Korean Culture: My First Church Activity in Korea

As I mentioned last week, we found an English speaking branch of our church and it is luckily only 4 stops from our apartment building. This Saturday we went to a singles activity about Korean culture. It was kind of haphazard, but pretty fun. I’ve found that most things here are pretty haphazard, which is a little bit aggravating for a person like me who likes to plan everything out, but I’m learning to deal. Just go with the flow.

Anyways, we showed up about 3pm, a little late because we were held back a little late learning about making copies and getting books from people with serious hangovers from Friday night’s work party. Hehe… It still hadn’t started anyways. We hung out and talked with some people a while and then they started this Korean game where you had to throw rubber tipped arrows into this vase thing. It was super hard. The red team won with a whopping one arrow in the vase.

After that we learned a few phrases in Korean as well as how to count money in Korean. There are two ways to count in Korean. The one used to count money is actually Chinese, different from the numbers my dad and sister learned in taekwondo. We were given these cute notebooks to take notes in, but I ended up losing mine when they cleaned everything up. Oh, well.

Then one of the girls from the ward performed some traditional Korean music on some crazy awesome instrument.


She then taught us a traditional Korean fan dance, which we were all pretty bad at. I think it would have looked much cooler if we had been wearing hanboks like she was.


After that we learned how to make vegetable pancakes. They were SO good and really easy. All you do is mix the flour mix stuff with dehydrated potatoes (I think… the bag had potatoes on it), add water and cut up chives, green onions, and string mushrooms. You can also add other things like kimchee or I’ve had it with various types of sea food. I like them a lot. I’m going to practice making them so I can make an awesome Korean meal for my family when I come home. Maybe I’ll practice on my dad when he comes to visit in October. ;)

After gorging ourselves on pancakes, we then got pizza from Costco!! It had bulgogi (thinly sliced seasoned beef), green peppers, mushrooms, and some other stuff. Yum yum. I’ll definitely be indulging in that kind of pizza again.

The pizza was accompanied by aloe juice… which tastes just really sweet with giant chunks of fruit in it. Ok. If you like pulp. And sunscreen…

It was fun hanging out with everyone from church. I’ll be living a few blocks away from a girl named Jessica, so we plan on getting together sometime.

Monday starts classes for me. I’ll be teaching Memory giga (early ESL level), and Par Reading (maybe early middle ESL). I only see my Par Reading classes once a week, and I got four classes of that. I see my memory classes twice a week, and I got two different classes of that. So, all in all, I only have to plan three different lesson plans a week! I plan on taking some time tomorrow to prep. It shouldn’t take too long since I’ll be teaching the same lessons I prepped in during training.

Wish me luck starting my new job!! My first job actually teaching… wow.

Korean Barbeque = the Best Thing I've Eaten So Far

Have you ever heard of a Korean barbeque? No? Well, you’re missing out! It is so good. I visited one with some friends back home before I left and it is just as tastey, if not more so, here in Korea. Basically, what it is, is you sit at a table with a little grill set in the center. You are given dipping sauce (what kind depends on where you go, usually a soy sauce based sauce), various side dishes (kimchee, garlic cloves, onion… stuff, bean sprouts, etc), and MEAT. Raw meat that you then cook on your little grill.

Sooo good.

The first place we went to was cool because the meat was marinated and hey! Already cooked! They just put it onto the grill to heat up. Nice. We went out with two girls from out branch: Lauren and Kelly. They were nice enough to show us this little gem of a restaurant.

We had pork. Pork is the meat of choice here. It was red and spicy and delicious when dipped in the sauce and eaten with the marinated raw onions. Sounds dumb, but it was super delicious. Also, it was only 7,900 won.

Raw onions in sauce were delicious with the food.


These are the kind ladies that took us to dinner. :)


The spicy pork was delicious. None of us ate any of the kimchee soup that came with it though.


That was Thursday. Friday we went to another Korean barbeque, this time with our branch. We went to what is called a Hweshik. It’s basically an employer sponsored employee party. They paid for two different types of meat: pork and beef, which we had to cook on our own at this place. Kind of fun.

Along with the requisite sides, rice, and sauces, they also cooked egg on the grill. “Korean style.” I’m not a big fan of eggs and I liked it.


We were also given “service,” which is a free item given to inspire customers to come again. We were given a kind of spicy miso type soup with tofu, beans, zucchini, and who knows what else. Tastey, but spicy. The restaurant also gave us coke and cider (Sprite) on the house. Chungdahm paid for the beer and soju.

Oh, was there beer and soju.

I’m not at all familiar with alcohol beverages, but I have been told that soju is comparable to the love child of sake, vodka, and gasoline. One guy told me you could get drunk on soju for about $6. Good to know.

At one point they called up all the newbies to do a drinking game from a bowl of mixed beer, soju, and kimchi. Bleck! Kendra and I had to explain to our less than sober superiors that we don’t drink. You say it with a smile at first and then get a little more serious to show, “No, I’m not just being a coy lightweight. I don’t drink. AT ALL.” Luckily, at that point Kelly got up and offered to drink in our place. We ended up leaving about midnight, but I heard some people stayed out past 5am. Wow.

My Week in a Love Hotel

Last you heard, I was moving out of one hotel and into another where I would be staying until Wednesday when I would then move into my new apartment. Well, it’s definitely been an adventure. A lot has happened and I think I’m going to separate it into several posts rather than one big HUGE post.

The hotel I stayed in was an adventure in and of itself. I told you last week that the realtor didn’t speak English. Well, the same guy (Mr. Han, by name. Turns out he’s not actually the realtor… just some guy from the office that does legal work such as getting us our Alien Registration Cards. NO idea why he was the one acting as our realtor.) met me at the branch office on Wednesday to get me into a hotel. He found another staff member to translate for him. Her English was about as good as my Spanish. Not too shabby, but a lot of writing, repetition and pantomiming to cover what she couldn’t get across with vocabulary. I was rather confused by what she was trying to explain. This is finally what I got: I had to wait until 6pm to check in. Then I had to check out the next day by noon, but I could leave my bags at the front desk until 6pm when I could check back in. Also, hey! Only 40,000 won a night.

Dear Lord. They’re putting me up in a love hotel.

For those of you who don’t know what a love hotel is, well, I should think that the hours kept and the name “love hotel” would tip you off. Basically, a place for couples to meet discreetly. (Mom, think our last “trip” to Reno… that kind of place. Though a little nicer.) Complete with a free channel that I quickly learned to skip. Oh, and calling cards in the desk drawer. Careful with that.

On the bright side, it’s clean (I did a pen check on the sheets to see if they change them everyday… they do), has a water purifier machine in the room so I haven’t had to buy bottled water this week, good air conditioning, and has a tv with cable! I’ve spent much of my time watching NCIS reruns and random movies. Skip channel 90 though… awkward.

Yes, it’s safe. Doors double lock. The hotel is off a busy street so no skulky alleys to go through.

That being said, I’ve saved 100,000 won staying at the hotel and am going to be using said money to purchase all the furniture and other “stuff” from the guy currently living in my apartment. Sweet! No moving of furniture for him and no searching and buying of furniture for me! I’ll move in and I’ll have a bed (mattress), futon, coffee table, dresser, full size mirror, kitchen supplies, drying rack, and whatever else he decides to leave. I told him that I’d take care of whatever I want. For all that furniture and stuff at 100,000 won, I’ll figure out how to get rid of stuff I don’t want. That’s about $80. Nice, eh?

So, I’m really excited about the new apartment. I like the layout, which is a little different than Kendra’s; a little bigger, too. The only problem is that my mattress will be queen sized when all of the sheets I brought with me are full size. Well, crap. Now I have a bunch of full sized sheets with nothing to do with them. AND I have no queen sheets. Snap. I’ll have to figure that out by Wednesday.

Stay tuned for tales of my first time at a REAL Korean barbeque, my first work party, and a really fun church activity.

Korean Washing Machines and Finding an Apartment

The last few days have provided ample opportunities for adventures. Sunday we decided we needed to do some laundry. Funny thing about Korea... everything is in Korean. Yes, even washing machines. So what did we do in the face of such adversity? Why, ask Youtube, of course!!


So, I found a video on Youtube (I won't post it here... it's very boring unless you by chance need to figure out how to work a Korean washing machine) that a helpful girl posted about how to find settings for normal and such on a Korean washing machine. Ours was a little different, but we did find something that looked like unto settings similar to her "normal" settings. I don't know WHY, but it takes a lot longer for laundry to run in a Korean washing machine than I'm used to. This particular machine in our hotel room takes an hour and 36 minutes, to be exact. Apparently that's normal here.

Also, most people don't have dryers, so you need to air dry all your clothes. I'll need to get me a drying rack for my new apartment... luckily the hotel provides one for us here.
And THAT was our washing machine adventure on Sunday.

Monday was even more fun.

On Saturday, I set up a time to meet with So Young, a realtor recommended to us at the Chungdahm training center. We were to meet her at the Mokdong subway station, exit #2 at 11am on Monday. Great. So we left the hotel at 9:30am and got there with about 15 minutes to spare. While we waited, several others we met at training showed up to meet So Young as well. Ok... that works. The place we were waiting just happened to be outside of the building where we'll be working from now on.

At about 11:10, this guy came down with a Chungdahm name tag on and was asking for Jennifer. That's me. Ok, what? He starts telling me that I'm supposed to meet with Helen, the faculty manager right now. What? No, that's not until 4. His English wasn't too good so it was difficult to figure out what the heck he was getting at. So I go with him up to the office to meet with Helen and figure out what the heck is going on. We get up there and he talks on the phone in Korean for a few minutes and then gets off and tells me that I'm supposed to meet Helen at 2:30 about housing. What? No, I'm meeting with a realtor right now to go figure out housing. After a few minutes trying to figure out what he's trying to tell me, I ask if I can just speak to Helen.

I get her on the phone and she asks me what the heck I'm doing at the office at 11am? I'm thinking, "How in heck did you KNOW I was at the office at 11am?" I explain that we're meeting with So Young and she says, no, no, no. You're supposed to meet with the branch's realtor. Ok, well, why? She's explaining that I could go with So Young but her people know more blah blah blah. I tell her that everyone from training is downstairs waiting to meet with So Young and she was just quiet, trying to figure out what to do.

I was about to just say, forget it. I'm here and I'm meeting with So Young and I'll see you at 4 when everyone from downstairs comes up. One of the girls had called So Young because it was getting close to 11:30 and she hadn't shown up yet. So Young tells us that she won't be meeting with us because the branch has realtors.

...

Well, thanks. That would have been nice to know YESTERDAY before we spent over an hour trekking across Seoul to come see you at 11am.

I relate this all to Helen and she says to just stick around until 2:30 for a Reading workshop and then she'll talk with us at 4 about housing. Great.

So we walked around a bit and eventually found a place to buy Kimbop! I mentioned Kimbop the other day, right? Well, I got me one. Yum! This one had a bit more egg than the last one... but I picked nothing out!! Go me! :) Here's a picture for your viewing pleasure.


In the end, we were finally taken out with the realtors about 4:30. Come to find out, the cheapest places are right around the school. Yay! Unfortunately, there are only three apartments available around here and there are six of us looking for places. Greeeaaat. After that, we'd have to go to some other places that are up to a 25 minute subway commute and are more expensive. Kendra, Chris, and I grabbed the ones here. All in the same building and only about a ten minute walk from school. Sweet. Only problem was that only TWO were available to move into on Wednesday. The third will be available on September 1st. They wanted a Chungdahm teacher in it so much though that they offered to put that person up in a hotel until it's open. After a little squabbling, I agreed to be the one to take the hotel. With Chris translating (thank God he spoke some Korean! Our realtor did not speak English... good times), I got a week taken off the rent, a discount on top of that, and 360,000 won taken off my first month so that I can just pay for a hotel (I can go as cheap as I want... the realtor is going to help me find one tomorrow around the school that fits in that budget... not too hard). I'll save a few bucks but will have to move in next week. Oh well.

The apartment itself is TINY! A little hallway kitchen, tiny living room, and a loft for the bedroom area. Oh, and a bathroom. The shower is what I'm sure Mom will be freaking out about. Haha... man, I'm excited to see her reaction when I show pictures of it. :) It's enough for one person, though. Anyone else and it would get pretty tight.

I'll give an official tour once I actually move in. In the meantime, I'm going to get in touch with some teachers moving out in the area (particularly the one living in the one I'm going to be living in) and see if I can't get some furniture etc. to make it more livable once I move in. Should be fun.

Wow, feeling all grownup now. I got me an apartment and I'll even own my own FURNITURE.

It's the little things in life. :)

Training

Training is over and hurrah for us! Kendra and I both passed. We spent the week going to and from the training center and the hotel, about 45 minutes traveling time (subway and walking). The subway is awesome, by the way. It comes every few minutes, all the signs have English translations, and they flash the destinations in English on little TV screens hanging from the ceiling as we approach a stop. Very crowded, though. Lots of people use the subway so we got to stand most of the time.


Our days started at 9 (we'd leave a little before 8). We learned the structure of the memorization classes, how to use the various activities we'll be teaching, and mock teach the different parts. We did that until 11:30, got a 30 minute break for lunch, then did the same thing for the reading classes until 2:30. After that, we would have additional training until about 3:30. Then we'd head back to the hotel (subway!) to watch additional training videos and prep lessons for the next day's mock teaching. We would crash in bed about 9 and then wake up the next morning to do the same thing! Yay!

Friday, we had our final exams. For both memorization and reading we had a written test over the class structure and then we had evaluated mock teachings. We all got to training early to do some last minute studying.


We ended up finishing the final mocks at 3pm. Then we sat around to sign contracts and hear about how to go about finding housing. We finally left a little after 5. We were SO hungry! We walked up the street to a little store that some girls told us sold great kimbop (like unto sushi... though this one had no fish) because Kendra wanted some. I tried some of hers and wished I'd gotten some. It's pretty good. :) Then it was back to the hotel.

We finally got to the hotel around 6. We wanted to do something to celebrate, but most of the other teachers were going out to drink and, well, we didn't feel like sitting around with people who were getting drunk when we wouldn't be drinking ourselves (LDS, you know). So, we headed out to find some food. We walked around forever but couldn't find anything that looked appealing and since we weren't in the mood for a Korean ordering adventure (sooo tired and hungry...) we stopped at the Burger King. It was great.


I think we were just so sick of ramen bowls that anything with actual food in it would have sufficed. Did I mention that since we are kind of tight on money and we're in a hotel (and have not yet purchased pots or pans) that we've been living off of cheap ramen and snacks? Yeah. That giant lettuce piece was the first real veggie we'd had all week. It was awesome.

Saturday was super lazy. TV online, grocery store visit (ice cream and more ramen... aren't you glad to hear we're eating healthy?), and attempts to procure cash from an international ATM. That was it. Wonderfully lazy.

I did end up being able to get cash today. I don't know what the heck was going on with that stupid ATM yesterday. I'll need to get more cash for tomorrow to pay for the realtor and (possibly) rent deposit if we are able to find apartments.

Today was great. We went to church!! We found out that the church, while being about an hour away from our hotel, it's only two stops away from where we will be living! Yay! We did get a little turned around but another American took pity on us. Gina saw us standing in our Sunday best and asked if we needed help. Turns out she's in our branch! Lucky for us because I don't think we would have been able to find the church building otherwise. We met a lot of really nice people and I really look forward to being able to make some good friends. One girl, Jessica, lives in Mokdong and so hopefully we'll get to see more of her outside of church. Also, there's a single's activity this next Saturday about Korean culture. Fun! I'm glad I like our branch. :)

On the subway ride back to the hotel, we met some interesting peoples. There were these two older men that talked to us. From what we could understand, they are ex-marines (Korean marines) and they parachuted in Cambodia and *maybe* Vietnam. They offered us seats on the subway because they wanted us to have a good first impression of Korea. Sweet. Then there was the guy that was less than sober that struck up a conversation with us. Told us we were very good girls. I think he thought we were missionaries because he said, "You're Mormon, yes?" I don't know how he knew... we weren't talking about church or anything and it's not like we were particularly dressed up or anything. Kind of weird. But, like I said, we was less than sober and kept repeating things. I think he was just really excited to be practicing his English and after a few shots of soju he wasn't as clear as he would have been otherwise. As it was, we were rather glad to get to our stop and find out he had a few more stops to go. Oh, good.

And that's been my first full week in Korea!! Wow, I can't believe it's only been a week. This week has been so crazy that it just feels longer. Tomorrow we're going to go look for apartments and then meet with our supervisor at our school. Probably get our textbooks, see our classrooms, stuff like that.

Love you, everyone!

1st days in Korea

Yesterday was our first day of training. They keep telling us that it's going to be an INTENSE week. Prepare yourselves! So, in light of the fact that we're going to start an INTENSE week of training today, I thought I'd post a few pictures and tell you a little about our first day before heading out for the second day of training. I don't know how much more time I'll have to post this week so consider yourself warned. ;)

All right. So, yesterday's training wasn't too horrible. We took a shuttle to the training center where they welcomed us and then gave us four tests: Culture of Chungdahm, Faculty Codes of Conduct, Reading, and Grammar. These tests were based on videos we were supposed to watch before the first day of training. I passed all of my exams and so I don't need to retake any later today. Yay!
After tests and some more introduction to Chungdahm, we were taken over to the hospital for our medical exams (dun dun duuun). It was a little confusing, but they were seriously efficient getting us through all the tests: weight, hearing, blood pressure, sight, a chest x-ray, blood, and urine. Whew! Lots to do. I hate needles but I was very brave getting my blood drawn. I just closed my eyes and looked away. The nurse was really good, too, she only had to poke me once and no digging around! People usually have a hard time taking my blood but she was spot on! She should be commended.
I still don't like needles, though.

The urine test was also exciting. I won't go into any gross details but I'm very glad I found the Western toilet. I almost had to use a squat pot on my first day out!*

After the hospital, we took the subway back to the hotel to change before heading out to have dinner with some of the other teachers. We walked around quite a bit before finding a place. It was a little difficult since three of us don't drink and didn't really want to go to a bar to eat and another girl was a vegetarian. Thus, our choices were rather limited. Lots of tall, tall buildings, though!We also made a mad dash across traffic!
Ok, this shot was from before we ran across the street. But, still. It's a big, busy city here. Very fun. :)

We finally found a place to eat that wasn't a bar and had some vegetarian options. Before they brought the food out, we got bowls of sesame seeds with a big stick. I'm not sure what they were for but we all got very busy grinding them up. It smelled really good at least.
I ordered delicious donkatsu curry with rice. Yum!! It was a fried pork cutlet with a beef curry sauce (carrots, corn, beef, and potato) over rice. It was SOOO good!

Luckily, we had a few boys in our group of people who were American born Korean and spoke a little bit of Korean and so ordering wasn't too bad or confusing. You can see one of the guys in the picture I took.They were way impressed of our knowledge of the language. Haha! Mostly that I can read it... even if I don't understand. The phrase for the day: Ahn mep geh. Means pretty much "No spicy." Good to know here.

And that's the first day of training. Today starts the hard stuff. Wish me luck!

또봐요! Toh bwahyo! Bye!

*For those of you who don't know, Eastern toilets are pretty much just like the toilets we're used to in the States, but just set into the floor. I'm sure there will be more adventures with these in the future.

Arrived and Alive

After a long, long day (emphasis on LONG), Kendra and I arrived safe and sound in Seoul. Now I’m trying to sit down and watch the training videos for the tests tomorrow at training, but the internet I’m using right now is super slow so I’m still waiting for it to load. So, I figure I’ll work on a blog update.

Yesterday… the day before yesterday? Whatever. Friday I got up about 4am to get ready to head to the airport. Mom, Dad, and Jesi came with to see me off. Little bit of crying at security and I was off. My ticket to San Francisco said my seat was 8D which made me really excited. All summer, from Salt Lake to Chicago, Chicago to Germany, Chicago to Salt Lake, Portland to New York I have been sitting in 8D. I only noticed because it looks like a sideways smiley face.

Well, I thought it was cool, at least.

I met up with my friend Kendra in San Francisco (which is a terribly confusing airport… Seoul was even easier to navigate and it was in KOREAN!). We had some lunch, walked around a bit, and then sat by the gate.

The flight was a little delayed, but we were soon off and running… or, sitting, I guess.

The plane was HUGE! We were sitting near the back of the plane and we couldn’t see the front of it!! Also, two stories tall, baby. Crazy sauce.

See how we can’t see the front of the plane? Those aren’t curtains closing us off from first class. Oh, no. It was just a massively huge plane.

The flight itself wasn’t too bad. It ended up being twelve and a half hours. A long time to be sitting on an airplane, but our personal entertainment centers made it not too bad. Oh, it was awesome. We could choose from over a dozen new releases (Is the new Nanny McPhee movie even in theaters, yet? That’s what I watched), tv episodes, documentaries, music CD’s (from which you could compile your own 50 song playlist),radio channels, games, flight map, it was awesome. I watched three movies (Nanny McPhee, the new Shrek, and Diary of a Wimpy Kid), Friends, Two and a Half Men, Everybody Loves Raymond, and played a lot of memory and blackjack.

Food was good, too. We got two meals. The first one we had a choice of Korean food of beef. I had the beef and it wasn’t too bad.

Kendra was a little more adventurous than me and had the Korean food. Complete with seaweed soup.

Not a terrible flight. Couldn’t sleep, but I was still pretty entertained. The last two, three hours were the worst. So close, tired, and ready to just get up and go.

Then we were over Korea!! We could tell from the map on our personal entertainment centers, which also told us what time it was back home and how long we had left of the flight.

Here’s our first view from the window.

Yeah, it was really cloudy so we didn’t actually see Korea until we, like, touched down. By then the stewardess had told me that I couldn’t keep my back pack by my seat (no underseat storage where I sat so it was between the wall and my seat… pretty nice actually; more foot room) and she’d put it top. My camera was inside so I didn’t get pictures out of the window. Oh well. I also didn’t take any in the airport because I didn’t feel like hauling out my camera.

Oh, something of note. We didn’t see any currency exchange spots before customs and you need 3,000 won for a luggage cart. So we had to drag all of our luggage through the airport and finding the bus. Also of note, there’s no luggage carts for purchase past customs. Nice.

Finding the bus and taxi would have proved problematic had some very nice people who spoke English not stepped up and helped us find them. The people here have been very nice. When we were dragging our luggage into the hotel, this nice couple who was standing outside talking offered to help us bring in our bags. We were all, “Oh, no, that’s all right,” but they just smiled and started rolling in our suitcases, wishing us a pleasant trip. So nice.

Then it was showers and sleep. I woke up about 4:30 this morning and couldn’t fall back asleep to I just figured, what the heck, I’ll stay up. I had a quick chat with the parents over slow Skype this morning and Dad warned me not to take a nap when I get tired about 3 in the afternoon when I get tired again. I will try. The plan today is to watch the training videos and possibly walk around town a little bit. I’ll be wearing a summer dress to do that walking bit. It is hot and humid here.

Hope everyone at home is well. Miss you bunches!

또봐요! Toh bwahyo! Bye!

I'm off!!

Here we go... I leave in a few hours for the airport to head off to teach English in South Korea! Can you believe it? I'm so nervous right now. REALLY excited, but just that little bit of nervous that comes with starting something new. Especially something like this new.

Wish me luck, friends!!

Visa!

Got my visa today (and a free tourist map of South Korea... after all the Fed-Ex and processing fees it doesn't seem very "free"). I was very excited to see it considering I'm leaving for Korea in a week and I won't be home for most of that week. We're heading up to Whidbey Island up in Washington so it's going to be fun.

Just thought I'd share the joyous news. Ticket and visa are both accounted for. Just some last minute baggage checking and then TADA!! I'm off! :)

Is anyone else getting nervous? I know I am... just a little.

Almost time to leave...

I have twelve days now until I leave for South Korea. Wow. It's sneaking up on me. Tomorrow the travel agent will issue my tickets and later this week I'll get a package from the Korean Consulate with my visa stamped passport. Friday is Diane's bridal shower (congrats Diane!) at my house, Saturday we leave for Whidbey Island with my two little cousins getting back just in time for a day at home and then poof! It's off to Korea for a year!

Don't get me wrong, I am super excited about going to Korea. I'll have my own place, get to see and try a million new things, hopefully learn a new language, and have a classroom all my own! It will be so much fun. I'm still nervous, though. This will be my first Christmas without my family and I'll be so far away from home for such a long time.

I know that there will be days when I hate it. I'll wonder why I decided to go in the first place and try to think of ways to go home early. However, I also know that if I didn't do this, I would always regret it. I would wonder what opportunities I might have missed out on because I didn't go. I need to prove to myself that I CAN do this.

So that being said, here's me freaking out a little bit about leaving to live in a foreign country! 12 more days!! Can you believe it? 12 MORE DAYS!!

Wish me luck keeping my cool so my parents don't freak out, too. ;)