Welcome to the Rice Paddy!

November 4, 2007

I have now been in South Korea for one week, well tomorrow it will be one week. I work outside of Gwangju (a large city that is pretty nice) near Damyang. I work at JETI (Jeollanamdo Educational Training Institute) which a teacher's training institute. It's different then a public school jobs because you do need a BEd or a Master's degree with teaching experience to work here. Basically I create lesson plans and eventually a curriculum on how to teach English as a Second Language. I work with 7 other foreign teachers from Canada and so far we have just been getting use to Korea. We have a campus type set up that allows for the Korean teachers to live here for one month and be fully immersed in English. We will teach teachers from elementary all the way up to high school. This should be interesting because I am only 23 and I have just received my teaching degree. I have heard some of the Korean teachers can be quite older so I hope they take me seriously!

The view from my room at JETI (mind the screen)

We have been given a 2 week orientation which is sweet! However this week we are beginning to prepare for the first month orientation for elementary school teachers! I have been hanging out in Gwangju this weekend. It is great to go the city because there is literally nothing near the institute except for rice paddies and a few tourist spots of temples and gardens. It's beautiful but I love the city and I need some luxury items like Starbucks!

Gwangju (Across from the Bus Terminal)

I personally like Gwangju in that it's a weird mix of China meets Japan. I have been to both China and Japan (Japan more extensively) but it is fun to be shocked but what I see. Today a few teachers and I went and explored a local market. It was great to see everything from big pig carcasses hanging from hooks to women descaling fish. I thought the market is brilliant for eating food that is fresh and not processed. Also I got a chance to interact with the locals. By the way my Korean is horrible considering I have been here short while. I can count to 10 and I know some basic greetings but I definitely need practice! Yikes!

The weirdest think I saw at the market was a bag full of bees and honeycomb being sold. Now these were not typical cute Canadian bees. These were scary bees that made me cringe cause they could do some damage!!!!