Jindo Walk

Dear DEDICATED followers,

I found this, my third post, in my drafts from my blog chronicling my first year teaching in Korea. I could easily delete it, but it seems like a waste. Enjoy.

"I spent my first weekend in Korea getting acquainted with my new neaighbourhood and securing the basic necessities of life. My second weekend turned out to be much more eventful that I had imagined. Myself and a group of teachers that I had met decided to go on a camping trip to Jindo island (perhaps you've heard of a breed of dog called a Jindo), which is on the ocean in southwestern Korea. We took the bus from Gwangju and arrive in the city of jindo shortly before 11pm. It was pouring rain and we decided to find a place in town and wait it out over a few beers. We polished off a pitcher, and it was still raining, so we moved to a different bar for several more pitchers, and even busted out a deck of cards for drinking cards. It was almost 5am by the time we left the bars to try and find our way to Gagae Beach, our planned camping destination for the weekend. Instead of taking a cab to the beach, we found a friendly Korean man who was willing to drive us our there (hey free is free). The most terrifying car ride of my life ensued as he drove at breakneck speeds down a winding coast road through dense fog. We arrived safely and began searching for a patch of grass to pitch our tent. We found one of the vendor booths occupied by some friendly vendors who gave us some warm soup and coke, and pointed up to where we put our tent that wouldn't get us hasseled.

We pitched our tent about 20 feet behind the line of vendors (as seen behind our tent in the above photo). We got to sleep about 7am, and slept until the commotion of the growing festival was too much to ignore.

This weekend was special in that 2 times a year the tide goes out far enough to create a "Miracle Sea Road" that is up to 40m with and allows you to walk to a neighbouring island. Legend says the "Moses Miracle" first took place a long time ago, when the village of Jindo was attacked by a pack of bloodthirsty tigers. Everyone managed to escape to the neighbouring Modo village, except for an old woman who was left behind. Out of desperation she started praying to the Sea God to split the waves and grant her safe passage. The deity took pity on her and granted her wish, allowing her to escape the hungry beasts. They build a statue on the Jindo side of the old woman, and her waiting family on the Modo side."

Obviously incomplete, but at least a glimpse of the Jindo Miracle Sea Road Festival. Stay tuned for more updates about my impending return to Korea. Seriously, I'll do them this time...

Week 1

After my first weekend getting acquainted with my new home, it was time to jump head first into being a teacher. From what I hear, I was more fortunate that most in that I got a couple of days of orientation before being thrown into being a teacher on my own. Orientation was a little pointless though. I spent two days watching both of the Korean teachers teach their classes, both of whom have the luxury of explaining things to (and not to mention diciplining) the kids in Korean. None-the-less, it was useful in that I learned a few basic techniques to keep the kids' attention. My first day of teaching on my own was the Wednesday, and it actually went as smoothly as I could have hoped. I quickly indentified the kids that were going to make this year a little easier, as well as those that were going to make every day a struggle. 

Thurday was pretty similar, but Thurday night I got my first taste of a night out in downtown Gwangju. We went to one of the foreigner bars called "Songs", aptly named for both it's owner and the presence of kareoke. This was also my first experience with Soju; a traditional Korean liquor thats about 20% alcohol and tastes like sweet vodka. The bar didn't serve it, but the owner didn't have a problem letting us running to the Mini Stop to grab a few bottles and bring them back. Needless to say, when the drinking games began, making new friends was easy: 

It was also my first experience going to a bar that had no closing time. I got to sleep around 4am, dreading my first day of teaching hungover. 

I ended out getting it pretty easy on Friday, because Friday morning for the kindgarteners was field trip day this week. The school is only a few minutes from the Gwangju National Museum which had an entire children's museum as well. 

There isn't much to do at the kid's museum, but these cut-outs provided some pretty adorable photo-opportunities. 

There is also a sandbox; a sure-fire way to keep kids occupied for a couple hours. And, because I'm not their parents and don't have to deal with them after the morning, I didn't particularily care how dirty they got. 

After the museum, the rest of Friday went much the same as the previous two days. I was dog tired and Fridays are usually pretty relaxed (games, activities etc.) so I had no problem mailing it in.

After school on Friday, we had planned a camping trip to the city of Jindo, located at the southern tip of the Korean peninsula. That weekend warrants it's own post, so this ends my second blog post. Stay tuned.

Arriving in a new world

Well here it is. My much anticipated blog chronicling my adventures teaching ESL in South Korea.

My adventure started with a whole lot more travelling than I had ever anticipated. Anyone thinking about going to Korea should realize that a "14 hour flight" is much longer than it seems. My flight connected through Chicago O'hare, so that was 2 hours from Toronto, and then I had a 5 hour stop over. The flight left Chicago at 2am eastern time and 14 hours later I was in Korea. However, I was still a long way from my destination. At Seoul-Incheon International Airport, I had to figure out how to get a bus ticket, and then somehow call my boss who would be meeting me at the Gwangju bus terminal. After floundering around for a while, I enlisted the help of the information desk and they were incredibly helpful getting me everything I needed. I hopped on the bus at 6:50am Korea time and was in Gwangju by 10am where, thankfully, my boss was ready and waiting. We headed back to the school for a quick tour and some pizza, and she sent me home with a whole pizza so I wouldn't have to worry about supper. I left my house in Blackstock at 3pm eastern time on Wednesday and got to my apartment in Gwangju at about noon Korea time on friday. Beginning to end the whole trip had taken about 38 hours, but I was finally "home".

After a few hours of unpacking and getting settled, I was down for the count. Beds here aren't too far away from padded concrete, but on that day I didn't notice. Saturday was my first day waking up in Korea, and I ventured to the corner store to get some water and noodles, practically sprinting the whole way. Then someone knocked on the door, turns out it was Patrick, the guy who had lived here before me, asking if I'd like to come along for a hike.

We hiked up the mountain that is located maybe half a mile from where I live and got some pretty good pictures. Above is what we beleive is an old Korean war bunker. That assumption is based on the construction being relatively modern brick and concrete. I never realized that the the war had been waged as far south as Gwangju, but these trenches certainly help explain why there is a military base at the foot of this mountain.

The hike also gave me a pretty incredible view of my new city. Living in Canada where subdivisions are fairly commonplace, it was remarkable to see a cityscape that seems to make such efficient use of a limited amount of space. Almost everywhere that isn't a mountain is home to sets of lego-like apartment buildings. Its refreshing that not everyone here is so concerned with having a canadian-tire backyard; any land that is privately owned is covered in gardens or common green space like the hiking trail.

After the hike Patrick showed me around the city a bit and took me to my first Kimbap Chun-guk (Korea's McDonald's). The basically sell all kinds of Korean food for pretty cheap. I didn't go too crazy and ordered cheese spaghetti, which was difficult to eat with chopsticks until I realized that the fork they had brought to the table was for me. 

On Sunday, I took a trip back to the Mart & Mart that Patrick had showed me and got some groceries. It was pretty tough figuring out what I was buying, but I managed to get some bread and eggs to at least get myself started with eggs and toast. To finish my first weekend in Korea, I met up with Trish, the other foreign teacher at my school. She took me downtown to meet some other foreign teachers for dinner and to go see Fast and Furious. For the duration of the movie I almost forgot I was in Korea. We called it an early night and I went home to get some rest. When I woke up Monday morning, I was going to have to learn how to be a teacher...