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...