My buddy Sonja arrived last night! We had breakfast together this morning and then went to the D-Mart. I'm so glad she is here. It will be nice hanging out with her and doing things together.
Our group has grown quite big now. There are 5 teachers in my program, teaching Elementary School teachers, and another 4 teaching High School teachers, plus there are some people from SIT - The School of International Training -I am not sure how many, but I'm guessing at least 4. The good thing is that our group is too big for us all to do things together. I'll be hanging out mostly with Sonja. If there are any other trainers who like Korean food, eat just about anything and aren't too high maintenance, I'll hang with them too. Otherwise, it's too hot for me to deal with people who are in Korea but won't eat Korean food or who take 15 minutes to get out the door when they are dressed and ready to go.
I woke up at 4:30 this morning and got on the computer to study some Korean. I'm doing well with the alphabet and have most of it mastered, but I still need lots of practice. I also learned the numbers and when we went to D-Mart, the cashier was going to tell me the price in English, but I told her to tell me in Korean. I was able to guess the correct price! Pretty good for one day!
Everyone is so sweet here. I know it is the honeymoon phase. I can hardly say anything in Korean and they are aware that I am trying. If I stay longer and speak Korean more fluently, I am sure I'll run into the same xenophobia I encountered in Japan. For now, I can pretend it doesn't exist. That's fine with me. Three weeks is the perfect amount of time to be here. It's long enough to see some things and really get the Korean experience, but not long enough to begin to get frustrated and feel like I will never fit in.
I'm going to go and see if the office is open and if I can make some copies for tomorrow. We have a meeting today at 2 which hopefully won't last too long. I'm hoping after the meeting to have a better idea of exactly what I am going to do tomorrow.
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