Back in RO, Back in the RO, Back in the ROSK

 I'm back! In the Republic of South Korea. Or the R.O.S.K as nobody calls it. I'm watching my beloved Kia Tigers play while typing this. I have all my lessons planned and copying done for the week. Did all my laundry and shopping today too. Most importantly, all the paperwork and pencil-pushing powertrippin' hoop-jumping is done. So I'm here for the year. The first pic of the day is the best:

It's only temporary until the card comes, but it sure is beautiful isn't it? That's my alien registration card/paper. So I'm officially an alien once again. This will allow me to do some things like get an apartment, phone, cable, a bank account, you know... exist. I thought it was cause for celebration. My first Cass since coming back. I had such a bad cold I didn't have another one. Yes on day 2 of my latest tour of Korea I caught the requisite aircon cold. My second day kicked my ass and the third day was the field trip to the Korean Folk Village. It was about a million degrees and 101% humidity but I walked about 10,000 steps around the place trying to replicate some old photos from 1997. Here are two of them:

I don't know if you can tell how badly I wanted to drop to the ground and have about a 12-hour nappy-poo, but I was doggin' it big time! You know how the first days of a cold are when you just don't want to do anything? This was one of them. 

I got one of the girls to take this one. I wish I had taken HER pic. She looked really good in her hanbok. A few of the students wore Korean traditional clothes during the visit. I thought that was cool of them. 

This was one of my students even though the original was just a random Korean dude who jumped on the paddle like a Banshee. Whatever that means. 

It was okay to be in a bit of a lying position actually. If it weren't frowned upon I might have taken a nap on the whoopin' bench but, alas, whoopin' benches are for whoopins. 

This was with my friend Park Ki Pok. I wonder what he's up to these days...

And the overzealous volunteer paddler. I wonder what he's up to these days...

I also replicated a pic of me eating some of the hanging corn. One of my students took that pic and hasn't emailed it to me yet. There was one of me and Ki Pok in the jail too but I couldn't find the chairs inside the jail. That may have changed. Other than that the Folk Village was almost exactly the same. 

It hasn't been a really rough transition although the cold didn't help. It's almost gone as I type this. Only 3 really bad days. I think the moment it sunk in that I'm back in Korea was standing in the immigration line-up after the Hong Kong to Seoul leg of my flight. This is what I saw on the bag of the person in front of me:

BTS luggage tag. This was not a Korean either, we were in the foreigners line-up.

After getting through that line-up I met my good friends Amber and DB and Guns and Claire with Hyun Woo. It was great to see them all! 

We sorta had lunch together. I had 2 CORONA??? beers. That's all they had at the airport restaurant where we ate. We didn't have much time though. Everybody was working the next day including me and I didn't even know if I had a place to sleep that night. 

I tried to get a U+ phone at the airport but they said I needed to go to an official supplier if I wanted one that could make purchase verifications or some crap like that. Not sure I really DO want one like that but waited for another day. 

Amber and DB went home (they live in Incheon) and Guns drove me from Incheon to the Seoul Express Bus Terminal where I caught a bus to Sokcho. Sunday afternoon Seoul traffic. I coulda biked quicker I think. I was wired. No sleep for a day and a half. Poor Guns. I was just talking non stop and Claire and the boy were sawing logs in the back seat. Anyway, I made it to Sokcho where Lawton picked me up at the bus station and drove me to the campus. Lawton is one of the other teachers. 

I think I got to the dorms at around 7 PM and there was a bed with a plastic covered mattress and no pillow or blanket. The teacher I was going to replace, Don, gave me a pillow and blanket and I took the plastic off the mattress. The aircon wasn't working and it was hot and muggy. I would have slipped off the mattress otherwise. Next day Don sold/gave me some stuff and I'm better sorted sleep-wise. But even in the sweaty Korean Monsoon night I was able to sleep. I didn't come close to catching up on my sleep but I slept like a dead man. Next day I learned about the limited usage of the air conditioning.

First of all the 2-4 AM is bullshit. I tried. Noon while eating lunch is right. Also there's air available to cool off after showering around 6 or 7 in the morning. So the hours are off but still... come ON man! Luckily, one of the things Don sold me was a fan. It's getting a lot of use lemme tell you!

Other than that though the room in the dorm is excellent! Great big desk with LOADS of room. A full sized fridge. Wardrobe and dresser. A decent bed. I had to scoff a chair from the building I teach in but other than that I'm set up. I have a shower room. and toilet that are separate. Never seen that. I like it. Also have a sink in the bedroom. I'll make that into a cooking area soon enough. I'll get used to the limited air. Hey, this is for free.

What I may not get used to is the incarceration portion of the dorms. Every night the doors are locked. Can't get in or out if we tried. I don't think anyone can. If it's not some sort of illegal confinement or a violation of freedoms, it's definitely a fire hazard. This is the sort of shit that people cry, "We should have done something!" about AFTER they are shoveling up charred remains of the unfortunates who could have easily escaped the blaze but couldn't get out the mag locked doors or through the barred windows. 

This is temporary but might be long-term temporary lodging. 

Just warshed the bedding in the coin laundromat today. What a find that was! Dryers! 

Not a bad place to plan lessons from.

So that's where I am crashing now. It's clean, big, and pretty much free. The internet comes and goes but not bad. 

THIS, however, this is where the magic happens. The magic of taking mock tests and learning how to take those tests better. That's IELTS. It's not the most challenging of gigs. Loads of marking and photocopying so the workload is up there, but I don't get to be very creative very often. The first week was probably as close to my old teaching days as I'm likely to get for this year. But while I'm thinking about teaching literature to students who really want to learn I can look out my classroom window and see this:

Yup that's Sorak Mountain in the distance. 

Here it is from an intersection in town. Tantalizingly close! Oh sure I can walk to the beach in 15 minutes but I'm a mountain man. Beach SMEACH! The mountains are beautiful. And speaking of beautiful, the campus is nice like most here in Korea. It's great to live in the place with the highest concentration of greenery in town! The other day some of the students were shaking a tree right above the soccer field, which is right outside the dorm doors. I noticed some fruit falling. It was an apricot tree. I picked one up and ate it. Nice and sour!

This is the kind of stuff you see springing up around Sokcho these days. It's becoming a big resort beach town. It's hard to tell how big that building is from the pic. It's right off campus. Just down the road from the main gate. 

This is the main gate. Jong moon. You can see what looks like a church but is actually a library. 

This is what I am going to call Windmill Lake. It's just to the right of the blue security shack above as you exit the uni. It's a pretty popular place for students to contemplate their futures.

Here it is at night. I'm told there are fish in Windmill Lake. I bet there are some carp in there. Who know though, maybe a bass or two. It'll be a while before I try my luck I think. 

This is walking up the hill (of course) from the blue shack. The building on the right is where I teach. Behind the trees on the left out of sight is the kee sook sa (dorms) building. That's where I'm typing this now. You can see lots of flags and signs about global this and that as you walk up the hill. This is the global campus. It would be nice to have a wider variety like I did at Gongju Dae. All my students are from Bangladesh and Nepal but hope springs eternal. The goal is to get students from other parts of the world and make it a truly global enterprise.

Well, I think I'm going to catch the 11 PM air conditioning and then call it a night. The Tigers lost. Boohoo :-(

So it's nose to the grindstone for a year. Thanks to everyone who made this possible! This could be a pivotal year in my life. I'm feeling odd right now. What is this strange belly/brain combo? Might be positivity. I'll need more time to look into this...