You know you're in Korea when...

Installment #1:

You know you're in Korea when:

• The pictures never look like the food you ordered
• Rice is served at every meal
• Coffee is instant and no more than 5 ounces
• There is exercise equipment in parks
• There are sales ladies in every aisle in Lotte Mart
• You can bring your own food and alcohol to any sporting event
• No one actually stops at a red light 
• Turn signals are optional
• Kimchi is like breathing. You have to do it everyday.
• Your bathroom is always wet.
• You think that scooterists are the craziest people alive and have a death wish
• Children go to school for 11 hours a day
• Your washer sings to you
• Pizza comes with sweet potato, potato, and always corn
• It's more expensive to buy a plate of fried chicken and fries than it is to buy a 3 course healthy meal of meat, vegetables, rice, kimchi, soup, radish, lettuces, salad, 2 deviled eggs, a fish cake, AND a bottle of soju
• You can get hammered drunk on 2 bottles of soju for a grand total of $3
• 4G internet speed
• It's okay to hug and tickle your students
• You don't use a knife, but scissors instead
• You always carry tissues with you because you never know if there is going to be TP
• You go in a public restroom and find 3 people brushing their teeth
• You don't flush toilet paper.... (It took me a week and an embarrassing email to a friend to figure this out)
• You use the phrase "Same-Same" when asking people questions or when ordering food
• Become a master at charades... Example: When looking for the impossible kitty litter, I took a bag of cat food to a sales lady, pointed at the cat, meowed, and started scratching and lifting up my leg like I was trying to a pee... Mission was unsuccessful. She said I could use the food for cat litter. Fail. 
• A pizza from Pizza hut is $24

Haven't gotten lost!!! This week...

This week has been VERY busy!!! We enjoyed our first real "weekend" on Friday by going out for Indian food and taking a very crowded bus home. Unfortunately for the cute little Korean girl standing next to me, I fell over numerous times as the "skillful" bus driver raced down the streets. The Indian was so fabulous that Carl and I went back on Tuesday night for more! 

On Saturday we joined up with our recruiter and met loads of new foreigners! I haven't seen so many English speaking people in one central location since I've been in Korea! It was absolutely fabulous! We started off by going downtown and eating Shabu Shabu- which is essentially meat you cook yourself in a pot of spicy broth with loads of greens and mushrooms.

I forgot to take a picture... So I pulled this one off of google, almost like what we had.

 It was absolutely scrumptious! Since I have been here in Korea, my tastebuds have craved spice and heat, and unlike many of my fellow westerners I cringe at the idea of having (*gasp!*) PIZZA! After dinner we experienced Korean nightlife for the first time.

Yes, We have come to Korea to go to a German Bar

 The westerners took us to various foreigner bars where we could get to know each other better and talk about life in Korea. We had such a blast!

How F*&%ing HUGE is that beer!?!?!?

After sleeping in until after noon on Sunday, we threw on our soccer jersey's and headed to the World Cup Stadium to watch our own Gwangju FC play Seoul. It was quite an experience! Even though the stadium seemed rather empty, it was amazing to see the sportsmanship and cheering that goes on during sports games in Korea. After brillantly beating Seoul (a shocker to all!) we quickly asked our Korean boss the next morning how to say "Good game!" We live about a block away from the team and see them nearly everyday, so we wanted to be able to congratulate them on their victory! 

I learned another important cultural difference this week in Korean life. We had a lot of kids this week at the village, and was really the first time since I've been here that I have seen kids regularly. This week we had a lot of preschool/Kindy and Elementary children come to the village. Some fantastic, and some extremely shy. You tend to not get kids that really misbehave, at least not the way that kids misbehave in American schools. BUT, what I learned this week is the difference in Korean age and American age. In America, when you are born, you are 0 months old and exactly 12 months later you turn 1 year old. In Korea, you are 1 year old the moment that you are born. They count the time that you are in the womb as an age. BUT Korean's also turn ANOTHER year old on New Years. In order to calculate your Korean age

Current Year-Year you were born + 1 = Korean Age

2011-1986+1=26

HOLY WOW! I'M 26 IN KOREA!?!?!?!??!?! 

How this becomes super relevent to me is when they say, we are having 4-7 year olds coming to the village today. I had kids today that could not have been older than 3... Can you imagine how difficult that would be? They barely speak Korean, let alone English!!! It's just another challenge that you learn to manage, and at the end of the day your voice is gone and you have dirt all over you from playing on the grass, but they are cuter than anything you can imagine! My favorite this week was having Kinders. They were Korean age 5, so probably 4 years old. A group of girls had so much fun playing with my eyes, lifting my eyelids up and down and out. It's probably why I have a sty in my eye now, but oh well! 

Korea is also a lot different in the fact that you are allowed to touch the children. Most of my days are spent giving children hugs or tickling them. The first time I saw one of our teachers tickle, hug, and throw around a kid I was slightly shocked, despite the fact that I had already read this about Korea. The first day with Kindy's I learned not to wear any jewerly as my favorite necklace and Christmas present from Carl was broken. Carl also learned not to wear his glasses around the Kindy's since they decided he didn't need to wear them. 

:-D

What a day! What a day!!!!

Today was definitely one of those days where we flew by the seat of our pants!!! The day started with teaching Middle School students, which was fun, but hard, but interesting... I was told to teach them about debating, so with basically a day and a half to prepare, I decided to try and teach them an introduction to debate. What is debate? How do you debate? What kind of research do you do before a debate? Worst. Idea. EVER. As I started to talk to them and go through my handout, our manager came in and told me that they said they had no idea what I was saying! Frustrated, because I thought I was doing what I was supposed to, I gave up and went with the flow. Instead of teaching them anything, I let them ask me questions and just free talk the rest of the class because I was just getting blank stares as I asked them, "What do you like?" At the end of the day, I felt defeated and frustrated, but reminded myself that this is going to happen.

The next adventure began when we decided we wanted to go downtown, even though we had no idea how, which way, or even how the buses worked... After being total waygooks staring and pointing at the bus schedule, we gave up and hailed a taxi. We forgot what downtown was called, so we pulled out our "trusty" Korean Phrasebook. Carl then said, "Joong-seem-gah" which SAYS downtown. A $11 cab fare later we were dropped off at the base of a mountain. Not just a base of a mountain, but a Temple. Apparently we were taken to "Jeungsimsa" which is a popular hiking area. I looked out of place in my Converse sneakers and Carl in his Marshall hoodie.

 The next challenge was to get to downtown!!!! This was the end of the bus line, so we finally got to figure out the buses. We got on and then got off at a random place, meandered around until finally stumbling upon a coffee shop where I got up the nerve to ask for help. Luckily, the girl understood me and knew enough English to tell me, "Go straight. Turn right." FINALLY!!!!!!! DOWNTOWN!!!!!!!

We found out way to yet another bus station, but accidentally got on the wrong bus. Not only the wrong bus, but a bus that didn't have any English on it at all... So we had no freaking idea where we were. About 4 stops later we got off and tried to get a taxi, but with very little luck. Our fellow teacher had given us a taxi card with his address on it, and luckily, when we found a taxi we showed him the card to take us there since we live close. Well, the taxi took us to our dong (neighborhood) but definitely not to the address!!! Lesson learned? Speak clearly to taxi drivers or have it written down in Hangul because they will drop you off wherever the heck they want to!!!!!

A whirlwind of a first week!

The hardest part is over!!! The day we flew out was probably the longest 2 days in my entire life!!! Since we had to be in the airport at 4 am, Carl had the greaaaaaaaaaaatttt idea of staying up the entire night. I probably napped for about 45 minutes, but my nerves were high and I was excited. By the time we arrived in Seattle and about to board our long flight to Seoul we were both cranky, smelly, and uncomfortable from the tiny seats on our coach connecting flights. I literally had a woman sitting on me on the flight from Chicago to Seattle while she was munching on jelly beans, ding-dongs, and drinking a diet coke. Unfortunately, the best flight and accomodations happened to be Asiana where both of us slipped an Ambien and passed out. By the time we arrived in Gwangju (around 12:30 am Friday morning) we felt digusting, sweaty, greasy, tired, and hungry. But we made it!!!! It took me about 3 nights of sleeping pills to finally adjust to the time change and the jet lag.

 In the first 24 hrs we've discovered a 7-11 (on every corner), had

copious amount of iced coffee mixtures where it's never going to taste

like you think it should, been to a Lotte Mart (upscale classy Walmart), gone into a restaurant and ordered something/anything (which we leanred wasn't what we wanted), cooked our on barbecue and wrapped it in lettuce, learned that while I LOVE spicy I've NEVER experienced something THIS SPICY, watched Korean TV and kind of enjoyed it, and searched endlessly for power adapters for no luck of landing one. Our little Korean phrasebook has helped some, but sometimes you just gotta nod your head and settle with you're-goona-get-what-you-get. There is

a huge and gorgeous lake several blocks from us where the Koreans all

exercise.

So yesterday was our first full day of teaching. We had 6 adult ladies in the morning who were there to "test" out our program to see if it would be something they would want to take their kids to as well as just to learn. We started out by playing charades with them to lighten up the mood, and then took them to Immigration where we give them passports and ask them questions to try and get a baseline of their english abilities. Some were very good, and some struggled, but they were very interested in talking to us. One lady held up the whole group while they were trying to leave because she kept talking to me and the other girl. We took them to the Furniture shop where we paint and build mini tables, the Bank to fill out a check and explain money, and then to aerobics where we did the "Hokey Pokey". I had that damn song stuck in my head all night! In the afternoon we had a group of 25 elementary kids who come to the camp every other week. Apparently, these are the "worst" kids. "Worst" by Korean standards is well behaved for American students. I manned the Hair shop where you paint faces and paint nails. Yes, even the boys like to "manicure". But what was so rough was the first class (for both us and the boys) was like pulling teeth. We would ask them questions and they would just stare at us. Sometimes I'd ask them what their name was and they would shake their head and get all embarassed. One kid kept telling me his name was "OK!" or make up names. None of the kids wanted paint, and none of the kids wanted nail polish, so we kept saying words for them to repeat and saying "Tada hayeseo" or "Do as I do." We then switched groups and took the kids into the supermarket. This is where the kids got rowdy. They kept taking the money we were showing them and picking up the fruit and running around. Typical kids, right? And this was supposed to be the worst!?!?! It was manageable. Finally, the boys in the class got so unfocused that we just took them outside to play. After dinner, I was playing with them by pretending to chase them and tickle them. All, but one, LOVED it and liked running away from me and playing with me. This one girl would come charging at me screaming. I couldn't figure out if she was upset or playing, so when she screamed at me, I screamed back. She kept holding my hands and pushing me, so I thought she was playing. Apparently, as I learned later, she was not. But that usually she would have been kicking and crying, so I did something right. About 10 minutes of giving all the kids High Fives and her refusing, she ran up to me and demanded a High Five. As they were leaving and in the car she STILL kept giving me High Fives. Needless to say, yesterday was a looonngg day and it didn't take long for me to empty that bottle of Soju I bought the day before knowing I'd need it ;-)

As a reward for surviving our health checks (you know, peeing in a cup in a squat toilet, having blood taken, getting laughed at by Korean nurses by putting the gown on backwards, and having my boobs measured) our managed took us to a park where all of the cherry blossoms are in full bloom and gorgeous! 

We get stared at, and many random kids say "HELLO!!!" to us as we walk past them on the streets. We have no idea what in the world we are doing half the time, but that's the fun in it!!! 

In it for the loooong haul

It has been almost exactly two weeks since Carl and I left Huntington, WV after giving an one week notice at our jobs, packing up our entire apartment, selling off almost everything we own, and forcing hangers upon every person we knew. It's been one heck of a whirlwind!!! After a fantastic showing at our going away party and 3 hours of sleep, Carl and I started our gypsy life in Camden, South Carolina. In 9 days we traveled to South Carolina, Athens, GA, Monroe County, WV, West Chester PA, and Washington, DC. Yeah... That's a lot of miles!!!!   And we aren't done yet! On April 6th I go from Monroe County, WV eventually to Columbus OH. Our flight leaves at 6am from Columbus OH where we were first fly to Chicago and have a 2 hour lay over. Next stop, Seattle. And then Seoul. Wait... We won't get to rest yet! Then there is a 3 hour bus ride to our new home of Gwangju, South Korea! In 36 hours, we will be actively traveling for 26hrs.

On a side note, I'd like to mention just how truly lucky we've been. We have had a wonderful opportunity to see as much of our family as possible and everyone has been so accommodating and flexible. We literally gave everyone a week and half notice before showing up, and many of them had to rearrange their own lives in order to see us, which was incredibly special. These past two weeks have meant more to me than I can even begin to put into words (as tears roll down my face) There is a certain bond that forms around family when you know that your time is restricted and to appreciate the time that you have. We have strengthen so many relationships with our families, as well as our own relationship. (Seriously... Try spending 50 hrs in a car with one person and not wanting to kill them... It's harder than you think!!) There is a mix of emotions flying around. Sad to leave, but excited to take the next step!

안녕히 계세요. 
 Stay in peace