Weekend of disasters...

Well well, it was indeed a weekend of disasters. Not for me, but for some unfortunate Koreans.
After a night out in Seoul on Friday night I spent Saturday recuperating and getting myself ready for a party with the Korean teachers from my school. We went to the aparment of one of them, and had some proper home cooked food. Far too much of it, so I had a proper feed. They then took us out to a place that rented out karaoke rooms. John (a Scottish English teacher colleague of mine) and I belted out some classic Brit songs for the Korean's enjoyment. I Can't Get No Satisfation by the Rolling Stones went particularly well.

It had just begun to snow when we went inside, and by the time we came out the ground was covered and conditions were a little icy. A Korean colleague drove us to a bus stop so we could catch the bus back to the town we both live in, and the roads were definitely dodgy. She went really slowly, but we did see another car that was going far too fast crash into the back of a sensible slow driver who had pulled out into the next lane of the highway. Not too bad a crash but it left a pretty big bump in both cars. For some reason many Korean's put on their hazard lights during dodgy conditions. Whilst it may clue others up about that driver's lack of confidence it does mean that cars can't tell when people are indicating to turn. As well as the crash we saw we kept driving past pairs of cars on the side of the road with annoyed looking Korean's standing next to them shaking their heads. Luckily for us the bus driver was a pro, he must have driven in icy conditions a lot.

It has only snowed here twice, and only stayed around for a day or two, but I think we expect more in January. It's bitterly cold here now, especially at night, so I've begun wearing bigger hats and coats.

On Sunday I saw another disaster. The school next to my aparment has some out buildings (I think they're used for storage) and one of them caught fire. I watched from my balcony as interested people filled the streets and one man ran back and forth with a bucket trying to douse the flames. Eventually the fire deparment showed up, after the fire had almost burned itself out. It was fairly comical to see three fire engines and 25 guys turn up to deal with one small shed. I suppose they were worried it might spread to the school. No such luck for kids who didn't want to go in the next day. Maybe some had a test and it was attempted sabotage!

These are dangerous times....