Dream as if you'll live forever, live as if you'll die tomorrow.

James Dean

Saturday, February 27, 2010

Hong Do Dong, my home away from home

Finally ... I am in Daejeon.

I arrived yesterday after a 2 hour bus ride from Seongnam. All the Daejeon teachers rode together on two buses, everyone dressed to the nines, afterall first impressions count and we were about to meet our co-teachers for the first time. We were taken to the Daejeon Expo site where we were all paraded into this big auditorium filled with our co teachers. Then one by one they called our names and our co teachers came over to meet us.

My co teacher is a woman named Jo Ji-Yeon. Her job is to help me with any problems I have in Korea, helping me set up my apartment, telephone as well as be my liason with the other teachers who I will be working with at the school. Ji-Yeon (as I am to call her) was very nice but quiet and I had trouble understanding what she said sometimes. By the end of the day she was a little more relaxed and easier to understand though. After we gathered my luggage, which we somehow managed to cram into the back of her Smartcar she drove me to my school Wadong Elementary. It's an older school but I liked it and she showed me the new "Wadong English Village" Basically it's just a classroom devoted to teaching english and it's full of english books, posters etc. It was obvious they had put alot of time into it. I was introduced to some of the other teachers and the principal and vice-principal. They were all very friendly and welcoming.

After leaving the school we went to a store called HomePlus. It's a huge, multi leveled store with everything from food, to clothing to electronics. We picked up a few items for my apartment along with some food and then we went to my new home. At my apartment building we were met by Mr. Kim who is another teacher at my school and who was responsible for setting up my apartment. Ji- Yeon told me that it's very difficult to find housing in Daejeon right now, other people were told that by their teachers as well, but they found me a room in the University area. My place is very tiny, more like a dorm room but I like it. When you walk in the door there's a little kitchen with one burner, sink and cupboards. Off the kitchen is a tiny bathroom and then through the sliding doors is my bedroom / living quarters. Basically it's one room with my bed, desk, washing machine, fridge, closet etc. It's not big, but everything is clean and it's brand new. They had obviously put a lot of effort into making it nice for me and they seemed very concerned that I like it. Mr. Kim was especially proud of the pink and purple bedspread he had bought to match the wallpaper. They also bought me a new rice cooker - which is sweet. I haven't used it yet but I plan to soon. All the furniture including the washing machine, fridge and tv still had packing tape on them. As well the room comes with free internet so that's a bonus. After talking to some of the other teachers it seems their places are similar.

The neighbourhood I am in is called Hong Do Dong and so far it looks great. I am on a side alley so it's quiet but if I walk 2 minutes up the road I come out onto a main street filled with coffee shops, stores, resturants etc. It's all very handy and fortunatly taxi's are cheap and abundant here so I can easily go to other parts of Daejeon. The only downfall is that my school is in a different neighbourhood so I have to take a bus to work. It's supposed to be only a 15min bus ride so that's not bad and this way I'll be forced to learn the bus system rather than rely on taxi's all the time.

Tonight I am meeting with all the other Daejeon teachers so that we can compare notes and see who lives near who.

No comments:

Post a Comment