Conclusion: Teaching English in Korea is the best

Hello bloggity blog. This is it. This is the end of Anne in Korea. I am back home, snug as a bug in my parents beautiful home for a few days before beginning the next adventure. It's been an amazing time, and thank you so much for reading my blog!

Hopefully, throughout reading this you have come to the same conclusion as my title states. I had such an amazing time in Korea that I will definitely cherish for my entire life. It also was the experience that I feel changed me more than anything else, including university and other travels. There really is nothing quite like being a stranger in strange land, even when that land is insanely welcoming. 

So thank you Korea. Thank you students, your eagerness to learn and grow, and your innocence will remain with me forever. Thank you coteachers, your generosity and patience were beyond anything I could have expected. Knowing English was not something I earned, but something I inherited by living in the right place at the right time. I feel unbelievably grateful to have had such an amazing experience based on something I never even worked for!!

For newbies considering Korea: DO IT.

You will so not regret it.

Here's my final bits of advice for teaching English in Korea.

1. If you at all can, teach in a public school, not a private one. You get much more vacation, more pay, less work, and less instability. It's a win win win situation. I taught via EPIK - English Program in Korea. This is the most common way to teach public, though I hear there are some other ways. If you want to teach in Seoul, there's a special application to do as well. I believe GEPIK organizes teachers for the province surrounding Seoul.

2. Bring less. So much less. You will accumulate so much stuff it's unbelievable.

3. But do bring some... Things I found very difficult to find in Korea include the following:

• tampons
• toothpaste that tastes like toothpaste
• specialty clothing sizes (tall people,  larger footed people, and well endowed ladies, bring that special stuff from home. clothing usually will fit a small or medium, but not a large)
• deodorant (available but not many options)
• obviously you aren't going to find all your favourite brands, so if you're super picky about something bring that (but also stop being picky. you'll get it again when you go home. go eat kimchi and grow a little)
• cheese (this would probably not be an issue in bigger cities but in Gyeongju it was an exciting month if we found cheddar)

4. Websites to know

Waygook.org - A teaching website with tons of materials. A lot of it isn't great, but search and you get good powerpoints, and good ideas. Stay away from the discussion areas though unless you want to laugh at weird angry people. I used this less and less throughout my stay, but in those first few months it was a lifesaver.

iherb.com - You can find EVERYTHING on this website. Spices, coffee, teas, moisterizers with SPF, oatmeal, chia seeds, ANYTHING. Stop whining that you can't find something in Korea and just look on this glorious website and all your problems will go away.

gmarket - Ok so I never used this really, but my friend Tina was a pro and sometimes got stuff from here for me. This is a store for things like clothes or furniture. I got a neat spibelt running belt on it, and some awkward fitting dresses.

5. I've said it before and I'll say it again. CHILL OUT. Be flexible. Eat new foods, try new customs, get over yourself and just let it be. If you want everything to be the same as home, stay home. If you want an amazing life changing experience filled with adorable children, go to Korea with an open mind, open heart, and open mouth. Korean cuisine took about a month to get used to but now is hands down one of my favourite cuisines. Try as much as you can! (You have  my permission to skip the dog, live octopus or beondeggi if you're not feeling it though. Even many of my Korean kids were wary of those dishes)

The main street by my apartment where I conveniently
found everything I needed for two years.

My last day by the river was beautiful. Final gift
from Korea.

Yurim, my amazing school!

Beautiful Gyeongju. Miss it and will definitely
be back one day...

THE END.

Goodbye teachers

The kids aren't the only amazing people I work with. I have been so lucky to work with a super friendly, encouraging and inclusive group of co-teachers. It was very sad saying goodbye to them as well! We went for a final lunch and they were extremely kind and got me a present! I am so grateful to them as they've all helped me so much throughout my stay in Korea.

For lunch I actually got to try something new, which is always super exciting! We had a dish called 물회 aka Mul Hoe. This literally translates to "water sashimi." It was actually super tasty and very refreshing on the hot day. I couldn't find it online so here you go other people looking to find out about it! It consists of raw fish, in this case flatfish though I hear it varies, veggies like radish, and a ton of delicious Asian pear. This then had yummy spicy red sauce added, then we add ice and rice. It becomes a cool mushy yumminess. I enjoyed it very much! I was less a fan of the giant snails we had for appetizer but they weren't bad when dipped in sauce. 

Thank you Yurim teachers! You are all amazing, and it's been an honour teaching with you!

Mul hoe before adding ice.

Mixed up and ice added.

Squid side dish. I love squid, but this had a weird filling
I wasn't a fan of.

All finished!

Feast your eyes

Delicious food!

Pork BBQ at a teacher dinner

BBQ is always followed by another course.
I always choose Naengmyeon, or cold noodles.
This was the first time I had them with
watermelon! So good!

All finished. SO FULL.

Not food but how funny and cute.

This beautiful creation is a "Milk Cake." My friend and I
saw it and knew we must eat it. It tasted like a heavenly
dairy cloud.

Japanese Ramen! Soooo delicious. Completely different
from packaged ramen we are used to. 

Decadent dessert drinks at The Coffee Place.
They serve delicious seasonal fruit
juices, and I got a super tasty plum juice.
My friends got a yogurt blueberry smoothie,
lemonade, a mint chocolate frappucino, and
a milkshake.

MY GROCERY STORE STOCKS AVOCADOS NOW.
Anne made guacamole. SO DELICIOUS.

Tidbits & Outdoor lesson

I made this post quite a few weeks ago but didn't quite finish.So here are some tidbits of summer :)

Milmyeon is a local version of the ubiquitous Naengmyeon.
The latter is cold noodle soup. During the Korean war,
this area didn't have access to all the ingredients, so
they invention MilMyeon! It's pretty similar, but
different noodles and includes pork.

Sharks, skates and rays are all
unsustainable seafood choices,
but look how cute this little guy is!
His clasper is even waving.

In June we had some really nice weather. So my coteacher had the great idea to have an outdoor class! The lesson was "May I go to the bathroom" and practiced the phrase "May I." Instantly this made me think of "Mother May I." I tweaked the game so that rock paper scissors was involved, and gave the studnets little papers to help them remember new vocab. Anyways, it was an enormous success! I've never heard so much LOUD English! It was a great time. Love grade 5!! Also before class I read the story "There was an old lady who swallowed a fly." While few kids understood the punchline, they all enjoyed the story and song-like delivery anyways! Great day :)

Multiple games occurring around each other.

Frog steps!

Giant steps!

School lunch

It's so tasty!

So full! Beefsplosion.

Today the grade 6 teachers received some kind of bonus. I am not exactly sure how, it seems they/we scored really well on teaching reviews. I was told I didn't review anyone since I don't speak Korean, so I said they all have high reviews IN MY HEART. Luckily, they are used to my humour and laughed. SO we went out to a gigantic beef dinner. The place is a butcher shop and restaurant so you pick your cuts then go sit down. It was called 소풀 which is "So Pul" which means.. cow something.. but anyways when I exclaimed "SO FULL" everyone laughed because to the Korean ear that sounds like the restaurant name! Works out well because literally every English speaker is likely to say that after a meal at this place!

Anyways we ate a variety of cuts including one very marbled specimen I was told was expensive. I try to tell the difference but I still can't really. (Also I still think piggy is tastier.)

THEN.. get ready for it..

I ate not one, but two kinds of raw beef!! It's very surprisingly light! I didn't catch the name of the first kind, but it was nice and served with little bits of what I think was Asian pear so it was super light and fresh. The second kind was called Mungtigi (뭉티기) and is apparently a specialty from Daegu. It was bigger slices and came with a little relishy sauce. Both were quite nice, much to my surprise! My coteachers kept calling it beef sushi which was a pretty good translation not knowing the accurate words! I did tell them tartar is more commonly used though, and that despite it being my first time, Westerners do also eat it.

I pretended I was a wolf while eating it. It was fun.

I am so meat-ed out though. I can feel my arteries clogging. I look very forward to some lentil soup tomorrow. I've gotten scarily good at leek, potato, lentil, and spinach soups. The secret, I've discovered, is a spoonful of cayenne pepper.

Bbq fume hood thingy. I'd never seen this model before,
kind of like a giant faucet.

Meattttt

Tartar # 1

Tartar # 2, mungtigi, and relish 

PS Washing my hands before lunch, I was surrounded by some of my kids doing the same. We can all see our faces in the mirror, which led one girl to exclaim
"TEACHER! Your face is WHITE!"
"Yes.. yes it is."
"Are all Canada people white face?"
"No, we are all different colours. White.. brown.. black.."
"I AM BROWN BYEEEEEEEEEEE!"

I had a chuckle.

Anchovy kimbap

Believe it or not,  even when food is staring at you with tiny eyes,  it can be delicious!

Tasty Treats

Here are some standard Korean snack.
So many meat/seafood chips.
It's odd.. but salt is salt!

Mr Pizza

Went out for some "pizza" this weekend. Korean pizza is notorious among foreigners to being quite different than North American pizza, and extremely different from Italian pizza. Being the hungry, unpicky eater that I am, I love it just as much as any pizza. The addition to corn on almost all flavours really doesn't bother me!!

Anyways this weekend I ate at "Mr Pizza" and a friend of mine recommended I try the potato gold. It was SO good. Cheesy, potatoey, bacony goodness. The "gold" crust was pretty much cheese bread. It was too good. It was exactly what one wants after a tiring weekend.

So very delicious. The white drizzle
was sour cream, and that yellow
sauce was some kind of garlic
butter sauce. Needless to say,
this is excellent for those on a diet.

 

I also had a chuckle reading the menu...

"Secret Garden

You will feel as if you are sitting on a terrace enjoying a sweet taste with leisure. Pieces of grilled chicken breast with colorful fresh vegetables in white sauce is created for all nature-loving women"

Alas, a member of our party was a male so we went with the "premium pizza that is loved by all-ages."

Not too much else to report on. Life in Korea goes on. Children call me pretty on a daily basis and I forget I am short until I hang out with foreigners. Basically, life is good. Cherry blossoms are starting to bloom so I hope to hit up one of the Gyeongju historic sites this weekend, maybe back to Anapji Pond or hiking Namsam again. GET EXCITED. 

Spring is Springing! Market and Tombs

A switch has been turned and spring is HERE. Last weekend I spent shivering in Seoul, and this weekend I literally went outside in a summer dress. It is lovely. Things aren't green yet, but there are plenty of buds on the trees.

Speaking of summer dresses, after the wedding Adri and I walked around Hwangsung park in some of our summer dresses because it was over 20 degrees out! The Koreans were all still dressed in winter attire. This includes sneakers, hiking pants, and jackets. Many women also protected themselves from the evil sunlight by wearing face/neck masks and giant visors. Adri and I stood out more than usual as we seemed dressed for completely different seasons.  I was sweating, so I really don't know how they were dealing with their outfits.

Anyways, as we walked by two middle aged women we noticed them staring. As we are now used to this, we didn't think much of it. However, they soon picked up the courage to come talk to us. Sadly, their English was limited to "hi." They were happily chatting away in Korean though, and pointed to my bare shoulders and seemed to be miming something along the lines of "you should protect your skin." I mimed that I was hot, and then pointed to the sun and stroked my arm saying "It's ok, I want a tan!" they sort of understood because they laughed and no longer were concerned. They continued chatting to us despite our attempts to show that we had no idea what they were saying. They were not deterred.  They kept chatting and then start making motions of a woman's figure. While we thought they were telling us we had nice figures, we couldn't express that we sort of understood. So, in order to really get their point across, one suddenly grabbed onto my butt and gave it a nice squeeze while complimenting it. By this point we were laughing so hard we could barely muster a "thank you" before leaving.

I continued to enjoy the hot weather by later heading downtown to the tombs. It was really beautiful, and I got in for free due to being a Gyeongju resident! Hurray! These are tombs of Shilla Royalty. We even got to go "inside" one where we could see replicas of the actual tomb, and some artifacts from tombs. It was neat.

Today was not quite as hot, but just as beautiful. There is a "5 day market" in my neighbourhood that is open every 5 days. Because this is a super random time to be open, along with a sunset closing time and the horrible coldness of winter, it's been a very long time since I have gone. Because today happened to be a Sunday, and warm, I finally went back. I bought a whole bunch of delicious veggies and some strawberries that smell and taste like heaven. Though not my first time, I took a whole bunch of photos to show you guys ! The best part was when we bought our strawberries, the vendor excitedly said "Welcome to Korea!!" and gave us some free tangerines. 

Bondeggi .. silkworm larva. Ew.

Dried fish, shrimp, krill, etc.

Here are some local plants. I had a hard time in winter
when it was only this stuff cause I have no idea
how to cook with most of it.

Pig feet!!

Kimchi kimchi

All kinds of sides. I eat this kind of food
at school all the time. Sadly, I have
no idea what any of it is called
and will probably never
eat it outside of Korea.

Candy

These are the best mushroom I've ever had (the brown
ones). Because it's spring, tons
of recognizable produce is now available
again!

You can smell them from so far.
They taste amazing!!

Dried persimmons covered in powder..

Not only are Korean children
naturally adorable, they are
dressed in outfits like this
ALL THE TIME. 

This is acorn nut jelly. The first time I had it, I was
convinced it was pure animal fat. Now I can't
eat it, even though I know it's not!

The sprouts in here were so fresh they
were actually still growing! I find sprouts
go rotten super fast so I never buy them,
but they're a very tasty staple
in Korean food.

This old lady, known here as an ajuma, was shucking
garlic gloves. The pile at her feet is garlic skin.
It looked absolutely awful. 

Seaweed really is quite popular here.
Pregnant and breastfeeding women
eat seaweed soup a lot due to health
benifits that ancient
Koreans somehow figured
out. On birthdays, people
also eat seaweed soup as
it was their "first meal" through
their mothers!

And there you have it. The five day market!