The monks and the mafia.

So, this weekend we decided to head to Uljin, on the advice of Marit, one of Busan Ben's friends, who had been there the week previously and mentioned it was one of the best places she had been in Korea during her entire 2 years in the country. On checking the Lonely Planet, I was slightly disheartened, seeing as it seems to hate Uljin and views it only as a stepping point to get to other, better places. Oh how you were wrong, LP.

Seeing as it was the last day of 9-5 it felt like a bit of a long weekend, so all was set to make it the greatest imaginable. Christina was landing at 3.30 so was due to get to mine for about 5.30 - perfect timing, and Amy was due to finishee at 6.30. Christina (minus all her stuff for her journey to England on Tue :( ) and I headed to the ABC mart bus stop for 6.40, due to meet the Swanson at 6.45 and low and behold, who had made it before schedule?! Amy-do, that's who! So we were all there, two of us without mobiles, early! ASSA!!! Amidst must joy Amy headed to the toilet whilst Christina and I popped to Buy the Way and encountered what seemed like a comedy sketch, seeing as the woman serving us took so long, got something wrong and spent about 5 minutes trying to sort it out, when we only had 6 'til the bus was due to arrive. Cue many Mr Bean like antics and a dash to the stop in order to grab the 1112 to Gangbyeon. The journey was ok, and we were all feeling pretty smug, until we hit the Friday night traffic. Luckily, Faye was already at Gangbyeon terminal and purchased our tickets as we were only 2 stops away. As fate would have it though, our bus came to a standstill and Faye had to beg the coach driver to wait for us. Soon as our bus stopped I was off like a shot, with Christina and Amy in tow - though it seems I'd underestimated the depth of my panic and the speed with which I somehow travelled (I'm not normally fast in the slightest, in fact, dead tortoise would be a good description) and the weight of the beer Amy was carrying and when I finally jumped, sweaty and triumphant on to the bus, I realised that I'd left the other two behind - cue more sweating and running, before finally finding the girls and ushering them on to the bus just as it was about to leave. Luckily, the second bus ride was much more calming and, bar the pee'ing incidents, headbanging and the woman that wouldn't shut up, who, however, gave us free cheesecake the ride passed without incident.

On arrival at Uljin, we were anxious to find only one Family Mart and the bus terminal. Seeing as the LP had told us that there was not much about, we decided to sit and have a beer outside said Family Mart and discuss our next step. After a couple of beers we jumped into the nearest taxi and were driven about by possibly the nicest taxi man on the planet. He refused to let us pay more than w10,000, although the fare was nearer 20, and drove us around to many different places which we deemed too dead or expensive, before dropping us off at a minbak which not only cost us the paltry sum of 40,000, but, we found out in the morning, was in a prime location and on the most gorgeous stretch of beach I've seen since I've been in Korea. After we'd dumped our bags, we headed to a lovely place on the beach for a couple of well deserved Cass' (and a sleep for me) and then headed up for a nice kip.

Saturday morning brought the arrival of Ruby and Mallory. I have to take a second here to praise the lovely Ruby for finally getting her ass on an adventure weekend that was further than Gyyounggi-do - we were all so proud when we got the phonecall at 7am to tell us that she was on route! We all decided the easiest thing to do was to meet at Seongnyugul cave, which, housing rocks formed like Buddha, the Virgin Mary, a dragon and a penis was bound to be worth the 3 chunon ticket price. Luckily, the caves were really close to our minbak, so we got there in record time to meet the girls.

After buying our tickets, we donned hardhats and headed into the cave, already echoing with Ruby's cries of, "You can see my pants!! Oh God, what about the jeans?! Mate, you don't even KNOW how hard it is to get stains out of these jeans!". The inside of the cave was beautiful, with stalactites and stalagmites of many different colours and formations, underground pools and the possibility of seeing human bones, which, legend has it, are left over from the Japanese invasion sometime in the 1500's, when a group of people hid in the cave, got trapped and subsequently starved to death. Alas(?), we didn't see any bones, but the views definitely made up for it, as did the chilly inner earth air, which really cooled us down on one of the hottest days in Korea yet. After a long meander through the different rooms and tunnels, some of which were a tight squeeze to get through, and many knocks on the hard hats, we headed back to daylight and to the nearest restaurant for some unmemorable food ('cept for the caterpillar that Mallory found in her chilli - proteiny goodness). After checking out the frequency of taxis from our foody vantage point, we decided the the best thing to do was walk along the road, back in the direction of the minbak and hope that we could grab a taxi or a lift on the way. Lucky us...

About a 10 minute walk on, we all decided to head to a minbak by the side of the road to ask the proprietors to call us a cab, seeing as no one was stopping to pick us up and the sun was pretty scorching. On doing this, a car pulled up by us holding two young western guys, Ian and Jeffrey, and an older Korean dude. Ian, one of the western guys, who was driving, told us that they were on a temple stay and that the Korean dude with them was a monk and wanted us to come over to his temple for dinner and relaxing. Although somewhat cautious due to the look of said monk (he was wearing a string vest for one thing) we all decided (with much enthusiasm on my part) to accept the lift and head to the temple. On arrival, we found a traditional Korean house, with a small temple attached to the left, that we were informed was built in the 70's, along with the rest of the house. The whole plot was pretty simple, with an ondal heating system (underfloor fires that heat the room from below), many exposed stones, that were used to build the buildings and a basic structure. On entering the house, we were presented with watermelon and had a slightly stunted chat with the monk, translated by Ian and Charlie, Ian and Jeff's Korean friend, who was also staying at the temple. There were a few other people hanging round the place, a woman and her child and another monk, who dipped in and out in the early hours, but then became staple figures in the evening (save for the woman, who wasn't very well and didn't seem to happy to be there, especially with all the noise we were making).

After some soju and galbi, we kind of realised that these monks were more self proclaimed than anything else, especially after half of us were given the unwanted attention of one of the monks, later named 'Rapie Monk'. It seems that he'd had a bit too much to drink and decided that at least one of us would be his future girlfriend. Still, the they were all pretty cool, and the master monk seemed to be somewhat holy, and somewhat excellent, after he gave us a traditional Korean drumming lesson and let us dress up in all of his ceremonial gear. Amy drew the short straw in the fact she was dressed as a bald man (bion-te, which means pervert) with a small doll blessed with a huge wang but we all looked bloody amazing, and all got well into the lesson. I'd like to think that, after half an hour of constant teaching we were fabulous, but I feel that may be a lie, though Jeff definately had the actions down. Later on, master monk took me to the side and gave me a singing lesson. He told me that I had a very powerful voice and he really wanted me to stay and study with him. I was flattered! Alas, I didn't take him up on his offer, but it's nice to know I've got a career option for when I finally grow up and my feet stop itching!

The rest of the evening heralded more beer, more partying, more attempted fondling on Rapie Monk's behalf, some chicken on the beach, cool monk buying us soju, sea fighting and sleeping. A good night was had by all and I think that we were all really glad that we got in that car. Yey for random fun times!

The next morning Amy and Mallory headed down to the beach really early (and sans sunscreen - we warned you about the burns, girls!), and met some Korean guys covered in coloured in tattoos of dragons and the suchlike. They kindly offered all of us a free banana boat ride, so, after being plied with a bit of soju and some bulgogi, which was really rather nice, we took off for a ride. Much fun was had, though we were thrown into the sea a couple of times - all in the joy of it though. I went off to ask for prices for scuba diving, which I had been spotted earlier in the weekend, but found, to my dismay that there were no dives to be had that day. Sad times. Still, I shall dive before I leave Korea, it is my mission. And not just in Busan aquarium. Instead of lying on the beach all day, which I tend to get bored of, I decided to head over to Bulyeongsa (temple of the Buddha's shadow), an amazing ascetic temple located in the middle of some breathtaking hills, taking with me Faye and Ruby. After a long and farcical taxi ride, due to insufficent funds on our part, we were chauffeured up to the temple and given the chance to have a look around, before being driven back to Uljin's bus station. Bulyeoungsa temple is amazing, I have to say. It's not huge and isn't set up a mountain, or even a very big hill, but it is beautiful and immaculate and the Buddhist paintings, located in the buildings, are superb. To top this off, the views are spectacular and you can really see why sitting around the lake, (which is the main feature of the place, owing to a rock atop one of the hills that casts Buddha's shadow on to the water), is an amazing place for the resident female monks to attempt to reach Nirvana. We spent a while walking round and taking in the scenery before, as I mentioned, being taken back to the station to pay our fare. Not ones to hang around a station for long, we promptly got into another taxi and ended up paying a lot to get to Deokgu hot springs spa - where we bathed in natural hot springs, took delight in gawping over the hottest man in Korea's body, froze ourselves in outdoor waterfall baths, relaxed in lemon and jasmine baths and took in more breathtaking scenery and smells of pine and clean air before returning, 2 hours later, to the station, with enough time to spare to say bye to the boys from the day before and hop on to our bus. On the way back, we were informed by the girls that stayed at the beach, that the banana boat guys were in fact, mafia (a) it was obvious and b) the tattoos gave it away, plus the heads up from Charles and later chats to people), and that they had been really weird all day and then demanded money from the ladies for what they thought was service rides on their jet ski and rubber tubes. Hmm, scary times indeed. Still, no caps were popped in any asses and we all returned home safe and sound.

On a sad note, last night was Christina's last night in Korea, seeing as she'd had some personal problems and had to leave Jeju before her contract was up. She spent the last night at mine, and we went to dinner with Amy and ate some lovely galbi, before heading to the local dvd bang to watch 'Broken English' - an excellent film and then heading home to mine. She will be missed.

On a more positive note however, John arrives for his visit in two days!!!!!!! Yey to the English buddy! I can't wait and have been boring not only my friends and coworkers, but the kids about it nonstop for the past week! Bring on the fun times!

A salute to a jimjilbang (don't read on if you're affected by the thought of old naked women and rubbing!)

It has become clear to me of late that whenever I've mentioned jimjilbangs in this blog, it's either because I was seeking somewhere to stay due to being drunk or I've gone there to fight off a hangover. This is because, bar that one time with Amy, it's the only time I visit them. I've been meaning to visit one sober for a while now, and as today was the 5 month anniversary of my becoming a teacher (and therefore payday), I decided to head on over and treat myself to a massage.

The jimjilbang in YoungTong is located across from Homeplus, on the 7th floor and is lovely, though pretty small. On arrival, I paid 9,000won (about 4.50), was given towels and pajamas and sent forth to the women's section (after depositing your shoes as it's very rude to wear outdoor shoes inside most places in Korea, save for some restaurants and most bars). Once safely through the doors of the female section you are expected to get naked, and completely so. Some people have attempted to bathe whilst wearing swimsuits, however, these have quickly been discarded in most cases. I chose to be Korean, as do all the girls that I know. From here you head to the showers and scrub yourself so that you are nice and clean. After the wash you can take a dip into any of the baths on offer, at the local there is a burning hot one, a waterfall bath, a cold bath, ginseng tea, and a normal like-you-would-at-home bath. There's also a steam room and a couple of saunas which are nice. Oh and jade beds, which Koreans think are amazing for health and some kind of shallow pool, which I think is filled with salt water. These baths are communal, so expect to be seated next to a Korean lady, who will often stare at you for a while, before getting bored a couple of minutes and a full up and down later. As it was, tonight I had a good few hours to spend, so I took in all the baths and worked my way around for about an hour, before deciding to take the plunge and get my massage.

Heading up to the front desk, I asked the kind, and clothed, lady where I could find the massage ajumma. She pointed to a wrong side of middle age woman, who immediately took a dislike to me, not sure why, but I think it had something to do with the fact I was a fat Westerner and was paying her pittance to scrub my naked body for half an hour. After I had paid (having to don my clothes again, walk out, pay and come back in), I spotted my ajumma getting her kit off and followed her to the massage room, which is placed to the side of the baths, in full view of all. Luckily my ajumma didn't stay naked, but donned a slightly fraying and mismatched set of lacy underwear, that, being mesh, showed everything anyway.
The ajumma asked me to hop on the table and then proceeded to rag doll me about somewhat to get me into the right position. This was to be a reoccurring theme through the process as our language barrier meant phrases like 'move over this way a bit duck' were obsolete. First, I was rinsed down thoroughly with hot water and then the ajumma came at me with the scrubbers, one on each hand. For the next 15 minutes or so she scrubbed me all over, and believe me when I say that no orifice was left unexplored. I felt somewhat perturbed about this at one stage and decided to close my eyes and imagine that it wasn't a 50 year old woman scrubbing me, but Johnny Depp and that bloke from the Notebook. This made me feel even weirder as I was in a room full of naked women, so I decided just to lie back and think of anything but what was happening. After my very thorough jiggle and scrub I was covered in baby oil and then alternately massaged and spanked (loudly, it was a proper cup, like you do when you clap really loudly to get attention), until I was as malleable as silly putty, in body, but slightly jumpy in mind, seeing as I never knew where the next hit was coming from and when it would strike - damn ninja she was. After a few rinses I was turned over and then the ajumma applied what smelt like honey and milk to my body followed by a strawberry concoction to my face. As this was soaking in she washed my hair for me and gave me a bit of a head massage before showering me and deeming me fit to enter the jimjilbang again. I even got a smile from her. Seems that being that close to someone will mellow the hardest of hearts. . .

After the massage, which left me feeling amazing, I spent the rest of my time in the sauna, touring the baths again and falling asleep on the jade bed. I topped it all off with a nice rinse and then made my way into the night. That was about two hours ago now, however I still feel amazing, truly relaxed, and my skin is so unbelievably soft that I keep stroking my arms and marvelling. Also, you know that line from 'Sin City', 'She smelt like angels oughta smell'? Well I do, despite the fact that it's boiling outside and I've got a bit of a glow on. Thank the Lord for naked scrubbing, it seems.

So all in all, jimjilbangs are amazing, and cheap and beat the heck out of English spas. Doubt they'd catch on in England though, you know what they're like. Right shame that, right shame.

3 days off and no money. Bah!

So, it turns out that my boss only wants to give me 3 days holiday this summer. She told me that 5 years ago, I would have gotten 5 days, but since we are such a busy hagwon, with so many kids, I will only be allowed 3 days now. This is something that I am going to fight, but, seeing as at the moment I am completely brassic, I have taken the three days, like a small whimpering child, whilst whispering 'thanks,' and will resume the good fight next week when I return - hopefully I'll get the extra two days and will be able to head to Tokyo in September time for the changing of the leaves. See, so it'll be worth it in the end.



Wednesday, the first day of my holiday was spent in the best way possible for me - lying in bed! Whoop! I use the excuse that I was completely wiped out and that I needed the break, which is partly true, but it's also that I'm an intrinsically lazy creature and a day in bed appealed to me. It wasn't a total loss though, I did a ton of Korean homework, listened to loads of ace music, read some and generally chilled out. It was great.



Wednesday evening brought the Butcher to my abode. We had decided to dump the original plan of going to Seoul for the evening and instead stayed local so we could join Amy, who's mummy had just arrived for a visit! Faye and I headed to Garten Bier for a quick soju cocktail to celebrate the holidays and then jumped in a taxi to meet Amy at the amazing shells restaurant near her house. A 9,000won taxi ride later and we jumped back out at Garten Bier. Yep, we'd managed to get completely lost and when calling Amy to let her know this, were informed that the shell restaurant, that was housed in a tent, had disappeared. We ended up going instead for shells at a place just across from GB/Now bar, which was barely satisfactory, but hey, introducing Mommy Swanson to shells and watching her using chopsticks made up for that. Good food, good company, good times. After, we left the Swansons to have a sleep, as Lori was rather tired after her journey, and headed to Now bar, to see who was about. There we met up with Trevie and Aidan and had a lovely pint before heading home.



Thursday morning we headed off to Incheon airport to pick up another Butcher! Faye's sister, Claire, was about to arrive for a two week tour of SK! Faye was obviously quite excited about that (as was I), so we ended up getting to the airport pretty early. You know, only about an hour, it was fine! ;) Claire came through the doors and Faye raced off, leaving me taking the photos of the beautiful reunion and feeling a bit like I was in 'Love, Actually'. Turns out though, the photos were shit and you do need a flash in a fully lighted airport. Sorry, Faybe!



Soon as we'd left the airport, we headed the 15 minutes or so, on the number 302 bus, to Eulwangi beach, which is on the west coast of Incheon. Eulwangi is noted as one of the best beaches in Korea, and we weren't disappointed when we arrived. Neither were the 20,000 Koreans that were also present on the beach, dressed in the usual attire of t-shirt and shorts, which made us feel slightly put out - biggest people on the beach and the only ones in swim suits! Once we'd had a quick scout of the area, we decided to find a minbak to stay in (turns out there's none on Eulwangi beach), so had a look around. The Lonely Planet recommended two motels, one of which seemed somewhat defunct and the other, far too expensive. Cost, it turned out, was a bit of a beggar, seeing as it's the middle of summer, so prices have soaaaared. The motel that we finally chose was 80,000 for one night. Cash was paid and we headed out for a drink. Annoyingly, a few hours later, we were accosted by the bloke in the motel across the road, who offered us a room for 50,000. Bugger. Ah, well. Least the room was nice.



The three of us headed to the beach, which was truly lovely. White sand is in abundance and luckily, the sea doesn't recede too far at low tide, unlike many other beaches, that leave huge mud flats that aren't too good for sunbathing! We took a place under one of the many umbrellas and were soon caught by the locals, who asked us for 20 thou for the use of their umbrella!!! To all you UK people, that translates to a tenner! For an umbrella! We decided to move forward about an inch, so we weren't in the shade anymore and told the little dudes to sod off. A tenner. What is the world coming to?! Soon enough we had a friendly young man come over to talk to us, who amusingly hugged himself as close to the nearby umbrella pole as possible, as he in no way wanted to touch the sun. He chatted to us for a while, before getting bored, seeing as we weren't interested in chatting at that point, and wandered off. Later on, we decided on an umbrella for a while and spent the rest of the sunlight dozing, chatting and drinking. Which was generally what the rest of the evening had in store. I was completely relaxed, which Faye and I discussed, was a completely different type to our usual relaxation, you know, the one we feel after climbing a mountain, rafting, biking or being active. Not better, but equally as amazing. Just what the doctor ordered, we agreed.



The next morning we headed to the beach again and decided to stop pretending that our pasty skin didn't need an umbrella and shelled out the 20 thou for the priviledge of not getting skin cancer. Yey! Again, the day was spent relaxing, drinking and chilling and we were joined, finally, 7 hours after they'd set off (can I just point out that Eulwangi beach is only about 1 and a half hours from YoungTong), by Amy and Lori. Amy had somehow gotten more lost than anyone could ever percieve and took her mom on a tour of the upper Western part of SK. Well done, Ames! We spent the evening eating more shells than we ever thought possible (if you ever go in the day, it's the restaurant on the Carib hotel side of the seafront, with the rainbow umbrellas), which were astoundingly delicious and then heading to the beach to play with fireworks, meet a whole group of Korean men and generally have an excellent time. Especially Amy, who I think shocked her lovely mother with her flirting antics - that's our girl! We headed with our bags (we'd checked out of the expensive place that day, seeing as 160,000 for two nights was way out of buget) to the jimjilbang across the main road set back from the beach and paid 12,000 for a shower and a room to sleep in - there were no baths at all. Massive rip off and we were all a little mad that Lori and Claire's first jim experience was so bad. Ah well, there's always a next time!!!!



Saturday was spent travelling back to Incheon airport and picking up more of Faye's UK clan, this time, her friends Abby and Maddie. We all hopped on a bus, and the girls departed at Suwon in order to pop home and then take a trip to the Folk Museum, which is definately worth a look. Faye and I have been before however, so I headed straight back to YoungTong for another lovely day of chilling out and blog writing.

I woke up early Sunday to meet Amy and Mommy Swanson for a rather long journey to Sangbong (where we met Faye, Claire, Abby and Maddie) and then to Inje-gun (where we met Panda and Mike). Inje-gun houses the Naerinchon river, which in turn hosts many world rafting competitions and although is not amazingly dangerous in terms of white water, it is very beautiful and worth heading to just to take in the views, despite the amount of time it takes to get there. Not only does Naerinchon offer rafting, but also bungee jumping and a host of other extreme activities too, whether winter or summer. We had decided to raft again, this time with a company whos name I forget, though I'm sure I will be informed by Panda in no time. We were picked up from Inje station by a driver and ferried to the river, where we were quickly put into those lovely lifejackets with the ass strap once more, told to put on our helmets and then got the cool flourescent jelly shoes. Man I love rafting outfits!!!
After we had done this, we were driven by minibus to the start of the course, where a guy who spoke ok English went through the safety briefing with us and then broke our hearts by splitting us into two groups. Faye, Claire, Maddie and Abby were put in one raft, with a bunch of Korean guys and the rest of us stuck with the original instructor with another group of Korean guys. Turns out that the instructors felt that as there were so many girls, we'd have to be placed with men as, you know, they're stronger and all that. Hmph. Not sure that was true, but anyway. We started off nice and slowly, which was good for Amy, as she's a little scared of the water and therefore was a bit nervous. This wasn't helped by watching Faye and Maddie slip quickly into the water and have the raft ride over them! Luckily no one was hurt, which was a good thing and Anda and I were splitting ourselves with laughter the whole time and generally jeering. Heehe. The course took about two hours and during that time there was chance to swim, have water fights, rock the raft, spin, go through the rapids (of course) and generally get wet and have an excellent time. I really do enjoy rafting, specially with the amazing views and the chance to swim in a gorgeous and very clear river. Sometimes I forget how lucky I am to live in such a beautiful place!
After rafting we all had a few beers and headed to the bus station (annoyingly by taxi, the woman decided she was too busy to transport us back, so we had to flash the cash - not part of the original deal). The buses weren't that frequent and the one that we got, to DongSeoul took bloody ages. I think we left at 7.30pm and didn't get in until 11.30pm! We did however, manage to get the bus with our rafting instructor, which was very cool, however, he was of no help at all when Amy, who was rather wasted, needed the coach to stop so she could pee - however I was very proud of using my pidgin Hangeul to get him to stop and explain that she needed to urinate. When we finally got back to Seoul we said bye to Anda and followed the instructor who attempted to put us on a bus back to YoungTong, stuck us in a queue and then left. Despite his best intentions, we realised that the bus had actually stopped running, so, although we were going to take the subway to Gangnam we were taken in by another Korean guy, who told us it'd be easier to get a taxi there. Cue much faffing, missing the bus, finally getting to Gangnam, getting a different bus to Suwon and then having to get a taxi from Suwon to YoungTong. Pain in the ass. Still, turns out the 112 bus from YT goes to Gangbyeon though, will save me hours in terms of getting there for future trips. Bonus.

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. . .