JISAN ROCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Last weekend was the weekend I'd been waiting for for a long time. Jisan Valley Rock festival! Tickets (which were remarkably cheap for what we got), were booked months in advance (ok, well a month) and everything was sorted. I'd even cheekily changed my 2 day ticket to a 3 the week before, so that I could take in the full weekend. However, the two Friday bands that I was most excited about, Jimmy Eat World and Fall Out Boy (I know, it's a dirty, dirty habit, but I can't help it. Give me emo boys in eyeliner - I'm a sucker!) played Friday around the time I finished work - boo!!!!!





I ran home for work and waited for the call from Christina to tell me that she was at Suwon Station, which was where she was getting the shuttle bus to from Gimpo, the airport that she lands in when she comes over to stay (Christina lives on Jeju - lucky thing!) and then I headed over to meet her. Originally, we were going to catch a bus over to Jisan resort, which is located about 40 mins from Incheon city, in the same province as YoungTong but, seeing as Christina met a couple of guys who were going the same way and I got a lovely taxi man, we took a cab the whole way there, for 50,000, which was pretty good seeing as the bus would have ended up being more expensive for us and would have taken hours longer.





We arrived at the resort about 7, just when it was starting to get dark, and met up with Busan Ben and his friends Colleen and Jack. We made our way straight to campsite A, which was where Houley was camping that came highly recommended (even though it was on a hill). Ben, Jack and Colleen wasted no time putting up their tent perfectly whilst Christina and I (ok, mostly Christina), threw ours up, with the resulting 'tent' looking like a dying, wrinkled turtle. We got the last laugh later on though, seeing as it pee'd it down and Ben's tent wasn't waterproof. We had an extra 3 bodies taking up space in our tent that night!


Around the time we'd finished putting up the tents, we heard the first chords of the Starsailor set, so took ourselves swiftly down to the Green Stage, which, brilliantly, was right near our site. We grabbed some beer and headed in. I have to say I was very impressed by Starsailor and didn't even realise how many of their songs I knew, never really having given them the time of day before. Definately glad that I saw them though, their set was up there with one of the best acts I saw the whole weekend, and the standard was high. During the set we saw my friend Veronica, who was just at the fest for the night and looked very happy to be there - I would have hated to have left though, takes a stronger woman than I to leave the festivities, class the next day or no! Afterwards Christina disappeared off to get changed, so Ben, Jack, Colleen and I waited for her for a while before realising the she'd actually disappeared and that the figure Colleen had seen running to the main stage was, in fact, the girl herself. We hurried over to the main stage sans Christina to watch Weezer, who were headlining Friday night. Weezer did play a brilliant set, but I was pretty shocked to see how old they were getting, there were wrinkles and bald heads all around - sorry Weezer, but it's true! Still, much dancing and singing was had, specially to 'Island in the Sun,' which was played brilliantly. When the set had finished, we headed to the Jaegermeister tent, next to the Green stage and which, after the last band each night turned into the Electro Session tent, and drank some interesting cocktails, I got an excellent piggy back from Ben and we all met up with a very wasted Houley. The rest of the night remains a blur, but I have been reliably informed that I fell asleep with my eyes open, which drew a crowd, and the rest of the pictures speak for themselves. An excellent eve!





After the departure of Colleen, Jack and Ben from our tent, Christina and I awoke about 10am and decided to head to the swimming pool. A note on the resort here - it's awesome. I was expecting a Glasto style venue, but I was completely mistaken. There was a swimming pool, food hall, good lockers, real toilets, which were amazing, however the portaloos that were also provided were brilliant too, being supplied with lots of loo roll and soap and being kept very clean. Now, I know it's not the festival thing to be clean yourself, nevermind shower or swim, but hell, this is Korea, so I did it! Haha! I can be so crazy sometimes. . .



After a swim and a wash we headed to the main stage, found the Busan massive and collapsed, dozing in the sun whilst listening to some excellent bands - some Korean, some not. Of note were the amazing Human Instinct, a random old geezer band from New Zealand, who got us boogieing away, and Uncle Kim, who were equally as brilliant. I met with a couple of Koreans and we danced 'til sweat was pouring off us. Faye arrived, as did Ben and Frank and we spent a perfect afternoon doing nothing but dancing and having fun whilst looking at the mountains nearby and the beautiful dragonflies who were drifting over the venue all weekend - mating season you see, they were procreating everywhere, though I prefer to think they were there for the music.



That evening, after we'd freshened up somewhat, we grabbed some bbq ribs and headed back to the main stage for Basement Jaxx. From what I've heard Faye likes them, though she was totally subdued during the entire set. Honestly. She also didn't ask everyone she met for the rest of the weekend if BJ were not the best live band they'd ever seen, ever. The atmosphere for Basement Jaxx was pretty electric and all the Westerners and Koreans were going equally mad. Houley decided, just before the set however, to pass out, on his face, which was a worry. Still, after some shaking and a couple of slaps from Faye and I he rolled over, shouted 'an dae' a couple of times and then let us haul him up - but only after trying to curl up and sleep round our ankles. Entertaining, after the original panic! The set was awesome and we all jumped around like crazies until the very end. Those women know how to shake it, and the tunes, as always, were immense. After Jaxx finished we all headed off our own way for a little while, with Faye and I going for a walk around the lovely lake at the back of the site and the others carrying on drinking. On the way back from the lake, I found myself an amazing tent, by itself in the middle of the path, so I stole it, wore it and ran around the main stage, causing corruption and making friends for an hour of so. Much fun, however, it was cut short just before I could get to the dance stage (I was preparing to start a 'how many Korean's can you fit in a tent?' competition) by two Koreans chasing me across a path screaming that I had stolen their tent. Whoops! Turns out it did belong to someone after all, though why they'd leave it in the middle of a path, with no possessions in, is beyond me. Still, I apologised and walked away a little abashed. Anyway, the rest of the night was spent dancing, chatting and generally doing what you do at festivals, however, for once, I headed to bed relatively sober about 3, which was actually a stupid idea, as I could feel the floor - making for a less comfortable nights sleep than the day before! You try to be sensible....



Sunday arrived with a birdsong and a ray of sun, and the groans of Frank, Faye and Christina, who were far more hungover than I, for once. Faye and I left the other two to nurse their heads while we went for some breakfast kimchi jigae and a shower, in order to feel human for the rest of the day and wash off all the dancing sweat. Pretty sure we did not smell to good when we woke up. After meeting up with Trev, Houley and the rest of the Suwon lot, we headed to the beer tents by the main stage and sat down to have a bit of a Sunday session and watch of the world go by. After a while, Faye, Ben and I decided to head off for a bit of a nap by the entrance fountain, which set us up royally, and got rid of the residual hangover (I was just tired, honest!) so that the drinking could commence again. We lost Ben somewhere after that, but the Butch and I had an awesome couple of hours walking about and chatting to people, and the birth of the CHUNON dance was heralded about 7 o'clock. For those of you that are unfamiliar with CHUNON, well, it's hard to explain. Generally a chunon is one thousand one, and it all stemmed from a day out and another crazy ajumma. Anyway, the dance rocks - that's all you need to know. We finally met up with the rest of the group and headed to the front of the main stage for Oasis. Faye and I were hoping to hear 'Stand By Me,' which we'd earlier dubbed our song, but alas, it wasn't to be. They did however, belt out the old classics and everyone went suitably wild. Turns out that it was one of Oasis' last gigs, which is sad, though we should have seen it coming as Noel and Liam were cocks to each other all night, repeatedly walking off stage etc . On another note, Noel kept on his parka, despite the sweltering heat, all set. You could actually see the sweat through the jacket by the end of the night. Not very nice at all.

Sadly, all good things must come to an end, so after Oasis Faye, Christina, Trev and I headed to a taxi rank and got a taxi home, all feeling a little poorer, a little heavier and a lot happier. Truly, Jisan did rock.

A load of fat Westerners covered in filth? That'd be mudfest, then.

Ever since I arrived in Seoul, I had been told by various people (mainly from Now bar), that I had to try out the annual Mud Festival in Boryeoung, as it was 'the thing' to do whilst being here. Purely on the basis that the words 'mud' and 'festival' were used, I got quite excited that this could be Korea's answer to Glastonbury (where I am partial to a bit of mud sliding) and signed my name up for 2009's effort, 11th and 12th July. It wasn't and the only music act was Rain (which fit in well with the weather), who I'm pretty sure would have bottles of wee thrown at him if he were to ever play at Pilton farm.





We left Seoul at about 9.45 Sat morning and were instantly amazed by the planning, or lack thereof, our chosen 'company' provided. Not that we weren't expecting it, the girl that we had booked our tickets through, had been constantly Facebooking people, with increasingly bizarre messages (luckily I hadn't joined the Mudfest group, however I was a little sad that I'd missed out on all the fun of watching a woman descend into madness), and had called Faye earlier in the week to lament that she needed to 'sort out' her Korean friend who kept phoning (no one we knew was phoning her) and 'speaking crap'. Also, that if Faye didn't do this, she'd be mad and that she was 'friends with a lot of black people, innit.' Quite why she deigned to tell Faye this was beyond us, but you know, crazies do strange things.


The bus driver quickly accosted Luna, our Korean friend, and asked her where the heck they were supposed to be going, whilst getting her to translate the destination into English for the coach sign. In return we were ushered to the best coach and given free t-shirts. Score us. The bus journey went rather quickly, even though for much of it I was gasping for a wee (can I just point out again, Korean coaches do not have toilets) and we had the misfortune of sitting near possibly the most annoying, loudest Welsh person alive. She was even worse than Frank. ;o) Even lovely, sweet Amy was threatening to strangle her by the end of the 3 hour journey.





Arriving at Boryeoung we were reminded of that old American adage 'Spring Break'. This was constantly reinforced by possibly all the teachers in Korea running past screeching and chugging from beer cans. There was even a geezer with a frat tattoo, which caused our group much mirth. Not only did all the teachers in Korea seem to be at the fest, but also most of the American military too, which begs the question, who the heck was defending South Korea from the North? Kim Jong-il, sort it out mate, if your spies were worth anything you could've waged a massive attack and pretty much conquered the South, all because of Mudfest.


Our team quickly looked around for Rudi, the organiser of our coaches/hotel room and realised that a) we'd gotten a bus with the completely wrong company (but yey for free t-shirts) and b) she was as unorganised as we'd thought, being surrounded by about 5000 pissed off westerners and seemingly pointing them all to random parts of the town, saying, 'yes, your hotel is there, tell them I sent you and it'll be fine.' We finally got our chance to talk to her and were sent to a rather ok hotel called the Persian, just around the corner. On arrival we were told that we had not yet been allocated a room, as Rudi had failed to pay the deposit and they weren't sure what time we could check in. We mooched around a bit and then confronted Rudi again, who told us that the hotel were talking crap and that we would indeed have a room, within the next five minutes, or her friends would sort them out. Half an hour later, more due to Luna being a star than Rudi, we were in our room, leaving a lot of annoyed westerners in the lobby. Not sure how many got their rooms sorted, but I did hear reports of complaints from people on the Monday (that Facebook thing again) and when we passed Rudi a couple of hours later there was a policeman around her and both her and the check-in girl at the Persian were in tears - turns out Rudi's card was declined. Whoops.



Anyway, we had a hotel room, so smugly we wandered into the affray. Our main mistake was to wear flip flops, which were quickly returned to the hotel room along with cameras, money, comedy ajumma visors and other such necessities. On our return we ploughed headfirst into the midst of the fun, colouring ourselves all the colours of the muddy rainbow (there was paint pigment - pretty sure it's a carcinogenic, but still, whole lotta fun), wrestling, diving into the mud swimming pool and then rinsing it all off in the ocean, where Ben managed to lose a second pair of glasses. No worries though, I dove into the surf and found some glasses for him! They weren't his and had no lenses, but I'd like to think, in the scheme of things, that didn't really matter. More mud was involved as the afternoon wore on and, with a shivering still tonsilitis'd up Amy (we'd gone out for her birthday the Thursday before and she'd overdone it some on the beer, fags and norebang), we headed to the room for a quick change of clothes about 6ish.



Once the showers were had, we heard a knock on the door and a rather random Australian came in, asking if we'd seen his friends. We said no, but invited him in for a beer and a chat. Everyone made arrangements with him to meet up again later on in the night, but alas, that didn't happen. Randomly enough though, whilst trying to convince James of the Ruddick fame to come over for a visit via his status profile, a guy commented also that he lived in Korea. I looked at the picture, and sure enough the random Aus guy was also friends with James - turns out they travelled together about two years ago. Needless to say, Dan and I are now friends and James is looking for flights over. Ah, such a small world.

The rest of the evening passed in a blur in the local bar, California (just another ode to the western lovin' in Boryeoung). I can't remember most of it, but, randomly I woke up with a few new numbers in my phone. The next morning, I hung my head in drunken hangover shame and, after a breakfast bibimbap we very naughtily jumped on a bus to Suwon, taking with us Matti, the lovely South African and leaving about 5 people without a bus ride home. Sorry, folks! We're going to hell, but hey, least we're all together, it'll be more fun that way.

A romantic weekend with the wife and then some baseball!

Well, it was another weekend not planned!!! What is the world coming to?! Absolutely terrible! Still, as usual, something was in the pipeline, so I headed to the holiday village after work and knocked up the Butcher. Friday night was spent quietly, with a bit of kimbab action and then a trip back to Faye's to watch some films. Tame, but, as always when Butchie and I are together, excellent fun.



Saturday morning we decided to give the markets is Seoul a try. We got on a bus to Gangnam, which, at the current time is my favourite place in the capital, during the daytime at least. Gangnam has all the most amazing shops and lots of cool bars, including my favourite, Prague bar. Saying this however, my experience of Seoul is pretty darn slight. Sometimes I worry that I'm missing out, seeing as I've barely ventured around my own doorstep, but then again, I've seen a heck of a lot of the rest of the country during my short time in Korea, and I think that through the winter months I'll probably be spending more time discovering all that Seoul has to offer. Not much more though, seeing as there's skiing to be done and frozen waterfalls to climb, but all the same. One arrival in Gangnam, we wasted no time (apart from the bit where we got lost) getting to Dr Fish's, so that a few little fish could nibble at our toes. The poor guys. I've mentioned Dr. Fish's before but for those of you who didn't read that blog/can't remember and can't be bothered to scroll, then Dr. Fish's is a cafe where you go to put your feet into water full of fish (very cheap for both the service and the drinks and you get free 'all you can eat' toast and jam - amazing). The fish nibble all the dead skin off your feet, leaving you feeling relaxed and your feet feeling soft. Or that's the intention anyway. Faye and I stuck our feet in, screamed with laughter as it tickled so much and, on withdrawing our feet 20 minutes later, realised that our tootsies were FAR too far gone to be as smooth as could be, rather there were just a load of really bloated fish turning to each other and exclaiming that they didn't get paid enough to gnaw all the crap off those excuses for walking instruments. Still, the experience was pretty good. I reckon if we kept at it, we could develop a some fresh and lovely skin.



We emerged back into the rain, for that was what Saturday was about, unfortunately, and found the local Mexican eatery that Rubes is always going on about. Located in a side alley off the main drag of Gangnam, you can get rather over-priced, but extremely tasty burritos, tacos, nachos and chimichangas, whilst people watching all the other westerners that come in. Pretty good craic, but I'm not sure I was as enamoured with the food as Miss Dee, shame that, as I love Mexican and am rather partial to a fajita or two (dozen). Whilst eating I found a card advertising the 'HOPE' charity, which enables western teachers to give back by working with disadvantaged kids in Seoul, teaching them English. I've been in contact with the co-ordinator and am hoping to start volunteering as soon as August's 9-5 timetable is out of the way. Luckily, there is a school in Gangnam I can help out at, so it should be easy to head there one morning a week. Also mentioned were soup kitchens, which got me rather excited owing to my work in that field while in Nottingham. Excellent.



Feeling about 100 stone heavier, Faye and I made our way to Namdaemun market. Namdaemun is one of the oldest markets in SK and is located by the old South Gate to the old city. The market is huge, and when you arrive you will spot tourist information booths with maps and friendly English speaking (for the most part) staff, who will send you on your way with a smile. Despite this, we saw only a very small part of the market, missing, somehow, most of it, even though it spans a huge area. Well done, girls. Still, the part we saw was an experience, finding many things on offer, such as bum shaping padding, hankies with hair attached, ginseng and pots and pans a-plenty. I have to say, Namdaemun is worth a look from a purely touristy perspective, but if you're after clothes and you're not an ajumma, or are looking for anything that isn't cookery related or tat, it's probably worth heading to Dongdaemun instead. Good to visit though.



Next on the agenda, after a long debate of 'where shall we go?'' Dunno, where do you want to go?' date stylee, was a Han river cruise! Yey! We took the purple line to Yeouninaru (ignore the Lonely Planet, it tells you to get off a stop earlier, which is further away from the river and, well, pointless really. Silly LP!) and then walked to the river, where we saw a couple of moored up boats that were being used as restaurants/convenience stores and jetties for the cruises themselves. We bought the standard single course (which, I found out, doesn't mean that you get one course of a meal also. Just so you know.) that took us 15 mins down the Han one way, past a nice fountain in the middle of the river and then back. It was rather pretty I must say, though the highlight of the evening was finding the lit up heart at the back of the ferry and posing for some rather romantic photos. Oh, the Butch, how I love you so! Heehee!



It was decided that we would stay in Seoul that night, as to leave and then head back to meet the girls for baseball the next day would be rather annoying, so instead we headed to our favourite jimjilbang - Dragon spa! It's found in Yongsan, right next to the station and is not only a 24 hour affair that is pretty close to Itaewon, but is also one of the best jimjilbangs around. This place has it all, cinemas, rooftop terraces, a swimming pool, all the rooms you could imagine and a lot of baths, norebang, pc bang, restaurants, massage parlours, the lot. We spent a while pampering ourselves and then hunkered down, only to wake up early the next morning to do it all again. Bliss! Shame that we didn't bring our cossies, as we could have quite happily spent most of the next day messing about in the pool. Still, we had somewhere to be - BASEBALL!!!!!!!!!


We headed to the Digital Sports Complex and met up with Anda, who had us in hysterics with her buying water antics. Come on, it's buying water, how can it be that funny? Still, it gave birth to the CHUNON! term and hasn't been forgotten since. The game was between Doosan Bears, the visitors from, well Doosan and Seoul's own LG Twins. Of course, like the morons you expect us to be, we ended up in the Bear stands, but to be honest it made not a jot of difference, apart from when trying to guide Ruby and Amy to where we were sitting. There was screaming, dancing girls and Mexican waves aplenty, and just when we thought that the game would outlast us (we had to get the last bus home) the LG Twins won and all was over. An excellent game all round though, even though we were so high up it was hard to see the players. 'Cept for Ruby of course, who could tell which player was Korean and which wasn't; 'You know, you can tell by the features'...Ha, bless her!

Things that make me giggle in Korea.

I know, I've got about a million posts to write before I can even think about getting up to date, but I can't be bothered to write a full post. So here's some things that have made me laugh since I've been in Korea. I apologise to most people, who won't find this as funny as I do, but if you're ever around me and want to make me do a little happy wee, then remind me of a couple of these things.... (this will be updated, possibly)...

1)Ajummas. In general. Wearing shower caps on their heads in the rain, dressing in tracksuits, gloves, visors and dust masks, being pushy, bickering and stabbing each other in the back, looking cool, wearing garish make-up (I saw an ajumma the other day wearing a black and yellow mini dress with blue shoes and eyeshadow). Secretly, I think that there are rival ajumma gangs, with different coloured tracksuits to mark their homies. They ride around on public transport and beat people up with hiking poles. It's a worry, it really is.

2) the ajumma we caught walking the wrong way up the escalator, which then turned on, and went downwards. A little bit of wee came out.

3) Anda's swimming technique whilst rafting. And the climbing down the mountain in Deokjeokjo.

4) teaching my kids 'the eye of the tiger' and making them sing it every time we have a spelling test. Which is every lesson. Never fails to make me smile.

5) drunken Korean men - always happy, always either weeing or falling asleep in the street.

6) couples outfits. Why the hell would you do that? Matching trainers, shirts, trousers. Why? We can tell you're a couple from the fact you're all over each other. We don't need flags, too.

7) norebang singing. So many memories. Enter Sandman, Under the Sea, Faye's rendition of 'Ting Tang Tong' that she somehow sang to Koreans without them finding her even a tad racist.

8) my kids. In general, when they're not being shits. From dancing for me, to doing the latest, 'comedy routine' to them looking at me like I'm weird when I'm dancing round the room. They're five and they're disdainful -bless them.

9) Jimjilbangs and Korean pubic hair. 'Nuff said.

10) Jon's drunken fireworks displays. Also that phone conversation. 'Amy is shaving. She very hairy.'

11) Korean biker gangs. They just don't work all that well, do they?

12) Henry. All the time. When he gets his head stuck in loo rolls especially.

13) Rat dogs. Want to kick them. When they're dressed up and in prams is the best. A dog in a pram. The world has gone mad. Well, Korea, anyway. It was made to walk, let it do so, for the love of all that is holy.

14) Watching people eat bondeggi. You can just capture the moment that the pus explodes out and plasters itself to the eater's gums. Yumtastic.

15) The Korean kid in a fellow teachers class that turned up in a t-shirt bearing the legend 'too drunk to fuck'. Legend he is.

16) Fan death. Because Korean people really believe that if you leave your fan/air con on for too long, it will create a vortex sucking all the oxygen out of the air and you will die. Google it if you don't believe me.

17) Konglish. Can't speak Korean? No worries! Stick an 'e' or a 'che' on the end of every word and you're almost there! Similarly, English writing on most t-shirts/pencilcases. Excellent.

18) synchronised dance routines. Join in with me, 'down, down, do it babe, do it babe...' Couple of steps to the left, to the right, forwards, backwards and then turn around. Repeat about 50 times and job done.

19) Ridiculous signs. With a man peeing to denote the male toilets, shop names like 'Athlete's Foot' and so on and so forth.

20) Freaking out about health and germs. Contrary to popular belief, it's what Korean's do best.

21) Making a song for everything. New phones, new computers, infomercials.

22) Infomercials. Like the one selling something that makes you wee harder. Why would you want that?

23) G-Dragon. Korean's most wanted male. And a moron. Lipsychs with the best of them.

That's all for now, but I'll remember about a million things pretty soon, I'm sure. . .

Rafting and Seouling 20/21st June

Hadn't really got anything planned for the week after Ganghwa, which was rather unlike us! Cue many phone calls between myself, Anda and Faye on Wednesday and Thursday trying to plan on what to do to relieve another week of teaching crazy Korean kids.

We decided on rafting down Hangtanggang river in the end, which is situated in Cheorwon, North of Seoul and pretty close to the North Korea border. Faye and I spent Friday evening at the holiday village again, this time going for a rather lovely 김 밥 meal at her local shop and then renting out a couple of movies, one being The Holiday, a rather girly flick starring Kate Winslet and Jack Black and the other being the Orphanage, Guillermo del Torro's excellent effort at a horror movie. I don't often get freaked out at horror movies, but I did find myself a little during this one, specially as the lights were all off and Faye fell asleep pretty much straight away! Bless. Still, kids though, freakiest thing to have in a horror movie, they just invite creepiness. I'm pretty sure I'd be more freaked out hearing a child laugh in a dark, deadly wood, than I would a wolf. Definitely recommend giving the Orphanage a whirl if ever you do fancy a good film, though if you're not a subtitle fan, it's not the one for you.

Saturday morning we awoke late, around 10, so had to leave our very tasty breakfast and get a wriggle on in order not to miss the bus that was heading from Gangbyeon about 12 noon. Damn, Faye had just had a delivery of Marmite too, so I was very upset. Still, luckily the journey to the bus was pretty uneventful and we made it and met up with Anda and Mike in plenty of time. The bus ride to the rafting HQ was uneventful, though horrifically boring, owing to it taking bloody ages, and I'm pretty sure not just 'one and a half hours', like it said in the blurb. It was actually more like 2 and a half and by the end of the journey we were readier than ever to head to the water. We jumped into a taxi and headed a small caravan with a couple of what seemed to be marquees nearby and kitted ourselves out in very attractive helmets, life jackets, plastic macs and jelly shoes. Turns out that rafting definitely isn't for fashionistas, though I'm pretty sure I'm not one of those, meaning I was pretty happy with displaying my ass strap (which you had to do up when donning the life jacket, to make sure that you'd cut yourself in two before the thing slipped off you. Nice.), and posing for some ace pictures.

When we arrived at the river it began to rain, which we didn't mind, as we were about to get soaked and were shepherded into a red rubber raft that also accommodated 5 Korean guys. The woman that attempted to give us the safety briefing wasn't very good at English, but she tried very hard and we got the basic idea, thank goodness. It wasn't until halfway down the river we were told that one of the Korean men was in fact an English lecturer, however I'm not sure how true this was, as he seemed to be shit at English and didn't help us with any explanations, in fact, the only thing he really said was 'that's gas!' after he farted really loudly. Thank goodness Mike is excellent at Hangeul, he managed to make some conversation about how to raft properly and about the scenery, which was amazing. The area around the river has been quoted as 'the Grand Canyon of Korea' and the rock formations and waterfalls were something to behold. I spent much of our time floating down the river looking up in awe and feeling pretty lucky to be where I was right then and not stuck in the UK, no offence to those that were/are! Unfortunately, there aren't that many rapids on Hangtanggang however, we got to ride a few and although jumping off one of the cliffs was strictly vetoed, we were allowed to jump in the water a few times and have a bit of a swim, which was brilliant, and something that I'd been desperate to do for a long time. At one point, we rode a bit of a bumpy rapid part, which meant that Anda and Faye both half fell into the river and that Anda was almost suffocated by Faye. I had her trouser leg to haul her out if she was under too long, but luckily, she came up laughing pretty quickly after that and we carried on our journey. Later, Anda caused more joviality by swimming in a hilarious fashion, (not intentionally) and getting a mean wedgie from the ass strap, which also affected the Korean men, when I tried to pull a couple out of the water by them - their voices were a couple of octaves higher by the end of the day, lets just say that.

The end of our rafting adventure came much too quickly and we found ourselves heading back to Seoul, as there didn't seem to be much around Cheorwon, and the rain and time of night hindered any other plans that we could have made. Luckily Frank, Jon, Tambo, Johnny Walker, Boram and her friends were in Seoul, so we headed to Itaewon for a night of dancing. There we bumped into my Korean husband again, and Little Red, and I got way too drunk (I'm not excusing it, but free drinks all night, I should not be allowed to do that, ever.) and had to apologise to various people the next morning - sorry all! Morning saw me waking up in Jon and Lachlan's flat in Pyongnae and Jon and I had a lovely afternoon of sitting in a water park eating ice cream and relaxing in a Barbara Walters/Streisand themed bar, before I decided it was time to head towards home. Tambo decided, to stave of the hangover blues, that he would head out with me and we made the journey to Itaewon and the Wolfhound, which is an amazing Irish bar that sells all kinds of English food. I decided to go for the toad in the hole and Ben went for 'The Whole Shebang,' which was the world's biggest fry-up that he thought he could handle, however someones eyes were far too big for his belly. After, we decided to stay for the pub quiz, which was, it seems, the most unbelievably hard thing in the world and I was of no use, leaving Ben to struggle on for the entirety of the first round, before we snuck out, tails between our legs. Next stop was 'Woodstock', an excellent bar that has an amazing playlist, of which you are allowed to choose the music, but that night we were treated to some questionable comedy and some better music, after one of the most boring speeches ever. Suffice to say that the topic this fella chatted about didn't stick in my mind, though I think it was something about Seoul writers club. The last stop of the night was to head to Chonggyechon, the man made water feature that straddles a large part of the city. Chonggyechon was built by the current Prime Minister, in order to show the world that Korea is taking it's pollution issues seriously. Which is nice. The stream itself is even more so, with lasers, lights, stepping stones and small fish, and about a million Korean couples chilling on the edges. Ben and I took a walk around for a while, looked at the art on show, before deciding that we had to grab the subway home, lest we wished to sleep rough all night. I think I reached home about 12 and then, after a quick call to the homegirls fell happily into the land of nod, knowing that another weekend had been well spent. . .

GANGHWA!!! And some other stuff.

I've been intent on writing for a while now, but haven't quite gotten round to it, with school being busy, weekends being booked and general life getting in the way. Anyway, tonight the air is finally cooler than normal, owing to an immense thunderstorm this morning (I love thunderstorms more than anything in the world, they make me feel so alive and appeal to the gothic lover inside me - where's my Poe novel, godamnit?!), I don't have too much to do and I'm skint, so what better time to dedicate an hour to catching up with a life that's flying by?



The week that followed Deokjeokdo meant the departure of the lovely Sharon teacher from school. I was truly sad about this, as Sharon is a lovely girl and really helped a sista out when she first arrived in Korea. Still, all things must come to an end, and Sharon will be returning soon, after a lovely break back home in Canada and a chance to see her neice and nephew. With the departure of Sharon came Adam, who has been here for about a month now, and is a really cool guy. Annie teacher was a bit worried about how having a male in a female run school would affect our dynamic, but I think that his arrival may have improved our banter somewhat, as you know what happens when there's too much oestrogen in the room. Still, poor guy, he does get it in the neck somewhat! That weekend Faye, Anda, Amy and I headed to the north of Seoul, for a brilliant shamanistic walk, made comical by my repeated falls, including the one where I bent my toes backwards and didn't realise, Anda's inability to get down another mountain and subsequent escorting by an old, old man, our hulahoop tries - can I just point out here that I am ACE at hulahoop, something that amazed me as much as the rest of the girls and our long and 'interesting' chat about conkers. Amy, bless her, was very confused about conkers but very bored by the end of a 20 min lecture on 'the best way to soak your conkers so you can win battles' and 'where the conker actually comes from'. Americans, they just don't get it, hey? We spent Sat night in Pyongnae, as there was a house party to celebrate Frank's birthday and all ended up drinking too much and overdosing on the bondeggi that I kindly bought the Fman as a present. I'm that kind. Still, awesome time had by all.
The week after this is a blur, though I vaguely remember girly night in Suwon and DVD banging whilst watching girly films - excellent way to spend a Wed. Come Friday, we had our exploring hats on once more, this time the planned location being Gangwha-do. A moment to give you the blurb about Ganghwa. Although not a pretty as Deokjeokdo, Ganghwa-do is a nice little island, in the estuary of the Han river, connected to Incheon by a bridge. It's the northern-most island controlled by South Korea, and from the northern part of the island you can take a sneaky peak into North Korea. The area of the island is about 302km and it is quite mountainous, which isn't really a surprise, as it's in Korea, the third most mountainous country in the world, size accounting. At the top of the main mountain, Mani-san, the God-king Dangun was rumoured to have made sacrifices to the Gods (I presume at the time, this didn't include him), making the island quite a pulling place for tourists, that, and the world's biggest Dolmen, a UNESCO world heritage site. Poor old Ganghwa has also been invaded many a time, which adds to the lure of the place for many historians.

Butchie and I jumped on to a subway straight after work to catch a bus to said island. Which we missed. Though I maintain it was not our fault. Poor Mike had been waiting for us at Gangbyeon station for about 2 hours, so when we finally met up he didn't have the biggest smile on his face. Whoops - sorry, Mike! Even later than us though was new recruit to the team (who we met the Friday before at a party in Yongtong full moon park), Birthday girl, Christina, who got herself completely lost on the subway and spent about 3 hours underground. Bless! Not too much fun after catching a flight from Jeju straight after work. Poor love. Anyway, we headed to Hongdae (where Christina finally joined us) for a night of relaxing, with the aim of relaxing in a jimjilbang before catching the first bus to Gangwha, which was due to leave about half 5 in the morning. By this time it was already 11, so after spending some time in a really cool jazz bar, brought to our attention by Panda, we headed for chicken, (where we saw a brilliant fight between a Korean man and woman, ex-couple from what I could glean) and then to a hooka (the pipe, people, the pipe) bar, which was possibly one of the coolest bars I've visited here (thanks, Mike). Once you walk into the bar, the walls which until that point are just your bogstandard, you know, plaster, paont thing, become rocks and lights blaze at you from randomly chosen spots. The music, instead of normal relaxed hooka joints, was techno/trance and the flavours of tabacco on offer, amazing. We spent a good couple of hours there soaking up the crazy ambiance and then decided to get our heads down for an hour or so. Which we did. In the bar. The barman was rather surprised, when he'd closed the doors at the end of the night, to see 5 sheepish heads pop up from behind a wall (our chosen sleeping spot was deviously picked due to the privacy of walls and the fact it was on a higher level than the rest of the place) and make their way into the early morning light. Bet he checks the place thoroughly every night now. Sucker.

Luckily, we got to Gangbyeon on time and, after purchasing some snacks, sat down for the long ride to Ganghwa, which, owing to it being half 5 in the am, wasn't very long, in all honesty. We got to the station about 7 and, as we were so tired, decided to get a taxi to take us to one of the beachy stretches of the island, Dongmak. During the taxi ride we were all pretty tired, pretty hungry and pretty stinky and there was a lot of miscommunication and jokes that sunk heavily to the floor of the car. In fact, I'm pretty sure that when we disembarked at our destination, the taxi was still weighed down and drove off, tail hitting the road. At first, we were worried that the place was a complete shithole and that we'd been dumped in the middle of nowhere with little way of getting back to the station, as the taxi driver informed us that taxis were infrequent heading through the town. Crap. We decided to take a seat on the beach for a while though, even though the weather wasn't looking too hot, and decide what to do. Luckily for us. Later on in the day, with the benefit of hindsight, we decided we'd been a bit rash in looking at a place, at 7.15am, and deciding it was crap. Isn't everywhere at 7am?! Stupid us. By 9, we'd chilled out and realised that the place was in fact pretty nice and that the sea, although having a massive receding tide pattern, was lovely, although swimming wasn't an option due to the mud flats. We found our nearest minbak and a quick shower later jumped on a bus to the nearest temple.

After a dinner of kimchi jigae, which we were all gagging for, we headed up towards a lovely temple, Jeondungsa, in the middle of the island. Jeondungsa used to house the Buddhist scriptures the Tripitaka Koreana, before they were moved to a different location. Although the temple no longer boast these scriptures, the place is still rather beautiful and we spent a nice hour there before heading to the docks to meet Tambo, Frank and Jon, (who were joining us late, as they were lame and got too drunk the night before to head out any earlier than late morning), and for a quick ferry ride to Seokmodo. Once on Seokmodo, Frank (the man, the legend), suggested we all hire bikes for a ride around, a suggestion that was received with joy by the whole team, especially Mike, our resident semi-pro bmx-er. The ride was brilliant and the views amazing, though the uphill journey found most of us stopping and walking up the road and at one point Frank breaking his bike, meaning he had to free-wheel back to the other side of the island to claim a fully functional ride. Whoops! We also spent a lot of time freewheeling, which was bloody exhilarating, especially when faced with beautiful views and a bit of opera, courtesy of a random house we went past. About half way round Seokmodo is Bomunsa, which is another excellent temple, with a Buddha rock carving at the top of a rather steep hill (a joy to climb) and 491 steps, where Korean women go to pray for sons. Again, we got to take in some amazing views and it was with a sad faces that we descended again. However, there was still half an island to cycle round and more amazing views to see and rice paddies to meander through. As per, I injured myself on the ride home and, although almost a month later, I still have the most beautiful scar to remind me that I should be careful when cycling on a crappy bike....




We finally returned the our charges, though over an hour late, and hopped back on the ferry, for some more seagull attacking (the gulls tend to hang around the back of the boat, waiting for food from tourists and generally looking pretty, but striking poo fear into the hearts of all) and then a quick taxi ride to Dongmak. Well, I say quick, it was pretty long and the taxi guy tried to charge us 20,000 for the ride, whilst trying to find out where he was going on his mobile and muttering that we were 'ke sakes' under his breath (ke sake translated loosely into 'dog baby'. Nice). Anyway, somehow the girls made it back before the boys, which means that we locked them out of our minbak (8 people sharing at tiny room? Made for nice smells in the morning) for a little while whilst we made ourselves purdy.

I decided that I was going to take a little walk for a while after my shower. The weekend of Ganghwa was a pretty strange one for me, as it was the 10th anniversary of mum's death. I was feeling pretty strange about the whole thing, as it's a heartbreaking time for anyone, I'd expect, and I was feeling rather sad, as you would. I chatted to Dad earlier on in the day, and had a bit of a cry, but I thought that it was time to spend a bit of time talking to her (or the memory of) by myself. Luckily, there couldn't have been a better place to have done it than where I was right then. Those of you who knew mum, would know that she was an avid traveller and always had hopes that I would follow in her shoes, and a massive reason for me getting off my bum and moving halfway across the world at this particular point in life was the 10 year mark. I'd always intended on travelling, but it felt like I kept putting it off, and this massive milestone and a chance meeting with a stranger really put me into motion. I think that, for all my faults and the rest of it, she would be truly proud that I'm here and doing what I'm doing, and may not have been too ashamed to call me her daughter afterall. Anyway, there was a massive heart to, whatever it is, while I watched the sunset over the ocean, and I came away feeling a lot better. I would also like to take this chance to thank all of my lovely friends for all that they did that weekend, you all made it truly special and picked me right up - I know that mother would have loved every last one of you, as much as I do. It really meant a lot, more than you could know. Yep, sometimes I'm gushy. It happens.


On return, we all headed off for samgyeopsal, which is like galbi, but with pork strips a bit like thick bacon. The meal was excellent, and much laughter was had and beer was consumed. After, we headed to the beach, (minus Christina, who was poorly), which is always a fun option whilst away for the weekend. Luckily the ajeemas (see, correct spelling...) were out in force and selling cheap fireworks once more, though we did have to travel across the road to purchase them. Lame. Many pile ons, firework fights (Ben's face and actions are still freaking me out...) and beers later, we'd had one of the best nights possible, in fact, still, a month later, one of the best nights I've had here, regardless of the anniversary.
The next morning, we attempted to climb Mani-san, the mountain mentioned earlier, however, after an hour of riding a bus and realising we'd missed the mountain by about 50 minutes, we sacked the idea off and decided to head to the Dolmen instead. Which were, by all accounts, a massive bloody letdown. The construction of Dolmen is pretty darn cool, seeing as they were being made thousands of years ago and the Dolmen that we visited had a stone weighing 50 tonnes perched on top of it. Constructed as tombs to dead greats, the vertical pillars of the Dolmen are covered to with earth and the huge top stone hauled up to rest on top of the vertical ones. The earth is then dug out and you are left with a massive monument, that looks like it would be impossible to build without the aid of a crane. Smart thinking, old dudes. These monuments did impress me, it's true, but the rest of the site was ridiculous - attempting to show Korean's what Stonehenge or the Easter Island statues looked like and failing epically. In fact, at one point, Mike noticed that the 'stone' used for the other constructions was in fact plastic and after that, all respect for the place was thrown out of the window and the boys crawled all over all the monuments checking to see if they were real or not and generally acting fools. Damn funny though. Frank even checked one of the Dolmen, which, happily, turned out to be real stone.

Considering we'd planned for Mani-san, we ended up with a couple of hours to kill, which meant, joyfully, that I could suggest a trip to spy on North Korea. Luckily Jon and Ben were as excited about this as me, with the others not really minding, so we jumped into a cab from the Dolmen site and got our camoflauge on! Ok, so there was no camoflauge, but we did have to go through a checkpoint and pass soldiers with guns, who looked pretty scary, 'til they smiled and waved. The area that we went to housed the Peace Observatory, which in turn housed telescopes, that we used to look across the mile of separation between North and South and peek into the lives of others, controlled by a regime that we could not imagine being under. It was strange and amazing and I was truly interested to see these people carrying out their daily tasks. No doubt that this 'village' was strictly montiored by the Northern leaders and did not show a true representation of what we would encounter if we were to step across to the other side, but it was very absorbing, so much so that I could have spent all day there. However, we couldn't so, after checking out the rest of the observatory, which would have been more informative had it had English information (I know, I'm the stupid Westerner that came here without being able to understand the language...I should do better) and playing in tanks, we headed back to the mainland for a curry and chat about another amazing adventure! Shame the curry was pretty shit. . .