A Return to Now, E-Mart Make Shopping Interesting and A Day Trip to Incheon for Football...

...Compaired with the late nights and excitement of last weekend when we went to Global Gathering this weekend was rather tame, but an enjoyable one all the same.

A relaxing and restful weekend will be followed by the arrival of one of my friends from England tomorrow which I am looking forward to and also a four day working schedule as the South Korean harvest festival is on Saturday but the country basically closes down down for a day before so no work in Friday.

Plenty of reasons to smile on a sunday evening!

As usual the week speeded by with it being Thursday before I'd even realised. I spent most of my time in class last week teaching my young kids about seasons and was amazed on friday when we did some re-cap work and a few of them even remembered what they had actually been taught!

On Thursday I had an adventure around Yeongtong on my way to the weekly session of football training with Inter Suwon. I used to have a piece of paper written down in Korean which explained to cab drivers when I got in where I needed to be. Somehow I have managed to lose that piece of paper in my very small room and now have to direct taxi's to a central point in Yeongtong where I can walk from.
This is usually no problem and even my Yorkshire accent doesnt stump the drivers and they take me to the correct place.

This week, I had a bit of a nightmare though as I got in the cab as usual and directed the guy towards where I needed to be. About three quarters of the way there, the cab driver turned to me and said something to me in Korean. I dropped the 'I don't speak Korean' line on him which has become common place in most conversations over the last month and he repeated the destination which I had initially told him to drop me off at. I was like 'Yeah, that's still where I want to go'. I was a little puzzled by the driver questioning me, I'm pretty sure I could drive to Yeongtong if I owned a car but I know for a fact I certainly wouldn't have driven the way he went.

The guy started to make a few suspicious turns and at one point I think we actually retraced our steps but the opposite way. It usually costs me about 9000 won (£4.50) to get to Yeongtong and when the meter suspciously crept over the 11,000 mark I told the driver to pull over in a vaguely familar part of Yeongtong and decided to walk from there. I was pretty annoyed that the guy hadn't been able to take me to the right place as if cab drivers don't know where we are going they usually just won't let us in the car to begin with.

My frustration started to subside when in Korean said 'sorry' (A word which I can understand) and only charged me 7,000 for the ride. That was probably about the point where he started to get lost and make completely wrong turns. I've walked to GSIS school where I play football a few times from Yeongtong but after following what I thought was the correct route, I found myself in completely the wrong place. By this point it was almost an hour after I'd left home, considering it usually takes 30 mins to get to the school I was contemplating giving up. Luckily I managed to find a signpost with the schools name on and after about a mile and a half of walking I finally made it there!

I think next time I'll have to double check that the person driving knows where they are going as I'm pretty sure the last thing my busted ankle needed before a training session was a half marathon length hike! When I finally got to football though it was good fun. Despite getting pummeled last week we had a very relaxed session, and as I'll go onto explain later it seemed to do the trick.

After friday at work I spent most of the evening playing around on the computer before it was time for dinner, when the usual crowd headed to the galbi restaurant that we had visited a couple of weeks ago to replace Mapo-gui that closed down. The service isn't quite what it used to be at the previous resturant and we have to sit on the floor but the food itself is absolutely delicious! We decided to call our friend Hans as we haven't seen him for a long time and when he agreeed to meet us we went up to Now Bar which incase you need reminding is the main foreigner bar in Suwon, and the place that sponsors the football team I play for.

It's been almost two months since we were last in there, before our Thailand vacation even. I guess the novelty had begun to wear off and it was kind of a hassle to get up there every friday. Most of the time on a friday I'm about ready to watch a film and go to bed, but I agreed to go as it has been such a long time. As it turned out Now bar had 'stepped up it's game' in many ways. They had done some refurbishments to make some more space and I think there may have been more people than I have ever seen in there before. We spent the evening in the usual way playing darts, pool and chatting to people. I actually met a couple of members from my football team in there which was cool.

Once we'd all started to get tired we headed back to Hwaseo in a cab. Hans went to go and see one of his friends who lived by the bar but he'll be pretty disappointed he missed the ride home as it might just be the most entertaining one I've had, which is saying alot in the five months that I have been here. Sometimes when you get in a cab in Korea you can tell that the driver doesn't really want to drive us 'foreigners' anywhere but this guy had a big smile on his face when he picked us up and even tried speaking a few words of English to us.
A few minutes into the ride he was like 'ahhh, music' and proceeded to turn on his MP3 player which was attached to his GPS. The three of us were expecting some horrible Korean pop music of some elevator tunes but to our surprise our driver had a good selection of music. The first song he had on which just cracked us up and started off the ride on a good not was 'Hot Chocolate - You Sexy Thing'! Me and Charlie were losing it in the back whilst the driver sang along and by the time he'd played 'Tom Jones - She's a Lady', 'The Nolan's - Sexy Music' and 'Sugar, Sugar' we thought that all the fun was over.

He skipped through a few tracks and was like 'OK, this one is for you' and all of a sudden Queen's Bohemian Raphsody started playing! Having sung our hearts out at the Norebang to one of the best kareoke songs there has to be we were obviously pretty excited and I'm sure that we rocked this drivers world by signing every word to it and getting out of the cab just as the song finished! Not sure there could have been a more fun end to the night.

Saturday was a pretty laid back one after not getting home till about 3am, I went on a trip go Zero Mart just down the road from where I live to get some food and I also went to he stationary shop in the market to get myself a pencilcase. My bag is so full of pencils, erasers and pens that I have found around the school that I needed somewhere to put them as it's a common thing that someone in my class forgets to bring at least one thing. Answer's on a postcard how you could turn up to school without something to write with?!

At about 4pm Charlie, Kevin and I decided to pay E-Mart a visit. I didn't need anything in paticular but felt like getting out of the house and it's always good to go up to E-Mart and take a look around. We did the usual tour of the food floor which basically involves filling up on the free samples that the people in the show are more than willing to give away to us.

Up a floor Charlie decided that my hands were a good place to try out the fragrance of some shower gel he was considering purchasing. I obviously appreciated my hands getting moisturised but wasn't too sure that he needed to spray a handful on me to find out what it smelled like. Especially when I then rubbed it in and had soapy hands! Thanks for that Charlie. For the rest of the trip I was wary about picking things up incase I dropped them as my hands were greasy!

We walked around the sporting good section of the shop, causing chaos by throwing and kicking things around. It's really funny when you walk round E-Mart of any shop for that matter because people usually follow you around to see if you need any assistance but with the way people follow us around it's like we're going to steal something. I'm not sure if they are just interested in what we are doing or whether they are just checking that we're paying for anything we pick up and put in our trolley!

In the electronics section of the shop Charlie decided that he was going to spend fifteen minutes trying out a massage chair whilst me and Kevin perused the ridiculously sized TV's that they sell for a pretty reasonable price. Not too sure I need a 62" LCD HD TV but it would be a pretty good purchase. I think I'd go blind if I watched a TV that was that big.
As usual when I am in E-Mart I took along around the pet shop section, everytime I do I am still intregued by the fact that they sell hedgehogs in the shop and it also makes me really want a fish tank in my room. I seriously think I could spend a few hours just watching the fish in some of them swim around.

Kevin suggested that as dwarf hamsters were only 3,000 a piece that we should by a couple and then let them loose before the end of the day. Charlie wasn't too keen as he said it would encourage the cats which used to live in his wall to come back. Personally I think it would be pretty funny but I'm sure it would probably end up running and hiding in a tiny corner of my room and I'd never know where it was.

Following the entertainment of E-Mart the three of us headed back at home and spent a couple of hours playing on Charlie's PS3 after we'd got some dinner. I spent the rest of the night on the computer watching Premiership football which provided some entertainment and some good preperation for my adventure into the unknown the following day.

Waking up early this morning (earlier than I usually have to get up for work) I had some breakfast and got myself ready to play football. I had been umming and ahhring about playing this weekend as for some reason our game had been re-arranged from a place in Seoul and the only place this team could organise us a game was at a field in Incheon which is close to the airport and about 90 minutes from where I live.

I decided to head out of the house at about 9.30am this morning to catch the subway presuming that it would be pretty quiet but to my surprise it was actually very busy despite the time in the morning. Someone needs to tell me where Korean's are going at that time on a sunday morning!

The journey to Incheon City Hall where the field was involved travelling on the line which Hwaseo Station is on (the closest to my house) then changing three times in the space of the journey and eventually getting to where I needed to be. Most of the team had been travelling seperately to the game as a central meeting point wasn't set, but I kept an eye out for the any other members of my team. It wasn't until I got to my destination that I actually saw anybody else which was pretty strange!

We walked out of the station together following the directions which had been emailed to us all and after about two minutes down the road we caught sight of a couple of our players by the side of the pitch realising that was probably where the field was. A couple of weeks ago when we played against a team called Butlers, we played in a relatively small pitch but I think the one which faced us this afternoon was a quite a bit smaller.

Once everyone got there and after the usual two minute warm up because people were playing on the pitch before us meaning we couldn't get on it, the game got underway and we shot out to a quick fire 4-0 lead. The team we were playing had been unbeaten all season but had played all the teams below us so they were certainly there for the taking. We decided it would be fun to let them back in the game (nobody said anything but I kind find any other explination for our sloppy play) and despite it being 4-3 at one point we stretched the lead to 6-3 a half time.

Highlights of the first half included one of our players scoring from a cross which he had aimed towards the back post and me almost getting my shins taking off by one of their team desperate to clear the ball. Thankfully I had managed to pass the ball to a team mate before that happened.

The second half was more one way traffic with us piling on the pressure and being able to find the net one four more occasions. The opposition scored three more times making the score a ridiculous 10-6. I'm not too sure how our opposition found the pitch but the guy who owned it was referring and he was incredibly bias to our opposition. At one point their goalkeeper practically caught the ball whilst trying to stop one of our players scoring from twenty yards out but he decided he didn't see it.
Two minutes later down at the other end, he gave a penalty against one of our players when the ball hit him on the shoulder!

Despite the poor officiating it was nice to stuff a team who probably turned up thinking they were going to steamroller us after our awful display last week. Sadly they were mistaken!

We made the long journey back to our respective homes and when I got in and had a bath and stuff Charlie asked if I wanted to go play basketball with him and Kevin just down the road. After the rain started to fall we headed to get some dinner and then I came back to my room to write the latest entry in my blog and Skype call with my mum.

It's time for me to sign off now and hopefully during the week I will be able to write about the adventures that I have been having with my friend when she arrives tomorrow.

Chow for now

Ben x

원숭이도 나무에서 떨어진다.
"Even monkeys may fall from trees." Korean Proverb

Global Gathering....Korea Style

FOLLOWING in the footsteps of the 'Seoul International DJ Festival' back in May, Charlie, Kevin and I bravely ventured to Global Gathering Korea to see if it could top the enjoyable heights of our last trip to Namyeong Park which included getting home at 4am and for me, having to navigate the whole journey there by myself, makeshift bridge included.

Thankfully there were no antics of that ridiculous nature this time, but it is one of the evenings I will look back on in my time in Korea and remember fondly.

The week had passed by pretty quickly (I probably say this every week but in all honesty it was Thursday before I knew it!) Nothing really out of the ordinary happened in my classes. Kids were reasonably well behaved and I didn't have to send any members of one paticular class to the office because they were doing my head in which is always a bonus.

On wednesday we decided to try out a new galbi place which is just down the road from where we live. Since Kevin finishes at 9pm every evening we can never really be bothered to head to Suwon station after work so we're looking for a few more spots around Hwaseo-dong so that we can eat our dinner and it doesn't take all evening. We always eat at a restaurant right near there and decided to check this place out.

Since our regular restaurant, Mapo-gui, decided it was going to close it's doors (more on that later) we are still loooking for a galbi restaurant to fill the void. The place we went to was nothing flash but the food was pretty good as were the side dishes. We got the customary 'lecture' from the people who own the place about how to eat galbi, if only they had been paying attention and looking out of the windows more, they'd have seen we've been here for quite a while!
The best part of the meal probably came at the end when to our surprise for three servings of galbi and two beers we were charged 13,000 won (about £7.50) considering that when we eat at Craze Burger it costs us 16,000 won EACH, we were pretty shocked to say the least. Perhaps it was an introductory discount to get us to come back, but I'm pretty sure that there was a sign on the window which said that all meats they served were 9,900 won....

Perhaps it was a foreigners discount.

Anyway on Friday after we finished work I went off to the physio just down the road that I was instructed to go to every day by the Dr so that I could have therophy on my foot/ankle. Unfortunately because of the times that I work (10-6) and the length of time the physio takes (an hour and a half), after work is the only time I can head down there. This unfortunately means that I have to pay the after 6pm rate which is probably three times more than it is before the 6pm.

Even though the Dr told me to go everyday and I probably need to because of the 'messed-up-ness' of my foot. I really can't afford to be paying nearly 100,000 a week so this week I managed to go on Monday and Friday and next week I may also bookend the school week with a visit up there.
I have to be honest and say that it seems to be helping my foot a little as I can feel the swelling going down the following morning. The gel I have been using to reduce the swelling is hopefully taking effect too, and although I am still on a downer about the whole thing. I am slightly more confident that in two months time, I will have a fully working ankle and foot...just in time for Christmas!

On Friday, despite eating at a reasonably nice galbi place the week before we decided to try out the new mapo-gui 2.0 which has taken shape in just less than two weeks where our regular friday night haunt used to be. The place seemed pretty packed out (probably disgruntled customers that the other place had closed...like us!) but we eventually managed to get a table and ate whatever their speciality was, I think it was called 'calmegi', some Korean meat I've never eaten or heard of before. But considering I have never been one to notice the difference in tastes between two kinds of meats, it could have been from a dinosaur for all I knew.

The meal wasn't bad and although it wasn't as delicious as the place we used to eat at, for a debut, it wasn't bad. Whether we'll be heading back there every week is still undecided!

Feeling pretty tired after a session of running at football on thursday wiped all the energy I had away, I caught an early night on Friday deciding to start watching 'The Damned United' on dvd. After just finishing the book a couple of weeks ago, I decided to check out the dvd version in comparison as it came out just before I left the UK. It was actually pretty good, and I didn't mind waiting until Saturday morning to finish watching it.

Although we had done some research on Global Gathering throghout the week, it was pretty clear when it came down to setting off that we didn't quite have the route worked out, partly because we didn't know where the thing was actually supposed to be taking place. Scouring websites and blogs all week had given us nothing, and even with the aid of google translator we still hadn't been able to fall upon a set of instructions which would take us to the right place.

We set off from our house about 4pm deciding that we would get the Korail train to Seoul Station and then work out the rest later. A couple of weeks ago we discovered that there is a rather handy information line which you can call if you are a foreigner and they are able to provide instructions of give information to cab drivers should they not understand a word of what you are trying to say, as is the norm.

Picking up some tickets in the extraordinarily confusing mess that is Suwon Station, we went to our platform to wait for our train. Somehow the woman had managed to sell is three tickets that were in completely different carridges so I made my way to my seat and Charlie and Kevin went off to a different carridge, confident we'd all meet up at Seoul Station in the end.

When I got to my seat, some Korean guy had decided that his bag was going to sit in my place and although I asked him twice to move it and one went to move it myself he didn't actually respond until I sat down on his bag, forcing him to remove it from my seat. The train took about thirty minutes to get to it's destination in Seoul, most of which I spent sleeping until a bottle of water that someone (probably the rude guy with the bag) had left in the seat pocket in front of me started leaking on my leg and woke me up! Needless to say I wasn't impressed but as he got off at the next stop I had the space to spread out and enjoy another short nap before meeting up with Kevin and Charlie at the station.

We called the information line on 1330 and they told us that the Global Gathering was being held at a park near the World Cup Stadium. Figuring that his was the same Namyeong Park which held DJ festival we didn't have any problems navigating our way there. After a five minute search of which metro line we needed to be on, we eventually found ourselves wating on a deserted platform which would alegedly take us to the correct stop.

When the train eventually pulled up after fourty minutes of us waiting we boarded the train and expected that the train would soon be off and our troubles would be over. Sadly, things didn't quite work out that way as twenty minutes and three eighteen hole rounds of the golf game on Charlie's phone later, we still found ourselves sitting on the train, with the engine running, but not going anywhere.

The three of us, after initially doubting that we were in the right place were getting kinda of annnoyed at waiting so we decided to exit the train and find a cab which would give us a ride instead. Obvious as soon as we got out of the train gate, the doors closed and the train set off...typical!

Trying three cabs, we eventually found one who understood that we wanted to go to World Cup Stadium, and braving the horrible traffic we made it there for a pit stop and for some food. Quickly spying that there was a Pizza Hut in the vacinity of the Stadium we decided to head there and get some food.
Putting away an extra large peperoni pizza between the three of us we headed back out onto the street to see if we could get a cab driver to take us to the park, which after my last experience, I didn't much fancy walking to!

It must have taken us about twenty minutes to flag down a taxi, and after saying 'Global Gathering' to a couple and them not understanding, we decided it was best to call 1330 so they could explain to a taxi driver exactly where we wanted to go. I tried calling a few times but couldn't get through and eventually when I did, I didn't get through to somebody who spoke English which wasn't much help.
The lady told us to call back in ten minutes but pretty much instantly Kevin called them and got through to someone who was able to give directions to a cab driver.

Thinking we were good to go we hopped into the cab and the driver started driving us in the direction of the park. All of a sudden, the guy started making hand signals, and the three of us confused we pointed in the direction we thought the park was. After making a couple of U-turns to and getting further away from our destination we decided to 'Yeogi-yo' the guy and get him to stop near the park which blocked me from the DJ Festival back in May.

Thanks to an evening of navigation back then and a good memory I then had to guide us back in the right direction and on a twenty minute walk to where we had hoped the cab driver was going to take us. Thankfully this time once we got to the main road the bridge which had so tormented me last time was close to being finished and we were able to walk over it, without fear of it collapsing on us.

Global Gathering itself was pretty much set up the same as the DJ festival with a main stage a thousand tents selling drinks, merchandise and food and then a smaller stage to the left where some of the minor acts were playing. Unfortunately, due to our late arrival we'd missed the Korean sensations which are G-Dragon and 2NE1 (just a couple of the million k-pop bands which exist over here) but after walking around for a bit I met a couple of my friends from the football team and we all watched Roksopp (who I'd never heard of, but were pretty good) and then Underworld (who I have heard of and were very good!)

By the time all the excitement had finished it was 3am and time to head home. We had a pretty difficult time getting a cab home for one reason or another. The first guy that we tried to get a lift with didn't know where we needed to be and after agreeing a location with the second guy we tried to convince him to give us a ride for 45,000 won (which is how much we usually get home for) but he clearly felt that our money wasn't good enough for him and instead sped off towards somebody who was going to be mugged off into paying more. Needless to say he got plenty of deserved abuse from the three of us as he stepped on the accelerator.

The third guy we finally managed to get to give us a ride, played on our foreign nature and after agreeing to take us home for 45,000 started asking for more when we gave him the money. We were pretty fed up of standing out in the cold Seoul night and gave him what was necessary to get him to drop us off at home. Back in Suwon by 4am, the three of us were relatively hungry and stopped at the kimbop restaurant just near our house to pick up a midnight snack of cheese donkas.

After a tiring night of dancing (and mostly pointing as you do to dance music) I didn't get out of bed until about 11am and ready to play football at 4pm I had plenty of time to mess around on the computer and catch up on the football I missed yesterday. Turning up at GSIS for my game this afternoon, I was disappointed to discover that several of my team mates had left their abilities (and their first touches) at Global Gathering. Something which wasn't great news considering we were playing last seasons Champions and the best team in the league.

Within ten minutes we were 2-0 down and although at one point we eventually managed to peg them back to 4-2 we went on to lose 5-2 much to our disappointment. There goes the unbeaten record I guess, but on such setbacks Champions are created.
Charlie and Kevin came to watch the second half of the game and afterwards we went back to Suwon station to eat some Dak-Galbi.

The rest of my evening has been spent planning for tomorrow and watching football. Shortly I'm going to head to bed as I a pretty tired but I'm pleased that I had the oppertunity to write a lengthy blog before my eyes started to close!

I'll leave it there for the time being folks. Hope the week is bearable for you

Ben x

Tell a man there are 300 billion stars in the universe and he'll believe you. Tell him a bench has wet paint on it and he'll have to touch it to be sure.
Murphy's Law

A quiet weekend of not doing very much at all....

UNFORTUNATELY pretty much as soon as I had stopped writing my blog on Friday night the sun decided it was going to give way to the rain for a little while and with it went all hopes of an enjoyable weekend with plenty to blog about!

We had planned to go to a 'watering hole' (According to Charlie this is there a lake and moutains come together but personally I thought it was what cowboys called pubs!) in Seoul but unfortunately a downpour on friday night followed by some heavy rain on saturday morning and an extremely changeable day which couldnt make up it's mind what it wanted to do meant we had to shelve those ideas and instead do somehthing which involved not going out in the rain.

I was awake pretty early on Saturday morning and just as I got out of bed to go to the loo Charlie text me to see if I was awake as he fancied a trip to the electronics district in Seoul so that he could get a new monitor tv/screen.

With little else looking like it was going to materialise from the day because of the weather I decided to go along, even if it was just for the delicious fried chicken that we usually get whilst there. Our plan was to test out the speed of the train vs the subway but when the guy behind the desk told us that the train wasn't going to come for another fourty five minutes we decided to abandon that plan and wait until we were coming back to test that theory out.

Getting to Yongsan in about an hour, most of which involved standing up on the subway as usual we decided to get some dinner before scouting out some prices. As Yongsan veterans of about six or seven journies we were able to go straight to where we needed to go to find computer screens. Pricing a few up Charlie finally settled on one which had digital TV built in and from the same place I also decided to buy a new hard drive for my computer as the current one is getting too full and whilst we were in a place where it was cheap I thought it would be a good idea.

Thankfully on the way back the train was due to be there in about ten minutes and after being turfed out of our original seats by someone who claimed they were theres, we got back to Suwon in about twenty minutes which is much more preferable to the usual length of time it takes. AND we were sitting down, which on public transport in Korea is a rareity!

The rest of the afternoon was spent on the computer enjoying the delights of the Internet and my Nintendo Wii before in the evening the three of us decided to go out and get some dinner from the Middle Eastern restaurant which is by Suwon Station.

This morning I woke up to the sound of people next door singing to possible the most annoying K-Pop song in the world and the fact that Charlie was excitedly watching a game of college football next door I slept as long as I could without interuptions.
I had to be out of the house this afternoon to go play football anyway so while I had the oppertunity I had some breakfast and went to the phamacy down the road from where I live to get a new support bandage as the dr's surgery decided they weren't going to give me the one back which I was wearing when I went in.

I had some lunch and then headed out to carry out one of the most difficult tasks there is in Korea...trying to catch a cab on a Sunday! Luckily I didn't have to wait too long this afternoon and I was in Yeoungtung just on time to meet the rest of my team. Today's game was at the International School where we train and we were taking on a team called Seoul Storm, who were promoted from Division Two last season but had started well by winning their first two games.

It took us a while to get going after a week off and despite creating about 19 million chances in the first half, we took a 1-0 lead courtesy of my left toe into the break. In the second half the flood gates opened a little although I came off after about an hour, the team managed to go on and find a couple more goals and the score finished 5-0.

Charlie and Kevin had come to watch the second half of the game so the three of us took a walk back to the Kinnex and then took a cab back to Hwaseo, where a long soak in the bath was followed by some dinner and writing the latest installment in my blog!

There's not been a great deal going on this weekend for me to write about but as I am in the habit of writing about things I felt that I'd better give people something to read about! Considering I blogged on friday too though,I'm sure you'll appreciate a massive double dose of my life in the last three days!

Well I'm about done for this evening I think, it's only been a short one but then it really hasn't been an interesting weekend! I can only hope that next weekend brings more blogable activities.

*Ben*

Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something.
Plato

Injured Foot Update...

...THOUGHT i'd manage to sneak in a quick blog before the weekend as who knows if it will take me until Tuesday again to get round to writing it.

Another week whizzed by, it seems like Saturday to about Wednesday afternoon flies by but the final two days of the week usually go by pretty slowly, although by the time it's thursday I usually falsly thing I have made it to the weekend.

Not much out of the ordinary (to me anyway) has been going on this week so far. This week in Kindergarten class I was down to five students so it's been very quiet. One of the girls has decided (or at least her parents have) that she's taking the whole of september off and another one wasn't there from Monday onwards so there's just been the four boys and one poor little girl with nobody around to protect her!
We have been doing about weather conditions to teach so it's been a breeze to teach....

Sorry!
The kids seemed to understand to concept which is good anyway. And we didn't have any occasions when I am about to tear my hair out because they can't remember things we have done the previous day.
We spent wednesday making pictures of rainbows which was pretty fun and the kids learned that the last two colours in the rainbow aren't just purples!
There was a rather souring moment in one of my classes yesterday when one of my kids asked me how to spell 'is'. I was like are you serious...you honestly don't know how to spell that, he just gave me a cute look as if to say 'why, is it easy to spell'. Considering it was already on your paper and you just needed to look a bit harder, yes....

Anyhow aside from all the fun in the classroom yesterday I decided to take drastic action this afternoon and head to the hospital in a desperate search for the cure to my still injured foot which according to the dr's should have been repaired two months ago!
Instead of trapsing all the way to the main Suwon hospital I was pointed in the direction a medical centre which sits at the bottom of my street.

At 2pm I decided to head down there intrepidly, hoping that they might be able to help diagnose the problem, or at worse tell me that I needed to rest for a little bit longer because some damage was still to be repaired.
After seeing the state of my foot the dr decided that he needed to retest what the hospital had already done and even though I mentioned to them that they had told me there wasn't a fracture in my foot the last time I was there he insisted.

Following the x-ray I was trasped onto a minuture hospital ward, had some hot towels wrapped round my leg and told to lie there for twenty minutes until they had cooled down.
Twenty minutes later, the nurse who spoke a limited amount of English unwrapped my foot, took a machine from the corner of the room and applied four 'suckers' to my foot in the damaged areas. To say that she didn't know much of my language she amazingly knew the words 'electroshock' and 'therapy' as she explained what was going to happen.

For the first few minutes it didn't feel as if anything was happening and after asking me 'pain?' the nurse proceeding to jack up the number of vaults which was travelling through my foot. Fifteen minutes of pulses going through my foot and the nurse came back in and started doing some kind of ultra sound on my foot followed by the last treatement which involved shining a bright red light onto my foot. Im pretty sure it was a UV ray but what that has to do with the recovery I have no idea.

Ushered back into the dr's office he told me a mix of good and bad news.

The good news was that he had found the cause of the pain, the bad news is that unfortunately, despite the hospital's all clear my foot is still fractured in TWO, yes TWO places. Hmmm....not too sure how they missed that one on the x-ray over at Suwon general, even me looking at my x-ray could see what was causing the problem.

There's a fracture on the bottom of my foot right about where the swelling is and there is also one in my metatarsal which is causing the pain around there. To go with that fantastic news there is some still some soft tissue damage to my ankle which is causing the swelling to there.

Unfortunately the damage is pretty much done to my foot and aside from continuing to do what I do every day in terms of resting my foot, not using it whenever possible and icing it whenever I am in the house there wasn't much advise he could offer me.
He perscribed something for the damage to my ankle and which should stop the swelling in my foot and then he said that I should come back for a course of physiotheraphy every day so that he can keep an eye on it's progress and also make sure that the swelling is going down.

As I said the news about my foot is pretty bitter sweet as at least now I know what the prolem is, it's just not the 'problem' that was hoping for. The dr seemed pretty sure that the foot and ankle combination should be full repaired in two months time but where have we heard that before...

It was pretty gutting news to discover that there was further damage to my ankle which had not been discovered before. Not just because it hadnt been spotted by trained professionals but also because of the recovery process I am going to have to go through again but at least getting opinion worked out what the deal finally was and why, as promised, I wasn't able to recover fully.

On that unhappy bombshell I am going to leave my blog there until the weekend. Hopefully there will be some happier moments to come over the next few days but as it started raining this evening who knows what they will involved!

*Ben*

Man should forget his anger before he lies down to sleep.
Mohandas Gandhi

NBA Legends, Entering Without Breaking and a Bluewings Goalfest...Just Another Surreal Weekend in Suwon....

...BUT a fun one all the same!

I'm slightly lagging with the latest entry to my blog so I do appologise but I didn't get back until late last night and I've had plenty to keep me busy this evening which has meant that I will probably end up producing this in two parts as I'm sure tiredness will defeat me after a while.

This weekend has been more action packed than usual and it's been great. I have been getting upto plenty of things and it feels like I have been more of a tourist this weekend than a citizen, which is something that hasn't happened to often in the last couple of weeks.

On friday when I finished I popped down the road to post a letter, only to discover, to everyones horror when I told them that the galbi restaurant we usually head to on a friday was closed. My excellent hangul abilities manage to decypher the banner hanging in front of the door, but sadly there were no English words translated in to Korean, meaning I couldn't understand a single thing what it was on about. Except the bit in the middle which said '19/9' which I take it is their re-opening date.

If you went down the street where I live you would see that competition is fierce, especially when it comes to galbi, but I will be mightily surprised if this place has actually closed down because it always seemed to be doing such good business, it's one of a number of places down our street which is as busy at 3am as it is as 10pm when we go in there!

My boss read the sign and suggested that it is closed to refurbishments and that they will be re-opening with a different name and a few new specials but hopefully it will be the same in spirit. With the same delicious food and the same people who work there that hook us up with extras and freebees everytime we go in. Only time will tell....

You're sure to find out if it's not though as this blog may have a slightly less happy tone to it!

Disaster aside we headed to another galbi restaurant further down the road, one which I actually thought was pretty decent but the guys weren't too impressed when I tried to make a claim for this place being a potential new hang out! None of us were feeling in the mood to really hang out in the evening so I had a bit of an earlier one than usual for a friday night as was actually pretty well rested by the time it came to getting up on Saturday morning.

We headed to 'The Yuk' for some food and as we were walking past the bus stops we noticed a stand of the dancing pororo creatures which had caught my attention and I wished I had brought last weekend while I was in Hongdae. This time we didn't spend a moment messing around and we brought a complete set which has actually yet to be tested.
Laughing to ourselves that we had actually been able to purchase them was only topped off by seeing some girl and her friend fall over a two foot by two foot concrete pillar which was in the middle of the street!

Where it's two men taking their shirts off and fighting, dancing critters, people trying to 'sell' us religion or people falling over, there is always something funny or strange happening when we go to Suwon station thats for sure.

Last weekend whilst we were in Hongdae, we'd seen posters for an 'NBA Generations' game which was in Jamsil this weekend. And all three of us being big basketball fans we decided to head down and check it out. I guess the NBA, like most sports organisations, is trying to break into the Asian market so this year for the first time they decided to bring a bunch of NBA D leaguers and mesh them with a team of four hall of famers to take on the Korean Basketball League Allstars.
A hilarious prospect on paper seeing three players who retired in the mid to late 90's and one guy who retired a few years ago taking on some sprightly and energetic Asian players in an exibition game, it turned out to be as funny in real life as we thought it might be.

'Sports Complex' where we headed to is just outside Seoul and near a place called Jamsil which is where the 'Olympic Village' was for the 1988 games which were held here. Making ourway through the ridiculously crowded subway station and the 'nut to butt' experience of the 'circle line' which is the subway line running through the middle of Seoul we found ourselves following a huge crowd of people going to watch the game.

'Sports Complex' as the name suggests housed a few olympic events and was the main location for all the track events, swimming, basketball, boxing and also has a baseball stadium where two of the five teams in Seoul play.
As we walked to the gym there was a montage of Korean athletes who were successful at the Olympics (all the way through to Athens) and also a list of every single person who won a medal at the Seoul games carved on a stone in the middle. it was pretty cool actually.

We managed to negotiate our way past a few ticket touts who tried to sell is a few tickets at a 'cheap price' (business sense tells me they were either lying or making a loss!) and we found our way to the top tier of the stand where our seats were. Within two minutes of sitting down we thought we'd done something wrong as some guy tapped us on the shoulder and in broken English told us that we were able to move. We later discovered that this was because there were some spare seats further down and not because we'd broken any rules!

We had a decent view about five rows back from the courtside seats and the gym wasn't that full anyway so there was plenty of space. The game itself was pretty inconcequential as the Korean team, as expected, won in a blow out. Though mind you if they couldn't beat a team which had at least three players who were out of shape on the floor at all times, they should probably have given up right there and then.

It was an extremely strange experience and honstely something I never thought i would be doing. I am a big basketball fan and although I don't know a great deal about the history of the game seeing the all time leading scorer in NBA history sitting about twenty foot away from me on the bench was pretty incredible. That combined with Vlade Divac, Dominique Wilkins, Robert Horry and Tim Hardaway all virtually being at touching distance when they were on the floor was one of the more memorable moments of my time in Korea.

It was a strange juxtaposition being in an arena full of Koreans but seeing some people I have only ever seen on the TV or on video performing in front of me. I'm a big 'live sports' person and even if the standard wasn't the highest, that was enough to leave me happy that day.
Slightly disappointed that the New Jersey Nets cheerleading team hadn't managed to pick our goofy faces out in the crowd when they were throwing t-shirts and posters out, me and Charlie decided to take matters into our own hands by swiping one of the arena wall on the way out.
It was pretty funny as many Korean's started to realise it was a good idea and followed suit by doing the same so we didn't feel so bad!!!1

We headed back to Suwon and on the way home our friend Marie text us asking if we wanted to head out for a few drinks that evening to meet her and a couple of her friends. So we got back to our rooms had a rest and then decided to go eat and go meet them in Lao bar which is just near Suwon station (the place last time where during the fire show we saw a group of people get covered in oragnge juice!)

Although we didn't see such hilarity this time it was good to meet up with some new people and also I think it has been nearly three months since we met up with Marie as either her or us have been busy whenever we've tried to do it before. We had a couple of games of darts and then at about one the three of us decided to call it a night as Charlie had plans for the next day and I was feeling pretty tired.

Another refreshing nights sleep followed and as my game of football had been cancelled on thursday I had the whole day to myself. As we didn't spend too much time in Jamsil before or after the game, but there were plenty of cool things to see, I decided to get the subway back into Seoul and take a look round to see what else there was. I figured that they did tours of all the stadia and stuff and I knew it would fill up some time before the evening when we were going to see the Suwon Bluewings play.

I got some lunch and then went and caught the subway which took about an hour or so to get me back to 'Sports Complex'. One of the two baseball teams who play at the stadium right there were playing that afternoon so I got about as far into the stadium as I could without a ticket, took a few pictures and then went to see what else I could do.

I visited the boxing arena, the swimming venue and also the hockey stadium which is now open to the public but it was pretty the Olympic Stadium which interested me the most. First I walked around the outside to the 'auxilary' stadium where athletes were allowed to warm up during the Olympics and also where some of the field events took place. I continued to walk around the outside of the stadium but was disappointed to see that I couldn't even get close to going inside because all the gates were locked.

I'm not entirely sure what was going on but I think Seoul is trying to hold the Asian games or something and are doing up their stadium because builders were at work in there as I walked further round, and thanks to some stelthy tactics and the door being left open I snuck through and open gate and into the arena.
With the place to myself and no idea of how long I had before someone saw me I obviously went up into the stands and took a few pictures before deciding to head to the track for a walk around and also to see the pitch which sits in the middle.

I managed to take a few good pictures before I heard people talking pretty close by so looking for the gate that I got in through I scampered back up the stairs and carried on walking around the outside as if I hadn't even noticed the open gate.
A bit further round there was another open space which I was able to sneak into which is where the press box was so that was pretty cool to be up there, somewhere I hope to be able to be in a few years, without sneaking in if possible!

Once I felt I had outstayed my welcome and done enough things I probably shouldn't have been doing and visited enough places that I shouldn't have been able to I headed back to Suwon and agreed to meet up with everyone at the station so we could get the bus. Last time we went to see the Bluewings we had Hans with us but this time we were very much on our own with just me, Kevin, Alex, Marie and Marie's friend Kerry to try and work out what was going on.

Thankfully it was just a case of getting one bus up there and we managed pretty easily which was cool. We arrived perfectly ontime and brought some seats in the same section of the crowd that we headed to before.

Suwon were playing Gangwon this week who, as a little research was able to uncover, are actually pretty decent. Quite surprsing then when the 14th placed Bluewings netted first! Hoping for more goals we weren't disappointed as before half time we saw two more and then in the second half we saw three more as the game ended in a 3-3 draw with Suwon scoring in the last minute and going very close in injury time.

It was a throughly enjoyable game and again for 10,000 won (£5 to you and me) it was money well spent. Especially to see six goals!
We tried for an eternity to get a cab back to the station and about thirty minutes later me and Kevin decided that we would go back and get some food as all the waiting had made us starving (a hunger which not even the chicken at half time could cure!)

We got some grub and then headed back to our houses throughly tired and not altogether ready to be going back to work today...thankfully I survived!

As previously mentioned I had a fun-filled and very sport orientated weekend which suited me just fine. Sadly today we had to say goodbye to one of our teachers, Josh, whose year contract was up today and who is heading back to America this week so there's just the three of us now at Talkster fighting to foreign fight!

Anyway guys, I've had plenty to blog about this week and writing about it has made me very sleepy, so even though I've made it on one go I think it is definately time for me to head to bed. Keep an eye out for pictures and videos which will be posted to both my sites this week...just haven't quite got round to it yet!

Take care

Ben


Success is simple. Do what's right, the right way, at the right time.
Arnold H. Glasow