Training in Seoul - February 27-29th
Anna, Matt and I were sent to Seoul for a three day training session at the YBM head office. Since March is the start of a new school year there were a lot of teachers at the session (I think 35 or so). The group was comprised of Americans, Canadians, Australians, British, New Zealanders and even two girls from Guam and Tasmania. It was interesting to see how the dynamics of the group were shaped by where people came from. The Australians and Americans were generally very loud, and slightly obnoxious, while we got along best with the British and New Zealander people.
The training instructor, Sam Lee is a Korean-American who was hilarious. He was really over the top and flamboyant in his presentation, and I thought he was so entertaining. He brought up some really good points about teaching children, and teaching styles to consider. We also had a 40 minute Korean lesson from one of the Korean ladies who works at the school. The point of the exercise was to make us appreciate what our kids must be going through when they have never heard English before. It was really fun, and she was so effective at communicating exactly what she wanted us to do, even though there was an obvious language barrier.
An interesting not on how we are going to be famous…
Since we were in Seoul for three days, we had lots of time to explore. The site of the orientation was in ‘Gang-nam’ which is the most metropolitan area in Seoul. Everyone is walking around looking like they are straight off the runway. Suddenly our slightly tattered jeans and MEC jackets don’t look so fashionable. Can you imagine the look on the ladies faces when we walked into shops like Prada or Gucci? Anyways, they have some really cool clothes and fashion here.
One of our top priorities while being in Seoul was to find a climbing gym. We searched the internet and found one that was relatively close to us. Since the subway system is very developed in Seoul, we’ve had such an easy time getting around, and we got to the gym with relative ease. The gym was in the basement of an office building. It was really small compared to Vic’s (probably the size of the top rope room), but it was so much fun. The ceiling is quite low, so they only boulder, but there are climbing holds on the ceiling, so you can climb all over the place. When we first got to the gym there was maybe 10-12 Korean men (and a few women) sitting around, stretching, and all staring at us, smiling. In the corner of the room, there was a camera man and reporter interviewing the owner of the gym. At first I didn’t think much of this as we began to warm up, but the reporter started interviewing and taping people climbing, and we found out (through some broken English and Sherades). They were shooting some kind of commercial or promotional video for the gym! They ended up interviewing Matt and taping me climbing on the wall. As I was climbing the camera guy would come right in our faces and say (in broken English), ‘How is you liking the Sports Climbing?’. Matt and I spent most of the time laughing and trying to avoid the camera man. They also had us join this big team huddle that cheered out things in Korean (while the camera man recorded). Matt even had a solo where he had to yell out ‘climbing’ and then we’d yell something in Korean!!! I met a lady at the gym that had very good English. I’ve stayed in contact with, and hopefully we’ll meet her throughout the year to go climbing together.
Anna, Matt and I were sent to Seoul for a three day training session at the YBM head office. Since March is the start of a new school year there were a lot of teachers at the session (I think 35 or so). The group was comprised of Americans, Canadians, Australians, British, New Zealanders and even two girls from Guam and Tasmania. It was interesting to see how the dynamics of the group were shaped by where people came from. The Australians and Americans were generally very loud, and slightly obnoxious, while we got along best with the British and New Zealander people.
The training instructor, Sam Lee is a Korean-American who was hilarious. He was really over the top and flamboyant in his presentation, and I thought he was so entertaining. He brought up some really good points about teaching children, and teaching styles to consider. We also had a 40 minute Korean lesson from one of the Korean ladies who works at the school. The point of the exercise was to make us appreciate what our kids must be going through when they have never heard English before. It was really fun, and she was so effective at communicating exactly what she wanted us to do, even though there was an obvious language barrier.
An interesting not on how we are going to be famous…
Since we were in Seoul for three days, we had lots of time to explore. The site of the orientation was in ‘Gang-nam’ which is the most metropolitan area in Seoul. Everyone is walking around looking like they are straight off the runway. Suddenly our slightly tattered jeans and MEC jackets don’t look so fashionable. Can you imagine the look on the ladies faces when we walked into shops like Prada or Gucci? Anyways, they have some really cool clothes and fashion here.
One of our top priorities while being in Seoul was to find a climbing gym. We searched the internet and found one that was relatively close to us. Since the subway system is very developed in Seoul, we’ve had such an easy time getting around, and we got to the gym with relative ease. The gym was in the basement of an office building. It was really small compared to Vic’s (probably the size of the top rope room), but it was so much fun. The ceiling is quite low, so they only boulder, but there are climbing holds on the ceiling, so you can climb all over the place. When we first got to the gym there was maybe 10-12 Korean men (and a few women) sitting around, stretching, and all staring at us, smiling. In the corner of the room, there was a camera man and reporter interviewing the owner of the gym. At first I didn’t think much of this as we began to warm up, but the reporter started interviewing and taping people climbing, and we found out (through some broken English and Sherades). They were shooting some kind of commercial or promotional video for the gym! They ended up interviewing Matt and taping me climbing on the wall. As I was climbing the camera guy would come right in our faces and say (in broken English), ‘How is you liking the Sports Climbing?’. Matt and I spent most of the time laughing and trying to avoid the camera man. They also had us join this big team huddle that cheered out things in Korean (while the camera man recorded). Matt even had a solo where he had to yell out ‘climbing’ and then we’d yell something in Korean!!! I met a lady at the gym that had very good English. I’ve stayed in contact with, and hopefully we’ll meet her throughout the year to go climbing together.
1 comment:
OK I just found the blog again, it took some time since I lost the link. I'm sure that video is on the internet somewhere so I'll spend the next week looking for "Ulsan Promotional Climbing Video!!"
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