Wet football and haircuts.

It's been quite a while since my last blog, partly because I've been very busy at work, and partly because nothing overly exciting had happened.

A few weekends ago some friends and I went to what is called "Club Day" at one of the university districts in Seoul. A ten pound ticket got you into a dozen clubs in the area and a free drink, so we wandered around from place to place. Most weren't my cup of tea but there were one or two rock clubs. A surreal moment came when one establishment we went into was full of fairly goot salsa dancers. We even got told to move off the dancefloor (well, the space in the middle where tables had been moved from) to make way for the dancers. Wel left quickly, feeling rather intimidated and lacking in talent. The night was good, although by the time we got home the sun had risen to an improper height. Ah well....

For my birthday I went with some mates to go shopping, catch a movie, and have a curry. The movie (Spiderman 3) was terrible, the curry was brilliant. John and I shared a set menu thingy and we got barbecued chicken, lamb, prawns, and some great curries, including an interesting cheese concoction. Excellent stuff. The waiters all spoke really good Enlgish, but they did tend to hover and refill water glasses after every sip (very Mauel form Fawlty Towers - esque). I once managed to get down to having only 1/3 left before a sudden replenish, and we all felt that was quite an achievement.

Last weekend we went to see what has become my footbal team in action. It rained on us, a lot, and I was mightily envious of the fans with Suwon Bluewings raincoats. Maybe next time... The game itself was alright. Suwon had dozens of shots on goal, but only managed to get one in (off a powerful free kick), so even though we won 1-0 all the Brits were dissapointed by the playing. "No finishes", was the consensus. Hopefully I'm going to go and see Korea play Holland in a friendly in a few months, so maybe we'll see some better finishing there.

After the game we had to get a bus to the local station and I've never been so cramped in my life. Ok, maybe once on a fishing boat/ferry to an island in Thailand, but not much. Loads of people outside the stadium got on and the bus was full. We moved off and I had no sooner found a teeny bit of space for my bag than we stopped and the driver opened the doors for yet more passengers! It was ridiculous. I toppled a few times, but not completely over, my falls were saved by some well positioned Korean teenagers. They didn't seem particularly impressed though.

On Sunday it was finally time for a hair lop. John went first, and seeing his ponytail go was quite a shock. He'd been growing it for a year and a half and he's still getting used to life without it. He'll survive. At the barbershop he went to he got to pick his new cut from a book. They also had the ten choices up on a wall, each with a umber. It was rather like ordeirng a meal at McDonalds or a take-away. He looks jolly different now and somehow very Russian.

I also got my haircut, but as the was no menu to order from I used hand signals. There were so many hairdressers in Seoul I wouldn't decide which to use. Everntually I went with the closest to my house, support local business and all that, and some of you might be amused to know that it is called the "Butty Hair Shop". Yes, I got my hair cut at Butty's, and jolly proud of it I am too. Sunday was also a shopping day and I bought some straighteners, so I am now sporting a straight bob kind of thing. I'm sure I'll get pictures of it at some point.

Yesterday was Teacher's Day (Children's day and Parents' day were earlier this month) but there were surprisingly few gifts. A bit of cake mainly. Some of my kids did go wild and decorate my whiteboard, which was nice of them. I was forced to stand outside waiting for 10 minutes while this was finished, but as they were writing in English I didn't see it as wasting class time!

The next few weeks will include lots of work, a few days and nights out, and hopfully the purchase of tickets to a rock festival in July. Fingers crossed.

Oh, and by the way, I wasn't kidding. Don't see Spiderman 3. It sucks.

Everland Theme Park

Well, it's been quite fun here really. On Saturday we were taken on a bus with a load of our young kids to a Korean theme park called Everland, given a free ticket, and told to go off and have fun. I didn't have to look after kids at all! Oh, and I got to meet Harry Potter and his mate Hermione (they were rather stiff we me though).









The theme park itself isn't too shabby. We went on a few big roller coasters and enjoyed being unconventional at one of the water rides. You know the ones, those big circular things 8 of you sit in as they shoot down an artificial "jungle" river. Most parks just let you get wet, that is the idea after all, but here they had covers to put over you so that up to your neck was protected. We rebelled though and pulled ours down. Halfway round I found out that the covers are just for show - the water can come up through the bottom of them. I spent the next few hours wandering around with a jolly soggy right leg, but it was such a nice day I didn't really mind.



We had a surreal time in Europeland (which was mainly Holland). The flowers were nice, but the tulips were all planted in the shadow of a sort of parthenon wannabe which screwed with my mind geographically. The place did look good though, despite the weirdness, and it also had a food area which was a major plus. I got to kick back at some ourdoor dining and enjoy an afternoon wheat beer (my favourite!) As we sat a train that ran around the flower area went by every few minutes and once or twice a group of our kids was on board. Most kids managed not to notice us, but the teachers did and we gave them waves of our beer glasses. Rather mean I suppose.

As we wandered around Holland we were accosted by our top director lady and whisked off for a photo session with some appropriately cute looking children in front of some tulips. There were group photos, pair photos, individual photos. I tell you, this microcosm fame is rather tough sometimes, I can see what Brad and Angelina complain about. What with the constant shouting of my name, the photo shoots, and always being asked to give people my signature (well, spell my name on the board) it is a form of celebrity. Haha.







The rest of the park was fun. They've got quite a good zoo area, with a new monkey bit. I particularly enjoyed the "Orangutan Sky Walk", where I got to see a fine old boy make his way halfway across before stopping for a widdle and a sit down. It's tough getting to work when you're a monkey, we descendents just haven't a clue. As the photo shows there was a goodish amount of blossom around and it really gave the whole place an oriental feeling. Jolly nice in other words. John got to armwrestle one of the orange guys, and he seemed to be winning for a bit there, but in the end I think the monkey had him.



Other exciting animals were some polar bears (though their place look too small for such magnificent and scarily big things) white and regular tigers (ditto small enclosures) and the usual birds and reptiles. I did enjoy seeing some babies in an over cutesy "baby animals" area. And cutesy it was - we saw some lions and tiger cubs having a nap in a cradle, I mean really! It was interesting to see baby parrots, which they had in three sections to show the difference in growth during their first month out of the shell. The smallest looked gross, in fact no age had a fluffy factor going on, but it was visually impressive. My favourite was the penguins, who I've always had a bit of a soft spot for. I spent more minutes than I'll happily admit to amusing myself by doing an imaginary dialogue between two who were standing on a jump-off kinda platform thingamajig.








[For the purposes of this performance the penguin at the back will be played by Gerald and the penguin at the front we be played by Norman.]

Gerald: "Look mate, are you going or what?"


Norman: "Just gimme a minute, this is a delicate operation!"


Gerald: "Delicate my arse, just jump already!"


Norman: "Alright, alright, no need to get you flippers in a twist."


... and so on....




A good time was had, and the weather has turned really nice now, so you people in England can no longer makes me jealous with stories of barbecues and such. Let's hope it stays nice for many a weeek.


P.S. Harry and Hermione were made of Lego - in case you were wondering.

Easter? Was it really?

That's not totally fair I suppose. I did know it was Easter, but only because we had a special activity afternoon at school. However, unlike some other mainly Western festivals like Valentine's Day and Christmas, Easter wasn't to be seen in the shops around town. Let's face it, the lack of gift options (after chocolate is exhausted) means that commercially it is a bit of a non event. Surprising though, I'd have thought the chocolate would have been a big deal. But no. Not an egg in sight. Korea doesn't have the same Pagan beginnings as Europe, so the whole spring thing isn't quite the same.

I did completely miss Pancake Day though, and thus forgot about Lent and my annual health-kick oriented self-denial of chocolate, crisps and fizzy drinks. Whoops. Maybe I'll do that another month...

Easter weekend I was aware of, however. Mum sent me some Cadbury's Mini-Eggs (the greatest seasonal food ever). Then on Good Friday I spent four hours helping kids make bunny ears. I'd prepared loads of pink card, bunnies = pink on this kind of occasion I think, but completely underestimated the loathing boys have of it. I understand their problem, pastel pink isn't my fave either, but I was hoping the bunny-ness would change their minds. It didn't. So I spent some time running around finding blue card and making gender specific cards. Really, does no one here care that they're falling into the definitions society imposes on them. Well, no, I don't suppose eight years olds do.

It was fun though, as I have a little radio gismo that lets me play my mp3 player through my classroom stereo. So we listened to the Beatles and the Kinks all afternoon and then I got my Korean colleagues enjoying KT Tunstall as we cleaned up. Rather good the kids English isn't perfect yet though, I'm not sure a song about a guy who gets it on with a transvestite is quite the right thing to play to pre-teens (see the Kinks' magnificent Lola).

Anyway, it was an easy afternoon and the chocolate was great. Thanks Mum. Maybe next year I'll be in a country that warns me about Pancake Day...

DVD bangs.

Recently I've discovered a wonderful thing.

As some of you might know, I'm something of a film fan. When I decided to leave my London life and toil in South Korea for a year I knew jolly well that I would probably be without good films for most of the time, and I wasn't even sure I would be provided with a TV. Thankfully I was, and I get Sky which gives me a few good films every now and again and BBC World and BBC Entertainment (yes, that's right, I still get to watch House Invaders whilst I eat my breakfast, though it used to be better - Bargain Hunt).

I can also satisfy my film lusts by trekking into Seoul, or the nearest big Seoul "satellite city" Ilsan. All Western films are shown in their original language with Korean subtitles, so there's never any faffing at the box office with dubbing questions. The only problem with that is if a film ever has multiple languages and English subtitles they get over run by the Korean ones and you can't see 'em. So I haven't seen Babel, I knew the subtitles would be a whitewash. Cinemas only cost 7 or 8 thousand won (about 4 pounds) and popcorn is cheap, so it's not a bad thing to do often.

Still, like I said, I've recently discovered a wonderful thing. They are called DVD bangs. I recall reading about them in Lonely Planet, but I hadn't ever seen one so I thought it was one of those Lonely Planet myths (like some bars they describe as warm and cozy being as socially cold as the grave). No offense to LP, it's hard to stay up to date in printed books. One day it'll all be electronic and there won't be a problem. Good news for trees, bad news for paper manufacturers and wholesalers. Oh, whoops, I seem to have wandered off the point...

A DVD bang is an establishment full of small rooms with either big TVs or projectors. You choose a film like you would in a rental shop, pay 5000 won each (2 pounds fifty), then they throw it in a DVD player, show you to a little room, and you kick back on a sofa and enjoy! They don't give a hoot about food or drink you take in so you can have a little picnic or a few beers with your film. It is an odd sensation, but the minute I stepped into my first room I knew I'd love it. The rooms feel like nine months ago a cinema and a living room mated and that is what resulted. (Hmm.. I wonder what the gestation period for a living room or cinema is, and come to that which one would be the carrier?) The ones we've found in Munsan have projectors and massive screens, even though they aren't much bigger than a small bathroom. It doesn't feel too close or hurt your eyes though, well, no more than a cinema does. One day I'll take a photo. Until then you'll have to take my word for it - they rock.

John and I were wondering if they would take off at home, but I think the possibility of being a bit seedy (dark room, sofas, 2 uninterrupted hours) is a bit much. Pity... it would be a great opportunity to watch on a large screen any film you missed at the cinema that really deserves a big scale showing.

Go Bluewings!

Well, I've just about recovered from the St Patrick's day weekend. It wasn't particularly Irish but I had good fun with it. On Saturday John and I went to meet a guy we had originally met at the Muse gig. He took us to see his local team, Suwon, play football. It was rather impressive as the team plays in the Suwon World Cup Stadium, one of many built for the 2002 tournament. Korea still seems to be beaming about the event, and I see quite a lot of merchandise both on sale and being worn and carried about.

The game was quite good, with Suwon having the lion's share of shots at the goal and finally winning with a late goal. The stadium was nowhere near full but it was busy. At one end a sea of blue supporters banged drums and chanted throughout the entire match. Really, they didn't stop, it was pretty impressive. Suwon beat a team from the other end of the country (5 hours away by train) called Busan I-Park. The poor team had only managed a dozen supporters in one stand, but they had drums too and tried to give the blue army a run for their money... they failed.

It's a bit weird here because quite a lot of the premiership (or K-League as it's called) teams are sponsored by corporations and include them in their title. Busan I-Park, Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors, Ulsan Hyundai Horang-i, and Suwon Samsung Bluewings all use corporate names to keep afloat. I think they need to though, as despite football's popularity Korean's seem more interested in European club football than domestic. I'm hoping to go and see Korea play Uruguay in a friendly next weekend, so maybe more supporters will come to that.

I've decided I like Korean stadiums though. You're allowed to bring in any food and drink you like, and they sell beer inside at not too much of an unreasonable price (about 1 pound 30 for a smallish can). Also, rather than the British tradition of greasy food at half time we were offered a pot of noodles (they do that very well here, none of that Pot Noodle nonsense) or a roll of sushi. The sushi was fab, but sitting in a football stadium eating it with chopsticks was somewhat surreal. Not a burger in sight!

So the football was good fun and, after getting a little lost coming out of the stadium, we managed to go out to some bars in Seoul to celebrate the Irish way. Unfortunately a pint of Guinness here costs 6 pounds, so I didn't feel Irish enough to shell out on one.

Recently we were in Seoul and I saw an idea I'd heard about but never seen put into practice. One of the city's cathedrals was having building work and the front was covered in scaffolding (sound familiar?). Over the scaffolding they had erected a massive photo of the front of the building to cover up the ugly construction work. It didn't hide it completely, but it was quite fun to see.

After a fun weekend it's back to school, which is alright but I am a little ill. Violent coughing fits come in bursts, but as long as I keep drinking water they pass quickly. I must be getting though 4 litres a day! It's not too bad, except when I'm right in the middle of showing some flashcards and eliciting words, "Good! Table! Now, what's thi- klhmph klhmph klhmph klhphm klhmph..." Hopefully I'll be ok in a day or two...

P.S. Kid update - the wee ones are beginning to understand their new names, or at least they understand who I'm talking to. However saying them is taking time. Philip is putting in a lot of effort but keeps saying "Pilip". The letter F has no comparable letter in the Korean language so when they start learning English all F's are P's. 'Sopa', 'Pootball', 'Pinished teacher!' R's also manifest themselves as L's for the same reason. Thus 'frog' becomes 'plog'. Really, it's not just a stereotype used in films for a cheap laugh. Oh well, they learn the proper pronunciations eventually, and I've learnt to understand them in the meantime.

Nearly St Paddy's day...

Well well. Not too much has been happening this week in my little world. Last week I went and saw Muse at Jamsil Gymnasium in the Olympic Park circa 1988. They were bloody awesome, though we did miss the first twenty minutes. We rushed to Seoul when work finished and got to the gig just after Muse came on. At an entrance and could hear them playing but were agonisingly told we had to enter from an upper floor. The bouncer told us to follow some Korean girl he'd told the way to. We did, but instead of leading us into the gymnasium she took us all the way round the Olympic Stadium. As you can imagine it was rather large. It was snowing as well, which didn't help. Eventually we started running when we realised she had no clue where she was going and we made it to the gig. I must say it's been a while and I was genuinely surprised my Korean gin-laden body managed the lap. Olympic Stadium's are pretty big you know...

I spent the next day doing 7 hours of teaching off about 3 hours of bad sleep. Not fun. I won't be trying that again for while.

School is plodding along quite well. I now teach 3 classes of small kids for an hour a day each, consecutively, in the morning. It can be rather trying, but I really have learnt a little more patience than I had when I first arrived. As some of you might have read I've named one class after some of my choir friends. I had called one Helen but I've had to change is as another kids in her year has that English name already. She is now Jessie (Elle's middle name). Sorry Aitch. So here's a quick update on how they're doing.

The brightest in the class is probably Chris and he also tends to be the loudest when speaking English. Peter is quiet but knows the answers to most things, although today he decided everything was called a table - I hold up a picture of a door, window, TV, sofa: "Table! Table! Table!". David is bright but mischievous, Philip is mischievous but not quite so bright. Korea reflecting England much? Haha. Fiona bullies whichever boy she sits next to, and is a serial crayon-hogger. Susie is good at speaking and gives me big waves in the corridors. Cathy's good at saying hello to Teddy, but is amusingly troublesome. Jessie is the funniest. She manages to speak but always has this amazed and slightly scared look on her face. It's as if she can't believe words like 'hello' and 'yellow' are flying out of her mouth.

I've never taught a class from the start of their English education before and it's actually really interesting to watch them progress and see which ones pick it up, which ones won't speak but know it, and which are just crazy. They are still in what I would describe as their "cute" stage but the demons are starting to come though. They like attacking me, today using hand puppets they made in their Korean teacher's class. We really shouldn't give them weapons.

I had the excitement of being in a market in Seoul at the weekend and spotting a Union Jack mug. Normally the mugs I've seen like that aren't particularly stylish, but I loved that ones shape, so I forked out a whopping 2 pounds on it. I particularly like the way it's got two massive Union Jacks (yes, yes, picky people, I know it's technically not a Jack unless it's flying on a ship, cut me some slack) on the side and yet it says England down the middle of them. Apparently we've cut off Scotland Ireland and Wales, but have kept the Scottish and Irish parts in the flag. I suppose it would stop us form being confused with the Red Cross. It's great to have at work though, I'm really and truly flying the flag now.

So everything toddles along. I'm off to do some grocery shopping soon. It may amuse you to know that the Sugar Puff-like cereal I eat most mornings, of which I've run out, is called Jolly Pong. Yes, I too never thought I'd eat something called Jolly Pong. Or at least I never thought I'd eat it and live to write about it.

Happy St Paddy's Day to all you mildly Irish people!

All change!

Well, it's all a bit of a faff here. We've just started the new school year (in March, jolly confusing, they change with the Lunar New Year here). The school's directors have been stressing greatly over the new school timetable and for the last few days we've being doing classes somewhat off the cuff. I just sort of sit in my classroom and assume that some students will turn up soonish. They generally do, and the female director comes along and checks they are all there. She's rather scary for the kids, and when told to shut up they don't hesitate, but she's a sweetie to me.

We've got a schedule up now for this week, though I've been told it will be changing. Luckily they've accommodated my and John's need to go to see Muse in Seoul on Wednesday, so we're getting earlier classes! Hoo-rah!

In the elementary part of school each grade has ability classes. They are classed using two numbers, the first of which is the grade while the second is their ability. The higher the second number the cleverer the class. I teach classes including 1-4, 1-5, 2-4, 4-5, and 5-4, so it would seem I've been trusted with some of the cleverest students. Which is a compliment.

The hardest thing about the new timetable is that some of the classes have changed. Kids have been switched around depending on how well they did all year and in an end of year test. Some classes are the same but some of mine are a mix of up to 3 old classes, so finding out which books they were all on and where they were and then deciding where to begin again can be a little trying.

Everyone else is flapping and faffing though, and the more other people flap the more chilled out I tend to become, so I'm happily cruising through this week.

The exciting thing is that I became the proud owner of a new class of five year olds, and I was given the joyous task of naming them. I knew I'd been wanting to name some kids after people back home so here was a perfect opportunity. I had seven to name, as the helper and I already chose to call the Spiderman obsessed boy Peter (as in Peter Parker, Spiderman's alter-ego, for thos of you not in the know). He is really obseesed though, he even comes to school dressed as Spiderman, with movie-merchandise boots 'n all.

I toyed with using my family's names, but I thought that might be a bit too weird. I'm teaching them using a book called 'Teddy's Train', in which the language is taught through the adentures of a teddy called, surprisingly, Teddy. Trying to get kid with my degree-holding parents and brothers' names to say "Hello Teddy!" and wave just seemed too laughable. Also one of the teachers at school is called Jenny, and there are already quite a lot of Tom students, so it would have got a bit confusing.

In the end I opted for some of my friends names. I went with people from choir with the hope that the grouping will help me remember their names faster. Some couldn't be used, unfortunately. Ellie is already the name of a teacher here and I though Eleanor would be two long. Two syllables tends to work best with young-uns. Also Joanna couldn't be used as that's my name here. Well, when they can remember it, it is. Another few names were steered clear of because I already had kids with those names or something jolly similar (sorry Anna, Rosie, Paula, and Charlie). Anyway, after a quick think I went with easy to say names from the sopranos, altos and tenors. So congratulations Catherine (shortened to Cathy), Susie, Philip, David, Helen, Fiona, and Chris. You all have a small protege being groomed in the Enlgish language by yours truly.

With the help of a teddy called Teddy.