Just sat in my classroom just now and should be sorting out me lesson plans for tommore BUT honestly this room is staggering; in the cupboard to my right I've got 2 DVD players, a hardcore music system which I just tested resulting in Aqua's 'Cartoon Heroes' pounding all four walls and a separate programme opened up on the PC so I couldn't stop it for a good 30secs and I guarantee it went through at least all the classrooms next door and underneath :S. So I have a projector, a touch board, two sliding white boards, a printer, a kettle, some juggling balls, a cabinet full of Sesame Street videos, blinds with educational stuff on em, velcroe display boards, all the props I'll ever need, board games for England (inclusive of the spongebob square pants) and enough colour occuring in the classroom it would cause a fit if an epileptic person were to move too quickly.

My Mentor teacher came in earlier and said it was lunch and all the teachers went to a restaurant next door... there was one dish made up of pig ear and tounge; I quite literally drowned it in soy sauce and sesame seeds before I ate it. Seriously chewy.

I tired riding my bike to school yesterday but became lost and so tried again this morn and it took one hour. I think I'm gonna have to invent a flying device on it soon :S.

Gonna go as I'm meant to have a lesson together in the next 40mins... Actually gonna be teaching a class of kids this time tommore :S

ON Friday nightwe went into the city for Laurences birthday but never got around to booking a hotel (although my mentor teacher actually booked us into a lighthouse FOR FREE for the night but under some miscommunication we managed to decline her offer :O) so at 3am we remebered out problem and so decided to go to an all-night sauna type place to sleep. They are called 'Gingu bangs' and you pay equivalent to 3-4 pounds for a space on the floor, shower, sauna, sea-water pools (from cold, to warm, to nicely hot, to hotter hot, to hottest hot and then OH BOY hot) and pyjamas to sleep in aswell. To be brutally honest it was a bit strange to start with when we got to the lockers and a chap who had been many times before called Lucas said 'Just get naked'. It would seem that Korean men are very intrigued by naked white men which was ok with individual looks but when you stand up and a group of men all turn around to look it does make you slightly self-concious. So after the shower, the swim, the shower, the sauna and then another shower it literally was a case of changing into the pyjamas, finding a space of the floor and falling asleep. Quite fine :D.

Meself and Paul bought some bicycles yesterday and so cycled home from Jeju city to Hallim which took us about 3hours and we got caught in a PROPER monsoon episode when we were on the dual carriageway. Mum - I say dual carriageway but they got maximum of 70km an hour so it's not as crazy as Britain :D. Anyway because the road was filling up with so much water so quickly we were literally gettin soaked by the waves of water from vehicles and the oddest thing was how warm the water actually was; we had stopped to get a drink and there was a group of maybe 15kids jumping into the sea on a rope swing acting as though there was no rain to be felt. Definitely warm and definitively refreshing.

All along the roads the old ladies are drying out the sesame seed plants ready to be shaken out but it seems that sesame seeds are a bad deal as all the old old ladies who work in the fields have got serious back problems, however saying that they look to be about 80+ years old sometimes so I guess they are doing pretty good... or maybe just look old? Also I've heard so much about the women who dive for sea food but have not yet seen any... rumours are that they can hold their breath for 2minutes :O.

Am off to go find my school on a bicycle...

MA BAD for nothing for long time but has been PROPER busy last few days AND SO...

Anyway back onto it we're in a town called Hallim where on the first night we were having a few beers, went swimming in the sea, came back to drink a few more beers and a man (who was sat on a table with about 7 other guys) called me over to speak to him and he turned out to be the local representative and BOY it was SOOO awkward. Truely. He was saying that we should be careful because normally foriegners act naughty and so have given all foriengers a bad name here and considering we are teachers we should be proper good. Anyway last night we walked past him sitting in a restaurant, waved to him and carried on walking to the beach. We stopped off at the convience store and he appeared from his car, went into the convience store and just stood by the counter not buying anything and only left after we had finished there. Honestly its proper wierding us out. Every person we see now is one of his spies. A fat child came to the convienience store 3 times last night in one hour, a police car drove past 5 times and I swear there are cameras in the trees.

Excitement aside my Head teacher has invited me to her house for a meal tommore night to meet the family which I'm excited for as she is soooooo laid back. She took me to the school yesterday where I will be teaching and on the way back we tried to find a shortcut to my house so I can ride a bicycle. As she did not know the way, she literally said 'where do you want to go, pick a road' and we did it that way, became quite lost and far from anywhere but it amazed me that she was laughing without a worry in the world about it. However I have to buy a shirt today as I literally have no clean clothes for the meal tommore, I've been evicted from my house for the next few days AND my washing didn't dry and so is proper smelly. Also I need to get my lesson plans together for my first ever class. My classroom is brand new and I have NEVER seen so much technology in a classroom. Also I have 2 spongebob squarepants board games :D!

AND AND AND our group has been entered into the Guiness Book or World Records for the 'Largest one-to-one English teaching session' whilst we were on English Camp. Pretty cool eh?

Thinking about it I had best get some materials togther for the classes before I'm too late on it SO watch this space :D ______________________

Just got back from Seoul and am quite tired... on the first night we stayed out till 4am and last night we eventually got home at about 7am. The late nights are due to a liberation of my stomach and being able to eat! On Thursday we had a 2hr drive to Seoul and it seemed as though the food in my stomach wasn't going to be able to stay there... I walked as fluently as a bird in the sky and no sharts made thier way into my day. Life is great!

We make out way to English Camp tomorrow where we are allocated one child each to teach over the next four days; actually cannot wait! There are a few guys here who I think are going to make quite spectacular teachers when they begin, oddly enough they all seem to come from super large families so I'm guessing looking after and teaching younger brutters and schwestas comes natural to them. On the opposite end of the spectrum there are a few guys who look as though they would explode in anger or crumble in panic when they are in a class HOWEVER the day is still young and I am sure to be quite wrong... I just hope I ain't one of the chaps who ends out crumbling on the floor... although if it begins to look that way I'll just bemuse them with my hairy arms :D.

On Thursday we went to see the 'Nanta Performance' which is sort of like a play, but also a cooking lesson and also the most insane dancing a drumming ALL performed by five people. Korean's may look small but they have some sort of super power in thier arms. These performers juggled knives, breathed fire, cooked food, ran away from angry bosses, made sweet music from saucepans and soup bowels and married two members of the audience all in one hour.

OH BOY ALSO there was a club last night that let you in for free if you were a foreigner!! I went to the bar and the barman grabbed me as though I had known him for years, made my drink but before handing it over he tried some to make sure it was good :S. Koreans seem quite reserved dancers so our group got a fair bit of attention and a few of the locals were asking us for dancing lessons... I'll let you be the judge of whether thats a good motion or not.

Ended out in some massive area of flats trying to get back home today and they were all tower block style and I thought 'If I were in England now and I wasn't a native of the area, I'd be quite worried about the big group of lads wearing hoods over there' BUT THERE WEREN'T ANY!!!! there is a really good line of respect and wholesomeness in the air and I can't quite figure out why Britian doesn't have it as strong. But it must have taken yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaars to get it the way it is now. May well be in the blood and genes by now?

On the train today, all the seats face forward but if you like to look at peoples faces and chat to them, you can press a lever and the seats will spin around backwards to make a four seater! AND there is enough leg room to extend your leg fully and kick it in the air. Arriva Trains Wales has so much to learn from these people.

I just remebered that the guy on the door of the 'free for foreigners' club gave me a huge hug when we went in aswell. I really do think that they love foreigners. AND if you have no place to stay in Seoul, just buy some chips in Burger King and fall asleep on the table... there were quite a few people doing that last night.

I am tired an so shall go to bed.... PLEASE COMMENT; feel too much like I'm talking to myself just now. Just remeber that YES my parents do read this. Alright Dad! Hallo Mutter :D

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmpreddy

Was meant to be going to a temple today but woke up with a proper woozy stomach and just ended out vomitting a load of orange stuff up. I don't know whether it was the beer, soju or the food.... am having a bit of difficulty with the food at the mo PURELY because there are so many flavours on one plate and my stomach can't hack them just yet. But the only reason I threw up in the first instance was because I drank a load of water so am thinking it was waiting all night to come back up and just needed an excuse really.
Settling in is going pretty sweet, they have put all the Brits with another Brit to share a room with which is kinda nice. The university is pretty incredible... all the rooms are (to use a pretty pathetic but very suited word) modern. All the buildings are on one campus, the rooms are big and bright (thanks to some very large windows :D), they've got some super good technology and there isn't any litter, graffiti or major roads around. Also they are super green here; if there isn't a building or a road on the earth then there are trees. I have yet to see fields here. If I look out my window I can see sooooooooo many hills in the distance and they are just sinking under the weight of so many trees. Honest. Well maybe not sinking.
Apparently Koreans have this thing about 'showing face' that crime is low, people are happy and a large emphasis on forgiveness. Two examples: we were sat on a bench playing cards in the town yesterday and policeman came up to us and gave us a beer. Second example: we were walking home last night at about 11pm and there were groups of kids between the ages of 11 upwards on thier own. Shockin enough as it is, they didn't have angry looks to thier faces, they weren't drunk or high or wearing hoods.... they were just playing about in town. MENTAL.
Back to it there are 11 people (including me) going to Jeju island and I'd like to say everybody but I don't think that everybody is but MOST people are proper jealous of us. Accordingly it really is quite beautiful over there. Now I can say that EVERYBODY in my class now knows my name as I was a day late, the coordinator chap said on Wednesday mornin infront of our 50+people class 'do we have any newbies in the room?'. Turned out to be the only newbie, introduced myself and then as if my some creepy 1984 style recitation everbody in the class turned to me and boomed 'Hellllllllllllllo Simon'. I think it would be a huge understatment to say that I became a little embarressed had a hint of red on my cheeks. And so now I have people comin to me asking 'You're Simon right...?'. Yes, yes I am.
Humidity out here is intense, every room has air conditioning, so much so that sometimes it can actually be quite cold. We were sat on a bench under an umbrella at 3-4pm yesterday and I was sweatin like mad just sat there. Then to make it worse a mosquito started tryin to get my blood but my legs were too hairy for it to get a look in HAHA!!!
ALSO I got away with the weight limit (hooozar), there wasn't a fat man infront of me, Brits are very much the minority here, Americans seem easily offended (not my practice) and Karaoke bars here give you a WHOLE room to yourself. Yes. It's not the same when you sing infront of people you know though however you get flashing lights and an echo-ie microphone :D.

Niceone

Found out at about 12ish yesterday that my flight is 9pm tonight and BOY I'm getting quite nervous. Not too sure what to do to fill the time; although on the positive side mash, sausages and beans is on the menu for lunch... GET IN :D! I think I'm between 3-4kg over weight on my luggage but hopefully a fat man will stand infront of me in the queue and the person on the desk will think 'this skinny ginger man is 30kg lighter than that man so I shall smile at his 4kg overweight'.
It's seriously lookin like British people will be a rareity compared to the American and I'm sure Welsh people will be even slimmer in proportion... should come back from Korea with an American accent :D BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Considerin I'm not in Korea just yet I don't think there is much else to put down for ya other than I've been chasin chickens, watchin a bit of GMTV and becommin quite apprehensive YET seriously excited. I'm going to lose 8hrs of my life in the sky somewhere on the way there :S.
AND I got a fair trim haircut from a barber yesterday for the first time in 9-10years.

I guess the next time I write in this it will be from Korea.... oh boy

:)