The Start of a New Life

Hi, welcome back to my adventures, though this time I am in South Korea.  Those of you who followed my Japan blog may remember that I wrote about every single day in Japan.  I will not be doing that for Korea.  I don't have the time or energy to keep it up.  Besides, because I was writing about every day some of the posts became a bit redundant and boring, so to avoid that, I will be writing a bit less.  I hope you still enjoy my blog. 

So a couple of month ago, pretty much after I returned home from Japan and passed all my tests so I could graduate college on time, which I did, and I got to enjoy Senior Week with a bunch of friends, I decided to start applying for jobs.  I pretty much knew I wanted to try teaching English abroad, so thought about it for a while.  I wanted to go either back to Japan or to South Korea and see the country I was born in.  After a lot of research into South Korea, I realized it had some of the best opportunities and options for ESL teachers, and so I applied.  And when I say best options, I mean decent pay, the help you get settled like picking you up at the airport, and cover all your travel fees to the country and at least the school I am working at covers fees like getting a health check and cell phone. 

After the initial interview with the recruiter, I had an interview with JoAnne from LCI Kids Club, Suji School.  By the next day, I found out I had the job.  Yay!  So then came all the paperwork, and there was a lot of it.  I mean a lot.  I had to get government FBI checks, get certain paperwork internationally approved, etc.  It took a while, but I eventually got my working Visa for Korea.  If only that was the last of my worries, but no still a lot more to do.  But thanks to my recruited Hosoon, she made my life a lot easier, making sure I had the correct paperwork at the right stages.  I would have been much more stressed if it hadn't been for Hosoon.  Thank you Hosoon!

Well a bit of a waiting period after that, which in the meantime I finally got my driver's liscence (don't worry I'm not in the US so the streets are safe :P ) and got some experience with children babysitting a great kid named Chris.  But then it was time to fly to South Korea ... and yes, I still hate planes.  I arrived way early to the airport because I was worried about not having enough time and mixed up the departure time, meaning I was there at 4 AM for a flight that didn't even bored until 6 something.  But at least the flight to Chicago was relatively smooth and problem free.  The flight to Incheon, South Korea was delayed 3 hours due to typhoon weather in Korea.  Then delayed another hour due to airfield traffic.  And once we got there, the gates were in use, and then because of the typhoon, the winds made it nearly impossible to gate and so I didn't get into the Korean airport until 10 PM when I was suppose to arrive there at 4 PM.  Thankfully the banks were still open, and someone was there to meet us at the airport.  Needless to say my 7 PM dinner appointment with my co-workers was cancelled. 

So the pick-up/greeter service dropped me off at the motel, which yes was a love motel.  Hehehe.  It was called Theme Motel and had a very unique taste in design, I mean neon lights on the room, yeah...  Anyway, I was pretty out of it, managed to log onto the motel computer, figure out how to change the type to English and send off a quick email stating that I was alive.  Then crashed for the night until I had to get up to start orientation the next morning.  Thankfully, my co-worker Chris came and picked my up, so I didn't get lost.