My first week in Yeongju in a VERY large nutshell

It has been an eventful week. Read at your own risk--this is very long!

For my BW3s peeps (Shelly, Gilbert, Norma, Carolyn): At orientation, after one of the lectures, the EPIK staff provided for us some delish chicken with a sweet and soury batter. My buddy Dan and I were so in love with them that we hunted this place down and ordered some for ourselves. Being so far away from Buffalo Wild Wings has been a travesty. I have now found the closest replacement to my BW3s and hope to give them as much tender, love, and care as I did to my parmesan garlic and honey bbq wings.


On the first day of school, all the new staff and teachers (myself included) were taken into another room where the Principal sat at a desk with a beautiful mountainous view backdrop and the rest of us had to stand against the wall. They whipped out a video camera where the Vice Principal introduced all of us. I had to bow into the camera. I have no idea where this footage is going to be shown.

I spent the entire week doing absolutely nothing. I practiced some Korean, wrote in my journal, watched some episodes of the Office on my Ipod, and when I was finally hooked up to the internet on Friday, I surfed the net. Very eventful. I am anxious to get into the classroom!

I did observe one teacher's 6th grade class one day and met all of his students (I will be teaching them English). I sat in the back of class and as the teacher was going on about Korean history and trying to explain some of it in English for me, the students kept looking back and staring at me like I was going to suddenly turn into an alien. During the break, a lot of the students came up to me to introduce themselves. I was impressed with some of their language skills as well as their eagerness to show me how much they already know. One particular girl told me it is her dream to go to America because she thinks the boy from "A Cinderella Story" is very very very very handsome (I later remembered the actor's name as Chad Michael Murray).

Lunch at the schools is awesome! Unlike back home, all of the food is cooked in the kitchen an there's something different every day. No more pre-packaged nasty stuff. However, they are served on prison trays:



After lunch the female teachers always meet in the science room to brush our teeth. Then we sit and have tea together. It is strange that we have a one hour break for lunch and then spend a good another hour just chatting and having tea. These teachers are quite a friendly bunch and love trying to show off their VERY minimal English skills.

On the first day of school, all the staff went out to dinner as a welcome party. We went to a local restaurant with floor seating. They would bring a few dishes at a time that everyone would pick at. Then the food just kept coming and coming. I swear it was neverending. THERE WAS SO MUCH FOOD. We went out to dinner a second time and had a very delish meal again, a very spicy beef stew:



And a ton of Soju (Korean's version of a cheap watered down vodka) and beer. I tried to try most things, some of them new for me (like eating raw beef). I did fairly well this time around with sitting on the floor by warming up the circulation my legs with chopsticks and then alternating my legs every few minutes. The rest of the time was spent giving each other shots. Then, as is huge in Korean culture, the entire group went out to a norae bang (karaoke room). I had been to a few during orientation with other foreigners and that was a grand time!


They provide tambourines for the percussion part of any song.


At the norae bang, most of the men were drunk, so they often came up to me and tried to speak in English. I had some funny conversations with them. From all of these, I basically learned that Soju is the best. They are way into these norae bangs and it's very amusing. I was even coerced into singing. I was going to bust in with some hardcore Nirvana or Eminem but decided with better judgment to go with Billy Joel's "Uptown Girl." Then I did another rendition of "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" by the Darkness, but I don't think anyone understood why I was trying to sing most of it in falsetto. My principal is a super kind man as well and has been very worried about my state of being here. It is very heartwarming.

It snowed for the first time since I've been here and it is SO much more beautiful than back home. There are so many more trees and mountains to really enhance the fall of snow. I wish I had taken more photos of the drive to Bonghwa because the view was breathtaking. Here are a few shots I managed to take in Bonghwa. At the school everyone was so fascinated by the snow we took many group shots. Luckily we had a nice view behind Naesung Elementary.


My coteacher, Chun Hee, and I



The view of the mountains after most of the snow had melted. This was taken on our way to Andong. Come spring these should be blooming with beautiful flowers. I cannot wait!

One of the mornings we had decided to take the bus to school because my coteacher is afraid of driving in the snow. As we were waiting for the bus, a taxi pulled up and offered to drive us to the school for 2,000 Won each (about $2) whereas bus is 1,800 Won ($1.80) so only being .20 more we took it. Turns out my ride was free because the driver had 2 grandchildren at Naesung Elementary and was very grateful to have me there as an English teacher. I was very flattered to know that my services will
be appreciated!

I was also taken to the Bonghwa Education Office to meet the superintendent and other supervisors. My coteacher told me (at least this is how she translated it) that the supervisor said because I am asian, everyone has been very friendly to me. While I do see that as being true, I can't be too sure if that was supposed to be the correct translation, but that's what she told me. Either way, I'm not surprised. I also got to finally see the other 2 schools I'll be working at. Surprisingly, the 3rd one is the smallest, furthest, and only has about 60-70 students and the coteacher there speaks the best English I've heard so far since my arrival in this town! How random. It sucks that I was not able to spend more time at these schools, though. Because I had spent every day in Naesung, I was able to get to know the staff pretty well and feel very comfortable. It won't be the same at the other 2 schools.

I also met up with John, another EPIK teacher from my orientation. It was nice to see another westerner and to be able to speak English at a normal rate as well as compare horror stories. He also met another teacher randomly on the street. And through him, I was able to meet all of the other native English teachers that are living in Yeongju. It was great to finally meet others, even though most of them were couples. We ate at a local restaurant owned by a Canadian chef (very delish but expensive food) and went out to a few bars, one particularly being a karaoke transgender bar. Very interesting to see...we also learned that Korean culture is very repressed and that all of these transgender women live double lives as their families have disowned them and they must act and dress as men during the day. For them, the repression of being transgender is a part of their culture and they could never see themselves getting anywhere close to where many other countries are today in terms of the LGBT community. More on this later.

A million more things happened this week but this blog has taken nearly 2 hours to do and frankly, it's enough. First day of real teaching tomorrow!

By the way, I got married at orientation! I just needed the easy access into England.