.....IT's extremely hard for me to believe that it is December already, but stepping outside of my door yesterday to see that snow was swirling around brought it home for me that we really are in the midst of winter.
It's a cliche I know to comment on how quickly time is passing, but to actually consider that it is seven months since I came here and that it's almost Christmas is a ridiculous thought.
I'm sure I've mentioned several times that being in Korea this year we'll be having an alternative anti-Christmas with the opposite of pretty much everything that goes on back in the western world (spending time with family, exchanging cards and presents, and eating lots traditional food) but all the same I am looking forward to what we get up to.
It's less than a month now until we'll be ushering in 2010 and the prospect of that too is very odd. A few of the site I go on to keep in touch with news from back home have been running '...... of the decade' competitions and a few times it's like, wow, it's actually a full decade since the year 2010. This is arguably the first decade that I have been able to remember the most of as the details of what happened between 1990 and 1999 are pretty sketchy in early parts due to my age.
It's nostaligic to think back where I was ten years ago and predicting that I am doing what I am doing at the moment probably would probably be met my extreme laughter if I was somehow able to back and tell myself. But I guess it just shows that with a few things falling into place (or not quite working out) the course of your life can be completely changed and you never know what might happen.
Enough amateur philosphy anyway, and speaking of 2010, Charlie, Kevin, Hans and I spent friday evening (well very early saturday morning actually) watching the draw for the 2010 World Cup. Due to the fact that despite it's name as the 'World Wide Web', the Internet isn't quite as World and Wide as it seems, I wasn't able to catch a feed on the BBC website but luckily it was on Korean TV so the four of us sat through and hour of festivities and braved tiredness to find out exactly what was going to happen.
I think after working in Korea for a year at an American school and having my two closest friends being from America, it was pretty much destiny that England were going to get the USA in the World Cup! Obviously there was some friendly banter between myself, Charlie and Kevin, but when they realised that the other two teams in our group were Slovenia and Algeria, they realised that the inevitable defeat to England in the first game won't be an issue!
Speaking to quite a few of my friends in the football team this (Sunday) afternoon a bunch of them are heading out there and were watching the draw with bated breathe to discover which games they would be able to go and see. A few of them got lucky with games like Brazil vs Portugal and Korea vs Argentina, some of them weren't so lucky and ended up with Nigeria vs Greece!
After work on Friday we finally got the courage (and also convinced Anna) to take us to one of the restaurants they have in Korea where they have fish tanks outside (we presume these fish are for eating, but it has never been confirmed!) Before I came to Korea, sushi was about as far as I'd go but we actually had a go at just eating the raw fish by itself. There were massive amounts of food on the table and believe it or not we actually managed to go through and eat them all.Unfortunately included on the table in the side dishes was some 'bundegi' or silkworm. The food which haunts my nightmares! Kevin was presuaded to eat one after a few drinks and confirmed that it tasted as bad as it smelt!
We'd spent most of the evening in IT Bar on friday night and after staying up late I was pretty nakered on saturday morning so spent the early part of the day in bed watching basketball on Korean TV.It was Charlie's birthday on Monday so we agreed to go out for a meal in Seoul with him this weekend at a destination of his choice. On Wednesday the three of us actually headed to TGI Fridays in Ingedong for a meal which was pretty delicious.
Charlie decided that he wanted to check out 'Hooters' which was in Yongsan and expecting it to be just like the ones back in the USA he was disappointed to discover that this one was actually in the backwater basement of the subway station, wasn't very big or very impressive. I'll say one thing though, the food was pretty descent!
We headed back to Suwon on the train and then eager to enjoy Hans' company for as long as possible we told him to come round to Charlie's place for a few games in the PS3.
We ordered some chicken and despite our initial skepticism we played a Korean game called 'Yut' which he brought from the shop and prepared whilst we finished eating.
Now, having worked around kids for seven months it's fair to say that I have seen my fair share of Korean games. The one which is popular at the moment with the kids (and may well be this year's Christmas gift) is very similar to the old victorian game 'Jacks' and involves throwing bits of plastic up in the air and catching them whilst trying to pick other ones up. It's as mundane as it sounds.....
This game however which Hans brought round was quite the opposite in terms of entertainment. I'm pretty sure that over the next few paragraphs whilst I try and explain exactly what happens you will be largely confused but rest assured I'll be bringing one back with me and showing you how it's done properley.The game board is very much like that of the game 'Frustration'. Each player starts with four pieces and the idea is to get your pieces 'home'. The dots on the board that you can see on the picture above is the pieces direction of travel. You basically have to go round in a big square, but can take a short cut if you land on one of the 'buttons' at the top right, top left or in the middle.
Now, you might be asking, how exactly does one get from beginning to end. Well the answer is with the wooden blocks you might see lying on the floor in the picture. Each one has a 'flat' side and a round side. The flat side facing up is the number of moves that you are able to take with 1 (Do), 2 (Geh), 3 (Gol), 4 (Yut) and 5 (Mo) being the possibly options.
One of the sticks also has an 'x' on there and if you get this one then you have the oppertunity to go one space backwards.
If you land on the same space as anyone else then you get to knock them off the board and also take another turn for doing so. We were all probably thinking when the game started that 'This isn't going to be very difficult' but half an hour later when we were still engrosed in the game without a winner, we'd changed our opinions.I'm not sure how, but the first time we played I won. Somehow, through a rule I'm not sure about I managed to pile three of my pieces on one another and ride them home then after everyone kept knocking my other piece of the board to stop me from winning about a million times I broke free and was able to finish the game off.
The second time we played Hans stopped giving us hints about what to do as he said we were 'too good' but unsurprisingly he won the second game as he was done making us look good. The two games lasted about an hour and a half which was surprising but we had a good laugh and thanked Hans for another traditional Korean experience.
I retired to my room to watch the second half of the football which was on TV and Hans came too as he was interested to see my room and compare it to Charlie's!
The two us chatted for about an hour or so before the game finished and he went home and I went to bed.
I have to say that there's alot of things I am going to miss about Korea, and Hans is definately one of them. The three of us sing his praises often for the way he goes out of his way to help us or give us experiences we would have struggled to organise by ourselves and it seems as though the more he helps, the happier he is which is just fine with me.
Charlie and Kevin are trying to convince him to go to the USA and visit them at some point in the near future and I will definately up for joining them if I have the chance!
Today was the last game of the season for Inter Suwon and the oppertunity to finish third for the second season in a row. After a bit of a dodgy start and giving the other side a couple of goal headstart we made our way back into the game and in the end thumped out local rivals 6-3 which was pleasing.
This evening I haven't been doing very much, just planning the work for the week and adding plenty of my photos and pictures to my facebook and photo gallery page.
It's been a quiet weekend and although we haven't ventured out very much it is certainly one that I will remember and look back on with fondness when I am back in England.
Take care
Ben x
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