Orientation and My New Life - Story In Photos

Hello All. I am starting to feel a bit tired, and I should do some more reading tonight, so this is going to be a bare-bones post, consisting mainly of photos. I apologize for not having posted more often. I'm hoping I will be able to post more often once things calm down a bit.

First off, EPIK Orientation which was held outside of Seoul near Suwon on KyungHee Uni Global Campus. I had a great week and met a bunch of great people! We stayed in dorm rooms, had a medical checkup, ate cafeteria food, visited a folk village (same one mom did back in 2007 I believe) and listened to lectures to help us succeed in our teaching here. We managed to get out and socialize a number of times too, which was always a lot of fun. One of my favorite things turned out to be the Korean lessons we had on a number of evenings. Our teacher Nicole was great, and the class was perfectly aimed at my level. Here are some photos!

[Click on any photo to see a larger version]

Men's Dorm Building, with Women's to the right.

A bunch of us in our EPIK shirts at the folk village.

Kevin and I at one of the places at which we drank.

This is from the same night as the photo above.

One of the areas where we socialized. We visited a Wa Bar here.

I really like my neighbourhood so far. It's pretty central in Seoul (Seongbuk-gu) and it's very much old city. My apartment is on the second floor of a 5 floor building called the "blue house" (though it's written in hangul only). The building is a lot shorter and a lot smaller than the one I lived in last time I was here. My apartment is quite nice and plenty big enough for one person. I can walk down a hill to a main road and to the nearest subway station (hansung uni station, line 4) in less than 5 minutes. I think I'm really going to like living here. The school is up the hill from where I live so I'm definitely getting my exercise.

A shot of the neighbourhood.

My kitchen / bedroom / laundry room. I've got a little fridge, a washer/dryer combo, and some cupboards. I am happy to have a nice big window too.

I bought this "modern life hanger" today and I love it. It allows me to make much better use of the space in my apartment. I have a dresser, but until I bought this I had no good place to hang clothes. You can see the tv that I've been provided as well. It's a lot nicer than the one I had last time. I'm looking forward to getting cable!

This is the Home Base, which is very close to my place. It's one of the places that I've bought food and other stuff for my apartment. You'll notice they market themselves as a SuperSuperMarket, which might be a bit of an exaggeration, but they do have some good stuff. 

This is just a little fountain near a stream that I walked by to get my supper tonight. It was nice and colourful!

The school where I'll be working is amazing. It's called Seoul Global High School, and it is very exclusive. Students need to go through a rigorous admission process, and therefore they're all filled to the brim with talent. They all have a very high level of English, so I will be teaching more subject matter than English itself. This might be a challenge, since it looks like I'm going to be teaching some things that I have very little academic background in. I'm sure I'll manage though. I'm looking forward to working with these great kids!

This is the school from the front gate.

The name of the school. The upward arrow is the symbol for the school, and it represents the mountain that I trudge up every day to work. :)

More of the school. It's a really new and really nice building. It opened about three years ago I think.

I'll post one funny thing to end this post. When in a foreign land, signage can be very entertaining. Because reading the text can be difficult, it can be fun to invent new meanings for the signs (I do this at home as well, it's sort of a hobby of mine). Anyway, I found the stickers on the subway platform doors to be pretty funny yesterday. 

Top Sign: "Beware, sliding doors have been equipped with razor blades to prevent late entry!" (Note the blood gushing from the poor guy's arms)

Bottom Sign: "Purse-repulsing magnets in operation; Do not attempt to bring purse onto train!"

Well, that's it for me for now. I will try to post again pretty soon. I've got photos of the newly revealed Gwanghwamun gate to show you all. It was being restored the entire length of my last trip here, so it was good to see it open. Night All!

Trip Back to Korea

I have made the trip back to Korea. I flew from Saskatoon to Calgary, and then from Calgary to Incheon. I have put together a tripling map to illustrate the trip. I may update it later, but it shows the basics for now.



The stay in Calgary was long. I arrived at about 7 am, and I didn't fly out until close to 4. I was disappointed to learn that the free wifi in Calgary blocks College Humor.
I took a picture of our plane as it came in. Oh, and I really have to send out a huge thank you to Chelsea for the luggage strap idea. It worked amazingly. I was able to drag both of my giant suitcases around airports with one hand with ease.

The flight was long as well, because I didn't plan ahead well. I didn't have anything I really wanted to read, and there was no power so I didn't use my laptop.

I was also challenged by the fact that the flight crew ran things as if continuing Calgary time, while I was trying to switch to Korean time. I slept for a while at the beginning of the flight, but for the second two thirds I was trying to stay awake. Movies helped, but it wasn't easy with all the lights low.

It was simple to get through immigration and customs. My bags took a little while, but I got them without problem. The hotel that I stayed at last night, and where I am now typing this, sent a van to get me. I was pretty wide awake when I arrived even though I hadn't slept much in the couple days before. I showered and went out for a little walk. I had really missed the neon-lit commercial areas.


Here's a photo of my room at the hotel.

I got this photo of the hotel while I was out in the morning.

The hotel was nice enough.

I was able to sleep quite well, though I was up at about 4 am local time for a bit. I had breakfast here in the hotel, and met another guy from Canada. He was here visiting, and it was cool to talk with him while I ate.

I then went out to try to find toothpaste for my sensitive teeth. I was unsuccessful, but I did get regular old toothpaste and I took a few photos of the area.

Here you can see the shop where I got my toothpaste (ministop on the first floor), along with a bunch of other businesses.

Here's a view of some apartment buildings in the area.

That's all I've got for now. I finished this up from my dorm room at the orientation site. I am going to take a look at the schedule for tomorrow and then I think I'll head back down to chat with people for a bit.