I'm a Barbie girl

A brief random aside:
Remember Aqua's song, "Barbie Girl"? Of course, who could forget?! I discovered today that it is in the top 100 on Yahoo video. And it's ten years old.

Yes, it came out ten whole years ago!

How old do we all feel now?!

(I have recently learned that most blogs consist of random musings such as this, so felt it was about time I joined the trend.
Actually....no I won't! But I did have to mention this!)

Wonderful if my brother Peter still has the Aqua album?

I Come From a Land Down Under...

...well ok, so I don't come from there, but I will be going there. Woo-hoo! Just had it confirmed this morning. Until now I hadn't wanted to mention it just in case I jinxed it, but found out from Califf, my Irish friend and now future travelling buddy, that we are now booked on a flight to Australia on the 1st February 2007! How excited am I?! We will be going for two weeks, staying with Carol's brother who lives in Sydney. So free accommodation (except for whatever it costs us in drinks!) and a nice bit of summertime warmth during the darkest depths of the Korean winter!

As you can tell, I'm somewhat excited already, and I'm not sure if I can wait two whole months! I don't normally book holidays this far in advance; you know me, I'm a relatively last minute, impulsive holiday-maker. I think I'll deserve it by the time it rolls around. I'm already hectically busy, and my weekends until Christmas will be spent working English camps (more on that later), and then I'll be working extra camps and training throughout January. I'm going to Oz, baby!!

Ok, so that was this week's excitement. Now to recap the last week. Apart from the regular classes, I've started taking three students for extra lessons. They won't be studying abroad, but want to study at international universities in Korea, which means their English has to be top notch, and they need to know a wide range of subjects for their essay test. Each of them has lived in either the US or the UK at some point, so their spoken English is good. But what this means is that I get to teach politics! Yay!

It will be a mixture of politics, history and current events, so as well as helping them, it will be good for me, as I get to choose their topics and then do some research in preparation for their lecture. Which, sad as it may seem, I enjoy doing. Last week, their topic was on the UN and its new Secretary-General, who is a South Korean. They seemed to enjoy the lecture, as they never get to study topics like this. But they irritated me just a little when they decided not to write the essay for this week, because they want to concentrate on their final exams, which are next week. Which is understandable, except they were the ones who asked for extra work, and they had reassured us that they would do the work. So after expressing my annoyance, it took a great deal of pleading for us not to just postpone the programme until the new semester in March. Even though I secretly would start again this week, just because I enjoy it! Seems that I do still have a lot of research hours left in my system!

Last weekend was my first English camp: extra lessons, hosted by one school, and attended by students from a number of schools. They come for extra intensive teaching, and they are usually middle school students, aged up to 15. So this was a new experience for me in a number of ways, given that I teach high school students.

We started on Friday evening - "we" being myself, and my friends Char and Lily. It was up in Char's area, so she had asked us to help out. We started with one introductory lecture (where I discovered, for the first time, just how quiet and shy students can be!) then broke for dinner. The food was not as nice as my school's, but they did have a few different things for us Westerners. They gave us dumpling soup instead of whatever soup everyone else was having, and they also gave us a pork cutlet each. Pork cutlet is breaded chopped pork, served with a strange fruity sauce (hard to describe). This is what Koreans consider "Western food". It is my students' favourite meal, and they all get very excited when it's on the menu.

What was amusing about the different menu this camp school had for us foreigners, was that our friend Lily is Korean-American, and she went first out of the three of us. But since she looked Korean, they didn't give her the special food! But she really wanted the pork and the dumpling soup, so she went back to get extra, and thus felt quite embarrassed. (As a by the way, I will someday, when I have time, write an entire blog entry on Korea and food. It's a huge deal. a huge deal!)

The class I took for the rest of that first evening was lots of fun for me, though very tiring...I got to play Simon Says! I led most of it, but had the students come up with their own commands and lead for a while. Not so great, but still funny. Some of these kids are so sadistic! One of them had his last few classmates on their hunkers, jumping on the spot while hugging each other! Was fun to see. We finished classes quite late, and headed back to Char's apartment. You'd like to think we went straight to sleep, but no, we had to spend a few hours planning the next days lessons. Which resulted in Char and I dancing the Hokey Cokey at 1am!

We were up early the next morning, back to the school, and right back into lessons. And given my nerve-racking experience onstage during the festival the week before, it may come as a surprise to hear that I was singing in my classes last Saturday morning! It was good ol' Britney Spears, and although I was trying to get the kids to sing with me, most of the time it was just me singing. Which is ok, I like singing that song! And after another lunch filled with special delights for the strange foreigners, it was back to the afternoon classes...

And you thought we were dancing the Hokey Cokey in the middle of the night just for kicks! My afternoon classes were a dancing activity. First of all I taught the afore-mentioned kids' party game, had a great laugh doing that, throwing myself around the room and making a right eejit of myself! And then we did Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes, something else I haven't played in years. Did it super fast, and had the students in stitches, even the quiet ones. I had fun, don't know about the kids! Afterwards, my Korean co-teacher (who stood silently at the back of the room most of the time) told me he thought I should take a rest, since I had put so much energy into my dancing!

So English camp was fun, and since we finished on Saturday afternoon, we had the rest of the weekend to relax at Char's. After a nap (hey, we were tired!) and listening to Christmas songs for a while, we headed out for dinner. Lovely samgyupsal, which is like barbecued pork, which you then wrap in lettuce with rice and garlic and other tasty things, and stuff the whole thing in your mouth! Delicious food, one of my favourite Korean dishes, but so unhealthy because the pork used is very fatty. We also had beef, and we even ordered extra! It was gooood. We then went and chatted to one of Char's Korean friends, who works in the local Adidas shop. I should explain: Char lives in a much smaller town than I do - Uiseong - it's quite country, and she has heard rumours of one other white person, but other than that, she's on her lonesome. So she befriends the local people! Which I think is great. We talked to the guy in the Adidas shop for a while, discovered his disturbing penchant for girls who look like they're still in middle school, and then...we hit the noraebang!

This particular karaoke session was dominated by Christmas songs and attempts at rapping. We rocked! Two hours of singing and dancing later, we made our way home, and collapsed on the floor for a nice long sleep. After a lazy morning and some yummy fried egg sandwiches, I headed home. To find that my internet was, once again, on the blink. This happens every now and then, especially at the weekends, but usually happens when I need it most. I had lots of work to get done on Sunday night, but ended up watching bad TV instead. And then on Monday morning, my hairdryer decided to stop working, so I was in a completely anti-technology mood. Of course, when I discovered the next morning that the hairdryer wasn't actually broken, just the plug had come loose from the wall, I felt quite silly.

Monday night was the best teachers' dinners I've ever had! For once, it wasn't fish or seafood, no, it was tasty samgyupsal again. I had gone weeks without eating samgyupsal (after a bit of a binge) and now I had it twice in a matter of days. The food was good, but the reason the night was so much fun was because I ended up staying for hours and chatting to some of the teachers. I spoke for a long time to one of the Japanese teachers (actually Japanese), and wowing him with my knowledge of Japan, garnered from my three weeks of holiday there nearly three years ago! Then spent a long time talking to another teacher (Teacher Kang) about Ireland, and him teaching me more Korean. In return, I taught them all "slainte".

Problem is, the teachers have figured out that I can drink more than your average Korean woman. So a couple of them were constantly plying me with soju, in the customary Korean way. One of them was also constantly piling more pork onto my dish, even though there was plenty left on my grill, because the other folk at my table had left. Later on, the same teacher appeared with an ice cream for me! I have no idea where the ice cream came from. It was rather random! But it was lots of fun; most of the teachers had left a lot earlier, and there were only about 12 of us left, but it was good talking to some of them a bit more. I walked home slightly tipsy afterwards, and once again, got no work done!

But the next couple of weeks should be easier. Next week is finals, so I have no classes; the following two weeks will be presentations by the students; after that there is only one more week before winter vacation, and since no one will want to work, games it is!

This entry has, once again, been a lot longer than I intended it to be. And this was only a week! Hope I haven't bored anyone - believe me, I could if I tried! I also did have some other photos I wanted to put on, but the site doesn't seem to want me to do so right now. Evil site. But there are lots of lovely new photos up on Flickr, as well as photos from the last couple of years, so go have a gander.

All the best my lovelies. x

A brief aside...

I would just like to say a massive HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my big brother, Paul, who turned 30 on the 27th November.

I hear he had a hectic but enjoyable day. Bet ya feel old now, eh Paul?!

Let's not even get started on my folks...!!

All the best to the whole famly, miss you lots and lots.

Well it’s about bloody time!

So after an absence of nearly three weeks, I have finally locked myself in my shoebox of an apartment and readied myself for a mammoth blog entry. My slackness is a result of a combination of things: firstly, technology has been against me. In one week, my computer died again, and was fixed by my friend’s magic hands (my stupid computer just doesn’t like me!), but as soon as it was fixed the internet in my flat decided to shut off for a few days. Secondly, last week was a very hectic week, school and everything was just all over the place, which I’ll explain somewhere in this epic. And finally, well, I’ve just been a little lazy!

As you can probably guess, this is going to be a long one, so don’t get started until you’re sitting in the snuggliest chair in the house, maybe with a blanket, and a nice fresh cup of tea, and maybe a biscuit or two. Right then, are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin.

(You think I’m kidding about the length. I’m really not! Seriously, it’s long. I typed it out on Word and it’s about 10 pages. You might want to save it offline and read it in chunks!)

I guess I’ll start from where I last left off…makes sense really! And last time I wrote properly, I was just about to head off to Gwangju to visit Carol and Phillippa. Well it was a fun weekend! Didn’t exactly learn much about Korea, or see much of the city, as it was more the sort of weekend for catching up with old friends and meeting new ones. There isn’t all that much to see there anyway: the city is famous for kimchi and art, and since I don’t like kimchi (yet), I wasn’t fussed on that, and the girls had already been to the art exhibition twice already, so didn’t feel like going again.

Gwangju is a 3-1/2 hour bus journey away from Gumi, and the bus driver I had was absolutely manic! It seemed like he had a death-wish. Apart from the crazy driving, it was a decent enough trip, even though it was dark, so I couldn’t actually see the beautiful mountains around me. The express buses in Korea are lush: the seats are wide leather jobs, that almost fully recline, with a foot rest as well, and there’s enough leg room to not be bothered when the person in front of you decides to take a nap. So a very comfortable journey, and a stop along the way, during which I got laughed at by one of the serving ladies for nearly putting sugar on my potatoes!

As soon as I got to Gwangju, it was straight out, and straight on the old soju. Not sure if I’ve mentioned it yet, but soju is like Korean vodka – it’s the liquor of choice, made from sweet potatoes. And can be fairly lethal because it’s so stupidly cheap. The first bar we went to was a karaoke bar, so we got to watch some terrible Korean dancing and singing. Eventually, Henry, English lad who was with us, got up to sing Brown-Eyed Girl, and Carol and Phil performed as his backing dancers. I think they got a good reception – whiteys getting up on stage always do! Incidentally, I lost at my own drinking game. Not the brightest crayon in the box, me! Afterwards we moved to the girls’ ‘local’, and when I mean local, I mean it is 45 minutes from their flats! But it’s a foreigner bar, and it was here that I had a taste of just how good the international community is in Gwangju. The city doesn’t just have lots of foreigners, but they’re also very well organised, and everyone seems to know each other. The bar is good for meeting other foreigners, and it played good music, and not just the American hip-hop that is so popular over here.

So after what became a pretty crazy night, Miss Califf dragged me out of bed early the next morning to go to her school to teach. To teach! Can you believe it?! Her school was having an English café, which we were helping out at. Carol works at a middle school, so this was my first chance to see students at a lower level than my super-smart kids. That was interesting for me, definitely, and to see another school as well. We had drinks and snacks out for the students, and they had to come in and ask for what they wanted, and we would ask how they were. In one hour we spoke to 260 students. It was interesting, but challenging considering my shaky legs and tired head!

I also didn’t mind being dragged out of bed early too much because Carol gave me something that I had been craving: proper tea and toast! She had some tea sent from Ireland, and a toaster and butter, and I had found a bakery that made bread like what we get back home. So we combined our efforts, and it was goooood! Tea and toast with Aunty Carol, does it get any better?! (She won’t like me calling her that!)

After teaching, we headed to the south of the city (Carol lives in the north) to where Phil lives, for one of the most painful experiences available in Korea – waxing! It was fairly brutal, and Carol and I doubt that we’ll do it again, but it was definitely an experience! We wandered around a bit, then hit the town again. The girls introduced me to their favourite Korean food – shabu shabu. You start with a pot of simmering stock, and you add vegetables and meat, and eventually noodles, and eat it as a soup. It’s constantly simmering, and constantly being added to, and it’s tasty. When the soup is finished, rice is fried in the bottom of the pot, and it’s best when the rice has burned a little. Very tasty indeed.

Off we skipped to the same karaoke bar as the previous night, for some more bad singing, and then on to Speak Easy, the foreigner bar. We had met up with friends of Carol’s as well, a girl that she went to school with and her boyfriend, who are teaching in Mokpo, on the south coast. So it was a veritable Irish invasion! We all engaged in much dancing throughout the night, and it was all a great laugh. We also met a random Korean guy who turned out to be incredibly vain, and who stuck with us all night. Why? We’re not sure. But we called him Tom Cruise. He liked that. And at one point, when Henry mentioned the Liverpool football team, a girl suddenly appeared at his shoulder who just happened to be from Liverpool and had overheard. It’s how friendships are formed in a country where Westerners are the minority. I like it.

After leaving the bar at whatever time it was, we headed off to noraebang. For those who might not remember, noraebang is karaoke – you hire a little room just for you and your mates, you get a couple of tambourines and some microphones, and you can sing as badly and for as long as your little heart desires. This particular noraebang was surreal. Surreal because we arrived after 4am. Surreal because the place had an Aliens theme, so there were massive Aliens figures everywhere. But also just plain bizarre, because nestled in amongst these figures was a Christmas tree. And since we had been discussing Christmas, Carol decided to kick the whole thing off with a little bit of “All I Want For Christmas Is You”. Got us all in the mood.

Two hours of warbling later, we left the noraebang, and poured onto the street, where I was greeted with a Mackie’s of Scotland café! This might only mean something to Mum, but Mackie’s is a brand of ice cream we get back home, good ice cream, and this was a whole café! I would have gone in if it weren’t 6.30 in the morning!

The next day was a tired day: late start, slow movements, and eventually a late and long journey back home. It was when I returned from Gwangju that I discovered my computer was dead, so needless to say I was none too happy. Had visions of having to buy a brand new machine, and as fun as that would be, it’s an expense I can do without right now. Thankfully, as I said, my friend was able to fix it the next day for me, with very little trouble. So that week was characterised by technology failing me: first the computer dying, and then the internet switching off for a while. The only thing significant from the rest of that week was meeting a couple of other foreign teachers who work in Gumi. They seemed nice, and we chatted for a long time, so hopefully I’ll see them again soon and I’ll actually know other people in this town!

That weekend was also significant. My friend Char and I decided to have a relaxed, laid back weekend, and chose to go cultural! So off we headed to Gyeongju, a city which is about 90 minutes from Gumi, close to the east coast of Korea. A little bit of history will explain why this is cultural: Korea history, until Japanese occupation in 1910, is divided into a series of dynasties and kingdoms. The first time the Korean peninsula was unified was in 668, by the Silla kingdom, forming Unified Silla. For a thousand years, until 927AD, the capital of the Silla kingdom was Gyeongju. During this unification, arts flourished and Buddhism became an important part of Silla culture; consequently, Gyeongju, as Silla’s capital, is overflowing with ancient Silla art and Buddhist relics, so much so that it is known as a “museum without walls”.

Apologies for the diversion into history, but it does provide an interesting background to what we saw. Oh, and in case you’re wondering, yes, I had a little bit of help from Wikipedia, but most of the above was taken from what I learned whilst reading about Gyeongju and while visiting it!

We arrived on a Saturday afternoon – Char a few hours later than me as she had overslept, but not to panic, this was our laid-back weekend, so no rushing or stress was to be involved! I found a hostel, and with it found the most helpful hostel owner in Korea. He was an old-ish man, but spoke excellent English, and gave me a 20-minute guide on where I should go and what I should see. He even gave me one of his hand-drawn maps of hikes around Mount Namsan, known as a “sacred mountain” because of the Buddhist relics and shrines that litter the slopes. I definitely have to go back and hike sometime – it takes at least 6 hours, and we hadn’t planned for hiking in the short time we were there, so it will require a return trip. There is still so much left to see in the mountains anyway.

The most visible remnants of the Silla period are countless massive burial mounds, or tumuli, scattered all over the city. These are the tombs of kings and queens, leaders and scholars, generals and ruling families from the Silla age. They were created in such a way that if anyone tries to dig into them to steal the treasure buried with the corpse, the mound will collapse. It’s amazing walking around this city, turning a corner and seeing four more tumuli rise up in front of you. They literally are everywhere, all of varying sizes, but some maybe five or six times my height, or more. In the city centre, clusters of these tombs have been made into parks, preserved and protected for visitors.

While I was strolling around one of these parks – Noseo-dong – waiting for Char to arrive, I passed a group of Korean people about my age. One of the guys in front, who had very good English and sounded like he may have spent some time in the States, said hello to me, asked me how I was, and handed me a giant Pepero, literally, it came up to above my knee! I realised it was Pepero Day, thanked him very much as it was my first Pepero, then walked on when he started joking about phone numbers!

So I’m going to head off on a bit of a tangent now as I explain to you what exactly Pepero Day is, as I’m sure you’re thinking I’ve just gone a little bit mad. Pepero – or to those familiar with the identical Japanese snack, Pocky – is a chocolate covered cookie stick. Kind of like Cadbury’s Fingers, but longer and not as tasty. The 11th November is Pepero Day – think of the numbers, 11/11, they look like little sticks. The story goes that back in 1994, at a girls’ middle school in Busan, the students started exchanging Pepero, wishing each other to become as tall and slender as a Pepero stick. The company that makes the snack, Lotte, apparently got wind of this, and decided to market the whole idea. (The cynical view is that there were no middle school girls involved and that it was entirely dreamt up by Lotte.) It became like another Valentine’s Day. In fact, Korea has four such days. On Valentine’s Day, I think, girls give guys presents, and a month later, guys give girls presents. So Korea is the world leader in commercialised holidays, and Pepero day is perhaps the ultimate made-up holiday. It’s not as simple as exchanging boxes of snacks; they create sculptures out of the boxes, and package the snacks together in ultra-gaudy packages with teddy bears and ribbons and fake flowers. It’s completely insane! I only received two Pepero – one from the random guy, and a box from Char. I gave her a box too, so we revelled in our transformation into Korean teenagers!

Back to the trip to Gyeongju. When Char arrived, we went for lunch (good ol’ Mr Pizza again!) and then went dandering around the biggest of the burial mound clusters, Tumuli Park, the Royal Tomb complex. There are, I think, 23 tombs in this park alone, one of which has been excavated and is open to the public, to see inside. Very interesting, you see the wooden chamber that held the body, and you can see how the mound was made up, with layer upon layer of stones (apparently the stones are similar in size to the corpse’s head) arranged so that they would only collapse when someone tried to dig in.

The sun was setting while we were in Tumuli Park, which made for some beautiful light cast over the mounds. I should mention here that we were incredibly lucky with the weather all weekend; it was the most perfect autumn weather we could have asked for, crystal clear blue skies, sun shining, crisp and cold, and the leaves on the trees were still their many vivid shades of red and yellow. Amazingly beautiful, truly, I was constantly in awe by the sights.

Anyway, I digress again. We wandered around this park for a little longer, played in some leaves and danced like eejits! (If you want to see just how eejit-like we were, http://www.getjealous.com/getjealous.php?action=movies&go=chargirl and watch the videos from the 11 November.) This is the great thing about Char, and some of the other people I’ve met here: when we get together, we are unashamedly silly. I wholeheartedly believe that there are times to be serious, but there are also times when you just need to act stupid, and not worry about what people think. And we have decided that while we’re in Korea, we are going to be stared at, because that’s just what happens here when you’re Western, and so we might as well make complete fools of ourselves! As I said before, the day we went to Woobang Land, we danced and sang everywhere we went. It’s a sense of freedom, and it feels great.

After leaving Tumuli Park, we walked on to Cheomseongdae observatory, which is the oldest observatory in East Asia, dating from the 7th century. The hostel owner had told us of a few places that were lit up at night, and so were best seen in the evening, which was good for us as it got dark only a few hours after Char arrived. The observatory is one of them (and we saw it the next day in daylight, definitely looks better lit up at night!). Not only is this the oldest in this part of the world, but the number and layout of stones have a great deal of significance, showing an advanced knowledge of astronomy for the period. There are either 362 or 366 blocks altogether, representing the number of days in the year (362 in the lunar year; and different surveys disagree on the exact number); and there are 12 base stones, thought to represent the months of the year.

Moving on from the observatory (and by now it was bitterly cold and we didn’t have our scarves or warm coats!), we walked to Anapji Pond. This is an artificial pond built as part of the ancient Silla palace complex, with three small interconnected islands on which stand three pavilions of different sizes. At night, it is lit up, and the pavilions are reflected on the pond, so again, a beautiful sight to see.

From here, we walked back to the downtown area, where I had to buy a pair of shoes as the only pair I had brought with me were broken. Yes, literally, broken. We found a lovely little café decked out in white lacy curtains and fairy lights, and they served “England Tea” so I had a rare treat of Earl Gray (not quite so rare any longer, since my wonderful mother sent me a few bags in the post!) Afterwards, we thought we would go for a few drinks, and it was at this point that we discovered that Gyeongju is positively dead at night! It was a Saturday night, no one was on the streets, and most of the bars we saw were closed. We finally found somewhere, had some dinner and some drinks, but by the time we left, which was still quite early, there were maybe 5 other people in the whole place. The staff outnumbered the customers! So my guess is that Gyeongju is best for culture, but for nights out, not the best location. So it was a good thing we were planning a quiet weekend after all!

The next day, we were up relatively early, grabbed some breakfast, and caught a bus to take us out to Bulguksa. This is a Buddhist temple built in the 700s, and it is a UNESCO World Heritage Sight, as well as Korea’s Historic and Scenic Site number one. It also contains seven National Treasures of Korea. So it’s quite famous! The temple sits on the slopes of a mountain, looking down across the valleys below. To get to the complex, you walk through a simple garden with a pond, which was in amazing autumn colours, and was stunning to see. In the complex itself, the first thing you see are two ‘bridges’, actually staircases, leading up to the main hall. These are both National Treaures, and one of them has 33 steps, representing the 33 steps to enlightenment.

Inside the temple compound, there are two pagodas, Seokgatap and Dabotap. Bit of background information: the temple was built by a prime minister of the Silla era, in an attempt to pacify the spirits of his parents, and so the two pagodas represent his father and mother. Seokgatap is simple, and thought to represent man; dabotap is incredibly ornate, thought to represent woman, and once had four stone lions, but three were removed by the Japanese. This latter pagoda actually appears on the 10 won coin, it is so loved.

Towards the back of the temple compound, tucked away in a far corner, is a wishing stone garden. This is a Buddhist act, whereby an individual adds one stone to a pile, while making a wish. It makes for a fascinating, and quite peaceful, image. Surprising to feel peaceful when there were many, many people around! This is one of the top tourist destinations in Korea, and it being a clear autumn weekend, the place was crawling with people!

So needless to say, despite the people, and given the beautiful surroundings and the perfect autumn weather, Bulguksa was quite a breathtaking experience. We also had some random experiences while we were there! Firstly, while we were outside the main hall of the temple, next to the pagodas, we had a couple of kids, maybe 8 years old, approach us and ask if we wanted to know the history of Bulguksa. They then proceeded to tell us, in near perfect and advanced English, all about the bridges, the pagodas, and the history and significance of the temple. It was incredible: the girl that talked to me had English comparable to some of my students. And I know there’s an argument that simply memorising a speech isn’t really knowledge of a language, but she was able to ad lib, and respond to questions. Quite a bizarre happening!

Then, later on, when we were just leaving Bulguksa, we were approached by two guys who turned out to be Cambodian, and who asked for us to have photos taken with them! Rather strange, and quite rude too, to be honest! We left them sharpish, and made our way further up the mountain to Seokguram grotto, another part of the complex, built around the same time. It is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and yet another National Treasure. It is an artificial grotto with a large Buddha statue surrounded by Buddhist carvings in a rotunda. The grotto overlooks the East Sea, so it is said that the Buddha protects Korea. It is a truly magnificent view from the grotto, especially on the clear day that we were lucky enough to have. We could see all the way to the East Sea (incidentally, the East Sea is also the Sea of Japan – but this takes us into all sorts of nationalistic disputes that I won’t go into right now!)

While waiting for the bus to take us back to the city, we had another random meeting, this time with some ajummas and adjoshis, old women and men. There was a large group of them, and one spoke some English, so started asking us where we were from, where we lived in Korea, if we were liking it, the normal sort of questions. Another adjoshi gave us some gum, telling us it had vitamin C in it – “good for health”! (Everything in Korea is “good for health”; when I finally get around to writing about food, I’ll talk about that.) I think they adopted us for a while, and kept gathering around and smiling at us. Very sweet, and very friendly.

I am forever having meetings like this with Koreans, and it confuses me when I then read about other people who find Koean people rude. We were told at orientation that people wouldn’t smile at strangers in the street, like we would do back home; however, I have found the opposite. Maybe in cities, but that’s the same in any city, no matter what country it is. People complain about Koreans pushing into queues, but having spent even just a minimal amount of time in China, this country is nowhere near as bad as there. For me, the number of occasions where Koreans have been polite and friendly far outweigh the times they have been rude.

So that was our weekend in Gyeongju. I’m glad we went, and especially glad we went when we did, but I’ll definitely have to go back and hike the mountain.

The following week was a bit hectic at school. It was the week of the KSAT (duh-duh-duuuuuuh!) I think I mentioned this before; it’s what every Korean student works towards, so basically it is the most important day in any student’s life. It’s a massive community event: bakeries and other businesses had countdowns, and ‘good luck’ merchandise is everywhere. My school has a sign in the main hallway, counting down to the day. Truly a massive occasion.

On the day before the test, we only had two morning classes (although they started earlier, so we were teaching at 8am), and then classes ended, the first and second graders undertook “grand cleaning” (honest, that’s what they called it!) and then came something I never thought I’d see. The first graders (and some second graders) performed an hour long good luck show for the seniors. They did it outside, in a courtyard surrounded on all sides by hallways, so those not involved gathered at the windows to watch. They chanted, they sang, they made letters with their bodies, they danced, they performed skits, they were amazing! The students not only have so much talent, but they have so much confidence to go out and do something like that. And for a conservative school in a conservative country, some of the dancing was pretty provocative! It gave me an idea of what was to come at the school festival a few days later.

On test day itself, we had no class, and so no work for me! I had a nice day of lounging – yes you’d think I would tried to get this written back then, and you know what, I did! I had quite a lot written, and then my computer crashed! But that evening, I had to go into school, for dress rehearsal for the festival. Why? Well, ladies and gentlemen, your’s truly was singing.

Yikes. Yes, me singing, in front of people and not just at karaoke! Tony, my fellow foreign teacher, had roped me into singing “A Whole New World” from Aladdin with him. Now bear in mind we had only just learned the words, and we hadn’t rehearsed together at all! We got on stage at rehearsal…and I froze. Not a sound came out of my mouth, I was left standing with the mic, jaw hung open! I promised them I would sing in the actual show, and I’ll tell you in a while how it went…!

The day of the festival loomed: our teachers happily told us that since the fesitval started at 2pm, there were only morning classes. Guess what? Tony and I only have morning classes on a Friday! So it was like a normal day for us, followed by a long evening of entertainment. Most of the students were either wired in anticipation, or flat out shattered as a result of all the preparation.

Have I explained the festival? I’m not sure, but I’ll do it anyway. Our school has 22 different clubs, ranging from film to English conversation, and basketall to Japanese club. Being a foreign languages school, we have a lot of language clubs, which is why we have countless more clubs than most other schools. The festival is the clubs’ day: they get to put on performances, show off work from the year, sell food or things they’ve made, and dress up. Basically, it’s non-class time, and the students love it! Because we have so many clubs, the festival lasted nearly two days, and so, for only the third time since moving here (once being when I was on cruthces!) I stayed in Gumi for the weekend, in honour of the show!

The festival kicked off with an outdoor performance from the Korean traditional drumming club. Now, I love drumming. And Korean drumming has become one of my favourite kinds. After the drumming, the festival was officially opened, and all the clubs headed into the gym for Golden Bell, like a table quiz. During this, they had me ask a question: I had to ask the students to give my full name, spelt correctly. And this is when we discovered, they don’t know it! I got Jennifer Christopher, Jennifer Aniston, Jennifer Lopez and Jennifer Golden! Needless to say, they’ll never forget my name now.

Later on that evening was the English play, which was possibly my favourite part of the whole weekend. This was written entirely in English, and was a veritable feast of comedy, singing and dancing, and crazy costumes. Very amusing, and very impressive. The students went all out, gave it all the energy they had, all of them, all weekend.

Next up was PopCon – the English conversation club’s pop concert. It’s times like this that you get to see how talented the students are. This would be when we were to sing. For a long time before it, Tony and and I were almost silent, which is unusual for us, especially for Tony who is quite the talker. We were both petrified, and I was supposed to be taking confidence from him! Soon enough, the time came. Tony started with a Korean song, and half way through, the music changed, and out I came. (The photo is proof!) All that needs to be said is that I started off on the wrong key and never recovered! I don’t think I did a particularly good job, but it was over very quickly, and I got off-stage as fast as I could! People told me I did well, but I think they were just saying that, especially when it was students! One student was very honest with me the next day: she said they could hear that the music was too high for me, but they could also tell that I was a good singer. So kind of a backhanded compliment!

The next day started with a basketball game. Our team – who, through a strange translation twist are known as the farmers! – played against Gumi Boys’ Hish School. Bearing in mind they have no coach, and that the boys’ high school has 450 boys to choose from whereas ours has about 70, they did well. The first grade team actually won, and convincingly too.

Throughout the day I watched two movies made by the film club, which were good even though I didn’t understand a word; saw dancers from another school; listened to the school orchestra (and Tony singing some more); the Korean drummers were out some more; acoustic guitar perormances; and our own school dancers. The clubs all had stalls outside all day, and food was being sold. The girls who were in charge of administration all had to wear traditional Korea dress, or hanbok, and they looked wonderful.

In regards to the dancing: I mentioned two performances, another school and our own. After the other school had danced, as good as it was, I had reached a conclusion that the dancing was going to be as follows: sexy dancing for the girls and the robot for the guys, all to the beat of American hip-hop. So I was expecting the same thing from our own dancers. Which was why I was pleasantly surprised when they launched into some swing, and other sorts of creative dancing. Very impressive.

The night finished off with the school’s rock band, known as Foreigner. Yep, Foreigner! And you can’t fault a band that kicks off with “My Shirona”! There were two bands, first and second grade, and honestly, the first grade band were better. Mix the musicians with the second grade singer, and they would be unstoppable! The most comical translation in all the English songs they did was when they sang “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll” and instead of singing, “put another dime in the jukebox, baby”, it seemed to come across as, “put another dime in the doobox baby”! Ah well, they were good. I left at the second encore, as I had a bad headache that wasn’t exactly being helped by the loud music.

All in all, it was a great weekend. I had some friends come up from Daegu to see it, and they were impressed. I’m constantly amazed by the wealth of talent in this school. One student, who speaks great English and is in the American SAT class, won the talent show for rapping (in English), and the next day appeared as an virtuoso violinist. Smart kid, and he’s a senior next year, so he’s going to be very popular!

So that was the weekend. And those are the big things that have happened in the last few weeks. I’m also fully prepared for winter now (I know I said I was before, but I was lying!) I ordered some clothes from the US so I have some extra layers, and a nice big warm coat. In fact, it’s so warm that it’s still too mild to wear it! Also, my boots from home finally arrived, so my feet and legs are toasty warm. And with my boots came lovely lovely tea! And a nice warm scarf that Mum knitted for me. It’s fun to get parcels!

So the cold dark evenings are a signal that winter is coming soon, and with winter comes…Christmas! I’m starting to get very excited about it, I’ve started countdowns on the boards in our office and my classroom. Christmas decorations have appeared in some of the supermarkets, so I’m already scouting out where to buy my tree, and I bought my first decoration at the weekend. What was even better is that yesterday, one of my students gave me a decoration, which was so sweet. I know that Christmas away from home is hard (especially since Peter will be at home this year, and my dear Karen is going home as well) so my friends and I know we have to make a big deal out of it or else it will just be depressing. So we’re trying to make plans already, although it’s difficult when you don’t read Korean!

After New Year, we’ll be into our winter vacation. I’ll be working English camps most of January, but Carol and I are trying to plan a holiday for February. I’ll reveal it when we have something booked.

Right so this has been a bit of a epic! Sorry for taking so long to update, and sorry for making it so lengthy! But I did have a lot to talk about. I hope the history and cultural backgrounds weren’t too dull, and I hope you found it sufficiently interesting to actually get through the whole thing (if you did, well done, give yourself a pat on the back!) This weekend, I’m working: I’m off to Char’s little town, Uiseong, about an hour and a bit north of here, to do an English camp with her and Lily. I’ll be doing three of them between now and Christmas. They’ll be interesting for me, because they are with middle school kids, so a whole new experience for me.

I’ll try and update a bit more regularly from now on, so that I don’t end up with entries like this again! As usual, there are plenty more photos on my Flickr account, the ones here are just a taster. I hope all is well wherever you are. Keep in touch, and keep reading! Miss you all lots. x

Coming soon to a blog near you...

This is just a quick one to say I'm incredibly sorry for being so slack the last few weeks, but things got a little hectic, stuff happened, and everything just built up. I am in the process of writing the latest entry, I promise - it was started yesterday, and was due to be finished today during work, since there was no class, and I had 8 hours to play with. Or so I thought. I was told at 10am that Tony and I had to go to Andong, an hour's drive away, at 11am to record listening tests. And I got back tonight at 8pm. Needless to say, the blog wasn't finished. Hopefully, fingers crossed, I will get it done and published by tomorrow. Just a quick warning though: it is huge! I might have to publish it in instalments! But I promise I will do my absolute best to get it done for tomorrow, before I have even more to write about! Hope you're all well, and thanks for being patient.

No escape

I have other things to talk about, but there's something I have to report right now.

There is no escaping Christmas. Not even in Korea, where it's not exactly a huge holiday, and we only get one day off.

Leaving Gwangju yesterday (talk about it some other time) we noticed a department store adorned with a massive stocking, and several Santas climbing a ladder out of it. And just now, I saw an ad for Christmas at Lotte World (which I think is another department store). I know at home we get Christmas ads stupidly early, but I thought here would be different.

To be honest, I don't mind! I love Christmas, and plan on making a big fuss over it this year. Already planning the trees and decorations that I'm going to spread around our office!

And at noraebang the other night, we started the celebrations early, with a little bit of "All I Want For Christmas Is You"! Good ol' Mariah.

Technology, PAH!

I've decided to take a break from my washing machine watch to write the latest edition to my blog. I'm watching said washing machine as it decided to stop half-way through, and I'm a little worried that by just restarting, it might flood my apartment! If the last word I type is "gurgle", then you'll know what happened.

The main thing to talk about since I last wrote is last weekend in Daegu, which was quite possibly one of the best weekends I have had in a very long time. It was a strange weekend, in that so much went wrong that it should have been a bust, but it was quite the opposite. I'll start from the beginning. It seems like a good a place as any!

The plan was that Charlotte and myself would meet early evening in Daegu (5-ish), scope out somewhere to stay, then meet a few others for dinner, and wait until the Gwangju Two got in after 9. But we ended up meeting after 8, and eating at 11! Through various delays and waiting around and going back and forth to the hotel. We did have about 10 people to gather up throughout the course of the evening, coming from various parts of the country. So a late start to the night, but we found ourselves in a club just after midnight, and we stayed there a while. Until 5am, to be a bit more precise! It was a great night: after a slow start, we found somewhere to dance, strange people to talk to, and witches hats to steal from the bar! We got ourselves back to the hotel, but the fun was only just starting!

One of the girls with us went missing, and it was her first time in Daegu, so obviously we were a bit worried. Most of the others went to sleep, but Carol and I set out to find Phil. Through many phone calls, we discovered that taxi drivers were taking her for a ride, quite literally, and driving her all over the city except where she wanted to go. During this recovery mission, I managed to have a free taxi ride to nowhere: got in a taxi, discovered we had no money, Carol went back to get some, driver headed off anyway, I tried to get him to stop, he went back to the hotel, I realised Carol had already gone in a different taxi, also realised I had no money, so the driver just told me to get out!

Then I was joined by Char as we waited outside for the other two to come back. Ended up standing outside Daegu train station until almost 7.30am, long after the sun had come up. Oh, and Char was in her PJs, and I was in a t-shirt, skirt and bare feet. (I had come out earlier and hadn't expected to be out so long, and didn't want to annoy the lady in the hotel anymore!) So there we were, standing around for a while, being made fun of by the taxi drivers, who kept pointing to their feet and laughing. Eventually we found out the other two were already back in the hotel, so we went home to bed. Eventful night, but you know what? I enjoyed it. It was definitely an experience!

A brief few hours later, up we got, and headed off to the happiest place in Daegu: WooBang Tower Land! It did take us a while to get there, given that we kept getting distracted by shiny accessory stores and W1000 shops (we were six girls and one guy!) I guess we dawdled, but it was a good kind of dawdling. It was a perfect day for an amusement park, as you can see from this here photo. There wasn't a cloud in the sky, and it was a nice 20 degrees - not too hot, not too cold.

Being Halloween, we hit the Ghost House first, and ladies and gentlemen, if you ever find yourself in this part of the world....stay as far away as possible from this Ghost House! It's the worst I have ever been in! Pitiful, really. We spent the first few hours queuing for a measly three rides (the ghost house being one of them), there were lots of people around, and the queues were frustratingly long. But as soon as the sun went down and it got a little chillier, the people disappeared and the queues got a lot shorter. So in the last few hours, we went on everything we could!

We were there until it closed: we watched as the shops and restaurants closed one by one, saw the crowds thin out, and walked up to what was to be our last ride to see it being turned off before us! We finished the day with a cable car ride, which showed us all of Daegu, which was very nice indeed. Late dinner, then we headed out for a few drinks, but given how tired we were, most of us were tucked in bed by 2am. An hour later, I got a call from the remaining few people to say they weren't being allowed into our hotel! So we tried to sort that out, but to no avail, so they had to stay elsewhere. The lady in the hotel did not like us, but honestly, if you run a hotel in the centre of Korea's third largest city, I think you should expect people to come back at all hours of the night!

We started quite early again the next morning, the girls from Gwangju wanting to do some shopping before catching their bus. So a lovely leisurely brunch, followed by dandering around shops, and then wasting some more time! By the time I headed to get my train, it was 5pm, and we had been "dandering" all day! The train was then a mission, as Sunday evening is obviously a busy time, and the station was packed, as was my train, when I finally got it. So much for getting home early and doing laundry and planning lessons!

Anyway, doesn't sound like the most exciting weekend ever, but it was the people that made it. The friends I've made here are wonderful people, the sort of people I feel completely comfortable around and can be at my most crazy self. The way I used to be around the cafe! I've been so lucky to have found people like this, it's just a shame they don't live closer! I will remember this last weekend mostly for the singing and dancing: we danced around the park, making right fools of ourselves, and sang everywhere, in restaurants and taxis, and most memorably, walking through the Metro station singing American Pie! We figure, we look funny anyway, and people are going to stare, so why not make the most of it?! It was a very laid back, easy weekend, spent with great friends feeling completely at ease. So that's why it was so good!

As for the rest of this week, it has been fairly uneventful. Teaching has gone on as normal. I might be starting some evening classes with the best of the best English students, so that'll be good: give me something to do in the evenings, and a little bit of extra cash wouldn't go amiss. I've also signed up to a few English camps throughout November and December - intensive weekends that kids attend to improve their English. Something different to experience, and again, a little extra cash. Plus I'm doing them with Char, so I know I'll be in good company.

Other than that, life has just been trundling on. I spend my days having bizarre, confusing, but very funny conversations with my fellow teacher, Tony, and having kids tell me how pretty I am! Apparently, I have golden hair. Oh, my lessons for the end of this week have been on British and Irish slang, so I've been having a brilliant time teaching the kids "craic", "bout ye" and "deadly", amongst many other gems! I spent ages in the office laughing to myself, as I searched online for slang to remind myself, and I came across things I haven't heard in years. Brilliant. We really do have a colourful language! Much better than American slang, methinks.

I'm off to Gwangju tomorrow, to visit the Gwangju Two, Carol and Phil, who were both up in Daegu last weekend. They're a bit mad, so they are, so it'll be interesting! Carol is Irish, and I'm taking her down some nice, proper bread thatI found, so that we can combine it with her butter, and the tea her mum has sent her, and have proper tea and toast! When she told me that, I got down on the groun - in the middle of the street - and worshipped the woman. I love tea and toast, and I miss it! So it should be another fun weekend, which I will write about in a few days. Or in a week, as my pattern seems to be going!

Keep reading, I'm so happy to hear that so many people are still with me, reading this whenever they can. I honestly thought it would just be my parents by this point! I hope you're still enjoying it as much as I'm enjoying writing it. That's all for now my dears!