T.G.I don't wanna go

This could well be my last post here in Korea for I am back, well, pretty soon.  Lately however I've been sticking on a bit of the Korea telly to see what's going down. Obviously only the most important of programmes will be considered for translation into another language. Pokemon, of course, is an obvious choice (caught an episode of that, properly bad ass). But I was ashamed of myself that I hadn't priorly considered the ABSOLUTE GEM that is Dick and Dom Go Wild to hit foreign shores. All you Brits will be disappointed to hear that they didn't keep with the pre-adolescent voice of Dom, but made him sound like he could actually pass for 20. Terrible.

Went to a global friendship fair thing. I don't know what that meant really, but it was pretty much people selling their native food at these stalls. Naturally went over to the British stall, was glad to see that our 'food' on offer was a can of Boddingtons and a Bishop's finger. That sums it up really. Our stall was also the only stall where you got to see how to consume the foreign food like a native - there was a fat man with white hair, a red nose, straw hat, white and blue chequered shirt, sitting on his own at the back with a pint in hand. Was just like I was in Somerset. There was a Russian group playing some music, so gave that a listen. I felt bad for them, because on the encore this Korean middle aged man got up and totally stole the show by performing a dance routine best described as the 'rhythmic-body-spasm-with-occasional-slapping-of-bum'.

Sod's law ain't it. All football teams that I have a mild affiliation for, not only the beloved Newport County, have done pretty good since I left the country. Managed to persuade my mate to stay up late with me at his swanky apartment to watch the game on his swanky television. Swanky. We both woke up our Korean mate, who gave it a decent shot but his interest in 5th tier English Football left a lot to be desired, by jumping up and down screaming at 2 in the morning as Newport won the game to get promoted. Mmrs.

Got a new hang out. TGI fridays. The reason being that they have this outrageous promotion (which has been going for ages apparently) that a 400ml beer is about 60p. HAT DAYUM. I think you're supposed to order food, which is expensive, but we don't. Well that's not true, if we're feeling really guilty then we get the cheapest starter there is which isn't much. Don't feel guilty often either. In Korea sometimes you get 'service' which is usually a little food item, however we've been going to TGI's so much and just buying beer that I think the bar staff quite like us and give us outrageous amounts of service. Last time we went, spent a quid 20 on some beer and a long with that got some cheesey nachos, nice fresh bread and a bowl of ice cream. Very good.

I'm now in the last week of my stay. I won't take long before the tears start (I saw my best friend with a gun shot through the heart [Christopher George Latore Wallace a.k.a Notorious BIG, 1994]). See you soon Blighty.

Big Shoes = Big Feet?

So I moved in to the new place. Properly properly horrible. Within the first few days I had managed to get ill, which I’m not directly blaming on the sanitary of the place (I am). Plus at night it got properly cold, and it took my living there for 10 days before I used the shower (don’t worry mother, I used the schools facilities in the meanwhile), and actually didn’t use the toilet once.  True. Got accustomed to brushing my teeth in bizarre places such as the subway stations, or in the showers. Perhaps normally it would be unusual but brushing culture over here is surprisingly liberal, and actually brushing your teeth in the shower is proper legit and should definitely by tried before being knocked. Anyway, was in a bit of a dilemma as I was thinking I couldn’t stay at this place all that much longer but I had told the guy I’d be there for 2 months and signed something (I have no idea what). Then suddenly  I get a text from the manager telling me that the place is closing down (not surprised), and that I’ve got a week to move out (a little surprised) and that I don’t have to pay any moneys for the 3 weeks I’ve been there (surprised). So as I type, I’m writing this in my new equally-small-but-it’s-clean-and-I’ve-got-a-bed-this-time room. Best way.

Been getting some ‘extra-curricular’ lessons recently. A Korean lass decided that my ENGLISH pronounciation was incorrect, and also proceeded to try and teach me how to say these words properly. All in all, a fairly insulting experience. Also, whilst taking the underground home late one night I managed to find the area of town where all the (let’s try and be PC about this) unusual people hang. Let’s just call it the freak place. I walked passed various people with various ailments, some unidentifiable sounds coming from the toilets, but the strangest guy was an old man with socks tucked into his trousers and shoes AT LEAST 6 sizes too big (actually not exaggerating, I’ve video proof). This guy was rummaging around the bins in the underground station before going onto the same carriage as me. Then with the junk he had got, started reading some binned handwritten paper notes, and binned newspapers and other junk like that. Then he ripped out some pages, put them in a little plastic sleeve, and then shoved them down his pants. I have honestly no idea.

Went to down to the south of Korea on a weekend away to chill on the beach and go to a cherry blossom festival. Actually, chilling on the beach didn’t happen due to rain. But I’ll tell you what did happen, bought an umbrella for about 5 pounds which broke after 5 hours. Not best pleased. The cherry blossom festival however was mint, the highlight being the performance of a bunch of more-than-middle-aged Korean ladies dancing to ‘5 6 7 8’ by steps. My eyes bled.

So North Korea told all the foreigners to get out. The day after this, in class there we’re building works outside that (no joke) sounded just like airplanes (serious), and then as I walked down the corridor I heard what sounded JUST like rapid gun fire. It turned out it was just the wind hitting against these tort plastic sheets outside. Heart was racing. Lately they’ve gone totally silent. I would say it was as if nothing had happened, but in truth not one Korean I’ve met has even blinked an eye at the whole situation.

A Marathon Effort

Last week I completed the Seoul Marathon in a, I suppose, respectable time of 3 hours 16 minutes. However, despite that time being my around about aim before starting, at around the 32k mark I was smashing out a solid pace and was on for under 3 hours. I was feeling good, energy a plenty and full of confidence. And then ‘the wall’ happened. I had heard tales of this legendary wall, but wasn’t absolutely entirely convinced of its existence. However as my legs decided they weren't going to function properly (contrary to orders given by my brain) and began to realise the foolishness of my ignorant doubting, I resigned myself to 10k of, well, agony. 2 Japanese course mates decided to cheer me on, and met me at the end with a bag of nutritional energy snacks (chocolate) and congealed vomit (bananas) that they had bought for me. What babes. My American friend later at church told me that I had even ‘inspired her to walk for maybe 30 minutes’ that day. Just doing my part.

Decided for the final 2 months to move out of the family home, and somewhere closer to friends and university (I was having an hours commute every day). Money is somewhat of an issue, and so when I stumbled across a place offering rent half as cheap as anywhere else I had to check it out (and be incredibly suspicious). I arrived and was greeted by a man with post-asparagus-eaten- urine coloured dyed hair, who showed me a room which makes Harry Potter’s stair cupboard holiday home laugh at its petite-ness. There was also a bit of (a strong) funky (disgusting) smell lingering about but it seemed to have not made its way into the room so it’s all good. I only plan to sleep there anyway, the rest of my time will be spent chilling out in the finally-decided-to-reappear sun! I didn’t quite understand everything the guy was telling me, and filling out a mini contract was also interesting as it was completely in Korean. Not as interesting as him giving me the keys and saying to just ‘pay whenever’. I think that’s what he said anyway… I couldn’t turn down the price too, but have a strange suspicion that it may be low not only because it’s a little bit (very) rank, but also because it is situated slap bang in the middle of the student area’s party town. It could get a bit rowdy at night, but if you can’t beat them join them.

Winter is pretty much officially over! Apart from the other day when the weather decided it’d be nice (it wasn’t) to go back to negative temperatures for a day. But when the Sun comes out, that’s not the only thing that comes out and so the female president has acknowledged this and has put a ban on outrageously short skirts. Oh and North Korea keeps making these threats to bomb stuff and some other stuff. That’s not comforting.

Steaming Hot Accommodation

Did a little bit of intercity travelling, and went to a place called Jeonju. A nice city, with a less busy atmosphere compared with  Seoul. Doing things on the cheap, the accommodation for the night was a jimjjilbang which is essentially a 24 hour Sauna (although of course I didn’t sleep in the Sauna, else I would have probably woken up looking like a sweaty bollock). Brilliant though, for the comfort of roughly 4 British pounds you get to borrow some lounge clothes, at any time bathe in the hot pools (naked, may I add. Gender separated, don’t worry mum) then get given a mat and a pillow to sleep on in a communal area. Or you would have, if you hadn't bathed for so long that all of the mats and pillows were taken (by the tone of my written voice, you should be able to tell that this is what happened). So we just slept on a wooden floor, next to some desks, the legs of which I had to wrap my limbs around in order to find a satisfactory sleeping position. Also whilst travelling, I'm constantly recommended special food to eat in each region which I can assure you tastes NO DIFFERENT than in any of the other regions.

Went to watch a Korean movie without any English subtitles. They say that 90% of communication isn’t actually in the words you say. What a load of BS. I should have therefore understood *ignorance alert* 90% of the movie, which was slightly off the actual comprehension percentage which sat roughly around the 0 mark.  Without knowing the word for Mafia, it was pretty hard to tell who was fighting who and why some guy was playing golf on a rough top (actually, that issue still hasn't resolved itself).

Had more exams. I was too nonchalant about the writing exam, I managed to break my record for lateness and turn up half way through the test. The reason was though, I honestly didn't realise the exam was that day. Enjoyed my teachers’ look of ‘really?...’ on his face as I walked in, priceless. Also managed to pass that exam, just. You can suck on that, preparation (personification). Lesson not learnt.

Going Out For Trout

Went to a winter (it was cool, pun intended) trout fishing festival (what) about an hour outside of Seoul. Train journey and the village it was in was amazing, surrounded by snowy mountains. Whilst walking from the train station, one of the first people that we encountered was a man a car. He wound down his window and shouted 'Welcome!', to which we replied 'Thank you' in Korean. He was so bowled over by how well we could apparently speak that he thrusted a bottle of Korean rice wine at us, told us to drink it and drove off.  I had the feeling I was gonna like this place.

Once we got to the festival, the fun (as in having no idea what was going on) started. Struggling to decrypt (a.k.a translate) the signs which used specialised fishing vocabulary which was elusive to our dictionary in order to buy an entry ticket proved to be the initial stumbling block. After buying the most expensive ticket in hope that would cover us for it all, we attempted to fish. We didn't have fishing rods. An old man came over to us as we looked confused at what was going on, and gave us some rods. After seeing us struggle to catch NOTHING, he came over with a fish that he had caught. Equipped with only (what I assumed was) a long handled poopa-scoopa, he performed some sort of voodo magic to slice the fish open with this seemingly blunt implement and leave it in a bag of bloody water for us to carry around and impress the locals. And impress we did. Had plenty of stares and a few folk say 'oh berry nigh-suh!' (oh very nice). Next challenge was what to do with a bag full of watery blood and a half dead/half flailing fish. Eat it. Again, wasn't quite sure who to go to or what to do, but thrusting the bags at locals and looking distressed seemed to do the trick. That always seems to do the trick. After some guy cut it up, we continued to look confused (genuinely was confused) so some other guy just bunged the fish on his barbecue and cooked it for us. Foreign privileges.

Went to an modern art exhibition. I knew it would annoy me. It did. Someone was selling a white canvas with a 'hoover tube' sticking out of it for about 7000 pounds. Robbery. Downstairs they had a collection of fridges, with what ever junk this guy could find glued to the fridge. And on another fridge he was obviously low on inspiration and just draw a picture of a man urinating. I don't 'get' it. I refuse to 'get' it.

Also rang up the airline to extend the return date of my plane ticket. Probably got mugged off with international call charges, especially as the conversation was extended by yours truly charming the lady on the other end of the phone by teaching her some words. In hindsight (actually, at the time too) it was clearly not worth it.

Also managed to rack up the grand total of 2 valentines gifts (sort of). Get in, that's a new record.

To Russia with love

Had a chat to my mate who is doing a year abroad in Canada*, and he introduced me the 'statistics' section for this website (I mean this one) where you can see how many times your blog has been viewed and from which countries. There were a few unexpected nations in the list, so this blog goes out to my Russian fanbase. All 16 of you. Keep making those wooden dolls inside dolls boys, that stuff is properly whack. Totally off the hook. Пожалуйста

It's been a while since I updated about Korean life. Took some midterm tests recently (2 weeks ago). The writing test didn't go so well. Rocking up 10 minutes late for a 50 minute test probably wasn't a good start. One of the questions was an agony aunt (person if we're being pc) style question of a person getting unhealthy due to lack of time and (apparently) therefore exercise (no excuse). There was also little appreciation from my teacher for my suggestion that she should go on a diet consisting solely of chicken and beer, and then explaining how this would practically be implemented daily. Although I did receive good marks on a different question where I explained that the girls that travel on the underground on line 2 are generally more attractive than the girls that travel on line 6 and that I was sad because I usually have to take line 6 (true story).

Talking of exercise, definitely enjoyed my friend at church telling me he's started attending the gym to get fit, and after me asking what exercises he had been doing he said 'golf swing'. Don't worry, just walking through the door burns the calories. Trust. It's been too cold to do anything interesting out doors. The most popular outdoor activities for me recently have been 'getting cold' and 'getting my nose red'. Although whilst attempting a mountain hike with a mate, before realising it was definitely too icy, watching her fall over and languidly (why thank you dictionary.com) slide down the same hill twice provided particular entertainment.

Our teacher invited us round his for a meal the other day. Was lovely, but managed to stay to late and missed the underground train to my house. I wasn't worrying, I could take the underground part of the way, and then a bus the rest of the way. I fell asleep on the underground, missing the stop I had intended to get off at. So, I caught a different bus instead (had to wait 30 mins, totally not worth it). Fell asleep on that too. When I woke up, in my daze, I thought I knew where I was, so got off. I didn't. After realising I was totally lost, I just took a taxi which if I had just done so to begin with would have knocked off a handsome hour and 40 minutes. Hindsight is a wonderful thing (not as wonderful as sleep, apparently).

*in a vain attempt to enhance his Russian viewers (you're welcome David), check him out at http://wheremoosesdare.blogspot.com/

Philippin' Awesome

The second country (and last) of my GLOBE TRAVELLING EXTRAVAGANZA (2 countries, already stated) was to the Philippines. I got invited out to travel for a week with my Filipino friend before she returned to Canada (confusing, don't ask). Go on then.

After a 4 hour delay of my flight, I managed to survive the (about) 45 temperature shift from neg 15 to pozzy 30ish. As I was packing light, this involved running to the bus stop in Seoul wearing all my t-shirts and one thin jumper. A little chilly. Initial impressions of Manila - mutha lovin' scary. Within minutes of getting in the taxi outside of the airport 2 kids had run across a busy road to knock on my window and ask me for money. I'd also managed to scare myself the night before arriving by reading many horror stories from peoples' time spent there of pickpockets and other general criminal activity. I spent the whole time cautiously guarding my belongings so that they wouldn't get stolen, in particular my camera which I ironically lost in Korea on the journey home. Genuine distress.

Seeing as my mate was Filipino, the planning was left to her. However she had taken my lazy motto 'no planning is best planning' to heart, and as most nights we left it till passed 11pm to find a place. This also lead to some rather dubious sleeping locations (purposefully vague, ask me), but also gave us more freedom and was more excitement. Sometimes. Stress others. Whilst I was in Japan I got a stared at a lot for being foreign, and thought that it would have been the same in the Philippines. To my sheer delight no one seemed to be staring at me. What was even more delightful was that instead they all seemed to stare at my Filipino friend, eyeing her up from head to toe and probably wondering which website that they too would need to sign up to to find a man of my calibre (by my 'calibre' I mean not fat and old). She claimed she didn't enjoy it, but I was paraded like a prized turkey. Her 20-something year old aunt even introduced me to her work colleagues as the her boyfriend. Used, abused.

My mate decided it would be great to introduce me to a Filipino delicacy, and after some recent questionable cuisines that my stomach had (heroically) managed to digest, I felt I could tackle anything (except a tackle). So on the menu, today's special -  chicken foetus. This was properly properly hanging. First you pierce the shell, so that you could drink the juices (vom), and then peel the shell away revealing a little half formed chicken foetus (vom), and then you eat that along with some other... thing that's inside (vom). It's called 'balut' if you wanna spank that into youtube and watch some insultingly grim videos.

Loved the transport. A 'Wallace and Gromit' style bike and side cart seemed to be the primary taxi-ing service, although this thing had a legal limit of 5 passengers (honestly couldn't fathom getting 5 on this thing) my mate claimed she managed to get 20 on one time. If that didn't give you enough thrills then you could get in a van with an open door in the back which essentially hop on, pay the driver about 20p and then hop off whenever you fancy. Broke a fair few British helath and safety laws. Talking of which, definitely very much enjoyed watching several around-7 year old children, without any parents around, playing a game of 'chase each other with a chunk of wood that is on fire'. That well-known classic.

I feel like I saw everything though: touristy islands, beautiful mountain sceneries, little towns and villages, rural houses, rough suburban areas, dodgy transport, disgusting foods, cheap everything. The thing that struck me the most was although people had less, everyone seemed a lot more happy and content with life than they do in the west. A trip that will live long in my memory, unforgettable. Thank you Fran.