barely arrived when my roommate invited me to go out with some of the other teachers. I had been traveling for over 24 hours with little sleep, not showered and was pretty exhausted, but sure, why the heck not? We went bowling and that was followed by a small empty bar across the street. So that was
my welcome to Korea. And it was a pretty good one.I have a small apartment (of which I have attahed photos) which I share with a roommate who is another teacher at our school. His name is Art. He's an awesome guy and we get along great. I teach about a 15 minute walk away. I have preschool five days a week M-F from 10:00-2:30, then I have older kids the rest of the afternoon. After following the girl I'm replacing for four days, I just finished my second day of teaching by myself. Already I'm getting into the hang of it. The kids on the whole are pretty well behaved and all of the speak very good English, so there really is no comunication problem. The preschoolers actually speak the best since they have class everyday for the longest period of time. We do not allow any Korean in the classroom. The other teachers are all American with the exception of two Irish people and as I already mentioned, they are all very nice, fun people.
The city I live in is called Gunpo, it's just south of Seoul. It looks like a regular city with tall apartment buildings and lots of people. I live in a small apartment building. (See photo of it and my street.) I've attached a photo of Gunpo taken from a nearby mountain. Seoul cannot even be seen in it. The air is dirty, but I don't think it's any dirtier than say, New York, or downtown DC on a bad day. The people seem to be pretty nice thus far. I have gotten a little frustrated not knowing the language, but I'm trying to teach myself. Most people
don't speak much English so I can definitely see the need for teachers. Most times it's easy enough to get your point across with hand gestures. I've ventured into the city twice. It takes about an hour on the subway to get to Seoul proper. Downtown Seoul is similar to Gunpo except with higher buildings and even more people. It has a lot of neighborhoods that all have their own flair and appeal, which I'll discuss a little more once I've done some more exploring.Feat of the Week: Standing in a crowded subway train with no handhold, eating kim bop with chopsticks. (Kim bop is the Korean version of sushi.)
