That was a fast month...

It’s hard to believe I’ve been here for a month now. Time has been flying by. I’ve been rock climbing, I took a trip to some beautiful islands, I’ve taken a couple trips to Seoul, I’ve attended a few sporting events, I’ve met a ton of people, I’ve got my town completely figured out, and I’ve done about 15 days of teaching.

During my first two weeks here, I kept searching the area around my building for a dumpster to deposit trash. After not seeing one nearby, I realized that I hadn’t seen a single one anywhere near my apartment. I decided to ask a coworker if they knew where I should put my trash and the reply was simple: “Just set it outside.” I liked that plan, so the next morning I set the trash out on my way to work and by the time I got home it was gone. I have no idea who took my trash, but I am quickly beginning to like how the system works.

The trip to the DeokJeok Islands went really well. The islands were beautiful. We had an enjoyable 9v9 impromptu beach soccer game, an awesome trip to the Noraebang, a couple great hikes, a bonfire, and a couple night-swims in the Yellow Sea. Overall, I met a lot of people and had an awesome time. The weather could have been better though. It was pretty cloudy the first couple days and we got poured on for a couple hours the first night. Naturally, the day we left it was very sunny and warm, perfect weather for the beach.

I’m still enjoying trying all the new foods. When I go to eat with others I will always try something new and then write down how to order it. That way I give myself a few more options each time I go out to eat by myself. I’ve had quite a few delicious spicy dishes. I’ve been having my students recommend dishes to me and then I try to order them sometime that week before I have the class again. Some of the students are extremely shy, so getting them to recommend food to me has been one of the few ways to get them talking at times.

I’ve been trying to get back into my running routine as well. It is very difficult to run on the streets around here though for a variety of reasons. First, Koreans are not used to people running around the streets so they aren’t prepared to move out of the way and not take up the whole sidewalk when I’m coming. Second, the stoplights/crosswalks take forever to change. Lastly, the park I found which has some good running paths is a 20-minute jog away. That 20-minute jog typically involves about 4 or 5 minutes of waiting at stoplights. That means I’ll go jogging for a little over an hour and most of the time is spent on the street navigating people and stoplights, instead of at the park. Needless to say, I’ve figured out how to take the bus to the park now so I don’t have to navigate the streets anymore. I also get an incredible amount of funny looks/stares from the Koreans when I go running. I already get enough people staring just when I am walking around, but when I put on my running gear then they all have to take an extra long look.

The Korean sports culture is quite a bit different here as well. During my second weekend I went to a professional baseball game at the stadium here in Incheon. I typically could care less about watching a baseball game on TV, but I generally enjoy watching them in person. The Koreans have embraced the fact that baseball is boring so they have figured out a way to keep all the fans that are at the game entertained. They have about 6 or 7 female cheerleaders dancing and then a male cheerleader that is running all the chants and blowing his whistle constantly. They are on a stage in front of everyone along the first base line and when the home team is up to bat everyone stands up, sings, and dances throughout the whole half of the inning. It is a bit distracting but very entertaining. Last Sunday I went to an American Football game and then a soccer game at the Seoul World Cup Stadium. The American Football game was a small league that seemed to be mostly Americans, Canadians, and Koreans. It was pretty low quality and not very entertaining to watch. It was barely above high school level in my opinion. There were only a hundred fans or so. The soccer game was far more entertaining. They had a group of cheerleaders on a stage that were similar to the ones at the baseball game. The quality of soccer was descent as well. There were probably about 30,000 or so fans there, but that was only half full. It is one of the stadiums that were built for the 2002 World Cup and they played one of the semi-final games there.

Teaching has been going pretty well. I’m midway through my third full week now and I kind of feel like I’m starting to get the hang of it. Getting used to the hours is still very difficult though. My body still doesn’t like going to sleep at 3 or 4am and waking up around 11am. Most of my students are pretty cool though. I teach a total of 27 classes each week and I think there are only 4 or 5 that I have twice in the same week so I really have only had two or three classes with most of my students. My classes vary between 4 to 19 students, which means I probably have around 150 or 175 different students. The main challenge is keeping them entertained though. The books that I’m provided are pretty boring and uninteresting so I usually have to come up with a game or something else to discuss with them. From what I’ve gathered from my other teachers, some of the classes will remain boring no matter what I do. Of the six classes I teach per day, only one or two are not enjoyable so it won’t be too difficult to focus on the other four or five. The other nice thing is that I get a large amount of freedom in the classroom. They want me to get through the book they give me for each class, but they also want me to keep the kids entertained. As long as the books are mostly filled out then they are happy.

There are a couple other interesting things I’ve noticed as well. One thing that I love is how Koreans do karaoke. The call it a Noraebang and it is incredible. Instead of having karaoke as an annoying background noise in a bar that happens once a week or so, they let you rent out a private room for your friends where everyone can go in together and start singing. If you go in with the right group of friends then it is extremely enjoyable.

Another interesting thing is the prevalence of rock, paper, scissors here. Korean’s love to use it to decide things. I use it in the classroom during most classes to decide who goes first for games or presentations and the students love it. I watched a couple play a violent version to kill time on the subway where the loser got either slapped on the wrist or flicked in the head. They definitely drew blood by the end of the ride. Earlier today, I was walking on the street and heard a group of women laughing and screaming in a nearby business. When I walked by, I looked in and saw 5 women sitting around a table playing a 5-way version of the game. I don’t know how it works but they were clearly having a heck of a good time. I swear they would use the game to decide everything if they could.

Well I’m sure that is a long enough blog for now. It’s been a great trip so far and now that I’m mostly settled in I’ll attempt to blog a little more often from here on out.