The Trouble with A.

The beginning of November heralded a new semester in Pals Lab, therefore new classes, new schedules and a fuck lot to do, doubled up with the stress of all the make-up classes now that the kids are coming back after the swine 'flu panic (laughing on the other side of my face now). One of my new classes is IN1E, with Dean, a brand new kid in bright blue Harry Potter glasses. I can't decide yet if Dean was born as the Korean style Damien, or if he's just playing up, I swing wildly between the two assumptions, depending on what he's like each lesson. Today, he wasn't too bad, except for the time he thought it was funny to play dead on the floor, and was still there, with me trying to haul him up as Sarah teacher walked past. Not impressed.
Dean's mother is somewhat of a complainer. In fact, Dean has been with the school for about 3 months now and she's called at least once a week to moan about something. This begs the question, 'why doesn't she just take him out of school?' The answer to this, dear reader, I can't tell you, I can only assume that she just really likes to complain.
Since I've taken over the class, she's got me into a ton of trouble by complaining that I didn't give the kids homework one class - a disastrous mix up that wasn't really my fault, but still, then not making him do the subsequent two handouts, and, more importantly has complained that I'm confusing her little angel by pronouncing things differently to how they're pronounced on his Triumphs (the book we use) tape. It seems that I'm not American enough for her, which now means that I'm not American enough for Sarah. Sarah's tried this one before with the kindies when Jessica's mum also asked why I was speaking with a strange accent - it's called British, you plum. I got one over on that cowbag by acquiring her other child and now they both have a lovely British pronunciation. Ha! In your face, ajumma! Still, this week I was called into Sarah's office again and reminded that when I teach phonics, I must don an American accent, so that I don't ruin the poor little ones minds. Now, not to pass the buck, but there's a perfectly good American colleague right down the hall, if you want an AMERICAN accent, why don't you use the damn American to teach phonics?! Today's lesson comprised of me vainly attempting to use said accent, I even got lessons from Adam on how to speak with a Yank drawl, but no, it didn't work and I just a) made myself laugh and b) confused the kids even more. It didn't help that Sarah came in to watch most of the class.
I have decided to stop trying with the stupid accent, I have enough of an American twinge anyway and add it to 'stupid things Sarah tells me' pile. For instance, 'you hole punch wrong when making monthly plans' as in, you don't crack out your ruler and spirit level every time you put a piece of paper in a file that will only be seen by you and your co-teacher, 'you can't sit down at all during class', and 'you don't write your 'f's' properly. This all coming from a woman that until last month I thought kept asking me to make the kids read 'frontly', not 'fluently', as she apparently meant. Don't get me wrong, as a woman, I like my boss, but man, has she got some nitpicky ideas.

Pepero Day!

11/11. A sombre occasion in the UK. A time for remembering the dead and maimed in wars all over the world and buying poppies to help those that gave their lives for us. Not so much in Korea, where Pepero is a national day dedicated to...chocolate covered biscuit sticks!!!! Yep, you heard me. Chocolate covered biscuit sticks!!!

Rumour has it that Pepero day was started in Korea by a few schoolgirls, who gave Pepero to each other in the hope that they would all grow as tall and thin as a Pepero. Whether they gave the knobbly ones to each other in the hope that they would become disfigured and bumpy remains unknown. When Lotte, the (ahem), Japanese company (anyone Korean who is reading this, I jest. Lotte are Korean, yes, Korean. It's ok. Don't worry), heard about this they decided to fully endorse the idea and make every 11/11 a special day dedicated to consuming as many sticks as you can, resulting in a kind of Valentine's celebration. The shops are filled with as many different kinds of Pepero as you can imagine, strawberry flavour, multicoloured sticks, massive boxes set into heart shapes for couples, Pepero in mugs, as Catriona got from Patrick. It's rather sickening really, in all senses of the word.

On the positive side, I got about a million boxes from my kids. Which was rather nice. I've still got quite a few in my cupboard too, though the tasty little morsels are pretty hard to put down once you've opened a packet. Most of my boxes were covered in declarations of love and devotion, which, although I truly appreciated, were ripped up to enable me to get a quicker sugar rush - I need it when at work, ok? Those little beggars are such a handful. This meaning though, that by the end of this so sacred of days, I felt rather sick and much in need of some savoury foods. Or at least food that doesn't contain a high quantity of melamine. Yummeh.

Hhhmmm, Halloween!

I love Halloween! It's awesome! I'm not quite sure why I love Halloween, seeing as I'm not American, but I do. When I was a kid I used to be the only one in our end of the village that celebrated it, I can still remember the twitch of the neighbours curtains as the fat child dressed in lycra was dragged up the drive to beg for candy. Still, when I got inside and gorged myself while watching scary movies, I was a very happy fat kid indeed.

This year, I was a bit stuck for what to wear. Inspiration hadn't struck and it was Thursday (as you'll remember one of the days I had off), which is barely heard of in my books. I decided, on a whim to go as quasimodo, as I had most of the outifit (tearing up a shirt, boots, trousers), so could do it on a skint girl's shoe string. Excellent. One disaster with face paint and some stamping on a shirt later and I was ready!

Seoul was Saturday night's destination. I was very excited by the subway, as I'd read online that Seoul decorated their subway cars with Halloween things and people went a bit mental. All I found were some very distainful 20 somethings who didn't enjoy a girl dressed as a hunchback cuddling up to them for a photo. Goodness knows why. We headed on to Itaewon as I wanted to give the Wolfhound a go, as their was a fancy dress competition. Soon as we got in we realised that this was not going to be an easy competition and also that the place was so packed it was hard to breathe properly. Good for me, as I was stooped low to the ground, but the others, not so much. The standard of costume in my favourite pie selling pub was great, however and I felt pretty humbled. There was Flight of the Conchords, ajummas, hippies, many Supermen, though one guy trumped the rest by showing off most of his body, much to female appreciation and other such weird, wonderful and thoughtful outfits. We left.

We wandered aimlessly for a while, taking in the array of bloody colours and then headed to the Bungalow, a lovely club down the streets behind the Hilton where Gecko's et al is. They play awesome music and there is sand on the floor to give the place a holiday vibe (though I'm not sure how this'll hold up in December...). We took our seats and the campest man I've ever met came up and asked Ruth and I if we'd like to be in the fancy dress competition. I said yes straight away, as did Ruth, though on seeing the women in suspenders that we'd be up against she donated her spot to Patrick 'ninja assassin' Kim.

The rounds consisted of questions about James Bond, costume originality (or somesuch) and a catwalk show. I managed to stay in character the whole night, which was rather hard, though fun, specially when I spotted Anda in the crowd and humped the camp man whilst doing my catwalk display. It came down to Batman and a bondgirl, Super Mario and me. The tension was high. I was already amazed I beaten the women wearing nought to at least 3rd place, so I was happy as, well, quasi. Batman and the girl got chucked and it was just me and Mario. I decided to lob his banana peels at him in one desperate final attempt to sway the judges, the crowd (luckily our group had all managed to get the front row) were going wild and then, he announced it! I was the bloody winner! 500,000won! I'll thank you very much! Needless to say, I went on to Jane's Groove with a massive smile, having paid off the money I'd borrowed to go out and danced the night away! Just goes to show that using stuff that cost nothing from your tiny enough wardrobe somehow works. Go figure! =o)

Swine 'flu - only bad some of the time.

Because, thanks to the huge spread of the disease our hagwon is closed! Well, Thursday 'til Friday anyway. Or at least I get the time off, as Sarah messed up by signing a revised version of our contract and owed me two days off. Regardless, I've had the past two days off, which has been great, save for the fact I've got bronchitis and no money. Still, two days off! Whoo hoo! I've sat at home, relaxed, read, hung out at the pc bang with the kids and seen Amy, a nice relaxing time and something that was much needed, work was starting to make me foam at the mouth and claw at the walls.



I like the fact that I have time off for once, as the Korean attitude to work is to take no time off until you die, then you can relax, which for them is fine but I'll take my breaks now thanks, while I can do something with them. My boss obviously hired me as a western teacher (read, we take holidays) so shouldn't try to fleece us with 6 days off a year. Now I'm fine to go by most of the rules and regs around here, but a girl wants a break once in a while goddammit. Also, I've obviously come to Korea to check out the place, instead of just working here - I could work and not sight see in England, that's not what it's about. Sarah cornered me in her office the other day to tell me that she thinks I ought to stop going away at the weekend, as I'm obviously having too much fun. Too much fun? I've actually calmed down a lot since I've been here and I kind of resent that from her. I was once told by a coworker that Korean's order of priority (and obviously this isn't all Koreans, but listen), is 1)work 2)family 3)friends and that while I was here I should take that into account. What's the point of earning money if you're just going to sit on it and not go away? Or have fun with your family and friends? I feel sorry for the kids, they barely ever get a holiday and when they do it's a often just a weekend away on the east coast. When I think back to my fondest memories of childhood, it's generally going on holiday with the folks, even if Dad didn't really do much but sleep and drink and mum sunbathed topless, much to my mortification. Can't say I blame them though, they worked hard, why not rest and give yourself a pat on the back?

Anyway, I digress. Swine 'flu in Korea is tackled much like anything in Korea - with far too much over-enthusiasm. Children are being plucked out of school at a great rate of knots and the kids are being covered in swine 'flu masks, which they tend to where on an 'if I remember' basis and often are worn for about 20 percent of class time. Hand sanitiser is everywhere and ajummas walk around looking even more scared of westerners than usual, if that's possible. Even before the dreaded disease had hit over here, when John came to visit the Koreans were walking around making cross signs over their breasts and looking at him like he may grow a pig's head and infect them at any point. In fact, Sarah banned him from coming to our school, as it 'looked bad on us' and actually asked me to send him away for a week, you know, to Busan or something. I politely informed her that he was only here for a week and a half and therefore would be going nowhere, before bottling it and lying by telling her that I would send him to the other side of the country. She's also been really annoyed at me recently for not heading to the doctors to get my 'cold' checked out. Ok, so it's bronchitis and I should have been, but still. She even sat me down to tell me that I was now on my own in Korea so had to take responsibility for myself. Hmmm. Feeling like I'm definitely ready for a couple of days away from her!


So, although I find being grateful to a global pandemic a bit of a strange phenomenon, in this instance, swine 'flu (Sincheon 'flu as it's called here), I salute you. Now stop killing people, please.

Happy Chuseok to all and to all, a good train journey.

Yes! Finally it had arrived!!!! Chuseok (read, bank holiday)! Seeing as I'd been promised a million bank holidays in Korea and naively believed this without consulting a calendar, I've been pretty dismayed by the actual amount this year. In fact, Chuseok is only the second that I've had the pleasure to witness.

Chuseok (추석) is the Korean harvest festival/New Year celebration and is counted on the lunar calendar. It dates back to old Shamanistic times and is a festival to ask for a good harvest and worship ancestors. My kindy had a Chuseok party, which involved me dressing up in the traditional Korean outfit, a hanbok, which was fun, however the fact that I have breasts and the mojority of Korean women doesn't proved a slight problem in my hired outfit and lots of fussing from the Korean teachers. Never have I wished for tape more. Still, the kids looked cute and were generally well behaved. We all got into circles and danced a traditional Ganggangsullae dance. Following the dancing I was sent into a room and left there, staring warily at what looked like a hopscotch board taped to the floor. Turns out I was supposed to teach the children how to play this game , whilst being recorded for the school's dvd, though I had no bloody clue of the rules and no stone to throw to enable the kids to jump. Thank goodness for Rachel is all I can say. In other rooms were the traditional steel hoop thing, arrow thing and jump rope thing, all of which have Korean names that I forget.

One of the great things about Chuseok, apart from the holiday, is the gifts. Other friends got such items as 'choice cuts of ham', make up and shower gel, cookies, pears and grapes. What did I get? Seaweed wraps. A fuck lot of seaweed wraps. I could just see the glint in my director's eye as she presented me with my 'gift' as I ran out of the door Thursday night. I think my smile threw her off, but my insides were screaming "What the hell?!" Ideas of what I can use it for currently stand at, making a seaweed jacket and risking being attacked by seagulls, making seaweed underwear, using it to write letters on and using it as a cheap curtain material. Hmmm. I may just learn to make kimbab. I think that could be a better plan...

Anyway, the weekend rolled about and I greeted Thursday night, aka, the start of the weekend, with as much joy as I had, being slightly skewed by the fact I was rather hungover after a lovely night with the kindy teachers and drinks with the (now engaged!) Patrick and Elaine - watching over a very drunk Korean man with his tiny penis out, lolling on a bench after collapsing with his head in his own wee. Korean's sure know how to party. To be fair to the Korean emergency services, they did send 2 of each service out, though each member just stood and stared at the offending guy, whilst no doubt debating who would write up the paperwork.

I digress. So, Thursday night, I jumped in a taxi to Suwon Stn to meet with Frank, Catriona and newbies Ruth and Hugh. After a drink in Lao, a visit (again - I love it so!) to the virtual rollercoaster and a wander we headed to the station and jumped on the 11.40 train. There was a bit of a rush to get on the train, but Frank assured us that the platform we were heading to was the right one. Seeing as Chuseok is a family thing, most of the Koreans in, well Seoul, I think, jumped on the trains down south to get to their loved ones. Now I'm not sure if every Korean in Seoul's family lives in the South, but that's sure what it felt like seeing as the train was ridiculously packed. For the first 2 hours we could barely move, nevermind sit or breathe. Please observe...

Awesome. After a 4 hour train ride, we finally got off at our destination only to realise that we were in Gwangju (far South West) and the rest of the group were in Gyoungju (mid East). Oh dear. We decided to drink some more, a grand idea, and headed to the nearest minbak for a kip.

The next morning started off as a bit of a party with the locals, watching the Gwangju police band play and drunks get rowdy. We decided to head straight to Gyoungju, instead of taking breaks and hopped on the KTX - shock, horror, without paying our fares. We figured that we'd pretty much paid for the train to Gyoungju anyway, so why not. Turns out we were thwarted at every turn and 2 train journeys (with a random meeting with Danny at Daejeon train stn, I see that boy every time I least expect it!), two forced ticket fares (we pretended to be asleep - Frank had a tendency to open his eyes) and 6 hours later, finally arrived at our destination, feeling like we'd seen more of Korea than we needed to, but richer (well, poorer in the literal sense), for the experience.

That evening involved a loving union with Mallory, Joey dog, Amy and Anda, partying with some 'Russians' and attempts being made to con us into paying their w150,000 bar tab, a prison bar, icky food, a sperm hat and a tantrum, but an awesome night all the same. We headed to bed early, by Korean standards, at about 3 to eagerly await the arrival of the next morning. When it came, it brought with it lovely sun and a trip to Bulguksa temple and Seokguram, a UNESCO site temple that holds a grotto with arguably one of the most beautifully sculpted pieces of Buddhist art in the world. Frank took a picture, even though it was forbidden. I refuse to post it, but needless to say that the shot didn't do it justice at all, specially as he took it from under his arm. The site however is gorgeous and the temples too. I'll put some of my pictures up at some point soon. I am constantly in awe of temples over here. Despite some people saying once you've been to one, you've been to them all, I have to disagree and think that each one holds it's own particular beauty and style. For example, you can't compare this temple and Bulyeongsa in Uljin. Both are breathtaking, but for entirely different reasons, and I am glad I've had the chance to see them both.

After visiting the Expo '93 building, which was pretty impressive, we headed to Bonggil-ri beach, where legend has it the ashes of King Munmu are kept in a tomb off the shore. As is our luck, we got caught on a stretch of beach and had no idea how to cross to the inviting lights about 10 metres across from us, seeing as we had all our bags and Mallory's dog. Still, I had my thinking hat on, and Frank had his muscles and we came up with a plan to use a piece of wood nearby that was floating on some barrels, making our very own makeshift raft. We used a length of rope joining the two sides of the sea and Frank hauled us across one by one. Oh, the fun we had, and the crowd that gathered! We finally made it across to the other side, ended up having a pizza and beer party and let some fireworks off from the pier. All in all an excellent night with excellent people.

Sunday morning heralded a nice morning and we all had a bit of a swim on the beach (upsettingly it's getting too cold to do that now). The boys decided to swim to an island just off the shore, and when there had a wee as boys are wont to do. It was only when they returned and we went looking for the tomb of King Munmu, that we realised the rocks that the boys had swam to and, more importantly pissed on, were in fact the tomb and the remains of arguably Korea's greatest King. The rocks are strictly offlimits to all and scientists aren't even allowed there to check if the ashes are scattered there. Whoops doesn't quite cover it.

It was with red faces (well on the girl's part anyway), that we returned to Gyoungju, to hire bikes and cycle round some of the tombs, the National Museum and the Anjapi Pond. All are very beautiful indeed. Here are some more photos.

A Seoulful weekend

This weekend I've had a bit of a cold, so decided to stay around Seoul for the duration. Well, more accurately, I was supposed to be heading to Dongdaemun with my Korean teacher, then to a firework show at the 63 building and then to The Phantom of the Opera, however, things don't always work out as planned.

Amy and I decided, that although 미진 couldn't make it to Dongdaemun, we would still head there for some valuable shopping time on Saturday. Dongdaemun, although less famous than Namdaemun, is far cooler and sells things that a person under 40 would actually want to buy. We wandered around for a long time, and I managed to buy some wool, which I was very excited about, seeing as I am getting back into my knitting swing, the aunts would be so proud! We also met up with a friend from home's sister, who seems very cool and is adjusting well to life over here. From Dongdaemun, we took a quick tube ride to Myongdong and to Forever 21. It was nice to be able to shop in a western style store with westerner style clothes for once, but I wasn't quite as enamoured as I thought I would be and didn't really come away with anything, other than 3 tops, which are nice, but not the trousers I'd hoped for. It was a slightly miffed Penny that got back on the tube a little later. I was cheered up though, by some very rowdy Korean boys, of about 17 who were playing dares. After watching them front roll down the carriage and stand up to shoot people, do the dance, en masse to 'Abracadabra' by Brown Eyed Girls (the latest Kpop senstation, think lots of neon and synchronised dancing) and pull some decent chin ups, Amy rightly commented that if that was us, we would have possibly been shot. True, but excellent to watch all the same.

Today was a lazy day - I skipped out on our plan of basketball this afternoon, seeing as I sound like a 90 year old woman with empysema and feel about as healthy, so a day of reading was on the cards for me, which suited me just fine. Playing basketball in the rain definately comes second to 'New Moon' (yes, I'm now addicited to the Twilight books. Sad, but I comfort myself with the fact they're New York Times bestsellers, like that makes it less embarassing.) and cookies. I finally dragged myself out of bed and headed to meet Amy at the bus stop for a journey to the Charlotte theatre in Jamsil, for the Seoul production of 'The Phantom of the Opera'. There was some debate on whether we should buy tickets for the 'pricey for teachers' sum of 40,000w seeing as the show was entirely in Korean, however I'm really glad that we decided to.
Charlotte theatre itself is a really beautiful building, located right next to Lotteworld (and the shopping centre, which I found, to my delight has a mini Trevvi fountain under the ground) and is built like a European theatre, which is in stark contrast to the tack and highrises around it. Inside is much the same, so I was glad that we decided to put on our Sunday best, even though most of the Koreans present thought that ripped jeans and tshirts were right for the event. We stopped for a nice glass of bubbly (at w5,000) before the show to take in the opulent surroundings, after I'd pigged out on some rice outside, looking like a hobo that is, and went in.
The set was the first thing that struck me, as is the way, and already I was hooked. What followed was 2.5 hours of immense singing, beautiful sets and costumes and sniggering at 'yogi, Phantom of the Opera!' Still. It was amazing and I'm so glad that we decided to splash out and give Korean opera a chance. Definately worth it.

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!