We have been in Jeju for about 5 weeks at this point. We finished our third week of school with Meet the Teacher Day – the school’s version of Back to School night. The previous two weeks were a whirlwind of meetings, training, laminating, decorating, unpacking, repacking, breaking, nailing, getting a little lost, being a little tired, and trying to move along and make our new home and workplace ours.
Now that we are both working full time our mechanics are a little different and we are still adjusting our morning routine. We do eat breakfast together and listen to the news, and then walk to school together (we live across the street from campus). The weather was pretty hot the first month we were here, so walking to school was a bit hard – and sweaty. This past week the weather has begun to turn and it’s more overcast, a bit less humid and quite windy, which helps a lot. We are hoping fall is slowing making its way in so we can start hiking and seeing more of the island.
In all honesty, we haven’t taken a whole lot of pictures or explored a lot, but so far, what we’ve seen of the island is quite pretty. A lot of it is undeveloped, so there is plenty of green and natural landscape. There are also quirky museums – when we go, we will go into more detail on those – but a Google search can probably show you quite a bit.
Our school is much larger than our campus in Shanghai – it’s also spread out quite a bit so getting anywhere on campus is at least a 5 minute walk. If you’re trying to herd first and second graders back from afternoon recess, it might be a 15 minute process. It is, however, an impressive campus.
Jeju is quite different from Shanghai, and we’ve only been here a little while, but very positive impressions from this first month. Also, we have a car, which apparently makes all the difference in the world when it comes to actually doing things and going outside.
We got our car yesterday so there are no pictures of that yet, but soon…
For the time being, here are some pictures of around the island, school, and our apartment. (We are on a 4th floor, have a serious closet space problem, and lots of multifunction appliances. I’ll do a future post on that).
To those of you that follow me on Instagram (@analinmcgregor), sorry for the repeats.
With love and beautiful nature,
Ana