Teachers Share their Experiences While Living Abroad!

Embarking on a journey as a first-year teacher can feel daunting and chaotic.  Each person is different and has varying knowledge and strengths to bring. A piece of advice that may help one teacher may be useless to another, so I only want to speak from my position and say that these are some tips and tricks that would’ve helped me as I began my experience here, with this post more oriented towards moving and transitioning, and I’ll soon release tips for the classroom. All in all, this time will be full of growth and learning, and an experience you will never forget!

As winter rears its sometimes unforgiving head in Seoul, I reflect on the times in the country where I actually leave my officetel. One of the most tender and important was a weekend I spent just a bus ride away outside the city, spent in Paju and Imjingak. I stumbled into many gems in terms of sightseeing, but that’s only the first draw to return. It was the love and energy people gifted me with while I was there that make me plan my next trip now.

Seollal, or Lunar New Year, is one of the holidays celebrated in South Korea, along with other countries like Japan, Indonesia, Cambodia, and places with a large Chinese diasporic population. In South Korea, it is one of the most important holidays of the year, in which loved ones congregate in festivities that can last for three days. People travel far and wide to spend time with family, dress up in hanbok, the traditional garb, and perform rituals of filial piety and ancestral worship. They play folk games and eat traditional foods like tteok, rice cake, and jeon, savory pancakes.

One of the best parts of living in South Korea is it’s a hop, jump, and a skip away from a myriad of destinations within Asia. With the popularity of budget airlines like AirAsia, it’s easier than ever to go on that trip into the Mongolian desert or the temples of Cambodia. One of the most impressive places to go is the Philippines, which is where my family and roots are. There’s many a blog by teachers about their trips to the archipelago, detailing the bliss you find from escaping the bitter Korean winter to an island paradise like Boracay or Palawan. Going to any of those locations for holiday is a guaranteed good time.

Taking the first steps of an adventure is almost never an easy ordeal. You have all these questions that zoom in and out of your head adding to the list before you can even answer the first ones that popped up. Will it work out? Will I be happy? What if I get lost? What if I do something wrong? What if a giant prehistoric creature ascends from the oceans and battles a giant moth? Ok, maybe that last one was a horrible reference to Godzilla vs Mothra but you get the idea. 

Busan is the ideal summer vacation spot on the Korean peninsula. It has white sand beaches, cocktail lounges, and party districts. The weather is moderately warm and often cooler than Seoul due to the ocean breeze. Busan is positioned on the southern-most tip of Korea and is a bustling city with the second largest population.

The city is a quick train ride from anywhere, with access to the KTX bullet train. Seoul to Busan takes about 3 hours and a return-ticket costs about 103,000 KRW. There are also buses that leave regularly and are an easy mode of transport for those who cannot access the train services. 

Traveling is the major reason I chose English teaching as a profession. I love to travel...and becoming an ESL instructor made my dreams come true, having traveled to 42 countries in the past six years. For me, this is an accomplishment - one I know will be a part of my identity for many years to come.

If you love to travel, engage with other cultures, learn new languages and see things you never dreamed of; then choosing ESL might be the right path for you! 

Your time in Korea has come to an end...checks on the bucket list, memories made. You are filled with emotions, one of them is stress. Just as much as packing up your life and moving abroad was intimidating, so too, is moving back home. Living and teaching in Korea has become a second home. Teachers who return to their home country often experience culture shock and struggle to adjust to the lifestyle they had before. 

Dreaming of an island getaway? Wondering what exotic places you can travel to while living and teaching in Korea? Think...Coconuts in hand, pristine beaches, and world class snorkeling; the Philippines is a value-for-money destination that is only a three-hour flight from Incheon International Airport. 

When you are teaching in Korea and have a 3 day weekend working for ChungDahm or April, it's always worth your while to take a mini vacation if you can afford it. Now that I am splitting my time between teaching ChungDahm and April Academy, I am getting more time off. Knowing that Lunar New Year would be coming up, my friend and I realized how expensive those tickets would be. So we decided to go on our trip the weekend before the major holiday. She had never been to Osaka or Kyoto so we decided to see if we could spend one day in Osaka and one day in Kyoto. My advice would be to not do it. A one day trip to either place is not nearly enough time to soak in what each city has to offer. There is so much to see and do in both places, you will not do either city its justice. Many teachers love to go to Osaka because it is only a 2 hour flight from Incheon International Airport (ICN) to Kansai International Airport (KIX). The last time I took this trip, we spent a full day at Universal Studios Japan (Osaka) and toured the following day. However, many teachers don't realize how close, how beautiful, and how historic Kyoto is. Here was my to-do list for traveling to Kyoto.