Teacher Training

This time last week I was not where I am now (now as in at Samseang Elementary School) I was attending a teacher training session for the EPIK teachers in Gangwon-do.  Training in Korea is an enriching experience, though not necessarily in the professional sense.  More on that in a moment:

The training was Thursday and Friday, taking place in Yanyang, a town just down the coast from Sokcho.  These are both towns on the eastern coastline and our training complex had a gorgeous view overlooking the East Sea
(EAST Sea mind you, NOT the Sea of Japan!  Apparently Koreans get very touchy in the subject of names and ownership in various geographical features.  International water be damned!). A gorgeous facility operated by the KoRail company, it was lent to the Gangwon Provincial Office of Education and its counterparts to host this event.
I embarked on the hour long drive to Yangyang in the company of my main co-teacher, Mr. Shin.  Mr. Shin is a wonderful man, a kind, soft spoken, smiling sort of fellow.  However, Mr. Shin's English ability is very limited, it makes conversation quite difficult.  But we manage to communicate somewhat.  Mr. Shin was our driver for this trip, and has had several other seats in his car he was kind enough to provie two other EPIK teachers rides to Yangyang.  My two foriegn friends were fellow rookie EPIK teacher Luke, and veteran teacher Jen.  This was our first "professional" interaction, as we often spent most of our time together after school hours enjoying copius amounts of alcohol
(medicinal quantities I assure you gentle reader, it is often seen as an essential component of surviving one's teaching experience). 
In any case, we enjoyed the long ride to Yangyang with some conversation and a bit of admiring the scenery. I freely admit that I also dozed off for a while (something about riding in cars in Korea knocks me out).  Even still the drive took us through Soraksan National Park, one of the largest most impressive mountain ranges in South Korea.  It's breathtaking to see the sheer clifs and stony peaks of Soraksan, and somehow they managed to carve a high way right through this rugged territory.  I recall looking at the high mountains and steep vallies wondering to myself, "how on earth did people get from place to place 50, 60, 100 years ago?"

Some photos from a mountain side on the road to Soraksan

We arrived in Yangyang in the early afternoon, beginning our teacher training shortly afterwards.  The training was composed of lectures, demonstrations, and small group activities.  In all honesty, there were only a few training events during the afternoon and following morning.  A good amount of time was spent socializing and catching up with friends from orientation.  I also had the pleasure of meeting a host of few faces, teachers who I had not met at orientation, teachers who had arrived in years before, and a number of Korean teachers who spoke superb English. 

As a foriegner in a rural area in Korea, I have acquired a certain hunger for a decent conversation.  More importantly a hunger for interesting conversation.  This event was just the palce for me to gorge myself on talk, and revel in the thrill of meeting new people.  I freely admit it is very difficult meeting people in Korea.  Not that it is hard to introduce oneself, but that one meets so many people so quickly its hard to keep people straight.  Even if you manage to keep names with faces it is another task entirely to keep in touch.  In spite of this difficulty I was able to enjoy the time off teaching to meet greet and network with my fellow teachers.  In this I feel I got the most reward for my training.  Foreign teachers in South Korea are always interesting. Hailing from all corners of the English speaking world, I am constantly surprised by new and curious characters in this profession. 

I was able to snap a handful of pictures from the sea.  Absolutely gorgeous!

The KoRail training center