Originally posted April 18, 2011
(Above: Christina and I enjoying the beautiful Gwangju Reservoir)
As of today, I believe we are one week into this experiment in Korea. This is also the first day that I'm using my wireless keyboard for the iPad so it's taking a moment for me to get used to the Mac-style of functioning. To start, it's definitely been an interesting first week here in Korea. Gwangju is a beautiful city with very clean air and at the time of writing, I haven't personally witnessed any rain. If you want to time visiting Korea, visit the southern provinces during April's second week because the cherry blossoms are in bloom and spring has just arrived. We were told that the first week was definitely colder.
The day after we arrived was my introduction to Gwangju FC. They play in the city's World Cup stadium that was built as one of the many to help Korea co-host the 2002 Soccer World Cup.
(Photo taken from http://www.flickr.com/photos/21118392@N03/2053864045/)
It's a beautiful structure and I'll have pictures posted of it when I visit the stadium for their next home match. This week they were away and I haven't checked the scores yet to know what happened. The team lives in an apartment near ours and it's always cool to see them out in our neighborhood.
I have to say that it's sad to think that this is their first year as a club. That stadium seems to be used for a variety of reasons (today there was a marathon held there) but I feel that it was a white elephant. It's a 44,000 seater stadium and I attended a match with roughly 2,000 other people. The match ended 0-0 but was filled with many near-misses on both sides. I said to a Korean gentleman that this must be an exciting season (since it's the first) because nobody knows what to expect from this team! As I write this, two players just walked into the coffee shop where I'm sitting. I can tell because of the blue training pants they are wearing even though they aren't wearing the blue jackets with "Gwangju FC" printed on the back.
I do feel like this is a great opportunity for me to figure out how to teach children and adolescents the language that I've grown up speaking. Some may think that's easy but it's very tough when you have a big group of kids who are just staring at you as if in a Quantum Physics class being taught in Farsi. This is a very fulfilling job though because I truly appreciate the innocence of these kids. Korean children seem to school for much longer in a day than American children. If you are a teacher working in America, convince your students that they will have to school in Korea if they misbehave. We live across the street from a large public school and the kids are there until 8 in the evening. However, I can't really criticize because it's not my culture. I remember anxiously awaiting the final bells at 3 when I was in school and I couldn't imagine attending for 5 hours past that.
One thing you can't ask for is the dedication of my company's president to make us feel accommodated. They provide us with daily transport to work (definitely cheaper than a bus or taxi!) and we had a picnic at a temple this Friday. The scenes were truly amazing and I should have some pictures fairly soon. They even brought some amazing food! It was a great experience and truly gave me a fine impression of the lengths they travel to please us.
Finally, I just want to say that I'm very happy here and think that this place will actually whip me into shape. I think my first foot blister has developed from all the walking and I have to say it's well deserved. Outside of walking around the reservoir almost daily and many trips around our part of Gwangju (we live in Pungam dong), my feet will get a much-needed rest this evening. I hope this blog serves its purpose and that I continue to write here. I haven't even expressed all of my thoughts or feelings on this past week because so much has happened.
For now, Anyong Gah Seh Yo! (I think that's the correct romanization of "good-bye")
-Carl
(Above: Christina and I enjoying the beautiful Gwangju Reservoir)
As of today, I believe we are one week into this experiment in Korea. This is also the first day that I'm using my wireless keyboard for the iPad so it's taking a moment for me to get used to the Mac-style of functioning. To start, it's definitely been an interesting first week here in Korea. Gwangju is a beautiful city with very clean air and at the time of writing, I haven't personally witnessed any rain. If you want to time visiting Korea, visit the southern provinces during April's second week because the cherry blossoms are in bloom and spring has just arrived. We were told that the first week was definitely colder.
The day after we arrived was my introduction to Gwangju FC. They play in the city's World Cup stadium that was built as one of the many to help Korea co-host the 2002 Soccer World Cup.
(Photo taken from http://www.flickr.com/photos/21118392@N03/2053864045/)
It's a beautiful structure and I'll have pictures posted of it when I visit the stadium for their next home match. This week they were away and I haven't checked the scores yet to know what happened. The team lives in an apartment near ours and it's always cool to see them out in our neighborhood.
I have to say that it's sad to think that this is their first year as a club. That stadium seems to be used for a variety of reasons (today there was a marathon held there) but I feel that it was a white elephant. It's a 44,000 seater stadium and I attended a match with roughly 2,000 other people. The match ended 0-0 but was filled with many near-misses on both sides. I said to a Korean gentleman that this must be an exciting season (since it's the first) because nobody knows what to expect from this team! As I write this, two players just walked into the coffee shop where I'm sitting. I can tell because of the blue training pants they are wearing even though they aren't wearing the blue jackets with "Gwangju FC" printed on the back.
I do feel like this is a great opportunity for me to figure out how to teach children and adolescents the language that I've grown up speaking. Some may think that's easy but it's very tough when you have a big group of kids who are just staring at you as if in a Quantum Physics class being taught in Farsi. This is a very fulfilling job though because I truly appreciate the innocence of these kids. Korean children seem to school for much longer in a day than American children. If you are a teacher working in America, convince your students that they will have to school in Korea if they misbehave. We live across the street from a large public school and the kids are there until 8 in the evening. However, I can't really criticize because it's not my culture. I remember anxiously awaiting the final bells at 3 when I was in school and I couldn't imagine attending for 5 hours past that.
One thing you can't ask for is the dedication of my company's president to make us feel accommodated. They provide us with daily transport to work (definitely cheaper than a bus or taxi!) and we had a picnic at a temple this Friday. The scenes were truly amazing and I should have some pictures fairly soon. They even brought some amazing food! It was a great experience and truly gave me a fine impression of the lengths they travel to please us.
Finally, I just want to say that I'm very happy here and think that this place will actually whip me into shape. I think my first foot blister has developed from all the walking and I have to say it's well deserved. Outside of walking around the reservoir almost daily and many trips around our part of Gwangju (we live in Pungam dong), my feet will get a much-needed rest this evening. I hope this blog serves its purpose and that I continue to write here. I haven't even expressed all of my thoughts or feelings on this past week because so much has happened.
For now, Anyong Gah Seh Yo! (I think that's the correct romanization of "good-bye")
-Carl
Anyong Gah Seh Yo!
ReplyDelete