NY Times Article

This is an article about the expansion of western English speaking schools moving into South Korea. Chadwick is mentioned briefly but it is an interesting article. Thanks Tim :)

Korean BBQ

I finally got to have real Korean BBQ! It was delicious! So we sat down to a table full of "side dishes" (at least that is what I call them) There was an egg dish cooking around the grill. On the table was seaweed salad, a number of different kimchi things and sweet onions and scallions in a vinegar sauce which was delicious. Oh and there was a macaroni salad haha. V did most of the cooking for us. Put the meat on, cook it and then he cut it with scissors. There were rice sticks that we grilled as well (You can see them on the grill, the white stick things) We had beef, pork, and pig skin. Yes, my friends, I ate pig skin. It was interesting...strange texture but Dave and Jeff thought it was great and were saying things like "Oh that is some good skin" and "Oh you grilled that skin real good" which was at least entertaining :) We ate so much at dinner because as you ate it tasted so good you couldn't stop. I will definitely be heading back for this! My two new favorite dishes, Korean BBQ and Kimchi Jigae!

I ate octopus!

Those of you who know me well know I am not the most adventurous eater. Well I went to dinner with some fellow teachers at a noodle restaurant a block from our home. When we looked at the menu we realize it is all in Korean. We look at the table and there is a gas burner in it. We look at the waitress and point to the burner...She points to 2 choices on the menu. We chose to split the more expensive one expecting that it should feed all 5 of us.
She brings a pan with lots of greens (cabbage, bok choy, shallots, etc) a layer of octopus then another layer of bean sprouts and greens. She turns on the burner and walks away.
We use our tongs and scissors to cut up the kimchi. In a few minutes she comes back to mix up our meal....so to my relief, yes the octopus got cooked. Although, when it is getting cooked the legs curl up and make it look like it is still alive. Not so reassuring to someone who is a little skeptical to try it anyway. Staring at the tentacles made me a little uneasy!
Anyway, once she finished cooking it she motioned to us that it was okay to serve ourselves. I started with just some greens and buried an octopus somewhere in it so when I ate it, I ate it. (Jedi mind trick) It was spicy as been the norm here, but delicious. The octopus was a new texture, I had to adjust to that. The taste was great...just the texture. Chewier than I'm used to haha. All in all a good experience.
Our table went through 4 bottles of water and had to request rice while everyone else in the restaurant just enjoyed their meal. :) Go us!

Starting to feel "at home" here

I have officially cooked twice in my kitchen. I feel like cooking, christening the kitchen, is the official sign that you are moved in. To help things, 2 of my boxes that have been missing since I got here, showed up today. They contained all my summer clothes (I was going to have to teach in wool pants come September!!) I was so excited when they told me they had arrived. The boxes were destroyed but I didn't care!
I have invested in plants...warms the place up a bit to help it feel "homey". I have not however put anything on the walls. In the office I have 3 family photos and 1 photo of the kinder teachers from PV. I like sitting in there :)
If anyone is traveling by Korea I would love some balsamic vinegar and some seasonings! (Maybe some twizzlers haha)
My cooking will have to be creative! I finally figured out which things in the grocery store where salt and pepper! In a month I will have it all figured out...hopefully!

So the man seen in the background rolls his bag into the middle of our car on the train and starts giving his shpeel. It was a very intense sell...whatever it was that he was saying. After about 10 minutes making up what we thought he was saying we decided we had to have whatever it was he was selling. His speech made it sound like this bracelet cured cancer! So we chose our colors, and for $1 we each had one. Cailin rips into hers and proceeds to aim for her head (wanting to wear it like a headband) only to realize it smells. I yell out "They are Citronelle bracelets!!" And sure enough, if you turn over the package there is a happy boy and dog and a mosquito flying away. We are amazing tourist and had the best laugh over this one. Needless to say, no one is wearing theirs yet :)

Those of you who visit Pinkberry or Yogurtland are probably familiar with Mochi. I loved having it on my yogurt but I foudn it here in a package. I bought it and was just eating it out of the package when I realized there are preparation instructions on it. So I look at them and from what I can interpret:

1. Get a bowl of water
2. Pour green liquid from a milk carton into water
3. Make green mixture bubble then pour in mystery green packet to enhance green color
4. Put in a thermometer to make sure it is bubbling at the right temperature

I'm not sure what any of the directions have to do with mochi or eating but I don't read Korean so there might be a loss in the translation. :) I think I will continue to just eat it out of the package!

New Lessons

I am slowly learning new lessons as I go day to day here so I thought I would share some...

1. Hulu does not work here (I do not have a TV)
2. Most US tv networks that play full episodes online do not work here
3. Costco is much more populated here than in US
4. The hotdogs at Costco are actually pretty good (don't judge me I was REALLY hungry!)
5. Skype is great...but only if you can work around the time zone thing!
6. When you haven't been around subways for a while, they are confusing!
7. I don't miss driving a car
8. I love being able to walk around a city again
9. I've never been on a trip where I have had to communicate without words most of the time
10. Avacados are REALLY expensive
11. I value being able to read labels, cooking instructions and instructions for use in English now
12. I miss everyone more than I thought I would
13. Not having a cell phone is awful! especially when you want to check if the bus for school has already left
14. Giving tours of the apt on skype is not the same as in person.
15. American babies laugh at me, babies here run for their moms when they see me

I'm sure there will be more but that is a short list to get you started :)

"Working"

So today we started more like what I call "work" but not really. We went into meetings this morning again at 9am (after another delish breakfast) and met with Ted (Headmaster from Chadwick Cali) He asked everyone to share why they wanted to come work at CI Songdo. It was hard not to nod along with every answer. It seems to so easily say everyone seems on the same page in terms of why we are all here...so that is a cool feeling!

We listened to Ted tell everyone about what Chadwick PV is about and about Margaret Chadwick and it was cool to hear his passion for his school. It really made me miss it more! He referenced special and wonderful awards and all I could think of was Oliver's (Marla you know what I mean!) and how amazing our kids were!

We did lunch and got a chance to get into our classrooms. The 3 kinder classrooms are all alike although nothing is in them yet. So Karen and Mark and I just met as a team for a couple hours just talking about teaching kinder, what we want from it, expectations, fears, excitement, it was very cool and I like them already (although they are no Marla, Lauren and Katy but they will have to do for now)

This afternoon I got my internet to work again so skyped with my brother and Mandy. We did dinner tonight at a cool hotel and I had Sushi and Mongolian BBQ (Yes, I'm aware it is not Korea haha) Dinner was delicious and the view was amazing...silly me forgot my camera though...guess I will have to go back at some point ;)

Excited to see what Day 3 will bring!

So the tiny Coke Lite can was my first sign I was leaving the US ha ha.









My second sight was lunch on the plane. I not only got to try Korean food on the plane I got instructions on how to put it together. We had Bibimbap, which was delicious (Yes, I know it was plane food)









So my food had to be put together...I followed the instructions carefully so I did it correctly. The lady in the seat next to me laughed at me having to read directions to put my together. When the flight attendant offered her instructions she said, "Ha, no I've done this before." Well if no one knew I was a tourist they knew now haha!














This is a picture of the screen in my seat. Proves I made it :) See the little plane crashing into Korea? That's me!

My First Day

So Monday morning we jumped right in. The bus picked us up at the apt. at 7 AM and we wondered the school a bit. Breakfast was served at 8...and it was good! All new faculty had arrived the day before so there were many introductions. The returning faculty were so pleased to see so many extra faces in the school. They were all smiles :)

We met in the black box theater and had a brief talk from Andy (Elementary principal) and Jorge (Head of school) and then did some cool "get to know you" activities. One was, each person had to say their full name and tell the story behind it. It was funny to learn that EVERYONES names had a story whether long, short, or funny! Helped a bit with identifying people but, No, I do not know everyones names. I still refer to a lot of people as "the greek kid" or "the one who wore the purple dress the first day" I'm getting there!

I finally met the other Ginger P. Yes, there is not only another Ginger here...there is another Ginger P. She is shorter than I am and has dark brown hair but the confusion is still there for many haha. I am currently going by Puff haha :)

I saw Karen again (she is Kinder teacher and visited Chadwick PV earlier in the year) and I met Mark the other kinder teacher. Karen is from Guam and has been with CI Songdo for a year now and Mark is from London but was most recently teaching in Lithuania (I think!).

We went on a tour of the school, the elementary was the morning tour, then lunch, then the middle and upper in the afternoon. Very Very cool facility. We got to play with the telepresence, see the amazing theatre, the pool, the 2 gyms, the fun library (I wanted to stay in this room all day!), the TV studio, the 2-D, 3-D, and 4-D art studios, and of course the classrooms. It was exciting to everyone.

That was enough for all of us tired people so they sent us back to our apt. and we organized a shopping trip. We took the train in to a store called e-mart (yes an equivalent to walmart) to purchase common household stuff we needed. Of course in the necessisties was a coffee maker :). Not to much in the way of decorations. I will get some pictures up of some of the more amusing things we found in e-mart. This was a 4 story mall type building and very overwhelming so we purchased our goods and cabbed it home.

We set up our new items (even though most of us are not even unpacked yet) and went to dinner. A long and tiring but fun first day!

Made it safely!

So a 14 hour flight from JFK sitting in the middle of a 3 children family (with one special needs kid) I made it to Incheon, South Korea. My flight was not that bad. I watched lots of movies:

How to Train Your Dragon (cute)
Valentines Day (typical cute romantic comedy)
Shutter Island (not what I expected it to be about...good!)
Date Night (cute...not as funny as I thought)
Diary of a Wimpy Kid (eh it was okay)

While waiting for my bags I was greeted by a girl my age asking if I was going to Chadwick (I was impressed she could tell until she referenced my Chadwick sweatshirt...right...I'm a walking billboard! haha) Cailin is from Long Island and also on her first international teaching experience. We walked out with our luggage (all of it..yay!) and were greeted with a hug from Jorge (my new head master) It was great to be greeted so warmly and he recognized us and knew exactly who we were. We then were grouped together with other people who had arrived the same time.

Our bus was sent around the block so we stood outside and got to know one an other a bit. Everyone is so friendly and fun. We chatted the entire way to the apartments. There were 3 girls put on the first chadwick bus and sent off to meet Alice. She greeted us off the bus and we (attempted) to carry all of our luggage to the apartments. We squished into the elevator and were introduced (quickly) to our new accommodations. We were taught to use the key pad on our door and set our fingerprint (in case we do not want to put in the code) I was taught how to use the home system (this touch screen that runs my lights, check my appliances, and runs the heat) and how to use the phone (still haven't got that one...not sure it is working properly)

My boxes were already in the apartment and I began to unpack...a little. I put sheets on the bed and crashed! I went to bed about 11 pm Korean time and work up about 5:30 (alarm was set for 6) so that worked out well! Felt good too...not jetlagged yet! haha