Welcome to Korea!

Well "anyeong haseyo" there!

That means 'hello', so welcome back if you're back to read my blog as I begin anew my travels. This time I've ended up in Korea, teaching for a year. I've been here approximately 8 days now, still recovering from jet lag, eating lots of great Korean food, and already feeling surprisingly comfortable in Asia so far.

The week I've spent here so far has been at a university in a town in central Korea called Jeonju, where we've been having orientation. I have no idea where the week's gone (time is still fuzzy from all the sleeping to catch up and comparing time here to the 15 hours difference at home), but I know we've had several days of lectures on how to prepare for teaching next week, on Korean culture, and on the Korean language.

Korean language class has, of course, been my favorite and I can pretty much read now and say enough key phrases to get the convenience store clerk where I go to buy ice cream quite frequently to smile at my efforts.

We had a field trip one day to a local touristy village and to an incredible temple built in 599 AD. Besides the sights, another fun part of the field trip was walking back to our bus through a shadey picnic area next to a river where Korean families were playing in the water. A bunch of the EPIK teachers (that's me) jumped in the water too and got to play with the kids and have their Korean parents ask for pictures of us with them.

Today is our last official day of orientation. We're meeting the directions of our regions and finding out what grades and what schools we'll be teaching at, which has been the question on everyone's minds for months now. That's followed by a farewell dinner and a talent show that Ryan and I signed up to sing an original song for - , which we still have to get around to writing. ;)

My next post should hopefully include some pictures of my new town, new apartment, etc. I'm very excited and looking forward to jumping into my new job - I'm a TEACHER! :)