Cheonggyecheon Stream

Well hello and welcome to my new and improved blog!  Its really not that new and improved, but my friend did tell me an easier way to put up photos!  Sorry that it has been a long time since the last posting, but I have been very sick and work was very hectic this week.  I have about four posting that I'll hopefully be putting up this week.

  So back in September (ya a really long time ago now), my friend, Lauren, and I went on a weekend excursion to the Cheonggyecheon Stream.  I was really excited to go, because at this point I was getting a bit overwhelmed with the city life and just needed to be around something a bit more natural.  The stream itself isn't all that natural.  In fact, the Cheonggyecheon stream is man-made with some natural things residing in in.  The nice thing about the stream is that it is actually below the city street, so you can go to this nice natural (looking) place and not have to travel out of the city! 


On the way to the stream, we took a wrong way out of the subway and headed to another nice area of Seoul where we ran into these cool statues.

These statues are of a Korean family, but it looks like they have been compressed down to about 2 1/2 feet tall!  It kind of looks like one of those funhouse mirrors if you were a Korean 40 year old painted gray.


So we finally found our way and found the beginning of the stream.  It starts out with this odd looking structure (sorry it's sideways!):

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We then head on to the area where the water starts flowing into the stream:

The walk itself was very nice with some great cultural things to do.  I was able to sit in on a little drum circle thing.  And was able to watch some older women do some traditional dances:

There was even a clown there who was making balloon animals:

The walk goes on for quite a while and eventually goes into the Han River, the large river that runs through Seoul.  There was also some very nice art that was decorated on the sides of the river.  This one shows the precession of a parade with the Emperor and Empress:

Here is some of the art that the public can put up along the stream:

Overall the day was great!  It was sunny and a good walking temperature.  Here is one last picture of the stream as we headed further away from the main areas:

Chungdahm

   Sorry about the recent lack of updates but I have been busy and slightly lazy.  I wanted to write about the thing that I really base all my other things in life around, my job.  Chungdahm is what they call a hagwon here.  It is an afterschool academy that bases their curriculum on English learning, test taking and critical learning.  The classes at my school are interestingly based off of golf lingo.  The basic classes are EC3, EC4, Memory Mega, Giga and Tera, and Bridge.  The more advanced classes are Par, Birdie, Eagle, Albatross, Albatross+ and Masters.
   As a first-term teacher, I am teaching Memory Mega, Memory Giga and Par.  The classes are three hours long and very intense.  We expect a lot out of these kids, but the kids actually do really well with it.  My younger classes are learning about the story of Elian Gonzales and the Salem Witch Trials while my more advanced class is talking about the trends of population growth in the developing world.  Crazy stuff!
     It has been nice getting to know my kids.  My past jobs for the last two years have been very come and go.  I now get to see the same kids twice a week for 13 weeks straight.  Most of these kids have also been at Chungdahm for years and have a special attachment to the school.
   Pronouncing the kids Korean names can be a bit difficult as everything is pronounced differently here, so we let the kids choose English nicknames.  Many of the students are still in love with Harry Potter, so we do get a lot of Harrys in our classes.  I once saw a "Harry James Potter" on my class list.  There are also names that have gone out of style in America but seem to be really popular here.  I have already seen three Irenes and an Esther. 
   The job has been fun for the most part.  The hours are in the evening, so its nice to be able to enjoy the day and then head off to work for the night.  It'll be nice in the Winter when I go to work when the Sun goes down, so I'll be able to experience a little bit of sunshine.
   Hopefully I'll get out of my procrastination slump and blog some more.  Maybe I'll even put up some pictures!

Regarding Food

    Living in one of the largest cities in the world has many benefits.  One being the amazing food that you can find.  I was really unsure how I was going to like Korean food.  I, for one, do not like cabbage.  And one of the staples of all the meals here has kimchi, pickled cabbage or other pickled things, as a side.  However, everything that I have tried has been amazing!
   On my plane ride over, I decided to be brave and try the Korean meals instead of the typical western style airplane food.  My first Korean meal was something called bimbibab.  It was a crazy mixing of meat, vegetables, kimchi, spicy pepper paste, and rice.  You pretty much mix everything together and enjoy!  It was so good that it made me brave enough to try out the second Korean meal, 9 hours later in the plane ride,  of spicy octopus.  I was nervous to try, but I ended up loving it and quickly ate it all up.
   Since the plane ride, I have been exposed to so many different Korean dishes.  On hot days, you should try some naengmyeon, a cold buckwheat noodle soup, which cools you down and fills you up.  Its really funny to get a soup that you eat with ice floating around in your bowl.  If you are not too hungry, get some kimbap, they're kind of like sushi but with different fillings, and they'll fill you up a little. 
   My favorite meal to get is the Korean BBQ.  The BBQ here is not something that you can just get to go.  It is a sit-down meal found pretty much at any corner of Seoul where you do all the cooking yourself.  You get a small grill in the middle of the table where your raw meat is placed, and you cook it while you chat away with your friends.  Around the grill are things like kimchi (of course!), rice, lettuce, onions in a brown sauce, spicy red pepper sauce, and garlic.  Each place is different and you will find that some places will have some ingredients while others may have different ones.  The best way, I find, to eat everything is to wrap every little bit in a lettuce leaf.  I have a picture on the side of all the different bowls you get a one of these meals.  Sometimes you don't have any room on the table for a drink!
    Not all the food here looks amazing.  The snacks that the kids bring into class look less than appetizing.  The smell of the dried squid will probably keep me away from the stuff forever.  They usually have chips and things that are flavored with some sort of sea creature.  You can buy eggs from some animal that the kids love.  I've even seen one kids squeeze out all the juice from the egg that was left over in the package.  Yuck!  Luckily they still have lots of candy, so I'm not too worried about having to try any of the super processed fishy snacks.
    Korean food isn't the only thing to eat here though.  You can easily get pizza, hamburgers, donuts, and any other ethnic food you could think of.  These types of food do tend to be more expensive though.  It is usually best to eat the Korean food.

Crazy Person or Celebrity?

Well things are still a bit crazy here.  I am Still sleeping on the floor, still working like crazy and still have no idea how to speak Korean.  I have, however, have had plenty of time to notice all the stares that I'm getting every single time I go out.  It just makes me wonder if they are thinking "who is that crazy person walking down the street?" or "Didn't I just see them in a movie?".
   Everyday on my walk to work, I notice all the people staring at me as I walk by.  Is there some big stain on my shirt?  No.  Maybe my hair is a mess?  Nope.  Its just the fact that I am living in a part of town that doesn't have too many foreigners.  As a minority here, I find that I have to get used to the sometimes awkwardly long stares that I get from random people on the street, bus, subway and apartment window (probably the most awkward when you are just lying there trying to get to bed).  Its also a little frustrating when you are trying to help your students prepare for their big presentation that day and all they want to do is look at your arm hair. 
   Its not all bad though.  I'll get many waves and hellos, especially from children, as I'm walking down the street.  Or someone on the subway will stop and have a chat with you about living in Korea.  I'll also get the guy at the 7/11 who has trained himself to speak two phrases "thank you" and "would you like a bag?".  Usually I'm buying a drink or a candy bar, so I'm thinking why would I need a bag.  But those are probably the only two phrases that he knows and would probably say the same thing on the street if I asked him for directions.  So I'll politely say no and move on.
   Work has finally slowed down and I have a three day weekend because of Chuseok, the Korean thanksgiving.  I've finally ventured out of my work-only zone I've been in and finally have started to explore the city.  I'll save all that fun for next time though.

Training and Apartment

A week has flown by and I feel like there are a ton of things to write about.  The first and most important thing on my mind, I passed training!!!!  This means I move on to my branch (the school where I'll be working) and I start teaching on Monday!

Training was all well and good.  There were 100 new teacher trainees this week.  This was the largest that Chungdahm has ever trained at one time.  Chungdahm kept all of us extremely busy with copious amounts of studying for tests and prepping for all of our mock teaching.  I really didn't have time for anything else other than the occasional dinner with other trainees.  Most of the time I went to the closest 7/11 or other convenience store to grab some ramen.  Training was also extremely draining due to the fact that I had jet lag all week long.  I still feel like I am recuperating from it.

From training I went to visit my branch and then moved into my new apartment!  Hopefully I'll be putting pictures up soon.  It is about 15 minutes from work and is very compact.  I guess you get a small apartment when you have to share 13 miles in diameter with 11 million other people!  The apartment building is brand new.  It is so brand new that my room was finished a day after I moved into it.  As it is a new building, I it is not equipped with any sort of furnishings.  I am currently sitting in an empty room, sitting on my bed/couch( a comforter, duvet cover, and some sheets).  I'll hopefully be getting some furniture soon.

They have this amazing website here called gmarket, where I can get all of my household items sent to me.  It is like a walmart and ebay meshed together to form this company of many entrepreneurs selling cheap things.  It is super convenient and most most of the delivery is free!

I am now working four days a week.  I have Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday off, so I'll hopefully have some pictures of everything up soon!

Last day in the States

Hello all,
   These past two weeks have been a complete whirlwind.  I have taken multiple cars, commuter rails, subways, buses, and taxis to get to, what seems like, every corner of Massachusetts.  Thanks to all those who had to deal with the chaos of my life! 
    I would also like to give a shout out to my mother. I would not be going on this trip if it wasn't for her.  It takes about three months to get a visa to work in Korea.  Unfortunately, I don't ever live long enough in one place to get mail, so she handled all of my forms and mailings to places all over the country.  Thanks Mom!
   Tomorrow I will be traveling for 19 hours starting at 8am.  Luckily my company has my accommodation set for all of next week.  The first week in Seoul is a training week with my company.  I have hear that training week will be a week from hell.  I guess it will be about a month's worth of information all packed into five fun-filled days.  I'll have to let all of you know if the hype is actually what it will actually be.
   Well I'm off to bed.  Got a big day/week/month/year ahead of me.  I'll start posting some pictures after the week of hell... I mean training.
   Can't wait to start this trip!!!!!!!

Two weeks prior

     Hello and welcome to my blog!  This is my very first blog, so bear with me through this learning experience.  Well I have been waiting for this trip for years now and it finally seems to be coming true.  I have just recently signed into a year-long contract with Chungdahm institute, a private school that only teaches English, and they have placed me in Seoul!
     Seoul!  I can't believe it!  I have been living in areas around the United States that have had a population of less than 5,000 residents.  Now I am moving to a mega-city with more than 11,000,000 people!  That is going to be quite some culture shock!  However, like the title of this post says, I do have just less than two weeks before I fly out, so I'll get to enjoy my last rural experience at my parent's home in Leyden.
     These two weeks are going to go by very quickly.  I didn't realize how much I need to get done in preparation for Korea.  It is really overwhelming to try to pack for a whole year!  Luckily I can fit all my possessions in about five boxes, so it's pretty much deciding what I am taking and what I am buying before I go.  Banking, bills and phone numbers are all something that I've had to deal with.  Luckily, I have bought a magicjack phone number, and now I can make and receive calls from the United States for free!  Those who have my old cell number can delete that number as of the 19th of this month and add 413-835-7034.  Call anytime!  Just remember that Korea is eleven hours ahead!

Lots left to do this week.  Until next time!