Today is a rather monumental day, the pie in the sky plan to teach english in South Korea has just moved forwards in one giant leap as I have been offered a job in an elementary school in Munsan. I'm in a minor state of shock and still finding everything intensely surreal... hang on a minute I should really rewind and start from the beginning...

The Beginning.

Part 1.

Hi, My name is Jess and about five years ago now I had the idea I wanted to go and teach english in Japan. I kept thinking about it, buying books on Japan, contemplating it but never really doing anything about it. The original plan was to go after university. But when i graduated back in Summer 2006 I was skint, so instead a random bout of bar work led to temp work which lead to a job working in the fashion industry. Fashion was nice, i enjoyed it, but it wasn't quite the niche for me and during my last six months I started looking into further options re Japan but once again not really doing anything about it apart from looking at more books, eating alot of sushi and visiting The Japan Centre in London's Piccadilly on a more regular basis. Then my Dad moved to Portugal, and I decided to jack in my job (by this point it was really really doing my head in) sign up to the I-to I tefl course and after a week holidaying com Padre in Portugal, caught a flight and moved out there in an attempt to get a job teaching english. It was a total and utter disaster, Despite contacting over 40 schools the only response I got was from a woman who said she would give me unpaid work experience (by this point I had nothing left) So after three months I headed back to England and with no job, no money and nowhere to live I ended up living with my newly engaged mother in Pulborough. Eventually I managed to get a rather crappy job as a retail assistant in a dire shopping mall in west sussex and instead of wasting my pay on un-neccessary items like clothes, make-up and marks and spencers lunches I signed up to to the 100 hour online extension to my TEFL practical course and started enquiring about Japan. It took about ten minutes of speaking to an I-to-I advisor on the phone to realise I was not going to be able to save the required amount of money needed to start life in Japan so I went to say thankyou and hangup and just before I did, the lady on the end of the phone went 'Have you ever thought about South Korea?'

Part 2.

I had never thought about South Korea. Ever. Apart from maybe when watching news reports on North Korea and Nuclear war weapons, however I decided to stay as open minded as I could and asked if I could have the details emailed over to me. I then got off the phone and started to google. And by google, I googled as much as I can on the country, the food, the religion, tourism, what to do, what koreans where, everything and within and hour I had even ordered books on South korea from amazon.

The more I read the more I started to become intrigued and enthralled, the more I started to think, hey this could be amazing. Hey this could actually work. Let me point out some of the main reason's South Korea swayed me... and yes they are trivial in many respects, however they worked.

Phenomenally technologically advanced, even the most advanced western mobile's won't work in Korea because they are so behind. (i'm not one for technology, I can barely work my laptop, but that impresses me)

Amazing food

Flight's are a. reimbursed b. actually fairly cheap when you consider how long the flight is ( a return (flexi) works out at roughly £500

You don't pay rent. Yep that's right, they give you nice apartments. for free.

There is a massive amount of amazing religious temples, monuments (i love these things - I am not buddhist but this country could swing me, probably quite easily)

Average monthly salary is around 2 million won. I will be a millionaire.

There are a mass of other things that have drawn me to South Korea, reading other people's blogs has been one of them. My favourite is:

Harrow Kimchi

It's written by Jenna from New Zealand.

The book I ordered from amazon is also amazing

Meeting Mr Kim and how I learned to love Kimchi by jennifer Barclay.

(It's published by Summersdale Press, a publishing house that is very local to me, something I didn't discover until the book actually arrived - I didn't even know a publishers existed in Chichester - apart from Wiley that is)

Within about four days of South Korea being suggested as a teaching destination I had submitted my application. Then I just needed to sit and wait... and wait.... and wait.

Part 3.

It was three and a half weeks before I received a call from the in-country co-ordinator, four days later I had an interview and the day after (today) I received the job offer, contract and longlist of paperwork required for a Korean Visa. It's happening scarily quickly, surrealy quickly, but it feels amazing. The school is in Munsan the town closest to the DMZ and thus North Korea (a slightly frightening worrying prospect, but hey whats the proverb keep your friend's close and your enemies closer???") It is teaching in a school with fellow I-to-I english teachers, and living within a community of other English teachers, the kids will be aged 5-16, (Korean aged 4-15) and Start date is end of August after my Cousin's Wedding...

So there we have it. The story so far. Hopefully (visa paperwork pending) Everything will run smoothly from here (now I know want an apostille stamp is it will probably be easier.. FYI its a piece of paper that proves a document is legal in my case it will prove my CRB check is legal and not fake) There wont be many exciting pictures for a while... taking pictures of fields in West Sussex is probably about as much as you could get and i wont bore you with those, however come late August, it should all get a bit more exciting as I start to explore...

Until then I will update you with exciting things about my Visa application process, what happens when I have to order a fed-ex man to come to my house, how i figure out how to fit everything i need into one suitcase and whether I actually get there....

Until Later

x