The Whole Gang

All of the Jeollanamdo English Teachers outside of the Gwangju National Museum

A Linguistic Adventure

Co-teacher: "The Japanese invented us many times." (she meant, 'invaded') 

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Student: (as she's poking me in the stomach) "Are you pregnant?"

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Me: “I’m going to Korea to teach for a year.”

Strange, Korean Man: “What about your children!?”

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“Nobody be afraid. The North is not attacking us, but at two o’clock today, there will be a 

military drill. Planes will be flying low and there will be smoke. Do not go outside and 

do not panic.

The North is not attacking us.”

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“You have a very average face.”

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“Be prepared because the children will love to touch your boobs and

say ‘teacher is very fat’.”

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“You’d be amazed at how many famous Americans

are actually Canadian.”

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Teacher: "The Korean baseball teach catch a cold."

Me: "Caught a cold?"

Teacher: "Yes, caught a cold medal."

Me: "Won a gold medal...???"

Sangdong Elementary School

Welcome to Mokpo Sangdong Elementary School! (Sangdong is the area of Mokpo that I live and work in).

The most exciting of all... my classroom! 

I don't know for sure...but from what I calculate, I think that my school has about 800 students...I'm not sure though. Apparently there are about 30 students in each class and 4 classes for each grade, and there are 7 grades. So 30x4x7....right? Not sure, but that's A LOT of names to remember. I'm also pretty worried I won't be able to tell them apart....???  

Mokpo City

Here are a few pics of Mokpo City. The area I live in isn't all that nice, so these pics are a little misleading (they also don't capture the city's terrible smell).

Mokpo is  located on the southwest coast of South Korea (although I have yet to see any water). When I went on a walk yesterday, the purpose of it was to get to the beach, but after battling the blistering heat and kamikaze drivers, I only got as far as "The Street with No Cars". It was a sweet relief from the drivers, but not the heat (or the smell).

"The Street with No Cars"

On my walk to E-Mart (Korean Wal-Mart) I came across the most randomly-located flower bed. Its quite the juxtaposition to the big, smelly city behind it. 

My New Pad

Noray Bang!

Some of the other English teachers at Noray Bang

Kate and I enjoying some Noray Bang at Germany Bar

A very popular Korean pastime is called Noray Bang, also knows as karaoke (but we don't say 'karaoke' because that's the Japanese term for it).  

Nagan Folk Village and Songgwang Sa Temple

On the third day, we all boarded on two buses and headed out on a very long, very hot and very whindy drive. If any of you know me at all, you'll know that I can't really handle rough car rides and sure enough I started to feel sick. But I sat there wondering "I've already made such a spectacle of myself by missing my flight...do I really want to ask to pull the bus over or is it worth risking throwing up right on the seat?" Well...I ended up going for one in between and asked for a bag in case I vomited. But Koreans being Korean, they pulled BOTH the buses over and announced over the intercom that I was sick and then made the bus drivers take a longer, slower route so that that wouldn't happen again. Great. If people didn't already know me as "the girl who missed her flight", they quickly became familiar...  Not long after, we made it to the Nagan Folk Village and met our co-teachers. Mine, Mrs. Lee, is super nice and speaks English pretty well, although she tends to confuse "vegetable" and "beverage". Haha. Nagan is a town that was built in 1392. The wall surrounding it was put up in 1397 to keep out Japanese pirates and it is now the best-preserved town of its period. It's the same idea as Upper Canada Village. After Nagan we all ate lunch at what is probably the sketchiest restaurant I've ever eaten at. We then went to Songgwang Sa Temple which is a retreat for foreign, Buddhist monks. 

Mrs. Lee and I at the Nagan Folk Village

Songgwang Sa Temple

A Little Bit of Hangeul in My Life

The first two days that I was in Gwangju were all training. We had talks from teachers who have been in Korea for a while and we spent half a day learning “Hangeul” which is the Korean word for “Korean”. We also had to learn how to spell our names. There are no Korean sounds for “T”, “L” or “V” so my name is pronounced DRISDA REBERE.   

Taking the Long Way

So, travelling to Seoul Airport was… quite the adventure to say the least. My first flight was from Ottawa to Toronto then from Toronto to Seoul. Originally, I was supposed to have two hours to get to my second flight, but thunderstorms in Toronto left me stuck in Ottawa for 45 minutes then another 45 in Toronto waiting to unload. Needless to say, I couldn’t make it from Terminal 1 to Terminal 3 in time and my seat was given away to standby. Luckily, the teller at Korean Air put me on a flight the next morning to Chicago then on to Seoul and I was with a handful of other Canadian Connection teachers. Once we got to Seoul, we had to bus to another airport, fly to Gwangju City and bus to the training institute where we would spend the next 6 days.