Seoul Global High School - 서울국제고등학교

I'm finally getting around to explaining the high school that I work at, and why I feel I've been handed the best lot in the Seoul Metro Office of Education school lottery.

Seoul Global High School (SGHS) is in Jongno-gu, and is about a 10-15 minute walk from my apartment. I've posted a few pictures of the walk in previous posts if you're interested. The school is basically an experimental school, and has only been in operation for three years (the current year is it's third school year).

The school is a public school, and therefore doesn't cost any more than any regular high school, but students compete for spots. They apply from all over the country, and from abroad, and I've been told that there is no preference given based on the area that the students come from. The school is designed to prepare students for leadership roles in non-governmental organizations, companies, and government both in Korea and abroad. The philosophy of the school is to take the best students regardless of where they come from or how much money their parents have. The only restriction other than the competition based on merit for admission is the ability to speak Korean. It's still a Korean high school, and while many classes include some English instruction, students need to be able to use the Korean language to a high standard.

There are a number of differences between this school and your average Korean high school. For one, since students come from all over the country (and some from abroad), they are all required to live in the dorms on the school campus. Apparently the only reason a student would live off campus is if "they did something bad." I'm not sure what this could mean, and I'm not sure whether this kind of situation has ever had to be dealt with in the short history of the school.

The population of the school is also different. The students are massively talented, and many of them have a much higher level of English language skills than the average high school student (English language skills being part of the admission criteria). As is common elsewhere, students tend to be better at reading and writing, but more students at SGHS are able to speak quite fluently, sometimes in quite complex subjects. The staff are also exceptional, in that the vast majority of Korean teachers are very professional, very helpful and friendly, and generally have a higher level of English than you might expect from high school teachers who don't teach the English language. As well, SGHS has more native English speaking teachers than usual. I believe there are 10 of us in total, and we are involved in a lot of different aspects of the school, not just teaching the English language (e.g. I teach economics and ethics/morals [essentially applied philosophy stuff] in addition to a few language focused classes).

All in all it's an amazing place. I am happy that whatever combination of my qualifications and luck has brought me to this school, and I hope that I can stay with the school for more than just the one year contract that I'm signed up for at this point.  I'm glad to be able to teach specific academic subjects, and not just English language. I enjoy both teaching the language and teaching subject matter, but with students at this level of language it is more interesting to be able to teach things like economics and ethics.

I've prepared a few photos of the school, my office, and an example classroom to give you all a better idea of the environment in which I teach.

This is the school as seen from afar. I took this from the hill I walk
up on one of my routes home.

Here's the school closer, with labels. Not everything's included,
but it gives you a general idea of the layout.

The mini-football pitch and the academic buildings.

My desk!




















A sample classroom. This is one of the international track classes,
which tend to have a few fewer students than the domestic track
classes. I didn't explain that two of six classes are students who are
aiming to get into Universities outside of Korea, and the other four
are planning to attend Uni in Korea.

The same classroom.

The two entrances to the class, a bookshelf, desks, and the amazing
standing desk.

This is the same room, but from the front of the room. Each room
has a projector or large screen tv hooked up to an internet supplied
computer console. It's also set up to easily hook a laptop to it. Makes
me very thankful for Jay Wilson's internet class, which I'm starting
to put to good use.

Automatic chalkboard cleaner. Not all classrooms
have them, but they are common. I'm not used to using
them, since I've always cleaned my own boards.

Part of the path around the school on the mountain. I think I
mentioned that the school's symbol is a ^, representing the mountain
that the school sits on. I sometimes go walking after lunch with other
male teachers on the mountain.

More of the path. I walk this way home when I don't take the hill route
that I mention in relation to the first photo. It's really a nice walk down,
with a lot of trees and plants.

So yah, I think that pretty well outlines Seoul Global High School. If I've left anything out feel free to ask for more info!

I miss you all, and I look forward to talking to you again.

Bucheon

I would like these posts to start getting more organized, but it's not looking like that's going to be the case today. It looks like this is going to be another post of random photos and descriptions. and therefore this post will just be about my trip to Bucheon! Yay for relatively coherent posts!

I've been enjoying my Chuseok holidays. My school has given us the Monday and Friday off, so with Tuesday through Thursday being the official holidays, I end up with the entire week off.

One of the things that I decided to do during my time off was to visit my old neighbourhood in Bucheon. It was really great to get back out there. I missed wandering the streets that I spent a year on back in the day (I also missed having a bike to get around, I forgot how large an area it was until I had to get everywhere on foot). I got a number of pictures to record what was the same and what was different.

I took the subway out to Songnae Station, and then a bus north to
the Sang-dong area where I used to live. I got off the bus near this
department store and walked up towards the apartment building
I used to live in.

418, my old apartment. A great many stories taller than
my current building, and situated in a very different type
of residential area, but both have their perks.

Here's the door to the actual apartment unit that I lived in. Purely
for nostalgic purposes, and very boring for anyone who didn't live
there. :)

The treed path by the stream that covered part of the route from the
apartment to the hagwon. There were fish in the stream again. I
didn't see any big ol' spiders or turtles this time though.

Here you can see ECC, the hagwon that I taught at, on the fourth floor.
I was closed because it was Sunday, so I wasn't able to go inside.
Many other things changed about the area, including the removal
of the chicken-stick place. Also the bank I used is not here anymore.
I saw a branch in a building that was under construction when I was
here, so I imagine they just moved there.

Just off the edge of the photo above to the left there's a little "belgium
waffle and coffee" place. As I hadn't eaten breakfast before I left for
Bucheon I decided to have a couple of waffles and a smoothie. The
waffles have strawberry jelly and choco-sauce, and they came with
saltines!

A photo of one of the many bar and restaurant lanes in the area.
This is just behind the hagwon. I very much want to go back out
some nice evening and sit out and eat and drink with people. I'll
probably plan an event and invite people out there sometime in the
 next month or so.

I did some shopping at the new giant shopping mall that opened
just after I left last time (so not all that new, but new to me). I bought
some shoes, and was very much impressed with the selection and
organization of the place. I may go back out again after I'm paid to
shop here and at the Savezone that you can see just down the street
on the corner.

I did some more shopping for a few little things I needed, and
eventually made my way back to the metro station. Here you can
see the sliding safety doors that were installed after I left last time.
I'm told they are not included at every station, which was far from the
case during my '06-'07 stay.

So yah, I've decided to do separate posts for the Bucheon trip, info about my school, and a miscellaneous  stuff post. It just seems to make sense, and hopefully will encourage me to put more work into making these things make sense rather than just dumping a bunch of unrelated stuff into a pile.

Millions of Photos

I'm starting to build up quite a backlog of photos, and I've decided to throw a few up as a blog post. Millions is probably stretching it a bit, but there'll be a few! :) I am also including a photo slideshow video made by a fellow EPIK teacher. It gives a decent overview of what orientation was like I think.

 I'm going to try avoid writing much for this post, though knowing me that might not go really well. I am planning a more in-depth post about Seoul Global High School, but I'm not quite sure when I'll get that one I'm starting to build up quite a backlog of photos, and I've decided to throw a few up as a blog post. Millions is probably stretching it a bit, but there'll be a few! :) I am also including a photo slideshow video made by a fellow EPIK teacher. It gives a decent overview of what orientation was like I think.

 I'm going to try avoid writing much for this post, though knowing me that might not go really well. I am planning a more in-depth post about Seoul Global High School, but I'm not quite sure when I'll get that one up. Anyway, here's the video, then on to the photos.

up. Anyway, here's the video, then on to the photos.

Thanks to Daniel, a great guy I met at the EPIK Orientation and the creator of this video!

Last week I went out for food and drink with a couple of friends from orientation. We went to Insadong to eat vegetarian food, fish, and drink beer. It was a good time, and I just barely made it home before the subway stopped running.

Entrance to little alley where we ate vegetarian food.

The vegetarian mandu I ate. They were bloody delicious.

Entrance to vegetarian place.

Friends at a hof on Insadong. This was after the meal above.
Anything unusual about the picture?

View to the right as we are sitting at the table in the above picture.
Some people drank above, some below.
Everyone was outside though, because it was such a nice night.

Another photo of the school. This one features the little football field.
It was a nice sunny day, and the neighbourhood behind was looking great.

A sunnier shot of the neighbourhood from a lookout spot on my walk home.
I think I posted another photo of the same thing before, but with less sun.

This is a closer shot of the mountain in the background in the picture above.

So I live on the 2nd floor of my building. If you continue up the stairs though,
there's a little ladder and hatch that leads onto the roof (see below). It's not really
 a place for hanging out for long, but it was nice to get pictures from. I didn't crawl all
the way onto the roof, just stuck my torso and camera up out of the hatch.

The ladder-hatch combo that leads to the roof.

This is a close up of N Seoul Tower again from the roof. The picture before
last will give you an idea of the distance from my place.

This is what you see if you stick your head out my apartment window and
look down toward the main road. 

Chamchi (tuna) gimbap. These were my supper a couple nights in a row.
They're one of the best gimbap options; so delicious!

This Friday, a bunch of us went to a 50s style diner in Hyehwa, then some visited a cool place called The Doors the some of my coworkers frequent. A few of us then went across the street to a place called the Red Lion. It was here that I had the best squid ever. It was very delicious and I'm sure I'll go back for more someday!

This is the Red Lion, where we finished our night.

Some friends and I just before we left the Red Lion.

A view of the street from the second floor Red Lion window. 

Well, I think that's more or less the highlights. I'm glad to have finally included some food pictures, which I had been missing up to this point. Hopefully the phone I get will have a good camera, and then I'll be able to be even more photo crazy. Miss you all, and hope to talk to you soon!

P.S. I experimented with the photo caption option for this post, but I don't like how it looks. I will be going back to the larger script for photo descriptions next post (Can't be bothered to go through and fix them all, so you'll have to suffer through the small text for just this one, sorry).

Trips to Bookstores and More Warning Sign Nonsense

Hello Everyone. I've made a couple of trips to bookstores lately, and I probably will do so again early this week. I took a couple pictures on each trip, and I figured I'd share them.

The first store I visited was the Kyobo at Gwanghwamun. It is a lot closer to where I live now than where I lived last time, which is great because I tend to visit it pretty often. The picture below may be of interest to Mandy, Cory, Mom, and Deni, because when we were here last time the entrance was under construction/reconstruction. It opened not long before I got back, and I have to say it looks a lot better than the big picture of an entrance that used to face the street.

Newly unveiled reconstructed entrance to Gyeongbokgung Palace.

Then today I went to the Young Poong bookstore at Jonggak. I was able to find the books I needed for one of my classes, and wandered around a music store connected to the bookstore. I knew that I would be able to get a photo of Jongno Tower so I popped out of the underground to do so. 

Jongno Tower from near Jonggak Station entrance.

On my way back to Hanseong Uni Station I took a couple of subway photos. The first is just people waiting for the subway to arrive. The second is another subway warning sign, and again I couldn't help but invent warnings to go along with the images.

Waiting for the train. This line heading away from central Seoul was less busy at this time; I imagine more people were heading in than out. This was probably at about 11:30 am.

This The warnings on this sign seem to indicate a few things. First off, "No Chillin!" (this one is pretty severely enforced). Of course you should comply with "Don't toss your things off the train as the doors close; They will be inaccessible as the train pulls away from the station!" The third warning I explained already in a previous post (again, note the blood splatters). And finally, and probably most importantly, "Do not send your baby on the subway alone! Always accompany anyone who is still in a stroller!"

Well, hope those signs make you smile as they did me. Talk to you all soon!

Hyehwa and Walk Home from Work

Greetings All! I hope life is treating you all well. I was feeling like throwing up a short little post, so here it goes!

Day before last I walked down the street from the station nearest me to find the Hyehwa area. I had heard good things, and I was not disappointed. The area is a lot like the Sang-dong area of Bucheon where I used to live. There are a lot more restaurants and shops than there are right by Hanseong Uni station. I ate there that night, and then ended up going back yesterday with a good number of the staff from the school. We ate at a sitting-on-the-floor place, and it was great to be able to chat and get to know some of the other staff.  I ended up walking down there again today to try to find a particular restaurant that is being proposed as a spot for a Sunday supper with some people from EPIK orientation.

I don't have any pictures of Hyehwa yet. I really hope I'm able to get an iphone 4, because then I'll always have a camera with me.

I do have some pictures to show you of my walk home from work, though. I mentioned that I truck it up quite a hill on my way to work every day. I took a few photos of my path on the way down one day.

This is the view from near the bottom of the hill, looking downward. This is after I emerge from the more treed area that leads around the school to the front entrance. You'll notice some old wall visible to the left.

This is the view that you would catch if you peered over the wall mentioned just above. The wall is part of the old wall of the city of Seoul. You can see buildings stretching up the hill on the other side of the road. I think the big building is a high school.

At the bottom of the hill I walk down the street a little way, then I move into a much more narrow set of roads. These wind among houses, churches, schools, and shops. A good portion of my walk home is spent on these little one-way streets, practicing reading and avoiding cars.

And lastly, this is the entrance to my building. I've posted pictures of the apartment from the inside, but now you can see what it looks like from the outside! It's called the blue house, which makes sense because it does have some blue on it.

Hope you've enjoyed the little tour of my walk home. I'll try to get a few pictures of the Hyehwa area soon!