How to get a dog into Korea...

Well, I'd like to help others who are thinking of bringing a dog with them to Korea. So this is how it went for me.

1. Decide to bring your dog with you nowing it will effect what you can do while here, e.g. trying to get home at a decent hour.

2. Tell directors during interviews that you are bringing a dog so they can find out whether or not the accomodation accepts pets.

3. After getting approval from the director you don't need to worry about anything until 10 days before the flight (this assumes your pet it UTD with all its shots.) Now, the rabies vaccination should be less than a year and more than 30 days old to avoid quarantine. Luna's was in June, so no worries for me.

4. As soon as you get your flight information, you need to call the airlines to tell them about your pet. You may need to have the weight and dimensions of your crate with the animal within ready to give. I needed that with Korean Air, American Airlines didn't require notification, but Korean Airlines needed approval from the first leg of the journey before they would approve the second. Makes sense I suppose.

5. Less than 10 days before your flight leaves, you need to pick up a health certificate from your vet and make sure you have a rabies certificate. I found out about my flight less than 5 days before and spent 2 of those days in Houston with my sis seeing my nephew. No where does it seem to define the type of health certificate you need and I never did get a response from the Office of Agriculture in the Korean Embassy in D.C. My vet issued a standard 'Inter-State' health certificate and that was fine. I was a little worries since it wasn't international, but no one even blinked an eye.

6. You should probably have started gettin your pet used to a crate at least a month earlier, but the days of the flight I left Luna out of her crate until we got into DFW. I also stuck several days of food and 2 plastic bowls to the top and wrote 'Live Animal' in big letters on all the sides and a few arrows pointing up as well. I also put a bath robe inside. The first leg of my flight was with American Airlines and they were kind enough to send a really big luggage cart out to me with someone to push it who was very nice. I went to the counter with Luna in the crate and it took about 10 minutes to check in and get a seat because there were some computer issues. After I checked in, I and the wonderful helper took Luna over to oversized baggage and I dropped her off. Thankfully, she didn't bark or whine or I would have felt bad the whole way.

7. Now since American Airlines and Korean Air are different companies, I needed to transfer Luna. They transfered my other luggage so I just worried about her. I only had a 2 hour layover in LAX and my AA flight arrived an hour late due to fuel problems so needless to say I was nervous. They wheeled Luna to me in the normal baggage area and I had to transfer her to one of those $3 cart rentals with some helpl from a security guard. Then I rushed over a couple of terminals to the International Departures terminal and there was actually an agent available right off the bat. Now, she was a trainee, but I don't think that's why checkin lasted an hour (yes I checked-in around the time the flight was supposed to leave.) They'd overbooked by 7 people and asked me several times if I would wait until the next flight. I told them no because I didn't have any way to contact my recruiter and didn't want to leave Luna in a crate for 12 more hours and had no idea what I would do at LAX until mmidnight either. Anyway, Korean Air got me onto the flight and even upgraded me to business class (awesome for a 13 hour flight, seriously). I asked about Luna as soon as I got on the plane to make sure she was on the plane. I did that with AA too and both times the attendants came back 5 minutes later to say yes.

8. So I landed and went through immigration like everyone else. I didn't stop at the Seoul Incheon airport quarantine desk you walk through before you get to immigration. I went to the lost luggage counter to ask about Luna and was told I could get her after I got the rest of my luggage which did eventually come out.

9. After getting Luna, I went to the animal quarentine office which is right there by the baggage wheely thingies. There I showed her health certificate and rabies vaccination proof and filled out a brief form and then I went through the customs by you know, walking, and existed into the rest of the airport (which is very futuristic looking). Korean air actually had a nice gentleman bring Luna out and stayed with me through the quarantine procedure and customs. After I emerged, I meant my recruiter Sunny who thankfully brought her husband and car to help me get everything, including Luna's bulky crate, to the apartment.

So this was the process. :)

Hello, ya'll

I'm Sallie and preparing to go to the Bundang area outside of Seoul to teach English for a year at the PSA YSA(I think that's right and will update later) I should get into Seoul around February 25, 29008.

Now why have I created this blog?
Because I want to share my experiences. I have a feeling that in 10 years I'm going to laugh about this and I want to be able to remember the little details of this experience and have never been very good about writing in print journals, but do much better with blogging.

So what's happened so far?
I'm currently a librarian at a junior college and got the last week of December off(with pay :)). This allowed me to do a lot of thinking. You see, I finish my Masters in Library and Information Science in the first week of February and have to give a talk at church on the 10th of February. All this thinking has led me to conclude that the best option for me right now is to go to Korea to teach English for a year. I've wanted to do this since I graduated with my Bachelor of Arts in English in 2004, but hesitated and decided to go to Worland, WY with Americorps VISTA isntead. I'd also considered going to Ireland to get a Masters in Archival Science, and I thought about going back to AFRC and living in Germany for a year and doing the whole housekeeper thing again.

Well, AFRC was good when I was 20, but I'm 26 now and needed a job that looked a little better on a resume then housekeeping. This means I decided teaching would sound good. So this was my mindset, boredom and the certainty that I can't stay where I'm at forever. I make $12,000 less now than I will when I get my degree. I think they are expecting me to quit now that I'm so close to finishing my degree, and have been telling me how happy they are I'm here and how much they look forward to me staying, but I can't stay for what they will pay. I need to pay off my loans, afford to live on my own, and put something into retirement.

So teaching English will be my break job before I look for a longer term job in libraries. Then I decided to pray about it to see if this is really what I need to do. So I got down on my hands and knees and prayed and felt nothing really at first, so I kept at it for several days and began to feel the spirit more and I'm now at peace with my decision. I know this is the right thing for me right now. Yay. :)

Beginning the Process

Well, the first thing I did was look at blogs. Now, I researched this pretty extensively back in 2004 and have recieved regular emails from Dave's ESL Cafe of jobs since then so I started with looking for more first hand info. After viewing some blogs, I went to the cafe and looked at the forums. While looking at the blogs, I also heard of Worknplay Global. they really do have a lot of job, but you do have to register before you see details of the jobs. Looking at all the jobs gave me an idea of what is normal for a beginning teacher right now. That is single furninshed accomadation and 2.1-2.1 Mil and less than 8 hours a day of work. With this in mind I started wondering where I would like to work.

Korea is so big, where should I go?
This is what I spent a lot of time thinking about. Although I never seriously considered any place outside of Seoul or Busan. Since I've never lived in a big city, I've gravitated toward Seoul to give me the big vity experience. I also want Seoul because the only LDS English speaking non-military ward is in Seoul, the Seodaemon region specifically. I wouldn't mind going to a military ward(totally single btw ;)) but since there is an English speaking ward, I may as well go there, and the military ward in Seoul should be disbanding soon since they are moving out of Seoul and giving the base to the Koreans.

I keep hearing about the pollution in Seoul as well and that gets me thinking of breathing it in everyday, so I started looking at more of the suburbs. This is also since I'm bringing my dog. I heard on the Facebook group that Bundang is a good region and searched the forums at eslcafe.com and they agreed. Bundang is a rich suburb with parks. Exactly what I'm looking for. This leads me to consider the dog issue.

Should I bring my dog?

Doesn't look too happy in this pic with my sister, does she?

This issue has bothered me a lot and asked about it at forums and Yahoo answers. I love my dog and worry about her when I've had to leave her with others and cannot imagine leaving her behind. :( I've heard both good and bad things about bringing dogs to Korea. It should be really easy with some prep work to being her here and back to the US without a quarantine. Although, I'm sure she will not be happy about the plane ride or the studio apartment.

So, I've heard about the eating dogs thing and the lost dog thing, meaning that most lost dogs stay lost. I will have to be really careful of Luna so this doesn't happen and introduce crating to her. She's never been crated before and I worry whether she will ever like it. I've bought a classic kennel from Petco for $70 bucks and have been feeding her meals in it. I think I'll just giver her the food for 3 weeks in the crate before even trying to close it. She really does not like the crate, but she does like peanut butter and so I've smeared it on the crate to get her tempted by it and it works. Before the peanut butter, she would not eat from the crate. I suppose if I'd waited a few days, she would have, but peanut butter worked and now she will certainly eat from it.

I also need to work on her training. She needs to learn heel and come before we enter a foreign country.

So now I knew where to look, but what about finding a job?
After I decided where I wanted to look for a job, I posted a resume at Worknplay and the eslcafe and was innundated with recruiters. I know some people will tell you not to go through a recruiter, but there were very few schools who post jobs. So I interviewed for 3 jobs, only one was in Bundang and the others were in Gangnam. Many people will also tell you to interview a lot, but the job in Bundang was exactly what I was looking for. I spoke with the director for 1 hour and she explained their discipline policies, how the classes work, vacation and leave, accomodation. She also emailed me the contact information for a couple of teachers there and I'm exchanged several emails with them and they seem really nice.

Where will I work?
I've considered for a day(I know not long, but I usually make snap decisions that may be wonderful or horrid(re: my first apartment)) and decided to accept the position in Bundang at a Hagwon(private school). It's a PSA YSA I think, maybe the acronyms are a bit different, or not. I've seen pictures of the school and the surrounding area. The director gave me the optioni of living further from campus, or living in a new apartment closer, but for the new apartment, they would deduct 50,000 won from my salary. I think I will tell them to get me the closer apartment because it will seriously save me on time and effort in a very foreign country.

The Visa Process
Those who have been reseraching this know that there are some new regs concerning the E-2 visa. I guess this is just a few more hoops to jump through. Okay, so yesterday I went to IBT solutions to get a criminal background check. It costs $25 and this is who does the official background checks for the state of Texas. It shouldn't take more than a week for that. I also need to have a medical checkup and that's scheduled for next week. The only problem with getting the visa for me is that I cannot find my diploma and had to send out for it. I need to get it in the next couple of weeks I think for the visa process. Bummer.

Anyway, I'll write more tomorrow about the process so far.