NOA Package

Gianni received his Notice of Appointment package in the mail from EPIK/Korvia on Friday, which is excellent. In the Notice of Appointment package:

- application for visa, partially filled out by Korvia for him

- information with regards to getting a visa from the Korean consulate closest to us

- the actual Notice of Appointment, which looks like a certificate and basically says that he has been accepted into EPIK and will be teaching in Daegu

- a preliminary teaching contract, which also needs to go to the consulate as part of the visa application. You get a final contract when you arrive that you get to keep. The contract is very comprehensive, and it's written in both Korean and English. Everything was spelled out very clearly for us regarding benefits, health insurance, vacation time, etc. It makes me confident in our decision to go the government route in getting teaching placement. Another thing to note: because it is the preliminary contract, your pay scale might not be accurate. This is fine! They may have printed the contract prior to receiving your final documents, as in Gianni's case. The pay scale will change on the final contract when you get to Korea, once they have had time to process the new documents you sent in.

I haven't received my package yet, but we both received tracking numbers, so I know mine is on the way.

Today, Gianni went to the consulate to apply for the visa. We're lucky because we live right near the consulate in Boston, which is not a very busy consulate. Sometimes visas can take up to three weeks to get, depending on the consulate and how busy it is. The only things he had to bring were his NOA, his contract, his application, 2 passport photos, his passport, and the application fee ($45). But, as my recruiter mentioned to us, please make sure to call the consulate you will be going to first because some require you to bring in more documents in order to get the visa. The woman at the consulate told him to come back at the end of the day on Wednesday to get pick up his passport, so it will only take 2 days! Very speedy consulate over here in Boston!

We also went to AAA today to get our international drivers' permits. The process took about 15 minutes, and we left AAA with the actual document. We went in, filled out forms with our driver's license numbers, gave them 2 passport photos (or they will take them for you for a fee, but pretty cheap if you're already a member), and paid $15 on a credit card each. The documents is the size of a passport with multiple pages and your picture on it. It's translated into almost 10 languages. Apparently, it's becoming more and more common for rental car companies to ask to see an international drivers' license in other countries. It's also just another form of ID for us, so I thought it was a good thing to get, and for $15 I'd just as rather get it.

Along with the package, we were also informed that we are supposed to arrive in South Korea on August 19th. Korvia will be providing us with free cell phones when we get to the airport. In addition, as long as we arrive before 7pm that day, EPIK has shuttles that will take us to our orientation site free of charge. There were 2 orientation groups depending on your placement location. Because we are going to Daegu, Gianni and I are in group 2, doing orientation at Jeonju University.

One thing I didn't realize during the application process is that we won't actually know our specific placement until orientation. As of right now, we are still in the dark about what schools we're going to be teaching at, how old our students are, and where we will be living within Daegu. It won't get much more specific until orientation, which is kind of a bummer if you're someone like me who wants to plan everything out beforehand. Oh well!

I'll be buying plane tickets today. The contract mentions at 1,300,000 win stipend for travel and settling in to Korea. That's about $1,160, so that's how much we have to spend on flights. I actually had a lot of difficulty finding an affordable flight that didn't take 34 hours to arrive in Korea, so make sure before you book a flight that you're set to arrive on the correct day! I did manage to find one flight that is an easy 17 hours long total, including 1 layover, so that's the flight I'm going with.

 Still waiting for:
- Abbi's NOA package (should have that tomorrow)
- both Visa's (should have those by the end of the week)
- Gianni's original TEFL certificate in the mail (should be on the way through I-to-I TEFL)
- both residency certificates (which have supposedly been printed and are on the way to us)