Well, well... yes, I've been putting this off and off. I started writing one of these things after my 2-week commencement but I never finished it, and so now is the time to complete the first one for my second round in Korea.

Ding.

So far, so awesome. I can honestly tell you that I'm enjoying this new city of Busan much more than my old one of Mokpo, speaking only of the city itself. There's a lot to say about the extreme differences between here and there but those nit-picky details will be kept inside my head for now. I'll just mention the fact that it's MUCH more laid back here, less old-fashioned feeling, and the weather is unbeatable. I’ve been taking long walks around my neighborhood lately, with temps almost in the 60s (when it’s not raining). No complaints here. And really, I'm not trying to salt any winter wounds, I've just become a fan of this warmish winter climate thing. Extreme winter makes me bitter, and I feel much better now that I'm away from it for a while. Anyway, two things I will say that I miss about Mokpo are the food and those friends of mine who are still living there. The food here pales in comparison to that of the Jeollanamdo Province (the province in which Mokpo is located), as it's well known to have the best food in all of Korea. In my opinion, Busan is at the bottom of the list for exceptional food, sadly :(. So I'm living the analogy regarding something about cake and eating it too. Oh well, I've never been too fond of cake anyway. You know what I mean.

So... I've been situated for about 2 months now. I'm baffled by how quickly 2 months are capable of sneaking by. I'm convinced that the older I get the faster time lapses, which doesn't seem fair. When I was 6 I wanted to be 26. And now that I'm 26 I want to be 6 again. And so in these 2 months of valued time spent in Korea, I've kept quite busy, keeping in mind the fact that I've spent more than half of my time here on vacation, only having worked about 3 weeks total so far. I arrived on January 6th and I had an entire month of vacation before having to start school on February 6th, which only lasted for 2 weeks before having another week of vacation. I spent time visiting my friends in Mokpo, I went to Jeju Island for about 4 days to visit another friend, I went snowboarding for the first time in 10 years (no broken bones, but I'm far too old to be doing that again), and I spent time in Seoul with my friend and her family during the Lunar New Year, which is the biggest and most important 3-day-long holiday in all of Asia (comparable to Christmas for us). I took about 7 million pictures of Jeju Island. It's impressively gorgeous. And my friend who I visited there is from there, so he and his friends and I took a road trip around the island and he brought us to the coolest of the cool spots around. Sadly, I didn't come across any cute and adorable and hopping goats this time :) Here are just a few of the 7 million pictures I took of the island.
Waterfalling

My friends, the Jeju natives.

The water is gorgeous...


The big thing in the middle of the island, Halla Mountain.

The summit of a short hike to a lookout point near the water.



A green tea field and museum we visited.



A rainy day.

Some night scenes.


Yet another lookout point over the water.

A glass museum. This entire little orchestra is made of glass.

A funny bathroom sign at the museum.

Asian gardens often remind me of Dr. Suess.

Gigantic Koi fish.

Caves!




Moving on to my fantastic school and the other people who work there...

I recall being a little worried the first night I arrived. There was only a "driver" to pick me up from the airport to bring me to my apartment; no recruiting agency person, no one from my school was there to greet me. Last year I had the recruiting agency people pick me up and I had that whole week of orientation where I met bunches of people; such was not the case this time around. But when the driver dropped me off and I stepped foot inside my apartment, I immediately felt welcome. The place was full of goods and groceries and there was a note on my fridge saying to enjoy the things, to sleep well, and to be ready for "them" to pick me up at 9:20 in the morning, though I had no idea who "they" were. That next morning a man and a woman came to my door and they ended up being 2 of the most friendly administration people at my school. The atmosphere at this school is so different than my last one. Most of the teachers speak at least a little English, which makes everyone less afraid to talk to me and not ignore me completely, consequently making my school life a little more enjoyable. There are 3 English teachers that I work with this time, as opposed to having just one main co-teacher. There are 3 English classrooms instead of one, and I have my own desk in my own room without having to share the room with any of the other teachers. I did not have that option last year, and it’s a nice one to have. The school itself is an experimental “English Immersion” school, meaning many of the core classes are taught in English. Two of my co-teachers also teach social studies and math and ethics and other classes in English without any of my help. As a result, the students at this school have a much higher English proficiency level than my school last year. It’s nice to be able to communicate with them at a higher level. The other day, I asked one of the classes, “How are you today,” and one student answered, “I couldn’t be better.” I’ve personally never even answered that question with that response. I’m most likely to hear from most students, “Fine, thanks. And you?” This is what we call the robot method of response, resulting from the poor method of memorizing dialog rigorously used in this education system. Anyway, it’s refreshing to be in a school much different than what I’m used to.

I’m excited to have one of my close friends from home join me over here in the next few weeks. I met Cody a long time ago, while I was living in Menomonie and she’s since been living in Minneapolis. She will be arriving in Busan at the end of this month (tentatively) and will be working at a private school about a 5-minute walk away from my school. We may even be living in the same apartment! I went to look at her school and meet the director, as per request by her and her parents, which I was happy to do for them. It will be GREAT to have a good friend here. I’ve discovered that since I missed out on any orientation after arriving in Busan, I haven’t been able to meet other foreigners very easily, as this city is so far the biggest city I’ve ever lived in. However, I do have lots of Korean friends here and also my friends in Mokpo, but they live about 4 hours away from me.

Pictures of my apartment:

An actual view of the city, not just a building across the way!






Stay tuned, but it may be a while.