So we have been here for 3 days I think and it has been interesting. And hard. After sleeping all afternoon Thursday we woke up at about 4 and stayed up. We were supposed to report to our school but we didn't know what time, so we just went at 8am. Not a soul in sight. So went called Mrs. Kim and asked her what time, 11am, and we went to school. Funny thing is, we had always thought Mr. Kim was the boss; turns out we were misinformed and it was Mrs. Kim was was the director of ECC; our recruiting agency had said it was a MR Kim. So we go back to our school, which was about the only place we knew where to find save for the 7/11, and sit at "our" desks. Finally Erica, who is like the assistant director and actually teaches classes herself, came in and tried to get us to watch these training videos, which were the wrong ones and in Korean. So this was abandoned and she took us out to lunch, conversing in decent in decent English. Here it was that she informed me that I "might" teach a class that afternoon. I was kind of nervous but tried not to think to much about it, feeling the jet lag and shock still. So then we went to the bank and exchanged money, which took about a half hour. Right now though the US dollar is very high to the Korean Won, about 50% higher than a year ago. We headed back to school, a little late as we were supposed to observe other classes as part of our training. No such luck. When we got back to school my co-teacher approached me with a workbook and showed me where her class was at, then told me which classroom it was in. I thought it was for next week but no, it was for right then, at that very second. I walked into the classroom and faced three 11-year-olds who were used to their old teacher. I had no lesson plan, no wipe-off markers, no idea about anything. Magically the 50 minute passed and I thought it was only 30 minutes. Barely 24 hours in town and I am teaching a class. Welcome to ECC.

We struggled through the tired day and I had a class until 8:20 at night. The poor students themselves were visually tired as was I. I had to keep leaving the classroom to grab supplies like the teachers' guide and wipe-off markers, but the kids were amazingly well-behaved as compared to American kids. I felt as if I had done a terrible job and made an even worse first-impression on the kids whom I was going to be in charge of for a year. Finally the day ended and we got to go home and bitch about our common frustrations.

Koreans are crazy about education and especially English; these kids go to school from 8am to 8pm in some cases are pressured heavily by their parents. Our job is easy enough as we just teach what comes naturally to us. We work Mon-Fri, starting about 1 everyday with 2 half hour kindergarden classes then 4-5 50 minute classes with a variety of ages and abilities. We finish either at 7:10 0r 8:20 every day and we have an hour and half break somewhere in between. As of now we feel very unprepared but I am sure this week will be the hardest.

Saturday we finally got our bearings and walked 2 miles to the downtown where we got to check out Jinju's landmark, the Jinjuseong fortress which is over 500 years old. There are shrines and various pavillons, all intricately painted in brillant colors, and quite amazing. It was so quiet inside the walls and people were combing the ground looking for any sort of rubbish. I guess Koreans litter a lot, though our cultural training warned us that this is a sterotype. But there is definately trash on the streets and no public trash cans, which is ironic because they seem like such clean people. Then we went into the huge E-mart department / grocery store and ate at a psuedo-Italian restaurant I had in my guidebook because the menus were in English, so we ate some pizza. Ahhhh.
So yesterday (Sunday), a blessing, BICYLES! We got two bikes for 90,000 won (about 70$ right now) and off we went. Mine is a sweet cruiser bike with a basket and a rack, no gears though, and a funny honky horn. Kevin's bike is too small for him but it is good enough to get around town for a while. So we crossed the bridge to the southern area where the universities are and actually saw Daniel, our South African co-teacher, at the soccer field and got to talk to him and an American from Texas. How delightful to see someone we knew, who spoke English. We covered about 4 times the area on our bikes in half the time and we finally felt like we knew where we were in this city. And here I am, Monday morning and having to face another day of uncertainties at school and figure out what the eff is going on . . .

Settling In

We just got to Korea.
We are in Jinju.
Our school is down the street from our small but perfect apartment.
We start tomorrow.
We have no idea what is going on around us.

The flight from NYC was over 14 hours and went pretty quick I think, though I couldn't sleep at all. Kevin slept abot half the time I think while I lolled and moved about, watching some movies and trying to read my new Obama book.
It was dark the whole time of course and I think we flew way over northern Canada, Russia, and China. It was raining when we landed and all we can see was lights and the bridge from the airport island. We caught the first bus out to the larger bus station. My friend came to meet us but I didn't know so we seriously missed him by a minute. oh well, we'll see him soon.
So we were off on the first bus to the real bus station where we waited about an hour and a half for our Jinju bus. We were the only white people around. A guy came up to me with the typical "Nice to meet you" then started handing me Christian magazines. I told him I was not a Christian and he left me alone.
But alas I was soooo exhausted from the flight that I tried sleeping the whole four hours to Jinju. The countryside was beautiful, familiar pine trees and rugged hills, nice four-lane highway, but I didn't see much.
When we got to the Junju bus station I saw some squat toilets (!) then Mrs. Kim was there to pick us up in her Lexus. I was almost too tired to talk. She drove us through the city to our school which is very small. We kind of met the other teachers and they showed us our desks. Next we ate with Mrs. Kim in the first floor restaurant, sitting on the floor and doing the porl barbeque right on our table. It was delicious and I did pretty well with mt stainless steel chopsticks. There were so many plates of food and we didn't know what anything was but we just ate it. Kimchi pancakes, spicy kimchi, garlic, onions, cabbage salad, then rice and some spicy soup with tofu and other goodies. We didn't even come close to finishing everything.
Mrs. Kim paid and she understood how exhausted I was, but our apartment wasn't clean yet and I think she was worried. But she took us there and we met Mr. Kim the ECC director who was nice but quiet. We took our suitcases up to the third floor and were in our home for the next year. There is a small kitchen, a bathroom with the shower head right over the toilet and sink, one large common room with bed and tv, and a sort-of porch with sliding doors and a washing machine. We have ethernet and cable. The girl who moved out before us left the place pretty messy but she also left all the things we were planning on buying: dishes, cleaning supplies, power converter, speakers, umbrella, random foodstuffs, etc. The Kims gave us news blankets and pillows. We didn't even unpack anything. They said we could go to the school today but I brushed my teeth and slept from 3:30 straight to 10:30 at night. Now it is almost 3am and we have to go back to bed so we can go to school in the morning. Thankfully it is right down the street as we have no clue where we are, what our address is, where anything is, but tomorrow will be a big day. We have a LOT to learn and figure out.