Today was a very eventful day. This morning was our last training session, and we had to take a short written test (really short--10 questions that took about 3 minutes. Turns out our hour or so of studying last night was too much...) and do some mock teaching of all three of the levels we've been trained on this week. Our test day ended up being our easiest day of training yet! Everyone in our April training group passed, and then it was off to our respective branches!
Chungdahm had arranged a van to take us to the bus terminal, and from there we took a bus to Geoje. Our van driver was supposed to help us buy our tickets. We were supposed to pay for them and them get reimbursed by our branch. Unfortunately, the bus driver only seemed to have understood part of his instructions (he didn't speak any English so we couldn't talk to him). He told us to wait in the van while he went in to get the tickets. He came back out with them and then he showed us which bus was ours. Then he asked for payment. Since we were under the impression that we were going to be paying for our tickets directly, and therefore would be able to use a card, we didn't have enough cash on us to pay him back. The thing was, we were only about 5,000 won short (about $4.50) for a 34,000 won ticket. We showed him that we had no more cash but he didn't seem to understand. He called someone on the phone and when he hung up he gave us some of our money back. We tried to refuse, but he insisted and we ended up with some money back, but not the amount we gave him. It was very strange, and we don't really know where the money he took went or how he would get the remaining balance. Oh well. We had our tickets and we didn't loose that much money. Fortunately, the rest of the trip went much more smoothly.
It's not everyday that you get to drive across essentially an entire country in just over four hours! That's what we did though! Korea is very mountainous, and it was a beautiful drive! We drove through a few minor cities, but mostly through mountains and countryside. So different than Seoul.
We got to the bus terminal on Geoje Island around 6:30. Our manager came and picked us up. She was incredible. She brought us to the office and showed us around. Next, she brought us to our apartment! Now we've heard horror stories about Korean apartments. They're the size of a closet and covered in mold. We absolutely hit the jackpot, though! Our apartment is brand new with two rooms, both bigger than our previous room in George and Kristin's house. We don't have any furniture yet, but the company is providing us with a bed on Monday.
After showing us our apartment, our manager showed us how to walk to the nearest grocery store. She also pointed out the popular restaurants, bakeries, cafes, etc. On our way home, we got takeout from a kimbap place. Kimbap is like the Korean equivalent of sushi. Sooo good.
Now we have the weekend to relax a bit and explore our neighborhood! Monday we get to actually start teaching kids!! During our training we learned that Chundahm April has 5 levels. We were trained in the middle three levels and told that we wouldn't be teaching the first or last levels as new teachers. Guess what my (Sarah) first class Monday is? First level. HAH. Oh well. The lessons are well structured and pretty much completely laid out for us, so hopefully it won't be a problem. First level is the youngest kids and I'll just be teaching them phonics. I'm actually pretty excited about it. Until next time! Annyeong!
No comments:
Post a Comment