Day 2 in Korea
After I got some sleep, I woke up the next morning bright and early for work. (I won't mention my school's name on here either, so I'll just call it English School.) My coworker met me before school so that I could walk with him and also took me to his bank to exchange what American money I had into Korean won.
Day 1 at the school was just like a whirlwind of a lot of names and information so it went really quickly. I had kindergarten from 10 am - 2 pm and then I have various levels of elementary from 2 - either 4 pm or 7 pm depending on the day.
As soon as I can, I'll post some pictures of the school or the kids because they are both so adorable, (my mom would die for these little Korean kids!). They are all extremely intelligent and can already speak in complete, for the most part grammatically correct sentences and they all go by English names like Hubert and Alice. My largest class is 11 kids and my smallest is 8, so it's totally manageable.
The lesson plans fit right in with my arrival because they were learning the "ch" sound in one class, the different types of hair in the next, and ocean animals in the one after that, so that was pretty funny.
Only one little girl stayed after class to ask me why I had dots on my arm and asked genuinely if I was okay. She was so concerned that something was wrong with me because I had freckles! And when the kids were learning about hair, they all said that my hair color was "gold" which I think is infinitely more cute than redhead.
It's been nonstop since my first day. On the walk to work my first day of school, I accidentally crashed a wedding! Here's what a Korean wedding party looks like.
I also had to go to the hospital in Bucheon to get a physical done so I could get my Alien Residency Card and it was quite the experience. I had to wear a mask there because you know, MERRS. There were tents outside of the hospital and they screened everyone before they went in which was pretty intense. Once inside, everything was Korean so I fumbled my way through everything. The most high stakes game of mime I've ever played. Oh, do you want me to sit in this chair or are you telling me to leave? Do you want me to put on this robe to take the chest x-ray or am I the weird foreign girl that just got undress and looks like they escaped a mental ward? Who knows, but I think I did everything right because there was minimal yelling. I did accidentally see an old woman topless which was awkward but I powered through.
So, other than that I have gotten a lot of fried chicken and bbq here and gotten to eat a lot of awesome interesting food. But, the main thing I have learned here is that EVERYTHING IS SPICY. I got regular fried chicken the other night with some coworkers......and it was spicy. I had lunch at the school yesterday and I had tofu, seaweed soup. Sounds safe, right? Right!? WRONG IT WAS SO SPICY. I embarrassed myself in front of all of my coworkers, oops. But, Zeens will be happy to know that I am getting better. My spice tolerance is getting higher and higher every day because it has to because everything is spicy here.
But my coworkers seem really great. Most are from America, but 3 are from Canada. We went to a Korean BBQ place last night and it was so delish. It was so chill -- the table was literally on the street in front of the restaurant and there was a grill in the middle of the table and you grilled your own meat as a table and ate it right off the grill. So fun :) Here was the view.
So, I live on the same block as this place and this is basically what I step into everytime I leave my apartment. I thought it would be really difficult to adjust here, but so far it hasn't really been that bad. I'm sure I have a lot to learn (like how to read Korean money. I thought the other day that I brought a $50 with me and it turned out it was $5. My bad) but so far I can get around.
They had McDonald's and Subway a block away from my school and surprisingly they taste the exact same! The McDonald's also has a shrimp burger and a bulgogi burger but other than that, the same.
This post has been a little scatterbrained but this week has been such a blur! I am going to try to decorate my apartment this week so I will post pictures soon!
Only one little girl stayed after class to ask me why I had dots on my arm and asked genuinely if I was okay. She was so concerned that something was wrong with me because I had freckles! And when the kids were learning about hair, they all said that my hair color was "gold" which I think is infinitely more cute than redhead.
It's been nonstop since my first day. On the walk to work my first day of school, I accidentally crashed a wedding! Here's what a Korean wedding party looks like.
I also had to go to the hospital in Bucheon to get a physical done so I could get my Alien Residency Card and it was quite the experience. I had to wear a mask there because you know, MERRS. There were tents outside of the hospital and they screened everyone before they went in which was pretty intense. Once inside, everything was Korean so I fumbled my way through everything. The most high stakes game of mime I've ever played. Oh, do you want me to sit in this chair or are you telling me to leave? Do you want me to put on this robe to take the chest x-ray or am I the weird foreign girl that just got undress and looks like they escaped a mental ward? Who knows, but I think I did everything right because there was minimal yelling. I did accidentally see an old woman topless which was awkward but I powered through.
So, other than that I have gotten a lot of fried chicken and bbq here and gotten to eat a lot of awesome interesting food. But, the main thing I have learned here is that EVERYTHING IS SPICY. I got regular fried chicken the other night with some coworkers......and it was spicy. I had lunch at the school yesterday and I had tofu, seaweed soup. Sounds safe, right? Right!? WRONG IT WAS SO SPICY. I embarrassed myself in front of all of my coworkers, oops. But, Zeens will be happy to know that I am getting better. My spice tolerance is getting higher and higher every day because it has to because everything is spicy here.
But my coworkers seem really great. Most are from America, but 3 are from Canada. We went to a Korean BBQ place last night and it was so delish. It was so chill -- the table was literally on the street in front of the restaurant and there was a grill in the middle of the table and you grilled your own meat as a table and ate it right off the grill. So fun :) Here was the view.
So, I live on the same block as this place and this is basically what I step into everytime I leave my apartment. I thought it would be really difficult to adjust here, but so far it hasn't really been that bad. I'm sure I have a lot to learn (like how to read Korean money. I thought the other day that I brought a $50 with me and it turned out it was $5. My bad) but so far I can get around.
They had McDonald's and Subway a block away from my school and surprisingly they taste the exact same! The McDonald's also has a shrimp burger and a bulgogi burger but other than that, the same.
This post has been a little scatterbrained but this week has been such a blur! I am going to try to decorate my apartment this week so I will post pictures soon!
This is so cool Chelsea! I'm glad there was minimal yelling at the hospital and that street that you live on looks beautiful :)
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