Happy Chuseok!

This weekend, Korea celebrated Chuseok, which is sort of the equivalent to our Thanksgiving.  I asked all of my classes to explain to me what Chuseok was, and got a range of answers - probably similar to the variant that you would get if you asked a class of kids in Canada what Thanksgiving is about.

Here's what was established:
1. They have a family gathering.  Many students mentioned getting together and playing with their cousins.  One boy said that there was a specific game that they always play together. We had some difficulty pinning down exactly what that game was, but thinking back to what he was saying, the 'sticks' that they throw to determine how far the move on the board were probably dice... something I couldn't quite grasp at the time.
2. They get money from older relatives.
3. They eat a special rice cake with a sweet bean paste filling (they didn't exactly tell me about the paste, but one of the other teachers explained the filling to me)
4. They pray to their ancestors.  This minute detail was generally the one I was expecting to hear from most of the students but a surprising few told me about this.  Surprisingly enough, it was usually the youngest students who told me about that part of the holiday, while the older students were more interested in the money... Go figure.

I'm assuming the last one could also have something to do with the student's religious beliefs and how traditional their family is.

In the spirit of the holiday, my Hagwon gave all the teachers these lovely gift sets of seasoned seaweed!  The tins in the middle of the package are full of snack-sized salted sheets (I've already finished one of them! So good! hey're like healthy chips!) The boxes on the outside are larger sheets.  I crumpled on into my rice the other day.  Again, quite tasty!)

Anyways, it meant that we got a 5 day weekend! I'm sorry to say that I did very little that was note-worthy over the past 4 days to post about (aside from catch up on some TV watching). I did go hiking with two other teachers today though.  We took a bus to the other side of Daegu and trekked up a different bordering mountain to another temple.  Early on, I slipped on some sand, ripped  my capris and scraped my knee up. Ouch. A lovely lady came over as I was cleaning it out and smeared some cream on it (I'm hoping it was a polisporin-type thing), which was very nice of her.  As we continued on, a few other people pointed at it a exclaimed in painful ways.  It really wasn't a back scrape, but it kept dripping blood down my leg, so it was pretty hard to hide. Hahaha.

Ouch.

We did make it to a temple.  Took us about an hour and we're pretty sure that it wasn't the main temple we'd been hoping for.  When we first arrived at the park, there was an impressive arch that we assumed was the entrance to the temple, but you had to pay to get in, and that just wasn't going to happen!

Enjoy the pics!

Turtle!!

What we assume was the entrance to the main temple.

The stairway to Heaven

Almost there!

The temple

Close-up of the roof art

Buddha rock! 

Little Buddha statues left by the Buddha rock

Little Buddha statues left by the Buddha rock

Little Buddha statues left by the Buddha rock

My personal favourite

Little Buddha statues left by the Buddha rock

Mountain view 

Apparently we could have driven up...

Apsan Park Adventures

Apsan Park

A University friend took the train in from Busan to hang out with me yesterday! We headed up to Apsan Park and spent a few hours hiking up the mountain.  Apsan Mountain creates the Southern border of Daegu.  On the mountain are some lovely old temples that are open for prayer. While we were taking photos of one of the temples, a lady who seemed to work there came up to us and started asking us questions in broken English.  She wanted to know where we were from, how long we'd been in Korea etc.  From what we gathered, she not only worked at the temple, but also lived there.  She motioned for us to sit of the steps of the temple and wait.  She disappeared and returned with two small cups of coffee! She sat on the step with us as we drank the coffee and when we were finished, she handed me a piece of paper with her phone number on it! She had mentioned earlier that her son was learning English and she had been very interested in knowing what school I worked at.  I don't have a Korean phone number, so she wanted me to call her from my school. Whether she wants to enroll her son at the school or if she wants to hire me as an English tutor, we're not quite sure!

An Outdoor gym that we found on our hike... You can find workout 'machines' in almost any green space in Daegu.  Healthy Daegu, Healthy you! 

The temple where we met our new friend

The rooftop art

Are You Mocking Me?

The title has almost nothing to do with the post, aside from the fact that I will, at some point use the word 'mock'.

The title popped into my head as I was trying to figure out what to call it, and it took me a while to remember where I'd heard it (what I thought was a movie quote) before.  As most of my readers will know, I am so very fortunate to have two lovely siblings; an older sister and a younger brother.  And as anyone with siblings will know, the youngest sibling inevitably finds themselves the victim of daily taunting.  No different can be said when it comes to my family.  I/We would tease my younger brother quite regularly, and whenever he caught on to the fact that he was being made fun of, he would say, in a very indignant voice (or as indignant as possible when you're 5), "Are you mocking me?" at which point a back-and-forth banter, quite reminiscent of the opening scene to Bill's Romeo and Juliet (Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?), would commence.  Luckily, my brother's only weapon against me was my incapability to solve certain math equations in my head (he memorized them for the sole reason of using them against me), so the resulting duel was generally short-lived.

Now back to the present! I had a mock lesson today! It went fairly well! They didn't make me explain the differences between the 6 different verb tenses that were the main topic of the writing section I was responsible for! THANK GOD!! If you were in school with me (or were my teacher), you will be quite aware that grammar and spelling are not my forte (thank goodness for spell-check). I was prepared to explain them, but the chances of me confusing not only myself but everyone in the room would have been a probably result of my attempt!

I shadowed the teacher who I'm taking over for during his lesson. Aside from one class, they are all quite energetic and chatty!  Great.  Don't worry! if there's one thing I can do, it's keep a few kids in check! If you've ever managed to annoy me enough to make me yell, you know what I mean (Jokes! I'm not going to yell at them!... Much. hehehe).

When I didn't have classes to observe, another teacher (who was set to shadow me all day as I watched classes) would take me aside and go through books and information in the hopes of giving me what I need in order to not crash and burn on Thursday when I start actually teaching.  Not a simple job! But hopefully possible?!

Anyways, I'm off to bed!

Bon nuit!

"Are you mocking me?" - Greg Brown

Not My Cup of Tea

So, when you think of Asia, what would you think of as the typical, generic hot drink of choice? Green tea, right? WRONG. Or at least, not this Asian country.  I have yet to find a decent green tea. They have the usual teas that you would find in Canada at a Tim Hortons, a William's or a Starbucks., but they're expensive and certainly nothing special.  I was hoping to be drinking a fair amount of green tea on this adventure but this is seemingly not going to happen!  I even came equipped with a loose leaf tea infuser, which is currently sitting on a cupboard, neglected and alone.  The tea bags that I bought at the grocery store looked quite promising with a picture of a ginger root on the box but I can't taste even a hint of ginger in it!  Instead, it tastes like rice… Rice tea… Not cool, Korea! Not cool.

On the side of the hot beverage spectrum, coffee seems to be the new fad drink of choice.  A cup of black coffee generally cost between $4-5 at a chain caffee.  Ouch. It's much cheaper to buy a package from the grocery store and make it yourself (not shocker there).  Interestingly enough, it's difficult to find real coffee.  Instead, you find yourself faced with an aisle of instant coffee drink sticks.  Sticks. Of instant coffee mix. I ended up choosing one called Mocha Gold.  The powder inside is %75 white (I'm assuming milk powder and sugar), %15 instant coffee, and %10 percent flakes of coaco (no complaint there).  The resulting drink is quite palatable, but is certainly a stretch of the word "coffee". 

I guess the coffee sticks are their version of our coffee pods; single, pre-prepared drinks. It's a bit of a disappointment when I was expecting loose leaf green tea, but hey, when life gives you lemons (or in this case, instant coffee), make lemonade!

A week of training...

My first week at my hagwon was quite... how should I put this? Boring? Repetitive? Confusing? A mixture of all the above?

In a nut shell, my work day looked like this;
2:10 - arrive at work.
2:30 - watch another foreign teacher do the on-line homework assigning for the day.
2:40 - training with another foreign teacher, going through the handbook which outlines how to do my job and how to survive a day without being yelled at.
3:00 - fill in answers from an answer booklet into the work books that we use in class (there are a lot of these.  In my one week, I've only managed to fill in a few)
4:00 - 'lunch'
4:30 - return to filling in books.
5:30 - alternate observing classes and filling out books
10:00 - write a daily report to be sent to the supervisors (we can't actually send this is before 10:20.  it's a rule.)
10:30 - a bell goes off, signalling that we are allowed to leave.

I would then go home, crawl into bed, sleep for 4 hours, be woken up by my body who still hasn't adjusted to the time zone (it's getting better... I started off not being able to sleep for more than an hour at a time), and eat something.

I have a mock lesson on Monday and I will begin actually teaching next Thursday! This seems soon and too long at the same time.  Hopefully the mock lesson goes well!

While I wasn't at work or attempting to sleep, I alternated between going to the e-mart and slowly buying everything I needed to feed myself etc, and binge-watching the TV show 'Suits'.

A few nights ago I went to one of the other teacher's apartments and we hung out drinking wine and playing 'cards against humanities' until about 2 in the morning.  It was quite enjoyable :)

This is a pretty boring post, sorry! I'll try to write something more exciting later!

I'll show you mine if you show me yours ;)

So it came to my attention today, by my lovely co-teacher, that showing your shoulders in Korea is considered quite whorish behaviour… This information came up because I was AT WORK (on my second day) in a lovely little sleeveless shirt! Luckily she had a sweater in her bag that I could borrowed for the rest of the day! Crisis averted!  I only wish I had had this information 4 days ago!  I've been walking around town getting strange looks (mostly from older gentlemen) under the impression that it was because I'm a tall white chick! But no! It's because I was traipsing around with my very indecent shoulders hanging out of my shirt for all to see! How horrible of me!

Any ways.  Just one of those weird cultural differences.  Though shoulders are a no-no, it is perfectly acceptable to wear a see-through shirt and bright coloured bra… as long as the see-through shirt covers your shoulders!

I do believe I will be make a trip to the store to buy a few short sleeve button-down shirts to cover my indecencies tomorrow!

I'll write tomorrow regarding my first two days of work.  For now, I'm heading to bed! 

The Good ol' Switcheroo

There are a few notable differences between Korean apartments and Canadian ones and unfortunately, the two most challenging ones (for me, at least) have to do with switches.  Now, none of this is really a big deal… unless you're me.  Some of my friends at home enjoy reminiscing about one cold, winter night when I succeeded in turning off the heating system in the basement as I was helpfully turning off the lights before going to bed.  Apparently, in my mind, if I find a switch who function is unknown to me, I should logically switch it off and leave it like that. Needless to say, my friend and her family were not overly please when they woke up to a bone chilling house and came downstairs to discover my mistake… Keeping this in mind, let's look at the few fore-boding differences between Korean apartments and Canadian ones.

Funnily enough, the first difference has to do with the water heater.  In order to save gas, the water heater is not kept on 24/7 but is instead controlled by a switch on the wall that I can turn on and off at any time.  Now, in general, this isn't a big deal as long as you can remember to turn it on and off, which I have failed to do on many occasions thus far. Before I can forget to turn if off, however, I do have to remember to turn it on in the first place.  I spent a pretty long time yesterday waiting for the shower to warm up before realizing that in order for this to occur, I would have to turn on the hot water. I did the same thing when I was doing my dishes.  Though I have so far been slow on the up-take in turning it on, I'm having no better luck at remembering to turn it back off afterwards! The switch is no where near any water source and is, therefore, out of sight, out of mind.  Luckily, it is in the main room right over my bed and beside the light switch, so I have, so far, noticed my mistake fairly quickly!  There are also some other buttons that go along with the water heater that someone has graciously translated and labelled.  Apparently the same switch also controls the floor heater in the winter.  Can't wait to mess up that one!

The next abnormality also has to do with the water system… In fact, the three things I'll be talking about in this post are about water.  This next one is to do with the shower.  Here I am yet again faces with another switch.  In Korea, they don't have a separate shower stall or bath tub.  Instead, they have a drain in the floor and a shower head connected to the sink.  It's actually pretty cool and quite convenience when it comes to cleaning the washroom; you just spray down the walls, floor, toilet, etc., and all the dirt magically disappears down the drain (Half way through my first shower, the metal hood that mysteriously covers the toilet paper role suddenly didn't seem so strange)! 

The down side to this shower arrangement, however, is (I’m sure you've guessed it), you have to remember to switch the water back over to the tap in the sink when you're finished showering… I have yet to forget this crucial last step, but I know from personal experience that it's only a matter of time before I end up spraying myself in the face when I go to wash my hands. In the meantime, all I can do is wait.

The last difference that I'll talk about right now is that the tap water isn't safe to drink.  Instead, I have a water cooler. Not big deal. I get the water jugs delivered to my apartment through the Hagwon for 10,000 w (that's just over $10), which is pretty cheap.  Bottled water in general is dirt cheap over here.  In stores I can usually buy a half litre for 1,000 w (just over a dollar). 

Safe (and free) travels

I should probably start from the beginning and explain briefly how I landed myself a job in Korea. 

I used an agency called 'Travel and Teach' which is run by past ESL teachers who worked in Korea and now help people like me land jobs in Korean schools.  They work out of Toronto and I found them quite friendly to communicate with and pretty helpful throughout the interviewing process and the visa prep-work.  I actually switched from another agency to them in the spring because I found the other agency to be a little sketchy and difficult to communicate with because my main contact was Korean.  The language barrier made things a little difficult and I didn't get a good feeling from the school (hagwon) that they set me up with.

The hagwon that I am now working for is a private English academy that preps students for English proficiency tests.  I don't start work for another few days, but the other ESL teachers I have spoken to don't seem to have had many problems with the supervisors (always a good sign).

As a part of my contract, the hagwon reimburses me for my travel expenses on my way over to Korea (and again at the end of the year-long contract to get me home).  They also provide me with a furnished apartment (rent-free) and pay me a monthly salary (around the same I would get in Canada for a minimum wage, full-time job).  I teach 4 days a week… that's it… 4 days… what am I going to do with all that free time? Learn a new instrument? Probably. Learn a new language? Hopefully. Become a professional hermit who only leaves the apartment for work and food? Most likely. Haha? And who could blame me? It's such a lovely apartment!

                                                                             Kitchen

                                                            Main room from kitchen door

                                       
                  Main room from entrance (kitchen on the left (green), washroom on the right)

                                                 Entrance hallway that leads out to the landing

I haven't been here for more than 24 hours, but I'm already feeling pretty good about the whole thing and I've already started exploring the city.  My apartment is just off of a major road filled with shops, caffes and restaurants.  The hagwon is also on the main road.  I'm also a three minute walk away from a subway station and a bus stop… How do you say 'prime location' in Korean?

It took about 24 hours total to get from Toronto to Daegu.  I had the shortest possible transfer times between the different parts of my journey AND IT STILL TOOK THAT LONG. I started with a 5 hour flight to Vancouver followed by an 1 1/2 hour lay-over then a ten hour flight into Seoul.  By the time I got through customs, I had a fifteen minute wait for the bus to Daegu, which took 4 hours.  Two teachers from the hagwon picked me up from the bus station and showed me to my apartment and gave me the run-down of basic information to get me orientated to my new life.  I then promptly went to bed (It was 11pm by then).  Though I hadn't slept much on the way over, I still found it difficult to get to sleep and stay asleep, but I wasn't overly tired in the morning and I've survived the day without taking a nap! Oh the joys of adrenaline!

This morning I met up with another ESL teacher who took me to the bank to set up a bank account and then we went to a clinic for a medical check that I needed for my Alien Registration Card (which cost 91,000 won, in case you were curious.  I'm pretty sure the school reimburses me for that as well!). After that, I was happily left to my own devises for the rest of the day.  I have plans to go to the E-mart with another teacher this evening when she gets off work --oh! We work 3:30-10:30ish. Strange, eh? Our students come to the academy for extra English lessons after the normal school day. It isn't unusual for Korean children to have multiple extra-curricular classes outside of the usual school day. 

Well, that's all for now! More to come soon! Let me know if there's anything in particular you want me to talk about and I'll do my best! 

Welcome!

Annyeonghaseyo!

Welcome to my travel blog! My name is Keryll and I'm an ESL teacher is Daegu, South Korea.  I have a year-long contract with a language academy (hagwon) and I intend to share my experiences in Korea with anyone who's willing to  read about it!  I know two other people from back home who are over here right now and they both have blogs on the go, so I guess it's the generic thing to do! Happy reading!

Annyeonghi kyeseyo!