getting adjusted in Gumi...

DAY 4, MEETING MY CO-TEACHER:
Monday. Found out I start school on Wednesday but I wouldn't have to actually teach until the following Monday, which sounded like a good plan to me! Of course Mr. Jun stopped by in the morning & wanted to show me where the school bus would pick me up every morning. We make a quick trip then I assure him I don't need anything else and he leaves. Back to bed I go!!

Until I hear the door buzzer again. I answer it and to my surprise it's my co-teacher Mr. Bahn. He tells me that he wants to take me somewhere, so I get dressed in a hurry & meet him downstairs. First impression is that he looks way younger than 41, and he's dressed casual and smoking a cigarette. He instantly introduces himself and we make small talk. Then he says, let's go get you a cell phone & we hop in his car. At this point I know in my head that I cannot get a cell phone without my "Alien Registration Card," so I just get in his car anyways. Before we start driving I explain the ARC card to him. He's new to the whole co-teacher thing so he was unaware of this, which was understandable. I liked his enthusiasm tho! haha :)

Seeing as we weren't able to get a cell phone, he says we will just drive around and chat. He shows me a few different areas of Gumi and we end up in the small area of town that everyone from orientation ate lunch at the day we were separated. He then insists that I must be hungry and stops at a restaurant...Jo Little...lol. The same place the head teacher had taken me to already. I want to be polite so I don't mention anything & we sat down to eat. This time I ordered pork cutlet, which was just as good as the beef I had last time.

During conversation at lunch I instantly realize that I'm going to love my job a little more for the pure fact that his English was amazing. I even complimented him on it, but he was shocked by this and insisted that he wasn't that great.

So, I finally get back to my apartment and he says that he would like to make dinner plans with me, Willem (the previous GET), and Willem's girlfriend. At lunch he explained that he worked with Willem at the school and considered him a really good friend. He also mentioned that he'd like to consider me a good friend as well. :) We plan to meet on Tuesday night, they day before the start of school. I thank him for lunch & he leaves. Much less intrusive than the first teacher I dealt with!

A NIGHT DOWNTOWN: 
I relax while in my apartment & chat with some friends who live in Gumi. They wanted to meet up for dinner & drinks that night...so of course I had to join! Paul, Ali, Alex, Rita, Slosh, and I meet up at the train station. Paul and Ali have been in Korea for a year, but were new to the EPIK program. Since they have the most knowledge on the food in Korea, we make them our leaders, lol. They take us to a restaurant where you sit on the floor around a table with a burner in the middle of it. We order chicken as the main course & they serve about ten side dishes around the big pot of chicken. I forget the exact name of this type of meal, but it was delicious! The flavor of the sauce, the potatoes, and other vegetables and rice noodles mixed with the chicken was amazing. The rest of our group partakes in Soju & beer, but I made the choice to not drink that night.

After dinner we headed to a bar where we ate some amazing fruit as a snack, and I drank the Korean equivalent to Sprite. "Sigh-e-duh ju seyo" is how you order Sprite, lol. By this point my friends have had quite a bit to drink so the entertainment was hilarious. We then decide at midnight to venture to a "noraebang" for some karaoke. Going to a noraebang for the first time as the only sober person, probably not the best idea, but still alot of fun! We call it a night around 1 in the morning and I walk back to my apartment, which is about 10 minutes from the train station/downtown area.

DAY 5:
I wake up Tuesday morning, expecting Mr. Jun to come over. The previous day he had told me that he would be at my apartment after 10AM. I made him give me a time so that I could be awake and ready. He wanted to once again show me where the school bus would pick me up because according to him, "practice makes perfect." lol. So, I'm just ready to get this out of the way so I can go walk around the downtown area by myself to get familiar with it. An hour passes and I'm still waiting. I had wanted to shower, but I didn't want to be in the shower when he showed up. Then three hours go by and I get frustrated. I take a super quick shower, get dressed, then decide to leave my apartment. I had already wasted half of my day waiting on him. This is where a cell phone would have been super helpful!

I ventured downtown, browsed the market, bought a tea pitcher for my kitchen, and a scarf to replace one that I had lost at orientation. I also ran into some orientation friends, chatted with them, then headed back to my apartment to get ready for dinner with Mr. Bahn, Willem, and his girlfriend Robin.

Mr. Bahn, and a teacher friend of his, pick me up at 5pm and we head to the station to pick up Willem and Robin. The five of us head to a restaurant located in Mr. Bahn's neighborhood. Another amazing dinner to say the least! We had "samgyapsal," or better known as pork belly. It's basically thick bacon. It was the same style of dinner we had downtown, where you sit on the floor, but this time we actually cooked the meat ourselves. I've come to really like these style of restaurants, it just sucks that you have to go with a group of people because the portions are fairly large. By the end of the dinner, Willem & Mr. Bahn are pretty happy from Soju. Mr. Bahn apologizes for being a little drunk and recommends we take a taxi home, lol.

I share a taxi back to the train station with Willem & Robin, where we decide to go to Dunkin' Donuts for dessert/coffee. At dinner we had discussed a little about the school and teachers, but now it was time for the "real talk" about working at DoGae Middle High School, lol. After a few humorous stories about the things he experienced while working there, Willem basically tells me that it's a more laid back school and that I will love it. Obviously he enjoyed it somewhat because he worked there for 2 years.

During our chat we get a phone call from Mr. Bahn saying that he found a white magnetic card in his vehicle. This of course is my card to get inside my apartment building!! I'm guessing it fell out of my purse on the ride to dinner. This meant I had to dial the landlords apartment number and try my best to tell him who I was so that I could enter the apartment. Turns out I just said, "sun sang neem" which is teacher, and he knew who I was...thank goodness!!

As I got ready for bed I made sure I had everything ready for my "first day of work." Then low and behold, I'm relaxing in my pajamas and I hear the door buzz. It's of course Mr. Jun. He insists on showing me where he would pick me up in the morning since I would be riding with him on the first day. I point at my pajamas and try to explain that I wasn't planning on going outside again and ask him to simply tell me where to wait in the morning. After much insisting on his part, he stands outside the door while I throw on my jeans. At this point I'm not very happy, but I was still trying to be polite. We quickly walk to the corner, which he could of OBVIOUSLY just told me, "I will pick you up on the corner of the street," and I return back inside to my pajamas.

Stories about school will continue on the next post!

XOXO,
Amanda