Well, after much ado and mystery, I have arrived at my new hometown for the next year. The name of the city is Namwon in Jeonbuk province, aka the "city of love" after a famous Korean opera set here. Yesterday I went to the closing ceremony at Jeonju University (Jeonju tae hakyo) and was greeted by two pretty Korean school teachers who drove me around and treated me to lunch, while we talked about the Korean figure skater Kim Yeona. It is both difficult and humorous trying to communicate through gestures and creative language to people who don't get many opportunities to speak English. I am learning some basic Korean phrases and getting quicker at reading the Hangul script, both of which really impress my new friends. (When in doubt, just eat some kimchi, take another shot of soju and smile and bow!)
I finally met my "co-teacher," a nice lady named Lee YoungHwa. She is basically my first point of contact for all of my teacher needs and legal issues. Next week I will meet with my "team-teachers," who I will co-teach with at all times. As far as I know I will be travelling to 2-3 elementary schools on different days of the week, teaching about 5 hours per day. Finally, I was dropped off at my apartment and I briefly met the landlord. It is on the first floor of a 3 story, 12 unit villa. It has a bedroom with a large closet, a small living room with a kitchenette, and a bathroom with a washing machine. Korean bathrooms are fully tiled and don't have shower doors or even stalls sometimes, just a shower wand and some plastic sandals. Lucky for me, some other people were moving out of this building, and they had to leave a bunch of things behind. So I inherited 2 comforters, 2 pillows, some dishes, junk food, comfy slip-on shoes, a book case, a table and 2 chairs, seat cushions and a low-level table, a clothes drying rack, an infrared space heater, some cleaning supplies, and a bunch of teaching books and materials. The apartment also comes with a computer and a decent flat screen monitor that works with cable, etc. Only 6/80 of the stations are in English, which play some cool movies - the rest is full of wacky game shows and reality TV, soaps, religious stuff, buying networks and some news. I live in a city full of street vendors, back alleys with character, and lots of people traveling around at less-than-safe speeds. Occasionally I see a chained-up dog or a cat dodging about and I have to look twice. I guess I just miss my furry friends.
Most of my roommates are from South Africa and they are like a family here (they call themselves "colored," having both African and European ancestors). The first night I helped one family move into a different unit because of a serious mold issue and they came to my place and we sat on the floor and had delivery bbq chicken (which is tough to eat with chopsticks). They have some little children which are taking to me and their accents and expressions are fun to keep up with. Tonight I went with them to a bi-weekly English service church, translated by the husband of my co-teacher. The pastor teaches anatomy so he went to town bashing evolutionary thinking, which was quite interesting. We sang some hymns, listened to a singing performance by some young children and ate some food to celebrate the first lunar holiday of the year. Also, I stood up and introduced myself, my nationality and said "nice to meet you" in Korean and they were dazzled. Some of the kids I saw tonight will be my students actually, which is very exciting. Today I walked around town and came across groups of young kids who would yell, "teacher, teacher" and giggle. And I will be a celebrity because I was the only person out of 331 EPIK teachers to come to this city (Only 6 stayed in Jeonbuk).
