I have pictures!

Welcome, friends, to a blog where I post photos. Of my apartment.  Because I lucked out and have internet already! Also a bank account. Things happen fast here.

Okaaaay photos.

This is the view from basically my front door. Straight ahead is the bathroom, to the left is my kitchen, and to the right is THE room.

 Here we see THE room, complete with bed, desk, chair, flat screen tv mounted to the wall, and a wardrobe and shelves out of sight in the corners. The wall paper is really lovely!

And last but not least is my laundry room, which also houses the fridge and pleasant surprise microwave! It's located to the left of the room shown above.

And that concludes our tour! I'm really really happy with it. I had been warned that it might be even smaller and a lot dirtier. It's really cute, really clean, in a FANTASTIC neighbourhood, and best of all there are no gates hahaha.

I also had my first day of teaching today...I think it might end up being a pretty laid back year for me. My co-teachers seem like they might do quite a bit of the leading and I will just supplement with my native speaking skills. We'll see though, there might yet be some lesson planning in my future.

UPDATE

Quick update because I'm pretty sure I've got to go and get on a bus soon.

Thing 1: Orientation is over at last and I've been told that I'm teaching at two different elementary schools that are in the same area. One school gave me a fairly detailed description, saying I would be teaching there wednesday to friday, grades 4-6. The other school provided almost no detail, so all I know is that there are 300 students or something and 20 classes. OK, that was a short one, but I've gotta run, and I likely won't have internet for a couple of weeks.

First Korea Post!!

Hi friends! The blog is back by popular demand (I swear it)! I flew into South Korea last night and am currently staying in a dorm room at what I assume is a university in the city of Daejon. I woke up in Toronto on Sunday morning at 4am, was on a plane around 8am, flew 5 hours to San Francisco and then another almost 12 hours from there to Seoul. From the airport we got on a “shuttle bus” for a 3 hour trip to Daejon. We got here and settled in around midnight on Monday. I didn't see a sunset from Sunday morning to Monday night. For serious. It was like we just skipped right over Sunday night...which I guess is exactly what happened. Anyway, we're here and the jet lag isn't so bad as of right now.

Points of interest thus far: after I had cleared security I walked into a washroom at Pearson and saw a girl that went to university with me drying her hands. We had had a few classes together but I hadn't really heard from her in a couple years, but we remembered each other. Turns out, not only was she flying to South Korea to teach English, she was going to the exact same city as me! My guess is that the chances of that happening are pretty slim right? Anyway, not even on a plane yet and off to a pretty good start. When I got here I met ANOTHER girl who went to UTSC for a couple of years and found out we have some mutual friends too!

UPDATE: I have now been here for a couple of days. I have been REALLY busy. We've got a packed schedule starting at breakfast at 7:30am and ending with Korean lessons that are over at 8:30. For seven days in a row. Friday gives us a nice little break with a field trip into the city (but still takes up the whole damn day). The food is served to us cafeteria style and it has been cracking me up on the regular. They are trying to cook food that is familiar to us, but since they are Koreans who cook for Koreans, the meals are usually lacklustre and a little strange sometimes. Lots of soup for breakfast, lunch AND dinner...creamy, bland, thick stuff that looks suspiciously all alike even though it's got a different name each time. And cabbage! Cabbage in the soups, cabbage in the stir fries, cabbage in the salad, cabbage in the meat (I swear). Also there were hotdogs (or spam) in my lasagna today hahaha. Yesterday for dinner it was rice, fried rice AND spaghetti, which also made me LOL.

What else...had the medical check up today. I will list all of the things that happened. Hearing test, colour blindness test, urine sample, blood sample, height, weight and chest measurements (by chest I mean my rack...so they're going to totally label me as obese lol ), eye test, consultation with doctor (for real), blood pressure and an X-ray which took place in a mobile X-ray bus. The same bus, my temporary roomate pointed out, on which the muffins they were feeding us afterwards were being stored. Thus the title “radiation muffins” was coined today haha.

Ok, this should be an update enough for everyone. I still don't find out what age I am teaching or where I'm living for sure until Sunday I think. I haven't had a chance to explore Daejon at all since the gave us a TEN PM CURFEW because foreigners can't be trusted. Found a bar down the street from the campus last night, but this area doesn't appear to be super trendy or anything. Will give more details when I can though.