Lisa: The other dong in the story...

So while Shute lives in Yeongtong-dong of Suwon, I am in Poongdeokcheon-dong of Suji. I am 30-45 minutes away by bus. It's considerably smaller, but still a good sized city I suppose. Getting to know my district has been pretty cool. There's a stream that goes right through the city with a paved path that goes all the way to Bundang, another city nearby. It's a nice place to go running. Bundang is one of the wealthiest cities in all of South Korea, but that is another subject for another time.

The Suji equivalent to HomePlus is called Lotte Mart. There's another "mart-uh" as they are called here called E-Mart, and both are multi-story shopping places with food courts, grocery stores, pets, clothing, and sporting equipment. There's also Shinsegae which has a very nice movie theater (where you can order beer and it comes with a straw!) and is a little more upscale. Lotte Mart even has a TGIFriday's in it. Don't get too excited though, quality isn't so great...sadly, Koreans believe that American beef will cause you to become sick with mad cow disease and die, so we are left with Australian beef. Not awful, but let's just say that my burger reminded me of cat food and leave it at that.

I work for Seoul Language Institute, a hagwon that teaches kids from the ages of 7-18. It's a pretty cushy lifestyle, to be honest. My first class is not until 4:20 at the earliest, and I'm finished at 10:30 at the very latest. So, as you can imagine, this leaves a lot of time for...well, I haven't quite figured that out yet, but something. The kids at work sure know how to keep life interesting. I won't lie, at first they all looked alike to me and it took me a good 3 weeks or so before I started to be able to recognize more than one or two students by face. They really know how to keep my life interesting though, that's for sure.

I have a single studio apartment. It's small, but cozy. Overall, not a bad place to live for a year. I do miss having an oven, however. In any event, here are some pictures of my apartment. This is when I first arrived...now it's much messier and the furniture is arranged differently, but you get the idea. The heating system here is kind of interesting, it's called "ondol" and there are some sort of hot water coils under the floor that heat the room. A bit different, but still pretty effective.

My apartment is about a 4 or 5 minute walk to school, less if I catch all the lights at the crosswalks. There are currently 4 other foreign (i.e. American) teachers at my school. Describing them could take a month, but overall I really like them. They're a lot of fun and have been really helpful. There are also eight Korean teachers that teach English grammar and reading.

As for a job description, foreign teachers generally focus on speaking, listening, dictation, and writing. I also teach TOEFL classes, which are test prep classes for the "Test of English as a Foreign Language" that middle school students must take to attend Foreign Language High Schools and that high school students need to go to boarding schools and/or American universities. There is an incredible focus on education here and acceptance to one of the top three Korean universities (known together as SKY) or an American school is seen as tantamount to success. Kids go to school as early as 6 or 7 and are finished around 3 or so, only to get to a Hagweon where they take another 3 hours of English lessons. This is usually 3 days a week, and the other days are filled with Chinese, swimming, Tae Kwan Do, art, and Korean lessons. And this comes from some of my kids that are only 9 or 10!

Well I think this is about it for the quick introduction to my life here in Korea. We'll get posts about food/drink, holidays, customs etc. up soon.