First Few Days In Mokpo

I’ve been in Mokpo for 5 days now and I absolutely love it. It is however, about 2 hours and 2 busses from my school.

So Thursday night my school called my landlady and told her that I actually didn’t need to be at school on Friday and to let me know (my landlady doesn’t speak English either so she relayed the message to me through Joo). I was pretty excited that I was going to get to sleep in since Jochiwon I had to wake up every morning around 6:00 and since I still have a cold I’m trying to sleep as much as possible.

Friday morning rolls around and my school calls Joo at her office, she works for the office of education as our coordinator. My principle is frantic because all the teachers are going out to lunch and he’s afraid I’m going to feel left out if I’m not there. He then asks Joo to BRING me to school by 12:30.  A few problems with that, for one it’s around 9:45/10:00 and I don’t have a phone for her to call and tell me I’m going to school. For another, she’s at work about 45 minutes from our apartment…and she can’t just up and leave her job. So she tells my principle this and he hangs up the phone and calls her supervisor and asks her if she can leave work to come pick me up and her supervisor is like “Joo, go now!”. Then Joo calls Nari, another girl in our building, and has Nari come knock on my door and explain that I need to get up and dressed right now because Joo is coming to pick me up. Also, when I say “pick me up” I mean she’s riding a bus back to the apartment because she doesn’t have a car. 

Joo gets to my apartment just before 11 and we rush to the bus station to figure out how to get to school since neither of us have gone that route before. My school on a map is about 20 minutes from Mokpo but since it’s in the boonies no bus goes directly there which is why I have to switch busses at the county bus terminal. We get on the first bus to Youngam-eup (the county is Youngam and eup means like the downtown part) and it takes about an hour to get there. As we get further and further into the middle of nowhere Joo is like, “did you make the decision to live in Mokpo or did I? Because I’m going to feel really bad if I’m responsible for this”. But no, I made the decision and I’m sticking to it, I would much rather live with people and have to commute than be by myself most of the time. We finally got to Youngam and switched busses taking the next one to Sijong. Joo told one of the older ladies on the bus that I’m going to the elementary school to teach and she made the bus driver stop in front of the school for me so that was really nice. I think we’re going to make flash cards with the cities I need to go to in Korean and things like elementary school and teacher to just show the bus drivers so I get to the right place.

When we got to the school the principle gathered up the teachers and we all went down the street to the nicest restaurant in Sijong. It was raining and I had a small umbrella but an administrator gave me a really nice one as a gift. We all sat down at 3 long tables that were absolutely covered in food. There was barely room to put your glasses it was so filled. I got to sit next to the principle, which is kind of an honor, and he made a short speech and then had me stand up and say a few things and let Joo translate for me. It was really nice having Joo there because even though Rosemarie translates for me, her English is a bit rusty so it’s hard for her to communicate everything. Then we ate and I swear my school is just testing me to see how much weird stuff the foreigner can handle. They had a bulgolgi soup, which is normal. It’s just beef and carrots and cabbage in a stew and it’s actually really delicious. They also had congealed cows blood soup and raw beef. Those, not so normal. Joo asked me if I was going to be okay eating them and I told her I can’t pass up a challenge so I’d eat anything they asked me too, and sure enough they gave me a big block of cows blood and told me to try the raw beef. I tried each one and gave them the thumbs up to show that I liked it, which really, the raw beef was pretty good in the spicy garlic sauce you dip it in. The congealed cows blood was okay, it kind of had the texture of a harder tofu and apparently it’s a good source of iron so I ate the whole thing.  They also had Soju for lunch so we did a few shots together. At Jochiwon they taught us a lot of the Korean table manners like pour drinks with two hands, never pour your own drink and always check to see if other people have empty glasses, turn your head away from the most important/oldest person at the table when you’re drinking, ect… I was trying my very best to follow all the rules and Joo was helping me if I forgot one so lunch actually ran pretty smoothly. She said that they were talking about how impressed they were that I already knew a lot of the Korean rules so I think I’m making a pretty good impression. After lunch, Joo and I headed back to Mokpo. I’m so lucky that she went with me because now I pretty much know the bus route there and back so Monday won’t be as intimidating.

Friday night a group of us went to Daiso, kind of like a dollar general, and picked up stuff we all needed for our apartments. My apartment is actually getting close to finished. I think I’m going to look for a short table that folds up that I could use for eating but right now I have a cardboard box that’s working just fine. Also, on Thursday two guys delivered my bed, which came in pieces, but they literally put together in less than 5 minutes. I wish I had taken a picture but I was so mesmerized that I didn’t even think about it.

Saturday I decided to go to Gwangju, the biggest city in Jeollanamdo, to get a phone. My friends Emma and Sarah both live in Gwangju and so does one of the Korean co-scholars that I met so I had them all meet me at the bus terminal. I was really excited that I got to my bus terminal without a problem, bought my ticket and made the right bus on the first try. The bus ride was about an hour long and the ticket only cost about $5. Transportation in Korea is better and cheaper than any other country I’ve been in.

When I got there we also met up with Emma and Sarah’s boyfriends, Matt and John, and then we found Gilbert, the Korean co-scholar. Gilbert took us to a nearby mall with a lot of telephone companies and I picked out a used phone and got a pay as you go plan. It’s really hard for us to get phones because a lot of places make you give them your ARC card for information but we won’t get that until the end of the month. Luckily I got a temporary paper with my ARC number on it and the phone guy used that. I can’t activate the phone until Monday afternoon when the phone companies open back up but it’s just reassuring to have one.

We also checked our bank accounts in the mall and our airfare reimbursements came through, which was a giant relief to all of us. Gilbert took us to a Korean restaurant after that and we had chicken and noodles, which was delicious. We also went back to the English breakfast place, which apparently serves lunch and dinner, for desserts of key lime pie and hot brownies and ice cream.

Today it is Sunday and all the Mokpo girls are meeting up for lunch at 1:00. After that hopefully I’ll find a café with wifi so I can do some lesson planning for next week!

Apparently my landlady noticed how many foreigners are in her building now and she’s trying to make it so internet is included in rent and is in every room. If everything goes according to plan I should have internet by the end of next week!

Until next time!

xox