Kate's in Korea: Hwacheon, Here I Come!

This past Friday was our Placement Ceremony and all 80 of us found out where we are going to teach and live for the next year. Needless to say everyone was extremely jittery leading up to the ceremony at 7PM especially since we fill out a 4 page Preference Form but many times all of your needs cannot be met. The ceremony was held in the auditorium on the 11th floor, which was funny because the room is huge but only Mrs. Shim, some office staff and our Korean language teachers were in attendance so the room was very empty. Despite the small number in attendance, the ceremony was quite formal. Everyone wore business professional clothes and we all stood in an arc in front of the ceremony. The OCs then named a province and read the names of each of the ETAs who were placed in that province. The ETAs then come to the stage one by one to receive the name of the school they will teach at and to place their marker on the map of South Korea. The ceremony becomes more nerve-racking as more and more ETAs are placed and fewer people remain standing in the arc in front of the stage.

About halfway through the ceremony my name was finally called and I discovered I would be teaching in Hwacheon in the Gangwon Province! I am very excited about my placement because two of my closest friends are also in Gangwon. My roommate will be teaching middle school in Hwacheon and her school is about a ten minute walk from my elementary school. My other friend, Maggie, will be teaching at an elementary school in Yucheon, which is a small town about 45 minutes away from Hwacheon. I also have the only placement in which two ETAs are in the same school so another ETA, Amy, will be working with me! Hwacheon is extremely rural and there are only 300 kids in the entire elementary school- although that is more than in my friend Maggie's school. Maggie has about 50 kids in her entire school! The only placement more rural than Hwacheon is Maggie's placement in Yucheon! I am very excited to have a chance to really work on learning Korean and I think it will be really neat to experience a more traditional Korean town. The town itself is beautiful as well. It is nestled in between numerous mountains and two rivers cut right through the town. Since Hwacheon is one of the coldest cities in Korea there is a huge ice fishing festival in the winter that attracts nearly 1 million visitors! The town is also only 6 miles from the North Korean border and there are lots of great viewpoints of the border that are not often seen by Koreans. We are also only 40 minutes from a larger city, Chuncheon, and an hour and a half from Seoul, which obviously is a massive city! For more information on Hwacheon you can read the wikipedia entry here.

The map with everyone's placements. My friends and I are the four red dots wayyyyyy up North.

After the Placement Ceremony many of us went out to our favorite HoF B&B. Celebrating everyone's placements was a lot of fun and the Orientation Counselors came out with us, which they don't often do. Around midnight our Korean teachers also arrived at the bar! Everyone started cheering for them as they walked in. It was so fun to celebrate with them especially since they care about us an unbelievable amount. Both of my teachers gave me hugs and invited me to stay with them in Seoul since they are concerned with how small Hwacheon is and know that I am near Seoul. They really are such caring individuals and I hope I can meet up with my teachers during the year to show them my improvement. Since I have such a rural placement it is unlikely that my family will speak any English so I will have the opportunity to really learn Korean.

My first Korean teacher

My second Korean teacher and two of my classmates

This weekend we also went on an awesome hike in Songnisan National Park and stayed overnight in a Pension. The hike took about two hours but it was beautiful. Also, unlike in the United States, there are several mountain restaurants along the hike- it's pretty funny. Koreans really love to hike but they approach it much differently than Americans. They almost always are decked out in the newest hiking gear and they also completely cover their bodies because Koreans have a fear of becoming tan. Some women even wear face masks that only reveal their eyes in order to cover themselves and there are sleeves you can slip on your arms if you are wearing a short sleeve shirt but need more sun protection. Therefore, us Americans really stuck out. At the top of the mountain was a monstrous rock that you can climb on and we all hung out on top of the rock for about two hours before heading down.