S.M.O.E Orientation

After an amazing first weekend in Korea, I had to start my orientation.  I was hired by the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education so we had to do mandatory orientation at a University from Monday to Saturday with 400 other teachers.  None of us knew where we were teaching or living in Seoul.  It was like school all over again...dorms, rooomate, meals in the caf and I met tons of people.  Except we couldn't drink any alcohol, weren't allowed to leave the campus and we had a curfew.  Since we were quarantined, we had to do temperture checks twice a day.

Just a couple of my new friends from S.M.O.E

After stressing out for an entire week about where I was going to be living and teaching (I didn't want to be put in the outskirts of Seoul) I ended up getting really lucky.  I was put in Cheongdam/Apgujeong area which is like the Hollywood/Rodeo Drive of Seoul.  My apartment is a cute decent sized studio apartment about the size of my old room in Toronto and I'm just 25 minutes by subway from my school and main areas of Seoul.

My elementary school that I'm at is great and my co-teacher is very nice and has been so helpful since I've been here.  There are about 45 teachers and over 1000 students.  I'll be teaching grades 3 to 6.  This month I'm teaching grade 5's.  7 different grade 5 classes, 30 kids in each class.  The first lesson I taught, I had to read a story about a Mole who got pooed on.  It's called "Who's Dung is this?" haha.  My work hours are 8:40 to 4:40 but I only work a total of 4 hours a day.  The rest of my time is spent making lesson plans, surfing the internet, facebooking or  just thinking about what I plan on doing for the weekend.  Tough life eh?

  

My First Week in Seoul

I first landed in Seoul 4 weeks ago Thursday, when I arrived at the airport I couldn't read a thing or understand what anyone was saying.  I was playing a game of charades with everyone there trying to find my way to the bus I needed to take to get to my friends place.

My friend took me out for some Korean BBQ and Soju, which is like Vodka but much strong and it's about a dollar a bottle at the convenience store.  We walked the streets and they were filled with colourful lights, people drinking Soju outside of the convenience store on plastic patio furniture and endless food vendors selling chicken skewers, soups, fried seafood, squid, dok boki (thick rice noodles in a spicy spaghettios like sauce) and pig intestine.

From Friday to Sunday I decided to make a trip to Busan, which is South of Seoul.  A close friend of mine who has been living in Korea for almost 4 years lives here so I went to spend some time with her and her friends for the weekend.  We went to popular beach called Haeundae beach.  This beach is in the Guiness Book of Records for the highest world record of umbrellas on a beach.  The beach is filled with Koreans covered in sun screen (I'm talking about a thick film of white cream covering themselves) because they are so scared of getting tanned for some reason.  Did I mention that the females walk around in heels at the beach?  Also, you can't swim past water beyond your waist level or else you get a Life Guard blowing a whistle in your face.  They are so paranoid about people drowning at the beach that they keep you from going any further than water past your waist.

The night life in Busan is beautiful, most people are sitting along the beach eating food they've purchased from the food vendor or just pre-drinking the $1.00 Soju purchased from a near by convenience store like we did.  No matter how late it is, the streets are always filled with people just walking around (including families with their kids!).

I really enjoyed my stay in Busan, it's very relaxing and the foreigners that choose to got there to teach are pretty relaxed.  If I ended up staying another year in Korea, I would definitely live in Busan.

My New Adventure Begins....

A week before I left Toronto, Canada to leave for Korea, a lot of my friends and family asked me how I felt.  To be honest, it didn't really hit me until I got on the plan.  The thought of leaving my family and friends was very said, but I was excited at the same time because I knew I was starting a new adventurous chapter in my life.  Teaching in Korea was something I've always wanted to do.  I was actually supposed to do this 2 years ago but my mom and guilted me into staying.  2 years later I landed a job at an Advertising Agency  where I truly enjoyed working at and saw myself growing in the industry.  Before doing so, I thought I would get this English teaching experience out of my system before I can fully focus on my career.  I have nothing tying me back so why not?  I've started to realize that life is just way to short to not do the things you want to do.