yeosu

I've made it to my first weekend here in Yeosu! After another series of delayed and rescheduled flights and a four hour journey by bus, I finally arrived in my new city 11pm Tuesday night. I almost cried tears of pure joy when I saw that my bags graced the baggage carousel at the airport in Seoul. It's an actual miracle. My school's headmaster and his daughter picked me up and treated me to a late night waffle before bringing me to my apartment. (Did I mention it's a fifth floor walk-up?) I met my roommate, Martha, settled away some of my things and tried to get some sleep!

[Yeosu is pretty in the evening]

Somehow I got into a normal pattern. School-wise, I've spent the last few days observing another teacher doing the classes I will be taking over next week. Luckily they have a curriculum with workbooks and helpful online videos to guide the class so it shouldn't take too long to get into the swing of things.

*Fingers crossed*

[Martha and I]

Other than that, my roommate has been super helpful filling me in on things and taking me to some shops and food places nearby. We walked to E-mart a couple of nights ago, which is a lot like Walmart but with multiple levels and reminds me more of the downtown Dominion store in SJ with the cart conveyer belts. We did a quick walk through, looking for essentials to get me started. Most important on my list was food, and that presented its own kinds of challenges, simply being that I don't know what most of anything is. Thankfully some of the packaging includes a few English words or pictures to help you along. For the most part though? Guessing and hoping for the best seems to be the deal around here!

Tonight on the way home after classes we made a little stop to the local dollar store and it was surprisingly great! Better than I was expecting actually! I'll probably go by again tomorrow. Friday night is the night everyone goes out, so I got to meet a handful of other ex-pats/foreign teachers at a bar/lounge that is just a block away. It was a perfectly chill night as most are off adventuring over the winter break and will return in February. The owner, Mr. Lee was so kind, and provided all kinds of snacks for us to munch on, different chips and candy, pot stickers, french fries, chopped persimmon and Korean pear. It was a pretty sweet welcome.

Sure, there have been some frustrations, not limited to just trying to get across Canada, but my first few days here in Korea have been as good as I could have hoped. I like my roomie, the teachers I work with have been very helpful and the city is not too overwhelming.

It's nothing like home, but hopefully I can make it feel like home. So far, these girls have made me feel incredibly welcome here!

[Kacey and Rachel]