To the moon and back

Or that's where it feels we've been since Sunday night. In retrospect, and in fact at the time, it was bizarre that we took the chance interview with the Comedy Duo on Friday, and come Monday, we were working. Well, Lauren was. I was just "getting paid" to sit around and relax.

This school, the "Castle in the Countryside", is in fact two schools: a traditional Korean kindergarten and a new all-English hagwon. We were told we would have to work in one each, and were asked to decide between us which we'd prefer. Intuitively I went for the English school, and Lauren went for the Korean one. So that was easy.

As we were picked up from Seoul at 8.30am on Monday morning, we believed that we would be seeing our new apartments and signing the new contract. When we asked when we would start work, we were somewhat taken aback when they said 'today' - and even more so when there wasn't even so much of a mention of the contract. Still, we believed there were good intentions floating around, and obliged as we were asked to start work.

I seemed to have a good deal - the English school wasn't open yet and I was asked to help devise the new curriculum. I would have free reign over decorating the classrooms and choosing books; I'd have my own office and would have the power to delegate tasks to other staff members. Very exciting.

Lauren on the other hand was thrown into teaching several classes consecutively without any guidance or teaching materials, with a Korean teacher in each class who would interrupt the lesson and no personal office space. Very frustrating.

Even more frustrating was that when it was clear who had the better deal, on asking if Lauren could come and work with me, I was told 'no'. Very disappointing. Since they were still working on finding us apartments, we were driven the two hour drive back into Seoul where we stayed the night at our old apartments, where we were to do the two hour commute again the next morning. At least we didn't have to take public transport as our heads were nodding.

With the promise of moving, we took a load of stuff with us on Tuesday morning. We were assured that they'd properly scoped out the location of our new places, they'd make sure they were fully furnished and cleaned before we moved in, and that they'd be within walking distance of the school. Appeased by this information, we worked the day again. Lauren in her Korean school, less frustrated now that she was getting into the swing of things, and me going through all the potential English books and talking to the various teachers milling around about how to decorate the school. I was being asked questions as if I were the guru on English kindergartens, and they were all looking at me expectedly when they asked what would be on an English noticeboard. Clearly having never stepped outside of Korea, I'm not sure what they were expecting me to say.

At 3 o'clock we were driven round for two hours shopping for bedding for our new beds. This gave us a long time to contemplate our situation. We both agreed that it wasn't ideal that we were working in separate schools, and that even though I had an opportunity to flex my leadership skills, it felt disorganised and unorthodox that just because of my nationality I would be an expert on English pre-schools.

Not only this, but the English speaking father-figure, the "killing two rabbits with one stone" guy, wasn't really a part of the school and was just helping out his mate. So he wasn't always around - and when he wasn't, we were stuck in an all-Korean speaking environment. I even found that they were talking to me in Korean a lot of the time, and I've got so accustomed to nodding and smiling that I forgot that perhaps it would be beneficial to actually understand what they were talking about.

Finally we visited our apartments. Despite having complained about our old apartments, they were seeming like palaces compared to what we were presented with. It was clear that the director hadn't seen them before as he struggled to turn on my heating. There wasn't any furniture in either of our rooms and we were living in separate buildings opposed to literally next door to one another as we'd been told. Lauren's only window was blocked up by kitchen units - but there was enough of a gap to still let in the street lights - a wet bathroom floor, no toilet seat on the toilet, and we immediately saw a beetle run across the floor. It wasn't a great first impression of our new homes.

The director phoned his wife to sort out bedding for us, and it now being several hours on from when we left the school, it was 'yummy time'. He'd promised to take us out for sushi which we were enthusiastic about, ensuring him that we'd eaten it before and that we like all kinds of food. We weren't really prepared for the courses upon courses of slabs of raw fish that kept appearing, but we ate nonetheless - to the dismay of our stomachs. The director himself didn't eat very much at all, and left us with the conductor of his orchestra (who he'd also invited to dinner) as he went to meet his wife to sort our places.

This was another opportunity for us to discuss our options. We considered the woman from the kindyschool, and felt bad that we'd let her down. We decided to give her a call - just to keep our options open. After all, we'd not signed a contract with this new school and we were bound to nobody. As Lauren talked to her I kept the conductor occupied with discussion of double basses to stop him from spreading rumours that he might pick up from the disjointed telephone call.

After dinner we feigned sleepiness in order to get away from the Korean speaking posse that joined us. With beds and pretty bed linen, perhaps things were beginning to look up. However both our places were stone cold despite having the heating 'on', had rock solid pillows, and the poor insulation meant that the pneumatic drill outside was somewhat of a hindrance in getting to sleep.

Before going to bed we visited the PC방 next door, where we formulated our master plan...

As we discussed more about how we felt, it became obvious that on paper this job seemed fantastic: short hours, high pay, the opportunity of having high positions in the school, long holidays, the possibility of tutoring, close proximity to Everland. However, something in the way we'd been dealt with - working illegally without having signed a contract, poor communication, talk of beautiful living conditions when what we were presented with was sub-standard - made us realise that perhaps this wasn't the ideal job for us.

This led to agreeing to meet up with the kindy woman after school the next day, which led to feeling bad that we were stringing along two sets of people, which led to deciding to quit the job we weren't even supposed to have started, which finally led to planning to do a runner the next morning ^^

Here was the plan:

1. Take the taxi to the school, which the director was to phone for us.
2. Ask the taxi driver to wait at the school before taking us to the subway station back into Seoul.
3. Run into school, give a rushed explanation that Lauren was unhappy with the situation and that we were not going to work any longer.
4. Give them the keys.
5. Run!

Even better, when we got to school in the morning there was no one to be found. This gave us the excuse to - very professionally - scrawl a note to accompany the keys and run away. You could hear the echoes of "빨리 빨리!" (quickly quickly!) in our wake as we zoomed off into the distance. ^^

Totally exhilarated, we topped up our fuel levels with bagels and coffee before braving the two hour subway journey all the way back to our cosy spacious, well-lit apartments that we had come to appreciate so much more. Once a safe distance away from the school, we began to get the predicted phone calls asking where we were. We explained our situation, to get the equally predictable buttering up of "There is nothing that we cannot solve", and "I want to treat you like my daughters". We were not convinced.

Since we'd got home early, we phoned the kindy woman to see if we could meet her earlier. We met up with her straight away, but the adrenaline had gradually turned into extreme fatigue as we embarked on negotiations. Too tired, too stressed at the prospect of not having anywhere to live after December, too disheartened at the failure of our previous job, too concerned about jumping into another job we were dissatisfied with, talking about a new job was the last thing I felt like doing. I let Lauren do the talking.

Since the school has several weeks Christmas vacation, we won't start work until mid-January, giving us time to relax and take our minds off job-related business. We negotiated hours; since it is a kindergarten and not a professional institute classes will consist of games rather than formal learning; we are able to keep our apartments for as long as it takes for her to find us places closer to the school (it is currently a 5-10 minute bus ride away); and best of all, she has a condominium on Jeju Island where we were planning to go for a winter break and she's letting us use it. It may have seemed like a snap decision but we knew it was the right one all along. We know now not to be cajoled by money ^^

We left the meeting relieved and free to relax. We went straight for the 찜질방 (massage room) where we got our nails done, sweated in the sauna, had our feet tickled as the dead skin was nibbled at by fish (yes, you read that right), relaxed in the baths, and scrubbed each other until there was no more dead skin to be seen. After five hours we were well and truly refreshed, and after a bowl of chicken rice porridge we were relieved to retreat to our homes. And even though my bed was stripped and all my belongings are in boxes in the middle of the room, it had never felt cosier ^^

Today has been the first stress free day in what feels like an age. We really do feel like we've been to the end of the earth (moon, if you will) and back in the last few days, and it was refreshing to have nothing to do. We headed for Yongsan and did some Christmas shopping:

• It is our friend's baby's 1-year birthday party this weekend and we bought him a super cool bowling set made from cute beanbag toys. I want one. A baby. Or maybe I want Lauren to have a baby so I can just buy it cute things.
• We spent an hour in a huge bookshop choosing Korean learning books. I've been making an effort to learn some since I've been here, but life keeps getting in the way of studying time. Well now's my chance, lol.
• We went into copious numbers of stationery shops and overdosed on the cute stuff available to us.
• Inspired by "chicken + charcoal = good combination" we ate barbecued chicken for dinner, but were less than impressed at the gristle we experienced. It swings in roundabouts though as the waiters were less than impressed with the pile of change we gave them to pay for the meal. ^^

We've agreed to sort out our apartments (I need to clean off that mould and unpack again^^) and tick off the list of errands we each need to run in order to get our lives into order after all this chaos. Being very particular sorts of girls, neither one of us would feel settled until we've done this. We've given ourselves the deadline of Saturday evening when we will go to the baby birthday party, watch The Golden Compass at the army base on Sunday and become tourists for the next week until I fly home for Christmas.

A sound plan, if I do say so myself.

...and if you got to the bottom of this, then I'm very impressed with your dedication to my cause. Either that, or you've got to get yourself a hobby.^^