My New Life in South Korea: Documented

Sunday, April 5, 2009

Pictures to go with sixth post

Atop Namsan Mountain

Seoul Tower

Too much haze

The trek up Namsan

Final

Halftime

South Korea National Team

Subway before the game; unreal
The lone goal

March 28th-April 5th

Well hello everyone!! I am back writing again and that is because I have some good experiences and some good pictures to go with the experiences. This weekend, Daniel Tate, Jillian, Mahvish and I went to Hongdae (Seoul) Friday night and it was club night. The last Friday of each month is club night which means for a cheap price, we get a bracelet that allows you into all of the clubs. It was a very LONG and wild night but definitely a great time. On Saturday night, Daniel and I met up with a group of people for Troy and Joanne's birthday get together. We had not met many of the people we were with, so it was awesome being able to meet other teachers that live in the area. We went to dinner and then to a bar where we had drinks for the night. Our weekends have consisted of a lot of partying but that will come to an end soon because we will be doing more traveling and things like that. That night we were out with Joanne and Troy, we were watching the Korean national soccer game against Iraq and they told us that game was being played in Suwon which is about 15 minutes from where we live. We could not believe something so big was being played so close and they proceeded to tell us that the Korean national team had a game Wednesday night in Seoul against North Korea and it was a World Cup Qualifier. Instantly, Daniel and I said we had to go to it. That is exactly what we did.

Tate, Jillian, Dave, Daniel and I all got off work on Wednesday at 5 to catch the bus to Seoul and then 2 Subway lines to the Stadium. The 2002 FIFA World Cup was held here in South Korea, so the stadium was incredible. North Korea and South Korea's matches are usually very good and I believe the last three matches have resulted in a tie. But not this time, The American and Canadians brought the South Korean team a little luck. South Korea scored the only goal of the game in the 88th minute. Luckily for me, I filmed the lone goal on my camera and will post it to the blog. It was such an incredible experience being able to see Korean pride and especially South Korean pride against a country in which the world hates. I also have some good pictures of the stadium and the fans. It was an experience that I will never forget. I mean honestly, how many people can say they went to a soccer match where South Korea played against North Korea? I don’t think many. That night, the subways were ridiculous. I have never been so close to so many people just being shoved onto the subway and pushed everywhere. It was mind blowing how many people were on each cart. I am definitely not complaining. That is the type of stuff that makes the experience so amazing and so much fun. It was a long day seeing we left for work around 830 and did not get home until close to 1 AM. It was worth every bit of how tired I was the next day at work. South Korea has a couple more games in Seoul that we will probably check out. Baseball is starting soon here and since I wont be able to see my idol back in Seattle (Griffey), I will have to make due with the Korean professional teams who are actually very good! I also will have you know that I won’t be missing the first month of the Mariners baseball season. I have to give a shout out to my amazing friend Jeff Doty who bought me a month long pass to MLBTV.com so that I could see not only the Mariners do amazing and lead the way to the World Series, but also can see my idol's first real at-bat in a Mariners uniform since 1999. To say the least, I am stoked about this! That game is coming up on Monday for most of you and early Tuesday morning for me. I will watch the game before work and be wearing my Mariners jersey to work.

This latest weekend, I decided I needed a more relaxing weekend without the partying and that is exactly what we did. I was not alone with that idea seeing that we do everything together and needed a break. Friday night, Tate, Jillian, Daniel and I hung out, played our favorite card game, SCOPA and also charades. On Saturday, we woke up and went to Seoul for the day to do some touristy things and get some cool pictures. We went to Namsan Mountain (which to us is more of a big hill) which leads to the Seoul Tower which looks really neat as long as it is not a hazy day. Of course, with our luck, we had a VERY hazy day and the pictures looking high over Seoul did not turn out too well. The pictures show how dirty Seoul is because I am pretty sure it was not fog. It was still a very fun hike with some good scenery. We did not walk all the way to the Seoul Tower because of the smog and are going to wait and do it again another day. After walking down the mountain, we got back down in the main city areas and walked around, did some shopping and ate dinner. It was an awesome day and I am starting to love Seoul. It is an amazing city to just walk around. There are so many different nationalities every where. There is such a wild variety on styles for clothing and especially with food. Before dinner, we ate at this little Turkish vendor and had wraps full of Lamb and I think I would take the bus back just for a couple of the wraps. After dinner we headed home and we began planning what we are going to do for our 10 day break in July. We are most likely leaving South Korea to go somewhere with a beach and nice weather but I will keep you updated with our destination when we completely figure it out. We should know sometime this week. The weather here is starting to get warmer and today (Sunday) was amazing! It was about 65 degrees and blue skies. Tate, Daniel and I went to the Central Park and played our usual 3 on 3 basketball with the local Dongtonians and it was a lot of fun. We rode our bikes around and just enjoyed ourselves. This whole next week is supposed to be low to mid 60's and I am stoked. But now it is time to get back into the grind of another work week. Hopefully there will be some other experiences coming up really soon that I can update you on. Enjoy the Mariners and go North Carolina in the National Championship (I got 50,000 Korean Won riding on that)!! Miss you all and I hope you enjoy the pictures!!

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Pictures to go with fifth post

Tate and I at Park Golf

Park Golf

Tate, Jillian and Mike (Tate's dad)

The hole really is huge!

Nicole, Whitnie, Daniel and Mahvish at Now Bar

Dinner in Seoul

Birthday dinner with Daniel, Troy, Joanne and Dave

My kids and their birthday cards for me!

March 12th-March 22nd

I have skipped a few days since my last post but only because there was not much going on during the week. All of our weeks are very similar in the sense that I wake up, eat breakfast and go to work. I usually leave my apartment around 8:45 and get home around 8-8:30 at night. They are long days but not too bad. The reason I get home so late is because Daniel, Jillian and myself all got gym memberships and we go to workout after work. The gym is awesome and it is very cheap. We purchased three months for 90,000 Korean Won which is about $70.00. It actually costs 60,000 for the three months but you can pay an extra 10,000 a month for a locker and clean workout clothes everyday. It is a great deal and will save us from doing laundry more often.

This week on March 12th was my birthday and it turned out to be a really good birthday. At work, one of the teachers that teaches ahead of me did art projects and had all the kids make me birthday cards and they were awesome. This class sometimes gives me grief and it made my day to walk in the class to see all of them hiding under their desks and pop out to say "happy birthday, we love you teacher Kevin." At first when they were under the desks, I thought to myself, "Here we go again, going to have to be mean." ha-ha but that was not the case and it was really cool. After work, Daniel and I went to the gym and then headed out to a restaurant/bar for dinner and some drinks with our co-worker Dave and our recruiters Joanne and Troy. The five of us had a blast and the restaurant gave some free drinks and some free food. Dave bought me dinner and some drinks while Joanne and Troy bought me a beer as well. We had a blast but it being a work night, we had to keep it low key and wait for the weekend. That wasn't tough seeing that the next day was Friday. On Friday, Daniel and I went up to a city near by named Yeongton and met up with three foreign teachers from another school at a bar called "Now Bar" and had a good night. Then on Saturday, Daniel, Jillian, Tate and I went up to Seoul for the day. Tate's parents and Grandma were in town as well and we all went out to dinner and just enjoyed the big city and walking around.

Before coming to Korea, I did some research on our city and it said there was a par 3 golf course but I had never seen where it was. Well on Sunday we found this "par 3 golf course" and it was in the Central Park we always go to but it is not real golf. It is called Park Golf or maybe it's Park Ball, I am not sure. But anyways, it was Tate, Jillian, Tate's dad, Daniel and I who played and it turned out to be pretty fun. There is only one club, a ball (which is about the size of a lacrosse ball) and the cup for the holes is about 4 times the size of regular golf cups. Hopefully you will be able to see what I am talking about in the pictures I post. The weekend has now ended and it’s back to the weekly routine or working and working out.

Since we are about 13-16 hours ahead of everyone in the states, the NCAA basketball tournament started on Friday for us and no joke, probably every thirty minutes I was checking out the scores or trying to watch the games online. I am not happy about missing this time of year but thank god all of the games are on the internet. I started a bracket challenge for us foreign co-workers and it cost 10,000 Korean Won and every single one of us chose a different national champion. So pretty much, it is going to come down to who wins the whole thing who wins our bracket. I chose North Carolina. On Friday night, Daniel and I took the bus to Seoul and met up with some other foreign teachers again for a night on the town. The partying here is very tough. It is an all night thing where you are out until 5 or 6 in the morning. I am out of commission all of Saturday because of these Fridays. But I am not complaining because it is always a good time! We found a foreigner’s bar called "Woodstock" and met other people, played some darts and enjoyed ourselves. Saturday night, after I regained my energy, Daniel and I met up with our recruiters Joanne and Troy for drinks at a local bar in Dongtan. We love hanging out with Joanne and Troy. They are always up for a good time and they are really good people. We try to get with them once a week at least for dinner or drinks. Then on Sunday, it was another relaxing day where Daniel and I went to play some Park Golf (I shot 2 under par) and went to the store that is near by called E-Mart because they always have free samples like Costco and they are so good. We needed a little snack after golf. They had duck as one of the samples and it was amazing. I think I had five samples. Then for dinner, Jillian made pasta and they used Tate's Grandma's homemade spaghetti sauce (she is full Italian and can cook!!) with salami in it. It was incredible. This is pretty much all that has been going on the past couple weeks. I sure hope my blog is not getting boring for anyone. Miss you all so much and hopefully there will be some exciting things going on in the next week or two to share with everyone.

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Pictures to go with fourth post

At the club

On the main stage alone

Daniel and I "clubbin"

Club M2

Me, Daniel and Jillian in the subway in Hong Dae

On the bus to Seoul

Tate and I on the subway

Typical subway in Seoul

March 2nd-March 8th

Hello everyone! I am sorry it has taken nearly two weeks since I have last posted. As you all know (if you read my last post) I started real work with the new students on March 2nd. The days have been long but that's only because I don't know what a 9-5 job is. Now that we are two weeks through, I have begun to get my feet on the ground and a steady schedule that fits my needs with work. All I can say is there is not much going on during the week for me. Pretty much our first week of school was getting the kids situated in each class and then allowing them to get comfortable with foreigners as their teachers and us foreigners adjusting to not only the Korean kids but teaching them (I never thought once that I would be a teacher). For my schedule, I show up for work at 9 AM via bike (rain, snow, hail, monsoons, hills; both ways, you know the drill) and do not have my first class until 11:40 in the morning. I probably have the most downtime in the morning compared to my other employees but once I start at 11:40, I do not stop until about 4:45 in the afternoon. My first class is supposed to be the smartest of all the kids at the school. They are the 7 year olds and I have six of them in my class. Each class is different meaning we teach from different books depending on how advanced they are. I teach that class from 11:40-12:20 and then eat lunch with them from 12:20-1:00. Once lunch is over, I stay with that class to do a class that is called "Activity Class." Each day of the week we do something different. Monday is science day where we will build something. For instance, in the first week we showed the kids how electricity works. Some of the projects are fun and some are tedious. The kids need so much help doing them that sometimes I feel I am doing everyone's science projects. Then on Tuesday it is called DVD day and us teachers choose a DVD to watch (usually something that is helpful for learning) and then create a questionnaire for the kids to answer from. On Wednesday we have Art day, Thursday is this thing called ORDA and it’s pretty similar to art day. Then on Friday, the kids have P.E. and that is pretty much free time for us. After the activity class ends for me at 1:40 I have class with 6 year olds that I teach and they barely understand what I am saying the whole time. One thing I never thought about is that children do not have English names. It is rare if someone has an English name. So for my six year old class, it is all of their first time going to school and they only have their Korean names. It was my job to take all 16 of my students and rename them with English names. I thought and still think it is wild that we had to name them. Now that it has been 2 weeks of teaching them everyday, they have caught onto their names and we should begin work from their curriculum this week. We will see. That class ends at 2:40 and I go and teach a different group of 7 year olds (which is my worst class by far. The kids don't listen to anything that I say). That class ends at 3:20 where I then begin my next class at 3:30 which is elementary school and the kids are all very smart and we do much more advanced work. These kids go to a Korean school all day and then show up at 3:30 to 4:45 and learn English. These are really dedicated kids but mainly because their parents force them. From 3:30-4:45, this is two different classes but with the same kids. I actually only teach both of those classes Tuesday's and Thursday's. On Monday/Wednesday/Friday I only teach the second of the two where my Korean teaching partner teaches it. The schedule is not too bad actually but the days can become very long at times. I think that is normal for any real jobs and I am very optimistic that as the weeks keep going by, the weeks will all be good weeks.

I have always heard the phrase "TGIF" (thanks god it’s Friday) but never really cared to use the phrase because for one, I have never had a real job and for college, that time was too much fun to ever worry about what day of the week it was unless you had an exam. I now know the true meaning of TGIF and I think all of us were very thankful it was Friday. It was Friday and we also got our first paychecks (party time right!!?). Now that I had a little money and could have some fun, we thought it was time to go to Seoul on Friday night and wild out. Daniel, Jillian, Tate and I headed up to Seoul with the intention of having a good time. We planned on going to a club. One thing you need to understand is that in most countries other than the U.S., the clubs are open into the early morning. Most of the clubs in Korea are open until 6 AM and we wanted to try that. After work on Friday, we went home and napped until it was time to go. We took the bus from Dongtan to Seoul at 10:40 PM to arrive in Seoul at 11:20. We then walked to the subway and took the subway to a city within Seoul that was about 40 minutes away. It was called Hong Dae and known for clubs and a good time. We got to Hong Dae around 12:30 and went to a bar where we hung out and had some drinks before the club. The club was called M2 and we showed up around 2 AM and it was HUGE. There could have been anywhere from 700-1000 people. It was all techno music and the music never stopped. We danced the whole night away and probably had one of the best times I have ever had being at a club. Truthfully, I am not much of a clubber and prefer low key but I knew going into this, I needed to have a good time with it. There were times where I was on the stage all by myself with the DJ's just dancing in front of all the people. I cannot dance as you have all seen in the videos I posted and now just imagine me at a club in front of so many people. It was a great experience and can’t wait until the next time. The time flew the whole night and sooner than we knew it, the lights were coming on in the club. After we left the club around 6, the streets were flooded with people leaving the clubs and we decided to get some burger king before we headed home. We decided to just take a taxi cab home from Hong Dae and it was about an hour and a half cab ride that only cost 40,000 won. In the states, that is about only $34.00. We could not believe a cab ride that long and that far could be so cheap. We definitely all fell asleep in the taxi and the next thing I knew, I woke up and we were home. I think all of us ran up the stairs and jumped into bed. Saturday was pretty much a wasted day because none of us wanted to do much other than chill and sleep.

On Sunday, Jillian, Tate, Daniel, Dave and myself all took the subway to a city near by called Suwon and went to the mall and just walked around the city. It is a lot different than Dongtan. We saw the movie, "Watchmen" that is about all the comic book heroes and it was actually really good. And yes, it was in English! We stayed there all day and went to the batting cages and just enjoyed ourselves before we had to go back to work the next day. I have pictures from this whole week that I will post after this blog to hopefully give you a better feel for what we have been doing this past week. Again, I am sorry it has taken me so long to post and I will get better at this. I miss you all!!