A little help from my friends

My first week teaching went much better than expected, mostly because I expected a train wreck and fortunately the train tracks are several minutes away from school. Also:

Bam!

I'm getting to know my students a little better, figuring out who the troublemakers and the reliable kids are. I have some very bright students whose only real failing is being overly talkative, but as the point of me being there is to get them speaking English it doesn't really bother me so much. I have one whole class of exceptionally shy and quiet students and trying to get them to speak is like pulling teeth right now, but hopefully they'll come around soon. From what I've been told my students seem to like me; they do so much school here and our academy is optional for them, so I try to at least make it enjoyable to be there. My HR manager says I'm doing well but at the back of my head I keep expecting the hammer to fall any second now. That's just a thing I do: worry that everything is about to go wrong just any second now. It's a lot of fun, give it a shot.

The past week was a lot of fun, mostly spent trying out different restaurants and bars in Pyeongtaek. For a suburb that most people have never heard of this town actually has a surprising amount of stuff to do. I'm still getting to know my way around but have only really been lost once. That was my fault too, I thought for some reason that the stadium I use as a landmark had been replaced by a different stadium in only roughly the same location. Which doesn't make any sort of sense. There are still some places to check out and my co-workers are all a lot of fun. I went out to get soup with one of them at 3:30a.m. a few days ago. That's not a sentence I ever thought I'd say but it was awesome.

I went to Seoul twice this past weekend. The first time to visit Nakwon Arcade (which, holy crap, it's amazing, if you play an instrument and are ever in Seoul you need to go there) and bought a new guitar. Incidentally I've already been told to keep it down by my neighbors so I'll have to try to limit the noise I make with this thing. At least I think that's what she was saying; she certainly looked the way people sometimes look when I play guitar. Nakwon is basically a massive market where dozens of different vendors show up and sell every type of instrument that exists on planet Earth. If you play and instrument that they don't sell, you have only been hallucinating playing that instrument because it doesn't actually exist. I had to leave the city early though because I realized I left my bag with my passport and tablet at a bar the previous night. But no one wants to hear about that ha ha ha ha moving on.

Sunday I went back to visit my friend Darlene and her friend Jessa. We visited Namsan Tower first, which is on top of a mountain overlooking most of the city. I say "most," but I honestly don't think Seoul ends. The city is HUGE, and I don't think there is a single one-story building anywhere in it. The day was fairly hazy which is unfortunate but it was still a really amazing view. I took pictures but will probably upload those elsewhere just to be, you know, annoying. After Namsan we went to a nearby park that showcased traditional Korean houses and buildings from before the time when everything was a hundred stories tall. The park was gorgeous. I want to return in the fall, when it won't be 45 degrees out and I can walk around more. Plus I want to hike the mountain that Namsan Tower is located on, a plan which has been described to me as, "Ha! No." It was really great spending time with Darlene here; I think I'm adjusting well enough but it gets a little lonely thinking about everyone I know being so far away. Having contact with familiar people is immensely comforting.

It's funny, I've only been here a little over two weeks and it feels way longer. I've already established a fairly regular routine of work and exercise, running errands on certain days when I don't have to teach in the afternoons. I have already opened up a bank account and will be getting my first paycheque on Friday, which includes my plane ticket reimbursement. I applied for my Alien Registration Card last week, and given the speed and efficiency with which I was corralled through the Korean Immigration Office I should expect to receive that in about twenty or thirty years. Man if you like waiting around for hours in the only building in Korea that doesn't have free WiFi, I highly recommend it as a tourist destination.

That's all for now, but if you have any questions about life in Korea that I haven't covered yet, feel free to write me at justinsfakeemail@notarealdomain.com. Or just post a comment if that doesn't work for some reason.



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