Lazy Blog Post - Expectations and Surprises of Korea

Hello, friends and fam! One thing about living in a foreign country is that despite all the awesome, cool, foreign things to do, at the end of the day, you settle into a routine. Our jobs still consume most of our time, and we still need creature comforts like a weekend playing boardgames and watching movies. You also start to get used to everything and it no longer seems blog post worthy. So Cam and I have compiled some lists of the things that were expected and the things that were unexpected. Enjoy!

Things that we expected and didn't expect about our Korean apartment:

Expected	Unexpected
It's small The bed is hard You can hear city noises outside	​The bed is so hard that I woke up with sore knee caps one day, and with a compressed funny bone causing my hand to be numb another day (we have since bought a mattress topper, don’t worry). We’re on the third floor so you can also hear things like a guy hacking a loogie on the street and the fruit trucks (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hf9C0yT6q_4)

Things that we knew going into our hagwon (private English school) jobs and things that we had no idea about:

Expected

Unexpected

​Our hours are exactly what we were told. They have cleaners who clean the floors and the washrooms. The kids are all there to learn English. Each kid brings their own unique personalities to the classroom.

I took over from another teacher and so I get his old desk. The desks are not cleaned between teachers and mine was SO DUSTY and there was a lot of random stuff under the desk. There are some kids who have lived in Canada or Australia who have nearly perfect English. We don’t have a staff washroom so sometimes I see the kids in the washroom. One time, I was in the stall and some girls were being silly and singing songs towards the stall door thinking their friend was in there. Then I came out of the stall and they were so embarrassed they screamed and ran away 😂 They're so obsessed with saving electricity that when we take the kids from the classroom to the gym, the hallways are completely dark because they refuse to leave the hallway lights on. Some kids personalities are too big for their boots!

And finally, some general expected versus unexpected things about Korea:

Expected

Unexpected

​People speak very little English. Lots of smells, especially in the markets. The food would be inexpensive. There would be natural beauty amongst the city. Everything would be in Korean. Uber would work in Korea. Google maps sucks in Korea.

​Even with the language barrier, people try so hard to help us. In the summer, depending on the day, the streets reek of the compost bins and sewer waters. Sometimes the food is so cheap and the restaurant is so empty, you feel like you're robbing the restaurant. The natural beauty comes in the form of hiking trails that you can access by a 10 minute subway ride. Not being able to speak the language makes "simple" tasks like going to the bank oddly stressful. Although Uber "works", you will never ever find a driver. Instead everyone uses KakaoT which is GREAT. There's such a thing as a better version of google maps. Naver Map gives better walking directions (accurate down to the number of stairs you climb and the escalator exit of the subway), lets you make favourite lists with different colour icons as well as folders, and shows restaurant ratings for 15 different categories (eg. yumminess, coziness, romantic, etc.). The only problem is the Naver map is entirely in Korean. But we have become masters of screenshotting and google translating.