Just the Beginning

Here is the very first place Joanne took me on my "official" tour of Seoul. Gyeongbok Palace.

Joanne showing me the touristy parts of town.

What a way to start my year in Korea.  Arriving in Seoul on Saturday the 18th of August, a few days earlier than I needed to be there.  I have the great privilege of having some friends in South Korea who are willing to show me around.  I have had a great time here so far.  I spent about a day and a half in Seoul and then I had to head off to my orientation with EPIK.

I am currently about 3 hours from Seoul staying at a university with probably 3-400 other English teacher getting ready to get in the classroom.  The teachers are from all over the world (England, South Africa, Ireland, Australia, US and Canada.)  This is a really fun group of people and a great place to make friends that I will hopefully travel and work with soon.

For the past two days we have basically had lectures all day.  It has made the days drag on, but they really have all been really interesting and I feel much more prepared about getting into the classroom.  At night we have been taking doing Korean language class.  It is a really difficult language to start because we don't make the same sounds that Koreans do.  I think if I keep working on it I will pick it up fairly quickly.  I keep telling myself these are your two options: learn it or die!  It has been pretty motivating so far because I would like to see my family again:) We started learning the alphabet tonight, and apparently it's really easy to learn.  I am thinking in two weeks I should be able to read it but won't be able to translate it. Most people who have taught here before say that it's pretty easy to read it, so I think I should be able to at least accomplish that soon.

Tomorrow we have a field trip around the city we are in and at some point we will have a teakwondo lesson that I quite excited about.

I think that is all for tonight.

-Jenna