Today I had my first piano lesson.

I went from school (my hours are different this week; I'm working 9am - 12.30.... no school lunch :() straight to the piano lady's house. It was slightly like an interrogation. She sat me down.

"Why do you want to learn the piano?"

Then her neighbour came in to see what I was like. Her neighbour's English was really good so we could talk really well and afterwards I think they decided I wasn't a bad foreigner and she began teaching me.

When we phoned her yesterday to arrange it, we decided that the lessons would be best from 6pm - 7pm, then 2 hours later she phoned back to tell me that her husband wasn't happy with the arrangement and it would have to be earlier.

The white people they have met or have heard of before did wonders to damage the image of foreigners.

It was a beautiful moment when I began playing though as I forgot how great it is to learn something physical. These last 3 years of reading books have worn down my interest in learning and today, I believe it has been re-ignited.

As this week is a school vacation, over 4 lessons I taught (collectively) maybe 10 students!! We began playing a Spongebob Squarepants boardgame which was too complicated to explain so we made our own rules up. Also we played my new game of 'How long can you stand on one leg for, whilst pulling a stupid face without laughing' which went down a treat. THEN the troublesome fifth graders were demanding 'Simon Says' which they normally hate. Seems that being in school during vacation results in thier wanting more fun, no matter how small it is.

This morning I'm sat in me room with the heating on, me double doors BOTH closed, wearing a hoody, two pairs of socks, a jacket and me hood up and its still cold. The wind is so desperate to get into my room this morning... I think it really wants to be my friend.
The sea is in turmoil with waves jumping over the harbour wall and the seagulls are having difficulty trying to fly anywhere; at the moment they are just hovvering around the place looking like they are in control, but I know they're not.

Today all of my lessons have been cancelled (WooHoo!!) but I've still gotta go into school. I promised all the kids a party today so I think they are going to hunt me down and eat me alive in school today when it occurs to them that no English = no party.

Tonight is going to be something quite special. We're going out in the city and with our boss. Also, one of the teachers from school has asked me to phone her when I get in because her and her sister want to go drinking aswell. On top of this it's Christmas Eve. I cannot wait.

Then tomorrow we have Christmas day in Hallim and we have maybe 5 other people coming to join us from other places so it should be a proper good day. AND the Aussie who is leaving is being replaced by a chap called Ben who has been living on the mainland for the past 6 months. May not seem that interesting but he is a top chap. We got to know him in orientation and he came to visit us for one weekend and managed to fall in love with Jeju in two days and asked to be transferred. Gotta trust those feelings eh?

At Winter Camp, for sports day, I told my Mentor Teacher about British Bull Dogs. She was delighted and wants to use it with 120 kids. I've began grooming them and yesterday we played it for the first time and it was AMAZING!! One girl dropped out from exhaustion and then two other kids were chasin each other around the playground because one of em pulled the others hair tooo tooo hard but they LOVED it!! Those kids are gonna win on the day we play it.

After I wrote this I popped out for 5 mins to get some milk wearing all me jackets and hat and my hands and face were numb and my face was wet from secret tears!! All this cold and no snow.

View from the Orum :)

So it didn't upload....

Save this blog being pointless and videoless today I found out that I am in South Korea for another 6 months.

CONTRACT EXTENSION YES PLEASE!!!

Hoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooray!

Yesterday was perfect in almost every way. Myself, Dahee and Laurence decided to climb an Orum (its pretty much a mini volcano) as the weather was incredible.

The wind here is really strong and it occurs almost everyday and living on the west coast doesn't help us much. I think we have a reputation for getting the worst of it. Some days I'll have my bike on the lowest gear riding into the wind and it feels as though I'm on the highest gear. You should thank yourself I have not been blown over to Japan yet and writing all about Japan!!

SO yesterday there was no wind. No wind at all. There was not a cloud in the sky an the sun was making it warm enough for t-shirt weather (almost... but you'd need to keep moving) and we had the best company. All of these factors put together create the most perfect...

DAY OF FUN.

So we got lunch in town and were hurried out of the restaurant as soon as we finished so others could sit down (which apparently is really rude here but with the sun shining as much as it was, it was no factor in our day at all), got Laurences coat fixed for maybe one pound and then almost found me a piano teacher but she wasn't in and so departed for our journey to the top of a volcano.

The Orum in on the way to my school so we decided to try and find a new path as one of the roads is quite fast and and not so scenic so we found ourselves in what I believe, to be the most rural area of South Korea I had yet seen. There were no houses, only stone walls, trees, a few horses and us. Ah! It was so serene. The sun was shining on all the dead vegetation (as its post-autumn here now) releasing abundances of bronze and golden colours and a silence only to be challenged by the wierd noises that horses make or us walking around.

These scenes were regular up until we hit the main road to to Orum. We were the only people on the Orum (which, considering the weather and Korean's love of walking, was quite rare) and had a race to the top (which almost killed me.... and Laurence won) and then climbed down into the crater, which resembled more of a quarry in regards to its steepness. I got maybe 20 meters away from the centre but returned back to the top as there is a lot of recent activity in the soil there; bits of earth are falling down into the volcano. We walked around and circular pieces of grass had just disappeared downwards to create random holes. These holes got the better of me as I didn't want to fall into the centre of the earth from Jeju Island and so escalated back up again. I think the volcano is just really old and the old lava tubes and tunnels inside it are collapsing. There were two places where it would seem that a whole tunnel had collapsed as there would just be a huge ditch.

SO THEN our plan was to return home and watch Toy Story 3 after the sun had set, but I had a phone call to go over to the other side of the island (Hamdog) to play with rockets. We all went there and almost died 10 times over as the chaps had some paper planes are were making them fly by attaching fireworks to them. Thier intentions were sound as they really were experimenting however in reality some planes would fly, and others would crash and explode sending fireworks in every direction causing everyone to run away. Two planes got burnt up and a wealth of knowledge was gained.

Today the weather is almost identical, although the wind is back and I can spend my morning writing about what I did yesterday, such is my life :D.

If you were to ask me 'Are you a busy person?' I wold almost definitely say yes, but if you were to ask 'What do you do that keeps you so busy?' I would not be able to answer you in any definitive way. I wouldn't even be able to say that what I do is productive. If I were to take myself back to Friday then I could say:

I rode my bike, I got stared at by the old ladies, I had a really good day in school (they had a festival), I came back to town, I met up with Laurence and Paul and ate out, I tried talking to a few locals, we came back home, I watched a video on a Japanese teacher who had a very different approach to teaching, we went into town and saw a few friends and the day had already ended!

Simple eh? I'm beginning to believe that's why life is so good out here; the pure simplicity of it. If I were to leave this island now, I'd be dreaming about it for the rest of my life.

YESTERDAY in Grade 4 a new child came into my room with a timid look on his face; his friends were looking at him as though to say 'don't worry' but they were all wearing small smiles on thier faces as though something was going to happen.... what exactly I do not know.

'HELLO! Whats your name?'

'My name is Kim Sun Hyun'

'Kim Sun Hyun?'

'No, Kim Sun H-Y-U-N'

'Yes - Kim Sun H-Y-U-N'

'NO! Kim Sun H----Y----U----N'

'Yes! Kim Sun H----Y----U----N'

'NO! NO! NO!'

Five minutes later he proudly proclaimed his new self-titled name to me.

Grade 4 now has a new student called Anchovie.

Believe me when I say that I gave him no inspiration for this name. I had a new student in Grade 5 last week and he couldn't think of a name so I helped him and we settled on Jake. That is my inspiration on names.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgrrQwLdME8

Today is not the nicest of days, its sort of cold, but not really cold because its totally over cast. One of those days when you really would not be able to tell the time if you were to look at the sky. Although all is not lost as I have my slipper socks on... try and battle that oh over cast day!!

Also there was about 26 people over this weekend from the mainland so we all went out last night and I managed to wake up at 12 today. Not best impressed but have I got essay to write? NO! Have I got presentations to do? NO! Have I got to go and do some volunteering at the opposite end of some estate? NO! I don't think I'll ever forget how easy and free time is on Jeju island. Best job ever.

In the place we went to last night they made you pay to sit down on a table, and then the dance floor would be playing music for maybe 20 minutes and then EVERYONE had to sit down for 10 minutes whilst something happened. Everytime. The word I heard the most last night was 'Wow'. As there was a big group of us and maybe half of us were white, the Korean chaps could not believe their eyes... 'WOW'. Every 5 minutes. WOW!

On Friday we were doing clothing and I made a stencil of Barak Obama and got the kids to dress him as a sort of test. I had four cups and in each cup was written a type of clothing: feet, legs, torso and head (hats). So the kids picked out a piece of paper and had to cut out the clothes and dress Obama. So after that lesson the Grade fours came in and saw pretty Obamas.

'Teacher! Teacher! Today Obama??'

I told em no and we was gonna have a competition between boys and girls to make the best Mrs. Santa Claus and best Mr. Santa Claus.

'Obama Teacher!! Obama??'

We made a compromise that they could stick Obamas face on Santa Claus so hence, Mrs. Obama Claus is next to thier Christmas tree. The boys didn't do so well on that one and still have to stick Mr. Obama Claus together.

Also the kids are going nuts for paper chains. On Friday Grades 1 and 2 had the choice to make a really cool angel, or more hands for the Christmas tree or paper chains. ALL of them went for the paper chains. I actually have a paper chain room now and have hard patches on my hands from where I've used the scissors to cut up hundreds of pieces of paper for the chains. Next week is going to be such a let down for them now as NO PAPER CHAINS.

If nothing else, they have learnt to say 'paper please' now instead of 'Jonge juice say yo!' (check this out; Hangul version is 종이주세요 :D:D:D)

Maybe if they become an artist in Britain then my teaching has done them some use.

"Paper please!"

Also check this out for good learning:

토요일 에 마라도 갔어요. 매우 아름 다웠어요. 나는 차를 운전했어요. 매우천천히갔어요. 나는많은 강아지를 봤어요.

Phonic translation is:

Toe yo il eh Marado kas oh yo. Mair ooo ah rum da owa so yo. Na nuhn cha rull un jon hes seo yo. Mair oo chun chun he gat seo yo. Na nuhn manh un gang a ji rull bohat seo yo.

And then English is: On Saturday I went to Marado. It was very beautiful. I drove a car. It was very slow. I saw many dogs.

They call me Mr. Cultural

I hope I cannot be guilty of taking my job too seriously HOWEVER recently I've been noticing the kids behaviour in lessons at school and I've come to the conclusion that students are mirrors of thier teachers. I say this on a surface level but as time progresses it seems to go a lot deeper.

So on the surface there have been a couple of days when I've gone into school hung-over and I'll teach the kids the lesson I've put together and teach it as though they are just learners and I'm just a teacher. Simple as.

Unfortunately my hang-over is more than evident in thier attitudes. This is divided into the Hang-over Headache, the Hang-over Bad-temper and the Hang-over Life-is-a-Burden attitude.

Headache; they are the kids who refuse to do anything because I haven't presented the lesson to them in an energetic and interested manner and so they do not want to do anything.

Then the Bad-Temper hang-over children will fight with each other because I cannot be bothered to stop them arguing and consequently they get in bad moods because I am angry at them and they are angry at each other.

Finally the Life-is-a-burden hang-over attitude when the English language doesn't matter, 'Why should I learn this subject? I hate it and I think it's crap' and it doesn't make sense to them as there is no fun or passion.

I do not exaggerate in these attitudes; the kids do NOT want to learn if they know they are learning and they have to sit down and understand. I don't blame them; how can you explain to a 7year-old child that this language will boost thier chances of a better life and future when the most important part of thier day (and life) is returning to the big hole they are digging in the sand behing the climbing frame?

So going back to the mirror idea I've also noticed that inspiration and challenges fall into this catergory aswell. Now, I can hear a few thoughts thinking 'Yes Simon, you are taking this way too seriously', but how can you inspire an individual if you are not inspired yourself??

It's like trying to describe what a strawberry tastes like to a friend HOWEVER you have never tried a strawberry yourself, you have only read about what a strawberry tastes like, but you tell them that you HAVE tried it. Without having tried it yourself, you lack the conviction in your words and hollow words are seen easily.

Your friend may believe you, but the skepticism is there and skepticism means that they are not fully involved with what you are saying and for this; they look upon strawberries in a duller light compared to someone who has had strawberries described to them by someone who has eaten a strawberry.

You do not just do strawberries an injustice, you do your friend an injustice aswell. If you are to tell them about strawberries then they deserve to know the full force and beauty of that sweet and shining red fruit!


Secondly, with reference to challenging the kids, it is sort of the same with the strawberries. I'd find it slightly hypocritical to tell the kids 'yes it's hard, but you can do it! Just try' if I was never challenged myself. Now, I have an example.

Where I park my bike in Hallim there is a raised pavement. On the drop side of the pavement there is a cabbage field maybe 6ft down. Running alongside the pavement is a small 2ft wall which has the width of a curb. Not being a fan of heights I walk along the pavement HOWEVER one day I decided to balance on top of the wall and walk the whole 20meters that it stretched. The blood went to my head, I felt a little dizzy and it took me maybe 10minutes to do it but I did it. The feeling after was incredible. I went to school that day with an attitude to knock down mountains and I remember that day being a seriously good day (and not just because I walked on a wall), but because the kids were on my side.

You may think that it is just a good mood being reflected in the kids but a good mood is wayyyyy too simple an explanation.

Also you may be thinking 'you've got too much time to think Simon' but the only reason I've noticed this is because of the different types of lessons I have. It's impossible to ignore how the kids can be so receptive to one day, and so brutal to another. It really is down to you. To bring that quote back,

'The greatest dances are not judged by their techniques, but by their passion.'

Unfortunately, I write all of this down as though I know, but I still don't understand it myself as everyday still is, an endless journey up the mountain of learning.

Went to North Korea this weekend!!







I only went maybe 5 meters into the country but I still stood there :D. It would seem that I went at the right time with regards to what happened yesterday. I don't quite understand what happened there but I think it's just a mixture of North Korean excitement for blood and the fact that they don't have much to loose.



Talking of North Korean excitement for blood, we went to one spot on the DMZ (De-militarized Zone) where 3 Americans tried to prune a tree which was blocking thier view of a guard tower. 20 North Korean soldiers turned up and told them to stop, but they didn't, so the North Koreans murdered them with axes.















In retaliation, the Americans sent a whole division with helicopters, B-52 bombers and artillery support the next day and chopped the whole tree down and futher more, pruned every tree in the area. God bless the American mentality eh?



On Sunday we went to the Korean War Memorial which was O.U.T.S.T.A.N.D.I.N.G! I could not believe how much information and art work there was there. The Korean War was huge and so it's representation as a museum is something not to be taken lightly.


QUICK HISTORY LESSON:



In 1945 The Japanese do thier unconditional surrender to the allies and have to withdraw from all the countries that they have colonised... including the Korean Peninsula.



Korea is SUPER happy because they are free again HOWEVER the Soviets move in from the North, whilst the Americans land in the South to help clear out all the Japs. Sort of the same story as Berlin, but no Japs, just Germans. But they didn't really clear them out. So not the same story, but similar.

















The country became divided under America and the USSR and by 1949 both occupying forces had withdrawn from the country. On June 25th 1950 the North invaded and so started the Korean War.


On the island of Jeju 1 in every 5 people was killed and half the villages burned down. There was a rebellion here and there is a cave where they found hundreds of bodies where people were running away from the 'Communists' and they all hid in the cave but there was too many of them and many died from suffocation and being crushed and the ones at the front were killed by the Communists. At least I think it was that way around. You can visit the cave so maybe I'll go and get me history right for ya.



So the metal dudes are structures outside the museum; for the first thing you see when you walk into that place it really does set a tone.



The pictures with the blue buildings are the North Korea - South Korea border. The blue buildings are South Korean and the grey buildings are North Korean. Half the building is in the South and half is in the North so North troops can walk in and out of the South Korean buildings and vice versa with the South Korean troops in the North's buildings.


So when George Bush visited one of these buildings, two North Korean troops enetered the building, took down two American flags and one wiped his boot with the American flag and the other blew his nose on the flag.... all infront of George Bush. Also the chap with the binoculars is a North Korean soldier.




The picture of me and the ROK soldier is in the half of the South Korean building which is in North Korea. This is the building that the flag incident happened in. Also the ROK soldier's give you a pretty hard thump if you get too close to them.... not personal experience but I saw it happen to two people in the room. Haha they sh*t themselves when it happened.

Then there are some pictures of me and my mates from the American Army and the Korean army. Top chaps. Top.

AND THEN there is this picture of a bridge. This bridge is also on the border; it is called 'The Bridge of No Return'. So called because at the unofficial end of the Korean War, I think something like 80,000 North Korean POW's and maybe 50,000 South Korean POW's had the choice of living in either the North or the South. The only deal was that once they crossed the bridge, they could never return.

Just a quick one as am shorlty to leave school;

Yesterday the old ladies at the bus stop had the best entertainment out of me so far.

I gave a stray dog a bit of attention and consequently it did not leave me alone. It just wanted to play but it kept humping my leg and I literally could not get rid of it. The old ladies were risking wetting themselves by laughing so much THEN they motioned to me to punch the dog to get rid of it.

For 10minutes I waited for the bus and for 10minutes I dodged this dog humping my leg. It was embarressing.

THEN this morning it was there again. I walked the long way around to the bus stop so it didn't see me, but it did and came straight at me like an arrow to an apple.

I ignored it and stayed motionless------The old ladies were looking at me------The dog came right up to my leg----- The old women anticipated the best moment of thier morning---- I continued to ignore the dog------AND THEN----- it chased a car.

HA!!! In your faces old women!! They were gutted!! Best morning this week :D!

Climbed the highest point in South Korea yesterday!!!

We had chaps over from the mainland so used it as the best excuse to finally climb the mountain, although I think over the last week all the leaves have finally dropped off the trees so unfortunately there was not so many spectacular colours occuring BUT it was a mighty fine clear day so we could see the whole island.

Koreans love hiking and walking so for the best part of the way to the top we were in a queue of people slowly trudging upwards and then once we were at the top, there were people EVERYWHERE. They've fenced the top in so you cannot walk around the crater of the volcano so myself and John decided to get some good pictures and climbed the fence and walked to a rocky edge and were there maybe 5minutes and then got PROPER shouted at my a man in the fenced area. He was really quite mad with us; I think he was the angriest looking Korean I have met so far (the chap who we had the fight with looked more sleepy than angry).

AH so talking of the man we had a fight with, I went to his restaurant and he looked quite embarressed throughout the whole chat, he apologised and then asked if I had had dinner. I said no, so he offered to make me some, so I said, only if you guys (the man and the lady translator) eat aswell.

It was a BBQ style restaurant so we had a the side dishes and he brought out a plate of meat and began cooking it. Once it was all sorted he went back into the kitchen to cook some other stuff and the lady decided that she was too full so I had to eat 3 peoples worth of food. I slept so well that night.

Oddly enough when I was waiting for the lady translator (Su Young), a man was walking toward me and he looked really quite sturdy and I thought to myself (no lie)

"Man I'm glad we didn't get into a fight with him"

Then he says to me 'excuse me, are you Simon?'

I said yes, became a bit confused and then saw he was wearing an apron and everything came into place. We waited together for maybe 3 minutes and it was awkward. It was really awkward. He didn't speak any English and my Korean did a quick escape out of my head leaving me with one word which I could remember, 'Today....'

Today is a major day for me; I'm planning an offensive against my Grade 5' and 6's so that more of them come to my lessons as the numbers are up and down everyday which is making it so hard for me to teach. Some of them cannot even read English and a Grade 2 or 3 would have a better knowledge of the language than they SO its proving difficult.

My main idea at the moment is to have an 'English Talent Show' where they practice a song, drama or dance or something over the period of 1 or 2 months and then we have the talent show where parents come and watch (bit like primary school plays) and the teachers are judges and then the winners get some AWESOME prize.

I've spoken to the big boss of TaLK scholars on Jeju and they say once I put a plan together, then they will see if they will fund me or not. I just need to keep chasing the idea.

That's the big plan to raise the enthusiasm; the smaller plans are going to be drawn up this evening. The older grades are so much harder to keep interested; all bar one of the students in Grade 3 attend after school English and it is almost the same for Grades 1 and 2. Grade 4 always stay the same but they are awesome kids so if new ones came in I think it would confuse me a little.

Today I am drawing my inspiration from stairs; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lXh2n0aPyw

I had quite an odd phone call last night.

A woman phoned, asked if I was Simon and then said

'I know one of your friends, but you don't know me, my name is Su Young, but you can call me Sue. Last week you got into a fight, is that right?'

I PROPER got scared at this point as I thought it was an official calling me to say that I was being deported. So I said yes and then she responded,

'Do you know the man who you had a fight with?'

'No'

'Do you know his name?'

'No'

'His name is 'blah blah' (it was too complicated for me to remember) and he wants to speak to you but he doesn't know any English and I'm his only English speaking friend. He wants to apologise. Can he meet you?'

SO ends out I'm being picked up by Sue at 8pm tonight then we're going to the mans restaurant so he can apologise.
I'm really intrigued to know what he is like sober; I say this because he started a fight with 6 people and he was by himself. He was drunk but even a really drunk person would think twice about starting a fight with 6 strangers. In all honesty I think I am a little nervous about meeting him again.

On a lighter note, yesterday in class for Grade 5 I asked em to re-write Louis Armstrong's 'What a Wonderful World' and one kid called Wales (awesome name right) wrote;

I see Japan,
Nagasaki too,
I see them atomic boom
For me and you
And I think to myself
What an amazing Japan!

Korean's love Japan!

Although on a sad moment, one of the orphans re-wrote the lyrics about eating an apple with his mum. He was PROPER happy with it though so I guess it ain't so sad at all.

I gotta write some lessons!

Most mornings at the bus stop I'll be sat down next to all the old women farmers who have some serious back problems but have some serious smiles to counter thier backs.

Anyway they always laugh at me. I don't know what its about either. Some days I'll have a water melon, or a big bag of sweets, or bog roll (for Halloween), or when I drink my chocolate milk I can understand why they laugh but the other days are mysterious to me.

Today an old man came over and tried talking to me and was proper nice, as when he realised I couldn't speak Korean he left. Most days, if this happens, the person talking to me will stay there and say something to the old women and they'll all laugh. Today this did not happen.

I got on the bus and he was already on it and patted the seat next to him for me to sit down. He spoke more Korean and then just smiled. The old mans happiness made me super happy that he was investing this much confusion into a Westerner AND THEN it occured to me why he was so so nice. He stank of alcohol. It was 10.30am and not even Christmas day.

Either way, he was happy and consequently made me happy.

I had a really confusing class in Grade 3 today as half of them weren't there yesterday and they definitely had to do today what the class did yesterday (if that makes sense?) so I had to split the class in two and my co-teacher wasn't in.

What happens??

My Mentor teacher offers her help!! First day shes offered and first day it was needed :D.

So she looked after the half who had to catch up and to begin with I didn't know what to do with the other half, as, if we played games then we'd distract the others and they'd rush thier work to finish and join in.

SO

I decided to begin using my resources and read to them from one of my thousands of books. It was the most bizarre experience. My old primary school teachers used to read to me and here I was doing the exact same thing 17-18years later to a bunch of Korean children in Korea.

To start they were sat in semi-circle around me listening, really, quite intently. Although I was sat next to the board so if they didn't understand anything I could just draw it.

By the end they pratically climbing on top of me and pulling the most amazed, happy and excited faces to anything that happened in the book... you wouldn't think a book called 'Bear in the Square' would be that exciting but for them it was.

I don't think I've ever had a lesson with Grade 3 when they've been that quiet throughout the entire lesson.

For Grade 5 one student turned up so we just went a played outside recording his 'Daily Schedule' - I've set a competition project for Grades 5 and 6 to record thier daily schedule and the winner gets and AMAZING award. So today the daily schedule included;

'I balance with my friends' (I got em to climb a climbing frame and have 3 of em stand on top of it.... I couldn't even do it so fair play to em!!)

'I climb trees' (self-explanatory) and

'I do obstacle course' but he didn't win that one, I DID!! So he ain't using that in his project!

Also this week the kids filled out thier forms for after-school classes. I think they have a choice of eight different things to do.

SO out of 70 students in total in the school, just under 50 of them have signed up to do after-school English now.

It made me so happy yesterday to hear that... can't quite believe it. In my Grade 1 and 2 class today I almost filled every chair!! And not only that they are remembering what I teach them as we had a (sort of) test today. AND my lesson was being supervised aswell. Golden Day!

AND I've managed to get from 19th January to 6th February on holiday. Just shows how much ya can wrangle an official '7 days holiday' with talent show dances, weekends and national holidays!!

Although these weekend the POE (Provincial Office of Education in Jeju) are paying for us all to go in a submarine with windows to go look at fish, go go-carting and fly in hot air ballons across the island and I've book flights to Busan to go see mates from orientation for the weekend. I am gutted!! If there is a lesson here then it is don't go and see people you want to see; wait at home and there is a 2% chance of something 5 times as better occuring.

Saying that this weekend in Busan may be the best of my life so I am not bitter.... No, no I am not.

ALSO now I have found maybe 3 people who are super happy to teach me Korean for free, a man to help me make Korean food (ate tuna the other night and it wasn't actually that bad.... apologises to anyone who I criticsed in the past) AND a piano teacher maybe on the short-list aswell!!! I just hope the inspiration and motivation keeps up!!

On Friday it was Halloween Party Day for all the grades. In 3 classes I had two kids storm out, 3 kids cry and it was the day that the Vice-Principal of the school and my Mentor teacher decided to sit in on my lesson and see how I was doing. It was also the day that my co-teacher wasn't in and WHAT a day it was!!

In the first and second grade (infront of the Vice-Principal) two kids decided to get under the table and refused to get out because they weren't playing the game (they wouldn't stop talking when I was explaining it) ; however I managed to wrangle it when I stopped the whole class and said that we wouldn't play any more games and the WHOLE class went ape sh*t at them and they shot out then :).

Then in Grade 3 we were dressing up as zombie mummies using bog roll and the class literally went crazy. I think in the confusion one kid hit another and then bog roll was being lobbed at faces and the room was just a blur of flying toilet paper so we stopped that game, tidyed up and Halloween finished in one small moment. They were PROPER gutted!!!

The grade four class were AMAZING apart from me number 1 student who walked in late, so I (jokingly) said 'NO PARTY CABBAGE!' (his name is Cabbage) and he stormed out, closely followed by his mate who HATES English and will use any excuse to show this.

So at the end the Vice-Principal said (translated):

"You are a very at controlling the class... your lessons are very fun and exciting and you are a very good teacher as your classes are much bigger than the previous teacher and now many children enjoy English... I will be happy to reccomend you to extend your contract"

GET IN!!!

I know I'm bragging when I put that down, but the reasoning is that I was stunned. I genuinely believe I'm quite a bad teacher as the kids kick my ass in lessons, they don't learn half as much English as I'd like them too and I think the reason the classes are big is because we play outside some days. Either way, the school is quite quite happy!!!

So Friday night I went for a few drnks with the guys who I played football with last Saturday. I had to be awake at 6am this morning (Sat) as we had to go and do a dance and a stall at a talent show in the Southern city of Seogwippo SO I was having a mega early night.

I think we started at 9.30pm and I kept being introduced to more and more people (I think 5 different groups all told and with the culture here it's very hard to up and leave) so it was quite hard to get away. Then six of us went to a Karaoke bar and before I knew it, it was 3am. We finished the night there and waited for a taxi.

A man walked up to us and properly slapped one a guy called 'Robot' (he was given an 'English name' by an American) on the back of the head. He shouted at everybody and went into the shop behind us. I was quite confused and was staring at this man really hard, so as soon as he left, all the guys were saying 'NO NO NO do not stare!! He is very drunk and angry!!'

So oddly enough, when he came out of the shop, everybody was looking at the floor (it's the hierarchy thing again I think).

Our taxi pulled up and the man said (in translation) "This is my taxi", then a chap from our group said 'No, this is our taxi', then the man went MENTAL and grabbed him, threw him against a car and began punching him like crazy. At this moment everything went crazy.

Nobody fought him, the Korean chaps just tried to restrain him, count to three, let him go, and he'd do it all over again. By the end of this game, one guy had a busted lip and cut cheek, I had a nose full of blood and a fantastic rush of blood to the head (consequently my nose is now bigger than my sisters :S), two pairs of glasses had been smashed and everybody was quite confused.

Although I must say that even though it was a bad end to the night, Robot has offered to help me learn how to cook Korean food starting tomorrow :D!!!

So the night ended at 5am this morning with the largest part of it being spent in the police station giving written accounts of what happened. Luckily the chaps I was with are well known here so the police knew they weren't bad people and were on thier side. Throughout the entire period of being in the police station, the chaps I was with (Ji Won, Young Ho, Robot, Ladakh and Soon Chil) would say every 5minutes or so 'Sorry Simon, so so sorry. Sorry'.

Honestly they would not stop.

And then...

Today we were given the opportunity to get an extra 3 days holiday if we participated in a Global Language Festival in Seogwippo. The deal was you get 2 days if you manned a stall and another extra day if you participated in the talent show.

So the talent that 14 of us did was a dance infront of many hundreds of Korean children to one of the Korean pop songs 'Bo Beep' (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5T_D_8JV54), although our dance was WELL much better than this one. So we bagged ourselves a third day holiday!! And with only 2hrs sleep.

I am proper knackered now. I upload some pictures...

This weekend worked WONDERS for the social bonds!! On Friday after school all the teachers went to the Principals house for a meal. Turns out that it wasn't his house but a patch inbetween lots of high-rise buildings where he had a little caravan and a garden patch.

Considering that some peoples Principals don't even look at them or acknowledge them in school, I considered myself quite priviledged to be invited. We started drinking instantly whilst all the food was being prepared (it was a team effort on everybodies part to make the meal) and then the remainder of the evening was spent eating, drinking and then we all went to a Karaoke bar (they call em Norebangs) and my Principal was the first to sing!! I took quite a few photos because I was so amazed.

As I said it was really good to be in an informal situation with all the teachers as it was so much more relaxed than in school. I tried testing a bit of my Korean language out with my Principal. He said that he would take me fishing on his boat (AMAZING RIGHT?) so I said 'Keeee?' which means 'REALLY?', he smiled and said he would. Later on in the night, Jay (me co-teacher) was talking to my mentor teacher and the Grade 4 teacher and they were talking about my conversation with the Principal. My mentor teacher said 'Simon you were quite rude when you said 'keee'' so I felt a little embarressed, and then Jay said 'Yeah Simon, that was actually f**king rude!' HAHA!! Apparently the Principal was fine with it, but its the whole social manners, hierarchy thing.

'Obla di, Obla daa life goes on!!' - Beatles

Anyway, we got a picture together (top)!!

Yesterday I played football with some locals chaps (thinking it would be a small fun game) and we got to the pitch and they had uniforms and were doing proper stretches and said 'yes today, it is the Catholics versus the Christians, it is a very big game'. Honestly I became a little nervous because even when I played football at Salford Lads Club the kids would ask me 'Have you ever played football before??'

Also I was the only white guy there and cars were turning up and staring at me and I thought, 'I'm not even doing anything and they are staring... they may very well wet themselves if I kick a ball'.

Really odd game of football as we had three half-times, but at the end of the match, the chap who asked me to come said 'Ahhhh Simon you very funny player!' and also if I kicked the football or managed to tackle anybody then the players in my vicinty would go 'Ahh VERY GOOD VERY GOOD!' Although in all honesty it was an amazing day; the librarian from work was playing for the opposite team which was shocking for both of us and ALL the chaps on the field were really welcomming.

So after the match, I went into town and instead of young groups of men looking at me oddly, they were saying 'Hello Simon!' with it. Unfortunately I remember no names other than Daniel, who was given an English name when he went to live in Australia for two years. However I feel more like a local from this weekend AND I had a stonking headache all day yesterday as the teachers drink like crazy (on the Friday night) and then I got back to Hallim at maybe 11pm and we had friends over from the city so we carried on until maybe 1-2am. That is a good 7hours hard drinking I think! So getting back to the point I played good football considering the night before.

Also on a note of badness my bike was taken the other day. Totally my fault really as I forgot to lock it up (I was quite excited about where I was going I think). So I went to the police station to report it but they were more keen to look at my pictures on my ID cards, with 'Ahhh Simon very pretty, very handsome', and then they asked to see my camera and looked through all the 200 something photos on it and then drove me back to the place where my bike got stolen, took a picture of it and drove me home.

Everything is an experience in itself here.

On the good side of the bad side, Jay is giving me his old bicycle and I'm getting money back for the bike (in a kinda of unofficial, but very official way :D). So overall it was a blessing in disguise.

So this picture is of one of the most famous men in Korea... King Sejong. He invented the Hangul writing format - 사이몬. So if it weren't for him, Korean's would have no written history, only oral, or Japanese written, or Chinese written, but most recently, English written.

And then the picture with all the gormless faces is the TaLK team of Jeju!! We are comprised of 4 generations at the moment :D. We got Aussies, Kiwis, Brits, Canadians, Americans, Koreans, Chinese peoples and South Africans; although he wasn't here this day, all in all we got 30!!

Then you got a picture of me school on the field trip. AWESOME day!! This week we have Halloween so are quite literally making things everyday until we have a party... hoooozar!

Today we went on a fieldtrip to Hallim Park.

We arrived there at 9.45, got the kids through and we all started walking through the park.

One of the assistant teachers and the gardner pulled Liz (an Epic teacher from Ireland), myself and Jay (me co-teacher) aside and took us to a hut where at 10.30am they cracked open a bottle of white alcohol (it tastes like cider mixed with milk) and by 10.45am we had got through three bottles of the stuff.

It was quite a shock and because I was really happy with the suprise, but also confused, the alchol just added to the feeling and I was so giddy all day. Then at lunch all the teachers got out the beer. I had the BEST nap this afternoon.

Originally I was meant to be teaching in the afternoon but its a bloody good job they decided to let us finish early. WHADDA DAY!!!

Haven't actually taken that many pictures this week... as it happens school is going really quite well so most of my attention is going onto keeping it steady I think.

Aside from today where I kicked three children out of the classroom. The 5th grade class got bigger again today and I cannot keep up with them; they are all at different levels and only bombard the lesson on a Wednesday so that means Monday and Tuesday are useless for them, and useless for me other students when they all come in because I have to teach something they all know.

AHHHHHH honeslty it's proper confusin. So anyway today one kid was cheating in a game so I kicked him out for a few minutes (harsh I know but there were so many of them doing it that I had to make a proper example of him.. worked perfectly :)) and then two kids weren't getting involved at all, and then I saw them pulling middle fingers at each other!!

I kicked em straight out; the one kid was GUTTED about it but the other was WAY too relaxed and said 'Oh ok, GOODBYE', smiled and waved.

As I wasn't too happy with his reaction I went down and saw my Mentor teacher at

the end of the day (she teaches as a 'proper teacher' to Grade 3) and she said that I did good to see her as she will tell thier teacher (the 'proper' Grade 5 teacher). This was quite a big move on my part as the kids are SO scared of thier 'proper' teachers and there may be tears involved.

However, usually the biggest threat is that the teacher will phone their parents and that scares them into line.

Although when I told my mentor teacher she said 'Ah yes, I know these students. They are orphans also and they do not want to learn, even in other classes'. So unfortunately there are no parents to be phoned.

I'm beginning to think that there are actually quite a few orphans in school now. Who knows; they may just place the word 'school' over orphanage whenever I walk in and its is actually an orphanage.

So just thought I'd show ya me room... inclusive of the complimentary pink sandals for the bathroom. The bin next to the toilet is for your tissue paper... AFTER IT HAS BEEN USED!! The water systems are wierd in South Korea, generally speaking you never flush paper down the hole.

Also I went down the Harbour yesterday morning and saw a hammer-head shark!! Thought I'd let you see it aswell :D.