Springtime in Korea

Spring in Korea was really pretty. They have lots of cherry blossoms which makes it quite beautiful. Also everything starts turning green making the landscape much more enjoyable to look at. 

This is the road that goes past my school.

On the bus to school. The video isn't great but the trees that line the road were so pretty.

The view from of the Wolchulsan mountain from the front of my school.

Near my school there is a cultural festival that honors a great Korean doctor and teacher who was either from Japan or went to Japan and came back. I can't remember. Anyway, So they planted lots of cherry trees to honor him. (Although found in several places in Korea, these trees aren't native to Korea.) So when all the trees are in bloom they have the festival and its very pretty. During the week of the festival all of the teachers at my school went down the road to check it out after school one day. 

Its called the Wangin festival since the guys name was Wangin. 

We enjoyed the beauty of spring,

Drank out of a spring that will "make you smart", and went and ate dinner at a nearby restaurant. 

That weekend I traveled to Daegu to see one of my mission campanions Sumin. He is serving his mandatory 2 years of missionary service right now. He was on leave so I traveled to see him. We hung out, ate, watched a movie, and grabbed some ice cream. It was great to see him. 

Many people thought this was at a theme park or something but it was just in the subway station. 

After meeting with Sumin I traveled back to Mokpo and I was going to try to catch a bus to a festival at a nearby Island. I ended up going to the festival the next day but when I got there all my friends were leaving so I just rode back with them to Mokpo. On one of the bus rides along the way I lost my keys so I couldn't get into my apartment. It was a nice day and I didn't know how to contact my landlady so I decided to just take some time and go hike the hill in my town (Its called a mountain but its not really a mountain.) So I went and hiked Yudalsan by myself. 
Here are some random pictures from my hike up Yudalsan. I took them all with my phone since my camera is broken. Much of the mountain was still quite brown, although, there were some very pretty flowers starting to bloom. 

General Lee

View of Mokpo and the ocean from par way up the mountain. 

There are several of these platforms on the way up

This is a really big bridge that is really pretty when it is lit up at night. I met a Korean man who said that many people commit suicide off that bridge and that a woman whom he used to work with had jumped off that bridge the week before. So that was an awkward somber moment on my hike.

Lots of selfies since I was alone.

  

Hey that's not a selfie! Asked a stranger to take my picture.

Its hard to find a really clear day in Korea. As you can see in these pictures its not too clear. I don't know if its fog or smog or what, but it's quite unfortunate. However, whenever there is a really clear day, I find myself in awe at the beauty of the Korean landscape. 

Some really old rock carvings that were carved into the mountain. Not sure what they mean.

Sorry so many random pictures. Anyway it was good to hike and get to see my whole city from up on the mountain. When I got back down the mountain I got a message from another guy who lives in my apartment building. He had contacted the landlady for me. So when I got back to the apartment she was able to meet me there and give me another key.

There's no place like..home?

By the time the Gwangju orientation was over I was just ready to get on with life and finally know where I would be living and teaching. I had so many questions that couldn't be answered till I talked with my school. Also, I was kind of sick of living out of a suitcase. I was excited to finally settle down somewhere that I could call home for more than just a week or two. 
My mentor teacher and vice principal came and picked me up and took me to my school to meet the principal and get some paperwork done. 
This is what my school looks like. The grass here in Korea gets so brown! It is finally starting to turn green now though. 

I found this one online

My principal seemed very intimidating when I first met him but actually since then I have become a lot more comfortable with him. He actually asked me to go to the gym everyday after lunch and hit a volleyball back and forth with him. Weird right? I guess its a Korean thing. 

After we stopped by the school they took me to Mokpo and we went to the immigration office to fill out a form so that I could get my ARC (alien registration card, sort of like a green card). 

After that they took me to my apartment. 

My apartment building (Yes, it is called "For you Dream")

My room was left very clean and nice by the previous scholar. (Thanks Emily!) 

Here's a video tour of my apartment: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1HN7L2ZZFE&list=UUXpJR3J7-Vcplrlm96UZzcQ

(I can't get my videos to upload so I decided to put them on YouTube) 

This is the area where I live. 5 minute walk to the Bus station, 5 minute walk to E-mart(similar to Walmart)

It was a Thursday when I got to Mokpo. I just kinda relaxed and organized my stuff for the first few days. Then on Sunday I went to check out the local ward. It is a ward about the size of the branch in Vancouver. They are nice people. The next Monday I went to school but didn't start classes till the following week. 

I met a few other TaLK scholars that live in my same building or right across the street. Even though my apartment is about 40 minutes from school I think it is worth it to live in the city. 

Mokpo is a small city of only about 250,000 people (that is more than Boise or Salt Lake). There are about 40 cities in South Korea that have a bigger population that Mokpo. It is a port city in southwest Korea and I heard it is the 2nd biggest port city in Korea after Busan. 

In Korea it seems that every building has either a restaurant, convenient store, or cellphone service shop on the bottom floor. Honestly, economically I don't know how they all stay open because these 3 kinds of stores are everywhere. 

The restaurants here are pretty cheap and groceries here are pretty expensive so I have found that it is almost cheaper to just eat out. Plus it is definitely more convenient. Anyway, there are probably 30 or more restaurants within a 5 minute walk of my apartment. Like I said, I don't know how they all survive. 

I always eat lunch at school. They have really good food. I have found that cafeteria food here isn't thought about the same way as in America. I think in America no one likes to eat cafeteria food if they can avoid it. So usually the food is really good. I do eat a lot more seafood here than I did in Canada. We have a lot of dishes that involve fish or some kind of _______(insert sea creature). I would say I eat some kind of seafood on a daily basis. Oh also in Korea, the principal and all the teachers/ school workers eat lunch in the school cafeteria with the students. So that's cool because in America it seems very rare for teachers to eat lunch in the cafeteria. At least from what I can remember. 

My school is pretty small. Each grade has one teacher and then there are a few other teachers for other subjects (English, calligraphy, P.E., art, music, etc.) Including lunch ladies and secretaries I think the total staff at our school is probably about 25 people. In total, kindergarten through 6th grade there are about 100 students. 

I have at least one English class for every grade. This is my classroom:

It is nicely equipped with a touchscreen T.V. that is hooked up to my computer, so that comes in handy. All this fancy equipment and yet I still have a chalkboard (Not complaining but I'm pretty sure all the other rooms in the school have white boards).

Anyway, everyday I take a bus at 11:30 and I get to my school at about 12:15. Then I eat lunch. 

My teaching schedule is as follows: 

In the 6th grade class on Tuesday and the 5th grade class on Friday I am just a co-teacher and another teacher actually teaches. 

After I finish teaching I stay at the school till 5 then I get a ride home with the 5th grade teacher who lives is Mokpo. 

On Wednesdays, after my 1 class, all the teachers meet in the gym and we play volleyball. Koreans are pretty crazy about volleyball, which is totally ok with me because I love playing volleyball. Everyone is pretty decent so it makes it fun.

Teaching is crazy. The kids are not nearly as disciplined as you would think young Asian kids would be. Some days are better than others. Overall I enjoy it, it can just be really frustrating when the kids don't even care. I think it is hard for them to realize why they need to learn English. When you don't see a need to learn something you aren't going to try very hard to learn it. So I have been thinking about doing a lesson on how English will help them in life. 

Disciplining them is hard because If I say something in English they just ignore me and I don't really know how to be mean in Korean. As a missionary we only learned how to be nice and polite in Korean, now I need phrases like "Sit down and shut up!" However, I am learning more everyday about how to get their attention and make them listen. I just don't know how my friends that don't know any Korean even get by.

Another difficulty is that it is hard to plan for lessons because I'm not sure what the children already have been taught. For example the first graders are more advanced than I thought they would be. I planned to teach them the letter A and when I went to class they already knew the whole alphabet, and not just the song but they can recognize and point out each letter.

Also, as a new teacher, I'm not really sure what the school expects of me yet so there is that difficulty too. 

Overall, it has been a great experience and despite those difficulties I am really enjoying it. I'm sure as I get more experience teaching it will become easier as well. 

By the way, my schools name is Gurim Elementary and it is in Yeongam County that's how I got the name for my blog.