Mom and Dad in Korea (9/29)

Our plan for Monday was to go to the Gyeongju National Museum, but we realized shortly before we left that the museum was closed on Monday, so we had to put that off until the next day.  We weren't exactly sure what to do instead, so we decided to go to a nearby tourist information center first.  I was also eager to find a phone store that might stock iPhone cables so that we could have internet access again.  The weather forecast was predicting rain and I was the only one with an umbrella, but we figured that we could buy umbrellas if we really needed them.

We'd decided to try to figure out the bus system, so we walked down to the nearest bus stop and waited (and waited, and waited).  After about 15 minutes we noticed that taxis drove along this relatively remote stretch of road, so we just hailed one down instead of taking the bus.  We really lucked out with this driver: not only did he speak surprisingly good English, but he was very helpful and friendly.  We asked him to take us to the information center, and he first took us to a very small booth near the express bus terminal.  When we showed him our map and pointed out the place we wanted, he asked us a couple times why we wanted to go there.  About the time we arrived, he was able to explain that the center was in a small strip mall that no taxis or buses went to.  He agreed to wait while we made a quick trip inside.

We didn't get much information that we didn't already have, but the staff did point out a phone store that might have what I was looking for.  Our driver took us up there, and despite the wait and backtracking the fare was only about $10.  The store turned out to be a bust - the only cable they had didn't work when I plugged it - and the few other possible stores on the block didn't carry anything for Apple products.

The nearest location within walking distance was the Daereungwon Royal Tombs park, which was full of enormous grassy mounds covering the tombs of ancient kings and queens.  (Gyeongju was at one time the capital of the Silla state, one of three kingdoms during the Warring States period and the eventual uniter.)  We had to pay 6,000 won each to enter the park, and I unsuccessfully tried to convince the ticket woman that my parents should get the senior discount; apparently it doesn't apply to foreigners.  One of the tombs, Cheonmachong, had been excavated and opened to the public, though no photography was allowed.  It was named after a famous painting of a cheonma, or eight-legged flying horse (a sort of Korean pegasus).  One of the most impressive things we saw there, actually, was a crew of workers mowing the grass on the mounds.  It took three people to work the mower: one pushing, one pulling forward, and one above them pulling the mower up to keep it from rolling down the hill.  The rest of the park was also quite nice, ending with a winding path through a small forest.

After that, we went looking for Cheomseongdae, the famous observatory that is the oldest surviving observatory in Asia.  It was supposed to be very close, but we couldn't quite figure out where to go from the park.  We asked a woman on the street, who thankfully was able to point us in the right direction.  The observatory was in a big open field that was packed with tourists and students, presumably on a field trip from various nearby schools.

Cheomseongdae was also near a huge field of rape flowers, which we walked through to get back to the road.  It was lunchtime by that point, and it was beginning to look like rain, so we wanted to find a place to eat quickly.  We choose a fairly standard-looking Korean restaurant, which (unfortunately for my dad's poor knees) had the low tables and floor seating that are common in many traditional Korean restaurants.  We ordered bibibap for me and dak galbi (stir-fried chicken) for my parents, but the waitress misunderstood and brought Mom and Dad galbitang instead, which is a soup with beef short ribs.  They still thought their food was good, though they did have some trouble picking up the hot ribs with chopsticks.  They were becoming increasingly overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of food served at each meal, and were growing more and more reluctant to eat at traditional restaurants even though they liked the food.

After lunch we went to find Anapji Pond, an artificial pond that was part of an ancient palace complex.  We had to pay to get in here, too, though I forget how much it was.  The surviving pavilions are all quite nice, though the water was an unpleasant algae green.  We did see a lot of koi swimming around in it, though.  We made a brief stop in the gift shop, then headed to a nearby bus stop.  We caught a bus back to the express bus terminal, and I took the bad iPhone cable back to the convenience store I bought it at.  I wasn't able to get a refund, but I was able to exchange it for a different, slightly cheaper one.  It was still a gamble, but I didn't have much choice.

Next, we picked up some food for dinner at the supermarket (some fruit and vegetables that Mom washed and cut up raw, as well as a few other small things) and took a taxi back to the hanok.  The driver started to make the same bad turn that the one the day before had, but we stopped him and made sure he took us up the right road all the way to the door.  I crossed my fingers and plugged in my phone, and wonder of wonders, it started charging!  (Ultimately, I had to go to an Apple store in Seoul a couple weeks after our trip to get an official charging cable because this cable barely worked with my computer, but it worked fine for charging at an outlet.)  This would make Tuesday's traveling somewhat easier, thanks to having internet access again.

Giving Thanks 2014

It's been another good year in Korea, and once again I have a great deal to be thankful for this holiday season.  While I did have to work yesterday, I'll be enjoying a delicious Thanksgiving dinner with my coworkers tomorrow night, and next Saturday I'll get to start celebrating Christmas with many of my Korean friends.  I'm thankful that, for the most part, I work with a lot of great people: my fellow foreign teachers, the Korean staff, and a lot of great students.  I'm thankful that I feel like I might have a reason to stay here for another year because I like the people and area so much.  I have a great apartment (probably the nicest I'll ever have), a five-minute commute, and I live in a nice suburban area with easy access to Seoul and all its metropolitan delights.  I'm also thankful that I've had a fairly easy semester, especially since I'm expecting the next semester to be a tough one, maybe the toughest one yet.  I'm still enjoying living overseas in Korea, and I'm still enjoying my chosen profession, which is something not everyone can say.

Even though I won't be able to go home for Christmas this year, I'm immensely thankful that I was able to spend some time with my mom and dad recently.  It wasn't long enough (it never is), but I had a great time showing them around Korea and giving them an idea of why I feel at home here.  (Maybe of one these days I'll actually finish writing about that trip!)  I have a wonderful family, and I've always been incredibly lucky to have them.  I'm also grateful that I have a lot of great friends and a more-or-less drama-free life.

I'm thankful for all the things that are so easy to take for granted: a phone, internet, electricity, running hot and cold water, quality food, (relatively) good health, peace, and so much more.  I'm aware of many (though certainly not all) of the advantages I have as a straight, white, male American, and I'm glad that I live in an era where so many people are fighting for greater equality and I can participate in my own small way.  Finally - though I'm sure there's more I can't think of right now - I'm thankful that I'm aware of how lucky I am.  It's so easy to get bogged down in the regrets of the past, the problems of the moment and the worries about the future, and forget how fortunate we are to be alive in this flawed but miraculous world.  Have a very happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Mom and Dad in Korea (9/28)

On Sunday, 9/28, we ate a quick breakfast and got ready to go exploring.  We weren't sure where to go first, but the caretaker, a very nice man who spoke a tiny bit of English, offered to drive us to the bus terminal.  We were hoping to find some tourist information, but there wasn't anything in the terminal.  (We later found out that there was a small information center just outside the terminal that we had somehow missed.)  I had read that the Gyeongju buses accepted the T-money transportation cards used in Seoul, so we went to a nearby convenience store and got two T-money cards for my parents.  I also picked up a new iPhone charging cable while I was there, though since I wouldn't be able to use it until we got back, I had to conserve my remaining battery carefully.

We finally decided that Bulguksa Temple seemed to be the big tourist draw, so we figured out which bus to take and hopped on.  The trip took about 30 minutes and dropped us off at the bottom of the hill that lead up to the temple.  We made our way up the hill slowly (my dad has bad knees), passing many roadside souvenir stands, and paid a small admission fee (4,000 won each) to enter.

Referring to the picture above, we started at the bottom right corner, walked to the temple complex in the upper left, and eventually made our way out through the gate at the bottom left.  The temple was very large and well-maintained, and enjoyable to explore.  It did have some steep stairs at a few points, which were hard on Mom and Dad.  Some highlights of the temple:

It was around 1 pm by the time we got back to the main road, so we decided to stop for lunch.  I scouted out a restaurant while my parents rested, and was called to by a restaurant owner who promised an English menu.  I checked it out and seemed promising (and I respected her go-getter attitude), so I brought my parents over and we had a good lunch.  We ordered too much food, however - three main dishes and a green onion pancake to share - and at this point my mom and dad started to feel overwhelmed by the amount of food served at Korean restaurants.  The food we ordered, rice for three, all the side dishes...the table was loaded with food, and from an American perspective it felt bad to leave so much behind.

After lunch, we worked out a plan to go to Seokguram Grotto, the site of a famous man-made Buddhist cave shrine.  The grotto is on the mountain overlooking Bulguksa, so we took a bus that goes between Bulguksa and Seokguram, which took about 30 minutes.  We paid another admission fee (4,000 won again) and then discovered that the grotto was not at the parking lot, but rather at the end of a long, winding trail.  Considering the steep drops down the mountain, we were surprised that the trail didn't have any railings, but the path was nice and wide so it didn't feel dangerous.

We had a few disappointments when we arrived, however.  The grotto was at the top of a steep flight of stairs, and after all the day's walking my parents were in no shape to climb them.  They rested at the bottom while I went up, requesting pictures.  Unfortunately, due to the delicate nature of the site, no pictures were allowed.  It was very impressive, I have to say, and they got to see pictures and a video about it later.  When I came back down we walked back to the parking lot and caught the bus down a few minutes later (lucky for us, seeing as how the bus comes once an hour).  We then took a bus back to the bus terminal and spent a little while searching for a supermarket so that we could get stuff for dinner and breakfast.  We had to ask someone at a nearby hotel, but we finally found one.

By that time we were too tired to want to figure out which bus would get us back to the hanok (and besides, we would have to walk up the hill), so we took a taxi.  (As it turned out, a taxi to the hanok was only around 4,000 won, while a bus would have been 1,500 each, so taxis were cheaper and more convenient.)  None of the taxis we took in Gyeongju had any idea where the hanok was, even after showing them the address in Korean, and this driver really made a mess of things.  He followed a sign that lead him to a pair of streets too narrow for him to drive on.  Instead of turning around and finding another way, he told us to get out and walk the rest of the way.  We weren't very far away then, but we had groceries and were tired, so it was tough.

My phone ran out of batteries on the walk up, so the first thing I did was get out my new cable and plug it in.  To my immense frustration, the cable didn't work at all and refused to charge.  We'd found an English tourist map of the city at Bulguksa, so we had some information to go on, but we had to manage the whole next day without internet access, Google maps or translation apps.  In other words, like traveling before smartphones!

Mom and Dad in Korea (9/26 - 9/27)

My mom and dad are safely back home after a long (9/26 - 10/8) visit to Korea, and I have a four-day weekend, so I finally have the time and energy to write about everything that happened.  It was a wonderful, if exhausting, trip, and I miss them terribly already.  Anyway, on with the story!

Friday, 9/26 and Saturday, 9/27

Mom and Dad flew into Incheon International Airport from San Francisco, a 12-hour flight.  They then took a free shuttle to Hotel Sky in Incheon, the hotel I stayed at for my first weekend in Korea with Baron's English Academy.  I had to teach that night until 10 pm, so I couldn't meet them that night.  I got up as early as I could on Saturday and met them at the hotel around 10 am.  I then showed them around the area I used to live in (Yeongjongdo, the island where the airport is located) and dropped by Baron's English Academy to see how things were there.  Surprisingly (or maybe not, given her normal workload), we ran into Julie Dugger, my previous boss.  We had a good talk for a little while, and she had a few recommendations for us: 1) to catch the KTX to Gyeongju (our next stop) from the airport instead of Seoul Station, 2) try to fit in a day trip to some mountains near Gyeongju that are famous for their fall foliage, and 3) to take the slow train back to Seoul to get a better view of the countryside.  Thanking her for her help, we let her get back to work and checked out of the hotel.

At the airport, we were unfortunately told that the only KTX train for Gyeongju wasn't leaving until almost 5 pm.  We wound up buying tickets for a 2:30 pm train leaving from Seoul Station, and so went there as we had originally planned.  Since we were hungry and we had time before the train left, we grabbed lunch at a Korean restaurant in the station.  Mom and Dad got their first taste of local Korean food: bibimbap for Mom and bulgogi for Dad.  The KTX only took about two hours to get down to Shingyeongju Station, and from there we took a taxi to our hanok, Dobongseodang.

It was a really nice house to stay in, with two bedrooms and a living room in the center.  The complex also had three other houses (though the north house wasn't available for renting) and a separate restroom and shower building.  I highly recommend it for anyone traveling to Gyeongju, and you can get more information at http://www.gjgotaek.kr/english/e_main.html if you're curious.

The main drawback of the place was that it was pretty isolated, more than we'd expected.  It was about 540 meters up a hill from the nearest two-lane road, which was where we could find buses and taxis.  The neighborhood was very nice, with several large gardens and fields and lots of old-fashioned houses, but there wasn't much in the way of food or supplies, and we hadn't really brought anything with us.  The first night I wandered down to the main road trying to find something I could back for dinner, but the two restaurants I found that were open wouldn't let me take anything out.  I found a convenience store with some stuff that would work for breakfast, so I walked back to the hanok to report.

My parents were too tired and not hungry enough to walk down to a restaurant, so I went back by myself.  It was about 7 pm then, and both of the restaurants and a cafe I'd looked at were all closed.  I took a chance and crossed the road to check out a lit sign, which luckily was an open crab restaurant.  The menu was all in Korean with no pictures, so I painstakingly translated everything and settled on some "seasoned crab".  I got a surprise when it arrived because it was raw crab legs covered in gochujang, a spicy fermented pepper paste.  I tried to eat it with my chopsticks and the scissors they provided, but a waitress who spoke a little English said that I should just pick it up and "nom nom nom" (her words).  She got me a big plastic glove and I dug in.  The raw crab was actually very tasty, though it was a lot of work (as crab usually is) and very messy.  They also gave me about ten different kinds of banchan (side dishes), so I got plenty to eat even though I didn't get much out of the crab.

After dinner I bought some breakfast stuff at the convenience store and walked back up to the hanok.  My parents were already asleep, and I got a nasty surprise: I thought I'd pack my iPhone charging cable, but I'd accidentally packed two Kindle charging cables instead.  My phone's battery was down to 40% already, but there was nothing I could do about it that night.  I read for a couple hours after that before going to bed to get ready for sightseeing the next day.

Seoul Lotus Lantern Parade 2014

Today I joined Joyce and the Hwagyesa Temple group in the Lotus Lantern Parade in Seoul for the second year.  Joyce and I got to Dongguk University around 3:30 pm and were the first ones there; most of the monks and laypeople got there around 4:30 pm or so.  While we waited we chatted and snacked on some rice balls and cherry tomatoes that the event staff gave us.  We listened to the opening ceremonies - a lot of chatting and a few speeches from heads of temples - and the parade began around 7 pm.  The laypeople were all given loose green robes (of sorts) to wear while we carried our lanterns.

We were told beforehand that the parade would be held in silence in honor of the victims of the recent ferry tragedy, but that was changed slightly.  Instead, they didn't have the usual music and dancers, and many people walking in or watching the parade were chanting a short chant (which sounded something like 'so ka moonie beul', though I'm probably butchering it).  The parade started at Dongguk University and ended near Anguk station.  We were packed in pretty tightly, so I couldn't see much while I was walking it, but it was a pleasant (if slightly solemn) experience.

After the parade finished, Joyce and I (along with another person from the temple, James) went to a nearby temple to admire their ceiling of lanterns.  We also walked along Cheonggyecheon Stream to see the huge float-sized lanterns there.

Joyce had to leave around 9:30 pm because she's taking the TOEIC tomorrow, but James and I got dinner at a cheap Korean restaurant before heading home.  I got back at midnight and I'm exhausted, but it was a very good day.  It's also almost one year since Joyce and I met at last year's parade, so it was kind of an anniversary celebration of our friendship.  Here's hoping I'll still be around to do it next year!

New Apartment

I finished moving into my new apartment on Sunday, which took about six hours and a lot of sweat.  Jana gave me a big hand with the boxes, and came up with the good idea to have a taxi take us and my stuff to the new place instead of lugging it all ourselves.  It took two trips, but since the distance was so short it only cost 4,000 won each trip (about $4).  One of my coworkers also helped us move the mattress up to the loft from the first floor, which was a huge help.  After I disassembled the bed frame and hauled the pieces upstairs (the ceiling is too low to use the frame in the loft), the space really opened up.  I still don't have a chair, but I have a table and a two-piece sectional couch, so I have a pretty comfortable setup with one of the couch pieces serving as my chair.

The new place is a fair bit closer than the old one (right next door to my academy instead of five minutes away), a little bigger, brighter, has a view (the old apartment had glazed windows, so I couldn't see through them), and even has faster internet.  It has some minor problems, such as a cracked faucet and some dead lights, but Avalon said they'd talk to the building maintenance about fixing that.  A slightly more annoying problem is that I don't have a microwave or fan here, and Avalon says that they're not providing them here (even though I had both in the old place).  I barely used the microwave at the old apartment because of my later schedule here, so its absence isn't a huge deal, but I may want to spring for a fan when the weather starts to heat up.  It would probably be cheaper than running the AC all night for the whole summer, but we'll see.  I'll put up a video tour of the new place once I get it nice and cleaned up!

First Week of the Spring Semester: Monday and Tuesday

My first two full days at Avalon have been pretty crazy, but fairly good overall.  The academy is in the process of moving from the second floor to the sixth floor, which started last Friday, continued over the weekend and is still in progress.  There's still a lot of clutter about, there's nowhere to plug in devices like computers, and we only got wifi and networked printers working today.  A lot of kids don't have books (which may be an unrelated problem), and the TAs have been scrambling to get us copies in a timely manner on top of everything else they do.  Another hiccup involved me being told to use one book (blue) when all the students had the red book.  (The classes switch between red and blue and this semester is red, except for one class that has red, blue and green books, but maybe not anymore.  It's all very confusing.)  Thankfully, the books are straightforward enough that I was able to teach the class fairly smoothly without looking at it.

Monday I have two good, energetic elementary school classes (which is a huge relief, since I have them three times a week) and two middle school classes that are slightly more difficult but still fairly talkative.  Tuesday is looking to be considerably more difficult, with two more elementary and middle school classes are are all really quiet.  The middle school classes are also enormous, with 18 and 15 students respectively.  Considering that both are speaking classes, I barely know what to do with them.  I'm grateful that the kids have been well-behaved and do their work with very little prompting; the worst problems have been kids chatting with their classmates in Korean and one case of eating in class.  Still, I need to find some way to make the material more interesting for them, or every class with them is going to be painfully boring.

The constant running between buildings is already beginning to wear on me, though.  There are swarms of kids leaving after almost every period, forcing me to choose between hurrying down the stairs or waiting for an overcrowded elevator.  (I usually pick the stairs.)  It takes me about 6-7 minutes to take a few notes on the class, erase the board, pack up my stuff (we take our markers and eraser with us) and rush over to the other building.  Since the break between classes is only five minutes long, I'm almost always late for my next class, and good luck trying to use the bathroom or get a drink of water under these conditions.  A snack gets dropped off in the faculty rooms around 7 pm, but I don't ever see it until classes are done for the day at 10 pm.  Even though Wednesday is my busiest day with a full five classes, I'm actually looking forward to it because I have four elementary school classes in a row, which means no building switching until the last class.

The vast majority of my classes I only see once a week, with one class twice a week and two classes three times a week.  It comes out to 15 different classes total, ranging from 2-18 students each, and every month I'm expected to write a short paragraph (3-4 sentences) about every student so that the Korean teachers can make phone calls to the parents.  I'm not looking forward to it, needless to say.

New Mailing Address

Here's my new school's address.  For the purposes of sending me mail, it's better than my apartment because the apartment building has unsecured mailboxes.

1031-2 Golden Bell Tower 6F
Jung-4 dong, Wonmi-gu, Bucheon-si, Gyeonggi-do
South Korea, 420-020

Medical Check-Up

Friday morning was 'feel like an idiot' day at the local hospital. I needed to get another medical check-up to renew my visa and Avalon recommended I do it as soon as possible and as early in the day as possible, so I skipped dinner last night in order to get up early and get it done.

I got to the hospital around 10 am, but couldn't find where I was supposed to go. A friendly doctor helped me find the right place, but I'd completely forgotten that I needed to bring my passport and some passport photos. It seemed to be okay, but I need to bring them when I come back next Friday to pick up the three copies of the report I need. It also cost me 135,240 won out of my own pocket; Avalon apparently isn't reimbursing me for it, which I'm not thrilled about.

I was then directed to go to the changing room and change my clothes, where the next round of embarrassment began. Not realizing that I only needed to take off my jackets and shirt and change into a hospital shirt/half-gown, I walked out without any pants on. A nurse directed me to put them back on, but then I forgot to put on any slippers, so I had to go back and get those, too. After that things went pretty smoothly, though I did have to sheepishly admit that I didn't speak enough Korean to understand their questions in every room. The staff spoke enough English to tell me which room to go to next, but not much more. They checked my blood pressure, height, weight and waist size, took urine and blood samples, took a chest X-ray, and checked my teeth. Thankfully, the whole thing only took about an hour, and that was including all my fumbling about.

Moving Day

Lot to talk about today, more because I wrote half of this yesterday on my phone and then Facebook auto-updated and erased it all >:(

Taught two more classes on Friday that went really went, and got my final schedule for next semester with 20 classes instead of 22.  Score!  Now I'll be teaching four classes on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, five on Wednesday and three on Friday.  I still have to be at the office from 2 - 10 pm even if I start late or finish early, but I'm sure I'll have plenty to do for quite a while.

Moved into my new apartment yesterday.  It's a loft, so the bed is upstairs.  There's also no key because the door has an electronic lock that runs on four AA batteries.  It seems pretty good, except that the departing teacher got locked outside for two hours yesterday because the batteries died, so that's something to watch out for.  I have quite a bit of storage space, but no drawers, so I'll probably need to buy something to put my socks and such away in.  There's also no table or chair, which I'll want to get to make using my computer more comfortable.  The windows are opaque, though I'm on the third floor and face the adjacent building anyway, so there wouldn't be much of a view.

I went out a few times yesterday to get stuff, most notably food so I could finally have a decent breakfast again.  (Hello, bananas, cereal and soy milk!  I've missed you!)  Avalon bought me a new blanket and pillow set, and I took the existing blankets to a nearby dry cleaner on the departing teacher's advice.  I think I spent close to 200,000 won on stuff yesterday, and I'm not done yet.

I also, frustratingly, ran into some fairly serious computer problems yesterday.  My computer started freezing on startup and occasionally crashing because of a machine check exception.  Once or twice it let me past the startup screen, only to freeze a few minutes later.  I finally figured out that it only freezes if starts up while connecting to the public/unsecured wifi I've been using.  If I turn on my computer and then connect, there's no problem.  (The departing teacher used his phone as a hotspot instead of getting internet service, so I have to make do until I can call someone, which won't be until Monday.)  It would appear that there's a hardware issue with my wifi adapter, which doesn't make me happy.  I've checked thoroughly for viruses and haven't found anything there.

Today I go back to Incheon to get my boxes so I can finish unpacking and get a little more settled in.  Monday I start teaching a full class load; it's going to be tough, but so far the classes don't seem too hard to teach.  I'm sure everything with be fine! *waits for disaster to strike*

First Classes at Avalon

I forgot to mention it last night, but I taught my first two classes yesterday. The first was a Glide Intermediate (GI, mid-high level elementary) Speaking class that I'd observed on Tuesday and gotten along with well, so it was a good first class. The second was a Mountain Intermediate (MI, mid level middle school) Speaking/Writing class, which was a bit more difficult. I hadn't met the students before, and I'd been warned that they might be very quiet, but I managed to get them to talk a fair amount without too much awkward silence. Another small challenge was that, as a speaking and writing class with two books, it was up to me to decide how much time to spend on each book.

I was, unsurprisingly, really nervous before both classes (a combination of performance anxiety and the difficulty of meeting new people), but the classes went better than I expected, and a lot better than my first classes at AEON and Baron's. I'll be teaching two more today before jumping into the full five classes on Monday, and hopefully they'll also be good!

First Day of Training at Avalon and First Impressions

Finished my first day of training at Avalon.  I observed four classes with different ages and skill levels, learned about the different levels and types of classes, and got a look at my schedule starting next Monday.  The school is a LOT bigger than I thought; there are five foreign teachers including me, plus an equal (or greater) number of Korean homeroom teachers.  The school is split into two campuses, of sorts, in adjacent buildings, with the elementary school students in one building and the middle and high school students in the other.  Each building also has its own manager and support staff, including front desk people and assistant teachers (all Korean) who make copies and such.  The elementary school campus also shares space with an Avalon Math hagwon with its own teachers.  Needless to say, it was a big shock walking into the faculty room and seeing over a dozen people there.

For the skill levels, elementary students are divided into Dash, Jump, Glide, and Little Nokjiwon classes, with Dash being the lowest level.  (Nokjiwon students have lived in English-speaking countries before and are generally near-fluent.)  Middle schoolers are divided into Horizon, Mountain, TOEFL, and Nokjiwon.  Each of these levels has a beginner, intermediate and advanced sublevel (with the exception of TOEFL, which is from 1-4, and the nokjiwon classes).  The youngest students are in fourth grade, and the oldest are in middle school.  The high school classes are all taught by the Korean teachers.  The Korean teachers also usually teach the grammar and reading classes, while the foreign teachers handle speaking, listening and writing.  The kids either come on M/W/F or T/Th, with special classes (such as debate) on Wednesdays.

The work day starts at 2 pm, and from 2 - 3 pm is class preparation.  Lunch time is anytime after 3 pm until 4:15 pm, which is when the first class starts.  (There is a free lunch room in another adjacent building, but the foreign teachers I went to lunch with said that usually only the Korean staff eats there and that the Koreans and foreigners don't generally mingle.)  Classes are 65 minutes long with a five-minute break between classes, so from 4:15 - 10 pm it's straight classes (4:15 - 5:20, 5:25 - 6:30, 6:35 - 7:40, 7:45 - 8:50, 8:55 - 10 pm).

My schedule looks like it has some positives and some negatives.  I don't have a 4:15 - 5:20 class on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and I finish at 8:50 on Friday, though Mondays and Wednesdays I have the full 4:15 - 10 day.  I don't have any of the lowest level elementary school students, though I do have middle school school students from Horizon Beginner (HB) to Mountain Intermediate (MI); no TOEFL at this time.  I will be bouncing back and forth between buildings, however, which is only going to get worse once they finish moving the elementary school campus from the 2nd floor of its building to the 6th floor.  Those five-minute breaks are basically going to be nonexistent for much of the evening.  The school also has intensive seasons in summer and fall for a month each when the kids are out of school; then the workday changes to 9:30 am - 6:30 pm and my daily class load changes from 5 to 6.  I'm not looking forward to it (though I will be paid overtime), but there's no point worrying about it now.

First impressions are generally good; most of the kids I met today were very well-behaved and had surprisingly good English.  The people seem nice, though I've probably already forgotten half their names.  I was worried about jumping into a new school with new students and staff and a new way of teaching, but I feel more comfortable that I'll be able to make a somewhat smooth transition.  Here's hoping I can pick it all up quickly!

Bucheon Wandering

Jana and I met up at Bucheon City Hall station today to explore the area and look for a place for me to stay.  After wandering through the very large Hyundai department store, we had lunch at the food court of the eMart across the street from the department store.  We then went in search of somewhere to stay, asking people on the street and in a few real estate offices.  (Well, Jana did all the asking; I just stood there and smiled and nodded like I knew what they were talking about.)  We finally ran into a very nice ajusshi (a polite term for an older gentleman you don't know) who actually took us up to a goshiwon on the 7th floor of a nearby building instead of just giving us directions.

For all my talk yesterday of not wanting to bother with a goshiwon unless it was necessary, this one seemed nicer and more comfortable.  The rooms were still tiny, but were bigger than the ones in Seoul (by maybe six inches, but still an improvement), and they had a room available with a large window that took up most of the far wall.  Seeing the place in the day might have also helped; we visited all the places around Konkuk University at night.  The manager was quite surprised when we came in, and honestly didn't know how much to charge us for only five days (since the rooms are usually rented by the month).  She made an offer of 80,000 won for the five days, but when I showed my reluctance she lowered the price to 70,000 won.  I wasn't expecting to say yes, but it felt like a good place, it would let me explore the Bucheon area, and the price was right.  I'll have to use the public bathroom and showers, and I'll be their novelty foreigner for a few days, but I will have access to free rice, kimchi and some other side dishes in the public kitchen!

I signed a small agreement and paid upfront, and then we had to go.  Jana had a private lesson back in Seoul and we'd taken a bit longer than we'd expected, so she had to rush off.  I took the time to map out the route to the goshiwon very careful, taking notes on directions and landmarks and walking back there twice to make absolutely sure I knew how to find it again.  I wandered around some more on my own to take some pictures of the numerous sculptures, and eventually made my way to a movie theater on the 5th floor of a department store connected to the Hyundai department store.  There wasn't anything I wanted to see, but I suspect it will be nice to have a movie theater right across the street from my school.  I was getting hungry around 5:30 pm, and the department store had two conveyor-belt sushi places, but it felt a little too early for dinner, so I headed back to Incheon.

It's been automatic for me to refer to Incheon as 'home', but very soon it'll be Bucheon I'll call 'home'.  I didn't pay much attention to the area when I came for my interview - why bother if I don't know how the interview will go, I figured - but it feels like a place where I could be quite comfortable.

Goshiwon Exploration

I went out to Konkuk University station on the east side of Seoul to meet up with Jana and consider the possibility of staying at a goshiwon from the 19th to the 24th.  What's a goshiwon?  Well, it's a very cheap, very Korean place to rent a tiny room for a while, usually by college students looking for a quiet place to study for a month or so.  What do I mean by tiny?  The room is as long as the bed, which is tucked under the desk at the far end, and is as wide as the bed plus the chair at the desk.  A window about the size of a hardcover novel may or not be present.  They're a step up from the capsule hotels in Japan, but not by much.

Since they usually rent the rooms by the month, the rates were fairly high for just five days.  The first goshiwon wanted 20,000 won per night, though we talked the second place down to 15,000 won per night.  The manager wasn't there at the third place, but Jana called him and got an offer of 50,000 won for all five nights for a room without a window, or 70,000 won for a room with a window.  She suspected that his not knowing I was a foreigner had something to do with the lower price, but there was no way to know for sure.

The manager at the first place had commented, as Jana translated, that he usually didn't rent rooms to foreigners because they were too picky.  My first response was, "Well, maybe I'll show him!"  My second response, however, was, "Why?"  Sure, they're cheap and it would be a novel experience, but don't need to live in a windowless closet for a week and be the subject of curiosity and scrutiny as the only foreigner there, especially not to prove something to some stranger.  I'm sure I'm experiencing some American entitlement, but my finances are in good enough shape to afford a modest level of comfort, so I see no reason not to stay somewhere more comfortable.  A little bit of culture shock was probably involved as well.

Also, it doesn't really make sense to me to stay on the east side of Seoul when my new job and apartment will be in Bucheon, which is on the west side of Seoul.  Jana and Soee both live in the Konkuk University area, so they knew about a lot of these places.  They were really hoping that I'd find somewhere I like in the area, so I was sorry to disappoint them, but it ultimately didn't seem worthwhile.  I can visit Konkuk University any time I like, but it would be more useful to get familiar with the Bucheon area.  Besides, why haul my luggage from Incheon to Konkuk University to Bucheon when I can go from Incheon to Bucheon to somewhere else in Bucheon instead?

Jana and I are going to look around Bucheon tomorrow.  It would be nice if I found somewhere reasonably comfortable to stay for a decent price then; if not, there's plenty of hostels and guesthouses and such I can book online in Incheon or Bucheon, so I'm not worried about finding a place to stay.  It's finding a GOOD place to stay that's the trick!

Employment Emergency

Unfortunately, I got some very bad news tonight.  My bosses had an emergency dropped in their lap this week: roughly 30 students, or about 1/3rd of the school, suddenly and mysteriously quit the school for unknown reasons.  They're desperately scrambling to figure out why, but in the meantime they're going to have to take over teaching many of the classes themselves to salvage things until the start of the school year in March.  The result is that they had to let me and another coworker go, effective today.

They feel absolutely terrible about it, and they're going to do everything they can to get us new jobs.  They assured us that it had nothing to do with our performance, and that they fully intended to have us stay another year before this happened.  We'll be able to stay in our apartments for as long as we need to, and we'll be paid for December and January.  This weekend they'll be writing glowing letters explaining the situation that we can send to prospective employers, and they're going to call some recruiters that they trust to get us started on the job hunt.  They also said that, if we were available in March, they'd like to have us come back, though obviously the way things are now they couldn't guarantee anything.

It was quite a surprise to hear this, though I'm honestly doing okay.  I'd had a feeling that I might not have a second year at Baron's, so I got over all the stress of that possibility before Christmas.  I certainly wasn't expecting to lose my job today, and it sucks, but that's life.  I'm very grateful for the Buddhist philosophy I've been learning at Hwagyesa Temple in Seoul because it helped me realize (before this happened) that I was afraid of losing this job because I was attached to the school and the people there.  Recognizing that allowed me to mentally prepare for the possibility of change, so while I am sad, I'm not freaking out like I probably would have a year earlier.  Everyone I've talked to about it so far has been shocked that I'm taking this so well!

I'll definitely miss the school and all (well, most) of the kids, but I had a good ten months with them and I feel like I ended things on a good note.  It's also an opportunity to find work in Seoul and be closer to all my excellent friends there, and I can devote more time to my writing (which I've done precious little of since finishing my second screenplay) while I'm on the job hunt.  Who knows, maybe things will turn around here as suddenly as they went bad and I'll go back to Baron's in a couple months.  I'm going to stay in Korea, and I have no doubts about my ability to find employment soon.  There's going to be a lot of uncertainty in my life for the foreseeable future, but I'm doing okay and I'm confident that everything with turn out alright :)

Sunrise Watching on the Korean East Coast

To celebrate the new year, Joyce and I decided to join a meetup to watch the sun rise on the Korean east coast.  The trip cost us 30,000 won each (~$30) for the tour bus and guide.  We met the group at 11:15 pm on December 31st and boarded the bus a short while later.  After ringing in the new year at midnight (and sharing a small cup of white wine the meetup group leader brought), we settled in and tried to get some sleep.  Unsurprisingly, we didn't have much success; it's hard enough to sleep on a bus, but we also made three pit stops (lasting between 30-60 minutes each time) and they turned the lights on in the bus every time we stopped.  I maybe got an hour of uncomfortable sleep, but most of my time was trying trying and failing to get any meaningful rest.

We finally arrived on the east coast at the city of Samcheok at around 5 am.  The sun was expected to rise at 7:30 am, and we were told to be back at the bus by 8:20 am or risk being left behind.  Joyce and I left the bus at 5:20 am, though we hadn't been given any directions on where to go from there.  We wound up simply following the largest groups of people and made our way to a cliffside observation spot above the nearby beach.  It was already crowded by then, but we managed to find a good spot standing at a railing.  We chatted idly about movies for a little while, though we were both too tired to make much conversation, and shared a sandwich she had made for breakfast.  We also watched as people on the beach and a ridge close by released small red lanterns/hot air balloons into the air (each containing a written wish), as well as the movements of the fishing boats in the water (catching squid, she said).  Eventually, at 7:41 am the sun rose, and everyone took out phones and cameras to take a million pictures.  A lot of people also took selfies (selkas, or self cameras, in Konglish) with the rising sun in the background.

When we were finished admiring the sunrise, we joined the departing crowd and headed back to the bus.  While on our way to the next stop, we snacked on a couple bananas Joyce brought and split some Ghirardelli chocolates my family had sent me for Christmas, then napped a little more.  Our next destination was Mukho harbor in the city of Donghae, where we were given free time from 9:30 am to 11:50 am.  Joyce and I set off on our own and climbed the hill to the Mukho lighthouse, admiring the many, many murals and other artwork on house and buildings in the neighborhood.

Once we finished thoroughly exploring the steep, narrow alleys and taking dozens of pictures, we went back down and had lunch at one of the many seafood restaurants in the area.  The menu was limited, but Joyce picked a dried pollack soup with daikon radish and bean sprouts for us that was very good.  (I'm not sure of the name - hwangtaeguk, maybe - and I forgot to take a picture.)  I picked up the tab (paid the bill, for any English learners reading this!) for lunch since she provided breakfast.  We didn't have a lot of time left, but we quickly walked through a seafood market and checked out the small fishing boats in the harbor before going back to the bus.

The next part of the tour involved driving along the east coast, which turned out to be fairly underwhelming.  The best view were on the right side, but Joyce and I were sitting on the left side.  The bus turned back around after about an hour, but we were too tired to really care by that point.  It started to snow a couple hours in, and we got stuck in traffic (most likely a combination of the weather and everyone going home) for a long time.  Joyce fell asleep for about three hours almost as soon as we started driving, and I did my best to do the same.  I read a tiny bit before remembering that reading in cars and on buses made me motion sick.  I tried to follow the movie the driver put on, then tried and failed to ignore it.  (it was a despicable film that I already thoroughly lambasted on Facebook, so I won't repeat myself here.)

This unfortunately wound up making me very motion sick around 5 pm, and I spent the next hour sitting up at the front watching the road very, very carefully and concentrating very hard on not throwing up.  We mercifully made a pit stop around 6 pm and I was able to get my stomach under control, and we arrived in Seoul at about 7 pm.  Joyce and I said our farewells and parted ways for the night, and I got back to my apartment around 9 pm, almost exactly 24 hours after I left to join the group.  I ate a quick dinner, took some advil for the headache that had been plaguing me all day, and relaxed for a couple hours before crawling into bed for some much-needed rest.

Overall it was a good trip, as I got to do some new things (such as watching the new year's sunrise and visiting another province) and see some beautiful urban artwork.  However, the traveling was miserable and reminded me of why I hate early-morning activities and long car/bus rides.  At least I got a ton of nice pictures out of it!

Happy New Year, everyone!