The far, far east.....

As most of you reading this will know, Lynne and I are desperately trying to get ESL teaching positions in South Korea. I thought it would definately be a good idea to keep a Blog to document all the madness that is bound to ensue. I was away to write just a little about some of the positions we were applying for, when an American teacher from one of the schools phoned. The job in question is actually on an island south of the Korean peninsula, a sub-tropical island called Jeju-do, which is basically one big volcano! If going to South Korea wasn't isolating ourselves enough, choosing this island would take it even further. It would at least be in the biggest city on the island, Jeju City (pop. 250,000), so there will still be some form of nightlife....I hope! But living on "the Hawaii of South Korea" for a year surely wouldn't be bad, with over 12 beaches at our disposal, tropical temperatures, and numerous attractions, not to mention the assortment of outdoors pursuits such as scuba-diving, windsurfing and hiking up Halla-san (the volcano). There would be very few foreigners apparently, and it might be a challenge, but that's half of what this is all about. I think we are 90% certain, and if agreed, we would have to fly out in as soon as 2 weeks!!! Crikey! I should point out that choosing these jobs is a minefield of deceit and lies, and after doing a lot of research we knew how to approach it and hopefully not get screwed as many have in the past. We contacted altogether around 40 recruiters and schools and spent the last couple of weeks knocking back offers where either the contract sucked, or I had dug up a lot of negativity about the school! Any job we did like the look of we demanded to also speak to current foreign teachers to get the real dirt. I tell you how careful we've been, because in the end we are close to signing with this school that belongs to the notorious Wonderland franchise. The reason for this is, while the franchise has a terible reputation, it is never applicable to every school, and this American teacher seems very genuine about the position (his old one) and that the school's director is a very nice, reasonable guy. Added to that, the contract is normal, and the location of course is very attractive. Sooooooo, if it all goes tits up, then we were extremely unlucky. But you gotta take some risks in life. Well I'm off to think about what may need done before we leave. Even though this is a boring first Blog post, I am sure it will be a fun-filled, action-packed extravaganza full of the eating of various raw meats, dog soup, temples, mountains, and most of all those crazy Koreans and the things they say and do!I'll update regularly with lots of pictures so kep on checking!