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Published: September 6th 2008
Hey everyone sorry it has been awhile since a solid update. Things are going pretty well here. One downer is a couple that was really fun has just left the country today. They have been here about five years and decided they have had enough. They were very cool though and helped us with a lot of things such as directions and suggestions on many things.
Anyways something I believe that Jenna and I need to clear up about teaching over here is that we are teaching in a private school or a Hagwon. And I think everyone thinks that the kids do not speak English, but that is not true. All of our students speak English and some of the older ones speak English extremely well. Kids in Korea also visit Canada and The United States pretty frequently to further their English frequency. There are even a few students that have spent 6 months to a year in an American school.
Kids in Korea basically go to school year round. Many of our students come in after going to a Korean school. Then many of them go to private lessons or an activity afterwards. From asking the students,
I can pretty much say that they leave their houses at 8 am and don’t get home till past 10 pm. They are serious about school here, the kids go to a private schools year round with only one week off every six months. There are also about 10 days off a year for celebrating national holidays.
One of the things that takes getting used to here is how crowded it is. Everything is crowded, for example, I have been into McDonalds three times here and every time there is at least a ten minute wait to order. As far as transportation, we have used taxies, buses and the subway. Our apartment is across the street from a subway station which I am told is good because some teachers have to take a cab and then the subway which would be horrible. Taxies are cheap; usually the starting rate is 1,300 won (less than $1.30). A15 minute ride would cost about 10 or 11 thousand won, which is less than 10 bucks.
There are many things we miss from back home like family, friends, and the food. But one thing that we have found here that makes us
feel like we are back home is the hiking. Some of the mountains, actually all of the mountains are not as big and cool, but they do the job especially when you find a secluded trail. The vegetation here is very similar to Colorado. So if we pretend, we feel like we are walking in Boulder… minus all of the Koreans everywhere. Most of the hiking areas have cool stuff at the top like fortresses and temples. It’s like a mini reward for the extraneous trip to the top of the mountain.
A couple weeks back, we decided that we wanted to go sight seeing in Seoul. We took a tour bus that would take us around to all of the sights. We got on the extremely crowed bus and traveled to see N. Seoul tower. The tower was really cool; it was at the top of a mountain so you could see for miles. One of the traditions at the tower was to buy a lock and key and chain it to the posts, as you can see in the pictures. So of course we had to comply with that tradition and we bought a lock and wrote
our names on it, cheesy I know! After the tower we tried to get back on the bus to go to the next destination, but they wouldn’t let us on because we hadn’t bought our ticket yet and they said that they were all full. So they just left us there, we were fuming. Finally we just got on a local bus and went to a traditional Korean village without the stupid tour! Then we made our way home stopping for a delicious dinner at an awesome Indian restaurant.
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deisha
non-member comment
jenna! it looks like youre having a really good time!! no one told me you went to SK till this weekend. but it was super exciting news! take care! love ya! -deish