Pree-vyet eez Rahs-see-yah!
I suppose I should change the name of my blog from Soko-Loco….to Rooskey-Loco…but it just doesn’t have the same ring. We have officially jumped ship from South Korea to Russia, so I’m currently writing from Tyumen.
We’re in Tyumen for the next month before we head off to Nizhnevartovsk for another 7 months or so. So far our time in Russia has been, well, interesting and entertaining:).
We landed in Moscow, where we were met by a man named Igor, who bought us beer and chips while we waited for our connecting flight to Tyumen. It was pretty interesting as he drove us through Moscow to park on the side of the highway to enjoy our beer. We had our first police encounter within the hour when the mee-lee-tsih-yah (think Militia) told us to move along. We got into Tyumen early morning Sunday, exhausted and smelly from our almost 40 hours of travel.
We settled into our temporary apartment and had a little sleep. When we woke up and looked outside we realized we were in what we would term as the ‘ghetto’….Our first week went by pretty quickly. I spent the week sick in bed with flu, while Jeremy went into work a couple times to do random classes.
By the second week we were moved into our semi-permanent apartment (until we leave for Nizh). It’s awesome inside - huge, high ceilings, very comfortable, aside for the tiny/springy bed, which Jeremy can’t sleep on and is forced to sleep on the couch until we leave (boo).
Tyumen is a pretty big city with lots of grey buildings. However, there are lots of trees, and it’s pretty exciting that we’re having our first ‘real’ autumn in awhile - changing leaves, cool breezes, and our new ghetto neighbourhood smells like apples in the evenings (although I can’t find where the apple trees are). We’ve decided that most of Tyumen has fairly decrepit areas, so although our neighbourhood looks old and a little sketchy, it just matches most of the other areas, in between the modern buildings. Jeremy’s started to take some pictures on his walk to work, and I’ll hopefully get out this weekend to add to the collection so that we can post some soon:).
As for work, it’s fairly exhausting. We had become accustomed to the laziness of work at Chosun, so although we don’t have many more actual teaching hours, the prep time required and the weird shifts are tiring. Right now I work 4-9:45 two days a week, 1-7:30 two days a week, 1-5 one day a week, and then (horribly) I have two morning classes on Saturday. I don’t actually teach the entire time I’m at work (max 5 hours a day), but because there are two schools we teach at, a lot of my ‘off time’ is spent cabbing between schools. However, the students are a lot more dedicated and motivated than in Korea, and I have a few kids’ classes that I’m enjoying. Three of my eleven year olds made me a card this week with my picture and ‘super cool teacher, you are very good, we love you’ on it…so, although the schedule is tiring, the actual teaching more satisfying.
Another hugely satisfying aspect of Russia is the yee-dah (food). After Korea, this place is heaven for cheese, meat, chocolate and beer. We were apprehensive about the supposed lack of vegetables (we were warned), but we’ve found most of what we’d want anyways, aside from fresh broccoli. Right now we have 9 different types of cheese in the fridge, so although I’m a bit worried about returning to Canada as a chubby, round, cheese-filled dumpling, the food is good. We’ve only ate out twice as last weekend we opted to stay in and recuperate, but hopefully this weekend we’ll explore more and see what there is in our neighbourhood. They’re really into sushi here, so I’m hoping we can find a sushi joint close by.
Other than that, we’ve just been adjusting to work etc. It’s a very professionally run school and if we were ‘real’ teachers it would be a perfect fit. Right now Jeremy’s ‘in training’ for his director of studies position, which he’ll take up when we go to Nizh, so I have a feeling that things will change quite a bit once we get there. Overall it’s been a good couple weeks here and I’m looking forward to getting out and actually seeing more of the city, although apparently the only things (aside from restaurants and bars etc.) worth seeing, we already have….a statue of Lenin and the ‘Central Park’ where they have a merry-go-round and rides for kids. Pretty funny since we saw those two things our first night here, but then again I guess there isn’t much to actually see in Gwangju, or in my hometown either.
Anyways, it’s now almost noon and I should start getting ready to go into school later. I promise I’ll post pictures as soon as I can, we’re having a good time over here and are glad we’re experiencing teaching and living outside of Korea.:)
Until next time,
Karen
