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| Premiers jours |
| First days |
| We've made it to Korea. Our assignment was changed, so instead of teaching in the small city of Ulsan -100 000 souls, we are teaching in Busan-5million. We arrived on September 1st. After a short 36 hour respite we began teaching at Let's go English School. Our director is kind and speaks good English. |
| Le mois de septembre fut un mois de decouvertes. 36 heures apres notre arrivee nous commencons a travailler a Let's go English School. Notre directeur est bien gentil et parle bien anglais. Ceci nous rassure puisque nous comptions travailler a Ulsan pour Little Campus. |
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| Une image d'un cartier typique. Des jeunes jouent dans leur cour d'ecole. Il n'y a pas de gazon, seulement du sable. En arriere plan on apercoit les habitations recouvrant un flanc d'une coline. Au loin des colines encore vertes. |
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| Sept 14 Things are OK here, it's already our second Friday here. The Korean staff at the school are very nice. It's a small school, 7 staff members in all and that includes our director and the secretary. Mr. Cho is our boss, he's been taking us out to see the city and we're meeting his church friends Saturday. Pusan is a huge city - 5 million. This area of Korea is very Christian, the skyline is peppered with many church towers. I've attended two masses in Korean, although I don't understand anything I find it peaceful. I try to decode the songs and the ladies smile a lot when I say a right sylable:) I found a great big market the other day and was very excited, they sell everything, live fish to kitchen sinks. |
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| View from the 12th floor! Admire the two highways . |
| Looking the other way, two more highways, tracks, the green net keeps the golf balls from interfering with traffic. |
| 10 septembre Nous avons un appartement complet, une petite chambre mais compare a certains Corees c'est spacieux on a meme de l'eau chaude 24h sur 24. Sous la pousiere on decouvre un appartement bien organise! On a appris a dire merci et a ne pas se perdre en se rendant a l'ecole (metro). Certains eleves sont charmants, d'autres absolument excecrables (surtout les garcons) on a des petits groupes d'eleves-10 ou moins -mais beaucoup de groupes. On voit chaque groupe 25 min par jour sauf pour la maternelle qui occupe Dennis 50 min par jour. |
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| Sept 22nd We've gotten a good handle on the written language (Hangul), and can read most signs-we don't understand what we're reading, but you can't have everything. As for the spoken language, we're still very limited. I'm acquiring some vocabulary and we can both order different items in restaurants, but a language course we're starting on Saturdays should help a lot. Exercise is tough to come by when you can't speak the lingo. I haven't found a Karate club, TKD is all the thing in Korea. There's a TKD school next to my Apartment, but I don't get home early enough to attend classes . There's a group that gets together on Sundays at 7am to play soccer in the local schoolyard. If I have the motivation,I might go check it out. For now, walking up and down shopping malls in the subway and up and down the hills this city is built on will have to do. |
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| Mr. Cho took us to a pro soccer game (thank god these people actually have a pro soccer league-civilization at last!), and a Seventh Day Adventists church social. Everyone at the school has been super nice. Helena, one of the Korean teachers, invited us for dinner. Work is hectic at the moment, learning kids names, getting a hang of the curriculum, and learning enough Korean to get around. Aside from that, we see great fun ahead as well as some cool experiences as a result of our time here. |
| Busan as seen from Geumjeongsanseong, the city's walled mountain fortress. |
| Our school is very nicely set up. Air conditioned rooms and classes of no more than 10 kids. Of course, the kids aren't as well disciplined as they would for a regular class (we can't understand them and their grades don't really matter). |
| Nous sommes alles au match inaugural du nouveau stade de Busan - construit pour la coupe du monde de soccer en ete. Notre patron nous avait trouve des billets de premiere classe et la Coree a marque le but gagnant en temps supplementaire! Ce fut tres excitant, Dennis etait au septieme ciel. |
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| Deux autoroutes superposees a nos pieds! |
| Et a gauche: collines, trains... |
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| Our apartment was a bit of a mess when we moved in (it had been inhabited by 2 young guys). So Chris went on the warpath and we've managed to tame it. We have a gas range,microwave, TV, Vcr, toaster, 2 bedrooms,throne toilet (don't knock it until you've tried the squat method), washer, clothes line on the balcony and a nice enough view of the city. |