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Published: August 23rd 2010
Seoul
View from near our accommodation.Dear Blog Readers,
Orientation has begun and it has been great so far. Luckily, the first day wasn’t too intense so we were able to get over our jetlag a little bit. We started off the day with a breakfast of bacon and eggs (classically Korean) and some cereal. We then had our first class meeting which has everybody who is going to the same province as ours - Chungbuk. Some employees from NH Bank came and helped us open up a new bank account for our salaries to go into and we’ll be getting our cards by the end of orientation which is great.
Lunch was a mixture of chicken and pork with rice and it was pretty good! We then went to the main auditorium for the official EPIK 2010 Opening Ceremony. This included children from a nearby school doing some amazing taekwondo and some traditional singing. This was then followed by a lecture on the history and politics of Korea - he was less than convincing about the current state of affairs between the South and North Korea saying, “Don’t worry, the South Korean army is strong, you will be safe” to ripples of nervous laughter from
Gazeebo Thing
Found this little look out point. the audience.
Saturday was a bit of a weird day. We weren’t allowed to eat or drink after 7pm on Friday night because we had a medical exam in the morning. However, because we were in the last class, this meant that we didn’t start the medical exam until 11:30am. The first few stations were fine - checking height, weight, etc. but then Laura started to feel pretty faint when we were waiting to get our blood taken. She struggled through the blood test so I thought she would be fine to quickly finish the urine test and X-ray. I turn around after getting my blood test and Laura looks about as white as her hair and, unsurprisingly for somebody who hasn’t eaten or drank in the last 17 hours, collapses in the chair! Luckily, we were able to get some food and drink on board as quickly as possible and once she was replenished she was able to get through the rest of the test.
After lunch, we had a great lecture by a woman who is just finishing her year of teaching with EPIK and then we had another class meeting. Surprisingly, I was elected as
Laura practising for Wii Fit
The moment before she fell over. the male class representative. We also took a small Korean test to see which level we should be taught Korean at in our classes here. I had a good guess at the consonants and vowels and I filled in the numbers using a combination of stick men and circles. You can imagine my surprise when I find out that, based on the above guesswork and plain ridiculousness, I had been entered into ‘Low Intermediate’ class which states, “Someone who can just read Korean letters to some extent but don’t know the exact meanings”. Luckily, I managed to wangle my way into the Beginner’s class after negotiating with the teacher. Anyway, the Korean lesson turned out to be great fun and I’m starting to learn the vowels and consonants - or for anyone reading this who isn’t in Korea - those weird symbols.
Our recruiter had organised getting together for some drinks at a bar in Seoul so we went with a few friends to check it out. The Seoul subway system is similar to the Tube but more high tech. The fare was pretty cheap and the bar was OK - it even served Guinness on tap!? I think
EPIK
Sporting the new fashion range - EPIK t-shirts the area was common for foreigners so it will be good to explore some different parts of the city when we get back. The Subway back home took longer than expected which meant we missed our curfew by a few minutes. The doors were locked with a huge chain!? Luckily there was somebody there to let us back in!
Yesterday was an early start and we were transported to a traditional Korean folk village. This was also my first opportunity to take over responsibilities as a class representative which meant taking registers and going around with a stupid sign all day to let people know where to gather. The folk village was interesting and we had a guided tour for the first couple of hours. We then found a nice place to relax and it was the first time Laura and I actually had some time together during the Orientation. We then watched a traditional Korean dance followed by a 60+ year old man doing tight-rope walking (unbelievable!) and then we watched a traditional Korean wedding.
We got chance to have a look at the market stalls, Laura bought a fan and we tried some food. We bought
Folk Village
Cool looking totem poles a few pork skewers fresh from the BBQ which tasted great and we also had a bowl of some random vegetables, acorn jelly (!?) and some rice. We covered it in kimchi source and it tasted pretty bad but wasn’t completely inedible! In the afternoon we visited an Arts Centre where we learnt a Korean dance followed by learning how to use an hourglass shaped Korean drum (Dom would be proud). We then watched an amazing performance called Breakout which was a story mixed with breakdancing and some unbelievable skills! It was definitely the highlight of the day! After we had dinner, we went with some friends to try and get to Seoul Tower but we didn’t get all the way to the top as the queues were too long - at least it meant we weren’t racing back to get in before curfew this time! The views were pretty spectacular though so we will definitely be going back when we have more time and take some good photos (our camera isn’t great for shots at night-time.)
Monday has been a really long day. We were up and eating breakfast by 8am - we both passed on the particularly
Swings
Fancied a quick go on the swings. appetising tuna and cabbage salad. After breakfast we began our series of lectures on classroom management, activity based learning, project based learning and how to be a co-teacher. Once these finished we had just enough time to get some dinner before our second Korean lesson. They’ve been great but the problem is that everybody is so tired by 7pm that nothing really goes in so we’re both still struggling. I then had a meeting to discuss how the EPIK orientation has gone before being told that my official transcripts had not been received which is very annoying/worrying. Hopefully I can get to the bottom of it by the end of tomorrow! Hope you all have a cracking afternoon! We’re both off to get some well-earned rest - we have the same busy schedule all again tomorrow,
Tink and Laura
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Rox
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Blub
Ha Laura fainted! noob... sounds fairly scary and exciting... have you found any cute korean kids who try and sing Jason Mraz yet?? xxxxxxxx