My first days here

I had a very pleasant flight to Korea. It was long, but it was comfortable. I rode on Asiana, which is far superior to Korean Air. I had a nice large seat with plenty of leg room. I don't actually need that much leg room, since I'm a meager 5'5" or 165cm, but it was nice nonetheless. I had a personal tv screen, so I watched some crappy movies, the gps and a few bizarre television shows. I also spent some time practicing some Korean phrases and memorizing 1-10.

I arrived at the airport and was looking for someone holding up a sign with my name on it. I couldn't see my name anywhere, so I waited around the departure gate for a while to no avail. Fortunately, I had the number of the recruiter and some change, so I went to the nearest payphone. I could only find payphones that required a KT card, so I started to get a little worried. Fortunately, a kind man in a business suit came over and offered the use of his cell phone. He called the recruiter, and I found out that the recruiter was waiting for me at the gate on the other end of the airport. Then, the man with the cell phone requested to be reimbursed for the use of his phone, and I said "ok... how much did that call cost?" He told me it was a few thousand won. I shrugged and opened my wallet to dig out 3,000 won which I knew was a bit exorbitant. He reached in and took out a 10,000 won bill(oddly enough this was the only time I have ever been ripped off by a stranger in Korea).

I met my recruiter and the other teacher who had come in around the same time, and the recruiter drove us into Seoul. The other teacher and I were dropped off in front of a hotel where our Wanjangnim picked us up. It was about 9pm and I thought we would go straight to our homes, but the boss had other ideas in mind. He took us to Lotte Mart for groceries. He explained that although we were both probably pretty tired, he wanted to keep us up for a while so that we didn't have terrible jet lag. We went and bought groceries, had some dinner, and finally he showed us our apartments. They were a bit small, but pretty clean and fully furnished.

The next day, we went in for training. The first couple of hours were focused on kindergarten, which I didn't pay much attention to since I was teaching the afternoon/evening elementary shift. Then the elementary supervisor started. She was insane, although now I'm good friends with her. She goes on a tirade about how a lot of students left, and that we have to "teach sincerely." "Sincerely practice. Sincerely listen. Sincerely focus on the students." In a three hour long training session, she mentioned the syllabus and books once but managed to include the term sincerely in every sentence. After the training, I went home and called my friend who had arrived a couple of weeks earlier. A couple of teachers at wonderland and I went to the subway station to meet him and got properly trashed. I figured, I'll start at 2, so I can stay out until 3 or so. I came home at 4, and there was a note on my door. One of the kindergarten teachers didn't come and called at the lat minute to cancel, so I had to teach kindergarten because the replacement could only teach for one month, and they wanted the kindergarten teacher to teach for the whole year.

So, five hours later, I'm back at the school ready to start my first day with a syllabus and books I haven't seen up to this point.