Tea Day

"Don't forget to have Tea Days!" "Yeah, they're the best days of the term!" Joann and Thula gave us their last instructions before they left Cheonan on our first day at our institute. Later Fabrice, the other teacher here, filled us in about what Tea Days entailed. Apparently, in the SDA Language School system every English teacher is supposed to schedule two Tea Days for each of their adult classes. On Tea Days we are allowed to neglect the lesson of the day and can just talk and get to know each other better. Everyone in the class brings food or drinks and we spend our class hour learning more about each class member. What a brilliant idea, eh?! We fully intended to add Tea Days to our class schedule, but amidst all the hustle and bustle of trying to figure out our new life in Korea, we forgot all about it.

The other week Fabrice brought up Tea Days again and we quickly fit them into our schedules. I had my first Tea Day on Friday morning with my religion class. I have five religion students, but with the amazing amount of food spread out over several desks, you would have thought I have at least 10 students! We had such a great time trying new foods and fellowshipping together. Then yesterday, the review day for the unit we are studying in our textbook, I had Tea Days with both my morning and evening English classes. Again we had a vast array of foods and I learned a lot about Korean cultures and holidays from my students. Here are some pictures from Friday's Tea Day and the aftermath. (Both my students and Jonathan's left all the extra food for us and Fabrice to finish. We ate as much as we could and still had food to spare to serve for our vespers program that evening!) Unfortunately, I forgot all about pictures yesterday, but I'll do my best to remember to take some during my final Tea Days of the term.

The majority of the food for our religion class Tea Day

Yummy tea Elizabeth brought

My wonderful religion class!: Elizabeth, Meg, Linda, Mia & Neo

The leftovers from Jonathan's and my Tea Days

Thanksgiving

At long last, here's a post about our Thanksgiving meal!

Since we didn't really have time on Thursday to have Thanksgiving, and Friday was a bit busy as well, we decided to have the dinner on Sunday. We invited our fellow teacher and friend Fabrice over, but he had made plans to go to another institute to visit one of the teachers who used to be here, so we just had a meal for two.

Making our first Thanksgiving meal together was pretty interesting, especially since we are in South Korea and don't have access to many things you'd normally be able to find in North America. So the dishes we were able to come up with were: mashed potatoes, deviled eggs, corn, salad, and bread rolls. We haven't been able to get any veggie meat yet, so we didn't have anything of that nature, but what we did have was more than sufficient to fill us up, so it was a success!

Here are a couple pictures. (Please excuse the out of focus second picture - I didn't realize it was out of focus, and didn't take any more.)

Later on that evening, we went to a nearby cafe for our "dessert."

Apartment pictures (and a video)!

Here, for your viewing pleasure, are some pictures of our apartment building and the views from our apartment, followed by a video tour!

Our apartment building

Entrance

Our door on the 13th floor

Keypad to unlock the door

Paris Baguette viewed from our back window - a great place for pastries, etc

View from the top floor

Playground from 20 floors up

Great view of the mountains

Between the buildings you can see the intersection we cross every day to get to work

The trash sorting area

makeshift fisheye :)

and here's the video tour!

(you can watch full size if you like)

Enjoy!

South Korea

So you may have heard that we're in South Korea now.

I just thought I'd give you a little feel for what it's like. To start out with, let's talk about a few statistics from Maine, my home state.

Maine has an area of about 35,400 square miles, with a population of 1.3 million. This gives it a population density of ~43 people per square mile. It's largest "metropolitan area" is Portland-South Portland-Biddeford, with a population of about 516,000. (For those readers who are from Canada, BC has an area of about 365,000 sq. mi. [larger than the combined areas of California, Oregon, and Washington], has a population of 4.5 million, giving it a population density of 12 people per square mile, and it's largest city is Vancouver, with a population of 2.1 million in an area of 1,111 sq. mi.)

South Korea actually has a very similar area to that of Maine, about 38,600 - only about 3,000 more square miles. However, the population is VERY different: South Korea has a population of 48,875,000. That's nearly 40 times the population of Maine! Thus, it has a population density of 1,271 people per square mile. Cheonan, the city we are working in now, has a population roughly the same size of the Portland, etc. metro area, at ~583,000, which seems like a large city to me because it is in a much smaller area. The Portland metro area actually consists of three counties in Maine, with a total area of nearly 3,000 square miles. Cheonan, on the other hand, is only 245 square miles, less than one tenth the area.

But...

Cheonan, to Koreans (at least ones from Seoul) is out in the country. They say it is a small town. Believe me, I've been told this on more than one occasion. Now let's talk about Seoul. The district of Seoul is actually even smaller than Cheonan, at 234 square miles. But it has a population of more than 10.4 million!! That's 8 times the population of the entire state of Maine! Seoul has a population density of 44,777 people per square mile (1,000 times the density of Maine). That's about twice the population density of New York City. Needless to say, South Korea is a packed place.

The thing is, the cities are actually well organized and clean (at least judging by Cheonan, I haven't actually been to Seoul yet). Seoul has the most well organized subway systems, as well as a very efficient bus system, and high-speed railways that will take you to any of the decent sized cities in the country (including Cheonan). South Korea is extremely technologically advanced, making the US look sorta 90's-ish in comparison. Even the intersection we cross every day to get to school is designed better than any one I've seen in the US - it just works smoothly, including having time for 10-20 people to cross every cycle.

South Korea wasn't always at the head of the game, though. In fact, only 50 years ago it was one of the poorest countries, and was actually occupied by Japan from 1910 to 1945. Nevertheless, the economy has grown by leaps and bounds, and is now the 15th largest economy in the world, in a country roughly the size of Great Britain. It's pretty crazy to think about people who are still alive today seeing South Korea when it was that poor, and watching it grow this fast into such a economically and technologically successful nation.

And it is the people, of course, who have made South Korea what it is. Koreans have a huge drive for work and advancement. Many Koreans, even businessmen, work more than 8 hours a day, in some cases 12 or more, and many of them work Saturday and even occasionally on Sunday, as well. They only get 2 sick days per year, and you sometimes hear them complaining when a holiday is coming up, because then they won't be able to work. This lifestyle, however, doesn't only begin when they enter the workforce. My classes at 3:00 are 6-8 year olds. That means they get out of school at 2 or 2:30 and then come to the language institute for English classes. Then there are classes at 4, 5, 6, and even 7:00, usually getting older as they get later. High school students often have class till 10pm! Then they have to go home, do their homework, and be in school the next day at 8am. I have adult students that come to a 7am class, before they go to work for 8-12 hours. Others come to an 8pm class after working a similar day. I've heard that there are even 6am classes in Seoul, sometimes.

This is so different from what I'm used to. Granted, the kids probably don't have as much drive to attend school and extra classes as the adults do to work, but they have to do it if they want to be successful in the highly competitive economy. No wonder there is a high suicide rate among them. I was asking some of my students if the kids even get time during the day to play outside, and they said no, if they play it's on the weekend. They might watch TV for a few minutes in the evening, but that's all the relaxation the typical student gets during the week. Even if they don't go to English class, or Karate, or music, or art, or some other extracurricular class in the afternoon/evening, they must stay at their school and do extra classes there, or have structured study time. I'm really glad I didn't grow up here, that's for sure...

Now, to hear my description so far, you might think that all of Korea is just one huge bustling city, pretty much. But actually, 70% of South Korea is made up of nearly impenetrable mountainous terrain, and the cities are usually surrounded by farmland. Some of the most stunning national parks in all of Asia are in Korea. They even have a "Hawaii." The island of Jeju, off the southern coast, has a much warmer climate than the rest of Korea, probably because of the Indian Ocean, and is a huge vacation destination (Yes, Koreans actually do take vacations, usually in the summer). I can't wait to visit all of these varied places and really experience this amazing country.

Seoul at night

Korean mountains in winter

Mist

Lunch with religion class

Out of all the classes I would be teaching, religion class had me the most worried when I first got here to teach at the Seocheonan (West Cheonan) institute. "How will I be able to make up material for an hour long religion class every day?" I wondered. Our first day at the institute, Fabrice showed us a folder conveniently located on our computer's desktop. "In here are PDFs of different religion materials," he told us. We looked through some of the already-prepared religion materials and each picked out our own topics. I chose 'What does God think of families?' a study on various daughters, sons, mothers and fathers in the Bible. Although I, and some of my students, have found quite a number of typos and other grammatical errors in the worksheets, I'm really enjoying going through some commonly known Bible stories with my five religion students. Each lesson includes a Bible text about the story, a corresponding idiom, vocabulary words and definitions, a key thought paragraph, a grammar exercise using the vocab words and then discussion questions. I have no idea if my students are actually learning anything from me, but I'm sure learning a lot from them. When we discuss the idioms they often tell me about a Korean proverb or traditional story that contains the same message as the English idiom. And when we talk about the key thought and go through the discussion questions I learn more and more about Korean culture and my students own personal beliefs. Religion is quickly becoming one of my favourite classes to teach!

Of course, when you have students like mine, it's very easy to enjoy teaching religion class. As we were wrapping up our class on Tuesday morning, one woman in my class, Mia, said she had an idea. "I was speaking to my husband last night and we thought we would like to take our class out to eat lunch together sometime. Would that work for everyone?" she asked. Mia's husband, Neo, was my very first religion student. The first day of class he was the only one to sign up and we had a very interesting discussion on Canada, Korea and many religious topics. He has been coming faithfully ever since and his wife joined him on Monday. "That would be wonderful!" I exclaimed. "I would really enjoy that." The other members of our class agreed and we concluded that Thursday at noon would work best for our class meal. Then my students talked quickly in Korean to decide on a good place for lunch. "Oh," Mia added as the students picked up their books and papers to leave class, "we also want your husband to join us. Please invite him to come, too." I agreed and assured them that Jonathan would be out of class during that time.

Lunch yesterday was wonderful! Right at noon Neo met Jonathan and me at the front desk and walked us to his car where Mia sat waiting. We had a pleasant discussion on the five-minute drive to the restaurant. Mia and Neo told us a little bit about the traditional Korean restaurant where we would be eating. Once inside the restaurant we took off our shoes and went to the booth where the other religion student who could make it for lunch, Elizabeth, was already sitting. The tables were low and there were thin cushions on the floor-level bench for us to sit on. I had no problem sitting cross-legged with my legs under the table, but Jonathan's legs didn't quite fit when he tried to sit cross-legged. Mia and Elizabeth, who were sitting across the table from Jonathan, insisted that he could stretch his legs under the table next to theirs so he did, but he said later that it was a bit awkward. As soon as we were settled and had taken our coats off the food started coming. Our entire table was absolutely filled with white plates and bowls! Neo and Mia explained what each dish was and told us which ones contained meat. While many dishes had meat in them, there were still plenty of vegetarian ones for Jonathan and me to eat. During the meal Mia told me that as soon as she saw me she knew I was vegetarian. I asked her how and she said it was in my eyes. Interesting, eh? I've always heard that eyes are the windows to your soul, but I never knew that mine told others that I was a vegetarian! Every time we emptied one dish the waitresses brought out another kind of Korean food. There were quite a few types of kimchi, most spicy, but one not spicy. We ended the meal with a container of rice with some different types of beans and soybeans mixed in and a glass of cold prune tea each. I was a little wary of the prune tea until I tasted it. I honestly think it might have been the most delicious fruit juice I have ever tasted! Elizabeth looked up the Korean name for the tea on her phone and said it was also called plum tea or Japanese cherry blossom tea. By the time I had finished my glass of the cold tea I was wishing for another pitcher full! We all felt full by the end of our meal, but there were still quite a few dishes of food left on the table. I couldn't believe how many types of food we had finished and how many were still left! We walked back to the shoe racks, put on our shoes, and then got a few pictures together outside the restaurant before Neo and Mia took us back to the institute. It was such a nice time together and I feel like I know my religion students even better now that we spent a lunch with each other.

Outside of the restaurant

Our table filled with food

Our first meal at a traditional Korean restaurant

Three of my five religion students: Elizabeth, Mia & Neo

Outside the restaurant after lunch

Our first meal out as a class was so fun!

Korean names

Korean names are pretty hard for me to pronounce, spell and remember. But it seems Koreans know that foreigners have a hard time with their names. Therefore almost all the students we see everyday have chosen English nicknames. Most of my adult students have fairly normal English names. Out of my fifteen adult students, ten have normal English names and two, Hong and Hoon, go by either their last name or a shortened part of their first name. One of my religion students picked Neo as his nickname, after his favourite character and the hero of the Matrix movies. My last two students have pretty interesting names, Rudia and Nicholson. I have absolutely no idea where they came from! Of all my adult student I think Nicholson's name is my favourite. It's just a fun name to say. :)

The names of my junior students are even more fun! Again, most of them have normal English names. But several have picked out very interesting ones. Oh my, some of them have such wonderfully amusing names that I have a hard time not smiling when I call on them in class or during a test! My personal favourites: Sunny (I have two junior classes with two Sunnys each), Smile, Blue, Mac, Soy, and Seven. Since the last four students are all in one class, I had a lot of fun doing conversation tests for that class period today! (Does anybody else see the connection between Blue, Mac and Soy, or is my brain the only crazy one?)

I'm really enjoying learning more and more Korean nicknames. I'll make sure to keep you posted whenever I hear or see new unusual names. :)

First week (Jonathan's perspective)

Well, as I alluded to in my previous post, our first week in Korea was a rather sudden and disorienting introduction. At least we're not in China, or else it would be both disorienting and orienting... ;)

We arrived at our apartment around 9:45 Monday evening, after a twelve hour flight and a two hour drive, not to mention hauling multiple suitcases around the airport for some time. The director of the Language Institute, who had picked us up, assured us that the two teachers who were leaving to make room for us would be arriving soon to stay the night (this had been their apartment until that day), and they would show us where the school was in the morning and help us get started with our first day. Unbeknownst to us or him, the two girls had decided to stay at a friend's house, so as to give us free reign of the apartment. We waited up for them till around 11pm, and finally decided to crash on the nearest unused-looking bed. I left the lights on in the living room.

I woke up in the middle of the night, and saw that the light was still on. All of a sudden, I got worried that they were in some kind of trouble, since we had been expecting them soon after we got there. I tried to call the director, but there was no answer, so we just went back to sleep. When we woke up a few hours later, I again tried calling the director. I got no answer again, after a couple tries, but a few minutes later he called back. I told him what happened, and after he called the girls and found out they were fine, he said he'd be there at 6:30 to pick us up and take us to the school. This gave us half an hour to get up, get showers, and get out the door. We were just finishing brushing our teeth when he knocked on the door. We hurriedly put on our shoes and followed him to the van. 

At the Institute, we met the other teachers, finally. Both Ali and I recognized one of them from Southern, named Joann. We had a quick worship, and a whirlwind, very condensed explanation of the basics of what was done in class, and then Ali and I paired up with a teacher to shadow them in the first class of the day at 7am.

I sat in Joann's class, and mostly just observed. She only had two students that day, though there were 5 or 6 signed up, so it was a bit different than normal.

Once that was done, the three teachers all took us out to eat at a nearby pastry shop, which was pretty good. We haven't been back there since, but I think it's getting about time to go - I could eat some pastries. Joann and her roommate Thula were both leaving that day - Joann was flying back to the US, and Thula was transferring to another institute, so it was nice to have a chance to get to know them for a bit before they left.

Fabrice, our other fellow teacher and the local coordinator, decided that we wouldn't start the religion classes till tomorrow, since we were so new and still very tired, which was great news. We helped move the last of the stuff that didn't belong to us out of our apartment, and then we went through the apartment like a tornado, as I mentioned in the first post. After we finished, we rested for a few minutes, and then went back to the school where we had arranged to meet with Fabrice to get some more instructions. He had also canceled our participation in the junior classes for that day, so we had some time in the afternoon to go over some of the material and methods of teaching. 

Finally, 8pm rolled around, and both Ali and I dove into teaching our first solo class, less than 24 hours after arriving in this city! It went decently, though, especially since all the textbooks are designed with the intention that the teacher using the book doesn't need an education degree. Thus it is pretty well laid out for you, and you just go through it and do various drills and exercises, followed by 20-25 minutes of structured conversation to practice new words and phrases. It's actually pretty easy to teach the adult classes. The junior classes... well I'll tell about those in a bit. Once we finished teaching, we went back to our apartment as soon as we could and went to sleep.

The next day, Wednesday, we got up at 6 again, and made it to the teachers' office only a couple minutes late for 6:50 worship. Fabrice read something to us, and we had prayer, and then went and taught our first classes (we all have 7am classes - the adult classes are scheduled so they can come either before or after work, hence the 7am and 8pm classes). Then Fabrice helped us get prepared for the religion classes. Luckily, there are a lot of resources for teachers readily available, so we each picked a set of lessons based on a particular topic, and printed the first day's out. We didn't know how many students we would have, because no one had signed up, so we each printed out several copies to hand out. I chose a set of lessons based on the Beatitudes. When my class time came, I found that I had two students, so I went in and we had a pretty good class for being my first religion class. The material is pretty well laid out with vocabulary, a key thought to read and have them repeat, a verse, and discussion questions at the end. Each lesson also has a common English idiom somewhat related to the lesson that I have to try to explain to people who speak only a little English - usually a pretty interesting project.

Once we were done with that, Fabrice took us out to eat at a Korean restaurant, and we all found a non-meat dish to eat. Mine was quite spicy but enjoyable, if I went slow enough. 

In the afternoon, we got ready to do the junior classes for the first time. The way they have it organized, a foreign teacher visits each class for 15 or 30 minutes, so that the students can have some class time with a native English speaker. Unfortunately, it is very disorienting to switch between so many classes - we each do 7 classes in three 50 minute periods (I have three 15 min. classes between 3:05 and 3:50, two 15 min. classes between 5:05 and 5:35, and two 30 min. classes from 6 to 7). We take charge of certain parts of the textbook, and for the first week we've had to try to figure out what we're supposed to do with the material almost every single time we walk into a classroom. Of course, this is pretty stressful as well as tiring after a number of classes like this, but we're slowly getting used to doing the different drills and exercises, especially once we were given a handbook that has detailed instructions for each type of lesson, but we didn't have that the first week.

Thursday was much like Wednesday, though we did different things in our break times between classes; for more details please refer to Ali's post. Friday, however, is the best weekday - there are no afternoon classes on Fridays, which means we only have our 7am class and our religion classes, and then we're free for the rest of the day! Of course, we take turns on weekend duties, but that's still a welcome relief compared to a full day of teaching.

So needless to say, each evening after our 8pm class we're both pretty exhausted and ready to go to bed, which is no problem because we get up at 5:30 each morning anyway, so in order to get enough sleep, we have to go to bed pretty much as soon as we get home after our last class.

On the weekends, as I said, we take turns with the various duties that are assigned to the foreign teachers. There are two weekend "activities" that are geared toward the English students, which also serve as a form of outreach to them. The first one is Friday Night Fellowship, which is basically a vespers presented by one of us teachers, and starts at 7. The other one is called Saturday Clubs, and is sort of like a religion class session. Not sure why it's called Clubs, but it starts at 10am, like a Sabbath School. At any rate the titles are supposed to seem innocuous so as to not put people off who might not be interested in "church." 

After Morning Clubs, there is a Korean church service in the same school building, in a sort of sanctuary area. The director is also a pastor, and he preaches the sermon. Many of the Korean teachers attend this service with their families, as well as some other community members, and the foreign teachers usually attend as well, listening to a translation of the sermon on earbuds. Each Sabbath, the children's story is told by one of us foreign teachers, and then translated by one of the Korean teachers into Korean for the kids. After church there is a meal provided by church members. It's not really a potluck as certain people are in charge of preparing all the food each week and we don't bring anything, which is good because we don't know how to cook Korean food anyway - we haven't even gotten our rice cooker to work yet: it has 8 buttons and everything is labeled in Korean! In fact, there isn't really any English on any of the controls and appliances in our house, which always makes it interesting to do anything new, until we figure out how to work it. But I digress.

One nice thing about the weekend responsibilities is that they are assigned in such a way that there is always one of us three foreign teachers who has the weekend off, so the other two take care of everything for that weekend. The only problem with that is it means that Ali and I can't ever take a weekend and go anywhere because one of us always has to be on duty, but I'm sure later on we'll be able to work something out, at least for sure once she is working at the textbook office, I think.

Sunday for us was a great day for relaxation after the busy, trying week. Sabbath was too, though to a lesser degree because of the responsibilities. We just took it easy on Sunday and hung around the apartment in the morning, then went out in the afternoon to a new store to find some groceries we hadn't been able to find in the two shops that are right near our apartment. It's worth mentioning that E-Mart, the store we went to, is a pretty big thing in Korea. In fact, it's so well established that Walmart couldn't even get a foothold here, and there are no Walmart stores in Korea. No great loss, either, because E-Mart is a much nicer store. It is two stories, and has quite a large selection of merchandise, groceries, and clothing, but in seemingly better qualities. Travel between the floors is enabled by moving ramps so that you can take your shopping cart with you, which is something I hadn't seen in a store before.

After we got back from the store, we spend some more time in the evening relaxing, and using the internet, and then went to bed so we'd be ready to get up early Monday morning.

I wouldn't wish this kind of an introduction to a new life on someone, but we made it through, with God's help, and from now on I think it will get easier and easier as we continue to learn all the teaching methods, and get used to teaching itself.

Check back later on for pictures and maybe a video tour of our apartment!

First week (Ali's perspective)

Today marks one week that we've been in Korea. Here's an overview of our time here so far.

Monday, Nov. 7:

Arrived at 6:30 p.m. local time. Spent the next 40 minutes walking through the airport, waiting in customs lines and getting our bags. Met the director of our institute, Pastor Lee (Lee, Kim and Park are three of the main Korean last names), walked a long way to the institute van, packed in our bags, and settled down for the two-hour ride to our institute in the city of Cheonan (about an hour south of Seoul). Got to our new apartment around 9:30 p.m. (and found out we had an elevator to get us and all our stuff to the 13th floor. Phew!) Pastor Lee left us after assuring us that the girls who were in the process of moving out of the apartment would be home soon and would tell us more about what was expected of us the next day and in the months to come. We waited up for them, but when they still hadn't showed up after 11 p.m. we hauled our bags into the smallest and emptiest of the three bedrooms, squished onto a twin-sized bed and fell asleep. Woke up at 3 a.m. and realized the two girls still hadn't gotten back yet. Started to get worried about them. Jonathan called Pastor Lee to let him know, but there was no answer. We fell back into a fitful sleep.

Tuesday, Nov. 8:

Woke up around 5 a.m. and watched the sky lighten. Got a call back from Pastor Lee and told him that the girls never came back to the apartment. He called them and then called us back. Apparently they had planned to stay at a friends place so we could have the apartment to ourselves from our first night on. Nice of them to think of us, but funny the Pastor had no idea what was going on. Pastor Lee came to pick us up at 6:30 a.m. and drove us to the institute, about a three or four minute drive. He showed us around the institute, which is on the third and fourth floors of a building just across a large road and around the corner from our apartment complex. Pastor Lee showed us the Foreign Staff Room, which is where we are almost all the time when we're not teaching. Met Fabrice, a teacher and the new coordinator for our institute, and the two female teachers who had moved out of our apartment and were both leaving later that day, Joann and Thula. As soon as we saw Joann, both Jonathan and I recognized her from Southern. She had even been in a couple classes with me. We introduced ourselves, got a few instructions, had worship and then were off to our first class. I shadowed Thula (pronounced 'Tula') and Jonathan shadowed Joann. Halfway through the class, Thula had me come up front and take over teaching the class, while she was standing beside me for support and to answer any questions I might have. It went pretty well. If you follow the textbook it's not too hard to teach the adult English classes. After that first class we met back in the Foreign Staff Room, did a bit of debriefing on the class and learned a bit about how to teach our religion classes. Then all five of us - Fabrice, Joann, Thula, Jonathan and I - went to a small cafe, Paris Baguette, near our apartment complex for breakfast. It was such a great place with a lot of pastries and breads. We ate and talked and Jonathan and I learned a lot about Korean culture. Then we came back to our apartment, and helped Thula move her last boxes out and into the institute van. She was transferring to another institute. We said goodbye to her and Joann (who was flying back to the US later in the day) and then headed back up the elevator to our apartment. Spent the next five hours rearranging lots of furniture and cleaning as much as we could. Later in the afternoon we headed back to the institute to meet with Fabrice and go over what to do for the junior (the kids) classes. Thankfully we didn't have to teach them that afternoon so we just went over what to do. Finally at 8 p.m. we entered our classrooms for our first try at teaching an adult English class alone. We managed to pull through and then went straight back to the apartment and fell in bed totally exhausted.

Wednesday, Nov. 9:
Woke up at 6 a.m. with aching sore throats. Made ourselves get up, hurriedly got ready for the day and managed to get to the institute by 6:45. Had a quick worship together with Fabrice and were off to teach our 7 a.m. adult English classes. In Tuesday morning's class Thula had announced a Pronunciation Test so I had to give one, but she had told me what to do and it wasn't hard. In the end, I think the students were more nervous about it than I was. After class Fabrice gave us a quick orientation of religion class and we picked out materials to teach and got them ready for our religion classes. I taught religion class for the first time at 10 a.m. (Fabrice has religion class at 9 and Jonathan at 11). No one was registered until about 10 minutes before my class started and then I only had one person in my class. Me and my student, Neo (he took his English name from the hero in the Matrix movies), talked the whole class time and he had some very deep questions for me that I wasn't sure how best to explain. We never even got into the material I had ready for class time. After my religion class ended, one of Fabrice's students took me and Fabrice to the KEB (Korean Exchange Bank) where I opened a Korean bank account. The student, who was a bank employee, was extremely helpful in convincing the teller to let me open a bank without having my Korean Foreigner ID card yet. As soon as we got back to the institute, one of the secretaries, Isaak, whisked Jonathan and me off to a photographer's studio where we quickly got our pictures taken for the Korean ID cards. Once back at the institute we got ready for our first day of teaching the junior classes (more about those classes in future post...). It was exhausting to pop in and out of seven junior classes during the next four hours, but somehow we made it through. Then we had an hour to relax before our evening adult English class. Again we went right home at 9 p.m. and went straight to bed.

Thursday, Nov. 10:
Same routine as the day before, except for no bank-run. Instead, during our three-hour lunch break, Fabrice took us to a nice Korean restaurant where we guessed by the pictures and few English words on the menu if our dishes would have meat in them or not. We managed to make good choices and all of us enjoyed vegetarian lunches. With our food we were served a bowl of sweet pickles and kimchi (the dish Koreans can't live without - basically super hot fermented cabbage). Jonathan tried both, I steered clear. I had been feeling pretty lightheaded on the walk to the restaurant, but felt much better after eating lunch for the walk back to the institute. We survived the junior classes again. It's not that the kids are bad or anything, just that it's very confusing to pop in to so many classes for only 15 minutes and then leave and go to the next one which is usually a different level with a different teacher who has a different schedule and is using a different textbook. I'm sure we'll eventually get used to it, but last week trying to keep up with juniors was a little nightmare-ish. Evening adult class went fine. By the third evening of teaching I had most of the teaching methods from the adult textbook down-pat, although I still use the manual we were given from time to time when there is a new English drill in the lesson I'm teaching. Again it was early to bed.

Friday, Nov. 11:
Pepero Day! Starting on Thursday afternoon, I was given presents by some of my students. Two little girls in my first junior class gave me treats and one man in my evening English class did, too. The man, David, explained that in Korea November 11 is Pepero Day. He translated it as Cracker Day. He said students give their teacher crackers or treats and coworkers usually exchange treats as well. Usually the treats are long and straight like the number 1 (which is why Pepero Day falls on 11/11). They taste sort of like hard cookies covered with chocolate. What a nice surprise! In my Friday morning English class I was also given one more box of treats. It was a nice end to our first week teaching! Fabrice and Jonathan also got some treats and Fabrice even got an asian pear so after our 7 a.m. English classes the three of us visited and shared our treats and the pear together. We had a nice time before we split up for our religion classes. Fridays are half-days at the institute so once our morning classes were done, we were finished for the day. Jonathan and I stayed at the institute for about an hour and a half to use the internet and then went with one of the secretaries, Jasmine, to a nearby hospital for physical exams that were required by the head office. Apparently it was a busy day for physicals so what should have taken us 40 minutes took more than an hour and a half. We had to run around to different offices and clinics all around the hospital to get everything on our forms filled out. (You can read more about our hospital visit here.) Finally we were finished and we went home to relax and read for a bit. Later in the afternoon we called Fabrice and asked if he wanted to go out to eat. He had said earlier to call him when we were ready and we'd go out to eat and then he would show us a large store where we could buy groceries. We had a nice time together eating pizza at a really nice place called Mr. Pizza that was overlooking a busy street. There was lots of great people-watching to do and the pizza was great. We ordered one that had corn, onions and potato wedges on it and that one was so good! (Like the pizzas from Lupi's with corn on them, for all you Southern people out there :) Once we were done eating we noticed the sky had darkened a bit so we skipped the store and went straight back to our apartments to get ready for vespers. Since we'd passed the store on the way to Mr. Pizza Jonathan and I knew how to get back the next time we needed groceries. We arrived at the institute just before 7 p.m. for Friday Night Fellowship, which is what they call vespers to encourage students to come. No students actually showed up this week so Jonathan worked on shortening his Children's Story for church the next day and Fabrice and I sat in the room where FNF usually is held and just talked. He is from South Africa, but born and raised in Burundi, so we had a lot of Africa stories to exchange. Once the Korean church members ended their own vespers program, the institute director, Pastor Lee, introduced us to his wife and two small sons and we talked for a bit and then headed back to our apartment to sleep.

Saturday, Nov. 12:
For the first time that week we were able to sleep in past 6 a.m.! It was so nice to have a more relaxing morning. We arrived at the institute just before 10 a.m. and got ready for the Saturday Clubs (which is really Sabbath School). Only two Korean students came, but that was two more than Friday night so it was nice to have even those two. We had a nice discussion that Fabrice lead. Then we went to the small chapel in the building for church. We met a few church members and a couple international members who are married to Korean women. One man, Peter, is from South Africa and another man, Gabe, is from America, although I'm not sure where in the U.S. he's from. The church service was in Korean, although the Children's Story is always told in English by one of the foreign teachers and translated into Korean by one of the Korean junior teachers. For the sermon we were given small headsets and we could listen to the sermon translated into English by the pastor's wife. After church there was a potluck with rice, seaweed, tofu, potatoes, greens, and oranges. Everything, except for the rice, seaweed and oranges, was spicy so I enjoyed the non-spicy items. We spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing and resting back at our apartment. I had almost completely lost my voice by Saturday morning so I tried to talk as little as possible to rest my voice for the coming week.

Sunday, Nov. 13:
We tried to sleep in on Sunday, but our bodies seem to be wired to get up early now so we usually wake up before 7 a.m. even on the weekend. We mostly stayed at home and relaxed, although we did walk to E-Mart, the store we had tried to go to on Friday afternoon, to get some groceries. It was like a huge Wal-Mart, two floors packed full of merchandise - and of people. As soon as we walked in we realized that maybe Sunday wasn't the best day to shop. That is usually the only day people have off of work or school so it's the day that everyone goes shopping (and brings their whole family along). In the future we'll try to go shopping during our weekday lunch breaks. After our shopping trip we spent the rest of the day at our apartment doing a bit more cleaning that we hadn't got to in our frantic Tuesday cleaning session. Although we stayed up a bit later than during the weekdays, we went to bed pretty early to get ready for the new week of classes.


Wow, so much has happened since we got here! So that is our first week and hopefully now we'll be more settled in and this coming week will go smoother. And now that we have internet we should be able to keep you all updated more often and write more (and shorter) blog posts. Yay!

Hospital visit

On Friday Jonathan and I visited a nearby hospital for our physicals which were required by the SDA Institute in order to get our Foreigner ID cards. One of the secretaries from our institute, Jasmine, took us and it was a blessing to have her along. We wouldn't have been able to do anything without her there to find out where to go and fill in the paperwork for us. We left the office at about 1:15 p.m. and she told us the visit shouldn't take much longer than 40 minutes. We took a taxi to the Chungmu Hospital (which we discovered, after we got back from the errand, that we could see from the street corner outside our institute building). Jasmine got the forms for us at the front desk and then found out where to go for the first part of our physicals. We went up to the fourth floor and found a crowded waiting room as we stepped out of the elevator. Jasmine helped us to fill out our forms as we waited to be called to the desk. When it was finally our turn we got instructions for where to go next. We went back down to the main floor and then waited some more before following Jasmine into a small room off the hallway that I instinctively knew was a blood test room. I've seen my fair share of those! Starting when I was about four years old, I had to get a lot of blood tests because some doctors thought I might be anemic or have diabetes, and because of that I kind of have a phobia of blood tests. Injections are totally fine. I have no problem with those, but blood tests are a whole different story. When we walked into the blood test room I started freaking out a little, especially since we were told not to eat four hours before our appointment. I usually feel pretty ill after getting a blood test if I haven't eaten enough beforehand. Anyway, the phlebotomist gave a bunch of instructions to Jasmine and then handed her two cups, each holding an indicator strips and a plastic vial with a lid. I breathed a sigh of relief as we walked back into the hallway. Jasmine seemed a bit unsure about what to tell us to do with our cups and accompanying paraphernalia, but we were both pretty sure what we'd have to do. Jasmine called someone at the head office in Seoul and then gave me the phone so the lady could tell me what to do. Her instructions were exactly what we had expected so we went off to comply. Once I showed the phlebotomist the indicator strip and handed over the full vial, she told me to sit using Korean and sign language. I didn't even have time to get all worked up again before she had poked my left inside-of-the-elbow vein and collected a vial of my dark red blood. Relieved the blood test was over with, I went back to the hallway to wait for Jonathan's turn to be finished. He came back out with a cotton swab wedged in the middle of both bent arms. The woman, it turned out, had dug around with a needle in one of his arms before deciding she couldn't get a good vein and tried the other arm. I felt extremely sorry for Jonathan, but very thankful my own veins had cooperated for her! Next was chest x-rays, which only took a few minutes. Then we headed over a catwalk to the newer section of the hospital for the quickest dental check we'd ever experienced. A hygienist showed us to a glassed-in room where she pointed to a dental chair. One at a time we sat in the chair and she inspected our mouths. That finished, we went back to the first building and to the fourth floor again, where we'd started our adventure. We got weighed and measured, had a sight test, hearing test, colour-blindness test, got our blood pressure taken and were back out the door within a few minutes. Finally we were finished. All in all, the whole process had taken more than an hour and a half, much longer than Jasmine had guessed. We were certainly glad the visit was completed.

Later that afternoon Fabrice, Jonathan and I went out for pizza at a place called Mr. Pizza. The pizzas were great and definitely made up for the icky blood tests. And the take-out boxes we got when we left were so bright and cheerful they made me smile. I'm definitely impressed with the food presentation here!

Pepero Day

"Good afternoon. How are you doing today?" I asked my first junior class of the day. As the class mumbled a response, a little girl slid out of her second row desk and trotted to the podium where I stood. "Teacher, this is for you," she said, and shoved a bright coloured box into my hand. "Oh, wow, thank you!" I said, surprised at the impromptu gift. She dipped into a short bow before rushing back to her seat. A few minutes later, as I walked around the room separating the class into pairs to practice the dialogue we were studying, another little girl stretched her hand out from her desk by the wall to hand me a similar eye-catching box. "For you," she said simply. I thanked her, as well, and then continued with the lesson.

Fabrice had told Jonathan and me about the generosity of Koreans. "Your students will give you gifts. They'll even sometimes want to take you out to eat and they'll never let you pay for the meal. Teachers are highly respected in this culture and students will show their respect by giving gifts." And now, only two days later, I had received my first gifts from my students, and not even my adult English students, who Fabrice had been talking about, but my junior students! During the hour break Jonathan and I had between the junior classes and our evening adult English class we shared the two boxes of treats. They tasted sort of like hard cookies covered in chocolate and were a nice snack since our last meal had been lunch about six hours earlier.

In my next class I figured out the reason for the gifts. I had just finished going over the Word of Life verse and praying at the start of my evening adult English class and was about to jump right into the pronunciation lesson when one of my students, David, reached into a bag and produced a bright red box. "This is a present for you for Pepero Day," he announced grandly, coming up front to hand me the box. I looked down and noted the word 'Love' written in a flowery script on the shiny box. "Thank you, David," I said. "That is so nice of you. But could you tell me, what is Pepero Day?" He sat back in his desk. "Tomorrow is 11-11. We call it Pepero Day. It means Cracker Day. We give these kinds of treats, Pepero treats, to our teachers or coworkers. They are long and skinny like the number 1. That is why Pepero Day is on November 11." And the next morning I got another box of Pepero treats from my student Nicholson. Right after class Fabrice, Jonathan and I shared the treats and an Asian pear that one of Fabrice's students had given him the day before. It wasn't exactly how I thought I'd spend Remembrance Day, but we all enjoyed the gifts from our students. I sure wouldn't mind if Pepero Day was adopted in North America!

Asian pear and Pepero Day treats

Arrived in Korea!

Well, we touched down almost exactly 24 hours ago, but things have been so hectic and up in the air that we haven't had time to sit down and get online till now! So far, we shadowed one class at 7 am, were shown to a French-ish pastry shop where we had some breakfast, went back to our apartment and spent 5 hours rearranging, cleaning, laundering, and unpacking, and then came here to the Seocheonan Language Institute to meet with a fellow teacher to get a (very) brief orientation, and just a few minutes ago he had to go teach, so we have taken a few minutes to get up to date somewhat online. Actually we are hoping to go back to our apartment and take a nap before our last classes of the day at 8 pm (also first classes taught by ourselves), so I'm making this one quick. More details will follow at a later date, never fear.
Thanks for all your prayers! We really appreciate them!

On our way!

After a whirlwind few days, Jonathan and I are sitting in San Francisco International Airport ready to board our flight to Seoul. We got our South Korean visas on Monday and by Tuesday had a travel itinerary and spent Wednesday and Thursday doing all the last minute things we needed to finish before we left Maine. Friday at 2 a.m. we were heading to Boston airport to fly to Seattle for the weekend. We spent a wonderful two days with my parents and sister, Bryn, who drove down to Seattle to visit us. Early this morning we headed to SEA-TAC airport for the short flight to San Francisco and now we're on the verge of a new adventure. We're excited to make new memories, meet new people and learn about a new culture! Please pray for us as we start our journey.