Quirky Nomad

So- Today marks a full 9 months in Korea. And, I suddently realized that I’ve not posted any pictures of my school and the area I live in!
Today the area is covered in mist (pollution maybe), but I took a couple of good photos last week.

My school has about 300 students and has grades Kindergarden through 6th grade. My classroom is on the top floor- its the last four windows on the right.
My school is located into the small town (village? I’m not really sure how it translates) of Gagok. It really consists of 5 or 6 high-rise apartment complexes and one tiny main street of high-rise shops, all in the middle of factories and mountains. The view from the back of my classroom kind of gives you an idea of how it’s situated:

In the backyard we have an absolutely gorgeous garden~ where I believe they grow veg for the students. It has a gazebo, and a small pond. It’s interesting, because on any given day you can look out the window and see the janitor or the vice-principal gardening!

The school hierarchy is one of the most difficult things I’ve had to wrap my head around. I kind of slide by though- I’m pretty sure that everyone who works is is either afraid to talk to me or thinks that because I’m a strange foreigner I should be treated like a child.
One incident I can’t stop laughing about:
The Vice-Principal came to visit my classroom and happen to come in during a break period, when the kids were all running around and playing with balls and puppets. He, not realizing it was a break period, proceeded to start yelling at these kids (basically a sit down and shut up thing), scares they all into wide-eyed silence, turns to me and says “Good Morning!” and leaves.

It just seems to be the nature of my relationship with the school in general though. I think most of the staff aren’t really sure how to interact with me. They are always helpful and nice though.

And this is where I’ve committed another year of my life to working. Still waiting on the paper-work, but as far as I understand its a definite. 15 more months in Korea!

korea, School, Teaching English

So its been ages since I’ve posted anything- mostly through lack of interesting things to share. In January I broke my ankle and spent the next three months (and counting) healing up.
I stayed in a hospital (원병원) for a week, which was a strange experience. I was in a room with 5 other patients, mainly quite elderly Korean women. Hardly anyone on the ward spoke English – but I got injections twice a day, pills three times a day and had no clue what any of it was.
I opted for surgery, in which they used acupuncture as a routine part of giving me a spinal epidural, stuck a huge screw in my ankle and gave me a splint.

I was splinted for 6 weeks- on crutches until the 31st of May, and now hobble around on two feet.

To top it all off, in my brillance yesterday I tripped over a brick and now my foot is KILLING me. Here’s hoping its just a bad bruise. But it does mean I’ve brought one of my crutches out of storage for the day.

Some interesting points about the Korean healthcare system- I’ve basically got an x-ray every time I visit the hospital, so probably about 2 dozens trips into the x-ray room and 3 x-rays each time (yes, I fully expect to grow an extra foot). Physical therapy was the LEAST physical thing I’ve done in my entire life, and consisted of having my foot wrapped in a hot towel, getting it sonogrammed and having electrodes attached to it and rhythmically sending electrics charges through my ankle. Also- the cost of healing here is quite low. I think with a week in the hospital, loads of drugs, bi-weekly, then weekly, then bi-monthly trips to visit the doctor and get x-rayed has only cost us about $500. And that includes the $60 extra strong pain meds I opted for after the surgery.

broken ankle, foreign hospitals, korea

Last weekend was a very strange couple of days. After getting home from work at 5:00 on Friday we hopped onto a bus into Seoul. We ate at this bloody fantastic Indian Food restaurant (where we will definitely be eating again!) in the financial district and crawled into bed quite early. Being the insane people that we are, we actually managed to book a tour that required us to wake up earlier than we do during the week. At 6:00 our alarm started ringing and we were off to Camp Kim (a USO camp in Seoul). We arrived at the DMZ and first got to visit Camp Boniface, a US military camp where we were asked to switch buses.
Finally arriving at the Military Demarcation line, right in the middle of the DMZ. From there we could see into North Korea and a strange village that sits completely empty, and apparently always has. There had to be official meetings to mandate the height and size of the flag in the villages in either side, because the two were constantly trying to one-up each other by getting bigger and bigger flags and taller and taller flagpoles.
We got to visit the freedom house (they have each optimistic names for eveything on the S. Korea side!) which was build to allow a safe place for families split by the divide to meet and reunite. But, we were told that North Korean wouldn’t allow any citizens to come this far south for fear that they would defect. Defection is a bloody event.
In front of the Freedom House is Unity Square, where a bloody fight erupted when a Soviet chappie from the North defected. A bunch of soldiers from both sides were killed, but apparently the guy is still alive and well somewhere.

history, korea, touristy

So today I got to school and was told that its a special holiday here in Korea- Pepero day, seemingly the ultimate in consumer holidays. Pepero (빼빼로) is a type of cookie (or cooky as all of the packaging describes it!) dipped in chocolate. It’s specifically a Lotte brand, and they appear to have come up with the brilliant marketing scheme to create a holiday specifically for their cookies. Although I wouldn’t be surprised if knockoffs have been making a buck or two off of the day. If I had known I may have done something to celebrate- but maybe I’ll try and get some photos in of the brilliant market stalls in Maseok, they’re really decked out. Not to mention the lovely English phrases decorating the boxes: “The delicious cooky made my mouth water”.
The best part about it all is that cookie day in Korea falls on the same day as Remembrance day back home. Two very different ends of the spectrum in terms of holidays. Apparently the idea is that November 11th (11/11) looks like four Pepero Sticks. I can’t wait to see what they come up with for Pepero Day 2011. 11/11/11

Happy Pepero Day everyone!