Our first tastes of Korea

An-nyeong-ha-se yo everyone!!!!!!!!! Know it’s been a while since we last emailed but WHAT a week we’ve had!!!!!!!! Well, Kim (the school manager) came to fetch us on Saturday afternoon and took us to the school to show us around. We were REALLY impressed when we walked in – it is really professional! The classrooms are all named after Universities – like Rich teaches Cornell and Stanford most times which are the classes of 7yr olds, while I take MIT,UCLA and Berkeley which are the 5 and 6 yr olds. The school is on the 8 th floor of the building and it is really modern - there is a small computer room with really modern flatscreen computers. There is even a video camera in each classroom…Yes, the parents can watch us teaching on TV screens at reception!!!!!! The classrooms are quite small though because there is only an average of 10 people per class (although my one class has 14). We have to take our shoes off before we go into the school, and we walk around and teach in slippers! Our apartment block is only about 15 mins walk from the school which is great. What is also great, is that ‘Wonderland’ is an English school franchise ..they have branches throughout Asia, so at least we have peace of mind that we are not working for a dodgy school! We read a lot about teaching English on the internet before we came..and there were lots of scary stories! So we decided to go through a Canadian recruiting company called ‘Longbridge Pacific’ (we found them on the internet and they had a lot of good reviews) to get this job, and they were great! Anyway, so Kim introduced us to the school director (who can only speak like 2 words of English!) and then in about 10 mins flat she gave us our schedules and briefly went through some textbooks and things that we had to use for each class..and then she was like – ur starting on Monday! i.e. no training whatsoever!!! And to add to it, we walked out of the school SO confused, not knowing what they wanted us to teach! But we didn’t stress cos we’d read a whole lot on the internet about how teaching is very unstructured in Korea, so we just went with the flow (as all the websites say u must do!) and tried to make sense of what she had said! That afternoon we decided to find a supermarket to buy some food (we had just been buying from the convenience store near us,but it is SO expensive!). Kim showed us a supermarket called ‘Lottemart’…and WHAT an experience! The shop was CHAOS! There were promoters every couple of feet screaming at the top of their voices in Korean..trying to get you to taste food . U could seriously go there to shop and come out having eaten lunch! We were just AMAZED by the different types of food! But what a mission cos u cant read the packets so u don’t know what they are(plus u r fighting people cos its so busy –SOOO frustrating!) ! They have like 6 or 7m of shelves with different types of milks..amino boosted milks, milks with different percentages of fat, soya milks, milks with green tea etc etc..we did not have a clue what to buy!!! Speaking of green tea..so many products have green tea in them! Like green tea rice (literally GREEN rice)..green tea bran flakes (literally GREEN flakes), green tea ice cream etc etc! I tried some green tea cereal and it was really nice! No wonder these people are so healthy and thin! The prices weren’t that bad either- only really the cereal and fruit and vegetables were a bit overpriced. Rich tried some spring rolls which were great and also some ‘Mandu’..which are like steamed dumplings with Kimchee inside (pickled cabbage). There was a whole aisle of tea (even ROOIBOS!!!!) and even a whole aisle of seaweed! So we left the supermarket exhausted (both physically AND mentally). I cannot explain how mentally challenging it is to try and decipher the packaging of thousands of products just to decide if u want them or not! We decided to catch a taxi back to the apartment..it only cost us $2, which is a bargain compared to the bus prices of Scotland!! We still don’t know what street we live in, Koreans aren’t a fan of using street names, so Kim just wrote down the name of a place close to us and we just showed the taxi the piece of paper! On Sunday we woke up and decided to go and find some shops to buy our ‘smart’ clothes i.e. ties for rich! We found a great traditional market right near our apartment ..but what a smell!!!! Most of the stalls have seafood, not to mention seaweed cooked in every way possible! Octopi, eels etc all lying on ice, out in the open. Behind the stalls are proper shops and restaurants, and within two shops of eachother..we’ve seen a petshop with beautiful goldfish swimming in a tank in the window,….. and a restaurant with huge soles, seaslugs, octopi, scallops, eels, sea cucumbers etc all barely alive in a huge tank in the window too! The market also has a lot of shoe shops and stalls and clothes shops too. At the moment there are a lot of people selling strawberries (VERY tasty and CHEAP!) and a few other fruits like naartjies(they say tangerines), and melons. There are also a lot of cosmetics shops and bedding shops. Rich managed to get himself some smart pants and even some ties for 1000 won ($1) each! I found myself a great suit too- quite a change from the overalls of the factory in Scotland!!!! But I must admit that finding clothes can be really difficult in this country, especially if ur tall cos everyone here is short and skinny. (I have yet to see an overweight Korean!).Anyway, the market is really cheap - That day I also bought myself a BEAUTIFUL bonsai (I couldn’t resist!) and we bought some plants for the apartment too – we decided that living in this concrete jungle without a tree in sight just wasn’t good enough! So our apartment looks really nice now with all the green around, plus the azaleas are now flowering so we’ve got these beautiful pink flowers to look at. We’ve also got a TV now and some extra cupboards too. We get over 60 channels on the tv…mostly in Korean, but discovery channel, animal planet and the series channel are all in English, and there are quite a few movie channels in English too. What we love about the apartment is that it is really light….so we get to see some sun in our day!!!! We are really appreciating the sunlight- quite a change from Scotland! Our apartment building has 6 floors and we r on the 3rdfloor. The people here dress very smartly..and the fashion is really awesome, mostly because all the girls have great figures. They wear a lot of mini skirts and stockings and also dark thin socks that come up to just under your knee. They wear a lot of shrugs and bright coloured coats. The school kids on the other hand don’t dress that great..they wear a tartan skirt and plain shirt and any shoes they like..takkies whatever. Oh, rich doesnt wear his tie anymore to school -he just wears a smart shirt now. So Monday was our first day teaching!!! Yes..say hello to ‘Richard teacher’ and ‘Hayley teacher’!!! That’s what the kids call us!!!! We arrived at 9:30am for our first class. We had been given a schedule that ended at 2:30pm,so we were looking forward to going home early! But, at 2:20pm, we were told that we had afternoon classes too! Yes, we teach Kindergarten classes in the morning until 2:20 and then 2:30 to 5:30 we teach 8,9 and 10 yr olds. We teach about 9 classes a day in total, but we have one or 2 frees in a day which makes it a little easier! So we had 5 mins to prepare! Luckily, as I said, structure is not as NB as conversation in Korea, so if the lesson isn’t going well, u just start speaking to ur students and try and get them to talk. By the end of the first day, we went home EXHAUSTED again ..and both of us had extremely sore throats from all the shouting! Korean kids can be really difficult to control..especially as they don’t understand ur language! U say ‘BE QUIET’as loud as u can and they just shout ‘BE QUIET’ back at you!!!!! (cos they are so used to repeating things!)..It is also really difficult to explain exercises to them, cos they just don’t understand, so they get bored and start talking. We(the foreign teachers)..teach the phonics classes and the Korean teaches do things like Gym, computers and stuff like that with them. There is only one other foreign teacher at the school now..he arrived a week before us..his name is Michael (Canadian). The other foreign teacher is coming in May, and hes from the UK. So there will only be 4 foreign teachers altogether, and the rest are Korean. The Korean teachers (about 5 altogether-all woman except for 1))are very nice, very polite and friendly – they really go out their way to make u feel comfortable and they try their best to make sure u know whats going on. Michael is really nice too, hes a computer scientist, and about a foot taller that Rich!!! So u can imagine how scared the kids must be of him! Michael lives in the apartment below us which is great cos, hes already gotten his visa, so he can get internet in his apartment now..so hes going to get wireless internet soon, which means that we’ll be able to pickup the signal in our apartment! There is internet at the school, but we don’t have much time during the day to use it! So there are 2 korean teachers that have been ‘helping’ us out with our lessons this last week..Jessica and Dennis. Dennis is great, he lived in Canada for a year so his English is great. Jessica cannot speak a word of English. They are basically there just to help us out if we have problems disciplining the kids..Dennis is great, but Jessica just does the girls hair the whole lesson!!!! We have had huge problems trying to get the kids to behave..its tricky cos the school is all about making money..so u cant upset the kids otherwise they tell their parents, and the parents take them out the school! On the other hand, u have to make them behave otherwise they don’t learn anything! So we have just resorted to sending them to the corner or sending them outside! One class (6 kids)..i had 4 people outside! But the thing that scares them the most is to tell them that ur going to call their parents or Kim..or alternatively..take away some of their wonderland stickers! They hate that! I think we are just gonna have to buy whistles tho..cos both of us could hardly speak by the time Friday came! The kindergarten kids are the worst, but some of them are also really sweet too. This one girl in my MIT class..called Sophie sits right by the board and holds my hand the whole lesson! But teaching kindergarten is easy..its all about repetition, cutting out and colouring i.e. learning the alphabet, playing games, singing songs! The older kids have lessons that are a bit more structured, and so they are easy to teach cos they understand a bit more English. But there are SO many things to tell u about this week, but I’d be here for ages! Anyway rich had quite an eventful week! – He even made Kims son wet himself in class! I couldn’t stop laughing when I heard!!!!!!!! You see, the kids always try and get out of lessons by saying they need the bathroom, so most of the time u just tell them to wait until after class, or u take them all at the beginning of the lesson. So Rich took them all at the beginning, but Danny still asked him again, so he said no, and the next thing danny had wet himself!!! Kim was not impressed! I couldnt stop laughing!He also has this one rich kid in his class called Eddy..and they had to write a diary entry about going to Grandmas house..so he wrote ‘my grandpa likes to eat German dog’!!!! I think it was the closest rich ever came to punching a kid! Yes, Koreans eat dog, but it is apparently a big delicacy, so we’ve been told that meat is usually dog-free unless u specifically order it from an expensive restaurant. I have these 2 kids in my UCLA class (the horror class!!)..called Mark and Tony Kim..and they actually ran away to play in the gym when I sent them outside.! Then, in my Harvard class, I went out to photostat something and I came back and they had locked a boy in the cupboard!!! There are so many stories..i could write for ages! Oh, we have had to tell all the teachers at the school that we are from the UK, cos apparently the parents only like American, Canadian or uk accents. In our lessons, we have to speak with an American accent or the kids don’t understand us! Like they don’t know baaaathroom..they only know Bahhhthrooom!So we r really picking up the American accent quickly..especially rich who tries to talk American all the time to get himself used to it!So that’s what school has been like! It’s a really easy job, but the disciplining makes it much more difficult! Oh,just something interesting about the ages of the kids..koreans count the time in the womb, so when a child is born they are already one. They also age a year at new year. So say a child is born in December..they will be 1.In January that next year they turn 2! So a 2 yr old may really only be 2 months!!!!!! So when I say I’m teaching 5 year olds, some of them are only actually 3!!!Its crazy I know! Oh, and at lunch time we have to serve the kids their food, which is usually a soup, flavoured rich with lentils or bits of seafood, Kimchee (really nice!), maybe some strawberries or sweetened beans and a meat..chicken nuggets, sweet and sour chicken etc. The kids LOVE the dried sheets of seaweed too..they role their rice in it. Its like a sweet to them!!!!!!!!! Oh, and obviously people don’t eat with knives and forks here!The kids have cutlery sets with chopsticks and a spoon. In Korea it is polite to eat rice with a spoon. Also, their chopsticks are stainless steel for cleanliness. I still have not mastered the chopsticks, but rich is doing pretty well! The younger kids have ‘trainer’ chopsticks which are plastic and have little rings attached for where your fingers go!! I think I need to buy some! On Tuesday night we went to a traditional Korean restaurant nearby with Michael..the food is really cheap..rich had a kind of seafood rice rolled in a kind of leaf, (we’re still looking for the name!)..and I had this REALLY spicy dish of like strips and like 5cm ‘pipes’ of dough and pastry..it was great! We will definitely go there again! We then bought some traditional Korean drinks and we went and sat on the roof of our building. I tried some Soju with ‘Chilsung’ lemonade (our sprite)..Soju is Korean vodka, and some rice wine (YUCK!!!) Rich tried some ‘Cass’beer. he said the beer was a bit watery. The view from the roof is nice cos the buildings have so many pretty lights.We definitely have the brightest street in Guri city!!!! We’ll try send photos! On Wednesday night the school had a welcoming party for us at this really posh restaurant in Seoul (about 30min drive away). We had the VIP room, so we were separate from the rest of the people. It was a really nice buffet of traditional Korean food and western food..we both had a huge steak at R180a steak! It was really great! On Thursday night we decided to go to the Yeouido Cherry Blossom Festival in Seoul..cos the cherry blossom trees only flower for like a week this time of year ..and Thursday night was the last night of the festival. So we had to catch the subway train (its called a subway but it goes above ground)..we got to see some great views of the city…it is HUGE ..really a concrete jungle! The subway trains are spotless too. One lady got on the train in a traditional outfit..a huge puffy bright high-waisted red skirt and a shrug with her hair beautifully braided in a bun. Anyway, we crossed a few huge rivers to get there..cos Yeouido is kind of like an island cos it is surrounded by water. We arrived as the sun was going down and we got great views of the city from a distance..with all the lights..just like u see on TV! The Cherry blossoms were BEAUTIFUL! The trees were still in full bloom..and they were lit up by different coloured lights..over 1400 trees line the street! There were a lot of people there ..all taking photos for obvious reasons! We tried to get some photos with the schools camera, but it was a very basic camera so our pics didn’t come out too great! Our camera is broken..we took it to a shop in Scotland and they said it would cost too much to fix, so we are in the process of looking for a new one! It took us about 2hrs to walk down the street of the cherry blossoms..the cherry trees just kept coming around all the corners! There were mainly food stalls around..but not your usual food!!! I’m talking fried silkworm larvae and beetles!!!! Koreans love them as snacks!!We passed on that, and decided on some candy floss instead! When we got to the end of the street, we were confused as to how to get back to the next subway station- so rich stopped a group of about 10 policeman on rollerblades to ask directions!!!!!!!!! Luckily the one guy spoke English..people here are very proud when they can speak English! There are English schools everywhere! We only know how to say 2 words of Korean..we just get by with hand signals! Or if we need something more complicated..kim organises it for us! On the way to the subway station, we passed through a big park there were lots of people rollerblading and even doing Tai Chi-at 11pm!!! At the park u can hire a bike or even rollerblades for the day. Festivals are very common here..we could go to one somewhere in Korea every night if we wanted! Unfortunately, we wont be getting to do much distant travelling while we are here in Korea..only wknd trips(which we can thankfully do cos the country is so small!)..but we do get a weeks holiday in summer and a weeks holiday in winter..so we are going to plan some trips for then, maybe to China. On Friday night we decided to try some more Korean food… Rich and Michael decided on this restaurant near the market..it was a great experience..it was like a fondue..a big bowl of water heated with gas in the middle of your table. In it, were pieces of chicken, vegetables and potatoes. What u do is take out the chicken with chopsticks and dip it in some CHILLI sauce (if its too hot they say u add salt) mixed with soy sauce and vinegar. It was really nice! Rich wasn’t too keen on boring boiled chicken, but even he admitted it was great! After u have finished the chicken , they add other things to the water like pasta for example. It was hilarious trying to get chicken off the bone with chopsticks! But it was great fun! Saturday FINALLY arrived, and we decided to go to the Kyobo bookstore (biggest bookstore in Seoul) and to the Yongsan electronics market (the biggest electronics market in Asia!). So we took the subway. The subway is really great..u can get anywhere for like $1!We got out at Gwanghwamun stop..and the bookstore was right there! It was HUGE!!!!!! It has a great English book section..so we managed to pick up a lonely planet guide to Korea, a Korean phrasebook and dictionary and Rich even found a book on the birds of Korea. I also bought myself a beginners guide to learn Korean, it came with a free cd..so hopefully in a few months we’ll be able to get by without only using hand signals or pointing to pictures! And maybe know what food to buy from the supermarket too!!!!! Theres a coffee shop in the bookstore, so I tried a ‘hot cake’!!! its really just a big crumpet! The electronic market was out of this world!!!!!!!!!!!! A huge fancy buildings..8 stories high!!!!Of anything u can plug in!!!!! Cameras,phones, home appliances, computers, laptops, computer games, tvs..all the latest stuff!!!!We spent about 5 hours going around and we didn’t even finish! The prices are about normal, but if bargain u can get a really good deal. We can get the camera we want for about R1000 cheaper..i just kept on going around saying ‘discount, discount’! Until eventually they give u a good price..One guy went down $50 when I said ‘discount’!!!!So we’ll probably buy our camera there,we just wanna make sure its really the one we want first. You would DIE if u had to see the cell phones!!!!!!!!!! All the phones have cameras and mp3 players..and some of the cameras are 5megapixels!!! (i.e.who needs a separate camera!!!just buy a phone!)..some really cool designs too like a phone which is 7.9mm thick with a 5 megapixel camera and 1GB mp3 player!!! Some phones are even touch screen and TV! We spent hours looking at all of them!Oh which reminds me..theres none of this reading a newspaper on the subway like London..everyone just watches TV on their phone or laptop!!! Quite something to see! No more missing ur fav soap opera cos of traffic or subway delays! Funny! The next huge building is also ‘name brand ‘clothing shops – 8 floors!..Koreans are all about buying name-brands..stautus means a lot to them!Levis, nike, etc Oh, I know a lot of u guys asked questions about stuff..so here goes: the weather..well here they have very hot and humid summers (july) (like the amazon)and very cold winters (dec) (sometimes colder than Scotland!)..in winter the Siberian winds (from Russia) really lower the temperatures..and apparently here in Guri city..it snows quite a bit! Spring and autumn are the best cos they are warm but not too hot. Right now it is warmish..still a little chilly but its getting warmer. Monsoon season is jun to aug..when the country gets 80% of its rain! Also..u asked about the smog!!!! Yes, we are unfortunately living just outside a big city of over 15 million people (over a quarter of South africas population)..so there is smog around (although not nearly as much as actually living IN Seoul)..some people wear masks (but they don’t work!)..especially when the ‘yellow dust’ blows over from China..like last Saturday..u couldn’t see further than 4 or 5 buildings away! But now that it is getting warmer, the skies have been really really clear..and the other day on the subway, we saw some pretty pink sandstone mountains surrounding Guri. We are waiting for some rain cos then the countryside will become much greener.Oh, something else that is interesting is that jay walking is illegal..so u have to wait AGES for the robots! If u guys want to read up about Korea..a good website is www.lifeinkorea.com . U can read up about their food, etc. Koreans are all dark haired and short as u would picture and they are very polite and friendly to foreigners, although they can be VERY pushy in crowds! There are no black people here, and we only pass a white person every now and again. Good chance its a tourist or an english teacher..there are A LOT of English teachers here cos it pays such good money!ALL Koreans want to learn english! Although most of the English teachers are from the USA or Canada!Guri city is not a tourist area though..so we don’t see many white people.If u go into the centre of Seoul to a place called Itaewon..there are a lot of tourists there! People here work very hard..long hours..kids go to school on Saturdays (98% literacy!!)..and they are very clean and neat. The economy is very stable..only 5% tax. It’s the 10 th biggest economy in the world. The minimum wage is like $500 a month, but we are earning a little more than a business executive would, because English is really in demand! There is very little crime, people leave their doors unlocked and everyone respects other peoples property. There was a tv sitting on the 4 th floor of our building and no-one touched it! There are quite a few people here who own cars, but theres so much traffic, that most people just take the subway. Petrol costs about R7.50 a litre. Families are very small here (and most are well off) (max 2 kids)..(eventhough the cost of living is really low for a developed country), but obviously cos Koreans are very career orientated and also cos of their Confucianism background!!! Korean families prefer boys to girls..so sometimes girls are aborted before they are born..but it is now illegal for a doctor to tell a mother or father the sex of the baby. The reason for this is that there is a dwindling female population – for every 100 girls that are born, 128 boys are born..and this figure increases every year. The birth rate is very low..and they say that infertility rates are high. The religion here is mainly Christianity, Buddhism and Confucianism ..but most don’t follow any particular one. Oh, and in case u guys were wondering..Korea is 7hr ahead of south Africa..so when u wake up..we’re already teaching our last classes for the day! All Korean kids have cell phones..picture a 6yr old kindergarten class being sent out of class for not turning his fone off! Oh, and at school..the prizes for collecting a page of reward stickers.. mp3 players! So today is Sunday and we r RELAXING!!! We need it! Back to the kids 2moro again..but only for 3 days! Cos on Thursday we are definitely going to Japan to get our visas..I think we r going to Fukuoka, we have to stop off in Busan to catch the ferry! WE CANT WAIT!!!!!!!! We will fly back on Sunday. So we have been having a GREAT time here..sorry about the long email, but we have so much to tell!! Hope everyone is doing ok in sunny South Africa! Keep smiling! Lots of love, us!

Yeouido Cherry Blossom Festival