I had best intentions to update this blog frequently now the traveling has properly begun. However, do I really want to spend hours in dingy internet cafes with slow connections and miss out on any excitement? No. So, then I toyed with the idea of converting a lot from my hand-written journal to blog from when we returned. However, this was also flawed as who cares 2 years down the line when I can just tell people face-to-face upon our return?

I've decided to blog as and when I feel it's necessary and as Thailand was actually a little underwhelming, I will begin with some choice action from Myanmar. Or Burma as most of us Brits know it. If you want to do any reading into the name change or indeed any other history feel free, it's pretty interesting, but I'm going to tell you some of what we got up to. Myanmar is a beautiful and incredibly friendly country. It's very poor but you wouldn't think so judging by the cheerfulness of most of the locals. Many also have a surprisingly (considering how few tourists visit and most people cannot leave the country) good English which meant we had many great conversations with interested Myanmar peoples (there are many ethnic groups, not just Burmese).

Anyways, besides the quality of the roads which resembled BMX stunt tracks in places, we had an awesome first 2 weeks, exploring the West side of Myanmar, which included literally thousands of temples in the amazing former capital, Bagan. But what we were possibly most excited about about was our 3 day trek from the town of Kalaw to Inle lake, taking in the hilltop scenery and soaking up a bit of tribal living which the region is known for. So, I'm going to blog about this first day of the trek, definitely my favourite day so far.

We arrived in Kalaw in the early hours of the morning after a slow and typically bumpy 8 hour journey from Mandalay. After a good sleep, it was time to find some more like-minded individuals to trek with. Although we were happy just to do the trek by ourselves and a guide, it's much more fun to do it as a group and get to know some new people. So, with a Terminator-like determination we set about the town and tried to rope in some other foreigners to join us. Besides, it would also make it cheaper for us if we could find some more people! It wasn't long until we bumped into another Brit called Mike and we steam-rolled him into to joining our group. We then found out when the next bus of tourists was getting in and staked out the bus stop. About 2pm 3 Poles staggered off the bus after a 12 hour overnight journey. They didn't stand a chance. Within minutes these easy-going individuals were ready to do the trek with us. As well as having some new people to enjoy the trek with we were only paying 9,000 kyat per day (8 pounds!!), this included the services of a personal guide, a cook, food and accommodation. Not bad for a days work.

The next day our intrepid troop of 8 set off at 7am to make an early start. Our group in full consisted of our guide, Thiri, the cook, Mousen (both Shan people - the largest ethnic besides Burmese), the 3 Poles - Artur, Barbara and Kuka, and 3 Brits, Mike, Sarah and myself. It soon became obvious that the trek itself wouldn't be too tough a we had 2 breaks in the first 2 hours! However, the Sun was shining, the scenery was beautiful (actually surprisingly like England in this hilly region) and the conversation was flowing freely. Mike and Artur were easy to talk to and it was clear early on we had fortunately found a good group to share this with. Our guide, although not having the best English, made up for it with her lively personality and her constant chatting and laughing. Everyone was in good spirits. After some easy uphill walking, we arrived in our first village, a Danu tribe, for an early lunch. Mousen whipped up some delicious dahl and chapattis. After a good feed, our host, the local shaman, invited us to sit with him and we quizzed him through Thiri about his work, his life and village life in general. He was a great character, extremely old, with wispy hairs sprouting from his neck, but still sharp with a good sense of humour. He told us about various potions he made, including a love potion which he was particularly proud of.

After the Q and A, it was then a relaxed 3 hour trek through yet more stunning landscape to our final destination of the day, a Pa-O village, where we would reside for the night in the house of an old couple. The village itself was magical, exactly the kind of reason we wanted to travel in the first place, just completely removed from anything in the Western world and more like a scene from the National Geographic. Judging from the reactions of the villagers it seemed that not many other foreign groups came through this way either, villagers nervously looked out of their windows and some children looked actually frightened. A few cheerful "min-ga-la-bar"s (hello in Burmese) soon sorted that out and people came out to greet us. We walked around the small, peaceful village, dishing out greetings left, right and centre and taking pictures of the now compliant children, until we came to a group of young guys playing "chinlon." "Chinlon" is a Burmese version of keepy-uppy or hacky-sack, but played with a light ball made of wicker. Before waiting for an invite us boys and Sarah dived into the circle to be involved and the guys were only happy to oblige. It was only a couple of minutes later after another mis-kick from me (I hoped I would be better at chinlon than I am at football -nope) I turned around and about 30 curious villagers had gathered from nowhere to watch our impromptu game with the locals.

Dinner time was fast approaching so we went back to the hosts house to be greeted with warm smiles and Chinese tea. The old man seemed a bit bewildered at first but his wife was particularly smiley and seemed fascinated by everything we did. This was the first time these villagers had accepted foreigners into their home and you could tell it was a massive deal for them and they were extremely attentive and hospitable. Before eating, we had to 'shower', which involved pouring cold water on ourselves in full view of the village, much to the delight of our neighbours. It was a funny experience and I finally got to wear a longgyi (Burmese traditional dress for men - it's basically a skirt) Dinner was a huge candle-lit feast of curry, rice and delicious veg. After eating the conversation started to flow and through Thiri we got to know the couple a little better. It was amazing to find out about how different their lives were to ours and even though they sounded basic and simplistic in essence, they were two of the most content and happy people I've met. The only thing hanging over their heads was a life-long ambition to visit Shwedagon Paya, the holiest monument to Buddha in the whole country. Even though it's less than a days travel away, it sadly remains only a dream to them, they would be too frightened to visit the former capital even if they could get there. Indeed they had only ever been to 1 city in their entire lives!! Such a different existence to our Western ways. They were certainly not without humour though, especially our female host, who ripped into Mike for sitting like a woman and cracked that he needed to wear a female longgyi, rather than a male one! Everyone was in stitches and it was a great way to bond with our new friends. The humour was also kept up by Thiri, although a lot of it was unintentional through some slightly off translations! The Poles then presented he lady with a gift, a Polish badge, which she promptly pinned on her, jokingly flexed her muscles and declared she had "super-power!" She really was a great character. The old man then proudly showed off his currency collection, a few old Japanese coins, carefully wrapped in a hanky. They were clearly his prize possessions and he almost choked when Mike and Artur presented him with more foreign currency. He almost welled up as he explained that he would pass these down the generations and it was a touching moment. Sarah and I were regretful we did not bring any presents from home too. Oversight. After thanking our hosts for a memorable evening, we went out to view the starriest sky I've ever seen, played a few games of cards and settled down for a chilly night on the floor of their shared room, all 7 of us neatly in a line. It was a special day and definitely my fondest memory of travelling so far.

Exit notes

My time in Korea is sadly coming to a end, so I think it's time for a few reflections, musings and observations.In no particular order. . .

1. Eating cabbage everyday is a pleasure. A vegetable I would not even consider back home has gradually become an obsession. The national dish kimchi (fermented cabbage) took a long time to draw me in, but now I have a daily craving which needs to be satisified! I'm under no illusions that I love it so much because it's pickled in chilli and garlic and not just boiled to death like in Britain. And that I'll most probably turn my nose up at it once again as soon as I get home. But that is exactly why I need to ingest as much as humanly possible in my last few weeks here!

2. One must always carry an umbrella about one's personage at all times in the rainy season. Sounds obvious, but how many men back home have an umbrella? Us Western fellas would rather get soaked to the bone than carry a good 'ol brolly. But here, the definitions on what constitutes a man are different (and common sense prevails - on this point at least as the rain does get pretty epic), so I happily carry my umbrella with pride. And remain DRY. Now I have an umbrella it is so smack-in-the-face apparent that if it rains, use one and I will endeavour to keep this up when I'm back in rainy Bristol, no matter how much mocking and ridicule this incites from my mates.

3. Bumping into people is not a problem and does not require an apology or even an acknowledgment. Coming from a town rather than city this took a bit of getting used to (and I think I've alluded to this in a previous blog), but as Seoul is one of the most populous cities in our overcrowded planet, you're going to unwillingly touch people (and be touched) in ways you dont want to. But I got over it pretty quickly. Shame on me, I've grown quite accustomed to buffeting folks out the way, especially when a precious seat is up for grabs on the commute to work I now face each day.

4. The adjumma is KING. Adjumma is a Korean word, literally meaning "married woman" and although there are many, many sweet and friendly ones (particularly ones which live in the countryside and/or work in Shikdang - cheap Korean eaterie. If you go to a shikdang in the countryside, you are in for a motherly treat), unfortunately the word has taken on more negative connotations amongst the expat community. You see, adjummas may be small and look tame but they are ferocious, aggressive creatures, who are especially combative when it comes to claiming that seat on the subway. Sturdy body-checks are the norm as soon as those subway doors open and if you try and stand your ground, the elbow will come into the mid-riff, momentarily hindering your progress, leaving the triumphant adjumma to proudly claim her seat and flash you a toothless grin. The reason they are so much stronger, faster and more agile than their Western counterparts is the lifetime of back-breaking work they have to endure, coupled with the Korean obsession with hiking. These old dears bomb past us wheezing Westerners on their way up the numerous slopes of Seoul. Great endurance training for the subway scrum when they descend the peak.

Joking aside though, older people in Korea enjoy much higher levels of respect that our OAPS back home. They stand their ground and demand to be treated with dignity and consideration. And why not? They have worked hard for their country and their children and should be regarded with esteem and love. Just one of the many lessons I think the West could learn from the East, look after your old folk. Which leads onto my next point. . . . .

5. Crime is far less of a problem here. I'm going to make this fairly brief as I haven't undertaken any research into this, looked into any figures etc AND I've only been here just over a year so I'm not really qualified to judge this properly. BUT just from my experience here and that of my friends, Korea is an incredibly safe country (intermitent posturing with the North aside of course). Petty crime and anti-social behaviour is absurdly low. There is about as much chance of getting, mugged, robbed or beaten-up anywhere in Seoul at any time of night or day as there is of Korea renouncing the health benefits of kimchi and giving up rice. Seriously, you can walk around anytime, in any state and you're pretty much guaranteed no one is going to try and take your wallet or kick your head in for some imaginary sleight aimed against him. As an extension of this is the fact there is just less of a 'big-man' attitude which blights much of England. There doesn't seem to be any idiots with a chip on their shoulder, with the need to prove themselves. This is definitely one of the aspects of Korea I value most and which I think will be even more obvious when I come return to Blighty.

6. Dress for the occassion, especially sports. Koreans, as a whole, cannot do any leisure pursuit half-heartedly. Any new activity that a Korean tries their hand at CANNOT but be undertaken unless decked out entirely (and without exception) in the flashiest, most expensive gear available on the market at that time. Take hiking, for example. What could and probably should be a free leisure activity, quickly becomes very expensive once you visit one of the copious specialist hiking shops and adorn yourself from head to toe in the latest apparel. What makes it even stranger is that all the specialist boots, poles and other supposedly essential safety equipment become fairly redundant when you take into account how many of the pathways up the mountains have been man-made There are even vast wooden bridges, staircases and walkways to make the experience as hassle-free as possible. Not that I'm saying parts of it aren't challenging and it is definitely a great way to exercise, but the fixation on looking the part appears to almost supercede this at times. Still, what do I know? If I end up falling off the next time I'm up a mountain, I'll realise (as I plummet to my death) that the Koreans were right all along and I should have dressed up like everybody else.

7. Safety. Safety is an odd one in Korea. This ranges from complete abandon in some scenarios to over-zealous control in others. Let's start with roads. Traffic is pretty scary here and road accidents are notoriously high (my Korean friend told me that Korea once held the dubious honour of being number one in the world for road accidents. They are now number two.) The problem seems to be that the disregard for anyone else which occurs on foot is unfortunately not remedied once people get behind the wheel. Everyone bombs around like they are the only vehicle on the road, cutting each other up and failing to indicate, resulting in obvious chaos. No-one appears to be even slightly aware of the existence of other human life forms, let alone other cars around them. This can make for pretty interesting bus journeys, as bus drivers push on through better than the rest of them. This apparent lack of safety is completely turned on its head though when one visits a swimming pool or waterpark. Many of these places not only insist that young people wear a life-jacket at all times but that every half hour, everyone must vacate the pool for an enforced 15 minute rest period. So for a third of the time no-one is actually even in the water! Seems crazy to me, but I reckon it's just a cunning ploy by the lifeguards to do less work. Pretty clever really.

School

So now to start a couple of blogs which should have been done at the beginning of my time in Korea, not near the end. Still better later than never. . . .. . first up is school.

I've nearly finished my first year contract at my school. I'm not extending my contract so I will be working for another academy for my final 3 months here. So as I approach the twilight phase of my G n B English academy career I thought it an apt time to write about some of the aspects of my year here.

I feel I've learnt SO much in my time here. It being my first ever teaching job and having zero training or guidance when I got here, I've just had to learn for myself along the way. This is not exceptional, this is the nature of the academy teacher's work here. It seems to be as long as the kids are happy and the money keeps rolling in, everything else is peripheral. So you are kind of left to your own devices and to work out the best way of fulfilling these 2 basic needs that your director has. That being said though I have friends in larger, more corporate chains who have a much tougher time of things than me and their performances are scrutinised much harder. It really is pot luck what you are going to get when you come out here. Sarah and I got lucky. I've been treated well, my work is valued and I've genuinely enjoyed teaching here. That being said I'm under no illusions that the job I perform here is anything like a 'proper' teaching job. As alluded to before, the students learning is definitely secondary to their happiness and of paramount importance is that the parents keep paying, NOT their education. But it's still been a useful experience in classroom control and I feel I've began to grasp some of the other basic skills you need to be a teacher. And it just happened to be a lot of fun too.

So let's talk about the kids. A common stereotype of Asian schoolchildren entertained by a lot of Britain is that they are mild-mannered, respectful and eager to learn. This may be true in some parts of Asia (particularly it seems where Buddhism is the over-arching religion and indeed culture), but this is most definitely not an accurate portrayal of Korean children. I really should have researched this more thoroughly before I came here and not just bought into such a narrow-minded generalisation about the largest continent on Earth! Korean children, particularly boys, are a proper handful. I have one new student who doesn't respond to punishment or reward and is constantly trying to fight me. He only comes up to my waist and I'm in perpetual fear that one time he's going to clock me one right in the bollocks. Still, it could be worse I've got one teacher friend who endures kids trying to poke him in the areshole when he turns around. Very bizarre. Obviously little boys are going to boisterous wherever you go but what makes it even more difficult as discipline isn't instilled in these kids from the word go like in the West, it actually starts later when they reach the age of 8. This means kids are still getting used to the idea that you can't run around the room or shout over other people or indeed have a fight with the person sat next to them. By the time they start to grow out of it, they hit the self-conscious teenage years so even though they aren't so unruly, it's still a challenge trying to get more than a monosyllabic response from some students, so you can't win either way. But for all the difficult classes and the boisterous students there are many great students who are keen to learn. Okay, these have almost exclusively been produced by the Y chromosome but that's fine by me, as long as some students are listening. Sarah and I have often discussed stealing a Korean child, but most definitely NOT a boy. Some of my girl students are so sweet and so much cuter than their British equivalents. I'm pretty sure we've got room in our backpack once we chuck out some winter clothes in preparation for South-East Asia.

For all my earlier bitching, I do actually love the majority of my classes. I feel like I've built up a pretty strong bond with most of my students (there are still one or two who seem immune to my charm but what can you do?) and I will genuinely miss some of them when I leave in 5 weeks time. Some of my classes are so smooth now, that they pretty much teach themselves and the ones which don't keep me on my toes. Every academy teacher I know has heard some memorable things (mainly insults) The kids here really don't hold back on and you really develop some thick skin whilst working here. Some classics include "Matt-chu teacher is short, Paul teacher tall" (when comparing me to my predecessor), "Teacher, nose is very big", "Teacher, dark circles (around my eyes), Teacher, you are grandfather (in reference to the fine lines on my forehead), "Teacher, dirty" (when I don't shave). they say kids can be cruel and I certainly believe it now! Sarah had the best one though: Student: "Teacher, you are fat." Sarah: "That's not very nice. Student: (contemplates this for a couple of seconds) Teacher, you are circle-shaped!" Occasionally they might say something nice to you. For example, Student: Teacher, did you go to Harvard? Me: No, why? Student: Because you look very intelligent. Aww, thanks. It's also cute when a couple of students see you outside of school and follow you about like a little fan club. I now teach kindergarten too and they take the whole cuteness level up a couple of notches.

Korean kids are given an English name to be used in English academy. Most of them are unoriginally called Tom or Sally and I've no idea how many Kevins I've got right now. However, some of them have hilarious names, some of their kindergarten English teachers must have had such a laugh creating them. I've mainly just got kids with old person names, for example, Harold or Albert (it's pretty amusing addressing a 10 year old Korean child with one normally reserved for your Great-Uncle). Sarah's got some funnier ones though. She's got one called UFO (apparently he had the choice between this and Santa Claus -seriously) and another called Brain. Not Brian, Brain. She's actually managed to convince some the kids to change their names and she renamed one little fella Giggs, after the legendary United number 11. Classic. Our friends have one called Mr Park, who insists on being called by his full title and I even heard of one student named "disabled number 7." No kidding, I've no idea how that one was allowed to stand. Actually I do have one new student called "Luncky Seven." That's not a typo by the way, one of my Korean teachers thinks that's how you spell "lucky", so that's now his name. I should probably tell them to change it. This happens frequently where a child's name is often spelt incorrectly. I had one particularly naughty boy called "Justine." I only recently informed his teacher of the error, I thought it was funny that the cocky little bugger had a girl's name.

So that pretty much concludes school time up to now. Next up, food. . . . .. . .

GnB video

Last month, Sarah was asked to appear in an advertising campaign for our chain of schools, GnB. This was quite an honour really considering there are 1700 GnB schools Korea-wide. And of course being paid 300,000 KRW (about 150 pounds) for a couple of hours 'work' always sweetens the deal too. Sarah wasn't really told too many details, just when and where to be and that she would be photographed for a national newspaper campaign.

Being the good boyfriend I am, I went with Sarah for the photo shoot, even though it was 2 hours away on the other side of Seoul and on a Saturday afternoon. We arrived at the school punctually and were surprised to find the school locked and no signs of life inside. Hmph, I was beginning to fear the shoot was cancelled and they had neglected to let us know. After a few minutes pacing around, some parents turned up with their well-dressed children. These kids we presumed would be featuring with Sarah in the advertisements, so we were more optimistic that the shoot was still on. After half an hour, a lady showed up and let us in the school. It seemed she worked there and she ushered us to a seat near the door. Nobody then spoke to us to for about another half hour, so we were growing slightly annoyed with how long this was taking already. A guy then turned up with a small camera and asked Sarah a couple of questions. So this must be the cameraman , we logically presumed, although the camera seemed a little small for this type of shoot. He then turned his attentions to me and asked if would like to appear too. I was pretty surprised considering my attire. I was modelling a scruffy look of cap, jeans and a bright t-shirt, complimented by a weeks worth of stubble. I guess any foreigner was a bonus for them though and I wasn't going to point out these flaws. I thought it would be pretty amusing to feature for our school in an advertising campaign and the money would make it more than worth my while. After this was agreed, the guy went on his way and we were left to our own devices for some time again.

Just when we starting to get annoyed with the lack of progress again, a crew of about 10 people turned up with various cameras, lighting, huge cases and other associated filming paraphernalia. So maybe this was going to be on a larger scale than one guy and a crappy camera. A different guy with better English introduced himself to us as the director. It then became clear to us that we were to feature in an advert for TV, not print! For some reason this made the whole affair that bit more daunting and I was pretty keen to get on with it. But of course, the film crew had to set up so we were left twiddling our thumbs for another half hour. Eventually the director came back with an assistant to give us a brief run-down of what we would be doing. I was to go first and I had to 'teach' 2 children pronunciation. This would apparently involve drilling the word 'stood' (why they chose that word I'll never know, but I can't think of it in the same way since) and handing out various bits of praise and so on.

After the director forced one of his underlings to give me his sweater (my t-shirt was deemed inappropriate), I was ushered into a small classroom. There were 2 very nervous looking 9 year old Korean children sitting at a desk, with a huge video camera pointing in their faces. There were also massive lights glaring at them and about 8 crew members stuffed into the small room. The director positioned me next to the desk, I had to lean over the children 'teach' them this single word for pronunciation. I immediately felt under pressure and hot under the lighting but I told myself to concentrate to get this over as quickly as possible. The director counted down from 3 (I was expecting "action", but it wasn't to be) and I began. After a few drills and a bit of praise, the director said "cut." Apparently, my concentration was stopping me from looking natural and we had to try again. Take 2, this time, the kids weren't smiling enough. Take 3, I had to be lower my voice a little. Take 4, the kids weren't loud enough. This alternating pattern of one of the parties making a mess of it continued and by take 8 I was getting pretty vexed by the whole thing. I thought these actors had it easy, but how wrong I was, haha! Eventually, at around Take 10, we managed to capture something to meet the director's expectations and hugely relieved, I left the scrutiny of the cameras and went back out to Sarah. The whole thing only lasted about 10 minutes but I found it pretty stressful. It's especially funny to think how stressed I was by it when I look at the finished product. . . . . . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pYg9u--xSU

So, did you see me? It really is a blink and you'll miss it moment. I'm the teacher sporting the lovely green jumper, as supplied by the crew member. All that stress for half a second with no audio! If they told me how the finished edit would look I'd have had no worries at all. I'm pretty happy my appearance is so fleeting, I still featured and got paid regardless of how long I appear in the final cut.

So after my scene was over it was time for Sarah to shoot hers. The director came up to us with his storyboard and pointed to a gap in his artwork. Apparently, they were yet to come up with a scene for Sarah! The director said "Don't worry, you're a teacher, just teach them!!" At first we almost laughed at him, surely this should have been thought out beforehand and not left to a couple of newbies to workout?! The director, however, was looking at us expectantly, waiting for some brainwave to immediately strike us. It didn't. Sarah was obviously mortified by the prospect of improvising her scene, we were yet to see the children, let alone have any idea what level they were, know how receptive they would be to Sarah's methods etc. According to the director, the children were in Grade 5. The Korean system is based on the American grading system, so Grade 5 is 11 years old. This made it even more difficult to come up with something simple, the kids would be too old for a sing-along or a low-level game. Sarah was starting to fret a little, the director was still expecting something from us and we had nothing. Fortunately, the head teacher who had let us in to the bu idling was on hand with a book, complete with a chant about a little boy and his dog. But surely this basic song would be too simplistic for 11 year olds and look odd on camera. It all became clear, however, when we came to meet the children. Our bungling director had the ages completely wrong, the children were no older than 8 years old!! However, at least Sarah now had something to work with. Her pain was only just beginning though. . . .

Unlike my scene, which was shot in a small classroom, Sarah's scene was in the main entrance to the school. This meant that as well as performing to the entire crew, Sarah also had to deliver her scene in front of all the adoring parents too! Bearing in mind she had never met these kids before, let alone had time to practise with them, made for an intimidating experience. Whilst the crew were making their final checks, Sarah had a few minutes to try and teach them a four-line chant. You would have thought the school would have chosen dynamic, loud children who possessed a natural enthusiasm for taking centre-stage. However, these poor kids were even more nervous than Sarah and it was hard to even get a smile out of them. Sarah being naturally great with children, managed to coax some life out of them (mainly through the art of a good tickle and lots of smiling) and within 10 fairly tricky minutes, the kids just about knew the chant. Just when Sarah began to feel some relief that it wasn't going terribly, the director jumped in with "it's good but we need more smiles and also some actions." Sarah looked pretty perplexed by this, not only did she have to teach them a new chant, under the lights with everyone watching, but she now had to make up actions on the spot and get the children to play along! One of the kids was great, she picked it all up instantly, but the other two had been struggling with the chant, let alone, simultaneous actions! After about 10 minutes, Sarah managed to just about get them heading towards synchronisation and the cameras started to roll. After a few cuts with the obligatory, "more smiles everybody", and "big actions please", the director seemed pleased after about the 6th take. Sarah said goodbye to the kids and breathed a massive sigh of relief and I gave her a big hug. I was hugely impressed, I could not have improvised and taught brand new children under the gaze of all those people. She did a great job and all the parents looked really pleased too.

Just after we untangled from our embrace the director popped up again and nonchalantly said "Okay Sarah, just one more scene!" Sarah's face dropped, her trauma was still not over, she had another scene to shoot before we were free to go. Fortunately, the production team had actually completed this part of the storyboard, so the scene was already planned. There was to be no singing and dancing this time for Sarah, for this scene she just had to make sentences from flashcards with two older children. Of course, the director still had to make this relatively difficult by insisting on the most tricky flashcard to make sentences with. By now we had had enough of his methods, so we assertively made him understand it would be easier to use a different card. I don't know if it was our argument which made sense to him or the look in Sarah's eye, but either way he backed down and Sarah managed to get through the scene in about 5 takes.

When we finished we thanked the crew and the director, (I think by this point he was glad to see the back of us two and wrap up the filming session) and I made sure to ask about if I was to receive money for my part too. I was assured I would get something and ended up receiving 200,000KRW (about £100) for my lesser role, but I was pretty happy with that. It was a pretty stressful day, but certainly a good experience and now we have tangible proof of what great teachers we are, haha!

Lunar New Year Part II

After the high-jinks of snowboarding finished, Sarah and I decided to leave the others and do some more exploration of Gangwondo. Originally, the others were going to join us for a nearby ice festival. Ice festivals in Korea are composed mainly of ice fishing with other ice-related games, such as, ice football and snow bumper cars (!), as well as the usual sledging and so on. However, due to a recent British-style outbreak of foot and mouth disease amongst the animal folk of the country, many of these festivals had been postponed or cancelled. Boo. However, we heard one was going on in Taebeak, about an hour away. Sarah and I decided to check it out on
the second leg of our trip.

The main area we wanted to explore, however, was Samcheok, a town near the East coast of Korea. There are two main reasons people go to Samcheok, one is the impressive caves nearby. The other is Haeshindang Park, or Penis Park as it's affectinately known. Koreans can sometimes seem quite repressed when it comes to all things procreational (or maybe thats just in comparison to us loose Westerners), so it seemed slightly odd to us that there is an entire park which pays homage to the human phallus. This we had to see. So after inadvertently nearly checking ourselves into a love motel (pre-marital sex is not tolerated by many Korean families so young adults have to hide in one of these) we managed to find a fairly decent motel and head off in search of the penis park. As you can expect, the park was very penisy indeed. There were phalus' (not quite sure the correct way to pluralise this) of all sizes and descriptions. There were benches shaped like penises, a giantic penis and even a penis cannon (please add your joke about what it fires). Our personal favourite, however, had to be a pregnant woman penis with her unborn baby inside. If this wasn't bizarre enough, the baby also had an erect member, just so he wouldn't feel left out. As well as other young adults visiting the park, there were many families there too. It was bizaare to see parents lining up their children to be photographed with giant phalic statues. Hmm, that's one for the family photo album! In retrospect, maybe I'm the prude, but seeing children hugging 20ft penises just didn't sit too well with me.

As well as its obvious charms, the penis park has another draw; it's beautiful coastal location. After we had had our fill of penis, we walked down to the beach. The water was so clear and a beautiful shade of blue. Definitely a place that would come into its own in the summertime. Whilst we strolled along the beach, we noticed off in the distance a penis-shaped lighthouse! Brilliant, is there nothing these cock-obsessives hadn't thought of? Of course, there is a reason that there are numerous wooden penises in a park. So the legend goes. . . . "Once upon a time, in a coastal village there lived a beautiful girl who used to gather seaweed. In the distance there was a rock called Aebawi where plenty of seaweed grew. One day, this young girl was taken out to the rock by a man in a boat. The man, who had a pact to marry her, promised to return to the rock to pick her up after she had collected seaweed there and he went back to the village. At dusk, she waited for the man to come and take her home, but he was unable to come and fetch her due to wild waves. That very night a terrible storm arose and a large wave struck the rock, drowning the ill-fated girl. From the time of her death, the fishing catches turned bad for the village and so a rumor started circulating among the villagers that it was due to the dead girls bitter soul. Finally, the people of the village decided to offer carved wooden phallics as a sacrifice inside Haesindang to console the bitter soul of the unmarried girl. Mysteriously, after that, the village again enjoyed a good catch." Just sounds like an excuse for Koreans to vent some repressed sexuality if you ask me.

After the park, we headed back to our base in Samcheok. We decided to have a wander around the town in the evening before dinner time. We came across a cave exhibition centre, built to promote and educate people on the nearby caves which Samcheok is famous for. The exterior of the buiding resembles a giant wedding cake and is somewhat of an avant-garde design for Korea. I'm pretty sure it's supposed to look more sophisticated then an behemoth bloumange but that's the effect they created. After paying our entrance fee, we immediately realised it wasn't even worth the 6,000 KRW (about 3 quid). Although not expecting a sensory overload, most of the exhibitions were not working and some displays and features were missing. The main area though was a huge, cavernous representation of the nearby Hwanseongul caves and was pretty impressive, although clearly not very weel thought-out. When the exhibition centre was built, the optimistic designers and investors thought this project would draw large crowds. Sadly, this did not materialise and most of the exhibitions have since become delapidated. After a less-than-fulfliling 10 minutes inside the exhibition, we sneaked back out of the building, avoiding the girl on reception, thus saving our joint embarrassment. It was somewhat fortuituous that the exhibition centre was so lame, as we emerged at the optimum time of sunset and Sarah took this lovely picture. We then headed to a shikdang (cheap Korean Restaurant) and had some pretty good jae yuk bok keum (spicy pork) and soybean jiggae (Korean soup), my favourite jiggae of them all. Replete, we headed to bed, ready to tackle the caves nice and early.

The air became noticeably chillier upon arrival at the Hwanseongul cave the next day. We had a short walk to the bottom of the steep slope which had to be negotiated before entrance to the cave. Fortunately (for our legs were still weary after snowboarding) there is a monorail which takes you there! Ah, to be lazy. The cave itself is pretty impressive. My experience of caves is limited but this one seemed fairly large, the guided walkway is just over a mile long. All the usual stalagmites and stalactites are there to be seen, all wonderfully lit up, creating dramatic shadows. This is where this cave really excelled in comparison to the other cave I have visited in Korea, Manjanggul, on Jeju island. Although Manjanggul is the world's longest lava tube, I thought the lighting inside the cave was poor. What's the point of going to the world's longest lava tube if you cant see it?! Hwanseongul had much more thought put into it in that respect. The cave even featured various bridges, each with their own deliciously macabre name, such as, the "Bridge of Hell", and the "Bridge of Confessions." The cave also has a famous heart-shape eroded into the wall. Wondeful.

After the caves we headed to Taebaek to try and find the elusive ice festival. This was the last festival which hadn't been confirmed to us as either cancelled or postponed. However, it didn't look good upon arrival. There were no obvious signs of a festival, no posters or banners to tell us about the merriment which was sure to be had. Our fears were confirmed when Sarah spotted a heap of festival posters rolled-up in the back of a work van, either yet to be put up or (more likely) taken down due to the plague of foot and mouth. Nay mind, the festival would have been a nice bonus to round off an excellent holiday, but we had been snowboarding and explored some more of Korea, so we weren't too disappointed. We decided to head back to Seoul, a day earlier than originally intended, but this way we would have more time to relax before going back to work. We decided to go to a coffee shop near the bus depot to play some cards and chill before the long bus journey home. We entered the coffee shop and had the warmest welcome we've had so far in Korea. The exuberant owner obviously doesn't have too many foreign visitors and she was seemed rather happy we had selected her establishment. She proceeded to make us feel welcome and sat down with us, attempting to engage us in conversation. Initially, we didn't have a clue what she was talking about and after apologising, explained that we dont speak Korean. However, the enthusiastic shop-keeper was not to be put off and continued to quiz us. To my shame, even after living in Korea for 9 months, I could not decipher what turned out to be fairly basic questions. However, much to Sarah's surprise, she managed to answer most of the woman's question's both through her own kowledge and some educated guess work. The woman was delighted by this and sat with us, asking the odd question, but just being generally interested in us and our ensuing card game. Sarah did a great job and as we stood up to leave our new friend jokingly said to her co-worker"I thought she couldn't speak Korean!" After thanking her for her kindness, we then trudged back to the bus stop and high-tailed it back to Seoul.

It seems I've been rather slack of late. . . . here's Lunar New Year Part I

It's been a 5 month slog (if you can call working in a hagwon a slog) since our last break from work. In contrast to England, where jobs just throw holiday days at you and we greedily gobble them up and ask for more, Korea runs a much tighter ship. We are only entitled to 10 days holiday of our choosing (I say our own choosing the holiday we took in July was mandatory), but luckily Korea has a few national holidays, so the whole country can take a well-earned break. The timing of the Chinese (or Lunar) New Year for 2011 means that the holiday actually lasts for a whole 3 working days (last year I think it was just 1), plus the weekend, making it a whopping 5 days in total off work! Although modest in terms of English breaks, this is the longest holiday we've had since arriving here and we were wanting to grab it by the udders with both hands and milk it for all it was worth.

Originally we planned to explore the Korean interior to the South, summiting the second highest peak in Korea, Jirisan and enjoying other natural sights. However, this was before we fully appreciated how cold the Korean winter actually would be. Suddenly, hiking up a near 2000m peak in icy conditions without the aid of humble walking boots, let alone cramp-ons (still not really sure what these are but Sarah's mentioned them a couple of times - apparently they are very useful for this sort of thing) seemed a bit foolish. So instead, we decided to return to the beautiful neighbouring province of Gangwondo and base our holiday around the city of Samcheok. In addition to this, we also thought we would try our hand at snow-boarding. This is an activity which I always thought "that looks cool, doubt I'll ever try it though" (mainly because it's similar skateboarding - which looks really painful - and because there's no opportunity in England to do this). However, one of our friends, Matty, is a snowboard instructor back home and kindly offered to give us a free lesson. Plus the fact it's so cheap to do in comparison to Europe, some other friends were already going and I cant really say no to a new experience. Plus it's on snow, so it cant hurt too much, right? I couldn't turn this one down.

We got the early bus at 5A.M. to YongPyong resort. After a long journey and getting our equipment sorted, we were finally kitted up and ready to hit the slopes by 11:30. Sarah and I had pretty much no snow-based sporting experience behind us (I went skiing once when I was about 12 - the only part I remember was not being able to stop at the bottom of the slope and careening into a whole queue of people, knocking everyone down in true slapstick fashion. Sarah had been snowboarding once - in Dubai of all places - about 2 years beforehand), so we were keen for Matty to stick with us for a bit and show us the rudimentary skills. My aspirations for the 2 days were to A. Stand up on the board and B. Be able to stop without the aid of a human barrier system. Anything else was a bonus. First Matty showed us 'skating', strapping one boot in and using the other foot to move around. Even this most basic of skills felt very strange at first but became just about manageable fairly quickly. We then had to 'glide' on the board, this involved stepping up onto the board with our free foot and letting the board do its thing. We had to become accustomed to this position as this was used dismounting the dreaded ski lift. I think I was even more anxious about this aspect of the snowboarding experience than I actually was trying to ride the board! I've heard many embarrassing stories of run-ins with ski-lifts and I was pretty sure I would soon add to the tales of woe. After 'gliding' we then had to learn the essential art of stopping. This involves leaning back on your heels and attempting to scrape them into the snow. This is the brake mechanism when stopping on a snowboard. My first attempt at this resulted in backside meeting snow for the first time and they became great friends over the course of that first day on the slopes. After practicing this skill a few times (all but one of these attempts resulted with me on the deck), Matty decided we needed to attempt the next stage, stopping for real, both feet strapped into the snowboard. And to try this we needed to traverse higher ground and this meant only one thing - the ski lift of doom.

I noticed other people were taking their board off and carrying it onto the lift, this way they could just merrily hop off the chair at the other end, without a care in the world. However, Matty didn't want us to get into bad habits, apparently this Korean practice although easier for beginners, isn't tolerated around the world, so it was best to try and learn properly from the outset. Getting onto the chair is the easy part but as we got to the top I could feel the anticipation building, even with Matty's love and care to assist us off. It didn't help matters when I saw the pretty steep gradient of the slope we were to descend, Matty was chilled though, it was part of the plan, apparently. I prepared to dismount, our boards hit the top and we began to glide very unsteadily off, Matty had hold of one of mine and Sarah's arms but even with this guidances we still ended up on our arses. This was to be a running theme over the course of the 2 days, much to the annoyance of the lift operator at the top, especially as I wasn't the quickest at getting out of the way for the next group of people's dismount. Oops. We edged round to the top of the slope (which looked even steeper from above) and listened to coach Matty's next words of wisdom. This is where we had to master stopping, otherwise we would go face first down the slope, something I wasn't keen to try. Luckily, in addition to Matty's skills as a snowboarder, he's a big guy so he was able to stand facing us, with his back to the slope. This was too make sure we didn't go over ourselves as we practiced the heel-digging technique we needed to apply the brakes. Getting up and balancing on the board was hard enough work in itself, even with Matty's help, but this new techinque was even harder to use. It was difficult to find the right amount of pressure to slow yourslef down without stopping completely and falling backwards. However, with Matty's cool head and a bit of focus, we were able to start to get to grips with it. Matty was an absolute star he had spent about 2 patient hours with us newbies when I'm sure he would have loved to have been 'shreddin' in style down the expert courses.

It was then time for Matty to leave us as we needed to practice on our own. This presented another challenge - negotiating the lift without our teacher. Mastery of this continued to allude us all afternoon and I think only once did I manage to keep on my feet (and this was only achieved at the expense of Sarah, who I cut up completely on the dismount causing her to fall instead of me, which she loved). However, the actual fun part of riding down the slope (albeit without much directional sense) became easier as the day wore on, culminating in my best run of the day, falling down just a mere 3 times on my descent. I was suprised by how much every part of me ached by the end of the day and I was a bit concerned about how I would fair the next day. What I really wanted was to use the resorts spa and sauna facilites, but it was decided the next evening would be best. A decision I was not that receptive to, especially the next morning when I was stiff all over. Mobility was definitely an issue but luckily I began to loosen up on the walk and after a couple of runs. On day 2, we were joined by our Korean friend, Eileen, another novice. Or so we thought, however, after a couple of journeys down the slopes together, it became apparent that Eileen never fell over! This was only her second day too, but she was definitely showing us up! After a few more descents, I gradually got the fall count down but still hadn't completed a single run without at least one fall. However, my overall control was improving and I was having a great time just doing my thing. We then decided to mix it up and head to another beginner slope. This slope was busier and you had to be more aware of tiny Korean children flinging themselves down the slope with complete abandon. Well if locals aren't going to be aware of your presence on the street, they definitely weren't going to on the slopes! However, this was actually a blessing in disguise as it made me improve my braking skills and also begin to learn how to direct the damn thing, which was probably the most difficult beginner aspect for me to learn. However, by the end of the day I was beginning to control the board a bit better and (perhaps slightly foolishly) was getting up to some fairly decent speeds in places down the slope, which was a definite buzz. Our session ended and I left the park a little weary but very satisfied with how the 2 days had gone. The fun was not over yet, however.

YongPyong has a large swimming pool complex, complete with flumes, rapids and a jimjilbang style sauna. However, the part we were most interested in was the hot tub section. Just what we needed after 2 tiring days on the slopes. I had used muscles I didn't even know existed and I was looking forward to a nice long soaking. After a couple of slides down the 2 person dinghy style water flume we headed to the OUTDOOR hot tub section. The weather had actually been pretty mild during the day but now it was evening time, the temperature had definitely plummeted. We opened the door to go outside and were treated to an icy blast in the face, resulting in a mad dash to the first hot tub. At 35 degrees, we decided this was just not hot enough, so mad-cap, slapstick hilarity ensued as we legged it to the next hot tub in just our swimming clothes . This one was beautifully hot at 39 degrees. Bliss. The open air hot tub after 2 days snowboarding was a winner. There was even a huge hot tub section with a bar accessible from the water! Awesome. After a long, reviving soak we high-tailed it nearby Pyeongchang to complete the day with some quality Korean cuisine. Great end to an amazing 2 days.