Field Trip!!!

Oh look, I'm in Korea!

Yesterday was so much fun!! We finally left what we've dubbed as "The Compound." I finally feel like I'm in Korea.

First  we had a pottery demonstration, followed by pottery painting. It was a very quick and efficient way for us to  discern who the closeted artists were.  I think we're all starting to take to heart our new jobs as elementary school teachers... because we all completely lost our sh*t over pottery. ARTS AND CRAFTS!!!! We each got to paint a pre-made pot and attempt to build a pot out of a block of clay. The painting came out slightly better than the pot-making. I went with the abstract design on my pot. Yay for swoops and dots.



Then we had lunch, which was our first authentic Korean food since we've been here. MMMM bibimbap!



After that, we visited a Buddhist temple. It was gorgeous, even though it was pouring rain. Arguably, it was more beautiful because it was pouring rain.

From there, we were whisked to a museum designed like a traditional Korean village. We saw a traditional musical performance, and got to try on traditional Korean clothes!! Naturally, all the girls freaked out. DRESS UP!! I WANT TO BE A PRINCESS!  By some stroke of luck, I got to try on the traditional queen's robes. Queen Meg. Bow to me.



That was followed by a quick museum tour before we headed home. But the day wasn't quite over yet....

It's not quite a day in Korea unless it ends with a couple of cold Casses, a bottle of Soju (not pictured) and new friends.

Orientation: Day 3

Yesterday was uneventful. I had a medical checkup in the morning and promptly went back to my room and immediately flooded my body with lots of lovely drugs. I'd been abstaining from my allergy and asthma medication for about a week because we were told just about anything can trigger a false positive on the pee test. So, I was a sneezy, wheezy mess for about a week, and now feel like a rock star. Thank God for modern medicine.

On to today. This morning we had a lecture about storytelling in the classroom. Our amazing lecturer was this woman who is essentially a professional storyteller. She's an expert in children's literature and travels all over the world telling Korean folk stories and reading books to children. She read several classic children's books to us out loud, to teach things like expression, pace, and volume control. At the very end, she read us Love You Forever, which is a book my mom read to me all the time as a little girl.

Boy, that was brutal. Definitely not a good choice to read to a bunch of 20somethings who just moved across the planet from their family. There was hardly a dry eye in the room.

Then we had a much less emotionally charged lecture about teaching after school classes and how to get your vacation time.

Two more lectures this afternoon, followed by Korean class after dinner.  On the bright side, last night was the first time I've slept through the night since I've been here. Progress.

BREAKING NEWS

I just ordered a latte... in Korean! This is huge. Recognize.

Orientation: Day 1

Day 1 of Orientation started with a tour of campus. I was reminded of the scene in Arrested Development where the Bluth Company employees blindly follow someone around until they end up on Catalina Island. It was kind of like that. We blindly followed other people in our uniform navy blue EPIK shirts, who were presumably following our Korean orientation staff. Nobody paid attention to where we were walking or what was being said.


After that, it was a lot of sitting in big lecture halls. We were treated to a traditional Korean music concert... and a giant screen projection of Gangnam Style.

 I did, however, learn the proper way to perform a Korean handshake (minimal eye contact, left hand supporting right wrist), and that Koreans are very open about pooping. We had about a 15 minute portion of one of the lectures today that discussed how Koreans will be late for things because they're pooping, and if you ask why they're late, that's what they'll tell you. We were shown this video clip.. projected on a giant lecture hall screen. Hilarity ensued.

One thing that's proving to be challenging is the food. Having had genuine Korean food, I know it is delicious. But the stuff we're being serve here.... not so much. It's all some weird version of what Koreans think Americans eat, plus rice and kimchi. For dinner, I forced down part of a cold drumstick, some carrots, rice, a bit of pork curry soup, and, of course, kimchi. Koreans eat kimchi with every meal. Luckily, I know I'm not the only one who is struggling with the food here. It seems to be a pretty common problem.

This was lunch, which wasn't so bad.

"Spaghetti" with asparagus soup, rice, and of course, kimchi. We've decided that they're trying to feed us some weird hybrid of Korean food and what Koreans think American food is like, all mass produced for 400ish brand new English teachers. The result is a lot of room-temperature meat and rubbery vegetables.

More lectures after lunch. We get an early bedtime tonight, so I plan to take full advantage of it. Snoozefest in 3...2...1....

Singapore Air: You're doing it right.

Please excuse the weird formatting. I don't know what's going on and am too tired to fix it.

Greetings from the future. It's Tuesday morning where I am right now.  I got into Daejeon last night, following a 24-hour trip from Boston and a 3 hour bus ride from Seoul. I've met some great people so far, and last night was the first time I'd slept (soberly) for more than 2 hours in a row since Wednesday.

I start orientation today, so more on that later. Now, I'd like to tell you a little about the best airline ever. The following is what I wrote while on the plane, but was unable to upload it until now:

Let me tell you, Singapore air is doing it right.

Marathon of How I Met Your Mother? Don't mind if I do. That was followed by a marathon of Downton Abbey. The thing was like Netflix, you could just browse all the options and watch what you wanted when you wanted. And yes, that is a free cup of wine it its own little cup holder.
They thought of everything! They even handed out little packets containing socks and toothbrushes with the tiniest tube of toothpaste I've ever seen. The socks are way softer than the ones I brought, so I'm wearing them now :) they match my seat. The only disappointment so far has been that they were out of what I wanted for lunch. We had a choice between Korean fried rice with beef, fish filet with pasta and seafood noodles. I wanted the Korean rice, partly for obvious reasons and partly because the smell of fish on a plane is possibly the worst thing ever. Alas, they were out :( I went with the seafood noodles, which were still pretty good. I just ate around the shrimp. I know I need to be braver about food, but an 11 hour flight is neither the time nor the place, in my humble opinion. 

The only other small annoyance is that I wasn't able to sleep more than a few hours without a flight attendant coming around waking me up to offer food. I had to resist from getting snippy. Its not their fault. They're only doing their job, plus they're super friendly and have the coolest uniforms.

Ok, back to present time. I was so happy when my luggage was all together, I took a picture of it!

Also, here's what my room looks like right now:

And the view from my window:

Oh hi, Korea!