Osaka-bound

So, in a little over seven hours I will be in Japan. Why you ask? Well, let's see...

We've obviously been in the process of looking for new jobs. One of our first opportunities was with a hagweon here in Gumi. We've been talking to the wonderful people at Dalstate Consulting, a recruiting company based in Toronto. Dalstate was one of the recruiting agencies we were dealing with before we came to Korea. We were being screwed around by one recruiting company, Access 1 Korea (Mr. Joseph Pack). Joseph is the guy who got us the jobs with Jane. We didn't want to go with him (long story) and Lori, from Dal State, was trying to hook us up with jobs in Daegu. Despite her valiant efforts we were forced (literally) to go with Joseph and the job at Jane's school. The rest is obviously history. So we turned to a recruiter we actually trusted and asked Lori to help us find new jobs, preferably in Gumi. Sunny, Dalstate's Korean contact, found a position for Barb at Boston Campus. On June 4 Barb went for an interview at Boston (I went with her as well). We found out that Boston, coincidentally, was the place my friend Joe works at, and he had previously recommended the place to us. The school looked great. They teach mostly younger children (including kindergarten) but it was incredibly professional. Jane's school was independent and looked like a run-down hole-in-the-wall. This school was a franchise, and actually looked like both a business and a school.

The interview went really well. The supervisor (the Director doesn't really speak English) seemed great, and seemed like she was interested in Barb. We went to see the apartment. It was a small little studio apartment - smaller than ours in Doryang - but was very new and cozy, unlike our slum. The school was even willing to hire Barb for a 6-month contract, meaning that she'd get to go home at the same time we had originally intended. Following the interview Sunny contacted Barb to let her know that Boston did indeed want to hire her. The offer was great. It would mean we'd have income right away, a place to stay, and we'd get to help Dalstate. The only catch - still no job for me. We had to think about it.

On June 5 we started moving things out of our apartment. Jane had told us she wanted us out by June 6. We told her to screw off, and it's my guess that the police told her it was a labour issue (like they said about our degrees, useless idiots). I had no intention of giving up the apartment if she wasn't going to give us our money or our degrees. I don't know the law exactly, but I'm sure you get a month or at least 15 days after being terminated to stay in your accommodation. But, on the off chance that the police did show up and evict us, or Jane came and changed the locks, we wanted to be safe. Ryan and Pascal, our friends, said we could stay at their place. They have an extra room because Rob isn't coming until June 15. So we began moving all our stuff into Ryan's place.

On June 5 we also had an interview for a job at Global Academy in Gumi. We found this job through ESL Busan. This job was very interesting. It's teaching adults, both in the school, and on-site at companies. Interestingly they do a lot of their work at the LG Learning Center and other LG branches! So we'd not only still be working in Gumi, teaching adults, but we'd essentially we working at LG again, and in better positions (the Learning Center does intensive English courses). What better way to be a thorn in Jane and Jo's sides? The interview went well, and they wanted us to come back for another interview on Monday with the (Canadian) head teacher and the Director. Our recruiter did tell us that the previous teachers left because of some complaints they had, one of those being a crappy apartment. We didn't want to get stuck with a crappy apartment. It seemed like an interesting job though, and there were two positions.

We had moved all our belongings out of the apartment by the June 6 "deadline" but it passed without incident. June 6 was also Barb's birthday. What a wonderful way to celebrate your birthday - unemployed and embroiled in a labour dispute in a foreign country. We celebrated by staying home (i.e. Ryan's home) and watching movies.

On June 7 we went to Seoul. There were several reasons for going to Seoul. We were having Barb's official birthday celebrations there. We also had an interview with Kang's Language School (pronounced kahng's), an interesting job that we hooked up with through Smiling Korea recruiting agency. It would involve teaching both adults and children at a hagweon. Now the salary for this job was only 1.7 million Won per month. Our previous jobs were 1.9M, while most new jobs are advertised at 2.0M. There is possible overtime for 250 000 Won per lass per month. Here's the interesting part, though - only one class on Fridays. Which means we'd essentially have a four-day work week. Not too bad. That leaves loads of free time for leisure activities, or, if we want, we could try to pick up private classes for extra money. There was another interesting part of the job - it was in central Seoul. Not a "suburb" of Seoul (which is recruiter language for a town 50km outside the city), but actually in central Seoul. This can be seen as a positive or a negative. We'd be moving from quaint little Gumi, population 300 000, to the downtown area of one of the world's largest cities. Talk about a change.

Getting to the interview at Kang's was a bit of an adventure. We were told we had to go to Incheon (een-chun), where the Director of another branch (Kang's is a franchise) would meet us. We would then be taken to the central Seoul branch. Incheon is a city grafted onto Seoul, where the airport is (sort of like Missisauga). It's accessible by subway, but it is a separate city from Seoul. We thought that perhaps we were being bamboozled. We were drawn in by the lure of Seoul but instead were interviewing for a job out in Incheon (to be fair Incheon is a nice city, and I've heard good things about it from teachers). It turns out there was no bamboozlement however. The Director of the central Seoul branch had to be in Incheon that day for business. He also has very poor English, but the young couple that runs the Incheon branch has excellent English, so he wanted them to help with the interview. The Incheon school was very nice and very professional looking. It was also pretty large, similar to Boston or Global. It sounded very professional, they have many Korean teachers and they develop their own teaching material and textbooks (as opposed to Jane who does not use material or textbooks). It seemed like a friendly family-type atmosphere. They explained to us that classes are Monday-Thursday and there is a one-hour activity on Fridays, usually with the kids or teenagers. Now here's the great part: The school is semestered and the semesters are two months. Between every semester we get a one-week paid holiday! You have to beg for time off at most hagweons and this one has week-long breaks and one class on Fridays. Also the Christmas break is longer, meaning we could go home for Christmas still! They did say that they like teachers to stay for more than a year, so a six month contract was out of the question (we didn't bring it up).

After our interview the Director drove us to the central Seoul location, where we would be working, to see the school. It was almost identical to the Incheon school (the director apparently used to be a contractor so he helped design and build the schools). We met the Director's father, who founded Kang's, also. Now there is an important thing to note about Kang's. Barb had a suspicion that they were a Christian school, run by the Seventh Day Adventists. She had interviewed for an Adventist school before we came to Korea and thought she recognized the name. The people we interviewed with did have that slightly-creepy, but friendly aura that many religious people have (no offense). Some scanning through literature at the school confirmed that yes, they were at least associated with the Adventists (many of the schools in the US and Australia they do exchanges with are Adventists). This set off some warning bells, but there was nothing overtly Christian at the school. No crosses, Jesus textbooks, etc. There was some sort of prayer on one wall in a classroom, but that's it. They also didn't ask us our religion in the interview, and they made no mention of my Buddhist prayer beads. I'm assuming if they wanted someone who was Christian they would have asked. After we finished at the school we told them we'd get back to them. We told them we had to be out of Ryan's by June 20th. The Director said he would find a new apartment by then, because the current one was too far from the school.


Barb's birthday in Seoul. The Crown Royal Pub.

Following our interview we met up with a bunch of friends in Seoul. Ryan and his girlfriend Stella (from Daejeon, originally of Winsor) met up with us and we went for dinner at TGI Friday's. Yes, that's right, in the center of Seoul we went for cheesy Western franchise food. Now Barb despises franchise restaurants, but when you've been away from home for a while, you even miss things like that. So we scarfed down our "Western" food. We were later met by Brad, our (Australian) friend who used to live in Gumi but is now in Daejeon. Brad's (Korean) girlfriend Jenny, who lives in Seoul, joined us also.

We looked around for a while and then saw a beautiful sight - the Crown Royal Pub. Now this was no officially sponsored pub, copyright laws mean nothing in Korea. Why was the sight so beautiful? Crown Royal is very hard to come by in Korea. You can find it at the black markets, and Barb and I bought Ryan some at E-Mart for his birthday, but it's fairly rare and pricey. Though we drink mainly cheap beer in Korea (it's like being in university) Ryan and I are both rye drinkers, and Crown Royal is our whiskey of choice. We had to visit the Crown Royal pub. So we went in and I ordered a CR and coke. You can see us in the photo above; from left to right are Jenny, Brad, Barb, Me, Stella, and Ryan.

After the Crown Royal we went to Tinpan, another pub. At Tinpan we met up with our old Gumi friends, Taryn and Mike. Mike is from the U of C and Taryn used to be Ryan's roommate. They now live in Ilsan (outside Seoul) and a bunch of their Ilsan friends were there too. We hung out at Tinpan for a while and then we went to The Pink n' Gene, a drum & bass club in Hongdae. Hongdae is the trendy, artsy university-kids area of Seoul. It's where most of the clubs are. We danced there until our ears couldn't take the noise anymore. Ryan left early, but he's not a club kind of guy. We went back to Tinpan for the rest of the night until we retired at our yeogwan.

On Sunday Ryan and Stella went back to Gumi. Barb and I went to Insa-dong. It was our first time there; Insa-dong is a very cool neighbourhood in Seoul. On Sundays the cobblestone street is closed to traffic. Insa-dong is one of the more ancient areas in Seoul. It has many Buddhist shops and galleries, tea houses, calligraphy supply stores, etc. It's a very calm, peaceful atmosphere. There was an annual rice wine festival going on, so there were many drunk old men wandering around (too much "sampling"). Insa-dong is right next to Jogyesa temple. The Jogye Order is the main Buddhist order in Korea, and they practice seon Buddhism (pronounced sun; zen in Japanese and chan in Chinese). Jogye temple is the main temple and is in the heart of Seoul. It wasn't all that peaceful, as there is some construction going on, but there was a friendly English guide.

After visiting the temple we went to Itaewon (ee-tay-wun). Itaewon is the "foreigner area" in Seoul. It has many ethnic restaurants, a Muslim mosque, and many Americans. It is near a US base, and therefore there are many GI's. It's also the more seedy area of Seoul (seedy by Korean standards). Barb wanted to have Indian food for her birthday, and Itaewon is the place to find it. We found a surprisingly cheap yeogwan in the heart of Itaewon for only 25000 Won. We then headed out to an Indian restaurant (we unfortunately couldn't find the one we had intended on going to). The buffet was good, but not as good as the Indian/Pakistani restaurant we had been to our last time in Itaewon. We accidentally bumped into our friends Tracy, Sadia, and Belinda from Gumi there. Belinda works at Boston and Barb would replace her if she took the job there. Belinda spoke highly of it. After dinner we hit various clubs and pubs until bedtime.

On Monday (June 9) we went to the Canadian Embassy. We had two reasons for going to the embassy. First of all we wanted to register as Canadians in Korea - in case there were any further problems with the Korean Gestapo. We also wanted to see if the embassy could provide us with any help in our labour dispute (although we had no high hopes of this). We registered at the embassy and after a while met with "Mrs. Kim". Mrs. Kim gave us the usual spiel about going to the labour board, but she also said she would call Jane herself. She thought maybe a call from the Canadian Embassy would show that we meant business. We were hoping she could at least help us get our degrees back. Barb told Mrs. Kim that we had evacuated the apartment and that we would give the key up when we got our stuff. After our meeting at the embassy we headed for the train station. We passed a guy selling bootleg DVDs of The Matrix Reloaded on the street and I bought one (I know, I shouldn't do that).

Once we got back to Gumi we had to go to Global for our second interview. Let me tell you, that was an interesting affair. We talked with Brandon, the Canadian Head Teacher for a while and then the head (Director, President, i don't know) of Global arrived. He sad he had "heard of" us and our troubles with Jane. "Oh boy, we're fucked," I thought. He asked for our side of the story and we gave it. The whole thing, complete and honest. Surprisingly, he didn't think it was a big deal. He said he thought it was a small issue, and he was willing to go to bat for us at immigration. That was a relief. Maybe he knows Jane and knows what a freak she is. Who knows?

Sunny had told us that Boston wanted to know Barb's answer by Monday. So Monday was decision day. We had 2.5 jobs to chose from: 1) A job for Barb at Boston. This would be immediate and we could move in right away. It was only a job for one of us though; 2) Global. This would be a very easy job to transition to, as it's in Gumi and the same kind of work we're used to. We know we would like the work. There was the possibility that Jane could mess with the process though, because she's that much of a bitch; 3) Kang's school. This would involve a nice setup with all the time off, but we'd need some OT to make more money. It would mean uprooting from Gumi. Despite our complaints about Gumi, we have a great support network here. Seoul could be good or bad.

After a lot of soul searching (didn't we have to do that to get here in the first place?) we made our decision. We decided we couldn't take the risk of how long it would take me to get a job if Barb went to Boston. So we ruled out Boston, despite the fact that it was with Dalstate and was a great school. We weighed the remaining two and decided to venture into the unknown. We chose Kang's School. There were many factors involved in our decision, the amount of time-off obviously being a big one. In the end there was one big determiner, though. We came to Korea for new experiences. To get out of Canada and experience the world. We asked ourselves, "will we experience anything new in Gumi?" I mean, we have tonnes of friends, and we will make many more, but we didn't come to Korea to make Western friends. We'll still have our Gumi friends. We have a great routine here, but we didn't come for a routine. If we go to Seoul we'll have new experiences. I mean, we'll be living in the heart of one of the world's hugest cities. There are like 20 million people in Seoul. The city might eat away at us, but it's an experience I think we need to have. How can we pass it up? So far, I think we made the right decision.

On June 10 Barb told Sunny about our decision. She was a little upset, but she obviously understood. We informed Kang's School as well. So anyway, you're probably wondering what any of this has to do with Japan. Well, you can't get work visas, or change work visas, from within Korea. When we originally came we got our visas from Toronto. So, in order to get new work visas we have to leave the country - i.e., go to Japan. Now here's another catch. Because Jane would not give us release letters, there was a bit of a situation. You need a release letter from your previous employer to transfer your visa to another employer. There is a solution however. You leave the country and whilst doing so cancel your work visa (this is why we are off to Japan). You then re-enter Korea as a tourist (Canadians can stay in Korea for up to six months as a tourist). We then get our papers together, leave again and apply for a new work visa at a Korean embassy in Japan. So this is what we must do. It sucks because Jane is effectively costing Kang's School a flight to Japan because she's being a troll. It's nice in that we get to go to Japan twice, though. So, here we are. Off to Osaka. We're going to stay with Barb's cousin Deb who's an English teacher there. What will we do in Japan? Who knows, maybe go to Kyoto.

I also went to LG on June 10 to talk to the Purchasing guys about our class. I didn't say anything to them about making a decision yet - I didn't want to count my chickens before they hatched. They said they still wanted to schedule a class with me, but that they wanted to wait until the Japan stuff was out of the way.

On June 11 Barb received a call from Jully, one of the Korean teachers at Jane's school. She said that a new teacher was coming that night and Jane wanted the apartment for the next day. Barb told her, obviously, that we weren't giving the key up until we at least had our degrees back. Jully asked us to come to the Hagweon, to which we bluntly refused. We had the police called on us last time we went, we're not going there. If Jane wanted us there she should have thought of it last time. Jane called us later in the day to repeat the story. We told her we were not coming to the hagweon and we were not giving her anything until we got our stuff. Jane said something like "we're not Canadians" and hung up - what a cow. We went to the apartment to clean up and await Jane if she did actually bring our things. At 8:30 a secretary from the school (a new one whom we had not met before) showed up. Way to get your secretary to do your dirty work. The secretary brought our degrees and we exchanged the key for them. We got our degrees back! I didn't want to give up the key for just that. I think we should have refused to give it to her until she paid us, but Barb disagreed. It was a small victory, though, and we got back the things that count.

Yesterday we had a private lesson with one of Jjuni's students. It was fun and we were able to make a little bit of money. Well, that's the looong update until now.