Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Our New Schedule!

Again, not a whole lot to update on. We spent half the day yesterday observing another English camp lead by Dangye Elementary School. The English Camp is one week long. The teachers put together a booklet of activities ranging all different subjects. Music, dance, cooking, culture, drama, and mini-Olympics were all subjects that the kids got to explore for one week. No tests, no homework, just show up and have fun! 

We watched cooking class, part of the science class, and part of the mini-Olympics class. It looked like the kids were having great fun! Dangye English Camp inspired our own two-day camps at Seongnam. After we finished observing, we returned to our school with enough time to plan our two-day camps for the upcoming school year. Our camp includes culture, music, cooking, storytelling, science, and gym. 

Every week our camp welcomes new students from all over Hoengseung. We teach 3rd/4th grade students on Mon/Tues and 5th/6th grade on Wed/Thurs. Each day is three periods from 9:50-12:10. The nice thing about our camp is that we only need to prepare two lessons for each class, one for the 3rd&4th grade group and on for the 5th&6th grade group and we teach the same lesson every week to new students. 

Yours truly gets to teach music, cooking, and gym class. I know, the image of me teaching cooking and music classes is hilarious. However, I get to eat a free PB&J everyday! Jacob is teaching the "storytelling" (more of a literature type class) and science classes. 

Friday mornings we teach six adult classes between the three native teachers here. Jacob is teaching two advanced adult classes, I'm teaching two intermediate adult classes and our co-worker, Linda, is teaching one intermediate and one advanced class. 

After lunch our Seongnam Elementary program begins. I get to teach Kindy! Yay! Jacob has 2nd graders and advanced students, our co-worker is teaching 1st grade and intermediate learners. 

The last program is the after school program. We renamed our groups from Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Gryffindor, to Hobbits(es), Elves, and Eagles. If you're a LOTR fan, you're welcome! Originally we had Hobbits, Elves, and Wizards, but apparently Wizards are seen as evil in Korea.

Jacob is teaching the Eagles (advanced students) and Phonics class (new to English), I am teaching the Elves (intermediate) and Writing club (advanced). 

I have already started planning for my new classes, I am so excited to have a full schedule, our days will fly by! 



At another coffee shop. Where we spend a lot of time on the weekends.
Coffee shops never fill to the top!

Went to see American Sniper
Half bulgogi/sweet potato pizza. Oh Koreans.

Shout out to Kelsey and these adorable "lap dogs"! Miss you all! 

Puppy/baby fever happening over here, people!

Safety, first!











Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Apartment tour!

Not much to update on. We have been trying all sorts of food for dinner; Vietnamese Pho, pizza, traditional Korean food, Mexican, and American food! Feeding ourselves is the most challenging part of living here so far. We normally just eat cereal for breakfast and make PB&J's for lunch and eat dinner out. Cooking at home isn't very easy for us since we don't have any cooking stuff with the exception of one pot that we normally cook noodles in.

Besides food (my favorite topic), teaching is going great! We've been operating under the assumption that we had the entire month of February off, per our co-teacher's direction. Unfortunately, we found out that we are actually teaching two more classes. In total, we will be teaching three classes a day for two weeks. After two weeks, we go back to teaching one class a day for two more weeks. The beginning of March is the start of a new school year where we will begin teaching normal hours. Our day will consist of teaching 4-6 classes a day. 

In the morning we teach kids from all over the Hoengseung area (Mon-Thur) and adults on Friday. In the afternoon we teach the Seongnam Elementary kids and then an after school program of kids from Hoengseung. It has been very confusing for us to figure this all out, but I think we finally understand the scope of our position! I get to teach 2nd grade students and "intermediate" students along with my Hufflepuff and Reading Club kids. Jacob has 1st graders and "advanced" students along with his Gryffindor and Writing Club kids. However, we get all new students in March, so we will have more updates in a month or so!

Now for the exciting part, below is a video of our apartment! We don't plan on spending money to decorate, we think the wallpaper is plenty of decoration. Our bed is absolutely horrible. We bought a mattress pad to try and ease our pains, but it just doesn't get the job done. The shower in the bathroom is really not as bad as it might seem. Since we are gone most of the time, we shower in the morning and it's dry by the time we get back home. The worst part is that the shower is connected to the faucet so you have turn a dial to switch the water source back and forth between the shower and the faucet. Luckily, we haven't turned the water on to wash our hands and got a shower instead!





Delicious dessert

It's huge
"Gimbap Heaven" delicious and cheap Korean food!

Super fresh gimbap! Made to order :)
Dol sot bibimbap! DELICIOUS.

Just another picture of the little restaurant

Jacob's cheeseburger and fries. Bun and fries are homemade!

Chips and queso

Vegetarian pizza. Homemade crust! Yum! Pesto sauce, onion, tomato, garlic, pineapple, cheese


Shout out to Hayes! I miss this little bugger!


Monday, January 12, 2015

Our First REAL Day of Work

Today marked our first day of teaching English! Like I said earlier, we only teach one class a day for three weeks during the kids' winter vacation. Regular classes begin on March 2nd when we teach 4-6 classes a day. Rumor has it, I will be teaching kindergartners! Yay and eek at the same time. Sure wish I knew how to speak Korean.

Anyway, our first day of teaching flew by! I ended up having too many activities planned, always a good thing, in my opinion! I had beginner students and they were all so enthusiastic, it was so much fun! Many of the kids would try to speak to me in Korean and I felt so bad that I couldn't answer their questions. However, I introduced myself to them by showing pictures of my family, friends, and activities I like (mainly, traveling).

At the end of the day, the students told our co-teacher all about me! How I had four brothers, two sisters, and five dogs. It was the most adorable thing I've ever seen. Judging my first day, it is shaping up to be a fun-filled three weeks!

Unfortunately, Jacob doesn't want to blog about his day today. All I got out of him was, "it was good".


Coby hard at work :)
First day of school pic! 
My first "example" craft, name tags!
"Library"


Lecture room that Jacob teaches in


Lecture room that I work in




Hallway of English Center where lecture rooms are
Teacher's room where we spend most of our time
Some of pictures of my "beginner" students

One of my favorite meals, dak galbi (chicken) 
Chicken, cabbage, onion, rice cake, covered in chili pepper paste

Afterward, they serve kimchi rice

My favorite meal of all time! Beef shabu shabu!

Afterward they serve noodles and rice

Some kind of juice that goes with the shabu shabu


Sunday, January 11, 2015

Navigator Nikki?

This past weekend was pretty low key for us. Saturday we slept in and watched movies until around 2pm. We started getting really hungry and decided to venture out to "explore the bus system". We received a few suggestions on the FB group for good bulgogi restaurants. One of the restaurants was located near Lotte Cinema. Lotte Cinema wasn't too far away from where we were, only a quick ten minute bus ride. I hopped on Google maps to find the right bus and how often it runs.

Five minutes later we were standing at the bus stop across the street from our apartment. We were standing and waiting for a few minutes when I looked at the electronic schedule posted and the bus number we wanted wasn't listed. Well, crap. Instead, we walked down to the main bus terminal area where all the buses pass through, grabbed coffee, and tried to Google the right bus, again. This time, it told us to get on a different bus and it was arriving in four minutes. We pack up our stuff and walk across the street to the bus stop. It was all hustle and bustle with people young and old climbing on and off crowded buses.

After four minutes, the bus was nowhere to be seen. Google failed us again. But this time, we wait for the bus. It was only ten minutes later when our bus (#52) arrived! We climbed aboard and sat down. The bus pulled off and immediately, I sensed something was wrong. Not only did we get a seat to sit in, a very rare occurrence on a city bus, but every single person on the bus was over the age of 65. These people were not headed to Lotte Cinema. We got on the bus heading the wrong direction!

Forty five minutes into our bus ride, we were sitting and laughing at ourselves. We ended up getting a nice scenic tour of Wonju countryside! Weaving and winding through long narrow country roads, and passing through the occasional country town with little huts and kimchi pots, it wasn't as horrible as I was thinking in the moment.

We started heading back toward Wonju, phew! Two minutes later we were in a parking lot turning around and heading further into the countryside. Great! This time, we went even further out, passing through the same towns as before. Eventually we started heading back to the city (again). Finally we were passing through one town I recognized, I was hopeful that we would make it back home! Just as that thought passed through my mind, the bus stopped in the middle of the road and started backing into a parking lot. The bus driver proceeded to park, turn the bus off, climb out of the bus and walk past our windows, when he looked up and laughed at us, saying something in Korean that we obviously didn't understand.

We only waited in this town for 10 minutes then we continued on to the city! We were just coming up on the same parking lot that we turned around at earlier, when I started praying that we would just pass it and continue to go home. Alas, we turned around yet again! This trip was UNREAL at this point in time. At least the bus was heated and uncrowded.

Once again, like a broken record, we were heading back into the countryside. This time, we ended up going north instead of west and looping around a town that met back up with the main road to Wonju. We were finally going home.

Our decision on the long ride back was, do we continue on this bus to get to Lotte Cinema or do we get off at the bus terminal and find another bus or take a taxi? We decided to stay on the bus to see if it would in fact take us to where were trying to go.

I had the bus route pulled up on my phone and was watching very carefully that the bus stayed on the route. The bus started turning off of the route and we got off at the first chance. Well, we were at least closer to Lotte Cinema... we walked 15 blocks in the freezing cold and we finally saw Outback Steakhouse! I knew we had to be close because of all the western food around (Outback, Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts, McDonalds).

The Outback was in a massive building and of course it was all written in Korean so we continued to walk. After a couple blocks all the buildings started getting smaller and turned into apartment buildings and small shops! No! We turned around and headed back to the Outback Steakhouse. I stopped one boy who looked like the right age to be learning English in school and asked where Lotte Cinema was. Turns out I was right! The guy spoke great English and walked us right into the building that the Outback Steakhouse was in. Great, we walked back and forth right in front of the place we were trying to get to!

We explored the building and found no bulgogi restaurants. Disappointed and extremely hungry, I hopped back on FB and opened the map on the Wonju FB group to see where other restaurants were located. Right next to the Lotte Cinema building was a restaurant called Chaesundong, a shabu shabu place! Yay! We went in and had the best shabu shabu so far this trip!

After dinner we opted to take another bus home. No problems the second time around. We hopped on and it took us straight to the bus terminal, a warm and welcoming sight! We finished our evening at a nice dessert cafe across the street from the bus terminals. I think it's safe to say that Navigator Nikki is going to retire her conductor hat.


Frozen waterfall! 

This is only a partial route of the bus we were on. 




Wednesday, January 7, 2015

Work, work, work.

First Day

Over the weekend we made plans to visit our longtime family friends in Songdo. Our plan was to go see Seoul all day Tuesday and head over to Songdo in the evening and spend the night. Explore Songdo all day Wednesday and come back Wednesday evening so we could prep for our classes before they start on Monday, the 12th.Monday morning our Korean co-teacher, Angela, took us to Chuncheon to get our alien immigration cards. Chuncheon, the capital of the province, is about an hour north of Wonju. On our way to Chuncheon we were chatting and told Angela that we were going to go see Seoul on Tuesday. She asked us, "you're not going to school?" Ohhh, apparently we are getting paid to work, not play! We thought if the kids weren't in school, we didn't have to be either. Especially since no one communicated our official "start" date except when the first day of classes start. However, we rolled with the punches and cancelled our trip to Seoul and Songdo.

Our first day of "work" began with a 20 minute wait in the freezing cold at the bus stop. Luckily, the bus stop is right outside of our apartment so we didn't have to walk far. Once the 2-1 bus finally arrived, we used our T-money bus cards to pay and then came the waiting game. We kept our eyes peeled looking for the Wonju airport. We were told to get off the bus one stop after the Wonju airport. The bus ride was crowded and the windows were frosted so it was hard to see outside. As we got further out of the city, the bus started to empty a bit so we actually got seats to sit in. Thirty minutes later, the airport was in sight and we hit the "stop" button on the bus. We got off one stop after the airport like we were told and our very first commute to work was a huge success! Got on the right bus, got off at the right stop, and to the school in time for our 9am work day!

Our day consisted of sitting on the computer for all eight hours browsing the web, looking for good games, songs, and activities for the kids, and chatting with Angela, our co-teacher. 

The next adventure was getting home. Apparently the bus we took to school doesn't come as often as other buses. Jacob started using Google maps halfway through the day to find the right bus to get back home. Meanwhile, a very long conversation ensued between our co-teacher and the facilities guy, discussing when we needed to leave the school to get to the bus stop, which bus to take and where to get off. After twenty minutes, and more research we were told to take the number 2 bus back home. Jacob had different plans. He wanted to take the 2-8 bus back to the apartment. He had it all planned. The bus arrived at 5:14 and we were going to leave the school right at 5pm. Our co-teacher and facilities guy left a few minutes early so we ended up leaving too. We were standing at the bus stop a few minutes before 5 when the 2-1 bus pulled up to our stop. What do we do? Throw out all the plans that were just made and hop aboard! We diligently watched out the windows on the way home for our bus stop. It dropped us one block further down on the opposite side of the road from our morning bus.

We ended our day with a nice shabu shabu meal at what is becoming our favorite restaurant, Shabu Hwang.  Afterward, we walked to the big department store in search of warm fuzzy slippers for school! I was very successful in finding some thick, warm Bearpaw slippers. Jacob was SOL. No one in the department store carried men's slippers. By the time we got back to our apartment it was nearing 8:30 and we were exhausted! We showered, browsed the web a wee bit more, and crawled into bed at 9:30. Our first day of work was a smashing and very, very tiring success!


Second Day


Finally caught up to present day! During lunch time Angela called us a taxi to take us to Hoengseung. Our school is located on the outskirts of town, which is to far away from the downtown area to walk. We exchanged money so we had enough to take the bus back home and then walked around the very small town for a little bit and got coffee. Before we moved here, the school gave us an option to live in Wonju or Hoengseung and we are very glad that we chose Wonju! 



Here are a few pictures of Hoengseung and our workplace:
Downtown Hoengseung

Downtown

Downtown
Main transit area?


We found Korean Bob's Burgers!

Outside of English Center. Doors were locked so we will update later with pictures of the inside!


Seongnam Elementary is the big brown building. Our workplace is to the yellow "bus" to the left.