First teaching job in Seoul...Part 3

For a long time, I struggled with my new surroundings:  the horrible smell, the heat and humidity, the jet lag, awful fellow teachers and my worries about money.  On my first morning in Korea I started a new teaching job, and it was outside of my building.  I had to take a bus there and back.  A Korean 'secretary' took me there for the first time.  There were 3 female 'secretaries' helping the teachers at my institute and working for Mr. Kim.  Miss Park helped me and was so nice and always did such a good job for Mr. Kim every day.  So many times she would come up to the 4th floor where we lived and say, "...Cobec...!!!..." when she had to tell me I had a new class.  Korean language has no V's or Z's and their R's can be L's and their K's can be G's.  My last name is Corvec so it's hard for them to know how to pronounce it, since they don't have V's and they say R's differently from us.  She never used my first name.
Miss Park accompanied me on the bus that first day to a nice office building in Gangnam-dong.  A branch of a Scandinavian company called Votra had Korean office workers who needed help with their English.  She gave me a copy of a resume that was supposed to be mine, to show the people there at our meeting that first day.  It was kind of like a job interview.  The resume caused me greater anxiety than I already had, because I didn't know what was going on, and this resume said I had been teaching in Seoul for 2 years already, and on it was a list of made-up jobs and classes that I had supposedly done!  I found it funny that the resume stated that I was not married...  I was given the job and would have to go there every morning at 9:30 for an hour, I was told.

This is the area where Votra was located.

It was very hard for me to get up early for many weeks, because of the time zone being so many hours different than what I was used to.  I had to walk a few long blocks up the street and go to a certain bus stop.  There were many buses and I had to get on the right one - not just #78, of which there were several that I would see, but it had to be #78-3.  It was so crowded and the traffic was busier than I had ever seen anywhere.  It was daunting to go on that bus with all those Korean people and not know their language.  I would see 'open' trucks carrying pigs to the market while I was on this bus.  There were clothes on lines in many windows of the apartment buildings.  Miss Park had given me a note written in Korean telling the bus driver to stop where I needed to get off.
Near the bus stop, there were many older women selling fruit and vegetables.  I passed many spots where dark purple Korean grapes were on the sidewalk and the women selling them sat on the ground.  The sun and heat were strong, making the grapes smell.  When I tasted them later, the taste of them was rich, and the peeling was thick.  Grapes were in season in September, the Koreans said.  I remember the hot 'high' sun and the smell of Korean grapes.  When I remember it now I hear the traffic and crowd din.  Everywhere I went, the radio was playing Korean music.  I longed to know the words being sung so beautifully and I found the songs were of excellent quality, with lovely modern melodies.  K-pop, an extremely popular type of Korean music, had not gotten fully underway yet though.

I had to go across the road from these tall buildings to get the bus to go the Votra class.  Also, I walked here to get the subway countless times and went down some stairs underneath these tall buildings for that.  Now, a huge Karak Mall is where I waited for the bus.

The reason there is grass and no buildings on the right in my picture above is that this area was closed off with official signs and fences.  A guard sat in a booth.  I was so thrilled to be passing by and so proud to be walking to the subway and bus that I would smile and wave to the older Korean guard, instead of being intimidated.  He would smile and wave back!