It's finally raining!

I know, strange that I should be happy about rain. But it hasn't rained here in nearly 6 weeks, and the temperature has still been reaching the upper levels of the 20s, which for October, well, it's just wrong. So maybe now it'll cool down a bit. I have winter clothes, I want to wear my winter clothes! Anyhoo, enough about the weather.

Right, so I arrived back from Shanghai on the Monday evening (almost two weeks ago). That night, I spoke to a certain troublemaker from south of the border (that would be the Irish border): Miss Califf, currently located in Gwangju, over in the west. She informed me of a plan to visit Jeju-do the upcoming weekend. Jeju is an island, located off the south coast of the Korean peninsula. It's a "tropical", Hawaii-stylee kind of island, known as Korea's "Honeymoon Island" because, well, I'm sure you can guess why. She told me we should go while the weather was still good, and there were a few people meeting up there. At first I was sensible: I can't really afford it, I'm just back from Shanghai, I should take it easy for a while...but then I got thinking. And you know me, when someone puts an offer like that in front of me and I get thinking...well it's all downhill from there! So the next day, after numerous e-mails from said Califf along the lines of "go on go on go on go on go on go on", I booked a flight. And three days later, off I flew yet again!

Jeju was fun. It was great to meet with other EPIK teachers who I hadn't seen since orientation in August. Especially good to see Califf - got some quality Irish humour, I have been missing it! We headed straight out for dinner and drinks, and as the night wore on, met up with other EPIKers and other English teachers on the island. Throughout the night we managed to try chicken feet (very greasy, no meat at all) and get ourselves an Irish coffee! Ended up in a noraebang, singing 'til all hours of the morn.

The next morning was a bit of a slow start, however, and certain lazy and suffering members of the group took a while to get going. But we hopped on a bus to the south side of the island - about 45 minutes away - to the Jungnam Beach resort. After messing about in a playground for a bit - and a quick note here on Korean playgrounds, they're not like those we have back home, there are no swings or slides; there are various contraptions which all involve some sort of stretching or exercise, like primitive stairmasters and treadmills - we took a gander at some waterfalls, which involved traipsing up and down and around an unbelievable number of stairs. Henry and I partook in some very bad Irish dancing, Phillippa managed to insult a Chinese man over the quality of Chinese cameras, and we tried to get ourselves a blessing by chucking coins into a fountain. However, most of us missed, so we are destined to live poverty-stricken, honour-less, son-less, love-less lives! Jolly good! (We're not just bad shots: the coins had to go into a smaller pot within the fountain.)

We finally headed to the beach, after being laughed at by some taxi drivers when we asked them to drive us there. We weren't sure where the beach was, thought it was far away, they laughed and said it was just a little bit down the road, and we moved on feeling somewhat embarrassed. To be fair, it was a good 20 minutes walk away, so a taxi would have been justified (given how hungry we were also). The beach was nice, when we finally got there. The sun was starting to go down, and the waves were quite big, with strong currents, so no one ventured in for a swim. We lazed about for a while, snoozing and chatting and playing volleyball with a ball that kept getting carried away by the wind, before finally heading off for dinner. On the way, we stopped at a convenience store for a quick drink and some more chatting, and while there were given some oranges by a man who gestured wildly to explain that he grew and harvested the oranges. We assumed he couldn't speak English, and he kept chuckling and gesturing. His friend, the store owner came to explain that he couldn't speak. We thought it was incredibly nice of him to give us his oranges. Jeju is famous for its oranges: being a tropical island, it produces a lot of citrus. You can buy huge gift boxes of oranges; at the airport I saw people checking in - I'm not kidding - 20 boxes at a time. I was just wondering how they knew whose boxes were whose; they didn't seem to be labelled in any way!

It was a very relaxing evening: dinner in Jungnam, then back to Jeju-si for more drinks and conversation. But early flights and headaches lingering from the night before meant a relatively early night. Dandered around for a short while on Sunday morning, then hopped on a plane back home. Well...almost. Got to Daegu mid-afternoon, so met up with Char and Lily for a nice Western lunch - steak actually. Hadn't seen either of them in a while either, so it was good to catch up. I like relaxed weekends catching up with friends. So it was a bit of a manic weekend, seems like a long way to go for just two nights, but it was fun, and I take away some good memories.

Which still doesn't bring us up to date! But I'm very tired this afternoon, and I need to take a nap, so for now, this will be all. Perhaps tonight, more likely tomorrow, I'll write more. I still have my research on Korean students to reveal, my thoughts on North Korea's shenanigans to discuss, and this weekend to talk about! So, until next time, au revoir.