Okay, so... I always say that, I don't know why.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Monday, March 29, 2010
Touring South Korea
Well, we had another adventure this past Palm Sunday weekend. The EPIK orientation was actually a really beneficial time for us, if only because we were able to make some great friends there. One couple, Taylor and Lindsey Lett, invited us to come stay a night at their home in Yeoungsan.
Yeoungsan.
...
Yeoungsan, Yeounsan, Yeoungsan!!!
This little town is about a 45 minute bus ride south of Daegu, so it's fairly close. The drive to Yeoungsan (from Busan) is scenicly surrounded by mountains even larger than we have in the Daegu area. At night, Yeoungsan actually looks devent sized, but in actuality it is about half the size of Seongju, the small city Anna and I teach in. I don't really know what the drive from Daegu to Yeoungsan looks like, though.
"Why is this?" you may ask.
Well, there are many towns and cities in Korea that sound similar to Yeoungsan, such as: Youngsan, Yangsan, Yongson, etc. The hangul for our intended Yeoungsan, however, is 영산. When we arrived at the bus station, the attendant apparently said something along the lines of, "oh no, you don't want to go there. You want to go to 양 산." Well, we didn't know, so we did what she said... Little did we know this would result in the waste of a significant portion of our Saturday. We left our apartment at 1:30p and should have arrived by 3p. Instead, we arrived at our destination around, oh... 8:30p!!! The bus we took went in a huge loop. If you have access to a map of Korea, we went east to Gyeongju and then south to Yangsan, which is a suburb of Busan. Busan is about 2.5 hours south east of Daegu.
So, after telling Taylor and Lindsey that we would be in Yeoungsan around 3p, we arrived in Yangsan around 5:30-6p. The bus driver literally kicked us out on the side of the road. We had no idea where we were. We ended up walking about 2 miles through Yangsan, dragging a suitcase and carrying 2 pillows, looking for a subway station/taxi. We finally found the latter that brought us to the former, and took a 30 min subway trip to Sangso, near central Busan. Fortunately, Taylor and Lindsey had just purchased a car the day before, and Taylor was able to find the bus station while driving in Busan for the first time. I can't even imagine how scary that would be. Once we found Taylor, it was 1-1.5 hours back to Yeoungsan. Wow.
After that we had a great time. They showed us a game (I think it was called San Juan) similar to Settlers, but without the board. A good game for Danny and Emily :). They also showed us their spunky son Corin. While waiting for us, Corin, two-year-old (almost) "beast" of a red-haired boy, managed to bust open both of his lips and his pinky toe. He's great!!! I have to say I am a bit jealous of their place though, a 3 bedroom with flat floors :). I am not, however, jealous of their location. They are pretty secluded.
In the morning we went with them back to Busan to visit their church. It was a foreigners church! Everyone spoke English! Actually, it was a little bit weird. We had a great time though: the message was about controlling the tongue, taken from James. It was interesting to apply, especially in Korea, where I find myself analyzing so many of the things around me, and where often times there are only one or two people within hearing range who can understand what I am saying, if that. Afterwards they treated us to lunch at another Italian Restaurant :), and then we joined them for a couple's bible study.
We were also able to see the Busan shoreline, which was excellent. It was easily the most gorgeous day we've experienced here so far, and we took a relaxing stroll along the beach. I can't remember what it was called, but we will post a video of it.
Overall, I don't think I could really call the weekend restful, but I can say that we had a great time, and if nothing else, I have a much better sense of distance and direction for the southeastern corner of the country.
Yeoungsan.
...
Yeoungsan, Yeounsan, Yeoungsan!!!
This little town is about a 45 minute bus ride south of Daegu, so it's fairly close. The drive to Yeoungsan (from Busan) is scenicly surrounded by mountains even larger than we have in the Daegu area. At night, Yeoungsan actually looks devent sized, but in actuality it is about half the size of Seongju, the small city Anna and I teach in. I don't really know what the drive from Daegu to Yeoungsan looks like, though.
"Why is this?" you may ask.
Well, there are many towns and cities in Korea that sound similar to Yeoungsan, such as: Youngsan, Yangsan, Yongson, etc. The hangul for our intended Yeoungsan, however, is 영산. When we arrived at the bus station, the attendant apparently said something along the lines of, "oh no, you don't want to go there. You want to go to 양 산." Well, we didn't know, so we did what she said... Little did we know this would result in the waste of a significant portion of our Saturday. We left our apartment at 1:30p and should have arrived by 3p. Instead, we arrived at our destination around, oh... 8:30p!!! The bus we took went in a huge loop. If you have access to a map of Korea, we went east to Gyeongju and then south to Yangsan, which is a suburb of Busan. Busan is about 2.5 hours south east of Daegu.
So, after telling Taylor and Lindsey that we would be in Yeoungsan around 3p, we arrived in Yangsan around 5:30-6p. The bus driver literally kicked us out on the side of the road. We had no idea where we were. We ended up walking about 2 miles through Yangsan, dragging a suitcase and carrying 2 pillows, looking for a subway station/taxi. We finally found the latter that brought us to the former, and took a 30 min subway trip to Sangso, near central Busan. Fortunately, Taylor and Lindsey had just purchased a car the day before, and Taylor was able to find the bus station while driving in Busan for the first time. I can't even imagine how scary that would be. Once we found Taylor, it was 1-1.5 hours back to Yeoungsan. Wow.
After that we had a great time. They showed us a game (I think it was called San Juan) similar to Settlers, but without the board. A good game for Danny and Emily :). They also showed us their spunky son Corin. While waiting for us, Corin, two-year-old (almost) "beast" of a red-haired boy, managed to bust open both of his lips and his pinky toe. He's great!!! I have to say I am a bit jealous of their place though, a 3 bedroom with flat floors :). I am not, however, jealous of their location. They are pretty secluded.
In the morning we went with them back to Busan to visit their church. It was a foreigners church! Everyone spoke English! Actually, it was a little bit weird. We had a great time though: the message was about controlling the tongue, taken from James. It was interesting to apply, especially in Korea, where I find myself analyzing so many of the things around me, and where often times there are only one or two people within hearing range who can understand what I am saying, if that. Afterwards they treated us to lunch at another Italian Restaurant :), and then we joined them for a couple's bible study.
We were also able to see the Busan shoreline, which was excellent. It was easily the most gorgeous day we've experienced here so far, and we took a relaxing stroll along the beach. I can't remember what it was called, but we will post a video of it.
Overall, I don't think I could really call the weekend restful, but I can say that we had a great time, and if nothing else, I have a much better sense of distance and direction for the southeastern corner of the country.
Friday, March 26, 2010
So, what's new with Seth?
Even Anna was telling me I need to make a new post, since she has written the last three or four. Sorry about that... Anyway, things are going great for me! For some reason it feels like I have an easier setup than Anna, even though I teach more classes. I love my second school, Gacheon. The students are incredible, and the co-teachers are helpful friendly.
It's kind of funny how things are working out. My first school, Meung-In, is actually very challenging, especially Monday. That's because I have High School grade 1... Sometimes they drive me nuts! One native English teacher here actually suggested I start making them do wall-sits to keep them in line, and actually I probably will!
By Wednesday, I wonder what we are doing in Korea, and then my middle schoolers save the day. They are a lot of fun, and very excited to be in class. Thursday and Friday are amazing though. The kids at this school are just priceless.
Yesterday, one of my periods randomly cancelled class so that the first and third grade high schoolers could play soccer... in the rain... on a sand field. Well, the girls had no interest in this, so they dragged me into the auditorium for Karaoke!!! Apparently, this school loves karaoke so much they bought a massive machine with probably 5,000 songs, including English. So after getting an "example," I serenaded them with "Georgia on my Mind." The funny thing is that when the students sing American songs, their English is perfect! I didn't know the songs they sang (mostly Beyonce), but they sang them great. Right before lunch, and to cap off the "concert", they insisted I rap for them... Never had much talent for that. It was... interesting. But they loved it, so it was fun.
Anyway, I'm about finished with my day here, and getting ready to leave, so I'll write some more next week.
Seth
It's kind of funny how things are working out. My first school, Meung-In, is actually very challenging, especially Monday. That's because I have High School grade 1... Sometimes they drive me nuts! One native English teacher here actually suggested I start making them do wall-sits to keep them in line, and actually I probably will!
By Wednesday, I wonder what we are doing in Korea, and then my middle schoolers save the day. They are a lot of fun, and very excited to be in class. Thursday and Friday are amazing though. The kids at this school are just priceless.
Yesterday, one of my periods randomly cancelled class so that the first and third grade high schoolers could play soccer... in the rain... on a sand field. Well, the girls had no interest in this, so they dragged me into the auditorium for Karaoke!!! Apparently, this school loves karaoke so much they bought a massive machine with probably 5,000 songs, including English. So after getting an "example," I serenaded them with "Georgia on my Mind." The funny thing is that when the students sing American songs, their English is perfect! I didn't know the songs they sang (mostly Beyonce), but they sang them great. Right before lunch, and to cap off the "concert", they insisted I rap for them... Never had much talent for that. It was... interesting. But they loved it, so it was fun.
Anyway, I'm about finished with my day here, and getting ready to leave, so I'll write some more next week.
Seth
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Day to Day
I don’t even know where to start! We have been so busy lately. Of course, it has mostly been good busy. I work 9 1/2 hour days, and I am gone for 11 hours. Seth’s schedule is a little different, but it averages out that he his gone for about the same amount of time. On most days, we have been spending time with Korean and foreign friends. Here are a few of the things we have done.
We went to downtown Daegu and had delicious Italian food with one of Seth’s co-teachers, Peter. It was a great night of relaxation and fun.
My co-teacher’s niece, Minhee and her brother, Chanhee,, took us out for Italian food and bowling. We have had lots of spaghetti and pizza because everyone knows that I love Italian food. They all want to take us to their favorite Italian restaurants J It’s great! Many of the restaurants are Western-style. The only big difference is that most of them are very small. Also, you usually call the server with a button that is at the table. After having Italian, we went bowling., the bowling alley was similar except for the fact that it wasn’t one very long wide room; the bowling alley located on three separate floors of a building.
We saw Shutter Island at the local Lotte Theater with a few other native English teachers who live near us. The theater was built like bowling alley. It is many floors high. You purchase your tickets on one floor, and then take the elevator up to the floor that your movie is playing on. They also have assigned seating J I was soooo happy to find that they have American style popcorn. I have had a very hard time finding it. Most of the most popular adult movies are in English with Korean subtitles! Yay! Twilight Saga J
We had a native English teacher over to hang out and play games.
We had a Korean friend and a Kenyan friend over to play Wii, watch a movie, and have Chinese food. We had our Kenyan friend order the Chinese for us because we had no idea what to say. The Chinese food was delicious and very authentic. I liked it a lot better than American Chinese food.
We also went to a Korean concert. Seth’s principal gave him tickets to the orchestra that was playing at the university near our apartment. It was beautiful. They played many songs that I didn’t know, but they also played some that I did know, like “My Heart Will Go On” and “Jesus Christ, Superstar.”
Tonight will are hosting “Taco Night” for all of native English teachers in Seongsoe (West Daegu).
Our apartment is small, but it is very cozy. We have received many compliments about it from Koreans and foreigners. All of the furniture is used. Our co-teachers got it from a previous native English teacher. We were told by a few Koreans that even though our apartment is a traditional Korean-style apartment, it has the feel of foreigners. I am curious to find out how our apartment is different from a Korean’s apartment. We haven’t been to one yet!
We just realized that after the Dell technician fixed out computer, we lost 3/4 of our files that were saved on our old hard drive. I was devastated, and I am still very upset. We had hours and hours worth of college essays, projects, resumes, job applications, financial information, lessons plans, pictures, etc. on our old hard drive. Now, we have lost most of it for good. We are going to see if there is any possible way to retrieve those files, but it is highly unlikely. I feel like a huge part of my life is missing. Despite being very angry about it, I am trying to accept that God is teaching me an important lesson from this experience. I really don’t want to learn this lesson! Before leaving for Korea, our church was going through a series on stewardship. I learned a lot about material blessings and spiritual blessings, and I believe this is a big reminder that no matter how much time I spent on those files and no matter how important they are to me, they are just files. They are not as important as building relationships. Learning lessons can be such a pain!
-Anna-Teacher :)
We went to downtown Daegu and had delicious Italian food with one of Seth’s co-teachers, Peter. It was a great night of relaxation and fun.
My co-teacher’s niece, Minhee and her brother, Chanhee,, took us out for Italian food and bowling. We have had lots of spaghetti and pizza because everyone knows that I love Italian food. They all want to take us to their favorite Italian restaurants J It’s great! Many of the restaurants are Western-style. The only big difference is that most of them are very small. Also, you usually call the server with a button that is at the table. After having Italian, we went bowling., the bowling alley was similar except for the fact that it wasn’t one very long wide room; the bowling alley located on three separate floors of a building.
We saw Shutter Island at the local Lotte Theater with a few other native English teachers who live near us. The theater was built like bowling alley. It is many floors high. You purchase your tickets on one floor, and then take the elevator up to the floor that your movie is playing on. They also have assigned seating J I was soooo happy to find that they have American style popcorn. I have had a very hard time finding it. Most of the most popular adult movies are in English with Korean subtitles! Yay! Twilight Saga J
We had a native English teacher over to hang out and play games.
We had a Korean friend and a Kenyan friend over to play Wii, watch a movie, and have Chinese food. We had our Kenyan friend order the Chinese for us because we had no idea what to say. The Chinese food was delicious and very authentic. I liked it a lot better than American Chinese food.
We also went to a Korean concert. Seth’s principal gave him tickets to the orchestra that was playing at the university near our apartment. It was beautiful. They played many songs that I didn’t know, but they also played some that I did know, like “My Heart Will Go On” and “Jesus Christ, Superstar.”
Tonight will are hosting “Taco Night” for all of native English teachers in Seongsoe (West Daegu).
Our apartment is small, but it is very cozy. We have received many compliments about it from Koreans and foreigners. All of the furniture is used. Our co-teachers got it from a previous native English teacher. We were told by a few Koreans that even though our apartment is a traditional Korean-style apartment, it has the feel of foreigners. I am curious to find out how our apartment is different from a Korean’s apartment. We haven’t been to one yet!
We just realized that after the Dell technician fixed out computer, we lost 3/4 of our files that were saved on our old hard drive. I was devastated, and I am still very upset. We had hours and hours worth of college essays, projects, resumes, job applications, financial information, lessons plans, pictures, etc. on our old hard drive. Now, we have lost most of it for good. We are going to see if there is any possible way to retrieve those files, but it is highly unlikely. I feel like a huge part of my life is missing. Despite being very angry about it, I am trying to accept that God is teaching me an important lesson from this experience. I really don’t want to learn this lesson! Before leaving for Korea, our church was going through a series on stewardship. I learned a lot about material blessings and spiritual blessings, and I believe this is a big reminder that no matter how much time I spent on those files and no matter how important they are to me, they are just files. They are not as important as building relationships. Learning lessons can be such a pain!
-Anna-Teacher :)
Sunday, March 21, 2010
A Few Observations
Before coming to Korea, I was told that a typical Korean teenager’s life is very different from a typical American teenager’s life. As I work with Korean high school students, these differences become more and more noticeable. My high school students have been working on a “Dream Job” unit. At first, I wasn’t sure if this unit would be appropriate for the first year high school students, but I was very encouraged to hear, from my co-teacher, that this unit is perfect for them because they are so busy studying that they don’t have time to daydream about their future. The students are making posters in which they have to explain their dream job, the reasons why they want the job, their personal strengths, and steps they must take to achieve their goal. As the students were writing about the steps they must take to achieve their dream job, I noticed that all of the students focused on studying hard, passing exams, and going to a good university. These steps are important; however, everyone focused on studies even when I showed them a personal example in which only one of my three steps had anything to do with studies. In order to get a good job and have stability, students in Korea must do well in high school, have good exam scores, and do well in the university. I have been told that when colleges are looking at applications, they focus solely on grades; whereas, in the United States, grades are important, but schools also place a high priority on extracurricular activities, volunteer work, jobs, etc.
I have also noticed how generous and giving my students are. My students are constantly giving me candy, chips, etc. Even if I don’t want what they offer, I accept it with a smile because I know that this is a method of expressing their feelings. They also want to teach me everything about Korea. Getting to know my students on a deeper level has humbled me. The phrase “life-long learner” is cheesy, but teaching has shown me how true and important this motto is. Even though I have more education and more life experience than my students, they teach me something new everyday. Although teaching is very challenging and exhausting work, it is an extremely rewarding job.
Sung-Sang-Nim (Teacher)
I have also noticed how generous and giving my students are. My students are constantly giving me candy, chips, etc. Even if I don’t want what they offer, I accept it with a smile because I know that this is a method of expressing their feelings. They also want to teach me everything about Korea. Getting to know my students on a deeper level has humbled me. The phrase “life-long learner” is cheesy, but teaching has shown me how true and important this motto is. Even though I have more education and more life experience than my students, they teach me something new everyday. Although teaching is very challenging and exhausting work, it is an extremely rewarding job.
Sung-Sang-Nim (Teacher)
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