check out this posting, they are offering 700,000 for housing allowance in BUndang, so I am sure Seoul should be much more then 2-300,000!

I am actually going to visit family as one primary goal. My wife s father is very ill and I will be periodically visiting them. My wife will come for a visit herself but she cannot stay for a long time.

Thanks for the advice.

I'll have to check on the F visas. This wasn't an option last time and I haven't followed any of the talk about it on the blogs since all the newer visa categories came out in recent years.

I've been going based on what I know from past experience.

I'm a little wary of doing privates unless it is farming myself out to hakwons on a part-time basis like you mention.

My limited experience with privates last go around was that they were a huge pain in the ass – dealing with the people and setting up a schedule and then them haggling and haggling and haggling the cost and then backing out of pay or having to press to get the money up front and so on. I only did a few privates because a few people wouldn't take "no" for an answer, and it was a constant headache. The money was very good, but it wasn't worth it to me.

Getting a hakwon to cough up the money in advance and setting hours that way would be better. I'll give it some thought and I'll start reading up on the visa changes…

I did think about doing this at the start by staying with my in-laws. If this were just about the money, I'd do that and could save a fortune.

But, again, there are things I want to do in Seoul related to the NK NGOs that I've had a thought or two about the last few years but could never act on.

Why are you stressing on this? You have a Korean wife.

Get your F-2-1 visa and just come to Korea. Once here, you can take your time looking at schools until you find the one you want.

Further, you can work ANY job… it doesn't have to be as an English teacher… and you can even teach private lessons legally (as long as you pay your taxes)… which you can't do if you have the standard hogwon contract/visa.

With an F-2-1, you are GOLD to a hogwon. Why? Because a lot of hogwons need 1/2 a teacher.

This means you can just work mornings for a steady income to get you on your feet while you develop higher-paying (double) private lessons in the evening. After a year, you can dump the hogwon and work 3 hours of privates a day for the same pay as 6 hours of split shift at the hogwon… or work 6 hours of privates in a row for double what a hogwon pays for disrupting your whole day.

Sounds like a no-brainer.

Live in a yogwon for a couple months until you find the right place. No deposit, no utilities, a condom machine on the wall and mommy-ajuma cleans your room once a week. What more could a grown man living alone want?

The schools seem to have a good bit of variance on how much they offer a month — from 200,000 – 500,000.

200,000 would be too low unless I push them to raise the base salary to meet my experience and educational level. I hate haggling, but if they don't provide housing, I'll have to.

On hours, the key for me is not having to work Saturday. I can "endure" most split shifts.

And if I wind up in a school that treats teachers like slaves, like my first hakwon where 45+ in-class hours was the norm and we were shipped out between the split shifts to a town 30-40 minutes away for 1-3 hours of classes, with travel time not included in salary —- I'll simply jump ship.

My guess is I'll be in a better position than most: I'll have the MA – I'll have extensive experience abroad – I'll have 1 year of MA in English Literature – and more importantly for the area I want to live in, I'll have ESOL certification.

I'll also be putting in for certification in TN and Chattanooga often needs teachers and is located in the kind of natural setting I am looking for.

Another option will be to come back to the US with the money we've saved up including in Korea (one reason for the work abroad) and get by with substitute teaching and possibly long-term substitute work for a year at most hoping a job will come open.

And as always, I'll be looking for opportunities to talk my wife into going back to Hawaii where they have a high ESOL demand…