How to Disappear Completely: Orientation and first impressions

Seeing as I don’t actually have much time for blogging, I’m going to speed through this!

My first 10 days in Korea have been absolute madness, in the best way possible. After a long, long flight in which I slept for probably about 3 hours at most and which lasted about 31 hours in total (including the 3 hour bus journey to Dajeon), I had finally arrived. However, at that point I hardly cared anymore to be honest, I just wanted to go to bed. I gave my roommate Trent a cold hello and went straight to sleep.

We had an early day the next morning and I apologised for my horrible introduction the night before. Trent is from near Los Angeles and he turned out to be a really great roommate, so I got lucky. Anyway, neither of us had brought towels and we very soon realised that they were not going to be provided for us. On top of that, the hot water wasn’t working so my first shower in Korea was a cold one... a very cold one! Therefore we decided it would probably be a good idea to go out and get some towels before the day began properly.

After having no luck at the 7 Eleven, we carried on down the street to a shop that kind of resembled a Korean version of SPAR. There we found what appeared to be decent enough towels and we finally got to put our extremely basic Korean to the test! I felt so proud after greeting and thanking the lady – such a basic action, but so exciting in a foreign land! Turns out the towels were little more than shitty dishcloths but hey, they do the trick.

We also had the opening ceremony and welcoming dinner, both of which were outstanding. The chopsticks here are really hard to use as they’re metal and difficult to control but I was getting used to them after a few meals. Fortunately knives and forks were also provided so if there were any difficulties we could always switch over. The opening ceremony had traditional Korean dance and music and also a really excellent first lecture from Walter Foreman, who has been in Korea since 1998 if I remember correctly. All in all, a nice way to start.

Traditional dance

The medical check up was less fun. It was short but it was still a massive pain in the ass. Having been unable to take any medication up until that point had been bad enough but the check up itself is really comprehensive. They weighed and measured us, tested our eyesight, hearing, blood and urine and took an X-ray for good measure. I was happy when it was over.

That night we took to the streets to celebrate. Drinking in public is legal in Korea so instead of hitting a busy pub or club we drank soju and beer outside the 7 Eleven. Of course, the EPIK Program is careful not to let anyone get too carried away so they enforced their midnight curfew strictly. It was good to just feel a bit free for once, though, and enjoy the night.

The morning view from my dorm window

Honestly, after that the days kind of start to blur into one so I’m not entirely sure in which order the next few things happened. On another night I went walking around Dajeon with two other South Africans. We walked much further than we’d walked before and it was great to experience more of Korea. We found the local 다이소 (Daiso) which I had heard is a great place to buy cheap stuff for your home in Korea. I got a R10 pair of gloves for my frozen hands.

On Monday we had a field trip to Hanok Village in Jeonju which was pretty sweet. It’s a traditional Korean village and one of the most popular tourist attractions here. We got to walk around and see the sights before being treated to a lunch of bibimbap, which is one of Korea’s most popular dishes. It’s basically just a whole lot of stuff chucked into a large bowl... sometimes I just chose not to look at what was between my chopsticks. With that said, it was a pretty good meal and definitely something I’d like to try again! We then made coasters using some kind of traditional Korean paper, I’m not too sure how to describe it. Anyway, it was basically just making cool coasters to remember our time there. We then saw a b-boy (breakdancing) performance from some professionals, which a lot of people enjoyed but which wasn’t really my kind of thing. While I appreciated their skill and technique, it just wasn’t really my kind of entertainment. No harm done though and interesting nevertheless.

Making our coasters in Hanok Village

Statue outside the chapel in Hanok Village

The next few days were kind of similar – we had Korean classes in the evenings (from 19h00 to 20h20) after a full day of lectures and we were also trying to plan our lessons for our team lesson demos on the final day. The Korean lessons were amazing though – I was placed in the intermediate class thanks to a fair amount of practice before getting to Korea and my teacher was Nicole, who was also our class leader. Just as an aside, I must say that the care and attention we got from our class leaders was outstanding. Nicole and Minsam (spelling?) were so lovely to us the whole time and really made adjusting to the new environment that much easier. Anyway, the Korean classes were just lots of fun – we learnt a lot in the classes and we basically just played a lot of really fun games! When we learnt numbers we played a game in which each person is only allowed to say 1,2 or 3 numbers and you just count down the line. The person who has to say number 31 had a predetermined punishment inflicted upon them. Of course, my mates sold me out a couple of times and I had to do a couple of these – the first, a relatively tame 10 push-ups but the second a 10-second long sexy dance. My twerking skills were admired by all but a few people recognised me in the days to come as ‘that twerking guy’ which was pretty embarrassing.

My favourite: a dining hall selfie with Minsam and Nicole

The last real order of business was the lesson demo. I was paired up with Krystle, who is from Minnesota. Needless to say, we had very different opinions about the weather! Most people were 3 in a group but we were just two. We spent a couple of days thoroughly preparing our lesson but once we realised that we had the same zany sense of humour it went all downhill from there. We stayed up late laughing about the stupidest stuff but our synergy shone through on the day, saving what (I thought was a) pretty shitty lesson. The class fortunately seemed to disagree – a win’s a win, so I’ll take it.

That night, after the excellent closing ceremony and dinner, Kayla, myself and a bunch of friends went to downtown Dajeon and what a difference it made! Up until that point, Dajeon had appeared to be a relatively unexciting city considering it’s the 5^th largest in the country. However, we soon realised that that was only because we hadn’t gone far enough. We caught a taxi and hit the town. Neon lights were flashing all around... there are just signs everywhere. Each building seems to have at least five floors all with different stores in them. It was all pretty overwhelming but for the first time I felt like I was really in Korea. Unfortunately I paid the price for my revelry and the cold that had been brewing for a few days finally hit in full force. I hardly slept that night and had a horrible few hours after that.

Downtown Dajeon

Of course, arriving in Busan was really exciting and I was glad to meet my co-teacher and discover that she’s a really lovely lady! The attitude of your co-teacher determines how your year in South Korea is going to pan out, so I was incredibly happy that she was so nice. Her English name is Jeanie and she spent the afternoon introducing me to the principal (who laughed at my poor Korean), hooking me up with WiFi and teaching me how to use the washing machine. She also bought me late lunch/early supper at a great Western-style restaurant – what a treat! I will teach my first lesson with her on Tuesday, as Monday is just a day to get settled in and perhaps discuss what we want to achieve for the rest of the year. Apparently we have some troublesome kids in our class so it’s going to be an interesting time!

Since then I’ve been hardly able to move, my cold getting the better of me. Fortunately I was a little more active today but still coughing badly and sneezing a lot. I got a fair amount of shopping done today, only to get lost in Busan. I still don’t have a phone so I couldn’t contact Jeanie and I don’t even know what to call my apartment building. Eventually, after being ignored by a whole lot of Koreans who were too scared to speak English, some kind older ladies helped me find my way. Fortunately I remembered that (as far as I could tell) there was only one Daiso in the area so if I asked for that then I should be able to find my way back. Luckily I did because I ended up walking past my building before even getting there. Bless those ladies, I thought I was going to be sleeping on the street tonight!

Even though I've been unable to find a duvet/pillow cover
yet, I'm much happier in the bed than on the street!

All in all, I can say that my first day and a bit in Busan has been way more challenging than anything we experienced during orientation – there, everyone could speak good English and there were always people around to help you. Now there is no one to direct me, feed me or translate for me. The lady at the pharmacy today basically threw a box of medication at me out of frustration of me being unable to understand what she was saying (she didn’t speak English). So now I have a whole lot of medication but I don’t know how to take it or how often, so I’ve got to stick with what I’ve got. I’m not unhappy with the experience but I think it’s indicative of how potentially difficult the first few months are going to be here. It’s the kind of challenge I was looking for though and I get to do it in this massive, exciting city that is light years away from anything I’ve ever seen or experienced before. If I thought downtown Dajeon was huge, Busan just blows it out of the water!

More to come in the following weeks...