My Korean digs & school

I moved into my apartment after a 3 day hiatus at a local "love" motel on Monday. They call them love motels because they are cheap and the owners don't ask a lot of questions so I will let your imagine take you where it will. My principal lobbied for 2 months to get me in the building that I am living in, and I will tell you why in a minute. When I arrived to moved into the apartment I didn't know what to expect. Since some of my fellow teachers had already moved into their apartments on time I was able to see a few of them during my motel stay. Most of them were very small, dirty, and in high rise buildings which are never very convenient. Very few of them were nice by Western standards so I was anticipating something of the small variety. I was relieved when I finally saw that my place wasn't as small as some and def not as dirty. And the best part about my apartment is that it's literally 100 feet from my school, hence why my principal wanted to have me in this building so badly. Most of my friends have to commute at least 15 minutes by bus or subway and some as long as 45 minutes to get to their school so I am perfectly content with walking 100 paces. The view of my school (the building in the background) from my apartment.
Front entrance. Shoe closet in the background since you cant have shoes on inside of Korean homes.

The only downside to my place is that the hub for the entire building's internet and phone lines are in my apartment. The silver lining is that my internet is free for the inconvenience.

Desk and bed. Koreans don't believe in the concept of sleep comfort so my bed is about as hard as a slab of granite.

Where I dine...alone.

Kitchen, which is actually fairly well equipped with all the "western" appliances. I also have a rice cooker which comes in handy since rice is it's own food group here.

Fairly self explanatory but with a few surprises. Look just above the sink and you will notice the shower placement and the hose connected to the sink.A better view of my "shower."

Oh, so the washing machine is in my bathroom, that's convenient. But where is the dryer you might ask? Koreans don't use them so therefore I don't have one.

I successfully completed my first full week of classes, well, almost. I went out with some co-workers on Tuesday night and dined on some jok-bal, which is fairly popular here. Jok-bal, as I found out is steamed pigs feet that are thinly sliced. They weren't bad, but the next day I was severely ill and couldn't get away from the toilet long enough to walk the 100 feet to school. Thankfully my PE teacher, Myungwoon, who also dined on the jok-bal, has a friend who is an internal doctor so he took me to visit him on Thursday after school. The doctor's visit and the meds he prescribed me were all free for which I was blown away. I am thinking that favor will come back around in the next year though at some point. I managed to finish out the week strong and aside from frequent bathroom trips (which aren't easy in my school, explanation in a minute) I had a very good first week of teaching. I am teaching 3rd,4th, 5th and 6th grade students, as well as 5 classes per week for the teachers to learn English. The kids are unbelievably excited that I am there and they treat me like a celebrity. Since I am the first native English speaking teacher in my school's history, most of my students have never had any contact with a foreigner. My school was built around 65 years ago and was used as a hospital during the Korean War. There are about 600 total students and I will be teaching almost 500 of them, the only exceptions being the 1st and 2nd graders. I hope to take some pictures of some of my students soon as well as my co-workers.

View from the "English Zone" the school is in the process of building.

What will be the English library and my office.

My future exclusive English classroom.

Front of the classroom.

I told you it was difficult to do your business in my school. I have only found one western style flush toilet so far. Most of them are just like this one. That's the floor by the way, although it looks like a wall.