Back From Summer 2006 Holidays
Well, it looks like we are back for another year. We've moved on up to Seoul, and taken jobs at public schools. Dave is teaching at Gusan Middle School with 1200 students and Steph is teaching at Bulgwang Elementary School with 2400 students. We are living about 2 minutes away from Steph's school and about a 15-20 minute light bus ride from Dave's school.
Our new district is called Eunpyeong-gu, those familar with Seoul will know that its an older area, but has all the ammenities that we require. Our new place is a bit of a step down from the palatial surroundings we had in Sacheon, however the proximity to everything, and action pack lifestyle of Seoul is a welcome trade. Its so nice not have to walk for 1/2 hour to get a loaf of bread. Our nearest subway station (Bulgwang) is a three minute walk. We were a little surprised at the condition that our apartment was left in, its not typical for Koreans to clean their places before the new tennants move in, but they do usually re-do the wallpaper and plastic floors. We took the place over from the former English teacher at Steph's school, and by the looks of it, they stopped cleaning the day they arrived. It was pretty filthy, and we've been putting in some serious elbow grease to make the place livable, including Dave taking apart the windows and fly screens and cleaning them.
After arriving, we bolted down to Sacheon in a rented van and picked up all our stuff that had been graciously stored by our good friends the Sapienzas, Waltons and Carlsons. We returned back to Seoul, with a stop at Costco, and then got ready for our Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education training week at the La Vie D'or resort in Suwon. During that week we learned many valuable things about teaching including: how to open a bank accout (which we already had), Korean traditional drumming and dance and how to teach games and songs. It was frustrating for us to be stuck at the resort when we were not learning much that we didn't already know, and the ammenities that the resort offered were all available at a considerable price. We met some cool people, and were 100% ready to return to our new jobs and new place.
So far our jobs as English teachers have been much less demanding and stressful in comparision to last year. The schools are run efficiently and with professionalism, it is a fairly positive work environment.
We've been enjoying life in the city as well, things are realtivly close, and we are able to connect with some of our friends from Sacheon who have moved up to the Seoul as well, Indrani and the Lunas.
Last weekend we met up with Nathan's business colleague Cheol, who showed us around Insa-dong (traditional Korean artistic area), Myeondong (heart of Korea's shopping area) and the ever popular Itaewon (its the area close to the US base at Yongsan).
The schools here are a bit of an adjustment is comparision to western schools, for example the students are quite self sufficient. Students clean their classrooms, there is no janitor to clean up the paper or garbage left behind, and as a result the students are self policing in respect to the dirt and paper in the class. They do need a little 'McDonalds' training cause it always seems dirty. Steph noticed that she had never seen quite a sight as 8 years cleaning the outside of the their classroom windows, they had brushes attached to long poles and were scrubbing the windows clean. The only downside with the students cleaning is they rarely use cleaning products, usually just water, so the floor may have the appearance of being just mopped but in actuality it has just been mopped with water. The students also serve themselves at lunch. Steph's school doesn't have a cafeteria(s) like Dave's, so tables are set up outside or inside the classroom, students don aprons and gloves and have their classmates line up with the prison issue tray/plates and serve them a variety of Korea dishes. They begin serving themselves in grade 1 with the help of room mothers, but by grade 2 they are on their own. Along with the self suffcient nature of students within the school the students still seem to have a healthy respect for their teachers. Students bow slighty when they greet you in the hall, and are forever offering to carry your bag, or whatever you might be carrying. Along the same lines, before we enter the classroom, younger teachers bow towards any older or more senior teacher, and most definitly towards the vice principals or principals. In general you can't go wrong if you bow to someone older that you.
Dave's Middle school has a soccer team that practices 6 days a week and live at the school. No wonder they are excellent soccer players and a pretty good team; 3rd in Korea!
With all the talk of being polite, we are still getting used to our neighbours who clean their nasal passages every morning with a giant snort of any scrap of mucus left in their body from the previous night, and no before you ask, it is not only reserved for males, females are heard doing it as well. One might be disgusted by this but in truth Koreans find it revolting that we would blow our nose in public....how dirty! Instead it is much for pallatiable to inhale sharply, and then spit out whatever you've managed to get onto the ground....again this is a gender/age friendly operation. SICK!
Seoul is definitly a step up though in terms of availabilty of western products, our neighbourhood Nyeong Hyup (its a chain of grocery stores) manages to stock many items which were virtually unavailable to us to in Sacheon. Its odd for us because where we live is not a particularly western area, but we are having no problem finding parmesan cheese (albeit in a can), peanut butter and maruschino cherries (in green and red).
Getting around Seoul has been by far one of the more enjoyable things about moving. The subway is our main method of transport, and for about $1 a ride, its an economical way too. We are ideally located at a transfer station so we can either take line 3 or 6. Line 3 takes us more into the center of the city, towards -- for those you familiar with Seoul-- towards Insa-dong, Jong-no, Chungmuro and Hannam. Line 6 blasts past the World Cup stadium, Hongdae, Sinchon, and eventually onto Itaewon. Its nice not having to transfer constantly.
Dave takes a light bus to work and that costs him about 50 cents a ride but it only comes by every 30 minutes, the subway is more consistent, but takes about 35-45 minutes having to take another bus. The good thing however is that if he is running late its only about $3 to take a cab. Same with if have too many groceries at E*Mart, to take a cab home, is only about 50 cents more and it takes right to our door (up the STEEP hills).
That's it for now... we'll update the Korea website again and probably have a little link to our Trip to Shanghai too.
Seouled out!
Well we made it back from our adventure in the big city. We had a good time Seoul and saw many sights, but we can say that we are glad to be back at home.
We traveled to Seoul in the express bus and pulled into the station around 8:30, not surprisingly the crazy traffic held us up for awhile, but that's part of life in a city of 14 million. Our first impressions of Seoul, were people, there are so many people everywhere.
We were staying with our good friend Chris Murphy (sorry ladies, Chris is officially off the market!) at his place in Sinjeongnegeori. Chris has a cozy room, and was very kind to let us stay in his apartments storage room/ spare apartment. We had to wake up really early the next day to go on the tour of the Demilitarized Zone. The DMZ tour started from Camp Kim in the centre of Seoul and we traveled north to the DMZ, it was quite a journey as we passed through several military check points, and we saw the extent that the South Koreans have gone to, to protected themselves from a North Korean attack. Upon arrival at Camp Boniface, in the Joint Security Area (JSA) we were given a briefing describing the situation in the DMZ and events that occurred since its establishment. From there we set off to the dividing line between the two countries. We were lead into a large meeting hall, and out to conference row, where the UN has several buildings that straddle the border. From there you can see into North Korea, and we were able to see cameras and North Korean Army guards who were watching us. Steph made the mistake of pointing out a NK army guy, and was requested by our army guide to stop communication with the North Koreans. Pretty intense! From there, we went into the UN building separating North and South Korea and were guarded by three ROK soldiers (Republic of Korea), they stood menacingly at the door facing North Korea to make sure nothing happens. The position they stand is called "taekwan", and recognized it from our Taekwando classes, however the Americans call it "ROK Ready". It was so cool to see the meetings of the two sides. After leaving conference row we headed up to another look out point where we were able to see the 'Bridge of No Return', where there was the symbolic exchange of POW's after the armistice in 1953. POW's were given the choice of living in North or South Korea. After we left the JSA we had a fabulous Korean lunch and then went to a look out point looking over the DMZ, it was cloudy so we couldn't see much and you weren't allowed to take pictures unless behind a certain line (which you couldn't see anything). Then we headed to the 3 rd Infiltration Tunnel. The tunnel is pretty commercialized, but we hiked down 70m vertically (a good hike) and walked down to the demarcation line where the North had blown in their tunnel so no one would be able to get in or out from the North. We were not supposed to take pictures here as well, but alas we didn't adhere that request. We would both recommend checking out the DMZ tour if you are heading over to ROK, it is very interesting, as it is truly living history.
After we left the tour we hooked up with Chris and headed out to a club to see his friend's band play. Easter Sunday was our big day of adventure in Seoul, we checked out Itaewon, Dondaemun and Namyeong Markets, saw the South Gate and walked in Myeong-dong. Chris commented that he has not seen that much of Seoul, and he's been there for six months. Probably the most hair raising part of our day was when Steph left her wallet in the cab in Itaewon, thanks to overcrowded and gridlock of Seoul, Dave was quickly able to chase down the cab as Steph and Chris were too stunned to do much else. After we recovered from that we headed for dinner at the Grand Hyatt Seoul (can you guess who suggested that?) for Easter Dinner. It was a buffet affair, so we joined some of Seoul's finest in enjoying lamb, crab, prawns, prime rib and of course the dessert buffet. We enjoyed the food, and amazing view of the city, we would have loved to have taken some of the food with us, however we were not as brazen as the woman who packed the block of bleu cheese in here purse (it really happened, Dave saw her!!!).
Monday we checked out Rodeo Street and Yongsan electronics market, it was slightly overwhelming, as everyone is trying to convince you to buy something. However we did not leave empty handed, we picked up a mobile phone, so now anyone can call (its free for us to receive calls). From Yongsan we headed on an adventure to try and find a guitar store. The thing about Seoul is that all the electronics are generally sold together, and so goes the same with musical instruments. Anyway we finally located the place and made our way back to Chris's. Whew...we definitely saw a lot of Seoul.
Tuesday was our final day in Seoul, we checked out Chris's school and met his co-workers. Then we headed over to the Korean War Memorial museum, the museum is huge and offers a comprehensive look at all the wars and conflicts that Korean has been involved in. They have everything there, and offer many re-creations of events, and models of equipment, outside they have park which shows planes, helicopters, tanks, and trucks. From there we did one last stop in Itaewon and then headed to the bus terminal to come home...we were Seouled out!
We would definitely recommend visiting Seoul, it was a interesting city, however both of us found that the pollution really took its toll on us (we both ended up with bad coughs and stuffed up noses). The traffic and sheer amount of people can also be overwhelming. However if you are into shopping, and military history Seoul might be a good place to stop. However probably the best part of going to Seoul was getting to hang out with Chris, we could talk or not talk for hours, and we both like soup, so it was truly an enjoyable trip.
As for us we are still enjoying working at GIFS. Recently we have taken the kids ice-skating in nearby Jinju, it was a crazy afternoon but the kids had a blast. The students have really formed a bond with all the teachers, one of Steph's students, (Taky) informed her that when he grows up he wants to be Mr.Henderson and teach math and science for grades 5 & 6. The weather is warming up and we are getting ready for the Yellow dust storms (Yellow sand from the Gobi desert blows over for a couple of weeks). Other than that we are doing well at taekwando, Dave has two black stripes and Steph has one, hopefully soon we will be advancing to a coloured belt.
Summer plans are coming along nicely, and we have narrowed it down to where we will be traveling to, so if anyone wants to put forth the two guesses of where our flights will touch down, we will provide a genuine Korean prize to the winners*. (Hint: both locations are in South East Asia).
We love hearing from everyone, and it is great to catch up on what is going on in your lives.
Talk to you soon,
Dave & Steph
#451 Wolseong-ri, Sanam-myeon
Sachon, Gyeongnam,
R.O.K
664-942
010-7219-4510 (mobile)
Void where prohibited by law. Must be legal age to participate.