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!
Dan! So amazing to read about what you're up to and how life is going! Can't wait to hear about your experiences teaching!
ReplyDeleteBy the way...are those signs serious?? Please tell me no...
They are def. not serious Sarah. Well, the descriptions that I invented for them aren't. They are real signs but I imagine the true message is closer to "Don't get yourself or your stuff caught in the doors!" I actually saw a guy that very day lodge himself in the closing doors in order to not miss the train.
ReplyDelete