So I flew into Korea with one of my co-workers Meghan, another new teacher from Minnesota. We took a two-hour cab ride into Suji from the airport (tons of traffic!) and were greeted by a couple of our co-workers. We went out for beef galbi (meat you grill or cook at your table) and it was delicious!
Here's the beef galbi with a ton of different sides
Then we went to a bar called Batman bar and I found out that darts are very popular here. I also found out that I have no skills at darts. Hopefully that will change! I also had my first experience with a squatter toilet. It kind of took me by surprise because I was not expecting that here. But I would say it's been about half and half, half squatters and half normal. And some toilets are super fancy and have heated seats or spray your butt! After Batman we hung out on the deck of Family Mart (a little convenience store chain all over the place here) and sat in plastic chairs with a bunch of other foreigners.
The next day (Thursday) was my first observation day, and I woke up at 6am from jet lag so I felt like crap the whole day. I ate lunch at school because we get to eat for free, and most of the time it's been pretty edible so I'm going to try to do that every day. I think the most delicious thing so far has been hard boiled quail eggs...yum! That night I went to a motel to stay for the week because my apartment wasn't ready yet. It was a love motel complete with a jacuzzi! I had fun watching kpop videos because the dancing is just ridiculous. There were strips of material covering the entrance to the motel, I guess so that nobody can see your car parked in there since it is a love motel and that's kinda embarrassing lol.
My motel called "Theme motel" complete with car privacy strips
So now I'm up to Friday--I had another observation day that dragged on forever. That night I went out with all my co-workers for spicy chicken galbi, and it was even better than the beef galbi! The owners gave us a few bottles of pop for free towards the end of our meal because I guess it's a polite gesture to give a large group of foreigners free pop, and pop is really expensive here.
Chicken galbi which also came with a side of mussels for each of us
On Saturday I went walking around Suji. I met up with a few co-workers and went to a coffee shop called Cafe Benne. They are all over the place along with a ton of other coffee shops everywhere you look.
Nice big coffee shop that sells gelato!!
And here's a random pic of the day--a boy and his pet chicken:
That night we went to Hongdae in Seoul, which is like the arts district of Seoul. Art is not big here, they put a greater emphasis on math and science I guess so it was cool to be in an artsy place. When we first got there, there was a silent DJ party going on in the park. Everyone was wearing these big headphones and the DJ was playing music through the headphones, so all of these people were dancing like crazy but we couldn't hear the music!
Silent DJ party
There was also a drum circle (Carly!) going on in a different part of the park. As for street food...they had kabobs!! And they were even more delicious and spicy than the ones in Italy!! My coworkers probably thought I was a weirdo for how much I was enjoying that kabob. Yum. Anyways, everyone decided not to take a taxi back from Seoul cuz it's expensive, and the last subway runs at midnight. So we ended up staying out until the subway started up again, which was around 6am. Needless to say I didn't do much the next day, except break down and buy a subway sandwich.
Monday was another observation day, nothing too exciting. The other two new girls and I ventured out to E-Mart, which is a huge department store here that has anything you could ever need. I usually go to Lotte Mart, which is also big (4 or 5 levels) because it's a lot closer, but E-Mart has better prices. Here's Lotte, where I have been stopping almost every day it seems:
On Tuesday we had different orientations with all of our different Korean supervisors. It was very overwhelming with a lot of information, since we have multiple different classes each day. Then we went out for beef galbi and said bye to the three teachers that were leaving.
Wednesday was my first actual day of teaching. In the mornings until 2:30 I have Kindergarten, which are four year olds who don't really know any English. They are adorable, but I'm still struggling to figure out how to teach them the meanings of words. Then in the afternoon I have various other classes that I will talk about later. I finally moved into my apartment Wednesday night, and I guess it's the smallest one out of everyone at the school. I think it's cozy, and I can always move to a bigger apartment in six months like the girl who lived here before me did.
So that was my first week in South Korea! I will try to get this blog up to date, I've been here almost two weeks and it feels like so much longer. And yet time is going by really fast!
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