Anyeonghaseyo!

Hello from Korea!

These first two months in Korea have been so busy, I feel like the time has just flown by. It's hard to believe that I only left Chile at the beginning of September. But I've already settled into life here pretty well and I'm really enjoying living in Pohang.

Pohang is a small-ish coastal city about two hours north of Busan on the east coast. Life here is a lot more relaxed than in the bigger cities and the foreigner community is one of the friendliest that I've ever encountered. People here are so helpful, and there are a lot of great resources for newcomers like me, such as the Facebook groups Pohang Legends and Pohang Bazaar. Although I've only been here two months, I've already made a lot of friends and been able to do some traveling.

The Pohang waterfront

The pavilion on the watefront

The city of Pohang is home to Posco, which is the second largest steel factory in the world. The big harbor in the center of the city is half beach, half steel factory, but despite this the city and Posco have really done a great job making the city an attractive place to live. Near the factory is a nice canal with sculptures and boat tours, and every night Posco lights up the factory buildings to make the waterfront look a lot nicer.

But the best thing about living here so far is my new job. I am so happy to be working with kids again and to be receiving training in the Montessori method, something I've wanted to learn about for a long time. I really like the methodology so far, and even if I do not remain a Montessori teacher in the future, I am sure that there is a lot that I will take away from it. The kids in my class are really cute and smart; the ages range from 2-5 in my class, with about 9 kids in total. 

I'm responsible for my own class and I work with the director, Stephanie, to choose a theme for each month to study. Every month the kids learn about the topic and go on a field trip to learn more about it. In September we were studying birds, so we took a trip to the nearby city of Gyeongju to see their bird park. We do a lot of other little trips as well, like to a big chrysanthemum display and to a kids cafe. There's always so much going on at work and I'm given a lot of freedom to be creative with the curriculum and my teaching methods.

At the Gyeongju bird park

The girls at the chrysanthemum display- this is the level of cute I get to see everyday.

I am really loving life and work here so far and I can't wait to do some more traveling in Korea and learn more about the culture and language. I will start updating the blog more regularly again now that I've settled in here, and I'll be posting soon about my recent travels and more about what life here is like.