Gyeongbokgong and the One Month Mark!

One month?! But how did this happen?! 

Well, I can't believe it. It's already been a month!! Things are settling down around here. I finally have internet in my apartment. And I have a phone! It's been a game changer. So far it has been much easier to keep in touch with people at home. It has not, however, made me a more faithful blogger. This is my attempt to change that. 

I am getting more comfortable at work and every day is a little better. It's nice to feel like I know what I'm doing. Well, at least for the most part. I'm starting to build relationships with my students, which is great. It was difficult coming in the middle of the term and replacing a teacher that the kids really liked. Today we had the first round of a speech contest. It was so cute!! It was fun to hear the students do something other than listen and repeat. There is some room for creativity in the classroom, but not much. I'm learning more about them everyday.

From here on out I'll just put some pictures with captions of what I've been up to for the last couple of weeks. I think that's better anyway. Here we go!!

You would think that of all places, this would mean something else. 

 

A Korean pizza place. They have all kinds of crazy pizza toppings (look for a pizza related food post in the future).  I just like the motto. 

The view from the coffee shop in Dongtan where I did a lot of interneting before the glorious internet came straight into my house. This is around the corner from work.  

That is me!! Remember me!? I'm standing with my Chinese horoscope symbol, the pig. 1983!! 

My friend Lauren, from training, and I at Gyeongbokgong. It's a big palace in the center of Seoul. The rest of the pictures are from that Sunday afternoon a couple of weeks ago. I need to do this more often, or use smaller pictures or something because this took forever!!! 

The entrance to the palace. I love the juxtaposition of the palace and the city behind it. 

Something nice, also at the palace. 

The entrance to the palace, looking out from inside. Check it out. I give you what only the royals could see. Well, the royals and anyone with 3,000 won. 

OMG!! I am standing next to the guard!!

Looking the other direction from the entrance. That direction being in. 

The main part of the palace. 

The beautiful painted ceiling in the palace. For the most part the inside was kind of uneventful, so I don't think I'll put up any pictures. The ones I did take were not as good as I would have liked. 

There I am again!! 

These paintings were my favorite part. 

I have more pictures but the internet is being uncooperative and I'm tired. I'll post more soon. Katrina won't let me wait so long between blog posts. You can all thank her. Also, Lauren (who by the way is from Gig Harbor) informed that when she went back to take pictures of the cherry blossoms, she realized we missed a pretty big section of the palace. Whoops. For the record, there was a folk museum and we got really distracted. Anyway, I've got a ton more pictures, so check back soon! 

How to eat like Elaine in Korea, Part 1: Cheese Ramen

 First things first. Buy this ramen. Buy the hot one! You won't be sorry. I have a sneaking suspicion that with the Korean population in Seattle, you won't have a hard time finding it.

 Put the little mushroom packet in the water. Make the water boil!!

 Add the noodles and the flavors. (I know, you're thinking, Elaine, I've made ramen before. But it's about to get crazy, I promise!)

Break an egg into the pot of boiling noodles and mix it up!! (You have no idea how difficult it was to try to do this and take a picture.)

Now you need American cheese. I have chosen this off brand Korean cheese. We are missing one crucial part of the instructions! If you are going to make cheese ramen, you have to say it like a Korean: Cheese-uh ramen.

Put your cooked ramen in a bowl and add that delicious slice of fake cheese!

Let it get allllll melty and mix it around. MMMMMMMM.

Now it should look like this. The cheese-uh makes the hot not so bad and it is so delicious. 

Finally, if you want the real Elaine in Korea experience, enjoy your cheese-uh ramen while watching old episodes of The Office. That Michael Scott, what a character!! And Pam and Jim!! It's wonderful. 

Full disclosure: I overcooked the noodles this time (and added a little too much water), but I'm not going to take all of these pictures again. It doubled my ramen making time. Also, I got some of the ramen on my white shirt. Why I didn't see that coming, I'll never know. Ok, I think that sums up all of my ramen related embarrassing personal confessions.

Check out this supersweet and superpatriotic link courtesy of Katrina!!

BABY BALD EAGLES!!!!

It's Thursday!

There are photos in the previous post! Check 'em out!

I complained about the state of my apartment and they actually did something about it! Many of my coworkers led me to believe that I was perfectly welcome to complain, but that I shouldn’t get my hopes up. Some one came by on Tuesday and scrubbed the shit out of my bathroom. It’s so nice to feel like I can safely touch all of the surfaces in my place without contracting some kind of incurable disease. Even the sink is fixed. Did I mention before that it was held together with packing tape? It appears to be repaired fully, no tape in sight. Speaking of tape, one of my goals for the weekend is to find something to hang stuff on the wall with. I have this really fantastic wallpaper on one side (which you’ll get your eyes on shortly) but I brought a bunch of pictures of all of you (and Oliver of course) that I can’t wait to get up.

I have officially just completed my third day of teaching. It is exhausting!! I teach Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 2:30 to 7:10 with a 5 minute break every 40 minutes or so. However, that break is mostly devoted to making sure my students make it to and from my classroom, that no one messes with my school computer and that I have all of my documents in order for the next round of ninos. I guess I need to figure out how to say children in Korean. Everyone else teaches until 8:45, which is what I have to look forward to next term. Tuesdays and Thursdays are much more civilized. I only teach from 4:45 to 7:30 or so, but I have to be at school from about 1:30 to 8:30. It gives me time to do the HUGE amount of grading and documenting I’m required to do.

All in all, the teaching is going pretty well. I’m pretty comfortable in front of the classroom, but there is a lot to remember. I think the kids like me for the most part. It’s strange coming in the middle of the term. The students have been shifted from other teachers even though all of the teachers are still in the building. I get asked “But why, teacher?” a lot. And that’s another thing. It is perfectly acceptable here to say “TEACHER” as many times as necessary to get my attention. We are working on my name and raising your hand to talk to me. I have one class in particular that loves giving me a hard time. Even the good kids are getting in on it. I miss adults! Adult students are so civilized! I know that as soon as I get more comfortable with everything it will get easier. I might need some classroom management tips from you teachers out there. You know how to get a hold of me.

Life in general is pretty good. I’m getting to know my coworkers a little better. I guess a few of them gave up drinking for Lent. I think after Easter it will be even easier to get to know them J A few of the people I met at training live in the Seoul area, so it should be easy to find someone to hang out with on the weekends. This schedule just doesn’t lend itself well to extracurricular activities during the workweek.

Keep sending me emails! I’ve been doing my best to write everyone back in a timely fashion. When I have internet (and a phone!) staying in touch will be much easier. I’ll even be able to Skype!

For those that are interested, my Skype address is: elainecatherinewright

Photos, finally!!!

The first photo I took in Korea. This is from the bus stop at the airport.

 Korean barbeque with some of my fellow trainees. So delicious.

 Japie, the South African, losing at hackey sack to a Korean woman. It was awesome. 

 The fun part of Gangnam at night. 

I just really like the name of this place.

I hate to admit it, but I think my wardrobe is cracker enough, thank you very much. 

It's all about tone. I could make this sound all kinds of inappropriate. 

 Mark, my friend from training, checking out the local offerings. 

 I don't even remember where this is anymore. It's a pretty typical Seoul street. The city looks like this for miles and miles and miles. It's pretty amazing. 

 My building! I live above a garage. My apartment is on the third floor, second from the left on the right hand side of the building. 

 Nadine and Brendan! This is near COEX mall, at the World Trade Center. 

 Being very culturally appropriate and drinking with both hands. Did you know that you should look away when you are drinking alcohol?

 Korean barbeque!

 Take creepy pictures of yourself while I'm in the bathroom and they go on the blog. BE WARNED. 

 See what's there in the bottom? Outside! This is on my street. 

 It's universal.

 Apparently Koreans are afraid of cats, so I got a scary pencil case. 

 This park is a block from my house. Check the sweet exercise equipment. I hope Korea's ready for me lifting in a park. Booty camp anyone?

 I walk through this park to get to school. 

 My apartment! Check out my super sweet night stand!

 This is from the kitchen/front door. I love the wall paper.

 The kitchen!

 My new and improved and CLEAN bathroom!

Training, Visits and Mold

Well, I passed training! Good news is that I get to work and continue living in Korea. The bad news is that I won't be returning to Washington and living in my parents' basement in shame for the next year. Well, bad news for you. Still good news for me. It was pretty intense, but I think training went pretty well. April (the part of ChungDahm Learning that I'll be teaching for) is focused on young learners, so I didn't have to learn a lot of complicated grammar concepts. I get to ask questions like "Ok, what's blue? Good! It's a color. What can you see that's blue?"

The worst part was that at the end of training we were all whisked off to our respective schools and I didn't get a chance to say goodbye to any of the friends I made. We didn't have a chance to exchange emails or anything. It was pretty crazy to get into a cab all by myself without having said goodbye, and really sad! About 5 minutes into my cab ride, the driver pulls over, hand me his cell phone and someone says, "Is this Jennifer?" I said, "No, this is Elaine". She said, "Ok, let me talk to the driver". All I could think was, I can't communicate with this man at all and he doesn't even know who I am or where we are going. Then we u-turned and got back on the road and I was driven to my branch. I was met by one of the bosses, then was told to take a 2 hour break. Then, I had dinner with my direct boss, who seems like a pretty cool guy. I start teaching unsupervised tomorrow afternoon. I can't believe it! It feels like getting here took soooo long, and now everything is going so fast.

Yesterday marked a very important day in my Korean life: Nadine and Brendan were here!! They had a 12 hour lay over in Seoul. We met in the center of the city and basically just ate. It was so surreal to see them here, especially so early in my year. I feel like I'm just getting adjusted and getting things figured out and then suddenly it was just like being home! It's almost like it never happened. They had a great trip and it was fantastic to hear about it firsthand and not just over email. They also brought me phenomenal gift of a plate with their photo. It looks perfect in my apartment.

Speaking of my apartment, I've moved in! It's cute and I have a seperate shower, which is pretty unusal for Korea. The only problem is that it's DISGUSTING. The person who lived there before me must have been really, really dirty. I can't imagine living like that, let alone leaving something like that for someone else. It smells like mold and every single surface is disgusting. Oh, and the bathroom sink leaks. There are dishes in the cupboard, so I took out a bowl to catch the water from the sink and that was dirty, too. I can't see the pipes for the kitchen sink, but it's making the same noise as the bathroom, so that will be my first major complaint. I've already put in a bunch of time cleaning and after I leave this internet cafe, I'm cleaning some more.

For now, I'm trying to figure out the neighborhood and hoping to find something to eat. I won't have internet in my apartment for a couple of weeks, which is lame. But it also means no skype. I also do not have a phone, which is double lame. For now, it's not that big of  a deal because I don't really have any friends, but hopefully I will soon and then I'll need a way to contact them!!! Ok, I hope that was enough information for you. I'll post again soon!