Nine days in...

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So I have now been living in South Korea for almost two weeks, and I couldn't be happier. I arrived on the 20th of February, and had orientation in Daejeon for 9 days. The entire EPIK team couldn't have been more kinder, more intelligent, more helpful. Within the first night, I met a great group of friends. We became a small family. We had class together, ate together, drank together. Class, eat, drink. For 9 days. EPIK had us constantly busy, but of course we had some time at night to enjoy the nightlife and get to know each other.

So let me give you the low down on what orientation was all about. I arrived Monday February 20^th, after a 6 ½-hour flight from JFK to San Fran, where I had an hour to get to the international terminal, where I then boarded a 13-hour flight to Incheon, South Korea. The flight was admittedly for lack of a better word…awful, but I did meet some fellow New Yorkers who are amazing, and we spent a good amount of time in the back of the plane so that we didn't go too, too, insane sitting in our economy seats. When we arrived in Incheon, we somehow made it to where we met John, our recruiter. Kudos to him for helping me, with five months of paperwork. From there, we hung out for maybe an hour and half until we boarded a 3-hour bus ride to the site of our orientation in Daejeon.  Let’s just say, I slept like an angel that night… despite my pillow legit filled with rice. WELCOME TO KOREA! Tuesday- Medical Check-up. Typical, except for the two funniest parts of the day. The first being when they had all of our pee-filled test tubes just chilling on a desk, for all to see. The second being how all of the girls had to get undressed and dress in paper-thin robes for our x-rays  (which was set up outside on a bus). It was extremely cold that day, so let’s just picture that scene in our heads, shall we? That night, they had an opening ceremony. Including a performance by the local high school’s Samul-nori group. I’ll post a video of that. They were absolutely amazing. Wednesday through that next Monday, we had four lectures a day, including a Korean language class in the evening. The lecturers we had for these lectures, included Korean English teachers as well as Native-English speaking teachers. They were ALL absolutely wonderful! SO many tips, so much advice, so much sarcasm and realism! They told us how it’s going to be… how it’s REALLY going to be. Including desk-warming vacation days, where the entire school is on vacation but you. And because of that, they don’t turn on the heat (or A.C. for that matter.) I can’t say enough about these teachers. Their wisdom and knowledge, and their pure love for Korea and teaching was outstanding and something I very much admire. It was a good brush up for all of the Education basics that I had learned in the last two years at Oswego. I was now however looking at all of that information in a new and exciting way, for teaching English as a second language is by far, so different than being a regular Ed. classroom teacher in the States.

EPIK- Thank you for everything you have done for us... easing us into a new country and culture has helped tremendously.


Making Tofu Part 1
Making Tofu Part 2