POE Orientation: Weekend Review

Okay, so I got some time to write.

Here’s the lowdown: this orientation is the best time I’ve had in Korea so far. I really feel like our group is bonding and forming lasting connections, which is exactly what I wanted. In fact, I’m quite nervous and scared about tomorrow, when we all get swooped up by our elementary schools and taken to our new small towns.

But let me back-track a little bit.

Friday - We came down to our province of orientation and arrived at our new orientation centre. It’s located on the outskirts of Gwangju, the capital city of Jeollanam-do (“nam” means South by the way, and “-do” means province, so it’s South Jeolla province). Most people just call it Jeonnam for short though.

Anyway, we arrived at our new orientation centre and settled into our stifling rooms. It seems the theme at this orientation centre (it’s not a hotel, it’s a dedicated orientation centre for small businesses in the province) is stinginess, because most of the equipment here is broken and they rarely turn on the air conditioner. They don’t even turn on the lights! At least the rooms are clean though, and they gave us all towels to use here. We have a curfew of 10pm.

This is what our province looks like. I think it looks like Chilliwack.

Our group is incredibly fortunate to have an absolutely awesome POE coordinator (Province of Education). Her name is Winnie, and she was a TaLK scholar just like us, so she knows what we want and what we don’t like without even having to ask. Her boss however (who by the way, is the head honcho here) is strict and reminds me of Mrs. Harcourt from Adventures in Odyssey to be honest.

Surprisingly though, a birthday party was thrown on the first night for all those born in August. They bought us fried chicken (REAL fried chicken!!) and pizza and let us use the karaoke machine downstairs (don’t call it karaoke here though, it’s “noraebang”). It was a great party! And to make it even better, they repeated it again on Monday night!

Saturday - We had a lecture in the morning on Saturday and some people met their co-scholars. These co-scholars are native Koreans who have been recruited into the program to assist us foreigners in our elementary schools. We lesson planned for the day.

On Saturday evening, a meet-and-greet was arranged for us by Winnie. We all piled on a city (!) bus and headed into the city, since our orientation centre is on the side of a mountain. We had a great time at a local bar, some people got drunk, others got flaming shots, others didn’t drink at all. We all piled into taxis on our way home. We also found a really great Mexican food place here in the city, and I had one of the best tacos of my life J

Sunday – A previous generation TaLK scholar living in Gwangju came out to our place to take people to church. We went to an English service at Wolgwang church (or something like that). It was nice to be with other believers who also speak my language. It was also interesting to see who the other TaLK scholars are that are dedicated enough to go to church on a Sunday. Not who I would have expected.

After church, I had some friends who spoke Korean put me in a cab and send me to the University where I’ll be living. I wanted to check in, meet my roommate, and figure out how to get inside. Unfortunately, the cab driver seemed pretty crabby even though I had a clear address written out in Korean on a piece of paper (I got the address from my student coordinator at the University!). Regardless, we arrived at the university. He wanted to keep driving and speaking tersely to me in Korean, but I saw a map board in front of one of the buildings, so I thought “screw this!” and made him stop. I got out and found my building on the map. When I arrived at the dormitory building, I went in and tried to sign in. When I was chastised for trying to get into the girl’s dormitory building, I went to the correct building. The thing was filthy! Grease stains everywhere, overflowing mailboxes, broken doors, and dirt on everything. Regardless, I went up and found my room. I went inside and my roommate was in the bathroom, showering. I can only imagine his surprise when he finished and opened the door to find a foreigner in his room! I had a quick look around the room, and it’s fairly dirty in my opinion, so I’ll have to clean it for my own sanity.

My dorm room. It looks cleaner than it is :S

Million dollar view from my room.

In spite of the awkward introduction, my roommate, Chunggoo, is very nice and we had a great introductory chat. He’s from Kure, a small town in this province, and he’s entering his 4^th year this year. In fact, he’s had the exact same room for the past 3 years! He gave me a quick tour of the campus and showed me where to go to eat and where to go to buy things. He introduced me to one of his friends on the same floor, Yeong, who is also a 4^th year, (and who also has a much cleaner room).

It was time for me to head back to the orientation centre, so I looked up which bus route would get me home. Turns out it was a 2 km walk away, but I took pictures of the route so I wouldn’t get lost.

But I sort of did… The university campus doesn’t have a lot of maps posted, and it’s fairly large, so I got a little lost. Thankfully it was still daylight out, but I have to say, this was the most scared I’ve been in Korea so far. After a bit of searching, I found the correct road I needed, and proceeded to walk the 2km to my bus stop. I walked by what I think was a slum, it was in a park, and there were literally shacks everywhere. A real shanty-town!

Thanks to God, I made it back to the orientation centre on time, and did some more prep for my teaching example on Monday.

Monday – Today I met my Korean co-scholar. Her name is Seon-ha Yoon, and she’s also a student at CNU! She lives in Naju, which is kind of too bad, because it means she has to travel twice as far as I do to get to our elementary school. I gave her some last minute lesson prep, since she wasn’t here on Saturday, and we executed our lesson excellently. I’ll see if I can get the video up on YouTube.

We had Karaoke again this night! I mustered up courage and sang a song (I made sure there were few people in the room haha) by Whitney Houston, “How Will I Know?” The machine gave me a score of 100 points haha.

Today was when we found out there was a major typhoon heading our way, so we were told to close all the windows and doors.

In the late evening, we were sitting out on the rooftop patio, enjoying each other’s company, the intense wind, and the warm air. It was really great actually.

Tuesday – I got an e-mail from the Canadian embassy here, warning me to be careful around this typhoon. Apparently, it’s slated to be the most powerful typhoon of the decade.

But it seemed a little underwhelming. Although, it was powerful enough to cancel our plans for today! We were supposed to go tour an elementary school in the area and go to a folk village, but both were closed due to the weather. It was also powerful enough to snap these trees, and do some damage down south. My friend sent me this picture of where he will be moving to teach tomorrow.

You could hear them cracking and groaning. Apparently they destroyed a fence.

In Wando.

Our internet connection at this place has been really spotty, and the TV signal was knocked out today, so someone thinks we're going to be murdered in this place :P It does sort of sound like a horror movie plot.

Instead, we went out for lunch and had Samgyupsal. I have no idea what that means, but it’s like a communal meat frying meal. I think it was pork belly… but I’m not sure. Either way, it was delicious! We don’t get much protein here.

Waiting to be shuttled in groups of 10 to the restaurant. During the ride, you could see the junk all over the street because of the storm. The TV in the shuttle was showing images of how transportation (trains, planes, buses) had come to a standstill today. It was hard for them to find a restaurant that was open!

Quite a spread

That’s it for today! We're having burgers tonight!!! Western food!

PS - I'm blogging from a different building. I think they're painting downstairs, because I saw a Korean woman holding a caulking gun wearing painted up clothes and a kerchief walking around. They have a big air hose tube that they snaked out the door, but it's not working well at all, the whole building smells intensely like nail polish.

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Okay, so we had hamburgers and gimbap (like sushi rolls) tonight and they were so delicious! In Korea, McDonald's doesn't put their hamburgers in boxes like back home. Instead, they use a cardboard ring to hold the sandwich in place and then wrap it up with a paper wrapper. 

After dinner, we were chilling out in the lounge, and Winnie came rushing to us to tell us to get ready to go practice for our closing ceremony tomorrow. Poor girl, they only told her last minute! Anyway, we went to the auditorium and practiced lining up in rows, lining up in different rows, standing in one spot and then standing in different spots, etc. Sort of like moving furniture or straightening a painting if you know what I mean.

Speaking of painting,  I was right, they were painting today! After the workers had left and no one was around, I snuck into the room they were using and took a few photos. 

You might not be able to tell from the photo, but the doors weren't dry yet. Nothing dries here because it's so humid :( 

They put cardboard under the doors, just like back home.

Ah, it's good to see something familiar :) It's also interesting to know how things are done in other countries, especially when it's something you know very well!

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Another update!

I figured out my university classes schedule. It should be something like this:

Monday, Wednesday, Friday:
9:00-9:50am - Teaching British and American Culture
10:00-10:50am - Agricultural Marketing
11:00-11:50am - Intro to Korean Listening and Speaking

Tuesday:
9:00-10:15am - Korean Economy

Now I just have to coordinate with my elementary school about my schedule :P