Korea
Here's my blog from Korea, backwards:
I'm back in the US! As I said and people I talked to about it know, I was getting really tired of them only paying for 30 hours of work and having me work more. Next month was going to be 50 hours of work a week, and I would have had to stay for 2 months doing that if I gave notice, so I just left after my trip to the Philippines.
I had a lot of fun in the Philippines. I used a jet ski, went helmet diving and parasailing, as well as traveled to a volcano and went around Manilla. It was a very expensive trip, but I enjoyed it and it was a good final hurrah for my stay in Asia.
I'm back home now and adjusting to the time zone as well as getting my life back in order. I'll get over the Jet lag soon hopefully and be back to my normal routine.
This month was a horrible month for work. We started the month preparing and doing open classes, in which we put on a show of our classes for the kids parents. It involved lots of prep work for us and the kids. Right after that I had phone studies(calling all the kids at home), evaluations (writing a note to every kids parent), monthly tests (making a test for each class), etc to do and I just finished. And they're saying we have another open class in November. This is making me seriously reconsider working here, as people I know most people in Korea have jobs that go from 2 to 8, rather than 9 to 6, don't do any class plans, open class, monthly test, phone study, or any of the other things that make me have 45 - 50 hour work weeks. That's something extra they only do at Wonderland. They also get paid more than I do, since I came in when it was $2,100 a month, and now it's $2,400 a month.
Add to all this that it's pretty much my last vacation at the end of July and then I work for 5 more months with only a couple 3 day weekends, and I may be coming home soon. I'll wait until after my week break at the end of July to talk to my boss (in case they sack me), and then ask them about either lowering my hours, upping my pay, or giving me some unpaid vacation. If they don't do that then I'll probably give them my month's notice and take off. I do lose out on the paid flight back ($1000) and the $2,100 bonus you get for staying, but it's better than cracking down because of overwork without any breaks.
That said, I did have fun at the Daegu Museum field trip we went on this month, and learned a little bit about Korean history, though not much since it was in Korean. I've also updated the site with a different theme and some gadgets. Oh, and I put Mom's recipes in a blog linked on the right (which I figure is safe since this site is only known by family and friends, wouldn't want any secret recipes going out into the wild :P ) which I'll update with new recipes if I like them. It's mainly for me to have a place to put them, though. I also may put up a few of the better pieces of software/websites I use on a different blog, so people like Dad can know about them.
If/when I do come back I'm thinking about getting my Masters in CS or maybe English, and maybe getting a teaching certificate. If I do this I'll either be working on campus or part time doing IT or something. After that who knows, maybe travel more. There's always a job almost everywhere if you speak English, and even more so if you have a CS degree.
Last month we went on vacation to a zoo and saw animals living in cages much too small, ate a picnic, then came back. It was pretty fun just to get out of school and see monkeys and tigers, but they didn't give any time to just look at the animals. Here are some pics of that, mostly taken by Marilize since I don't like taking a million photos of things.
I got back from my 3 week vacation last week and have been super busy since, so I'm taking a break this weekend and am only going to do stuff in town like clean, shop, and go hiking on the mountain here. Last weekend was worth it though. Here are some pics that the Korean's at my school had taken of me as Santa and a birthday party for the kids.
I took a 6 hour train ride up to gangnam beach, apparently a famous beach in Korea. After getting there I met up with a friend and we got a hotel for $20 a night that was right on the beach with a good view. The first day we walked around the beach, a lake, and went to the Thomas Edison museum. After that we partied with some other foreigners we met on the beach, then the second day we went out and saw some museums about the korean war, a temple, an art place, and a fancy hotel where we ate a good meal.
It was fun, but I didn't get that much relaxing in, which is why this weekend I decided to just catch up on stuff mostly. Here are some pics from my trip. Right now I'm helping Marilize shop for a laptop and thinking about ordering pizza for dinner after I finish cleaning out my apartment. I'll post something once we get our tickets booked for summer vacation and we're certain that we're going to Manila.
So this last month has pretty much just been the usual working month, went on a lame field trip to a newspaper company "museum", and had the usual problems at work. I did meet some more south africans through Marilize's network. I am finally feeling better though, so that much is good, since I've had a cold for the last month. I learned that this is possibly because of Asian dust, the reason they all wear those face masks.
Next month I get two three day weekends, in which I'm planning to go to Seoul, Jeju, or Busan and check out some of the other places in Korea. I'm also planning to go to Manila in July for our summer vacation and spend a week on the beaches. So I'll have more interesting posts around then.
Here are some more pictures, taken by Marilize. School is in full swing and it's fun, but at times very exhausting. I have to deal with kids adjusting to the school and puking, having problems in the bathroom, fighting, not listening to what we say, and in one case the kid can't even feed himself. At least afternoon classes are the elementary kids and not the kindergarden kids. They speak english to an extent, are for the most part well behaved, and don't have any of the adjusting problems the small kids have. The ages of the kids I deal with are 5-7 in the morning and 7-10 at night, but that's their Korean age, and Korean ages are weird. They start out as 1, instead of 0, then as soon as the lunar new year hits they are 2. This means their years are off by 1-2 years from what we're used to. So my kids are 3-6 in the morning and 6-9 in the afternoon by normal ages.
On the weekends I've been showing Marilize around town, though she seems most interested in the shopping currently so I've been going to stores and looking at Korean gadgets and things while she clothes shops, since she can't get around town on her own very well yet. The field trip is coming up, and in May we get a couple vacations, so I'm looking forward to the future when the kids will be adjusted to the school and I'll have more time off.
I don't have much time, so here's a brief rundown of what's been happening before I head off to work. The school year ended and we're opening into full operation this wednesday. To do this, they brought in one new teacher, a girl from south africa named Marilize. They also have one of the new teachers, Jay, from the shigi wonderland commuting over in the mornings to help out.
I took Marilize out to Apsan Park, the biggest park in daegu, since she said she liked to hike and do outdoor things. We walked 10-20 miles that day, to the park and back, and up and down the mountain at the park, so we took a break sunday. At the park they have weights, gym machines and aerobic workouts like a normal gym. They also have a cable car that takes you up to the top of the mountain so you can hike around if you don't want to hike up. At the top there's a restaurant and an ancient fort that was used long ago. Both our cameras decided to run out of power while we were up there, and she forgot her camera cable in africa, so I don't have the pictures she took of me. Here's the new pictures I have, I'll post the rest when we buy her a new cable.
We had the opening ceremony where all the kids came by and played with us while their parents heard a presentation and got all their bags and stuff. We had to dress up formally for this, so I got a haircut as I needed one anyway. I'll be teaching 7 classes a day and not have much break time anymore, but at least I won't be bored anymore. And that said, I need to run to class!
Well not much has been happening. Just practicing teaching and getting accustomed to daily life in Korea. I don't have much time for anything during the week since work takes up all day. During the weekend I catch up on shopping and cleaning and spend a night or two hanging out with people, maybe seeing a movie or just going to a bar.
The only remarkable event was our field trip to world cup stadium, where they had the kids learning about body parts from real body parts in jars in exhibits. Then we went by some dinosaur exhibits that moved and roared. When a guy in a dinosaur outfit came out, we had a group of kids try to run from the stadium, so that was fun. After that they brought out a boa constrictor, and had a 3d movie where the dinosaurs seemed to roar at the children. The whole thing seems to have been designed to scare children, so it was kind of odd.
Anyway, chinese new year's vacation is coming up, so I'll be enjoying that starting wednesday and hopefully have some more photos and stories to post afterwards.
New Years Vacation
For new years I went to downtown Daegu and enjoyed a korean meal and some fireworks with friends. After that I went to Golgulsa temple in the mountains out in Gyeongu, and experienced a monks life for two days, as well as got Sunmudo training. Here's the schedule there:
4:00 Wake Up
4:30 - 5:00 Chanting
5:00 - 6:20 Sitting Zen (Sitting cross-legged and meditating)
6:20 - 6:50 Breakfast
8:30 - 10:00 Sunmudo Training
10:10 - 11:00 Traditional Tea
11:00 - 11:30 108 bows before buddha
11:50 - 12:20 Lunch
14:00 - 15:00 Sitting Zen (Sitting cross-legged and meditating)
15:00 - 16:30 Working Together (Gathering leaves or spreading fertilizer)
17:30 - 18:00 Dinner
19:00 - 20:30 Sunmudo Training
22:00 Bed Time
I'll figure out a way to put my images up.
I had a fun Christmas here, I was able to talk with my family over the internet and see there many mustaches. Then I went out and walked around Seomon Market, a big outdoor market with lots of food and other things, I tried the food and bought a little table for my apartment. After this I went to downtown, aka Bonwaldong, and enjoyed the movie "Legend". I also bought a new watch for my christmas present.
The rest of the weeks been pretty busy, I have a new class after the vacation coming up, which means I will have no free time at all at work. I'm going to stay in a temple named Gulgosa in Gyeongju over the week vacation for new years, and hopefully I'll have some pictures to post of it after I get back.
Well today I got my internet fixed, and it will hopefully stay that way. I just mostly recovered from the sickness I've had since getting here. It advanced to chills and throwing up, so I decided that I needed to see a doctor. I got some pills and in two days I'm almost entirely recovered.
I also went to see a Korean interpretation of Hansel and Gretel with my students today. It was fun, and almost accurate. It was the first field trip for all the teachers at the school, so it was a hectic and crazy day.
Hello! Sorry I haven't gotten around to this yet, things have just been crazy over here from the get go. I had little to no time to prepare for the trip and barely get my apartment packed up for movers to come take it to storage, and my truck is sitting at my parent's house. I'll just start from day one of the trip.
Day 1 - The Flight
I flew 12 hours from SeaTac to Narita, Japan (outside tokyo) to Seoul-Inchan, Korea. After that I I went through customs and found that someone else had mistaken my bag with the most clothes in it for their identical bag. This slowed things down more as I had to give them all the information they needed. I see the guy out front with a sign saying "Welcome to Korea Patrick Wall" and I think I'm finally done for the day.
Well what they didn't tell me was that this guy doesn't speak English. So I follow him and he loads me onto a bus, where no one speaks english. I don't have a phone number or address where I can reach the school, I don't know the school's name, I don't speak a word of Korean, and I have no native currency. At this point I'm so tired that I don't really care, and I just go along for the ride. And that ride turns out to be a 4 hour ride, where I can only manage very short rests.
Finally the bus arrives, and I get off to find no one but a couple of taxi's sitting there. One of the taxi drivers manages to find a phone number on the welcome to korea sign the guy outside the airport was holding and calls it, then tells me to wait there. Finally someone who speaks english shows up and saves me. This I later find out is my boss, Mick. He takes me to a minimart for some water and then takes me to my apartment for some sleep, since these were my only two requests. And that was one of the longest days I have ever gone through.
Day 2 - First Day of Work
I woke up after an 8 hour sleep and went into work for the first time, met my new coworkers, was taken out to lunch at a korean sushi place, and then went to our sister school 20 minutes away where other foreign teachers work. They didn't tell the foreign teachers I was coming, so it was a surprise, but I got to meet Clint, Vincent, Evon, and Jeremiah. I sat in on some of their classes, which were elementary age kids and saw how they handled them. I had some korean food for lunch (including dried sardines), and then went back home for some more sleep.
The Weekend
That weekend I went with Vincent to the Korean e-mart, basically their Walmart. I'm not going to go into much detail about the weekend, but there was a going away party for a teacher at another school, so I got to meet a lot of drunken foreign teachers, and see the daegu nightlife. And I found out that drinking is a major pass-time for foreign teachers in Korea, so I may be hanging out with more Koreans than American's once I start hiking and doing other things I want to do out here in Korea.
My Life as Patrick-Teacher
After watching a few more classes, it was time to go and start teaching. I work at a newly opened school, with only a few classes, in the rich part of Daegu. My Classes are 1 kindergarden class of 6 kids from 9:30 until noon, one somewhat advanced group of 4 elementary school kids at 3:30, and a group of 2 kids that don't know any english at 4:00. I then prepare for the next day until 6:30 at night.
During the next three weeks, things have been pretty busy, I don't really have time for things during the week, and I spend time getting to know foreign teachers during the weekend. It takes all of my energy just to handle a bunch of little kids who don't speak the same language as you, and just want to play all day.
Japan
I went on my Visa run to Fukoka, Japan, and met up with two other foreign teachers doing the same exact schedule, so we teamed up and found our way around together. Japan is clean and orderly compared to Korea, and even the US in most places. I didn't get much free time, but I did get to stop by the little stands the set up at night and talk with some natives. Another thing I found in Japan is that it's super expensive, the English person I was with said it was like England, and apparently the US is cheap. The other great thing was the bed, big, firm, and with sheets. The hydrofoil and train ride back and forth was fun, and much better than a plane. There were a lot of throwing up Korean's on the way back, but I suppose it was a little rough if you weren't used to boats.
The Future
I'll try to keep posts on things that happen in my life, and put up some pictures as I get them consolidated. I've also got to start taking more pictures, but so far I've just been absorbing it to get through the culture shock of Korea.
Saturday, August 2, 2008
I'm back in the US! As I said and people I talked to about it know, I was getting really tired of them only paying for 30 hours of work and having me work more. Next month was going to be 50 hours of work a week, and I would have had to stay for 2 months doing that if I gave notice, so I just left after my trip to the Philippines.
I had a lot of fun in the Philippines. I used a jet ski, went helmet diving and parasailing, as well as traveled to a volcano and went around Manilla. It was a very expensive trip, but I enjoyed it and it was a good final hurrah for my stay in Asia.
I'm back home now and adjusting to the time zone as well as getting my life back in order. I'll get over the Jet lag soon hopefully and be back to my normal routine.
Sunday, June 29, 2008
This month was a horrible month for work. We started the month preparing and doing open classes, in which we put on a show of our classes for the kids parents. It involved lots of prep work for us and the kids. Right after that I had phone studies(calling all the kids at home), evaluations (writing a note to every kids parent), monthly tests (making a test for each class), etc to do and I just finished. And they're saying we have another open class in November. This is making me seriously reconsider working here, as people I know most people in Korea have jobs that go from 2 to 8, rather than 9 to 6, don't do any class plans, open class, monthly test, phone study, or any of the other things that make me have 45 - 50 hour work weeks. That's something extra they only do at Wonderland. They also get paid more than I do, since I came in when it was $2,100 a month, and now it's $2,400 a month.
Add to all this that it's pretty much my last vacation at the end of July and then I work for 5 more months with only a couple 3 day weekends, and I may be coming home soon. I'll wait until after my week break at the end of July to talk to my boss (in case they sack me), and then ask them about either lowering my hours, upping my pay, or giving me some unpaid vacation. If they don't do that then I'll probably give them my month's notice and take off. I do lose out on the paid flight back ($1000) and the $2,100 bonus you get for staying, but it's better than cracking down because of overwork without any breaks.
That said, I did have fun at the Daegu Museum field trip we went on this month, and learned a little bit about Korean history, though not much since it was in Korean. I've also updated the site with a different theme and some gadgets. Oh, and I put Mom's recipes in a blog linked on the right (which I figure is safe since this site is only known by family and friends, wouldn't want any secret recipes going out into the wild :P ) which I'll update with new recipes if I like them. It's mainly for me to have a place to put them, though. I also may put up a few of the better pieces of software/websites I use on a different blog, so people like Dad can know about them.
If/when I do come back I'm thinking about getting my Masters in CS or maybe English, and maybe getting a teaching certificate. If I do this I'll either be working on campus or part time doing IT or something. After that who knows, maybe travel more. There's always a job almost everywhere if you speak English, and even more so if you have a CS degree.
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Last month we went on vacation to a zoo and saw animals living in cages much too small, ate a picnic, then came back. It was pretty fun just to get out of school and see monkeys and tigers, but they didn't give any time to just look at the animals. Here are some pics of that, mostly taken by Marilize since I don't like taking a million photos of things.
I got back from my 3 week vacation last week and have been super busy since, so I'm taking a break this weekend and am only going to do stuff in town like clean, shop, and go hiking on the mountain here. Last weekend was worth it though. Here are some pics that the Korean's at my school had taken of me as Santa and a birthday party for the kids.
I took a 6 hour train ride up to gangnam beach, apparently a famous beach in Korea. After getting there I met up with a friend and we got a hotel for $20 a night that was right on the beach with a good view. The first day we walked around the beach, a lake, and went to the Thomas Edison museum. After that we partied with some other foreigners we met on the beach, then the second day we went out and saw some museums about the korean war, a temple, an art place, and a fancy hotel where we ate a good meal.
It was fun, but I didn't get that much relaxing in, which is why this weekend I decided to just catch up on stuff mostly. Here are some pics from my trip. Right now I'm helping Marilize shop for a laptop and thinking about ordering pizza for dinner after I finish cleaning out my apartment. I'll post something once we get our tickets booked for summer vacation and we're certain that we're going to Manila.
Monday, April 14, 2008
So this last month has pretty much just been the usual working month, went on a lame field trip to a newspaper company "museum", and had the usual problems at work. I did meet some more south africans through Marilize's network. I am finally feeling better though, so that much is good, since I've had a cold for the last month. I learned that this is possibly because of Asian dust, the reason they all wear those face masks.
Next month I get two three day weekends, in which I'm planning to go to Seoul, Jeju, or Busan and check out some of the other places in Korea. I'm also planning to go to Manila in July for our summer vacation and spend a week on the beaches. So I'll have more interesting posts around then.
Friday, March 14, 2008
Here are some more pictures, taken by Marilize. School is in full swing and it's fun, but at times very exhausting. I have to deal with kids adjusting to the school and puking, having problems in the bathroom, fighting, not listening to what we say, and in one case the kid can't even feed himself. At least afternoon classes are the elementary kids and not the kindergarden kids. They speak english to an extent, are for the most part well behaved, and don't have any of the adjusting problems the small kids have. The ages of the kids I deal with are 5-7 in the morning and 7-10 at night, but that's their Korean age, and Korean ages are weird. They start out as 1, instead of 0, then as soon as the lunar new year hits they are 2. This means their years are off by 1-2 years from what we're used to. So my kids are 3-6 in the morning and 6-9 in the afternoon by normal ages.
On the weekends I've been showing Marilize around town, though she seems most interested in the shopping currently so I've been going to stores and looking at Korean gadgets and things while she clothes shops, since she can't get around town on her own very well yet. The field trip is coming up, and in May we get a couple vacations, so I'm looking forward to the future when the kids will be adjusted to the school and I'll have more time off.
Monday, March 3, 2008
I don't have much time, so here's a brief rundown of what's been happening before I head off to work. The school year ended and we're opening into full operation this wednesday. To do this, they brought in one new teacher, a girl from south africa named Marilize. They also have one of the new teachers, Jay, from the shigi wonderland commuting over in the mornings to help out.
I took Marilize out to Apsan Park, the biggest park in daegu, since she said she liked to hike and do outdoor things. We walked 10-20 miles that day, to the park and back, and up and down the mountain at the park, so we took a break sunday. At the park they have weights, gym machines and aerobic workouts like a normal gym. They also have a cable car that takes you up to the top of the mountain so you can hike around if you don't want to hike up. At the top there's a restaurant and an ancient fort that was used long ago. Both our cameras decided to run out of power while we were up there, and she forgot her camera cable in africa, so I don't have the pictures she took of me. Here's the new pictures I have, I'll post the rest when we buy her a new cable.
We had the opening ceremony where all the kids came by and played with us while their parents heard a presentation and got all their bags and stuff. We had to dress up formally for this, so I got a haircut as I needed one anyway. I'll be teaching 7 classes a day and not have much break time anymore, but at least I won't be bored anymore. And that said, I need to run to class!
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Well not much has been happening. Just practicing teaching and getting accustomed to daily life in Korea. I don't have much time for anything during the week since work takes up all day. During the weekend I catch up on shopping and cleaning and spend a night or two hanging out with people, maybe seeing a movie or just going to a bar.
The only remarkable event was our field trip to world cup stadium, where they had the kids learning about body parts from real body parts in jars in exhibits. Then we went by some dinosaur exhibits that moved and roared. When a guy in a dinosaur outfit came out, we had a group of kids try to run from the stadium, so that was fun. After that they brought out a boa constrictor, and had a 3d movie where the dinosaurs seemed to roar at the children. The whole thing seems to have been designed to scare children, so it was kind of odd.
Anyway, chinese new year's vacation is coming up, so I'll be enjoying that starting wednesday and hopefully have some more photos and stories to post afterwards.
Friday, January 4, 2008
New Years Vacation
For new years I went to downtown Daegu and enjoyed a korean meal and some fireworks with friends. After that I went to Golgulsa temple in the mountains out in Gyeongu, and experienced a monks life for two days, as well as got Sunmudo training. Here's the schedule there:
4:00 Wake Up
4:30 - 5:00 Chanting
5:00 - 6:20 Sitting Zen (Sitting cross-legged and meditating)
6:20 - 6:50 Breakfast
8:30 - 10:00 Sunmudo Training
10:10 - 11:00 Traditional Tea
11:00 - 11:30 108 bows before buddha
11:50 - 12:20 Lunch
14:00 - 15:00 Sitting Zen (Sitting cross-legged and meditating)
15:00 - 16:30 Working Together (Gathering leaves or spreading fertilizer)
17:30 - 18:00 Dinner
19:00 - 20:30 Sunmudo Training
22:00 Bed Time
I'll figure out a way to put my images up.
Saturday, December 29, 2007
I had a fun Christmas here, I was able to talk with my family over the internet and see there many mustaches. Then I went out and walked around Seomon Market, a big outdoor market with lots of food and other things, I tried the food and bought a little table for my apartment. After this I went to downtown, aka Bonwaldong, and enjoyed the movie "Legend". I also bought a new watch for my christmas present.
The rest of the weeks been pretty busy, I have a new class after the vacation coming up, which means I will have no free time at all at work. I'm going to stay in a temple named Gulgosa in Gyeongju over the week vacation for new years, and hopefully I'll have some pictures to post of it after I get back.
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Well today I got my internet fixed, and it will hopefully stay that way. I just mostly recovered from the sickness I've had since getting here. It advanced to chills and throwing up, so I decided that I needed to see a doctor. I got some pills and in two days I'm almost entirely recovered.
I also went to see a Korean interpretation of Hansel and Gretel with my students today. It was fun, and almost accurate. It was the first field trip for all the teachers at the school, so it was a hectic and crazy day.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Hello! Sorry I haven't gotten around to this yet, things have just been crazy over here from the get go. I had little to no time to prepare for the trip and barely get my apartment packed up for movers to come take it to storage, and my truck is sitting at my parent's house. I'll just start from day one of the trip.
Day 1 - The Flight
I flew 12 hours from SeaTac to Narita, Japan (outside tokyo) to Seoul-Inchan, Korea. After that I I went through customs and found that someone else had mistaken my bag with the most clothes in it for their identical bag. This slowed things down more as I had to give them all the information they needed. I see the guy out front with a sign saying "Welcome to Korea Patrick Wall" and I think I'm finally done for the day.
Well what they didn't tell me was that this guy doesn't speak English. So I follow him and he loads me onto a bus, where no one speaks english. I don't have a phone number or address where I can reach the school, I don't know the school's name, I don't speak a word of Korean, and I have no native currency. At this point I'm so tired that I don't really care, and I just go along for the ride. And that ride turns out to be a 4 hour ride, where I can only manage very short rests.
Finally the bus arrives, and I get off to find no one but a couple of taxi's sitting there. One of the taxi drivers manages to find a phone number on the welcome to korea sign the guy outside the airport was holding and calls it, then tells me to wait there. Finally someone who speaks english shows up and saves me. This I later find out is my boss, Mick. He takes me to a minimart for some water and then takes me to my apartment for some sleep, since these were my only two requests. And that was one of the longest days I have ever gone through.
Day 2 - First Day of Work
I woke up after an 8 hour sleep and went into work for the first time, met my new coworkers, was taken out to lunch at a korean sushi place, and then went to our sister school 20 minutes away where other foreign teachers work. They didn't tell the foreign teachers I was coming, so it was a surprise, but I got to meet Clint, Vincent, Evon, and Jeremiah. I sat in on some of their classes, which were elementary age kids and saw how they handled them. I had some korean food for lunch (including dried sardines), and then went back home for some more sleep.
The Weekend
That weekend I went with Vincent to the Korean e-mart, basically their Walmart. I'm not going to go into much detail about the weekend, but there was a going away party for a teacher at another school, so I got to meet a lot of drunken foreign teachers, and see the daegu nightlife. And I found out that drinking is a major pass-time for foreign teachers in Korea, so I may be hanging out with more Koreans than American's once I start hiking and doing other things I want to do out here in Korea.
My Life as Patrick-Teacher
After watching a few more classes, it was time to go and start teaching. I work at a newly opened school, with only a few classes, in the rich part of Daegu. My Classes are 1 kindergarden class of 6 kids from 9:30 until noon, one somewhat advanced group of 4 elementary school kids at 3:30, and a group of 2 kids that don't know any english at 4:00. I then prepare for the next day until 6:30 at night.
During the next three weeks, things have been pretty busy, I don't really have time for things during the week, and I spend time getting to know foreign teachers during the weekend. It takes all of my energy just to handle a bunch of little kids who don't speak the same language as you, and just want to play all day.
Japan
I went on my Visa run to Fukoka, Japan, and met up with two other foreign teachers doing the same exact schedule, so we teamed up and found our way around together. Japan is clean and orderly compared to Korea, and even the US in most places. I didn't get much free time, but I did get to stop by the little stands the set up at night and talk with some natives. Another thing I found in Japan is that it's super expensive, the English person I was with said it was like England, and apparently the US is cheap. The other great thing was the bed, big, firm, and with sheets. The hydrofoil and train ride back and forth was fun, and much better than a plane. There were a lot of throwing up Korean's on the way back, but I suppose it was a little rough if you weren't used to boats.
The Future
I'll try to keep posts on things that happen in my life, and put up some pictures as I get them consolidated. I've also got to start taking more pictures, but so far I've just been absorbing it to get through the culture shock of Korea.
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