And the winner of the most annoying thing about Korea competition is....

...Recycling! There's nothing better than a blog which starts with a rant about something pointless! Now I have almost been in Korea three weeks so it's a bit early to start hating on things but i feel this has just cause. Don't get me wrong, I'm not in favour of ruining the planet by not recycling things that can clearly be reused, but does it really take seven bags that need to be sorted into the most meaningless catagories to do so!!

In Korea it does!

In England I though three bags for recycling was a bit much as as much hassle as it was to shred up paper and wash out cans and bottles that is nothing compared to the rigmarol of having to check a list each time I want to put something into the bin to see which category it belongs in. How much time do these people think I have on my hands? I can't even be bothered to go into the details about what goes in what bag (only cos I don't have the list in front of me) but it comes to something when you have to seperate things into several different piles, checking the list everytime you want to put something into the bin or even in the case of very special items like batteries, taking them into Talkster and letting them dispose of them. This is madness!
I got my first taste of Korean recycling today after deciding that I really needed to throw some of the milk bottles and fanta cans away that were laid waste near the bin.

The moral of the story is either, don't buy food in Korea unless you fancy spending about an hour sorting it, or do like I did and add your rubbish to other peoples piles and let them take the rap if it's in the wrong place. As you can see the picture at the top demonstrates what happens when three grown men attempt recycling, but I would like to point out that barely any of that stuff is mine, paticularily the beer and pizzas.

Anyway back in the real world, I decided to leave it a few days before I blogged as nothing much exciting happens during the week. I've kinda got used to all the stares now, the fact that it's dangerous to cross the road at zebra crossings and also that there are neon lights on basically every building (sorry to cut back to saving the planet but Korea if you are listening instead of sorting rubbish into piles how about you turn off some lights and save some energy!)
Today was the last of a four day week in the land of Talkster which was a relief to us all, the last few days have been pretty good though as far as school goes. The kids have been behaving well and I think they are starting to understand what I expect of them.
The last couple of days in kindergarten we have been making things which is always fun. Yesterday we made jigsaws and today we made a bingo board and I managed to successfully teach them a new game. If they remember nothing else this year, at least they will have that!

The last couple of evenings after school I have spent getting in some much needed exercise. Haji pointed me towards a Suwon memorial park a couple of days ago and yesterday I took some time out to run around the lake in the park near by. Today I spent about an our shooting baskets at a school just down the road from where I work. I am excited about going to the zoo tomorrow and was sharing the story with all of my kids in their classes today. I'm amazed at how many of them haven't been and even more shocked at how many don't know which animals they could even find at the zoo, frightening!

Me and Kevin also made a new friend today which was pretty pleasing. After dinner at Ocha's we headed to Baskin' Robbins for a spot of ice cream. I've had a sore throat in the last couple of days and decided something cooling was just what I needed. We have spoken to the guy who works in there before to see how much English he knows but today we discovered that he's actually pretty damn good! His name is Hans (as in Solo!) and aside from being the assistant manager he learnt all the English he knows from watching films and listening to music. He said he knew a little bit of English and then began a half an hour conversation with me and Kevin! If he knows a 'little' English I would like to know a 'little' Korean as I would be able to do a lot more!
Turns out our new friend is a massive football fan and promised to take us to a Suwon Bluewings game which is something I wanted to do while I was here!

So far in my time here I have been impressed about how friendly the Korean people are. They might shun you on the street occasionally or stare at you like you have a bad zit on your face but the ones that have actually spoken to me, including the kids have been very friendly. They seem very interested to learn about the western world, paticularily music and sport. I think even in this three weeks I am beginning to learn new skills and also finding things out about myself that I didn't know. I am very much enjoying working abroad and I think it was a good decision I made to come to Korea. As far as only options go, this wasn't a bad one to choose!

Anyway, time for me to hit the hey. Night x

Back to the grind and going solo...

If you thought my tales of exploring yesterday we brave just wait till you discover what I managed to to with myself today!!!! And yes that is the said star craft channel at the top of the screen!

Had a fun monday back at Talkster today, we made dice in kindergarten class as numbers are the theme this week, they seemed to enjoy it and i finally got to demonstrate some of my artistic skills to some kids who might actually think they are half decent. My other classes this afternoon were good too and by the time it came to 6pm I was ready to do some exploring.

I needed to hear to E-Mart to see if they sold hard drives but first decided to go for a walk towards Hwaesong to see if there were any electronic type shops heading in that direction. I couldn't see any...but what I found was much cooler anyway.
Turns out that I stumbled upon a side entrance to Hwaesong fortress and also a part of the city walls which was pretty cool (hopefully I've remembered to attach to pictures at the bottom of the page. A brisk walk turned into a serious mission as I headed up the road towards Suwon station and decided to see if I could direct a Korean cab driver to the nearest E-Mart using my less than basic Korean!

I managed to end up in the right place which is a bonus, and as it turns out it isn't actually that far away from where I live. The ride cost me about 3000 won which is about £1.50. I told you it was cheap here!
After Charlie and Kevin had finished work we headed to a galbi place which is at the bottom of our street and to the right. The women working in there were laughing at our foreign-ness from the moment we walked in there to when we left, infact one woman who was cooking out meat for us, did practically everything except chew the meat for us which was very kind, even though we actually did know what we were doing.

We then decided to head to Baskin' Robins which is rapidly becoming a favourite of mine. We all know how much I love ice cream and when you don't get it very often and it tastes good it's an absolute treat. Today I decided to go with cookies and cream flavour which was absolutely amazing. They had taken away the fudge one I got last time and replaced it rather disappointly with 'green tea', I'm sure that's probably a big Korean seller. They did have some other random flavour which was blue, red and white but I'm sure that was loaded with ridiculous amounts of sugar! I'm trying to be all healthy with my food so I don't think that would have gone down very well.

Aside from exciting exploring this evening I got some other good news today which is that Talkster is closed on friday for Korean 'Mayday'. Most of the teachers were delighted to discover that the not they had been giving out to their students written in Korean could be roughly translated into the fact that we have the day off because it's the first of May. I hear a rumour we also have next Tuesday off as well but I think we have a teachers meeting tomorrow so I will find out then.

Well I think it's about time to sign off for the night and head to bed. Feel free to check out the pics and video which I have posted below.

Night x

Money doesn't make the world go round....

...but it helps when your bank card decides it wants to work abroad!

After trying in vain to make my card work in Yungsan yesterday I decided to venture to an ATM this morning and see if it had been activated for use. Luckily there was a cash point at Hwaeseo station and thank the Lord that it decided that it was going to work! The meer fact that I am not likely to starve to death through lack of finances inspired me to be brave with my exploring this afternoon!

Even though it was pretty cold outside I decided that I needed to get some exercise after two weeks of nothing but walking and occasionally running upstairs and headed in the direction of sports shop (not that I knew where any were). I came across what I thought was one on the highstreet heading towards Pal-Dal mountain and sure enough I was able to buy a football there and then head across the road to buy a cheap pair of trainers to knock around in!
There is a park just near where I live that has two goals and also several basketball nets so I spent much of the afternoon shooting at both types of nets before deciding that was enough to make up for doing very little so far.

When I got back home Charlie was in and asked if I wanted to go throw the American football around with him so we went to the park just down the street from the station and really freeked some Korean people out by throwing the only American football in Korea around.
I decided to be brave this evening and cook myself a meal as Charlie and Kevin had both ordered Goobne chicken from down the street. With my new found riches I was actually able to get a whole bunch of stuff from Homeplus Express and decided to keep it simple by buying some pasta and some pasta sauce, not even I can screw that up! That's the first time that I have eaten pasta since being here (except the occasional noodle in stew) and it tasted good! I reckon that's one of the major things I have been missing from home!

I discovered yesterday that Korean television shows 3pm Premiership kick offs on an Asian version of ESPN so I spent most of last night watching the Chelsea West Ham game which was a bonus. It looked bright and sunny back in London. Over the last too days the weather has been pretty grey and miserable, yesterday it poured down and today the sun didn't shine once. I have noticed that the temperature tails off in the evening too and it's probably about as warm as it is in England. It's supposed to be hot tomorrow but naturally I will be stuck in a classroom and not notice.
After work I'll be doing my best to head to either E-Mart or Suwon station to see if I can find myself a portable hard drive and some dvds. Mine is getting rather full and I really need to take some stuff off it to stop my computer from being so slow!

Time to sign off and get back to planning tomorrows lessons. Enjoy the last of the weekend!

Photo Gallery

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My First Two Weeks...

Here are a few things I have learnt whilst in Korea so far....

1. Korean's love to stare at 'foreigners', the best way to counter this is either to stare back or more comically say 'do I have something on my face!?' They'll soon turn their visor covered faces away.

2. The food here isn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. My minimal research into Korean food led me to believe that I might spend a year eating Burger King, Mc D's and KFC. At the point of writing I have yet to resort to any of the above.

3. No matter how many times you tell the kids the correct way to form a sentence, the next day they'll say the same thing again. Whilst doing the register we have to ask the kids how they are and recieve responses like... "I am happy today because after Talkster play computer games", even after you write the correct sentence structure on the board, the following day you are likely to recieve a response of "Today me sad rain". Yes that's right, you are sad because it is raining today!

4. The competetive streak in Korean's young and old runs deep. The old ones will try and shove you off the train, steal your seat on a bus and aren't afraid to invade your personal space! The young ones will rush their work and then say 'Me one, me won' to which they will then hear me say "Am I first?!" or even more likely 'Me finish, me finish". "I have finished" It's not that hard is it!

5. Patience pays off. I have been wanting to travel and see the world for a few years now but haven't had the oppertunity to do so until now. Although it's rough leaving my friends behind, computers might just be the best invention of all time. Not only can I try and keep track of what is going on back home but I can also keep in touch with the people I left behind!

Making a New Friend

It's that time of the week again that everyone loves to enjoy...The weekend!

My second week of teaching in Korea is up and at the moment I am loving every second of it. First thing I had to deal with on Friday morning however was one of the kindergarteners parents coming to see how the school's new English teacher is perfoming! Considering she couldn't speak a word of English I'm not sure what she expected to learn! Having taught the kids for two weeks and having no training or barely been shown what to do I would have given it at least a month before I can start to work out what kind of things work and don't work in the classroom!

In my afternoon lessons I was in the mood for some more laid back approach as I can imagine that after a week of going to two schools five days a week the kids are tired so we did a few different things, I played Uno with all three of the classes which they seemed to enjoy and a couple of them I also did a worksheet with song lyrics from some music and the objective was to listen to the song and then try and fill in the words.
I read on an ESL website that it helps the kids pick up more vocab and they seemed to like not having to go through the book so I guess that was a bonus for them. They found it easier than their regular work too.

With work out of the way I spent a couple of hours trying to get the hot water in my room to work as the thermostat was being very tempremental. I'm glad I got someone to come look at it for me because the weather seems to have taken a turn for the worse today and yesterday as well! We also added a new English speaker to our small circle of friends (I guess now there's four or us it's a square actually!) Kevin had been in touch with a girl from Ireland called Marie who has been in Korea for two weeks and is working at a school with her as the only native speaker! She is lovely and like the rest of us very much enjoying her time in the country, I'm sure she's pretty glad to have made some new friends.

We introduced her to the pleasures of galbi at Ocha's and then headed to NOW! bar for a few drinks. Had a pretty entertaining night playing pool, darts and just chatting. Charlie posted a new world record high score on cut throat cricket on the electronic darts machine clocking in at 790 (the idea is to be as close to zero as possible). He did win the second game to his credit but then I stepped up and somehow managed to end the game by scoring zero after 16 rounds. Beginners luck I think considering I still don't really understand the rules of the game!

We decided to head home at about 3pm this week though Charlie didn't have to drop any Korean on the taxi driver this week! There was the usual hysterics in the back of the cab and even before we'd got in at Charlie decided he was going to try and drive by opening the cab drivers door and then climb in his seat. The guy just sat there motionless, probably very confused about what was going on. He then had a 30 minute rant about cheating as we dropped Marie off and then another 10 minute rant on the same subject as we made out way back to H-A-SO O-GA- R-RI!

Today we met up with our new friend and fourth muskateer again and headed to Yungsan to try and find the $150 PS3 deal that Charlie had heard about from someone. I went with the intention of buying a new hard drive but when I discovered that my card didn't want to work on an ATM i decided to sack that idea off. We got some lunch in a coffee shop and then headed to the electronics district and to a place called Techworld (I only discovered that when I went on the net as that wasn't originally where we planned to go). This place was literally six floors of computers, laptops, ipods and cameras, the same stuff again and again. We stopped on one of the floors which sells computer games but we dissapointed to find out that PS3's, Wii's and 360's were all their regular prices and probably weren't that great-a-deal after all!

We decided to take a walk up inside another electronics mall which was inside Yungsan station and quickly found that there were really just more ipods, more mobile phonees, more cameras and more laptops. Deciding to head up to the top floor however we got a tremendous shock, we followed the signs to a place called the 'e-sports stadium'. I figured that it might be some kind of arcade or something but then discovered it was something way more geeky.
Flicking through Korean television channels the other day I disvoved that there are two channels dedicated to the PC online game starcraft. Now I find playing video games fun, watching other people play them isn't quite as good, and spending time watching people playing them on the TV is not my idea of fun but apparently in Korea it's a big thing.

As it turns out, on the top floor of Yungsang Station is the TV studio for one of these channels! We walked into a crowd of easily 300 people watching two kids battle it out on an fantasy RPG game based in space!!!!! Not only were the kids given entrance like wrestlers of boxers, they take their gaming very seriously in Korea and apparently these kids play in a nation, yes nation, Starcraft league where teams of ten battle to become the champions. Silliest of all in this mocked up TV studio there were three guys in the middle giving the play-by-play about what was going on! I spent the next 15 minutes trying to work out what was going on and also laughing so hard about how I always thought I was a geek but compared to these kids, my video gaming habits are pretty regular!

After the excitement of people cheering, screaming and clapping at virtual violence and things being blown up on screen we decided to head back to Suwon for some normality (and dinner). The subway back was crowded as ever and I spent an hour holding on for dear life as you get pushed from pillar to post as Korean's try to fight their way on and off the train! It really was a relief when we got back to the station!
We found a restaurant just across from the station and had Pud-ah-jigeh (that's probably spelt horribly wrong!) which is basically like Korean stew with noodles, rice noodles, tofu and meat all mixed together! It doesn't sound very nice I know but when it's all mixed up together it is actually delicious!

We decided to retire back to Talkster after this for some R+R before another productive day doing very little tomorrow!

A New Home

Didn't have a lot of time to post a message yesterday but I thought I would today as I have finally moved into my 'new room'. Whatever construction and running repairs the school were doing has been completed so I have finally been able to unpack my bag which might start to help me settle in a little better and not just feel like I am on holiday.

I spent most of the evening yesterday unpacking and moving stuff around. As you might expect, the room isn't exactly spacious but it has a full size bathroom with tub and also a wardrobe and a computer desk which the other one never had. I also have a TV now which is cool as I discovered that they show English films quite often on there and also sports so I can keep up with the NBA and if I decide to get up at a ridiculous time, the Premiership!

I've had a decent two days of teaching too. I set a test for my 3pm class which they did reasonably on and as its friday and I'm feeling in a good mood I'm going to try something different tomorrow and we are going to play some games and I'm going to play them some music and let them try and fill in worksheets with some of the lyrics missing. Kevin told me he tried it with one of his classes and they were quite into it so we'll see how that goes down.

We went back to the sushi place for a second time this evening and it was really lovely as the original time we stumbled upon it. Even more excitingly, when I got back I had my first cup of tea in a week and a half! It tasted great, even if I did have to boil water on the hob instead of in a kettle!

I'm not sure what we are doing this weekend but as usual the plan for tomorrow is to head to Ocha's for dinner and then head to NOW! bar for a few drinks in foreign company. Kevin has been in touch with another person from Suwon who is going to meet up with us for dinner and then head with us to NOW. Hopefully Charlie will decide to drop some Korean again on the driver this week! On Saturday we might head to the electronics district again in Seoul, hopefully this time it will be open.
I'm planning to go get a ball this weekend as well so I can actually do some exercise next week! I may even take a walk or get the bus to the Suwon 'Big Bird' World Cup stadium which is about twenty minutes away. Even though I'm sure the standard will be about as good as the Leaper Hare League I'd love to go watch a game there. Until I get paid and have some money I reckon that might be a bit of a pipe dream though!

Time to get planning tomorrows lessons I think, haven't got much else interesting to blog about. I've attached a few more pictures to this post of last Saturday's trip to Namyung and also of the state of my new room.

Oh, also my photo gallery is in the middle of construction. If you want to take a look at some early images (and ones I don't post in my blog). Click here to see the Korean world through my eyes!x