Last Days of Orientation

A few from the last two days of orientation at Kyung Hee University in Suwon, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea.

The last supper.

Seabolt and I overdid it.

More after the jump.

Beginnings

Made it to South Korea. I don’t have a lot of time to write, so I’ll these pictures will have to suffice for now. Some people I met, random wanderings, and afternoon soju breaks. I’ll put some more words here when they don’t have us running up hills or learning basic Korean. Enjoy!

Phil

Doug

Jackie

Stephanie

Kyung Hee University – we’re stuck here for 9 days.

More after the jump.

Up Up and Away!

After a long 14-hour flight, I’ll finally be in Seoul, South Korea. Excited, nervous, scared, fearless all at the same time. I’ll be back in a year, but for now, goodbye New York City.

- Phil

P.S. – Updates may be sporadic for the next few weeks as I get adjusted, but I’ll try and keep you all in the loop, and there may or may not be a video on the way. More tk.

Seven Days

I’ll be gone in seven days.

It’s starting to sink in. For a while, I was in “EPIK limbo” – anyone who has applied for a teaching position in Korea through EPIK knows what I’m talking about. The restless nights. The constant e-mail refreshing. The formulaic responses from your recruiter telling you to calm down. All that craziness is over.

I’ll be gone in seven days.

I’ll be sitting in Terminal 1 of JFK airport in New York City. There will be a giant cerulean blue airplane sitting outside the window. Korean Air employees will start calling passengers for boarding. Two other teachers will be with me. There may be more, but I don’t know them. Once I step on that plane, stow my backpack in the overhead bin, and the engines roar and jam us to 200 miles per hour, everything will be different. The bit of the world I know – New York, America, Suzie’s Chinese Food – all of that will be part of a past life. For the time being anyway.

Strange to think about. Probably better to experience. But all things that will definitely be missed.

With seven days left, I still haven’t started packing. I’ve got a packing list going, and it isn’t helpful at all. There are so many things I have to accomplish. Sending out tax forms, getting my banking stuff in order, canceling my cellphone, putting my mom through a computer crash course so she can talk to me from thousands of miles away. This is what happens when the group that is hiring you lets you know at the last possible minute that they’re hiring you.

I’ll miss food the most. Pizza, falafels, Indian curries, greasy Chinese food, sandwiches, burgers, Pomme Frites, burritos. My mouth is watering just thinking about it. And friends of course. What if something big happens, like a marriage or a death? I won’t be around for those big moments. I’ve tried to put those thoughts in the back of my mind. It could get too depressing to think about.

So that’s seven days to gobble down as much food as possible, get as many addresses and contact info as I can, see friends that I probably won’t see for a long time. I’ll have seven days to reconsider doing this. Seven days to ponder what ifs. I would like to think I’m making the right decision, but there’s only one way to find out, right?

But in eight days, when I step off that plane, fumble my way through immigration and customs, load my suitcases onto the bus, and check into orientation, I’ll be in a different part of the world. And hopefully everything will be alright.

Phil

P.S. – If you would still like a postcard from Korea, let me know. This is part of a larger project that I’m doing, so if you’re stumbling across this blog after looking up “Louis F Cosentino, or Chaminade” (oddly these are the top search terms), feel free to leave a mailing address. You can either send it to philsinkorea@gmail.com or Facebook message me your contact info. All your information will remain confidential, and I won’t send you anything weird, unless you want something weird.

South Korea

Some people know about this already, but I’m moving to South Korea to teach English.

Why? Well, for a while now, I’ve always wanted to live abroad. In college, I never had the chance to study abroad like most of the people I knew. I was always tied down by my job, major requirements, and I’m sure a grab-bag of other things I can’t remember at the moment. But there’s something endearing about living in a country where most people don’t understand what you’re saying, and you have no idea what they’re yelling at you. I like not knowing where everything is. I love strange food. Sure, I could move to West Virginia, eat squirrels, and recreate the plot of “Deliverance” and have a similar experience, but it’s too close to home. I figure that at this point in my life, this is the right thing to do. I’m still young, don’t have kids, so no real big responsibilities. Might as well experience the world before I get tied down filing TPS reports.

Why South Korea? That’s a little more complicated. So here’s a list:

1. I absolutely love Korean food. Kimchi, bulgogi, live octopus – can’t get enough of it, can’t wait to try it.
2. I only know one word in Korean: “Anyong!” And I learned that from “Arrested Development.” But seriously, my limited knowledge of the Korean language really isn’t a problem. If anything, it will make things interesting. I studied Spanish and Latin, so living with people who probably don’t understand either is gonna make for some awesome stories.
3. It’s cheap as hell to live there, and they pay you a lot (comparatively, of course).
4. Kim Jong-il is only a SCUD missile away!
5. There are a few stories I want to work on while I’m there (more about this another time).
6. Once you’re in Asia, it’s easy (see: cheap) to travel to other places in Asia.

I’ll be teaching in Seoul at a public school through a government-run program called SMOE.  Seoul is just as big as NYC, except only a few people there speak my language. Come to think of it, it’s exactly like NYC. I still don’t understand what people are saying here, and they speak English.

Right now I’m waiting for SMOE to send me my contract so I can get my visa, but since it’s a government-run agency, and since all government-run agencies are the same, it’s taking them forever to process everything. But if all goes to plan, I will be leaving August 16th, and I’ll be in Korea for at least a year. So…

I need all of your addresses! I plan on sending out a postcard a week to anyone who gives me their contact info. The postcard will be a picture of something in Korea or something I’ve snapped on my travels. I got this idea from a great photographer I know, Michael George. Send all of your contact info (mailing address, e-mail, Skype, etc.) to philsinkorea@gmail.com. I don’t know where exactly in Seoul I’ll be living (or the school I’ll be teaching at for that matter), but once I find out, I’ll be sure to let you all know.

So the focus of this blog is gonna change a bit. I’ll be posting more Korea/teaching related content come August. And for those of you who’ve actually read this blog before, I’ll also be posting  But pictures will still be the focus, so you can expect some good photos, some shit-tastic pictures, and definitely a lot of pictures that make you go “WTF?”

That’s it for now. I’m pretty excited. I don’t know what’s gonna happen next, and let me tell you, it feels awesome.

Philippe