The Final Countdown

Hey friends,

I don't even like that song by Europe, but for some reason it came into my head. Orientation time is quickly winding down, and I move to Gyeongju, South Korea THIS FRIDAY. WHAT? 

Anyway, a lot's been going down this week, so let me catch you up.

What's Been Going Down

1. Overview

In order to serve as a refresher, I'm gonna do a brief overview of where I am currently. If you didn't know that I'll be teaching for a year in Korea then you may be a bit too far behind. Right now, I have been in the middle of a six week long orientation in a small town in Korea to prepare me for teaching (along with the 72 others in my cohort). Tomorrow we are heading to Seoul for our graduation, and Friday we will be whisked away to our placements! I will be teaching first graders at an all girls high school in Gyeongju, South Korea (the equivalents of sophomores in the American education system).

Now that you're all caught up and refreshed, let's jump into some specifics. 

2. KLI Done

KLI is the name of the intensive Korean course we have been taking during orientation. This program is run through Yonsei University (one of Korea's top 3 S.K.Y. universities), and we typically have class for 5 hours a day. The course is very reading intensive, with lessons containing a dialogue that introduces two new grammar points. At the beginning of the orientation period, I tested into the Level 3 class, which is the lovely middle child of the Fulbright program (as there are only levels 1, 3 and 6... yeah it makes no sense). 

We had two teachers during this time. The first was our main teacher, named 최선생님 Mr. Choi (pronounced Chae sun saeng neem), and he was the absolute best! My class was only 14 people, and we got to get to know 최선생님 pretty well! The class was taught entirely in Korean, which scared me at first having not taken a Korean class for over a year. 최선생님 made the class very understandable and was very good at communicating. Not only this, but he was really funny too! 

Someone taught him to dab, but here he is!

Here's a picture of 최선생님 being 불 Fire

Our other teacher was named 구선생님 Ms. Koo (pronounced Koo sun saeng neem). She was not our main teacher, but we had her for two hours a day. Her main class was the Level 6 class, so I think she may have been more comfortable teaching higher level students. She would often come into our class after her Level 6 one and we wouldn't be able to understand her because she was speaking so fast! That being said, I grew to really like 구선생님 over the past 5 weeks. She is a very detail orientated person and clearly cares about us learning the Korea language in a precise way. She also tells a mean story.

구선생님! Actually adorable

The KLI course was overall pretty good. Admittedly, I had learned almost every grammar point we studied before at Notre Dame, but since I hadn't really learned grammar since sophomore year, it was a great refresher. 최선생님 said today (during our last class) that I seemed to be bored with the class, but I really wasn't! It wasn't necessarily challenging, but I still learned a lot and remembered much of my lost Korean. I will definitely miss out beloved teachers!

3급! Level 3!

3. 서울 Seoul

After our final week of class and tests last week, it was time to have some fun! Almost everyone in our program decided to go to 서울 Seoul for the weekend, and I was one of those people. I went with a smaller group of friends that consisted of Maggie, Rachel and Josh. I really enjoyed the prospect of going with a smaller group.

We stayed in a lovely hostel in the 이대 Idae (pronounced ee-day) neighborhood of 서울 Seoul, which is located near 이화여자대학교 Ewha Woman's University (pronounced Ee-Hwa yuh-jah day-hak-kyo). This also happened to be very close to 서강 Sogang, the university at which I studied Korean three years ago. The area is fun, but the hostel we stayed in may have been a bit sketchy. The water stopped working for part of our trip, and Josh said he was bugs crawling around on our floor. We considered sleeping together in one bed since we were freaked out, but then realized body temperature exists.

Glamor shot of Rachel on the bus ride

Glamor shot of the hostel

Just keep the glamor shots of Rachel coming. In the lobby of our hostel. Peep the green background that's in my current FB profile pic

서울 Seoul is a stressful place to be if you're only visiting for two days and have my personality, but I enjoyed my time there with my friends and being in the big city. Friday night we arrived at 서울 Seoul after a two hour bus ride and got settled into our hostel. Then we roamed around a bit to some of the stores in 이대 Idae. Certain neighborhoods in 서울 Seoul are lined with small shops filled with clothes or accessories, and these are usually the places where people can barter for prices. I got a pretty snazzy pink shirt for 15 bucks, and I barely even like pink. 

Street shopping. In case you're wondering, 9900 Won is about $10

Street food

Unfocused picture of delicious egg bread

After wandering around and continuously munching on street food, we finally settled on a place for dinner. Unfortunately I can't remember the name because I'm not good at taking pictures or remembering, but it was pretty good! I had Udon and BBQ, which is a combination I hadn't seen before!

Udon mmmm

Josh and Rachel

Maggie looking fly as ever

After dinner we went to a club we heard about that is owned by YG (a big KPop company). We waited out front to decide if we wanted to go in, and after seeing three other groups of Fulbrighters, decided "nah, we see enough of them." We instead went to a small, American style bar, had some drinks and at ate nachos! I had a Dr. Pepper, so I was perfectly happy.

FOOOD

Saturday, Maggie separated to see her Korean friend while Rachel, Josh and I did our own thing. We did a bit of shopping throughout the day, as shops are scattered all over as I mentioned. We did go to a large H&M, and I ended up buying something because apparently I can't resist H&M no matter where in the world I am.

And where would the Americans go to lunch but Papa Johns!? If you didn't already know, Papa Johns in Korea (and I believe other Asian countries) is a nicer, sit-down restaurant as compared to in the states. Unfortunately we are poor so we got a pretty standard pizza, but it was still fun. The way I see it is that I will be eating very authentic Korean food for my entire year here, so I might as well take the time to eat "foreign" food in 서울 Seoul while I have the chance!

Precious angels

Our pizza.. I realize now what a boring picture this is but come on, we had a waiter at Papa Johns. What?

After lunch we went to the Trick Eye Museum!! This is a fun museum in 홍대 Hongdae (pronounced hong-day) in which you can take pictures against a painted backdrop and it creates some 3D affect. Because my friends and I are dumb, we thought it was funny to take all the pictures incorrectly. However, when all the Korean people saw us doing this, I think they just thought we were dumb Americans. Oh well! It was fun!

This may have been the only one we did correctly

We got a lot of looks for this one

I love what you've done with the place

The lobby of the Trick Eye Museum

After the museum, we met up with Maggie and her friend 광열 Gwang-Yeol for dinner. We went to a place in 이태원 Itaewon (pronounced Ee-tay-won) called Coreanos, which is a Korean-Mexican fusion restaurant that was actually started in Austin, TX! It was actually really good!

Overall our trip to 서울 Seoul was very fun! Being with a small group made it quite enjoyable, and we will be going back tomorrow to see even more!

4. Talent Show

Fulbright hosted a talent show this year! This was a really fun, casual event for ETAs to show off their skills to each other. I wouldn't say I am talented at dancing, but I certainly enjoy it. Therefore, a group of ETAs and myself put together a KPop dance for the show! We danced to "미쳐 Crazy" (pronounced mee-chuh) by 4Minute, and "Good Boy" by GD & TaeYang. I had danced to both of these songs before at Notre Dame, so it was really fun to do them again!

Dancers from left to right in beginning: Cam, Jason, Sarah, Lisa, Sean (I enter later haha!)

Well that about wraps it up for this week! Can't wait to be writing from 경주 Gyeongju next week! Let's hope I can write in time. We shall see!

Annyeong Y'all