So, I've spent the last month settling in to my new surroundings. After arriving in Busan and with nearly 24 hours in transit, a two hour drive finally brought me to Okpo, which is a small town on Geoje Island. It's a very interesting place, largely populated by foreigners because of the Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering company. Okpo is a wonderful contrast of the industrial and the natural. You can find massive cranes and ships nestled in the bay with water and mountains of trees surrounding.
I'm here in Okpo for a year teaching elementary school children the language I've learned to love and hate. I think my degree in English does me a bit of a disservice, because I don't think the kids are quite ready for exploring my interpretation of A Midsummer Night's Dream. But they are teaching me patience and I have learned to slow down my fast, if not somewhat slurred, speech. It has actually been a great grammar refresher course. It's been a while since I've reviewed count and non-count nouns.
The food has probably been the most interesting experience so far. Everyday at lunch I'm surprised by the different creatures I can find in my soup. There have been a few things that I will probably never want to taste again, but for the most part the food is great. I will say that I absolutely detest kimchi and the fact that it is served with every meal makes it very difficult to ignore. The variation of kimchi is astonishing, you can even get kimchi spaghetti, or cubed kimchi, or kimchi soup...however you want it, I'm pretty sure you can get it, but it all tastes the same to me, any which way you slice it.
I have much more to say, but I need to get at least one post up now, so I'm just going to finish this here.
