin drink*)
Korea hasn’t been all great times
though. There have been some challenges that had me wondering why I put myself
through this. While shopping at the Home Plus I made a big purchase (things for
my apartment and a month’s worth of groceries) and they double deducted me. I
informed my bank and the bank then decided to promptly freeze both my cards so
I was stuck in Korea with NO money. Yeah, that’s enough to scare the **** out
of anyone. After a good cry on Skype with my dad, plenty of email exchanges
between my parents, me and the bank, some help from my Korean co-teacher and a
trip back to the Home Plus, I was eventually refunded the money a week later
and my cards were unfrozen. More advice: have a stash of cash somewhere safe
and keep a ledger of EVERY cent you spend. It’s important to budget well to get
you through that first month until you get paid but that ledger also helps you
pick up when things go wrong. If I hadn’t kept my ledger, I never would have
noticed that so much money was missing from my account. I even have a backup
ledger on my netbook now because that whole experienced scared me so much.
I’m slowly getting used to the
town. I’ve been walking around and as I discover new things I mark them on my
map. I have gotten lost once and had to resort to getting a taxi but it’s all
part of the learning curve. I’ve also made a few trips into Pyeongtaek-si for my
health check (pretty typical stuff; eye test, height, body mass, blood
pressure, urine test, blood sample and x-ray) and some shopping. Unfortunately
I lost my T-money card so that put my travel plans on hold for a while. I am however
planning a trip into Seoul in the near future for a Zombie walk. I love cosplay
events even though I haven’t had to chance to attend many apart from 1
Halloween party a few years back. I’m really looking forward to that. All the
walking has its benefits, I’m shrinking at a steady rate so I actually fit into
Korean clothing now. I managed to get a 2 pairs of shoes (heels for going out
and heeled boots for the cold) and some clothes (skirts, cardigans, dresses,
blouses, etc.). At least my wardrobe is somewhat respectable now. There is a
distinct lack of colour beyond black, white and grey but it does make it easier
to mix and match. I still need to get some more substantial clothing for the winter.
I seriously underestimated the cold here. If you have one, bring a snow
appropriate coat. I plan on buying one when winter hits. For now layering the
few items I do have helps. I also plan on getting a nice comforter from
thearrivalstore.com. They are a lot cheaper than anything I found at the Home
Plus bedding department. If you have the space, bring your own sheets,
pillowcases, etc. They are so hard to find here and unbelievably expensive. I’m
grateful for my sheets, blanket, towels, and pillowcases as well as for the
blogs I read that advised me to bring those things. Hopefully you’ll take my
advice on that.
Well each day here is an
adventure. Today’s adventure is attempting to walk home in a typhoon without
soaking all my electronics... again. To those reading this, I hope you have
enjoyed my rants. Feel free to comment, ask questions or even share your own
experiences if you are also an ESL teacher living far from home. Until then,
may the force be with you.
