Class Class Class Class...

The semester started on Tuesday. Stephen and I finally have a full schedule and our very own groups of kids. We are real teachers! And we teach a LOT. Eleven classes on Monday/Wednesday/Fridays, and 10 classes on Tuesday/Thursdays. That's 53 classes a week. 53 classes to plan and teach in a WEEK. Unbelievable.

Mind you, a lot of the work is done for us. The school provides materials, lesson plans, resources. Tons of resources. And once we get the hang of how things run (right now it's pretty confusing--The schedule, the curriculum...it's a system. We're learning it), we will have to do very little planning (fingers crossed).

Still, it's a lot of work to just teach that many classes. The stamina required to come to every class with enthusiasm, to discipline effectively, to give each and every child the attention he needs and deserves... My brain is convulsing.

My pre-kindergarteners are adorable, but I have a couple of spoiled brats. The elementary kids...Some of my classes are huge and impossible, some of them are delightful, one of them consists of two abnormally quiet but super bright kids.

I haven't washed my hair since Tuesday. I hope no one notices.

Gotta go to work...

-Andrea

Sunday

Looking out the window...

This is sort of a park/exercise center that we overlook.

We decided to give ourselves a little tour of the neighborhood. There are some pretty awesome buildings.

If you're thinking that Stephen is about to climb the 6 foot wall of rocks...

Then you are correct.

There's something we probably haven't really explained about New Songdo City...It really is a new city, as in like, the land has recently been brought into existence. Back when times were economically good, a bunch of investors poured billions and billions of dollars into basically dirt, to bring the city up from the ocean, or to "reclaim" it. (I think it's weird that they use the word "reclaim," as if it once existed, was lost, and now they're getting it back. No. This is fabricated land, the very beginning of its existence.) Billions of more dollars were put into building that amazing bridge we told you about, and more and more money has been put into making this an international business hub. So, as I write, I guess I'm probably sitting on about a couple hundred thousand dollars or something. Even though we're in a recession, I don't think the city is being put on hold. Thank goodness--what a let down that would be. It looks like they're still building, still growing (it's supposed to be finished in 2015). But it seems like it's still mostly a place where people work, rather than live. I guess everyone lives in every other part of Incheon. (It's kind of confusing that it's called New Songdo City, because it's really a district that is part of the entire city of Incheon.) It's cool for us to be here, because we get to live right in this huge project, and maybe over the course of a year we'll be able to log some kind of progress. Still, it's a little weird living in a kind of ghost town. I mean, on a Sunday afternoon, there is noooo one around. Check out the subway station:

We're in one of the largest cities in the world, and when we get on the train, we have it all to ourselves.

Okay, but a few stops later it started filling up, and once we got into Seoul we were shoulder to shoulder with folks.

Korean barbeque. Fantastic.

No big deal. Just a giant bank ad that takes up the entire facade of a city skyscraper...and features a seriously vicious looking kitty. Welcome to Asia!

We probably spent four hours total on the subway yesterday, and didn't really do much else. Wandered around Seoul, ate dinner, bought a pack of cigarettes.

Almost back to ghost land...All tuckered out.

La La Laundry!

Question: What do you like to do during your free time?

Answer: In my free time, I go to the bathroom, and then I get a drink of water.

Oh, God bless these children. (You're not getting quite the full effect here, because you can't see the childish yet meticulous handwriting. Next time I really should take a picture of the worksheet.)

Stephen and I are cracking up right now because our first load of laundry just finished, and to let us know it was done, our washing machine played us a little jingle...and it lasted like, 45 seconds. There is an unnecessarily long jingle for every event in the life of a Korean apartment.

All right. More pIctures of the apartment:

Yeah. The toilet. wtf?

-Andrea

Drinks

Ok, so don't get your hopes up about this being an interesting entry, it wasn't like a wild and crazy night or anything. Just a couple drinks. Booooriiing.

One of our coworkers showed us a nice little Korean style pub near where we live and work. A small place, (all the places are small) very friendly (pretty sure they're all friendly too) and not too expensive. Just about perfect. An has been not drinking, no she's not pregnant, so Chris and I just got a couple of beers and a bottle of soju. The beer was not good or bad, just beer. Which I like sometimes. I already forgot the name. That about says it all. Soju is made from potatos and tastes like half strength vodka, which is more or less what it is. One bottle of this is about 10 fluid oz. and costs 3000 won. Dirt cheap. Pretty sure every bar in Korea gives some sort of snack with your drinks. This one gave us popcorn, chips, peanuts, (those two I'm pretty sure they only gave us because we were American) and snails. That's right. I was a little hesitant but ended up really liking them. They come in these cute little shells and you just suck'em out. Pretty good bar food I think. Andrea wasn't quite ready for them. When she starts drinking again she says. We'll see. :) Everything is so cute here I realized again when I went to the restroom and saw two middle aged Korean men wandering around drunkenly and falling over each other. Adorable. I don't think Koreans have mean drunks. We'll see though. I'll keep you updated.

Kitchen!

So, I took a few pictures of Future House and I started having a hard time uploading them after these three, so this is all for now. Here you can see our great big sink with some dirty dishes in it. As you can sort of see, Andrea didn't finish all of her eggs this morning. That microwave looking thing is also an oven. Thats right. Our cute little gas stove. Our washer. No dryers here in the future. In one pic I think you can see one of our space-agey stools. I wanted to take some outside pictures, but a heavy fog descended upon the city as I prepared to do so. More soon.

Stevie

Becoming Locals

So, yesterday was huge, imho, to our becoming a part of this steadily growing westernized but still fairly Korean burg. It's Sunday. We have few goals. One: One of the two transformers I had bought immediately began spewing electrical smelling smoke when Andrea plugged in her hairdryer. We needed to return it. Two: Andrea's glasses are no longer much help to her eyesight, but her contacts dry quickly and hurt her eyes. So she has been left with a very difficult dichotomy. Wear the glasses and struggle to read even things a foot from her face, or, wear the contacts and potentially damage her precious eyes. Terrible! Especially when faced with a new engaging career and a brand new city to explore. Three: We needed food.

In my wanderings the previous night I had stumbled upon another eyeglass store. (The first one we found was unable to help Andrea on account of the corneal damage that was done by wearing the dreaded contacts.) After a quick bite for breakfast we set for the glasses shop. We had a lot of fun communicating with the three store keepers through an online translator. When the man who was obviously the senior practitioner had taken his assessment we were very relieved to hear that Andrea's eyes would heal just fine on their own (How wonderful is it that the eyes are so resilient?) and we could come back in one week and get a prescription that would better fit Andrea's healthy eyes.

We left the shop and caught a bus to Yonsu, a nearby district of Incheon where I had purchased the transformer earlier in the week. We quickly found the store and were preparing a few Korean words from our dictionary when a woman walked up an asked,
"What can I do for you?" It took us both a second to realize we could just reply in English. So we returned the transformer easy enough and left. Yonsu has a little more going on than our neighborhood so we wandered around awhile. When we were ready to go home we made for the narest bus stop.

Now by this point I've learned some hangul and knew enough to know we wanted to go to �۵� (Songdo) I had no Idea what the words next to that meant. Well it wasn't too long before I remembered that there is an old Songdo pretty far from where we lived and that was where the bus was now taking us. Before, I basically knew the way home, it was just a little far to walk, and many street signs were also in English. Now we were far from home, headed in the wrong direction, and everything was in Korean. My only hope is, the bus will not kick us off at the end of the line and we'll ride it back to Yonsu. We know there's a subway stop in new Songdo and we spot descending stairs in the sidewalk so we exit the bus.

When we go down the stairs it's a long underground mall. with no sign of a subway. Andrea is sure that this is just like the shops outside the subway she was familiar with, so we continue to walk the underground bazaar. After what seems like quite a ways, Andrea sees the name of a church that she is familiar with. We go topside to check it out. She continues to recognize landmarks until she realizes this is the area where she had visited our friend Eric a year ago! Desperately lost, we head down the narrow alley toward the bar Eric frequented and where Andrea had made some friends. It was really cool to see this totally different side of Incheon. The road here was one lane, with no sidewalks. Crude American graffiti, sketchy street vendors, the works. We came upon the bar and discovered it closed. hmmm.

Andrea insists that there is a subway somewhere in the underground mall. We go back down. This time I ask a man, "Subway?"
He points and says 5 minutes. As we walk away he and his friend chuckle. I think it's funny too. Obviously I shouldn't have doubted that there would be a real subway station after five minutes walking through what appears to be nothing more than an underground mall. Andrea knew it. :)

So we get to the station, have tickets bought for us because we still have no idea where home is. (Although the stops are in english as well, none of them say Songdo and we don't know the names of our stops.) So we're on the subway platform, tickets paid, and don't know which way to go or which transfers to make. Finally, one of the platforms has a real map, with the lines laid out on it, and we're able to plot a course home. I can't leave out here, that these subway stations are amazing! At the time I said they were like underground palaces. Huge, very nicely finished with fancy looking stone. There's no "Watch the gap" because it's all walled in with doors that correspond to the subway doors when it stops. Just the size of it all was what was amazing to me. We'll post pictures I promise.

So we made it home. We're both really happy to have figured out the subway and to have stumbled upon a familiar place where Andrea can introduce me to old friends. Before we went home we found a nice little grocer that had some good stuff for cheaper than we had previously seen. I was able to buy a big plate of fish for 2500 Won! (Like 2 bucks) It's really good fried up and mixed in with the noodles. Andrea is not big on the fish yet. We'll see. We also found out that the ramen we'd been eating, (Which is awesome btw, so many flavors, so cheap and good.) doesn't have MSG. It's funny because the only english on the package is "MSG". We're thinking, is this a mandatory warning, advertisment, what? A kind man showed us the korean word "mu" (no). A very happy discovery.

Ok, sorry so long.

Love you guys,

Stephen

"I DID MY EPOLY!!!!!!"

KIDS

Well, Day One of work involved the observing of classes and the discovery that we will be working ten hour days.

Ten hours of observation: Honestly, kind of dreadful, especially in grammar classes where the kids were shy at best, aloof at worst...They were probably pretty smart, but would clearly rather have been outside playing. Well, clearly isn't the right word. These kids are so disciplined, so quiet, and respectful. But, I mean they're 9 and they've been at school for eleven hours. Shoot, I can empathize.

So here's the way it works: Poly (they pronounce it "pole-y") is a hogwan, which is a private school. Within the school there are two programs: the morning program and the afternoon program. The morning program is divided among preschool, pre-kindergarten, and kindergarten-aged kids. And they are wonderful. They have energy, they are adorable and they are so delightfully smart, but young enough not to be arrogant about their intelligence, or really their high capacity to learn. They have an innocent pride about knowing they did something correct, and that they've pleased their teacher. So, adorable, smart, eager to please. Every teacher's dream students. (PS--When I observed my first class one student was so excited that he got a question right, he started jumping up and down, clapping, and yelled, "I did my ePoly!!" ePoly is an online supplemental program for the kids. Korean schools love to give homework--even to preschool kids.)

I wish I could capture these kids in words so you all could understand just how delightful they are. They are pretty shy at first, but they're so excited, so they become trusting and affectionate pretty quickly. And they love their teachers. Walking around in the hallway, Stephen and I heard giggling and lots of "ooohh new teacher!!"

So, ten hours of teaching won't be so bad.

The afternoon program is more like an English tutoring program for older (elementary-age) students. So these kids aren't really ours in the way the little kids are. They come to us after spending the entire day at their regular school. They're supposed to sit quietly and do English grammar problems and read English stories out loud for 40 minutes. Poor kids!! They are at school until 7:30 or later (some of them go from regular school to our school to some other academy and then piano lessons...) and then they have to go home and do homework! When do they play!? We're kind of appalled by the pressure put on some of these kids.

FUTURE HOUSE

Our apartment is really pretty awesome. We live in a building called Posco (or so we're told, and taxi drivers seem to know it...but it doesn't say "Posco" anywhere on the building. There's just a big letter "D" on the front. Whatever.) And according to some of our coworkers, living in Posco is a pretty big deal. Directed at Stephen: "Dude, man, if you were single..."

So how perfect is this place? Well, it's a less than five minute walk from our school, which is amazing. Most of the other teachers have a ten minute bus ride (suckers). We have a big kitchen (by Korean standards), sooo much room, and HUGE windows, which is a dream come true for me. I love how this place fills up with sunlight. It's beautiful. The windows overlook a park, and a really great view of some city buildings. This building is only a year old, so it has some really funny space-age-y features, like the automatic door-lock that plays a little robot jingle for us. Kind of like the sound a car makes when you lock it. But, honestly, it's way better. It's almost as if some pleasant little person is saying, "Okay sweeties! You're all safe now!" Our microwave also functions as an oven (or the other way around...?), and it took us three days to figure out how to work our high-tech kitchen sink. We also have a computer screen connected to cameras so we can basically check out wherever we want in the building. It also lets us control heating and cooling, tells us the weather, has a subway map, can be used as an alarm clock...it's ridiculous.

So the deal about Korean bathrooms: I feel like this could be a source of controversy among Westerners, but let me just say Stephen and I have made up our minds, and we're pretty set, although we've surprised ourselves a bit. Okay, I don't know if some of you already know this, but it's basically a big shower outfitted with sink and toilet. So the shower is hooked up to the sink, and you basically have to make sure you put away anything that you don't want getting wet before you shower. Which is nbd, because there's plenty of storage space (in our bathroom anyway) And there's a little cover for the toilet paper.

It sounds weird and awkward maybe, but really it's super efficient. A really good space and money saver. And cleaning the bathroom is simplified. The only real drawback is the bathroom floor is wet for awhile after someone showers, so if you have to go to the bathroom your feet are going to get wet...but we are going to Hi-mart today to buy bathroom slippers. No problemo.

Oh! And the toilet seat is HEATED.

!!!!!!!!!!

And it has a bidet, which I totally can't get into, but Stephen loves it. In theory I'm with him--Yeah, it's definitely cleaner than, you know, just using toilet paper. In practice...Idunno. I'm weirded out. I might change my mind. But if I do, I probably won't let you know about it.

So, we're mostly totally in on the Korean bathroom thing.

THE FIFTH LARGEST BRIDGE IN THE WORLD

Okay so back up. The New Songdo Bridge opened about five months ago. (around the time Stephen and I got married, come to think of it) The bridge connects Songdo to the airport. Before the bridge it took an hour and a half to get from ICN to Songdo, but, after a 14 hour flight, it took us only half an hour or so. And most of that time was spent on the bridge. Can you imagine half an hour of crossing a bridge? We were driving pretty fast! SUCH a long bridge!!

It was amazing. Imagine crossing the Brooklyn Bridge to get into Manhattan times about ten. We had an amazing view of the sun setting over the ocean, and a landscape of skyscrapers and mountains. It was so beautiful, and pretty humbling actually.

It's all so wonderfully designed--the Earth, and the modifications man has made to it. They complement each other almost perfectly, aesthetically anyway.

We could see the bridge as our plane descended, so you can imagine our delight in getting to cross it so soon thereafter.

-Andrea