Settling In....

I am one of six September Intakes bound for Chungbuk Province.  After rallying at the airport we loaded up on a bus and headed down the road to Cheongju to meet with our main co-teachers for the first time.  On the road our coordinator gave us a brief orientation on the province and tried to answer our million questions.  When we got to the Provincial Office of Education we met up with our main co-teacher and scattered to immigration and our schools.

 

It was a little strange to feel so close to a group of people for such and short time and then say goodbye so quickly.  One of the benefits of being a stranger in a strange land, I suppose.  I will see some of them in a few weeks when I go to our district’s professional development class (it meets once a month) and then the whole group again during orientation at the end of October.  Anyway…

 

What can I say about Jincheon?  It is small, sorta like my hometown in Alabama. Unlike my hometown it is surrounded by the beautiful mountains.  The weather has just started ti change here so the leaves will turn soon.  My co-teacher says that the mountains are really beautiful then.

 

We went to my school and met with a few of the teachers and the Vice Principal.  Then to my apartment to settle in.

 

My apartment is so nice!  It seems fairly new.  The building itself is shiny and my apartment is very clean.  I was told that I am the first foreign english teacher at the high school, so I am inclined to believe that this place had been chosen just for me.  (It will post pictures of my place later...like, once my things are put away, later.)

 

My co-teacher came and took me to dinner with another teacher.  This teacher has her classroom next door to my office, so for the blog I will call her “Next Door Teacher.”  It was my first truly Korean meal...eaten sitting on the floor with chopsticks.  Now, my American standards I consider myself to be “chopstick proficient” with those wooden chopsticks they give you with Chinese food.  However, with those smooth silver chopsticks they have here I realize that I am a novice at best.  And, there is kimchi everywhere.  There were 3 types with dinner (all blazing hot and made my tongue numb) and a little pancake-like thing made with kimchi, but was not hot and actually quite good.  There was also a pickled cucumber thing that was just a touch sour and still very crunchy.  I’m not much for pickles, but it was pretty good.

 

After dinner my co-teacher took me to a grocery store to buy a few things to get started.  Milk, orange juice, water, and a few muffins and a roll from the Paris Baguette next door.  Just enough to get started and I will go back later to explore.  Finally, I made it back to the apartment and crashed.