Arriving in Daegu

There are few things as terrifying as standing in front of an auditorium full of strangers, waiting to hear your name called out so you can meet the person who will, for all intents and purposes, be your mother for the rest of the year. Especially when you have what appears to be the bronchitis that was doing the rounds at orientation.

Mine is quite nice, actually. Although we did struggle to fit all my luggage into her tiny car. But she's pretty organised - we went straight from the pick-up place to the Immigration office and applied for my Alien Registration Card. I got a certificate which is supposed to work in place of an ARC, so that's cool... Except it didn't work at the bank. So no bank account yet. After the immigration office, we joined another Epiker and his co-teacher for some tasty beef soup at a restaurant, and chatted a bit, getting to know each other.

After driving around a bit, we got to my school, which has beautiful grounds but is a little run-down inside. Still, it's not terrible. It's just, you know, a school. And the classrooms look a lot nicer than anything I've ever taught in, and the English Lab (where my office is) is lovely.

Met the other foreigner who's teaching with me, and although he seemed pretty busy with work, he did give me a few tips about the school, so that's good. Then my co-teacher took me to my apartment, picking up her adorable 10-year-old daughter along the way. I may or may not have offered to tutor her daughter in English for free, but we'll see what happens with that. She was a very sweet an helpful little girl, sitting on top of aaaall my bags in the back seat, and helping me carry them (just the small ones - I'm not a sadist) up the 6 flights of stairs to my apartment.

My apartment building is called "Shiny" something, and oh boy, is it shiny. Marble everything, and some sort of weird zodiac thing going on, on the floor. I forgot my camera in my co-teacher's car (I think) so I haven't taken many photos yet, and I'll do an apartment tour once I'm settled. For now you'll have to settle for a verbal description.

Most of the wallpaper is pink and flowery, but not obnoxiously so. There is, however, an entire wall of some sort of brickwork hanging garden of babylon wallpaper, which is glittery. Um... Yaaaaay. Anyway, I'm sure Abi can help me figure out some way to make that work. Or I can hang something over it.

The apartment itself was absolutely filthy, and smells strongly of poo. Hot, steaming, fly-smothered turd. We didn't spend much time in it; only about as long as it took for my co-teacher to explain how the washing machine and ondol (heating) work. I have forgotten already, but I shall persevere!

I was pretty disappointed to see that the previous NET had left me nothing but a hairband, a small vacuum cleaner (which may or may not work), a moldy toilet, a broken bed, some jam jars and long strands of her hair all over the place. I would have appreciated a roll of toilet paper, at least. My co-teacher commented on the need for cleaning supplies and whizzed me off to E-mart (kind of like Super U for the Mauritians, or a cross between Checkers and Macro for the Saffers) where we hunted for sponges, detergent, bog roll and other such things.

And then she abandoned me.

Ok, that was dramatic. She didn't want to, but she had to leave to take her daughter to swimming practice. She didn't ask for this job, and she says she didn't want it, and I respect her priorities. I was taking forever to find what I needed. But I bumped into another Epiker who I recognised, and her lovely co-teacher helped me out instead, after mine wrote down some directions to my apartment.

I started feeling seriously overwhelmed as I didn't even know what size my Korean bed is. The other epiker informed me that I have what is called a Super Single, so I bought a full set of bedding for it. Turns out it's a single, but she was just trying to help. I may have wiped a few sneaky tears away, in the bedding aisle.

Got home, thanked them for their help, and open the window to let in some air that wasn't poo-scented, and then I looked around, contemplating what to clean first. And I remembered promising to send my co-teacher an email when I got back to let her know I was ok. And then I saw that my internet is not wireless, and I have no lan cable. Screw cleaning. I marked home on my GPS and headed out to buy a LAN cable. I vaguely remember my co-NET saying something about maybe being in the apartment above or below me, so I hesitated on the floor below mine, and heard someone exclaim something... in English. Foreigner-accented English.

So I rang their doorbell and said I'd moved in upstairs and wanted to introduce myself. The door opened, and there stood a friendly Canadian and his shiny new Korean wife (they've been married for two weeks). And they were so nice that I asked if they knew where I could buy a LAN cable, and burst into tears.

They sat me down, gave me wine, fed me a pasta dinner, gave me chocolate, gave me tips on teaching middle school and dating Koreans, told me where the nearest gym was, offered to take me to Costco on their next run, showed me their wedding video, introduced me to their cat, and even took my temperature and gave me medicine and a delicious home remedy - Min is training as a nurse. They have even loaned me a phone, so I can get a pre-paid simcard and be contactable until my ARC arrives and I can get something smarter.

Best. Neighbours. Ever. It turns out that Nick is a nerd and a gamer, and I joined the gaming society he founded a few weeks ago, in the hopes of making friends. I guess it worked. He's an Epiker in his 4th year, and she's an English teacher and belly-dancing instructor. They had belly-dancers at their wedding, so that's cool.

Anyway, they cheered me up and have loaned me a LAN cable and donated some rubber gloves and a bottle of bleach. So I guess it's time I cleaned this poo-palace up and made my bed, so I can sleep. Right now I'm just waiting for the vacuum cleaner to finish charging. I have already poured bleach down all the drains, so the smell of poo has gone. Or my nose is blocked and I can't tell. Either way, I win.

So all in all, a difficult day but I think I've made some pretty good friends.

Orientation highs and lows

As orientation starts winding up, with classes over and lesson demonstrations tomorrow, I think it's time I compiled a list of the good things and bad things that have summed up the last week or so of my preparation for teaching in Daegu.

Highs

• Meeting people who will be living in my city, or even near my school
• Building friendships that look like they'll last a long time
• Hysterically funny conversation over lunch and dinner
• Trying to eat scrambled eggs with chopsticks - and succeeding!
• Playing drinking games with random ajeossis in the local watering hole
• Being the only people in the bar and getting special treatment because of it
• Learning Korean at lightning speed
• The friendliness 
• Jumping around like a maniac and kicking the crap out of the taekwondo paddle
• Playing in the snow
• Learning about Korea from Koreans, and about teaching in it from teachers who've done it
• Singing the Koala song in Korean - Kokoko, alalal, lalala
• Accidentally discovering the market
• Heated toilet seats
• Noraebuses
• Fantastic Epik staff
• The lady in the convenience store
• Sitting with lecturers at meals and hearing the 'deleted' bits
• Meeting people for what you both thought was the first time, only to realise that not only were you in the same class at university, but you trained together and worked at a bar together for a couple of weeks.

Lows

• The key system - having one key between two people who hardly see each other is a pain in the arse.
• No one has ever heard of Mauritius. 
• Being too cold outside and too hot inside. 
• Long lectures with no breaks, and the impossibility of keeping your eyes open
• Whoever stole my shampoo before I'd even put my bags in my room
• Hearing about people failing their drug test, or of people giving up and going home before they'd even gone to their city.
• Making friends with amazing people... who are moving to the other end of Korea
• Being woken by the Voice Of the Intercom God every couple of minutes in the morning
• Not having clean clothes or time to wash them
• The food getting progressively more western and less edible
• Being treated like a child
• The midnight curfew
• The feeling of it being a school camp
• Living out of a suitcase
• Internet that only works sometimes, and not nearly at the speed of the infamous Korean bandwidth
• Not speaking Korean well enough to get directions to the outdoor market, rather than to the 7/11, while leading a group of people on a wild goose chase
• Hungry elevators that eat you and then ignore which button you pressed and go to whichever floor they feel like visiting at the time, in the wrong direction.

But even then, the bad bits aren't so bad. It's been fun, but I'm definitely looking forward to unpacking, throwing a load of laundry into the machine, and going for a long walk around my neighbourhood. Luckily for me, we've got a long weekend as I arrive, so I can do just that.

The Norae-mobile

Today I discovered something marvellous. After a long day traipsing around a cold, muddy, and yet fascinating and beautiful folk village (with traditional video game arcade, traditional train, traditional camel-monkey-horse machines to ride around on, and a Chosun warrior doing Gangnam style on a horse), we hopped on the bus and headed back to our orientation venue.

On the bus, our 'homeroom teacher' explained to us that after a picnic or hike, ajummas and ajeossis like to have a bit of noraebang (Korean karaoke with scoring like Singstar).

not my photo or my bus but close enough. 

Two hours of foreigners singing "Bohemian Rhapsody" and "Sex Bomb", and pretty much anything from the 90s off-key. Some brilliant displays of talent by the Brits, and some jaw-dropping performances by our Korean hosts. I tell myself they've been doing it all their lives and that's why they're so good. I tell myself that the cold is making me croaky and so my voice isn't up to scratch. I can keep telling myself these things. Maybe I'll start believing them.

Anyway, the aim was achieved: the time flew.

Compared to the crappy 90s movies shown on Greyhound buses in SA, I think NoraeBuses are the future. Oh, Korea.

Eating Bugs in Korea

It's been an interesting couple of days in Seoul with the other early arrivals. So far, everyone I've met is fascinating, friendly, and just plain nice. I'd like to thank Epik for the thoroughness of their screening process; they've managed to pick some great future amigos for me. Top notch.

And with these friends, I've gone to a bunch of nice restaurants (or street vendors) and have eaten some of the most delicious food I have ever tasted. I've watched friends cut meat with scissors for a barbecue. I've torn pork ribs to bits and dipped them in a sort of wasabi sauce, and snacked on crunchy chilis. I've had hangover soup, with congealed blood in it, fried things that taste like vetkoek, samgak gimbap (or "Sushi Burger Samoosa") and a whole lot of kimchi. I've loved all of it.

So, to add to our culinary adventures, someone thought it would be a good idea to bring home some of these little guys:

They're silkworm pupae that have been steamed and boiled, and seasoned. I tried one. According to my friends, most of them were squishy, but I got one that wasn't. I put it in my mouth, and thought 'Hey, this isn't so bad.' So I chewed, and tasted it more. It had an earthy sort of taste, not unlike Andouillette. The segments flaked a bit, and the flakes hit the back of my throat. I tried to swallow. I tried again. I considered spitting but the room was too full for me to get to the bin and things were starting to look a bit desperate in the vomit department.

Finally I got it down, and rinsed my mouth with water to try and get the taste to go away. The taste wasn't that bad though. And the texture wasn't bad either. The combination of that taste and that texture was revolting.

So now that box is ticked and I don't ever have to do that again. I do think it's worth trying, if only to see how brave you are.


I think some flakes of it are still stuck in my throat.