Newbies in Jangheung

Pronounced Jawng-huhng, Jangheung has served as a lovely new hometown this past week! We have unpacked, moved furniture, bought groceries, and met up with other Jangheungers to figure out just what this "little" South Korean town is all about. We describe it as "little" because of the comparison of its size to other towns in the province of Jeollanamdo (Jull-uh-nahm-do). Boasting a humble populationof about 50,000, whenever we bring up Jangheung's size in the classroom, our students just shake their heads at the statement. "Jangheung not big!" was one that I got this week when showing my "About Me" PowerPoint to the elementary school kids and comparing teeny-tiny Fowler (of about 5,500) to Jangheung.

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Our first week

So far we have comforted our homesickness (which thankfully has not been as great as we were thinking it would be, thus far) with nightly walks down the street to the mart for groceries, meeting up with new friends, situating our house with internet and Wifi(no easy task, mind you!), and cleansing our over-spiced palettes with mochas whenever we have the free time. Today, actually, we were given the day off because of the Labor Day holiday (granting contracted workers the day away from work), and so will probably head down to the cutest little Western coffee shop you ever did see. It's called One and Six and we already are quite fond of the place (it doesn't hurt that they make chocolate truffles from scratch):

The baristas at One and Six know that all the foreigners in town like to stop in and often set up shop for a while, so they are very kind and give us great service (and sometimes free chocolate!!!). Delicious coffee, mixed coffee drinks, and in-house homemade chocolate! (There is a chocoateur who is a goddess there and makes sweets for days!) Needless to say, we are thankful for this tiny little space of comforting tastes and sights and sounds.

Our schools

In addition to trips to the mart and One and Six, school has started this week and so far, we are working at two different spaces for sure! Ed is at the local high school and is loving it. His walk to and from work is comprised of breathtaking views of nearby mountains as his school is atop a hill on the eastern part of Jangheung. 

His students have so far been enamored with his visually-pleasing PowerPoint presentations, YouTube videos, and funny gifs (not to mention the numerous pictures of his lovely wife ;). He has been drawn to use these in his classes to jazz up the subject of English for these grades 1 and 2 (sophomores and juniors in the States). Testing has been going on the last few days as well so some of Ed's students have been more into napping than learning apparently. A choice I think anyone can understand:

But! Ed has enjoyed the high school experience thus far and it has not been as tough a job as it was perhaps painted for the middle school and high school teachers at our orientation.

My school, at the opposite end of the spectrum, has been non-stop teaching and energetic kindergartners, 5th and 6th graders! Theschool, just a 3 minute walk from our house is a brightly-designed place with over 800 elementary students! There are always children playing outside our gate and from our windows at home, we can hear lots of play going on at the soccer field in front of the school:

Every Monday afternoon, Kristen walks from the elementary school to the kinder building to teach 20-minute lessons to the kindergartners there:

As odd as it sounds, the 5 and 6-year-olds in the kindergarten classroom portray an accurate picture of what we feel often, walking around Jangheung and trying to communicate with the locals. As many stares greet me as I walk in the room to go over the ABC's with the little ones, so Ed and I have felt like little babies when taking in the newness of language, culture, food, and people around us in our new town.

Language

Just this morning, we had a representative from an Internet company come to the house to set up our Wifi and it was pretty interesting how things played out, with us only knowing a few signature Korean phrases and he, having the same grasp of English. We ended up relying heavily on Google Translate as well as friends of the rep's, who he called and had them translate for us, what we wanted to have done with the Internet. Happily, by the end we had the wifi set up and Ed and the rep were laughing together on the front porch (he had translated the phrase "I need to learn to speak Korean very badly" and the rep got a kick out of it).

As we continue to immerse ourselves in the culture and live with the language, we will hopefully pick up more and more to communicate with in order to respect the community we have chosen to join. Language can be a very tricky thing if there is a ways to learn it, but we have our books and are doing our best! We are finding this out the fun way! :)

Our home

Our humble abode we are slowly growing accustomed to-and loving it! Yes, we want to spruce up the outside a bit (DIE SPIDERS, DIE!) with a small garden and indeed some raking ("A lot of raking," Ed says), but with the furniture the way we want it now and the kitchen slowly being filled with the aromas we love, it is feeling more like our home every day. As we continue to cozy ourselves inside, we will post more pictures but as it is now, white walls and bare shelves, we are just thankful to call it ours! 

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So, as it stands now, we must head out for a bit o' coffee and a dinner out with one of the Native Chinese teachers in town, so thanks for reading and we will chat soon! Gamsahamnida!

Love,

E + K

United we flew.

    Well, we made it to South Korea in one piece! (Or, rather, two…) :) The flight was long but fun, and very accommodating. Ed and I had a row of three to ourselves as the back of the plane was not as full as planes can get back there. So that was nice to sit and chat and look out the window. First, it was the San Francisco bay passing by beneath us, then it was the ocean… more ocean… and then some more Pacific ocean, beyond finally crossing the International Date Line (which we think it is called? We saw a line on the in-flight map-tracking thing), and entering into Russian and Asian territories. It is so fascinating to us that flying is such a constant all around the world. It is amazing how so very often, there are planes in the sky all around the world all around the clock. But very rarely do we ever think (we just may be overthinking this because we did have 12 hours to kill) about them up in the sky unless you hear them on a quiet day or near an airport. And what’s more, to think of how these ginormous but intricately-built flying vessels transport a person from one place to the next; one minute you are boarding the plane in one place and when you step off the plane however long later, you are in an entirely different location and environment altogether. It boggled our minds and we were in awe. Time-travel we related it to-because we are nerds, yes.

    In any case, the flight was lovely (and the meals, too, yum!) and with the entertaining sass from the stewards and stewardesses to keep us company, the 12 hours airborne was a perfect start to our trip abroad. This time also offered a great break during our transition as well! While preparing for our departure, these past weeks have been filled with going-away shindigs, generous gifts, support from all the loved ones in both of our families, a bit o’ subbing (guess who?), a bit o’ beating video games (guess who?), and a week-long vacation we saved up for in order to spend time with both sides of the family. All in all, we have with us now in South Korea many fond memories made in recent weeks and gladly carry them as we have embarked abroad (finally!!) to teach English.

    For those reading and involved in anything from the aforementioned weeks, we want to thank you sincerely and graciously because we would not have been as set to be here in South Korea now. We love you dearly and appreciate you greatly. Thank you. <3

    After landing, we had a bit of a run to get through immigration and get our bags and go through customs so that we could meet up with our recruiter before 5 o’clock Korea time. It was lovely to finally meet her in person and be mellowed out with her Canadian accent, which is sweet. Even though we haven’t chatted face to face since our interview, Andrea has been fantastically helpful with our constant questions and Ed’s general impatience to get everything done for our visas.

    She sent us off down the terminal to get our bus tickets and after another run (we were helped by an airport security lady because our bus was almost leaving), we were on our bus to Gwangju, where our training would be. This was quite a long bus ride, probably about four hours, but with a nice pit stop in between. On our trip, the bus driver kept the television tuned to the news because the awful crash of the Seoul had just happened that day. For those that don’t know, this was a tourist ship that was carrying high school students from an area around Seoul which sank on its way to Jeju Island. It was a terrible tragedy, as a Korean man on our bus explained to us, because a great deal of the students were still missing and presumed trapped on the ship. Our hearts and prayers go out to their families.

    Eventually, as our 30 or 40-hour day started to come to a close, we made it to U-Square in Gwangju, where we stopped for a quick hamburger at a Lotteria (Korean McDonald’s basically). After scarfing down the burger (guess who?) and all of the fries (guess who?) we grabbed a taxi to the SBC building on the outskirts of Gwangju (where this first week we are staying for the teaching orientation and training). It was a rather harrowing ride, as the driver went about 120 kpm the entire time. Around corners. Through traffic. Scraping past truck drivers. Yep, it basically initiated us into the life flow of South Korean city life.

    But we have arrived! And our rooms are beautiful and everyone is very nice and friendly and tired, like us. We have a lovely room with a large window that looks out onto the main building and the mountains around it. We can see the walkway and the gardens outside the halls of the educational center. We are so thankful for how clean and comfy it is and though it has been rainy here most of the time thus far, it is quite cozy in our little room.
   
    As for now, our week-long orientation is going well and we will post more after this weekend (still catching up on the jetlaggedness). We must be getting to bed as we need to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for all that is in store for tomorrow’s (Saturday’s) “cultural field trip!” We will let you know how it goes soon for sure!

 Wishing you well wherever you are, and we’ll chat soon!

Love,
E + K