Korea in General

The kids are great! They are so adorable. They are totally enamored with my bald head. One 8 year old girl innocently asked me if I was related to Buddha. I laughed pretty hard. I teach 5 honors elementary school courses and 1 middle school course on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. I teach 5 honors elementary school courses and one Advanced Placement course on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I'm convinced the kids are brilliant. I can't imagine having a firm grasp on two languages at that young of an age. My youngest kids are 7 and 8 years old and we have grammatically sound conversations. They like my accent too. It seems that a large number of the teachers around here have British, Austrailian, New Zealand, Irish, Canadian or Northern U.S. accents.

For those who haven't experienced Kimchi, it is spicy. Really spicy. I leave it at that. Korea does serve great fried pork, rice and noodles. The majority of Korean food is very spicy though. I'm eating pretty well and I'm getting plenty of exercise here. I live almost a mile away from the school I'm teaching at. I walk both ways. I walk to the grocery store. I walk to the PC cafe. I walk to the NoraeBang (similar to karaoke, it's huge in Korea). It's not too bad. I'm hardly ever alone though. The other English speaking teachers at my school are always around. Richard from Massachusetts lives next door, Ben from New Zealand lives directly underneath my apartment and Rod from NewFoundland lives right down the street. I've been here 5 days and I've already lost 10 pounds.

My apartment is on the 4th floor and I have no elevator. It's amazing what we become so accustomed to and dependent on in the States. I just pretend that I'm climbing the cellblock stairs at the 4 story Coffield Unit. It's not really that big of a deal. I'm already getting used to it.

I'm probably going to venture into Seoul this weekend to check out the sights. I've already got a willing tour guide. I'm sure it'll be great. Keep checking back, I'll keep feeding you the info. Bye.