Halloween....Talkster Style...

...IN one of many new ‘traditions’ I’ve had to get used to being involved in this year, the end of October and Halloween has crept up on me in the fashion of many of the horrific things that the ‘holiday’ is associated with.

I use the term holiday loosely for Halloween because lets me honest, many of us probably haven’t been involved in celebrating it since before we were teenagers. I know that I haven’t donned a Halloween costume since I was about eight when one of the most anticipated nights of the year came along with the knowledge that after a few good hours of Trick or Treating lay the possibility of eating so many sweets and so much chocolate that it would feel like your teeth were going to fall out.

Well I guess this year being surrounded by so many children and my school like many others in Korea following its roots in American English, I soon realised that Halloween was going to be taken semi-seriously. The first clue I got was way back at the start of October when I went into the school to pick up my registers and saw that a few Halloween decorations had already started to be plastered on the walls and the windows. It’s not that, that kind of thing is confusing to be because coming from England I’m not shocked by seeing early preparations like the ones which are done for Christmas at the start of autumn.

We had a meeting on Tuesday to let us know exactly what would be going on during the day on Friday with my kids being the first to test out all the Halloween events and games followed by the rest of the school who would be arriving between 3 and 7 to enjoy the festivities.
I think our school probably had more plans than any other that I’d heard about from the rest of my football team mates on Thursday and come Friday when I got into class, preparations were well underway for an enjoyable afternoon.

I spent the morning with the kids making Halloween cards out of macaroni and after lunch the kids were each given a bag to go trick or treating with and they were all dressed up in their costumes pretty excited about spending the afternoon away from the classroom.
My school had invited each of the children’s parents to come to the school and give out candy so going over to the main school building led by me the kids would do into each room to say ‘Trick or Treat’ be given some candy and then have some photographs taken.

I was impressed that they’d actually been able to remember the phrase ‘Trick or Treat’ as we’d practiced it earlier on in the week and I didn’t have to remind them what to say too many times. Following them receiving candy from each parent we went outside and took some more pictures before heading to our first game of the afternoon which basically involved a home made piñata with candy inside.
The thought of putting a wiffle bat in front of my kids and letting them lay into two plastic bowls wrapped together and covered in tin foil was a pretty daunting prospect at first but thankfully everyone lived to tell the tale. My kids had about twenty whacks each and none of them could bust it open so it was left to myself and then one of the parents to finish off the whole things and let the kids rustle around on the floor for the sweets which burst out.

The next task was bobbing for apples, something which the kids completed reasonably easily and without too many complaints about getting water up their noses.
We next took part in eating cookies on a string which was a pretty enjoyable game, made only better by the fact that the kids parents decided to take part and I must admit that I probably could have stood there all day and bounced the string up and down whilst helpless people tried to grab hold of a cookie with no hands.

On to the ‘Viking Ship’ next which despite having no Nordic marking what-so-ever proved to be a huge success throughout the day. Charlie and Zach, who had joined us outside now, got a test of the ship and predicted some tears as the guy controlling the ship made sure that they were nice and shaken up before they got off. The kids had a fun ride on the ship with huge smiles on their faces throughout and only one child came off and didn’t look to impressed. Too much swinging I presume.

We finished off the afternoons events by a trip into the Haunted House which had been built on the fourth floor of our building especially for the occasion. My kids, fearing that they would be ‘scarred for life’ were able to walk through the haunted house with the lights on. Although they were a bit dubious about having to crawl through a tunnel in the dark on their hands and knees they were almost immediately made to laugh by Charlie jumping out on them in a mask!

With the Kindergarten kids done we had some time to ourselves before the regular school kids came to join in and this seemed like a perfect opportunity for me and Kevin to test out the Viking Ship. I’m not a big fan of pirate ships I’ll be honest but not daunted by the prospect of a child sized version of one, me and Kevin spent a good five minutes swinging backwards and forwards in fits of laughter before the smiles started to turn to feeling sick and needing to get off.

When it came time for regular classes to begin at 3pm, each teacher had to go to their classroom and explain to their kids what was going on for the rest of the afternoon. Then we pretty much let them loose to do whatever they wanted and told them to be back at quarter to the hour so that they could get a lollypop they’d earned for taking part and then head home before the next wave of kids arrived.

I was stationed for the whole afternoon on apple bobbing which was actually set up just in front of my house. Me and Betty, one of the Korean teachers had the tiresome job of emptying buckets or water and replacing apples for the duration of the sessions. She told me last year that the apple bobbing was done in one huge bowl but because of H1N1 this year they’d decided to play it safe and use different ones for each person who took part.

It was actually pretty fun to see the kids sticking their heads in the water and trying to get their teeth into bigger than average apples. For their efforts they got candy if they managed to pull the apple out and if there was four people and they were first then they got two.
Even though I was working on probably the most unglamorous of all the events it was fun to see all my kids dressed up and having fun.
I only have two classes on a Friday but I got to see all the students from my former 3pm class and also the ones from the 5pm class and 6pm class I teach on a Tuesday and Thursday.

At 7pm when all the kids were done we had the arduous task of cleaning everything up. This amazingly didn’t take very long and before we knew it, two hours earlier than usual, we were able to go and get ourselves some much deserved dinner.

The three of us headed off to the usual galbi restaurant where we were later joined by Zach and Haji who had been finishing everything off at the school.
Whilst we were eating, for about the fourth time since I have been in Korea in various locations, out of the blue a fight broke out on the table across the other side of the room.

Looking over at the table piled up with bottles of beer and soju it was hardly surprising but seeing two grown men going at it with people trying to hold them back and things going all over the place is something that will never register properly with me.
One of the guys was actually the owner of the restaurant who about an hour later sheepishly apologised to us for what had happened.
It’s still funny in some ways to me that for such a non threatening society Korean’s soon get riled up and once alcohol gets involved its bad news bears. They are obviously not allowed to fight in establishments like restaurants or bars but people usually have no qualms with then taking it out on the street. That’s just how it works here.

After the entertainment of a fight before our very eyes we headed up to It Bar for a few drinks and were joined by Anna and Hans. We spent most of the night just chatting and enjoying the fact that Halloween was all over and done with for another year and whilst Charlie and Zach headed off to Now Bar, Anna, Kevin and I decided it was time to come home and made our way back in a cab.

What the rest of the weekend holds for me I’m not too sure but I decided to use Halloween as a good excuse to post an extra blog on my website today. There’s a few photos from Halloween over at my usual photo gallery site as well if you want to take a look.

Have an enjoyable weekend, a happy Halloween and I’ll report back with the rest of the weekend’s events on Sunday.

Ben x

Avoiding the phrase “I don’t have time...”, will soon help you to realize that you do have the time needed for just about anything you choose to accomplish in life.

Bo Bennett

Passing all my footballing luck on to the Bluewings and a night with Hans at IT Bar...

...MY first weekend in a while didn't quite live up to the schedule of the previous three with Aimie having gone home on monday but it was still some good time spent away from the classroom and the kind of relaxing time which we all need.

As I mentioned Aimie went back to England on Monday after her three week 'holiday'. It was good to have her around and I was a bit sad on my first day back at work that my one reminder of England was heading back to my home country without me. Still I'm sure I can survive for the next six months and will be even more excited when the time comes around for me to go home.

I survived through the rest of the week to friday anyhow with no company other than Kevin and Charlie. Continued to feel like I was making a break through with the kindergarten kids which week, we were doing about sea creatures for five days and the ones who were paying attention were able to tell me all 25 that we'd learned about. I was very impressed.

On Thursday a new teacher at our school arrived in Korea. Zach, arrived in the evening to start his third stint at Talkster, having previously done two 18 month contracts. The last of those ending in February. Before I came here I actually emailed Zach and he was the one that told me about the school and what it had to offer.

It's been strange only having Charlie, Kevin and myself as the schools foreign representatives and it seems like a long time since Josh left. Now that we have four teachers again two of my classes have now changed. I've lost one altogether which I am a bit sad about because they were a really good class and I liked them. And the other one is one of Josh's classes which my boss was teaching and I have to teach them at 3pm on a Tuesday and Thursday.

Zach's arrival and a changing of classes means I am no longer working overtime but I'm only working 10 minutes less than the 30.5 hours which my contract states I am required to do. Both Kevin and Charlie had classes changed too so they are still working about 28 hours which is a bit more even than before.
Will be interesting to see what my new class is like at least and although I am gutted about giving my other one away, I will never say no to an extra hour off in the afternoon.

The three of us went out for dinner on friday night and then spent the rest of the evening playing on Charlie's PS3 and taking it easy after a couple of busy weeks.

On Saturday morning I got up after a nice lie in and some time spent sitting in bed watching a DVD. And then in the afternoon me and Kevin headed to what we later discovered was the last Bluewings game of the season. Charlie was going to come with us but was tempted instead into some shopping by Angeline so the two of us went off to the station to catch the bus, eating dinner first.

Catching the bus on the way to the stadium, I had to experience one of the less enjoyable sides of Korea. Rudeness.
Sitting on the bus some old lady got on and with everyone else around refusing to move, she decided to stand in front of me and make a 'get up' motion to me until I eventually gave in and let her have my seat.

As Kevin was sitting behind her I stood there talking to him and this lady obviously displeased that I had chose to stand there kept waving me away and telling me to move. She kept saying stuff to me in Korean and looking at me but thankfully the language forcefield prevented me from understanding her. The bus started to cram up and soon enough she got off the bus and we were able to ride the rest of the journey in peace.

We got to the stadium bang on 3pm so the game had already started by the time we got tickets. Whilst we were queuing up to get a seat some ticket touts tried to sell us some 'half price tickets' but when they are only 10,000 won (£5) anyway, I don't have a problem buying official ones!

The game was a pretty entertaining one and the fact that it was watched in bright afternoon sunshine made it even better viewing. Suwon haven't had the best of seasons and I think their opponents have had a pretty solid season so when one of Suwon's defenders got sent off for elbowing one of the oppositions forwards it didn't look promising.

Amazingly the Bluewings scored in the second half with their lazy striker profiting from some abysmal defending (as he always seems to whenever we go and watch.) Chongu netted an equaliser thanks to some equally bad defending and with both sides pushing for a draw a bit of handbags broke out and two players were giving straight reds for their part. It was actually pretty entertaining as the offending defender was pushed by the striker, aimed a push back in his direction and then fell over as if he had been bodyslammed. Quite embarassing really.

The game ended 1-1 and after a long search me and Kevin finally got a cab back home and went back to our rooms to get some rest and wait for Charlie to come home.

About 7pm I got a call from the guys and we went down to the ogari at the bottom of our street to meet with Charlie, Angeline, Alex, Ian and Hans for a few drinks in a bar just down the road from where we live.
More importantly than anything I needed some food so me and Kevin were pretty happy when Hans ordered us some chicken wings and together we pretty much devoured a whole flock of them!

We decided to head to WA bar (It Bar as it is now) for a bit and we spent the rest of the night just talking and laughing which was alot of fun. I think it's been about a month or so since we last hung out with Hans our Korean friend but everytime I see him, its always entertaining.

It's a strange concept that someone like Hans goes out of his way to be nice, and even go as far as taking care of me, Charlie and Kevin but rude old ladies on the bus look for respect in exactly the opposite way by being rude. I think it just shows what a contrast there is between attitudes surrounding foreigners in Korea.

I was pretty tired waking up this morning as yet again we had a 12pm kick off with Inter Suwon at GSIS that I had to get up for. I swear one weekend, as much as I am not a fan of doing nothing, I am going to hibernate like a bear for the whole day!

We had a game today against a team called Butlers who were joint second with ourselves and who we had somehow managed to beat the last time we had played against them. They owed us one today because last season with a scratch team we stopped them from winning the league by drawing with them (the game my injury nightmare started.) Well today we certainly got our dues as we didnt really play too well and lost 3-0.

Everyone was pretty disappointed after the game but a strange attack on the field by about a million ladybirds after the game put a smile back on everyones faces. Honestly, it was so strange. We wear a white kit anyway but before taking it off, it was basically red and covered in the things.

I made my way back to Suwon via the bus in a bid to save some money and surprisingly it didn't take the 3 hours I was expecting. Back at the house I had a bath and in a desperate bid to find a cheap and simple Halloween costume for friday at school I went up to Suwon Station to see if there was anything up there. Sadly the AK Plaza wasn't too helpful as I didnt see a single item of Halloween parafinalia so I think I will have to try somewhere else tomorrow or possibly on wednesday.

For the rest of the evening I have just been on the computer and playing on my Wii as Charlie and Kevin weren't about. At the moment I am getting my usual Sunday dose of football on Korean TV and that's how the evening will end I suspect with Man U and Liverpool not due to finish until about 1am.

I know that everyone back in England probably enjoyed their extra hour in bed this morning but today I discovered that for some reason South Korea doesn't have daylight savings time. There was a vote in 2009 apparently and the government will impliment it from 2010 but for the time being there is a now a nine hour gap between myself and the UK.

That's about all for this week folks, not really much to report. It was quite a quiet one, hopefully the week will pass with little incident.

Take care

Ben xxxx
Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together.
Vincent Van Gogh

Aimie's Last Weekend, Re-Visiting the Zoo and an Expensive-Free Massage

INTO the second half of my year's stay in Korea, it's annoying that one of the first things I have to do is say 'Goodbye'.

Incase you haven't been paying attention, my friend Aimie has been staying with me in Korea for the last three months and even though she was supposed to come over and see me in August, I think it was definately worth the two month wait.

This weekend saw her third and second last days in Korea as tomorrow she will be heading towards Incheon Airport in the evening before touching down in England on Tuesday morning leaving me with another five months and three weeks without seeing any familar faces from my home country!

I've had a great time whilst she's been here, I hope that she has seen plenty of Korea and has enjoyed the experience even in her short illness ridden stay. As great as it is to have two excellent friends like Charlie and Kevin around constantly, it's always nice to add an extra person (especially from England) into the mix and it's been really fun spending time and letter her experience evening that I have seen in half a year on the other side of the world.

As it was her last weekend we decided to venture out of the house on saturday towards Seoul Zoo as it isn't too far away from where I live.

I'd already been to the zoo early on in my stay in Korea, but what can I say, I'm an animal lover and considering that it cost the two of us 6,000 won (£3) to get into the zoo in total, it was definately worth it.

Unfortunately something which we both had to experience was the disgusting smell of cooking silkworm on the 500 yard walk to the entrance of the zoo. Despite holding back the vomit I also noticed that a KFC had been built, I hope it's only just sprung up since we were last there because if we went through a terrible experience with Loterria last time and there was KFC right there we didn't notice, I'm pretty frustrated!!! (If you don't know what I am talking about see my first trip to the zoo blog!)

The pair of us got to the zoo about 3pm so it was pretty quiet with the avoidence of the manic busyness from last time being avoided extremely well recieved. We took a similar route round to the one which Kevin, Charlie and I took last time and there were no real additions or subtrations in terms of the animals that we saw.

With it being autumn and the temperature dropping off significantly since I was last there I think many of the animals were being confined to inside because it was too cold for them. There's a South American pavillion of animals including monkeys, an ant eater and tapirs and although there were all outside last time they were all only viewable through glass windows as it wasn't quite jungle temperatures for them outside.

Rather entertainingly as we were inside checking out all the monkeys and stuff one of the zoo workers going about his daily duty decided he needed to check of the alligators were still alive (as you do), the best way to do this, or the way he figured best, pretty much involves ensuring they are still breathing by hitting them with a large pole and annoying them. Bashing each one a couple of times the guy seemed quite shocked when the furious animal snarled up at him but I guess it's better than him climbing in the cage and being like 'excuse me, still alive alligator, good.'

Inside there were also some rather cute monkeys swinging around with some gusto. One of them must have just had a new born monkey (now I want to say pup, but I don't think monkeys have pups) and this little one was clearly quite disturbed by all the people staring at him so he kept squawking like a parrot. Determined to teach her baby some climbing lessons the mum began to climb up to the top of the cage leaving the baby behind stuck on the bars because it wasn't daring enough to swing itself up to the higher level. Thankfully it's mum came back down, scooped it up in it's arms, and took it into their little house.

After walking round the zoo for three hours and realising that most of the animals had been taken to their respective sleeping quarters for the night, we re-boarded the subway and headed back to Suwon to get some dinner. We did a good job of avoiding the still keen silkworm sellers on our way back to the metro stop and after getting back to the station we had a KFC for dinner and then headed home.

Sunday was mostly filled, as usual, with playing football. We're at the midpoint of our season now and sitting in third place we were up against the team at the bottom of the league this morning. A team which we beat 9-1 in the opening game of the season....missing a few players and generally being dragged down to the level of our opposition we managed to scrape through with a 2-1 win with out keeper saving a penalty in the second half and our right back scoring the winning goal (yes, I play right back.)

Charlie, Kevin, Aimie and Angeline game to watch the final fifteen minutes of the game and as it was a nice day the five of us headed back to Suwon for some dinner before Angeline managed to drag us to the Galleria shopping center for a look around. Uninterested in looking at bags, shoes and makeup, me and Charlie did the manly thing of trying to find some technology which we eventually managed to come across on the very top floor.

Looking to kill some time me and Charlie perched ourselfs in some very expensive massage chairs and spent 25 minutes sitting there and raving about how nice it would be to have one in our house. The one I was sitting in massaged pretty much everything from head to toe, including fingers, hips and head. I'm not sure if the chair was built for a sterotypically small Korean because the back massager was pretty uncomfortable so perhaps it was hitting the wrong part of my body.
The chair I was sitting in was a ridiulous 10,000,000 won (£5,000) so I'm not sure I'll be getting one anytime soon.

Everything in the Galleria seemed to be out of my price range as after looking at watches in the bottom floor of the shop I realised that if I am going to get a new time teller, it's going to have to be a knock off as I can't afford a legitamately good one!

We headed back home as Angeline was going up to E-Mart to look for some makeup and whilst eating our dinner me and Aimie spent the evening watching Fast and Furious and then skyping with my mum for a little while.

Back to work tomorrow and my kids are learning about creatures which live in the sea tomorrow which shouldn't be too difficult to teach. Providing her suitcase is packed, Aimie plans to come to class tomorrow with me to meet some of my kids and then after work tomorrow I'm taking her down to Suwon Station so that she can get the bus back to the airport.

Now it's time for me to say 'See you later' and hopefully next week things won't turn back into pre-Aimie Korea weekends of doing nothing!

Ben x
Where the loser saw barriers, the winner saw hurdles.
Robert Brault

Aimie's Birthday, The 63 Building and a Beach in Seoul?!?!

...DECIDING to spend some more time in Seoul after our enjoyable and busy weekend at the DMZ and Seoul Tower last weekend, me and Aimie decided to head back into the capital despite her still suffering with an illness which has pretty much glued her to the bed all week.

On friday after work the pair of us took a trip to Homeplus as I needed to buy myself a few things and having spent almost every day in my room after work I thought we'd spend sometime looking around the supermarket.

We had the usual meal with Kevin, Charlie and Haji on friday and we were joined by a new friend who Kevin and Charlie had met during the week named Angeline. She's only been in Korea for a couple of weeks and was keen to meet some new foreigners so they invited her to dinner with us. The three of them headed to Now Bar in the evening whilst we decided to get an early night so we could take on a new area of Seoul the following day.

Waking up on Saturday we took the subway towards Seoul and stopped off at a stop called Yeongdungpo which is on the way to where the 63 Building is located. We had to change trains at that station so we decided to pick up some lunch there. Unfortunately after travelling through an underground shopping centre and up nine floors in a depertement store the only option we had for food was to go to Lotteria....
Considering the poor experience I'd had there the last time and coming close to 'obiteing' at the zoo, I decided to stick with some chicken rather than going for a burger smothered in fourteen types of different sources.

The food was actually surprisngly nice (perhaps it was just because I was starving) but I don't think it's enough to make me change my mind and becomming a Lotteria regular.
After our pitstop we got back on the train and headed back towards Yeongou, which is a subway stop on the water, and the easiest way to get to the 63 Building.

Much to our surprise when we came out of the station, in front of us on the banks of the river Han was a beautiful and picturesque park which is totally a surprise when you've been in Korea as long as I have. On a beautiful day there were plenty of people flying kites and riding bikes around the specially set up paths. Walking a bit further towards the building there was a section of water which was specially set up for riding swan boats around and there were also a few people doing water skiing too.
Finally arriving at building we walked around the bottom floor to discover there was a surprising amount of things to do. The 63 Building is Korea's first and only skyscraper and although many of it's 60 floors are used for conferences and used as meeting rooms the bottom couple of floors are dedicated to tourist attractions. We brought a ticket which allowed us to spend the whole afternoon there and for 38,000 won (£19) it wasn't bad at all.

The first of four things we spent the afternoon was in the Sea World Aquarium which was on the bottom floor. The aquarium isn't that large but it had quite a lot of things to look at and see which you don't see in other aquariums. The first attraction which was obviously quite pleasing for me was a tank with penguins in. There were actually a few people in the tank with them as it was feeding time.

As you can probably imagine there were a ton of fish to look at, different types to the ones you usually see as most of there are native to Asia but they also had some rather cool otters in a tank which were extremely hyperactive. They had a little tank set up for them whic went all the way round the room and they spent plenty of time entertaining themselves by running around and showing off their swimming skills.
Further on there were people feeding Seals, some people swimming around a tank with fish and rather strangely there was also a section of the aquarium with reptiles in. Make of that what you will....

Towards the end of the aquarium just before we were on our way out there was a few tanks which were labelled Dr. Fish. There's actually a place in Suwon Station where you an go which is like a spa. You basically take your shoes off and dip them in a swimming pool of water filled with fish. I'm not entirely sure what kind of fish these small creatures are but for some reason they eat the dead skin off the bottom of your feet. Well in this tank they had some small gaps where you could stick your fingers in and they would do the same.

It was an extremely strange sensation as we picked a tank with some of the bigger fish in so you could actually feel the tingle as they were tickling away at your fingers. It was pretty awesome really though I'm not too sure I'll be dipping my feet in a big tank of them anytime soon.

When we'd finished with the aquarium, we headed up te 60 floors to the Sky Art Observatory which we were soon to discover was not only a place with some ridiculous views but it was also an art gallery. Aimie wasn't a massive fan of going up in the lift, and it became an even less popular way of travelling when she discovered that it was actually a glass lift on the outside of the building. Ever since going up te Eiffel Tower, I've never been a massive fan of heights but I was actually OK with it and was paticularily looking forward to seeing the view which I knew was going to be spectacular.

I wasn't wrong as when I got up there you were given a panoramic tour all the way around the building and as good as the view was from Seoul Tower, these views might have been even better as we were in the middle of the city and could see everything around us.
We walked around the art gallery and continued to look at the great views before heading back down in the lift just in time for our IMAX movie to start.

We were given English headsets (thankfully) for a movie called 'Animalopolis'. It wasn't the same as usual IMAX movies as this one didn't involve a lot of movement of the cinema confusing your senses but it was pretty interesting all the same. It lasted about thirty minutes before we were able to travel to our final port of call which was the 63 Wax Museum.

Even though it was a faux version of Madame Tussauds it was still pretty interesting to walk round as they had some different statues to ones you might expect. Sadly there weren't any waxworks of Kim Jong-Il but there was one of Che Guevara, the communist leader and also Chairman Mao who was the man responsible for making China communist back in the 1700's. As we walked around there were statues of the usual famous people you might expect including David Beckham, Tiger Woods and Maralyn Monroe but they also had statues of Batman, Spiderman and strangely a mock up of the Last Supper!

I took some good pictures which you'll be able to take a look at in the usual place.
Tired after treking up and down Seoul all day we decided to head back to Suwon which took about an hour and a half. By the time we got home we were both pretty hungry so decided to get a pizza on the way home.

I discovered at about 12am via email that I had a game of football to be playing in on Sunday morning so after picking up some much needed rest I headed out to Yeongtong to play in my first game in two weeks which was made even harder going by the fact that I got a dead leg and a dead back within the first ten minutes. Thankfully the team we were playing weren't too great and we managed to stuff them 5-1.

Back in Hwaseo me and Aimie decided to take a trip out in the afternoon and we headed up to the top of the fortress wall which is just down the road from where I live. Aimie has only walked around a tiny but of the wall so I wanted her to be able to see the fantastic view from the highest point of the wall during the way.

After the wall we headed back home and made ourselves some dinner before watching a DVD and spending some time talking to my mum.

Well it's been another fun packed weekend with plenty of enjoyment and I'm pretty sure the pair of us will be worn out tomorrow morning when we get up.
Just as a slight side note, today is officially the 6th month anniversary of me arriving in Korea. I feel like I have now reached the peak of my Korean mountain adventure and as it's gone so quickly I'm hoping that I might be able to get down the otherside as easily as I seemed to have climbed up it!

It's been a fun 6 months so far and I really hope that the next half year can be as enjoyable. I guess it's going to a bit different as not everything is as fresh as it once was but with Christmas, My Birthday and no more visitors to spend time with here it's going to be a totally different experience.

Hopefully you've enjoyed reading about my adventures over the last six months, and the next few will be just as interesting for you to follow! Stay tuned....

OK folks, time to leave it for the time being, time to get refreshed for tomorrow morning.

Ben

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.
Eleanor Roosavelt

The De-Militarized Zone

...ENDING an enjoyable weekend filled with adventure, a group arranged a tour to the De-Milatarized zone between North Korea and South Korea for a spot of sunday tourism to end the three day Chuseok holiday.

As it was to me before I came here, the DMZ is a bit of a mystery. Obviously since the ending of the Korean War, the border between North and South Korea has been closed and despite some escape attempts between the 1950's and the 1990's the two countries have been largely at a stand off as the North spends most of it's time threatening sanctions on the USA if it doesn't allow it to test nuclear misiles.

I have to be honest and say that I don't know too much about the conflict between South and North Korea, certainly not as much as I should from living here, but it isn't really talked about to be honest. My students are too young to know too much about the former conflict and certainly to get an opinion out of them in English would be very difficult.
The western view of North Korea is probably very different to the opinion I have formed in my own time here, but knowing little about the situation it is a very difficult one to comment on.

Whether North Korea is as bigger threat as some people make out is debatable. Anyone who hasn't been to Korea and just goes off media reports would think that the North and South are still at war, but that is far from the case at present. In May of 2009, the North Korean's tested a rocket in South Korean airspace and there was a real fear that there might be some genuine conflict between the two countries. Thankfully China interviened on behalf of the USA as they don't seem to be too keen on a conflict being fought on their borders either.

But since that point things on the North Korea front have been quiet as far as I an tell. Last month two journalists from the USA were captured by North Korea suspected of spying but they were released after Bill Clinton went over and talked to the 'Dear Leader' Kim Jung Il and he even managed to persuade N Korea to open it's borders for a short time over this Chuseok weekend so that families who were seperated could be re-united for at least a few months.

Back to the point in hand.... The border between North and South spans the width of the country and is about half an hour north of the South's capital in Seoul. I guess even though I live close to Seoul, I haven't really been aware of the close proximity of the border until today. I didn't really know what to expect when I woke up at 6.30am to travel to the DMZ as I have only spoken to a couple of people about it, and they both said it was an extremely sureal experience but definately one not to be missed.

Me, Charlie, Kevin and Aimie all woke up early this morning to make our way to the Ibis Ambassedor Hotel where Charlie's parents our staying as our tour guide was waiting for us there to set off to the DMZ at 8am. Needless to say the four of us were pretty tired having to get up so early on the weekend but we were hoping that the prospect of a long day ahead of us was going to we worth it.

We boarded a minibus to head towards Seoul after meeting our tour guide and on the way there she filled us in on some of the details about the kinds of things we were going to see. Whilst letting us know what was in store for us during the deal our guide also gave us some background information into the DMZ, I'm not going to share everything that she told you, but if you are interested in learning more than follow THIS link to the wikipedia information page.

Rather interestingly the tour guide of ours told us that people in the South of Korea are extremely positive and are really wanting the country to re-unite as one country again. The fear the threat of war and have done despite the civil war finishing more than fifty years ago. She told us that in preperation for this Korea had actually started to build roads linking the two countries together and although the North had allowed their construction, they are yet to be allowed to use them. The funny thing is, is that the road goes all the way through their northern neighbours land all the way to China as Korea has big plans to link itself to Europe, just one country stands in their way from achieving their goal at the moment though.

She also gave us what little information the South Korean's have on the North's feelings towards reunification. Kim Jong-Il as it it widely known has been sick for a long time and it has already been decided that one of his sons will take charge of the country when he passes away. Personally I thought that because of the situation in North Korea at the present moment, the whole world supported a change of leadership as they feel this might be benneficial to the political situation. Interesting enough though our guide seemed to think that a there is a good enough relationship between the two countries at the current moment to build a link and she said that is Kim Jong Il stays in charge for the next five years then a change may happen. South Korean people are worried that if there is a change in the countries leadership then they will be more under threat from the N Korean's than if the current structure stays in place.

About an hour and a half after setting off we reached our first destination Imjeongbak. This is the last stop on the commuter railway line and the nothern most point which people who aren't going to the DMZ are allowed to travel to. As we began to get closer and closer to the DMZ the landscape and our surroundings changed dramatically. For once there weren't tonnes and tonnes of tower block flats to be seen and although there were houses and mountains to the right, on our left hand side there was as massive lake surrounded by barbed wire fence and a large number of guard towers.

Back in Imjeongbak we got off the bus and were free to walk about the area and take pictures. As well as looking at the station we were able to see a brief sighting of N Korea for the first time and there was also a rather interesting railway line which is beginning to be built heading north. As well as this there was some war memorobelia and a picturesque park which the South hopes will be known as the 'peace park' if the borders between the countries ever opens.

It was extremely surreal being able to see one of the most closed border countries in the world in the distance and with busses and busses of people around it seems that the South are doing all they can to get tourists in to see exactly what the border between the two countries looks like.
We then hopped on a big tourist bus with a couple of other groups to head closer to the DMZ and reaching our first checkpoint on the way an armed guard came on board our bus to check our passports and clear us to go on to the next place.

As we were driving it was pretty strange to be driving on a basically empty road which seemed to be heading towards nothing. We drove up a windy path and on the side of the road there were signs which said 'Danger mines' as before the road we were driving on had been constructed it had been used as a point at which the North Korean's had attacked so to protect themselves the South had lined the road with mines should it be necessary to blockade the road.

A little further down we also saw two relatively tall towers which looked like the were lookout posts. We were informed that they were infact filled with dynamite which could be detenated should there be any attempt by North Koreans to storm the country as this would also prevent access to the only road into South Korea.

At our next port of call we were told that this would be our first oppertunity to actually see into North Korea. As we climbed up an observation deck we were greeted with the sight of armed guards and a row of about twenty sets of binoculars. For 500 won (50p) you can look through the binoculars and see the closest city to the border over the other side and if you looked close enough you could actually see people working in the fields.

Strangely enough whilst I was looking I didn't see a single car or motorised vehicle driving on the road and aside from one person working in a field all I saw was a man riding a bicycle. It's a strange concept really to be effectively spying on a town across the border but you can bet your life that people in well hidden guard towers are probably over the otherside doing the same thing. Sadly whilst we're armed with cameras there're more than likely to be armed with AK47's!

Although from the observation tower you can look into North Korea we were informed that you're not actually allowed to take pictures unless you are behind a yellow painted line on the floor. I witnessed a couple of people trying to get away with it subtly but they were harassed by the guards who made them delete the pictures off their cameras. Don't ask me why your only allowed to take pictures from behind a yellow line two meters away from the bicoculars that you can actually look through and see people on the otherside but that's just the way it us.

If you're tall like Kevin you can actually get a decent picture as you can still see over the wall and take a good picture but for the short ones amongst us your best served holding your camera up above your head and hoping to get a good shot. Hopefully that is what I managed to do.

After our allotted time at the observation tower we headed back on board the bus and in the direction of the '3rd tunnel'. The 3rd tunnel was the third of four tunnels which the North Korean's had used between the end of the war and the 1990's to try and complete a surprise attack and invasion on Seoul. The third tunnel is the only one still intact and was discovered when a scientist was conducting an experiment using water in the ground and who accidenly stumbled upon a plot to attack the country.

There were no pictures allowed to be taken in the 3rd tunnel so we had to put out bags in lockers before we got going and then we started to climb down a small slope before joining a queue to collect a safetly helmet for our descent.
The tunnel has obviously been improved alot since it was first created but it still had the dank surroundings which were used in it's initial creation. There was water dropping from the roof, no scaffolding holding it up and small holes in the wall where dynamite was used to make the tunnel big enough for 30,000 troops to crawl through in an hour.

It took about ten minutes to get to the bottom of the tunnel and when you get there all that prevents you from walking further is a huge reel of razorwire and a huge blast door which has a small window in. The door is exactly 170m from the North Korean border and though thw window you can see two other doors which are even closer to the border. Sadly you're only able to look at them and not able to walk any closer though it was pretty strange to be able to get that close to the border of N Korea.

After taking the strenuous walk back up the 3rd tunnel we watched a short film and were guided round a museum which has plenty of war memorobellia and also an aerial photograph of how the DMZ has developed over time. We boarded back onto the bus at the end of our tour and headed back to Imjunback where we got back on our bus and headed back towards Seoul for a much needed spot of lunch.

Getting into Seoul took about an hour or so, and on the way back our tour guide gave us some interesting facts about the city, including the fact that 70% of Korean's live in Seoul and the surrounding area. A pretty amazing statistic I'm sure you'll agree.

We headed towards the World Cup Stadium for some lunch, a spot where we'd been a couple of weeks ago on our way to Global Gathering, and we sat down to eat in a food court which was just on the outside of the stadium. I was pretty hungry after not eating anything more than an ice cream and some faux Frosties in the last seven hours so I pretty much picked the buggest meal I could get my hands on!

Lunch was followed by some light exercise in the area surrounding the Stadium, known as the World Cup Park. A pictureque view of Seoul was visable by climbing up 292 steps to the top and a big group of us managed to make it up to the top to get some great pictures and work off the lunch which we had just eaten!

Climbing back on board the bus we headed to our final destination for the day which was Hanok Village. It was just a few stops from Myeong-dong Station which is where Seoul Tower is located and therefore it provided a fantastic view of the tower itself.
The palce of Hanok was actually pretty cool and with it being Chuseok there was plenty going on. Plenty of traditional games were taking place as we'd seen the day before at Chenggyeongyang Palace and there were were also some stalls with traditional Korean food being made and the oppertunity to dress up in some native Korean costumes. (something which as you'll notice, Charlie's family decided to take part in)

Staying at the palace for about an hour we were all pretty tired and our tour guide suggested that we make our way back to Suwon after an extremely full day. It took about another hour or so to get back to Suwon-Si and after a fun filled day we were all ready for some much needed rest which we all picked up after having some dinner and going our seperate ways.

It's hard to put into words how truly incredible the DMZ was and visiting there has definately ticked off one of the things that I definately needed to do whilst I was in Korea. It's a very unique tourist attraction and I'm very fortunte to have been able to go there. Although I wasn't able to take as many pictures as I'd like whilst I was there (partly because you weren't allowed to prevent annoying the N Koreans) but I certainly will always remember what I have seen.

The weekend as a whole was throughly enjoyable and I am looking forward to the next five days passing by so that we can spend another weekend being tourists and getting out to see what Seoul has to offer.

Some videos of the last couple of days in Korea can be seen on my video website at: http://s76.photobucket.com/albums/j28/benjsmall_0014/Korea%202009-2010/

And some pictures of my trip to the DMZ can be seen at: http://smallsyskoreanadventure.shutterfly.com/1560

Enjoy and take care,

Ben

Before you can score
you must first have a goal.
Greek Proverb

A Visitor From England, Re-Tracing Old Steps and The Invisible Theme Park...

...IN the middle of a three day weekend I managed to find some time in my busy days off to blog about exactly what I have been spending my time doing since school finished on Thursday.

As I mentioned before, thanks to Chuseok today (Saturday) we had a four day week at Talkster so with an extra day's leisure available I've been doing my best to keep busy!
On monday my friend Aimie from England arrived in Korea to start a three week long vacation visiting me (and conveniently doing some university work at the same time.)

Like when my mum came here, it was strange to be seeing someone after such a long time away from them but needless to say being visited by someone from back home, it was lovely to see a friendly face. I went down to the station after work as Aimie was getting the bus from the airport to Suwon so I had agreed to meet her in from of the shopping centre as that was where her bus stopped. After about an hour and a half of waiting for her bus to make it through the traffic from Incheon Airport to Suwon she finally made it here and she got back to Hwaseo just in time to eat dinner and finally meet Charlie and Kevin.

As Aimie has never been anywhere near Aisa before this is another oppertunity for me to play tour guide and show her around the area where I live and attempt to show her what I have learned in my five and a half months in a completely new culture. We've spent most of the week eating at our favourite restaurants and on a couple of evenings I've been able to take her up to the fortress and show her what I great landmark I have just around the corner from where I live.

The extra day of work has provided me with ample oppertunity for me to show Aimie around and although we weren't able to achieve much during the week because of work I decided that Friday and Saturday should be completely devoted to spending time in and around Seoul. Anyone who knows me well realises that despite being from Yorkshire I enjoy change, but with Aimie being in town it was a case of showing her the few sights that I have seen in my time here.
There's plenty that she had lined up herself and with a wide choice of things to do over the weekend we decided to spend friday in Seoul visiting a couple of attractions that I visited whilst my mum was here.

As I mentioned in my previous blog, Charlie's parents, his cousin and his brother are visiting him from the US so the both of us were out in Seoul. Where as Charlie headed out at ridiculous o'clock in the morning we headed out later in the day to visit Chunggyeonggung Palace which is in at a stop on the Seoul Subway called Jongno-Sam and is about an hour or so from where we live.

Having walked around and taken in what the palace has to offer with my mum when she was here I was pretty familiar with the location but it was still nice to walk round in some nature as the grounds of the palace itself are pretty cool. With it being Chuseok, the park had put out some traditional Korean games for people to take part in. Obviously I was more than willing to try my hand at a couple of the games. One of them involved throwing plastic arrows into a bucket and another one was basically a haki sack shaped like Christmas decoration that was meant for doing keep ups with. (If you need to see a hilarious video then it will be going up on my video website soon.)

The final game (which I'm not sure got videoed) basically involved a rope and a wooden spinner with the object being to keep the spinner rotating as quickly as possible. The only way to do this for some reason is to whip the wooden spinner round and round with nothing more than a skipping rope. Needless to say my attempts to do this were pretty useless. Thankfully Aimie wasn't much better at it either.

From the palace we decided to walk to Dongdemoon which is just down the road to get some dinner. Sadly the shopping centre which holds most of the restaurants decided it was going to be closed so on the way to our next destination, Seoul Tower, we stopped to get a KFC at a nearby food court in the station opposite.
Once we were eaten and refreshed we decided to walk our way up to the cable car station which is up a hill and about 300m away from the station.

Upon climbing the hill we discovered that there was a massive queue for the cable car which takes you up to the base of Seoul Tower. Seeing that there were about 400 people trying to mount a cable car which takes about ten minutes to get up to the top and carries fifteen people we decided it would be sensible to take the other route to the top which involved climbing the stairs. Sadly there were about a million steps to climb and a 1.2km distance to climb before we could get there.

We made it to the top after about forty minutes of climbing to discover that not only does the tower look extremely glorious in the full light of the evening. About 1000 people had also wanted to check it out at the same time as we had! There were all kinds of things going on at the top of the tower and whilst up there we decided to get a good view of the city at the lower of the three levels.

Getting to the front of the queue for tickets we discovered that there was a forty minute wait to go up into the tower. We walked around the tower shop and sat around for a little while until our number was finally called so we were able to get the elevator to the top of the tower. The view of the tower at night was as fantastic was it was during the day the last time I visited and it was a lot busier than last time. With it being dark it was pretty difficult to take alot of pictures but I think I got a few decent ones.

We were going to wait for a cable car to get back down to the bottom but as there was a massive queue awaiting us when we arrived at the station we decided to take the 1.2km route back to the bottom and then walk back to the nearest station. We didn't arrive home until 1am or so following a long subway ride but were up early today (Saturday) to go visiting again.
With it being Chuseok I expected a few attractions in Seoul to be closed and instead we decided to go to Incheon which is a city just to the West of Seoul.

Having read the South Korea guidebook which was left in my room we noticed that there was a cheap theme park just to the South of the city. We travelled about two hours on the subway and following the directions which I had found on the Internet we climbed on a bus which was supposed to take us to a place called Song-Do which is where the amusement park was.
Sadly the directions that I had picked up weren't exactly very detailed and with the bus map in Korean we managed to board the bus 45 minutes in the wrong direction to discover we needed to be going the opposite way. Getting on the bus in the right direction we spent about an hour and a half trying to get back in the right direction but with it being about 5pm and the park closing at 6pm it would have probably taken about three hours longer to get to where we needed to be!

Korea obviously hasn't listened to any of my complaints about it's directions over the past six months but we're hoping to get there either next weekend or the weekend after now that we actually know where we need to be.

We decided to catch the train back home to Suwon and had agreed to meet up with Charlie and his parents to eat dinner at the shopping mall in Suwon Station.

A group of us are heading to the DMZ tomorrow so following writing this blog I shall be heading to bed to get an early night so that I am actually able to drag myself out of bed tomorrow morning.

Check out some of the pictures which I have taken on my photobucket website and hopefully there will be plenty more tomorrow when we visit the DMZ. It's been a good weekend tomorrow and I am hoping that tomorrow will follow up on that.

Ben

We all live under the same sky, but we don't all have the same horizon.
Konrad Adenauer

Chuseok...

...There's nothing like a Korean festival at the end of the week to give you an extra day off!

It's been a long time since Children's Day back in April since we were afforded the luxary of a four day week. But friday/saturday is/was Chuseok which is one of the biggest festivals in Korea (I've been told that it's bigger than Christmas, but I'm not even too sure of it's origins or why it exists.)

We discovered that it's a lunar festival in the Korean calendar and if you're lucky enough it can fall during in the middle of the week, meaning that the natives just decide to sack the rest of the week at work off. Sadly in 2009 (like most of the good days off we could have been having) it falls on an awkward date meaning that out of courtesy we were only given the friday off school, not that it wasn't welcome of course.

Instead of having a 'field trip' with the kids this month we had a Chuseok Party which involved making traditional Korean rice cakes and the kids dressing up in their traditional Korean costumes. Most of the rest of the afternoon was spent taking pictures, playing games and watching videos (which was obviously just fine by me.)

Chusoek is all about the 'family' getting together so some of my kids weren't in class on thursday as they were travelling to be with relatives who live far away for the actual day. Some of my classes were reduced by a couple of students and one of them was cut down from nine to three as many of them were obviously busy travelling. Most Korean schools are also closed on Monday so whether the kids will be back for the first day of next week I'm not sure.

Speaking of family Charlie's arrived early on thursday morning to visit him from the USA. I'm not entirely sure what time their flights got in but I heard Charlie get out of bed at possibly the earliest he's ever been up in Korea to go meet them at their hotel. He was showing them round the school in the morning so they came into my class and I got to meet them for the first time whilst we were making ricecakes.

We spent the evening eating at our now regular galbi restaurant and then afterwards his brother and cousin joined us for a few drinks at Lao Bar in the evening. As his parents are just in Korea for two weekends I'm pretty sure that they will be busy seeing the sights of Seoul over the weekend so I'm sure we'll meet up with them to eat again at some point so we can find out how Charlie's role as tour guide has been working out.

Just a quick blog this one to let you know about my last day of the week in class, hopefully I'll be doing plenty of exploring of my own on Friday, Saturday and Sunday so I will have a lot more to blog about then....

*Ben*

Vision without action is a daydream. Action with without vision is a nightmare.
Japansese Proverb