The third week dawned into a stuffy morning with a cloudy sky and it felt like a typhoon might soon hit us. The news said that the storm had already passed and is now doing damage in Taiwan.
I got up early today and went to morning exercise with the kids. A quick run and some stretches did wonders for my mood and gave me an energy boost, so I guess it's a good idea to attend morning exercise in future.
The weekend was well spent. We rented bikes yesterday and went for a 2 hour bike ride exploring Jinju's riverbank. It felt great to have all that exercise and I also got a few nice photos of the city.
After we returned our bikes, we bumped into a group of Koreans who were water-skiing on the river. They invited us to join them and have a go on the skis. Well, one of us did and she did a really fine job! I might try next time, but it'd be my first time on water-skis.
In the evening we had pizza and red wine at an Italian place. It's so nice to eat anything that doesn't come from the campus cafeteria.
Early to bed ready for the challenges of the new week.
Showing posts with label South Korea. Show all posts
Showing posts with label South Korea. Show all posts
Sunday, 9 August 2009
Monday, 3 August 2009
Week Two and Counting
The first week of torment by children was surprisingly tolerable, at times it was even fun.
Generally, our students have a positive attitude towards the teachers and studying, so are usually a pleasure to teach. It's the 12 hour work days that are so draining. The other teachers are an interesting and friendly mixed bunch of old Korea hands, mercenaries (like us!) and real career teachers from overseas. Apparently we even have one physicist among us, although this does beg the question, 'why are you here?' This guy talks constantly and loudly about his many skills, including his multilingual ability, his unmatchable teaching and his prowess in science.
Portia and I are roommates and we share a large and quite comfortable dorm apartment. In the first week of camp, at 6.45 every morning, the camp director's voice (accompanied by music) blared a jolly morning greeting out of a loudspeaker embedded in our wall. Considering that work didn't start until 8.30, this was a step too far. Later that week, we disconnected the speaker with a screwdriver and a Leatherman. Ah, peace at last.
At the weekend, when our precious single day off came around, Portia and I went for a mountain hike with some of the other teachers. Korea has some stunningly beautiful natural scenery when you get outside the city. Clean and green, it reminded me of home. Not China home, real home.
Generally, our students have a positive attitude towards the teachers and studying, so are usually a pleasure to teach. It's the 12 hour work days that are so draining. The other teachers are an interesting and friendly mixed bunch of old Korea hands, mercenaries (like us!) and real career teachers from overseas. Apparently we even have one physicist among us, although this does beg the question, 'why are you here?' This guy talks constantly and loudly about his many skills, including his multilingual ability, his unmatchable teaching and his prowess in science.
Portia and I are roommates and we share a large and quite comfortable dorm apartment. In the first week of camp, at 6.45 every morning, the camp director's voice (accompanied by music) blared a jolly morning greeting out of a loudspeaker embedded in our wall. Considering that work didn't start until 8.30, this was a step too far. Later that week, we disconnected the speaker with a screwdriver and a Leatherman. Ah, peace at last.
At the weekend, when our precious single day off came around, Portia and I went for a mountain hike with some of the other teachers. Korea has some stunningly beautiful natural scenery when you get outside the city. Clean and green, it reminded me of home. Not China home, real home.
Sunday, 26 July 2009
Does Korea have a soul or just Seoul?
Ah, my third visit to the beautiful land of kimchi has begun.
We arrived on the boat from Dalian and disembarked into a different world, where we truly felt like foreigners. With no language skills and little chance to develop much cultural understanding, we relied on the kindness of Koreans to help us reach our destination. The general good manners in Korea are a welcome change after so long in the etiquette wilderness of China. But after feeling fluent in the language of your present country, it was challenging to be totally incompetent in the language of this one. Even the simplest tasks, which we would take for granted in China, became a complicated issue in Korea. Nevertheless, we successfully and smoothly navigated our way from Incheon Port to a bus station containing buses that would take us to our final destination: Jinju City. Four hours and some beautiful Dunkin' Donuts later, we'd arrived in Jinju. A tricky taxi ride took us onto campus and we landed up outside our dorm room. The campus of Gyeongsang National University reminds me a bit of Exeter Uni; clean, green and pleasant. But GNU has a exciting special feature, WiFi everywhere! I was able to use Skype to call China from the middle of the grounds. Korea is rightly known as one of the most wired countries on the planet.
We arrived on the boat from Dalian and disembarked into a different world, where we truly felt like foreigners. With no language skills and little chance to develop much cultural understanding, we relied on the kindness of Koreans to help us reach our destination. The general good manners in Korea are a welcome change after so long in the etiquette wilderness of China. But after feeling fluent in the language of your present country, it was challenging to be totally incompetent in the language of this one. Even the simplest tasks, which we would take for granted in China, became a complicated issue in Korea. Nevertheless, we successfully and smoothly navigated our way from Incheon Port to a bus station containing buses that would take us to our final destination: Jinju City. Four hours and some beautiful Dunkin' Donuts later, we'd arrived in Jinju. A tricky taxi ride took us onto campus and we landed up outside our dorm room. The campus of Gyeongsang National University reminds me a bit of Exeter Uni; clean, green and pleasant. But GNU has a exciting special feature, WiFi everywhere! I was able to use Skype to call China from the middle of the grounds. Korea is rightly known as one of the most wired countries on the planet.
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