Neon Crosses Held Aloft

Once again, a whole week between updates. And once again, I can only apologise. Sadly at the moment there is just far too much going on in my life to make truly regular entries: I hope that what I'm doing at the moment will suffice.

So...it has been an interesting and busy few days.

Last Thursday my school had a festival: apparently this is a traditional autumn thing where the students show off their talents, whether they are musical, artistic or sporting. As a teacher I basically got to walk around the school all day and check the work out, which made a nice break from teaching. :-)  The day began with a speech from the Principal, VP and some of the governors followed by a nice photo-op in front of the school entrance:

Myself and the other teachers then took a look at some of the art students work before I held an English quiz with some preprepared questions. One student actually got 28 questions correct in a row, which is pretty damn amazing!

Then there was a quick lunch, and after that a musical talent show in the main hall, featuring some singing, some dancing and some musical instruments:

(Though some of the acts involving girls gyrat dancing to 2NE1 made me feel deeply uncomfortable :-O )

Friday passed pretty ordinarily, apart from the evening where I went along to a Halloween party where I got into costume:

FYI - the witches hat was not originally a part of my costume - it was added to my normal hat after several pints. Had a great night, Buzz was packed to the rafters so the atmosphere was great.

Another reason for it being a good night:

Yup. By popular demand...it's The Girlfriend (TM). Her name's Julie. (I could choose to make an Ali G joke here but that would be too obvious). One thing...she's Christian, which brings me to my next point. When you go out into Cheongju at night, it's quite amazing the amount of neon crosses you can see that indicate a house of worship. Given that Christianity is in fact the most practised religion here, I can't say as I'm surprised, but red glowing Symbols of God are not something you'd see in say, Canterbury or York...

Anyway...after waking up with a hangover on Saturday and eating prodigous amounts of bread (thank you, Paris Baguette) and water to combat it, I spent a good part of Saturday recuperating then went with Julie to see a traditional Korean music performance called Beat at the local theatre, involving lots of drums and some brilliant choreography.

A couple of pics:

And the weekend didn't stop there either. After 6 hours sleep, me and some friends took a trip up to Seoul to the popular theme park Lotte World.

It being Sunday, it was of course insanely busy, but that didn't stop us getting on some of the rides and having a good time. There was also a parade halfway through the day, as well as some really good scenery:

Not bad for somewhere slap bang in the middle of a city. Also, an interestingly-named delicacy was on offer at some of the food booths:

Anyone for some nice Nude Grill Sausage with plenty of sauce? ;-)

Anyway...come Monday I hadn't really recuperated from lack of sleep, but I was still coherent enough to actually do my job, and also give my room a semblance of actually NOT looking like a tornado zone. Those who know me will know that this is the state a room inhabited by my good self takes on VERY SOON after I occupy it. I don't do tidy - it makes it so much harder to find things...

Anyway...to actually give myself the motivation to get writing again, at the same time I signed up for a writing competition called NaNoWriMo. The challenge? Write a 50,000-word novel inside 30 days. Challenging, yes, but certainly not impossible. As of this moment, I haven't actually started writing the novel proper, but I do have the basic plan outlined, and am pretty much ready to start. So...50,000 words in 26 days? Can it be done? We'll see...

Since then, nothing much of note has really happened. I've just been chugging away at my job, planning my NaNoWriMo and beginning to think about what my next life move will be.

But more on that at another time.

Peace out people. More to follow.

Oi, God, What Did You Turn The Central Heating Down For?

So, now we're freshly up to date...it's time to talk about today. And I suppose I'd better (seeing as I haven't yet) give you an idea about what actually goes on during my average day.

So, on a Tuesday I go to my primary school (Monday and Tuesday are my primary school days, Wednesday Thursday and Friday my secondary school days). This means the alarm clock goes off at 6.50am, and after a coffee and breakfast I'm out the door by 7.45am.

10 minutes walk away is my bus stop on the main road running through Cheongju, and once there I wait (for never more than about 5 minutes, I hasten to add) for my particular bus that will take me on a 30-40 minute ride to the village/town where my primary school is. The city public transport system here really is worldclass (cheap, fast and efficient), however this is somewhat tempered by the driving style of some of the bus drivers, who seem to take great pleasure in what I like to call 'suicide runs' - cutting up cars whilst blasting their horns, ploughing through junctions around 0.000001ns before the traffic lights turn red, and hitting the brakes so hard when arriving at a bus stop that standing up in preparation to get off normally results in you flying halfway down the bus.

Therefore bus journeys are inevitably interesting.

Anyway, I managed to get a seat rather than having to stand for the first part of the journey (usually about 50/50 chance on this, though as you pass through the city and all the schoolkids get off at their various schools you usually end up with a seat anyway) and stuck on my music whilst enjoying the scenery - as I always do - as we headed out of Cheongju and into the countryside.

Roughly half an hour later, my bus dropped me off outside my school - around 10 to 15 minutes before lessons started at 9am.

At my primary school, I have 4 classes in the 'morning' session, all 40 minutes long with different groups. As I'm a 'native English speaker' my lessons are largely focussed on speaking and listening exercises as opposed to reading and writing. One of the reasons why I'm here is that English is a very difficult language to learn in terms of the nuances of pronunciation and inflection, and only a true native English speaker knows most of these nuances - most Korean English teachers, though their spoken English is very good, would have trouble pronouncing certain English words in what would be considered the 'correct' manner. Therefore, my lessons involved a lot of speaking and repeating - but there's some fun in there too.

My lesson for today (for all 4 groups) involved a quick review of the previous lesson, and then an introduction to some new words to extend the vocab of the students. After that, we played a quick bingo game, before watching a dialogue video and repeating the conversation. That's pretty much standard fare for my primary students...get them talking as much as possible.

Repeat 3 times...and we're at 12.10pm, and lunch. Today there was rice (staple over here) and some other seafood-stuff that I tried to force down but couldn't. At least they throw in a piece of fruit with every meal - I actually look forward to that and it's giving me some vitamins and minerals.

Then I get quite a long break - nearly two hours in fact  - as I have no lessons until the 'after school' club I run from 2.40pm. During that time today I realised that I hadn't put my phone on charge the night before, so it has died and I couldn't text my girlfriend. Massive facepalm.

Putting that to the back of my mind I rested up and checked out the BBC website before heading back to the classroom at about 2.30pm.

My 'afterschool' English class is made up of kids who are pretty good at English and want to learn more, which usually makes for a fun environment. We play some games ('Guess Who' being one of the most popular with the kids and me because it encourages good questioning and answering skills), do a little bit of textbook work and sometimes watch some video clips (last week the students were introduced to the wonders of Wallace and Gromit with Korean subtitles - they loved it). Today they learned a bit about animals and their characteristics - it's very good to see how quickly they pick stuff up, even though sometimes they are inattentive and I have to whack them put on my 'loud' voice which invariably leaves me with a sore throat.

So...lesson finished at 4.15pm and I was out the door and on the bus home. Stopped off in Chungdae (my local area of Cheongju) for a Lotteria (Korea's answer to McDonalds and I really couldn't be arsed to cook) before checking my bank account (been paid on time this month, LOADSA MONEY!) and heading back to my humble abode to do a bit of lesson planning and get up to date with this.

Pretty much the moment I'm out of Lotteria I figure something.

It's cold. Really, really cold. I've got my shirt on and my leather jacket done up to the top, and I'm still cold.

When did this happen? From when I came out here to yesterday, all day every day it's been warm enough to go out with just a shirt or t-shirt on your top half. Suddenly the temperature has dropped around 10 degrees overnight.

Guess this highlights how seasonal the weather is over here - very different to England in that respect.

And that's pretty much the long and the short of it, and what I get up to on an average school day. Know this entry has been a but humour-lite, but it's been a long day...

...another update tomorrow. In the meantime, please comment!

Catching Up

Sorry...did I say tomorrow? Really? Oh dear...I meant 11 DAYS LATER. Hope that's a bit more clear.

Well...I've had a lot going on over the last couple of weeks, but I'll try to sum it up as succinctly as possible.

There have been three pub quizzes (won the 1st one, set the questions for the 2nd and finished runnerup in the third).

There have been multiple drinking sessions involving multiple different people, and some very good times (especially the scavenger hunt/pub crawl last week which was a great deal of fun).

There is a new mobile phone (yes, I finally HAVE one - got it last Tuesday).

There is also a new girlfriend. :-D  (But more on that at another time).

There have been multiple different lessons, a brand new 'Millionaire' quiz that the kids rather liked, and a not-so-subtle attempt to turn my students to the side of Leicester City FC by playing 'Heroes in Blue and White' during one of my lessons. (though I don't think they knew what the hell was going on...)

There have been multiple coffees, rice snacks and failed attempts at eating some of the food in the school canteens.

There was an acquired medical insurance certificate (useful to have just in case...)

And, to be honest....that about covers it. Going into too much depth would result in an entry about 10 miles long, and I don't want that....but suffice it to say I'm now fully settled in!

Coming up STRAIGHT AFTER this...today's entry, and I fully, FULLY intend to post daily from this point on. Promise... ;-)

Won-illionaire

More regular updates on the way folks....I promise! In the meantime, here's the first part of a multi parter.

Going back to last Friday...I didn't have a three-day weekend sadly, but I did get the chance to accompany some of my school on a field trip. Which is nice because it meant I didn't have to teach, and Friday is the only real day where I have to deal with some real little basta interesting people. So it made for a nice diversion.

(Of course, when dealing with such people, it's quite nice to actually be able to USE discipline over here too. Not in the corporal sense, but if you tell a student to leave the classroom, they then have to kneel outside the classroom against the wall for the remainder of the lesson, and then accompany you to the staffroom for a 'chat' with their homeroom teacher or tutor. Believe me, I don't know much Korean, but the language of a good bollocking is pretty universal :-) )

Our destination was the 2010 World Oriental Medicine Bio-Expo on the outskirts of Jecheon, a town about 90 minutes coach ride away. We stopped off at a service station on the way and I got some scenery pics in:

So far, I'm not getting bored of the seemingly limitless awe-inspiring vistas that Korea seems to provide on a regular basis.

Anyway, we arrived at our destination in good time, and on a very nice day too: it was sunny, but the temperature was just right to be comfortable.

Heading for the entrance gates.

This was a cool looking bird thing near the entrance of the expo site.

After a quick brief, everyone headed off to do their own thing and myself and a few other teachers got to look around a bit. It was pretty interesting actually: different kinds of herbal remedies from all over the world, not just the Oriental countries. There were headache cures from Ghana, cough remedies from Argentina, roots with...erm, "uplifting" properties for men from Thailand...the list goes on. However, it wasn't just limited to traditional medicine either - there was a pretty good exhibit from a local hospital showing the latest cancer-inhibiting technology they're using. To be honest, I think both traditional and modern medicine have their place in the world of healing - after all, most modern drugs are derived from traditional remedies rather than synthesised in a lab.

After a quick lunch here:

 

there was enough time to take a bit more of a look around and take a couple more pics

before we had to get going back to the school. Once we got back, I was free to head home and find a very, very nice surprise.

I had expected to find myself still in abject poverty with only a few tens of thousands of Won to last me through the weekend. On the off chance, I checked my bank account.

7-digit Won balance.

What? 7-DIGIT WON BALANCE!!!!

Yup - my EPIK flight allowance had finally come through, to the tune of 1.3 Million Won, roughly £800!!! First thought: relief. Second thought: ALCOHOL. Third thought: Treat myself!

And indeed, that was the way most of the weekend passed. I did some shopping at HomePlus on the Saturday (was nice to actually be able to buy what food I wanted without watching how much I was spending). I also indulged in some computer speakers, and a spanking new 500 GB portable hard drive that can basically fit in my pocket. It's USB powered too, so I don't have to worry about power supply issues when I bring it back to the UK.

On Saturday night I went out for dinner with two of my friends here, Lara and Jessica, for a belated birthday celebration.

Two bottles of wine at the restaurant (shared) + vodka mixer on patio + multiple shots at Buzz + two rum/cokes at Road King + norebang (karaoke) at 4am = Sore head on Sunday afternoon when I eventually woke up. Was a fun night, though.

I managed to get my head together just in time to help my team win the pub quiz at Buzz on Sunday night - won a nice bottle of Jameson for doing so, and our team has to come up with the questions for this weeks quiz. I've chosen Space as my round topic - trying not to make the questions stupidly hard.

Monday pretty much passed like any other day - some fun games and activities at the elementary school, and I got another very welcome surprise when I checked my balance once again. Seems like the admin people at my school had finally decided they were actually going to pay me rather than pointing and laughing as I starved (flight allowance notwithstanding) and they'd shovelled another 2.4 Million Won into my account. So...that makes me a multi-Won-illionaire. Nice. Hopefully now the first payment has gone in they'll know what the transaction details are and I won't have a problem with it again. Next payday is in only 10 days time too!

To be honest, the cost of living here is so low and there's so little to actually spend money on here I should be able to save a great deal, and if I still have designs on that Masters degree (and I do), then that's what I must do.

Right - end of the first part. Part 2 to come tomorrow and bring you up to date!

Familiar Territory Once Again

Once again, a long gap between updates, and I apologise for that.

However, I now have no excuse for such gaps because....it's here.

HOME INTERNET HAS ARRIVED. EPIC WIN.

Yup, finally after 5 weeks hijacking poor wireless connections and staying for far too long in coffee shops while people look at me in a funny way...I have my own web connection in my apartment. And it's an absolute monster - 30Mbps, which anyone who knows about such things would say is pretty Ferrariesque speed.

Obviously in light of this development, a new portable hard drive to replace Behemoth II (lost a couple of months ago to a virus with 600 GB of films and TV series, grrr) is definitely on my shopping list, and when I have it there will be a massive pr0n film and TV series download session!

Anyway - back to more interesting current events.

I had a decent last couple of days up in Seoul, including having a very nice Korean buffet and hitting many bars on the last night

and being given a phonecard as a gift for being class leader (even though I didn't actually have to do anything in the role other than say one or two notices), before heading back to Cheongju last Thursday with Mary Hahn, my liason at the Chungbuk Office of Education.

We headed back into Cheonjgu on the bus, and actually seeing the now familiar big buildings as I came in actually gave me the feeling that I was coming....home. I know it's only been a little more than a month, but I'm really settling down here now, thanks largely to the people. I know I'm repeating myself here...but nothing is too much trouble for them. It's amazing.

Anyway - after getting back to Cheongju it was back to routine on the Friday with 4 classes, including two which are probably my most difficult. However, I had an ace-in-the-hole - my Who Wants To Be A Millionaire Team Quiz! Seems to be an easy way to run a lesson - compose 15 questions, stick them in a PowerPoint you prepared earlier, print out several copies of the letters A, B, C and D and you're good to go!
Thanks largely to that, Friday passed without significant incident, and after visiting the Immigration Office to FINALLY lay my grubby little mitts on my Alien Registration Card (the piece of plastic which you need for practically anything important here) I did my usual Friday night thing of consuming horrific amounts of alcohol and appearing in random photos, eg.

Incidentally, I had known all of these people for about 10 minutes before this photo was taken. Fun times.
Anyway, crashed through my door at around 5am Saturday morning (which is about the norm for Korean nights out) so Saturday was something of a writeoff. Sunday passed pretty uneventfully too - unless you count sorting out washing and cooking a nice chicken curry eventful.

So...back to work at elementary school on Monday, and in my afterschool classes on Monday and Tuesday I showed off two of England's greatest TV institutions - Wallace and Gromit and Dr Who. I had managed to dig up some dubbed Korean footage of the good Doctor, and my coteacher has all the W & G episodes in Korean, so we were able to show them off to the kids. And they loved them both. Maybe it's my bad sense of humour, but Wallace's mad run to grab the crackers in A Grand Day Out still makes me laugh - even if the dialogue is in a language I know roughly two sentences of.

In any case - come yesterday evening, I get my internet installed, quickly run a speed test, and pass out when I see four-figure KB download speeds when I try to torrent Pitch Black. It finishes in 25 minutes. Sensational.

And we move onto today - not much really to say other than some other Year 9 groups got a taste of my Millionaire quiz, and I finally have an idea about when I'm going to get my allowance from EPIK and my pay packet, which is good because I still don't have that much of this. However, considering I've had four separate offers of help on that score should I need it I don't think I need worry.

So - I skimmed on massive details of the events of this week so as not to bore you to death with an impossibly long post. Hope I did a good job giving you an overview without being either too detailed or too vague. Trust me, subsequent updates will be richer, fuller and more REGULAAAAAARRR!!!

Coming up this week - possible three day weekend :-D and definite birthday party to attend on Saturday! :-)

Peace out! And remember people - RRC (Read, Review and Comment!)

I Know You Got Seoul, Part 2

Right...having had a rather significant amount to drink on Saturday night, I woke up bright and early on Sunday morning somewhat worse for wear. However, an interesting day was lined up so I got through a hearty breakfast and a few glasses of water and got back on track.

First off, we had the opening 'ceremony' for all of us for the orientation, which was headed up by a performance by a traditional Korean music group:

They were brilliant. The choreography and rhythm were spot on all the way through, as the video snippet shows. That was just a small part of the overall performance, though.

Once that was done and the usual thank-you-for-coming-you're-all-great-people speech from the programme head, we were divided into three 'classes' based on our teaching location. I volunteered to be class leader for Class 1 (obviously no one here really knows what I'm like in a position of leadership otherwise they would have knocked me out before I had the chance) and we were then asked to produce a sample elementary school lesson in small groups for presentation on Wednesday. My group managed to come up with a totally plaigarised decent plan, so we'll just have to see what the people in charge think of it come Wednesday.

So, once that rather tedious stuff was done, we got to go on a field trip to an ancient palace, Gyeongbokgung, in downtown Seoul. Constructed in 1394, it was gutted by invading Japanese forces when they occupied Korea in the early 20th Century, but once the Japanese withdrew plans were made to restore it. Restoration is still ongoing, but that doesn't stop it still looking pretty impressive, as the following pics will attest:

And a quick one of me:

These are just a few of the photos I managed to take, but as you can see from these the architecture and environment are pretty brilliant. I've always had an interest in Far Eastern ancient buildings, and these are amongst the best you can see in Korea. I hope to see more of them between now and when I leave.

After looking round the fortress for a bit, we got to go into the Korean folk museum and get an idea of how Korean families (both rich and poor) used to live. Turns out Korea employed a feudal system very much like the British one at the same time in history: basically, the big guy runs the show and the little guys try their best to enrich and justify their own lives while working for their lord 23 hours and 59 minutes of every day. What was uber-impressive, however, was the fact that the little guys actually had such an amazing work ethic that they were HAPPY to do this. Still, that's Confucianism in a bag for you - it gives a society very clear ideas about where everyone should be, and that still extends (by and large in the respect most Koreans show elders or superiors in the workplace) today. At least it's organised.

(Little shot of a typical Korean lords study.)

After that - no stopping, straight to a theatre for a production of a uniquely Far Eastern thing - a cooking musical comedy! Yep - I got to see Nanta, a Korean production that has played all around the world.

It was very good - 90 minutes of cooking utensils, flying food, massive drumbeats and slapstick humour. Basically, the story is very simple - a team of cooks has 90 minutes to prepare a big meal for a Korean wedding. The maitre'd puts his rather useless nephew alongside three other cooks and tells them to get on with it. Cue obvious and maniacal anarchy. All in all, it was very good fun.

After that - a brief evening meal, and then a rather more sedate evening out.

As for today - sadly far less interesting than yesterday, but informative - some lectures on teaching and working in Korea (including a really good one what to see in Korea which I'll definitely be taking hints from), and the beginning of some very useful Korean lessons, which I intend to continue in my own time once orientation is over. Staring at Hangol (Korean writing) characters for over two hours did, however, begin to make my brain dribble out of my ears in a fashion not seen since I finished Quantum Mechanics on my degree course. Especially given the subtle differences in inflection that come with- Aaarggghhh...brain running again.

But I'll get used to them in time. Learning Korean is something I really want to devote time to while I'm here.

Well - tomorrow is more lectures and a class meeting, so I'm sure I'll be able to update you with the events of the day (potentially tedious as they might be) same time tomorrow.

In the meantime, read and comment please! I want your feedback!

I Know You Got Seoul, Part 1

First off, apologies for not updating sooner. A combination of business and lack of decent Web access has made it very difficult for me to update, but where I am now has a decent enough connection so here we go!

Well, I left you last time while I was contemplating all the stuff I still had to get done to finally get settled in this very pleasant land. Thankfully, it all seemed to go without a hitch - I got my bank account set up, I'll be getting my ARC on the 1st October which means I'll FINALLY get my own Internet access, and I had a very relaxing Chuseok basically just resting, on account of actually not being able to go anywhere because I don't have very much of this.

However, once that was done, it was off up to Seoul on Saturday 25th for the orientation I should have had a month ago, but sadly missed on account of not making it to Korea on time. I wasn't totally sold on the idea of spending what little is left of my money on a trip up here but sadly I didn't have a choice: attending orientation at some point while you are here is mandatory. So off I went, and luck appeared to shine on me as I fluked my selection of bus from the main road near my house - me picking one at random and it taking me to right outside the long-distance bus station!

Once at the station I found a buddy to travel up with, and a bus and two Seoul Underground lines later (many thanks once again to Korea's extremely affordable and efficient transport system) we arrived at our location, the NIIED (National Institute for International Education and Development). Turns out there's about 120 of us here, some like me who arrived just too later for the August orientation, some who have only just arrived in the country. It's an interesting but fun group!

Both of us got to NIIED for about 5pm on the Saturday, so there wasn't really that much to do other than get booked into out rooms, then have something to eat and head on out with some new buddies to sample Seoul's nightlife:

(The guy in the middle is my roommate for the next few days - Nick from Seattle.)

Much beer and soju later and I had a decent sized hangover the following day. Well played, Ross.

More to follow in part 2!

Complications Complications

Settling in here (paperwork wise) is proving to be complicated.

As I arrived here too late for orientation in Seoul, everything that would normally be done for me (or at least helped with) at said orientation I have had to do myself.

One of those things - the med check - I've told you about already; I got my results back yesterday, and now I just need to take them and a few other items to the immigration office to sign up for my Alien Registration card.

However, it;s not that simple.

Two things have arisen recently that have complicated matters.
Firstly, if I'm wanting to get paid anything this month I need to set up a bank account pronto - faster than having to wait to receive my ARC to set up my account in the normal way. Therefore, I've got to visit a bank tomorrow with my passport, hand over another piece of paper in Korean (thank you once again, coteacher) and expect them to actually know what the hell I'm going on about. Fingers crossed that goes ok, because otherwise I will be taking a very close look at the can't-afford-to-eat diet for the next 4 weeks...

Additionally, there is a Korean national holiday coming up next week - Chuseok, or the Harvest Festival. Now, on the up side this means a few days off. On the down side it means any app I make for an ARC will be delayed even further!

Also, I got word today that because I didn't go to the orientation in August, I have to attend one in September. So come the 25th I need to traipse back up to Seoul and stay there for a few days for the orientation. I'm sure I'll enjoy learning a bit more about what it's like to teach here and some useful techniques, but it is something of a bugbear to have to go back and forth and run around continuously spending what little money I have like this.

Thankfully, the good thing about doing this all now is that it'll be over soon and I'll actually be able to settle down and focus on what I'm actually here to do.

Anyway, rant over.

Speaking of what I'm here to do...that's going pretty well at the moment. I'm working out of a textbook for most of my classes, but I'm putting a twist on some of it too and trying to apply what I learnt in my PGCE about structuring and executing good lessons. So far the lessons seem to be a hit with the kids and teachers - let's hope it stays that way.

Anyhow, more detailed update to follow in the next couple of days, but for now I'm dog-tired. Peace out people.

Needles, X-rays and Other Assorted Paraphernalia

Well, I sorted out the hospital stuff. It was probably one of the most interesting two-hour sections of my life, but I sorted it.

I only had two lessons on the Thursday so I got to head home early. Having dropped off my gear I quickly took a walk to the Cheongju medical centre, armed with a list of what I should bring and a handy piece of paper written in Korean by my coteacher saying, "do not trust this man, he will r" "this man needs needles sticking in his w" Aaargh, *f<censored>g autotranslator!*

right..."This man needs a blood test, a chest X-ray and a sound and a CB (colourblindness) test." There we go.

Anyway, the hospital was around a 15 minute walk away.

That's a photo of the Cheongju ballpark, pretty much right next to the hospital. I'd like to
get to watch a game at some point.

And this is the hospital.


Once inside I managed to speak enough pidgin-Korean/English coupled with shoving my piece of paper at anyone I could find to make myself understood, and went through a blood test (I hate needles, so it was somewhat traumatic), chest X-ray and having to stand on a metal plate with your shoes off while attractive nurses check your height, weight and pe chest size. Once that was all done, I was asked to go back in 5 days for the results. At least that's what I thought the nurses gesturing at my test sheet, saying "Tuesday 5pm" and looking at me like I'm a typical idiot Little Englander meant. I've really got to get learning Korean more.

Anyway, after that I grabbed a baguette from Paris Baguette (a quid for a baguette that'll probably last me 3 lunches is a good deal, I think) and went home and crashed out. Befor that though, I went through a part of Cheongju that had a dozen shops devoted to selling:

Yes, they're dogs...and NO, YOU SICK BASTARDS, it's not what you think. Pretty much THE fashion accessory for Korean women between the age of 8 and 38 at the moment is a tiny dog (Paris Hilton, you have a lot to answer for) so there is a fairly roaring trade in little pets for affluent Korean females.

The following day (today), was just another school day, but I did take some cool landscape photos:

The first one was the view from a corner of my school, the other three I took on the bus coming back home. You can just make out the hills and mountains in the background in the last three - apparently a couple of them rival Ben Nevis in height so I might be looking for a repeat performance of the Foxes of Nevis' epic charity climb if I get the opportunity! The countryside really is awe-inspiring - I don't think these photos do it justice but they're all I have.

I also managed to get involved in a game of football with some of the students at lunchtime today - my team lost 4-3 but I scored all our teams goals, which as anyone who has actually seen me play football knows is a near-miraculous event. I just did what I used to do when playing school football - goalhang. ;-)

Anyway, time to get going - off out in Cheongju tonight. Another update soon - in the meantime, RRC people!

The Hills Are Alive With the Sound Of F-16's At 250 mph

Been a busy few days, but the time has come for another update!

Having had a very enjoyable weekend (though I wasn't able to remember much of it) I was back on the game on Monday with my first visit to the second school I would be teaching at. It was an elementary (primary school), and it turned out I would be teaching Years 5 and 6, which was something of a relief because I reckon trying to teach kids that are any younger a completely foreign language without knowing any of the native language yourself would be horri interesting.

In any case, I ran my 'introduction' PP presentaion in front of 8 different groups over Monday and Tuesday, which coupled with the amount of times I had run it at the middle school too meant that I was seeing said PP slides when I closed my eyes. Having Stonehenge, Buckingham Palace, Sunday Lunch and David Beckham seared onto the rear of your eyeballs is not the most pleasant of experiences, even if I deliberately chose the funny Beckham picture of him just after Rob Green's error against the USA...

That said, all the groups have liked the presentation, and most of them now have a much better idea about my home country including some essential information, such as who our ruler is, what kind of plays the Curve Theatre actually stages, and exactly who Martyn Waghorn is. :-) Unfortunately I've now 'introduced' myself to every group I'll be teaching, so I now actually have to TEACH them English from this point forth. 

As another interesting addition, at both schools there are some interruptions in the form of F-16's from the nearby airbase who seem to delight in low flyovers that result in me not being able to hear or indeed say anything for around 30 seconds every time. This usually happens at least 5 times a day. This is irritating, but I guess it's a reminder that technically this is a country still at war, even though a shot hasn't been fired in anger since the 1950's.

Though I live in the city, it's a fair commute by bus to both of my schools which are both out in the countryside somewhat. The horizon scenery is awe-inspiring (pictures to come soon) - green fields stretching away to forested kills and eventually massive mountains which (weather perimitting) have peaks lost in swathes of cloud. It's amazing to see - like something out of a movie.

The kids are amazing. Whether elementary or middle school, when they come across you in the corridoor they bow (or at least incline their heads) or say an incredibly enthusiastic greeting in Korean or (more usually) decent English. Whe in the classroom they are attentive and as long as they understand what you are asking them to do (sometimes language barrier is an issue here but thankfully not often) they will do it - without question. All students even stay and CLEAN THE SCHOOL AFTER THE END OF THE DAY. Can you seriously imagine that happening in Blighty? Totally different.

However, the amount of 14-year old girls saying that I'm handsome is deeply disconcerting. As is the small group of students from my last group today asking me to SIGN their textbook. Yes, I know I'm different but...good grief. Still, the amount of interested conversation and greetings is nice for the confidence.

Getting along well with the staff too - at both schools they've been very welcoming and understanding. Of course my main liason at both has been my English co-teacher (they both speak English well and can translate for me) but everyone I've met wants to make me feel at home, which is really nice. I was invited for coffee at lunchtime on Monday by the kindergarten teacher at the elementary school (who now wants to cook for see me again) and today at the middle school I did the same with a few of the male teachers who wanted to know more about the English Premier League and particularly that bit of it containing Park Ji-Sung. It's nice to meet some fellow football nuts (trying my hardest to convince the kids that it is FOOTBALL, not SOCCER) even though none of them have a clue who Leicester City are. They will soon, believe me.

I actually want to get on with learning more than the most basic Korean as quickly as possible so I can communicate better with everyone, because they are a really good, genuine and helpful bunch of people, at both schools. My coteacher at the elementary school has offered to help me out on that score too.

I've also tried my very hardest to be deferent to the people in charge at each school (in the classic Korean way) and it seems to be paying off in that they seem to like me, but I'm still scared shi stiff of making some kind of cockup without meaning to and pissing them off permanently. Up to now however, I've not made any gaffes - arriving 15 minutes late this morning because of waiting for a bus that never came notwithstanding. My inability to use chopsticks is proving to be something of a laugh too - I'm practicing but I can't seem to get the hang of it at the moment.

Speaking of eating, I'm trying whatever's put on my plate at the canteen at school every day. Some of it I'm enjoying, some of it not (today had shredded octopus tentacles) but I'm trying everything. The kimchee is still a hit with me, but as it's usually served cold you need something hot to go with it to balance out the flavour. Usually there is rice and a different kind of spicy soup served every day, which I can only have a bit of before it makes my mouth violently explode. I'm used to medium/hot curries back home, but this is on a whole other level - Koreans like their food hot. Very hot.

Speaking of heat, today actually seemed about 10 degrees colder than yesterday. I don't know whether such abrupt changes in heat and humidity are normal here but it's certainly a bloody relief.

Anyway - only got two lessons tomorrow, then off to the hospital to have my checkup so I can apply for my Alien Registration Card. You need one of those around here to do anything - get a bank account, phone or personal Internet, so it's important I get it sorted ASAP. Probably will have time to update after I get back from the hospital, so watch out for it then!

In the meantime, read, review and comment please! Peace out.

Birthday weekend

26 years old. Scary thought. Four years til 30. Even scarier.

But that's not what this entry is about.

I had a late night on Friday night, when I met up with some EPIK buddies for a drink on the "patio" (neat Cheongju university, lots of bars/restaurants nearby), so I spent quite some time on Saturday recuperating, and getting ready for the big one: combined birthday do for me and Shay (a girl in our building).

First off, we headed out into the main part of Cheonju for a Korean buffet:

 They had some good food there too (chicken feet aside): I settled for some sweet and sour pork, some meatballs and rice.

After that, it was back to my neighbourhood (which I now know is called Cheong-dae) for many, many drinks.

 We first hit a Western bar that I'd been to before (first night I was here), then we all headed for a club called Pearl Jam, and I basically had far far too much to drink, which explained the awful hangover this morning (or afternoon, as I ended up waking at 2pm).

Here's the group I was out with - brilliant bunch. Shay (the birthday girl) is the one in the middle with the grey dress.

Right - sorry for the brevity of this entry, but I've got to cut it short for now. Will edit later!

Back to School

(Double entry coming up -  please bear with me!)


Well, on Thursday I got to visit the first of my two schools (turns out I'm teaching at two different ones), and see where I would be involved in teaching English. Turns out it's a middle school (so kids aged 11-14) about half an hours bus ride from where I live, kind of out in the countryside. I'll put up photos when I have them.

Anyway, thanks to my co-teacher who was generous enough to give me a lift on my first day, I arrived there, and was asked to put together a brief presentation on myself and where I have come from for the two classes I was going to be with that day. So I spent a little while prepping a Powerpoint presentation at my new desk (complete with computer and gift pen, very nice of them) before heading with my co-teacher to the classroom.

Just how different this was going to be from teaching in England was demonstrated when I entered the classroom. All of the students in the class broke into one of the biggest rounds of applause I have ever seen. Um....

So, caught between being gratified and disconcerted at this, I introduced myself, and went through my presentation, asking and answering a couple of questions too. It was done after about 15 minutes, then I quickly went over to my coteacher, expecting her to take over.

Her response: "Do you have any more?"

Oh, shi whoops.

Turns out she wanted me to spend the whole lesson (another 30 minutes) talking to the students. So I had approximately 10 seconds to come up with an idea for a good English lesson before everyone would lose interest and anarchy would reign. Well, that's the way I saw it in my head, anyway.

So I had to wing it for the remaining half hour. Fortunately I managed it (though what exactly I did I have forgotten, guess pressure does that to you) and afterward I had an hour to improve my presentation so it was actually fit for a 45-minute lesson. As a result, after my second lesson of the day, my coteacher actually remarked to me about how good a lesson it was, even though I'd just ran a PP and run the students through a few words! Another measure of how different it is to England - far far less pressure, which is nice, but given what I've experienced in the past I think it'll be a while before I stop looking over my shoulder for self-obsessed little Hitlers with clipboards (which, as every teacher in England knows, are pervasive throughout the English school system).

Friday went pretty much the same, kept finetuning my presentation for the different classes, and it all went ok. Got invited to a game of tennis by one of my fellow teachers too, which is nice!

And so I went onto the weekend...which needs another post to describe!

Bonus pics - my room - complete with mess!!!

 
PS. Shoutout to Joey - for without his massive support in manifold different ways I wouldn't be out here. Massive thanks, mate. Seriously. :-)

Settling In

So...after a day devoted to R & R, I decided to spend my last day before being shown round the school (this day, in fact) doing something constructive to settle in. Namely, sort out my room, grab some supplies and other stuff I needed.

Thanks largely to Ken and Jimmy's advice, I knew the best place to go was a place called Home+, which was a 5 minute and 2500 Won cab ride away. I made my way there (stopping for a light brunch first) and took a look around before picking up all the essentials I would need, such as washing powder, fabric softener, some food etc (as well as a replacement headphones/hands-free kit for my phone for about 8 quid, good business).

Took a cab back, and took some more pics

The main junction in downtown Cheonju, about 10 minutes walk from my apartment. The social and business hub of the local area.

View along the road leading to the main road going to that junction, right near my apartment.

Anyway, once that was all done I got my room in something approaching order (pics to come soon) and headed out here to type up all these entries.

Plans for this evening - probably meet up with Ken, Jimmy and Ted (and possibly Tim, who I played table tennis with yesterday), food, drink and sleep. Probably in that order. Then, tomorrow, I get to see where my job is going to be for the next several months!

Will probably get the chance to update again either before or at the weekend. Til then, all the best!

(In the meantime, please comment/ask questions! It makes me feel important. ;-)  )