Yellow Dust and the Average Day

In our constant search for things uniquely Korean, we discovered something new without even trying: yellow dust. Wikipedia states that yellow dust is a seasonal meteorlogical phenomenon of yellow dust clouds originating from China and Mongolia and being carried by winds over Korea and towards Japan. So basically, there's just yellow dust everywhere in the air making it seem like you have a bad pair of sunglasses on. It used to be nothing more than desert sand but apparently now it's got many of China's pollutants in it. This might make it sound like you wouldn't be able to resist coughing your lungs out, but Ali and I were outside - in what we were later told was a terrible yellow dust day - and other than the colour of everything, we didn't even notice. If you look back at that picture of me outside of the theatre, you might notice the yellow tinge to the air. I'm told it only happens a few days a year, so fear not, we shouldn't see too many days like that.

In other news, Ali and I will going back into Seoul next weekend for a dinner that our recruitment agency is hosting. They expect around a hundred Native English teachers so that be quite a different sight than we're used to now. On the teaching front, I've now been teaching for 3 weeks and have settled into my daily routine at school which I will now describe in painful, excruciating detail.

The Average Day at my Uijeongbu Elementary School:

I arrive at school and stand by the main gate for about half an hour talking to students. By talking, I mean asking them questions that have short answers. Each day is a different grade so the questions differ. For the grade 2 day, I might ask "How are you?" and "What's your name?" For grade 6 day, I might ask "Where are you from?" and "How's the weather?" The kids have to all line up for their mini-conversation with me where they then receive a sheet of paper that reads "Great Work." I'm not sure yet if these sheets translate to any physical reward or whether the abstract praise is reward enough for them.

After this, I teach four 40 minute classes before lunch. The classes start with kids singing a song - this week I chose Beatles "Hello Goodbye" - and then I ask them what they did yesterday. Most kids played computer games to the wee hours of the morning. I guess they need time to unwind after a 830am - 8pm school day. We then watch some videos of these cartoon characters and I talk about the English that was heard. The kids are generally good but not as angelic as some may say. On the whole, I'll say their a little better than North American kids, but you still have some troublemakers that you have to get to pay attention. My co-teacher will sometimes whack a kid on the arm, not too hard, but more than you could get away with in North America.

During the last 10 minutes, we always play some sort of game that leads to kids screaming "Jesse teacher" as they want me to pick them. These games are usually fun, but can turn chaotic.

Lunch always consists of rice, kimchi, a soup, and 2 other side dishes that rotate. I really like that lunch is never the exact same every day and am growing quite fond of Korean cuisine. Of course, Ali and I still eat pizza and spaghetti so who knows if I would feel the same way if it was all I ate.

After lunch, there's about 3 hours left in my day and I plan other lessons and do whatever school work needs doing. Usually kids come into the classroom to clean for a bit because Korean schools don't have janitors. The kids clean everything. I'm out at 4:30 pm and that's my day in a nutshell.


My very large elementary school.


The classroom where I spend most of my time.


I'm pretty sure not all Africans carry spears and shields as this board might suggest.

First week teaching, etc.

Hi everyone!

We just finished our third week in Korea. I started teaching this week. I really love my kindergarten class - they are so cute and it's so much fun to teach them. We had cooking day on Thursday where we made canapes and Friday was Colour Day and my class was the purple class. We mostly just sang songs and made crafts all day. I taught my kids the Hokey Pokey and Hello, Goodbye and they are too adorable when they sing them. They can't really say 'hokey pokey' so they just call it 'Ali-Teacher Song'. Every day before they go home they say, 'We sing Ali-Teacher Song??'. So cute.

This week was a bit lousy though because I was really sick all week with a really bad cold and cough and I have a pretty terrible schedule right now. I work from about 9am to 8pm most days because I am waiting for another teacher, Jake, to leave so I can take over his kindergarten classes. Once he goes, I can get rid of some of my elementary classes and hopefully leave a lot earlier than 8. I definitely prefer kindergarten to elementary. The elementary classes are fine for the most part but their english is, surprisingly, way worse than my kindergarteners. Most of my classes are just teaching phonics so, in an hour, I will teach the letter 'J' or something so it can be really boring. And the kids are much older so they have way more attitude and are a lot harder to control. I have one class that are about 10 years old and it's 11 boys and 3 girls and they are horrible. Even my boss said in his 3 years here, he's never seen a worse class. They talk Korean non-stop, text on their cell phones, punch each other, never do their homework, bang things on their desk, yell, run around, yell at me in Korean, don't know any english... it's the worst. I hate having that class and am very hopeful they are one of the ones I get to get rid of when Jake leaves.

Other than that, this week has been good. I've been learning a lot about how everything works. I had to write report cards this week for students I only taught once, so that was interesting. I basically didn't know anyone I wrote report cards for. I really like the other foreign teachers and my boss is really nice and said I'm doing a good job so far, so I'm happy!

Jesse's week went well too. I think it's a mark of status for a public school to have a foreign english teacher so they like to show Jesse off to the parents. They make him come early so he can stand outside the gate to greet students as they come in and they gave him these little 'Good Job' cards to hand out to students who have a conversation in English with him. This basically resulted in him being totally swarmed by hundreds of kids wanting 'Good Job' cards.

This weekend we didn't really do much because I was still sick and exhausted. Last night, though, Jesse's co-teacher got him tickets for this performance at the Uijeongbu Arts Centre and we went but I don't think anyone else from his school showed up. It was pretty funny because it was all these random acts with varying skill levels performing. We saw 20 women with acoustic guitars perform Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da, little kids sing and dance to 'We Go Together' from Grease but translated into Korean, 6 old men sing 'Oh Happy Day' (not very well), and many more. It was pretty interesting and we found out Mamma Mia! is coming to the Arts Centre in June with Korean actors and I'm sure this promises to be interesting. We're definitely getting tickets.

Anyway, that's all for my first week of teaching! Miss you all!

Ali



Here is a video of the Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da performance. Might be the most boring rendition of the song I've ever heard but if you're interested, check it out.


Jess outside the Uijeongbu Arts Centre

First Weekend in Seoul

This weekend Ali and I finally left Uijeongbu to check out Seoul and discover more of what Korea had to offer. We knew Korea's transportation system, including the Seoul Metropolitan subway, was regarded as one of the World's best and it lived up to it's reputation. There are so many lines and so many stops - approximately 400 - that we thought beforehand it may be a bit confusing. But everything is connected at so many points and all signs are in Korean and English that travelling was a breeze, as long as you don't mind looking like a tourist, straining your eyes looking at subway map in your hand. Another bonus is that most subway trips cost only 90 cents.

We were eager to check out Seoul - one of the biggest cities in the world - and experience its rich culture so naturally our first stop was the Itawon district, the reverse Korea town of Seoul. Itawon is home to many restaurants and shops that cater to foreigners. It had its own version of little Italy, a middle eastern area and even a Canadian pub that served poutine! I've never liked poutine that much, but I still liked the idea that it was available. We met with Ali's friend Marijike, who is teaching in Incheon, and two of her friends she's made up here. We explored Itawon for awhile and could have forgotten we were in Korea; there were just as many foreigners as Koreans it seemed. Deciding to get food we can't back in Uijeongbu, we stopped at a cafe for lunch where we had some Western staples like hamburgers and french toast.

We were eager to see some sort of tourist attraction, but with none of us being erudite historians, we were unsure of where to go. We picked a palace on a map of Seoul and headed there. It was called Unhyeongung palace and for only thirty cents each, we got to explore the grounds and take lots of pictures. It was pretty interesting and definitely worth the money.

Not ready to call an end to our sightseeing, we made our way to the Myeong-dong subway stop to see North Seoul Tower, which is Korea's CN tower, so to speak. We walked uphill along roads for quite awhile before we noticed elevated trams (is that what they're called?) going up to the tower. We found the place and took the tram to the top. It turned out that this is White Day weekend. Koreans celebrate Valentine's day on February 14th, but unlike for North America, this is a day that women get gifts for the men and share their affection for them. One month later on March 14th, men return the favour on what the Koreans call White Day. It turns out that seeing North Seoul tower is a romantic occasion as the place was packed with couples.

North Seoul tower is not as tall as CN tower, but its location at top of a mountain provided a great view. Walking around the base of the tower was pretty cool because you already get a great sight on the surroundings. We paid to go up to the observatory which provided a nice 360 degree view of Seoul. There was also this ingenious idea where each window panel had the names of a few cities on them, indicating the direction and exact distance to the city. We looked directly at Toronto only 10 607.77km away! Practically there by all accounts.

After North Seoul tower, it was about eight pm so we made our way to the Hongkik University area. We were told it was a good location for going out and we had a nice pub dinner and went to a few places. Our first trip into Seoul was a success and with Ali being the inveterate explores she is, I'm sure we will go back soon to do some more sight seeing. It was also nice for Ali to see her friend Marijke again and her two friends Odi and James seemed really nice. It's really great to make other friends in Korea.

Today we just took it easy. It's seems like Ali is getting pretty sick with a cold and sore throat and has to start teaching tomorrow so we just lazed around and watched movies.

We'll update again at the end of the week.

- Jesse


Ali looking toward Toronto from North Seoul Tower. Can almost touch it!


A view of Seoul at night.


Ali and I at the base of Seoul tower.


The group trying to figure out where to go next and looking like huge tourists.


The palace in Seoul.

Ali's first few days at school

Hey everyone!
I hope you’re all doing well. I don’t want to bore everyone with mundane life details but I know some people are interested in this kind of stuff – if it’s not you, please just skip to the pictures or whatever.
Anyway, this week I started in my school but just doing observation. It seems like it will be really fun. I’ve found out that I will be the main teacher for one kindergarten class called ‘Newton’ (each class at ECC – my school – has the name of a different famous person). Newton class has 8 kids – 5 boys and 3 girls. They are all 5 years old and are in their second year of studying English. In addition to that class, I’ll be the secondary teacher for two other classes, Einstein and Edison. Being the secondary teacher means you basically just focus on one thing, like phonics, for those kids for one class a day. I will also have a few elementary classes but likely not too many. Class starts at 9:40 every morning and kindergarten ends at 3:00. Elementary kids come to school from 2pm to 8pm. It’s crazy how much school Korean kids go to. Basically, an elementary student goes to public school all day, private English school until 8pm every night, and then studies piano and tae kwon do several times a week. Lots of parents also get private tutors for extra hours outside of that.
Observing the classes has been a bit boring because it’s like being in kindergarten all day. You can only listen to students repeat sentences like ‘What shape do you see?, I see a green triangle’ so many times before you get very bored.
The guy who owns my school, Mr. Lyu, is one of the richest men in Korea. He owns tons of buildings including 2 private schools. Despite being worth many millions of dollars, he's very very nice but I've heard his wife is a bit of a jerk. I haven't witnessed her wrath yet though.
The other foreign teachers in my school are super friendly and nice and so I think it will be a really fun working environment. Two other girls just started a week before me and one more guy is going to start soon so at least I’m not the only new person.
I start officially teaching by myself on Monday and am a little nervous but am excited to not have to observe any more. A typical class usually consists of doing the date, weather, and these ‘memory sentences’ they have, which are basically one sentence a day that the students had to memorize. Then you read a story and discuss it or have them do an activity in their textbooks. We also teach math, science, art, cooking, etc. but these classes are super basic and fun.
We got a pretty big snowstorm the other day (by Korean standards) but I’m hoping that’s winter’s last gasp and that spring in on the way.
We’ve been trying to go to a new restaurant every night (because eating out is actually cheaper than getting groceries) but so far have only found one that we really like and it’s a fancy expensive one so we can’t go there all the time.
This weekend we’re planning on going to Seoul to meet one of our old friends from Guelph and possibly my cousin Paul and my friend from Humber, Marijke. We’ll do some sightseeing and it should be good!
Anyway, that’s all for now. Hope you’re all doing well!

- Ali


This is a sample classroom at ECC. They're really small because classes are very rarely above 10 students.

This is my school from the outside. You can see the second and third floors have 'ECC' on the windows. My school is just 2 floors in this massive building.

This is a shot of the street the morning after a big snowstorm.

Discovering Uijeongbu

So it's been a few days so I'll catch people up on what we've been up to lately.

Thursday night, Ali and I decided to tackle going out to the movies. We knew Seoul showed a lot of English movies but weren't sure if the small Korean city of Uijeongbu would have a large selection. Thankfully, we discovered Uijeongbu has a 9 screen cinema with about 6 English movies to choose from. Most English movies in Korea aren't dubbed, but rather, show Korean subtitles, which is great for us. We saw Alice in Wonderland. A little observation about the movie theatre is that when you buy your ticket you pick exactly what seat you want to sit at on a little touch pad screen - something I hope North America will adopt.

On Friday, we went to see Ali's apartment. It's a little bigger than mine, but Ali's is for two people. She has a roommate from Florida who seems very nice. A bunch of the Native teachers from Ali's school were going out for dinner and we were invited. There's about ten native teachers at Ali's school plus there were another eight or so we met at the restaurant from another school. It seems that every foreigner in Uijeongbu knows each other. The restaurant was similar to the one I went to with my school: no shoes, sit on cushions on the floor, stove rings on the tables, and large dishes of food that keep coming out. I enjoy the local cuisine, but I was worried about Ali since she has much higher food standards than me. The first dish was a spicy soup with vegetables that Ali enjoyed. The second course was Shabu Shabu (sp?). They bring out a huge plate of uncooked meat, where you're meant to to pick up a slice and dip it into the boiling stew to cook it. Next was some noodles and lastly was some rice. Ali found enough food she could eat so dinner wasn't a lost cause for her. Korean culture emphasizes a lot of sharing so many restaurants follow this style of serving big plates of food that people pick and choose from. I love buffets so no complaints from me.

I was surprised by how many Native teachers there were; Uijeongbu is a small city so I would've guessed a handful but there seems to be maybe thirty. The people we met were from English speaking countries all over the world including South Africa, Ireland, England, Canada, and U.S.A. After dinner, we all went to a bar where there were more foreigners - Uijeongbu is home to a very large American military base. The bar was fun and drinks aren't expensive, but you can smoke in a lot of buildings in Korea which can become a bit annoying because the bars are very smoky.

Today, Ali and I ventured out towards Hoeryong Temple, located at the base of a Mountain. There's a lot of mountains and temples around where we live so we decided to finally take a look at the closest one. Hiking and mountain climbing seem like popular past-times as we saw lots of Koreans with backpacks and hiking gear going down the trail. The trail to the temple was only 2km from our house, but it was a pretty steep incline. When we reached the temple, we saw several buildings all amazing to look at. Some of the buildings had lots of small pictures on them full of detail. There was a Korean man that greeted us right away and asked us where we were from. He invited us into one of the temples for a Buddist service. Being a Sunday morning, many people had come for the weekly service. Inside the prayer temple, the wall was filled with hundreds of gold Buddah statues. I wish we could've taken a picture but there was a service going on so it seemed like a faux pas. We stayed for about ten minutes of the service where we sat on cushions on the floor and bowed numerous times.

I begin teaching tomorrow, Ali begins work on Wednesday.

Ali's School Address

For mail, they suggest the best thing to do is get things sent to our schools because a) we actually know the address of them, and b) packages can be delivered there during the day. If they are sent to our apartments, the postmen will just take them back to the post office and we have no clue where the post office is. So, here's my school address if anyone needs to send anything:

Ali Golfetto
ECC
2nd F1, Daekyung Plaza
442-3, Howon-dong Uijongbu-si
Kyonggi-do, Korea

Ph: (031) 829-0505

Thanks!
Ali

First Week and More Pics

Hi everyone!
So these are some photos from our first week in Uijeongbu. Jesse has been going in to school every day this week but has just been meeting people and doing lesson plans and getting to know the school and his co-teacher Aisha. He won't start teaching until next week. Aisha's been really great and is really helping him (and indirectly me) learn about Korea and Uijeongbu. Tonight she is showing him this marketplace near her house that is there every Thursday and she has been great about explaining the complicated recycling system, Korean customs, and neat places for us to check out.
I went in to my school today for the first time and met the director. I also met my supervisor who is a Canadian from Halifax who seems really helpful and it's nice to have things explained to me in English so I have some clue about what's going on. Tomorrow I'm going to the hospital for the necessary medical exam (Jesse's already done this) and seeing my apartment in the afternoon. Next week I'll start by observing classes and I'll officially start teaching on the 15th. There are about 10 foreign teachers at my school and the average class size is about 7. I'll be teaching kindergarden and some elementary so the kids are super young and cute. I'm so excited. My school seems really nice and I can't wait to get started! It's a bit boring trying to keep myself busy while Jesse's been at school all day so it will be fun to start teaching. I'm also really happy that there will be so many other foreigners around because it's not great to just sit and smile politely while everyone around you talks in Korean.


Jesse in front of 'Pizza School'. I'm so happy they have pizza here - even if they insist on covering every pizza in corn.


Me joining in the romance on some random movie poster.


Jesse's apartment building from the outside.


Jesse's street.


The view along the river. So many apartment buildings! No wonder this city is half the area of Burlington with just under a million people.

Anyway, we'll keep you posted on how things are going! Miss you!
Ali

Jesse's First Day of School

So I started my first day at school today. It's a very nice school and is very large. It's also a public school which seems more prestigious than private, based on what I've seen - which would be the opposite of back home.

My day started at 8:40am and it's only a twenty minute walk to school. There's lots of beautiful scenery to look at on the walk including many mountains. Once at school, I went to a meeting with all the teachers. It's very interesting to be surrounded by people speaking a different language than you because you try really hard to listen and focus a lot on body language. There were about six new teachers at this school including me and so we each introduced ourselves. This was my time to shine as I used the Korean I'd practiced for weeks. I said annyonghaseyo, jeoneun jesse-imnida choeum beopgessumnida. People laughed and clapped so I think that may be a good sign.

I then went to the "broadcast room" where morning announcements are filmed. This is a very futuristic school. Two young kids operated the camera while the Principal and vice principals spoke to the camera and introduced the new teachers. I assume that it's broadcasted into each classroom.

There was then an assembly with all the grade 1 students and their parents. This was 10 in the morning and it seemed like every parent was there. Education is very important in Korea.

At noon, there was a lunch for all the new teachers. This was a bit scary since my co-teacher, who speaks English, was not going. Lucky for me, one of the new teachers is an English teacher and is very fluent in English. She served as the interpreter between the Principal and me. The restaurant was very cool and just like how I've seen it on TV. Shoes were removed at the door and we sat on the floor on some cushions. There was no menu to select food from as food was scattered all over the table and more kept coming out every few minutes. You just grab things with your chopsticks and eat them. I think they could tell I was inexperienced with the sticks as someone asked if I wanted a fork. I wish I could describe what we ate, but I didn't even know what it was. Everything was good though and a lot of it was spicy. There was this neat thing I'll describe. Everyone got a big hot cast-iron bowl of rice. You empty the rice into a smaller bowl and then pour boiling water into the iron bowl of rice. You eat the rice you scooped out and then after awhile all the rice that was sticking to the sides of the iron bowl have been loosened and you eat it as a kind of soup. Hot water and rice soup I guess is what you would call it. Koreans never waste any rice! The Principal asked me different questions about Canada as well as do I drink. I said 'some red wine', and then he asked me about Scotch and Vodka and how many I could drink. I think he found it funny that I didn't drink much.

The rest of the day was spent at another meeting and going to the hospital. I had to get a full body checkup in order to get my alien registration card. They ran me through the gauntlet: eye exam, reflexes, blood pressure, urine, blood. I think I'm okay.

My teacher dropped me off and that concluded my first day of being a teacher in Korea, which happened to include no actual teaching. I'll try to post pictures later, I just want to find out if it's okay to take them first.

In other news Ali found a grocery store that has many food items in English like spaghetti and tomato sauce. If you throw a stone around here you're bound to hit a restaurant or supermarket so we never have far to go. She also reorganized our smaller apartment to make it feel more spacious. She is to start teaching on Monday, March 8th.



Jesse

Some pics

Hey everyone, here's a few of the pictures we've taken. There will be many more in the coming weeks.

Real first post from Uijeongbu

Hi Everyone!

Like I said, we got here safe and sound! Hooray!
The flight was extremely long and cramped. Jesse wants to say that he tried all the Korean meal options on the plane (which looked a bit gross) and then also ate mine because there were no vegetarian options - that doesn't bode well for how this year will go for me food-wise. Then it was an hour drive from the airport to Uijeongbu, where we're staying. We got here at about 5am Korean time.
Jesse's apartment is really small. He's used to living in a small room but I'm definitely not. It's one small bedroom that has a TV, washing machine, and kitchen in it, as well as a bed. There's maybe 20 square feet of floor space. There's also a bathroom which is also tiny. It's pretty funny because it's a sink and a toilet and a random shower head on the wall and a drain on the floor so you just shower in the bathroom, over top of the toilet and sink.
We managed to catch the last 2 periods of the hockey game last night, although the commentary was in Korean. SO awesome that Canada won. We didn't end up falling asleep until around 7am and woke up around 11 so our schedules don't get too messed up.
This afternoon, Jesse's co-teacher Aiesha came to our apartment and showed us around town, gave us a tour of Jesse's school (which looks AMAZING!) and showed us an awesome grocery store. We got tons of groceries and household stuff and are now pretty settled.
The weather isn't bad. It's about 10 degrees and rainy but hasn't been raining constantly.
Tomorrow is the first day of the new school semester. Jesse doesn't have to teach until next week but has to start work tomorrow to meet everyone and go to some meetings and stuff. He'll be teaching Grade 3 and 4, which Aiesha says are great and that the kids are 'little angels'. I don't know when I will start or when I will see my apartment but hopefully I'll find out soon.
We don't have phones yet but have internet in our apartment.
Our address is a bit confusing but I think this is what it is:

Jesse Hall and Ali Golfetto
64-1 Sinhung-ro (St.)
309-362, Room 303
Uijeongbu, Gyeonggi-do
Korea South

I would hold off sending mail until we're a bit more sure that that is the right address.

I'm missing everyone a lot already but hopefully won't get too homesick. Korea seems like it will be pretty great and I'm really excited to get into a routine here.

Love,
Ali