Sunday 26 April 2009

G'day everyone and welcome to the blog. Tuesday marks two months of living and working in South Korea and I have to say that at times it feels like I've been here a lifetime. Life is busy and growing busier - the life of a teacher is not an easy one, although it is already proving exceptionally rewarding.

As I mentioned already this post comes almost two months into a long and eventful journey, so rather than fretting about what has already happened I'll be focusing on what is recent, relevant and upcoming. Having said that, a short introduction is in order.

I teach high school English in the south eastern most corner of Seoul, the capital of South Korea. My background is in broadcasting, not in teaching and prior to arriving here I had no teaching experience save a short online TESOL course. TESOL stands for 'Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages' and frankly, the certificates are not worth the paper they are written on.

Teaching has thus far been trial by fire and every lesson has been completely experimental. Lesson activities have ranged from some of the most bizarre games I've been able to imagine to fits of frustration resulting in periods of 'listen and repeat' readings from their textbooks. I make no claim to be the greatest teacher, I only claim that I am giving it the greatest effort that I can and I hope that that will be enough.

A source of constant amusement for the is the rock star status that I'm still finding myself privileged to receive. Students greet me with enthusiasm in the hallways and on the streets. The boys scream 'high-five', 'i love you', 'nice guy' and 'handsome guy' - the girls just scream and leave me gifts of tea, chocolates, drawings and love letters. Is this what fame undeserved feels like? I'm just me and have done nothing special yet to given all of this special treatment, well - its strange. It would be easy to let it go to your head.

Moving away from school comes some of the insanity and magic of Korea. Yesterday we journeyed to the magical land of 'Everland' - a theme park just to the south of Seoul. The weather as looking grim and the day was marred by drizzling rain from around mid-day onwards and two of three roller coasters closed for annual maintenance. (The third was later closed due to bad weather) But having said that the day was still a magical day of fun, our first stop was the 'T Express' - the steepest wooden roller coaster in the world with a jaw-dropping drop of 77 degrees! By far one of the most exhilarating roller coasters I have ever been on, out ranking Movie World's 'Superman Escape' by far. (Thrills and length, the ride lasts around 2 minutes!)


The 'T-Express', foreground is 'Holland Village'













Wandering the park I encountered a strangely aggressive teddy bear mascot who for some reason seemed to want to fight me. He had spotted a small stuffed teddy bear protruding from my jacket pocket and took this as an excuse to get started. So that got weird very quickly and he then got very friendly with Shirley, a little too friendly - in my opinion confirming that it was a guy inside.






This is the teddy bear that started it all.









By the end of the day we were all exhausted, having Safaried, Rollercoastered, Spun, Flipped, Dodgemed, Shot Ghosts, been in a 4D adventure and a rotating house. The only thing left to do was to have one more crack at a surprisingly addictive basketball game. I guess it helped that I realised I was pretty good at it. Earlier that day I had given my teddy bear away to a group of elementary school girls waiting in line at a rollercoaster. It seemed like we were the only westerners in the park and as usual were the subjects of great attention and many stares. The girls had to 'Ga-wee, Bah-wee, Boh' (scissors, paper, rock) for it but I think it may have made their day. They are so curious about westerners and I love being the nice, kind westerner.

Anyway, within seconds of me approaching the basketball machine I had a crowd of kids around me, curious to see the tall westerner in action. After pounding basketball after basketball through the hoop I was awarded another teddy bear, which I promptly turned to the children and gave away to a cute little girl. It looked like she could hardly believe that this was actually happening to here, I had to give it to her. But now I had started a riot - oh okay, I'll play again... (more children gathering...) Each new toy was followed my a round of Ga-wee, Bah-wee, Boh and a lucky winner walking away with a stuffed bear or big stuffed love heart. Our final round saw myself, Maria and Ed all played simultaneously and more prizes awarded to the children. For me, this was the absolute highlight of the night and I would've happily stayed there another hour if we didn't have to leave.

Will I do Everland again? For sure! And if the roller coasters are out of action, you'll know where to find me - look for the crowd of children and the basketball machines.

Below 1: Maria, Dave & Lexi boarding the Pirate Ship
Below 2: Everland at night, right before I had a total wipe out as I left in front of Lexi's camera when she was trying to take a very similar picture. I deserved the wipeout...






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