Let's see where I left off. Somehow, despite the fact that we had a three hour layover in KL, the four of us still managed to nearly miss our flight Incheon - I went into "get the out of my way" mode, running ahead, cutting through customs lines and telling all travelers ahead of us that my three other friends would be barging through momentarily and they needed to just kindly step aside. But once again we made final call for the flight, walked about a half a kilometer on
the tarmac to board the plane since Air Asia couldn't be bothered to park their planes anywhere near the correct departure gates, and boarded with no issues. E changed the bandage on my head using the plane's first-aid kit, I got a bunch of confused stares from the Koreans on board, took some Valium and passed out.
We arrived at Incheon, cleared customs, made a quick ATM run to get enough Won to buy snacks and bus tickets, then caught the last bus to Gwangju of the night at 10:40 PM. Once we got to the city center, we took cabs to the address of our new apartments and were dropped off at 4 AM on the side of a snowy road with loads of luggage and some vague instructions on how to get inside.
It took some scrambling, but we managed to get inside, get settled, and get some
much needed sleep. Sunday was spent unpacking, doing laundry, buying groceries, and figuring out where exactly we needed to be in the morning for our first day of work at the English Academy winter camp. I should note here that I still don't have any winter clothes since I just arrived from Southeast Asia, and a package of my winter clothes from home is being held up at customs for some bizarre reason. So I have basically been wearing the same hoodie and sweatpants for the entire time I have been in Gwangju, where it is below freezing everyday.
The first day of teaching today was a long one, from about 8:30 AM to 6 PM, but definitely enjoyable. In the morning, I taught four lessons with my Advanced level class of seven students - We discussed choosing friends, I taught them about geography and winter weather, then we assigned roles and acted out the story of "The Rabbit and the Well". The kids are amazing and brilliant - they are 4th graders, all 10 and 11 years old, and were discussing extremely advanced topics.
One of my students, Harry, was explaining to me a recent issue about a hacker in China using a DDOS program, that I had not even heard of. I felt kind of dumbfounded sitting there as my 10 year old student explained the situation to me - either I need to start following the news of the world again, or maybe I am teaching some new breed of superchildren. One of my students, Phillip, arrived late, and the class told me I should punish him, so I made him wear this hat for about 20 minutes.
We had 25 minutes to eat a quick lunch, which may or may not have been glutenous - the lady in the kitchen told me she had used "just a little bit" of soy sauce in everything. Thanks for that. But I loaded up on white rice and attempted to minimize my gluten intake, and I think I was okay. In the afternoon, I taught a kindergarten class how to differentiate the "b" and "p" sounds. The kindergartners had an extremely low attention span and I didn't really have to teach anything at all, it was mostly
just about keeping them from wandering around the room and fighting with one another. Basically it was more like glorified babysitting than anything else, with three Korean aids in the room to assist me. One girl broke down in tears near the end of the lesson, and I can only assume that it was because of my hideous scarf and hat. But the heat in the school wasn't turned up all the way yet and I still have stitches in my head so she'll have to just deal with it for a few days.
After kindergarten, I moved on to another classroom where there were six new students waiting for me and I was given absolutely no curriculum or instructions, so we played hangman for 50 minutes. Perfectly fine with me. I was waiting for my next class to come in after this, but no one showed up, so I took a nap on a desk for about a half an hour. Again, perfectly fine with me. Next, I had two eight year old students, Ted and Paris, and I taught them a lesson about a family picnic at the park. There was an audio CD that comes with their textbook, so I pretty much just popped that thing in,
pressed play, and let the kids do their thing. I had an hour and ten minute break, then for my last class of the day had three 6th grade girls and once again no curriculum. So we played Uno for an hour. The only English that I taught the girls were the words "skip", "reverse", and "draw 2", but I'd call it a solid first lesson nonetheless.
Once the school day was over, our supervisors, Simon and Bill took the four of us out for an amazing Shabu Shabu dinner. There is a hot pot in the center of the table, and plates of vegetables and raw meats are brought ought for you to cook yourself and wrap in rice papers. Later, you add rice noodles, and finally steamed rice and fried egg to the hot pot to soak in all of the flavors. And except for the dipping sauces and the Kimchi side dishes, everything is gluten-free. Now I'm back home, pretty worn out, completely stuffed with Shabu Shabu, writing a pleading letter to the Incheon Customs office to try and get my package of winter clothing released and delivered to me. But excited for Day 2 in the morning.
Let's see where I left off. Somehow, despite the fact that we had a three hour layover in KL, the four of us still managed to nearly miss our flight Incheon - I went into "get the out of my way" mode, running ahead, cutting through customs lines and telling all travelers ahead of us that my three other friends would be barging through momentarily and they needed to just kindly step aside. But once again we made final call for the flight, walked about a half a kilometer on 
the tarmac to board the plane since Air Asia couldn't be bothered to park their planes anywhere near the correct departure gates, and boarded with no issues. E changed the bandage on my head using the plane's first-aid kit, I got a bunch of confused stares from the Koreans on board, took some Valium and passed out.
We arrived at Incheon, cleared customs, made a quick ATM run to get enough Won to buy snacks and bus tickets, then caught the last bus to Gwangju of the night at 10:40 PM. Once we got to the city center, we took cabs to the address of our new apartments and were dropped off at 4 AM on the side of a snowy road with loads of luggage and some vague instructions on how to get inside. 
It took some scrambling, but we managed to get inside, get settled, and get some much needed sleep. Sunday was spent unpacking, doing laundry, buying groceries, and figuring out where exactly we needed to be in the morning for our first day of work at the English Academy winter camp. I should note here that I still don't have any winter clothes since I just arrived from Southeast Asia, and a package of my winter clothes from home is being held up at customs for some bizarre reason. So I have basically been wearing the same hoodie and sweatpants for the entire time I have been in Gwangju, where it is below freezing everyday.
The first day of teaching today was a long one, from about 8:30 AM to 6 PM, but definitely enjoyable. In the morning, I taught four lessons with my Advanced level class of seven students - We discussed choosing friends, I taught them about geography and winter weather, then we assigned roles and acted out the story of "The Rabbit and the Well". The kids are amazing and brilliant - they are 4th graders, all 10 and 11 years old, and were discussing extremely advanced topics. 
One of my students, Harry, was explaining to me a recent issue about a hacker in China using a DDOS program, that I had not even heard of. I felt kind of dumbfounded sitting there as my 10 year old student explained the situation to me - either I need to start following the news of the world again, or maybe I am teaching some new breed of superchildren. One of my students, Phillip, arrived late, and the class told me I should punish him, so I made him wear this hat for about 20 minutes.
We had 25 minutes to eat a quick lunch, which may or may not have been glutenous - the lady in the kitchen told me she had used "just a little bit" of soy sauce in everything. Thanks for that. But I loaded up on white rice and attempted to minimize my gluten intake, and I think I was okay. In the afternoon, I taught a kindergarten class how to differentiate the "b" and "p" sounds. The kindergartners had an extremely low attention span and I didn't really have to teach anything at all, it was mostly 
just about keeping them from wandering around the room and fighting with one another. Basically it was more like glorified babysitting than anything else, with three Korean aids in the room to assist me. One girl broke down in tears near the end of the lesson, and I can only assume that it was because of my hideous scarf and hat. But the heat in the school wasn't turned up all the way yet and I still have stitches in my head so she'll have to just deal with it for a few days.
After kindergarten, I moved on to another classroom where there were six new students waiting for me and I was given absolutely no curriculum or instructions, so we played hangman for 50 minutes. Perfectly fine with me. I was waiting for my next class to come in after this, but no one showed up, so I took a nap on a desk for about a half an hour. Again, perfectly fine with me. Next, I had two eight year old students, Ted and Paris, and I taught them a lesson about a family picnic at the park. There was an audio CD that comes with their textbook, so I pretty much just popped that thing in, 
pressed play, and let the kids do their thing. I had an hour and ten minute break, then for my last class of the day had three 6th grade girls and once again no curriculum. So we played Uno for an hour. The only English that I taught the girls were the words "skip", "reverse", and "draw 2", but I'd call it a solid first lesson nonetheless.
Once the school day was over, our supervisors, Simon and Bill took the four of us out for an amazing Shabu Shabu dinner. There is a hot pot in the center of the table, and plates of vegetables and raw meats are brought ought for you to cook yourself and wrap in rice papers. Later, you add rice noodles, and finally steamed rice and fried egg to the hot pot to soak in all of the flavors. And except for the dipping sauces and the Kimchi side dishes, everything is gluten-free. Now I'm back home, pretty worn out, completely stuffed with Shabu Shabu, writing a pleading letter to the Incheon Customs office to try and get my package of winter clothing released and delivered to me. But excited for Day 2 in the morning.
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