Another day, another bus ride

First of all I would just like to clear up the Internet thing. I'm going to the immigration office in Daejeon today to apply for an alien registration card, which I'm told will take probably 10 days. Only after I get the card can I get Internet at my apartment, so it's going to be probably at least another 10 days, which is a total bummer.


I'm making progress on the bus thing. Now I just approach the bus, say hello, and ask if it's going to my destination to get to school. This eloquent conversation goes something like this:

Annyeoung haseyo? Shipjaga?
Hello, how are you? Shipjaga?

Then the driver either nods or shakes his head. Someday maybe I'll actually know what bus is mine. This day will probably not be any time soon.

I can now recognize the hangul for my town for the ride back! 부여 means Buyeo. Now I can look at the buses and find ones with those symbols and have a more educated guess on if it's the right one. It's pretty cool because now when I look at all the shop signs and stuff I can tell which ones say "Buyeo" on them!

Yesterday I asked Mr. Kim for a register of all the teachers so I could learn their names. He gave me a list along with the class roster for grades 3-6. Get this: on the list of 23 people working at Seokyang, seven have the last name Kim.

So yesterday the third grade class was pretty awful... just constantly talking, getting up and walking around, etc. Mr. Kim apologized after the class for their disruptive behavior, and that's when he dropped the bomb that a lot of kids here are orphans! You can actually SEE the orphanage from my school. In the teachers' lounge after lunch the special ed teacher Mrs. Jee told me 43 (of 150, I think) students are orphans. Wow... that's really, really sad. At least she said that the kids like the woman in charge of them and that they seem happy. When I have a chance I want to ask Mrs. Jee if she knows anything about maybe volunteering there or something. We'll have to see.

I'm off to the immigration office soon, but hopefully I'll get back to Buyeo by 6 because I've been invited to the foreign teachers' soccer team practice! Let's hope I don't embarrass myself too badly.

Also on another note: I have an enclosed balcony in the back of my apartment where my washer and gas pipes, etc. are located. This balcony is a total deathtrap - the wood underneath the floor must be rotting, so there are soft spots and there are legitimate holes (P.S. I am on the fourth floor)! Only they're invisible because they're beneath this faux wood stuff they have on the floor, so whenever I go back there (which is not often) I feel very Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark because I'm super careful where I put my feet. Anyway, Mr. Kim told me the admin people from Seokyang are going to my apartment today to check it out, and OF COURSE last night I started rearranging all my furniture so the place is a total mess. Right now my bed is in the front room of the apartment, aka the biggest room in the place, and I have an office, and I'm trying to move my office into the main room and my bedroom into the office so that I don't have to entertain people in my room. Also maybe my kitchen table can actually then be put to use. But the admin people don't know that, so they're just going to think I'm a slob (which is sort of true).

My address

In case you want to send me anything (which would be awesome!) like mail or whatever, the following is my address

323-751
19-408 Dongnam jugong Apt.
Dongnam-ri Puyeo-eup Puyeo-gun
Chungnam Korea

So that's exactly how Mr. Kim wrote it down for me, so here's the Americanization

323-751 is my zip code
I live in block 19 apt #408
Dongnam is the name of my apartment complex
When you send things overseas, consider writing SOUTH KOREA in all caps (not sure why, I just know that's usually how they do things when mailing internationally)

Thanks!

Garbage picking? Yes, please!

This picks up about a week into my South Korea experience. Since I don't have Internet at my apartment, I've been writing journal entries that I fully intend to post here as soon as I can get them online. So bear with me because I'm not going to describe anything that's happened before today because I've got way more information than you'd ever want to know that will be posted at a later date. For now, the basics:

I live in Buyeo, Chungnam province, South Korea. It's a pretty small town about an hour/hour and a half outside Daejeon, the fifth largest city in SK.

"The Land of the Morning Calm" is a nickname for Korea.

I live in an apartment complex by myself, but there are other native English teachers there as well.

I teach at Seokyang and Seukseung elementary schools, grades 3-6. The former is about 150 students; the latter 60.

I can't speak or read Korean... I am a mute illiterate. Ouch.

I like Korea so far. People are nice and helpful and friendly.

So yesterday I went to one of the other native teacher's apartment for dinner. Bob and his wife Yuan are Australian, though Bob is a native Malaysian and Yuan is from Christmas Island (I must google this). They met in Melbourne. They've got three daughters and have been married for 30+ years. Bob used to be an accountant in Australia before deciding to become a teacher. He said he really just wanted to help educate people. He and Yuan moved to the slums of Bangkok for a year and then South Africa. They moved to Korea because they really wanted somewhere to stay for a while to "see the progression" in their students. They've been in Buyeo for three years, and Yuan said it's home for them.

We had cold noodles and then ice cream. It was delicious. Bob and Yuan are total lifesavers when it comes to knowing what's what in Buyeo and in my apartment complex (Dongnam). They showed me where the good drinking water is, helped me unclog my sink, took me to the garbage collection area, gave me salt and pepper, explained how to use my washer, checked out my gas/heating system, and gave me some tips on moving furniture to maximize space.

The best part was about ten minutes after they left. I had just changed into my pajamas when Bob knocked on the door. Earlier I had asked about the surfeit of furniture in the garbage area because I had seen a small dresser that would make a good nightstand. Bob and Yuan assured me it was okay to grab it if I liked it. So anyway, Bob knocked on my door because he had the two drawers from the nightstand! I told him I'd put on some shoes and help him, so we trucked over to the pile and grabbed a trolley and Yuan directed us to take the nightstand, a long, low table ("For your microwave!"), and a little table ("Hmm, it's a little bent but I have a hammer, we can use that.") So I'm in my pajamas loading up this trolley with furniture covered in sand from the dump site, then I dragged it back to my aparment (Bob - "I should take your picture... hey Mom, look it's my second job!"). Bob and I carry these things up the four flights of stairs to my apartment, so by that time I was sweating bullets (it's like 85 and humid), covered in sand, and still wearing my pajamas. Awesome. But honestly, it was so nice of Bob and Yuan to look out for me like that. Yuan was concerned that if we didn't pounce on the goods, someone else would swipe them.

Saturday I'm going with Bob and Yuan to nearby Nonsan to do some shopping.

Yesterday we had an all-school assembly and the principal introduced me. Mr. Kim, my co-teacher, had me introduce myself to each class. It was kind of hilarious to see the looks on everyone's faces when I started speaking English... this sort of baffled, wide-eyed "whoa!"

Nothing very exciting has happened so far at school. I just sit in the back of the classroom at my desk and watch Mr. Kim teach. I can't tell if the kids think I'm dumb for not speaking Korean. They ask me questions that I can't understand. The sixth graders especially are always coming up to my desk, and one girl wrote her name down for me. It's Jeoung Yu-jin, and their little eyes almost popped out when I read it to them. It's hard for me to tell, but I don't think Korean has much of an accent... it's really phonetic, so if I read phrases out of my phrase book I don't seem to have to worry very much about pronouncing it correctly, which is like 180 degree difference from French.

Yesterday I spent my down time writing and rewriting hangul consonants and vowels. I felt like I was back in first grade when you write the same letter over and over again.