A long overdue update; now from Korea.

Alright, well, I think it's way past due for me to update a little about my life.

Visa Interview Process
I completed the visa process for an E-2 (English instructor) visa in mid-December. I interviewed with the Korean Consulate in Chicago via MSN messenger.  It was a very short video chat, lasting less than 10 minutes. The questions I was asked were the following:
-Have you ever been to Korea?
-Have you been reading or researching Korea?
-What kinds of things have you learned?
-Do you have any teaching experience?
-In your experience teaching English, how long does it take a student to gain a working knowledge of English?

That was the end of the interview process. Nobody gets the same questions, but you can imagine the kinds of questions you'd be asked are somewhat similar in terms of topic. I received my passport (with the visa pasted inside) about 4 days after completing the interview.  I contacted the school and they purchased a plane ticket for me, leaving on the 29th of December at 10:30 am.

The trip from USA to Seoul
My trip was problematic, of course. My plane was delayed by over two hours leaving my hometown, so I almost didn't make the connection for my overseas flight in Dallas.  Luckily, my next flight was also delayed by about 45 minutes.  I panicked until I checked in at the gate.. what a relief!  My luggage, even though there was only about 45 minutes, made the transfer as well!

When I arrived in Seoul, I went through Immigration without a problem. They looked at my visa, stamped stuff, and let me through.  After picking up my luggage, I went up to a Customs agent who took my custom form (I had nothing to claim), asked me a few questions which I couldn't understand at all, and then laughed and waved me through.

Strangely enough, my luggage was never opened. I had one large suitcase and one very small one, both of which had TSA-approved locks on them.. but neither were opened at any point.  The locks have a special built-in signal that pops out if the lock is opened by key, and the signals weren't showing. None of my items were shifted or moved around at all.  So, actually, the trip went smoothly in that sense!

When I left the Customs area, I immediately saw a man holding a sign with my name. I waved to him and he took me to a van, loaded my stuff, and drove me to my apartment building.  I didn't actually know where we were going-- I hadn't been told if I'd be going straight to my new apartment, or if I'd be staying at a hotel for a while.  He took me to the apartment building, where the Director of my school met me and showed me around.  He also took me out for dinner at a nearby traditional restaurant. It was an expensive, full-course meal.. most of which I couldn't eat because I was so exhausted and jet-laggy.  Also, some of it was so incredibly spicy that I couldn't eat it at all.

Crazy Taxi: Real life version
I'd like to elaborate a little on the taxi ride from the airport to my apartment complex.  My school is actually in Incheon, so the ride wasn't all that long-- maybe around 30-45 minutes, but it was one of the most terrifying rides of my life.  Taxi rides have a reputation for being a bit scary in a lot of different places, but the degree of terryingness was shocking to me.  The taxi ran red lights whenever nobody seemed to be coming from the other way, swerved across many lanes at a time without warning, turned into areas that weren't supposed to be turned into, etc.  Everyone in Incheon (and all the cities in Korea, from what I hear) seems to drive pretty recklessly, so the taxis aren't doing anything incredibly unusual.

But just because everybody's doing it, doesn't mean it's a good idea. There's a reason why there's a lot of fatal car crashes in Korea.  (For my family: imagine that everyone drives like Dad, except that nobody is aware of the other cars around them or of the laws of traffic.)

Pokin' around for a few days
The first night, the 30th, I just went to bed right after eating dinner.  I was soo exhausted! I woke up the next morning, the 31st, and walked to the school to meet my boss and have a little orientation.  The walk is around 20 minutes, which can be easy or treacherous, depending on the weather. My first time walking to the school I found out the unpleasant fact that they haven't figured out how to clear sidewalks here. Almost the entire path to my school (approx 1 mile) was covered in thick, slick ice. It was like being at an ice skating rink, except I didn't have skates.  It was incredibly hard to walk and I wobbled and nearly slipped every few feet.  I can't believe I didn't fall and crack my head open.

I bought grapes at the supermarket (Lotte Mart) next to my school and went home. I was still extremely jetlagged and fell asleep early in the evening. I had originally planned to go out to a bar to celebrate at the very least, but I ended up just setting an alarm so I could wake up and eat my grapes!

Grape time! (I tried to show the view from the window but it didnt work, oh well!)

Happy New Year!
I immediately went back to bed after eating the grapes.  The next day, January 1st, was a national holiday, and so most places were closed.  I took a walk around the area surrounded my apartment and found an electronics store. I also checked out the convenience store on the first floor of my apartment building as well as the internet cafe on the 2nd floor.

PC-bang (internet cafe)
Internet cafes are called PC-bang here. "Bang" means room, so the meaning is "PC room."  It's exactly what it sounds like-- a large, dark room full of expensive computers.  The place is mostly frequented by teenage Korean boys playing online games. Mostly Starcraft and games like that, but I've seen some other kinds of games that I can't name.  It gets really loud in there cause they're all playing together in groups and yelling out orders to eachother. There are people using the computers for other things as well, but the gamers seem to take up the majority of the audience.

Oh, the PCbang is really cheap, too. It's 1,000 won per hour, which is a bit less than 1 dollar an hour.

Boring life details.
On the weekend (2nd and 3rd) I went shopping for some groceries and basic electronics that I needed-- a hairdryer, specifically, as well as a computer mouse and headset for voicechatting. I brought my own webcam, but I won't be able to use it until I get internet set up in my room.  Before I can do THAT, though, I need to complete the Alien Registration process and get my card (Alien Registration Card, or ARC).   It may be about a month until I'm able to set up internet access in my room.. so, be patient, everyone!

First day of work!
Today was my first day of work.. for the first week, I'm only teaching part-time hours.  During the mornings I prepare and "train".  Today I realized that my "training" involves me sitting in a room by myself, reading the same lesson plan over and over. I'm not sure why I'm supposed to use all this time for "training" when the lesson plan is already decided for most classes.  All I have to do is follow the directions, so.. I'm not sure if there's something I'm missing, or what.  My boss wanted to help me out and spend more time talking to me, but she had to fill in for some of the Korean teachers who couldn't make it to school. I think I'll be observing some classes later this week, but.. today was a disaster.

The view from my 17th story apartment. Snowwww.

It snowed about a foot here.  It snowed for hours before classes even started, and it's been snowing all day. Cars are stranded all over the place, and attendance at school was shockingly low.  Busses are stranded, taxis aren't running.. basically the only good way to get around today was by walking.  After two hours of "training" and one hour of "break" (aka, I ate lunch and then stared at my lesson plan for the rest of the hour because it was too miserable outside to go anywhere), my boss told me that she'd canceled all of the classes for the afternoon, including mine, and sent me home.

In the morning I cross the street and go down the road, heading off to the right.  There's also a subway entrance here-- that tall building with the green-covered scaffolding on the side is blocking the view, but the entrance is right there on that corner.

Bummer! So, after about 3 hours of sitting around at work, "training", I left.  I'll have to make up for the cancelled classes sometime later this month, on a Saturday.. Totally sucky, if you ask me! But, I guess there's nothing that can be done when the weather takes such a sudden turn for the worse.

Another view. Mostly residences, I don't pass through here..

When I saw the snow this morning, I didn't think it would be such a big problem-- I figured that this amount of snow was typical, but apparently it's not usually this bad.  I'm kinda bummed because my easier lessons were going to be today (Monday-Wednesday-Friday) schedule.. and tomorrow my classes will be pretty tough.  The classes I give tomorrow are classes that have no pre-set curriculum, so it's up to me to plan and structure the whole course.  Also, the classes are 80 minutes long, so if I run out of stuff to do, it's going to be pretty obvious.  I've got several hours tomorrow to plan, though.. so I guess I'll worry about it then.

By the time I got home I was dripping wet from the snow.

I met my coworkers today.  Not all of them, only the teachers who work in the morning-- the teachers who only teach in the afternoon didn't come since the classes got cancelled.  I probably met around 8-9 other foreigners and lots of the Korean teachers. I couldn't spend much time talking to any of them because they had classes to go to, but they all seemed friendly enough.

Free lunch!
One of the perks of the school is that I can have lunch there for free every day that I work.  There's a full staff of cooks there, and all of the preschool/kindergarten classes eat there with their teachers.  There were some non-spicy options, but mostly spicy stuff. I ate some spicy stuff and acted like I wasn't dying. But I was.

End of boring entry.
Well, that's about it so far. I know this entry is incredibly long, not very interesting, and contains a lot of information that I've already emailed to some of you.  But for the sake of making sure everyone's on the same page, I summarized it all.  I'll write again when I have something of interest to say, or at least some nice pictures.. Maybe I'll become friends with some of the other foreign teachers, and actually venture out into the city sometime.

Weird anecdote.
Today was the first time I saw a non-asian face since I got here!  Not only did I see the teachers at school, I bumped into a white guy in Lotte Mart. I looked up, saw another white person, and the next thing I know, the loudspeakers at the store are blaring information in English! Until now I'd only ever heard the korean announcements, but suddenly the announcements were like, "Welcome to Lotte Mart! Lotte Mart is a discount department store with quality blahblahblah."  I think the presence of 2 foreigners caused them to put on the english introduction.  Also, walking home from the store, I bumped into another foreigner. Literally, because the walkable path throught he snow was too narrow for two people to pass eachother-- so we both just kinda said "Hello" without knowing what else to say.

The end. For now. I promise to take more pictures-- particularly of my apartment, once I get settled in more.