Settling In
We’ve been back in Korea for one week now and it’s hard to believe that we’ve only been here for such a short time. It already feels like home. This time around we’re in Busan, which is on the south coast of Korea. Coming back to Korea for a second time is so much easier than coming the first time. For example when you arrive the first time everything seems so different and complicated. Going to a restaurant or a grocery store is such a big deal. This time there is none of that. We still have the excitement of exploring a new city but little of the stress.
Work
We got pretty lucky in our first week in that Wednesday was Children’s Day. Now ordinarily if a holiday fell on Wednesday it would be kind of annoying but for us to be able to work two days, then have a day off to rest, clean our apartment and unpack was pretty great. So far our school seems quite good. Our schedule this time is 2:00-10:00 but our first class isn’t actually until 4:30. So when we arrive we have 2 and a half hours of prep time. Most of our classes are literature based and most of the novels we are using are classics. The school very recently changed management and it seems like the new management is very organized and is getting off on the right foot.
Home
Our apartment is a large studio, I measured it out with my feet and it’s roughly 500 square feet or so. I suppose that by North American standards it would be quite small but it’s really all we need. We spent a good part of Wednesday cleaning it and arranging the furniture the way we want it so now it already feels like home. The neighbourhood is pretty nice. There are mountains all around us and we only live about a ten minute walk away from school. We found a cool shopping area called PIFF square which is only 2 subway stops away so I think we’ll be spending lots of time there.
Exploring
One of the great things about living in a new city is that you get to explore. Considering that we’ve only been here a week I think we’re doing pretty well so far. Last Sunday we met up with Patrick’s sister for lunch near Busan Station and walked around there. We also went to Beomnaegol to find the Kyobo bookstore (yes we are both such nerds that on our first day back in the country our priority was to find the bookstore). Wednesday as I said earlier we went to PIFF square and Friday night we went to this cool bar in a cave with one of the other teachers. Yesterday we went to this big riverside park near Sasang station. Patrick had seen that there was a big skate park there so we went to check that out figuring he could skate while I went for a run. Unfortunately the skate park was pretty lame, but the running was great. There was a 5km long trail that went all over the park. Today we did some exploring a little closer to home and found a good grocery store that isn’t too far away.
That’s about it for now. I haven’t really taken any pictures yet but I’ll work on that this week and maybe next week’s post will be a little photo essay about our new life here.
