Living in Gyeseong

Hello again! Andrew and I are three weeks into our time in Korea, and it has been an exciting adventure. As Andrew mentioned in his previous post, we continued my birthday celebration in Daegu last Friday night. We had a wonderful meal at a small Italian restaurant then explored more of the city on foot. On Saturday, after the first cup of non-instant coffee in one week, we caught a bus to Gyeongju, an ancient capital from the Silla Dynasty. Known as "the museum without walls", Gyeongju holds more tombs, temples, rock carvings, pagodas, Buddhist statuary, and palace ruins than any other place in South Korea. 

After arriving in Gyeongju, we began our quest to find the guesthouse we'd be spending the night in. After a nice urban hike and tour of the one area of the city, we found our way to Sa Rang Chae with the help of a few kind locals at 7 Eleven. While we had difficulty understanding and speaking each other's languages, there was mutual appreciation for effort, which we've found to be true in all of our interactions.

This is Sa Rang Chae! There were four houses with two rooms each. We had one room with a bathroom. The owners of the guesthouse were very kind and helpful. 

After we dropped our backpacks, we set out to see more of Gyeongju.Past several beautiful parks, we made it to our destination, Anapji Pond. In the past, it was a pleasure garden to commemorate the unification of the Korean Peninsula under Silla.The buildings here burned in 935 and many relics ended up in the pond itself, to be rediscovered when it was drained for repair in 1975. Now, it's a beautiful place to visit, especially at night.

On Sunday, we had a nice breakfast at Sa Rang Chae to prepare for a hike in Gyeongju National Park. We caught a local bus to a nearby area, Namsan, and followed the other obvious hikers as they departed the bus. Hiking is very popular in Korea, so the trails are very busy and well-maintained. We hiked to Geumobong Peak on Namsan Mountain, which is home to many temples and shrines and was considered sacred by many during the Silla Kingdom.

At the peak:

On Sunday evening, we took the bus from Gyeonju to Daegu, then Daegu to Changnyeong, and prepared for our week. Here is what a week at CEV looks like:

On Monday, students arrive by bus around 1:00 p.m. after completing a half-day at their school. The students are interviewed by the teachers to evaluate their English speaking and comprehension level. Once the students are split into classes based on levels, we begin the teaching day. Each day has four 45 minute class periods. Typically two of these periods are spent in CEV's simulation rooms. 

Here is the Post Office: 

The Market: 

The Bank:

The Airport:

Paul's Restaurant:

The Hotel:

Science: 

Exercises in these rooms are supported by book work that is completed during the remaining class periods. The simulation rooms are a great way to practice speaking English in a fun and interactive way. The students leave each day at 4:30 p.m. and usually head back to school for another evening class. The long days must be the explanation for a few sleepers that I had this week. :) 

Andrew has been the resident Cyber School instructor this week and will continue this gig until mid-December. Each evening, he conducts three online classes with students from the surrounding area. The setup is very similar to Skype, where the students can see him, and he can see the students. 

This was my class this week. I taught a short lesson on Thanksgiving, then we made turkeys in the art room! 

It's been another great week in Changnyeong. The weather has been nice with highs in the low 50s and lows in the 30s. We hope that you're staying warm! 

Thanks for being interested in what we're doing! I'll look forward to dedicating a post to food soon, because I just can't help myself. 

Beginning Our New Adventure

Thank you for being interested in seeing what we're up to. On Saturday, November 1, Rachel and I said the final (of many) goodbyes to family at O'Hare airport and boarded a nonstop flight from Chicago to Seoul. We'd never even been on a plane together before, so we thought we'd just jump right in with a flight to the other side of the world.

After an uneventful flight, we landed at Incheon International Airport, in Seoul. We took a bus to the other Seoul airport, Gimpo, and then a short flight to Busan. Busan is Korea's second largest city and is located on the southeastern coast of the country. There, we were picked up by a driver and brought about an hour to the Changnyeong English Village, our home for the next year. We received a lovely welcome from the other teachers and the administrators of the school.

We spent our first week taking care of administrative tasks, such as going for a medical screening and, when everything from that came back okay, to the immigration office. We also observed the other teachers in English Camp and got to interact with the students some. Also, we started to explore some of this beautiful area on foot, going for several runs. Here are some pictures:

 This is a picture of the school where we teach, taken looking out our apartment's front window.

 A temple in the city of Changnyeong.

Andrew pausing mid-run.

The first weekend that we were here, we spent one day in Daegu and one in Busan. Daegu is about 40 minutes north of us, and is the third largest city in Korea. Busan, as mentioned above, is the second largest city (after Seoul) and is on the coast, about an hour southeast. I thought these buildings in Daegu were interesting:

This week, I spent most of my time training on running the evening "cyber school", where we hold English lessons for Korean students online, using webcams. On Wednesday, I taught the classes on my own, for practice; I'll be taking those duties over full-time, next week.

Rachel had her own class this week, all middle school boys from the nearby town of Namji. I got to help her out with a science project one day. Here are some pictures from school this week:

Today is Rachel's birthday! Our coworkers treated her with some decorations and sweets:

And these were Rachel's students this week:

Tonight we're headed to Daegu to continue celebrating Rachel's birthday. Saturday we'll go to Gyeongju, about an hour east of Daegu. It's an ancient capital, from the Silla dynasty, and is often referred to as "a museum without walls".

Thank you for your interest in our travels! We'll try to keep posting updates as often as we can.