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!