eleven days in

Hello friends and family =)

So, it has been eleven days since I arrived in Daejeon. I didn't count the time I was in Jeonju for Orientation because honestly, we were all coddled during that time - everything was done for us and it didn't really FEEL like I was in Korea. Since then, however, I have moved into my new apartment, I have begun teaching, and I have been exploring Daejeon whenever I can.

All in all, I am extremely happy with my city and my schools. I have a great social network of fellow teachers that I hang out with most weekends, either going to dinner or trying new things (more about that later). I have SIX co-teachers (seven if you include the Japanese language teacher I work with), which makes lesson planning a little difficult, but we are working it out, slowly. As for my students, it varies throughout the day. Once day I will have a difficult class, but the next time I have them, they're different. I've only had most of my classes once or twice so far, so I'm keeping an open mind. They way I feel about it, is that for these students, they see new English teachers every year, and they won't warm up to a new one right away. After a few weeks, they might start to open up more, after seeing me every day and interacting with me. Already, I've noticed that every day is better than the day before, in terms of interacting with students. I'd have to say that at Sungduk, my most difficult classes are two 2nd years, and at Jaun, its the 3rd years. Which makes sense, as the older they get, the less likely they are to care about learning a language they barely use anyway.

I've put up photos of my apartment on facebook, so you can check that out there. It's not very big, but it's big enough for me. When I first moved in, it was a MESS, but after an entire day of cleaning and supply shopping, its definitely become more home-y. I am obsessed with keeping the floor clean (because Koreans sit on the floor all the time, and my only table is a "floor table" that's only about a foot off the ground, so I'm always on the floor), so I vacuum my floor at least once a day.

This past weekend was a very Korean weekend, haha. On Saturday, I went shopping downtown for some random house things with a friend, and that night, we met up with the "Daejeon crew" (this is what I'm going to call everyone I met at Orientation because we had "classes" together and now try to get together every once in a while) and went to this places called News.. its basically a booking club I guess? What you do is the guys and girls come in separately and you have to order these expensive drinks and snacks and the waiters come around and take the girls to other tables to chat up with guys... and you can decide if you want to stay or go back to your own table. It's almost like speed dating, except the waiters take care of everything.... haha. Very interesting and awkward. Don't worry Mom and Dad - I did not participate in this part of the evening ;-) However, on stage there were these crazy performers, sometimes a DJ, or a solo singer, or this crazy dancer with this huge bobblehead on. Yeah, kind of hard to explain - you really had to be there!!

To try and give you a glimpse of what this place was like, here are some pictures: (ALL photos in this post courtesy of Melissa P. - I did not break out my camera at all this weekend!)




On Sunday, about the same group of people (a little less than the night before) met up for lunch, and we went to a jjimjilbang!! A jjimjilbang basically translates to "hot room" and its a Korean spa... you walk in to the girls or guys' locker rooms and everyone's basically just hanging out, walking around naked (gender segregated, of course). At this particular jjimjilbang, it cost us 6000 won (under $6), and there is no time limit. Inside, there was a public bath area, with showers and steam rooms, and jacuzzis of different temperatures, with about a hundred women just showering together, including children and grandmothers!! It was a little awkward at first, and we sidestepped the public bath. We were all given the same shirt and shorts to wear, and walking into the unisex common area, there is this big open space where u can grab a mat and sit and hang out, maybe watch the movie on the projector, take a nap, eat some snacks, etc. They had a game room, gym, restaurant, massage room, manicures/pedicures, snack bar, pc room, and areas with human sized cubbies that I guess you crawled in to nap. And there were about five or six different saunas with different themes and temperatures. One smelled like cinnamon, which I enjoyed a lot. Another was the "salt" room, and the floor was littered with rock salt and had a huge blanket over it. Another was just for women, and it had these heating lamps on the floor that I guess you laid on to relieve cramps. They also had the "ice room," where you could go to cool off, and lastly, they had this SUPER HOT sauna, that was - I'm not kidding - 109 degrees celsius!! I couldn't believe how hot it was in there, I was only in it for about five minutes and I started to get a headache. Meanwhile, we overheard some of the ajummas and ajossis (old ladies and men) complaining that it WASN'T hot enough!!

A really cool thing we did at this spa was something called "doctor fish." Basically there was this pool with tiny fish in it, and you dip your feet in and the fish eat the dead skin off your feet. It was so weird!! I couldn't stop twitching the first five minutes, cause I could feel their tiny mouths on my skin... after a while it just felt like the tingling you get when your feet fall asleep. We paid 3000 won for half an hour (a little under $3), and my feet actually felt pretty smooth afterwards!





Finally, after hearing that our guy friends explored the public bathing area in their locker room (I actually had a random laughing fit in the middle of one of the saunas, thinking about our friends frolicking in the nude - "we weren't frolicking!!"), the girls decided that we must try it as well. After getting over the initial awkwardness of being naked in a room with a hundred other naked women, we explored the different jacuzzis and steam rooms, including this one that would shoot a strong jetstream of water on your back (kind of like water massage), another room where you could rub bath salts on yourself, a room for foot baths, and an area with cold water - including a section where the water was literally as cold as ice!! It was definitely an interesting experience, and four hours later, we all emerged feeling completely relaxed and refreshed.

However, now that the weekend is over, it's back to work! Tonight I am signing up for Korean language classes at Chungnam National University, one of the schools close to where I live. This will give me even less time to unwind after teaching during the week, but I'm really excited to improve my Korean!

Peace&Love,

Katherine