Soccer, Seoul, and a Small World!

Anyeong Hayseyo (Hello)!

It's been a week since I arrived in Korea, and since stealing internet from an unsecured wireless network in my building, I have been able to talk to many of you via Skype, which has been SO nice. It makes me feel so good to see your faces and hear your voices. Oh, the wonders of technology! Those of you who I've talked to have been asking what I've been up to this week, so I thought I'd give an overview to you all who I haven't seen yet on Skype.

One first impression of Korea that surprised me is that there is a decent amount of English around. Names of businesses (especially ones aimed towards younger people like clubs, lingerie or make-up stores, Western style restaurants, etc) are in English. Also, the bus stops and bus line maps have English spellings which is SUPER helpful for me right now who can't recognize Korean characters. Also, I am the same height as other adults here, which is a new thing for me, hahaha. Finally I don't feel unusually short!

On Monday I laid low while Val was at school and when he got home we listened to music while I unpacked a little and talked about what we wanted to do during Chusuk, the holiday that Val was on break for. For dinner, we went to meet two of his students (who he is tutoring in English). "Rachel" and "Ryan" (they insist on going by their English names) are brother and sister, and Ryan's 11th birthday was last week so we took him and Rachel out for dinner at a place called Mister Pizza. Rachel is 13 and shy, but I tried to talk to her about music and Boys Over Flowers, the extremely popular Korean drama that I watched online during the summer. She liked watching it too so we talked about the characters and story...it was fun to be able to relate to her about something. Both Rachel and Ryan's English are excellent but they are shy about speaking!

Tuesday we went to HomePlus, the huge shopping center, to buy stuff for the apartment like shampoo, soap, food, towels, laundry detergent, etc. I was able to find some Western products here like Frosted Flakes, Pringles, Haggen-Daaz ice cream, Opti-Free contact solution and Pantene Pro-V brand shampoo. HomePlus has absolutely everything I'll ever need right there. It's 3 stories of food, electronics, house and bathroom supplies, a photo center, even clothing. For dinner we met Val's buddy Taylor, an ESL teacher from the MidWest for dinner at Suwon Station, the main travel hub in Suwon. This is not only the Suwon subway station and bus terminal, but also a huge shopping center also equipped with bars and Western restaurants like Baskin Robbins, KFC, and Outback Steakhouse. We ate at Outback. In Korea. It felt sort of silly. There were signs all over about the "Down Under" and stuff...I wonder if the people there really even know what that means.

Wednesday we traveled to Seoul with Val's friend from Korean class, Lina, who is from from Kazakhstan (next to Russia. I had to check the map because I didn't know!). She doesn't know much English but Val was our translator, speaking to her in Korean. We took the subway into Seoul, a 40 minute ride, then walked to Namsan Tower where we took the cable car and got great views of the entire city! The other highlight of the day was getting our portrait drawn at Namsan Tower. We sat for about 30 minutes while this man drew our portrait. It doesn't look exactly like us, but it's nice to have something that represents us that's now hanging in my apartment. Reactions to the portrait have been that Val looks like Usher, we both look Asian, and that the artist clearly spent more time on me than on Val. Hahaha. Oh well, I like it. It's nice. And the whole thing including the frame only cost us about $40. We returned to Suwon went out with some of Val's Cameroonian friends for a bit, then came home. It was a busy day!

Thursday we traveled to Ansan, a city about an hour away, for a soccer match between Cameroonians and folks from Southern and Eastern Africa in the area. The match was organized by the Multicultural Family Center, and Africans living all over Korea came to participate in or watch the game. Val played and helped the Cameroonian team dominate (they won 7-1) by scoring the big goal and assisting on a few others. He is a really excellent soccer player and he blew his teammates and opponents away....they had no idea how good he was! During the game I was chatting with other Cameroonians who had come to watch the match and found out that one of them currently lives in Elmira, NY and went to Med School at the University of Rochester. I was like WHAT?! How crazy is that. Here I was in Korea, talking to a Cameoonian about East Avenue, Strong Hospital, and the Clothesline Festival. It was insaneeee. After returning to Suwon we met Val's Korean Mom who took us out to dinner...at Outback. I didn't have the heart to tell her we went there already so we went. She said that since I just arrived I probably wasn't used to Korean food yet so she wanted me to eat something familiar. I appreciated that.

Friday, when I discovered my clandestine internet connection, I spent the morning when Val was at school Skyping with the fam and posting my previous blogpost. When Val got back we met his classmates for a delicious lunch. The only language they all speak is Korean, so I was totally out of the loop during lunch when they were all chatting. But I could tell by their expressions when I met them that they were delighted to meet me because apparently Val talks about me all the time in class. As we walked to lunch, one girl pried my & Val's hand apart and hooked her arm around mine and walked with me. She asked me in broken English if we could get coffee together sometime (she's from China), and I told her of course. She's sweet! It was during that lunch that I also met V's classmate Peter, a Korean-American who also studying here. He speaks English, obviously, so we talked a little and I found out that he's from Bergen County, NJ, the same place my girl Sarah is from. I asked him if he knew Sarah and later I asked Sarah if she knew him but they went to different high schools. Still, it's totally crazy. It's a small world after all.

Saturday Val & I headed to the Ajou University soccer field where he plays with a group of Koreans (old and young) every Saturday morning. It was fun to meet his teammates and watch him play again. All of Val's teammates kept telling me that Val is their best player and he totally was. I don't know squat about soccer but even I could tell that the others were amateurs compared to him. We were there allllll morning and a lot of the afternoon but it was a beautiful day so I just got to sit back in the sunshine and watch my boyfriend kick butt. 'Twas fun! The team ordered pizza after the games, then Val & I went back to my apartment and napped. We ate our Outback leftovers for dinner, then abandoned our plans to go out and stayed in to watch a movie instead. Yesterday I attended church with Val. The first service was in Korean and I learned through Va'ls translation that the priest, a woman, gave me a personal welcome during the service, and even mentioned me in the closing prayer thanking God that "our beautiful Melissa is with us today." It felt very nice and I felt so welcome. The church prepared a delicious lunch and then Val and his Korean Mom lead an English service. Val stood in front of everyone and spoke about the weeks' Bible verse. Despite the fact that I don't connect at all with Christianity, it was pretty incredible to watch Val stand up there and talk about it. He made some really beautiful comments and points that I could definitely relate to, and his passion for his faith really shown through. It was a special moment that I got to witness that.


I start work on Friday. During the past week whenever there has been down time (usually when Val is napping), I've been brainstorming about teaching, exploring resources online (of which there are a TON for ESL teachers), and have even started my lesson plan for Friday. I think we're going to play Two Truths and a Lie :). I'm getting nervous but also excited. I think it is going to be fun and I already enjoy making lesson plans and things. I will of course report once I've started. This week Val goes back to school so I imagine I will spend the majority of the time prepping for the first few lessons and visiting the school. Wish me luck!!

Love,
Mel