Enjoying life

Hello again. I'm having a great time here so far. I'm currently sitting at work during my break. I've settled in, this being the end of my first full week. The job's not bad, the kids love to go apeshit for the first couple of classes since most are kindergarten aged or younger. They're not bad to deal with though, much better than assholes in a phone store complaining about their rate plans.

The culture here is quite different from back home. The locals are obsessed with work and think that working overtime for no extra pay is par for the course. We, the waygooks (foreigners), are exempt from the expectation of free work (we have a bit of a social stigma surrounding us from most accounts). I've seen people in my school actually sitting and doing nothing since they are expected to wait around for their time to be up, even though their is nothing productive being accomplished.

There is also a huge drinking culture here, one that overshadows that of Newfoundland's by a large margin. Getting absolutely smashed into oblivion is the norm. And not just on the weekends. I saw a middle-aged man in a business suit covered in his own vomit on a Sunday morning around 12 PM this past weekend. Surprising that he was out that late since most of the population here is Christian.

My classes are starting in a few minutes so I have to cut it short but I do have some pics up of my school and the environs. There is a walking hill near where I work which is nice because I have a bit of free time on Tuesday and Thursday to walk around. Here they are.

Andrew

Made it!

Well I'm now here in Korea. It's 10:30 in the morning on Saturday. I got in last night and was immediately told to get on a bus which took about an hour and a half to get to Suwon from the airport. Once there, two people were waiting for me. They took me from the bus stop to Reading Town, my place of employ. The staff are extremely nice and helpful. Mr. Lee, the assistant director, who is quite fluent in English, gave me the tour. He had a class so he had Chris, a guy who works in the office, and Jessica, the boss' wife, take me out for dinner.

The food was great. I had a type of seafood omelette, some kimchi (delicious), kimchi soup, as well as various other side dishes. It was all very tasty.

I was then taken back to the apartment, which kicks ass. It's much bigger than I was expecting. Anyways, I've gotta go since I am being picked up soon for an orientation, but I will post again in a little bit.

Oh Montreal...

Hey,
Just a quick update. Managed to pick up a Wi-Fi signal here in the Montreal Eaton Centre. I am going for my Visa interview at the consulate, which I just happened to locate. It's 9:38 AM here now and Mom and I are waiting for the shops to open up so we can do some shopping. We got a fairly pimp hotel, the Marriot on the Courtyard. I'll be in Korea in a couple of days so until then, let's just relax.

Almost There...

So I still haven't left. I will be gone early next week though, still haven't hammered down an exact date. I am waiting to get my passport from the Consulate in Montreal (with my visa attached of course). Once that's in my hand I am out of here.

I saw the other two movies in the vengeance trilogy after. Check them out, they are some of the best films I have ever seen. I've been watching movies like there is no tomorrow lately. The latest was There Will Be Blood. Great movie, I won't go into detail but it was one of Daniel Day Lewis' best performances as per usual. Also saw Be Kind, Rewind. I'd skip it if I were you.

In literary news, I've been reading H.P. Lovecraft's work like it's going out of style. I've seen numerous references to his work, but only recently checked out his stuff. This guy was an incredible author, if you are at all a fan of horror or fantasy he is a must-read. He's never written a full novel so if you've got a short attention span, all the better. The guy is American and wrote most of his stuff during the 1910s and 20s. One cool geeky reference I did discover upon researching the man and his work was that one of my favourite PC games of all time, X-COM: Terror from the Deep was based on his work. I find his Cthulhu Mythos extremely engaging and I'm rather sad that I have nearly read all of his work. That being said I am not disheartened as I did pick up Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs along with a Korean phrasebook from Chapters the other day.

It appears because of the delay I will get to see Matthew before I go which is nice. Probably am going to miss(as in not present) the partying, although still not decided on whether or not this is a bad thing.

I believe that this will be my last post before I am settled in Korea. I pretty much have purchased everything that I'm going to take with me (lots of deodorant, since that always comes up on the forums). I'll leave you with a few pictures from the going away party thrown in my honour, and a few randoms.

Eagerly Awaiting Departure

Hello World!
This being my first post I figure I would make a bit of an introduction for those of you who don't know me. My name's Andrew, and I'm a 22 year old Newfoundlander headed off to the Republic of South Korea to teach English in a few weeks time. I finished my degree last year at the Memorial University of Newfoundland and decided to trying out teaching in Asia. Korea was a no-brainer due to having the highest pay out of any country in the area, free accommodations and airfare. As for my departure, no, I still don't have a firm date but that should be remedied quite shortly as I am sending my visa paperwork off to my school tomorrow. I will be living and teaching in a city called Suwon.

As I am a bit of a film buff and wanted to check out some of Korea's culture before I left I decided to check out a few South Korean movies recently. Two that I particularly enjoyed and highly recommend are Oldboy and The Host.

Oldboy is a fascinating story about revenge and I plan to check out a couple of the director's similarly themed films soon, Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance. The plot is too complicated to go into in detail, suffice it to say that you should go check out this movie. Now.

The Host was a monster film with a surprisingly good and believable plot. Created by the unsavoury and clearly mentally unstable Western scientist pouring formaldehyde (go figure) into the Han river, a tadpole mutates into a massive monster that jumps out of the water and terrorizes the populace. The story revolves around a family whose youngest member gets trapped in the sewers by the monster and cannot escape. Great movie.

In any case I will leave it at that. Next post will have pictures of home!