Hey everyone!
I know I've talked to a few of you about writing down some of my travel experiences on this blog. I guess it is kind of a continuation of my "it's all happening" times with Mass Exodus last year... except now MUCH more is happening!
We had a pretty hilarious time at the airport. Mum and Dad were lovely to have driven a couple of hungover and smelly fools to the airport and helped us unpack and rearrange the weight in our suitcases again, and again, and again. When we said good bye to our loved ones and passed through security.. what was there to do for 2 and a half hours on a sad day but have some unhealthy Canadian food and a couple of spicy caesars to help the hangover and blues.
Our flight was as good as a 14 hour flight could be.. except for the food. I imagine prisoners in Siberia eat better than we did. When we arrived in Incheon, Jamie and I along with 2 other Canadian girls teaching with us made our way to customs and we were already pointed out by someone who said to their friend "definitely Russians". This isn't a compliment in Korea. Here, pretty much any blonde foreigner is called Russian, which, to them is a stripper (apparently a lot of Russian girls come here to work as exotic dancers??)
We hopped on the bus to Gwangju from the airport which pretty much looked like a party bus. It had red leather seats, at least double the amount of space for your legs that you would find on a greyhound, plastic rhinestones on the ceiling, and fringed curtains.
By the time we got to Gwangju it was about midnight, without sleep and between 100-120lbs of luggage (each) to haul around and search for a cab. Suffice to say this was the toughest part of the trip. Attempting to explain to the taxi driver where to take us, how many people were going in each cab, and why we had so much stuff was challenging as he knew about the same amount of English as we did Korean...soo none.
Anyway! We are now at a training institute doing orientation for a total of 10 days. Jamie and I are rooming together in a typical college style dorm except both of our bed have a broken leg under our mattresses so we each have a sinkhole spot where we can't sit on the bed. It is also typical of Korean bathrooms to have a shower head beside the toilet and sink without a tub or separation so you really have to have all clothing out of the room when you shower. It is something that we are both getting used to.
As for the institution, it is quite nice! The food is pretty great too! We are fed for every meal which ALWAYS has rice and kimchi (very spicy fermented cabbage).. even for breakfast. We can tell that the cafeteria people are trying to serve us some "white people food" too though. We sometimes get eggs, tater tots, and corn flakes too. An they really love fried chicken and fish here. I have tried both and it is way better than anything I had tried at home. I'm still not brave enough to try the raw salmon or the whole shrimps though. Jamie bit one and its head crunched in her mouth and she still hasn't gotten over it yet. Today, the Jeollanamdo supervisors came to visit us at dinner with persimmons as gifts for all the teachers. We were all puzzled and biting into the skins like apples when they ran over giggling and showed us how to peel the fruit with a knife. It was definitely a stupid foreigner moment for the whole table but they got quite a laugh out of us.
In our daily seminars, we are covering everything from traditional Korean folk music, to K-pop, history, lesson planning, games, and technology in the classroom. In fact, during our technology lesson, the speaker mentioned that he lives in Hwasun, the county that I will be living in, so we chatted after class and he sent me a map of the town with little pins and notes on different parts of the town like;reat place to buy vegetables, the only place you can find dr.pepper, where to catch the bus so that you can snag a seat, etc. I plan on meeting up with him and his girlfriend next week to make some friends in my town that are Native English speakers.
We've had the chance to go out on the town a couple of nights which has been a very fun experience. One of the American guys at orientation on his second year of teaching had his birthday party this weekend. We were able to see all the foreigner bars but also to check out a few Korean ones. AND since Korean bars don't have a closing time like they do in Canada, we were out until 4am and had to rally to be on a bus at 8:30am for a field trip. I'll try to post some pictures soon of the institute, Gwangju, and our field trip-but for now I have a plate of kimchi and rice waiting for me!
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