strangers in a strange land

Heyyyyyoooo!

Fear not, I looked at Deb's post so I won't repeat everything she already posted.

The trip here was arduous and disorienting as hell, but Singapore Airlines is running one classy business. The stewardesses are ridiculous; they dress like geishas and talk like phone sex operators. It was awesome.

South Korea is cool. We don't have much of an idea of what is going on most of the time because of the language barrier, but it's not a huge problem; we've been getting by just fine. Most people speak little to no English and there aren't many foreigners here at all. We've only seen two other whiteys so far, other than the teachers at our school. They were as visibly excited as we were and we said hi.

Speaking of saying hi, Korean strangers say hi to us on the streets here, and one guy has already asked to get a picture with us. The other English teachers told us we'll get sick of that real quick, but for now, I think the celebrity treatment is pretty funny! I haven't seen another "yellow-haired" or "red-haired" here yet. Damn it feels good to be exotic.

On corporal punishment: they've got it here. When a kid doesn't do his homework or gets out of hand, we have to send him to Mrs. Choi, the director's wife. She's the badass who strikes fear into the hearts of the children, which is funny because she's a totally lovely sweetheart. But she's got a killer knuckle. The knuckle is the preferred punisment at the Ivy school. Imagine a noogy performed with one knuckle applied directly to the forehead, an inch or two above the eye. Ouch. The day we started working, one of our co-wokers asked Mrs. Choi to knuckle him so he could see what it was like; he immediately regretted his decision.

Yesterday, Deb and I both taught our first class. It was like walking into a room full of fluffy Koala bears and being scared shitless. Our training teachers both said that we did really well for our first time, and I'm sure we'll get better quickly. Teaching is hard. They're easing us into it here, so today we have to teach two classes. Dios mio!

On foodstuffs: I have yet to try a food I haven't liked here (although I haven't tried any of the more exotic fare yet, so maybe it ain't sayin much). Deb mentioned the kimbap, which is good, and the Korean barbecue, which was one of the most delicious meals I've ever had. It's in the sauce! I've also had cow rib soup and pig spine soup, both of which were very tasty. We got a little tuned up with the other teachers, who took us out on Monday night. We had a little of the infamous Soju (which did not in fact knock us on our asses) and another drink clled Bek Se Ju, which was good.

Oh one more thing: The Ivy school has named each of its classrooms after an Ivy League University. So basically what I'm saying is that Deb now teaches at Columbia and I teach at Yale. Hottdamn! The job advancement in Korea is out of control!

That's all for now, dear readers. When I know more, so will you.

Kelly-Teacher