Riding down Seoul City 1: Orientation

Orientation:

When I arrived in Seoul I went straight into a 9 day orientation given by EPIK/SMOE which went by in a blur. There was roughly 180 english teachers at orientation, and you can imagine the chaos that it was getting everyone settled in. We had orientation at this institute, which had dorms where we lived 2 people/room, and a separate building for our classes (I took pictures, but unfortunately my batter ran out and I have no idea where the charger is/if I remembered to pack it). My room mate was a girl from south africa, who was awesome. I surprisingly wasn't jet lagged, which was great. I got to the dorms around 7ish at night. I had kept myself up the night before I flew out, and somewhere in the middle of 16 hours of travel time, I adjusted. It was great.

Basically the reason why I didn't get a chance to blog until now is that we had this crazy packed schedule. We had classes everyday that focused on everything for how to manage your classroom and lesson planning, to how to deal with culture shock and proper eating etiquette. At the end of orientation, we were to give 15 minute presentations (mock demonstrations of a lesson plan we devised ourselves)...which meant we had to work on that AFTER all of our lessons. Sometimes I didn't get to go to sleep until 2 am only to be up again at 6 am to get ready. It was kind of what I imagined college would have been like if I had dormed. All these girls sharing a shower room, a bathroom, a laundry room, and a common area, plus a cafeteria upstairs with a set eating schedule.

The orientation schedule:



All 180 of us were divided into 4 different classes, I was placed into class 2 (woot woot!), and we had 1 instructor, who went by Totos, plus her assistant, Rachel. These two girls were AMAZING. Totos, who is only a year older than me, teaches at an elementary school & was the sweetest thing ever. She always seemed like she was flustered and/or running everywhere, but she worked so, so very hard for our class, and she was so kind & always giving out compliments. She was the best, hands down. AND!!! She's getting MARRIED! AND!!! She invited our whole class to her wedding!! YUP! In the fall I'm going to a Korean wedding!!! ^___^ Rachel, Totos' assistant, is a college student here in Seoul and she was fun & hip & clumsy. During our last class, after Totos' invited us to her wedding, our class presented both Totos & Rachel with gifts of appreciation (all of us put in some money & signed a card)...and both of them started to cry, and you know me... I was glad I was sitting in the back because I was embarrassing.

But honestly, I can't say enough good things about Totos & Rachel. All of us, including them, were nervous about meeting one another, but they really made all of the teachers feel really welcomed. I had always heard wonderful things about Korean hospitality, but I experienced it first hand because of them, and I remain forever grateful.




Some other things about orientation:

1) We were supposed to go on a field trip to a traditional folk village on sunday, but the bad weather changed up the schedule on us since the village was rained out. I was a bit disappointed, since I had really wanted to go! We did, however, still go to the "NANTA" show, which is like blast/stomp but with a food/kitchen theme.

2) That day, I was also supposed to go BIG BANG's BIG SHOW (the last day too! I got tickets and everything!) but I couldn't make it. I still haven't gotten over the disappointment.

3) Also that day, we had a presentation of some Korean culture things, and one of them was traditional hanbok, korean clothing. I got to wear my very first hanbok! It was GORGEOUS & I'm really sorry I can't show pictures of it. Also, they are SO SO comfortable. If I could, I would wear hanbok everyday!


(clearly, not me, but just to give you an idea)

4) The girls in my class were/are awesome. We managed to go shopping during one of the days, & that was fun to get out and do something (I bought shoes!). Also, we went out one night, to a bar & then a club (which was soo interesting!)... and then to a Jimjilbang (찜질방), a 24 sauna/spa place. We stayed there "overnight" because our dorms had a curfew of midnight, and opened again at 5 am. Basically, its like this big room where people (boys & girls) can relax on mats in a heated room. There's also other smaller rooms that offer different treatments & temperatures.

5) It was funny trying to weed out the kpoppers LOL. My first encounter was a girl directly across the hall from me. Our doors were open & I could here her playing some kpop. Turns out shes a big SM stan (she said Big Bang was "Alright" but that she didn't really know their songs -___- not judging you, but like, totally am). BUT! Turns out my partner for the presentation is a YG stan like me! We're planning on doing all the YG things together!! ^^ Also, as I mentioned earlier, we had classes, and our lecturers for these classes are present/past EPIK teachers, who all said the same thing...that we need to get familiar with kpop. AND they used BIG BANG references whenever kpop was mentioned! I believe one lecturer said "You need to know who G-Dragon is" lol. But it wasn't even just the EPIK teachers! Even the korean instructors were pimping out Big Bang whenever they could. In our Korean classes, we were shown kpop videos, which were GTOP's "High, High," SNSD's "Gee," & HYUN BIN's "That Man"---but my korean teacher would play BIG BANG before class, so we would hear it as we walked in.

It was interesting to see the reactions of other foreigners to Big Bang & Kpop in general. I laughed when someone said "Did they just spell out GHETTO?" when we were listening to GTOP's "High High." I think the EPIK teachers were exposed the most to Big Bang, which pleased me greatly. ^^ Also, in the club, Big Bang & 2ne1 were the only "kpop"groups that were played--it was mostly underground khiphop & western music, which was another interesting point.

Anyway, the last day of orientation was this past wednesday, and I was a mess. I was bawling, which I thought was weird since when I left for korea, I feel like I didn't cry that much (I mean, as opposed to when I left for Philadelphia). I think it was a delayed reaction or something, because I was uncontrollable on wednesday. I think it had to do with the fact that I knew I was really going to be on my own from then on. During orientation, it almost didn't feel like I was in korea, because I was surrounded by english speakers, and was taking classes taught in english. It was only when we left the dorms or when we would go to the cafeteria to eat korean meals, that I sort of remembered that I was in seoul. Oh, and by the way, korean cafeteria food pwns american cafeteria food always and forever. yum yum yum.

Anyway, since this is getting a bit long, I'll end it here & continue the rest a bit later on.