Week 2

Aneyo-haseo ('hello' in Korean, a more accurate translation would be 'well doing?')


Well my first full week as an official English teacher is over. I'm teaching 13 classes throughout the week & it wasn't easy the first few days, but they say the first week is the toughest - now it should get easier now that I'm familiar with the material and all the students.


I lost my voice on the first day! I went to the doctor in our building between classes, and it was quite an experience. He diagnosed it as just a common cold (certainly due to new weather & conditions, being around kids, and stress never helps either). It was very interesting to see Korean medical care firsthand - say what you want about socialized medicine, but this was very efficient, effective, and also very inexpensive. The doctor cleaned me out and gave me some medication for the week. Not exactly sure what everything was (I've been taking 14 pills a day), but it definitely worked well, and I'm feeling much better now. So also on Monday, a co-teacher had a burst appendix! I was there at the hospital as she got rolled into surgery. She ended up staying there 6 nights. Her medical care was quick & cheap. The stay was only about $16 US per night! And the procedure was probably 1/10th of what it would cost back home..

Taken last week, here some other of my favorite pictures from Seoul:

Palaces:

















Seoul Tower:









Street vendors and restaurants:

And here's a picture of my first authentic Korean meal on my first day here:

You see many street performances over here. It's very interesting to see how modern most things are - architecture, new development, etc. But also, all throughout the streets and public areas, they have performances that highlight Korean tradition (drummers, military ceremonies, etc). Here's one of them, which appeared to be some sort of changing of the guard:

I also saw my first Korean cultural performance last weekend. Yeah, I work with more than a dozen women, so we saw a ballet - Cinderella. One of the other foreign teachers, Stephanie, had gotten the tickets for a group of us. It was at the Seoul Art Center, which is about a 45 minute busride from where I am in Yongin. The ballet was very interesting & was similar to our version, but wasn't the American Cinderella (there were several differences in plot, characters, etc). And of course, the supertitle translation was pretty amusing sometimes. You would have to see it to understand, but trust me, it was funny. One good example was the storyline about one foreign land when the prince was travelling to look for Cinderella. The land was inhabited by 'pleasure superintendents' (not exactly sure what this meant, but it sounds dirty!).


The tap water here tastes horrible - everyone drinks bottled water. They advise against drinking the water, for fear of contamination. But I know several people that do drink it, and they've been fine. The tap water I have drank, I boiled it first, but the taste is still very there. I've found that tea somewhat hides it, but still not entirely. So I've stocked up on water from the local grocery store (E-Mart), and it is very inexpensive - less than 3,000 won (about $2 US) for a six pack of 2 liter bottles.


I've fallen in love with E-Mart. As a matter of fact, I have seen several E-Marts in metro Atlanta, and it must be the same company, because these stores are also Korean. Or maybe it's another company started in the US by Korean immigrants who wanted to keep some familiarity from home.. So E-Mart is awesome - it's like a Super Wal-Mart or Super Target, just much better. This one is just across the street from my apartment, and is in a 10 story building. E-Mart occupies 2 of the floors, and has anything you could ever want or need - full grocery store, electronics dept, home furnishings, clothing, media.. When shopping, I can usually get by with 'hello' (see above), and 'Cahm Sahm Ni Da', which is thank you.

I finally joined the local gym on Sunday. It's in the same building as E-Mart, and is a really nice facility with lots of new equipment. They even give a really nice discount to us foreigners! The gym manager speaks English, but he's the only one I've met so far. They offer many exercise classes everyday during the week - yoga, aerobics, abs, spinning, etc. Eddie, our school manager, also mentioned that he has a bicycle at school that he doesn't use. I'm looking forward to start biking again once it warms up in the next few months. It should also be a great way to explore the local area.

So in these few entries, I've given you a really brief overview of my experiences here. I have a few more ideas for future posts, but let me know if you'd like to hear more about something, or maybe something I haven't talked about.



Hope you enjoyed it and talk to you soon!



Anyongi-kseo (Goodbye, or 'Go in Peace')



Matt