Crash Course in Korea!

Greetings from sunny Seoul, South Korea!  We have been here only 8 days, though it feels like longer, and I just realized that I am now starting my fourth consecutive year of blogging!  We arrived late Monday evening, along with about six other teachers who, unbeknownst to us, were on the same flight as us.  Singapore Airlines treated us well, although they tried to tell me my violin would not fit on the plane as a carry-on and I would have to check it.  Haha, that was not going to happen, and turns out there was PLENTY of room for it.  We did have to check an extra bag than we were planning, but they were nice and didn't charge us for it.  Anyway, after about sixteen hours of traveling, we arrived and were met by reps from the school, and after the hour drive to the school were soon settled in.

The Japanese Chapel, where we receive most of our training

Our colorful new bank cards!

Life soon settled into a busy but relatively predictable schedule.  Breakfast in our own private foreign teacher cafeteria at 8:00 (cereal, toast, bagels, and bananas.  Apparently there is a Costco nearby), then worship, and then class teaching us how to teach.  We have three different classes we'll be teaching, and each requires quite the training, especially for those of us without an education background.  We have classes until 12:00, when we have lunch in the main cafeteria with other staff from the school.  This meal is very authentic and always consists of rice, seaweed (called 'kim'), kimchi (pickled cabbage in chili).  Then they usually have some kind of soup, like tofu soup, beansprout, mushroom, potato, etc. And they often have things like cabbage salads, tofu or rice dumplings, or their version of momos (called mandu), followed by fruit for dessert.  Typically tasty, although some of our less-traveled co-workers are taking a bit longer to adjust to things like seaweed and pickled cabbage.  12:00-5:00 consists of more classes, which I'll go into later, and 5:00 is dinner in our caf again, consisting of more kimchi, seaweed, and rice, and then something typically more American, like pasta or haystacks.  We've all become much more adept at chopsticks since arrival, as it is all we are provided at lunch, and we usually use them at dinner too.  The first few days after dinner we had observations of classes, and lately we've been having some homework such as preparing a lesson plan or studying for quizzes on the material, but mostly evenings are our own. 

The bank provided us refreshments while we waited :)

We have also done a few other activities on various days.  One of the first days, we went to the SDA hospital to get some routine blood work and physical check-up done as a requirement of our visa.  We also spent a couple of hours opening up bank accounts for all of us so we can receive our first paycheck :)  We've had cultural lessons, heard all our fellow teachers testimonies, and been given a crash course in the Korean language and writing system (called 'Hongul').  This is just been a brief introduction to our Korean culture before I got too far behind in my blogging.  We are only here in Seoul for another week, staying at a guest house with the other teachers for 2 weeks of orientation and training at the main institute before they send us out to various institutes in Korea; we'll find out where exactly in just a couple short days!  More to come!  Listed below are a few facts about Korea. 

Our lovely guesthouse

• South Korea consists of 38,691 sq mi
• The 2010 census put the population at 48,875,000, with about 11 million living right here in Seoul (the capital)
• Our time zone is 16 hours ahead of west coast time
• The currency is called a Won, and $1= W1,127
• We are back to the right side of the road
• Most people (about 50%) claim no religion, but those who do are mainly Christian (18% Protestant, 11% Roman Catholic), followed by Buddhist (22%)

  

  The Korean Flag