side gig and what not

  So me and my roommate started doing this side teaching thing where we go to Yongpyong Ski resort and help teach the Hotel and resort staff how to speak English.  We are doing it for free because legally we cannot hold any other jobs according to our contracts and visas, BUT this gig has a few cool benefits:  first of all we get to meet some actual Korean people our age who live in the area, which is nice because our town is pretty much all old people and children; also, since all these people we are teaching work at a ski resort they said i can get a discounted on a season pass, which is great because i was going to buy one anyway!  We had our first "lesson" today, but its nice because they already have a teacher, and me and Kevin just come two times a month to work on conversation.  So basically they just ask us questions and we respond and talk to them.  They all seem really nice and did i mention THEY ALL WORK AT A SWEET SKI RESORT!  so yea, it looks like i will be able to fulfill my goal of doing a lot of snowboarding in Korea, and with some cool Korean people.  This resort is less than 20 minutes away from where i live too.  not too shabby...

Everland and Halloween week

So I spent another weekend in Seoul.  This time I went up with my roommate and some of the people that he met during orientation.  We left early Saturday morning and arrived in Seoul to take a trip to Everland.  Everland is  an amusement park kind of like Disney land or something.  Some roller coasters, rides, and general theme park stuff.  It was a lot of fun.  It was pretty funny though, I guess at Everland the big thing for girls is to buy fake animal ear (cat, bear, rabbit, etc) and wear them around all day.  It was pretty funny to see.  We spent most of the day there and had blast, even though we spent quite a bit of time waiting in lines.  After that we back into Seoul and had some great Indian food for dinner.

     The next day we went to a book store called 'what the book.'  It was great.  I liked it a lot better than the bookstore i went to last time because here they sell used books, and its much cheaper.  I bought, slaughterhouse 5, Jon Stewart's Earth, Catch 22, and Apollo 13.  That should last me for a while at least ( I hope).  Then after that we went to an Irish pup to watch the Rugby World Cup.  My roommate Kevin was really excited because he is from New Zealand, and not only is the World Cup being held in New Zealand, but New Zealand was in the final against France.  I've never really watched Rugby so during the first half Kevin was doing a lot of explaining to me what was going on, but by the second half I somewhat got the gist of the game and understood what was going on.  The game was very hard fought and quite close but the All Blacks (the New Zealand Team) won 8-7!  woo hoo!  Then we had to leave the bar and rush to catch our bus, which was the last one leaving Seoul going back to our town.  It was an awesome weekend.
      At school this whole week I've been doing Halloween lessons.  I couldn't do many crafts or anything because right now my classroom is being switched so I have to teach in the science lab this week.  But we played lots of games and I gave out candy.  The kids had a blast.  Probably the funnest/funniest thing we did was today.  I had the kids wrap each other in toilet paper to make mummies!  They thought it was really hilarious seeing their friends bound in TP and unable to move!

    Also this week, Pyeongchang had its English festival.  Students from my school entered in the speech and dancing events.  It was a great time watching all the kids preform and I got to hang out with the other foreign teachers and meet their students.  I think the kids were mostly excited because they got to miss school for a day though! haha.   Anyway, now im packing to go to Jeonju tomorrow morning where i am meeting up with some other TaLK scholars for a Halloween party.  Goodnight

Don't worry I'm still alive...

Ok, sorry guys for taking so long to update.  but as you know this is my first blog ever, so bear with me.

so...... shit is been like 3 weeks, so went to

Seoul:
Seoul was fun.  finally got to a big city.  Did some hanging out, some conversing, and of course some shopping. My shopping mostly consisted of books though.   getting books written in english is a hard thing to come around these parts, so when i found a massive book store i jumped on it.  I bought "A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaled Hosseini and "the Devil in the White City" by Erik Larson.  I would have bought more at the time but the books were quite expensive.  I think i spent about $30 on just those two.... but any way, they are both excellent!

Busan:
Holy shit, Busan (or Pusan) was amazing!  Its the second largest city in Korea and is known for its sea food.  It is right on the south east coast of the country.  Within half an hour of me being there i was eating something that was still wriggling on the plate when they served it to us (check facebook videos to see it)!!!!!  Also later that weekend i ate puffer fish for lunch, which tuned out to be one of the cheapest and most tasty meals of the weekend.  All in all, I've decided I like busan much better than seoul, but it just takes twice as long to get to (Seoul takes 2 and half hours; Busan takes 5 hours)

So, anyway... that was a very quick update. As I write thing I am packing to go to Seoul again tomorrow, but  to go to EVERLAND, which is the themepark (the disneyland) of Seoul.  So wish me luck (actually you dont need too) and bid me farewell until next time.  Hopefully i get more used to running a blog and update it more often...

Day hike

So I ended up having the day off on Wednesday, so before my Korean class at 3:30 I decided to go on a small adventure.  My roommate told me about this hiking trail in our town that is only a few minutes away from where we live, so I decided to check it it out.  It ended up being pretty cool.  It was a LOT of stairs of this mountain that led to a veiw point that over looked our town, Jinbu. here are some pics.

                                                         One of several stairways

                                                       A Korean War Memorial I believe...

                                                           more stairs....

                                                          Salvation! The top!

                   View of Jinbu, you can see my apartment complex, tall beige building on the bottom right

                                                       more Jinbu

                                                      the Misty Mountains

                                                      just chillin

After the hike I went home, took a quick shower and went to Korean class.  All in all it was a nice relaxing day.  Went and got some Chinese food with some of the other teachers after our class and then went back home.  I am going to Seoul this weekend so look forward to another update next week!

In the swing of things

     Well its been a while since my last post so I figured I'd give an update.  So far I have just been getting used to life here and getting into my routine.  During the week life is pretty quiet.  most days I wake up around 8:30am, have some coffee and breakfast, which is usually cereal.  I usually spend my mornings preparing my lessons for class, if I didn't finish them the night before.  My roommate, Kevin, has to be at his school earlier than I do so most mornings I have the apartment to myself.  At 11:40 I catch the bus to Jangpyeong and get to my school around 12:15.  I eat lunch at school, and so far the food has been pretty good.  My first class of the day is at 1:30pm so after lunch I have just under an hour to get my classroom ready and set up for my lesson.  I teach classes from 1:30 until 4:30, then I usually stay at school until just before 5.  I will clean up my classroom and maybe plan a little bit for the next days lesson.  Then I catch the 5:17 bus back to Jinbu.
     My evenings so far have been pretty uneventful.  A few nights a week me and my roommate will make dinner together, but for the most part we fend for ourselves (he's vegetarian and I need my meat sometimes).  We will play cards or watch TV shows on our computers, and we spend a bit of time swapping lesson ideas, and talking about what we did for different classes.  That is one benefit of having a roommate is that we always have someone to talk to and compare ideas with.  I know some people that are starting to feel lonely and homesick because they live far away from everyone.  Once I get a cellphone it will be easier for me to contact the other foreign teachers in Jinbu and we will spend some more time together.
     So thats my basic schedule for a typical week.  Oh yea, I started taking Korean classes with the other foreign teachers last Wednesday.  We meet every Wednesday at Jinbu Elementary school at 3:30.  The class is taught by the schools Korean English Teacher.  Since we are all at vastly different levels (some of the EPIK teachers have been here for 2 years) its mostly like a self study, but on Wednesdays you can ask any questions and have them answered by a real Korean person.
     Well thats about in for now, I finally feel settled in.  I really like my school and town and this week I should be getting my first paycheck!

Sports Day and Chuseok Weekend

    ahhh yes, another end to a wonderful week.  This week was especially good too.  My school had sports day on Thursday, where all the students competed in various events ranging from standard races to balloon popping contests.  A lot of the parents came out as well and participated, it was tons of fun.

     Also, my settlement money finally came today, so I am no longer broke! woooo hoooo, which is perfect because I have a 5 day weekend now.  I get Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday off next week because it is Chuseok, Korean thanksgiving.  So now I can actually travel a bit and see some people, instead of spending the vacation in my apartment living of rice and water.  I also signed up for a Korean class in my town with some of the other foreign teachers.  It meets every Wednesday starting next week.  I'm really excited to be able to learn some more Korean.  Trying to learn by myself on the internet was proving to be difficult.  On another note, I finally set up a Skype account so you people can call me through the computer for free.  My skype name is:  risi.anthony

                                                     TUG OF WAR!

Has it really been a month?

   So officially one month ago today I arrived in Korea.  Wow, that went by fast!  Although now that I'm getting into the swing of country life, things will slow down a bit...probably not though.   So I had my first day of teaching last Thursday which went fairly well.  My lesson plans fell apart for some classes, to hard for my 2nd graders, to easy for my 6th graders.  Plus most of the kids were a little shy at first and I really had to prod them to get them to participate in class.  I noticed several of them were "playing dumb" and acting like they didn't know what I was saying when they actually did.  However, its amazing what just a few days can do.
   Today was definitely a great day for me.  All my lessons when great!  The kids were participating, my lessons actually took up the allotted amount of time, lol, and I really felt that the kids were able to pull something out of it.  It was a very good feeling.  I am starting to get the hang of lesson planning for my different classes and it is not taking nearly as long as it used to, although making interesting PowerPoints to use in class are what takes up most of my time.  However, lately I've found several good websites for ESL teachers that have a lot of resources already made, so that should save me a lot of time.  Also, all of the TaLK scholars have been sharing information with each other and that has been very useful (although today I actually found myself giving tips to several other people).
                                      
                                                 My school: Jangpyeong Elementary

                                     
                  My 3rd/4th grade combination class.  That's right, only 5 kids! (well two were absent today)


    Well, now that I've caught you up a bit on my school live I'll talk for about about settling in.  So far its been great.  I've met about 4 other foreign teachers besides my roommate who live in the area and they are all really nice.  Also, many other people in the TaLK program live in bigger cities not to far away.  This past Saturday a group of about 12 of us met up in Gangneung for a beach day trip.  It was great!  Not only was the beach awesome, but it only takes me 40 minutes by bus to get there.  So we all spent the day together, swapped stories about our respective schools and towns and just relaxed.  I was really surprised at how warm the water was.  I jumped in expecting it to be freezing and was pleasantly surprised to find it to be about 70 degrees.  After hanging out in the surf all day we grabbed some really good seafood noodle dish, I forget what it was called, that had shrimp, clams and squid in it.  After that we grabbed some coffee at a cafe and chatted a bit more before we all headed back home.  It was good to reunite with some of the other people, even if we had only been apart for a week.

                                                                      Beach in Gangneung