Korean BBQ

Everyone loves food. I mean, almost everyone. I think I've only heard of one person not liking food, and they happen to one of my students. I can't remember the reasoning, but if I recall correctly, it was pretty solid. Either way, the food in Korea is, simply put, quite amazing. I've had Korean BBQ back in Vancouver and always enjoyed it there, but it's obviously a shadow of the true Korean BBQ's here. But not everyone's had the pleasure of experiencing a Korean BBQ of any sort, so I thought I'd post a few things I've come to realize about Korean food.

1. Korean food can be really spicy. I've been preparing for awhile by eating spicier and spicier foods, but I still find more than a few dishes in Korea to be almost too spicy for me. I've still been able to eat everything, and no dish has absolutely killed my taste buds yet, but there have definitely been a few dishes that have brought tears to my eyes. If you do end up coming to Korea or go to a Korean restaurant and can't handle the spice, I've got a tip that should keep you pretty safe: Don't order anything that's red. Red dishes means they've been cooked with at least one Korean chili spice (usually powder or paste) and that will add a significant amount of spice to most dishes.

2. Korean BBQ's can be quite a expansive affair. Every one I've had has had at least one meat present, if not two or three more. Additionally, it comes with a number of side soups and dishes, many of which are fried with the meat. How you choose to eat everything is kinda up to you, as there's not too many specific rules as far as I can tell. I've found that wrapping a number of side dishes and meat in a lettuce leaf is quite fantastic. There's also some sort of large minty green leaf that is even more delicious than lettuce, which is quickly becoming my favourite thing to mix everything in.

3. Finally, I'm finding that not questioning what's in the food the easiest way of finding every dish delicious. Before I came to Korea I wasn't exactly the pickiest eater, but there was always a few things that I hesitated in trying. But since once of my goals coming to Korea was to make the most out of the experience, I've been trying everything that's been put in front of my. And I've liked all of it. I'm not even entirely sure of all the things I've eaten, but they've all been good. So suspending your doubt about food makes the experience just that much enjoyable.

To close out, I'd just like to add that I've put a couple different ways to follow me on the sidebar if you want to keep up with all my posts. I'm not entirely sure how either work, and I'll probably be adding a bit more to my blog when I have time, but in the meantime those follow buttons should do the trick if you want to follow it.

The Good, the Bad, and the Naughty

I just completed my second day of teaching and I thought I'd share some more experiences now that I've had another day under my belt. A lot happened in my second day, even though I was teaching less classes that day. Getting used to all the different student's personalities is very challenging, but I think after a month I'll know them all well enough to be able to control them well.

I'll start with the good news. I'm not sure I've mentioned this before, but Koreans are very kind and nice and are very open with giving compliments to people. On almost a daily basis now, my students have come up to me and say "Oh, Teacher, you're very handsome," which surprises me every time I hear it. It's just so interesting to hear it, as most people you just meet won't compliment you too frequently in Canada.

And now the bad news. Well, it's not all bad, it's kinda of cute in a way actually. Yesterday, I made a student cry. It felt really, really bad, but I had no idea why he was crying. One of the Korean teachers came in to talk to him, because he wasn't able to explain himself to me. During the class, I had been walking around making sure all the students were understanding the lesson we were doing that day. Apparently, this student was embarrassed because he thought that he was slowing everyone else down. So near the end he was trying his hardest to get through everything very quickly to show that he wasn't slow. And from what I gathered, he ended up crying cause he was embarrassed. The thing was, he wasn't slowing anyone down, as many of the other students were slow picking up some of the material too.

And finally, the naughty. In my last class of the day, I teach a number of pretty smart students around fifteen years old. There were two girls that talked through almost the entire class. It was very hard to get them to pay attention or to stop talking. Eventually, I had to threaten to split them up to get them to stop talking. And for the most part that worked, as they definitely stopped talking all the time. But in Korea, that kind of behavior is very disrespectful towards elders, especially teachers, as I've been told. So in the next class, I'm really going to have to make sure they know how rude they are being towards me.

Teaching for the first time has definitely been an eye-opening experience, but I think that once I get to know the students well, it will become much easier. It's possible that some students may act differently once they get to know me, but I'm hoping that they'll act better once they know that I'm going to be strict. I want to make all the classes fun and encourage participation, but my director wants me to be strict with some things, the most important one being making sure they speak little to no Korean during class. Overall though, I think most students will quickly understand what I expect out of them, and what they can expect out of me.

My First Day Teaching

Well, my first day of teaching is done and it went much better than expected! I say that because I have this terrible habit of imagining absolutely everything that can go wrong and preparing myself for the worst. But after about five minutes into teaching, I realized that everything was going to be alright. Sure, there were some hiccups during the day, but I got over each of these without too much trouble or embarrassment. And I'm truly enjoying being a teacher (and it helps that my coworkers are all amazing people).

I had met a number of the kids before I started teaching, so I sort of knew what to expect from the students I hadn't met yet. Originally, I was irrationally afraid of the students being too much too handle, or running around the room top speed, or even just being generally rude. Maybe it's because I'm a new teacher, but this wasn't the case at all. Almost all of the kids were pretty well-behaved and listened when I told them to do something. There's a couple of troublemakers, but even then they're not very crazy.

And even though my first day was already exceeding my expectations, it didn't stop there. After I finished teaching, marking essays, and preparing my next day's lesson plans, our boss decided to treat us to dinner. So an already amazing day, turned into an even better one. I'll talk more about dinners in Korea and food a little later, so in this case, I'll just let the picture do the talking.

I'm finding it incredibly difficult to put my experiences and emotions into words right now. The amount of change I'm experiencing right now is huge and I think the reason I have trouble describing my experiences is because there's just so many of them. I could talk about my experiences with a single student for almost a complete post in itself. I could write an essay on how different it is to walk into a bakery or order a drink at a coffee shop. And I could definitely write a book on just my first week here.

You know how people say "never meet your idols"? I was worried coming to Korea would be like that; that I had set such a high standard in my mind for the experience that there was no way it would ever live up to that. I've been amazed at how wrong I've been. And considering the fact that my journey to Korea was set on such a high pedestal, the fact that it's better than that is incredible. I have no doubt in my mind that travelling here was the best decision I've ever made and also that this next year is going to be the most incredible year of my life.

And it Begins...

Today is the day that I get thrown out of the frying pan and into the fire. It's the first day of teaching classes and I'd be lying if I didn't say I was incredibly nervous. I've been observing classes for the past three days, as well as teaching small portions of them, and meeting all the students. But nothing I've done is really going to prepare me for the real deal. Teaching full classes is a pretty daunting idea, but I've come to realize a few things that makes it seem a little less scary.

Every job has a period of time where you're learning the ropes and figuring stuff out. Teaching is no different, even if learning the ropes of a teaching job is a lot tougher than any other job I've had. However, my first time working at a golf course was definitely more than a little interesting. I was assigned to mow the greens with one of my bosses, using a mower that I thought was basically a death machine then. It was very similar to a regular lawn mower, but had six times the blades and no easy way to stop it. And even though when I used it for the first time I was incredibly careful, I still managed to dump it in a sand bunker in front of my boss. But after working with that machine for a bit longer, I quickly became very used to it and very good at it. So what had started as a death trap soon became a symbol of my achievement and perseverance. After looking back, I know that teaching will also have some rough starts, but I think it can quickly become a gratifying experience for both me and my students, even though it's starting out as incredibly daunting.

Another realization I've come to understand is even bigger than that and pertains to my journey to Korea as a whole. I came to Korea not only because I was very interested in the culture, but also because I wanted to find out what exactly I was capable of. My journey to Korea is also a journey of self-discovery and I can't think of a better way of discovering yourself than having to teach a large number of excitable, energetic youngsters in a language they're unfamiliar with. I'm confident that I'm capable enough to do this and I'm confident that I can become a teacher that all the students love and respect.

So with those words in my mind, I head out into the great unknown. Into what could be scariest thing I've ever done, but also the most satisfying.

On Speaking Korean

I'm not really sure what I should title this blog post or exactly what the topic should be. So much has happened over the last couple of days, I don't even know where to begin. My time here has been absolutely amazing so far, even though I have been a little sick. I'm still trying to get a proper sleep schedule down, as the jet lag's been a bit tough, but I think I'm almost over it at this point. I've met a number of awesome people and I'm really excited to meet even more people.

I've come to realize that my ability to speak a little bit of Korean is incredibly important. Even though I don't fully understand what people are saying, I'm able to at the very least get my point across. Also, the fact that I can read Hangul is very helpful, as I can at least sound out some of the stuff I see. So I can read any English words that are written in Korean, which makes it a lot easier to order food.

Originally, I was afraid that if I came to Korea, people would try to speak English with me. This has really been very far from my actual experiences. I do speak a fair bit of English, mainly with my co-workers and other foreigners, but all of my interactions outside of that have been predominately in Korean. I order all my food in Korean, I get directions in Korean, and I speak Korean with most of the Korean people I meet. And while that can be pretty daunting and challenging at times, I'm finding it much better than just defaulting to English. I can actually feel myself getting more and more familiar with Korean, and find it's almost natural sometimes to be speaking Korean.

I think it would be possible to survive without knowing any of the language, but it's definitely something I didn't want to do when I came to Korea. Maybe it's just the area I live in, maybe it's just the way that when I enter a store I speak Korean, or maybe it's something completely different, but either way, I'm very glad that most people speak Korean with me.

Initial Impressions

Yesterday was a long day. After the incredibly long flight (in which I managed to amazingly never use the daunting airplane toilet), I arrived in Korea. Luckily for me, my recruiter met me at the airport and we bussed together to the hagwon I'll be teaching English at. My principal met me at the bus stop and took me to the hagwon to introduce me to all the teachers. I might get more into the school in a later post, after I've spent a bit more time there, but I will say I was very impressed with the school. After the introductions were out of the way, I was driven to a hotel where I'll be staying for the next couple days. I guess I'll start with my impressions of that first, as it was very different from any Western hotel I've been in.

I am living in a very newly-built city, so it's possible that this is more to do with that than how most hotels are in Korea, but it is high tech. You tap the card on the outside of the door to unlock it, and then after entering the room, you put it in a slot on the wall. Putting it in the slot turns on the lights in the room, which you then can control using a panel on the wall. So to put it in perspective, there are no light switches in the hotel room. None. It took me a little bit to figure out how to turn on specific lights, so I have to mention that I didn't have a light in the bathroom for awhile. Speaking of the bathroom, I've never seen such a high-tech toilet. The toilet itself has about 20 buttons you can press, all of course described in Korean. I'm almost postive my toilet can turn itself into a spaceship, but I wouldn't have any idea what button to press to make it do that. Also, the bathtub has a jacuzzi built in, which I intend to make use of if I have enough time.

Let me get into a couple less technical things that I noticed about the hotel room. For one, there are slippers at both the entrance to the room itself and the entrance to the bathroom. The reason for this is that Koreans take off their shoes when they enter a house. This was a custom I was already aware of before coming to Korea, but I was surprised that it extended to hotel rooms as well. I'm used to taking off my shoes when I enter someone's house though, so this one was easy to get used to. Another interesting thing is that there are a number of complimentary items in the hotel room. There's complimentary towels, shampoo, and soap of course, but there was also complimentary hair styling gels, razors, body washes, bathrobes, and even a computer (which I'm using right now to type this, as my laptop died and I don't have a Korean adapter yet).

Before I end this post, I'm going to get into my biggest culture shock so far and one that I expected to have coming into Korea. Most of the communication is in Korean (duh!). Now despite this being INCREDIBLY obvious, it was still something that I couldn't prepare myself for at all. I can read all of the Hangul here, so I know what a lot of the shops are, but it was coming in contact with a cashier at a local bakery that really drove the point home. I was able to pay for everything, but after paying she asked me something (which I assume was something along the lines of "Do you want a bag?") and I had absolutely no idea what she said. Because I've only ever been in North America, I've never been exposed to meeting people and being almost 100% unable to communicate with them. And it was kind of scary knowing that what was most likely a very simple question presented such a huge barrier between the two of us. This isn't something I'm going to easily be able to overcome either, so I'm prepared for the first two months or more of my stay to be very, very confusing. But on that note, I'm also very, very excited. Being forced to communicate in a completely different language is exciting, mainly because I know at the end of it, I'm going to be that much better off.

I'll leave you one more thing about Korea to make all of you jealous. The internet connected to this hotel's computer is astounding. I currently have 75Mbps download and 90Mbps upload. Which is obscene, considering what internet speeds I've had all my life. The fact that my hotel's internet is 15 times better than my home internet is crazy.

Anyway, I'm going to go back to watching Mnet until things start opening up here. I haven't really talked about how I'm feeling yet, but that's also still tough for me to express because I'm just such a glass case of emotions. I will say one thing though: I'm absolutely loving Korea so far!

The First Step

Here I am. Sitting in the Toronto Pearson International Airport, basically one step away from completing a decision I made sometime last year. I'm headed to South Korea to teach English, despite that being almost halfway around the world from my current home as well as the first foreign country I've ever visited (apart from the USA).

I've always been more of an adventurous sort (going to university nowhere near my home town), but this is a big step, even for me. I've done my research, but I don't think anything can properly prepare me for exactly what I'm about to experience. There's really no emotion that can properly describe how I feel right now. I'm nervous, excited, sad, happy, and the list just keeps going on. But above all else, I feel like I've made the best possible decision.

I don't know all that much about South Korea, and probably half of what I've read has been false, but I do know one thing. This adventure I'm about to undertake is going to open my world to an incredible number of interesting new people, places, and experiences. And it's going to be amazing.

So I'll leave you now, while I stress about my impending 19-hour flight to South Korea and all of what awaits be on the other side.

My name is Aaron and these are my adventures.