Brace yourselves this first post is gonna be a long one:
After about three (long past) going away parties, I was becoming frustrated with not knowing when I would be leaving for South Korea. I found out on Tuesday the 26th that I would be leaving for Toronto that Thursday morning at 5am. When things happen they happen very fast! I should have been prepared since I had originally planned to leave on the 10th of August, but being the procrastinator I am, I was not. Luckily Jenny was able to come over and pretty much pack for me.
At the airport in Winnipeg at about 4:15am I found out that my luggage is too heavy, so heavy that there was no way they could take it so I would have to cut it down. We had thought ahead and brought a garbage bag for my mom and sister to take home whatever had to be taken out. I ended up parting with a large towel (I later regreted this when drying off with hand towels), a pair of shoes, a bathing suit and a few random pieces of clothing. My mom then paid $100.00 so I could keep the rest. My flight left Winnipeg at 5am, this young kid was sitting next to me on the airplane, I sparked up a conversation with him. It turned out that Clayton had played football with my brother Dave at Kelvin - small world - he was moving to Toronto to go to school to become a famous actor. I slept most of the way.
I got to Toronto at about 8:15am and missed Winnipeg as soon as I realized that the luggage carts at the airport cost $2.00. Once Clayton and I got our luggage we parted ways, he was brave to venture downtown on the subway with his huge hockey bag. I started walking towards the taxi stand and was approached by a man "looking for a cab miss?" I reply yes and he gestures me to follow him. This was a little sketchy, he led me to to the parkade very fast and popped the trunk of an unmarked car. "Why is your car unmarked?" "oh some are just like that" and I say "why don't you have a meter" he says "oh it's just a flat rate, where are you going?" At this point we are driving out of the parkade and I am exhausted, a small part of me thinks that I am being kidnapped. To make matters worse I gave him the address that I am going to and he had no idea where it was. We call Dorothy's (my mom's cousin) house - no answer, we try again, no answer. We try her at work - no answer. Then I remember that Meagan had printed me off some google maps of the places in Toronto that I had to get to. Good old big sis, saving me even from so far away - I miss her! After a very nervous 20 minutes we get to the address and the driver insists that I make sure someone is home before he lifts my monster suitcase out of his trunk. My uncle Gord is home, I wake him up and the driver struggles to carry my luggage to the door. I later learn from my uncle, a former cab driver, that I had been "scooped" and ripped off - it was illegal of him. Lesson learned - I was happy to be there.
After a two hour nap I met Alex on the corner of St. Clair and Avenue at 1:00. Alex and I had lunch and cider at a little pub called Scallywags close to Yonge St before my interview at the consulate.
My interview was at 3:00, Alex walked me there and we said goodbye. The Consulate was busy, full of people trying to get their visas. I met two girls also waiting for their interviews - FACEBOOK! My interview was probably four minutes, Why do you want to teach in Korea? How will you be good at teaching children? What will you do to motivate your students? The man doing the interview was happy that I was going to his home city, Gwangju. By this time it is 3:04, my visa would not be ready until after 4:10. I took off and explored downtown Toronto for a little while, I was hoping to buy a watch... somehow I had no luck. I did however have a blended iced chai latte from Second Cup... no good, I chucked it. Headed back to the Consulate at 4:05 and was put in a room to wait for my visa, there were three guys waiting with me and I recognized one of them, turns out his name is Richard and he is also a Menno Simons grad - again, small world! By 4:30 I was sitting on a bench outside visa in hand waiting for Dorothy to pick me up. While I was waiting I was approached by an older lady named Theresa who is also moving to South Korea to teach English. Dorothy picked me up and after a quick dinner with her and her son Jamie I was on my way back to the airport.
I was checked in and already waiting to board by 8:45, had a lot of time to kill so I scanned the area and decided to introduce myslef to a couple of young people. Turns out they were on their way back to South Korea for their second year of teaching. Jason and Amanda were really nice, I learned a lot from them. Jason was wearing a t-shirt that said "foreigner" in Korean characters and ALL of the Koreans loved it. He had a bag of gummy worms that he offered to this little Korean girl and she and her grandmother became our friends instantly. The little girl's name was Alice and she kept saying "I am so happy!" she had been in Canada on vacation for a lon time with her grandmother and could not wait to see her mother - in the airport in Incheon we saw her mother carrying her and she was crying, it was very sweet!
My interview was at 3:00, Alex walked me there and we said goodbye. The Consulate was busy, full of people trying to get their visas. I met two girls also waiting for their interviews - FACEBOOK! My interview was probably four minutes, Why do you want to teach in Korea? How will you be good at teaching children? What will you do to motivate your students? The man doing the interview was happy that I was going to his home city, Gwangju. By this time it is 3:04, my visa would not be ready until after 4:10. I took off and explored downtown Toronto for a little while, I was hoping to buy a watch... somehow I had no luck. I did however have a blended iced chai latte from Second Cup... no good, I chucked it. Headed back to the Consulate at 4:05 and was put in a room to wait for my visa, there were three guys waiting with me and I recognized one of them, turns out his name is Richard and he is also a Menno Simons grad - again, small world! By 4:30 I was sitting on a bench outside visa in hand waiting for Dorothy to pick me up. While I was waiting I was approached by an older lady named Theresa who is also moving to South Korea to teach English. Dorothy picked me up and after a quick dinner with her and her son Jamie I was on my way back to the airport.
I was checked in and already waiting to board by 8:45, had a lot of time to kill so I scanned the area and decided to introduce myslef to a couple of young people. Turns out they were on their way back to South Korea for their second year of teaching. Jason and Amanda were really nice, I learned a lot from them. Jason was wearing a t-shirt that said "foreigner" in Korean characters and ALL of the Koreans loved it. He had a bag of gummy worms that he offered to this little Korean girl and she and her grandmother became our friends instantly. The little girl's name was Alice and she kept saying "I am so happy!" she had been in Canada on vacation for a lon time with her grandmother and could not wait to see her mother - in the airport in Incheon we saw her mother carrying her and she was crying, it was very sweet!
I thought that the 14 hour flight would be awful but it wasn't bad at all. I had a lot of room and I must have slept for a total of 10 hours. I woke up to eat Bibimbap - Korean food that is very tastey. Slept, listened to music and slept. I was woken up for breakfast I decided to try the Korean option, it was a rice porridge that you mix this green tea powder into, it was terrible - I couldn't eat it.
The plane arrived in Incheon at about 2:00am, customs did not take long at all. I sat with Jason and Amanda for about a half an hour until their friends got there to pick them up. I was on my own - for about three steps when a Korean lady said hello to me. Everyone is so friendly - her name was Jo and she and her husband Chris, a Canadian who has taught in Korea for 6 years, were on there way home to Busan. I sat with them for a couple of hours and talked they shared stories and pointers and insisted that I share their Korean crackers and some sort of sweet corn chip thing - it was nice. I left them at about 5:30am to make sure that I knew where to catch the bus to Gwangju. It was not hard at all, the airport (like Remik assured me) was very organised! I bought my ticket at 6:00 and waited in the fancy bus shack for 50 minutes - the bus shacks have automatic doors and flat screen tv's in them, not even bolted down - that would never fly back home. Oh and in the washroom at the airport the toilet seats are covered in this plastic wrap like stuff and it changes itself when you flush it... what will they think of next?
At the bus stop I met a man named Paul who is orginally from Gwangju but lives in Pheonix. He was nice and made sure that I knew what I was doing when the bus stopped at the insanely busy rest stop for 15 minutes. The bus ride was about 4 and a half hours, I slept about half the time and listened to music while enjoying the beautiful sites the rest of the way. At one point the man sitting in front of me turned around and asked me to help him find a job, he was a Korean man from Canada, he asked if he could be my roommate and get a job with me, I told him I was not sure he would
have to ask the school. When I got off the bus I was a little worried that I would be forgotten in this crazy place, I was pulling my huge luggage with my little back pack on it, had the huge back pack on my back, was carrying my purse and man was my hair greasy! Sure enough this Korean man approached me saying my name, I said "yes are you Mr. Kim Young Jun?" "yes" - "yes" - "good" - "ok". The two of us kind of had a hard time understanding each other the entire way to the school, it was funny and frustrating at the same time. He told me that we are in an area where there are not many foreigners. I will have to learn Korean! We went to the school which is on a street that looks like a back alley, it is a private school so the students have class today, Saturday. We took my luggage to the fifth floor where my apartment is. Back downstairs, he showed me around the school and introduced me to his sister, some of the students and the other teachers - all nice Korean girls. Everyone is very sweet! I sat down in the office to eat some rice and bulgogi with Mr. Kim's niece, she is nine and has the highest level on English so far as she spent a year in Calgary on an exchange program. She is a very cute chubby Korean girl, she tells me to call her Cho. The conversation in English is nice.
Mr.Kim and I went to the store where I was in search of a towel because I so badly wanted to shower after my long trip and the humidity here. On our way to the store there were five little girls who yelled hello and chased after me speaking Korean, I had no idea what they were saying. All I know how to say in Korean is: hello, foreigner, some foods and thank-you. The girls followed us around the enormous store asking me questions in Korean, I could tell that Mr. Kim was not impressed and he muttered something to them in Korean and they went away - but continued to yell bye-bye everytime they saw me. Too cute! I picked up a garbage can, a hand towel (the biggest one I could find), a package of about six other small towels, a shower puff, a bottle of water, Mr. Kim grabbed febreeze and a cute pink hippopotamus air freshener. He then insisted that I needed food in my apartment and picked out some Korean buns. He paid, then turned to me and said "I pay today but then no more".
Finally I got to have a shower, the water was freezing. I was worried but it slowly warmed up. There is no shower stall it is just a shower hose over the open tile floor in the bathroom. I was so happy to have shampoo and conditioner from home and my Flying Fox. I kicked myself for a moment about ditching my towel at the airport. I went back down to the school after my shower, class was over and Mr. Kim wanted to take me and the three other teachers out for lunch... what? didn't I just eat lunch with little Cho? We went to an American restaurant - I think that is what they thought I wanted. Mr. Kim, Janie, Clair and Claudia (the English names they have chosen), none of them speak very much English and my three Korean words don't last too long, I felt a little lonely and realised that I really do need to learn Korean. We ate soup, salad, pizza, spaghetti, steak, kimchi, pickles and coke for some reason I also got an orange juice (I think they are trying to make sure I was pleased). For Korean meals all of the dishes are put in the middle of the table and shared, there was so much food and I was not that hungry but I ate as much as I could to be nice.
After this second lunch they drove me back to my apartment and Janie and Clair came upstairs. They are both very sweet, Janie is younger and lives with her family, Clair told me her family is in a differnt province and she is single and lonely I told her we should hang out and that I miss my family too. Then they left. I was alone.
I later decided to go back to the store, I thought of a few other things I could pick up and I wanted to take a little walk around the neighbourhood. On my way out I ran into Mrs. Kim she was in the academy with a couple of students and their mother. I felt releived when I met her, she is so nice, very sweet, she speaks very good english as she has been to Canada to study. She later came to my door and asked me if I need anything, she told me if I do just make a list and she will get it for me, she invited me to dinner and told me if I would be more comfortable I could stay with her or her cousin for for two nights. I accepted the dinner invitation (it seemed better than the left over pizza I had planned) but told her I would be fine to sleep at my place. I drove to dinner with Mrs. Kim she told me she will help me learn Korean, she will drive me places if I need, she will take me to get a cell phone on Monday... anything I need just ask her she keeps insisting. She said that she wants me to feel welcome because she had felt scared at times in Canada. I really like her!
We had Korean Sushi for dinner, in attendance were: Mr. and Mrs. Kim, their son and daughter (very cute), Mr. Kim's mother, Mr. Kim's sister, her husband their daughter Cho and her brother. I can't remember everyone's name yet, most of the names are Korean which makes it even harder for me. Mrs. Kim asked me to help her choose english names for her children. The meal was interesting, thinly sliced raw fish - a few different kinds, leaves, kim chi and other side dishes, rice, soup, wasabi, soy sauce, pepper sauce. Mrs. Kim sat next to me and explained what everyhting was in Korean and in English. The children were so cute, they were running around and at one point stood in front of me singing, they sang some Korean songs, a rainbow song and Cho and her brother sang A Whole New World. I let them take pictures with my camera, they loved it! Cho's brother wanted me to sleepover at their place, I told him maybe antoher time... kids are crazy...
The plane arrived in Incheon at about 2:00am, customs did not take long at all. I sat with Jason and Amanda for about a half an hour until their friends got there to pick them up. I was on my own - for about three steps when a Korean lady said hello to me. Everyone is so friendly - her name was Jo and she and her husband Chris, a Canadian who has taught in Korea for 6 years, were on there way home to Busan. I sat with them for a couple of hours and talked they shared stories and pointers and insisted that I share their Korean crackers and some sort of sweet corn chip thing - it was nice. I left them at about 5:30am to make sure that I knew where to catch the bus to Gwangju. It was not hard at all, the airport (like Remik assured me) was very organised! I bought my ticket at 6:00 and waited in the fancy bus shack for 50 minutes - the bus shacks have automatic doors and flat screen tv's in them, not even bolted down - that would never fly back home. Oh and in the washroom at the airport the toilet seats are covered in this plastic wrap like stuff and it changes itself when you flush it... what will they think of next?
At the bus stop I met a man named Paul who is orginally from Gwangju but lives in Pheonix. He was nice and made sure that I knew what I was doing when the bus stopped at the insanely busy rest stop for 15 minutes. The bus ride was about 4 and a half hours, I slept about half the time and listened to music while enjoying the beautiful sites the rest of the way. At one point the man sitting in front of me turned around and asked me to help him find a job, he was a Korean man from Canada, he asked if he could be my roommate and get a job with me, I told him I was not sure he would
have to ask the school. When I got off the bus I was a little worried that I would be forgotten in this crazy place, I was pulling my huge luggage with my little back pack on it, had the huge back pack on my back, was carrying my purse and man was my hair greasy! Sure enough this Korean man approached me saying my name, I said "yes are you Mr. Kim Young Jun?" "yes" - "yes" - "good" - "ok". The two of us kind of had a hard time understanding each other the entire way to the school, it was funny and frustrating at the same time. He told me that we are in an area where there are not many foreigners. I will have to learn Korean! We went to the school which is on a street that looks like a back alley, it is a private school so the students have class today, Saturday. We took my luggage to the fifth floor where my apartment is. Back downstairs, he showed me around the school and introduced me to his sister, some of the students and the other teachers - all nice Korean girls. Everyone is very sweet! I sat down in the office to eat some rice and bulgogi with Mr. Kim's niece, she is nine and has the highest level on English so far as she spent a year in Calgary on an exchange program. She is a very cute chubby Korean girl, she tells me to call her Cho. The conversation in English is nice.Mr.Kim and I went to the store where I was in search of a towel because I so badly wanted to shower after my long trip and the humidity here. On our way to the store there were five little girls who yelled hello and chased after me speaking Korean, I had no idea what they were saying. All I know how to say in Korean is: hello, foreigner, some foods and thank-you. The girls followed us around the enormous store asking me questions in Korean, I could tell that Mr. Kim was not impressed and he muttered something to them in Korean and they went away - but continued to yell bye-bye everytime they saw me. Too cute! I picked up a garbage can, a hand towel (the biggest one I could find), a package of about six other small towels, a shower puff, a bottle of water, Mr. Kim grabbed febreeze and a cute pink hippopotamus air freshener. He then insisted that I needed food in my apartment and picked out some Korean buns. He paid, then turned to me and said "I pay today but then no more".
Finally I got to have a shower, the water was freezing. I was worried but it slowly warmed up. There is no shower stall it is just a shower hose over the open tile floor in the bathroom. I was so happy to have shampoo and conditioner from home and my Flying Fox. I kicked myself for a moment about ditching my towel at the airport. I went back down to the school after my shower, class was over and Mr. Kim wanted to take me and the three other teachers out for lunch... what? didn't I just eat lunch with little Cho? We went to an American restaurant - I think that is what they thought I wanted. Mr. Kim, Janie, Clair and Claudia (the English names they have chosen), none of them speak very much English and my three Korean words don't last too long, I felt a little lonely and realised that I really do need to learn Korean. We ate soup, salad, pizza, spaghetti, steak, kimchi, pickles and coke for some reason I also got an orange juice (I think they are trying to make sure I was pleased). For Korean meals all of the dishes are put in the middle of the table and shared, there was so much food and I was not that hungry but I ate as much as I could to be nice.
After this second lunch they drove me back to my apartment and Janie and Clair came upstairs. They are both very sweet, Janie is younger and lives with her family, Clair told me her family is in a differnt province and she is single and lonely I told her we should hang out and that I miss my family too. Then they left. I was alone.
I later decided to go back to the store, I thought of a few other things I could pick up and I wanted to take a little walk around the neighbourhood. On my way out I ran into Mrs. Kim she was in the academy with a couple of students and their mother. I felt releived when I met her, she is so nice, very sweet, she speaks very good english as she has been to Canada to study. She later came to my door and asked me if I need anything, she told me if I do just make a list and she will get it for me, she invited me to dinner and told me if I would be more comfortable I could stay with her or her cousin for for two nights. I accepted the dinner invitation (it seemed better than the left over pizza I had planned) but told her I would be fine to sleep at my place. I drove to dinner with Mrs. Kim she told me she will help me learn Korean, she will drive me places if I need, she will take me to get a cell phone on Monday... anything I need just ask her she keeps insisting. She said that she wants me to feel welcome because she had felt scared at times in Canada. I really like her!
We had Korean Sushi for dinner, in attendance were: Mr. and Mrs. Kim, their son and daughter (very cute), Mr. Kim's mother, Mr. Kim's sister, her husband their daughter Cho and her brother. I can't remember everyone's name yet, most of the names are Korean which makes it even harder for me. Mrs. Kim asked me to help her choose english names for her children. The meal was interesting, thinly sliced raw fish - a few different kinds, leaves, kim chi and other side dishes, rice, soup, wasabi, soy sauce, pepper sauce. Mrs. Kim sat next to me and explained what everyhting was in Korean and in English. The children were so cute, they were running around and at one point stood in front of me singing, they sang some Korean songs, a rainbow song and Cho and her brother sang A Whole New World. I let them take pictures with my camera, they loved it! Cho's brother wanted me to sleepover at their place, I told him maybe antoher time... kids are crazy...
Back at my apartment I spent some time on the internet then went to bed.This morning I went through my Korean-English dictionary and wrote out the Korean words for things in my apartment: door, window, bed, bathroom, computer, etc... I hope this will help me learn.
I am sure that not all of my posts will be this long, once I started typing I could not stop - there is so much to tell.
I hope you are all doing well and not missing me too much just yet :P
5 comments:
Thank you Jessie for sharing your adventures with me. You are very brave. I'm sure that you will have a wonderful time, meet new friends and experience many new things. Please take care of yourself and keep me posted. Love Auntie Lynn XO
Hey Jess.... your blog is awesome!!!
I think you are amazing for going to Korea for a year on your own. It all sounds so interesting. Can't wait to visit you! Mrs. Kim (and family) sound very sweet.... I'm glad they're there for you.
Miss you already!!!
Have fun and keep us posted!!!
Love Meags
a good start to a long journey!
Great idea Jess!! So nice of you to share your adventures with us, I will let all the work folks know about your blog!! Take care sweetie!!
KT177
Oh jessie!!! good job on starting the blog, I was wondering where it was...
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