Different means of Public Transportation:
Sept. 18th
Orientation is today but we don't need to meet with our trainer until 4:30. So, we are going to go down to the market...I don't know what the name of the market is but this should be a big one!
On the way to the market I tried out the Subway system with the group. Poor Nicole's card decided that it didn't want to work, so she jumped the little gate! lol. Then, when we were getting onto one of our first lines the doors closed on her (I don't think that the subway liked her today). None of us can read Korean and there are about 30 or more subway lines that run through Seoul...we spent a good portion of our time just trying to figure out if this line would take us to the next and then from the next to the other.....it was soooooooo confusing! Nothing like the subway systems that I have used before! But thankfully a Korean couple who spoke some english approached our group and helped us find the right transfer line to go to and we finally made it to the market. The market was enormous! I have to say that it was the biggest that I have EVER seen! Immediately as we walked out of the subway tunnel we were surrounded by booths on all sides of the street....This market was so large that they actually had a map to show us where different sections were...such as clothing, luggage/purses, make-up, food, meat mkt, fish mkt....etc....SOOOO BIG!!!! And everything was just crammed inside these little shops that were all crammed together...It was a sensory overload! We walked around for several hours then decided to get some lunch before we left. We wound up going to one of the little food places in the market. This place was a good choice too! It was just noodles, but it was a huge bowl of noodles, all of the traditional Korean side dishes and it was all really good/a lot of food! PLUS, it was only 4,000 won (>$4). I'm up for that any day!
We made it back to the hotel in time to go change and catch the shuttle to Chungdahm Headquarters for Orientation. At Orientation we ran into Nate from the medical center. We all went up to the 4th floor and waited for the trainers to come in. Kenny was our trainer, he had actually just finished training another group about 2 mins before he walked through the door. When he walked in we found out that Nate was not with our group, they were separating him...he actually wasn't supposed to of even spoken to us because of the Swine Influenza incident. lol...whoops.
What was the Swine Influenza incident? Apparently back in May or April a girl had
come to CDI Training sick with S. I. When she arrived she was sick, but it wasn't bad yet, then when she kept getting worse they sent her to be checked. However she did not know that it was S. I. until the Saturday AFTER TRAINING because the results took so long to get back. During this time they didn't split up the training groups, she was training with ~ 60 other teachers. WELL, by Saturday after training, everyone had already split up to go to the different sections of Korea to teach. Results: they had to call everyone who trained back to Seoul and test everyone and quarantine everyone. 20 others that the girl trained with had contracted S.I. and some infected some of the other people at the new schools....Overall result: Chungdahm closed its doors throughout all of Korea for two weeks. This cost the school close to $2 million.
But since that incident they are taking extra precautions by splitting us up into smaller groups and also having us wear face masks when we're at the Institute. So, this will be an interesting week...we all look really awesome in our cool masks!!! hahaha! At least I am starting out the week on a pretty good start, we had to take our first tests at the orientation...Culture, Policies, Grammar, and Reading. I aced the Policies test, passed the grammar and reading tests, but I failed the culture test...re-test on Monday.
After we left the training center we thought that we should treat ourselves to some sushi. The was a sushi place right around the corner from the hotel...It was pretty tasty, and the waitors and the manager were really nice. At the end of our meal the manager gave the whole table of us a plate full of california rolls for free! I'm soo thankful for people that are willing to stop and help lost people and people that are very giving!
Sept. 19th
Did you know that Dunkin Donuts makes a garlic glazed donut, a kimchi filled donut, or an olive donut??? I didn't either. lol.
Today we went to the opposite end of town to the electronics market....We were on a mission to find alarm clocks and converters....The electronics market was all inside of buildings that were close to eachother, each building had about 5 different floors all filled with electronics of some sort...could we find what we were looking for? NO, :-( Also, everything was soooo expensive in there....I thought that I would possibly buy a new laptop while I was here, but they were more than the ones in the states! I was surprised!!! Maybe when I take a visit to Japan I can find cheaper ones there!?! One thing that I did find at the market was a straightening iron. it was originally 49,000 won...but I haggled it down to 20,000 won....I'm good! lol. After we left there, we ate at a place called Lotteria (we were looking for something just quick and cheap, well we got it, and it was gross! don't go there! lol)
No comments:
Post a Comment