Nightclub Leads to Early Morning, Korean Movie Excellence and a Return to the Golf Course.....

.... I KNOW that I frequently like to claim that time in Korea goes by really quicky but the weekend that just went by was an absolute blur....

No sooner had I shut my eyes on Saturday morning (I'll get to the reasons why later) it seems to be Monday morning and time to return to the classroom once again.

Last week, on my birthday no less, marked the nine month anniversary of my arrival in Korea, and it was quite fitting then that despite the pace at which this weekend went by, it will be one of the ones which I remember when I disappear back home back home to England in three short months.

Those of you who have been checking out my pictures over the last three quarters of the year will realise that during the night, Korea is rather lively. I've commented several times on the number of restaurants, bars and even some shops which are open until rather unexpected times in the morning.
Its probably quite a surprise that the three of us have not made more of the Korean nightlife, but this weekend we decided to make up for that (in a big way!)

Since the Inter Suwon night out way back in November, Hans has been telling us that he would be able to give us a 'Korean style' night out and this week he made plans for us to go to a Korean Night-eu (which is basically a Korean Nightclub.) The three of us hardly knew what to expect but the fact that when we went for dinner on friday Hans had some small pieces of paper with notes written down about the night, we were eager to find out exactly what was going on.

After we finished dinner we headed in the direction of Yeongtung, just south of Hwaseo and after a couple of drinks and a game of darts in NOW bar we were taken to an anonamous looking building in the middle of the mess of bars and restaurants which are there. On the top floor of this building, seemingly hidden away from society, was out destination for the evening. The Nightclub.

We'd questioned Hans a few times about whether or not foreigners were actually allowed in this place, as he said that he'd never once seen any of them go in before but what was extremely hilarious was the look on the peoples faces when we walked in.
The guy who Hans had 'booked' it all with, met us at the front entrance and when he turned round and saw that we were with him, his lower jaw dropped to the floor like an acme cartoon characters does before they are about to be blown up by dynamite.
That reaction in itself was worth the 90,000 won that we paid to get in!

Once he'd calmed himself we were taken to a 'private' room down the many windy corridors. Laid out in the room were drinks and plenty of food, and it from the first look of it, it was actually a lot like the Norebang (Karaoke rooms) which the three of us have been in on a couple of occasions.
So the room was ours for the evening and the four of us spent the evening chatting, singing and drinking with a ton of different people who upon seeing us were probably eager, like most Koreans, to find out if we were real or a figment of their imagination.

About six hours later and the three of us are starting to look at our watches because its 5.30am and we're still not in bed! It was at that point that we made an executive decision to go home and I think by the time I finally got into bed on saturday morning it was close to 6.00am!
Of course the next morning my body automatically woke me up at 9.15am (usual work time) but I was having none of that and headed back to bed until at least 12.30pm when I decided to wake up and have a shower.

Charlie woke up not long after so the pair of us went out for dinner and later in the afternoon Hans called round to see if we wanted to watch a dvd with him.
After the last couple of movies he's rented out from the shop for us were pretty decent we decided to change genre a little and we watched a movie called 'My Sassy Girl' (rough English translation!)
I think I'd actually heard of it before and the next couple of hours were spent enjoying the movie and (trying not to let the early morning get the better of me)

Needless to say that I slept like a hibernating bear on Saturday night and not even the lure of watching basketball could force me to wake up early!

Sunday was mostly spent planning exactly what I was going to go at work this morning and for the rest of the week but once Charlie and Kevin had awoken I took some time out of school work to go and get some lunch and play screen golf. Once I'd worked out how to play again I think I put in one of the more consistent performances I have since we discovered the joys of playing golf inside. The three of us did our best this time not to show ourselves up in front of the owner, Choi, who asked if he could join in with our game!
It goes without saying that owning a screen golf establishment he was pretty good and he probably made us look quite foolish!

So that was the weekend, but as I said, back to work this morning. My first full week of work as a 25 year old....

Take care

Ben xxxx

The best way to get something done is to begin.
Anon

Happy Birthday to Me....

...OK, so it wasn't quite so bad that I had to wish myself a Happy Birthday, but just like Christmas and New Year 2009, it was certainly strange experiencing my 25th birthday in a different country.

Thanks to everyone who sent me messages and cards, it made me not feel quite so isolated from my family and friends on the opposite side of the world. Like so many things to date in Korea, it was a surreal experience 'celebrating' a birthday over here.

I've never been one for massive plans, but spending the day at work wasn't exactly the ideal birthday choice had I had one! I told most of my kids that it was my birthday, and most of them have the vocabulary to say 'Happy Birthday', the obvious question was 'Teacher, how old are you?' but considering most of the classes I teach don't know anything past the numbers 1-20 they weren't able to guess very effectively.

Aside from my birthday, my first full week back at work has been pretty uneventful. We're still struggling with the snow over here, and the last few evenings, the temperature has dropped to between -10 and -20.....

On Wednesday I took the kindergarten class I teach to get their 'Graduation' photographs taken. I probably haven't mentioned it as I didn't realise myself until Sunday evening but I only have about a month and a half left teaching the kids in the morning before they have finished their year in kindergarten, thankfully for them, not all taught by me.
I think it's pretty traditional within the 'American' culture of the schools in Korea to have pictures taken for when they 'graduate' the kindergarten and my kids actually got some really good photos taken, as well as a couple of group shots which I hope to get a hold of.

With the weather pretty frozen outside, most anything we do at the weekend will probably involve being inside. But obviously I will update you on Sunday with exactly what I got up to.....

Just a quick not this evening (and a couple of days late) to let you know about my birthday celebrations, or lack there of.

Take care

Ben x

A painting in a museum hears more ridiculous opinions than anything else in the world.

Edmond de Goncourt
French artist & novelist (1822 - 1896)

First Week Back at Work, Visitors and an Avatar Repeat...

....Well it wasn't quite a full week back at work, but after the snowy fun of Monday, Tuesday represented my first day back teaching since the Christmas break.

Because of the snow there had been over the weekend and due to the temperature which has been around in the air for the last three weeks, school was a bit fragmented, specially on Tuesday when I didn't have class in the morning, and many of the students in the afternoon didn't turn up because of the weather.

The school is on a bit of a hill and with it not being a main road either no one had come out to clear the snow, meaning that cars were finding it pretty difficult to get up and down there with the ice and snow which had landed on Monday. Due to this, the school decided it would be too dangerous to run busses on Tuesday when the snow had piled up, and only kids who live within walking distance of the school showed up.
In my morning class for the rest of the week I only had three students, the three boys, so I basically spent the few days I had with them making sure they hadn't forgotten all their English!

As the week went on I managed to slip back into the rhythm of teaching and in the end the break served me well in assisting me to make it through the first week. Now I just have to try dealing with a full week for the first time in a while....!

The weekend has been reasonably quiet for the three of us. There's snow still piled up on some of the roads, and because it's so damn cold there wasn't much danger of us heading out anywhere exciting this weekend as might not make it back and/or turn into ice cubes.
Instead it's been a quiet one which mostly involved recovering from actually having to do something for a full day during the week.

Unfortunately this means I don't have much exciting to write about, but I still wanted to blog anyway to let you know what little has been going on.
On saturday I did get some good news however which is that before I leave Korea in April I will be being visited by a couple of my friends, Luke and James, who I went to university with.

The pair of them had speculated about coming over a long time ago, but they finally booked their flights in light of my persuasion and will be spending a couple of weeks with me in the middle of February. Something I am very pleased about.

Today, I also did something for the first time in my life.....went to see the same movie for the second time! I commented a couple of weeks ago about how fabulous I thought 'Avatar' was and today I went to see it again with Charlie and some of his students as he had promised to take them to the movies before Christmas as an end of year treat but never got round to it. I have to admit that the movie, even though I knew what was going to happen, still amazed me the second time around, and I am still very much looking forward to seeing it in 3D or IMAX, if there's ever any seats available to go and see it that is.

I hope that all back home are taking care in the snow. I feel like I am missing out, until I step out my front door and realise that it's just as cold and just as miserable out there. Hopefully some warmer temperstures are on their way.....

Take care

Ben xxxx

Fiction reveals truths that reality obscures.
Jessamyn West

A Snowy Day in Suwon.....

....MARKING my final day of vacation before having return to the classroom tomorrow was one of the biggest hauls of snow which the city I live in has ever seen (according to the news and Hans who said it was 'By far the most snow he'd ever seen in Korea!)

I had planned to spend the day doing something but sit inside all day and once I looked out of my window this morning and saw that the streets, cars and houses in the surrounding area were covered with snow I had a perfect excuse to go out and take some pictures of the chaos which was taking place.

The last bout of snow we got, just before New Year was probably about 3 or 4cms and before that when we visited the folk village, we'd experienced a couple of inches. Today was closer to a foot of snow, and as I live on a hill you can imagine the kinds of fun people were having trying to walk or drive up it!

Heading away from the snow coverered cars on the street where we live it was evident that Korean's don't do a whole lot to make sure their roads are free of snow when it gets heavy as the vehicles travelling down the main road were having a tough time of getting anywhere it seemed.
I decided that the best place to view the snow would be on the walls of Hwaseong Fortress walls. I had wanted to go into Seoul but after seeing that cars couldn't make it down the road without wheelspinning, I'm not too sure I'd be comfortable on a subway train on snow coverered tracks!

Instead of walking the usual way to get to the wall I headed up another path which is shortcut to the top of the walls and obviously what I found was a hell of a lot of snow! Most of it was relatively untouched so it was quite difficult to see where steps were, and it was also quite difficult to keep my footing as I chose to wore the most ungripped pair of trainers on the planet!

I took a path to the top of the fortress and saw quite a few people out doing the same as me, taking pictures, and being just generally interested in how deep the snow was. Obviously there was the regular amount of kids on the street throwing snowballs and several of them trying to sled down hills, though of all the people I saw, I'm pretty sure that none of them posessed a physical sled!

I walked to the top of the fortress wall and took some decent pictures (though a little foggy) of the great view from the top before walking around another part of the wall to Namun which is about thirty minutes away from where I live on foot. The snow in and around that area of the wall was very much untouched and I think there may have been more than a foot in some parts which had been exposed to the snow all day.

By this point it was starting to great fairly cold so I took my trip in a circle walking back on the walls towards my house before heading home to get some much needed warmth. Not that I felt like I was missing out, but I have now probably experienced the same amount of snow as back home, though I feel that they are more used to such abrasive conditions here. I thought I'd post a few pictures on my blog so you could see how snowy it was but as ever if you want to look at the rest of them you can go here and see everything I've been up to.

As I mentiontioned back at work tomorrow so I will hopefully get some kind of rhythm back into typing my blog out on the weekend now that Christmas and New Year are over with. It's been a relaxing start to 2010 and I hope that remains the case on my first working day back at school.

Ben x
Personality can open doors, but only character can keep them open.
Elmer G Letterman

Vacation Almost Over.....

UNFORTUNATELY after a nice relaxing break, it's almost come round to the time when I am going to have to start teaching again.

We didn't manage to do anything near what we wanted to do during the time we had off (ie. skiing) but it's been good to be able to rest, have some lie ins and have some free time.
I have tomorrow off from work as well, and I hope to at least achieve something. There is snow forecast however.....

This weekend has been pretty quiet, yesterday afternoon we were invited round to Hans' house for dinner. His mum had cooked and prepared a huge meal for us which was extremely delicious and this followed friday night when Anna had her mom make us some chicken. Two home cooked meals in two days was very strange, especially after we've spent so much time eating at resturants or fast food outlets in the past few months.

Hans' mum cooked noodles, beef, vegetables and various other foods which I don't know the names of, and filled the table for the four of us to eat! Everything that she put down in front of us got eaten, needless to say, and it was extremely delicious! After looking through some old photos of Hans when he was in the Marine Corps we watched a very good Korean movie called 'Memories of Murder'.
It was based on a true story about several unsolved serial killings in the 1970's not far from Suwon. I often found it hard to watch movies with subtitles but now I've had plenty of practice so I enjoyed the movie like I really understood what each person was saying and what was going on!

After the movie we headed back home for the evening, only heading out into the cold to go and get some dinner at Kraze Burger later on. I spent most of the evening trying to keep track with the football back in England as there was non on TV this week.

Today has mostly involved doing very little. Me and Charlie went out for some lunch earlier on and then we called Kevin to go bowling as we felt like getting out of the house for a little while.
It's been a while since the last time we went (when my foot was still injured) so it made a change to be doing something different. After bowling we got some dinner and I think I plan to have an early night and then wake up at a reasonable time tomorrow and get out and go somewhere. I haven't got anything planned yet but hopefully the weather will be kind to me.

It's been a fun vactation, and although I am sad to see it coming to an end I feel like I am refreshed enough to get back in the classroom and teach again.

Take care

Ben x

“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.”
Albert Einstein