FLASHING by in an instant go another week and another weekend in Suwon-si.
Spending most of last weekend in Seoul with my mum I didn't really have much time to relax and by the time it came 10am on Monday I was still feeling pretty tired. Still, I managed to make it through another week of teaching to complete my fourth and a half month in Korea.
Evenings this week were spent entertaining my mum and although I finish work at 6pm or 7pm every day we weren't able to go out and do very much exploring but I think my mum will definately be satisfied with the amount that she achieved whilst she was here. The first task of the week, unfortunately, was to finish off school assesments for each one of my kids. It's strange that it has been three months since I wrote the last ones but lucikly this time I think I have less students than before so it actually only ended up taking me about two hours to get them all out of the way.
On Monday and Tuesday we just went out for some dinner and had a little walk around Suwon station but on Wednesday we managed to make our way to the cinema to see GI Joe after I'd finished work. I didn't know too much about the film (or even the series) before I saw it but I was very impressed with the story and it was just my film as it was a combination of intregue and action. I think it was actually better than Transformers 2, mainly because it was about an hour shorter and actually had a storyline, something which I'm sure you'll agree is slightly vital to a film.
The week was soon coming to an end and as my mum was going home on Saturday we decided to finish of walking around 'The great wall of Suwon' which we'd started last Friday night. We took the bus to Paldalmun and then climbed up a great deal of steps to re-start walking around the final quarter of the fortress wall. Most of it I have walked before but it was good to go back to what is surely the highest point and look off there in the daylight. It truely is a great view of Suwon and is probably one of the outstanding memories I will be taking back home to England with me.
As the sun started to set we walked back down from the small palace on top of the hill and headed back home to get some dinner with the rest of the guys. As has now become traditional on a Friday we had some galbi at the usual restaurant and then as my mum headed home, Kevin, Charlie, Haji and myself decided to go up to WA Bar for a little while. I was feeling pretty tired and not even the delicious french fries that you get there could wake me up so we decided to get a taxi home at a respectable time.
On Saturday morning I woke up and headed to my mums hotel to spend some final moments with her before she made her way to the airport. She checked out at about twelve and then spent some time showing me the art park, sculpture park and Olympic park that she had seen on her earlier weeks travels and then we went to Homeplus to get some dinner as I needed a few things. My mum was going to stick around until 4.50pm but as we'd spent about as much time as we could doing everything that didn't involve travelling round and going too far away from Suwon she decided to catch an earlier bus from her hotel to the airport so after sitting in the lobby for a while and waiting for the next bus we said our goodbyes and she headed off.
It has been really good to have my mum around for the last couple of weeks and I am pleased that she made the decision to come here after I thought I might not see her for a year. I know that she had a good time while she was here and she certainly came back with a greater experience than she thought she would have. Hopefully this will encourage a few more people to come out and see me while I am here as I would certainly appreciate a visit any time you want to come over!
On my way out of the hotel I actually saw a big group of people checking in and when I saw that they all were wearing the same t-shirts and carrying the same bags I figured that they must be some kind of team. On careful inspection of their attire I discovered that it was actually a professional football team called Incheon United FC who were playing Suwon Bluewings this evening! Unfortunately none of the players were famous enough for me to feel inspired into getting their autographs!
I took the bus back home to Suwon to see what Charlie and Kevin were up to and we decided to go and play golf and check out what was on at the movies on the way there. Sadly there wasn't anything on at CGV but we went to play screen golf in Yeoungtong. I haven't been to play screen golf in a couple of weeks so it was a bit of a struggle to get going and sensibly we decided to play quite a difficult course this week. I finished at +16 this week but I'd like to say that was only after a few dodgy putts on the last whole which I was just wanting to get out of the way and get some dinner.
By this time as I probably would be after a round of golf was pretty starving so we headed to Kraze Burger to get some dinner and then head back to our rooms for the rest of the evening. I spent most of the evening watching Premiership football on TV and also listening to the cricket at the same time.
This morning required me to wake up early as I had decided to make my return to Inter Suwon this week for the first game of the new season. Admittedly this may have been one of the worst ideas I've ever had as after one training session under my best and my foot still not back to 100% I probably shouldn't have even considered getting out of bed at 8am this morning. Nervousness aside I made my way to Suwon station and met the rest of the team as we traveled to play Bundang.
We hopped on the train (and at one point left our goalkeeper behind) and then had to change to the subway before getting to a stop which was close to Mokadong just shy of Seoul.
We then had to take a taxi to get to the stadium where we were playing this afternoon and after finding the hockey and baseball stadiums of professional teams we eventually found the football stadium hiding just behind. Now, I've played in a few impressive venues in my time thanks to my experiences of playing for Barbados and North Yorkshire but as far as games for amateur teams go I'm not sure I have ever played in a 30,000 al seater stadium before!
It was a pretty impressive sight to be honest and it was a shame that only about 100 people were sitting up in the stand.
With a few new players in the team we started with an untried and untested formation of 3-5-2 with me at right wing back. The team we were playing had split last seasons matches with us but I played my first game against them last time when we won 3-1. Bundang took an early lead in the game despite us starting pretty well and even hitting the crossbar from one of my corners.
We stayed patient and soon one of our defenders had smashed the ball in to make it 1-1. I won a penalty which the same player converted to make it 2-1 and then we went riot on them and when I came off after 75 minutes in the second half we were 7-1 up.
An impressive start to the season I'm sure you'll agree. Some of the guys were heading to Itaewon to watch the cricket and football this evening but I decided to head back home and take a bath and rest before school tomorrow. I've spent most of the evening in my room on the computer making worksheets and things for class tomorrow and I'll be spending the rest of the evening listening to the cricket and watching whatever game is on TV.
It's been another good week in Korea and although I was sad to see my mum go back home, it was lovely to have her over here and it makes me look forward even more to returning back to England and seeing her and everyone else in eight months time!
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