Korea so far . . .

(I must apologise, this is going to be a very long first blog post, so long in fact that something tells me that Mama is going to be the only person to make it all the way through to the end. But thanks ever so for attempting to finish/starting/looking at the pictures/getting this far and thinking “learn to stop waffling” (ne-vah!) Anyway, this will be very long because I am trying to cover the first month of my trip in one pretty message. I promise next time I won’t write so much/at all (I am very lazy). And for anyone who has never gotten an e-mail from me before, I have a rather strong affinity for brackets (see? I even started my very first blog with a bracket) commas, and I have a tendency to wander off into another topic in the middle of a spiel, I apologise in advance for this as I am told it is rather annoying/hard to understand/just really really stupid.) 

Although I can never be even as half as cool as Andy-my-Love (who is pretty damn cool), I thought I would jump on the bandwagon and start keeping a blog. This is mostly because A) I tend to forget who I have told what to, and it leads to my friends telling me very kindly “I’ve heard this story before, shut up Crawford” and B) This way if you don’t give a rat’s arse as to what I have been doing, you no longer have to pretend to care you can just say “Oh I’ve been reading your blog, sounds like you are having fun,” I will no doubt believe your filthy, filthy lie and we can all get back to talking about what is most important, you. (Don’t even try to pretend that you don’t do this!)

So for those who didn’t get the memo, I am in Korea for the next six (now five) months in order to teach English to a bunch of kids who would rather be doing just about anything else with their free time. I was going to write about the orientation in Jochiwon but to be honest I can’t really remember much that happened. In my mind it goes something like this; food, lecture, lecture, lecture, lecture, food, lecture, lecture, lecture, food, sleep, correct me if I am wrong. I did meet some of the strangest, loudest, nicest and most awesome people around, made a pretty below par fan, terrorised some monks at a Buddhist temple (who did their best to teach us how to bow properly while having little to no grasp on the English language, kai pai them), traipsed around Seoul in what can only be described as a monsoon, fell over no less than four times, saw a Nanta performance (which has to be seen to be properly appreciated), learnt three new magic tricks, sang at far too many karaoke bars (if you guessed that one is far too many, you would be right), went on a “fifteen minute walk” that lasted nearly an hour, rode in many buses that made me feel like I was a genie, went to a peach festival where I saw not one peach, had a bunch of people repeat my sentences back at me in weird pseudo English accents (they tried so hard) and saw a Tae Kwon Doe performance that made me wish I made it higher than a white belt (I would have been lower if it were possible).

Part of the temple.

We also went to an English Camp for five days during our last week at orientation. Whilst there we got paired up with our own living, breathing, money wasting child. I can’t even try to explain how nerve wreaking it was waiting to get our kid, it rather reminded me of P.E class and waiting to get chosen for a team (on a side note, why do teachers even allow that? Is P.E not soul destroying enough that they need to add an extra peer induced kick in the face?) It wasn’t as bad as I had envisioned though as the kids did not get to chose a teacher as such, they just got led in and sat next to the first scholar they were close to. It was all luck of the draw. While I waited for my child to scream “I want another, better teacher!” we had an opening ceremony (Korea is really big on opening ceremonies) and I tried to think of something interesting to say to the little girl next to me (I got as far as “Hi! What’s your name?” before my I lost whatever conversational skills I once possessed and we were left staring blankly at one another). I need not have worried however, as my kid, Lee Yoon Hee (think “Leonie” or Yoon Hee “Yunie”) was one of the nicest, smartest and politest little girls on the camp. I was really very, very lucky when I was placed with her, especially since a lot of the other kids seemed to have ADHD or were violent or were just generally little bastards.

The girls from Room 111.

The sleeping arrangements while on camp were interesting, there were 9 girls in our room (Room 111, the most awesome room around) and we all slept on mats on the floor. I managed to nick off with two sleeping mats instead of one and it made it quite comfortable, but I hear that the one paper thin mattress wasn’t really conducive to a good sleeping environment. It was nice being able to meet some of the other TaLK girls who I hadn’t yet spoken to, and make a bunch of new friends, (also I learnt the most annoying new game, next time you see me ask me to play “Sculpture” with you, you will be sorry you did, then you will be well pleased and so the circle will turn). English camp was a worthwhile little adventure, even though I did spend a ridiculous amount of money buying ice creams for the kids, I did manage to pick up some handy tips on how to work with Korean children.

After we returned from English Camp we had three minutes (it might have been a another day, but whatever it was far to short a time) to pack and get ready to move to our provinces. It was sad to say goodbye to all the new people I had met, I know it had only been three weeks, but after such an intense schedule it felt as if I had known them for years. It was even harder since I couldn’t say goodbye to everyone so to those I missed “Goodbye! I hope to see you again soon!” It was really time to start moving on though and I am well excited about teaching and meeting my kids. Also I appreciate Carlie and Catlin’s help getting my bags down from my room so much more after I had to get them up to the hotel room by myself, lets take a minute to thank the brave little soldiers.

Shalini, Nathan, Steven, Erin and Me on our last day.

Minute taken. My province is called “Busan” or just to be really confusing it is also often known as “Pusan”. If you want to know about it, my advice is to Google it, after all Wikipedia is famous for being very accurate. After a fun filled five hour bus drive we arrived, and to be honest my first thought was “I’m back in Wellington!” The only real reason I thought that was because it is on the waterfront and surrounded by hills, comparison ends there. We were staying in a hotel, which was a bit cramped but nice enough (the toilets were amazing! They had a million buttons on them! Whoooo!) the only complaint I have is that the AC in our room was broken, which isn’t exactly excellent when the temperature was hitting 32 degrees. Our POE orientation was entertaining and we actually had free time so that was new and exciting. It was nice to spend time with the other Busan people and get to know them better.

On our first day we went to the UN Memorial Cemetery, the Busan Museum, the APEC House and Gwangan Beach. The UN Memorial Cemetery is (shockingly) a cemetery that honours the soldiers from the United Nations who lost their lives during the Korean War. (Hopefully I don’t sound too much like a Documentary channel special when I write this) The Korean War is known as “the forgotten war” but the Koreans have not definitely not forgotten. The cemetery is immaculately kept. I saw a women scrubbing bird poop off the walkway while we were there, and I don’t remember seeing a single leaf or a spot of gum on the ground. Every day they have a ceremony to raise the flags (I think there were thirteen of them? Eleven for the members of the UN who fought, the UN flag and one for Korea itself) and then another at night to lower them, they also have guards standing at the entrance of the site, who must have been sweltering in their army uniforms but looked better off then we did. Here is what I learnt, 41 New Zealanders died during the war, and the youngest to lose his life of all the soldiers was an Australian who was only seventeen. He has a waterway dedicated to him. There is also a few war widows buried in the cemetery as they did not want to be separated from their husbands. It was all a bit surreal really, this beautiful place that was supposed to be a symbol for a terrible and sad chapter of history. If we hadn’t watched the handy DVD presentation at the start of the garden I think I would have assumed the place was just a scenic garden to show the tourists. There were also statues and carvings donated from the eleven countries, I saw the Kiwi contribution from about a block away because we were about to learn a fun fact about Mr. Choi (our POE supervisor), now I am not sure if this was a Korean thing, or if it is a Mr. Choi thing but we were hustled through the cemetery at a shocking pace, and we were not allowed to deviate from the path to explore so we were not able to view things properly. Let me know if your POE’s were like this as well guys, I am genuinely curious! 

The Busan people at the UN Memorial Gardens.

Next was the Busan Museum. Once again we were shooed through so I don’t remember much about it at all! To be fair to Mr. Choi though, he did stop and explain the exhibits to me when I asked him. My favourite was when I asked him about a picture that depicted the Japanese taking over Busan during the Korean/Japanese war and after telling me about it he says “but we win in the end!” with a maniacal grin on his face. I’m glad he is pleased. I will need to go back and walk through it at my own pace, I guess it is somewhere to take people when/if they visit! (I’m sure they will come if they here that). Then we moved to the APEC House. It was pretty, but mostly I was excited about the lemonade Mr. Choi bought us! Best lemonade ever. Lastly was the beach, which I think was just some kind of sick torture, because we were allowed to look at the water but not actually touch it. Mean.

The next day with our free time, Tyson, Dustin, Jung and I went to the beach in order to touch the water. Exciting times! Beaches in Korea are a bit different then the ones back home. There is only a certain place that you are actually allowed to go swimming in, and if you make the mistake of moving past the buoys then the lifeguards descend on you blowing their whistles and screaming in Korean (apparently most Koreans can’t actually swim, they just float around aimlessly in the water). This wouldn’t be much of a problem except it seemed that all of Korea and their dogs were out in the water the day we were there. The water was also very dirty, I was fine with it until I saw a little red worm float by followed by what I really, really hope was a balloon, after that I couldn’t get out of the water quickly enough!

The next day was back to lectures. Oh how I missed you lectures, what a reassuring presence you are. We also went to the Busan Global Village which is a type of English immersion school. They had things like a fake hotel, airport, bus station, police station and hospital where the students could practise their conversations in an “actual” situation. I must admit, if we had something like that at my school I might be able to say more than “Bonjour” (or not if my trip to Tahiti is to be believed). They also had an English library! I am well pleased about this fact. I might be able to read a book again in a few days.

We met our co-teachers on the last couple of days. I have two, named Sue and Liz (I confess that for the life of me I cannot say their Korean names, I’m a terrible person). They are sweethearts, and were both very worried about me setting up a house by myself (I’m starting to think that I really do look completely incapable of looking after myself). Liz has a sister overseas and she says she understands how lonely it is living by yourself so she sends me e-mails and checks up on me a lot. They have both taught before so I am hoping they will be a big help. Sue and I had to do a  trial class in front of some of the other Busan people, we worked well together, I am glad she is so easy going. Unfortunately they will only be in class with me once a week each (Sue on Friday and Liz on Tuesday, we think), so I will have to handle the little rug-rats all by my lonesome!

Sue is the girl sitting down.

 

OK, I still have to tell you all about my new house, school, mentor teacher and kids but I am getting sick of typing now so I will leave it until I have taught a few classes.

Congratulations if you made it this far! It’s 2400 (or so) words, If you read it all you should leave a comment because I really owe you a cookie (I won’t get you one of course, but you know, the thought is there).

Now to find a USB stick (not a pen drive, Kayla, you spaz.) so I can actually upload this!

Miss you + love you xx