Settling In to Pyeongchon

So for all you followers of the Pensive Sophist who have been waiting for my next post, sorry about the delay. As you can guess, I’ve been pretty busy the last week, with the end of training and all the little things that go into starting a real life in Korea. I got my official placement in Pyeongchon, which is about a 30 minute subway ride south of Seoul in Anyang City. I was initially a little disappointed that I wasn’t placed in the heart of the city like some of the friends I’ve made so far, but the more I’ve gotten to learn and see of Pyeongchon, the more I am realizing that it should be a good place to be. Since it’s outside of Seoul, it’s not quite as hectic and busy as the city. It’s still well built-up, with lots of restaurants and bars, but there is also some green space—including a nice big park only 5 minutes or so from my apartment with basketball courts and an outdoor rollerblading rink—and the air here is noticeably cleaner than it is in Seoul. The icing on the cake is that Pyeongchon is actually Chungdahm’s (the school I work for) second biggest branch, so there are about 45 other teachers there, and thus lots of new people to meet.

Over the last couple of days, I’ve been moving into my apartment, which is in a high-rise building right across the street from the subway station and an E-Mart, which is a 4 level shopping store pretty similar to a Walmart (though not quite as cheap). The E-Mart has a big grocery store plus just about everything I’ll need for my new apartment, so it’s very convenient and takes a lot of the stress out of moving into a new place. My apartment is unfurnished, so tonight I’ll be sleeping on a pad I bought, although I ordered a bed online with the help of a Korean friend that theoretically should be making its way here tomorrow afternoon.

I also got my teaching schedule today, which looks pretty solid. I’m only teaching 21 hours a week, and have Sundays, Mondays, and Wednesdays off, so I should have a fair amount of relaxation time. I’ll be teaching iBT (internet-based TOEFL) prep classes as well as a couple classes called “Interview and Discussion” where I’ll basically be helping prepare 4th and 5th graders for their interviews to get in to the top private middle schools in the country. I’m more than a little nervous about teaching for the first time, but I’m hoping that it just takes a couple lessons under my belt before I get comfortable.

I’ll end with a good story: last weekend I spent an afternoon at an outdoor market in Insadong with a couple of my new friends, aka the Wolfpack. While there, I tried bundegi, which is roasted silkworm larvae, or in more simple words, bug. I have a personal credo that I’ll try anything once, so I tried to let that guide me as the woman at the stand was scooping a large spoonful of the bugs into a cup for us from a big, steaming vat of insect stew. My friend Kevin pointed out that it’s easy to tell where they’re selling bundegi because of the smell, and he was right; it was pretty foul. The bundegi was a bit crunchy but chewier than I would have expected, and tasted about the same as it smelled: not-a-so-good. Who would have thought I’d be eating bug this soon? I guess I’m not in Kansas anymore.

Batter Up!

This weekend was what I’ll call my “cultural awakening” to the city of Seoul. I met a whole slew of knew people—Koreans, Americans, Canadians, and Brits—and got a chance to really explore a couple of different neighborhoods of the city, including Gangnam, Hongdae, and Gangdong. But perhaps the most interesting thing I did this weekend was attend my first Korean baseball game: the LG Twins (of Seoul) vs. the Lotte Giants (of Busan).

On Saturday afternoon, I met up with some of the new people I’d met the night before, and together we headed to the Sports Complex, which is a large collection of sports facilities that includes one of the stadiums used for the World Cup in 2002 as well as Jamsil Stadium, home of the Twins. We came out of the subway and were immediately confronted with a massive crowd, thousands of people deep. Set up around the stadium were dozens of small booths and tables of vendors selling all sorts of Korean foods—dried squid and pickled radish, included—as well as some not-so-Korean-foods like KFC. Other vendors sold drinks, especially beer. It was a pretty amazing sight, almost like an entire market had sprung up for game time.

We waited on a long line for tickets, and when we got to the booth we found out that all the regular seats were sold out, so all that was left were standing-room. Not to be deterred, we bought a couple of those (they were only 6,000 won a piece, which is roughly $5, not bad when compared to Fenway) and then headed to the main gate. Before going in, we quickly finished our beers, only to find that you are actually allowed to bring into the stadium anything you buy outside, an extreme rarity at American or European sporting events.

We came into the stadium in the middle of the first inning, and I was immediately taken aback by what I saw. The 30,000+ person stadium was completely filled, the stands all red and white, with many fans wielding inflatable sound sticks used to cheer on the home team. And cheering they were; the atmosphere resembled a college basketball game, with the fans going wild at every single pitch and at-bat. I couldn’t believe that people were getting this riled up about baseball; you would almost never see that in the States, and I think I’ve been to some of the rowdiest and most fan-intense stadiums in America. These people were literally as crazy as just about any of the European football (soccer) fans I saw while in Europe last spring. On top of each of the dugouts were two crews of cheerleaders—one of which was dressed in long traditional Korean dresses, the other in rather scanty high school dancer outfits—that were leading the crowd in various orchestrated chants and cheers.

The bleachers were packed, so we followed suit of the dozens of other people with standing-room tickets and found places to sit on the cement stairs leading up to the seats. It wasn’t particularly comfortable, especially with people climbing over us every half inning to ascend or descend the stairway, but I think it still beat standing. We stayed until the middle of the sixth inning or so, then decided to leave, partially because it was a boring game (although my British friend didn’t really know the difference, anyway) but mostly because it was about 90 degrees with 1000% humidity in there, so I’d just about sweat all the way through my t-shirt. All in all a very interesting experience, one that I’ll definitely do again, especially if the weather gets a little cooler.

Sleepless Mornings

Woke up at 6:30 am again this morning and again felt like I had been sleeping for days, even though last night I didn’t get to bed until around 1. I’m hoping this whole jetlag thing starts to wear off soon- I’m not sure I’m ready to become a morning person quite yet. This time though, I didn’t go back to sleep, deciding instead to make better use of my time, as long as I was awake enough. So I started working on my personal political manifesto, something I’ve been thinking about doing for a long time but hadn’t gotten around to starting. I’m calling it “Rules and Regulations of a Decent, Fair, and Just Society.” I’m only about three pages in, and its months and many, many edits away from being worthy of public criticism, but still, I’m excited I’ve finally started it.

I decided I would test out the free “continental breakfast” this morning since I was awake for it, so went downstairs at around 8:15 to see what it was like. Breakfast was held in this tiny little sweatshop of a room in the basement of the building, and included cereal, some cut up bananas and oranges, and hardboiled eggs. It was about what I expected it would be, so I wasn’t very disappointed. Certainly not worth waking up for, though.

On my run this afternoon, I decided to aim for the park again, this time trying to look it up on Google Maps before I left. As it turns out, Google Maps here is in Korean, so it’s pretty difficult to navigate for someone like me who is still struggling with getting down “hello” and “thank you.” I ended up finding what I’d been looking for, but it wasn’t a park in the sense of the word that I knew it; instead, it was a large complex of apartments and businesses interspersed in a fenced in green area. I did manage to find a little recreation area that had outdoor exercise equipment—a few bench presses and a couple of funny-looking machines that you stand on and rotate 180 degrees so you are literally upside down (I saw a middle-aged Korean man doing this in a full dress suit, and I had to struggle not to laugh)—but that was about it. Not really what I was looking for in terms of a good place to run, but still an adventure.

On my way back to the hotel, I walked through this neat neighborhood made up of back alleys that were bustling at midday. I wanted to stop and get some fruit at one of the street vendors, but I didn’t have my dictionary with me, and was afraid I’d get ripped off if I tried haggling with the guy, so I stopped in at a little grocery store a few blocks down instead. That was an interesting experience itself; I wanted to get a sense for what kind of things were in the average Korean grocer, and I think I figured that out. There were some familiar items and even a small section of imported goods (including cans of Ragu tomato sauce for 5,500 won), but mostly it was new. A lot of fresh packaged seafood, a lot of dried goods, and a LOT of Ramen. The dairy section had milk, yogurts, and a small amount of cheese, but I am still struggling to figure out if they sell skim milk here (and if they do, what the label looks like).

When I got back to the hotel, I asked the guy behind the front desk for a map of the city and the metro system, which he was able to produce for me after looking in the back closet for a minute or two. He showed me where on the map our hotel was, which was a very useful exercise. As it turns out, my hotel is not in central or downtown Seoul. In fact, I am on the opposite side of the river as downtown. Still, having the map did help me orient myself a bit to the district of the city where I am. I found out that I’m not too far from the Olympic Park (only a couple of stops on the metro), home to the Summer Games in 1988. I was also able to find some legitimate-looking parks on the map that are pretty close, so I think I might try running to one of them tomorrow.

Wandered around the area for a while in the afternoon, then finally settled on a place for lunch. I wasn’t quite sure what I had ordered until a woman brought out what was basically a bowl of greens with a fried egg, along with the usual side dishes (kimchi, pickled radish, etc.) and a bowl of something that I found out was soybean paste soup after confirming with the waitress (my first attempt at Korean!). I was able to get through lunch with a minimum amount of sweating, so I was thankful for that.

I have my first session of training for Chungdahm this evening, which will consist of an exam covering the company’s history and code of conduct, as well as some basics in English grammar and reading comprehension. After all those years of Spanish and Hebrew, I’ve finally learned what the present perfect progressive is. I’m hoping the session tonight will give me a chance to meet some more people, especially some others who are staying at my hotel so I’ll at least have some people to get to know over the weekend. Should be an interesting and informative evening.

Day 1: A River Runs Through It

I woke up this morning at 6:30, sure that it must be after noon. I guess that is the jet-lag kicking in, although I have never been one to fall victim to that syndrome before. Eventually, I was able to go back to sleep and then woke up again at around 9. After taking a few minutes to orient myself, I put on my new pair of running shoes and headed downstairs to take a jog. On my way out the building, I stopped at the front desk to ask the receptionist if there was a park anywhere around that would be good to run to. In very broken English, she handed me a shoddy map of the area and told me there was something about ten minutes away, but I couldn’t tell if that was driving or walking- I assumed the former, by the way she said “very far”. I’ve only had a few interactions with locals so far, but honestly, I’ve been a little surprised by how little English people speak. I know that it’s not a good idea to assume that people will speak my language perfectly, and I am going to try and be as patient with that as possible, but I expected that at least the stewardesses and receptionists would be able to speak English. No such luck.

I left the hotel and took a left down the major street that the hotel was off, trying to avoid getting completely lost on my first venture out into the city. I expected to get some funny looks on my way, as a tall white guy in little blue running shorts, but I actually didn’t notice all that much attention. The streets were filled with Koreans on their way to work, but thankfully not overcrowded to the point that I had to do very much ducking or dodging. I tried to do as much visual reconnaissance of the area as I could, and noticed that every other storefront seemed to be a coffee shop, including at least five or ten Dunkin Donuts places. I went about as far as I figured I should without running into a park or anything that looked remotely like a park, so I turned around and headed back toward the hotel, stopping on the way at a little convenient store to pick up some strawberry milk and shampoo. Of course, despite my attempts to remember where I was going, I ended up getting lost trying to find my way back to the hotel, going up and down a few wrong side-streets before I eventually found the right one.

By the time I’d gotten back, I had to rush to shave and shower to be back downstairs by 11, when I was supposed to be met by a driver to take me to get a medical exam and drug test. I got downstairs and found another American, Eric, and the driver waiting for me, so we got in the van and headed out. The drive to the medical office was about thirty minutes, during which I got to know Eric a bit. He was also a first-time visitor to Korea, but had been out of school for a long while and apparently teaching elementary school English in Texas for the last 10 years. We also drove a good distance across the city, and I started to get a sense for just how big of a city Seoul really is. We crossed over the Han River, which basically divides the city in half, and it was almost as if there was an entirely different city lying on the other side of the water, with different architecture and a unique feel to the area we were in before (which I'm pretty sure was downtown). I think it’s going to take me a while to really get a feel for Seoul's size, neighborhoods, etc.

We got to the office and our driver, a middle-aged Korean man, ushered us inside the building, where a couple of women took our weight, height, and blood-pressure before we had a quick dental exam (lasting literally 30 seconds), had our blood drawn, took an eye test, had a chest x-ray, and a urine test.

And that is where it all went downhill for me. Not really remembering that I was going to have to take a urine test, I didn’t drink much water after coming back from my run, so I was pretty dehydrated when we showed up at the office. After one of the women handed me to two cups, I headed to the bathroom but quickly realized that I couldn’t pee, so turned back around and went out to the water fountain next to the front desk, beginning to chug as much water as I could. After about five minutes and 10 or so little cups of water, I went back to the bathroom, but again, nothing. At this point, just about everyone in the office seemed to take an intense interest in my “issue.” The women behind the counter were giggling, pointing at the water fountain and telling me to keep drinking. Our driver, up until that point simply an interested bystander, came over to me and began signaling me to rub my belly and jump up and down, apparently convinced that this would help me go. We went to finish up everything they needed to do for the rest of our test, then came back to see if I would be able to pee. I chugged a few more cups of water then headed back into the bathroom, this time with our driver following me into the stall, pressing the flusher, and pointing at the toilet, I guess in some kind of last-ditch effort to summon the pee out of me. By this point, I think what was keeping me from going was more nerves than anything; having a group of people in the waiting room all sitting expectantly added some really unnecessary pressure to the situation. Finally, after another five minutes or so, I was able to elicit a brief stream, just enough to fill both cups up to their respective lines.

Yikes, that was close.

After we got back to the hotel from the medical exam, I met up with Eric again and we went to get some lunch at a place around the corner from our hotel. Eric is a Seventh Day Adventist, and thus vegetarian, so he had some trouble finding something to eat on the menu. I told him a little about kashrut and my difficulty with eating while I was in Spain a year ago, trying to let him know that I felt his pain. I ordered a duck dish, which as it turned out, ended up coming with five or six different side dishes of vegetables, soups, and teas. Just about everything was very, very spicy. I knew that coming in to Korea I was going to have to adjust my palate to the local cuisine, but I guess I hadn’t prepared myself well enough; I was literally sweating from the brow from the moment I picked up my chopsticks. Lunch was good, though, and for 6,000 won (about $5.50) very affordable.

After eating, I decided to head back to the hotel to lay down for a while, so I parted ways with Eric. What was supposed to be a short nap ended up turning into 3 hours, so when I woke up at around 8 I was groggy and hungry. I changed and left the hotel to walk around a bit and find some place to eat. In the neighborhood of my hotel, there are a ton of restaurants, almost exclusively of Korean food. When I got nearer to one of the major train stations, I did see a Bennigans and a burger joint, but decided that I would try and stay local for at least the first couple of days to get a sense for what kind of Korean food I like and what I don’t. I ended up settling on a place a couple of blocks from the hotel. A bunch of restaurants I passed were set up with small tables only a few feet off the ground, with people sitting on little mats on the floor with their shoes off. I almost went in to one of these, but then decided that I would wait until I was with a little bigger of group before I took that adventure. For dinner, I got a plate of meat kebabs, and once again the spice-level knocked my socks off. I was hungry, but after eating about half the plate of meat, I literally had to stop because the food was just too hot. I am really going to have to get used to this, or at least start figuring out how to order some dishes that won’t require me bringing a handkerchief to the table.

So here are a few of the mist important first impressions that I’ve made in my first day and half in Korea:

-Casaville Residence’s trademark: “Service like at a hotel, living like you are at home” rings relatively true. I especially like the two pairs of sandals that come with the room, and the working AC is stupendous.

-I’m pretty sure I could make a living working for Korean companies trying to post signage in English, if I could only convince them of how inaccurate their English is in its current condition.

-The food here is HOT, and I mean very, very, very hot! But at least the strawberry milk is rich and delicious.

-I have to start working on my bow; more generally, the hand gestures and body signals here are completely different than what I am used to back home.

-I think signing up for a Korean class should probably be one of my top priorities. Or at least getting better about carrying around my Berlitz pocket-guide.

The Trip East (well actually, west)

These last few days have been pretty surreal; saying goodbye to my friends and family didn’t feel like I thought it should have, but I’m pretty sure that’s because it hadn’t quite yet hit me that I wouldn’t be seeing most of them for at least a year. It wasn’t until I was on the plane in New York and we were taking off that I said to myself, “Crap, Mark. You are leaving the country for a year. You are going to Korea. Korea!” I know that going to Korea is something that I want to do, something exciting, and something that I have been looking forward to for a long time, but at the same time, it’s scary. Honestly, it’s very scary. I’m hoping that the nerves start to wear off once on my feet in Seoul for a few days and have gotten my bearings.

The plane ride itself was fine- long, but fine. I got seated in the front row of my section in the middle of plane, which meant a fair amount of extra leg room. For a person of my size (6’3), that can make a hell of a difference on a 14 ½ hour flight. I watched three movies (Star Trek, I Love You Man, and Wolverine) and slept for an indeterminable amount of time, having no watch to figure these things out. Every time I woke up, there seemed to be a meal on its way, which I ate mostly to pass the time and because it was put in front of me and there wasn’t anything else to do with it. By the time we were getting in, I was very happy to get off the plane- my knees were beginning to feel like those of an 80 year old arthritic man.

From Incheon Airport, I went through customs and got on a bus headed to the CAT, or Central Airport Terminal, in Seoul. The bus ride was about an hour, and on the way I sat next to another guy who is going to be working for Chungdahm and talked to him about home life, our expectations for Korea, and a little sports, too. Between the waiting area outside my gate in New York and the airport, I’ve already met a couple of people who are going to be doing the same thing as I am, so talking to them was a bit of a comfort. Coming into the city, the view was urban but still very attractive, having a lot to do with the sun setting behind us. Also, perhaps the most notable thing on the drive into the city was the immense amount of traffic in both directions, which surprised me a little, considering it was after 7:30. I guess that’s what happens in a city of over 10 million. At the CAT, I used a payphone (with a fair amount of trouble and a few wrong number calls) to get in touch with my recruiter, who told me to take a cab to the Casaville Residence Hotel.

By the time I got to the hotel, I was feeling dirty and very exhausted, so I literally just showered and got into bed.

Starting Fresh

Hi, all. So yeah, remember when I promised to upload my entire journal from that road trip I took with my brothers at the beginning of the summer…and remember when I promised that I would be writing a fair amount about other various things that I think/believe/think I believe… Well as it turns out, I’m more of a liar than I realized I was. Honestly, I spent the last couple of months relaxing, reading, hanging out with friends, watching TV, and generally doing very little that was productive with my time- and that was exactly what I needed.

So here I am again, promising to start writing more regularly, but with a new focus in mind: I have just begun my journey as an English teacher in Seoul, South Korea for a year. From this point on, this blog will be a record of my experiences in Seoul: living, eating, teaching, meeting new people, and hopefully learning a good deal about a part of the world that is completely and utterly new and foreign to me. In doing so, I imagine I will be learning a lot about myself, as well. And I also imagine that along the way, all of that stuff about what I think/believe/think I believe might come up once or twice, as well. So away we go…or away I go, at least.