Desk Warming

At the minute things are a little slow. February has been a strange month work wise. The way that the Korean school system works means that the kids go away for a month over Christmas, then come back for a week and a half, then go off again for Spring Break for another 2-3 weeks. It's pretty ridiculous. Of course there was little work done in that week and a half. A few movies and games here and there, that was about it.

It's also all change at the minute. Pretty much everyone I knew at my school is leaving. Maybe I should shower more often or something. My co-teacher, who pretty much holds your hand through all the complicated paperwork and legal stuff, is leaving to have a baby. I had 90% of my lessons with her so it's a huge change. Also, EVERY other English teacher in the school is going. I mean, really?! So, next semester I'll have all new teachers to work with, which might take some time to get used to. I'm only here for another 6 months or so though, which is nothing.

I was hoping to get time off for these past few weeks due to there being no lessons and no kids around the place. In fact, there are no teachers either. I see the odd one or two now and again, but that's it. I'm enjoying something known as 'desk warming'. The most boring and pointless activity known to man. My day goes something like this...

8:30am: Get to school > 8:35am: Go back to bed > 10:00am: Stream some basketball > 12:00pm: Have lunch > 1:00pm: Watch a movie/play guitar > 3:00pm: Take my 2nd nap > 4:30pm: Wake up and go home.

There could be some Korean lessons mixed in with that but there you have it. A waste of a day, really. It makes me wonder if having foreign teachers here is actually worth it, because all this time I'm still getting paid. It's madness. Also, as cool as it sounds, it gets incredibly boring after a couple days. I'm craving some work to pass the time! I try to set myself little challenges, like watching all three original Star Wars films in a single work day. This is as exciting as it gets.

I had a day last week where I got snuck out at lunchtime to go sightseeing, which was awesome. Then last Friday I went out with the new head of English for a three-hour lunch. I really don't mind that part.

Still, I can't believe we're going into March soon. Time flies. The weather's finally getting warmer, so hopefully in a couple months we can have beach time every weekend. All about that.

Anyway, if you'll excuse me... I have some basketball to stream and a pile of movies to watch.

Winter in Korea

Wow. Who knew winters in Korea were so cold? Not me. I suppose the main redeeming feature about the weather here is that the endless drizzle and dull grey skies of good old Britannia is gone. Every day is one of those lovely winters days, the only problem being that its about -5C.

January was a ridiculously busy time for us. English winter camps took over our lives for about 3 weeks. I've been teaching full days (the horror!) from 9am until just after 3pm. Still, the class sizes have been good - maybe a max of about 15 kids, some days plummeting down to a lowly 3. This made my job a hell of a lot easier. I've been pretty proud of myself too. I actually formulated a working schedule lasting 17 days around the same topic of 'Around the World'. For once I felt like I was ACTUALLY doing my job well. Below is a picture of a HUGE class of five making some Brazilian carnival masks. Note my excellent scribblings on the board...

For a final project I had them create their own countries. They made flags, passports and maps. My god, some of them were adorable. Country names included 'Tony', 'No Die Land' and the beautifully titled 'Butterfly Cubic Land'. Bless.

Obviously with being so busy recently we've barely travelled. A quick trip to Busan a couple weeks ago was nice. We took in Yonggungsa Temple, which is apparently a rarity in Korea, being by the sea. This made it pretty damn photogenic, although the weather was, as always, painfully cold. We did get shown around by an ex-Buddhist monk though, who explained the paintings and the teachings of Buddhism to us. Funnily enough, he was working a big MIS project in Busan, something I studied (or slept through) during Uni.

Nice place anyway. Apart from that, we've just been mulling around Ulsan for the past few weeks. We're taking ourselves up to Gangwon province this weekend for a little treat though. The place has a bath and everything. Oh, how I've missed one of them. Temperatures of -13C sounds pretty appalling though.

The other day I took this as well. It's one of the sexy love motels in Ulsan, apparently part of a chain. You've got to love the slogans on the side...

100% love, baby.

Getting remote for Christmas: The Philippines

In these desperately freezing times, what we really need is a dose of sun and the chance to feel like a big shot. Cue The Philippines!

Christmas in Korea was going to be a washout by regular standards. We accepted that. With that in mind we’d arranged for a flight out on the 23^rd, returning 30^th.

December had been a total drag with prep for winter English camp, which began on the 2^nd, with mine running for an epic four weeks. This meant nearly 5 hours of teaching a day for this entire period. Absolutely golden.

Our plan was to fly to the remote island of Palawan – a place where electricity was sparse and roads were even more so. The whole place is pretty much 1000 square miles of jungle with an airport stuck in the middle. Once we got to the city, we would move up north to as remote a place as possible and, you know, just get our Crusoe on.

The first obstacle was getting there. An 8-hour layover in Manila was far from ideal. Sleeping on the floor of the terminal was even less so. I’ll tell you just what I needed right then… a man with a cockerel waiting to check in beside me. Ah, thank heavens. Come 3am that future fighting champion was the most unwelcome early wake-up call I ever knew

When we finally got to Puerto Princesa, Palawan, we took a walk to our hotel. Nice little place, only booked the executive suite. You know, it’s just how we do things over here. The Philippines is awesome, it’s beautiful and amazing, with opportunities everywhere, but one thing was just awful – the word ‘sir’, or in Michelle’s case ‘mam’. No matter how old the person was, we got it everywhere. I felt like a dick. The archetypal snobby tourist. I never got used to it. Why should a 50-year old boatman have to call me ‘sir’?! It’s just crazy, especially coming from a place where the more years you have the more of a dick you’re allowed to openly be and get away with it. All these damn multi-national etiquette contradictions!

So, Christmas Eve – we certainly weren’t roasting chestnuts on an open fire. We rented ourselves a boat, cue ‘Where are we going today Sir?’ (eugh!) We sat drinking from fresh coconuts on a perfect beach, then went snorkelling over coral in waters teaming with fish, then took a walk along an island no wider than the boat that brought us there. Absolute perfection of a day. Cost: £20

Christmas Day brought with it a ‘city tour’, mainly because we slept in too late to do anything else and I didn’t want to let our taxi man down. Less than impressive, I have to say. A dangerously overflowing crocodile farm, followed by a jungle walk that brought with an array of insect bites, finished with a butterfly house (not a patch of tropical world, of course). Still, it prepared us for some serious travelling the day after.

We were heading away from the motorcabs and the dirt of the ‘city’ (it’s really just a group of shacks spread across a few miles; ‘city’ is certainly a touch overzealous on behalf of Palawan’s citizens). A jeepney would take us up north to Port Barton, a place that could only be reached via a waterlogged bog of a track. Some serious Colin McCrae action went on in that driving seat to get us there.

Port Barton was the quintessential remote paradise. A beautiful wide bay with a white beach to snake around it. Fishing and scuba diving were the two main incomes. It was slow, that’s for sure. Coming from Korea, it was very slow. There was no hot water in the village, with the only electricity being available from 6pm until midnight. This meant any food during the day took a very healthy amount of time to prepare. Still, we were in no rush there.

We also had our first official scuba dives. A frankly insane wiry German lady with bad teeth took us to a place called Exotic Island to go down to about 12m. There were clams bigger than my head, starfish two feet across and so many colours that I kept filling my mask with water from sharply looking around so much. An amazing experience. I will definitely be getting my PADI certification by the time we leave Korea.

For our last full day we decided to check out Palawan’s Underground River. This has been voted as one of the new seven wonders of the natural world, so it must be special. To get there was tough. Wake up at 5:30am, miss the boat at 6am. Arrange another boat at 6:30am and leave to arrive in Sabang (the nearest town) at 9am. The only thing people had regretted to inform us was that we needed a permit to go see the damn thing. Registered tours only. To make things better, by 9:15am, all the boats were apparently full and all tours weren’t letting anyone on. Amazing. Luckily an awesome young guy called Mario just nailed it for us. He got us on his tour; the only catch was that we’d be walking back through jungle after for 2 hours – in flip-flops. Less than ideal. Somehow when we got to the river I manage to sneak us on a boat back though. How, I don’t know. I really don’t. Maybe it was the snobby ‘sir’ tourist opening gates for me, who knows. Was the underground river worth the five hours of hassle and travel? Well, it was a river underground really. Caves and stuff.

The next day we were due to leave, but not before being upgraded to an executive suite once again in the same hotel! Hiyoooo! Love that place.

Anyway, we sauntered into the airport the next morning with forty minutes before our flight left only for them to tell us that we were going nowhere. They took our passports and started reading through big dusty books for some reason. We were told that our Korea visas only allowed us to enter the country ONCE. Since we had done so in September, there was no way we were going back without additional documentation. Absolute heartbreak, well for about 15 minutes. Cue a lot of ‘sir’ and snobby-ness once again. They basically had no idea what to do with being such a tiny little airport. They had never had visa issues of Brits coming to The Philippines whilst living in Korea. It was a total minefield. They did let us on with a few minutes to go, telling us we had to go see someone in Manila (I never did).

One last bit of ridiculousness though. We never checked in our bags because of this whole visa drama, so we walked through with all out liquids, including a litre bottle of water. It went through the airport scanners in Manila and got beeped.

The security guy looked unimpressed, ‘Who’s bag is this? Mam, is this yours?!’

Michelle nodded.

He pulled out something for one of the bags, ‘Mam, you can’t take an umbrella on board, you’ll have to leave it here.’

WHAT?! So the humble umbrella is now a deadly weapon. Obviously playing its part in the war on terror. I mean, what if the litre bottle of water was actually full of lighter fluid?! Just plain ridiculous.

Photo Trip!

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A Western Weekend...

Its been a busy few weeks once again. The working week just flies by at the minute, its unbelievable. We FINALLY got paid our flight reimbursement last week! Only a month later than everyone else I know. That together with pay day means its been time to live the high life!

Last weekend we actually stayed out in Daegu in a love motel. A sexy, sexy place. For only 25,000\ (about 13quid!) we stayed in our own little love palace, complete with blue lit hallways, condom vending machines and 10ft high posters of embracing couples on the stairwell. Like I said, it was a sexy, sexy place. We just had to be careful not to touch anything. The bar of soap in the bathroom must've been rife with hepatitis.



We were across there to meet some friends from our Orientation, and I have to say that I totally forgot what it was like to be with Westerners! Its been a while since we really spent any time with anyone who could speak English!

First we checked out Dongwasa Temple, a little north of the city. This was just unbelievable, but kind of for the wrong reasons. The temple was great and everything, but they had just built this ENORMOUS Buddha there. I mean, it must've been thirty metres high or something. Unbelievable. But, less than historic really. Here is the beast anyway...




We also managed to get a photo with one of the monks. For once this temple was still a functioning centre for training and meditation for them. It was nice to not be traipsing round with just tourists. Seeing monks walking to and from their dinner hall and lodgings felt nice and genuine. I would say one thing though, they're awful friendly with each other. I expected solemn silent clarity from them, but instead I saw them nipping each others bums and laughing all the time. Fair enough, I guess.



That evening we went all Brits Abroad. It started with going to a vinyl bar, where drinks come in little pouches that kind of resemble IV bags. For about 2quid you get a big bag of any cocktail. The guy just kept asking, 'Strong?!' to which I just replied, 'Yeah, why not!' We're definitely talking half and half here though. Whilst we had a drink (this place is a kind of street bar), they lit some fireworks and gave us sparklers! So, so awesome.



After this place we went to a sheesha bar. Mellow as hell, but decked out totally Turkish. Very, very cool. You sat on the floor and there were veils instead of walls breaking up the tables. It felt a little more authentic than the sheesha places back home, that's for sure.

We then went to a western bar (where I managed to list the 50 states on a till receipt), followed by a kind of club. One of those, bar/club places. I must've spent a hell of a lot, because I was totally gone by the end of the night. I just remember berating the DJ to place stuff, then struggling to speak Korean to some locals. Absolute lout. Of course, the night finished with a kebab. Which I didn't remember until I burped at lunch the next day and tasted dirty meat. Ha. Absolute disgrace. It was like being in Magaluf for the night.



Anyway, the whole weekend we had beautiful Western food. Burgers, fry ups, pasta... it was awesome. Not a Kimbap or Chigae in sight.

Needless to say, I was a total mess on Sunday. We were due to shop, but both Michelle and I had to sack it off and KTX it home asap. I even felt kind of rough on Monday. Hilarious weekend though. Totally worth it. I think perhaps sometimes we need an obnoxiously Western weekend to satisfy our cravings.

This week has shot by, as always. Yesterday we went to a free football match at the World Cup Stadium by our place. Ulsan were playing Jeonbuk in the K-League playoffs. They lost 2-1, and it rained. Boo. Free though! Here are a few photos.

Amethyst Caves and Bamboo Forests

So, Ulsan has obviously been having a big tourism push for the last few years. I can totally understand why its not the first stop on everybody's list. The tag 'industrial' will probably do that for you. Anyway they have devised a list, 'The Twelve Scenic Sights of Ulsan'. Its in a lot of the pamphlets here (I'd say guide books, but Ulsan isn't even mentioned in the Korea Lonely Planet). Michelle and I (but mainly I, because I'm sad like that) have decided to try see all twelve before we leave, one of which is the view across a petrochemical complex at night...err.... nice.

Last weekend we set out to cross two off of our list. The first is Paraesso Waterfall, about a few bus rides away. When I asked people at work what it was like they just said 'Umm, Tony... it's...umm, just a waterfall, umm...' So of course, I was full of anticipation.

To get there we had to get a bus to Eonyang. What a shithole. Super old school Korea. It had a lovely sewagey aroma and was full of angry old women selling bags of chilli's off the muddy floor. We also found that the bus to the waterfall was in four hours. Nice.

As an alternative we decided on some Amethyst caves that were closer. The bus was ONLY an hour and a half away. Unbelievable. No wonder they need a tourism boost. Anyway, we went to get something to eat to pass the time, getting stared at significantly more than usual for Korea. I guess they don't get many westerners round there. I tried out some Korean on the owners of the place we got food and they genuinely thought I knew Korean. I felt proud. Well, until they started to have a deep conversation with me. Cue blank looks.

Anyway, we got our bus. Then realised that we had no idea where we got off. We spied out the person with a nice camera at the front. He had to be going somewhere picture worthy. When he got off, we would! Easy. This did result in a 45 minute walk to the caves, but c'est la vie. We did walk past another of the twelve sights though! A river with some carvings in it. Less than impressive, but totally crossing it off the list.

The caves were good, if not totally mental. I mean, it started off all cavey and reasonable. Then before I knew it we were watching a variety show performance with acrobats. Did I mention that we were deep in a cave on the side of a mountain?! Then the exhibits got a little fruity. Egyptian artifacts? Huh? Dinosaur paintings? Really?! It kind of had nothing to do with amethysts at all. Here are a few pictures...

We got outside after and realised that we were miles from anywhere with no transport links. The giftshop guy dutifully rang us a taxi off his own mobile which got us back to stinky Eonyang. In the end it only cost a couple quid. Could have damn well done with that before the hours of waiting. Pshhhh. Anyway I think we'll try for the waterfall again this coming weekend and taxi it all the way. Anything to not have another lengthy wait with the little cranky Korean ladies.

The next day we tried for another of the twelve sights. The bamboo forest. This was a walk away from us for once. Pretty refreshing. We stopped off at the gym, casually located by the river. A Jesus man came up to us and gave us the good news in Korean, then asked if we wanted our photo taken. I just said yes, why not eh? So here is Michelle and I posing awkwardly bysome shoulder press machines. One for the mantlepiece I think.



We got to the bamboo forest about 30 minutes later after a nice walk along the river. Here are some shots from the walk...

We actually ended up in downtown Ulsan, so we hopped across the river to Seongnamdong, THE place for cheap shopping. There we got a little overwhelmed by the Christmas shop (see below...)

A Christmas tree, lots of lights and some banners later, we got back home. I'll show what our lovely little apartment looks like soon...

I think we're allowed to have the decorations up early. After all, there are no Christmas lights, displays, adverts or anything here! Our place is going to be the most festive place for miles around.

So anyway, that's two of the twelve sights down, with another coming this weekend. I should mention that we checked out another two already, the World Cup Sports Complex and Daewangam. Just Google it or something...

Fireworks, Shopping & Being on TV...

Again, there appears to be a healthy backlog of events that I need to write about. I have no excuses, it's just total laziness once again!

So, the weekend before last we went to Busan again. There was a fireworks festival on at Gwangalli Beach that about three million people come to watch every year, so it had to be pretty damn good. We arranged to crash at Eric's and meet up with some Orientation peeps for it on the Saturday. Of course, it absolutely pissed it down with rain as soon as the evening came. I mean REALLY came down, relentless monsoon style. The fireworks themselves were pretty unbelievable though, they even trumped New York's 4th July fireworks. In fact they wiped the floor with those suckers. It probably went on for about 45 minutes and included a lit up bridge, heart shaped firework blasts and flying bird fireworks (...so Asian it hurt). Here are a few of the best pictures from the show....

We went out for a few beers after the crowds had dispersed a little and Eric and I actually found a TV showing the Man Utd game, which was a total winner. The next day we went to check out the Busan Tower and some shops around Korea's second city. I managed to pick myself up some Ltd. Ed. Korean made Nikes. They're just lovely, and sweat shop free (well, foreign at least)...

I was tempted to buy some bright orange or purple ones, but bailed on it. They're incredibly popular here. The brighter the better. It's so odd. You get these £90 trainers that look like they've been coloured in by a toddlers crayon set. But hey, what do I know?

We'd been doing some training that week actually. Ulsan Office of Education put on some big event for 2 days, which coincidentally was only from 1 - 7pm, after all my lessons. So this meant I taught four back to back lessons, then hopped on a bus for 6 hours of lectures and activities. Wasn't happy about that one day. I made a point of taking more than my fair share of biscuits, just to get that satisfaction back, you know.

Anyway, I digress...

We had another week of work. Both of us are settling into it quite nicely now I think. The first month is definitely the hardest. I can understand why people say that. I think the kids test you for that time. They generally behave pretty well now. Generally. Michelle's also got a little rewards scheme in place for her kids. You've just got to hit them where it hurts: Sweets. They'll do anything for a bag of chews or whatever. I'm being a cheapskate still. When the winners of a game ask me, 'Teacher! Teacher! Prize?! Prize?!' I just tell them that they're getting something better than sweets - my love and respect. I'm really not sure how long they're going to buy into it for.

This weekend we stayed in Ulsan anyway. We went a little crazy with our new found riches. A trip to old downtown's Central Market left us a couple hundred thousand lighter. It was a lot of fun just going to round a shop and picking up anything you want, piling it up. I got me a beautiful xmas jumper for under £10 and some premium designer jeans just over £20. We've also noticed that here they do the whole 'personal shopper' thing. When you walk into a store you instantly have a Korean shadow who points out things to you and shows you other things you might want. It's like I've got 'won' tattooed across my forehead.

I also had a huge success after weeks of toil. I finally managed to manually set up our secure home network with our Korean router. Not an easy task, just trust me. They don't like Macs or English instructions here. No sir. I guess that's the only problem with having everything made domestically.

We also went to see the basketball this weekend. It was pretty damn awesome. The level was good, and each team usually has an American playing centre who dominates. We got some sweet seats for about £6 that were right on the court. Michelle and I got our Ulsan Mobis basketball jerseys too! Oh, and we got there very early and ended up getting filmed to kiss during one of the time-out breaks. It was on Korean TV and everything. They have 'Kiss Time' like you've probably seen on American movies at baseball games and stuff. We both went very red when the 7000 people all turned to watch us and started wooping. Here was us thinking Korean's weren't big on PDA?! Anyway, we got us a free trip to Outback Steakhouse for it, which is worth it in my books. It is technically one step away from prostitution though, and that's one slippery slope....

Here's a little video of some basketball action. Yeah, they lost in the end, but good effort.

I think this coming weekend we're going to venture out of Ulsan, but only a little way. We're going to go check out some of the Yeongnam Alps. That's right, there are Alps a bus ride away here. God bless Korea and its love for mountains.