Hey everybody! Hope all is well in Toronto or wherever your from, I think my readership is now in the MILLIONS. I have been spending all my Saturdays in Seoul. It is a HUGE city - makes Toronto feel really small in comparison. The streets are filled with people constantly and everywhere you look somebody is spending something and somebody is selling something, it's like an insane marketplace. It really let's me appreciate the smaller city in which I live. Seoul is an exciting place filled with neon signs and delicious smells from food vendors. The party I went to was held by my recruiters. It was in the Foreigner's District, named ITEWON. There is a varied mix of people and reminds me of home. There are plenty of REAL Americans, you know, the ones with the THICK accents. You can easily tell which people are tourists, here to teach, and here by way of the Armed Forces. The bar where the party was held was called the Rocky Mountain Tavern and it had a big Canadian flag right on the window! My kind of spot! Anyways, the room was filled with random white people. HAH, anyways I started to chat up with the people in the room. Everybody was very interesting and had great stories to tell. Most of the teachers were from the States, New York, Minnesota, Virgina, Oregon, Nebraska, and a whole heap of Texans. I also met a Scotsman which was pretty cool. There were 3 Canadians other than myself. A couple from Vancouver and a girl from Niagara Falls. The ages of the teachers ranged significantly and I found it very interesting that this many people from these many places have come together to teach English in South Korea. I met a number of lost souls, people out for just the cash, some genuine teachers, and some people looking for experience. I was amazed to see that this bar served MOOSEHEAD! I also tried a Becks DARK - which was pretty good. I only had a few drinks as I've been feeling a little under the weather. After a while a live band showed up with this little Korean girl as the main singer. Boy, did the voice NOT match the body - a classic case of Toni Braxtonism. It was pretty cool for a while everybody was really spread out in Korea - most people took an over 4 hour trip! I was lucky it only takes me 45 mins. I took off around midnight as it started to POUR rain. I got to the final station only to find out my bus stops running at 10:30...YAY. Anyways took another cabride and got home safely.
Friday was also a very good day. After the school day was done I got invited to a school gathering. All I was told is that this dinner was held to celebrate teachers who have stayed with the school for 30, 20, and 10 years. When we arrived and after walking up a few flights of stairs we came to a small but luxurious banquet hall! Very nice place with a huge dinner buffet. After clapping for all the teachers, they called for ME on stage! If I had known that I was going to be called on stage I surly would have had on a better shirt than my Nike sweater! It didn't matter - they gave me a red rose and I bowed in gratitude. The school has been very welcoming and I know I will enjoy my time with the staff. Well, this has been a little insight into how my weekend went, I'll be sure to snap some more pics and update you on my experiences next week. Hope you like reading these and if you have any suggestions for the content just let me know! See you later!
Hey everybody! Hope all is well in Toronto or wherever your from, I think my readership is now in the MILLIONS. I have been spending all my Saturdays in Seoul. It is a HUGE city - makes Toronto feel really small in comparison. The streets are filled with people constantly and everywhere you look somebody is spending something and somebody is selling something, it's like an insane marketplace. It really let's me appreciate the smaller city in which I live. Seoul is an exciting place filled with neon signs and delicious smells from food vendors. The party I went to was held by my recruiters. It was in the Foreigner's District, named ITEWON. There is a varied mix of people and reminds me of home. There are plenty of REAL Americans, you know, the ones with the THICK accents. You can easily tell which people are tourists, here to teach, and here by way of the Armed Forces. The bar where the party was held was called the Rocky Mountain Tavern and it had a big Canadian flag right on the window! My kind of spot! Anyways, the room was filled with random white people. HAH, anyways I started to chat up with the people in the room. Everybody was very interesting and had great stories to tell. Most of the teachers were from the States, New York, Minnesota, Virgina, Oregon, Nebraska, and a whole heap of Texans. I also met a Scotsman which was pretty cool. There were 3 Canadians other than myself. A couple from Vancouver and a girl from Niagara Falls. The ages of the teachers ranged significantly and I found it very interesting that this many people from these many places have come together to teach English in South Korea. I met a number of lost souls, people out for just the cash, some genuine teachers, and some people looking for experience. I was amazed to see that this bar served MOOSEHEAD! I also tried a Becks DARK - which was pretty good. I only had a few drinks as I've been feeling a little under the weather. After a while a live band showed up with this little Korean girl as the main singer. Boy, did the voice NOT match the body - a classic case of Toni Braxtonism. It was pretty cool for a while everybody was really spread out in Korea - most people took an over 4 hour trip! I was lucky it only takes me 45 mins. I took off around midnight as it started to POUR rain. I got to the final station only to find out my bus stops running at 10:30...YAY. Anyways took another cabride and got home safely.
Friday was also a very good day. After the school day was done I got invited to a school gathering. All I was told is that this dinner was held to celebrate teachers who have stayed with the school for 30, 20, and 10 years. When we arrived and after walking up a few flights of stairs we came to a small but luxurious banquet hall! Very nice place with a huge dinner buffet. After clapping for all the teachers, they called for ME on stage! If I had known that I was going to be called on stage I surly would have had on a better shirt than my Nike sweater! It didn't matter - they gave me a red rose and I bowed in gratitude. The school has been very welcoming and I know I will enjoy my time with the staff. Well, this has been a little insight into how my weekend went, I'll be sure to snap some more pics and update you on my experiences next week. Hope you like reading these and if you have any suggestions for the content just let me know! See you later!
Sounds like you're having a grand old time.
ReplyDeleteDid you have any teaching experience before you went? Did you get any training???
No teaching experience prior and there was no real training either - sort of dropped into the class room. The 15 year old's have a curriculum that I teach that takes up 1/2 the class time - I come up with the rest. The 16 year old's have no curriculum that I teach so I come up with all of it. I make my lesson plans fairly fun and not that difficult.
ReplyDeletemom: we saw the blog and it was very nice. How is the girl you met that took you out for a beer?
ReplyDeleteJen: no lies i laughed hard when u said ur bus was running LOL love you<3
That's a cool pic you took. I can imagine how crowded the city had to of been... 10 Million plus+! Glad to hear things are going well at the school. They must be liking you bad there. Did you find any ball teams to join yet? Don't get bird flu?..LOL.. Love you man
ReplyDeleteAnthony
Hey Jason,
ReplyDeleteHow's it going? That's awesome to see that things have been going so well in Korea. I didn't realize that Korea had so many more people than Toronto. Must be so rammed. Do you ever get a seat on the bus? Back corner? LOL. Anyhow, just wanted to say miss you!
Sis-In-Law 2 Be