One week in!

Well, Adam and I have officially lived in South Korea for a week! Some times a week seems to fly by, but this weeks seems to have lasted a long time! I have to say that so far I am thoroughly enjoying living here in Seoul. The feeling of sensory overload still remains, but it is gradually subsiding. Even though it has only been a week, hearing and saying words has become a little easier. So far I only know a few words, hi, bye, thank you, water... basic words. Reading the characters however is a different story. I know with practice it will just become easier! I think next week I am going to start taking free Korean lessons at the city hall.

Adam and I finally got to move into our apartment! I have to say that it is amazing. Most people living in Seoul live in a little studio apartment, and a small one at that (think college dorm size). We were fortunate enough to live in what Koreans call a villa. It is basically a big apartment. We have one bedroom and one living room and a fairly spacious kitchen and bathroom. Adam is living in the bedroom and I made the living room my room. Each room has a wall of opaque sliding glass doors, mine actually has two walls that way. One of my sliding doors leads to the hallway and the other leads out to a little balcony. The sliding doors off of Adam's room lead to an atrium, which is a common place to dry clothes, grill out, or store things. All of the floors here are wooden. Heating is done through pipes on the floor. When you want your apartment to heat up, or your water to be hot then you have to turn on the heat and the pipes in the floor will start to heat up. It is actually quite an effective way to stay warm. We were very lucky to have had almost everything we would need in an apartment left behind for us by the people living here before us. We got some food, laundry soap, pots, pans, utensils, towels, bug spray, extension cords, an ironing board, bookshelves, shampoo... and the list goes on. It seems that most of the other teachers were left with only the bare necessities and they have to buy quite a few things. The apartment is still a mess; there is a lot to clean and sort out, but it is already starting to feel like home.

So far school is going well. The school day consists of two parts, a kindergarten program which runs from 9:30a.m. until 2:30 p.m. and an after school program which goes from 2:40 until 6:30p.m. Friday was our first day of after school programs and Monday we start our kindergarten classes as well. Things are a little crazy right now. The school is under construction right now so some teachers aren't in there rooms yet. Not everyone has all their books yet either. Despite all the chaos, I think the first day went relatively well for everyone. I spent my Saturday (today) at school for the most part just cleaning my classroom and prepping for Monday. I will be teaching the Koala class which is the 4 year old kindergartners that don't know any English at all. It should be interesting... Well that is all for now. I am about to meet up with a few other teachers and explore the live music scene here in Seoul. I will let you all know what I find. I hope this blog finds everyone well. Keep in touch, I miss you all!