First Week Teaching in Korea

I have officially completed my first week teaching at my Hogwan, Trinity Academy, in Korea. I teach all ages, from classes of twenty little 5 year olds to tiny classes of four 14 year olds. Usually I come home drained, try to go for a run or some sort of crazy exercise like that (nobody exercises here), but I usually think better of it and instead watch some tv and crash. Here is a typical day in the life of Jessica Teacher:

Wake up to alarm and grab a coffee from the convenience store with Ashley and Kasey, my friends from America who live below me. Walk 10 min to school. There are no shoes allowed in school, so you either walk around barefoot or grab one of the slippers. Sit around in the teachers lounge with the Korean co-teachers, and print off worksheets for the day. Have door constantly opened from little kids peeking in. Go through morning classes of little kinders downstairs, where they scream, run around, and sometimes the girls stroke my hair cooing "beautiful, beautiful. Yellow barbie." Sometimes I get a sticker from a girl, sometimes they just come smack me on the bum. Bathroom stalls in Korea don't have toilet paper, and instead when you walk into the bathroom you have to grab paper from the dispenser at the entrance. Many times I forget. But I never forget my notebook...which is now a few pages less. The school provides pretty good lunches that mostly consist of rice, kimchi, and other side dishes. In the afternoon I teach loads of classes, play games, and try to convince everyone English is a grand language. For a lot of kids, they have classes from 9:30am-7pm, followed by an instrument class somewhere else and tae-kwan-do. By the time we and the kids get home, we're totally wiped. In the coming weeks we have great events to look forward to: a field trip to the Bear Zoo, a Halloween party (most of these kids first), and Speech Day (every class has to sing a song or perform a short play. We have lots wanting Bieber or Backstreet Boy songs...but they neither know the words nor try very hard to memorize the lyrics).

Spicy, smokes, and soju. That is the shortest description of Korea by night. Street stalls are all over the downtown, and we usually hit those up for some spicy food and predrink with the liquor soju outside a convenience store. The Korean version of sushi is called kimbap, but it uses a variety of little veggies and sauces and meats that doesn't really include the delicious fish we in Canada usually think of. 10 pieces of kimbap is about 1$ at convenience stores and 3$ in the restaurants! A water bottle size of soju is about $1.50, but drinks in the bars are often $5 or more. Most nights we go out we begin the night in the old, main downtown of Shinsegae and meet up with foreigners in Banana Bar - the unofficial hangout. Then we often taxi to the new downtown, right by us. Taxi's are much cheaper here than in Canada.

Other New Facts I've Learnt About Korea....
- No houses. There are apartments and homes on top of stores, but houses are not common
- No running or exercise. In the time I've been here I've seen maybe 3 runners? Basketball courts and tennis courts go unused, and I haven't figured out the gym situation yet
- Churches here are big and look very church-like, with a giant neon cross on the top. It looks like the churches in movies where people go to elope in Vegas
- People love to hold hands. Whether it's a couple (which is the ONLY public displays of affection I have seen), friends, or even a group of 6 adults walking through the downtown drunk - taking up the street
- People are incredibly helpful, and will go very far out of their way for you. We've had people walk us to places 5 or 6 blocks away from the store we found them at, just to lead us there. On a bus when I asked the guy beside me where a location was and he didn't know, he went online on his phone to try and find it...then his friend started doing the same...and the girl beside them! 3 people!