....Well it's official. Winter is definately here in Korea!Not that is has been announced anywhere (or that I'd be able to tell if it had been) but yesterday some parts of the country experienced their first snow falls and the average temperature across Suwon and Seoul was somewhere around 2C.
Whilst I was on the bus heading to football yesterday there was a screen which said that at one point the temp had reached a very low 0.9C.
I'm not sure what the weather is likely to be for the rest of the week but I think it's definately time to put away the shorts and bring out the hats, scarves and gloves for the next few months.
Based on things I have found out from other people, and from the Internet, I think that in the winter Korea is hit by low temperatures and cold wind. It still has the same cycles of rain and even though it snowed in November, I think that might have just been a one off. Partly because it's too polluted here! Despite the change in temperatures I have yet to see any ice laying on the ground, and although there isn't that much grass, I haven't spotted any frost. I'll keep a look out though!
The largely unannounced spell of winter that we are currectly being hit by was pretty dramatic and came with few mornings. I guess that in Korea the time when the temperatures are pretty much perfect is Autumn, but that only lasted for about a month. Then again, time is going so quickly here I'd be forgiven for thinking it was only a brief spell when infact it was much longer.
What have I been doing with myself since winter begun you may ask.....?
Well the answer is not alot really. Last week we were handed some assesments to complete so I got started with them throughout the week and finished them off yesterday which was a weight off my mind.
We also discovered that our Christmas vacation was not as luxurious and long as we hoped it was going to be. Because of when Christmas falls this year (a Friday), our vacation is split into to seperate sections. We work all the way up and till Christmas Eve, and are then given the Friday plus the weekend off before returning returning to school on the monday for just two days (until the 30th) and then have from Wednesday to the next Tuesday off before returning in 2010.
It may have scuppered any plans that the three of us were going to make for going away, and theres no chance of me being able to come back to the UK for vacation but at the moment we're working on a plan which will allow us to spend at last the 30th Dec to 5th Jan in another country, potentially the Philippines and for the three day weekend we get off over Christmas we came up with the idea of going skiing somewhere in Korea as apparently there is a resort near us which bid for the winter olympics.
My skiing experience may be based on one holiday in France and a couple of trips to dry slope skiing in Yorkshire but I am throughly looking foward to it. I enjoyed the week of cross country skiing that I did with some friends back at the start of this millenium and I look forward to getting the oppertunity to improve my ability!
Equally after two days at work I am looking forward to heading off into the sunshine (potentially) and relaxing on a beach for some time. Either way, it'll be nice to get out of the city for a while.....
On friday another working week came to an end, and after finding myself a cheap pair of trainers, the next item on the list to buy was a new camera.
Sadly last week after a fun day at the race track I was on my way home and trying to get off the train at the correct station some impatient Koreans decided not to let me off the train and walking into me, causing me to drop my camera on the ground. The LCD screen on the back was damaged and as my camera doesn't have a viewfinder it would be pretty impossible to take decent pictures.
Having spent the last seven months using my camera quite extensively I decided that another one would be worth a purchase as when my mum was here she managed to look through quite a good range to find a new one.
After work I took the bus up to E Mart to see if I could come across anything suitable but after seeing that only a few were in my price range and most of them ran on AA batteries not an internal one I got back on the bus and headed across town to the Homeplus near the Ibis Hotel and the Galleria shopping centre.
There I was greated by the delightful sight of a bit more choice and the option of looking and picking at the cameras not trying to guess how good they were through a glass case. After some time deciding between a Sony, a Nikkon and a Samsung, I decided to pick up a Samsung one very similar to the one I already posessed. It cost me 188,000 won which is roundly £85. A pretty good deal when I compaired it with prices online back in England.
Sadly I didn't get the oppertunity to use my camera very much this weekend as it was a pretty quiet one.
On friday night me, Kevin and Charlie met up with some other foreigners that we know for some dinner and some drinks in Lao Bar near Suwon Station. The three of us were feeling pretty tired so decided not to make it a late one, getting back to the house at about 12.30am.
I woke up on saturday morning feeling refreshed and looking forward to spending the day doing very little. At about 10.30am Charlie called me to see if I wanted to go with him to Songtan, which is an American base just south of Seoul as he wanted to get a new game for the PS3 which had come out.
We got some dinner in the freezing cold of Songtan and then decided to head back on the train and test the new game out.
As it turned out, 'Modern Warfare 2' kept us rather busier than we thought as after being joined by Kevin we spent most of the day playing it and after a break for dinner, completing it! Very sad I know..... I spent the rest of the evening keeping up with football from around the World with England playing against Brazil later in the day and Ireland playing against France for a place in the world cup.
Yesterday was largely spent doing very little too as I laid in bed for a long time watching NBA on TV before having to head out to football for 4pm.
We were playing against the best team in our league yesterday who have won the division countless times in a row and despite losing we put in a good effort.
It was absolutely freezing and there was even a couple of players in the opposition team who were wearing hats, and one who even wore a coat underneath his shirt.....
I came home and went out for some dinner with Charlie and Kevin and then got on with finishing the rest of my assesments as I mentioned before.
So it hasn't been a very fulfilling weekend but after spending enough money on a camera and buying some new trainers early in the week I was probably justified to sit around the room and do something which involved not spending money.
It's monday here now and it's almost time to get back to class so I have to leave it there for now. Hope the winter weather wherever you are is treating you well....
Ben xxx
There are no shortcuts to life's greatest achievments.
American Proverb
No comments:
Post a Comment