It was quite the adventure as soon as I arrived into Korea to begin my first year abroad! After getting off the plane and going through customs, I exited the area looking for my name on a sign. I easily found a man carrying a sign with my name and he led me to catch a bus to Ilsan. I was quite confused at that point, as I had been told that I would be teaching at a school in Paju. However, I boarded the bus anyways and the guy with the sign told me to get off at the last stop. It turns out that he was only there to meet and greet me and not to take me to where I was going. He said something to the bus driver and I was hoping that the bus driver knew where I was supposed to go!
The bus ride into Ilsan took about an hour. However, near the end of it, only an elderly couple and I were left on the bus. When it was the elderly couple’s turn to get off the bus, the bus driver made this loud exasperated sigh and said something in Korean. As it turns out, the elderly couple could speak some English and told me that the bus driver had forgotten to tell me where to get off! So I guess I wasn’t supposed to wait until the very end? I’m still not sure to this day.
Both the elderly couple and the bus driver suggested that I disembark and then from there, the elderly couple tried to help me figure out where I was to go. They suggested that I go back up to the main street to take a cab, which I was willing to do, but the problem now, is that I had to lug 2 over-sized suitcases and a heavy bag with my laptop in it, for several blocks up to the main road. And even as I was on the main road, the taxis weren’t willing to stop for me. I’m not sure if it was because of my luggage or what.
So there I was, just walking and walking and walking and finally I heard someone call out “Are you Terry?” He turned out to be Mr. Park, my co-teacher. He had been waiting for me at the bus terminal and when I didn’t show up there, he asked the bus driver and then started driving around.
Mr. Park drove me from Ilsan to Paju, which is indeed where the school is. He drove me to my apartment and there we met up with Ms. Choi, another teacher from the school. The 3 of us went to the local supermarket to pick up some basic necessities for the night and then I was ready to call it a night. I was exhausted from barely sleeping at all on the plane.
The next morning, I met Ms. Choi at the base of my apartment complex. Her family also lives in the same apartment complex and every morning, her husband would drive her and her two daughters to school. Fortunately, this meant that they would give me a ride every single day for the first few months.
The first day consisted of only Grade 6 classes. I observed for most of the morning, but started helping out near the end. I was basically there to pronounce words and sentences for the kids to repeat. The afternoon rolled around and Mr. Park took me to purchase a cell phone and also to the local clinic to do a couple of required health checks. From there, we went back to the classroom and basically just sat around for an hour or so before going out to supper with the principal, the vice principal and the chief of the school. A bit awkward, since I’m sure a lot of time was spent just talking about me.
Something that I found a bit unusual – the Koreans take the whole indoor shoes thing to a whole new level. Remember back in elementary school when kids were required to have a pair of indoor shoes and a pair of outdoor shoes, so that the outdoor mud and dirt wouldn’t get all around the school? Well, in Korea, teachers and students are required to change into indoor slippers while at school. So the principal, vice principal and all the well-dressed teachers were walking around in slippers. Quite a sight. Then, that afternoon when I was at the health clinic, I noticed that all of the nurses and staff were in slippers as well.
The next day I found out that Thursdays meant teaching Grade 5 classes. Mr. Park gave me more responsibility this day and I spoke a great deal more and even got to run a couple of tasks as well. It’s really difficult though, when I have absolutely no idea what level of English these kids possess. Normally, I’m to have a couple of afternoon classes as well, but because there is a festival next week, classes were canceled and the kids were asked to prepare for that instead. This meant that I basically sat around in the classroom by myself for 1.5 hours with absolutely nothing to do. After a while, Mr. Park brought an English laptop and I was able to email and go online for a bit.
Luckily, the internet company phoned the school and Mr. Park took me home to have my internet set up right away. I thought I was going to have to go through this long weekend without the internet.
I was supposed to meet Ms. Choi after school and she was going to show me where the local grocery stores are, but because the internet technician was now coming to the apartment, I wasn’t at the school at 4:30pm. Luckily, I bumped into her as I was about to leave the apartment to go back to the cell phone store to ask about a wall charger I had purchased. Ms. Choi was ever so kind and accompanied me not only to the cell phone store, but also to the grocery store. This time, I bought tons of cleaning products and more water and food as well. I took a look at my receipts and realized that I had already spent approximately $85 and barely have anything to show for it. Prices certainly were comparable to Canada. I was expecting that rural places such as Paju would be much cheaper.
As I arrived into Korea in the middle of the week, it made for a short work week, which was nice. I needed time to adapt and just absorb my new surroundings. On my very first day of school, I had a bit of a hopeless feeling as I really wasn’t sure if I would be able to make it a whole entire year in this place. It was all so different from what I was used to. The weekend came quickly and a trip into Seoul to see my friend really helped change this perspective. Thankfully the coming year brought many wonderful memories and spending the year in Korea turned out to be one of the best things I have ever done.
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