First Day of School

I just had my first Korean class today.  I am taking classes from the Institue for Foreigners at one of the Universities here.  I am in the pre-beginner class so we are starting at the very basics.  Today we only covered the vowels.  Korean is supposed to be a very simple language and is quite phonetic (once you can actually recognize the various letters and vowels).  All of the characters and vowels look the same to me at this point... but I am slowly being able to pick out some letters. 
There are about 15 other people in my class, all foreigners.  A bunch of people from Japan (who speak no English), some Brittish people, a few other English teachers (from Canada or US), a woman from Ukraine, and then a few people from China.  Overall everyone seems to be able to speak English (minus the Japanese people and the teacher).  I very quickly realized how my more beginner students must feel in my classes with my lack of Korean.  The teacher had to be very creative in her directions to us to get us to do what she wanted.  The most difficult was hearing the minute differences in pronounciation.  For my ears the different sounds of 'ye' and 'ya' were almost identical but the teacher kept insisting we were saying it wrong.  I think it will require a bit of studying on the side, but my goal is to be able to comfortably read Korean (even if I don't know exactly what it says).  I have 10 weeks (20 classes) to accomplish that so I'm hopeful.  Well I am very excited to be starting these classes (even though it means my Mondays and Wednesdays are quite long days).  The other people in the class seem really interesting too so I'm sure I'll get to know them as well (even it requires a bit of miming to communicate with some of my classmates).

Korean Birthday

A couple of weeks ago my coworkers took me out for a delicious sashimi (raw fish) dinner to celebrate my birthday.  Here are a few pictures my boss took at the restaurant... unfortunately he only took these couple of ones so Ezke, Daniel and Charles (my other co-workers) didn't make it into any of the pictures, but they were there too.  I'll try to take some pictures during class sometime this week so you can see some of my students.

One of my co-teachers, Sharon.

One of my bosses, John

So much raw fish!  Notice all of the diferent side dishes as well... delicious!

My Neighborhood

I've taken a bunch of pictures of my apartment and the area around it now.  I have FINALLY unpacked everything so I feel much more settled now.  I've been exploring the area I'm living in and am really liking everything I'm finding.  Not only is there tons of shopping, cafes, and restaurants there are also little markets and smaller, local places sitting on side streets.  On top of this entertainment there also appear to be about 100 hospitals in Hadan.  The strange thing about hospitals here is that as long as the person is able to walk, even when technically "checked in" to the hospital they can still meander around.  For instance, the other day I stopped at 7/11 (yes they have 7/11 here... but no slurpees sadly) and there was a guy sitting outside in a hospital gown and an IV drip coming out of his arm just having a cup of coffee.  I've had this happen constantly the past few days... just walking around and passing people from the hospital in their gowns... luckily they all seem to close in the back.  My other favorite things I've found here is the "yogurt lady."  Every morning I see about a dozen different women walking along the street in a uniform pushing a cart and selling only yogurt.  I tried asking a friend about this and apparently Koreans think yogurt is just such a healthy, necessary food that they have a specific person that sells only this very treasured good.  So each morning the "yogurt ladies" are making deliveries (sort of like milkmen) and also selling to individuals on the street.

Yesterday I also found a massive farmers market a few streets down from me.  It reminded me of the public markets I loved so much from South America (minus the variety of fruits) however they still had all sorts of fresh fruits and vegetables and also many prepared foods (different than South America).  Of course, this being Busan, there were many stands of fish in various forms (dried, live, on ice, cooked...)  I will definitely be stopping by there more often.  It looks like a beautiful day today and has started to cool off some so it is starting to feel like fall here (even without the leaves changing).  So I'm gonna try to get in some shopping before classes today (peanut butter and snickers bars are still the only things in my fridge-- not the most balanced diet...)

Bathroom... notice the creativity that is my shower (yes, it's hooked up to the sink)

Kitchen with washing machine under the burner

Entryway

My "bedroom"

Various prepared foods covered in chili sauce

Yogurt Lady resting

All in a month

View Busan and the Sea

I've almost reached my 1 month mark in South Korea and so it seemed time to write some about it.  I really love my location in Busan.  The city is surrounded by high mountains (plenty of hiking opportunities) and sits right on the water (lots of seafood to eat).  I'm living on the edge of the city in an area called Hadan, but it is very close to my school and also on a subway line so it's very easy to go to the city center.  However, there are tons of cafes, restaurants, a university and giant nature reserve right by my apartment so I can very easily stay around my own area as well.  The apartment itself is quite small (pictures to come...) but it is just enough space for me.  I think I have gotten very lucky in terms of my school.  I am working at a very small private school (called Haugwans here) that has only been open about a year.  They are very open to any ideas or suggestions I have and have been extremely welcoming to me.  The three of the other teachers are Korean and one is from India.  I have between four and six classes a day with the majority of my students being about 11 or 12 years old.  They are very well behaved (for the most part) and I'm really enjoying teaching them.  These past few days were Chuseuk (Korean Thanksgiving) so I only had two days of work all week.  Besides work, I've done some exploring of the city and of my neighborhood.  I went on a really amazing hike from Children's park in the city center up a mountain to the oldest Buddhist temple in Korea called Beomeosa.  The pictures hardly capture how amazing this hike was.  Well... that's my very, very brief summary of the past few weeks here and I will try to keep this updated a few times each month.  

My Classroom

Beomeosa

Handmade Korean noodles

Typical gift for Chuseok

Yes that is a swastika... but here it's a Buddhist symbol for temple