At this time of writing, I have been living in South Korea for three months. The stories of that time are forthcoming and I am sorry to be so behind on my storytelling. Rest assured that I am happily settled in my home in Daejeon.
But, here is the story of my arrival in South Korea.
We (Stuart, my boyfriend, and I) left Raleigh, North Carolina in the late afternoon of February 12th. My mother came down with some sort of food poisoning / stomach flu and was unable to see us off at the airport. This was relatively devastating for both of us, but it meant that I got half of my tears out at home in private.
Stuart and I embarked upon a journey that keep us travelling for over 36 hours. We landed at Incheon International Airport in South Korea in the late afternoon of February 14th, Valentine’s Day. Utterly exhausted, we were met by Stuart’s friend, Dillon, from South Africa. Two and a half hours later, we entered Dillon’s apartment. (I must say that I adore public transportation in Korea, but this commute from the airport to Dillon’s house, which could not have been more than 10 km as the crow flies, took us deep into Seoul and then back out again on a windy bus.)
Our first choice of activity was to take showers. Dillon’s hot water, however, had been cut off, little to his knowledge. We were faced with a decision: wait indefinitely for the hot water to come back on or for a neighbor to get home, or to go to the local jimjibang. Stuart chose the jimjibang.
Let me break this down for you. A jimjibang is a public bathhouse. You pay something like $7 for a 24-hour pass. When you enter, you are given a set of hand towels, which are meant to be your bath towels, a set of orange pajamas, and a locker key. Then you are on your own. Stuart and Dillon split off to go into the men’s section and I was left to negotiate the women’s bath on my own.
I entered and looked around. There were rows of lockers spread throughout a locker room. There were naked women of all ages and shapes, from the very young to the very very old, wandering through the locker room. I found my locker; it was facing the large mirror where women were drying themselves and their hair (ALL of their hair). In other words, it was the most public place in the room. Feeling that this surely could not be the place where I was meant to change (aka: strip), I wandering around the locker room searching for a suitable location. I did not find any such place, but I peered into the sauna room and realized that this was my final location.
Taking a deep breath, I decided to just go for it. At my locker, in full view of everyone, I stripped, shoved my clothes into my locker, grabbed my towels, and modestly scurried to the sauna room.
When I entered, I realized that I had no idea what the procedure was meant to be. There were showerheads lining the wall to my left. On my right, women were sitting on stools at low sinks, scrubbing themselves from buckets. In front of me were five baths. As I moved closer, I realized that they all were heated to different temperatures. I was certain that there was some sort of routine that was meant to be followed. Everything seemed so organized, yet I could not discern what I ought to do. Instead, I found my way to an empty pool at the back of the room. I kept glancing around to see if anyone might give me any indication of if my actions were suitable or not. No one did. So, I sat in my pool until another one became empty and I moved over.
I spent 20 minutes or so in the pools and then took a long hot shower, public style, without any walls or privacy. I am not complaining, but, having never had to shower in front of other people before, I was slightly self-conscious. However, my shower was fantastic and revitalizing after 36 hours of travelling.
I met up with the guys and we made our way back to Dillon’s after securing something to eat. This dinner was my first moment of realization that being a vegetarian in Korea would be exponentially more difficult than it was in South Africa. The reasons for this were twofold: 1. Most everything has meat in it, and 2. I cannot read or speak the language. Therefore, even when there was something strictly vegetarian on the menu, I would not know.
We spent a week with Dillon in his tiny one-room flat in Ganghwa, Incheon. Due to the absolutely horrid weather, we spent a lot of time indoors. With -15*C days, plus a wind chill that makes it all seem colder, going outside to explore was not on the agenda.
During this week, we played screen golf, went to a 4D movie, and otherwise watched a lot of television. Screen golf is an interesting phenomenon. Basically, you and your friends are in a tiny room. Chairs line one side of the room. In the middle, there is a sort of putting green. On the opposite wall, there is a projector screen hanging. The image of a golf course is projected here. Everything is hooked up digitally, so when you swing your club and hit the ball at the screen, a little laser picks up the trajectory of the ball and relays that information to the computer, which projects it onto the screen. It is quite the system, really. But it did not disguise the fact that I am absolutely terrible at golf! I made it to the green around the hole once, I think? More often than not, I missed the freaking ball when I swung my club. Oh, it was a sorry day for golf.
4D movies are also a sight to behold. If you’ve ever been on one of those vomit inducing rides at the state fair or a carnival, you’ll have a sense of what this is. It is a 3D movie on steroids. Your chairs move, you get blasted with hot air, drizzled with water, and shot in the back and bum by various mechanics in your seat. We saw Star Wars, Phantom Menace. Now, I am a die-hard old school Star Wars fan, so watching Phantom Menace, a movie that I pretend does not exist, was not my top choice. Having it physically nauseate me too? That was a bit too much. It was a fun experience, so I appreciated that. But, I don’t think I’ll be going to many more 4D movies.
On our last day in Ganghwa, Stuart and I climbed a nearby mountain. At the top of the mountain was a temple. A group of people had gathered there and were having a sort of celebration. When we arrived, they offered us slabs of meat that I could not identify. I gracious busted out my only Korean phrase at the time, “I am a vegetarian.” Slightly baffled for a moment, the man put down the meat and picked up two oranges, which he promptly offered us. We were also given large cups of soju, a strong and awful tasting liquor that is incredibly popular in Korea. Later, Stuart thanked me for being vegetarian. The mystery meat looked undercooked and seemingly had hair on top, so he was happy not to eat it!
We stayed at the temple for a while, drinking our soju and eating our oranges. When we left, we thanked the people and said goodbye. Our Korean language skills were so limited that this was about all we could say. As we walked down the hill, Stuart asked me what I thought of the food the people were eating and the party we had encroached upon. Apparently, I had missed the giant pig’s head oozing congealed blood sitting on the blanket. I must say I was glad to miss that, although my many hours spent in Warwick Market in Durban watching old ladies hack into cow heads with axes would have prepared me for a pig’s head.
The following day, we said goodbye to Dillon and returned to the Incheon airport (by a faster route this time) to meet the other EPIK teachers arriving. We boarded a bus bound for Daejeon and made our way to our weeklong EPIK orientation.
The orientation itself does not merit much discussion here. We stayed in dorms at a local training center for science and technology types. We went to lectures for 12 hours a day, with meals interspersed in between. The lectures covered topics ranging from classroom management, lesson planning, co-teaching, and Korean language and culture.
The highlight of the orientation was simply meeting people who would be living in the same regions as us. Stuart and I made a group of friends at orientation who have remained our dear friends throughout our time in Korea so far.
On the last day of orientation, we were bussed to meet our co-teachers. It was a large ceremony of sorts. We were called forward one by one and were collected by our co-teachers. From being together as a group of foreigners, we were spread throughout an auditorium and seated with our new Korean coworkers.
After these introductions, we went our separate ways. My co-teachers (two of my three came to meet me on this day) took me to my new school to look around and brought me to my new apartment (more on these topics later). That afternoon, we met with Stuart and his co-teacher to go downtown to apply for our ARC cards (Alien Residency Cards), which basically prove that we are legal and allowed to work.
In all, it was a whirlwind first two weeks in Korea.
I thought back to my first two weeks in South Africa. I was actually miserable. I wanted to go home. I kind of hated it. I felt so alone and stranded in a place where everything was different. Those feelings came back magnified in South Korea. Having the first point of contact be Ganghwa and Dillon’s apartment was not ideal. Ganghwa, quite honestly, was a revolving place and Dillon was not the host that I needed him to be to make this transition easier. Luckily, by the time orientation had finished, I felt more at ease in Korea and more capable of handling the next few years of my life.
Did I say, “next few years”? That is the plan!
But, here is the story of my arrival in South Korea.
We (Stuart, my boyfriend, and I) left Raleigh, North Carolina in the late afternoon of February 12th. My mother came down with some sort of food poisoning / stomach flu and was unable to see us off at the airport. This was relatively devastating for both of us, but it meant that I got half of my tears out at home in private.
Stuart and I embarked upon a journey that keep us travelling for over 36 hours. We landed at Incheon International Airport in South Korea in the late afternoon of February 14th, Valentine’s Day. Utterly exhausted, we were met by Stuart’s friend, Dillon, from South Africa. Two and a half hours later, we entered Dillon’s apartment. (I must say that I adore public transportation in Korea, but this commute from the airport to Dillon’s house, which could not have been more than 10 km as the crow flies, took us deep into Seoul and then back out again on a windy bus.)
Our first choice of activity was to take showers. Dillon’s hot water, however, had been cut off, little to his knowledge. We were faced with a decision: wait indefinitely for the hot water to come back on or for a neighbor to get home, or to go to the local jimjibang. Stuart chose the jimjibang.
Let me break this down for you. A jimjibang is a public bathhouse. You pay something like $7 for a 24-hour pass. When you enter, you are given a set of hand towels, which are meant to be your bath towels, a set of orange pajamas, and a locker key. Then you are on your own. Stuart and Dillon split off to go into the men’s section and I was left to negotiate the women’s bath on my own.
I entered and looked around. There were rows of lockers spread throughout a locker room. There were naked women of all ages and shapes, from the very young to the very very old, wandering through the locker room. I found my locker; it was facing the large mirror where women were drying themselves and their hair (ALL of their hair). In other words, it was the most public place in the room. Feeling that this surely could not be the place where I was meant to change (aka: strip), I wandering around the locker room searching for a suitable location. I did not find any such place, but I peered into the sauna room and realized that this was my final location.
Taking a deep breath, I decided to just go for it. At my locker, in full view of everyone, I stripped, shoved my clothes into my locker, grabbed my towels, and modestly scurried to the sauna room.
When I entered, I realized that I had no idea what the procedure was meant to be. There were showerheads lining the wall to my left. On my right, women were sitting on stools at low sinks, scrubbing themselves from buckets. In front of me were five baths. As I moved closer, I realized that they all were heated to different temperatures. I was certain that there was some sort of routine that was meant to be followed. Everything seemed so organized, yet I could not discern what I ought to do. Instead, I found my way to an empty pool at the back of the room. I kept glancing around to see if anyone might give me any indication of if my actions were suitable or not. No one did. So, I sat in my pool until another one became empty and I moved over.
I spent 20 minutes or so in the pools and then took a long hot shower, public style, without any walls or privacy. I am not complaining, but, having never had to shower in front of other people before, I was slightly self-conscious. However, my shower was fantastic and revitalizing after 36 hours of travelling.
I met up with the guys and we made our way back to Dillon’s after securing something to eat. This dinner was my first moment of realization that being a vegetarian in Korea would be exponentially more difficult than it was in South Africa. The reasons for this were twofold: 1. Most everything has meat in it, and 2. I cannot read or speak the language. Therefore, even when there was something strictly vegetarian on the menu, I would not know.
We spent a week with Dillon in his tiny one-room flat in Ganghwa, Incheon. Due to the absolutely horrid weather, we spent a lot of time indoors. With -15*C days, plus a wind chill that makes it all seem colder, going outside to explore was not on the agenda.
During this week, we played screen golf, went to a 4D movie, and otherwise watched a lot of television. Screen golf is an interesting phenomenon. Basically, you and your friends are in a tiny room. Chairs line one side of the room. In the middle, there is a sort of putting green. On the opposite wall, there is a projector screen hanging. The image of a golf course is projected here. Everything is hooked up digitally, so when you swing your club and hit the ball at the screen, a little laser picks up the trajectory of the ball and relays that information to the computer, which projects it onto the screen. It is quite the system, really. But it did not disguise the fact that I am absolutely terrible at golf! I made it to the green around the hole once, I think? More often than not, I missed the freaking ball when I swung my club. Oh, it was a sorry day for golf.
4D movies are also a sight to behold. If you’ve ever been on one of those vomit inducing rides at the state fair or a carnival, you’ll have a sense of what this is. It is a 3D movie on steroids. Your chairs move, you get blasted with hot air, drizzled with water, and shot in the back and bum by various mechanics in your seat. We saw Star Wars, Phantom Menace. Now, I am a die-hard old school Star Wars fan, so watching Phantom Menace, a movie that I pretend does not exist, was not my top choice. Having it physically nauseate me too? That was a bit too much. It was a fun experience, so I appreciated that. But, I don’t think I’ll be going to many more 4D movies.
On our last day in Ganghwa, Stuart and I climbed a nearby mountain. At the top of the mountain was a temple. A group of people had gathered there and were having a sort of celebration. When we arrived, they offered us slabs of meat that I could not identify. I gracious busted out my only Korean phrase at the time, “I am a vegetarian.” Slightly baffled for a moment, the man put down the meat and picked up two oranges, which he promptly offered us. We were also given large cups of soju, a strong and awful tasting liquor that is incredibly popular in Korea. Later, Stuart thanked me for being vegetarian. The mystery meat looked undercooked and seemingly had hair on top, so he was happy not to eat it!
We stayed at the temple for a while, drinking our soju and eating our oranges. When we left, we thanked the people and said goodbye. Our Korean language skills were so limited that this was about all we could say. As we walked down the hill, Stuart asked me what I thought of the food the people were eating and the party we had encroached upon. Apparently, I had missed the giant pig’s head oozing congealed blood sitting on the blanket. I must say I was glad to miss that, although my many hours spent in Warwick Market in Durban watching old ladies hack into cow heads with axes would have prepared me for a pig’s head.
The following day, we said goodbye to Dillon and returned to the Incheon airport (by a faster route this time) to meet the other EPIK teachers arriving. We boarded a bus bound for Daejeon and made our way to our weeklong EPIK orientation.
The orientation itself does not merit much discussion here. We stayed in dorms at a local training center for science and technology types. We went to lectures for 12 hours a day, with meals interspersed in between. The lectures covered topics ranging from classroom management, lesson planning, co-teaching, and Korean language and culture.
The highlight of the orientation was simply meeting people who would be living in the same regions as us. Stuart and I made a group of friends at orientation who have remained our dear friends throughout our time in Korea so far.
On the last day of orientation, we were bussed to meet our co-teachers. It was a large ceremony of sorts. We were called forward one by one and were collected by our co-teachers. From being together as a group of foreigners, we were spread throughout an auditorium and seated with our new Korean coworkers.
After these introductions, we went our separate ways. My co-teachers (two of my three came to meet me on this day) took me to my new school to look around and brought me to my new apartment (more on these topics later). That afternoon, we met with Stuart and his co-teacher to go downtown to apply for our ARC cards (Alien Residency Cards), which basically prove that we are legal and allowed to work.
In all, it was a whirlwind first two weeks in Korea.
I thought back to my first two weeks in South Africa. I was actually miserable. I wanted to go home. I kind of hated it. I felt so alone and stranded in a place where everything was different. Those feelings came back magnified in South Korea. Having the first point of contact be Ganghwa and Dillon’s apartment was not ideal. Ganghwa, quite honestly, was a revolving place and Dillon was not the host that I needed him to be to make this transition easier. Luckily, by the time orientation had finished, I felt more at ease in Korea and more capable of handling the next few years of my life.
Did I say, “next few years”? That is the plan!
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