Dear Reader:

We have exited quarantine!

Sunday, August 8th we got a tour of the campus from Brian (academic director) and he helped lug our bags over to our permanent dorms.  It felt good to be out-and-about. We were staring at a part of the campus and wondering what has been going on in other spots, how big was the whole campus, who is here, what will life be like when we are out? We now moved in the direction of learning and becoming actual teachers.

“Moving in” was fun, we don’t have too much so it did not take too much time to unpack and find a home for all our stuff. We have two rooms one big “couple” dorm and then a smaller single dorm because our contract with
DGEV states we both receive housing or a room separately. Eric has determined the single bedroom will be his “dojo” … there will be a reveal of what that has become later.

Brian then took us out into Daegu for a full city tour. He owns a car here in Korea, so he drove us to the metro station then escorted us on the metro lines showing us around town. We bought a metro card, went to a big mall called Shingae (not sure on spelling), we also went to a dope market called Seomun Market, it was closed down for the night but looked like it had wonderful local goods and food – we will back here for sure. That took about 4-5 hours – we were exhausted after that and came home to tidy up the room a bit and then sleep. 

We had a busy week ahead of us – orientation week.

The week started out as planned; we received a full campus tour, were introduced to most of the teachers, got situated at our permanent desks, and started observing classes. 

Like most places around the world, the Covid-19 Delta variant is disrupting life and cases are rising, and it has done so here at DGEV - schools from neighboring cities have signed onto DGEV English programs and have been bussing in students for a 3-day English program, but some schools canceled for the end of the week and we continue to have cancellations.  

[Schedule looks like: Mon-Wed X students / Wed-Fri Y students - with Wednesday being a half-day for both kids.]

Well, what can you do? You go with the flow, we had only Monday and Wednesday to observe classes, but what we saw was very helpful. 

Tuesday we went to the hospital which was an exciting/wild experience. (Exciting for me as with my Crohn’s I will need to get to know their health system soon.) In one way very similar to an “American” hospital and in many ways different. 

What was different?

Well, why we were there in the first place was the first difference. Every employer will usually have their employees undergo a routine health examine once hired in South Korea. 

Second: the organization of the hospital was compact but efficient. The blood lab, urine lab, teeth lab? were all on the same floor. Imagine one big rectangle of a room and many doors leading off of that room, each floor was somewhat similar. 

Third: You guessed it - cost. We paid about $48 (50 ₩) for the whole examine. Healthcare is very cheap here, we have only heard a few stories but all the teachers at the school have assured us that coverage is great and very affordable. Think $6 for a dental cleaning. 

What they checked:
Blood pressure 

Vision

Hearing

Height/weight

Blood sample

Urine sample (drug test)

Chest x-ray

Teeth check

Final day of the week we went and submitted our paperwork for our Alien Registration Card, the final step to fully working here. Then set up a  bank account to get paid. Don Young Park (Korean staff) drove us around and translated for all of our visits; he is quiet, and seems very nice, everyone says he works the hardest out of anyone at DGEV, Eric asked a lot of questions and he managed them all pleasantly. Don also loves food and is a fantastic cook (so we’ve heard), so when he took us out for lunch on Friday we knew it would be excellent; we went to a Chinese Korean restaurant and it was absolutely delicious. Eric got a spicy seafood noodle bowl and I had Jajjangmeon - black bean noodles. I wish I would have taken photos, but I just enjoyed it instead.

We finished out our week with a full day of planning on Thursday, preparing Powerpoint presentations, and practicing with each other in an empty classroom. We had a vague idea of what was expected, we had workbooks to draw from and teacher’s notes which were helpful, but really we were just waiting for our first day of teaching. 

We ended up having a long weekend Sunday was a Korean holiday Gwangbokjeol (광복절 commemorates the Victory over Japan Day, when Korea was finally liberated from Japanese colonial rule which lasted from 1910 to 1945.) We made our first attempt to use public transportation by ourselves and explore some of the city, we didn’t get too far, we took the metro to Taejeon (a small suburb? of Daegu?) We picked up some things for school the next week and items for the dorm. It was raining so we didn’t end up staying out that long but the feeling was: accomplishment as we navigated refilling our metro cards, getting on the metro the wrong way, correcting ourselves and going back, and walking around taking photos of this new city we were apart of. 

The rest of the weekend we worked out, read books, watched YouTube, started my blog, Eric created his podcast dojo, and ate food in the cafeteria. We also scored LOTS of cool things off of the “free shelf” in the teacher’s lounge, there are two teachers leaving in the next two weeks so they have been purging items they do not want to carry back home - fantastic news for us, as we love free things. 

Next week - teaching!

-Æbeans