Seriously? again?

My boss: "Just a minute." 

Me: Ok. sure. Class time is a good a time for a meeting.

My boss: "I want you to meet Mr Kwan. Tomorrow Mr Kwan is new boss. I am stopping." 

Me: Awesome. 3 bosses in 7 months. Is that a record?

Around Korea with T

T came to Korea for a visit. We traveled to the tiny island of Somaemuldo and up to Seoul. I have a photo album, mostly of our island hopping adventures, but including a few pics of Seoul. 

It was wicked to have T over here and be able to discuss our various experiences of Korea. We have both noticed many of the same things. I was entertained by our convo about Korean compost buckets. Everybody has the same one. It's red. Another candidate for extreme mass market appeal in Korea is the apparently single design of apartment buildings. On a KTX trip to Seoul (500 km and 3 hrs) you have the opportunity to see it roughly 500 times. It's funny.

Trials and Tribulations of Teaching

I knew it was going to be sketchy. Being given a job based solely on my ability to speak my mother tongue and having a degree, any degree, is kind of weird. Really what do I know of teaching? Or discipline? How to control a class of wild 6 year old, or are they 1o? I can't really tell.

I think the first sign of sketchiness was when I knew I wouldn't be getting a work visa in time for my start date. My future employer, or rather an English teacher at another of my employer's schools who was given the task of communicating with me, told me that wouldn't be a problem "you'll just have to do the Japan visa run." Ok, I thought no biggie and I get to go to Japan.

Well I arrive in Korea and am shuttled straight to school from the airport. Nuts to jetlag. OK, I think to myself that first week, this is a little weird standing at the front of the class, but I think I can get used to it. And I do.

Then there is the small matter of my one and only co-worker doing a runner. I am now the most senior teacher at my school. I have been teaching 6 days. I manage and teach double classes for a few weeks until they find a replacement.

A month goes by and apparently there is some confusion with my documents to get the visa. Finally after FedExing my criminal check back and forth to Canada my boss comes up to me and tells me I'm going to Japan, tomorrow. Great! Who needs to plan? I get a holiday! Oh yeah and finally be legally allowed to work.

Well actually apparently I was missing some important document. Hmm guess I'll have to go again.

So back in Korea my boss is acting very relaxed. He hasn't popped by my class at all and when I enter his office I frequently find him stretched out on his couch, shoes off, fast asleep. In between naps he has been taking regular meetings with an older Korean man. I generally regard this man as odd and a tad annoying. He has developed a habit of popping into my class when I am prep-ing and asking me questions about sentence structure. Who is this guy? I wonder.

Well turns out he's my new boss. I guess they didn't feel they needed to tell us more than a day in advance. Tomorrow no more Old Boss. Now, New Boss. Ahhh great.

Another month goes by. Back to Japan Julia Teacher. When? Tomorrow. Of course.

Now a familiar face at the Korean Consulate in Fukuoka I had to be taken pity upon and get strings pulled in my favor in order to avoid a third visa run because, alas, my paper work was still not quite right!

Three months in and I am finally legally allowed to work here. Good stuff and things are looking up. I've had the same co-worker for 2 months straight. The new boss has spent his first couple weeks measuring the font on the front door and washing the plastic plant in the front hall. He is probably crazy but whatevs as long as I don't talk to him and I get paid life is good.

Where's Minnie our secretary? She's sick? Oh she's gone home? Why? She quit? No you fired her? What? Oh you don't have any money? That's great. Can you pay me? Yes. You promise? Ok.

Seriously starting to reevaluate the job. Will I be paid next month is not a fun question. So now my boss is also the secretary. Time to call in reinforcements, his wife. Now she is the secretary. Or is it official plant cleaner. I'm not sure. What I know is she doesn't speak English. 

New developments again on the job front: my boss is now the bus driver. Apparently he is broke or something and can't pay anyone but the teachers. Awesome.

The biggest impact of the new arrangement is I now order food via his wife. I think it's improving my Korean. Also she cuts up apple for us during our supper break.

This summer I got locked in my classroom three times. The worst was the time I was being observed by a potential parent. She wanted to leave halfway through and the doorknob came off. This wasn't the first time so I knew the door could be opened from outside. Unfortunately nobody was outside. There were a few awkward minutes in which I tried to reassure this Korean mom who clearly spoke no English that everything was fine. She wasn't too thrilled so I resorted to shouting at B through my window hoping he would hear me and come let the mom out. My plan worked but the mom didn't sign her kids up for SSS. I still don't have a doorknob.

I am passed the half way point. I have come to terms with the sketchiness of this job. I can handle broken doors, lost coworkers, new bosses, language barriers, fighting children etc. The one aspect that I am having trouble dealing with is my boss' reluctance to discipline students in fear of them pulling out and losing the cash. The students have become wise to this fact and many of them are becoming very nasty as a result. There are still many days that are a lot of fun and every day is interesting but I will be very excited to see the end of my contract not least because it means the start of what I hope to be a great adventure in South East Asia.

Halfway There

I passed my six-month mark last week. At the same time E came to the end of her year in Korea and I went to Daejeon to say goodbye (photos). It is strange to think that I am now where E was when I arrived. At the time I looked to E as though she had been in Korea forever and she must know everything. So I guess I'm the seasoned vet now. I have just started to feel as though I haven't just stepped off the plane. 

However, my level of Korea is still abysmal. I mastered "thank you" and "hello/goodbye" in my first month. But I am pretty sure I say goodbye when I mean hello and hello when I mean goodbye. Also I only figured out the word for "toilet" around my five-month mark. I am proud I learned to read Hangul. It also does come in handy when looking for food. The one phrase that I can read quickly, none of the grade one style reading painfully sounding out each character, is "im dae" "for rent." Yes my Korean knows no bounds.

I noticed the other day, when wandering around the massive Jagalchi fish market (photos), that I no longer remark the craziness of Korea. It's become normal. The baskets and buckets of unimaginable sea creatures that clutter the streets beside tables of whole octopi under a canopy of mismatched ancient beach umbrellas is just what it looks like. But it's familiar and not so very strange anymore. I guess I am a seasoned vet.

A Very Beachy Summer

Summer in Pusan for me has been all about embracing the beach culture of my sea side city. I have logged many hours on Gwangali Beach aka my beach and ventured over to Haeundae Beach a couple times. To switch it up even more I ventured all the way out to Songjong beach in the furthest reaches of the city beyond the end of the subway line. Generally speaking Gwangali is a very good low key beach -by Korean standards. On a Saturday I still know there's an ocean there. Haeundae is quite another story.  It is a famous beach in Korea and is a cultural experience in and of itself. I heard rumors that one weekend they had 1 million people on the beach basking under their umbrellas. I visited on a Thursday a couple weeks ago and even then the ocean was completely obscured from all the umbrellas. 

That's the funny thing about Korean beach culture, Korean culture in general is so sun-fearing that beach behavior revolves first and foremost around how to avoid the sun. Quite the opposite of what I am used to in North America. But then to further entrench the Korean-ness of it all every family hidden under their umbrellas and visors are also sitting on large reflective blankets.... go figure. All I can say is: that's Korea for you.

Maybe in anticipation of getting bored of the Pusan beaches I booked a trip to Jeju in June for the August long weekend. Jeju is commonly referred to as the Hawaii of Korea. Yes, well, I'm not so sure about that but maybe my experience is skewed by the fact I visited during rainy season and it acted accordingly. Though I have yet to hear of a dry trip to the island between March and August...

My facebook album of the trip sums up everything pretty well. We spent a total of 3 days there. We rented scooters for 2 days and motored around the island to the best of our ability given the regular 2 pm downpour and giant highways. I have a feeling there is more to Jeju than what I saw and would give it another go... in a car. Mostly the trip was interesting and exciting due to the interesting and exciting scooters and travel companions. The most successful day was the day we climb, the long way, up Hallasan Korea's highest peak. We had originally intended only to climb the short 2 hour trail but took the wrong bus and ended up at the start of the long trail (7 hour round trip). We decided to go for it and the only slight problems were not enough water or food. Problems we remedied with a stop at a mountain stream and an excellent Mexican restaurant in Jeju-si that night.

The heat has finally broken back in Pusan. I'd say it had been unpleasantly hot and sticky for just over a month. Yesterday on my way to work at 8:30 am I noticed, for the first time in a month, that I did not have sweat trickling down my back. I slept without the AC on last night and didn't wake up in a pool of sweat. I count these as signs that summer is almost over and fall is definitely on its way.

Ewwwwwwww Gross!

Last night I returned to my shoe-box to find an uninvited creature had taken up residency on my wall. I guess I'd never seen a cockroach before. They're huge! And I gotta say I wasn't much of a fan. Trying to psych myself up to squash it proved very difficult. I got more and more freaked out and less and less convinced I could touch it. Then it flew out from the wall straight at my head and it was game over for me. I tried to recruit reinforcements but as luck would have it nobody in my building was home. In the meantime it had scuttled away somewhere and all I could imagine was it dive-bombing me as soon as I entered my room. Thankfully A finally got home we teamed up against the sucker and after a fairly destructive 15 minutes in which my apartment was thoroughly trashed A got him with one of my hikers.

Yuck!

Holy destruction Batman! You can see the remnants of the king kong bug between my shoes and the blue bucket.

Waiting for a Typhoon

July is supposed to be rainy season in Korea. So far there was more rain in June. When B informed me there was to be a  typhoon on the weekend I was pretty excited. Saturday dawned hot and sticky as usual but with a wicked warm wind kicking up some pretty impressive waves. The beaches were jammed with swimmers. The lifeguards had their hands full keeping everybody in the shallow. 

My Saturday night was dedicated to typhoon watching down on the beach. Sadly it came to naught when it rained for a grand total of 5 minutes. Hope was restored on Sunday when we were assured the typhoon would arrive at 4 pm. But again we were thwarted! The lifeguards herded everybody out of the water and all we got was a mere sprinkling. 

I still have hope though maybe next week!

The crowds on Haeundae were out of control! All there to revel in the pre-typhoon waves.