Every day life

As much as I am a dedicated ESL Teacher, I do spend most of my time thinking about other things, I enjoy my times attempting to explain the idiosyncrasies of the English language, though this is harder than you think as I myself have to decipher them from my own limited linguistic knowledge. Most of time is spent thinking about the future, attempting to be creative and considering my plans for the weekend, I am still a little lost on why I spend time considering these because no matter what myself and my friends do, it always ends up being fun, and more often than not ends with a few quiet beers on a Sunday afternoon mulling over life and semi-coherent ideas on what is the best way to go about things.

I feel I am settling rather well into Korean life, I'm picking up language and making friends, though it seems impossible to lose the 'weird foreigner' label, maybe I am actually weird? I still have a few reservations with certain aspects of the culture, but this is no different when I stay in the UK, I have never understood the 'respect your elders' doctrine of behaviour, surely to respect everyone equally and infinitely (until they give you reason to disrespect them of course) is infinitely better for all parties. In Korea, this well practiced and institutionalised Confucian idea seems to be subject to much misrepresentation, it seems that some individuals use this cultural principle to simply treat others like dirt (those younger than them of course) and simply put it down to their right, founded on cultural principles. This confuses and infuriates me, it seems that there is no room for debate in a Confucian society, and that, in my opinion, can not be a beneficial thing. Maybe this is the cause of the odd fallacies which I have previously mention, of which, by the way, I have many more of, and I will indulge you with at a later date.

I am finding as I am growing happier, my creativity and ability for abstract thought is diminishing, maybe this is why all genius' are fairly insane, the sole cause of great thought is unhappiness and contempt for conventional happiness. I will investigate further and let you know what I think. My times here in Korea have undergone something of a re-invention, I'm trying to be more enthusiastic about life and it's small pleasures, so far it seems to be working, though I'm still waiting for the Epiphany or crash landing one usually endures when one lies to them self. Again I will fill you in at a later date.

At the moment I'm beginning to miss my family and friends from home, the time difference here is about as awkward as it can be, due to my working hours and home-people's routines. I'm not so much homesick as family-and-friend sick. I do often wonder what damaging thing I did to my own mind to contempt my home country so much, maybe it is Karmic guilt from past lives' bad actions.

Anyways for your viewing pleasure here are two pictures, one of me (and some friends in the sea), the other of me in a swim cap trying to seduce a male celebrity, yes I am aware I have mentioned this before, but this shot is from behind, adding more detail and perspective to the event.

Mud festival

So this weekend was based around the the 3 D's; dirt, drinking and monsoon rain.

I had a weekend to remember, quite wisely and in tune with my usual sound judgement I decided to go out drinking the night before my morning train to the mud festival, this involved beers and soju with two of my students Hyang Jin and Jacob, along with my co-teacher Maya. It was a funny evening but too drunken to be had before a full weekend of partying.

The Saturday kicked off with a train journey dominated my bad jokes and card games, it flew past and before we knew it we were at the festival a little drunk and very excited.

First we found a place to put up the tents, this was easier than I had first thought and the sunny weather made me think that maybe we were the smartest people in the world to simply turn up with tents. The festival consisted of mud wresting, around a million photos, dodgy music and fun times. We spent the majority of our time messing around and mud wrestling, until Hyewon got hurt, inevitable I guess when you have 100 drunken people jumping on each other is a 10 metre paddling pool. This warranted going to hospital whilst covered in mud. This was great as I got to go in an ambulance. Hyewon seemed OK though a little sore, and after a couple of hours waiting, dodgy looks and even stranger conversations, we were out of the hospital, with the all clear from x-ray results and in a taxi on our way back to the festival. By this point the rain and depleted interest in mud meant that things were winding down a little getting ready for the nights antics. We made our way to James' room for a shower and to hook up with the group. By this point we were all starving hungry and in need of a bit of a chill out.

We made our way out for some food, on the way we got wet from the rain, and I won a frog teddy from a stall where you have to knock down blocks with a baseball, I am too cool. I had a pizza, well some pizza, and then we made out way to the fair ground, after spinney rides, sick feelings, and about a tonne of rain we decided to go looking for a bar to shelter (and drink) in. We found one and literally took over, also seeing Dylan the Welsh guy, he seems to crop up everywhere. It was a funny night with Gareth doing his usual hilarious leading of the banter, he is a funny bugger I have to say. I had a cool time and a funny conversation with a group of Korean girls and some young American soldiers who had taken a shine to them but needed a translator. I did my best and it was very funny, it was nice to meet some soldiers who I actually liked, a very rare occasion.

Around 4:30 am as the bar shut we decided it a good idea to forget camping (good idea as Eunyoung's tent had 3 inches of water inside, mine was dry), we made our way to the Jjim chil bang, which was surprisingly quiet and not a jjim chil bang at all, just a shower room and a sleeping area, still it was good to get a couple of hours sleep.

The morning consisted of goodbyes and packing away tents in Gail force winds, but it was an adventure and Kurt was a champion for helping me out. We took the train home, felling blue, (and for Hyewon, sore).. In all good times.

We arrived back around 4 and had some food and coffee, this helped though I was almost too tired to talk or eat.

In all I had a great weekend.

At the moment I'm felling pretty positive about Korea, I'm having fun, I have great friends and all is going well. But we will see which way the wind blows.

Peace out..

Sh**s and giggles

It's Saturday, and as with most weekends, the Friday evening euphoria led me to go out and drink straight from work, after invites from students for food and drink, which I regretfully declined, I made my way to my pre-arranged drinks meeting with Eunyoung and Hyewon. I met them in Rainbow bar in Gangnam. Gangnam is an uptown district of Seoul, it is the classier and more expensive option when compared to Hongdae, despite this it is nearer to my home, has fewer honkies in, and is more chilled out. James joined later in the night and the night was a buzz, funny odd conversations, strange Korean drinking games, which seem to have little or nothing to do with drinking, more beating the shit out of each other at random opportunities, though the oddest thing about the game, as with the games my students show me, there seems to be little or no objective in the game, simply to mess around and hit each other. We spent a lot of time drinking and talking and playing food throwing games, everywhere in Korea provides tasteless rice based crisps, these are very good for playing catching- in- your- mouth games.

On the way home, we had the usual yet endlessly amusing times chatting Korean to the taxi driver, we explained to him how we were going home to watch porn, in Korean this is pronounced "ya dong bo go ship o", Eunyoung explained that this is a very rude thing to say, so I repeated my sentence adding the honorific "yo", "ya dong bo go ship o yo". I'm still unsure if this was a resolution to Eunyoung's protests.

On Saturday we went to the park for fun and games, apparently the 4th of July holds some value in some insignificant country just west of Ireland, so this warranted drinking, fireworks and games in the park. This escapade continued until around 5am.

On Sunday I met Hyewon and James, this was an event dominated by the recurring confusion, inexplicable meaningless guilt, and fatigue caused by a weekend of drinking and very little sleep. Despite this it was a fun day, just relaxing in the sun, wandering around Insadong, Seoul is a great place that always seems to have some kind of festival or event going on. On this occasion we went to City hall and sat in the park listening to an orchestra band playing renditions of a variety of songs ranging from good to R-Kelly.

Other than that work has not been bad, very relaxed with the Middle school kids on Exam leave, the adult classes are fun, the classes are getting too big if anything, and it's a real compliment when people bring family, friends and co-workers to join my class.

Not much else is happening so I'm going to check out, enjoy.

Just so you can see, here is a picture with Jo Gwun from a very camp boy band named 2am, you might not be aware of it but he is kind of a big deal here, he is a superstar, and I am his friend, that either makes me a groupie or a stalker, I'm not sure.