Orientation was a great 8 days. Aside from preparing us to
teach, they also prepared us for life in Korea, and we met some awesome people.
Our first morning, we were woken up by the wonderful PA
system in our building to let us know they were running early for their already
extremely early schedule. We had to quickly get ready for our medical exam,
where they checked our eye sight, hearing, blood pressure, took chest x-rays, a
blood sample and a urine test. I was actually really relieved when the lady
taking my blood got a vein on her first stick. It isn't usually that easy.
Welcome to EPIK Orientation
Korea has great "Konglish" on their coffee cups
First stick!
Buffet meals
That evening we had our opening
banquet. There were some awesome performances, women singing traditional songs,
girls dancing to traditional music and guys doing a traditional performance
while drumming and using other instruments while dancing and twirling these
bobby things and streamers on their heads. It was really fun watching the
dancers and singers.
Opening ceremony- Singers
Dancer
Pom Pom guy
My favorite act
The next two days we spent going to classes, starting at
7:30am with breakfast, on the fourth day of orientation, we took a field trip
to a traditional Korean folk village, Youngin. There, we got to do crafts (my
class made masks and learned a quick dance) and watch some fun performances as
well (a tight rope performance, people doing acrobatics and such on horses, and
those guys with the pom pom and streamers on their heads-- I love them!). It was a lot of fun
getting to relax and take a day off of classes, but again it was tiring. The
next two days were spent doing the 8 to 8 classes again, with added work at
night because we had to prepare for our lesson demonstrations at the end of the
orientation. We did get to take a taekwondo class, which was extremely funny,
and painful in the following days. We did jumping jacks, we did kicks, we did
punches, we did running and stretching and things that seemed more like dancing
than actual fighting. But even after a huge blood blister on my toe, we all had
a great time.
Had to draw a picture on top of our heads
We had to draw this with the book on top of our heads. The directions were: "Draw a lake in the middle of your page. Now draw 3 trees to the right of the lake. Now draw a house to the left of the lake. Draw a sun above the trees. Draw a square window and a rectangular door on the house. Draw a car below the trees. Lastly, draw a sailboat in the middle of the lake." I didn't peek... I think I did pretty well!
Taekwondo class
Learning to bow
Wearing traditional clothing.... the dress is a "hanbok"
Youngin
Creating masks
Dancing
My favorite lunch- bibimbop.... SO GOOD
The streamer and pom pom guys again!
Tight rope
These girls were so cute!
Karaoke on the bus home
On our last day we had our lesson demonstrations, where we
were assigned groups of 2-3 and were given an age level and topic to teach. I
personally think our group did really well (seeing as we had to condense a 45
minute lesson into 15, and there were 3 of us teaching instead of 2) and got a
good review from the instructor. After the lesson demos were finished, we had a meeting with our MOE
(metropolitan office of education) where we were given a packet with our
contracts (yay!) and other vital information. We were also assigned buses for
the following morning and were given luggage tags (3 for the luggage, and one
to keep). When I went up to the lady and told her I didn’t have enough luggage
tags, she looked at me like I was insane. She ended up telling me to use the 4th
one and take a picture of it instead of keeping it. I thought it was a good
solution.
Class 7A leader- Boram
So cute
They got so emotional from just a card!
After signing our contracts, we went to our farewell dinner,
which was still buffet style, but had a huge selection (including a desert
table) and the closing ceremony. We then had to go to our rooms and pack our bags to take downstairs.
OMG was that the biggest mess you have ever seen. They had taped off areas for
each city, and people were to leave their bags downstairs overnight. It was
crazy, but ended up working out and being a really good solution to not being
way to jam packed in the morning. So after I’d dropped my bags off, I met up
with a few people and went out for one last hoorah.
Luggage waiting to be packed onto the buses- only about 1/20th of the bags
Closing ceremony
It's official!
It was actually a pretty low key night at first. We found
this self serve bar way out of the way, which had a decent lager beer (from
Thailand) for an OK price (beer is pretty expensive here unless you want crappy
beer). We then decided to relocate and ended up at the Hof, which is where we
had gone a few nights prior. There were SO many EPIK people in this bar, but we
did luck into some seats, and the cute little lady brought us a few extra
plastic tables and chairs over. They were so nice, and I’m sure totally
overwhelmed. The night was fun, but I knew I had a long day ahead of me so I
took it easy.
Lager from Thailand
The group
My roomie- the other half of "Alby"
The girls
The next morning it was time to say “goodbye”. Some of my
friends had gotten up early in order to say goodbye, and they ended up helping
me take all of my bags up a hill with stairs (they are amazing- thank you guys
if you are reading this). Then we piled onto our buses and headed out to our
new home—DAEGU!
Looking back, I don’t know how people move to another
country without an orientation like the one EPIK provided us. They were so
amazing with answering all of our questions and preparing us for this next
adventure in our lives. I feel like the staff really did want each and every
one of us to succeed. The National Director even ate lunch with us and ended up
being on my bus on the day of the field trip (he even sang karaoke). I think they just realize that we
are all nervous, this is all so new to us, and they have been in our
shoes before.
Class 7!!
I really did get to meet some awesome people, and conveniently several people that are right in my neighborhood (literally- one
within a 2 minute walk from my apartment and 2 others within a 10 minute walk).
And I’m sure that there are a few others that aren’t that much further away.
Kaleena is 2 subway stops away, which I think would be about an hour walk, but
only about a 20 minute bus ride (possibly less). There are a few other people that are down her
way as well, so I’m looking forward to seeing everyone’s part of town. But
first, I have to get settled on my own.
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