안녕 (Hey)

Hello all!

I first want to tell you about this drink I just bought at the store by my dorm.  From first glance, it looks like a refreshing green tea.  Luring me in with its ice cold temperature and nice shades of green, this drink really looked like it could do no harm.  Okay, maybe harm is a little harsh.  There was just no way it was going to taste like Smacks Cereal, without the nice sugary coating.  Seriously, Smacks Cereal.  The one with the weird frog on the front?  Stick to the Gatorade people...

This week has been going super well.  Orientation has been packed with lectures about life in Korea, the education system here, teaching tips and Korean language lessons.  We've pretty much been going 9 am to 9 pm each day.  Koreans are all about the go go go.  They don't kid around about keeping their schedules packed.  However, despite the busy schedule, I have been learning a lot and there have been quite a few highlights...

• Learning Korean!  I can know read Hangul (the Korean alphabet) and know how to write some words, including my name.  This means that walking down the street I can read the signs, I just have no idea what they mean, because my vocabulary is limited to like 10 words.  But!  This is 10 more words than I knew last week, so I'll take it.  Here's what my name looks like!

켈 시

The first symbols are the first half of my name - Kel.  The backwards F is the /k/ sound, and the two lines after it are the /e/ sound.  The symbol underneath that looks like a 2, is the /l/ sound.  The next symbols are the second half of my name - sey.  The tent looking one is the /s/ sound, and the line is the /i/ sound.  It's pretty neat!

• This week I have met more Canadians than I have in my entire life.  I would say 1 in 7 people here are Canadian, which out of a group of 300, is quite a lot.  They're pretty easy to pick out with their 'abouuuuuts' and 'rrrrr' sounds.  It's awesome.  A couple even have Canada themed umbrellas, which we see pretty often because of the rain!  But in all seriousness, they are great.  This program is like a melting pot of English speaking nations.  There are people here from all over the world: the U.S., Canada, England, Scotland, Ireland, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.

• On Friday, we got to explore the area around Daejeon a little bit and dive into some Korean history at a local museum.  Basically, there was a lot of really really really old stuff.  I won't bore you with those pictures of old shoes and earrings that look like they would make your ear lobe fall off, but here are some of the other things we did!

We had bibimbap for lunch, a traditional Korean dish, basically made up of rice and a ton of yummy vegetables.  It was spicy and my nose was running all over the place, but I ate the whole thing.  With chopsticks.  Go me.

Lunch also came with a side of kimchi (like every meal here) and radish something...  

Nobody ate the kimchi though.

In the afternoon, we visited a Pottery Village in the mountains outside of Daejeon.  We got to paint these clay cups.  Yeah...that's supposed to be a very delicate paisley design.  We get to keep our cups though.  After they fire them, they're going to send them to us at our schools.  A fun souvenir!

We also got to make our own clay bowls.  That's my new friend Zach from Canada.  Nova Scotia to be exact.  We basically think we could be professional potters.  Look how great those bowls are!  After we took this picture though, they told us we could either bring the raw clay with us or leave it there.  Well, I decided that my 150+ pounds of crap probably couldn't handle a soggy clay bowl.  I left it behind.

And here are some of the professional pots.  They are absolutely stunning.  

Orientation goes until Tuesday.  At that point we will all be shipped off to our respective provinces, settle into our apartments, meet our co-teachers, and get acquainted with our schools.  It's going to be a whirlwind.  Until then, I'll still be in Daejeon learning how to teach stuff.  Tomorrow we're learning Taekwondo! I feel this will be an excellent classroom management tool.

Until next time!

안녕히가세요!  (Goodbye)