It has been 12 days since I left home to move to Busan, South Korea and man has it been a crazy week and a half.
On my first flight, I was lucky enough to meet another EPIK teacher also heading to the Busan Orientation. We arrived at the Gimhae International Airport on Sunday the 18th and waited a few hours for the EPIK and Korvia (my recruiters) to meet us at the airport. Once they picked us up we were stuck on a bus and shuttled to Busan University of Foreign Studies where we got our rooms and classes and were able to settle in for the next few days. I eventually met my roommate, Sandra; she's an awesome girl from California and I am so fortunate to have her as a friend here.
Monday morning rolled around and we started off orientation by meeting with our class (everyone was put in a group depending on where in Korea they were placed) and then we headed to the opening ceremony. The ceremony was great, we were welcomed with a taekwondo performance and then a great lecture from a teacher who has been here for about 15 years. After the lecture we had an opening night dinner which consisted of a wide range of Korean food and (extremely sweet) tea. Quick side note- everything here is so sweet. Like so so sweet. Why does regular bread have to be sweet?
Every day at orientation was essentially the same. We would have breakfast (the menu changed every day but at least we could always count on having rice and kimchi with every meal) and then head to our first lecture. There were normally four lectures a day and then we had Korean class four nights out of the nine, so we were kept very busy. The Korean classes were for sure a high light of orientation. I was placed in the intermediate course (and by "intermediate" I mean that since I can read hangul so even though i'm still a beginner i'm not totally lost) and though it was a challenged it was super fun and helpful!
Orientation was running as planned, everything was really fun and informative and there was only one small bump in the road. Wednesday night at around 10:15pm we received an email from our class leaders that we needed to have an emergency meeting and were expected to be in the main lecture hall at 11:20pm. When we arrived there we were given hand sanitizer and a face mask and told to sit and wait for information. Turns out the medical check ups we had on Monday could have saved a life- someone had tested positive for active TB and the patient had no idea she was so sick. After further testing and talks with the CDC, it was found that she was not contagious and we were given the all clear to continue with orientation.
Sunday brought us to our lesson plan presentations which went well and the closing ceremonies which consisted of another performance, this time by some of our classmates who learned a K-pop dance, and a video of our time at orientation. afterwards we had our closing night dinner (the same exact food that we had for our opening night dinner). That night we hung out one last time before we were sent out into the real world and went to a 노래방 (Noraebang) which is basically karaoke but there are singing rooms and they bring you beer and soju.
Blake and I at the 노래방
Monday morning we packed up our stuff and said our goodbyes and see ya laters and were picked up by our co-teachers! So much stuff has happened that I will write another post about meeting my co-teacher and moving into my apartment!
Back with more soon!
PS- if anyone is interested, here is the video they showed at the closing ceremony! I may or may not make a super cringey appearance.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/10uS7VJR5epvjU4aDCgOhF3kLKJeqKQ0E/view
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