i went hiking today

Here is an image from the top of one of the trails I took today.



This shows the area I live in.

My view

This is the view from my apartment. My building is the style like the building on the right. In the background you can see a small mountain. My city, Anyang, is surrounded with them. There are many hiking trails on them. I can't wait to go hike up and see the whole city!

A new year

So far I am enjoying this new year in Korea much more than last year. I know more of what I am doing this year so that is probably part of the reason.

This year, again, I work at an after school school called a hagwon. The name of my hagwon is ENI. I don't think that stands for anything but I could be wrong. I have not asked. Nevertheless, this school seems amazing. It is a mom and pop operation. The owner, Sylvia, is really nice. When she took me to dinner last week she said to think of her as my big sister. She made sure my apartment was clean before I moved in and bought me some fruit and bread as house warming gifts.

My schedule at work goes like this: Monday, Wednesday, Friday 2 to 8:40 with my first class starting at 3. Tuesday 3 to 9:10 with my first class starting at 4. Thursday 3 to 8 with my first class starting at 4. The elementary classes are 50 minutes long. The middle school classes are 45 minutes long. We get a 10 minute break in between each class. The day begins with 6 year olds. Some know great English and some are just starting with the alphabet. I never thought it was possible to teach people right from the beginning with the alphabet without knowing their language. This school proved me wrong. I don't have a class like that right now but I may soon. As the day progresses the students get older with middle school students coming in at 7. Last year I hated my middle school classes. This year my middle school classes are amazing. There are 4 American teachers in total and 4 Korean teachers. When the bells rings there seems not to be a big hurry to get to class. Everyone just sits for another minute or two. At my last school with 11 American teachers and 15 Korean teachers it was alway choas. No relaxed there. Everyone was always running somewhere. Here there work enviornment seems very relaxed. Every Friday the owner buys us dinner. We write down what we want and she will order it with it being ready at at our desks for one of the breaks.

My apartment is huge, relativly speaking - it is still small when compared to standards in the USA. It is three times the size as my apartment from last year, which was dorm size. I don't feel crowed. It feels like an actual home. The neighborhood is good too. It is an actual neighborhood and not office buildings like last year. Everyone is very friendly. It is nice seeing family out playing in the many parks around this area. There is a huge grocery store called Home Plus in my apartment complex. I would compare this store to Super Walmart. I am kind of a celebrity walking through there. A lot of people want to try to help me out. Today I even had two kids follow me for a bit. When I picked something off a shelf they took the same thing. Their mother got after them real fast, haha. I experienced a bit of culture shock while shopping there. I guess a toddler need to pee so his mother took his pants down right in the middle of the isle and had him pee in a cup. She then put the top back on the cup and put the cup full of urine in her bag. I am a very tolerant person but that is just gross.

If I know you and you are not my facebook friend you should be. I update that many times a week with pictures and descriptions.

Boryeong Mud Fest July 12 and 13, 2008

This weekend Korea has a huge festival on the beach with mud. We booked the trip through Adventure Korea which is a travel club for foreigners. At 8am we got on a bus to start on a 3 hour trip to the beach. It was raining hard in Seoul but once we arrived at the beach it was beautiful. The bus dropped us off at our Korean hostel which had no beds but blankets and pillows. We actually were not expecting the pillows so that was a good surprise. We changed right away and went down to get muddy right away. The festival had mud massages, mud games. We took our cameras with us for a little bit to get a few pictures then we took them back to the hostel so we wouldn't ruin them. It was great hanging out in the mud because I didn't have to worry about getting sunburned. In the evening there was concerts and a huge fireworks display out in the ocean. It was beautiful. This one was on the best weekends in Korea yet. Here is a link to the pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/gregory.kindel

Today I had to say good bye to one of my very good friends, Oliver. He is leaving to go back to school in NYC majoring in Toy Design. I have had so much practice saying goodbye to people that I would think it would get much easier but doesn't. I wish him the best of luck.

End of the semster

Ok, I guess I will write in this from time to time.

Today was the end of my first semester teaching. It was a great three months. I got so attached to these kids. I am sad I won't be teaching them next week. Here are a couple of pictures I took the last day of class. The last picture was a class that I only taught one time a week. I hated those kids in the beginning. The class was much bigger in the beginning. They were very hard to control. For some reason the girls went to other classes about a month into the semester leaving just those five boys. As the semester progressed I learned better ways of controlling my classes. My worst class became my best class and the most fun class.

Looking forward to the new semester starting on monday. I will have a wider range of classes from the very basic to more advanced. I can't wait to have a wider range of students. In one of the classes this semester we will be reading The Jungle Book so I can't wait for that.


from left to right: Angela, Jenny, Kelly, Me, Won seok, Eric, Ryan, Emily


This was one of my favorite classes. They were very talkative and responded well to my questions. Sometimes they even debated on what an answer was before I told them the correct answer. Top row: Shana, Me, Dami. Bottom row: Christine, Ryan, Chris, Ruby, John.


Top (left to right): Me, Ronaldo, Johnny, Scott. Bottom: Jason, Chris
The bottom two guys are very serious when it comes to their school work. Always finishing homework in class. The other three love to goof off then cheat off of Jason and Chris. Of course I wouldn't let them, haha. I finally let them play hangman the last day of class.

Here is a video from the class in the last picture. At first I didn't know Ronaldo was taking a video. In the video you here a boy and me say "kimchi." Kimchi is what they say in Korea just before a picture is taken like the way we say "cheese" in the USA. Kimchi is a traditional Korean fermented dish made of cabage with spicy seasonings eaten at most meals. As the video stops I ask "what are you doing?" I was referring to why he had his finger in front of the lens. Why that was so funny to the kids I am not sure. Maybe they were laughing because they were playing with my head. I don't know but I love the kid's reactions as the video stops.

I had 6 other classes besides these 3 but I didn't get pictures of them. I had a lot of fun teaching my kids this semester. A few I will teach again next semester but most I will not. I will miss all of them and hopefully I made some sort of difference in their lives.

Happy

Everyday I wake up and I still can't believe I am working and living in South Korea. I love it here. I am having the time of my life. I even like my kids. I had one kid today make me pinky swear that I will move up to teach the next highest class next semester so I can be his teacher again. It was so cute. My boss says they will try to keep us with the same kids. I maybe I will be able to teach him again. The new semester starts the first week of June. Each semester lasts for three months. I have discovered that I love reading for fun, haha. Right now I am reading The Kite Runner.

I don't like writing in this so currently I am switching to a different web sight that is easier to upload pictures and videos. I will write more descriptive captions instead of keeping this blog.

Real life is setting in

It is weird only having one day a week (Saturday) to hang out with my friends, well here is would be 'friend'. For those who don't know my college buddy Josh is also working here but in a different school. I love having my monday through friday job but I feel like I am lacking a little bit socially. That is ok though, Facebook keeps that in check for now, haha.

I got paid finally!! As soon as my paper work is finalize I will go out and get a cell phone and transfer money back home. I can't wait to start paying off my student loans. No my paper work is still not finalized. Koreans are not organized at all. I hate it. But I still love my job and everything here.

Saturday we are all going to go to a baseball game and then pizza hut to celebrate a coworkers birthday.

It is friday evening, I am tired and I am just sitting here at my desk at work waiting for work to be done.