Settling In.

Hello Friends & Family!

I am mostly settled into my new apartment in Saha-gu, Busan, South Korea. It is a studio apartment, but it's bigger than I expected, so that's a happy surprise. I think that it is definitely a place that I will be happy in for the next year. It needed a little rearranging, but I think it will work just fine.

Our last night in Jeonju was a lot of fun. There was a closing ceremony, with a talent show, and a huge buffet. Our class participated in the talent show, a few of us danced to Michael Jackson's ABC 123, holding up little signs when our letter/number/word was sung. It was a lot of fun and we were glad that we decided to be involved in the talent show.

After the closing ceremony, we packed our suitcases on the truck and then went out to have some drinks. It was a wonderful night, but I was a little tired the next day!

I start teaching on Friday, March 2nd. That is the first day of the new semester/school year. I'm a little nervous, but I hope that I can remember all the things that I learned at orientation!

Nearly There!

On Thursday we got to skip our classes and go on a field trip. It was a nice respite from our lectures, which were informative but tiring.

We visited the Jeonju Hanok Village, which according to Wikipedia is a traditional-style village located in the heart of Jeonju. It was a little chilly, but a glimpse of how a traditional village would look.

The photo on the left is a man working to make hanji (paper) in the traditional way. We also got to do some crafts using hanji, we covered a box made of hanji with hanji paper however we liked. It was a bit of a mess, but a lot of fun to try something new.

Today was our last day of classes. I'm really glad to be done, but a little nervous about all that the next week will bring. Tomorrow we get to find out where we will be teaching and living!

Day 1

Yesterday was a long day of traveling, but I made it safely to Incheon (just outside of Seoul). I am very glad that I don't have to get on any airplanes in the near future. Today I joined up with some of the other EPIK teachers who will be teaching in the Southern Region, the group that was on the bus this morning seemed really nice and I'm already looking forward to getting to know them better as well as those that I haven't met yet.

We are staying at Jeonju University for the duration of orientation. It will be a jam packed week with lectures and lots of information to take in. Our orientation packet is about 2 centimeters thick, so there will be a lot of cramming this week.

I haven't even seen very many things to take pictures of yet, but here is a picture of my corner of our dorm room and a picture of the view outside our room, not in that order. I think it's a view that I can deal with over the next few days.