BLOG STARTED

Ok so, I'm going to forego waiting for internet and go ahead and start this blog. As I write this, I'm at one of the many computer stalls at WolfNFox, a "cyber cafe", near my apartment. There's noisy Korean television playing, computers blaring sword clangs and magic whooshes, a horribly intrusive cellophane layer overtop the keyboard, a timer at the bottom of the screen counting up the money I'm spending and Internet Explorer as the only available browser. So needless to say, any entry I make a month leading up to me getting the internet at home will probably be half-hearted at worst and sub-par at best.

So let's start this thing already.

The company that hired me is called YBM. They are an English Educational Megacorporation operating all over Korea. They hire teachers abroad and sign them to one year contracts to teach kids ranging from ages 3 to 14. Once they find a suitable teacher, they fly them over and put them up in an apartment for a year. After a couple of phone sessions with their human resources director, they deemed me acceptable and non-threatening and sent me a contract. After a bit of three-way conversation between them, myself and the Korean consulate, my visa was arranged and they booked a flight. It was a laughably easy process. The hardest part way saying goodbye to everyone who I knew I wouldn't see in a year.

I also had to say goodbye to Jessica, who, because of some financial and logistical SNAFUs, won't be able to come until May. It will be the longest we will be apart, but I'm certain we will survive just fine. She has some very good things coming to her in the pipeline and I'll make sure to have everything prepared for her when she gets here to make her transition as smooth as possible.

So I left Ottawa at 7am via Air Canada and landed in Vancouver an unknown amount of time later. I really wanted to sleep on the flight so I stayed up the entire night before, took a sleeping pill on takeoff, put Casablanca on the video screen and was out in about 5 seconds. I woke up when we were just landing. This was an awful idea however because if there was any flight I should have slept through, it was the next one.

After 3 hours in Vancouver, I boarded Air Korea for Seoul. Now I've been on huge flights before, but I can hardly say I'm used to them. This one sucked a bit more though because I was in the dead center of the row, flanked by old Korean women. If I had to pee, I literally felt like I was plucking the poor old hens' feathers out when I asked them to move. The meal was bibimbap, which I am already not a fan of, let alone the airplane variety. Also, the movie was Eagle Eye, a movie I can only describe as preposterous.

I landed at Incheon Airport, an hour outside of Seoul, at around 5:30 pm Korean time. After grabbing my belongings I called the phone number listed in my Inspector Gadget instructions the school sent me before I left. They told me to take the "airport limousine", which was actually just a bus, and get off at Ssangmun station (not a typo). The limousine cost 13,000 Korean won which translates to just under $12 Canadian. So now I can officially say I spent 13 grand on a limousine from the airport. Anyways, the limousine ride was almost worse than the flight because it was stop-start all the way into Seoul and then stop-start all the way up to Ssangmun. I was so tired I was almost crazy and I kept hearing the sound of screaming monkeys. The couple behind me was watching a nature show on a portable TV, but I had no idea what the hell it was for the longest time. It sounded like it was coming from the storage compartments below.

When I got to the stop, a Korean guy approached me as I got off the bus and asked if I was Jon. He spoke absolutely no English at all and I was convinced he must have been someone's brother doing them a favour by picking me up. He grabbed my luggage and put me in a cab which took us to my new apartment. It's in one of those super communist looking apartment blocs on the fourth floor. When we got in he pointed out some very obvious things "fridge, toilet, closet", gave me an envelope full of money and more Inspector Gadget instructions. When I asked him about internet, he bowed and took off like a bandit into the night.

So it was about 9:30 pm and I was finally in Seoul and finally in my apartment. Anyone who travels will tell you that the worst part is between getting off the plane and getting to the place where you can set your ass down and sleep after hours of upon hours of shuffling about like a zombie. I took some time to check the place out. It's pretty nice and I'll post pictures once I get it into an ideal state. It's narrow but pretty deep. It has an entrance with a bathroom on the left (with washing machine) and a small kitchen on the left. Next room has a fridge, a wardrobe and a breakfast table with room for more stuff. Next room is the bedroom with a double bed, a couch and a computer desk. There's a TV stand there but no TV, which I'm going to have to pursue. Finally there's a closed balcony which is actually more of a storage/clothes drying room. It's much bigger than my place in Japan and I honestly do not need any more space. Maybe I'll do an apartment post later and show all of the quirks, because there's quite a few. Anyways...

I opened the instructions that the guy left me and they said I needed to be at an 8-hour orientation at 11am the next morning. On the other side of town. A town I had absolutely no idea how to navigate. I was pretty livid about that. The only thing I really did before going to bed was bush my teeth and figure out how to work the alarm clock that was thankfully left behind by the previous tenant. The mattress was rock hard but I fell asleep no problem.

Next morning I got up at 7 to figure out how to take a shower. It was pretty easy, but you know how it's always sort of awkward using an unfamiliar shower, especially an Asian one where the whole bathroom is the shower and it's super low to the ground and the water pressure is weak. Anyways, I head out the door, subway map in hand, to start my first day of orientation. I had no problems with the subway really, other than the fact that it took over an hour and a half to get where I was supposed to be. I had to transfer 3 times, which is downright disgusting for any commuter to have to do. There was a 15 minute walk afterwards as well and I ended up showing up late, along with 90% of the other teachers.

Soooo, orientation had it's pluses and minuses which I will describe here.

+ I got to meet a bunch of new people who were for the most part interesting and insightful. Most of them were Americans, but there was another Canadian and two Brits in a class of about 16. Contrary to what Charlotte warned me, no one was a complete douchebag, much to my delight.
- The class was boring as all hell. The orientator(?) did the honest to got best job anyone could, but he really might as well have been talking about sand all day. He had 3 days to explain what easily could have been explained in a day and what could have easily been learned first-hand in an hour.
+ There was a one and a half hour break every day which allowed everyone to go out to lunch together and mingle.
- I always ended each day with a terrible terrible headache, which I eventually figured out was due to my poor eyesight coupled with my high school seat of choice at the back of the class.
+ We did a presentation at the end of day 3 where we had to pretend we were teaching a class of children. Not only did it provide everyone with direct feedback, but it gave me a chance to realize that everyone else was just as clueless, if not more clueless, on how to do this job.
- The commute every day was an hour and a half both ways. 1.5 hours X 2 + 8 hours of class = 11 HOURS OF MY DAY GONE. Also, after a day in a completely new and unfamiliar environment, I was usually so bagged that I went to bed immediately and slept at least 10 hours every night.

I had it pretty good though, because some of the teachers had to come from places like Busan which were 3 hours away and stay in a love hotel. Which really isn't that bad because they all have big screen TVs and jacuzzis, but still. I was glad to have an apartment to crash in.

I forget what day I met Gord and Charlotte. I think it was day 2 of orientation which was a Thursday. Both of them have been in Seoul for over 6 months now and I've known them from back in Ottawa (for those of you who didn't know). They were the ones who recommended the job to me in the first place. Me met at Myeongdong for dinner, which was a appropriate place to get introduced to urban Seoul. It is basically like the Shibuya of Seoul, with youth, pop culture and brand name stores everywhere. Total brain melt after a long day of boring orientation. We ate and hung out briefly before I retreated home because I was dead tired. It was short, but I was to see them quite a few times more in the future, so you will be reading about them quite a bit in this blog.

Anyways, I think I'll end it there. that pretty much sums up my arrival and first 3 days in Seoul. I'll detail my next two weekends as well as the job itself in the future so stay tuned for that. I can't upload my pictures just yet either so I'll steal some from Charlotte's blog for now. Thanks for reading this much, and someone tell my parents about this blog because I have yet to even talk to them!!! YIPES!

Bye for now!

PS: Yes I got glasses. NO MORE HEADACHES!!!