Subway adventures

I just got back from my weekend at Katie's. It was my first time on the Busan subway system and made for a few adventures. First of all, my school is a three minute walk to the subway. When I was out on Tuesday, I spotted the stop near the Home Plus (one of the department stores here). Confident that I knew where I was going, I headed out at 10AM on Saturday morning to catch the subway to meet Katie for 10:30. I walked down the steps to the station and followed a hallway to another set of stairs that took me... to the other side of the street. Oops. Turns out what I thought was a station was just an underpass across the road. Confident (sort of) that I would find the stop eventually, I kept walking down the road. And walked. And walked. (Side note - on the way home, I realized I had only walked about 500m, but it felt like a loooong time given I had no idea where I was going). I finally came across the subway. The station I found was not the one that is supposed to be closest to my school, but one two stops down the line. Next time, I will ask one of the other teachers at my school which way to walk. Relieved regardless, I bought my ticket, headed for the platform, and hopped on the train. Two stops later, I realized I was going in the wrong direction. Awesome. Now, here is the thing about the Busan subway, the east and westbound trains don't share a platform. If you get on the wrong train, you have to get off and exit back into the main part of the station to get to the other side. Another fun fact - when you buy a ticket, you indicate what station you are going to and this is the only station they will let you exit. In other words, I was trapped behind the turnstile. After some interesting sign language with the subway attendant, he let me back into the main part of the station where I bought ANOTHER ticket and got on the right train. The rest of the trip was fine - I was only five minutes late to meet Katie who, because she knows me, completely understood.

We spent the day shopping. Katie showed me some of the big shopping areas in Busan (and really, almost everywhere is a big shopping area... no lack of consumerism here). We went to Shinsegae Centum City, which is the largest department store in the world. It has a skating rink, golf course, spa, movie theatre and floor after floor of shopping. It's crazy. We spent some time in Haeundae, the area Katie lives in, checking out some of her favorite little stores for stuff to mail home to our friends for Christmas. After that, it was back to Katie's apartment to relax. We ended up watching movies for the night - both of us were tired and I am still having a tough time staying up past 10.

This morning (I slept til 7AM... baby steps), we headed to Pusan National University (PNU) area to check out their shopping. They have tons of stores crammed into a small neighbourhood of alleys. I have discovered, for the most part, shopping here is cheap. I haven't bought anything except for a sweatshirt and a cellphone charm that works as a subway pass. There are machines in every subway station that you can put the charm in and insert cash and it loads the money onto the charm. You swipe them at the turnstile and it deducts the money. Way easier than the tickets, especially if I get on the wrong way again. As for the sweatshirt, Katie and I both got one because we found them hilarious - on the chest it says Oh Dear God with a picture of deer antlers. No more unnecessary shopping for me though. The only things I will be buying before my first pay cheque (in a month) will be the essentials for my apartment once I move in. Here's hoping I don't need much.

I'm back at my motel now, watching Ocean's 11. There is a surprising amount of English TV here, it just all has Korean subtitles. Katie and I watched Friends this morning. The goal is to stay awake until 11PM tonight. Wish me luck!

Seoul

I am in Seoul for three days for my foreign teacher orientation. My school is run by YBM, a big company in Korea, so they bring all their new teachers to Seoul before our start date. A lot of the material is pretty dry - it's a lot of going over the textbooks we use and company policy. The bonus is that it's taught by an American guy who taught for ECC just last year so he has given us a bunch of information on Korean culture, good spots to see in our various cities, tips on culture shock, etc. I was able to get most of my questions about banking, going to the doctor, etc. All the little things they don't really tell you much about before you get here.

There are thirteen new foreign teachers from around the country. Eleven of them are in Seoul. It has been really nice meeting new people and now I know I will have a place to stay when I come back to do the tourist thing. Apparently I will be pretty popular too - Busan has the best beaches in the country so I will likely have some couch surfers in my future. One of the girls, Valerie, is from Sudbury and we have bonded over Northern Ontario chat. All of the others have been in Korea since at least Friday (some as long as two weeks). That being said, some still haven't been to their schools yet. Apparently all the ECC schools are supposed to put their teachers under a 10 day quarantine because of H1N1. Mine didn't, obviously. I am really grateful for that. I'm going stir crazy enough as it is.

Seoul seems pretty interesting. I haven't seen much as training keeps us occupied all day. A few of us took a walk after class to check out this beautiful stream that runs across the city. Apparently women used to come do their washing in the stream many years ago and it became a bit of a historical place. They did a complete remodel a few years back and it now has nice stone walkways, lights and trees all the way down. It's really pretty, especially at night. I walked back to the hotel on my own (everyone else takes a subway back to their parts of the city). It was kind of neat walking alone after dark (not too late, it was only 6PM). It is very common for women to walk alone in the evenings in the city here. Korea seems incredibly safe. It is a huge dishonour to one's friends and family to break the law here and you can tell people really believe that. For example, along the stream is an outdoor portrait gallery that is completely unsupervised. Anything like that at home would be vandalized in a second.

I've been eating mostly Korean food. All of us go out to lunch together. We have been looking for the restaurants with the most pictures on the menu and point at whatever looks good/not too strange. It's worked so far. We had one incident today where the meal we ordered (we tend to order the same thing and share) had a raw egg on it, but we ate it anyway and it turned out okay. Bring on the salmonella. I did cave tonight and grab McDonalds. The other teacher staying at my hotel is meeting friends, so I was on my own for dinner. It's a big faux-pas to eat alone in Korea and I'm not brave enough to try street vendors yet -we were recommended to give our stomachs time to adjust before delving in to non-restaurant food, plus I want to learn the words for chicken, beef, pork, etc. first.

It'll be nice to be back in Busan for the weekend. I am going to stay with my friend Katie on Saturday, which I am very excited about. Busan is a little lonely right now, not really knowing anyone yet. I should be moving into my apartment around Tuesday, which will be much better. I can unpack at last and be close to the other teachers in my school. I'm anxious to get back to my own school on Monday. I had a chance to take a tour and meet the other teachers briefly on Tuesday. They all seem really nice. I am the only Canadian at my school, the rest are American. I am sure the eh? jokes aren't far away.

Tonight is a quiet night in. I found a channel that plays English movies (with Korean subtitles, of course) and I am going to force myself to stay awake until at least 10PM. I made it to 9:30 last night and was able to sleep until around 5:30ish. It's not great, but it's progress. Love you all.

Mailing address

Erin Sunstrum
c/o YBM ECC Gaegeum
Gaegeum Dong 182-13
Busan Jin-Gu, Busan, South Korea
614-110

Send me love!

In Busan

I arrived last night around 9:30PM local time. My school director met me at the airport, which was nice. She seems pretty friendly so far, which is good. I've heard some bad stories about directors here and am hoping I end up with something better. The school is putting me up in a motel for about a week. I guess they literally pass apartments from one teacher to the next, so I have to wait til the person I am replacing leaves. The motel is alright - it's clean anyway. They give you all sorts of perfumes and lotions on a tray that get used from guest to guest. I have a feeling it's one of THOSE motels. Although they may all be like this. Needless to say, I'm not touching much.

I can't figure out how to work much of the electronics in the room... including the heat and the TV. But I have my laptop and DVDs and internet that I am hijacking off a neighbour, so I am surviving. I did manage to figure out the fan so the heat was more bearable. I made sure to open a window a bit so I wouldn't die of fan death.

I skyped mom and dad this morning which was nice. The homesickness sucks right now, especially because I will be so unsettled and out of a routine for a bit, but it's good to know how easy it is to talk to home.

I have most of the day off today. I'm supposed to be at the school for 3 o'clock to get a better idea what is going on for the next few days. Apparently I am heading back to Seoul tomorrow for a few days to go through training with all the other December 1st start teachers all over Korea from my company. Then it's back to Busan on Friday night, weekend off, and orientation at my school on Monday. Tuesday, they throw me to the wolves - my first day of teaching.

I'm going to venture around the block in a bit to grab some food and scope out the area. My body is all out of whack from the time change, but hopefully getting into an eating routine will help get me on schedule. Sleep was rough last night. Even with the exhaustion of the long trip, I was still awake at 3AM for most of the rest of the night. Part of me misses the ability I had to sleep at any time of day I had when I was sick. Or in university, come to think of it.

So far, so good. This is going to be a tough first few weeks, I think but it is going to be an adventure which is what matters.

In the air...

Left Ottawa this morning on what is going to be a loooong journey. I fly Ottawa > Toronto > Vancouver > Seoul > Busan. It's 25 hours of travel time airport to airport. Here's hoping for a decent nap on the plane.

I lucked out with a window, but my seat doesn't recline because of the emergency exit behind me. Ah well... After mom found out it was $6000 to upgrade to executive class, I am now only moderately less jealous of the pods. Moderately.

I am blaming the knots in my stomach on acid reflux, but even they are better than they were this morning. It would be nice to know where I am going/what I am doing after I get off the plane. I figure I'll calm down a lot more once I'm settled. Katie has promised me some of the fastest internet in the world which will make home feel that much closer too.

So you can thank free Wi-Fi at the Vancouver airport for the creation of this blog. I can't promise how much I'll update it, but I figured I would give Dad one more thing to check read in the morning.