My Observations

What I Most Like: 1) Number of good restaurants, good Korean food and some food from other countries 2) Number of coffeeshops, cafes, small places. 3) Good public transport - taking a two-hour or four-hour trip is not nearly so bad when you're not driving. 4) Cheap taxis - really come in handy when you need them 5) PC rooms - have a love/hate relationship with them but they were great when say I had an hour to kill before meeting someone or really needed to get online when I didn't have access to a computer. (I even went to one with a bathroom so small you had to sit on the toilet sideways and I think it's funny~I'd rather laugh than complain.) 6) Cell phones - everyone in this country has one. it's great to send messages whenever/wherever knowing you can get contact your friend when you have something to say. 7) Number of nice, happening areas full of people, like several downtowns. 8) 노래방 - singing rooms - great way to spend an evening, to see all your co-...

Let me get started by listing a few things I sometimes think about, but can't understand. One recruiter took me to interview at a hagwon which had gone bankrupt. A long time after I saw that recruiter still recruiting at a major ESL teachers website. (Just did a quick check at the same site and didn't see their name. Guess they stopped.) The number of kids who don't have any iota of a desire to study who are sent to hagwons assuming because their parents want them to go. Nothing quite like the attitude of a kid who hates school being forced to go to class or study so many hours in a day! Why my first job set me up to teach three hours of kindergarten per day - 1 1/2 hours with 3-year olds and with 4-year olds (in addition to a full load of afternoon classes) when they knew I had no real teaching experience! Why the contract didn't state that Korean kindergarten is really pre-school + kindergarten. Students go for three years from ages 3-6, Korean age 5, 6 and 7.

Any foreign English teacher in Korea Anyone interested in Korea any foreigner working in Korea in any field Koreans who would like to understand life for foreigners Korean parents whose children are being taught by foreign teachers Koreans who employ foreign teachers Koreans who work with foreign teachers Recruiters who find foreign teachers to work in Korea Government officials who determine guidelines for visas, contracts, etc. for foreign teachers and also for their employers Anyone else who is interested in reading my blog

Time to start again. I have already written a lot about Korea. I'm going to publish anything that I think is worth publishing. To explain my background a bit, I've met English teachers in Korea from every English speaking country and many others. I've heard hundreds of stories about living in Korea and teaching. Teachers have been coming for the last 10-15 years. Don't know exactly the time when they first started coming in large numbers. I would say in the early nineties though I never met anyone who came at that time and can't be sure. As long as the Korean government continues to allow teachers to come, the economy doesn't collapse as it did in '97 and North Korea doesn't do anything stupid, teachers will most likely continue to work in Korea for the next ten years or more. Based on my experience I feel I really know all about teaching in Korea, institutes, foreigners and the problems they have. I've also learned a lot about Korean culture. I unde...