Orientation and A Crunky Bar

During our second full day in Korea (yesterday for us), I attended my first day of orientation at the school's headquarters, and Katie spent the day at the hotel. Around 8:45 in morning the school sent a bus over to pick me up, as well as the other recruits staying a the hotel. It was my first opportunity to meet my fellow trainees, and it was a very positive experience. The vast majority, not surprisingly, were Canadian; there were also a couple of Americans and even one person from South Africa.

We were all taken to the school's corporate headquarters where we were seated at a large conference table. After the first half hour, I realized that this week of training is going to be intense. The material has been concentrated so that it can be presented in the short time frame we have available. Additionally, we will have to take a variety of tests on grammar and syntax, and will also receive a comprehensive evaluation on Friday. This is going to be a very busy week, with lots of studying at the hotel.

Afterward, we were all transported to a hospital where we were given a cursory physical, a chest x-ray, a blood test, and a drug test. I was amused when the nurse giving the physical tested me for color-blindness. After I had demonstrated that I was unable to recognize the numbers hidden within the colored dots, the nurse looked at me earnestly and began to laboriously try to convey something to me in English. After several attempts, she finally managed to say "color-blind!" I think she was genuinely concerned about me. I just smiled politely and nodded; she probably assumed I had simply failed to comprehend the seriousness of my condition.

By the time I was delivered back to the hotel it was nearly 4:00, and I not eaten since about 7:30 in the morning. Katie was glad to see me, and we went out to "Cafe Mix & Bake", a pizza-parlorish place nearby. Afterward we went to the "Family Food Mart" (a convenience store) and bought a number of Korean instant noodle bowls, as well as our first "Crunky" bar. Crunky bars are advertised incessantly on television, and we were beginning to feel the urgent need to try one. I'd describe it as basically like a Nestle's Crunch bar, though it leaves an inexplicable caramel corn attribute on the palette. Overall, not bad.