Teaching English in Korea!

It's crazy to think I have been teaching English in South Korea for almost 3 weeks now. The time has gone so quick since I packed up my belongings and headed off to the other side of the world. Yet, at the same time, it feels like I have been here ages.

The experience so far has been simply brilliant. I surprised myself at how quick I settled into both living in a foreign country and also how quick I settled into teaching. Being thrown right into the thick of it and teaching after just a few days in Korea certainly helped. I had no choice but to learn, adapt and somehow work out how to teach a foreign language to a bunch of Korean school kids!

These are still early days but my view on TEFL (teaching English as foreign language) is certainly positive. There are, of course, challenges and they come in all types of shapes and sizes. On Fridays I have a class full of noisy, hyper, adrenaline fueled, over excited adolescents. It's difficult to keep them focused on their work and incredibly easy to allow them to become distracted. Straight after this class I have the polar opposite. A class so quiet you can hear the clock tick in the background whenever I ask a question. I sometimes wonder if they are actually alive. Getting these kids to talk and build their confidence, which is the best way to learn a language, is almost as difficult as trying to navigate a Korean washing machine.

It's a miracle that my clothes survived this monster

The challenges are part of the fun though and over all the experience is fantastic. When you teach the students something new and you sense (or even know) that they really have understood and grasped it - then the feeling is so satisfying.

After the teaching, I have Korea to explore and so far it appears awesome. I am living in Seongnam, a satellite city of Seoul. Seongnam is a great place to be based. There's a shopping complex next door, plenty of restaurants, some nice parks and a overall good vibe. There's even a McDonalds next door for when I don't quite fancy another bowl of rice with a side of kimchi. The city is typically Asian. Large, busy, noisy roads. Plentiful pedestrians darting in and out of each other. Smells of wonderful Korean street food on every corner and neon lights darting up the side of buildings brightening up the large, grey, monotonous complexes.

The area is very mountainous and when a building isn't blocking the view you can see the mountains rising off in the distance. This is even a popular sight in Seoul and therefore hiking is a very popular pastime here. I am certainly looking forward to my first hike.

Seoul is a very nice city too. The temples are very magical and the nightlife is very upbeat. I will post more about Seoul in the future.

Today and tomorrow my school, like many in Korea, is closed due to the MERs outbreak. At the time of writing about seven people have died, 80 have been infected, 2000 are quarantined and 2000 schools are shut. The seven Koreans who have unfortunately passed away have been elderly and had other medical problems alongside MERs. Those who have been infected are currently only those who have been in a hospital alongside a MERs patient - such as nurses and other patients. The illness is also, apparently, not hugely contagious. Touching a MERs carrier or being in close proximity for a long period of time is the most likely way someone can catch the illness. Based on this, there doesn't seem too much to worry about right now. However this hasn't stopped a surge of Korean's wearing surgical masks or the Hong Kong governement advising against all but necessary travel to South Korea. I imagine MERs will be contained successfully and soon the country will go on as normal. So for those at home - do not worry!

I'll sign out with some photos from Gangnam - a trendy area of Seoul made famous by Psy's K-Pop song 'Gangnam Style'.

The Han River runs through Seoul