stumbling through south korea: What Courtney has been up to...

So…since this is quite a few entries in one…or what some might like to refer to as a book…..lets get started!

First, I want to say sorry for one thing - the amount of pictures. I realize that I am the picture-taking queen – but I have been slacking. Maybe someone should remove my crown or something. Anyway, - hopefully when I go through the photos I’ll have a lot more than I thought and be able to trick you into thinking I have soooooo many!

Our last meal together before we all headed to our new homes

The meal was waffles - and yes....that really is our waffle

Of course, some of us just chose the ice cream drink instead

An example of a typical orientation elevator ride

Ok….so lets go back to the day I arrived in Pohang! I was met at the bus by Mr. Yoon. Though he isn’t my head teacher, we do talk all the time. He is so friendly and helpful and answers all the questions I have about Korea. Because he had ridden the bus to pick me up, he begged a ride from another co-teacher and we got a ride home. When we arrived at Pohang, we were met by Miss. Kim – my substitute co-teacher I guess you would call her. She and I went to dinner, and then we went back to her place. I was told I would be staying with her 2 nights, then on Saturday morning I would stay with a student and their family until my studio apartment was vacant on the 10^th of September. Soooo scary, but what else could I say but yes?

The next morning – my first day of school. I met the vice principal, the principal, and then did some intro-to-korean speech in front of ALL the teachers. I had been practicing my “Hello, my name is Courtney, I am from America, Florida, it’s nice to meet you” all morning – I had it perfect! Then of course I flub it up in front of everyone. I think it’s because they shoved a microphone in my face – I wasn’t expecting a microphone!

The view from outside my school

School hallway - right outside the English classroom

One of my co-teachers teaching in the fancy English Classroom

Anyway, I was only there to introduce myself to the students. Easy enough. First class – went in – did my introduction – and was asked some crazy questions. This repeated three times. Because I got asked a lot of questions throughout my intro-question-and-answer first week, I’ll just go ahead and list the lot of them here.

- How old are you

- Do you have a boyfriend

- How tall are you

- How much do you weigh

- What is your favorite actor

- Do you know who Kim Yu Na is?

- What is your favorite band?

- Do you like Korea?

- Why did you move to Korea?

- Do you know Korean?

- Where do you live?

- What is your favorite number?

- How many brothers and sisters do you have?

- What is your fathers job?

- Is that your natural hair color?

- Is that your natural eye color?

- What is your favorite fish?

- What is your favorite Flower?

- What is your blood type?

The list goes on and on! Anyway the first class I was so nervous, but by number 3 it was a piece of cake. I was still stumbling over the favorite music/actor/movie questions though – for 2 reasons. 1)I don’t know enough popular things to give the right answer and 2) The answers I was giving were lame answers of things these kids had never heard of!

Anyway, during a break Ms. Kim and I went for a walk – to see my studio. It might not be common knowledge, but the truth is I have never lived by myself nor ever wanted to live by myself. I think I would get too lonely and sad. But, when I saw this apartment all that fear and doubt went away. I knew that this place was to be mine and mine alone and it was beautiful! I could very easily live forever here! My own bedroom with HUGE hanging racks (no closet, just racks on the wall). The living room is tiny and all mine – a little kitchen area, a hallway with a fancy washing machine. Even a tiny perfect little bathroom! I figured it would be worth a little wait – for a place as great as this. Did I mention it’s right across the street from my school? How in the world did I get such luck…I just don’t know!

A picture of my studio - isn't it great?*

Anyway, enough fawning over my new digs. After school I went with Ms. Kim and looked around a bit before dinner. Ok….I’ll pause here to talk about Korean dinners, or meals in general. I hadn’t really experienced this before, but now it’s coming out in full force. I love the way meals are structured here. Basically, there are a MILLION little plates in front of you. You pick and choose which plate to eat from. Everyone shares little plates. They keep bringing little plates until there are little plates stacked on little plates! I’m so glad I worked at Sumo for 3 years (never thought I would say that) because otherwise I might not have the skill to pick up tiny bits of food from all over the table off tiny plates with chopsticks! It really is a fun way too eat. I love it.

Ok……so Ms. Kim and I ate, went back to her place, talked a while, then went to bed.

View of pohang from the top of the homeplus

The next morning: Saturday

This is the big day, the day I went to go live with the family. We met up, and I went to their house. Their house is soooo beautiful! It’s on the edge of the mountain with farms and other houses surrounding it. The air smells like rice crops, the wind blows, and it looks green! The house was full of windows and open space. Really, just a wonderful place to live. The family allowed me to stay in the daughters room and treated me so well! The first day I was there they brought me to Yongdong village – a historic village that people still live in today after they retire. It was like a historical retirement village!

Teeter-board at the village!

The next morning, I was invited to attend church with them. I really didn’t know what to expect. What it was was an ordinary church service, just in Korean! They even had songs like ‘I will sing of your love forever’, just in Koran. Everyone was so nice – it was really a lot of fun! I am so happy I was able to experience this!

Church Service

Living room

The bedroom I stayed in - beautiful!

The next couple days I started doing my introductions for my classes. What this means is that I created a slideshow of pictures “I am from America *picture of America* I live in Florida *picture of Florida* This is my family *picture of family*, etc.” I got a lot of interesting responses from this. Of course, people associated Florida with Miami (I made sure to mention that too). Whenever they saw the family picture I would hear “Lovely family, Beautiful”. When they saw dad sometimes they would say “Santa Clause!” (in the picture I used, dad had a beard). They would laugh at Kia’s name (Kia is one of the cars made in Korea.) When I showed Bailey’s picture, they would gasp (it was a circus picture – pretty cool trick). Kia’s picture was her and her horses, which they also loved. I always showed a picture of the house, which they really liked. But really, who wouldn’t enjoy a picture of our home?

For the first week, I spent my time getting used to school the new way of doing things. All the students are so nice, always saying hello in the hallways. All the teachers are so friendly and helpful, especially the English teachers. I’ve been learning all kinds of things, like Korean History, famous names, how to read the Korean letters, and pop culture movies and TV shows. (Usually at night, I would sit in the living room and watch TV, while the student I was staying with would point out a famous person or band when they came on the screen.

On Wednesday, I packed up my stuff and left the family to live with Sam. I really enjoyed staying with them, but I felt bad living with them for so long. I really appreciate everything they did for me – I don’t think it could have gone better! Though living with Sam was a little bit farther, it was nice to be able to relax and see the city. Really, it was nice to be on my own again. I guess I never realized how much I needed time to just be by myself.

Anyway, I think Sam has taken over from here on the Journal Entry-ing. These are a bit out of order, but hopefully they will make sense!

*Just kidding - that isn't my apartment. I wish.