My Second Day

My second day in Chuncheon was Feb. 27 2010.

I was left all by myself.

My first co-teacher Mr. H had taken me to the house of my team-teacher Ms. Kim the night before at her behest.

She was hosting another EPIK teacher, Kelly, because her daughter Sujin was Kelly's co-teacher at another school and Kelly did not have an apartment yet. Mr. H was not keen to stay long so we departed shortly after.

Nestor had left me his old phone, which was good for three more days, so I passed the number on to Sujin and Mr.H. Sujin and Kelly made a plan to meet up with me in the afternoon of the next day. Mr. H left me at my apartment door the first night with a promise that he would call sometime before he left in the next two days to check in. I never heard from him again.

So, with a vague sense of where the grocery store was I set off for it in late morning hours.

As I came to the first intersection and was starting to doubt my directional abilities, which had always been shit, my borrowed phone started to ring. It was Nestor!

I stood at the corner of a four way intersection and started to explain how I was lost on the way to the grocery store. As I described, badly, my surroundings Nestor tried to orientate me again towards the GS Mart. I probably looked like the most confused wae-gook any Korean had ever seen squinting in four directions and speaking loudly into my phone that "There is a store with a sign that has Korean writing on it across from me... so where am I?"

At that moment, out the corner of my eye, I saw a flash of someone running across the road, ignoring the traffic lights, directly toward me. I turned in fright- North Koreans!- but no it was Bryan, my camera suave friend from orientation who came to Chuncheon with his wife Dani. Seeing a familiar face I started to jump rapidly up and down, with the phone still to my ear,as he charged towards me. Bryan grabbed me around the waist as I was up in the air and nearly had me to the road before my practical side shouted at him that we should wait for the light.

I said good-bye to Nestor and Bryan and I, where a moment before we had been yipping and yelling at each other, stood docile and calm waiting for the light. When we got the green light we sprinted to the car across the road which contained Dani and her co-teacher Sunny.

As Sunny gave us a tour of Chuncheon I told Bryan and Dani about my placement and recounted first day stories. Sunny pointed out interesting sites including where you could get a good taste of dog meat in Chuncheon...Dani and I quickly repeated the word dog meat in Korean (Kaegoggi) so we could stay away from it.

Sunny was nice enough to drop me back off at my apartment for my meeting with Sujin and Kelly. With them I went grocery shopping at the new, large supermarket Lotte Mart and tried to find Kelly some more school clothes in an underground mall with little success. While there Sujin tested me on my Korean lettering- which was poor- but she was encouraging so it was nice.

So my second day in Chuncheon was not so much a lesson of how to defend for yourself as it was learning the art of mooching off other's co-teachers. I have to say, I became quite good at it.