My New Look

All I need now is a Harley.

The Village Bikes

We've bought bikes! Yay! They're pretty cheap but already they're proving to be worthwhile purchases. Straight after buying them yesterday, we rode down to the river that runs through the middle of the city. There're a fair amount of cycle paths about, which is handy as the roads are terrifying and full of crazy drivers. But the path running alongside the river is perfect for riding. A lot of it is freshly laid and nice and smooth. Anyway, we decided to ride around a bit with the vague idea of exploring somewhere new and maybe visiting the May 18th memorial park (May 18th is the date of a huge public uprising which is pretty legendary. Look it up!). So we headed off along the path. The map we have is a little sketchy on detail, not helped by the fact that most streets don't have any names at all, and anything that does have a name is obviously in Korean. So we took what we thought was the correct exit ramp and went up into a ludicrous traffic jam with 3 Korean policemen attempting to direct cars with random whistle blowing and arm waving. We decided it was walking time so dismounted and ducked off the busy road onto a much smaller street which turned out to be the start of a huge market.

Now, although being in Gwangju is very different to being somewhere like... Birmingham, it's not much like a lot of Asia (or so I'm told) as it is very developed, the streets are pretty clean, everywhere doesn't smell of sewage and it's not really a poor country. Particularly where we live, in MaeGok Dong. But this market was like plunging into a different world. Everything seemed very crammed in, the smells of different herbs, spices, vegetables and caged animals mixed everywhere and we got stared at more than anywhere we've been yet. It was ace! Loads of older Korean women were saying hello and waving at us, which is kind of unusual. It tends to just be the kids that get excited, the adults tend to ignore us or stare silently! I was a little overawed and pushing my bike so didn't take many pictures, damn me. But we will be returning sans bikes at some point so will soon be able to display the aceness to the world. We wandered through looking at endless stalls (by stalls I mean women sitting on the floor with food laid out on blankets and in baskets) of veg, fish and caged chickens for a while until we reached a busy road. We then decided it was time we got back to looking for the Memorial Park so hopped back on our bikes and headed up the hill. After a few minutes we started to get a little puzzled by the road signs as they all seemed to be directing us to things that should be a long way away and not to things that should be quite close. Eventually it dawned on us that we had somehow managed to ride the totally opposite direction down the river so were nowhere near the Memorial Park. Oops. It was a huge amount of fun anyway and I'm looking forward to doing lots more of bike related exploration in the future. Also anyone that comes to visit us can use our lovely bikes to get around (as long as they're very careful with them. Becky is insisting that we name them, so by the time we have visitors they will be like children. But less noisy and demanding. And easier to use for transportation)!

Today we are somewhat hungover as we had an unplanned, but very comical, night out last night. We got a little carried away in drinking games and got peer pressured into going to Speakeasy, so headed out with everyone else at about 12.30. We only ended up staying in Speakeasy for a couple of hours cos the music was a bit rubbish, so Nicole suggested we relocate to a Nori-Bang (karaoke room). This was our first experience of Korean karaoke and was kinda weird but fun. We had our own room with a bank of TV screens and lists of thankfully English tunes to choose from. For some totally unknown reason I ended up doing a lot of singing. Apologies to all who attended. It's a weird experience, as you're allowed to take in your own drink and food and stay pretty much as long as you want. I think the room was hired by time periods, but I'm not sure how long those periods were. We stayed for 3 of them anyway and left at around 6am, all sung out. I found out later that we were actually in a Nori-Bang with 'extras' in the form of... um, nice young ladies to keep you company. For money. Interesting! This may explain why I was approached by a friendly Korean girl on my way back from the toilet to our room. I didn't understand a word she said of course, so maybe she was just asking me the time or something. But I'd rather believe that I've had my first ever proposition by a lady of the night! Fun times.

Other exciting news - as well as Liz, Ellie and Amy having booked tickets to come abuse our hospitality at Christmas, Vicky and Dom are supposed to be booking their tickets tomorrow. Also our parents and my cousin Mark are getting their visiting plans in order, Nick and Nat are entertaining the possibility of working out here in the midst of their traveling extravaganza and Katy and Andrew are contemplating a visit as well I understand! Highly pleasing all round. Anyone else who wishes to join us is more than welcome! Specifically Ann-Marie and TJ would be nice.

Ooh, finally, this is a picture of one of my favourite students, Billy (almost all our students are given English names by the teachers here, often very strange names. In my classes I have a Lion, a Hunter and an unfortunate boy named Louise. Also I have a Steve who was known as Rose at his previous Hogwan). I have a one on one lesson with him twice a week, and he's very good fun. I have taught him to play shove ha'penny, and he brings me ice cream. Anyway, I told him I was going to put him on the internet and make him famous, so... here he is.

Bratwurst and Kimchi

We've been here for five and a half weeks and still having an amazing time. There are so many things we want to do, there's never a dull moment. Sometimes it's a bit daunting trying to pick the way to spend a weekend, so we were pretty grateful last weekend when that decision was made for us. Mike and his wife Cecelia, had plans to go and join a group of friends on Namhae and invited us to come along. It meant getting up at six on Saturday morning but turned out to be well worth it.

The journey started pretty eventfully with an interesting taxi driver who spoke pretty great English. We were sharing a taxi with Sophie and Freya, so first of all the driver seemed pretty impressed that Alan had three women, he got more and more manic and excited throughout the jouney, also talking to us in arabic. Like all the other friendly people we seem to meet, he handed out chestnuts for us to eat on the journey.

We had to get two coaches to the island which is connected to the mainland by an amazing bridge (like a small replica of the Golden Gate bridge). When we got to Namhae we had to wait for some others to arrive so we could get taxis, which was fine as we sat in the blazing sun eating chestnuts given to us by a friendly old lady. We got in a taxi and drove away to the middle of nowhere along steep winding roads, past garlic world and other exciting places. Then we arrived at the German village where we were staying, yes that's right German village. Tucked away among the hills on this little island, with a view of the sea, is a German village, complete with terra-cotta  roofs, wooden paneling and potted geraniums. It was all very surreal and we were staying in an amazing house right at the top of the hill. The place was made even more surreal when we knocked on a neighbour's door to buy Bratwurst and were greeted by an old german man and his German speaking, Korean wife. Apparently a lot of Korean women went to work as nurses in Germany and came back to Korea with their German husbands to form this village. 

After a lot of introductions and a bit of lunch on our terrace, we headed down the hill to the sea for a dip (a walk that was much easier going, than coming back)We found a stony beach and probably to the shock of any Korean watching, went swimming in the middle of October. The water was actually quite warm and it was such a hot day that we dried out pretty quickly. Ha ha, swimming and sunbathing in October!

Back at the house, we were in time for the long anticipated bean bag tournament. This is a game that involves trying to throw bean bags onto a wooden platform, or ideally into the hole in the middle. Teams of two were picked at random, which was a good thing for us novices as we were paired off with some slightly more experienced team mates. Unfortunately, Alan was knocked out in the first round, but me and my partner (who probably had a bit more to do with it than me), made it to the finals, but unfortunately didn't get the 60,000 cash prize. The rest of the evening was spent eating, drinking and playing cards ... lovely. 

As much as we would all have liked to stay, the next morning, it was back on the buses and home to Gwangju. We were back quite early, so wandered down to the Biennale park for the final day of the Kimchi festival. Really, quite a big festival all dedicated to the nation's biggest love. There was stand after stand of Kimchi sellers for tasting, but unfortunately our tastebuds haven't quite developed the ability to distinguish between the different tastes under the spice. We also got to see some traditional Korean drumming, and some dreadlocked Koreans playing instruments made from vegetables. 

The reason I have had time to write this morning is that it's raining outside so we have decided to stay in. We might also do a bit of work on our Hangul (Korean) reading.  I think this is worth mentioning, as we have seen so little rain since we've been here that it has come as a surprise. Maybe this is the end of the hot days, I hope not, but I suppose winter has to start sometime.

Konglish

So Becky and I were just doing a bit of research into plans for our Christmas break with Liz, Amy and Ellie when we stumbled upon a site featuring Konglish. This is a term for English words which have been adapted and adopted into Korean. Some of them are kinda comedy...

kuh-pul-seh-teu (커플세트; "couple set") - matching clothing worn by a young couple on a date.

bu-king (부킹; "booking") - the process whereby a group of Korean friends of one sex is introduced to a group of Korean friends of the opposite sex. This activity only occurs in night clubs and is sanctioned and run by the night club. Often a fee is required for booking.

pu-rin-teu (프린트; "print") - Konglish for Xerox photocopying.

But the best one is only really funny because the youngest students at our school start in classes called Magic Time. So imagine our suprise to see the following phrase...

meh-jeek-ta-eem (매직타임 "Magic Time") - when a woman is menstruating

Hmm. I wonder if our boss is aware of this...

Tiredness Kills!

So... my post from last night is somewhat rubbish and a little poorly typed. For this I send endless apologies. Sorry.

Big Trouble In Little Gwangju

There isn't really any trouble in Gwangju. And Gwangju isn't little. I just felt like referencing Kurt Russell.

Um. So, haven't updated since the Wando info. But fun things have happened, so here be updatery. Last weekend was good, we had a few of the other teachers over for drinking fun and were up until about 4.30 just chatting and listening to music etc last Friday, which was cool. Then Saturday (after Becky impressively made it to the gym in the morning) we went into Downtown Gwangju where all the shopping fun is. There was some kind of festival taking place, with scarily young girls doing inappropriate dances in scary outfits and makeup on a little stage, people in costume and on stilts parading around, bands playing, lots of K-Pop and all manner of strangeness. Ace. We went home about 8pm, had a bit of a snooze to refresh, then went drinking again. After a few drinks at Jasmin's place, we went back downtown to a Turkish bar - basically there were cushions everywhere and lots of curtains. No Turks as far as I could see, but it was fun anyway. Then at about 1.30am onto Speakeasy for dancing and giggles. I spent a lot of the night laughing as the girls tried to wriggle away from various slight weird drunk men - particularly starey-intense-dude who was too weird for words. Much drinking and dancing. We left there about 4.30 (I think) and headed to Soul Train. I was kind of excited about the prospect of listening to and dancing to some soul, but when we got there it turned out they weren't playing soul at all. Not even R&B. It sounded more like Travis. Weird. Anyway, we only stayed for about 20 minutes before deciding maybe it was time to bed.

The next day we struggled out of bed in the early afternoon and made our way to Chosun University where the GIC put on an International festival every year. This basically consisted of a whole bunch of food stalls and a stage with talent show and entertainment. There were a few other bits but that was the interesting stuff. The food was ace, although inexplicably we had to buy food vouchers - a 5000 won note got you a 5000 won food voucher. Can't quite figure out why this was, it seemed like it would've been easier to use real money, but I'm sure there was logic in there somewhere. Anyway, there was loads of African, Indonesian, Chinese, Nepali, Indian, Philippino and Mexican (I feel like I'm missing something out... hmmm. Oh, western food was represented by crepes. Seemed weird to me.) food, which we sampled as much of as was physically possible. African was the best for me, especially as we got a whole plateful for about 50p - pretty good value. It was also Indonesia Day, so Indonesia was very well represented with dancers and singers galore. After a while we decided to rest our bloated stomachs and watch the talent show. Between acts they started announcing winners of the raffle - our little group managed to win 4 tickets to the Biennale, about 8 free coffee vouchers and a new Sony Cybershot camera! Sadly the camera didn't come to me as Sophie had the winning ticket. This is especially unfortunate as my camera seems to be a little unwell at the moment. Bugger. Hopefully it's just a temporary setback. Um... Yeah, so eventually we headed back home for more sleepings.

This week has been officially a month since we arrived, fun times! Feel pretty settled now, and more comfortable with the more crazy things Korea has to offer. Like people riding their mopeds on the pavement through busy streets and thrill seeking taxis drivers running red lights. And being given candy floss by a lady from a phone shop. But it was still highly disconcerting a couple of days ago to hear an air raid siren going off shortly after we arrived at school. It seems every so often they have a drill just in case Kim Jong Il goes crazier and sends some planes over the border to attack us. Apparently all we're expected to do is go inside the nearest building. I guess Korean buildings must be designed to withstand explosions! Who needs bomb shelters eh? Also, the creative mangling of the English language will be forever entertaining.

Anyway, I'm going to go to bed now. Becky's laptop is still set to English time, but I think's silly o'clock. now. Gnight!

Almost forgot!

While we were at the pebbly beach and exploring the little village, we stumbled upon a chicken pen containing a frankly hideous looking freak of nature, which I immediately named Cat-Rabbit. This is due to the fact that it looked like the unfortunate offspring of a cat and a rabbit. I took many pictures of it and became quickly attached to it, especially as it seemed to be very friendly and desperate for attention (not water or food as Becky insisted. It wanted love!). Please see below pictures of the unfortunate beast. If anyone wants to donate money to my new charity dedicated to saving the poor Cat-Rabbit please send cheques made payable to Alan Armstrong.

ps If you look at these pictures and think 'That's not a Cat-Rabbit, that's a fluffy guinea pig' or something, please keep it to yourself. You'll spoil my fun. Also my new theme tune for Cat-Rabbit won't be as useful. And I'll have to cancel my order for 500 Cat-Rabbit t-shirts.

Wandorific!

Continuing from Becky's previous post...

We arrived back in Wando Bus Terminal (you have to stress the 'al' in Terminal here, or people won't have a clue what you mean) and started trying to find a bus to Myeongsashimni Beach on the next island, which is joined to Wando itself by a big bridge. The bus timetable was up on the wall but as you might expect, it was all in Korean and we couldn't figure any of it out. After standing around looking puzzled for some time, a frendly Korean man came over to help. Sadly, it seemed he was actually more of a drunk Korean man who didn't speak any English, so he was very little help indeed and wouldn't leave us alone until a younger Korean guy came and took him away from us. Shortly after, a Korean woman came up to us and asked, in English, if we needed help. Hooray! Salvation! Korean people do seem very happy to help, it happens all the time. Anyway, she got us on the right bus and we were soon trundling across the island. It was kind of a busy bus, so we were standing. This is annoying for me as it means I can't see out of the windows. Boo! After about 20 minutes Becky spotted a beach, so we leapt off the bus and walked down the road to an absolutely beautiful sandy beach.

We'd read about a guesthouse village at the far end of the beach (just barely visible in the picture) so decided to ignore the motel right next to us and explore a little. Sadly, we forgot how distances can seem really misleading on beaches and it took a very long time to get there. The blazing heat made it seem even further too! But we made it in the end, only to discover that maybe we should've thought about the name a little more - guesthouse village. Not motel/hotel village. Everything seemed to be more like holiday apartments, as well as seeming highly closed. There were also no restaurants, which was highly troubling, as we hadn't eaten a proper meal since lunch the previous day and were way past lunchtime. We did find a room eventually, with a nice view over the sea. It was more expensive than we wanted, but really it worked out pretty cheaply - roughly £25 between us for a night. The room didn't have what we might call a bed, they'd gone for the Korean style mat and pile of blankets on the floor instead, which was actually more comfortable than you might think. Not sure I could cope with it for a whole year though! The nice little lady that gave us the room brought us 2 huge round pears which were really nice - she also gave us a big bag of fruit when we left!

After we got ourselves settled, we headed all the way back down to the other end of the beach to find some food. The first place we tried shooed us away, she obviously couldn't be bothered to cook! But we found somewhere in the end and did our standard 'no idea what the menu says, just point at someone else's table and hope for the best'. We watched as one of the women climbed onto the fish tanks lining the front of the restaurant and fished out first a handful of shellfish, then 2 large fish... They brought us a huge array of side dishes with about 4 different kinds of kimchi, swiftly followed by a gas stove and a large bowl containing the two fish. The shellfish must've gone to someone else. Now, you probably aren't aware of this, but I am somewhat squeamish when it comes to fish. I don't like the boneyness and I really don't like fish heads. So I was slightly uncomfortable to be faced with a dish holding 2 entire fish... But I manned up and started trying to eat it without looking my fish in the eye sockets. It was actually delicious, although my first mouthful had about 6 bones in it. Over the course of the meal, I also managed to accidentally poke my fish in the eye socket, pull out the entire spine and upset myself by accidentally looking at the wrong side of the fish head. By wrong side I mean inside. Ick ick ick! Was very tasty though.

After our meal we wandered off and went in search of ice cream. We bumped into Brandon and Aviom (not sure of the correct spelling!), 2 guys we'd met earlier in the day who were on bikes touring the area and had a bit of a chat, then met a guy called Jonathan who was working in Wando and told us what the bus times were so we'd be able to get back to the bus terminal the next day. It's kinda nice meeting people like that, it breaks up the panic of not being able to talk to everyone else properly! For example, in the shop where we eventually found ice creams. The old lady outside started jabbering at Becky semi-angrily and gesturing at her. We had no idea what she meant at all, but suspect it was something to do with the fact that Becky was wearing a dress which didn't cover her legs and shoulders. Or maybe it was something else entirely! Who knows?! We can get by ok without speaking Korean really, but sometimes I do worry that we won't know if we're doing something wrong or offending someone. Fingers crossed though, eh?

Anyway. Becky went for a quick dip in the sea after we'd eaten our ice creams. I decided it'd cooled off too much for me to go in, so stayed safely on the beach and watched. More entertainment followed when Becky got out and started trying to change. Four Koreans turned up in their standard beach wear of trousers, shirts and jumpers, plus hats and started trying to take pictures of her! I hasten to add, she wasn't standing around naked or anything, she was wrapped in a sarong, but they were clearly highly amused and or shocked by this! Fun. As soon as Becky was able to dress in peace we headed back to the safety of our little apartment.

The next day was sadly miserable and overcast, it actually started raining as we walked back down the beach to get the bus. Either our info about bus times was wrong, or it was vastly different on Sundays, but we waited patiently for about 30 minutes before giving up and getting a taxi. We arrived about 10 minutes before the next bus to Gwangju so prepared ourselves for a fight for the seats, but luckily got on pretty much first and sat down safely. A couple of hours later we were back in the bustle of Gwangju. It's actually really nice to be back here, as lovely as Wando was. This is really our home now, and that feels pretty great.

Weekend in Wando

It’s Sunday afternoon and we have just got back to Gwangju after a long weekend away. We had Friday off work as it was a national holiday celebrating Korea’s creation (something to do with a bear which sounds slightly far-fetched, but we’re not complaining). After studying the lonely planet we decided to head South for the island of Wando. Friday morning we got a taxi to the bus station and bought our tickets, managing to fight our way forward past the old Korean women who seem prepared to mow down anyone who stands in their way (queuing in general is a bit of a foreign concept in Korea). We then made the mistake of hanging back until our bus arrived, not knowing that when it did everyone would surge onto it and we would be left without a place. Luckily, there was another one half an hour later and we managed to get a seat. The journey took about two and a half hours and we were surprised to see how much countryside there really is in Korea.

When we arrived in Wando we walked down to the port to explore. It seemed like a pretty busy little fishing port but everything was quiet because of the holiday so we had a bit of lunch and decided to try and find a motel from the lonely planet that was a bit out of the way, on top of a hill. We waved down a taxi and were reassured when he nodded at the name of the hotel and drove off purposefully. Unfortunately, he pulled over about a minute and a half later outside a hotel we had just walked past. After studying the lonely planet, a phone call to a friend and questions to a few other drivers, we were off again. Eventually we pulled up outside a stunning hotel on top of a hill. Worrying that we might not be able to afford it, we walked in and found the whole place deserted. It made me think of the shining, wandering around the empty corridors. Half an hour later we managed to find someone and mime to her that we wanted somewhere to sleep, and for less than fifteen quid we got a nice 1950’s style hotel room. The view from the hotel was amazing and it was only a ten minute walk down to a little stony beach. We spent the rest of the day wandering around convincing ourselves that the hotel would open it’s little bar in the evening and we would be able to find something to eat. By about eight in the evening, however, there was still no sign of life and we had to face the fact that we were going to have to find another source of food. We set off down the very very dark road in the direction of another guest house that we had noticed from the taxi. When we got there, there was a family eating a tasty looking soup outside and a man ushered us over and sat us down on a platform. Unfortunately he called someone else who through various gestures told us that we couldn’t get food. Back on the road and we eventually reached a tiny village with a shop the size of a large wardrobe where we managed to get some crisps, biscuits and a couple of beers. We carried our feast back to the hotel and ate on top of the hill outside.

 

The next morning, there seemed to be a little more energy in the hotel and it had lost some of it’s mysteriousness, there was even a little group of Koreans sitting outside drinking coffee, who got very excited and started clapping their hands when we said that we were from England. We’ve had this reaction a few times and can only assume it’s because we’re not American. Despite this, we felt that we should move on and see a bit more of Wando, and maybe find somewhere to have a proper meal, so we trudged back to the little village, this time through a small wood, where miraculously we managed to get ourselves onto a bus back to the main port. 

How do you tell if your house was burgled by a Korean?

Your dog is gone and your homework is all done! Yes, we have English-teacher-working-in-Korea jokes! Hoooray!

So, I just uploaded more pictures. Today was a great day, we went to the Gwangju Biennale, which is a huge modern art exhibition not far from our apartment. We bought season tickets for about £15, which get us in as many times as we want, plus entrance to 3 other museums, including the more traditional art gallery, the folk museum and... somewhere else. Bargain! The Tate Modern should take some pointers there... Anyway, it was ace. Sadly it's only on until November, so none of our visitors will be able to see it. Booo. Ah well. We'll be able to spend hours there so yay! Also, when we left to go find some lunch, a group of Korean school boys shouted hello to us (this happens on a daily basis. I imagine the novelty will wear off at some point, but right now it's kinda nice) then asked if they could take a picture with us. For comedy purposes we said yes, then Becky took this pic of me with them. Fun times were had by all!

Also, I finished work 2 hours early, because my two private lessons were cancelled tonight. Handy! I'm currently awaiting the return of Becky so we can go get some dinner.

Aids-Aids-Aids Aids-Aids-Aids-Aids

We don't have aids! Isn't that reassuring? We were tested yesterday morning. We lined up, took a numbered ticket like at a deli counter, then when our number was called went up and got our blood tests. We then gave a little sample of urine to be tested and were in and out within 30 minutes! Our test results came through by the afternoon. Speedy and pleasing! So this really means we are drug free, disease free, and elligible for a years employment in Korea! Woop woop.