Second Chances

I'm sitting on a bus as I'm writing this on my phone. Bethany and I are on our way to our next job and our home for the next year. We will be living in Daesan (대산) which is basically an industrial harbor. We will most likely be some of the only foriegners in our town and the only two teachers at our school. We have to make this year work out, leaving is really not a good option at this point.  Hopefully the job is good, the housing is good, and we can make some Korean friends and improve our Korean. We'll post an update as soon as we get settled and most likely some pictures of our new area. 

Bigger than this

The past couple of weeks have been a stumbling block for Lance and I. We have wonderful, supportive friends on Jeju Island, but I can tell you for sure there is nothing scarier than finding yourself jobless in a foreign country with no hope for job security at home. Don't get me wrong, Lance and I had enough saved to get home and pay our bills for a couple months, but then what? Joannes? Sam's Club? I can't do that again. I didn't go to the best University in Florida to do something so...empty.
So the good news. We have a job. We're signing the contract today. It starts on March 24th. We've only missed 3 weeks worth of pay and Lance and I have both picked up side work while we've been on the island. We're doing just fine. I promise.
The bad news is that the job is in the middle of nowhere Korea. The closest town is about half hour away from where we'll live. You can find it here. It's a coastal city on the western coast boarding the yellow sea. We're going to be living ON the coast. I guess that's a perk. Lance and I are preparing to be kinda lonely. Care packages will be welcome! The school is brand new and it has a branch is Seosan, so because of small class sizes we might be asked to commute into Seosan. However, it's a large chain school so we'll be paid every month and we'll have nice housing, suitable for two people this time.We've been told there will be a free shuttle into Seosan and Seoul daily, so that's also kind of nice. Also, it looks like Seosan is cow country, maybe we can get some good steaks? Maybe?
If I'm being honest, I'll tell you that this school would have not even gotten a second look three months ago when Lance and I were looking for work. However, after working the job for a year Lance and I will have saved enough money that we'll be in a better situation to come home and have the time and resources to go to grad school or look for a different job elsewhere. This is the right decision for us right now. This is how we're going to take care of each other. We're doing just fine. I promise.

Fire Festival and a little hope

Last night Bethany and I went to the famous Jeju Fire Festival with a couple of friends.  When we moved to Seoul we were really disappointed that we were going to miss it this year after we had missed it last year, but as a bright side of our misadventure, we finally were able to see it and boy was it amazing.  We took a free shuttle from the city to the Oreum (small mountains all over Jeju) that they were planning to light on fire.  When we arrived we were greeted with large crowds and many street food vendors.  Korean street food is delicious and very diverse.  We immediately got a corn dog with french fries in the batter, it was awesome.  We walked around and looked at some of the exhibits they had on display.  They had many wind chimes that were made from recycled materials, horses, and a stage with singing, dancing, and just general entertainment. Bethany was roped in by some adjashis (Old men) and given some fish and a shot of soju.  Before they lit the hill we sat down in a large tent and had some roast pig and Korean vegetable pancakes.  Finally it was time to light the hill on fire. Lighting the hill on fire, along with pyres full of hand-written wishes-- signifies healing and good luck for the new year. On the stage they called up everyone who was born in the year of the horse (Mom and dad it's your year) and they were given torches.  They lit the torches and walked towards the base of the hill. There was a fire work display and then people lit the pyres that people had written their wishes on.  Soon the entire hill was on fire.  We were fairly close and the heat that was coming off the hill was a welcome sensation since it was freezing cold.  We watched the hill burn for awhile and then it was back to the shuttle bus and then to town.  All in all in was one of the most amazing experiences I've had in Korea.

On a side note, Bethany and I are looking for work.  We are currently being inundated with recruiters in our search to find a job.  We have several interviews today and even a few offers already.  One of the recruiters even has epik positions (public school) starting in April, and May.  I don't think we'll have trouble finding a new job, the question is whether or not we can find the right job so we don't end up at a school like the one in Seoul.

Plan B

Sometimes plans are laid out so nicely and so precisely that it's hard to say when and where they came undone. Our journey to Seoul lasted an entire week. I spent most of the job feeling like a failure because I wasn't able to cope with how bad the job was.
Lance and I were given a really terrible apartment, which we had to clean and when we tried to fight back against the company breaking our contract we were accused of 'being negative.' The ways the job was terrible have been told and retold now about a million times, and documenting them here and now won't do anybody any good.
Lance and I knew going into the job that there was a chance it wouldn't work out. We even created an easy out for ourselves by not accepting any payment to help us get to Seoul. We owed the school nothing and we knew that we might need an out when we took the job because Hagwons (after school academies) are notorious for breaking the law and sometimes abusing their foreign staff.  So by day three, when the director told us that moving into a permeant apartment was getting pushed back by a week again, we'd had enough. Instead of going to the hospital to get a health check up for a visa we walked away from the job. We packed our stuff and flew back home.
Home for now is a little island in the pacific. We've found great friends on Jeju who have done more for us that we could possibly imagine or ever thank them for. Everyone in our life has been so supportive and helpful.
Lance and I are now in the process of getting on a D10 visa which will allow us to stay in Korea for up to 6 months while we look for work. We have seriously contemplated heading stateside to figure things out, and that might happen still, but for now we're going to try again on the job front. We're going to see what we can find and cross our fingers that this one will be better. Hopefully, with the love and guidance of our friends, we'll be able to find a better school this time around.
Everyone at home, please don't worry. We're okay. We're doing fine. Things will be okay for us because we have each other.

P.S. We finally get to see Jeju's fire festival tomorrow! We missed it last year because we were new in town and we thought we'd miss it this year because we'd be in Seoul. Maybe it was meant to be.

Seoul: A Learning Curve

Duk (chicken) Galbi in Myeongdong shopping district

Lance on the corner of Seoul on the way our subway stop.
Can you see how bad the pollution is?

We arrived in Seoul on Thursday and after an exhausting day of traveling we met our boss and saw our new school. We're exploring Seoul and trying to carve out a corner of this big city for ourselves. So far we've enjoyed traveling by subway and eating all the Western food we lay our eyes on. (Subway, the restaurant, is right around the corner from where we live.) Shopping, transportation and lots of yummy food are all things we love about Seoul so far.

It would be amiss to say that everything is sunshine and daisies though. We met our new boss and he seems nice and the school is absolutely beautiful. We start Monday, so I'll try to give more detail about the job next week. Our living situation is not great. Right now Lance and I are living in a Studio apartment (or what Koreans would call an Office tel) that about 150 square feet including the bathroom. Because we're a couple our boss wasn't able to find us a two person apartment right away. He told us we'll move into a villa (with two or more rooms) on March 20th. Until then our boss is covering our taxi fair because we live so far away from the school. We're pretty far from the Subway stop but we're going to try and take the subway as much as possible, even if that means walking a bit further and waking up a bit earlier.

When we arrived the apartment was absolutely filthy. We spent all day (and quiet a bit of cash) cleaning up the apartment. It was pretty disgusting. I'm not at all happy with the other foreigner who decided it was okay to not even clean out the old food out of her tiny fridge or pick her hair out of the bathroom drain. The apartment has some furniture, a mini fridge and a microwave, but not much in the way of cooking utensils.  Which means we'll probably be eating out more than eating in. It's terrible because I have a mean hankering to make some beer cheese soup. I'll be holding out for March 20th I guess.

Most everything we own is still at the school, boxed up in a back room. We'll be moving it to our apartment on Monday, but I have no idea where we're going to put all our stuff in this tiny apartment. I'm a worrier by nature and how everything's going to possibly fit in here is stressing me out. We're supposed to get a full bed on Monday as well and I'm not even sure how that's going to work.

So I guess the moral of this story is that we're in flux. It will remain in flux for the next three weeks or so. Hopefully school life will be so good that home life won't matter. So far, we love Seoul (even if we miss our friends on Jeju). I hope that It will only continue to get better.

Crazy busy subway car during rush hour on a Friday night.

Soju toast to a new chapter of our life together