I guess I'll start on Friday and work my way up to today. On Friday I observed some classes taught by my boss, including one class I'll be taking over on Monday. The kids are ridiculously cute and funny. They all think I'm some kind of novelty act and basically anything I do or say results in the entire class going into hysterics. I can already tell that teaching will possibly be one of the best parts of this experience. The classes are only 50 minutes long and my boss spent at least 20 minutes per class just talking with the students about their days and just having "free talking" time. He expressed to me that if he had the kids talking for 50 minutes and didn't cover anything out of the book or his lesson plan he would consider it a successful day. After talking with the other teachers it became apparent that this whole thing is quite laid back and as long as the kids are having fun and talking in English you're doing all that is expected of you. Tomorrow will be my first day of teaching so I'm sure I'll have tons of stories.
Hmm, what next? Oh yeah, Friday night I went to a place called NOW Bar with my fellow teachers Tom and Charlie. Tom is just finishing up his year here in Suwon and Charlie just arrived last week so Tom is trying to show Charlie and I around a bit. The bar was probably 90% foreigners and it was a riot. I met people from England, Ireland, Australia, Canada, and then all over the US. Foreigners bond very quickly here and it felt like the entire bar was your friend. You could just walk around, make conversation with anyone, and instantly make a friend. Everyone was especially impressed that I was out on the town after only 24 hours in Suwon but I didn't want to miss a chance to see some of Tom's hotspots before he leaves this week. We stayed until about 7 a.m. and then Charlie and I got lost on the way home. We wondered the streets for awhile muttering "Everything looks the God damn same!" before we found an internet cafe and printed out the school's address for a cabbie. Nothing like getting home at 8:30 a.m. after your first night out.
So I get to bed at 9 and at noon there is a knock on my door. My boss and his family want to take me to E-Mart (Korean Walmart) to buy whatever we need. Now I was only marginally hung over but I was dead tired making the whole E-Mart experience an interesting one. One thing that is frustrating so far is that Korean people just assume you speak the language, even if you don't respond they just keep yammering away and trying to get you to try their samples of food in E-Mart. I would think the blank stare on my face when they talk to me would give it away that I have no idea what they're sampling or saying. This language thing is going to be a constant battle.
After E-Mart Charlie and I came back and took long naps. We then went out to get something to eat, my first such trip without a Korean speaker. We settled on a place that appeared to sell chicken wings and BBQ chicken. We were so happy when the menu had pictures, I honestly don't know what we would have done otherwise. We picked a picture of wings and tried to order that when the waitress (aka the female head of the family who owns the restaurant) kept shaking her head and repeating something in Korean. She finally waves over the guy who is doing the cooking and he just says "Oh no, very very hot" Disaster averted. We switched it up and got some delicious wings while watching the South Korea vs. Iraq soccer game. After that we just came back and crashed.
I guess I should finish the blog off with some pictures. NOTE: Click the pictures to see a larger view.
Intersection just down the block from my school/apartment.
Front-side of the school
Side of the school, I live underneath that window on the bottom-left.
My bathroom. Notice the lack of shower. In Korea they just have that shower head on the wall and the entire bathroom gets wet. It sure makes cleaning the bathroom a breeze.
Finally, a shitty picture of the inside of my apartment. I took this standing in the doorway and what you see is basically what you get. Out of view to the right is my dressor and my bed. Nothing fancy but it gets the job done.
Ok, I realize those pictures suck and I will try hard to start taking more pictures in the coming days. Love you all. Take it easy, but take it.
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