Picture Update!

Hamburger in a bag... GROSS!! I went to go around the corner to get a snack on a break at school the other day and Bri asked me to get her something so I brought that back for her as a joke haha. We opened it to check it out but nobody ate it thank goodness, you probably would have ended up in the hospital after that.



Some of us out for Michelle's birthday (the girl in the yellow in the front). We met these girls through Kevin and Daniel, our friends that used to be here from WSU. They live in Dongtan near us but don't teach at the same school. Fun nights with new friends!



Crazy laser things! People are still allowed to smoke inside so it is kinda of smokey! That combined with the lasers and fog machine = fire hazard. Haha fun time though


This is a picture of the common street food vendors. Supposedly they sell "street meat", which nobody really knows what exactly it is. I have yet to try anything from these guys but I know they will get me eventually with the late-night snack!



The group out for Ta-Leah's (the girl second from the left) I've-Been-In-Korea-For-Exactly-Ten-Months anniversary dinner! We tried to go to an Indian restaurant in Suwon, but it turns out they were closed as they were leaving the next day to go back to India for two weeks! We ended up at this little restaurant down the street, which was a blessing in disguise because the food was just amazing!



This quite possibly could have been one of the best meals I've ever had. I don't even know how to explain what it tasted like but it was SO good! The base is kind of like a teriyaki, thai, soy, ridiculously spicy thick sauce. There's chunks of dark meat chicken in it, lots of veggies, these things called rice cakes which are basically really thick chunks of pasta, and a bunch of "chewy" noodles on top. This was another dish that you let heat at your table and then eat it out of the communal pot! Not to worry though, they bring side dishes like kimchi and salad to keep you occupied while youre waiting for it to cook! We also got "service", which is just something the restaurant/bar throws in for free, like extra meat or an extra side dish. This time we got a traditional rice wine which was served in pieces of tree! Overall a really amazing meal.



Typical side dish in Korea that they bring to you with your meal, if you can't tell it's a bunch of dried little fish! Anchovies maybe? I tried it, but I am NOT a fan. Gross.




Hahah one of the funniest things I've ever seen! In between sleeping almost the entire ride, this man literally stared at Katie the entire 30 minute subway ride home from Pyeongtaek. Katie's expression is just so funny!



Cool picture of Suwon at night!




What a lady!



Some of the kids on Science Day when we made stethoscopes! This picture is them trying to listen through the floor with the project, right before they used the homemade stethoscopes to yell in my ear!




Trying to figure out their science projects!



Brown English Language School, now transitioning to LCI, where I will be working! It snowed!



Half of the group at Outback Steakhouse for Kevin and Daniel's (the two boys in the middle of the table) going away dinner. They were the two guys we knew from WSU and it was sad to see them go! But I can't complain about a free steak dinner :)



Katie, Bri, Lyla and myself waiting for the rest of the group at Shabu Shabu. They bring a huge pot of broth and vegetables over and it goes on that burner in the center of the table, you add meat and noodles to it, wait for it to cook then eat it! Delicious (and spicy)!!



Seafood shabu shabu! This is all the stuff you put in the broth and wait for it to cook, looks like a nice selection of squid and octopus on that one. I prefer the beef option.



The octopus after it cooked in the broth, I ate it! Didn't really taste like much, it's just reallllly chewy!



One of my favorite kids Noah. He is such a character if you can't tell haha



Katie talking to Charlie in the teacher's room... Charlie is so adorable!

End of Week 1 and First Weekend Out!

Wow, I thought I would be so good at keeping up with the blogging but it has already been a week since my last post! I will try to write more often, at least a couple times a week. We have just been so busy lately getting settled in (even thought I still don’t even feel close to being all settled here) and learning the ways at school. So let me start again back last week!

So since the original school we were going to be teaching at, Brown English Language School, just recently got bought out my LCI (a chain English school in Korea), we haven’t started teaching our own classes. I have been observing teachers in the classroom all week as well as this week and helping out wherever I can. Brianna and Katie ended up taking over Kevin and Daniels schedules, the two guys we knew from WSU, since they left last weekend because their contracts were up. So this set of kids graduate in a week or so and after they graduate, we get a whole new set of kids enrolled for the LCI school. So starting in March we will each have our own classrooms that we get to set up and decorate, and our own kids we will have until their graduation. I am so excited to finally have my own class and meet all my kids! I know they will be extra cute and I’m going to try to make mine the smartest in the school haha.

So last week on Thursday, since Kevin and Daniel were leaving, all of the Korean teachers and all the English teachers (about 15 of us in all!) went out to dinner at Outback Steakhouse. I guess it is a tradition whenever new teachers arrive and whenever old teachers leave to all go to dinner together here, and the whole meal is paid for by the school. I definitely filled up on my share of free appetizers and steak! I tried so hard to save room for dessert, since I mean it was all free, but we all ended up sharing so many appetizers and break that I couldn’t do it. They drip their bread in chocolate sauce here as an appetizer, it was soo good!!!!
A big group of us also went out for shabu-shabu the other night. It is a style of dinner where you have a big pot of spicy broth with vegetables and potatoes in the middle of the table and you add meat to it. The meat cooks, and you take the pieces out to eat them. It is fun because it is very interactive and you can share everything, which means I can eat other peoples’ food too! What’s better than that? It was a pretty traditional restaurant; we have to take our shoes off at the door. Stores and restaurants here never have public restrooms; the bathrooms are always located in the hallways of the buildings. So that makes it fun when you have to keep putting your shoes on and taking them off whenever you need to use the bathroom! I also tried to make spaghetti at my apartment for dinner the other night, I’m not sure if any of you understand how hard it is to eat noodles with chopsticks but it took me almost 45 minutes to eat my whole bowl of spaghetti! I am going to be a chopsticks pro by the time I get home.

So after a long week of exploring, observing at school, and getting a little settled, I think all of us were excited when the weekend finally came! The weeks go by so fast, everyone keeps saying that also. Before I even knew it I had been in Korea for a week and it was time to explore the nightlife. We went out in Dongtan for Kevin and Daniels last night out on Friday. It was really fun to meet their group of friends, especially since a lot of them will still be here after they leave so we know a few people! We caught a taxi after the WA Bar in Dongtan and headed about a 15 minute ride to a city called Suwon. It was so lit up and so busy, all a little overwhelming! We went to a couple other places. At one of them our other friends from WSU, Chase, Chris and Katelan, met up with us and it was so fun to see them! They live in Pyeongtaek and will be here until August next year so we will have lots of time with them!

On Saturday we just went out with the girls who have already been here. Ta-Leah and Rhonda, two of the teachers, have been here for 10 months already and the other two, Amy and Sarah, just hit their third month mark. So they were able to show us around a little bit, we just kinda followed them from place to place but had a fun time! We went to this one pub/restaurant place to wait for one of Ta-Leah’s friends and it was so weird when we walked in, it was like full of foreigners. We met a lot of Canadians there and a few people from other places in the US. It’s funny, whenever I see someone not of Asian descent on the street I feel the need to say hi or something since we both are foreigners in such a different country! It makes it really easy to meet new people though which has been fun.

Sunday was Valentine’s Day, and we went to Chase and Katelans apartment in Pyeongtaek to celebrate. Katie, Brianna and I took the subway for the first time and it was everything I remembered from my subway experiences in Europe! Very busy and bustling, loud, and dirty. Haha it is so nice though to be close to such a form of transportation because even though taxis are much cheaper here, it is faster to take the subway and trains. We just had a fun night out in Pyeongtaek that night, spent as each others’ Valentines! The reason we were able to travel all the way to Pyeongtaek on Sunday night was because we had Monday off of work for the Chinese New Year. So the three of us girls just spent Monday relaxing, setting up our rooms a little more, and watching movies. Back to work on Tuesday!

Speaking of the Chinese New Year, we had a chance to be a part of a very interesting traditional display. The New Year is a time for family and food for Koreans, and they perform a very traditional bow for the elders. In our case, we bowed for the Principal of the school, Jade’s mother. First you put your right hand over your left and hold it in front of your stomach. Then you raise your hands up to about your chin, slowly lower yourself onto your left knee, put the other knee down and your palms on the floor, and lower your head onto your palms into a bowing position and hold for 3 seconds. You then raise up, again with your left knee and keeping your hand together, and end in the standing position with a little bow of your head. I guess the tradition after that is for the elders to give you money, so the Principal gave us 30,000 won (about $26), kind of like an early bonus! It was very interesting and I thought it was kind of fun to be able to participate.

Well, so far this week it has just been back to work! I am still observing another teacher but she is letting me help her teach so it hasn’t been too boring yet. I am definitely ready for my own class by now though. I have lots of ideas for how to decorate the classroom and activities to do with the kids and I cant wait to meet the new kids with LCI. I think it will be so fun to see them all the way through the year until graduation and to see how much they improve because of my help. It seems like it will be a very satisfying job!

Well I will try to be better with my blogging, I want to keep everyone updated. It is just that sometimes when I sit down to do it there is just so much to talk about because I want you all to know everything and I just get overwhelmed! I will keep posting pictures as well because they help to tell my stories. We are still getting settled and setting up our rooms and not quite in a routine yet so im sure I will have lots more to write about soon. For now, love from Korea!

- Tia Teacher

First Day of Class!

We made it through our first day of school! I’m not going to lie, I was pretty nervous waking up this morning and I’ve been kind of nervous for the whole teaching thing. I have babysat a lot and I would say I’m pretty good with little kids but I have never thought of myself as a teacher before and I was a little nervous to be in the front of the classroom.

Speaking of nervous, I used the crazy “shower” for the first time this morning! I was pretty skeptical about this whole shower in the sink concept, but it turns out I actually like it almost better than the regular showers back home! I mean the shower head just kind of hangs in the upper corner of the bathroom, like you probably saw from the pics I posted yesterday. But its falls right into the sink when it’s just hanging, so you just rotate it out a little bit and it goes past the sink onto yourself. I guess I just like it because I realized it’s pretty efficient, you can stand there and “shower” and brush your teeth and do everything else you need to do at the same time. I mean yeah everything gets wet, but if you don’t worry about it it’s not that big of a deal. The water doesn’t really get to the door and the little bit that does I just wiped off real quick with the dish towel once I was done. The electrical outlet has a cover on it and the toilet paper has a little metal shield that hangs down and covers it so all of that stuff doesn’t get wet. By the time I dried off and went out into my bedroom to get ready and came back into the bathroom, things were pretty much dry. You have “shower shoes”, kind of like jellies if any of you girls had those, that you wear while showering and then I just switch to my slippers when I leave. But it is still weird showering in the middle of the bathroom, I like it but I will have to get used to it. It’s weird that the shower situation was one of the things that most shocked us the first night and within a day I have gone to liking it!

So we ended up just observing the other teachers when we were at the school today. I sat in with Kevin Rice all day, a guy the three of us girls know from WSU. They call him “Kevin Teacher”, so I will be “Tia Teacher”! So the way it works is all the teachers have to be at the school by 9:00am. We left at 8:20ish this morning because we stopped in to get a bagel and some coffee before and it’s already about a 20-25 minute walk from our apartments. Kevin has five 40-minute class periods, and his don’t start until around 10am. So for the first hour or so he just kind of hangs out, sleeps a little more at his desk, reads, prepares for the days lessons, etc. Just whatever need to be done and then kills time. Anyway, so he has the same kids for the first two classes where he does work out of a workbook. He played a cd with stories on it, then had the kids repeat the story sentence by sentence and then answer a bunch of reading comprehension questions. Then they played some games like Hangman. The kids are soo cute! Apparently the ones in those first two classes are kind of rowdy and hard to discipline but I think they’re funny. Then again though I was just observing today and not actually acting as the teacher. So after the second class, somebody comes with the lunch and you like grab this big tray thing and some utensils for yourself. The kids all have their own try with compartments that has an attachable lid and they take it home each day for their parents to wash. So they reuse it each day and wash it at night. Anyway, the teacher serves each of the kinds, they sing a little “lunch song” (“thank you for this food, thank you mom, thank you dad, thank you farmer and thank you fisherman...” etc etc I don’t remember the whole thing) and then they eat! Today they had rice, soup, kimchi, squid, and these rice cake things that tasted just like really thick chunks of pasta. We ate the same thing but you also have time to leave the school and get something else if you want. We had an hour break after lunch so we went to go get some food and Kevin showed me around the main street of Dongtan. He pointed out some fun pubs and bars, a shabu-shabu restaurant (just like how you make it Dad!), good places to get pizza, and a bunch of other places we will probably want to check out! We got back to the school and had 3 more different classes and another hour long break, all up until 5pm. It was a long day but I’m excited to start teaching! This particular set of kids graduates in a couple weeks. So since Kevin and Daniel (the two guys here we know from WSU) are leaving this weekend, we will take over their classes for a week until graduation and then a whole new set of kids come starting in March. Speaking of graduating, the second class Kevin has right now is getting ready for the graduation presentation by memorizing speeches and a graduation song. The speeches are SO CUTE! The prompt is “If I had a magic genie and could wish for three things, those three things would be…” and then they respond by saying “My name is ___ and I would wish for…” The wishes are pretty hilarious. One of the boys’ first wish was to have all the clouds in the sky so he could make them into bread and then he would eat the bread and be able to fly high in the sky. Another’s wish was to be a King so he could eat all the spaghetti he wanted whenever he wanted. So funny! I couldn’t help but laugh they were just so creative and ridiculous.

Another interesting thing is that Kevin, Daniel, and the three girls who are here now all taught with Brown English Language School, the school Bri, Katie and I got our jobs with and signed contracts with. However, Brown just got bought by LCI, another school organization. So after the end of this week we will be working for LCI and we have to sign new contracts. Jade said the only thing that will change is the name of the school on the contract so that is good; we will definitely be re-reading them though just to make sure! I guess LCI runs a little bit of a tighter shift so the actual classroom curriculum will be stricter and more work than what we observed today. This new building also has cameras in the classroom so we can’t goof off with the kids like Kevin says he usually does! It’s also a little tough because all of the teachers that are already here said even though we observed them all day, things will probably be pretty different once the new set of kids comes and were officially working for LCI. Could get interesting!

Another interesting thing I learned today is about the kid’s ages. So I was asking Kevin and the student’s how old they were and Kevin kept saying “these are the sixes” or “these are sevens” instead of they’re six years old. I guess when you’re born in Korea, you start at age 1 and then once you hit January (the new year), you turn 2. So technically you could be born in December and within a month be 2 “years old”. So there are some 3 year olds in the level five classes. Interesting! A lot of these kids are really smart though and know a lot more than you would expect them to.

Tomorrow we have to go get “soft shoes”. They make you take your shoes off at the front door/porch and change into slippers for the rest of the day. Well you put your shoes on if you leave the school for any reason but the whole time you are inside you’re in the soft shoes. I get to work in slippers all day! We didn’t know that today since it was the first day so poor Katie and Brianna had to put their bare feet in the slippers they have there. I only had little footie socks on and it was soo cold all day! I guess we just missed the coldest weather spell in Korean history. The girls said they have to take taxis to work it was so cold they could not even walk outside!

Kevin and Daniel took us to this really great Vietnamese pho restaurant for dinner. I got the beef flank pho and Katie had a seafood pho dish. We ate octopus!! I was really surprised Katie tried it! She didn’t love it but she said she also didn’t hate it. I saw what looked like strips of the octopus in her pho and she thought it was sprouts. Kevin and I let her think that when she asked but she caught on after a few tries it was too funny. We took a taxi home from the restaurant since it was so cold and raining, a filling dinner and a taxi ride all for 8000 won… only about $7! Food and groceries and such are really cheap here, it’s so great. One of the girls told us she went to Thailand for a week with $500 and she was just crazy rich over there because everything is so cheap. Looking forward to that!

We have to “fast” tonight because Jade is taking us to the hospital tomorrow to get our health check up or whatever. We have to get blood drawn so that’s why we have to fast. I’m glad I got so full at dinner! We get our alien cards in a couple weeks and after we get those we can set up a bank account that we can wire money from, or get a type of debit card we can use over here. The girls that are already here said it took them almost 3 months to get completely and totally settled in, aka set their rooms up and have all the furniture and curtains, get their bikes to ride to school, have bank accounts set up, know where to buy groceries, just all the things we will learn eventually. Can’t wait to get to that point!

Thats all for now. Lots of Love!!

February 7, 2010

Just got back from dinner! We ate a ton of food today and it was just what I had been waiting for. So good! After Katie and Bri woke me up this morning and we got our lives together a little the three of us went next door to apartment building C (were in B) and woke up our friend Kevin we know from WSU. I don’t think he was too happy when he answered the door haha; he and his buddies were out Saturday night until 5am. But it was good to see another familiar face and he pointed us in the right direction of the city and food. It’s about a 15 minute walk from our apartment building to the main street in Dongtan. We ended up just walking up one side of the street until we saw a place that was open. We went in and sat down and took out our little Korean language books to try to figure out how to order something. We ended up just getting up and pointing to a picture on the wall and nodding our heads a lot. Didn’t really know what they were giving us but it ended up being really good! Bri and I had kimchi soup (it was bright red and probably the spiciest thing I’ve ever eaten) and we all shared some sort of sushi roll. The sushi roll had ham, egg, pickled hicima, and a few other unidentifiable ingredients. A breakfast roll maybe? Anyway, it was all delicious and thank goodness I like kimchi because it’s in everything. We stopped in the Dunkin Donuts on the way home for some coffee, and me and my crazy sweet tooth I had to get a donut.

After lunch when we came home Jade’s dad, who built and owns the apartment building, had to come over to Katie’s apartment to fix her heat since it hadn’t been working. He doesn’t speak much English at all so it was kind of funny watching Katie talk to him. I think we all tend to just raise our voices and speak slower when we can’t communicate, as if that will get the point across. He was just making a ton of gestures and kept saying “fire” and “shower”. After a funny little display and understanding a few words here and there, I think we all got the gist of it. We have one central heating unit and we have to press different buttons when were controlling the water temp or the floor temp. But of course it’s all in Korean! We left with Jade’s dad and he took us to the new school we will be teaching in to meet Jade. The school is right across the street from Brown English Language School, the one we originally got the job with. They have finished moving all the stuff over but the building itself still needs some work. We hung out there a little while and then Jade drove us to E-Mart, kind of like a Korean Wal-Mart on steroids. It’s like 5 stories tall and essentially an entire mall in one store. E-Mart has groceries, fresh fish, samples at the end of the aisles, home stuff, electronics, clothes, school supplies, sports equipment, etc. They have everything you could possible want in a store. It even looked like people were sitting down talking to salesmen about buying cars. Since its Sunday it was incredibly busy, picture Costco but five times busier and filled with busy and pushy Koreans. They have no shame doing whatever they have to do to get where they need to go. To get from floor to floor you push your cart onto a flat escalator and these stopper things come out of the wheels and keep it in place. It’s so crazy! The three of us girls got stared at a lot, especially by the little kids. Dongtan is not a tourist destination by any means; the only Americans they ever really see are the English teachers. Jade’s husband had to come with his car also and drive some of our stuff back to the apartment. We were all exhausted after that experience and lugging all our purchases up to the third floor. We dropped everything off and walked back into the city for dinner.

This time we walked up the other side of “downtown” to find a place to eat. We went in this one little restaurant with pictures outside of noodle dishes that looked really good. Again, we said our “ahnyung-hah-say-ohs” (hello) and went outside to point at the pictures of what we wanted. They gave us hard boiled eggs, kimchi, and some more of that pickled hicima for appetizers. They do that a lot, always putting out several side dishes besides what you order. Katie had a cold kimchi soup and Bri and I had some sort of hot tofu noodle soup. After we were finished we were just kind of sitting there for a while trying to figure out how to tell them we were done. We looked up how to ask for the check in our language books and Bri ended up walking up to the ladies and asking for it. We decided that each day or chance we get (at meals and such) we have to switch up doing something like that. Just doing something that’s uncomfortable but will help with learning the language. As we left we all said thank you in Korean and I tried to say “thank you for the delicious meal” and I think I said it right but they all laughed a little. At least were trying!
Were back in our apartments now and all sitting in Bri’s apartment blogging! Haha its funny I always thought of blogging as pretty nerdy and now all we talk about is “oh we have to go home and blog that!” We were all talking on the way home from dinner and the three of us want to try really hard to pick up the Korean language. If we keep it up like we did today I think we will be able to communicate in no time! It’s unbelievably hard and frustrating to be “talking” to someone and to have no idea what each other are trying to say or how you are going to get your point across. I have to remember it’s really only the first day and we will learn, but I want to be able to order food without feeling embarrassed or having to walk the waitress outside to point to what we want. We’ll get there soon!

We’ve met some of the other girls who are also here teaching English. Two girls, Sarah and Amy, have been here for a few months so they have been a big help with a few things. I haven’t had a chance to talk to her about it but I guess Amy does Taekwondo here so I can’t wait to find out more about it! That would be too cool to be able to get back into Taekwondo and especially in the country it originated. It will be weird though to try it with Katie and Bri and like 10 years after the last time I did it! Another girl Taleah has been here for 10 months and she was an Asian Studies major in college so she speaks fluent Japanese and has picked up a lot of Korean. She will be a big help with the language barrier! They all seem fun and each unique so it will be cool to get to know them. I guess another guy is coming in a few weeks and then we know two guys in the apartment building right next door.

So Jade told us today that our apartments are technically located in Osan. So if you look on a map you can’t find Dongtan because the city is so new, but if you find Osan that’s where we are. There’s a major road we cross to get into the city and I guess that’s the barrier between Osan and Dongtan. Jade has been such a big help with everything and that was so nice of her to drive us herself to E-Mart today! We are going with all the other girls to the school tomorrow morning at 8am. I guess for this week we are just observing the other teachers and helping with some more of the moving between schools. This upcoming weekend is the Chinese New Year so we have next Monday off and then we start teaching on Tuesday! AH! Bri and I are both a little nervous to start teaching. Katie has a little experience so she’s pretty excited but I don’t know really what to expect. Korean kids are the cutest though, I hope I don’t have any hooligans.

Well I’m going to go set up my room now. We still don’t have our desks or tables and chairs but we have the hanger thing for our clothes, bath mats and towels, toilet paper, more kitchen pots and pans, etc. And we actually have a pillow to sleep on! I’ll take more pictures of my place once I have things set up, so think of those pictures already up and the “Before” and the ones ill put up later are the “After” picture.

The view to the left out Katie's window. Dongtan in the distance!





The view out my window :( not pretty. I think its all the building materials for these apartments. Or something like that I don't really know. At least it doesnt smell bad, it just looks bad.






This picture is looking out the door out of my bedroom. There's a washer right there, its really nice and brand new. Hopefully it doesn't rip up my clothes like the one in Greece did. Past the washer is another sliding window. And no, thats not a balcony its just a railing with that beautiful view you saw above on the other side.

Here is my bed! Hard as a rock, but the blanket/comforter they gave me is really nice and warm. I don't know if you can tell but we don't even have pillows yet, I stuffed some shirts in a pillowcase I brought. The heat comes up through the floor though so it was really nice to get out of bed this morning and walk on heated floors.

Katie's bed :( haha it's kind of funny for any of you guys that know Katie because that just would happen to her. Out of all of us, shes stuck with the room with no bed and broken heating! That's only for a week though until the other teachers leave so she has been in our rooms a lot to hang and warm up!

This is the sliding door I was trying to describe. I took the picture in the kitchen and the sliding doors opens onto my bedroom where you can see the heater blazing cause its so cold! The door shuts all the way so thats kind of nice and for some reason it reminds me of like really authentic Korean or Japanese housing. Kinda cool!

Here's the kitchen! We have a fridge, not quite mini but smaller than normal. It's the perfect size for just one person, with a couple burners on the side. The owner of the building has all sorts of problems hooking up the gas last night when we got here, i think he was swearing a lot in Korean.

This is the "shower"! Sorry its rotated but I cant figure out how to change it. So theres the showerhead! I guess it just flows into the sink and then you rotate it. I dunno, should be interesting.

This is the bottom half of the bathroom/shower. See the cord attached to the faucet? That goes up to the showerhead. And if you look close you can see the drain a little behind the sink. Crazy!!

The First Day of the Adventure!

Well, I woke up this morning and realized I really wasn't dreaming, I'm in Korea!! Still can't believe it and it still hasn't hit me that we will be here for a whole year. Hopefully this whole blogging thing will be a good way for everyone back home to be able to keep up with our travels and adventures. That’s what the girls and I are trying to keep reminding ourselves, this is a big adventure and it wouldn’t be one if there weren’t some interesting things to start it off.

Speaking of interesting, the only reason I’m blogging is because I’m avoiding taking a shower, which happens to be a small handle hanging over our sink. I guess they don’t have tubs here, there’s a drain in the middle of the bathroom by the toilet and the sink and you just shower standing there in the middle of everything. The shelves are all waterproof I guess and there is a little case protector for the toilet paper so it doesn’t get soaking wet. That whole situation will take much getting used to but I guess it makes sense as space is a luxury. The whole apartment is pretty small, but the building is new so it is nice. You will be able to see better with the pictures I will upload but I have a small kitchen and fridge, bathroom/shower (2 for 1 special), and sliding opaque doors that open up into our bedroom. There’s a clothes washer on a little balcony type thing. I had a dream last night that I woke up just in time for the sunrise and went out to watch and saw all these guys getting out of their cars with their dogs, like they were taking them to a park or something. When I woke up for real this morning (well for like the 7th time, the bed in like sleeping on stone!), I was kinda excited thinking it would be a nice view. Not so much… these apartment buildings have just been built so my view is the yard where they store all the extra building materials. Not quite like my dream! It’s ok though.
Yesterday went pretty smooth as far as all the travelling went. Pretty much hassle free. We had a long layover in San Francisco so we all made some phone calls and got some Mexican food. The bloody marys helped take the edge off and made me drowsy on the long flight! It was nice to be able to sit with Katie and Brianna on the flight from San Fran to Seoul, it was 10+ hours and we were all pretty thankful to have each other to talk to. I slept a little, tried to learn some Korean, watched a little of the Office, and read magazines about Brad and Angelina breaking up.
So we got into Seoul around 5:45, earlier than expected. After going through customs and picking up our 800 suitcases, we walked out into the chaos of the Incheon Intl Airport. Luckily, we found our guy right away. He had a little sign with our names on it and he and his friend helped push our carts to the van outside. I was able to talk to Joanne (our recruiter and the one who’s been helping us the last several months) on the phone for a little, she’s in the hospital she just had a baby yesterday! So she gave us directions and all that and hopefully we will be able to meet up with her sometime in the next few weeks. She’s very very nice and I have heard from everyone else that’s here that she enjoys going out to eat and getting to know us.
So it was about an hour and a half ride to Dongtan. If anyone is looking on a map to find Dongtan, don’t be surprised if you can’t. The city is only 2 ½ years old so it’s not on many maps. It just a hint south of Suwon. We arrived at night so there wasn’t much to look at except all the lights and cities. There’s a huge bridge right outside the Incheon airport with the most beautiful support structures all lit up and different colors. We passed a few clusters of what looked like casinos, and a big lit up pirate ship. Looks like mini-Vegas or something. Once we arrived at the apartments, Jade (the school director) met us and took us to our rooms. Because they just opened up a new school, the one we will be teaching at, we are here technically a few weeks early to help move things and get settled. Consequently, our apartments are not furnished yet. Katie doesn’t even have a bed in hers yet! We are all on the same floor and I took the apartment at the end of the hall which was a good call because for some reason I think I have heated floors! But because they are so new, the most I have in my room is a bed and a cord to hook up internet. The heat doesn’t work yet (and it’s freezing outside!!!) so Jade gave us these portable heaters. I went to bed with two sweatshirts, two sweatpants, and ski socks on and woke up sweating. After Jade got us settled her and her husband went to the store to get us some water and some snacks. Her and her husband left and the three of us girls just kind of sat in Brianna’s room eating potato puffs and chocolates, just kind of staring at each other. After arriving in Seoul and suddenly being thrown into a world where you can’t understand anything, being moved into freezing unfurnished apartments, and realizing we would have to take showers in our sinks in the morning, we were all a little overwhelmed and shocked. It already a very different world and I’ve only been here half a day. Thank god for Katie and Brianna or else I think I would be pretty lonely. It’s a lot to take in and it’s finally setting in that I’m away from the people I care the most about for a whole year. We were all a little down last night so we just tried to encourage each other and remember that we asked for the adventure and we knew it would be different. We even had to laugh a little last night at how crazy everything was. I think we all woke up this morning with a more positive attitude. It helped to get some sleep. Today we are going shopping for groceries, pillows, some sort of shelving unit, toilet paper, etc. And I can’t wait to get some Korean food! I’ve been craving it since we flew over Alaska.

So I already know this will be the year we look back on and say, wow I can’t believe we did that. The inevitable culture shock and uncomfortableness (is that a word?) made for a trying night but I’m more than thankful to have Katie and Brianna by my side. I know I am going to miss everyone terribly and I already miss the small comforts of home that I often overlook. But I can’t wait to make this apartment mine, decorate and put pictures up, and to cook my first own Korean meal! I know I will get used to all the quirks and it will soon become routine but for now I’m still getting used to it. Should make for some good reading for you guys! I will write more this week when I can tell you about the city and the school. I love and miss everyone.