First Week in Gwangju

We arrived in Gwangju after travelling for over 24 hours. 

Our first stop was our new school - ECC. We met the director, vice directors, admin staff, Korean teachers and native (english-speaking) teachers. We also got a tour of the facilities. Afterwards, Mr. Kim took us (luggages in tow) to our first apartment. Let's just say after being three months vacant, the place left little to be desired. We don't think any cleaning had been done. After putting our things down (NOT unpacking), we went to Lotte Mart to grab some food and cleaning supplies. We spent about three hours that night cleaning the apartment from top to bottom. The bleach smell was very strong that night.

The next three days we did our observations from 2pm - 10pm (classes start at 3pm). The first few nights we continued cleaning the apartment until it was livable again. I wish I had taken some before pictures, but we were too tired and just wanted to clean the place up as soon as possible. In SK, you need to put your garbage in specially marked bags which you can purchase at most stores. It costs from $0.50 to $1.00 depending on the size. There are four sizes. For our apartment, we bring our garbage bags down through the backdoor and someone or something picks it up. I've never seen it picked up but after a few days the garbage does disappear. 

After our observations, the school was closed for holidays so we had six days to do as we please. Rather than going anywhere, we decided to stay in GJ and familiarize ourselves with our surroundings. We tried many wonderful food including food court Korean food, fast/take-out Korean food, poutine (from expat bar), pho, fried chicken (sooooo good!), pizza, popcorn at the movie theatre and pasta. The food here is very reasonably priced and so good! The portion size is also very good, even though I still sometimes struggle to finish my food. I also made some food at home as well: fried rice, stir fry, soup, sandwiches and congee :) 

We don't have an oven so Neil hasn't had a chance to test out his culinary skills. In our next apartment, that will be one of first purchases.

We watched two movies: Planet of the Apes and Guardians of the Galaxy. We just purchased our tickets and pre-selected our seats and food on a machine so we didn't need to use too much Korean. Truth is, we can't :( We will be signing up for Korean classes for September. In the mean time, one look at Neil and everyone does try to speak a bit of English so that helps. 

The subway in GJ is only one line but we live very close to it so it's convenient for us. The price is only about $1.20 ($1.10 if using a transit card) each way anywhere on the line. It's super cheap! We haven't tried the taxi yet, but I hear that's really cheap as well. 

Well, that's all for the update today. Neil is working on our apartment tour video so hopefully in our next post, we can show our place! (all nice and cleaned)