South Korea, the second time around...

Farmboy and I have just arrived back in South Korea for our second contracts with the public school education program. We have again come over with EPIK (English Program in Korea).

Our first time around, we arrived with a bunch of other teachers (many of whom were also from South Africa, and started our year with an Orientation Program. Orientation programs happen twice a year in the main intakes which are February and August. As this time around we have been placed at an unusual time of the year, there has been no orientation (and with it being our second time I don't think we would have to attend anyway). Although, we have definitely missed the opportunity to make loads of new friends which is one of the huge bonuses of the Orientation program. After our first contract, we returned home to South Africa to get married. And here we are back again, 3 years later. (click here to see more photo's from our wedding!)

As have been placed midyear here, we had to find our own way to our designated Province (Jeonbuk for us) which would have been pretty darn difficult had we not already been introduced to the Korean public transport system back in 2010. This is one of the biggest reasons we both highly recommend coming to Korea during one of the major placement times, and doing so into the Public School System. Although neither of us have taught at Hagwons (Private Academy) before, the stress and culture shock of arriving in a place that does things SO very differently is hard to wrap your head around and get your work set up sorted. That's why think EPIK is so awesome. Things have been very difficult for us this second time around, granted it has only been 4 days and we are now in a rural area as opposed to the hustle and bustle of Daejeon, but at least the main elements of our work (apartment/salary/alien registration cards/bank accounts/cell phones etc) have been sorted out by our respective co-teachers and the EPIK supervisors we have had along the way.

I promise I'm not trying to sell EPIK to you, I have read some threads online with peoples terrible experiences with EPIK, but so far, Farmboy and I have been pretty happy with them.

That's all from me for today, I'm going to be posting about the 'difficulties' we have had this time around tomorrow (and of course info on where we are, what its like and of course more photographs!).

x CityGirl x