Arriving in Gwangju and orientation week

Anneyong Haseyo and yes we have arrived safe and I have not needed to go to the hospital....except for our blood test and urine test of course. Ellen and I had a good thirteen hour flight and were greeted at Toronto airport by our placement agency (Canadian Connections) director Shane Finnie. He was with us and about 30 other teachers for the flight and also the whole week up until last Friday.


We were brought from the airport to the Jeollanamdo Language Program Institute where Ellen and I shared a room complete with bathroom...reminded me of University dorms. We were given meals three times a day, we had classes on how to manage our students, teachers gave us the low down on what to expect in class. You are going to be a star, kids will be staring at you constantly, and don't be shocked if you see some corporal punishment if the kid acts up. The facilities also included a gym which we use with the other teachers we met to play ping-pong, volleyball and some badminton. Great bunch of people we met. Here we are at a historic village with our co-teachers. Mirah Park on the left is the co-teacher assigned to me while Seul gi is Ellen's. We even had time to play some good old throw the stick in the tube! Good times let me tell you...but seriously it was a good day...especially when you have statue like the one below to break the ice.



I was walking around with my co-teachers husband. He is also an English teacher and has excellent English skills. Within 10 minutes he told me that he did not understand why we were there as he had many friend who were qualified English teachers and did not have jobs. Thanks for holding back buddy. Did not mean disrespect, it is Korean culture to be quite direct. No worries, we just kept chatting about other things. I got the hint. Good thing we came across this statue to break the ice a little:

We sat down for some lunch...and no not all my posts will be this detailed, but its my first, so just let me be..ok?




Look at the smile on Ellen's face of eating that delicious cabbage with hot red peppers and also trying to keep it together while I eat my fish based soup with shrimp. Not bad...good thing there was rice and a good selection of non-spiced vegetables. All good!! Wait until you see below what else we had the next day. The afternoon was spent at a Temple which had 120 practicing monks. Here are a collection of shots....I'll start cutting the comments a little.

I'll cut this post now as this was quite a busy first post focusing mainly on one day. Wait until you see tomorrow!!!! We really had a great week being toured around in an air conditioned first class bus with a flat screen showing Olympic games. Met some really great people both in Mokpo with us and others within an hour or so, and we are planning on visiting for sure. Next I'll show you some more of the week!!!