random happenings at Jacki's School

On Monday after school all the teachers and other school employees and I all went out to dinner. Apparently this was a pretty common thing, as Koreans love to socialize and drink over dinner. Aaron had his on last Wednesday, so this was by turn. We had Samgyeopsal, which is sort of like "Korean bacon." They are slices of pork belly that you grill yourself, and cut it into bite sized pieces with scissors. Then you eat with a paste of hot pepper paste and soybean (kinda like miso) paste. Like most Korean dishes, it came with a million side dishes, including rice, scrambled egg type thing, kimchi, seaweed, noodles, little pancakes, etc. So I was sitting with my coteacher and then the principal was like sit next to me, and then of course Korean (men) love to drink so we drank just a little bit of soju just to appease him. But overall, it was a pretty good meal.

Yesterday, Tuesday, in the morning my coteacher and I took the bus and journeyed to another Elementary school. There, we observed another english teacher teach his class, which was helpful to us since we were both new at this. And then the vice principal invited us to lunch at his school, which had pretty good food, and also, it let us pick as much as we wanted. Our school lunches are served to us by lunch ladies and often it is not enough food for me.

Also on Tuesday, after my classes, my coteacher and I had to give the tests for the advanced class. We gave the oral exams, of which two children at a time will come into our classroom and we would ask them questions like "How old are you" and "What's your favorite color" and then rate their answers from 0 to 5. After an hour of this, we added up the scores but I still don't know who will be in which class yet.

Today (Wednesday), I will finally go get my ARC (Alien Residency Card), of which then I can finally get a phone and a bank account. Click here to read more

Hospital Visit, Korean Snacks, and E-Mart Adventures

First of all, I am finally using the internet on my OWN COMPUTER! The past few updates were either from my school computer or the brick of a computer that came with the apartment. So yay for that!

So on Thursday I finally went back to the hospital for my checkup. Apparently it cost like 44k won (which is about 30 dollars), so we get to add that to our visa process cost list. The process itself was pretty simple - height and weight, color blindness, eyesight, hearing. And then we had to do a chest x-ray, urine test, and blood test. Koreans use pretty big needles! Ouchie. But at least it went by pretty fast.

Friday I taught my three 6 grade classes, which was actually pretty interesting. We played Simon Says with the kids and gave out my american candy to the winners. Then we would do the CD Rom videos with dialogues and make the kids repeat. After that, we would do this powerpoint of which they guessed random sports celebrities (that I had no clue about but apparently Korean people love) and where they are from, since we were learning about nationalities. So I did that 3 times in a row on Friday.

Today, Saturday, we headed towards the downtown market area of Anseong. We tried a few different snack foods, which each cost about 1000 won aka 65 cents. We got this corn dog type thing and this brownie thing that was very lightly sweet, not overpowering sweet like most US brownies.



Then we went to a local kimbap (aka "Korean sushi") fast food type place and got a little lunch. We bought a roll of beef kimbap (sogogi kimbap) and the rice dish in the stone pot (dolsot bibimbap). It gave with this very light soup (I think maybe with fish base?), kimchi, and picked yellow radish (dan moo ji). All this for only 5,500 won or $3.50.




After snacks and lunch, we headed to E-Mart, which is almost like a Korean walmart, to pick up some more supplies and food. It was pretty big, although not as big as super Walmarts in the states, of course. We wandered around for a while, and bought some random things, such as some floor mats, a drying rack (since there aren't any clothing dryers here), and some food. We are living on rice and noodles, and so we bought some things to supplement our meals, such as canned ham, canned vegetables, eggs, little sausages, tomatoes. We also bought some snacks (I found a snack that was blueberry flavored, cheese flavored pringles, and a dukbokki - rice cake in red pepper sauce - flavored snack as well), some juice, tiny yogurt drinks, imitation crab. Just an array of random assortments. It was pretty interesting carrying all of our stuff on the bus back, as well, since Aaron had his backpack, and then we had three large bags, as well as the dryer rack. So that was quite an adventure.

I also cleaned up the apartment a little bit today as well. Their vacuum cleaner is small and so light and easy to use, I likei t better than the US ones already. Click here to read more

Korean red tape and cute kids

So, in order for us to get our ARC (Alien Residency Card), which allows us to do stuff like open bank accounts and stuff, it seems to be a lot of hassle and work in order to get it. Anyway, first we would need to get some photos taken. Pretty simple. And then we also have to go the hospital to get some tests (blood, urine, and xray scan I think?). Now, I hate HATE being jabbed with a needle, so I am not looking forward to this. Since it was in the downtown area, coteacher and I journeyed after class for 35-40min to the hospital, where they said I would need a passport. Of course I didn't bring one, since the information and website told my coteacher that I wouldn't need it, so I journeyed my half and hour back. An hour of the bus for nothing, yay. Hopefully we'll try again today after school, because I actually did remember my passport. Apparently Aaron went to the hospital as well and they let him do the tests without a passport. We think it was the persuasive nature of his more experienced coteacher than my new coteacher. Anyway, after the medical test, we can go to another city half an hour or so from here to actually get the ARC card, which supposedly takes a week to receive. More red tape, I tell you!

As for teaching itself, it's not bad. Yesterday morning I had three 6th grade and introduced myself with my powerpoint. They especially liked my pictures of my family and animals. They asked me lots of questions as well. Some of the students spoke English quite well, and some didn't say anything, which could mean they don't know much or that they're shy. But they are quite cute and they all say "Hi, Miss J---" [my last name] all the time.
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Aaron's jumbled musings

I'm jumping into the blog a tad late so, i'll try to fill in some gaps here and there.

 

Consulate

 

Dealing with the Korean consulate was pretty tough.  We tried to confirm required paperwork and etc with the Consulate, but the person on the phone didn't understand and kept on saying to check the website (even though we were staring at it simultaneously).  The website, of course, was also confusing and didn't really explain much.

 

Eventually, we got down to Houston, from Dallas (left at 4:30 am), and had our interviews with some Korean guy.  He was pretty hardcore, I couldn't get a smile from that guy at all.  He seemed to ask random questions to me and Jacki (one on one), and I think as well to the three other people that were there for the same purpose.

 

Packing

 

We took about a month to pack for Korea.  Tried to weigh the pros and cons of taking various items and tried to pack against the unknowns.  Weight was our enemy.  So was bulk, but we solved that a bit by using a DIY vacuum seal on some bulkier items.

 

Prior Leaving & Korean

 

We tried to eat lots of BBQ and steak before we left, although we don't normally because its slightly unhealthy.  I figure the slight weight increase can't hurt, most people end up losing weight in Korea.

 

So I ended up learning some Korean before we left, I figure it couldn't hurt.  I started I think sometime back around 4 months prior to leaving.  I did have a extremely rudimentary understanding of Korean because I'm a halfer and I also took a semester in college (where I believe I didn't learn much do to motivation issues).  I assumed that I might be judged slightly harder because I am a halfer so I figured I'd attempt it with my free time.  I didn't have much time to learn it, because I was finishing my masters program at the time, but persistence pays off it seems.  It's slow at first, but then it builds and it feels good to be able to read/talk/listen to others when here even if only basically.  Although, most English teachers don't know a lick of it, so I wouldn't worry too much about it though if you don't know any.

 

Airport and Plane Trip

 

Well, I was worried about our weight limits, but it seemed to be fine.  Out of our checked bags, two of them were 50 pounds, and then 50.5, and 51.5.  Didn't seem to charge/hassle us for going over the 50 lb limit which was good.

 

Our carry-ons were slightly bulky and heavy as well.  A gate stewardess ended up telling us that we had to check one (at no charge), so I gave her the lightest one, lol.  The others were most likely over the 25 lb limit.

 

So the flight was long and boring, I couldn't sleep very much as usual (like one hour out of 14).  The food was not enough, it was the first flight where I asked for more food and they didn't have any.  So we slightly starved, and we're not overweight by any means.

 

Arrival in Korea

 

The taxi driver was nice and liked that I could speak some Korean as do most.  The taxi driver got lost near the end of our journey with him because we're located in the middle of the boonies. 

 

On Friday, our apartment was filled with people/co-teachers/co-workers, and no-one seemed to introduce themselves to us off the bat, so we ended up confused and bewildered in our jet-lag stupor.  We went out and got to experience first-hand how cold it was.  We ended up going out for dinner in our light jackets and nothng else -- It was cold.

 

I think the second day, we unpacked our massive horde and realized a few mistakes -- packed a few things we shouldn't have and should've packed a few things, but nothing too serious.  We went major shopping on Saturday and it filled in the gaps for a lot of basic necessities.

 

Met with about eight expats at another dinner on Sunday.  I felt a bit bad because they were blabbing away with each other without talking to the two Korean people that were there, so I ended up trying to make some small talk with them.

 

Apartment

It's fairly quiet there surprisingly.  We live next to the stair way, so we hear some people walking by, but its not too bad.  Our windows are nice and fairly secluded.  The layout is slightly strange, but no biggie.  Showers are somewhat a pain, getting the toilet wet (and most other things) irritates me for some reason.  Ah, bed was slightly annoying, they bought blankets for us, but there blankets are probably what we would consider good as floor mats.  We brought some small blankets and linens (although it was tedious last minute weight issue) which was well worth it.  Thermostat and hot water work decently, just curious about the cost of it all down the line -- cause we like it toasty.

 

Buses

 

Buses are interesting, they cost about 60 cents USD oneway and use an electronic rechargable card.  The buses are fast, but they sometimes lack enough stop buttons generally situated throughout the bus.  Getting off is sometimes difficult because of their speed.

 

School & Classes

 

Well, the school was slightly ill-prepared for my arrival, but that's alright.  I like the extra time to get settled.  I worked on the first lesson a few days in advance of my first actual class and it seemed to work out fine.  But, so far I've only taught one class.  The co-teacher (the only one that talks semi-fluently, mentors me, and shows me around), is really helpful.  Her only drawbacks are lack of information at times.  I knew I was going to teach my first class today, I just didn't know when until 5-10 min before as kids started to pile in, lol.

 

The classroom is pretty new, and has some fairly nice equipment.  The podium that they have has a built-in touch-screen computer and an electronic projector that seems to be touch-screen (although annoyingly at times) as well.  I can't help but think that these walls are my prison cell for the next year though, lol.

 

There is only one men's restroom in this school since it is all female and there are like 700+ students.  It's slightly annoying because I have to somewhat cross the school and the flocks of students along the way.

 

Integration

 

The teachers nod in acknowledgement, and some will try to talk in broken English or minor Korean, but most of the teachers are fairly oblivious.  The students on the other hand are super hyper, and about 1/5 will try to say hi or hello as your passing by.  Not really used to the attention myself, I'd rather just walk down the hallway like a college student and be ignored like the best of them, lol.  So, I generally try to avoid the hallways during the recesses between classes.  I'm a bit of a celebrity here, I suppose.

 

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Teaching

So I just had my first two classes, and it wasn't too bad, but then again, it wasn't a "real" class day. Today was just intro day. So first ten to fifteen minutes my coteacher put them in their assigned seats and introduced herself. And then I introduced myself with my powerpoint with lots of pictures, and they asked me questions. Of course, they didn't all use English so my coteacher had to translate some questions for me to answer. And then she'll pick up parts of what I said and repeat that so that the kids can repeat it. Out of my two classes, I liked my second one better. First one was rowdier and took a long time getting them to settle down, and second class actually tried to use English more when being asked. So far it wasn't too bad but we didn't really do any lessons yet. The kids are cute but also pretty loud and hyper.
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Jacki's Class Video

I made a video of my classroom as well!

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Picture Post 3

The first two pictures are of Aaron's classroom:

The following pictures are of my classroom and school:

My classroom

My desk

View outside window - this is the front yard of the school

My teacher's manual

Hallway

Front of school

Of course, if you want to see even more pictures, feel free to click the "Our Pictures" link on the right. Click here to read more

Picture Post 2

The first two pictures are taken around downtown Anseong. Anseong is the "main city" of which our little town is attached to, if that makes any sense. I guess we can say we are the outskirts of the city

These two pictures are from when we went out with the other expats, and we got some galbi (short ribs). IT was pretty yummy!

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Picture Post

Here are a few pictures from our apartment and surrounding town.

Here is a picture taken on the plane. I think we were flying across Siberia.

Our apartment building, in the middle of the rice fields

Our apartment. After we clean up a bit we'll try to take more pictures and make a video.

View outside the hallway of our apartment building

Road to our apartment

"Main" street of our little town

More buildings in the town

A dog, I think it's a jindo mix? Click here to read more

Snow

It's my second day at school and it's SNOWING!

So I got my teaching schedule and today I have to teach two fifth grade classes. Of course, this week is okay because it's only introductions, because I haven't made too many lesson plans yet, but there's lots of resources so that's okay. Here is my weekly schedule:

Click to see full size.

As you can see, 3rd and 4th grade meets only once, but 5th and 6th grade classes meets twice a week.
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First Few Days of Korea

It's Monday afternoon now, and I'm sitting my empty classroom. Today there was only an opening ceremony at my school, so no teaching today, but since I do have internet here at my desk, I can talk about the last few days' adventures.

 

THE FLIGHT

 

So, we left Texas on Thursday morning, and had a 14 and a half hours of flight. It was pretty long, but at least it did leave on time, which was good. We had way too much luggage, but my dad helped us and we were able to get everything to the aiport with little problem. When we settled in the plane, it was a packed flight so there was a guy sitting next to us. I think he was going to Vietnam. There was the little screen in front of our seats but Aaron's was broken so he couldn't use his, and used mine sometimes. There was a few dinky games on it like minigolf and yatze. I watched a few TV shows on my screen, such as a cruise show with Samantha Brown, a show about San Francisco, "faking it" show, and some other shows. I also watched a movie, Boy in the Striped Pajamas, which was about the innocence of children. It is how a son of the commander of a concentration camp makes friends with a jewish prisoner boy. It was pretty sad at the end, without giving away too much, but I felt like it didn't really conclude much. The food was pretty dinky in size, so we were pretty hungry most of the flight.

 

We finally landed on Friday, around 3pm, Korean time. Going through immigration was relatively easy, just had to fill a bunch of forms and go through a few people, but in the end we got our bags (although one of mine took forever to get out) and met our ride, a taxi driver, outside. The ride took about 2 hours, but when we got there, we kept no getting lost, because apparently our apartment is pretty hard to find. But eventually we found it when it was almost dark, and lugged our luggage into the room.

 

 

 

FRIDAY NIGHT

 

The apartment is actually pretty decently sized, other than the small kitchen and bathroom. The living room was relatively spacious, as is the bedroom. The only problem is the lack of furniture or drawers or closets or anywhere to actually put stuff in. So we met some teachers from our school at the apartment, and they took us out to a restaurant for dinner. It was okay food - some jajangmyeon, some chicken dish, and some shrimp dish. We were pretty tired though, so right after we went to our apartment and slept. It was pretty cold when it got dark.

 

 

SATURDAY

 

On Saturday we woke up at like 4:30 because our bodies weren't used to the time shift yet. Today we went out with Aaron's coteacher for some groceries and visiting his school. His school is an all girls' middle school, and his English classroom was brand spankin new. We walked around a little bit and then we went grocery shopping in downtown Anseong. An Korean supermarket is interesting - it's very crowded and of course everything is in Korean so it was hard to find stuff. Also, rice is expensive (but yummy). So is fruit. We did buy some noodles, rice, and some random things like cereal and milk to eat for a little bit. We also went to an Korean restaurant for lunch, which we had bulgogi soup. It was very tender and delicious. We sat on the floor to eat, and there was lots of yummy side dishes as well. After that, she drove us back to our apartment and we rested the rest of the day. It was interesting because it shows subtitled English movies on the TV so we watched some movies, such as Juno, Harry Potter movies, Terminator, Xmen 3, etc. We also figured out the shower and explored the area a little bit.

 

SUNDAY

 

On Sunday we got up around 6-7ish. Not as early at 4:30, that's for sure! Today this morning we didn't do too much, just explored our tiny little town of Samjuk, which was pretty much one street. Then we went to the local grocery, which was pretty small and a lot of things didn't even have prices printed on it, so there was lots of mystery costs. We did find pasta, so we bought some of that, as well as some soymilk and some snacks and random things. The food here are pretty good, though expensive. Later in the day we went out with two teachers from my school back to downtown Anseong. One is a new teacher who is going to be my co teacher, and one was the coteacher from last year. We also met up with the native teacher at my school from last year, Courtney, and her friend as well. We went to a coffeehouse with some drinks and cake, and then we all went out to eat galbi along with some of Courtney's western friends. It was the first time we've met up with other expats, so it was pretty cool. I think there were in total, other than Aaron and I, about five other expats. The food was good as well, and good conversation. It's nice to speak fluently, not with broken English, for once.

 

 

MONDAY

 

So it's Monday today and here I am in my classroom. This morning we woke up and I walked to the bus stop around 8:20. The bus stop seems far but it's actually not bad, about a 5 min walk or so. I went with my coteacher to the school, which was in a green building. The school isn't too big, about two stories, but there are two buildings that are connected by a side. This morning we got into my classroom and I just explored the room a little bit. There are about 36 chairs in my room, not too huge. There are also a ton of books and materials, games and signs and things like that. It is pretty interesting. Our textbook seems pretty simple, we also have cds of video sample conversation that goes along with the textbook. Each grade has its own textbook. After that we went to th gym, where there was some sort of opening ceremony for the school, where I saw all the kids and had to stand with the teachers. There was a point where I had to go on stage with my coteacher and some other teachers and stand there and be introduced, and I saw a million little faces staring at me. It was a little nervewrecking, especially since I didn't understand most of the whole ceremony. After that, we went to the teachers room, where we were introduced to the teachers, and I had to stand up there and say something, so I said something like "I hope I can teach English well here" or something. After that, all the schools' employees went out for lunch - we went to a local restaurant and got kimchi jigae, which is kimchi stew. It was hot but actually pretty good. After lunch coteacher and I went to the principal's office where he talked to us. Or rather, he talked to her in Korean and she translated some of it. And so I had to sit there and smile when I don't understand a word he's talking about. Which was most of today, of which people would talk and I would be like sitting there smiling like a weirdo, lol. And thus, that was my day, thus far.

 

 

I will be sure to upload some pictures of our apartment, my classroom, and other general Korea scenes soon.

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We're here!

We're here and safe in Korea. We haven't had internet so we haven't updated, but we will try to and upload some pictures sometime as well. Tomorrow is our first day of teaching! (Well technically I won't be teaching because there's some school assembly that day)
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Last day in America

Today is our last day left in America. We're almost all packed, some a few things here and there we need to stick somewhere last minute. We have a LOT of luggage - for the two of us, we have 3 large rolling suitcases, 1 large duffel bag, 2 smaller duffel bags, 2 backpacks, and wearing our largest coats (he's wearing two, and I'm wearing my long down coat) and biggest shoes.

Tomorrow our flight is at 9:30AM (Thursday) and after ~14 hours of flight, we'll land in Korea at 3:10PM (Friday). And then we will have the weekend to relax before jumping into class-teaching on Monday. I hope we're ready! Since we never taught before, it is a little nerve-wrecking, but hopefully everything will turn out well.

We will be in Anseong, which is in the province around Seoul, Gyeonggi-do. However, it's so far south it's almost right next to the other provinces. It should be about an hour and half from Seoul. Click here to read more

Visa Process Costs

The Process for Teaching in Korea was long and costly, but in the end, we got what we wanted. We ended up going with AMS Korea, whom we recommend, at least thus far. We have tried to deal with many other recruiters, but haven't had good experiences with most of them. They made things relatively easy, even through some crazy things that happened throughout this process.

Total Cost For the Visa Process:
$30 Criminal Record Check (15 x 2 for the two of us)
$30 Criminal Record Check Apostille (15 x 2 for the two of us)
$15 Jacki's Bachelor Diploma Apostille
$15 Aaron's Bachelor Diploma Apostille
$15 Jacki's Masters Diploma Apostille
$30 3 Copies of Jacki's Bachelor Transcripts
$15 3 copies of Aaron's Bachelor Transcripts
$0 3 copies of Aaron and Jacki's Masters Transcripts (free transcripts)
$100 Est Fedex cost to send papers to Korea. (we had to do it twice)
$90 Cost of 2 E-2 Visas
$18 Express Mailing our passports to the Korean consulate
$60 Est. Gas Cost for Driving to Austin (for apostille) and Houston (consulate)

Total: ~$418 for two people

Not cheap, but hopefully it'll be worth it! Click here to read more

Post Number One!

Hello, everyone. We're Jacki and Aaron, a couple from Texas. We will be teaching with the GEPIK program in Anseong, Korea.

We'll be arriving there sometime in the end of February, between 24 and 27, but we will probably buy the final tickets in the next few days.

So why teach in Korea? Well, the job economy in America isn't doing so well right now, and at least with this, we will have a stable (at least for a year) job and enough income to live well and save (most people that go to Korea save at least half of their income), and plus, we both love to experience new cultures and travel. After all, we're only young once, and this will be an adventure of a lifetime!


Oh, and by way, neither of us have any teaching experience at all, so this should be fun. Click here to read more