Korea - The first pink azeleas

Hello everyone!
First weekend excursion this weekend, down to the south of the country. We went to a place called Yeosoo, which looks like this - 여수 - in Hangul. It's the furthest I've ventured in Korea thus far, and was a 5-and-a-half hour bus ride from central Seoul. I didn't bother reading up on the trip too much before going - I was sent a link on facebook by Annie on the Monday, and had paid up my 67,000W on the Tuesday. I figured that it would be a nice change of pace to get out to the country, that it would reduce my alcohol intake as I have the half-marathon on the horizon, and also that it would be great fun. One of those trips that I will look back on in years to come and remember how great it was. It didn't disappoint.

I knew there was some hiking attached to the trip. With hindsight, I should have realised that hiking would be a substantial part of the trip, and that running 18km after school on Friday wasn't going to put me in the greatest physical shape for a weekend of being more active than usual. 18km done though, and with less pain in my knee than expected. We left Siheung at around 9.30 to head into the city to catch our bus and meet the rest of the group. There were about 70 of us in total, spread over two buses. The leader was a Korean called Warren. He seemed a bit eccentric.

We left just before 12. I figured that I would get tired at some point and get a few hours kip before we got to Yeosoo. The aim was to see the sun rise from some hill, which was going to happen at around 6. The problem was that, due to a combination of me not being able to shut up and being on public transport which I always fail to get sleep on, I probably maxed out at about 10 minutes. We all struggled to get any meaningful sleep which, as you can imagine, made us all feel really upbeat and cheery when we rolled to a stop shortly after 5.30am. Pitch black outside, and not exactly warm either. We hopped off the bus and all stood around whilst Warren belted out instructions that we didn't really listen to. Really should have listened to him telling us to stretch.

En masse, we set off up a hill. A rather steep hill. Certainly not the gentle introduction that we all needed. I've done stuff like this before, and my muscles weren't actually that stiff from my run, but I realised that it was a difficult section. A lot of people struggled with it, but we all survived and moved onwards and upwards.

The view wasn't what we were expecting either. I'd been expecting flowers, and there were loads of them. This mountain is the 'third largest mountain covered by the pink Korean azaleas'. Scratching the barrel a bit there, if that's the selling point. Should have just said its a nice mountain with a temple on it, that would get enough people here. But the backdrop beyond off of these flowers wasn't quite so aesthetically pleasing - a power plant. It was pointed out that it wouldn't look out of place on Sim City, and it was a fair point. Odd that a place of such beauty was tarnished in order to put in a power plant, but I guess there isn't much room for stuff in Korea. After all, most buildings are over six storeys tall and have different amenities on each floor. You have to look up as well as around when searching for a bar in Siheung.

The sun rose. We missed the immediate sunrise, but it was still nice to feel the sun's rays on our weary bodies. It soon became warm enough to start removing layers, which was good. Supergroup, as we had named ourselves, soon made it up towards the top of the mountain. There was a concrete ruin at the top, which seemed like an army pillbox. When we were jumping across it, Jon suffered the misfortune of his jeans ripping in a rather central area. Harsh. But funny. Our sense of time was very warped at this point. It felt like it was mid-morning, but it reality the clock had only just passed 7am. This bizarre feeling accompanied us around all day.

After seeing the token temple, we meandered back down a beautiful stretch of the mountain. Cherry blossoms initially lined the trail, with flakes of the flowers dropping down airily to the floor. The sun shimmered through the trees and off the small stream which we were following. The stream got a bit larger at one point, and me and Jon decided to try to jump across it. It was a reasonable distance. Jon just about cleared it. As you can see from the picture, I...well, didn't. One very wet left foot.

At the bottom we decided that we needed some food, and stopped in at a small outdoor restaurant. It felt like it was time for dinner - in reality, the imaginary chime of the clock in our minds had just struck 10. Because our table was so big and desiring food, our waitress brought out a special complimentary treat - a bottle of makkoli. For those who can't remember what this is, it is a rice wine, slightly stronger than beer, and with a nice but slightly sour taste. It helped to wash down some of the strange side dishes, amongst which we found a flappy fish tail, and stuff that looked like a part of the male anatomy (sorry Mum!).

We were soon back on the bus, and drifting in and out of consciousness. Our next destination was Odongdo Island. Being an island, it was by the sea, so we got a nice look at the southern Korean coastline. It was a very nice place, and the locals seemed a bit more liberal and relaxed than what we're used to in Seoul. How liberal, I hear you ask. Well, we sat on top of two very wobbly plastic creatures and when an important man from inside the building came out, rather than telling us to get off, he asked if we wanted a photo. There was a group of older Koreans happily singing along quite loudly as they walked across the bridge. It was a fun, vibrant atmosphere down there, which we appreciated. We climbed up the hill on the island, and halfway up noticed what resembled building work, with a sign that blatantly said not to carry on in that direction. Feeling adventurous, and armed with the knowledge that we could play the innocent foreigner card, Jon and I clambered along the metal girders, picking up some rogue hard hats on the way.

A couple of minutes of scrambling later, and we emerged on top of a rock. To our right was a sharp cliff face with a small cave at the bottom. Directly in front of us was a drop of several metres to the cold-looking sea. And to our left was...Warren?! And about ten other people from the trip. Geniuses think alike, I guess. Great views, though the melancholy vibe was interrupted by a helicopter swirling around the boats beneath us. We scrambled along the rocks to get back up to a different part of the trail, and reconvened with the others at the top.

We returned the hard hats on the trek down, and were soon back on the bus. Only after Jon had scared a little Korean kid and we had come across some rather sexist noodles. Segregation of noodles into pots for men and women? Incredible. And stocking up on makkoli, of course. The stuff we were buying was 2,000W for a big bottle, so we weren't exactly breaking the bank. Another semi-comatosed session on the bus and we were at our next location, a place called Suncheon Bay.

We went to an eco-reserve. Not quite as impressive as the other places, has to be said, but still good fun. Mainly because me and Jon, on yet another bottle of the rice wine, decided to race to the temple at the end. It was a reasonable distance, and pretty hilly as well. My legs finally decided to give up on me at this point, and I don't blame them. Good practice if this race has any inclines, though. The views were pretty cool, but I was too busy trying to stretch out my legs to fully appreciate them.

After this we were back on the bus and on our way to the beach! How very exciting, as I've yet to see a Korean beach. According to the itinary I should have read but didn't, we were supposed to be at the beach for 7pm. However, they have an expression out here called 'Korean time'. If a time is set, it is very uncommon that it is strictly adhered to, due to the business of the average Korean person's life. 7pm could mean 6.45pm, 7.05pm, even towards 8pm. Kinda like 'Fergie time' if you believe in such a thing. Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that 7pm was ambitious.

We rocked up sometime after 9.30. It was pitch black, so we couldn't really build too much of an image in our minds, but it seemed quite nice. It was more like an enclave, with a small strip of sand that constituted our 'beach'. We dumped our stuff in the rooms (I'll get to that bit later), and then set about cooking. We had about six barbecues set up, and destroyed a ton of beef, pork and bulgogi. The organisers provided beer and makkoli, but as Jon and I were the only people consuming the latter, we got a pretty good deal out of that. I played chef for a while but soon got bored of being responsible, so went and chilled by our makeshift campfire.

Most people decided that they were tired after a long day of hiking and travelling, so went to bed straight after we ate. A group of about ten of us stuck the course. I didn't realise that the sand would be cold, which was a bit silly of me. We optimistically decided that we would stay up for sunrise, which was supposed to happen at around 6. How we were still awake at this point was a mystery, so staying up through the night (again) was ambitious. Overly ambitious once we realised that it had just passed midnight.

I don't know what time we finally called it a night, but I was pretty much the last person into our room. Aah yes, the rooms. There were about 70 of us on the trip, so the organisers hired out a place and we all piled in. Most rooms were big enough for between four and six people, but there was one larger room, in which the the remaining 25 of us would sleep on the floor. When we initially dumped our bags, we realised that it was a bit on the cosy side. When I returned the floor wasn't visible due to the mass of bodies. It resembled a mass grave, but with more blankets and pillows. There was a small spot of wooden floor by the door, so I set up shop there and drifted off.

For about fifteen minutes. Then BANG! A dull thud against my skull. Someone wanted to use the toilet, and hit me on the head when opening the door. They apologised, and I drifted away again...BANG! Oh right, of course that person had to get back in the room, and in the two minutes they'd been away had totally forgotten that I was in close proximity to the door. You may ask why I didn't rotate so that my legs were by the door. I considered this, but one of the heaters for the floor was directly under my ankle, and very, very strong. It felt like my ankle was on fire. The lesser of two evils was thus my head being thwacked constantly throughout the night. Not a fun night of sleep, though I slept through sunrise. Everyone did.

Sunday was not nearly as active as the Saturday. We skimmed rocks on the beach for a while before heading to a restuarant for some Korean food. We'd had breakfast about two hours before, so hardly touched it. On the bus, Warren randomly came over. We talked for about two minutes, and then he decided to pass out right next to me. Bizarre. It started to rain just as we got off at our next location, which was somewhere on the outskirts of Jirisan national park.

We went to a market. I got conned into buying green tea icecream, which wasn't great. The guy selling it was an interesting one, full of tricks and fancy flicks. He gave me my cone and then quickly did something, and all of a sudden my cone had no icecream in it. He'd given me two cones and then whisked the inside one away. Har di har har. We also saw a tub of fermented wasps. Maybe their local version of kimchi? We wandered around some cherry blossoms, and then were finally on our way home.

The only problem with our location is that it takes us forever to get back to Siheung, so we had to add on an extra hour or two to our journey. We got stuck in traffic as well, so pulled up at a service station. Bit different to Britain, this. No Burger King or Little Chef in sight. Instead, this is the domain of the humble street vendor. We bought one of the nicer treats, which was potatoes covered in sugar. Those things are gooooooood. And expertly modelled as well. Back at midnight, and straight to bed.

Great weekend in all. Very different to the usual, and we all had a great time. I'll definitely fit in another hike or two as the year progresses, but the way my legs felt on Monday, I might leave it until after the races. I fell asleep on my desk in school on Monday, and still haven't fully caught up yet. Though I'm writing this after orientation, so there are reasons for that... Sorry for this being so long, but it was a fun-filled, exciting weekend, and I wanted to get that point across.

Love you all

Matt

Korea - The first trip to Chinatown

Hello everyone!

I have a busy few weeks lined up, so I'm going to knock out a quicker blog this week. Here is a vague schedule of my life for the next month or so:
April 16-18 - Yeosoo
April 21-23 - Orientation
April 25 - Hangang Half-Marathon
May 1 - DMZ
May 5 - Children's Day, so a day off, with plans in the pipeline
May 8 - Seoul World DJ Festival
May 15 - Half-Marathon in Seoul
May 16 - South Korea vs Ecuador football game
May 20-23 - Tokyo
And breathe...
Hopefully this means the titles of my upcoming blogs won't be quite so far-fetched and desperate. As if anyone cares that I got my first new shoes in Korea...

Right, to business. 1st graders were on a trip to Pocheon, so I had three days of no lessons. We had decided that this would be a good time to get me another alien card, having lost the thing just over a month ago. You need this ARC card to re-enter the country if living here, so it was a necessity for the Tokyo trip. This is done in Incheon, so off I go with Sun, my new Chinese-teaching admin woman. Her English is actually pretty good, which makes life a lot easier than it was with Miss Kang. The fact that she has an English name gave that away to me.

I wasn't ready when the machine took my photo, so I now own arguably the most horrific ARC card in Korea. It strongly suggests I should get a haircut. I was planning on going the whole year without one, but I don't know if they would let me back into Britain. Or any country, for that matter. In jest, I suggested we should go to Chinatown, as it is the biggest one in Korea and supposed to have really good food. I didn't expect such a positive response, and soon we were driving over.

Whilst in the car, at just after 11am, my phone rang. I answered, and then heard a muffled reply in a strong Korean accent, saying 'how are you'. I recognised the voice instantly, and a shudder shot down my spine. It was the guy from jail bar who wouldn't let go of my hand! Aargh! I had to be polite, as Sun was sat next to me. I said 'Who is this?' twice, then hung up, saying I didn't know who it was. I hope to every religious deity that he doesn't call back ever again. Don't want to be dealing with that.

Chinatown is really nice, but it was pretty cold - as proved by the fact that it briefly began to snow again on Tuesday afternoon - and as Incheon is near the sea, the wind was whipping up quite strongly. We walked around for a while, through some narrow streets and around an American memorial - they launched a famous counter-attack here during the War - before admitting defeat and heading into a Chinese restaurant for lunch. Specifically, Sun was after jam-pong, which is a rather hot Sino-Korean noodle soup. Hot food was on the agenda, as I have had a stinking cold all week. Slight aside, but I'm glad I have this in Korea, as I now have no inhibitions with bringing up phlegm in the middle of a street. Well, less than normal anyway, I try not to do it on a busy street.

The food was really good, and it was pretty hot. Just what I needed, as they don't really go for horseradish sauce, my usual cold cure, out here. But jam-pong was nothing on the pot of tea they provided with it. I've never had jasmine tea before - to be fair, certain people (Frost) in our Manchester house went down in all our estimations whenever they whipped out lavender, or rosemary, or any other blatantly gay tea - but this stuff was insane. It tasted magical. Controversial, but possibly as good as Tetley's. Possibly.

Chinatown is a pretty cool place. It was nice to do something productive, as opposed to watching TV in the office all day - I do that enough when I actually have work to do. It got better still on Wednesday when, just after I had finished putting together my lesson for the next week, I was told at 10.45am that all the teachers were leaving. Nice. I picked up my washing from upstairs (yes folks, I do wash my clothes in school, it's so much easier) and headed off to test my knee at the gym. It did 12k no problem, but has been killing ever since. I had been told that there is a nice outside running place a short bus ride away, so hopped on the blue 22 and was soon at Incheon Grand Park.

At first it seemed like a normal park, albeit a bit bigger. That was until I walked past some cages with colourful birds in them. And two ostriches. Was this a zoo?? It certainly seemed so. It didn't look as if there was anywhere to pay, so I walked around for a while. I did get told off once by three workers. I was leaning against a small wooden fence to get a decent shot of the ass (delightfully described by the board as a 'miniature ass'), when the three wise men started shouting. Once they had my attention, they pointed at a tub. Of brown paint. Then pointed at the fence, but you knew that. Luckily, the damage to my combats was minimal, but it was nice of them to tell me.

Owls, vultures (which I saw take a poo), 'polish' fowl, coyotes, baboons - a very eclectic mix of animals. As if it's natural to have a desert coyote pacing wildly around at the very edge of its cage all the time. The ostriches were the most impressive. After surveying them all in their not-so-natural surroundings I ventured out into the park proper, to see this running route. It will be good, and will look amazing in the next week when the cherry blossoms decide to, you know, blossom. Just these pink ones for now. Bit of an incline but still a decent route, and there were a few Koreans jogging around as I walked it. This was when my knee decided to tell me to stop moving around, so I soon headed back into the relative warmth of my flat.

My delightful first graders returned from Pocheon that evening - I saw some of them whilst on my way to stuff my face with ddak galbi - and were back in school the next morning. They looked shattered. It didn't sound like they had too much fun. 'Matt, it too cold'. Shut up kids, at least it wasn't cold enough to try and SNOW. This week, Thursday to Tuesday, I'm teaching them about random world celebrations, such as Oktoberfest and La Tomatina. Any excuse for me to get out the squishy tomato I bought over Christmas and chuck it at the walls, and threaten to chuck it at students, again. They mistook a leprechaun for Peter Pan, which was quite funny.

Right, signing off as the flowers and hills of Yeosoo are calling me! The bus leaves at 11pm and arrives for sunrise. Sleep may be off the agenda for this weekend. Good weather please!

Love you all

Matt

Korea - The first shabu shabu

Hello everyone!

I didn't realise it was Easter until my mum told me about it on Skype a couple of days before. Easter isn't a big deal out here, which is surprising as a lot of the population are Christian. No two week vacation out here, oh no. I initially took a degree of pleasure in telling my students that British teenagers weren't in school, until someone pointed out that I wouldn't be in school either. Fair point.

Due to cancelled lessons and other scheduling mix-ups, some of my 14 classes are way behind the others. Most are on the music lesson. I walked into one of my classes early, to find all the girls practising their dance moves to Korean music. Most of them got a bit sheepish when they saw me watching them, but suddenly a group of them asked me if I wanted to see their routine. Co-teacher Kang wasn't around, so why not? Nine of them went and stood in formation at the back. Bit of finger clicking to the music, then BANG. People moving, spinning, bobbing all over the place. All perfectly choreographed. Whether they understand what some of the more provocative moves - for example, all thrusting out their chests with a smile - suggest is questionable. It helps that, even though they are 16-17, they look about 12 years old to me. I just saw it as innocent dancing, though obviously when explained to Westerners they may be a bit concerned!

The ones that have had all their lessons this week got to learn about Easter, and what we do for it in Britain. The first time teaching it was an unmitigated disaster, as I ran out of material with over FIFTEEN minutes of the lesson left. I played hangman for as long as I felt ethical, and then gave them the option of watching the Simpsons or trying to beat the other classes at the Scream-Katy-Perry-Very-Loud game. They chose the latter, and are in the lead. Deafening.

I soon got the Easter thing sorted, mainly by showing them Youtube videos of bizarre Easter stuff. A load of rabbits attacking a guy who dared to chomp on a chocolate Easter Bunny, for example. I only needed it until Friday, anyway. This week is field trip week, so Monday morning the first graders left for Pochang, and won't return until Wednesday evening. I did enquire about going, but was told no. It seems like the school is empty, as the second graders have gone to Jeju for the week. So that means I have had three days of bliss, which I will talk about in my next blog.

I did have the privates, of course. I have acquired another class on Tuesdays, taking me to three each week, and around 400,000W extra to play with each month. That's over 200 British, folks. The new group is four middle school kids. I found out that Ellen teaches one of them, and immediately asked him what he thought of her. Very good teacher and always has a smile, he said. Good stuff. This is already the cleverest of the three private classes. We were talking about that big tower in Dubai, and I asked them if they wanted to go there on holiday. Yes, said one. No, said another. Why? 'Because it's in the Middle East' Erm, go on? 'There's Bin Laden', he says. Wow. Not quite, kiddo. But still, it's rare that Korean students show that much initiative, so we went with that as a topic for a while. They all agree that Bin Laden is a bad man. Clever kids.

Thanks to certain teachers at my school, I had actually been drinking when I turned up to this class. And turned up late. I have a one hour window between my two privates, 6.30 to 7.30. All the English teachers from school were going for dinner at 6, and wanted me there. I figured I had time, so finished up my first lesson early and popped into a taxi to the restaurant.

We ate something called shabu shabu. I don't find it particularly easy to explain, but you are given a large broth with mushrooms, noodles and other stuff in it, lettuce leaves, and very thin strips of beef. Beef and lettuce both go into the broth and cook, then you pull out the result and eat it. It's very good, though I was always thinking that I wanted a bit more time to appreciate it, rather than wolfing it down in the knowledge that I had to leave soon. The picture is probably the Japanese version, and acquired off Google.

As I've explained before, almost every Korean meal is accompanied by soju. Mr. Kim pretty much forced me to have a shot, and then Mr. Kang followed suit. How was I supposed to keep this not-drinking sacrifice alive when even my colleagues are forcing me to drink? Didn't have a prayer. I wasn't drunk, though. Unlike the weekend.

Shabu shabu - the Korean version of London buses? I had it again on Friday, but this time we had a vegetarian version. I also got to see the whole meal, which I didn't on Tuesday. After having the broth and it's contents, they empty the wok and pour in a load of rice, salad and a raw egg, and you stir it up into a risotto. Both courses we left it alone for too long, and loads of the food got stuck to the pan. We could tell the woman was not particularly happy.

I wasn't particularly happy either, as my knee had given out whilst running earlier that evening, so I was in the mood to go out and drink away the fear of it getting worse and stopping me from doing the race in 2 weeks time. A large group of us went to jail bar. I've talked about this place before. Soju started to flow, and soon I was on a table of two Korean girls pouring away. They left soon after, obviously realising that their night couldn't be topped after I talked to them. Or they got scared. Choose wisely.

We soon moved over to our bigger table. A Korean guy who had tried to talk to me earlier followed us, and kept on talking to me. And then holding my hand. The only way I could escape his admittedly limp and rather camp grip was by picking up my drink. I've been accused of 'leading him on' and 'not telling him to ', but I was in a sociable, chatty mood. It explains why I probably drank soju with half of jail bar's Korean population that night. Seriously, the guy was a freak. Look at him!

Apart from birthdays, when anything goes, I can't remember a time when I have drank quite so much of a spirit in such a short space of time. It was reckless, and was always going to end in the obvious way. Bin - led to a taxi - home. I've missed out a bit there, in case you're eating. I could blame it on tiredness - the most sleep I'd had on any day in the week was 5 hours - or on any number of excuses, but not this time. Was stupid, and paid the price. Ha, I'm finally growing up!

I caught up on sleep, and arose 13 hours after hitting the hay. And then back out again, naturally. Remember that all-you-can-drink place from a few weeks ago? Well, the cards they had given us at the door gave us free entry on any Saturday in April. With hindsight, it was always very naive and optimistic of us to think that the place held all-you-can-drink nights EVERY Saturday, and perhaps even more naive to believe that going once will get you all-you-can-drink for free next time out. After Tom had scared me by asking if I remembered crying the night before - well I've been known to do that once in a while - before laughing in my face (good one), we located the place, Hana, to find a civilised set of tables laid out. Language exchange, they told me. Maybe later, I replied.

Kelly said she knew a bar nearby that had live music, so we headed across. Down the stairs...and silence. Not only was there no band, there were no people either, save for two behind the bar. Oh, and a dog trotting across the floor. Adorable little thing. We directed the others over, thinking that we just wanted to get some liquid gold in us. Was a nice place, but when they turned the music on (no band in sight) it was a bit loud, and I ended up shouting at people to make myself audible. I haven't found my voice since.

Naturally, a few drinks perks us up, and we end up in Hongdae. Eventually. No taxis would take us. Well, silly me, of course every taxi driving around Seoul at midnight on a Saturday night is taking people to Incheon?! Very strange, and it took us over 15 minutes to actually get in a taxi. The place we ventured to next gave a shot of tequila on arrival. I needed that like a hole in the head. Points of interest were the girls' interesting dance moves, the number of Koreans who seemed to be in Alice in Wonderland attire, and the fact that someone from the bar took my camera because I had left it on the table. Right in front of where I was sitting. Genius.

As with the last time I went to Hongdae, we ended up in Mansion. Only after Jon led us on a slightly merry dance trying to find some of his mates and then calling one of them a 'complete and utter twit'. Such an underrated word, twit. It was good fun, some hip-hop guy performing. More strange dancing, white russians that were topped up with vodka rather than milk, and lots of other shinanegans. Bizarrely, I felt fine on Sunday.

Just another normal weekend in the Far East!

Love you all

Matt

Korea - The first new shoes

Hello everyone!

Spring is here!!!! It took it's sweet time, but finally the sun is beginning to show itself. I walked around Sammi Market on Sunday wearing my shades and in just a t-shirt. Stupid idea as it wasn't really hot, and there was a bit of a breeze. I also wore my shades into school on Monday. Yes, I'm that guy. The students were intruiged by them, and not all were complimentary - one of my favourites, Jessica from winter camp, told me that I looked like a fly when wearing them. Thanks. I guess my ego could do with being dented a little.

I did actually wake up to see the sun over the course of the weekend, which I found quite impressive. Friday I ran 17km, encouraged by a Korean man running next to me at a slightly quicker pace who kept pointing at me speed, suggesting that I should keep up. No chance. My legs were shot after this, so I was grateful for a text from Tom seeing if I wanted a drink after he finished work. A couple of beers after sustained exercise keeps the muscles relaxed for longer, so I've been told.

These couple of beers turned into a rather large night, undoubtedly helped by Tom calling for 'Soju o' Clock'. We were having good fun, save for the point when one of the older guys, a Canadian called Mike who is the spitting image of Ben Stiller, started demanding to know our views on the monarchy. Not quite Friday night conversation, really.

We went to a noraebang. Our usual one was, for some unknown and strange reason, closed, so we went to one near my flat. There are a lot of them - they do love a noraebang out here - and I couldn't say which one we frequented. What we do know is that me and Tom do a damn fine duet of Dr. Dre and Eminem's Forgot About Dre, which we nailed just about word for word. Epic. We then decided to do the honourable thing and do a runner. The woman had been trying to cut our time short, after all. Little did we realise that I had paid for it all on my bank card, but I'll come to that later.

So the sack was collapsed upon close to the time I had woken up for school the previous day. A few hours later, we were up and moving again. I was still drunk, I'm fine with admitting that. This is proved by me trying to buy a chocolate bar, and not realising that I didn't have any money. And not really realising that I was supposed to pay the guy. When me and Nikki met Brittany in Bucheon station I also ran up to her and gave her a jumping hug, which, contrary to popular opinion, is not something I normally do. 'Are you still drunk?' was her first question.

My aim was get new work shoes. The soles have come off mine, so it was kinda important that I got new ones sooner rather than later. As the other two had never been to Dongdaemun, we headed up to the market. I'd checked Korean shoe sizes earlier in the week - turns out I'm around about a solid 267. No, I haven't become Bigfoot, they just measure in millimetres. I didn't waste time in purchasing, either, partly fuelled by the desire to return to my bed. First pair that fitted, 10,000W - done. They are Velcro - I feel I'm four years old and unable to tie shoelaces again. May make things easier when we go for dinner in sitdown places during or after school though, as I won't spend half the time untying my shoes.

As we were walking through the market, we came across some pet stores. Were they dinner for later? Well, I couldn't help but feel that one group of animals in cages would be, as they couldn't possibly be pets. CHICKENS. What on earth happens if they lay an egg?? The egg would surely crack on the hard floor. Do people really buy chickens as pets?? Mental. Anyways, it was quite a nice day, so we decided to walk around Dongdaemun's Natural History complex or something like that. It kept saying that they had knocked down a baseball stadium to create the excavation area. We were more fascinated by the fact that they were cleaning the outside paving slabs with a vacuum cleaner.

It was pretty interesting, actually. Old Korean historical stuff that I would have paid more attention to without having a crushing hangover to deal with. We instead took pleasure in the more simple things - Nikki in standing on the grass next to a sign which probably said not to do it; me by wandering off to look at a large animal made of recycled bottles and cans. Still, a productive day, so a good day. Well, until I realised later that night that I couldn't find my bank card. And then going over to Stevo's to watch United succumb rather miserably to Chelsea. But let's take the positives and move on.

I'm trying to 'go the extra mile' regarding talking to people in school. I've begun to realise that people in my school, students and teachers, want to talk to me, even if they aren't confident enough to do so. What I have to do, and what I am starting to do, is move around and talk to people during some of my free periods (let's face it, there's only so much TV I can watch before they force me to do more work). So on Wednesday afternoons I now head up to a different office for one hour to talk to people up there, and more of my old students have located my new office and come in at certain times to talk to me. I do like seeing my winter camp students, they were great fun. Some of them want me to hang out with them outside of school, at which point I gently point out that that is not going to happen. Lines being crossed and all that.

So this week I'm teaching my kids about western music. A few points to make here. For all the penetration of McDonald's, Starbucks, Manchester United and the like, they don't know as much about Western music as I expected. The stuff they do know is mostly obvious - Britney, Beyonce, Eminem et al. The boys love Beyonce's Single Ladies video, can't think why. But you know, global stars. Oh, and of course that famous Irish band. No, not U2...Westlife. Yes, those four Irish twerps with highlights in their hair have actually become rather famous in Korea. I was a bit disgusted at this, but very intruiged. What songs? Not that I know any of the top of my head, but I'm sure the names would ring a bell. The names that you hear are upcoming on one radio station, so you change to another. 'You raise me up!' one boy shouts. Innuendo aside, I did recognise the song - and hated him for it.

There were some other interesting ones as well. Sum 41 - always good for the treadmill - was regularly shouted out. Newer singers and bands, such as Ke$ha and Boys Like Girls, were also shouted out. I had to spend a bit of time correcting the few intelligent ones who knew of Oasis. Not that you would know that they were saying Oasis. It sounded like 'Wazz-ish'. One class also managed to stretch Britney Spears into EIGHT syllables. I laughed at that one. Disappointingly, however, no one had a clue who Katy Perry was. They do now, though.

I was happy to let the kids be a bit more raucous and less controllable for these lessons. Towards the end of my lesson - after doing a fill-in-the-blanks Coldplay song lazily plucked straight from my TEFL Prague course - I brought up the words to her Hot 'n' Cold song onto the screen. Splitting the class into two, I got them to sing alternate lines of the chorus. Loud. Louder than the loudest Yellow Submarine rendition. The lure of a big prize (not a clue what that will be as yet) inspired them all to be rather loud. Slightly out-of-tune, admittedly, but some of my classes were ear-splitting. The loudest class will get a prize, though I'm going to keep pitting them against one another for a while so I can decide what I can get 40 kids that isn't candy and doesn't break the bank.

Love you all

Matt

Korea - The first K-league game

Hello everyone!

The following events take place between March 25 and April 2

Another week, another significant amount of running and forgetting to save money. I think I've eaten in my place once. I would be obese by now if I didn't spend so much time on the treadmill.

Adding up what I have had in terms of dinner, I have had ddak galbi twice (Friday and Sunday), Samgyupsal twice (Saturday and Thursday), galbi once (Tuesday) and a truckload of fried chicken (Wednesday). What's amazing is that all of this probably cost the same amount as one decent meal in Britain. Each meal was about 5 or 6 quid a pop. Little wonder we all eat out quite a lot.

My teacher classes have started in earnest this week. I teach the English teachers twice a week, and also teach 2 groups of non-English teachers once a week. I had, and still have, no clue as to what I'm supposed to do with the English teachers. Their grammar, for example, is far superior to mine, so I can't really do that. So on Monday, when most of them showed up, it turned into a general chit-chat about movies while drinking coffee. However, as they are all very busy - much, much busier than me - they want the hour to be productive. Ideas on a postcard, please.

As for the non-English teacher classes, the teachers in these classes actually have better English than I expected. And, for the ones in my office, than they had used when talking to me before. I guess they feel a bit intimidated and shy of trying to practice in the office, as there are two Korean English teachers in there, and they may possess some sort of inferiority complex. I told them they shouldn't, and that my Korean is shambolic, but I keep shouting it out in the office. I've learnt the phrase 'I am full' - Pae-ga-puh-loh-yo - so that they will stop constantly offering me food. I have to use it a lot.

Even then, sometimes it doesn't work. On Monday my co-admin-teacher person - the Chinese teacher, Miss Kang - was leaving. They messed up her contract or something. We all got her two cakes from the bakery, and soon after lunch - when I carb-loaded by eating my body weight in rice - the cakes were brought out to be eaten. The practice of eating cake is a bit different out here. Paper plates? No chance. Fork and spoon? Don't be absurd. Not in the RoK. No, we eat cake out of a plastic cup...with wooden chopsticks.

In spite of the initial frustration with having a non-English-speaking teacher as my new admin helper, I will miss Miss Kang. She was a very friendly person, always happy to help me as best as she could, and my Korean has improved markedly thanks to her. She did one final amazing thing for me before leaving. The principal put out a message that I had to start up an after-school programme. Though not happy about that prospect, I was willing to do it, as a lot of public school teachers I know have to do something similar. Well...not me! Miss Kang told him that my contract states that I finish at 4.30, so I can't do any after-school activity. Awesome! Another reason for other public school teachers to hate me though.

One person who doesn't seem to hate me is the new vice-principal. I have lunch with him in the canteen every Thursday. He is a keen runner, and has ran a lot of marathons in his time, so took a big interest when it was mentioned that I am doing this half-marathon. He actually runs on the school treadmill after school. I've been told by some sources that his shorts are unnecessarily short, kinda like those athletics ones from the 1980s. I'll stick to my gym for the time being. I've also been told by lots of teachers that they all hate him, as he has increased their workload significantly. Hasn't affected me yet, apart from people moaning about him to me.

He was moved here from Siheung High School, and told me that there was a native speaker who worked in his school. Another high school teacher in Siheung?? When I came to school the next day the VP had left me a message with his name, Wilson, and a phone number. Having grown a pair since moving out here, I had little hesitation in calling it, and we got dinner on Thursday. Really nice guy from California, though only has one more month left, which is a shame.

In preparation for the half marathon, which is on the 25th, I decided to cut alcohol out of my life until the race was completed. I also thought it would give me a good incentive to keep going. Obviously I'm not going to find that a particularly easy task in Korea, where drinking seems as regular as breathing. I opted to give myself one final night of the stuff, on Saturday, before sacrificing for a month. Kinda like a late Lent gesture, perhaps.

That Saturday we decided to go for a bit of Korean culture. Well, I'll try and package it as that - I haven't done anything cultural of late. We went to a K-league game. The K-League is Korea's football league. Our destination was Incheon, where we watched Incheon United face the, ahem, 'might', of some other team called Ulsan. I wasn't expecting the standard of football to be particularly high.

It wasn't. I was tempted to go down to the touchline to warm up, but would have failed some sort of alcohol test. Also it was pretty damn cold, even for very late March, so I was content to shiver in the stands. The stadium was used for the World Cup, and has a capacity around the 50,000 mark. It wasn't quite at full capacity. We knew that would be the case - it's guaranteed that most Koreans could name more players in England than Korea - but it's hammered home when you look at the ticket. There is no seat number. You pick one of the four stands, then the world (or part of the stadium) is your oyster. The attendance - a whopping 5,775. About 250 of these were in the stand to our right, and they seemed like the hooligan element, if such a thing exists in Korea. They were the only ones making much noise, anyway. Apart from a couple of ignorant foreigners shouting abuse at how bad the players were...

Incheon lost 2-1. Shame. They hit the crossbar in the last minute as well. After the game we headed over to Bupyeong, where Sean lives. It was his girlfriend's birthday, and also we hadn't gone there. It was exactly the same as Bucheon. Most places are a bit samey, as to be expected. We had some awesome samgyupsal, and great fun to boot. We moved on to a bar, quel supris, and I was soon called over to a table of three Koreans. No English, they just wanted to chat at me, rather than to me. I had some soju off them and swiftly left. It was Saturday night, I wasn't going to do any 'work' unless it was to my benefit. Though I then spent a while playing wingman for Kelly while she talked to a Korean guy - the other one's English wasn't great, and I soon ran out of things to say to him that he would understand.

So alcohol done until the race? Not quite. As everybody at university can testify to, I'm rather easily persuaded when it comes to alcoholic beverages. Even if it is not offered, but is on the table with others drinking, I feel obliged to join in the fun. That really does make me sound like an alcoholic, doesn't it. I lasted a whopping three days before drinking on Tuesday. After this relapse, my new attitude is that I can't drink the day before running, so after doing a fairly heroic run - I'm up to 16k thesedays - I will allow myself a little something. No passout nights, though. Should probably cut those out altogether, many would suggest...

This leaves me with just enough time to talk about my lessons. This week has been a combination of two lessons - some classes are ahead of others due to scheduling and exams. Those playing catch-up have done the weekend lesson. As all most Koreans do on the weekend is fulfil the three S's - sleep, study and Starcraft - I had to modify it to be from a British perspective. I asked my classes what they thought British kids did. One student shouted out 'watch porn movie' a little too loud for my liking. One aspect I showed them was nightlife, and I asked them what people do in nightclubs, saying that there are three things. 'Dance' was normally said first. Good answer, what else? 'Drink-uh'. Yes, very true. I knew they knew what else I wanted them to say, and most were rather shy about it. 'Um, to meet?' But there was one student who had his own very animalistic idea of the third strand. 'TEACHER, TEACHER!' he shouted. It got my attention, but before I could get a word in, he continued...

'HUNT! THEY HUNT!' Wow. I fear for the girls when this guy turns Korean age 19 and actually goes to clubs. Something barbaric and unnerving about his choice of word.

Thursday was April 1. I asked around before, and they do actually do April Fool's out here. It's called either that or 'Liar Day'. I was scratching my head for options, and for once my creativity deserted me in a time of need. All I did was to storm into each class, act serious (its difficult for me, that), and then write EXAM on the board. The first class called my bluff straight away. The second fell for it. My first 'exam' question was 'what is the date?', and they gave the answer without a hint of understanding. Bless them.

But then the third class. They went the extra mile. I didn't even get to writing 'exam' on the board before I noticed that two students at the front were sat facing the wrong way. With their clothes on backwards, of course, so that I wouldn't notice. One of them even had stuck a paper face to the back of her head. I wasn't fooled, and played 'how many fingers am I holding up' right in front of her 'face'. 1-0 teacher. They did get me, however. In the middle of the class, one girl screamed 'EARTHQUAKE!!!' and every student flew under their desk. Every student. That did throw me, I have to be honest. It took me quite a while to calm them, and me, down after that. I'll talk about the lessons themselves next time, gone on quite the rant once again.

Happy easter! Love you all

Matt