Hello My little tweedledees and tweedledums!!!

Anyeoung Haseyo!!

Well I arrived safely this morning (03/04/2008) at 11:20am Koream time! Flights were stress free, the flight to seoul is one of the best flights I've ever been on except for the girl next to me who coughed and spluttered the whole way! eeekk! Also for a change my suitcase was like one the first 10 on the carousel so I was out like a flash! So got through immigration and made my way through to the arrivals lounge and there was my co-teacher Eunju with the brightest most colourful banner of them all "WELCOME SHARON!" with little flowers and butterflies drawn on hahaha!

We then got the 12:10 Limousine shuttle buses to Suwon which took about an hour, can I just say the bus was amazing! Big huge leather seats with enough room to swing a cat in front of you! So we just chit chatted all the way about the school and our plans for the rest of the day. I asked her how many pupils will I be teaching......expecting an answer of around 12.....errrrm try 40!! aarrggghhh! thats one class!!! I will teach 1st grade, 5th and 6th grade 22 classes a week and in between prepare my lessons and help out other teachers.

Ok....so we got off the bus at Hanil Town and grabbed a taxi to my new flat, the taxi driver had a bit of a struggle getting my heafer of a suitcase into the car oopppssy! The building is alot nicer than I expected and has good secure doors!! (mum that comment was aimed at you!) My landlord and another woman from the school (cant remember her name!!) showed us up to my door. Shoes off at the door ofcourse and in I go!!! Its wierd coz its heated from the floor so the floor is roasting! Ive put on some pics so you can have a nosey. It's.......well... COSY! but im only ickle anyway so it does me fine and my wardrobe is amazingly big!

Eunju then took me round the corner (my flat is surrounded by restaurants) to a typical korean restaurant, shoes off at the door again and onto a little shelf, park your wee bum onto a cushion at the tiny little tables on the floor. Eunju ordered some typical korean dishes for us so that I could sample some of koreas cuisine!! I was kacking myself to say the least! However the food started to arrive.....OH MY! there must have been about 15 small dishes and then she brough a small bowl of sticky korean rice each and the main dish which was beef or COW when I asked eunju what we were eating, relieved it wasnt a chocolate labrador (aaww guinness!). I tried everything including a fish dish (take note Dad!) but it was rather spicy and I was struggling to get down the ol throat! The beef was fantastic!! Didnt enjoy my first taste of Kimchi but apparently I will get used to it! There was also huge leaves of Lettuce (I think!) and she got me to put a little beef and a red pepper paste inside and wrap it up and just stick the whole thing in your mouth, I actually enjoyed it but I cant handle that much food in my mouth so felt a bit stupid trying to munch it down and look human at the same time!

After lunch we walked round the corner again and headed to the school, its just 10mins walk from my flat and Eunju just lives along the road too. You walk alongside a liitle river then we hopped over some huge stepping stones to cross the river to the school....I thought she was kidding when she said "We cross here ok!" We were greeted at the other side by a mass off kids just finishing school, shouting Hello english teacher! All the way in to the building little kids were running up to say HI! and just giggled when I replied in korean Anyeong Haseyo! I met the vice principal and some other teachers. The school is pretty huge....I will def get lost! The kids also clean and sweep the school before they leave which was kinda wierd!

We then went off in the womam who had met us earlier at the flat car, we had to go down the immigration office to register for my alien card hahahah that is actually what it is called! Im an ALIEN! They then took me to this huge shopping mall thingy, its 4 floors but its like one huge supermarket, the escalators are the flat ones that trolleys go on so you just pay for everything at the end on whatever floor you finish on. They bought me lovely bed linen (kept telling me to pick something more expensive haha!) and I bought crockery and food for the flat from the 300,000 won they gave me from the school as a settlement allowance, still got lots to spend.

Anyway thats where today ends, EVENTUALLY!! I have now sort of unpacked- no clothes hangers :-( and getting used to my new pad. Ive to go to the school tomorrow- no rest for the wicked eh!

OH AND IT ACTUALLY FELT WARM TODAY! HA!