Korean Job Discussion Forums

[crazy tigger]

Hi all,

I've been brousing this site for sometime now and it has been a great source of information, apologies though if these questions have been covered elsewhere....

I'm loking at coming to Korea next year (probably Seoul or Busan but there are aready plenty of posts covering that debate) and was wondering when I should aim to arrive. From what I can gather March would be a good time as there are public school jobs going at this time however if I stay in the UK until mid April I get a bonus at work, would this be a bad time to arrive in Korea though?

I am also confused by the holiday situation as most jobs seem to advertise 10-14 days plus national holidays however many of you seem to be on a summer break. I was just wondering what national holidays are and whether the summer break is just for those of you teaching at Uni's?

I'm from the UK and remember reading somewhere that it is advisable to ship books, spare toiletries etc to Korea from home but I can't find this post again! Does anyone have any experience of this? Is it door to door or would I have to get the stuff from a port to my apartment? Any ideas of costs or companies to use?

And finally... I'm quite a social person and as I've never really had trouble making friends I don't know why this is bothering me, however how do you all meet people? Do you just tend to make friends with other teachers within your school and then develop a network from there? Or is it normal to go to bars on your own (as a female) and get chatting to other people?

Sorry about the long post although I am sure there may be more to come...

[RACETRAITOR]

All bosses I've had have always tried to stop me from taking holidays. In my first year here the only holiday I ever took was a couple days off in August at my boss' insistence.

Korea has a reputation for having a high number of public holidays, but if they fall on a weekend you don't get any days off. And for about the last year all the big ones have been falling on weekends.

[crazy tigger]

Oh well, looks like I'll just have to make the most of the weekends....