Preparing for it all -- December 29th 2007

For the last few months we (Jason Scull and Margaret Saari [who will be known as Jay and Gar from this point on]) have been planning our big move. We are headed to Daegu, South Korea to become English teachers at private schools. These schools are called Hakwons and Korean children attend them after their regular school day.
When we started the process of trying to find places of employment in Korea we thought that it would be fairly simple. We knew that we needed to find a recruiter to be the middleman in the process and we knew that they would do most of the work to actually find us a job. This was true. We spoke to many different recruiters. Some of them seemed as though they could be very helpful, while others just seemed to want to put us on a plane as soon as possible, send us to Korea and collect their money from our schools. By the time we had spoken to probably about ten to twelve recruiters we finally decided on one called Travel and Teach. It is run by Shane Bennett and that is who we have dealt with so far throughout the process. Shane himself taught in Korea for a number of years and then when he moved back to Canada he decided that he wanted to become a recruiter.
Shane was able to find us jobs at two schools in Daegu where we will be sharing an apartment. Although we signed our contracts that say we are to start on January 2nd, we have had some issues getting our visas due to the fact that all of the rules to get a work visa in Korea are changing right now and therefore there has been some confusion and we will not be starting on the 2nd. However, having said this, we should get word within the next couple of days that our visas are ready and as soon as they are, we will contact Shane, he will book tickets and we will be on a plane to Korea to start our adventure. This is why for the last couple of weeks we have been planning, changing bank accounts, buying toiletries and clothing, packing, and mentally preparing, so that we are ready to go when we get word!!! But before we go we want to say Cheers to all of our friends and family and we want you to know that while we are away we will think of you everyday!