Halloween!

This was everyone at our Halloween party before we went downtown.  This is most everyone that works in elementary with me and a few of the middle school teachers and a few other westerner friends.  I'm the mouse in the teapot from Alice in Wonderland...but we're all bloody because Alice went crazy and killed us.  Anyway, we had a good time!

Firsts

So, on Saturday I had my first trips to Costco and the Dadamibang (I really don’t know if that’s how you spell it…).  Costco’s about 20-30 minutes away from our apartments in east Daegu, I think it’s near the north side of town.  First of all, Costco was crawling with people on a Saturday evening.  The great thing about Costco is it has a lot of American things that you can’t find in local groceries.  So I stocked up on granola bars and cheese.  Granola bars are great to have at school so you don’t starve.  And, well, cheese just isn’t in local groceries here.  So I bought some sliced cheese and learned  from one of the other teachers that you can freeze it.  Which will be nice since I’m only one person and it’s a giant thing of cheese.

While we were there we picked up some giant Costco pizzas to bring back because a bunch of us were going to go watch a movie at the Dadamibang.  The Dadamibang, if that’s what it’s really called, is a super video rental place because you get a video and a room with couches and stuff to watch the movie.  We watched Tangled, which was great, I think my nieces and nephew would like it if they haven’t already seen it!

On Sunday morning we left around 10am to go to the national park right on the edge of Daegu.  The leaves are just starting to turn here, there are some really brilliant ginkgo trees around.  We took the cable car half way up the mountain, which gave us nice views of the city.  It was a little chilly but not too bad.  Then we hiked around on trails for a little bit, scrambling over rocks and stuff and trying to stay out of the way.  Koreans are really intense about hiking, they all bring poles and backs and wear lots of colorful gear.  After climbing over some of the rocks, especially going down, I can understand the poles.  People liked to say ‘hi!’ to us a lot, especially Hannah and Ashley who are both blonde.  One couple was really nice and helped us with the map, and then took our picture and bought us popsicles when we got to the top (there was a little old lady selling popsicles out of a cooler).  And then we began our trek down, which was kind of longer and steeper than we were expecting.  And it was all a little more difficult because it rained on Saturday.  But we made it and by 2:30 or so I was back in my apartment and ready for a nap.  Have to admit I’m a little sore today.  But it was so nice to get out of the city and be in the woods, and better to know that the park’s right there!

Hope everyone’s well!  I’ll try and update this frequently but I’ve never been very good at journaling…so forgive me if it’s a wee bit sporadic or delayed.


xoxo
Charlotte

Arrival

I don’t think I could have asked for an easier trip from Baltimore to South Korea.  Everything went smoothly despite a few minor panic attacks on my part (the security line at BWI was really long; I wasn’t sure I got on the right bus to Daegu and then I thought my ride wasn’t there).  I still think I might have gotten on a slightly earlier bus than I was supposed to, but my ride showed up so it worked out alright!

Anyway, I arrived at Seoul-Incheon airport around 4pm on the 18^th October and then took 6:30 bus to Daegu and got in there around 10:30pm.  The bus driver was really sweet and came to explain things to me, like when we stopped at a rest station, even though he didn’t really speak English.  This has been my general experience with the Korean people so far.  They have all been extremely kind and helpful.

I was met at the bus station by Jon and Brendan from Avalon.  Jon’s the head foreign teacher for elementary, where I work, and Brendan is a teacher in the middle school and coordinates things for the foreign teachers.  We had maybe a 20 minute drive back to my apartment.  There was a lot to take in just driving around.  We arrived in my apartment and Brendan helped me set up my key pad/automatic lock thing and explained how my hot water and heat work.  I also got some dishes and silverware.  Then Jon took me to a convenience store around the corner to grab breakfast and some water.

I totally forgot about turning on the hot water, so my first shower was nice and cold, but live and learn.  I didn’t sleep very well, but that wasn’t a huge surprise.  In the morning the landlady came up to tell me the internet would be installed at 11:30am.  She was very nice and came in to direct the guy doing the installation and we chatted as best we could.  At 1:15 Lisa, who lives across the hall, walked me to school and I got a full tour of everything.  Then I went out to lunch with most of the foreign teachers. 

The foreign teachers go out to lunch together every day at 1:30 before heading back to school to prep for classes.  The first block of three classes goes from 3:50-6:10.  Then those kids leave and another set comes in from 6:20-8:40.  The last hour is for prep and making phone calls to students.  But I didn’t stay for all this on Wednesday. Instead I wandered around the main street here and tried to get my bearings.  I started to get tired around 4 and tried to get home. Well, I remembered how to get to my apartment but it quickly became clear that I didn’t remember what my apartment looked like at all.  So I trekked back to school and Jon walked me back to my apartment, which I had definitely walked by about 3 times.

Thursday and Friday I spent shadowing Josh, who has been with haegwon for 3-4 years.  He’s my teaching mentor and I’ll be taking over his classes while he goes back to the states for month.  Shadowing is good, its nice to be able to take in the class dynamics without the responsibility of teaching at the same time.  Josh has walked me through basic lesson prep and it seems pretty straight forward.  I’ve prepped the reading lessons for today and tomorrow, so we’ll see how they go...eek!  

Some pictures of my apt...

This will be my apartment until Dec 3rd when I'll move upstairs into Hannah's apartment.  This is a rental while I cover for Josh's vacation and wait for Hannah to leave.  I'm pretty sure her apartment is owned by Avalon, but I think it's pretty much the same as this one...

The First Post

My alternative titles for this blog were:

What am I doing? 

I hope they have boxed wine... 

안녕! (means 'hello' in Korean)

But this simple alliteration seemed to fit the bill.  Hopefully everyone will be able to read and see this blog once I send them the link.  If the format isn't good or it's difficult to read because of the colors, please let me know and I'll re-design.  I just got tired of playing around with the options so I just stuck with this.

Back to my Korean language tutorial!