Go Bears!

Hi all,

Last night was my first experience with Korean baseball! The Sunshine committee (what a name, eh?) organized a trip for the staff to support the Doosan Bears team (apparently our headmaster is a part owner or something...some sort of tie-in with the team) as they took on the Unicorns (which is a WAY cooler mascot!). I only stayed for about 6 innings, but it was a lot of fun! It was interesting to see the Korean come straight from work, still in their suits and ties, and burn off some steam by drinking a lot of beer (of course, some of the SIS staff was giving them a run for their money in that department!). I actually can't tell you if the Bears won or not, but they were losing to the Unicorns when I left. It was a fun way to wind down after a full week at work, and I was still back in time to watch The Office on BBC...now that's a good Friday night! The pictures I've included are, from top to bottom, the beer guy who wears a backpack-cooler of beer; myself, Aaron, and Coleen enjoying the game; and the Korean crowd of Bears supporters.

One of the funniest parts of the game were the cheerleaders...a little different from the cheerleaders at home, especially the male cheerleader! It's a little hard to describe, but go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0j4hQMBAfxk to see video shot by one of the SIS teachers. There are a couple of others he's posted of the cheerleaders (male and female as well) on there too. It's pretty hilarious!

Buddhist Temple

Yesterday a group of us went for a walk up to a Buddhist temple on the hill behind our neighborhood, which was so great! It was nice to get into the woods, although you could hear the freeway the whole time. It was about a mile and a half each way and the temple was beautiful! It's a fairly small complex with 2 temples and a library thing. But there's this Buddha carved into the rock that is really important, for some reason (At some point I should figure out what's so great about it, since I've seen it now!). It was cool to see the city skyline as well. Actually, we could only see part of the skyline because 1) the city is so huge, and 2) there's a mountain in the middle, so it's hard to see around it.

Another cool thing about the hike is that there are all these foxholes up there! I've included a picture. They look fairly new-ish...like maybe they've been used post-Korean-War! So if North Korea does attack, you'll know where to find me! :-)

Korean Beer

Here's the new thing I learned last night...Korean beer is a lot more alcoholic than other beer! There was a get-together between our school and Korean Int'l School (KIS) at a bar near their school. It was a fun time, especially because some of the teachers at KIS have formed a band which is actually pretty good! But I definitely had a little too much of the Cass beer, which was definitely not my intention! So today has been a lazy day of hanging out, grading some essays, listening to NPR, and napping! Later some of us are going to walk up the hill behind our neighborhood to a Buddhist temple, which I've been wanting to do for a while, so I'm excited about getting to see it.

This picture is of the entrance to my dong or neighborhood.

Fuzz!

I have a washing machine in my apartment, but not a dryer, and as a result, have realized just how much lint/fuzz is produced when you don't have a dryer to take it all away! I've finally decided to never wash a towel with my clothes, but some of my clothes are absolutely covered with towel fuzz now!

I got through my first week of school with no problems. I still want to wait a little bit before I start talking about my kids, but I've been pretty impressed so far! One thing that's really nice is that I don't have to get up until 6:00 now, as opposed to the 5:00-5:20 I was getting up back in Washington! There is something to be said for an 8:00 start time! Plus, we have 4 80-minute periods a day, with all teachers getting a prep each day, and a 65-minute lunch/activity period, so I have a lot of time right now for planning, grading, etc. At Kamiak we had a 55 minute prep and a 30 minute lunch.

Last night I went out with some of the teachers for a girls night out and some of the teachers who had taught at other international schools were telling stories, which were really interesting. One teacher, who just got done teaching for 3 years at a school in Alexandria, Egypt, was saying that one of her friends who was a social studies teacher there, brought a globe and a couple of world maps with her and customs literally cut out Israel from the globe and maps, which is pretty crazy. And then, another friend of her's was teaching in Kuwait and went to visit Israel. I guess if you tell the Israeli customs folks to not stamp your passport, they won't, because most other Middle Eastern countries won't let you in if you have an Israeli stamp. So she asked them not to and they said OK, but it accidently got stamped anyway, so she called her school to ask them what to do and they said to throw her passport away and get another one from the embassy because the Kuwaiti customs folks wouldn't let her back in, even though she had a job there. Crazy stuff.

The 1st picture is of the walking trail that's near my apartment that literally goes the whole way through Seoul. Since I'm on the edge of the city, it's not too long before you're out in the semi-country. The other one is of the "main street" (it probably has an actual name, but I don't know what it is!) that's about 2 blocks away from my apartment building.

Independence Day

Today we all had a day off from school, which was pretty nice! It's the Korean independence day from Japan, so I think most of the schools and banks were closed, but the important thing is, Costco was open! 2 of my fellow teachers were nice enough to let me hitch a ride with them, so I was able to load up on some staples. I also went for a walk along the Han river on this walking trail they have that goes for 30 miles or so, apparently. I included a picture with this post...even though it's gray and cloudy, it was pretty hot and humid and I was quite a sweat ball by the time I got back!

Some people have been asking about my students and fellow teachers. I haven't said much about my kids yet because I don't want to make all sorts of statements that later turn out to be all wrong! So I'll wait to talk about them, but I can talk a bit about the other teachers here. There are about 100 teachers total, for all 3 schools. Most of them live in the teacher apartments, which I've included a picture of with this post. My guess is about 60% are American, but there's a very large number of Canadians, a few Australians, a couple of Kiwis, and a couple of folks from England. It's fun to hear all the accents in staff room! Maybe after 2 years of this, I can finally perfect the Canadian "about"! I'd say about 2/3 are in the 35-and-under bracket (there are at least 3 29 year olds...I guess we're all wanting to do something exciting before the big 3-0!). Probably about 70% are married or seriously dating someone here or, in a few, cases abroad. So there are some single folks, but because it's something I'm involved in, 95% of the single folks are women...sigh! But I've met a lot of great people so far. There seem to be a whole bunch from the Northwest, including BC, which is interesting. I guess we're an adventerous bunch!

Another thing I've found, not surprisingly, is that all of them love to travel. Back home, I felt like I was on the high end of travel experiences (not that I've done lots of expensive "high end" trips, but that I'd traveled quite a bit), but here I'm like the big loser who's hardly gone anywhere! I've got to start traveling more! Thailand seems to be a hot spot. I think just about everyone here has gone to Thailand...at least I've been there, so I'm not quite such a loser! :-) I am one of the few who's been to North Korea though! I guess there's some sort of deal North and South Korea have worked out where non-Northerners can go hike some mountain just over the border with a guide, of course. I think that would be awesome!

1st day of school

Today was the first day of school. I saw all of my classes today (that's the only time that will happen...otherwise I see 3 of my 6 classes per day) for 15 minutes, so that was just enough time to go over the syllabus and that was about it.

One of the other new teachers here, Heather, is doing a much better job than I am of taking pictures of the neighborhood and daily life here. To see them, go to http://heatherpurcell.spaces.live.com/ and just imagine they came from my camera!

The picture I'm attaching to this posting is of Heather and I the day we got the pads for our mattresses. We're completely squashed in the car with 2 mattress pads on our laps, so we couldn't even see over them! It would be pretty uncomfortable at the best of times and when it's super hot and humid, it makes for a pretty sweaty trip home! But it was so worth it...my bed is so comfortable!

Noreabong!

Hi all,

So, last night (Friday) was my first big night out with the teachers. We had meetings all day on Friday, so everyone was ready to blow off a little steam. A group of us visited the Noreabong (karaoke) place not once, but twice! It's a lot more fun than karaoke places I've been in the US because you get your own little room and so it's just you and people you know...I actually sang without having had anything to drink! We belted out a little Bohemian Raphosody (sp?), Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, Twist and Shout, and Beyonce's Crazy in Love (which is a very hard song to sing, actually!), among others.

Today I went with some returning teachers to the old neighborhood (they all call it the old dong...I'm not sure what dong means) where they all lived before the new apartments were built. I had heard horror stories about those apartments and from the outside, they looked pretty gross. But the neighborhood they lived in is older than the one we live in now, so it had all these stores and restaurants...I mean, my neighborhood has lots of those as well, but this had more. The best part was finding a place that sells the mattress pads. The mattresses we were given are so hard, it's almost unbelievable. In fact, for a while I thought that perhaps they had accidently put the box spring on top, but nope, that's the mattress. But a lot of Koreans sleep on the floor, especially in the winter when it's warmer down there, so they have these great sleeping pads. I bought one for 50,000 won, or about $50, and I literally can't wait to go to sleep tonight!