Baby steps

If you have emailed or messaged me in the past 10+ days, please accept my apologies for not having responded.

Of particular note among my ignored contacts are:

1. My mother, who received a very unsatisfying 2-line response a couple of days ago, and who desperately deserves a skype call. (sorry mum!)
2. One of my dearest friends, Sarah, whose birthday was the 22nd, and who really should have heard "Happy Birthday" from me by now... (those 2 words and more are on their way to you, B.O.S.S.)
3. My friend Priscilla, who received a package that she isn't supposed to open until *I* tell her to do so, and who filled my inbox with impatient pleas to let her rip into the dang thing :D

SORRY! And everyone else, too.

Now that we have Internet set up at our apartment (HUZZAH!!), communication will flow much more easily. Promise. I think.

So what have I been doing for the past week & 1/2 of silence? Glad you asked...

The 19th of February marked the beginning of a comfortingly and exhaustingly thorough orientation week (10 days, really) for our new teaching jobs here in South Korea. We had 90-minute lectures, tiny dorm rooms, homework, cafeteria food (Korean, of course) and I for one had to work hard to get into the "student" mindset again.

Met lots and lots of great folks/fellow teachers, and learned massive amounts of helpful stuff for our upcoming year +.

As fun and helpful as the orientation was, I am relieved to now be in our own apartment, in our own city, taking tiny, slow steps towards setting up our life here.

The past 3 days have been emotional roller coasters as we attempt to set up wi-fi, explore our neighborhood, unpack, wonder where to put unpacked stuff, shop for shelves for stuff, forage for food, shop for stuff we forgot the first time, attempt to set up cell phones, meet up with our new co-workers, begin lesson planning, shop for stuff we couldn't carry back the second time, ETCETERA, ETCETERA.

But, despite all the frustrations and taxi rides (I've taken 8 or MORE taxis since arriving in Korea! Ridiculoussss!) everything is going better than we ever expected. WAY way way better.

In fact, everything is going so amazingly well, describing it all merits a whole separate post. SO:

To be continued...

Good morning, Korea! View from dorm room

Dorm life - EPIK orientation, Day 1

Jaw-dropping taekwondo performance at the EPIK orientation opening ceremony

Our taekwondo class instructor! 90 minutes of taekwondo cardio can make a body very VERY sore...

Field trip day!: Traditional Hanok village in JeonJu

Field trip day!: amazing spread at the bibimbap restaurant

Field trip day!: Little green house in traditional Hanok village

Our ever-smiling and ever-sleep-deprived team leaders, SoonHee and Clare! EPIK Orientation, Day 9

Lovely

After 2 days of wrestling with the Korean language instructions for our router, INTERNET! At home!

Forgot to purchase screwdriver along with DIY shelves from E-Mart?  No  problem for this boy scout.

TA-DA! Finished product = one very happy Anna

In-between

Today we begin orientation! We traveled by bus yesterday to a different city (Jeonju, say "jun-joo"), and are reveling in our dormitory accommodations - no roommates! Hosteling is great, but we're happy to have a room to ourselves. PDA in Korea is a no-no, including all those comforting/innocent touches that have become so automatic, and Adam and I are having a hard time remembering. In fact, that may just be the  hardest thing in this country so far; if that's the hardest thing, you can tell we've got it pretty good here. :D

Kissing (lips, forehead, hands, anything) is OUT. Sweetly caressing faces and rubbing backs and snuggling up next to each other is all OUT as well. The only semi-acceptable form of opposite-sex touching is holding hands/linking arms while walking. 

I read a couple forums on this topic, and was surprised at the number of people who expressed relief over Korea's reserve. It's probably mostly because I'm a hug-crazy, touchy-feely person in the first place, but PDA has never bothered me. "Aww, look - people who love each other!" is my typical response. But the majority of Koreans, especially older ones, feel intense embarrassment or shock when they encounter PDA. One thing Korean soap operas are fairly famous for is having terrible kissing scenes (read: chaste, uninvolved), and very, very few "bedroom scenes."

That being said, same-sex touching is very common in both genders and at all ages. Men hold hands, girls are very huggy, boys sit in each other's laps, etc. The complete absence of homophobia is a relief to ME. In the USA (well, anywhere) it makes my blood boil, but here it doesn't even exist. 

Right! All that to say... Today we begin orientation! :) The dormitory doesn't have wi-fi, so I won't be posting as many photos because it's harder to upload them (no Instagram, boo). Also, we've got a pretty full schedule, and I think/hope it's all going to be a lot of fun. I'll let ya know.

Both Adam and I are impatient for the day when we'll be in our own apartment, though. Where we can unpack for real. Where we can start our daily lives and explore our neighborhood. Where our life will center for the next year+.

Soon! Soon, we tell each other. Only one more week...  

In the meantime, meet TACOCAT, housemate of my brother Dan and his wife Lily:

Drinking from my water glass

Attack mode

In-bread cat