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/