Guess what??

I had another crazy good weekend... and anotherthing I am a little surprised at is that I am still alive!!! But we will come to that in a bit...

Friday night was a good laugh. went for a realy nice meal at a place we thought would be sum gip sal and Kalbi, but it wasnt exactly what we expected. Had a few beers and a generally chilled night out. Got a good nights sleep before I went the wedding of one of the Korean teachers that worked in my school before me. After having some picture taken with the bride, Elaine, Brian and myself went down stairs in the church to tuck into the buffet. After that we all went and sat down and waited for the service. It was a niceservice, although we couldn't undersand it! People were laughing, so it must ahve been good. The groom was in the army so some of his collegues made sword arches and the couple walked underneath them. But on the wayack they didnt let them pass. Then one of the soldiers shouted something, which was some kind of command and the coulpe had to do or say something. Most of it I didnt understand but everyone was watching and laughing and stuff. One thing I did understand is when the groom, fully suited had to drop and do 20 press ups.

Saturday night ended with a movie, cos sunday was the big day!

Up at 5.20am to get ready to go and get a bus to some place north of Seoul we got there in time to get the bus and we started on our voyage. All of the people on the trip were teachers like me, and they were all really nice! So first stop was the BUNGEE JUMP!!! the pictures above are before shots, Brian, Gavin and Elaine. We all did the jump and th following are picture of us. But it really wasnt that simple!!! I didnt even think about it til it was my go. then the guy hooked me up. I was a just A BIT scared at this point! then when the guy said dont look down I obviously didnt listen. Stupid boy!!! So i am hooked up at the ledge almost soiling my underwear and the guy says "OK?" so naturally i say "NO!" so he says "OK??" I say "NO!!" he says "OK!!!!!!......5.....4.....3......2......1....." and on one I found myself jumping off the ledge. I did a bit of shouting and got to the bottom... "phew... I'm alive!!" I thought totally forgetting that a fatman on the end of a rubber band is likely to be thrown back into the air, upside down and round and round... So I did a little more screaming at this point.

































But like I say I am alive and thankful for it!










Next stop lunch by the Eiffel Tower (!?)




Then we went to Chuncheon, or very nearby and did a bit of cycling to a place in the mountain where there is a waterfall and nice fresh air and greenery. It was so nice i didnt do any of the extra cycling that I planned to do I just sat with some of the people we met and Brian and Elaine. Heres some pictures, they pretty uch explain the rest.

Another wekend goes by and I had another good few days. Very full couple of days. Went to the foreingers bar on Friday night. I'm not too sure if i like that place, some of the people that go there really arent to my taste. Got back pretty late from there and went from there to the 'pork spine' soup place for some breakfast.

Woke up at 7am and got ready to go to Everland, for Aarons birthday. Everland is a theme park, with rollercoasters and stuff. There were some pretty good rides there, some of them werent all that scary, some of them were good but a bit short for my liking. one of them was sooooo scary! Its a bit like Rameses Revenge, Chessington, but its smaller. you get pretty close to the ground on that ride adn i thought my head was going to explode! I already had a headache cos of my wisdom tooth playing up, then this ride made loads of blood rush to my head. What was even more worrying was that I had a nose bleed as well. So I didnot really enjoy that ride much. After going on the rides we went on a short safari. I much prefer the animals that can walk about and be social with other animals than the other ones in the cages. Dont get me wrong its not the animals fault they are stuck in small cages in the zoo. There were tigers, lions, an elephant, zebras, giraffes, bears and some other animals that I wasnt sure about.













There were also a bunch of other amusing things we saw. which included a parade of geese followed by the duck parade...

We got back late that evening, partially cos the bus left everland at about 8 and we got to Shinsagae at 9.45 ish. Did a lot of messing about with my camera on the way back.Went went for a swift half for Aarons birthday then we went to a NoreBang, my first time in a Korean kareoke room. Its a good laugh. just a shame that some people didnt sing. there much have been about 12 of us tho and it would be silly to think that every one would want to sing. I did... quite a few times.

Got some other good news as well! My iPod is ready for collection. I think I am going to go and get it on Saturday after I got to a wedding. One of the Korean teachers that has just left the school invited Brian, Elaine and Myself to her wedding! Should be fun!

Joined a gym today as well. Looks like i'm gonna have something to do in the mornings now!

Laters all

dx

p.s. here is a picture of a dinner that I often have... Big Ra... you were right! I love Kimchi Jjigae . Check out all of the sides! And there's some Mandu (the dumplings at the top of the shot). I love Mandu.

Teachers Day

Yesterday was teachers day, however, unlike Children’s Day when the children have the day off the teachers still have to work on teachers day! I prefered Childrens Day. There was some kind of mix up in my school… some of the kids came in with presents for the teachers, when I don’t think they were supposed to. But that’s cool!!! I got two sets of handkerchiefs. Some really nice ones as well. And I have a feeling it was the first time I got given roses, which was nice.

Today its back to normal, actually worse than normal cos its phone teaching this evening, which means that I will not finish work tonight until 9 pm. Which sucks! I am also a bit unlucky that my phone teaching will definitely be over three days. Tonight I finish at 6.05, and will start calling at about 6.30 after free food, but tomorrow I finish at 7.35 so wont be able to start until 8 ish. Then on Thursday I don’t even get free food!

But I have lost a whole bunch of students so if I cant get through my 20 kindergarteners tonight I will be quite pleased!

The return of pictures!

ISIT?!? ITIS!!! I got my camera back on saturday. I had to pay about 35 pounds for it but I think it was worth it.

Pretty good timing as well. On Sunday I went to Wolmido, which is on the coast. Its quite a walk from the nearest subway station but it wasn't too bad. We got off the subway at Incheon which is just opposite China town (which I have been through but dont have any pictures of). This is the gate to China town. And a random picture of a thing.


We walked from there to Wolmido, it took us about 45 minutes, but it was a nice enough walk. Ryan, Brian, Elaine, Ryan, Eimaer (sorry if i spelt that wrong) and Gavin went.

When we got there there was a band playing Red Hot Chili Peppers songs on little stage. It seemed to be some tribute to the recently deceased Pope...

We decided to go over to the island that the airport was on and try yo find a beach to chill on. the ferry cost about 1pound 20p, which is good, and took about 10 minutes. When we got there we had to take a bus to the other side of the island. By this time I was pretty hungry! but the bus took ages to get to the beach! I never knew that I could sleep standing up before yesturday on that bus! But I reckon that the beach was worth it! Here's Ryan standing on a rock and the beach itself. It got a bit chilly by the time the sun was setting. So we took our photo oppurtunities and left when the sun went down.


The way home was a lot better. There is a bus that goes from the airport to a subway station near Mansudong, where we live, so we got to the airport and got pretty much straight on the bus home. 45 minutes later we were at Songnae station and 10 after that we were back home.

Nice round trip to DongIncheon

Well it seems that the Sony Repair centre is in Incheon. But then again that’s not saying much cos I live in Incheon as well! So I found out in that PC Bang in DongIncheon that where the repair centre was and I went to the station that was closest, which was Incheon Bus Terminal. Took me about half an hour and a change on the subway. I got off the sub way and I started recognizing where I was… “hmmmmm…” I thought… “Shinsegae…. I know this place!” Oh dear! It’s a place that I can take the bus to. It’s about 15 mins on the bus. What a moron!

Well the camera is in for repair and I expect to hear from them next week. I still haven’t heard from apple, I am going to ask my supervisor to call them today to get an update. I kind of half expect it to be ready for me to get, cos I gave them a friends mobile number, but I gave it to them wrong!

Right, its phone teaching next week, so I have to sort out what I am going to be asking them and stuff.

Take it easy

dx

long weekend

My long weekend is winding down now. We had friday off and a really easy day on thursday. I am currently sitting in a PC Bang in DongIncheon after walking through China town. It was a nice walk. There is some good shopping here! but as I have no money I didnt indulge.

I am really here to get my camera fixed. I heard there was a sony repair centre in Incheon. So here I am. but nobody here knows anything about the place. So I am just about to hed off to Incheon Bus Teminal as there is a Sony shop there and hopefully they might just take my camera and fix it. Its got a well known and acknowledged problem with a CCD chip. I really am not sure what its about, but Sony know it and fix all of the defective units for free!

hopefully I will have camera and Ipod for next weekend.

Went to the Zoo Zoo Zoo on friday, with Elaine and her folks. its a great walk through the zoo, but the only thing I didnt like about it was the animals in cages. I dont think I like zoos. We saw the dolphin and seal show as well, it was cool. The animals seemed happy, and they looked as if they treat them well, but i guess I'll never know. Yesturday was nasty, rained all day! My windows still leak, its not good, it wet my bed and soaked the things that were on my window sill, which was nothing important really. right I'm off to the bus terminal to try again with the camera!

take care

send my emails and presents and stuff.

dx

ps, if you want my phone number or address mail me, as i now know them both!

Childrens Day

Ok well tomorrow is childrens day in Korea and we have the day off, which is really nice! A very short week, cos this morning we went out to the park and played some games with the kids. Quite a lot of fun! We split the kids into two teams and did an obstacle course type thing. They had to crawl through a plastic tube then under a net and then eat a sweet out of a plate of flour without using their hands. It was a real laugh!

Going for a dinner tonight with the Wonderland crew and Elaine’s parents. Mrs. Lim is giving my supervisor a credit card for the dinner I think. I don’t think that she is coming out with us.

Then it’s the long weekend. I have about 50 pounds to keep me going for the next four days. Should be interesting! I also have red eyes. I woke up yesterday with them and they are still red today. Got some eye drops from the pharmacy but they really aren’t that good and my eyes are still pretty red. The writing is all in Korean and I don’t fancy applying the drops for a third time in about an hour!

Right I have to go!

Here’s a picture of Molly, one of my students she’s cool!