MY JOURNEY HERE - Sorry for the Posts being out of order!

This is some good reading and you will get a good laugh reading it, enjoy!

JOURNEY BLOG ENTRIES, before I had my computer hooked up to the net:

BLOG Entry 1: Leaving Home for My Adventure

Here I sit in a bar in Tokyo, Japan where the adventure of traveling and teaching ESL has begun. I left my home town, San Diego, CA this morning to venture to South Korea to pursue an ESL teaching position that was supposed to start back in August. I ultimately found another recruiting company that promptly found me a job and here I am on my way to the next chapter of my life. The position is for a year and will be at two schools in Gunsan. For those of you that don’t know the story I was offered a job by a recruiting company called Thomas Recruiting, or so I thought I was offered a job, come to find out, there were lots of broken promises with this particular recruiting company that advertised online. It turned out to be a learning experience and then two months later, here I am waiting for my flight, having a drink in the Tokyo airport. My plane arrived early in Tokyo from LAX or the Los Angeles airport. I have yet to convert my money to the WON or the Yen here in Tokyo, luckily they took US currency for the drinks. So far the only really weird thing to report in my first BLOG posting is the 12 hour flight which left LAX at noon and it was still daylight when I arrived here in Tokyo, because it was already the next day. I didn’t sleep much on the plane, watched four movies though, “The Hangover” was the best, did some reading, Stephanie Meyer’s, “The Host” and napped a bit. I am hoping this vodka will help me sleep on my next leg, three hours to Seoul. It is currently 1:30am at home, so sorry family I didn’t call yet, too early and the internet connection cost money, so I will wait until I get to Seoul to get in touch.

BLOG Entry 2: Seoul, the Hostel, and Almost Getting on the Wrong Bus to Gunsan

Well, I made it Seoul, the alcohol drinks in Tokyo helped immensely in my ability to be able to sleep, which is all I did on the three hour flight from Tokyo to Seoul. After arriving in Seoul I had the daunting task of finding a pay phone and being able to use it in a foreign country. As per instructed by one of my sister’s, I bought a calling card before leaving the states and had to call a guy that was going to pick me up and give me a ride to the hostel. I tried several phones and none of them seemed to work. There were no real good instructions on how to make a call using the calling card not to mention use the foreign phone which all happen to be very different. Finally this guy walks up, he doesn’t speak a lot of English, and I gathered he was a taxi driver based on my first encounter with him. I am guessing the taxi business out here must be pretty competitive because I was approached by several drivers wanting me to drive with them, which was kind of creepy being approached by several men at once, all of them trying to get you to ride with them. I have to admit, the taxi driver approaching me at the phone scared me even more and all of my defenses were up, but if it weren’t for this guy putting money and a card in the phone I wouldn’t of gotten a hold of the guy how was suppose to pick me up and take me to the guest house.

The guy picked me up and was very nice. My room was quite clean and just like your normal hotel room, two twin beds, refrigerator that had a couple of waters, shampoo, towels, and a TV that had American stations with Korean sub titles. The guy even gave me a cord to get the internet and a converter to plug in my laptop and I was able to call my family and check in. I didn’t have the best connection, but my phone worked and I was able to leave a few broken messages and a short chat with my aunt Nancy in Encinitas. Once I showered and put my head down, I was out, even though it was only still morning back home. The guy told me to meet him at 7:30 in the parking garage so he could take me back to the airport and get my bus ticket and send me off to Gunsan where someone from my school would meet me and take me to my apartment. I was up early, again, not adjusted to the time and in a strange place. I woke up with the worst headache, so I ate a granola bar and took something, thank you Lord for IB Profin. When I got to the parking garage, I waited a good 20 min and finally went to get him. Apparently he forgot he was suppose to meet me or had the time wrong, he spoke little English and was simply just the guy who ran the Hostel. We got to the airport and he bought the ticket and told me where to board. I needed caffeine and had some time before the bus was leaving so I went back into the airport and exchanged the American currency that I had on me for the Won.

After getting my café mocha I proceeded to the bus stop and began to load my stuff on a bus that said Gunsan. I was sitting on the bus when I thought I better check to see if this is the right bus, so I went and asked the bus driver to look at my ticket, he said, “NO!” and basically made a motion for me to get my stuff off of his bus and I went into a panic, thinking that the guy bought me the wrong bus ticket, knowing full well, I was needing to travel to Gunsan. In my panic, there was a nice girl who spoke pretty good English that offered to pay for another ticket and asked if I was going to the Gunsan Air Base, I said, no not the airbase, but definitely the area. I quickly took my stuff off the bus and decided to just trust that the guy put me on the right bus. When the next bus came, the driver confirmed that my ticket matched the destination, although he spoke little to no English, because when I asked if I had time to use the restroom before leaving he pointed me to put my stuff on the bus again, so I didn’t risk it. When we made another stop at a different airport and I asked him the same question he pointed to one direction, which was the opposite of the sign, telling me he didn’t understand again. Seeing the sign, I sprinted to the toilet and sprinted back and here I am back on the bus and filling you on all of my adventures. The bus ride is about 3 hours, so I am going to do some reading and site seeing since we will be driving down the coast of South Korea.

BLOG Entry 3: First Two Days in Gunsan

The adventure continues. What a gorgeous country and bus ride down the coast of Korea. This country is really quite beautiful and reminded me of driving through the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia. Lots of large cities such as Seoul and Osan and then we passed many rural areas where lots of farming took place and the towns were very small. I was like a small child fighting my fatigue and trying to stay awake, being afraid I miss something as I rode the huge luxurious bus that was very clean compared to the city buses in Oceanside. As we pulled into a huge city, the city of Jeonju, I thought this is where I will be living, but it was only where the main Education office was and where they wanted to meet me and have me sign the contract again in person. Two people from the Gunsan Education office picked me up, one spoke English fairly well and understood me if I spoke slowly for her and the other was simply a driver and a person for the girl to talk to in Korean. I quickly learned that the schools and where I will be teaching is about 40 minutes away from this big congested city that reminded me of New York, lots of people and lots of movement. After the Education office, they asked me if I wanted to eat lunch and since I still had yet to eat any Korean food, I said yes. Because I am foreigner, they decided to take me to McDonalds, even though I told them that I heard the Korean BBQ is very good. They said this was quicker and we needed to save time. So my first Korean meal was ironically from McDonalds, which made me chuckle. After visiting the second Education office, this one in Gunsan, I grew tired of everyone speaking a foreign language around me, knowing full well they were speaking about me. I found myself just listening and waiting patiently for someone to fill me in, which was always a shorter version in English somehow. There was some confusion on whether I was suppose to put up a deposit and when I was suppose to receive my entrance stipend and settlement amount. My recruiter told me they would reimburse me within a couple of days of being here and both offices gave me the impression that they weren’t going to give me any money until my first paycheck, a month from now. I had to get kind of loud and forceful and even threaten to leave to come back home if they weren’t going stick with the contract. One guy left for a meeting, they spoke, they kept coming and going, I was getting irritated, the lack of sleep, not being use to the time change, and it being the middle of the night back home at this point didn’t help. Then someone finally said, my reimbursement will be in two weeks and they will be paying me an additional amount in my salary that will need to be paid toward the rent of my apartment and I would not have to pay any amount to move in or from my salary.

I am now happy and satisfied, but still tired and just ready to go lay my head down and get settled. I was glad the hospital had closed, can you believe they wanted me to go to the clinic that day too, a bit too much for one day, don’t you think? We finally went to see me apartment and I finally get to see where I will be living for the next year. It was a large apartment building not far from the Education office and about 15 minutes from both of the middle schools I will be teaching at. I will be teaching at one middle school three days a week and another two days a week, which will be nice, less lesson planning and more money per month. The apartment was nice, actually larger than my studio in San Diego and it was currently getting some renovations. It is on 15th floor, almost the top of the building, it has two rooms, a kitchen, and a tiny bathroom. I also have a small balcony which will probably serve as my clothes drying area since I will only have a washer and not a dryer. On one side of the apartment complex is a view of the yellow sea and on the other is a mountain view, where I will be able to watch the sun set every night with a pretty cool view of the city. They told me it would be ready this Monday and the school district put me up free of charge in a very nice hotel close to the Education office and not very far from my apartment although I wouldn’t be able to tell you how to get there.

My co-teacher, who is able to understand me as long as I talk slowly or write things down for her took me to dinner, walking distance from the hotel, where I finally had my first legitimate Korean meal. It was a very spicy pork mixed with a sauce and vegetables, very good, but kind of overwhelming for the gut, especially after not eating much and eating McDonalds for lunch. With the pork there were like ten different side dishes, which was all put in front of us to share, like appetizers, some good, some not, mostly served cold, except for the fish head. Kimchi was one of the side dishes, and after hearing all about Kimchi, some good and some bad, I would say it was good and will eat it again.

On Saturday morning, which is today, I ventured out in the city to explore and buy some food. I first hit up 7-eleven which has the same kind of products our 7-eleven has, except I couldn’t find a Rockstar. I settled for a coke and some green tea drink. I am finding that some things are cheaper where other things are more expensive. For instance, I bought a coke, a green tea drink, a puffy pastry that was quite delicious, and two large sized gourmet cup-of-noodles for under $4 US dollars. That would have been at least $8 in the states. The McDonalds meal with a bottle of water was only $3 US dollars, and easily $6-$7 in the states. Then there is the issue of produce and cooking items which are a little higher and my Aveeno lotion was almost twice as more for a smaller bottle

I actually got lost when I was walking around looking at everything and not remembering where I turned and thinking the church in the distance was near the hotel. Everything looks the same and most of the signs are in Korean. I didn’t panic, but my feet began to hurt from my crappy shoes(the only pair of tennis shoes I brought) when I realized I was in front of the eMart and right in front of the eMart were several taxies. The eMart is a wonderful store, much like a Super Walmart, it is a department store – grocery store – everything you need store all in one – and even McDonalds. After going into the store to buy some new shoes, I simply showed one of the taxi drivers my hotel key and he knew right away where it was, which was only a few blocks and a few US dollars later. In the eMart I also bought a nice book bag with lots of pockets (to carry stuff to and from school), a pouch sack to keep my passport and money under my clothes at all times, some bananas, and some lemons all for just under $80 US Dollars or a little over 90,000 Won.

The city really lights up at night and it is pretty cool looking from the top floor of the hotel, about half of the height of my future apartment. I was able to count about 20 glowing crosses. Supposedly Korea is one of the highest percentages per population of Christian believers in the world, so I will explore one of those churches tomorrow and hope for an English translation. If not I can always just listen to a podcast of Sean online and just enjoy the emotions of the believers here in Gunsan. I know I am going to try and watch the World Series broadcasting at 7am Sunday morning my time. I am sure they will have it on one of the hotel channels. In my hotel room I have a huge screen TV that is hooked up to a desktop computer that has access to the internet. I inserted my magicjack and was able to call all of my family and even receive phone calls. Most of the TV channels are in Korean but there are lots of channels that play American movies with Korean subtitles and of course with Korean commercials. I also have a refrigerator, couch, a queen size bed and a machine that creates instant hot and cold water, which is nice for my soups, mocha mix (which they have in the room), and for drinking water, all paid for by the school district. I start school Monday, where they want me to just observe for a week before I start teaching, which will be nice. I am excited about my first day and look forward to getting in my apartment and decorating it to my liking, although I could get use to living in this hotel with the TV, computer, water dispenser and maid.

BLOG Entry 4: Sunday, Korean Chirstians, Korean Food

I still haven’t gotten use to this time change, I went to bed last night at 5pm and woke up at 1am wide awake noticing it had cooled downed and a rain storm had started. I watched a little TV and then forced myself back to sleep, debating on taking some IB Profin to help the cause. I then woke up for the second straight night at 3am, this time I couldn’t go back to sleep so I decided to make my lemon and garlic detoxification drink. Luckily I did a stint of selling knives and just happen to have a nice set of knives and a cutting board from the experience. Here I was squeezing lemons and chopping garlic, watching Korean television at 3:30 in the morning…it was a sight to see I tell you. After drinking my concoction, I decided to try and go back to sleep around 4:30am or so, before the sun came up. The pouring down rain helped relax me and allowed me to settle down enough to sleep more. I probably would have slept more if I didn’t receive a phone call from my Aunt Nancy around 9am or so. Since I am writing this entry at 5:30pm tonight, it looks like the extra sleep is allowing me to stay up later to adjust to the time change and maybe go to bed at a later time and get a full nights rest before my first full day of work. It is going to be weird to work some full days in a row, I haven’t worked a full time job since last June, or four months ago.

I decided to go to church, since it was Sunday and there are many churches close by. I dropped into one that was four levels high, I was late and felt uncomfortable going into the sanctuary, so I sat outside and started reading my bible and listened to the Korean sermon. When I saw someone go in the closed doors of the sanctuary, I knew it was ok to be late and I wouldn’t stand out. Wrong….I was the only American out of about 100-150 and some lady insisted that I sit close to the front, practically dragging me down the aisle, she meant well I am sure, but I attracted unwanted attention during the foreign sermon. The Pastor was a female, and she must have been funny, because I heard laughter throughout the sermon. They had a choir and sang music with a piano. They had a big picture of Jesus in the background and I picked up on His name being said throughout the sermon and throughout the prayers and “Amen” is used the same in Korean as English, it was also used throughout the sermon and prayers when the Korean congregation liked or agreed with what was being said, like the southern Baptist, “Can I hear an Amen!!”

After the service I asked someone if there are any English services in the area and she quickly rushed me to someone who spoke English and even use to live in Virgina. She was so nice, welcomed me with open arms and many questions. She worked for the church and said she didn’t know of any churches in Gunsan who have sermons in English or who translate their sermons into English. She then invited me to eat lunch with her, the Pastor, another lady who also spoke English and taught ESL for the church, and some missionaries from China. We ate a huge Korean meal which consisted of seaweed soup, sticky rice, dried or fried anchovy, spicy kimchi, Gosari, mocha coffee, and for dessert, we had some Korean pears, apples, and melons. All of it was very good. I didn’t think I would like the anchovy, but mixed with the rice, it was pretty tasty. The Korean fruit for dessert was excellent. I truly enjoyed my visit with my new friends and look forward to next week’s service. One of my new friends, the girl who teaches English, wants to take me shopping tonight, so we are meeting in front of the church which is right down the street from the hotel at 7pm. She wants to hang out and help me learn Korean and the culture. She had many questions for me during the lunch and wants me to help her with her English and her ESL lessons. After church and lunch I walked back to E-mart, now that I knew where it was and had specific landmarks. I was surprised to see how crowded the E-mart was, but again it was Sunday, it was just kind of overwhelming after seeing it a few times during the week with a lot less people. I have already adjusted to the fact that Koreans can be flat out RUDE, when it comes to cutting in front of, bumping into you, and not paying attention to where they are walking or driving their carts. I did find my favorite pieces of sushi, which are all individually wrapped, so you can choose the pieces you want for .50-.60 a piece, with wasabi already put under the rice and soy sauce on the side. I also found the most delicious pastries, ten times better than any donut I have ever had for .50 apiece. I’m in heaven with the price of beer, sushi, and delicious pastries.

BLOG Entry 5: My Schools and Learning Korean

I haven’t written in a while, been busy settling in and the fact that I don’t have internet yet in my apartment has hindered my capabilities on being able to post these writings. I want to be able to document as many of my experiences as possible, day by day if I have the time. I have officially moved into my apartment and I am currently working 9 hour days at the schools. I still haven’t completely adjusted to the time change, going to bed early and waking up at weird hours of the night still. I don’t have much furniture, a bed, a table, a closet/dresser, and a TV. So, all of my furniture is in the room that over-looks the city, the mountains, and the sea. The first night of staying in my apartment I went to take a shower and realized I had no hot water. With greasy hair, I told my co-teacher the next day at school and she called the apt complex and told me that they would be here at 6pm that night to fix it. No one showed, so I went to bed with greasy hair and decided that I would wash my hair in cold water in the morning and deal with it. After all, I have washed my hair in a cold stream camping in Virginia with my ex-husband, this water is nothing compared to that brain freeze I endured back then. Then I get a knock on the door at 11:45pm….are you kidding me, what kind of maintenance person comes that late…I was half asleep and very surprised, but glad they came to give me instructions in English on how to work all of my appliances, including the switch for the hot water. Now I have hot water and know how to work my washer.

I survived the medical exam and hospital visit as it was anxiety filled and very stressful. I have never liked hospitals, especially ones that take blood and urine samples. I have learned a little Korean in a week’s time, I have learned to say “Hello”, “Glad to meet you”, and “Thank you”. I have been told by more than one Korean that my Korean is very good. I simply have been righting it down how it sounds and how I would spell the sound in English. What is ironic is the first thing I learned, “Hello”, sounds like “onya”, which is most of my name, then “has”, then “seau”, put together, “onya-has-seau”. Making it easy to remember, basically like saying “I have seau”, only one of the best Chargers to ever play for the team! To say Thank you in Korean, it sounds like your telling someone to go mop something….it is “go-mop-so-needa” means thank you…kind of cool and very helpful to know in Korean. I always like to be polite and say hello and thank you!! I have also found that it is important and polite to bow when greeting anyone as everyone does it.

My schools are awesome, the kids are awesome, the food that they feed me at lunch time is awesome. I quite possibly had the best meal I have ever eaten in my life, yes better than a bean and cheese burrito. It was an 8 course meal of like four different vegetables, some soup that I must learn to make, some fried fish with this sweet and spicy mustard sauce, these small potatoes that were rolled in this dark sweet candied sauce with some sesame seeds, of course kimchi, which comes with every lunch, and a banana. I wanted to go back for more, but didn’t want a stomach ache. I need more practice with the chopsticks and I think the teachers get annoyed watching me using them and because I have had two teachers tell me to use the spoon given, there are no forks. Both schools are loaded with technology and design their English classrooms with the best. One of the schools is about 60 years old and you can tell by the heating system and the floors, etc. But my classroom is all modern and redone and has a huge TV screen that is directly connected to the computer and the internet. I have already designed two killer PowerPoints for my first two lessons that will blow these Korean English teachers out of the water so to speak. Surprisingly the teachers who are Korean teaching English don’t speak very much English. It is like the blind leading the blind. My friend from church speaks better English than all of the teachers my schools have teaching English, no wonder they need me.

BLOG Entry 6: Getting Sick

It took a whole week to get some kind of sickness here in Korea. I knew it would happen eventually, it always does when I get out of my own environment. I woke up Friday morning early with major dizzy and room spinning spells. As it turned out, I had an ear infection that was causing vertigo-like symptoms. It was like I was drunk, without all the original fun, really sucked, especially being only my second day at one of schools. My tried to translate my symptoms and explain how I felt and my history with vertigo, something I haven’t experienced since being in Virginia, when my baby brother had to take me to the emergency room. The vertigo then caused me to pass out unexpectedly and I had two infections in my body then that I didn’t even know about. My co-teacher didn’t understand, so we had to make a few phone calls to different people so all this could be translated correctly to my co-teacher and then to the doctor. We went to the clinic and the whole process took about 20 minutes, which I was shocked, with no appointment, no insurance yet, and last minute, in the states it would have been an all day affair. We even got the medicine from the pharmacy, across the street from the clinic in the 20 minute time frame. I slept the whole day Friday, I guess my first sick day in Korea, that didn’t take long. I really didn’t feel fully better until like Tuesday, but I still was able to attend church on Sunday and work on Monday. My first week with the kids went great. I am really not teaching many classes at either school, leaving lots of down time. My down time has equated to lots of lesson planning, strategizing my fantasy teams, and keeping in touch with family. When I worked in the public schools in the states, I would teach 30 classes a week, here I am teaching 10, and only one of those classes is twice a week. I am getting paid for 40 hours and only teaching about eight of those hours. If you ask me, it’s like why am I here? It seems like a waste, but who am I to complain.

I have met a bunch of the foreign teachers who are also working out here in the public schools and they all same the same. I really don’t think the Korean English teachers like giving up their classes to the native speakers because they know that we can speak better English then them and probably even teach better. I can already see issues with one of my schools, where the co-teacher has no classroom management skills whatsoever. The kids don’t listen, do what they want, and I have no idea how they learn anything in her classes. They just carry on their own conversations as she or I try and teach. She uses a stick and is constantly banging it on the desk or the board or whatever. I refuse to use a stick and will not teach until they stop talking. Her classes are like night and day from the other classes and it all boils down to respect for your teacher. They don’t respect her, and I have to somehow change that, to gain not only respect for me, but also her. All of my classes have a co-teacher or someone who speaks Korean present. But I am trying to limit the amount of Korean spoken, forcing the kids to learn and try and listen to me talk. If they don’t understand, I want them to communicate it to me and not just take the easy way out and get everything explained to them Korean, it kind of defeats the purpose of me being here.

I am beginning to adapt to my environment and my schedule. I have finally adjusted to the time change, it took almost two weeks to adjust, which I didn’t expect at all. I no longer get up at 2am or go to bed at 7:30pm. I still don’t have internet or cable, but both schools are highly equipped technology wise and my new friends have cable. I also found a video store down the road from me that rents American movies. I went and saw an awesome movie last night after joining a few of my friends who are either from Canada or the states for a few drinks on bar street last night. Me and my new friend Joanna, who lives in the same apartment buildings as me went as saw 2012, which was a great movie, especially on the big screen. I am so glad and thankful that they have American movies and was surprised to see many Koreans going to watch an 11pm showing of one. They put the American movies out here in Korean subtitles. I can’t wait for “New Moon” to come out this December. I know it comes out early in the states, but I am just glad that it is coming out.