Seoul

Just a quick one to say that I've sucessfully made it to Seoul in one piece.

More detailed update on the flight, tonight, and tomorrow to follow when I'm safely in Chungbuk-do tomorrow evening.

An Overcast Day In London Town

As I mentioned on my previous entry, the one remaining real task I had before leaving for Korea (other than actually getting to the airport in one piece) was to get into London to get my passport with attached E-2 visa, which would allow me to work (and teach) in that green and pleasant land.

However, as where I'm staying at in Swanbourne is somewhat out in the Boondocks, actually getting to the ROK Embassy required a pretty imaginative travel plan involving three different types of transportation. As an additional perk, the visa office was only open between 10am and 12 midday so that meant a rather early start.

So...up at 6.30am, out the door by 7.25, and caught a bus heading for Bletchley. Then there was an 90 minute wait at Bletchley train station for a train that wouldn't cost me a stupid amount of money (yes, attached picture does actually show what it costs to go on a train from anywhere to London at peak time these days).
Thanks largely to the wonders of the iBooks application for my iPhone (other book-reading software is available) the aforementioned 90 minutes passed relatively quickly, and I made my way into London Euston station for about 10.30.

There was then a fairly stress-free time on two lines of the Underground (I'm no native of our capital but the Underground, I find is pretty easy to get around). Took the Northern line from Euston to Embankment, as you can see:

Once at Embankment, a quick switch onto the Circle line and a couple of stops brought me to my destination.

From there - just a 5 minute walk to the ROK Embassy.

I got my visa easy enough once there, but they didn't give me any of my supporting paperwork, which means I didn't get either one copy of my contract nor my NOA back. I'm pretty sure I'm not going to need it, but it is a little worrying not having it. Well...guess that's a bridge I'll cross when I come to it. It's going to be fun and games, however, if I meet up with my head of POE on Monday and the first thing they say is, "you have notice of appointment?" My reply: "um....."

Anyway, I got the REALLY important thing (passport with visa in), then headed back they way I had come, stopping off for a BK at Euston before taking train and bus and arriving back in Swanbourne in good time. Mission accomplished.

Now, after my last proper sit down meal in England for some time (which just happened to be Thai green curry, who'd have thought - very English) I'm just going to chew through what paperwork I have left to do, and get ready for the trip down to Heathrow tomorrow.

Oh, and as a bonus pic, I went by a certain football stadium on the train. It's pretty indistinct, but I still think it's a damn good piece of footballing architecture:

PS. I'm still looking for peoples opinion on what else I could add to the blog page to make it better looking or more functional. Let me know your ideas, people!

Starting Up

It began with an advert.

'Foreign teaching organisation seeks disaffected Brit 25-yr olds for possible opportunity to have a year away from bad weather, recession and Rupert Murdoch-run media.'

Well..that's not exactly what it said, but it's amazing how 12 months of working in different places, being turned down for research jobs and still having nearly not enough money to pay the rent every month will change your view on job descriptions.

Anyway...once I knew I was heading away from everything I know for quite some time, I figured it might be a decent idea to write down what was going on. For three reasons.

1.) So people who were interested might take a look and see what I was doing.
2.) So I would know what I was doing. Because I don't most of the time.
3.) To detail how many times I got l  To give an interesting account of a foreign culture.

With all this in mind, I actually took action and made up this blog.

Guess it really all started with an advert for a teaching job in South Korea on a well-known careers website a few months ago. It's long been an ambition of mine to go to the Far East, but up until now things hadn't been going too well (two letters of rejection from JET being testament to this), and I'd almost given up on the idea by the time I saw this ad. I would apply through a recruiting agency, ESLStarter, but the job itself would be run by EPIK (English Program in Korea), so it was a Government-run programme with a decent reputation. Looking more closely at the country itself (excellent scenery - check, massive amounts of technology - check, loadsa incredible hot women - check) I decided to give it a go and apply.

I sent off all the accompanying stuff for the application, and pretty much straight away I was answered by a very nice and helpful lady called Claire, who has helped me through the application process ever since. A week or so later I had an email saying I had a phone interview. Of course, the person on the other end of the phone was sat in Seoul, the capital of South Korea, 8 hours ahead of us, so that meant it had to take place at 7.30am. Cue getting up at 6am, strong coffee and a shower for my pre-game.

Evidently my preparation wasn't in vain, because a couple of days later I got an email saying I'd been successful! Job done, right? Wrong.

Because I applied fairly late for the job, once I sent in the required paperwork (50 quid to get it to Korea fast, unbelievable!) I was quickly told that nearly all the positions in South Korean public schools had been filled, so I was put on the 'wait list'. I very quickly realised (through conversations on forums) that this was NOT a good thing. It meant you could end up waiting for a placement in Korea to arrive that could take months. After reading this, my line of thought went thus:

First thought: Bollocks!
Second thought: Look for other work
Third thought: Invested too much time and money in this to back out now!

So...I waited. And waited. Kept sending emails to Claire but she hadn't heard anything either. Applied for a couple of other jobs with no success, beginning to lose hope, until finally, exactly two weeks ago, I got an email from Claire saying that I now had a placement, in the Chungbuk district of Korea. However, they wanted me to start work at the end of August. Which meant getting all my materials ready, sorting out travel and visa documents, and getting mentally ready - all in a little over two weeks. Add to that having to move out of my house and shift a dozen boxes and bags of random stuff too.

So, as you can imagine, the last fortnight has been something of a rush.

However, I now stand (or sit) here at my Mum's house in Milton Keynes - bags packed, flight booked and with only one loose end left to tie - getting into London to grab my passport with visa attached that'll actually let me teach.

So how do I feel here? Guess it's the same as anyone would when about to engage in a massive step - mixture of massive excitement and bowel-knotting fear. It's not really hit me that I'm about to go to the other side of the world from everything I know yet - I don't think it will until I'm about to get on the flight. I'm now at the deep breath before the plunge, so I don't really know what to do with myself. Other than write here, of course.

I could sit here and compose a list of 'things I'm going to miss' or assorted rubbish like that, but in all honesty I don't see it as really relevant because I'm going to miss a lot of things, and I won't know what I'll miss most until I'm actually out there and it's not there. Probably my pool cue family and friends, then.

Anyway, I think that's about all the backstory that need be told. I'll probably write again either tomorrow (going out to some garden event) or on Friday (once I've got back from London). In the meantime, if anyone reading this has any comments/suggestions/abuse they want to throw in, by all means go for it. I'm particularly interested in how I could make the blog page better looking. I came up with the header myself and I'm rather proud of it, but what else could I stick in here that might be useful? Look forward to your suggestions.

RM.