A Late Night Date With South Africa and a Game of Korean 'Pick Up Sticks'.....

.....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

“One sees great things from the valley; only small things from the peak.”

K. G. Chesterton

A Quiet Night In, Inter Suwon Night Out and Plenty of Blood, Guts and Ninja Stars....

THAT time of the week has come around very quickly indeed and it seems like before I know it we're (almost) into the last month of the year. By the way if anyone has seen 2009 then do let me know....

Finishing work on Friday I was all done with adventures and shopping trips for the time being so I spent a couple of tired hours relaxing and waiting for Charlie and Kevin to finish so that we could do to dinner as usual. The three of us were all feeling pretty wiped so no delicious French Fries at IT Bar this weekend, just back to the room for some video games and chatting was on the adgenda.
After introducing him to our entertaining world last friday night, we decided to invite Hans around again and we spent a good few hours laughing and joking before tiredness caught up with each one of us and we called it an evening.

Up early on Saturday morning to keep up with the NBA on Korean TV I was well rested by the time Charlie gave me a call to see what I was up to. He wanted to go into Songtan to get some stuff so we boarded the train south of Suwon ate some dinner, got what he needed and came back.
Saturday was the annual Inter Suwon end of season 'celebration' so I spent most of the day relaxing, with a heavy night in prospect.

The three of us made our way out to dinner at 8pm before taking a cab up to Yeongtong where the rest of my team were busy drinking and socialising after an afternoon of bowling and getting dinner together. As I don't spend that much time up at NOW bar on a weekend, it's probably the first time I have been together with all my friends anytime other than on a Sunday afternoon and it was cool to hang out with a bunch of different people and for us all to be together and be having plenty of fun.

Before we headed off to Ingydong for a few different bars we had a vote on our player of the season and our goal of the season and I was amazingly lucky enough to be chosen as the Players Player of the Season which, considering I have spent the entire year playing on one leg and/out of position, I felt very proud.
We've got one game left next weekend so hopefully we can finish off the season well and end in 3rd place which will not be bad considering we're had some poor performances and one where we didn't show up at all and were docked points.

Inter Suwon is one of the things I am going to be sad to leave behind when I have to return to England. We have a great bunch of people in our team and I must be honest and say that thursdays and sundays are one of the things I look forward to most in the week. Perhaps it's because I love playing football, and also it's because I get to interact with other people who can speak my language!
Before I go back to England I'll be able to get maybe 3 or 4 games in as the season usually starts in March so I should be around for that. I won't miss running around in the cold whilst it's the off season but I will miss playing every week and I hope to be able to meet up with some of the guys if they have plans, certainly if any of them are due to leave between now and March.

As we'd been supposed to be leaving NOW bar at around 10pm and it was well past 12, everyone decided to rally around and head to a place called Noise Basement (NB) which is between Suwon Station and Yeongtong. We weren't entirely sure where we were going but hopped in a cab in that direction and then spent fifteen minutes following the exit of the cab, trying to find out exactly where NB was.
We got there eventually, losing people every now and then who would wonder off but we spent a good couple of hours there dancing away and enjoying ourselves which was a great laugh.

The three of us all had the same thoughts at about 2am of heading home so we went back to Hwaseo-dong, got some dinner and then some much necessitated sleep.

Up again early Sunday morning (and smelling like an ashtray thanks to the allowance of smoking in public places) Charlie, Kevin and I headed to Burger King to get some nurishment around lunchtime and decided to check out what was playing at the cinema in the meantime. Turns out 'Ninja Assassin' has just started showing, and ironically stars a Korean as the main character. We decided to get tickets and then come back at 7.45pm for an evenings entertainment.

Well entertainment is certainly the word and exactly what you would expect from a film which has the same writers as the Matrix Trilogy. I think it's fair to say that I sure got my fix of gore and violence from that film! It was a good watch, despite being required to turn your brain off on viewing, and it was finally good to go to the cinema after such a long absense!

That was my weekend....short but sweet! I'm about to catch my fix of Premiership football on a Sunday evening and then head to bed so I shall bid you farewell for the time being....

Ben xxx

“The only time you run out of chances is when you stop taking them”
Anon

The Small Things We Take For Granted.....

.... I know I'm not usually a 'weekday blogger' because I rarely do anything outside working and eating, but this evening I feel compelled to add something to my site after an incident occured today which got me thinking.

Aside from the occasional 'hairy' moment in the last seven months (eg. obliterating my right foot beyond proper use) most things in Korea have, in all honesty, been relatively stress-free. I know that my mum will probably say that I live my life stress free but that's due to my outlook on everything, not because of a lack of stressful situations!

This evening however, my patience was tested. Trying to take some money out of an ATM at the neighbourhood branch of my bank I was slightly alarmed when after a couple of minutes standing waiting for money to come out, the screen in front of me just completely shut off, rebooted itself, and acted like I had never used it.

Puzzled by what was going on, and a little angry as this was the second time that my card had been eaten by the very same machine, I headed back to Talkster for assistance and thankfully one of my fellow teachers (who I was extremely thankful for) called the bank and asked if someone could open up the machine to get my card out for me.

After the traumatic experience of thing that I was entirely stuck I was able to reflect on what might of happened should the same thing have taken place in England.

For a start off, the usual thing to do would be to call a helpline and cancel your card and/or ask them for assistance. In Korea, the lack of any resonable amount of Hangul beyond 'hello' and 'goodbye' makes situations such as this pretty impossible to deal with.

I'm not sure if I have really taken things for granted since I have been here (even though the title of this entry suggests) or if I have really been in Korea that long that the lack of common language between myself and 99% of the population goes unnoticed. Now rather than commenting when people don't understand English, it's a phenomenon when people do actually speak words of English, and it was actually pretty poingient that when we got in a cab to go to dinner this evening that the driver upon stating that he spoke 'a little bit of bad English' was able to have a fully fluent conversation with the three of us for the duration of the drive, and not just on subjects about 'Korea' and 'Park Ji-Sung' as is usually the case.

Being in a country where everyone speaks the same language as you, I guess I now realise, is something you do take for granted, unless you are taken out of there and placed in a situation such as the one I find myself at the moment. During most days I spend time speaking to 6-9 year old students, my boss and Kevin and Charlie, and that's about it. There are countless interactions during the day with people in shops, on busses or in restaurants where nothing more than glances, points and grunts take place and I awknowledge that it is going to be pretty difficult (but probably novel) when I go back to England and don't have to speak in broken language to order something or to find out the price of an item.

When you go into a shop here and you're looking for something which you aren't sure if they sell, you are basically on your own, unless you like charades as very few people will be able to understand what you are looking for. Some resturants in Korea don't have pictures on their menus and only thanks to Anna telling us the names of things have we been able to order things in these places, they might serve things which are even more delicious than what we usually order but we wouldn't know because other than reading the word, we don't have any other details about it.

I think I have discussed before how strange it was in Thailand to be able to speak English to people, and hear conversations about me going on but I guess that the incident with the rogue ATM today made me realise again that there will probably never be another situation again that I am basically as helpless as I am at the moment.
There's so many examples in day to day life that it's actually frightning to think about the simple differences between Korean and the rest of the Western world and the language barrier plays a serious part in the reason why I imagine living here and not being surrounded with the few English speakers that I am could make things even more difficult.

I'm pretty lucky as I usually have Kevin and Charlie with me so we can fumble our way though, but without them, the lone ranger role would be an extremely difficult experience.
It's probably very hard for people to understand exactly how not being able to communicate with people on a regular and daily basis feels but I am getting enough of an experience of that for all of you, but I don't think, even in this blog I am able to convey exactly how tough it can be sometimes.

All I can say that after getting my card back, I am very thankful that people in Korea understand how challenging life can be for foreigners who live so far away from their home and don't speak the language. I can only hope that for the next five months the difficulties in the language barrier remain minimal and I am able to reflect on them with friends when I get back home!!!

Take Care

Ben xxxx

“Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted.”

Aldous Huxley

Korea's First Snow, Some Quality Time with Hans and an Extremely Cold Penalty Shootout....

UNLIKE last weekend when I had very little productive to speak about, we got our act together this weekend to spend an extremely enjoyable weekend braving the freezing cold!

Surviving another experience riddled week at work, I was feeling the usual tiredness from a combination of teaching and football training on thursday night.

The bitingly cold wind which has been with us all week subsided a little on the penultimate day of the working week, but running around in shorts and a t-shirt at football was still much more cold than I would like to experience.

Thankfully, one thing you can always count on in our rooms is a hot shower and with the temperatures dipping to below freezing a couple of times this week, I've needed no other incentive than freezing my backside off to jump in the bath.
One problem with Korean traditional housing like we have is the heating system. Having the delights of a fire and several radiators at home was obviously taken for granted before I came here as Korean houses are heated through a system called 'Ondok' which basically means 'Floor Heat'.

The system in my room which controls the temperature of the water also controls the temperature of pipes which have been laid under my floor which provide the only heating source I have. At first 'floor heating' seemed like a cool idea, in the Kindergarten classroom in the morning when it's on, it's great to walk around in socks and feel the warmth as theoretically whenever your feet are warm, your body stays warm.
Sadly, this doesn't seem to apply when it comes to the heating in my room as the temperature in there with the floor heating on seems to be not warm enough or boiling and uncomfortably hot. I think I need to work on getting it at the right temperature as normally I end up leaving it on whilst I am teaching in the morning because I'm freezing when I wake up. The only problem when I get in for lunch is that by this point the room is sweltering hot and I could so with letting some cold and fresh air in!

With the temperature dropping to unnecessarily low minue figures outside it wasn't really a surprise on Friday evening when we were 'blessed' with Korea's first snow of the winter.
Being from England, snow isn't something I get to experience very often but being from South Carolina this was the first time that Charlie had seen snow falling before his very eyes and as he hasn't been impressed with the cold weather so far, this didn't do alot to make him embrace it!

In truth the snow was pretty lame, it didn't last for very long for a start and also it didn't settle. It just made the ground wet instantly, so it might as well have rained! By the time we'd come back from dinner, the excitement of the snow was over but today I did see some ice on the ground so I figure it also must have been pretty close to freezing point today.

Luckily I brought with me some winter items of clothing including a gloves, hat, scarf and a coat and all four of them have been getting decent use in the last week or so. Being as that Korean's like to wrap themselves up in the summer, it's no surprise to hear that in winter they like to stay extremely warm and it's not uncommon to see people on the streets selling thickly ladden socks, gloves, scarves and hats.

Despite the coldness the three of us braved the freezing friday and headed to a bar near our house for a couple of drinks and a chat to finish off the week. An added bonus was Hans joining us for the night and he was on top form as ever. Sometimes I wonder if he realises how much he entertains us and if he is deliberately funny or whether it's just the very small language barrier that sits between the three of us and him!

I'm pretty sure that once of twice before in the last seven months I have discussed the repetetive catchy soundwaves which make up Korean music and with the Internet being the only access I have to any kind of music, it's pretty hard to stay in touch with what is 'cool' these days. I'm not sure that's anything I've ever been accused of to be honest, but nevermind.

Keen to open the three of our minds and eager to stop us thinking that Korean music is like a nightmare involving every single manufactured boy and girl band in history peforming a concert in your ears, Hans said he would bring around some music for us to listen to and put on our computers.

Good Old Hans, always taking care of us.
We decided to head back to the house pretty early so that Hans could hook us up with some new tunes and also so that we could play a few games on the Playstation with him! The rest of the early morning hours were spent having a great deal of fun and laughing alot before tiredness eventually kicked in, and I felt it essential to retire to bed before Saturday because a write-off!

Waking up pretty early (especially when you've been to sleep at 3am plus) on Saturday morning, I got my usual dose of NBA and chatting to people back home who are about to go to bed.
At about lunchtime after I had dragged myself out of bed Charlie called to see if I wanted to go get some lunch and accompany him to the opticians so he could take a well overdue visit there to replace his glasses.

It was pretty funny because the guy actually remembered him going in there and getting some glasses before. He wondered what had happened and ashamed that he'd lost them after 36 hours, Charlie claimed several times that they had 'broken!'
He eventually got himselves set up with some and we made our way back to Hwaseo-dong to meet Kevin and head into Seoul for the afternoon.

We managed to catch the last Suwon Bluewings game a couple of weeks ago at the World Cup Stadium, but for the teams who don't suck, the season carried over into he playoffs, the first game of which was being played on Saturday between Chunam and FC Seoul.
Despite out loyalties to the mighty Bluewings, the three of us fancied an afternoon out so we headed on the train for an hour into Seoul to the World Cup Stadium. A place where we've had a various amount of adventures in our time here.

Somehow using sign language and the usual charades to buy things we managed to get some tickets in the lower section of the stadium, right on the half way line and spent the next 2 hours in the freezing cold watching a 1-1 stalemate between two teams who, unlike Suwon, actually managed to pass the ball on the ground.
Waiting two hours for the result in the freezing cold was well worth it as the game ended in a dramatic penalty shoot-out.
Sadly for Seoul a couple of their players couldn't hit a barndoor and they ended up losing when their final penalty taker managed to put the ball close to ten feet wide.

Throughly starving we headed under the World Cup Stadium to get some dinner, and avoid the inevitable maehem on the subway. We stopped off at Pizza Hut which was delicious and shows how long I have been living here to actually now like Korean pizza. It's always good when what you are eating doesn't taste like they coated it in icing sugar!!!

We headed back towards home after that, spending an hour standing up on the subway which was probably worse than two hours sitting in the freezing cold to be honest!
I spent the rest of Saturday night watching football on TV and trying to stay warm, something which would be alot easier if it wasn't for the damn floor heating!

Sunday was a pretty quiet day, early wake up to watch the televised NBA game and then off to football for our penultimate game of the season. Last time we played 'The Jokers' as they are known we beat them 10-6 playing on a pitch the same size as a playing card and obviously playing on a pitch twice the size, we managed half the score but it was a win all the same, 5-3.
Playing further forward than usual I added to my tally of goals this season with a couple from outside the area which is always nice to do.
Thankfully the weather held up for us today and I didn't get my contact lenses poked out like last week so I was able to spend the duration of the game being able to see.

I got the bus back to my house and have spent the evening just taking it easy and planning what I'm doing in class tomorrow....

Well that's been the weekend, it's been fun and entertaining like they all should be...looking forward to the next one!

Take care xxxx

“Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things"

Robert Brault

New Camera, Extensive Video Gaming and Winter Arrives Without Warning....

....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

Pepero Day....Only in Korea......

...Strange one this, but I felt it worthy of a blog note for you to read during another lightning fast week at school.

I was informed yesterday that today 11th November, universally celebrated around the world as the 'End of all Wars' is in Korea known as 'Pepero Day.'

For those of your familar with Christmas snacks, peperos are pretty similar to 'Matchmakers' but have biscuit inside instead of mint or orange etc....
So Pepero Day is basically when friends exchange chocolates with one another to show their appreciation to each other. It's also a Korean version of Valentine's Day so shops are stocked full of Peperos attached to cuddly toys and gifts that loved ones are supposed to share with one another.

Last friday when I was shopping I saw piles and piles of these and mistakenly thought they were early preperations for Christmas, now I understand what their true meaning is!

I got a couple of packets from the kids this morning and then at various points in the afternoon kids either gave me a packet or just gave me a couple out of ones they had been given which was very generous. Apparently kids have been encouraged to exchange healthier snacks than Peperos but I don't think they would be too willing to say exchange carrot sticks or celery instead of chcolate!

Looking at some information on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepero) about this strange phenomenon, Korean's believe that the little sticks of chocolate look like the number one so 11/11 is a good chance to share chocolate with one another. It's a shame there isn't a 00/00 as I'm sure they would probably share cookies or something with one another!

Not a very long blog post (or a very interesting one) but that's how life is during the weeks (and some weekends) these days. I thought I'd share a little experience I had today which kept me entertained and I now wish there were more days in the year when chocolates were freely exchanged between people!

Ben x

"He who has a thousand friends, has not a friend to spare, While he who has one enemy Shall meet him everywhere."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

An Afternoon at Seoul Racecourse....

....BEING from a city where the local race course holds races on at least three days of every month, it's quite strange that aside from one visit when I was about eight and local football matches being played there I've not spent much time at York's races.

Luckily for me, and many other lovers of gambling (plenty of which we saw throughout our latest adventure) Seoul Racecourse Park is only a twenty minute subway ride from Suwon and after hearing it has the potential to provide an entertaining day out, Kevin, Charlie and I decided to make this saturday our first visit to the Korean races.

The racecourse is a stop after the zoo at Seoul Grand Park so it was a relatively painless one change journey through Geoumjeong to our destination. The three of us had done a little bit of research before arriving and after coming out of the subway exit, it was pretty obvious where the racecourse was. As you get out of the station there begins to be a massive amount of people selling form guides for the races and without you realising you are now in a crowd of about 98% men.

We made our way to the gates of the racecourse and paying the 800 won enterance fee (40p) we headed into the building to first of all get a good look at the place and secondly find out how foreigners were expected to understand everything when it was written in Hangul! The time was about 12.00pm when we arrived and a race from Jeju was just taking place so there was all of a sudden a flurry of people heading towards the bookies to put money on.

Walking up as high as we could go in the building we stumbled across the 'Foreigner's Lounge' and were given a panflet about how to place a bet and also a list of todays races and the horses running. All that plus lots of other information which would be rendered as useless once we discovered what was going on.

As I mentioned before I'm not a big gambler, I've never been in a position where I haven't needed all the money that I've posessed I think that's why! Luckily for us Kevin knew exactly what was going on and after grabbing some pens and some betting slips we prepared ourself to try and find out what was going on. High up on the fourth floor of the building we had a decent view of the track and also the odds board which was outside and letting us see exactly what the horses were priced at.

Rather annoyingly, and typically for Korea, things became rather difficult at this point as the stream of numbers up on the board didn't really relate to any odds which the horse was carrying. We figured out after a few minutes that the close to 1.0 the number, the more favoured the horse was but with the information changing every thirty seconds or something it was initially hard to keep up with what was going on.

We were prepared to make our first bet soon, and on the advice of Kevin we went with a 'Box Exacta' which basically involved picking three horses and betting on them in every possible combination for them to finish in the top three. So if you pick horse numbers 1, 2 and 3, you bet 1-2, 2-1, 1-3, 3-1, 2-3, 3-2 and at 1,000 won a piece you pay 6,000 for the bets to be placed.

After some initial confusion of needing to give hand over money so that you could get a voucher for money (don't ask) and the difficulties of the machine deciding not to read our tickets we were all bet on the first race....of course predictably the first race none of our horses did very well but undetered and getting used to the whole system we bet on the first four races including a couple taking place on Jeju Island but being shown on the big screen outside.

In the Foreigner's Lounge we were basically in a pimped out skybox with none of the hassle of the rest of the track to deal with but on the way in we had spotted a place where the horses were trotted around before the race so you could check out their form. We decided to go out there and see if we could have a bit more luck with a new tactic and eager to try something different I put a place bet on whilst Kevin and Charlie persisted with the exactas.

Down amongst the masses we decided to watch the fifth race by the finish line so we could hopefully cheer our horses onto victory. It didn't quite work out that way but my place bet did come in during the first race we spent trackside and heading inside to jubillantly pick up my winnings I discovered that they were exactly 900 won (90p) plus the 2,000 I'd put on the race.... now we were getting somewhere.

We decided that we kinda liked the new way of checking out the horses better than sitting up in the atmosphereless comfort of the lounge so we spent the next few races going between the 'horse showcase', the betting office and the finish line.

In the seventh race I also had a winner after putting on a 'to win' bet as my horse romped home to first in a close race. Back to the machine I went to discover my winnings which this time were 600 won, plus my stake of 2,000. Happy days!!!

Kevin had a slightly bigger win than I did in the following race when his exacta came in and his horses finished 1st, 2nd and 3rd. He won 31,000 won from a 6,000 won stake so he was pretty happy. Unfortunately he spent the rest of the afternoon gambling that money away and ended up not winning another race!
Poor Charlie knew exactly how he felt however as after continually getting screwed by his horses coming in 1st and 3rd he didn't win a penny and afterwards came out with a classic gamblers line of 'well as I didn't win anything last time, I'm due for a big win next time we go!'

Visiting the races was a saturday well spent with the three of us enjoying plenty of laughs despite a fair few won being lost between the three of us. I'm not too sure it's going to persuade me to head to York races on a more regular basis but the challenge of trying to understand what was going on probably enhanced the experience for me!

Well before you know it, there goes another weekend. I'm not too sure what happened to October but we're well into November now and this week will be official 7 months since I have been here. Five more to go.....


Take care

Ben x

Anais Nin
The possession of knowledge does not kill the sense of wonder and mystery. There is always more mystery