Reaching My Seoul

I'M HERE IN KOREA!!!
I have arrived here in Seoul, Korea safe and sound. It took me nearly 20 hours to get here from the United States. It was a close call because I almost missed my flight. The anticipation and the excitement of the trip caused me to misread my itinerary and I arrived to Reagan National Airport (DCA) when I was supposed to be leaving from Dulles International Airport. It had already been an adventure and I hadn't even left the airport.

FLIGHT
My first stop was Minneapolis, Minnesota where I had a 7 hour layover. Initially, I wasn't too excited to have to wait in Minnesota for seven hours but when I asked a fellow traveler what could I possibly do in this state for seven hours, I was made aware of the "Mall of America." This mall was so huge, it was amazing. The mall has an amusement park in it. I couldn't believe it. I'm talking about real Six Flags-sized roller coasters. And the quantity and quality of the stores was almost infinite. The hours felt like minutes. I left Minnesota for Tokyo, Japan. Unfortunately, I didn't get the chance to explore Japan during the transition in flights. From Japan, I flew for 15 hours to Korea. Next time, I will ask for the aisle seat because when you are seated in the window seat its pretty hard waking up two sleeping passengers when you have to stretch or use the restroom. Other than that flight was not bad at all. I slept and watched 4 movies. That should give you an idea of how long the flight was.

ARRIVAL
When I arrived in Korea, the Principal of my school (the word for a school that teaches English is "Hagwon", pronounced Hog- won), his wife and daughter got my attention by holding up a sign that read, "Christoff Jenkins, Teacher". It was so funny. They wanted to take me out to eat but when I arrived it was 11:00pm.

APARTMENT
I had to stay in a hotel for ten days because I replaced one of the English speaking teachers who had ten days left. The hotel was really nice. I found out after staying there for a couple of days that most hotels and apartments don't have heaters; they have heated floors. I found that quite interesting. The shower was also a sauna. It was funny because when I looked around my hotel room for an iron (because naturally all of my clothes were like drastically wrinkled coming out of my suitcases) and didn't find one, I got creative. I hung up my clothes in the shower and turned on the sauna. It did wonders.



JET LAG
So I am in my hotel room and it's around 12:30am in Korea and 11:30pm in the US. My body is not one with reality at this point. My body actually told my brain, "Lets go explore Korea!" But my brain said, "Are you crazy!? You have to be at work in less than 8 hours. GO TO SLEEP!!! So I'm just sitting there while my brain and body argue back and forth about what my next move is. Guess who won. (Laughing) So I'm walking the streets of Seoul, Korea wide awake like it's broad daylight in the DC metropolitan area. A lot of the stores and restaurants are open 24 hours here. The city is very nice but I found that the drivers don't really pay too much attention to the traffic lights. And traffic tickets are pretty much obsolete. So people pretty much make random U turns at any given time. So I get back to my hotel at around 5:30am. I flip through the 4-5 English channels on TV and get ready for work.

MY FIRST DAY OF WORK
It was amazing and shocking at the same time. I am the first black person majority of the students here at this school have seen. Its mind boggling. For first ten days, I was just an observer because i was in training. So I basically just sat in on the English speaking teacher's classes. The teacher had a hard time teaching her classes because all of the kid's attention was on me. I anticipated some of the questions the kids would ask, like "Are you a basketball player? One kid asked me, "How did you get so black? Are you burnt?" The kid is six. But he didn't say it trying to be mean or anything. He was just amazed. Like really. I wasn't offended or anything. I was just like, "Wow." Here are list of questions that I've been asked so far.

1.) Why on one side of your hand is it black and on the other side it is white? Is your mom white and your your dad black or something? (Hilarious)

2.) Why are you so brown?

3.) Why are you so hairy?

4.) What happened to your face? (Talking about my mustache)

5.) You have a big nose! (not a question, but you get the point)

6.) What's wrong with your hair? It's so short and dry.

BRIEF TEACHING EXPERIENCES
These are just to name a few. I've had kids playfully run away from me. At least, I think they were playing (smiling). But after a while; after I let the kids use me as a swing, a ladder, and a horse, they started to like me more than all of the other teachers. I get so much exercise on a daily basis. I lifted kids up by their heads every day. I work with 6 and 7 year olds. They are so great. Their curiosity is so funny to me. I feel like I am a counselor at summer camp for a year. I teach 8 classes a day. Each class is only 30 mins but they feel like 10 mins because we have so much fun. The kids already know some English because they have been learning English for 1-2 years. Do you know that these kids go to school from 9am to 9pm. The preschoolers, the students I teach, attend my school from 9am to 2:30pm and then go home for an hour or two and then go to a Korean speaking school. It's a little crazy if you ask me. And they go to school year round. Sometimes, I feel so sorry for them. So I try to make their learning as fun as possible.