I am a Korean School Teacher

Some things are just oo good to be kept private :P

2009-03-11T23:33:00.000+09:00

Something for everybody to enjoy...... ahead of time :P

OMG

2009-02-28T23:29:00.002+09:00

Alright so i just turned on the TV ... and the CARTOON that was on this channel (at 1130 pm ) is this deranged.... over-sexed thing...

1/
Some young maiden is trying to cross a ravine, she's dressed in classic chinese kinda wear and there's this big fella on the other side.. he's only visible from teh waist up. Anyway apparently she has to do some weird striptease or something to get across. So she does it and ends up taking everything off the big guy on the other end gives her the thumbs up and so she picks up her clothes and clambers onto the log that's now appeared she lays her clothes down on the "log" (.. see where this is goin?) anyway, some grunting from the guy's part and he ... lifts her up... and as she's sliding down he gives an almighty roar and a large white blob shoots off..... colliding into one of 2 pigeons midflight and basically annihilating it in a swarm of.... said white stuff :P

This 'movie' is' called "nudlnude" short stories all sex related but all absolutely hilarious :P

Some words i stole to say about my workplace....

2009-02-06T01:06:00.001+09:00

I hate this place. This zoo. This prison. This reality, whatever you want to call it. I can't stand it any longer. It's the smell- if there is such a thing. I feel... saturated by it. I can taste your stink and every time I do, I fear that I've somehow been infected by it. It's repulsive, isn't it? I must get out of here.

2008

2008-12-31T12:17:00.003+09:00

Well.... somehow another year has managed to creep past me...... again.. :P

It seems somehow that i've been cheated out of most of my year, my being in Korea has always seemed like a type of self imposed exile to me, it's like a sabbatical or a leave of absence, perhap even a pilgrimage of sorts, to challenge myself and to see what type of person i really am.
Because of all this... i just don't think it's fair that time should pass regularly (silly i know)

Still 2008 has passed not without difficulty, but i feel that i have, for the most part, handled the challenges it has thrown at me.

I have learned to live with and by myself in numerous different way, i have learned to organise myself because i have noone else to do it for me, not that i was totally reliant on others previously, but.. still i didn't even have a saftety net to fall back on. I have also learned to look after my health a lot more, as i know if i fall sick *touch wood* that i won't have anybody to look after me, so prevention is definitely better than cure.

It seems like i've done so much in this year, and i owe that to being in Korea, a place where i've begun to learn the language, a place i begin to appreciate a lot more now.

It's hard for me to think what home's like right now, i wanted to post a series of pictures of my entire year... but i've left pictures before my exodus at my 'home' in Korea.

I've been so man places this year;
1/ i started the new year in Malaysia in somebody else's home before going to
2/Thailand for a week to se the sites there, i returned
3/Home to Australia for a couple of months before going to
4/Seoul in Korea to begin my work as an ELT and couple of months later my darling arrives and we go to
5/Jeju Island at the south end of Korea. The rest of the year passes and in this month i've returned to
6/Malaysia once again for Jin Khang's wedding and then to
7/Hong Kong to spend New Year's Eve with my sister

If Facebook is any indication... in 2007 i made 7 albums for the entire year, THIS year however i've made 38 ...... fair effort i'd say

Distance has made things hard for some aspects of my life, and i hope that the distance shortens for that reason.

I have a lot of people to thank for making my time in Korea better and less lonely than it could've been. But as long as i've been there and as much as i'm beggining to fit in, it's still not home...

I hope that 2009 presents me with even more challenges even more opportunites and chances to force me to grow.

THank you 2008. you've been a good year to me =)

Happy new year everybody.
For people in Korea, I'll see you soon,
For people in Australia, I miss you all
For the person in Malaysia, I wish you were with me.

Leaving Malaysia 14-12-08

2008-12-30T00:15:00.010+09:00

This post has been long awaited by a certain somebody i believe :P hahaha

In this post are pics of stuff i ate whilst i was there, and other bits and the finish will be about my leaving Malaysia....
so i'll just post all the pics here.. no need to add a lil story about each i think :P

Some laksa that i had with Shim and Shir over at... some shopping centre...Gardens?

This is some special roti something or rather with.. curried chicken or something

This was a rather lackluster maggi mi goreng.... WAY too wet

And this... one of the best things ... and MUST HAVE things in Malaysia... Roti canai served with some sambal, curry and.... dahl

Ahhhh yum cha :) this was my yumcha fix until i got to HK (where i'm writing this post now)

the Club sandwich from Chili's :) pretty nice i spose.... eat quick else it'll go dry

Shir's swiss mushroom burger ..... yes that pile of..... something at the top is mushrooms, we actually had to send it back the first time cos it tasted like crap, second time was way better i mean honestly how hard is it to pan fry some mushies?!

oooooh this is gu lu yuk... sweet and sour ... pork.... but this place made it SOOO good crunchy still on the outside but tender inside..... textbook S&S pork

this was called 3-something... had prawns, long beans, and aubergines/eggplant

another favourite from this restaurant (same as the above 2) just fried tofu with some egg and crab meat sauce :) simple yet excellent... the tofu had a lovely outer coating, firm but not crunchy

mmm beef balls

and also at the same shop was this super beef noodle (which apparently Seremban is like totally famous for)it was pretty good i must say sauce was damn thick

and THIS!!! is one of the highlights.... yue tao mai fun (fish head vermicelli) this was seriously very damn good, soup was amazing

ahh this is tandoori chicken..... i scoffed when Jared said to order this... but i must say... it would've been a big loss for me the chicken was so tender.. and that minty limey chilli sauce was REALLY damn nice as well

this was ... just plain roti i think... otherwise it's the cheese naan that we got, the right puddle is actually evaporated milk ..... and i know that sounds weird but the flavours actually worked out well together

This here weird pot noodle thing... was alright.. personally i wouldn't order it again, tastes as good as it looks and i mean that earnestly :P

ladies and gentlemen... mango and jelly ... in a jar :P VERY tasty as was the honeydew that i had and all the other drinks that everbody else had :P hahaha

i actually don't find this one that great.. roti hawaii... lots of .... meat? i think in it.. can't really remember ah well :) it was good to try but i like simpler things

now this plate looks like it's straight out of your regular chinese reataurant.. and as i saw it coming towards me i must admit i was SERIOUSLY unimpressed that i came all this way to order a plate of chow mai fun......
then i smelt it..... O..M...G... it was the most UNBELIEVABLE and the taste matched the smell
this was called royal mee goreng.... (some malay word for royal)

This was at a pancake store me and shir visited on our date out this was one of there.. like... over 100 products

THIS particular thing isn't actually a cheese cake.. it's actually a stak of pancakes with choc in between then and then smothered in chocolate...... intense huh ?

and the stuff that we actually ordered... strawberry pancakes with home made peanut butter

----------------------- END OF FOOD SECTION--------------

My boys Shim and Seng, attempting to play pool =)

Me, my girl, my boys :)

Sei fei zhai

So after a wonderful yet mere 8 days of reconnecting with my dearest (not to mention attending the wedding etc and what not I had to leave my poor girl once again.... for the second time this time, and for a much longer period of time too this time... it'll be quite some time before i see my beautiful missy, and basically it's going to suck... this face pretty much says it all i think...

But being together agains was the best thing EVER as can be seen here:

BUt i have to say that i'm SOO thankful that we made it to December, and were able to ... 'undo the damage' that was done to us during this distance
and i'm so glad we're back on track. I have so much more faith about us now.... and i can't wait to see you again =)
saranghae darling :)

Meme

2008-12-19T00:50:00.005+09:00

tell us about the first time you met and your first impression of him/her:

First time I really interacted with her was at the Inter-Club Conference which was... a Sunday I believe, and as a prelude to this I have to say that I'd actually dislocated my shoulder in a volleyball game earlier that week. There was this cute lil girl in our committee, a newbie... but in an important position; Treasurer. So we go to the conference and she insists that I sit next to her so I do. Over the course of the day we had to do several physical things one which required me to hold up a bag with a couple of bricks inside it. My shoulder was protesting slightly under the strain and safter the challenge was done I sat back down with a slightly pained expression on my face. This cute thing was al aflutter over making sure I was okay... constantly checking on my welfare... offering to massage me as well. What really struck me was how much she cared about me, how much she wanted to make sure i'm okay. My first impression was how kind and caring this girl was, that she would show the same amount of care and kindness for someone she barely knew as I would for my friends maybe even my closer friends.

tell us something funny about him/her: she has a real obsession with cutesy stuff, in particular, dresses, basically doesn't matter where you're shopping if she says “hey that dress/top looks nice....” it generally has a ribbon that you need to tie up on it. Also every now and then she'll hook her bottom lip on her top right incisor and close her mouth so it looks like she has this tooth embedded on her lip.

what’s a weird habit or quirk that s/he has?: She roams around on other peoples blogs ostensibly to read them, but then if she finds any cutesy stuff that couples do, (like this questionaire for example) she'll want us to do them

what makes him/her happy?: chocolate and ice cream do the trick. A really cute soft toy as well. A good feed from some REAL mamak food as opposed to “that crap they serve in Australia”

they'll make her kinda happy.. but i think for her.. the thing that'll almost always make her feel better is a great big hug.

what makes him/her sad?: being away from her loved ones, the possibility of failure, the misfortunes of others but when it's exam time.. just about anything could possible set her off :P hehe

what makes him/her angry?: I tend to do that :P hahaha but apart from me. Incompetent people especially in positions of power, the immigration and customs section at Sydney's Kingsford Smith Airport, and recently I've found out that the ineficiency of Malaysian govt offices as well.

what excites him/her?: the prospect of watching movies or series with hot/cute guys in them (most recently Robert Pattison and the guy who plays Chuck Bass in GG). Watching ManU play.

Hahaha almost forgot, the prospect of going to Passionflower also gets her going, as does slowly coming to the realisation that she's about to be surprised

what’s s/he like at home?: Laid back, enjoys time alone as much as she does spending it watching Chinese serials on Astro. OH... also she's SUPREMELY lazy

what’s s/he like at work/school?: Extraordinarily professional, generally well ordered, but with school she tends to get a bit stressed out...

describe his/her room: Both her old room and her new one are pretty spartan as far as decorations on the walls go the colours are generally pretty muted, although her new room is pink and purple, they're darker colours. Her old bed was littered with soft toys, cows, cookie monster, pigs, numerous animals

what’s his/her best friend like?: somewhat reserved, quiet spoken, doesn't laugh very loudly, keeps under the radar (least in my presence), haven't met many of her real close friends really...

do you know who s/he hates the most?: people who are superficial, and more so for those who are so transparent when they're just being nice to you for their own agenda.

have you met his/her exes?: nope

do his/her parents like you?: yes.... and hopefully will continue to do so... though if I extend my stay in Korea I'm pretty sure that'll change :P hhaha

what’s the first thing s/he would do or say if s/he fell down and scraped their knee: “OW.....boo...*lower lip begins to tremble*”

what would s/he do in an emergency situation with other people involved?: Figure out what needed to be done in the fastest time possible

which shop would s/he spend the most time at in a shopping mall?: MANGO!! that or a dessert shop :P or perhaps a bookstore

what would s/he have for a typical breakfast?: at Uni either a small bowl of cereal or 2 slices of bread. At home, the posibilities are endless, it's Malaysia after all...

where would s/he want to go for dinner?: hahahaha every time she talks about the sweet and sour pork place (gu lu yuk) “near” her house she beams, maybe there :P

what kind of movie would s/he choose at the cinema?: Chick flick, romance, something cute

describe his/her taste in music: softer side of the volume scale, somewhere between chillout and rock. She enjoys Silverchair as much as she love Jason Mraz, or Daughtry

if s/he wasnt going out with you, who would s/he be going out with?: a person much better and probably more deserving than me. A kinder person who'd probably be more inclined to sayang her better when she's upset and sensitive enough to not say the wrong things at the wrong time

what item in his/her wardrobe would you like to burn: there's this purple square cut singlet top that i'm not really a big fan of and then that dress she bought for Mfest is horrid... DEF burn that one

what is s/he good at?: Anything that requires analysis, logical thinking for problem solving (as long as it doesn't involve people I think :P)

what is s/he totally horrible at?: anything requiring hand-eye coordination, ie, ANY sport

what’s something about him/her that is annoying/infuriating?: she takes things very personally, and the way she lashes out when she's stressed or upset

what’s something that you two fundamentally disagree on?: not actually sure about this one really...

what’s something that you two agree whole-heartedly on?: probably food :P hahahaha good food is the best :P

is s/he possessive?: very :P

why would s/he succeed in life?: she has drive, determination and discipline to achieve anything that she wants. If she cannot charm, she will slave away til it's completed

what is the coolest gift that s/he has ever given you?: anybody who's been in my room could tell you that the thing that I love the most that she has given me.... would be Manny the Moose :)

what is s/he obsessed with?: doing the best she can possibly do, especially in school

why would s/he be dangerous?: she's very fiery when something sets her off, so i'd imagine that danger in her case would probably involve something flammable. She's very capable... and that part about going at something til it's completed? I'm pretty sure this would also fall under that category.

what does s/he avoid at all costs?: being hurt.

what does s/he spend the most money on?: I would say clothes, but that's not true. In reality I don't think she spends much money on anything. She's not really a 'material girl'

describe his/her typical sunday: without committee meetings, it'd be sleep in, wake up around noon, chill out, read a book, or maybe snuggle into some blankets and watch movies or dramas and also get some good food into her. During term the larger part of the day would be taken up with studying

tell us about a time s/he looked absolutely gorgeous: Her brother's wedding when I saw her in her cheung sam ....... she looked absolutely amazing... the world actually stopped for a moment and I couldn't help but stare...

what’s something about him/her that would surprise all of his/her friends?: she might not be as innocent as some might think

what do you love most about him/her?: her kind and loving heart, the way she feels so deeply about things, the reason why she cries so easily and gets angry/upset as easily are the same reasons that she can love deeply and care so much.

the biggest lesson you have learnt from loving your partner:

Patience

Of Weddings, waiting and wax strips

2008-12-08T13:18:00.012+09:00

Well it's Sunday now.
Means that i got through the wedding weekend.
Friday there was a dinner up in KL for the Bride's family to celebrate MANY MANY people there... 26 odd tables ? like damn man.... people in Malaysia have loads of relatives it's just insane O.O

Saturday was a quiet ... *kinda* dinner at the Ong residence with all of the relatives invited.
Supposed to be a session for the 'heng dais' to get together and discuss strategy, ..... FAIL :P
hahahahah just sat around talking crap.

Sunday was the same as friday but for the groom's side. Different restaurant, this time it was a place owned by a family member. A restuarant in the Royal Bintang in Seremban
But before we got to the dinner there was an ordeal to be had....
630 in the morning, Mr Ong wakes us up to get ready etc.
730-ish the heng dai and the groom-side family who are accompanying the convoy arrive and we all head off together to bring the bride 'home'
About an hour later we arrive in Cheras right in front of her house, and the tradition of zip sun leung (fetching the bride) begins:

Challenge One: Getting through the gate
This involved some heavy negotiation and wordplay on the part of the groom and his best man, not to mention the zi mui (sisters/sisterhood), and after many 'unreasonable' requests made by the girls and numerous threats by the best man to just leave the girl in the house and/or go down the street to pick up a different bride, an agreement was finally reached. The girls would receive a red packet of money in exchange for opening the gate. But the boys being savvy and untrusting said that both the guys and the girls would hang onto the red packet until the door opened and then the boys would let go.

Good plan...

unfortunately in all the excitement and the realisation that their hands are through the grills of a door about to be opened they jerked a bit too hard and the money and the red packet were both ripped :P much to the amusement of all.

Challenge 2: getting through front door

This was a ... culinary challenge.... the boys were required to eat a series of ... 'treats' prepared by the girls.

Dish 1: Sweet
This was, according to the girl that made this ... it was chunks of chicken that were marinated in sugar, which was then COVERED in sugar and the covered some MORE in jam.....
I have to admit, being a man of more savoury tastes, that this was quite a challenge to eat

Dish 2: Sour
This i felt really wasn't that bad, it was just a cup of lemon juice followed by a slice of lemon.
Personally i quite enjoyed this one, the juice was pretty but not overly sour, and by the time i ate the lemon it actully tasted quite sweet in comparison
Dish 3: Hot
Now this particular dish looked ominous it was a tiny cracker covered in wasabi and some other green substance topped off with a chilli..... admittedly when i ate this it really wasn't that bad... in fact i ended up eating 2 :S covering somebody else's the wasabi did its usual business on the nasal passages but the chilli wasn't so bad. Acoording to the girl responsible for this challenge she actually toned it down quite a lot because when she tried it on herself she got gastric from it like right away :P hahahahah how considerate of her to test it on herself first right? :P ( i wouldn't have)
also according to the groom this was peanuts compared to what his cousin had to do: two slices of bread covered in wasabi on both sides with a series of sliced chillis all over the inside O.O yikes....

So after all of this... we finally got to the front door... where Jin had to give another red packet for the door to be opened.....

Inside, more challenges awaited for us before we proceeded.
1st a simple matter for Jin Khang to actually iron a shirt...... easy right? and for those who know me.. yeah that's nothing... quite like ironing shirts... especially more than pants. .. ANYWAY apparently it's not so easy for Jin...... cos he's never ironeed a shirt in his life apparently.
2nd challenge... another one i laughed at...... Waxing of the legs :P
Each boy had a wax strip attached to their leg and it was pulled off by a zi mui :P
the girl came up to me and said "lift up your pants leg"
*lifts up*
O.O ... "wow... there's nothing there" :P
"...... lift up the other one"
O.O (lol actually quite a few people were like..."wtf? no hair at ALL>?!"
"roll your socks down" ....
-.-"
*sigh*
"Take off your shirt"
Now at this point i said "woooo.... only said legs... if you want the shirt off you gotta pay :P"
so anyway this challenge passed me with any real incident
After that we were allowed to head upstairs where the zi mui blocked off the top... so MORE money had to be paid in order for that particular obstacle to go away.

Then there was the final challenge, we had to sing "You're just too good to be true" with a slight difference....
the first verse was to be sung in Bahasa Malayu
the second verse was supposed to be in Chinese
and only the last verse was to be in English.

The Chinese part was hilarious the first line "Pardon the way that i stare" was translated into
"ze me ngo tai lei gor fong faat" :P hahahahaha
"ze me" is usually used for "pardon" for when you want to say "get out of my way" :P hahaha

And actually there was one more thing to do.... Jin Khang had to sign the 'Declaration of Respect to Women" something which, after reading it just once, the Best man said "omg, sorry Jin Khang, i can't do this ... " :P hahaha
The declaration is quite funny :P so you should check it out :)

So after ALL of this crap he finally gets the girl :)

and then there was the tea ceremony where the newlyweds pour tea for the close married relatives of the bride's family, before we headed back to Seremban to do the same thing for the Groom's family.

Not meaning to belittle it, Dinner was your typical wedding dinner, lots of laughs and jokes.
Another tradition for those that don't know is for the couple to go to each table and toast them, the heng dai are also required to be there to toast as well. :P For friday night most of us just toasted with tea but on Sunday because it was the last night, we all drank wine, Chivas, or Martel :p hahahaha for all 26 tables :P hahahah it was hilarious :P aahhhh the fun that can be had with alcohol :P REALLY and enjoyable night overall :) Poor Jin was pretty trashed :P haha

This video is the last table we toasted, Jin Khang's med friends... they made some kind of concoction out of Martell, red wine and what tasted to me like soy sauce....
my reaction to this is .... obvious :P

Dr Ong chose me as a heng dai, and i gotta say despite the awkwardness of me not knowing like anybody in the heng dai group and the fact that i couldn't remember peoples names and hierachy on th family tree, i felt really honoured that he would choose me. It is a position held by a trusted/close friend meant to be like, a bodyguard/honour guard of sorts for the groom. It's more that just 'groomsman' in the traditional western sense because there's so much more involved. Western groomsman just stand around for the wedding and generally just participate in the buck's night. Heng dais accompany the groom almost everywhere, and are a crucial part of the groom's mission to fetch the bride from her house. They step in to take challenges that the "zi mui" throw at him and basically are a bunch of people who take the hits for the groom so that he may.... perform his duties (i'm guessing) later that evening.

It is a position of honour and privilege

Thanks a lot man, i hope you and Kim have a wonderful and long marriage together : )

and of course i have to post about my girly

Here's my gorgeous girl in her cheong sam :)

and her amazing hair....
before i dismantled it....

after i took out all of the pins...

after i untied her hair

and this is the number of metal objects i found in her hair :P

hahahaha

But i have to admit (biased or not doesn't really matter) that she looked amazingly stunning and it was fantastic to have such a gorgeous young lady on my arm =)

And the absolute final thing for this ridiculously long blog is the Video of the Day by the photographer... a REALLY excellent compilation of photos :) even if you don't load ANY other video you should load this one, and if you understand Canto, you should DEFINITELY load it if for no other reason that to listen to the really really cute song attached with it :) damn fitting

Malaysia - the Journey there

2008-12-04T14:56:00.006+09:00

So I finish up at work at about... 6pm on Tuesday head out with Sean and Mel for some 만두(mandu) and some fried chicken with beer cos i felt like hanging out instead of going home.. seeing as I'd finished my packing already.

Finally head home and finish up the last bits of my packing and rather than sleping i decide to head over to the 찜질방 for some hot water soaking and a long massage as well as a nice long body scrub and massage .... hour long massage.... daaaammn...

So unfortunately the massage wasn't quite as good as the previous time so i didn't sleep as much as i just dozed in and out meaning that i was actually quite tired afterwards.... so i remedied this by eating :P 냉면 (cold noodles) for my breakfast before heading off home to grab my bags and to the Airport limousine bus with my faithful sidekick in to

As is my uual self when I'm alone I pretty much triple checked everything every like 5 minutes and made wsure of where i had to be and when so I got on the plane with no drama whatsoever, plane left early in fact... half empty flight too..

So i land in Hong Kong around... 11 something just before 12. and this time for some reason i got through the security check with no problems at all took me less that .. 10 minutes to get back to the gate area.

Which is when i went hunting for some Chinese food :):):):)... the first place i went to ran out of duck.... which honestly almost made me cry seeing as I'd been looking forward to it so much it wasn't even funny. so i opted for a Beef Rib noodles with REAL 'lai mien' (noble cousin of Ramen and Ramyun) in a Bak Khut teh soup... it was pretty good ... the 'set' came with a drink... and a dish of........... chicken's feet.

Now for those that know me... they also know that I don't do chicken feet.
and again for those that know me, they ALSO know that i'm REALLY not big into wasting food...

So... i puckered up and ate the damn things.... and i gotta say... the texture reminds me pretty much of pig skin, and the sauce tastes pretty good :)

So anyway... feeling only somewhat satisfied after that mean seeing as i can get both in Korea. I was pretty desperate for a certain flavour so i went hunting and vame across sexactly what i wanted :)
Egg noodles with Roast Goose :) o.. m..g literally sighed with relief (and i'm currently drooling thinking about it)

It was EXACTLY what i wanted :) in fact i like it so much... i was SERIOUSLY tempted to order another serving.... but resisted.... for... i don't know why now come to think of it :S

Still had some time to kill so i figured i'd just log in to the Airport's wireless and say hi to everyone :P from my lil 'airport office' on the "ground" floor :P hahahaha

Afterwards, i board the full flight over to Malaysia with no troubles at all.

Though there was this lil Msian aunty next to me and i had to keep heling her with stuff cos she couldn't figure out some thing with the plane's amenities.
So i arrive and get picked up, and shuffled off to dinner and thence to my home for the next 11 days.

I get up this morning at around 2 pm and look outside... and as expected... it wants to raining -.-
less that 24 hrs in this country and it's already fulfilling my memories of this place :) hahahaha

Lucky I'm Yours :)

2008-11-27T15:00:00.003+09:00

Just some videos i thought were very cute :)
jjinja kyopta

Lucky, this is not the official MV obviously but still VERY cute

Then this is the official MV for "i'm Yours" he's changed some of the lyrics but the general sound remains pretty good :)

and some covers 'lucky' from youtube which i felt were good versions :)

Stolen from Shawn's blog :P

2008-11-24T02:27:00.002+09:00

As it says in the name this was taken from Shim's blog :P cos i'm bored and i slept in this morning and i'm not tired yet :P

100 Skills Every Man Should Know: 2008's Ultimate DIY List
Brains and charm are fine, but a real guy needs to know how to do real stuff. After months of debate among PM’s expert editors, here’s our lineup of essential skills for the competent man.

Listed below are skills that are deemed essential for the new age competent man. I would say yes to the ones I am competent and no to the ones I am not competent; and then, I would rate myself out of a 100. Let’s go!

Automotive
1. Handle a blowout (yes)
2. Drive in snow (in an area in snow... IN snow like i need chains? no.. half point? :P)
3. Check trouble codes (nfi)
4. Replace fan belt (helped do it in a shop...)
5. Wax a car (yes)
6. Conquer an off-road obstacle (like what... a yeti?)
7. Use a stick welder (no)
8. Hitch up a trailer (yes but i had help of course)
9. Jump-start a car (yes)

Emergencies
10. Perform the Heimlich (no)
11. Reverse hypothermia (no)
12. Perform hands-only CPR (no)
13. Escape a sinking car (no... but i figure if it was dad's car that was sinking.... and i'm the reason for it... i would probably just go down with the car rather than see dad's face :P)

Home
14. Carve a turkey (turkey....no.. i'll just say yes cos i can do a chicken... kinda)
15. Use a sewing machine (yes )
16. Put out a fire (yes... me and some other fun loving fellas just peed on it :P)
17. Home-brew beer (no)
18. Remove bloodstains from fabric (yes )
19. Move heavy stuff (yes... me ;) )
20. Grow food (no)
21. Read an electric meter ( no)
22. Shovel the right way (yes )
23. Solder wire (yes.. i think.. i'll just say half point here.)
24. Tape drywall (no)
25. Split firewood (i think i have... :S man my memory sucks... sure i must've done it at some point)
26. Replace a faucet washer (yes)
27. Mix concrete (yes, or stuff similar to concrete...)
28. Paint a straight line (yeah i guess i could)
29. Use a French knife (um i'm not sure what a french knife is.... but i can handle most knives..)
30. Prune bushes and small trees (yes)
31. Iron a shirt (hell yeah i can, thanks 5 years of cadets :P)
32. Fix a toilet tank flapper (dunno what a flapper is but i have fixed toilets before...)
33. Change a single-pole switch (single pole being on off? then yes :P my lightswitch in korea broke :S)
34. Fell a tree (YES! :P and omg .. it took forever.. right Ben?:P)
35. Replace a broken windowpane (no... but does it count to break one? :P)
36. Set up a ladder, safely (yes... safely? as in... it's not going to fall down or as in... "no i didn't just put it through the window")
37. Fix a faucet cartridge (what's a cartridge?)
38. Sweat copper tubing (no .. i didn't realise metal could sweat... )
39. Change a diaper (not)
40. Grill with charcoal (yeah man ! )
41. Sew a button on a shirt (yup)
42. Fold a flag (haven't done it before but yeah i could i suppose?)

Medical
43. Treat frostbite (no)
44. Treat a burn (yes)
45. Help a seizure victim (no but i know how)
46. Treat a snakebite (yes, and to Shim.. you're not really supposed to suck the venom out..... unless you're like desperate...)
47. Remove a tick (yes)

Military Know-How
48. Shine shoes (yes)
49. Make a drum-tight bed (yes )
50. Drop and give the perfect pushup (yes)

Outdoors
51. Run rapids in a canoe (no)
52. Hang food in the wild (no)
53. Skipper a boat (no)
54. Shoot straight (this is most likely the best skill i have in this whole damn list i reckon :P)
55. Tackle steep drops on a mountain bike (haven't before...)
56. Escape a rip current (no but i know how... but i don't wanna be stuck in that situation :P)

Survival
57. Build a fire in the wilderness (yes)
58. Build a shelter (yes)
59. Find potable water (yes, for Phil: that trick does work... but you need LOTS of bags)

Surviving Extremes
60. Floods (no)
61. Tornados (no)
62. Cold (no)
63. Heat (yes ... it's Australia... think about it...)
64. Lightning (yes )

Teach Your Kids (i reckon i could teach... )
65. Cast a line (yes - fishing line?)
66. Lend a hand (yes)
67. Change a tire (yes)
68. Throw a spiral (yes)
69. Fly a stunt kite (yes)
70. Drive a stick shift (no... least not until i learn anyway :P)
71. Parallel park (yes)
72. Tie a bowline (nope)
73. Tie a necktie (yes)
74. Whittle (yes)
75. Ride a bike (yes)

Technology
76. Install a graphics card (yes... read the instructions?)
77. Take the perfect portrait (yes)
78. Calibrate HDTV settings (yes... i'm pretty sure i could wing my way through it...)
79. Shoot a home movie (yes)
80. Ditch your hard drive (yes)

Master These Key Workshop Tools
81. Drill driver (yes)
82. Grease gun (no)
83. Coolant hydrometer (no)
84. Socket wrench (yes)
85. Test light (yes)
86. Brick trowel (yes)
87. Framing hammer (yes)
88. Wood chisel (yes)
89. Spade bit (no)
90. Circular saw (yes)
91. Sledge hammer (yes)
92. Hacksaw (yes)
93. Torque wrench (no)
94. Air wrench (yes)
95. Infrared thermometer (no)
96. Sand blaster (no)
97. Crosscut saw (yes)
98. Hand plane (yes)
99. Multimeter (yes)
100. Feeler gauges (no )

65 out of 100... but a couple are like "in theory" so i guess the score probably drops a couple of points.....

Freezing weather, the korean waiter and the aftermath

2008-11-19T21:21:00.002+09:00

So i'm gonna go through the more light-hearted things first.

Lil while back (being.. the most recent Sunday) i found myself at a wedding between a Korean guy and a Kiwi lass. The whole style of weddings i must admit is not to my taste.
The typical schedule is that the ceremony will last somewhere between 15 minutes to an hour at most (the Sunday one lasted for an hour... the western part of it dragged it on but it was good) so while the important pair get pictures and everything, the guest went to a buffet hall.. which was much much bigger than needed...... because the guests from the previous weddings were still eating there.. so the whole dining experience had more of a mess hall feel rather than any sort of reverance. It was a fun thing to experience but i must admit that i would never choose to be married in Korea but i don't think that's going to be a real concern for me thankfully

SO.. on teh way back from the wedding still all dressed up in my finest :) Nic decided she wanted to go for a couple of drinks so we went to a place called 'Warawara" over in Gangnam. I was walking to the toilet after taking off my coat when 4 Koreans walked through the door....

then they looked at me and said... "4 person table please" in Korean.... i ignored them and the all just stared at me and repeated what they said.... -.- til i spoke to the in English "sorry mate i
don't work

So it's gotten to the point that not only do i look like a local.. apparently i look like i work in a Korean joint as well -.-

********** the Aftermath*************

As a result of the email i sent, the CEO expressed a serious amount of concern regarding the situation. He responded to the email by assigning an old worker of his to the school to field and file complaints by all parties at the school, report them to the CEO and resolve them if possible.
So this Irish fella, previously a worker at the camps is now the ... pretty much mediator between us at the frontliners and the management. I no longer count our vice principal as part of the 'bad guys' I feel that she is being screwed as badly as the rest of us, except that she has to put on a much better face about the whole situation, for which I, .... sympathise. I now feel that the principal has enough idiocy between his ears for the rest of the school. Pretty much that he stated to Dave that he couldn't give a stuf about the teachers as long as the school continues to prosper. Now anybody.. if not everybody out that is thinking "... without the teachers.. there can be no school...." but i dunno what 'the almighty' is thinking.
*shrugs*

So anyway last Thursday we had our first meeting with the mediator where he basically went over all the points in the email which were heard for the first time by a couple of the staff members. Basically none of the points could really be fixed... for the most part they asked for our patience as none could really be fixed in the near future. The main change is that he will act as mediator between our bitching and the principal's idiocy, which was confirmed by said mediator in his first meeting with the P.

So that's the news baically up to this point :)

Of farewells, reunions and more farewells..... and to drastic measures

2008-11-11T23:59:00.014+09:00

So .. seeing as it's been like ... a month almost since i last posted... there's naturally a fair bit that's been happening.

1/Joanna quitting Jes Island
2/Email to Jay
3/Gabe comes to Korea
4/Meetings and the coming of Dave.....

1/

So Joanna our much beloved head teacher, decided to quit after a heated exchange with our vice-principal...... we were all exceptionally sad that this wonderful person would no longer be working with us, protecting us and caring for us...

So we had to send her off nicely :) with a coupla beers :P

then a couple more.....

then a couple more after that.... :P

27 bottles in total were... imbibed :P

and this was only on the friday before she left :P
but then we didn't drink much during the dinner the following (her last) friday at the school
here's some pics..

There's not much to say really except that Joanna will be (and is) sorely missed from the school :(

more pics here
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=83304&l=d3222&id=728985900

2/

So after... probably WAAAY too long... i finally got the nerve together to compile a complete list of things that i felt contributed to Jes Island being an unstisfactory workplace.... i'd spent the preceeding couple of days asking colleagues at work what they didn't like.... the email ended up being abotu 2 and a half pages long..... and it ellicited a short.. but promising reply, that he would look into the problems and try and solve them......

more about this in part 4

3/

So Gabriel Lai.... my friend from high school and my best friend in year 8 came to Korea to visit a friend from Uni, but we end up hanging out anyway. I must say, it would seem that the intervening years made no difference whatsoever and damn.. did we party hard.... almost every single day basically. (i also want to say thank you here, to a certain person for her patience during this period.... and before that.... and after ......)

it was... intense to say the least :P

but i wanted to thank him for the time he spent here, as well as blame him for the lack of sleep I've had this past week and a half. But mostly i wanted to be thankful for being able to renew such an old friendship with him. So much has changed, yet so much has remained the same.....

Thank you for your words

*** for more pictures go to Facebook

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=83305&l=fbe7e&id=728985900
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=83307&l=9a032&id=728985900

5/

So, as a result of the email i sent it turns out that the CEO did do something... quite a big something.....
D had been working with the main company for several years now and the CEO had been wanting to get him back to Korea for quite some time and D was on the way to Korea for a different job when the CEO sent him a copy of the giant email i wrote and told him that if he was cool with it, his new job would be to 'fix' the place until the ELTs were happy with working there.
So I've now been assigned as the spokesperson for the elementary teachers and Dan, my twin in the kindergarten department... has been assigned spokesperson for his section....

Dan's meeting is tomorrow and mine is Thursday night....
so we'll see how things go....

Ramen and Honkies

2008-10-28T00:37:00.003+09:00

So I froze my butt off today on the way to work.. my hoodie is about as wind proof as mesh...

So i resolved to go and buy the jacket from Zara that i espied on Sunday... quite nice overall (*ahem* not as good as the one that i sent off -.-") but still nice enough, but i didn't want to buy it till i had a second opinion... so i left it on the rack.

TODAY however i SERIOUSLY regretted making that decision... I decided to put on mypolar fleece vest undersneath my hoodie.. so at least my bod was warm.... though i couldn't feel my arms after a while....

So i decided to go to buy i tonight... Sean (the new ELT from USA) was going to Myong dong and Jin was floating about that area so went to that Zara instead (the one i went to on Sunday was in Samseong.... not that that means anything to anybody...) unfrotunately they didn't have it... so really it was a wasted trip... i did buy a shirt however....
ANYWAY

So i head over to the "KENZO RAMEN" place down the road and sat down to enjoy my noodley goodness when i overhead the couple talking next to me.... I wasn't paying attention but curiosity got te better of me and as it turns out, they were speaking cantonese! (should be noted that in Korea, I've noticed that for the most part, people who work/live/study here are generally mainlanders, people who come here to shop tend to be honkies) So, when i realised i gave the girl a very sharp look (which probably wasn't very polite.... and unortunately she noticed as well... but then Chinese people here in general get weird looks when they speak)
So .. i listened in for some time and finally worked up the courage to say "You guys are from HK?"

*sudden looks of surprise..... mental images of draw dropping* and from there a conversation ensues throught the predictable avenues of conversation
what you doing
how long you here
where you from
*small talk bs*

i have to say... esp in Canto.. i've never been overly confident.... it's kinda funny but i think i usually get the jump on people mainly cos i don't look like i can speak.... which i think automatically lowers their mental standards. Anyway, i felt really proud of myself for coming out and actually having the guts to start a conversation, not even in English... but in canto... big moment for me :)
so after a fair bit of talking, they comment that my canto is really good....*blushes* but i know quite well my deficiencies in that language though it was nice of them to say.
Even funnier is when the owner turned to me and started speaking in.......

no... not canto (pfft) Korean... just flat out started yapping away happily like i actually understood what he said... though in fact... i found that i did surprisingly.... just asked where we're from and what language we were talking...
It was definitely a kudos moment for me cos i'm talking away (albeit nervously) in canto and then switch over to Korean pretty seamlessly :)

BIG BIG grin and pat on the back for myself :P hahahaha

peace y'all

AAANNNDD cos the clock's ticked over...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!!!! you old bastard :P
better get in the damn kitchen and cook me a storm when i get my ass back to Austrlia!! :)
love you dad :)

Vegie Soup

2008-10-22T22:18:00.003+09:00

So.. as a prelude to this I'd like to post up pics of my usual Tofu Gung soup which I'd made... Monday night.

Following ingredients:

Soup stock (this was made usuing the leftover pork bone from my Birthday Dinner while parents were here and the crab shell from the one that my landlady gave me last time imade the seafood version of this soup) ie... pork and crab soup stock ... REALLY good very aromatic.
Wun yee (black fungus thing)
Chicken shreds (from the box of fried chicken i bought the previous night and REALLY couldn't finish so i reheated it in the oven... ate all the re-crunchied skin of course ;) *YUM*
Dried shitake mushrooms (this time i put LOTS and LOTS of them in... kinda to make up for other things lacking)
Ham (this time i cut them a lot more thinly and fried them... much nicer thinner)
Tofu (of course)
and this time i decided to put some lil prawns in.. no other seafood

I took some to work for Jin and Joanna, Joanna took it home but Jin shared her box around the office..... it was a HUUUUGE hit

Understandably I was pretty big-headed about it and it really surprised me how many people actually tried it.... the box wasn't THAT big... i did fill it up but apparently Jin had it... as did Herena, Ashley, Amy, Linda and Stephanie maybe others..... so i got quite a few compliments for that :) hehehe quite pleased with myself i must say :P kekekekekeke

so anyway... onto the Vegie Soup

alright.... so strictly speaking it's not entirely a vegie soup... there are pork bones in it, cos last time i made the soup it was damn sweet (most likely due to the 3 large carrots)

Ingredients:
Pork soup bones,
7 tomatoes
1 medium 1 small onion
2 zuchinni
Half a small bulb of celery (smallest at the supermarket.. but still a LOT of celery)
Lots of mushrooms.... (like... 15?)

Alright so first of all i put the pork bones (which were frozen after i bought them fresh on ... Monday) into some boiling water to cook out the blood.
After that i put the (now seriously boiled) bones into a big pot of water (i didn't wait for it to boil first just checked them in)
While the bones were boiling away happily I quartered and skinned the tomatoes (last time i made the soup the skins pissed me off after a while)

Next i roughly cut up the onions (wanted them to be chunky)

Then i quartered the mushrooms (more chunks!)
and cut up the celery

The last thing i cut up was the zuchinni, because i thought i'd put them in last.... seeing as i figured that if i boiled them too long they'd just fall apart (which they did.. but only a lil bit)

The tomatoes were the first thing i added into the bubbling pot of pork bones cos i needed to boil them into oblivion.

next in were the mushrooms followed by the celery and onions after it reboiled.
Last was the zuchinni...

plenty of salt and pepper... and because i felt like it.. i also added some oregano in there as well.... mixed in quite well actually.... but we'll see how my workmates judge the soup tomorrow.... and now seeing as i know they're the sharing sort.. i just gave them one big tub instead. :P

the finished product.

A little surprise

2008-10-20T00:46:00.002+09:00

So this particular surprise was tehnically spoilt by herself ....
however this particular surprise involved a series of notes ...( a LOT of notes) that she had written to keep me company until we see each other again.

I had instructions that i was to read 3 a week, Wed Fri and Sunday over every week until we saw each other once more.

So here is the lovely silvery package i received... on a Tuesday i believe it was.....

and here are the phenomenal multitude of notes that she hand wrote for me.....

and the card was for our 18 months Monthiversay :)

THank you :)

BIG BIG BGI HUGS for you :)

1.5 years, 18 Months, many weeks, and many many more days.....

2008-10-15T22:43:00.003+09:00

To my girl...

There have been many many highs.

And many lows

But we have made it this far

Not without sadness, and not without tears

But together we are still.....

After these one and a half years

There are more difficult times ahead...

But there's also plenty more time to have good ones too

:)

Be strong :)

let us both be strong so that we can see this through.. together....

and THANK YOU for being so strong thus far... for holding us together when i had almost given up... thank you for fighting to hold us together still...

thank you for 18 months :)

thank you.....

2008 Seoul Drum Festival. (4-10-08) updated

2008-10-06T00:00:00.010+09:00

Just some Vids from the 2008 Seoul Drum Festival :) all acts were excellent :)

the kid in the band with the red drums... he's 11... the band's from Japan... see if you can figure out what's the first song they're playing.. it's an AWESOME rendition of it.... it's the 7ths one down...

***okay now i have ALL of the videos on :) i actually ran out of memory that night much to my dismay.... right at the end where this psycho drum player was getting the crowd to chant "tae han min guk" (south korea's official name) with the drums.. was seriously cool!! ****

Gangnam day out.

2008-10-03T20:47:00.008+09:00

So it's been a while since i've blogged about me going out anywhere... so today.. it's "Foundation Day" in Korea so it's a public holiday.
This week has been SOO awesome for me... it's a short week and on top of that, Monday and Tuesday were both exam days so we didn't do anything except administer tests (boring, but easy) and Wednesday was our only real day of work (after which I spent the night at a jjimjilbang 찜질방.... )I got there around .. 1030 or so and i left at 930 the next day.... of those 11 hours.. i honestly think i spent about... half of it under water.... it was excellent. THE best thing was spending a couple of hours soaking in the 41 degree spa punctuated by dips into the 18 degree pool (horridly refreshing... a truly rude awakening) then getting out and going to the 24hr canteen to get myself some cold noodles washed down by an even colder beer =) blissful :).

Okay so then Thursday was suposed to be a teacher's seminar day (basically a day of pure BS where we have a meeting abotu 'stuff' where the end result is that nothing changes anyway) but because last Friday, some schools went on an excursion to Everland (theme park just 40 mins outside of Seoul) the parents wanted to have a 'make up' class. But then because it was basically an excuse to babysit we didn't end up doing much anyway. First lesson the kids were late and missed, 2nd lesson i ended up just chasing my kids around on the 4th floor, 3rd and 4th lessons i played chess with the kids :P hahahaha fantastic day.

and TODAY after what seemed like a weekend already (the 찜질방 has scary recuperative qualities) ... was Friday :P so i met up with Jin and Ashley at the hair salon and for me i basically just hung out there for 2 hrs... watching "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" on my mp3 player..

After that Ashley left and Jin and I went and grabbed some Italian (my first here.. and definitely not disappointing). I really should've taken some more pics there actually..... but yeah had garlic bread, tomato and basil and 2 cheese pizza and some Chicken cream pasta... all quite good, and i washed it all down with a Chilean Merlot served chilled... which really wasn't too bad at all.. quite an enjoyable wine... cheap too.... sweeter than i expected from a Merlot, but good =)

After the LUNCH we went to the Leina Cafe, and just chilled out. Got a table near the open window thing and just one look at the boards outside i just KNEW i had to put my feet up and as soon as i did.... felt SOOO right being there =) like in Balmain or something. Got a couple of looks but y'know.. i don't care what others think... sipping on some excellent tea my feet up and just chatting to a friend.... an excellent day to spend a Sunday.... and an AMAZING day to spend a Friday public holiday MUAHAHAHAHA :P

My French *something something* Earl Grey and my Marco Polo tea i think ( super nice EG and MP is basically high grade mint tea... 10,000 Won !!! each pot !! )

"got coffee bitch?" :P

"got coffee roaster bitch? " :P

and the whole kit out where the FRESHEST roast coffee is made.... from all around the world...

I felt that this picture was really good.... to me it just feels .. relaxed, but the concept of the picture is a bit cliche really... though also typical of Korea in one way and not at all in another.
Is/ the presence of technology, ear phones in.... hand on the phone.....
Isn't/ the solo thing..... it's rare to see Koreans doing things by themselves.... my impression is that everything that is done, medical appointments, errands, nail, hair, .. everything... is always done with company.
But for me, i fel this pic is..... fitting.
I know i just spent the last 7 lines ranting about a picture with me in it.... but y'know what ?

IF you don't like it you can go shove it :P hehehe

Jin's version.... the ever present coffee in front of her (though i admit, the coffee there is AMAZING.... not bitter at all, if anything it tastes watery.. but you can really smell and taste the chocolate, nutty, and all those other aromas and textures you read on the labels of others.) and phone to her head, trying to look super popular :P

Our dessert.... Ice Cream Waffles....

and again cos i like the focus of this pic....... I'm a photograph noob so it's rare when i pull off what i think is a nice shot.

And here we have a group of peeps dancing out a Ad jingle for a noodle shop called "Neoguri"

I didn't catch this pic in time but after the finished dancing and started walking away, the dude in white from the previous 2 pics pointed to me and they were all jumping up and waving :P hopefully the video uploads and you'll see it at the end of the video.

Afterwards we went over to Lotte World, Jamsil for a manicure..... that's right... i went and got a manicure (at Jin's behest) always wanted to see what goes on... and seriously... not much at all IMO...... shrugs* an experience nevertheless.

as a precautionary measure i'm going to say....."Shim, Ben, Joel..... and just in case... Seng...... SHUT THE HELL UP"

After THAT, we went down to the shooting range and shot off a couple more clips (2 beretta and 1 USP) 2 98's and 1 97. I couldn't convince Jin to shoot anything .... CHICKEN "i love peace' BAH!!!

and now... i'm at home :) chillin out posting here and someplace else too =)
;) *you know where*

Tomorrow might be meeting up with a friend to go to "Hi Seoul" festival at "Seoul Forest" which is nearby... will chuck some pics up of that too.

Carry on

2008-09-27T00:23:00.003+09:00

So.... that one day gym membership has turned into some kine od permanent one :S i have no idea why.. and frankly i'm really not about to question it.... so i'm totally happy that i've saved myself $150 (aka 150,000W)
I've been a good boy and i've been going on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday (... a total of 3 days so far :P )

Hmm what else....

Oh had one of my favourite students whom from now on i shall call "ultimate cuteness" in honour of a girl of the same honourific from Azrael's old site.

Anyway, this particular class that she's in is shared by me and Jin (all English teaching programs in Korea consist of a pairing of a Korean Teacher and an English language Teacher (ELT).
So anyway apparenelty during class with Jin, UC said to her (I'm not sure under what context here) that "when i grow up i want to be Bevan teacher's girlfriend" :P sweet right? :P and super cute.... (daughter sure.. but gf?? i think not) anyway... the smartest kid in that class (happens to be a boy) said to Jin "But teacher..... when UC gets old enough..... won't Bevan Teacher be a grandfather???"

hahahahahahaha when Jin told me i couldn't help but laugh (tho a small part of me said "... GRANDFATHER?!?!?!! ... why you lil shi-") because this boy always surprises me with how smart he is, so i merely replied saying "Y'know.....*he*'s way too smart y'know.... always so far ahead of everyone else.."

Okay .... on Wednesday night i went clubbing with some people i'd met the previous Saturday at another friend's Birthday bash.... going to this club was just weird... as expected there wasn't that many people there so like.. awkward much?
Anyway... after a lil while more people started to arrive at this club.... and several pairs came in (pairs as in boy boy and girl girl as well as boy girl) and they stand for a moment before .... breakinginto a synchronised dance routine.... I'm not what it was about it.. it was like these couples had their own lil thing all sorted out that they just brushed up when they got to a club... :S
just damn weird....just wanted to say that....

Also i went clubbing last night as a farewell for Nicole (who funnil enough will be back in month's time) and clubs here don't seem to have any crowd limits.... so they just keep letting people into these places :S:S:S until it gets to the ridiculous point where you can't even move let alone dance :S ... whilst enjoyable to some extent i must say that this.. in addition to the smoking inside... REALLY made it less preferable than Sydney clubbing, even though Seoul's clubs generally finish around 6am..

anyway that was just an update on things... hopefully i'll get some more ppl to go clubbing with....

anyhoo :)

Hope you're all well.. and i'm sorry that my posts are so long in coming :S
too much of a routine to be posting regularly i spose?

Compulsion.

2008-09-20T13:23:00.002+09:00

It seems it's been a very long while since i actually posted something about my day to day...

and today... i just felt like it..

So today... i felt compelled to... for several reasons
1/ i finally went to the gym after... 2 maybe 3 months now? :) so i'm very very proud of myself :P
in fact i also got in for free :P
Why? is it cos i'm so amazingly handsome ??

No....

then why? ..... actually...i have no idea :P she was telling me something in Korean.. and it wasn't "we don't take cards" or "cash only" i didn't know... and she KNEW i didn't know so he just let me in :P
hahaha

2/ So i get out of the gym and it's raining and i think to myself "well shit... that'd be about right"... but then i walked out into it and realised.... that it had been a while since i did walk in the rain, and y'know i gotta say.. i really enjoyed it. I loved the feel of the rain dropping lightly onto me the coolness of the water... the way it collets into drops on your body before trickling down across your skin. The freshness of walking through a mist of water...
A soft yet thorough cleansing, i couldn't help but feel revitalised but the simple pleasure of walking through the rain washing away the dirt off my soul and my heart.

It's still raining now, and i'll have to take an umbrella cos i've gotta dress up for a party... but i still remember the feeling of it... reminding me when i used to go home to Bexley.... my uniform seriously damp... and my hair looking super cool in a way that only rain can give it...

3/ I know i've bad mouthed Koreans a lot, accused them of being shallow, superficially polite etc but every now and then something happens that restores my faith in Korean culture.. and i guess people as a whole.
Here's what happened:

So i was walking in the rain and was waiting at the traffic lights happily enjoying the rain on me while others were waiting under shelter when i notice an umbrella covering me.. it's an old ajumma holding her small umbrella to cover me :) i found that amazingly sweet... it's rare for something like that to happen in sydney i find.. so i was very touched :)

so yeah apart from that... the kids are still annoying though some are great just like some days at work really.....

so yeah :)

that's me guys.

Hope you're all well and missing everyone......

so.. i'm like... 24 now :P

2008-09-11T22:38:00.007+09:00

So today i turned 24....
2 days prior I received mail from Australia with with a package from my dearest.
Inside was a present as well as 2 cards :) one to be opened at 12am and another to be opened at 1159 pm of the 11th.

On top of all this my darling also made me a cake :)

So, my day goes on as normal go to work and head in and my co-worked remembered that it was my bday and wished me as i got in.

Basically the day goes on and on and i find out that 2 of my workmates got me a CK long sleeve top :P
quite nice :P

Also .. some of the kids i've taught over the last 4 months found out that it was my birthday and they all wished me well :) which is nice of them. Funnily enough the kids i told while i was teaching them didn't actually wish me :P and even nicer... 2 of the kids even did this :) cute right?

Anyhoo long day and at the end of it, i expected a cake (why? because every bday person gets a cake) and of course.... i got one :P
it was a lot more obvious when Joanna our elementary school head teacher came out of the (dark) staff room and held me outside :P

and then inside was everybody lined up around singing happy birthday :) which was really sweet :)

the cake was pretty nice looking

After having a piece of cake there was quite a bit of cream around my mouth and it looked kinda comic so i smeared a bit more and Nicoel took some pics......
Then Joanna comes along and rubs some on my cheeks :P

Course i couldn't let THAT stand :P so i fixed that :P

After THAT :P couldn't just have us two looking like idiots so... we fixed THAT too :P

Herena was oh so trusting :P so easy to smear cream over the poor girl :P

Nicole tried to run...... but me and Jo got her in the end :P

And Ashley..... poor Ashley was doing work, sitting down at her desk like any good head teacher should :P...... didn't stand a chance :P

After all of this good fun :P everybody was covered in cream :P the smarter and quicker ones made a getaway before things got bad :P

All these fairly straight laced people....... then i came here :P
and look what's happened :P

******************************************************************************

So on top of all this..... i asked parents if it was okay to stay home for my Bday and just have a home cooked meal by dad.... and it was awesome :) SOOOO good missed it quite a bit......

The happy bday boy (now 24 :P)

The Cake as requested (unbeknownst to me) by my much prettier half to my sister :)

***thank you darling*

The Bday boy with the dishwasher and the cook :P kekekekeke

Altogether now :)

This is my new soft toy to keep Manny company

And my parentals :)

It was a nice. sweet 24th. would've loved it somebody else was here..... but considering where i was ... i can't complain too much.....

and i must say THank you to everybody who sent me a msg on FB :)
feeling super loved :P hahahah

next cycle..... 2020 :S..... crazy.......

O what a wretched man i am.

2008-09-07T21:41:00.002+09:00

Ever wondered why you're here?
Ever stopped and thought...... isn't everything qute pointless at the end of the day?
Ever wanted to be completely different to who you are right now?
Ever thought that everything you experience.. you will most likely forget... and that one day.. it'll be through your own eyes that you will experience your own death?
Ever thought that your entire life will be nothing more than an extended progression of funerals... ultimately culminating in your own?

i have....

and i wonder what i would be like if i was not me...... if i was someone else...
some days i almost wish i was that someone else..

i think so far ahead that one day i'll be looking through my eyes and i'll close them..... and never open them again..... and that when that day comes... i'll have lost so many people i know....

people i like... people i don't... people i'll have met once.... people i'll have known all of my life.... all gone in the end...

i think about experiences that i'll never have, like growing up going to an american high school (i know weird desire.. but still) being the cool guy that everybody wants to be friends with. or maybe even being that hardcore guy that everybody's scared of....

i know they sound stupid.. but still... just thoughts....

been thinking a lot about myself lately..... and i begin to question who i really am...
mainly i think... what am i actually good at?.. and i concede that i excel at nothing... i am okay or maybe even good at many different things.. but i am the best at nothing in any respect..

i also think where everything is going... and i wonder if ANYthing will work out the way i want to... or if nothing i planned will happen.... and then what?

i play the what if game and i wonder whether i'm going to be the loser or the guy who just breaks even.......

i don't know why all these long thoughts all came to me, but they do and they swirl around me reminding me of nothing but vultures circling dying animal.... seeking to undo me...

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

2008-09-06T05:57:00.001+09:00

i just wish you were here......

Jeju

2008-08-26T02:39:00.003+09:00

Alright... i've finally finished the FIRST day of our Jeju trip so i'll link to it here.
So it'll be the same as the other one cos i drafted it ages ago so it'll register under that date also, i'm going to let you guys read it despite the fact that it is technically unfinished.. because... as is.. it's already a huge post, lots of pics.

So here's day 1 of Jeju island

Enjoy.

So i went to a 찜질방 (jjimjilbang)

2008-08-16T23:34:00.004+09:00

SO today was a relaxed Sat-day got up around 12 after sleeping late no thanks to my gaming addictions but anway that's neither here nor there.

I give Nicole a ring and ask her what's happening and we organise to visit a 찜질방 with me being the 3rd wheel to her and her bf, which i didn't particularly care about seeing as i could just wander off and do my own thing and let them go all smoochey smoochey if they want to.

So anyway i meet up with them on the bus and we head over to Wangsimni and head in...
Turns out that the bf is a presidential guard...... pretty cool huh? He finds it pretty boring just listening to the radio and hearing the President move from place to place. He wants to be a detective actually :P even though technically that'd be a demotion.... more excitement he says.

So we go to the counter and pay 5000 to get into the place and head to the shoe lockers before getting our clothes and changing, putting our own clothes into one of the 5 banks of lockers numbering 1- 400 sumthing..
nearby is a door o what appears to be some kind of giant wet room......

Basically one word to describe this place is ...... ENORMOUS.
I go down stairs to find a HUGE floor space in total probably the same as a goodly sized function hall. with 4 different temperature sauna rooms (everything except the sleeping rooms here are unisex) (36 67 75 86 degrees) all with people sleeping in them soaking up the heat.
BUT WAIT! there's more!! after the soaking in the hot rooms you get out and head into the cool room...

This cool room is like an inside out igloo.... the snow's on the inside.... cooling elements run along the walls of the domed interior with the "ceiling" (if a vaguely spherical room could be said to have a ceiling) lined with white, quartz-y looking rocks (to reflect the cold i'd imagine). YOu sit in here and cool yourself down before heading back out and soaking up more heat.

I also had a go at a full body massage with extra attention on my back cost me $60 for 90 minutes.... which isn't all that bad really. not a bad massage... but then i'm hardly a connoisseur for massages seeing as my muscles are for the most part quite supple and loose.

basically i just wanted to say that this place was enormous.... oh btw those sleeping rooms have... maybe 50beds arranged in bunks for anybody to sleep on, the rooms are a comfortable 20 or just below degrees and thus you don't need to worry about blankets. but it seems that people were sleeping everywhere.... on the floor, in the movie rooms, the sauna rooms, the 'bath' room (where you shower.... i'll explain the whole process to you in a bit) everywhere!!! mainly cos the entire place is designed for nothing but rest and relaxation.... inside the same facility is a video games/pc bang, a noraebang (sing K), a small restaurant, dvd rooms as well as 2-4 large public movie rooms not to mention the gym, also availble is a ice cream and a fresh juice bar.

The crazy thing about this place is that it costs $6 if you don't buy anything from the shop etc etc and you can stay there for pretty much as long as you damn well like in fact you can even arrange to sleep there over night if you want to.... but basically it's all very cheap.

So now onto the explanation of 'bathing/showering" at a 찜질방.
1 remove clothes and walk from the lockers to the bathing.... hall i'll call it because room is an insult and chamber makes it sound smaller than it is.
So i open the door to find 3 large circular pools right near the doorway with 3 frogs sitting on top of where they join forming a water feature with them spitting water into their respective pools.
to the left into the closest corner is a bank of your typical shower blocks.. with the main defference being that the dividers are a token addition made of clear glass, more to stop water splashing over that for any real privacy.
The reason for the lack of privacy is that, because this is all found in the men's section... everyone's walking around naked. :S no it wasn't pretty.

So me.. and Jordon (whom i'd only just met maybe 4 hours previously) is now walking around naked :S but he says he's going to teach me how to shower korean style.
1/ shower off, use body wash or soap to cleanse body and face
2/ get into the spa (40 degrees) and soak for .... however long you want really

**i'll also add here that on the wall of one of the spas a guy was just sleeping there totally naked :S***

3/ get out of spa and go to the squatting showers

*these ones are the same as the one you see with the Japanese ones which you use before entering an Onsen*

4/ get your scouring pad and go to town on yourself.

*now another interesting "hoi ha ngan gai" part for me is when Jordon told me not to worry abotu my back because as friends it's expected that we scrub each other's backs ...
this is what I said "oh... of course... sure thing "

this is what i thought O_O "YA FKN WANNA WHAT?!?!?!!?!"

BUUUUT when in Rome.....

so i turned around and he scrubbed my back and i scrubbed his (yeah yeah yeah gay gay gay go on say i KNOW you're thinking it)

i'll note that i'd only just met this guy and just did stuff i wouldn't even consider asking let alone doing with any of my friends... ah but then Aust is Aust and Korea is Korea.

so after scrubbing we rinse off and head back over to the first set of showers to rinse off some more and wash hair if so desired.

After washing up you towel off and go to large mirrored areas where you can cotton bud your ears and then moisturise your skin.... and most importantly stare lovingly at your beautiful self, resplendently naked.

*cough*

Anyway. That was my first experience at a 찜질방.... an experience i am DEFINITELY going to be repeating in the near future. Maybe i'll even have picture ;)

Laterz

Notice

2008-08-10T02:57:00.004+09:00

Okay because i drafted it so long ago.. the post i just put up actually appears two posts below this one..... :) LOTS of pictures..

Check it out by clicking HERE

Peace.

For Her

2008-08-05T20:43:00.003+09:00

This post is for one person in particular, and if you don't like it or don't want to read mushy stuff...

FUCK OFF

Still here?

okay...

To you:

I came home to my place and i found it dark.... and silent.....
a fitting return, the dreaded homecoming i was wishing to avoid....
i open the door and was welcomed by a silent darkness, no malevolent presence, merely... an absence of presence, and that was worse in my opinion.
All of a sudden there's no warmth to the place right now, it's like you took all that heat that you make, packed it into your bags and took it with you, but more likely it's the fact that you were here that made this place warm at all in any sense of the word.

The bus took me along the river, over near Oksu station where we were walking hand in hand not even 24 hours ago and yet driving past i see couples doing the same.... couples that were us just last night... and should be us in the coming months...... but won't be...

I am just glad to have had so long with you .... having you to welcome me home, send me to sleep, do my washing, drag me around to go see things, wait for me to do my stuff.... and to have you to wake up to every morning. But now instead of you, i sit here writing this with a soft toy in my lap....

I see you everywhere I look, thinking of places we've been, i drank the rest of the soup thinking of how i made extra effort in making it just for you, thinking how i wish you were drinking it with me. I'm considering going down to GFC and all i can think abotu is how we never got to go there one more time before you left. I don't think i'll stop thinking about how i wish you were here and even as i write this i know that you're in a plane flying to HK..... away from here ... away from me....

it's so cold here now.... so empty..... so..... isolated......

I wish i was on the plane with you to return home with you, and not missing the symbolism that it is you who brings me home....

my eyes are stinging right now.....

and all i want to say....

is that.....

i miss you.

and now it's my turn to post this:

You're in my arms
And all the world is calm
The music playing on for only two
So close together
And when I'm with you
So close to feeling alive

A life goes by
Romantic dreams must die
So I bid mine goodbye and never knew
So close was waiting, waiting here with you
And now forever I know
All that I wanted to hold you
So close

So close to reaching that famous happy end
Almost believing this was not pretend
Now you're beside me and look how far we've come
So far we are so close

How could I face the faceless days
If I should lose you now?
We're so close
To reaching that famous happy end
Almost believing this was not pretend
Let's go on dreaming for we know we are
So close
So close
And still so far

ALRIGHT ALRIGHT a quick update

2008-07-28T09:31:00.003+09:00

Alright for all you readers of mine that i've been disappointing here's a quick update of what's been happening in my life.

I got a new fridge and a new microwave...
the fridge was the old one from work..... and we hadn't looked in it since the move.... which FYI..... was about 4 daysafter shir got here..... 27 june? and we opened it on ... friday.....25th.... July...

and yes there was stuff left over in it..... including a box of tomatoes....... and couple of containers of juice and some.... bag f something in the freezer....
it stank pretty bad....not the worst i've spelt (that award going to the fish that i put in the bin which then..... i dunno seemed to dissolve as it went off *shudders*)

anyway i took it home and after about 2.5 hrs of scrubbing and detergent wiping and more scrubbing (i even scrubbed beneath the sealing areas....... which were black....) mind you this is after a flushed it through with BLEACH then left to dry so even afterall that, it still took me the better part of 3 hrs to clean it to an acceptable standard.

but at the end of it all I know have a freezer... and 2 fridge parts..... so that's.... cool :P
i can keep ice cream at home now.

On another note, as I've said in the chatterbox, the 'Summer Intensive' program has begun here at "Jes Island" english institute ...... and it's hell....
it's supposed to be intesive for the kids because they're in school holz at the moment so the idea is that we've extended the hours here to cover the hours the kids would normally be in school cos GOD FORBID THEY ACTUALLY HAVE A REAL HOLIDAY AND REST!!! i have to say the parents here are the ABSOLUTE worst of all asian parents,especially because it's so normal here that the kids kind of expect to not have holidays. It's really quite sad in my opinion...

But anyway going on, it's supposed to be intensive for the kids but in reality it ends up being far more intensive for the teachers who, up until this point have only had 1-7/8/9 hours and now have 9am - 6pm hours, with only 1 period's break (40 minutes) as well as a lunch break (which is paid seing as wel have to spend the entire break with the kids supervising and the usual bollocks) SO basically that means that all the teachers start at 940 and go straight until about 4-5 where we each have a single break for 40 minutes where most of usend up sleeping or catching up on work that we should've done already or work tat needs to be done, or receiving intructions about the "JUST NEW" schedule that's issued at the last minute possible. (more on that later)

So on top of wanting to spend more time with Shir as this is her last couple of days with me (for 4 MONTHS :(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:( ) i also have to make sure i get enough sleep while getting up around 730 (else by the time i'm UP up I'm late already)

So okay now for my rant about the organisation here, in particular about the Summer Intensive course.
Now we've all known about the fact that we'll have a course for... like EVER now because they always doit, the only difference is that we're doing it concurrently with a Kindy program which is separately admin'd. So anyway we've know about it for ages now and despite this knowledge our books for the coure were only finalised about 2 days before the course BEGAN and were delivered in full on the day of the course beginning. And in typical "Murphy's law is going to fuck me up the ass" form, some books weren't ordered in enough quantity for classes so some classes are sharing books (though this was only realised on the day and AFTER some of the kids had *rightfully* put their names on the books), on top of this books were sometimes placed in the wrong classes or distributed to the wrong class as a result of the teachers having no clue of what was going on til about.... 45 seconds before our class (and the program) began.
Speaking of teacher's perspective... we're pretty much kept totally in the dark about almost everything until the last minute... which is ... infuriating to say the least. The book situation meant that we really couldn't prepare for the lessons, which for a 'Wing' King like myself it doesn't matter cos i like do lessons on the fly anyway... but it's still annoying.

Also especially last week a lot of our classes were changed at the last minute mainly due to the fat that we had missing materials and just a shitfight overall so that was also pretty stressful cos we didn't really knowwhat we were doing. Everyday last week I got to work about 15 minutes before class started and i was still as clued in as everybody else who got there much much earlier than me .... bad right? In my honest opinion what is done at hagwons (or hakwons) is glorified daycare..... I dunno what parents expectfrom ou institutions but it just seems that we babysit kids and hurl bucketloads of English at them hoping that some parts of the language stain on their brains long enough to become memory.
I guess the best thing about that is... because they pay you shit (for what you have to put up with) and don't tell you shit, youbasically can't DO shit..... (or maybe the idea is that you can ONLY do shit)..... ah well..

apart from all that I've been pretty good, really loved the fact that i have somebody at home waiting and similarly that I have somebody to go home to as well. Eating has been whole lot more fun because of the extra company, and unsurprisingly i'm going to miss that a lot when Thursday rolls round......

*****************************
*news just in*

By Thursday i mean next TUESDAY!! cos she decided to extend her ticket =) YAY! :)

one more weekend. :)

****************************

So carrying on.... i do have a lot of stuff that i need to blog about...Suwon Folk village... Numerous food outings,..... went to Insadong on this last weekend as well as... Namedaemun (which i think is a lot cooler than Dongdaemun) and also went to see the Nanta cooking show..... then of course ihave to have a giganormous post about Jeju and all of it's wonders..... hmm so yeah i have quite a lot of blogging to do....

Hope you're all well and please leave a message on my chatterbox from time to time just so i know that you guuys are still alive and more importantly, still reading my blog despite my laxity this past month. (Esp Bink who's like the Post Police or some such)

Peace out pplz :)

missing you all....

-Bev

Jeju Getaway enormous post... clear an hour or so to read

2008-07-15T00:09:00.023+09:00

So, I was actually working on another post last week i kinda ran out of time.... so to speak. So that post will be up sooner or later... then i'll start reverse blogging til i'm up to date and have posted like SOO SOO many posts that you all just get sick of me k?

alrighty so i'll get started on this one.

Friday:
I get up early and begin packing on Friday morning and head to work for another boring day.
I finish up early when my friend Jin arrives at my classroom and rescues me. So i meet up with Shir downstairs and start jogging away to find a cab to take us to the station.

We finally get a cab and get driven to the station, albeit a bit slowly due to the traffic (peak hour and all) and we alight (yes, alight) at the station and start jogging down to the station "race around the world" style just in case we "JUST" miss the train, so naturally we DID just miss the train but thankfully, they arrive every couple of minutes so we got the next one.

SO we finally get on the train and after about 9 stops we get a seat (we had 23 stops in total) and we get psyched for the need to run to the check-in counter once the doors open. Jin, bless her rings the counter and tells the lady that we're coming and to hold it however possible. She rings me to tell me of this as we pull up to Gimpo Int'l Airport station and start running.
I have to say at this point that i was doing pretty well, i wasn't like trying to sprint, just loping along... which was no mean feat as i had my laptop backpack on as well as a shoulder bag bouncing against my front. Overall i was quite impressed with my endurance seeing as anybody who knows me could testify that i'm not great at long runs, but of all the long runs to be good at... this was certainly a good time to be good.

Anyway all works out well and we check in, because we were late we separated on the plane but seeing as it was only a short flight, and the fact that we'd actually managed to get on the damn plane we were very relieved.

Time i left work: 540pm,
Time we arrived at the plane: 7pm
Time of Scheduled departure: 710pm

The booking makes good on its promise and we reach Jeju Int'l airport at 815 and we clear the gates about 20 mins after that (no check in luggage). We head over to the car hire section and check with Hertz
"any reservation?"
"no"
"sorry... car *makes "no deal" sign"

Move over to Avis which had quite a line at that point
"booking?"
"no"
"sorry, *crosses finger to form an X"

So I move to the 3rd counter but Shir says we should go with the end one (5th) cos it says "Jeju car hire" and has a snazzy lil symbol.
So we go there (incidentally we later find out that this counter is the only counter that doesn't have real english speaking people working there (-. -)" )
and we hire a car with GPS (total cost here was.... 212,000 won for Friday night - Monday arvo)
explanations were funny but the point was gotten across (in both directions) but that's the whole point of communication right?

So we get to the car and i go over the white Hyundai Sonata with a fine tooth comb..... or the lights from the 2 attendants' mobile phones as it was in reality and finally have the guy try to explain to me about the GPS (which is excellent... more later) and the insurance thing (which we had to call Jin for... poor girl was in a movie at the time... but she left it so she could bail us out of trouble..... which turned out to be nothing i hadn't expected or heard before having hired a car last time.
So we program the GPS for our hotel (which, thanks to my lack of real research into Jeju's accommodation is naturally on the other side of the Island)

*Aside*
The GPS system in Korea is absolutely amazing. For those who don't know, Korean writing is made up of a series of symbols each representing a character and they're written in combination to form a 'syllable' so ㅂ (pieup b,p)ㅏ(vowel, a) ㅁ (mieum = m) combine together to form the 'syllable' 빔 or "pam"
Anyway so the name of a place would have a whole series of these syllables, so our "Shineville Resort" had the Korean name "Shy I IN Pil Le Sor Tu" (or something like that) and in order to find it on the GPS , you could enter the actual characters in its entirety OR you could put the first 'letters' into the gps and it'll narrow it down for you. So to find our place we put in "S I N P L S T" and we found our resort. All directions in the GPS are in Korean naturally but it's fairly easy to read just watch the screen from time to time. It is an EXCEPTIONAL system with the added bonus of warnings NOT to turn down the wrong street (generally before the one you're supposed to turn at) AND .........

Warnings roughly 6-700m before any speed trap :P and because your speed is also calculated it'll flash the screen white to catch your attention.

SO my advice to any people who plan on going to Jeju and plan to drive there...... Learn to read basic Korean, even if you have to get a pen and paper out to work out what it says, and DEFINITELY get a GPS if you hire a car, it is an INVALUABLE tool. I honestly don't know how we would've navigated the rabbit's warren of streets sometimes without it, no vagaries if you're going off track the GPS will beep (read; scold) you for missing a turn and then automatically calculate how to get to that road via another route (U-turns i think are the last choice for the GPS), i missed a turn 3 times cos i was *cough* going too fast and it recalculated another route within 10secs of each time.

*End Aside*

So we head off into the night with our GPS blazing on the centre of the dash facing LEFT (yes ... left..... Korea follows the Yank system of driving on the right and sitting on the left of the car)
and after 1 hr of fairly careful driving (on the RHS of the street *shakes head*) we reach our place

Distance from Gimpo International to Shineville Resort: 43.3 KM

We get to the resort and this is our room

So that video saves me typing stuff thankfully.

Soon after (.... kinda) we went to bed.

DAY 1

So today we got up at a relatively decent hour.... 9am i think it was... and headed off down to breakfast (which i must say... was probably one of the shabbier hotel buffet breakfasts I've ever had. we get our stuff sorted and begin our sortie into Jeju-do

1st stop:
O'Sulloc Tea Museum:
This entire area reminds me of Hunter Valley, desired entirely to produce one thing; Green Tea.
I admit it's not quite as nice as HV but still it was pretty cool :)

MOVIE HERE

Happy Me here in front of the hedge sculpture thing at the Tea Fields

and us at the top of the building

Some of their super creamy greent tea ice cream... it was pretty damn nice... but i gotta say i prefer the passionflower type better.

Their Green Tea Tiramisu

and their Green Tea "Fredo" and their Cold water green tea

This is their front gate, this is typical of Jeju, they don't do the typical gate thing, but instead they have 3 log bars and a simple gate in order to 'leave a message'

From Lonely Planet Guide:
Jejudo has traditionally described itself as having lots of rocks and wind, but no beggars or thieves. In Jejudo's folk villages, instead of locked gates in front of homes you'll often see two stone pillars with a column of three holes carved through each. Three wooden poles straight across means 'We're not home, please keep out'. However if one end of the poles is in their holes but the other ends are on the ground it means 'We're home, please enter'.

So that was our short stay there before we moved on to Mt Songaksan which is one of the old volcano sites of Jeju Island and has a series of caves at the beach at the bottom of the area both natural and man-made (created during the invasion by the Japanese)..... which is of course not the reason why we actually visited it ...

it's because there was a K-drama filmed there called Dae Jeum Gum (or Dai Cheung Gum for the canto speakers out there) where one of the scenes was filmed at the caves.

After this area it was time to visit the much anticipated (on Shir's part) Teddy Bear Museum...

I must admit it was pretty cool inside this place... the sheer number of the furry things in such a variety of positions was just.... phenomenal..... many many cute arrangements as well as cool ones too... there was a series of 'snapshot' dioramas featuring many bears in different times during history i'll post some of the ones i like here the rest you can check out in my FB link
here, here and here
(there are 3 albums btw)

so this pretty much sums it up... a very large place with bears.......lots and lots of bears...

"BANGALORES!!!"

"when i'm 64..."

AIIIIIIIRRRRR JORDANNNNNNN!!!!!

there was even an outside garden with bears there too.... and of course this provided me with the opportunity to ..... play around :P

and play around i did.....

So after chillin' with my new found bear friends .....

We headed off for another location, this time a scenic place

Cheonjeyeon Falls,
a beautiful location which was quite close to where we were staying on the southern coast of the island........ security was limited and what little there was was lacklustre, relying more on honesty and guilty consciences than any real need for force.... it's a waterfall after all.
I'll write a little here from one of the signboards:

"Cheonjeyeon, the pond of the heaven's emperor, is on of the "Tamna Sipgyeong". ten most scenic sites in Jeju. A U-shaped valley made through sedimentation and upheaval of te earth and lava, Cheonjeyeon has evergreen subtropical forest within its gorge of 3 tiers waterfalls. This valley is also a habitat of 460 kinds of vascular bundle (i thought vascular bundles were all found within the body.. but ah well) inclding 112 families, 317 genuses, 40 varieties and 6 grades. ....
Legend has it that 7 nymphs who served the emperor in heaven (SEVEN?! energetic bugger ain't he?) would descend and go back up there after taking abath in the first tier of CHeonjeeon waterfall everynight (and why doesn't the emperor come??? his 7 nymphs are all naked at the same time right??... i'm sure that horny bugger could turn the freshwater there salty in one night *MUAHAHAHAHA*) And its name came from this legend.

I have to admit that this place was one of the most beautiful i've ever see, and while I'm no artist or naturalist, I can still appreciate beauty in my own limited sense.

So i'll leave it to the pictures to speak for the location.

So like i said that place was beautiful......

also, native to Jeju-do are atone statues called Harubang the significance of which I am not too sure, but because of their phallic aspect i took to calling them.......

Dickmen....

So near this waterfall is the bridge that crosses the gorge, desinged in a similar fashion to Gladesville Bridge cept using steel as structural supports and with the 7 nymphs on each side of the bridge:

Naturally you can see down into the gorge to the waterfalls...

From Cheonjeyeon Falls it was a short drive over to Jusangjeolli Cliffs... move lave rocks.... by the sea this time. Not sure what this place was about.. though the rocks lookined intereseting i must admit....

There was also a very large signpost telling me how far it was to places i really couldn't give a shit about....

and unfortunately..... it also told me how far it was to where i want to be........where i should be....

Then it was down to the "Lonely Rock" aka Oedolgae

and THAT ladies and gentlemen was the first day down at Jeju Island........

***********************************************************************************

DAY 2.....

Well ... more days at the office

2008-07-09T12:36:00.014+09:00

I would like to make a note prior to anybody reading this, and that is, this is one of the posts that i've had drafted for some time now and i FINALLY posted so just deal with the time shift okay ? just imagine we've like... i dunno... gone back in time or something ;)

Alright so i've been just as unattentive of my blog as my sister has, but in my defense i will just go ahead and blame my distractedness on the presence of my better looking half. I LOVE the fac tthat she's around and i feel that an unattended/neglected blog is a small price to pay for her company.

okay :) so that was basically my disclaimer :P hahahaha :p for.... something.

anyway. thought i'd update everybody (well anybody who still reads my blog)

Shir and i have made our rounds to many many places 6 different places at least.

1/ Itaewon (took her there for THE kebab" :P)
2/ Yongsan (for a movie and checking out one of the cooler malls around here)
3/ Dondaemun (for a nice walk around and to check out a *very* small part of the shopping available there *you'll see*)
4/ Hongik
5/ Gyeongbokgung Palace
6/ Suwon (the traditional folk village)
7/ Local restaurant for company dinner (paid food and alcohol :P what more could i ask for? :P)

So many places yet so few huh? i mean in reality we can only get days out during the weekend obviously, and i must say that she's enjoying her sleep very much nowadays :P but then so am I, so we sleep in pretty late (usually 11-12). I will be posting up pictures on facebook soonish so look for the full albums there.

Here are some picture from those above places.

Itaewon....

A lil video about THE kebab :P

"one more try" at what? i don't even know........

Itaewon's main strip

and a happy girl with Cold Stone Creamery products :P (predictably it's the same as Cold Rock for those who know)

Yongsan:

Some random girls modelling cars in a small car display area in Yongsan Station.....

Definitely the best thing about Korean food is that it's plentiful and for the large part very healthy, everything is made using fresh ingredients and that minimal amount of perservatives are being used. Also for the amount that you pay you really get quite a bit.

To the left we have bulgogi soup and the right one is Galbi Tang which is pork rib soup

And this is.. mung bean pancake :) which is REALLY awesome very crunchy and tasty =)

Dongdaemun: East Main Gate

Sits on the Cheonggye Stream that runs all the way through Seoul, makes for a seriously nice night walk if you're into that kind of thing. Best to be done with a partner if possible seeing as the entire area is littered with couples etc etc etc

These were taken when wewent out with the people who did the Camps, same company, different projects i guess you could say:

The sensible couple caught amongst the rabble :P

One thing that's interesting with Korean bars is that they weren't serve you drink unless you eat something, so despite the drinking culture the still feed you in order to either
a/make it harder to get drunk or
b/ make it more colourful when the time comes for you to leave a deposit at the bar

Dan decided that these lovely ladies were too pretty to not talk to... so he went and talked to them.. :)

The stud and myself :P and John with the stud :P

This fella's name is Patrick, apparently well known to the Camp people and totally unknown to me.. Jin is also know to these Camp people most likely as some kind of pisspot :P hahahaha *jokes*
On the right is Chris, he's a pretty good bloke .... for a pom :P hahahahah
speaking of that i've noticed that people you might diss at home you kinda cling to in another country... i'm just dying to meet people who actually understand my english :P and who better than a bunch of poms :P i met some aussies a while back too..... thought they were pretty cool til i found out they were from Queensland... but i figure outside of the homeland it's not abotu which state... it's the fact that you're all Aussie :P

Gyeongbokgung / Gyeongbok Palace:
Now here was a .. sunday i think... and it was raining... basically just bad weather.. we ended up having to leave this place early cos we got there late and they closed earlier for whatever unknown bloody evil dastardly reason *SIGH* :

Don't you reckon the right one looks a bit photoshopped? and man do i look STUNNED ;p

the murally thingy on the top of the royal antechameber i guess you'd call it....
and the .. receving chair i spose?

and the part that we didn't get to cos they closed early.... blaaardy.... some pagoda i'm guessing it's the palace's private lil buddhist thing.

I also have pics of another palace we went to.... no disrespect but i gotta say you see one you've seen them all... like we were SOO BORED by the end of the other one's tour (you had to be part of a a tou in order to have a look around that monstrosity because it's a heritage listed site and blah blah blah :P

Suwon, Traditional korean folk village:
The traditional folk village is created to display a collection of traditional houses from the various regions of the Korea, basically most of them looked the same except for very small differences but that's.. expected i guess? Anyway the day was pretty enjoyable and we just walked about and checked everything out. It was a nice day :)

Me carrying the nightsoil buckets....

But all in all a nice day out bit of rain but nothing too unmanageable

Company Dinner:
This was a pretty sweet night it was just a lil celebration for a successful and completed move to a new location so the Boss took us to the nearby Korean BBQ restaurant, where we all can order whatever you want and in true Korean style the boss will leave so the workers can get trashed out of sight of the executive.

Left: The Korean teachers (KTs) and English Language Teachers (ELTs) and Linda the VP
Right: That's the admin directore Ryu (who's now quit) pouring beer into VP Linda's Neng Myun bowl :P hehehehe

Left: that's use with our new Elementary Head Teacher Joanna :)

Our Kindergarten teachers, Irene, Bonnie, (KTs) Emily and Rachel (ELTs)

And what was left after Jes Island staff went throught this place :P

I'll also add that we went to noraebang (K for all you honkies out there) afterwards... but the pics of Ryu dancing so.... shamelessly (was the word me and Rachel decided.... Linda said professional but the rest of us begged to differ) are just too disturbing :P

**** At this point i'll remind you all that this happened some time ago.... i can't exactly remember when **********

So as for working atm, i must say that i'm a bit pissed off in general with the company, the kids i teach are for the most part okay thought there was one lesson that almost left me in tear of frustration and almost ended with me putting a (or several) kids heads through the wall or window (and for those who caught it, that was the day i had "violence against children should be made legal..... in some contexts")

okay fine.. i lied...... it wasn't just one class.... there were 2 classes that day that drove me up the wall pretty hard..... fine ... there were 3 (though one occasion was the same class but different day)

So this is what happened:
I was explaining to this class (the one where there's like... 1 bright student and the rest are either annoying or just plain dumb)the same thing for 20 minutes.... with some kids not paying attention, and at the end of it all they all turn to me and say " i don't understand" (well actually they said "this whAAAAAAT" which is dumb korean kid of saying the same thing) now it's doesn't sound that bad cept that this occurred for the enTIRE 40 minutes of class.
this also happened another time in the same class... but it was 3 kids in particular who have practised and perfected "i'm so fricken dumb" look..... on kid even perfected the very difficult.. "behind these eyes there is nothing but empty space *space space space*" -.-

omg i just wanted to cry or kill.....
but i managed to get through each time with a simple "i have inhumane patience" chant that i've started just for these occasions.

The other class i had 2 kids, both of whom are generally fairly smart but both as as hyperactive and "easy" to control as their intelligence. What ended up happening in that class was that they tried to kick the crap out of each other.... i blocked the kid (one i HATE) and he decided that it was more fun to kick me instead so i put one hand on his chest (cool enough was that my hand fit over his chest and around his ribs) i shoed him into the wall and just squeezed while looking at him and telling him not to kick me. shrugs* it was a slight thing... but it was OH SO satisfying =)

So anyway we've moved to the new school, here are some pics

and the news here is that as of July 22 til August 22 we have the "Summer Intensive" program, i've interpreted this as an indication that parents here don't want their kids to have actual holiday, mainly cos "omg... no! it'd be unproductive (or "un pulo-duk-tiv-u" as they may say it)" so we must send them to hagwons, who obligingly create summer study programs which are a bit more light-hearted but still.... study... holidays..... blasphemous. *shakes head*

Gangnam

2008-06-28T10:58:00.008+09:00

So here's the lowdown on the day out at Gangnam that happened quite some time ago now. The idea of me going there was to get my hair cut, which Jin had kindly booked for me.
Funnily enough the night before this day, was a Friday night, a regular one so me and Tyler headed over to Metro for drinks and pool, now it wasn't turning out to be that big of a night ...... UNTIL... Tyler's friend (Sam) arrived with another friend in tow (Hoony..... yes.... Hoony), then everything went pear-shaped...... more drinking.... then we stumbled out, went to a club for a short while thence to another bar...... MORE drinking. Now in all honesty despite my previous jaunts to the Metro every friday and despite the fact that i stumble a bit on the way home anywhere between 330 and 540 it DOESN'T mean that i drink a lot, but THAT night i did drink quite a lot.
Now of course these kinds of things happen, people meet up with other people and things pretty much get out of hand, to be fair to me tho i still didn't drink that much, but what I did drink hit me pretty hard.

So anyway, the night finishes and i'm pretty much on the verge of collapse by the time it's done so i figure we'll just head back to Tyler's place and i'll just collapse there and sort the next morning out when it happens. Unfortunately things didn't work out that way, because we got to T's place and he found out that........

He had lost his house keys......

So we spent some time pounding on the door and because of our drunken state we also considering climbing along the outside of the 3 storey building and gaining access via an unlocked window...... I being FAR smarter in this state, decided that we should just go back to my place and sleep there.
So we get back to mine and Hoony is dragging along a bag..... which i found out to contain 3 big bottles of beer..... (:S) but i would have none of it, so i let them in , gave them a chair to use as a table, went into my room and just collapsed.....

i woke up feeling pretty shit of course..... but after my hangover cure of fried goods (bacon eggs and later, some spam) and some hot black pu erh tea, we were all feeling much much better.
So Sam drivess me over to the station (in return for my.... amazing culinary prowess) and i meet up with Jin.

So she takes me over to her stylist... salon thingy whatever you call it. and it's an impressive site: and large amount of floor space almost completely dominated in the main by upy downy chairs, large mirrors, and clear but soft white light, making this place seem something that should be up in the clouds bathed by the light of an omniscient power saving light bulb. So in my short couple of minute wait for the stylist to finish with the current person, his assistant comes over and offers me a menu..... for a drink.. .totally free and part of the service at this place and while the drink is being prepared she takes me over and washes my hair (amazingly strong fingers she has :P) before the stylist has a critical look at my hair. He asked who cut my hair and i told him mum did :P and when for when she reads this i'll add that "mum she thought that you did a good job, he compliments you on your steady hands and your obvious skill" so yeah he was... impressed i guess for lack of better words :P

Here's a pic of the drink....

and here's me being pampered (and i use this word correctly here) by the stylist and the strong fingered assistant

after the hair cut (which ended up as me saying to do whatever he thought was good as opposed to what i wanted which was to cut lots of hair off so i wouldn't have to cut again for several weeks.. maybe months...) being super hungry Jin suggested (after some badgering) that we try this Viet Pho place nearby (this was after we went shopping for a new phone for me....) the noodles were a lot thinner than i was used to and i have to say i much much MUCH prefer the Hor Fun that's typical of pho in aussie....

after more walking it was over to a cool lil coffee shop where good expensive coffee could be had, in super nice crockery too i must admit... pics here....

So this is my caramel latte

and this was her .... americano ... i think... can't remember now... but it was something fancy sounding *shrugs*

This is the new york cheesecake :).... SUPER SUPER good

and this is the Chocolate Lava.... which didn't have any 'lava' flowing out of it..... so i must admit not a huge fan of this one...

but anyhoo after... i think... 3-4 cups of coffee my stomach was doing flips and my brain was bouncing off the walls :| seriously amped after that stuff but it was pretty funny in a way :P

so anyway. that was my day out at Gangnam :) will most likely go back to that stylist i think :P

Peace out pplz :)

So she's finally here =)

2008-06-26T00:36:00.005+09:00

Well after much anticipation, heartache and just.... well shitty bits me dearest better looking half is here to keep me company. She landed safely and traveled well (if in some discomfort).
Here are some pics of the aforementioned :)

and here's a pic to prove it :)

Poor thing came of the basically 16 hr ordeal that is the flight here into a booked car and straight to my workplace.... where she was greeted by an office full of people who knew who she was.... and she didn't know anybody (so i have a big mouth :P so what? you guys all love me still so don't pretend like you don't :P) so anyway, she's shown to my desk and has to sit the for the next 3hrs or so while i finished off work then it was into a taxi and the 5 -10 minute trip home :)

well either way you'll be all happy to know that I am super happy that she is here :) and to those on her side i'll take care of her k? ;)
y'know.. in fact i even made Hot and Sour soup for the first time....( i didn't realise she wasn't a huge fan of it :S *whoops*) but yeah it turned out pretty damn good for a first time effort :)

;) it was good :P

anyway from us 2 here in Seoul :)

lots of love and peace to everyone :)

Bai :)

Next post: a day in Gangnam (belated as it happened on the 15 June :P but still worth putting up)

Thank You

2008-06-18T23:35:00.003+09:00

So after some time here and esp after having 3 great ppl super looking after me and everything.
I thought i'd take it upon myself to do something as a lil thank you to the three of them.
So i invited them all over and cooked them dinner. (You could argue at this point that that really isn't much of a thank you as it was a torturous ordeal

Be that as it may i took it upon myself to churn out a meal for my generous colleagues. I am a man of simple tastes so i decided to make the following

Hainan Chicken w/ ginger and shallot oil (i'd premade the oil)
My favourite Tofu Gung soup.
Fried egg with onion.
and some lightly pan-fried scallions in soy sauce....

i went to the supermarket after work to especially buy the soy sauce.... Kikkoman of course :P omy.. SO good tasting that soy sauce for the first time in ... 8 weeks? soy sauce tastes diff here.... sweeter i guess you could say and in a way more fragrant.

ANYhoo i got started with the dinner... took me a while in the end
everything is so simple to make and easy to look up and easier to make... and i don't wanna try and look prop and shit by telling ppl how i make stuff so i'll just let pictures speak

and i'l say right now that the chicken IS in fact cooked :P

This is the Hainan chicken.... and i gotta say.. it was pretty damn good... very soft... and easy to cut....... and yes i know it looks as if i half cooked it but i assure you all that it was in the hot boiling/near boiling water for... 20-25 minutes..... i SWEAR!!

i could've chopped it more presentably...... but after deboning it and only cutting half the chicken first (the other half i wanted to deep fry the skin to crisp it up but i gave up and after we went through half of the chicken quickly.... i figured just go for cold chicken instead... it'd be a waste to fry it...

This is my super favourite tofu gung soup...... LOVe the way dad makes it. i never think i do it justice.. but considering i only had frozen prawns, mussels to go with the nice tofu and dried mushies..... but it turned out alright even if i did sneak a big spoon of powdered beef stock into it :P kekekekeke.... in my defence i only did it cos the base tasted a lil too watery..... but all was well in the end.

So this is what the dinner table looked like all set up and everything complete with the scallions and the egg..... Jin brought some of her homemade kimchi which was pretty awesome too... one her mum made and the other she made herself :P
rockin'.
The fried egg and the scallion are SO simple.. (literally just into the pan and fry) DEF no need to explain.

and now for the people

Nicole and Tyler....
Nicole has been helpfully trying to get me out of my shell and to actually see stuff , but of course i'm waiting for somebody else to come see everything with me...
Tyler is THE dude i've been hanging out with...(him and Evan... who's currently left but will be back in August hopefully) so every Friday we're out to play pool and hit up the drinks.
He totally flogged me the first day i got here... but looking back i'm gonna go ahead and blame it on the jet lag :P hahahahaha i give and get nowadays :P which is exactly as it should be.
this coming Friday will be our last hoorah before he leaves, and Shir comes.... so if i'm not too destroyed i'll grab pics of me and him hitting up the tables and the bars :P
muahahaha

This girl here really isn't the booze-hound she appears to be, in fact quite the opposite.
Jin's ben helping me with everything from phones, to camera's, mp3 players to airline tickets to hotel bookings :P
if she did anything more for me i'd have to put her on retainer as my secretary kekekeke
*please don't hit me*

Anyway so after a thank you dinner what better to do than to have a thank you post :P

THANKS GUYS

Tyler's leaving in 2 weeks, Nicole in 2 months and Jin is stuck with me for the next 11 months :P
sucks to be her right? :P

Peace all....... missing you guys heaps.....

i wonder...

2008-06-14T15:16:00.002+09:00

I wonder how many people in the world are doing something they love ...... but don't make money from
I wonder how many people in the world are doing something they're very good at ..... but don't like very much but like the money
I wonder how many people in the world are doing something they're very good, love AND make money from....... i could make a guess: not many.

so for everyone of those luck few how many don't get to have anything close... they do stuf they don't like for bad money simply cos they can't do any better (or think they can't)

and i wonder.... and pity however many people there are in the world who don't even know what they're good at and don't know what they love to do ........ and they're stuck wondering........ forever

More pics update

2008-06-08T00:37:00.007+09:00

WEll i bought a camera today.... but haven't taken it anywhere so no pictures from that yet.. tho i'im assured by the salesperson that this Fuji camera is WAAAY better than that Canon 960 is that i was about to waste my money on... he also asked if i'd teach him english :P hahahaha and hey i figure money's money so i said yeah... wrote my details down and so we'll see how that goes.
anyhoo i'll just post up random pictures of stuff including pics near my area that i forgot to add before as well pics of my students.... and i dunno what else..
i'm sure i'll get around to an "only in korea" post at some point... maybe tomorrow if i'm feeling ... bored :P

so here they are ... PICS!!!

The arrow pointing right is where i live :)
Geumnam Market or when i tell the taxi to take me home it's "keumnam si jiang " ;)

here's a pic of what the boys in blue look like over 'ere...... took the picture to remind myself who to run to...or from depending on what i've been doing.....

and a small market that's held at the carpark of the apartment buildings near our school... every tuesday.. fresh produce.... just in cash you couldn't find fresh produce like... at EVERY OTHER SHOP

The fishies here i took a pic of..... bink knows why

Here's the first meal that i ordered out...... with a simple yet effective point at the menu and saying "igo juseyo" :P

How our company keeps tabs on us at work, ye olde time clock method

And here...... is a bucket full of eels........... pretty disturbing to watch actually :S

My Canadian workmate took me to Hannam to eat "Galbi" which is just like flavoured pork and here's a picture of your steaming side dish ..... it's like steamed egg but i took a pic cos it was shooting out steam :P which is pretty cool :P

and here's osme pics of the main street in Hannam.... horrid quality i know... but i was walking across the 8 lane street so didn't really have time to dally :P

One thing i really like about Korea is that a LOT of lil food places do takeaway doesn't matter what it is.... Ryu ordered me this and it arrived at the office about 20mins later, other things like Beef soup actually come in a stonework bowl or plates to a split bowl (for my Tang pok bap aka sweet and sour pork with rice) all the stuff is taken via big metal crates on a scooter to the delivery location.. and it all happens FAST! generally cheap too generally around 5-7$ mark (5-7000... which in reality would be closer to $5.50 and $7.70 for aussies)

The school near us has been reduced to rubble and they're rebuilding it from the foundations up so the kids have to live with large shipping containers as classrooms naturally it's only temporary...

Here's where i go everyday...... this is the office....... a total of 8 people sit in the area you see right now

and that table in the corner next to the wall is my desk :)

THIS is basically what i had for breakfast (2 of them actually) for pretty much 2 weeks... along with a 'mochaccino milk'
this is a "sam gok kim bap" literally meaning "3 cornered seaweed rice"
aka 'onigiri' in Jap

And NOW the moment you've ALL been waiting for........

My kids

This is my Genki 2 Class
Judy, Amy, Talli and Julia.

This is my Conversation class
Christina, Justin, Jack and Jin

Jack was the original culprit of the attempted "sack whacking" but thankfully has since decided that it's far more fun to just poke me with the marker pen *sigh*

you'll all be happy to know that Justin was poking me in the butt again ... and even went so far as crack me in the nuts........ this lil devil (cute tho) trundled up to me and stuck his hand out.. and being the good fella i am immediately shook his hand..... to which he responded with a swift and thankfully slightly pulled "tiger strike" to my crotch area..... he got me pretty good actually.....
then of course he runs off laughing -.-"

Here's my good Safari 2 class... these kids are cute... hard working and generally good fun to be with. The boy of the left is Tom.........or maybe it's David....... his twin.... thing is i can tell them apart with this amazingly simple detail....... David always sits in front of Tom.... and seeing as they always tend to wear the same thing (or if not the same then the complementary colours) it makes it quite hard..... the do act a lot different tho... David comes over with his book and gets into my lap while i'm marking his work..... Hella cute right? and if not he'll walk over after he's finished and take a look at what i'm writing then leans on my shoulder and gives me a hug... what a great kid :P

Next guy is Jack, he's pretty cool too, tho nothing really worth commenting about, there's another kid behind Jack and his name's Paul. Paul is a super bright kid... understands a fair bit of English considering the level these kids are at. Then the girl is Slen, she's damn cute as well... doesn't say much... doesn't do that much work either comparable :p
but she's cute.. :P

and here's my NOT so good Safari 2 class. This is the class that jumps all over me when i'm around.. though i've since controlled this activity.
so it's Julia (my 'enforcer' and bully, if the other kids are doing something she knows i don't like... she'll step in and 'fix' the offender :P),
Daniel (this kid is smart, cute, hyperactive.... insane.... and just good fun),
then June... tho he prefers Jin nowadays (this kid... is cute too... and also sulky and a lil too liberal about where he puts his fingers........in the ass....... MY ass :S *sighs again*
then Sally (pretty surly most of the time, and she's currently in Vietnam),
then Big ...... yes.... Big (this guy is a whiney lil... bi- boy.... :P always bit- eerr complaining about SOMETHING, one time he was grabbing something that i didn't want him to grab.. so i smacked his fingers :P...... then made him cry... which i just shrugged at and ignored ... mainly cos he deserved it :P)
then there's Nate.... annoying that he's affectionate and has the death grip..... he grips his own hands then won't let go... he thinks it'shilarious that he's strangling me -.- i'm gonna give it to this kid at some point too.... give him a swat.
All of these kids have THE highest pitch voices........ usually set my ears ringing by the end of class they almost get to the "i want to commit suicidal" frequency

My Safari 4 class....also a nightmare class cept for... Sopia (this is the class that had me thinking about leaping out of the building the other day for those in the know
Will (good kid, quiet and studious... slowly starting to appreciate him) originally thought he was being whipped by ....
Sunny this girl is pretty dense i have to say..... only good at parroting, has the initiative of a rock and hsa the same English skills *shakes head*
Jung Jae.... this kid is seriously a misfit.... i've finally gotten him to do work in class tho generally he'll just go insane.... paradoxically he likes me :S i don't get why... in the first 2 -3 weeks i threw him out of the class the majority of the time nowadays he doesn't pick on me just the other kids in the class, what's even more insane is the fact that his English is actually pretty good :S
Gyung Don.....i don't like this kid.... happy to give it ... but can't take it.... and his English sucks cept when he's trying to dob somebody in.
Peter is just annoying and has a high pitched voice good for shattering 24y.o ear drums.
Sopia... this girl is the saving grace of this class. She's cute and smart and her English is pretty damn good... what's better is that i use her to translate my instructions to the class for the more dimwitted of those among them
Richard.. this kid gets offended that when i say his name it sounds like "Rich`ed" he likes it more articulated.... screw him :P i pity him more nowadays cos he's usually the target of Jung Jaes antics.
Kevin...... possibly one of the aforementioned dimwits... either that or he's been harrassed and he's totally retreated on himself
ah well

and VERY lastly for your viewing pleasure is a vid of me flipping a seafood pancake.... why?
cos i could.

From tearful farewells to disbelieving residents concerned about trash

2008-06-01T18:40:00.008+09:00

Alrighty well i figured i should finally post up some pictures.... if for no other reason that it'll be quite a while before more come considering the state of my camera at this stage in time.
I didn't think it'd be that bad to leave...... actually that's a lie.... i knew it'd be horrible... i was leaving the only place i ever called home.. and the one place i knew would never be beaten by any other...
and i was leaving it... for a year.... not to mention the people there....
I'd already farewelled my sister 4 days previous and my brother 2 days before also..... so the only ppl left to send me off were my parents.... even granny came....

and some of my dear friends.

so there were these kind kind people

and one special person i was leaving behind as well........

So i got on the plane with my face decidedly wet, not surprising considering it's me we're talking about here....

Took us about 9 hrs to reach HKIA which was a lot changed from when i last went there..... like ... 10 yrs ago? lol

and of course being my first time in South Korea.... my first meal HAD to be....

FISH AND CHIPS!!! :) pretty good really :)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Moving on... here are photos of "The T "

So this is my huge front door.... "bulkhead scrap" i said i believe, then also the kitchen at the crossbar of the
" T "

this is the right side of the T and the room under right side under the bar

This is the left end of the crossbar , my bathroom /toilet and my huge washing machine :p

And this is my room,

Though of course it's much cleaner now cos i've cleaned it twice since then :)

here's some pictures of my nearby area.

And the main street near my place.... this length of the street is all small market stalls... pretty cool eh?

_---------------------------------------------------------

Wed Night:

So we all went out for a staff party to an all you can stomach Korean bbq, the night started innocently enough started eating... started with some shots of Korean spirits (drinks are always in shots here) ......

then some more...

more...

then more.....

then a couple more....

the more after that.

Until!

THe boss..... proposed to one of the workers...... a male.

who unfortunately was taken away by one of our female workers....

so then.....

he asked another male worker to be his fiancee :P

oh btw... this is Ryu of "F.S.D" fame

i'm just going to leave it at "it was a fun night"

---------------------------------------------------------------

TODAY :

So i'm at home cleaning today, my door open cos it's pretty much the norm here when it's warm. So i'm thumping music out pretty loud so when a lady walks down the stairs (which pass in front of my place) and starts talking to me quite happily about something (i figured it out later by remembering the word she used and looking it up in the dictionary) but the funny part was when i told her i don't speak Korean..... she repeated "don't speak korean? " and she had this very disbelieving expression on her face :P which okay fine.. isn't THAT funny but funny enough :P

SHUDDUP you GOT your damn pics.... just be content GEEZ

so i got tagged

2008-05-27T23:56:00.002+09:00

The rules are:
1. The rules of the game get posted at the beginning.
2. Each player answers the questions about themselves
3. At the end of the post the player than tags 5 people and posts their names, than goes to their blogs and leaves a comment, letting them know they done got tagged and to ask them to play and read your blog.

What was I doing 10 years ago (1998)?
1. i was on my way to fail my English exams
2. well, i'd just finished my first and most miserable year of rowing
3. was in year 8, which was a pretty.... in between time for me, not a great year
4. still playing rugby and going to dislocate my should for the... 4th time...
5. headed to HK that year with whole family.

5 Things on my to-do list today:
1. administer tests
2. bludge through my lessons
3. get my ass home and fed and entertained with my usual night time rituals... :) videoing with my special lady :)
4. nothing
5. nothing

5 Snacks I enjoy
1. potato chips
2. chips and gravy
3. peanuts, macadamia, cashews when i'm having a beer
4. onigiri, or as they call them here "sam gok bim bap"
5. steamed/pan fried dumplings or "man doo"

5 Things I would do if I were a billionaire:
1. open a bar
2. open a cafe
3. nice house with a good view
4. start flying 1st class :P (hell yeah) hell might just buy my own jet :p
5. open a pool hall :P

5 of my bad habits :
1. being super anal when it comes to some things
2. lack of respect with family.... but it's generally no rude or irreverent... just casual
3. lazy when it comes to study
4. lazy when it comes to boring work
5. always look for a shortcut to do things (this is also a good thing)

5 Places I have lived:
1. Sydney
2. Seremban Msia
3. Seoul Korea
4.
5.

5 Jobs I've had:
1. Teacher
2. School Counsellor
3. Bartender
4. Volleyball coach
5. Rowing coach

I tag
1. Bink
2. Ben
3.
4. whoever who is bored
5.

Credit Card shortages, da FA recuitment failun, and a second hand UV sterilser please.

2008-05-25T23:58:00.004+09:00

So... couple of days back i met up with Ryu at Omokgyo to sort out my Alien status.... ladies and gentlemen..... i am a fully registered Alien of the Republic of South Korea!! :)
YAY for me right?
yeah well

So on the way to the immigration dept we walked past a Falun Dafa thingy.... i was about to call it a stall but it's not.... more like a display... for those who don't know who they are, they're some kind of religious group or sect that originated from China, and now their influence and membership is slowly spreading out to the other asian countries, Japan, Thailand, Malaysia and South Korea i've all sen their things first hand... they're also in Aussie too in case you might have chances across them. So what they do is that line the sidewalk with a banner and some posters of the tortures that they have had to undergo so lots of horrid sores and injuries at the cruel hand of China's i dunno.. Gestapo?
So anyway the point of this lil thing is that i just really don't get what they're doing it for... it's not for donations and sympathy... i think they're actually doing it to increase their membership... so what can they be thinking ...(FDA is falun dafa acolyte)
PART I
Falun "visionary": "Hey... what we should do is show EVERYBODY what the Chinese govt is doing to us... they'll like... get moved and join in"
Cronies: "Yeah boss great thinking.... we'll get all the pictures of our tortured members and we'll make this huge banner.... we'll let everybody know what they're doing to oppress us and they'll join in"

Me: ".....huh?..."

PART II
FDA : "*yammer yammer yammer* they're KILLING US *blah blah blah*.TORTURING US!! *yadda yadda yadda* you should like JOIN US!!!"

DPB (dumb passer-by): OH... they are? seriously?? how bad? *looks at the happy snaps* oh gawd.. that's pretty bad.. and here i thought you guys were like any other sect/semi - religious/psycho group or just trying to take my money but if you guys are getting TORTURED, abused, segregated, bastardised then hell YEAH i want IN on this stuff BRING ON THE PAIN!!!

ME: "..... huh?...."

---------------------------------

Also wanted to make a small mention of the lack of credit card facilities here .. it's annoying..
anyhoo moving along...

---------------------------------

So after the alien registration Ryu took me to a seconds store to grab my air conditioner which is currently mounted on my wall. So i'm looking around the store... looking for a new fridge in fact cos my one is small and the freezer doesn't work.... and i come across a large machine (smaller than a bar fridge) and i can't work out what it is till i *DUH* look at the English, "Advanced UV Steriliser"

Me: "...... huh?..."

so that's it really.... nothing else happened tho i seem to be getting a bit ill, my throat is a bit sore....

and i promise that i'll post my pictures up soon... but everyone seems so happy with my words... that i think having pictures might spoil it

so until i feel like it NO PICTURES!! :P

muahahahahaha

anyhoo

bai bai pplz :)

Ahhh.... me not keeping up to day..

2008-05-21T21:43:00.002+09:00

So yes i've been terribly complacent about writing my blog and for you loyal fans that haven't left me purely because of my laziness i'd like to thank you all for sticking by this here.

So i wanted to fill everybody in about the last coupla days... understandably they've all been pretty repetitive..... which is.. kinda expected seeing as i have work dominating my life, and apart from that i'm also running my cash down each day with continuous shopping to buy MORE food into my fridge which was once empty.... and is now full.... again :P which is fine

SO anyway last couple of days have been okay had a couple of funny classes.
Had one class where there had to be a listening spelling test, and when i asked for the class to spell it for me they cutely all started to recite what they wrote down... so then all i had to say was "number 4" which would then be followed by a chorus of "GRANDMOTHER, G-R-A-N-D-M-O-T-H-E-R-" very cute :)

So remember that class that was all over me? Yeah well last couple of days they've been clambering all over me...
most of them wouldn't care if i suffocated.. but then.. why should they? i mean i'm just a piece of play equipment right? so anyway it's pretty hectic ....
HOWEVER!!! today that during the choral class i asked the students how i say "i'm tired" in Korean (it's p'i gon hamnida) so anyway i'm heading over to THAT classroom but i take a detour to the dunny before going in.. but i notice the lights were off so i had a quick peek.... quite happily
standing on the table ready to jump on me as i walked unsuspectingly into a dark room... however i saw them so they turned the lights on.
I walked in with my basket leading to ensure that i wouldn't get jumped as the kids still aren't dumb enough to want to impale themselves... this bought me time to say "p'i gon hamnida" they didn't understand but they were so shocked that they just stood there and they just stared until my favourite girl said "OOOOHHHH!!!... p'i gon hamnida!!!". Then decided to say "*something something an ma" then they mobbed me.....

and began to massage me :S (** for chinese speakers don't you think "an ma" sounds like "an mo" no? so yeah.. got mobbed by lil kids massaging me which was.. actually pretty cool all things considered.. this all changed of course when i stood up and thanked them and one of the lil shits decides to make a grab for my bell pull.... like GEEZ LOUISE what's with you kiddo?

anybody else thing there's something wrong here?

apart from that... pretty mundane couple of days.... realised my camera was broken so that sucks... and yeah.. i still have 2 more days til the weekend so that sucks even more.... about the only good news is that it's only 4 more weeks til my special guest arrives here :)

i'm sure i'll get round to posting pictures up at some point i just don't know when ... hold all of you in suspense i'm sure but until then you'll just have to make do with the narrative of my life as it is here.

alright.. you'd all got a new post.. so i better see so goddam comments either on the post or on the chatterbox... otherwise i'm honestly going to harass some people...

hell maybe i'll just kidnap a kid and hold him ransom til i get my quota of comments?
what y'all think about THAT eh?

lamers :P

peace out guys.
missing you all.

- Bev

TGIF and.. well now Saturday

2008-05-18T00:34:00.002+09:00

Well i know it's Saturday but i thought i'd fill things in for friday.....
So i get to work feeling pretty pumped that it's the weekend at last and also because Friday is like a short day.
So i get to my classes feeling pretty stoked and happy and enthused about working but happy to reward hard work as well......
SO anyway most of the initial classes are fine.
i get to one of my problem classes and the girl who's usually my biggest supporter and helper.. and helps me keep order in the class by beating and yelling the other kids into submission... she comes running out.........

just to punch me.... and then jump on me to tell me she wants to play a game today :S which then leads to a mutiny and the entire class proceeds to tackle me and jump all over me... so at one stage i had 6 kids hanging off me...... and i was big enough to still remain standing :P anyhoo so yeah .... at one stage tho.. i had 4 kids hanging off me.... and one enterprising lad decides now's a great time to "dong shim" (which i have since rediscovered to mean literally "shit needle") tho considering the ferocity with which he attacked me... it'd be more appropriate to call it like shit jackhammer or like shit power drill or something like than..... maybe pneumatic hammer? Either way it felt like he was trying to piece my liver :S
AWKWARD

but anyway... i think i'll just leave it at that

SO friday thankfully past and i went out with 2 of the yanks at the school for some pool and beer... and i gotta say... doesn't matter what country you're in... you get 2 good fellas with you to do that... and it's just like you never left home... for those back home... out of us 3 i think i was the worst player :P
how's that eh? :P tho i got my groove back after a couple of beers :P

-------------
Saturday...
so today i got my phone .... here's the number +821080610346
while waiting for the phone i went to the pub where i first ate when i got here.... already 2 weeks ago
had a nice beef and mushroom pie and washed it down with sangria :)
very nice :)

So anyway i wrote some stuff for the blog whilst i was waiting for my meal so i'll just put it in here and save myself having to come up with original material right here on the spot.
So here goes:

I'm still undecided about Korea, one of the things that in a way hinders (and in another way helps) my experience of Korea is the fact that if don't open my mouth and no one talks to me, then i fit right it... it's almost impossible to differentiate me from the Koreans here.... so i don't see what it's like to be a tourist, and thus i don't get to see the more courteous side of the people around here simply because they think I'm one of them.... so my next phrase that has been memorised is "cho nun han gul sara anieyo" (I'm not Korean). The lifestyle of living alone is one that is a new and interesting challenge for me, one that i seem to be living up to quite well considering the people around me have moved out of home since the age of 18. I haven't cracked just yet which is surprising considering who i am. The loneliness can be oppressive though I guess moderated by the fact that being out is no different from being at home generally, so i guess that makes it both harder and easier depending on how you think about it.
At this stage I've edcided that living alone isn't bad and quite easy to get used to , but as far as Korea goes I think i'd prefer Sydney still, mainly cos of the genuine warmth of the inhabitants there and the good heartedness of people (yes i know... we steal stuff but still) which is... at least as far as i've seen, largely non-existent. I blame this on a language that "pleases" and "thank yous" already built into the structure of the sentence, and it take no more extra effort to be polite, whereas in English, pleases is very much optional and it does take effort to say, in fact there are those who cannot stomach saying please anyway. It is because of this that thank yous and pleases are well sought after (and rightly so) and generally genuinely appreciated when said. Behaviourally, there are days of the year that are marked out to specify certain groups of people who deserve to be thanked, mother's and father's day... then teacher's day. It's such a formalised sense of politeness that it's not the behaviour of being polite that's being ingrained into the people it's more like they learn to follow procedure....... and come to think of it i guess that's the rub isn't it..... the politeness, the respect, the caring (in some cases) is all just procedure.... they don't do it because they want to......it's because they're supposed to, and thus they must obey procedure. A funny example of something similar.... traffic lights....
red lights are stop green is go..... here it's "stop on red,.... until you can make a break for it in which case ... go...
Obedience to traffic lights seems to be optionally and totally up for interpretation about whether or not you should go or not?....

Anyway that's enough from me......

Have a good night all and take care.

To my one and only...

2008-05-17T00:55:00.003+09:00

I had some funny and new stuff to post about tonight.... but instead i will post about somebody that you all know already......
somebody very dear to me, and who has been very dear to me for the last 13 months to this very day......
somebody who i left alone tonight when she needed me a lot.

She is the one who supports me and tells me to keep going when i want to stop.
she is the one who tells me everything will be alright....
she is the one who tries to be strong for me when inside she's crying her heart out...
She is the one who i left behind

she is the one who i is mine.

Darling i'm so sorry for not getting home sooner.... i cannot tell you how i rushed to get back but that is of no moment nor is it an excuse, i will only say that i was being selfish and indulging myself.... and i'm sorry for that....sorry for putting myself over us.

I just wanted to thank you for being strong for us and supporting me when all you want is for me to be back home again.
Thank you for being so strong....

oh and P.S.

She is my One.....

Rants

2008-05-15T23:36:00.003+09:00

Well went to school earlyish today to meet up with Ryu to head to the hospital and get my medical checkups done.
All went well and i had the delightful experience of having to pee into cups....... it's over-rated i assure you.
So today i bore witness to the Seoul health machine..... and i'd say system but it's more accurate to say machine. The hospital i went to spanned the better part of 6 buildings i was told.... which in itself was pretty impressive.... i commented that it didn't seem all that crowded turns out there's a hospital adjoining each university.... and there are over 20 universities in Seoul alone.... THAT is a pretty staggering figure... esp compared to Aussie...
So anyhoo got to the hospital and registered to get checked on then get my weight and height recorded.... my eyesight checked (and for the record my eyesight is really quite good... even with numbers i could barely see i was still able to make them out :p muahahahaha :P so then i get bounced off to get a history check (which considering i'm foreign is pretty much just asking me questions) then hearing check colour blindness check then x-rays then blood and urine.... and then i was sent off for school.... sigh*
i sigh cos i thought i wouldn't have to teach. as i was under the impression that i had a day of.. but no unfrtunately i didn't.. in fact i got back to the school basically in time to go to class.
So i started the day highly unprepared for any of my classes. Much to my annoyance... i like winging it sometimes... but with things i'm not particularly familiar with i much prefer having some kinda of guide.
so anyway my day after that pretty much went down hill..... seemed like everything was just irritating me..... these kids were annoying the shit out of me and i just wanted to throttle them, the korean teachers (who know how to speak english very well) always speak korean in the common room.... pretty much leaving the rest of us just doing our own thing.. that just annoyed me to hell too... i mean they don't even have the courtesy to involve the rest of us.. so basically they only speak English when they want to ask us something.... which is pretty sad.
Finally got to the end of the day and i just didn't have the energy to try and make these kids (who'd been up since about 8am to school and basically been studying non stop since then) learn i just let them have free time for the 2nd half of the lesson......

just wasn't my day today
just a shit shit day for me.....

my first real day of just thinking.....

"i wish i was home again already......."

Just another day

2008-05-15T00:52:00.004+09:00

Well today started fairly normally, was woken up by my normal alarm... went to the gym as per usual.
Gym session went fine.. then went to freshen up and this other dude was there still it's a gym shower so no big deal.
After the shower however.. i dunno about anybody else i'm pretty much in my clothes like... as soon as i'm dry... but no.. this fella was very happy about wandering around the change room naked... oh .. and not only this... but he left the shower and stood at the mirror and was using the hair dryer. Sounds pretty innocuous right? but what if i told you that he was NOT blow drying his head? eh? .....well at least not the hair on his head anyway....

yeah.....

exactly.... :P

so that was the beginning of "just another day" here in Hanguk (Korean for Korea :P)

-----------

Wanted to just mention my sudden craving to day for roast duck/goose and ... funnily enough... a good meat pie :P
hahahaha

anyhoo

-----------

One thing i lile abotu here is that there's a LOT of fresh produce around the place markets are everywhere... even in a carpark of an apartment building.... weir huh?

---------

Hahahah oh yeah i wasnted to talk abotu one of the kids i teach.. i shall call him Fatty #2 this fatty i feel no sympathy for.. he's just annoying... this kid's always late, and he never listens in class.. what's worse ist he fact his that his english is horrible.... i wrote a description of him in my notebook as i had the whole class colouring in some stuff..... i wrote "dumb as shit" into my notepad just to remind myself about this kid..... mean right.. ah well he grates on my nerves so... stuff him
This other kid in the same class who i met for the first time oday cos he didn't come last week is quite the opposite.. prompt (not hard considering I'M usually late to class:P) and yeah he's smart... but i'm going to be mean even tho i like him.. i'm gonna have to call him ET, not because he loks like THE E.T. but because he looks AN ET :P like your typical spaceman.. long upside down egg shaped head with like super slanted eyes so yeah.. ET it is.
Also in the same class is another dude i'm gonna start calling "TKD" the main reason being he does Tae kwon do... and the other reason being that he looks and sounds like he's been 'Totally Knocked Down" like seriously this kid was grunting and shaking his head like a bull about to charge or a dog who's got a bad smell stuck in its nose. but anyway.. i just wanted to mention about this kid.
This class has some bright kids,... this is also the class that asked me if i liked Jaws the movie.... then proceeded to go "danun..... danun... danun danun.... danune!!!" while they were colouring stuff ....quite funny :P

AHA! and another first today..... this annoying kid in another class was annoying another kid and then decided to hide from the kid he just annoyed... by hiding behind me.... by grabbing my legs... with him almost headbutting my crotch.. THAT was awkward.

and i know that today's post is seriously lacking my typical wit etc etc... but my brain is pretty dead after half a bottle of sweet wine.. and after watching the Starcraft Show on cable TV...
that's right... a show that's dedicated to showing the very highest level of... Starcraft playmanship hahaha....

ah well
only in korea :P

A day of Firsts

2008-05-13T22:29:00.003+09:00

Ahhhh a day of many firsts for me......

The first first (.... HA HA!!!) for today was having somebody knock on my door looking for me specifically (though this was the second time cos the first was with some lay telling me to turn off my light on the balcony :P) the next first was being rudely awakened by that knocking; in this particular instance the emphasis is on the rudely cos i was actually awake but just spooked me to actually have somebody knocking on my door. It was Ryu and the internet/cable guy

Next first was me connecting to the internet NOT in either work or Smokey Hole :P so of course the first thing i do is video call with my girly :) also i started my downloads again..... and i decided to test the bandwidth too... so Shir gave me a whole bunch of downloads and i started ALL of them... i set the d/l limit to 10 downloads, had a video convo going and was also surfing the net.. .....
the video feed didn't suffer a bit not even a hiccough.

impressive no ? :P

Another first is for me to have cable TV :P
i'm not really sure how much good this'll be cos well.... if i'm at home i'll either be videoing or gaming.... but still point is that i have it... ... so like :p
YAY! :P i think ? :

Alright so while he was here, Ryu also asked about my hot water... and i said i hadn't figured it out yet so he had a poke around and did some stuff... and BOOM!
hot water coming out of my taps.... which hasn't really happened except for a very short time near when i first landed here.

That man is like an angel to me... he brings me internet and restores my faith in my hot water system....
An Angel indeed.

Also and as part of a good host i made the fellow some tea... and cos i was eating anyway i made dumplings for us...... even gave one to the internet guy when he was finishing too... he DID put internet into my house after all so i had to do SOMETHING right? :P

SO no thanks to my internet, and my highly attractive girlfriend staring back at me through my laptop, i was 'late' to work, late meaning that i have to like super rush to write my lesson plans up and get ready for class.

So class begins.........

now here's where people will either laugh at me.... or just flat out won't believe me.....

So i'm teaching a class called "Conversation 4" with this group of kids and just messing around with the lesson and i tickled this kid Justin... so he tries to poke me so i turn away at start to walk back to the board........

......... then he pokes me in the ass...........

no i'm just gonna have a lot of space here so you can all just picture this.....
the kid's barely as tall as my leg mind you....
and he pokes me in the ass...

Okay so THAT was definitely a first....prior to this i'd only read about this shit happening....it's called kancho in Japan..... but here's it's called "dong shim" literally meaning 'shit *something*" like... lance or something.

So anyway that was a bit of a shock..... so i walk over to 2 other kids.... and this fella runs over and tries to sack whack me ..
:|

for those who don't know... a 'sack whack" is when you get smacked in the crotch area with an open hand.... (obviously it's pretty much a guy's only type thing) anyway i say tried because i happened to be squatting in a pair of thick jeans so thankfully my jeans created a *very* protective buffer between my 'sack' and his 'whack'

i'll post pictures of lots of things up later... probably weekend when posting topics are scant.

I'm sure i had other stuff to say but i'll talk about a class i had with some students.... the oldest (and brightest) class of boys (i could say 'of course' but i'm afraid my darling will follow justin's example....and NOT miss) and we had a discussion (pretty simple one of course) about the implications of cloning. Pretty deep huh? :P

Anyway.. so that was pretty cool :P

then apart from that, a couple of us switched our shifts around so one the Canadian girl could get home and sleep after an exhausting weekend in Busan.

Nothing much else happened today actually.. i'd swear i had more to write about but honestly i can't remember :P

stay tuned for more action each day....

Right here on Bev's Korea :P

-Peace

Never thought i'd say this...

2008-05-12T18:55:00.002+09:00

BUT i'm pretty cheesed that today was a piublic holiday and i didn't even know it......

Got up today around 10.. i was awoken at 9 by my alarm.... but as all good pigs do... i ignored it... but i was smart enough to just snooze it rather than doing my usual turn it off on the off chance that i oversleep completely.
So i get ready head off the the gym and do my thing, stare at myself in the mirror, happily flexing my muscles at myself :P hahahahaha

and head to the school..... which when i got there at 1pm ... was still closed.... so i figured that probably meant that it's some kind of holiday..... again (last monday was also a holiday) so.. pretty peeved i stalked off.... decided to walk around my area seeing as it was already 2pm... i considered going to Itaewon and treating myself... but ... then i couldn't be assed to go there by myself. So i decided to check ou tthe other end of my street where i still hadn't beed yet. so walking along i went past the dollar store and this is where i concluded that being bored with my own apartment is a bad thing cos i always end up buying stuff....sigh.. so i bought a teapot... colander, 2 more pacers (or mechanical pencils for you weirdoes out there) rice scoop, dumplings prawns.... yeah other stuff
and i expored the area around my place..
not much to it really
oh yeah.. teh dumplings is another example of Korea (or at least my area) hating singles... it was not only a big bag.. bit it was TWO bags.. some special deal sigh* these were the ones i liked too :S and now i've got a lot of them....

so anyway i went back and tried to make a seafood pancake... pics to follow at some point
it could've turned out worse i gotta say.. but yeah.. so i'll put it down to a "learning experience" :P hahahahah

so i guess i'm back to work TOMORROW...
i don't know what else to say......guess there ain't much

oh yeah... you lazy people (you know who you are) if you read me blog
COMMENT GO DAMN IT!!

it's just there -------------------------------------------------------------->>

how hard is it to type "HI! i read your blog.... you DO in fact have a bigger audience than you might think"

GEEZ

anyhoo...
missing all you guys out there..... hope you're all taking care of yourselves and each other.

-bev

Weekend's ... end

2008-05-12T00:29:00.003+09:00

Right.. well today i once again had a lazy wake up :P 1130 :P kekekeke sigh.. that's a bad habit to get into... hopefully it'll go away when i get internet at my place :p
kekekek yeah right

anyway
just thought i'd report in to everybody i'm accountable to :P
So today.. i did ... not much at all... just lazed about read stuff about the local area and what to go and see really not overly miuch i must say
but anyway.. i did that.. and my washing... which took a bit to figure out cos it wasn't plugged in at all so i had to do all that.... anyway.. i finished the washing.. hung it up on those wire frame racks... and then put it in the spare room with the fan blowing them to oblivion :P

so that's washing taken care of....
i didn't do my seafood pancakes today.. and looking at the state of the shrimp.. probably a wise decision.

got another week of work ahead of me...... so... well i'm sure i'll havbe more to write than the last 2 posts... tho some would count that a good thing :)

oh yeah... i had a go at ordering in korean again :P went to the place with a huge pictured menu and wrote down what it said in korean... then i whipped out my alphabet and worked out what it said :P hahahah took a whole 1-2 minutes... not bad eh? :P so anyway i proudly ordered my dish.. then they aksked me something else.. then i was in more trouble :S cos i had no idea what they said :P
still i' mpretty happy... i thin ki just gotta work on my reading speed... i can work on understanding later :P hahaha

and to finish off this goes out specifically to a certain somebody, and to be fair... to a lesser extent to everybody else :P hahahaha

Better Together
There's no combination of words
I could put on the back of a postcard
No song that I could sing
But I can try for your heart,
our dreams, and they are made out of real things
like a shoebox of photographs
with sepia-toned loving
Love is the answer
at least for most of the questions in my heart, like
Why are we here? And where do we go?
And how come it's so hard?
It's not always easy and
sometimes life can be deceiving
I'll tell you one thing, it's always better when we're together

Mmmm, It's always better when we're together
Yeah we'll look at the stars and we're together
Well, it's always better when we're together
Yeah it's always better when we're together

And all of these moments
just might find their way into my dreams tonight,
But I know that they’ll be gone
when the morning light sings
and brings new things
for tomorrow night you see
that they’ll be gone too,
too many things I have to do
But if all of these dreams might find their way
into my day to day scene
I'd be under the impression
i was somewhere in between
With only two,
Just me and you,
Not so many things we got to do
or places we got to be
We'll sit beneath the mango tree, now,

Yeah It's always better when we're together
Mmmm, we're somewhere in between together
Well, it's always better when we're together
Yeah, it's always better when we're together

I believe in memories
they look so, so pretty when I sleep
Hey now, and when I wake up,
you look so pretty sleeping next to me
But there is not enough time,
There is no, no song I could sing
and there is no combination of words I could say
but I will still tell you one thing
We're Better together

A single circular rainbow...

2008-05-11T00:39:00.002+09:00

alrighty...
well, my first weekend in a nwe country and guess what i'm doing? .....NOTHING!! :)
tha's right ppl i'm not going anywhere at all. thiss weekend i'm giong to cook, study and play games... and of course research about good places to go and things to see so i can play tour guide when people start arriving.

Got up this morning around 1130 =) such a long sleep :P... tho not that long in actuality cos i slept late.... started palying Crysis again.... cos i can.
Didn't eat anything.. but made some show of cleaning up.... i've realised a coupla really sucky things about my place...... the hot water system is indecipherable...... AND on;y 1 room of the place actually gets any direct sunlight..... and as luck would have it.... it's NOT my one :S blaaardy

two things i hate... tho not having an oven irks me as well... it's not like i'm huge into baking.. but sometimes i'd just get the pre cooked fish and just chuck them into the thing rather than cook.
sigh* ah well.
At least the school's going to install air conditioning into my apartment soon so as far as the no hot water thing goes i think i'm going to solve it by turning the heat up til it's like super hot... then i can just have a cold shower and still be perfectly comfortable... smart right?Anyhoo speaking of installing stuff... my internet is apparently going to be installed on Tuesday... so after that i'm gonna have to say bye bye to smokey hole...... so if my quality and humour of my posts begin to drop (seeing both are at such high levels right now =P) after i start posting from home... chances are it's because i'm drinking as i'm posting :P but when it begins... oh the downloading my friends... the downloading :P

So anyway i head over to the gym... and being in such a daze and just happy to be walking along "familiar" territory... i completely overshot it by almost a block. But anyway, so the locker system is even better than i thought... i'd been stuffing all of my clothes and everything into this tiny tiny locker at the bottom of the stack (no. 55 or "o ship o sut cha" is located there) turns out those tiny lockers are actually for your shoes only..... and there are larger lockers which are communal and are meant for clothes storage.... teh gym dude today happend to speak some english thankfully. Now i realise that my gym room adventures hardly classify as good blog reading BUT the reason why i brought this up was because as i was walking to the gym i saw a father with his son... pointing at the sky... so of course... i looked up.... and saw...

a rainbow..... and a cloudy day....... and not just any rainbow either... this baby was a giant circle.... went right around the sun!! :S it was a beautiful sight.... i wish i could've taken a picture of it...it was really amazing....

Next thign i wanted to blog about today was food.... yes food.
now everybody knows i like food.
BUT the thing is .... in Korea it seems that when you buy ingredients you almost always buy in bulk.... i went to buy some shallots.... there were like..... 12 BIG shallots ina bundle... they don't come in any smaller.... the chillis don't come singularly... they come in a box or bag of about... 10 :S
now i ask you... what on earth am i to do with 10 fresh chillis....? hmm? sigh* tho i did use one today... well half of one.. and in order to test how hot it was.... i licked the chilli.......

now i'm going to pause while you all absorb this lil tidbit of information..

YES i realise it was dumb... but my other hot-test failed .... you smell the chilli... so anyway i removed the seed and i licked it.... and y'know.. it burned a lil but i guesss i was lucky. After i put it into the fried rice tho there really wasn't much taste coming out of it... shrugs* so next time it's going into the pancake... which i'm hopefully making tomorrow..... after i get some prawns from the seafood store on the street. Otherwise i'm just gonna go and panfry the shit out of some vegies and seafood sticks (also bought those today as well)

Speaking of buying i've realise that i almost ALWAYS buy something to add to my collection of food..... i also picked up some ginger today as well :S

anyway... my main point about the food is the fact that it seems like the food sales here (with the exception of convenience stores) are aimed towards feeding a family... or a local militia chapter. :S

so Korean food vendors hate single residences.... is my conclusion.

i made fried rice with the remainder of what i had for dinner the previous night... turned out quite good i must say :P
quite happy with the results there :)

anyhoo.. i really can't think of anything else to say so before i close off

My cousing Patricia Chan got married today and i just wanted to wish them nothing but the best in this world in everything that they do together. My hopes for a long, happy and smooth marriages for them.

Congratulations Patty =)

FSD*

2008-05-09T23:19:00.002+09:00

So today was an early one...... WAY too early as i almost fell asleep mid lesson.. but i'm getting ahead of myself.....

so got up super early to head to school and meet with the finance fella so i could become an OFFICIAL alien of Korea.

So after some delay we finally head off to the place. This place call Omokgyo in total about an hour's travel all the way to the actual Immigration office.
Short and narrow is that i couldn't get registered cos i need to have a medical exam done on me ( which can only take place on M-F 130-4pm... don't ask me why cos i don't have any idea.... it's .. just cos.

Now this obviously didn't make me happy at all.. infact i was pretty pissed off... but being in front of Ryu who i didn't know too well i didn't say much.
Interstingly enough Ryu had no such restraint (we'd talked a lot on the subway to the place and got along quite well he's such a cack).. and having gotten out of the office we stood at the traffic light waiting to cross and he's just loking around and finally says...

****swearing ahead*****

"fuck shit damn"

now i didn't comment on this till a while later when we were about to get back on the train...
During the ride back he was saying that he'd teach the kids except that the only thing that he would teach them would be
"F*"
"S*"
"D*"
:P lol i found this hilarious coming from a guy who has such an accent on his english... his swearing is impeccable :P hahahaha.

So the converstaion progressed and i was commenting on the similarities between Chinese and korean... and all this guy had to say was
"damn... there's some many ways to say the same word and they all mean something different... like FUCK" :P hahahaha
this i also found hilarious : p (if you don't .. then you're stupid.)

anyhoo s*** f***ing aside.

today was pretty good, nothing overly strenuous at work today.... most of the kids were fairly well behaved.
hehe.. i got this kid who wasn't there earlier this week in today.. so i asked wha this name was.....

his name was...........

Big.....
yup ... his parents chose BIG as his english name... i don't konw why... he's not ever that big... but yeah.. i found this kinda funny .. i'm sure you Satc fans out there will also find "mr big" here quite funny :P

SO apart from this not much happened.... whilst on the train Ryu tried to teach me some korean which i'd like to think i pronounce pretty okay.
So anyhoo.. emboldened by some of this newfound knowledge i went to the stores next to the school and went to the meat counter and had a browse and when the attendent came out i proudly and boldy said..

"igo juseyo"
he said " ahhh"
and as i'm paying for the meat .. the old fella was really making me pay for it by unleashing an ego diminishing stream of Korean at me to which i could only stammer out "eeerrr umm.... hangul.... aniyo" ...... which puzzled him even more so he asked me even MORE stuff.....
i finally said "yongyo" (english) which left him grunting :S
So ... my enormous ego only slightly bruised by the ordeal i went in search for soy sauce... and i knew where i could find some but i was looking for a smaller bottle so iu walked up to the attendent and said
"kangjan chogun ch'akko issoyo"
but not so smoothly as she just looked at me and pointed where i was so i repeated "chogun" (becuase i knew where they were and i was looking for a smaller one so i just said "smaller")
so she came to help me... had a look and told me that that was the only size ( i knew what she said cos of her body language....

but yeah anyway so that's been my day today... both eventful and utterly boring at the same time.

so, i should be getting internet at my house on tuesday... the plan tells me i'm capped at 100mb for downloads and 60mg for upload....
now i spoke to my darling girl about the whole thing and being my girly she agreed with me.... that that size limit is ridiculously small..... that was until i looked up some facts on the internet and found out that those numbers aren't download limits... they're donload SPEED limits.
so i'm paying for a connection that allows me to download files at a maximum of 60mg per second...... that and cable tv.. for .... 30k won a week. so about... 40-50 $ a month?
who wouldn't pay that eh? :P

Another day of pelvic thrusting

2008-05-08T23:45:00.003+09:00

Okies, well i made it through another day on my Korean sojourn.
So up this morning slightly later... approx 930 this morning got ready and got out of the house... off to the gym as per usual.

The gym lady pretty much ignores me tho she recognises me as the 'faux korean'; she just says "annyonghaseyo" and then pretty much leaves me to my own thing. Anyhoo. i didn't realise but i'd actually left my conditioner (yes yes i know "OMG OH NO!" right? .... well shuddup) at the shower yesterday so i was just wandering if it would be there where i left it. As expected no it wasn not. HOWEVER it was over at the table where the have yet ANOTHER mirror as well as a set of draws for peopl to leave stuff in... seeing as in my area stealing is pretty much... not really done.. or so i hear from other areas too...
so my hair left the gym once again smelling sweet fresh and impossibly soft :P

So.... off i went to school... arrived around 1230 cos i'm still taking quite a while to get my pre lesson stuff sorted... then i found out that i wasnt even due in the school until 130 -.-"
so i worked away happily.

Today's schooling was quite good actually.. i had a lot of the older kids which i absolutely LOVE simply cos they're a lot smarted and i can actually use full sentences with them and reason with them.. and the bottom line is; they WANT to be there and learn the younger kids... cute and everything but HORRIDLY dumb :(
sigh*

However i had a funny episode with a younger kid today too. Was playing this stupid song from the english language CD about clothes (yes..... it's a short diddy about clothes, now can we move on?) and the lil girl was happily singing along.......
on the second time however, one of the boys in the class gets up and starts dancing.... which is fine.
what WASN'T fine was when he Michael Jackson'd his crotch, and also air guitared his crotch and also steepled his fingers in front of his crotch...... much to my disgust....
still some things happened and he ended up getting clocked in the crotch by the other boy in the class so i guess that's why they tell ya to "keep it in your pants".

Moving along, speaking of these lil kids..... they spend literally the better part of an entire day at the school..... the kids start at 9am in the morning for school and the younger ones finish around 12pm whilst the older ones finish around 330... after school they pretty much go straight to my college and are there until late at night..... the latest group today left at 915..... having had an almost solid 12 hours at schooling...... i've gotta say i have quite a bit of concern for these kids...... why aren't they out playing and being kids???? it's a bit ridiculous when you think about it... hell you might not even have to think about it too much to realise it's pretty ridiculous.

Ok speaking of ridiculous, i met my boss today..... pretty decent looking fella and i feel quite indebted to him cos he gave me the job (thanks to some pressure in another country :P kekekeke) so anyway i finally meet him for the first time ever, which i was quite happy about.

So anyway this happened in the morning .... well it was technically afternooon but either way it was before class,. The dude comes in and says "aahh Bevan so good to meet you at last" and shakes my hand..... and holds it...... now... let me clarify this, most of you know how i shake hands with people.. even the girls i know should i think.... so this fella shakes my hand nice and firm (which you all know i like) and then holds it... not hard enough to signal we're still shaking.. but not soft enought to allow me to disengage without making it look like i think i'm trying to disengage a crab from my hand.... so i hold my hand there a lil limp not quite sure WHAT the hell i'm supposed to be doing with it.... so i made the excutive decision and went in for round 2 with the shaking... .i think it kinda surprised him if i saw his face...cos then he gave me a couple more small shakes to reinitiate the festivities........ strange huh?...
Moving along.. he tells me to head outside for coffee (by outside he actually meant in the reception area.... -.- lame i know but understand there aren't any cafe's in our area. so he sits down on the couch.. quite close to the edge, his other side is blocked by kids bags so i assumed i was to sit in the small gap he left behind.... so i do.... then he weiggles a bit closer while talking to other people... we chat about inane things and talk about sport and then..... in a HUGE move of .. i don't even KNOW what to call it..... he laughs.. looks at my thigh and smartly brings his big hand onto it......... yes .. my thigh.....not even close to the knee either.... ... it was like closer to my hip than knee.
Now y'all know that i'm not stranger to like hugs for guys etc, but this almost made me leap out of my skin.. and only a VERY large amount of control stopped me from running out of the reception and leaving my skin there. .... what's worse is that it stayed there... seeing as he gave no indication of discomfort on his part........ then again he wasn't the one who had a large limb attached to his midthigh :|

so anyway.... i asked my US counterpart about that and he told me that that's the way the guy is.. so i felt fine aobut that then... thought it was just me.. but if it's everybody i don't mind so much... lol apparently my US buddy gets massages a lot of the time :P hehehehehe he considers leaving his skin behind as well.....

alright... so....um.. apart from that not much reall yhappened.. i finally yelled.... well went off... like in a quiet way at this kid who quailed and shut the hell up,,,,,

not really sure what else to write at this point.. and i really should probably get out of smokey hole... i gotta be at the schoool at 9am tomorrow for a meeting.... sigh....
OOH!! i know.... it's taken me a while.. but ....ladies and gentlemen.. i have bought BREAKFAST CERAL!!!!!!! YAY!!! so that's for breaky tomorrow .... then i have to be registered as an alien in this country, after which means i can get a phone on a plan (ie hook it up to a credit card) and after that, our finance director for our 'project' as Linda calls it (his name's Ryu but Canadian girl Nicole calls him Elliot........*Cough*) is gonna ring the internet company and try and get me sorted with net connection.. so i'm praying and PRAYING that it'll happen and i'll be conected tomorrow. See that's one thing that's amazing about South Korea; the boss was telling us about how he ordered some swimwear online...... and it was delivered by scooter to his house within an hour......
How unheard of would that be in Aussie... or in any western country for that matter?

anyway.. i think i'm going to leave this post at that.. it's pretty big after all.

Btw i've gotta thank those .... well applaud those who actually slog their way through these entires posts.. i'm glad i don't write these things for nothing......

Just so you all know i'm missing you all... and wishing that i was with you all, but failing that i'm wishing you guys were here with me.

Lotsa love piggy *mwa* *hugs*

Peace.

P.S. * **** ***

You're in hot water now....or maybe not...

2008-05-07T22:08:00.002+09:00

Right...
so i got up around.... 9 today nice and early so i could go to the gym... really good of me actually :p if i do say so myself so anyway i go to the gym and grab my key.... the funny thing about this gym is that athey GIVE you clothes to wear there...... shorts, shirt and towel. so i got changed blah blah blah.
man their gym equipment seems so archaic... it's just weird....anyway... nothing much happened i finished my gym session and that was that.... until i got to the shower..... my GOD ... it was the first hot shower i've had since arriving here.....it was BLISS .... whilst i was showering (it's a line of showers with a token divider which is like.... tiny and barely frosted enought to hide anything, what was interesting was at the end of the shower blocks was a farely large mirror..... considering the fact that it's in a shower block..... and i don't mind admitting that .... i kinda like it :P hahahahah
(no comments about this.. i don't wanna hear it :P)
so i went to school nice and early for my second day :)

school was pretty okay today.... kids were better and i was a bit harder with them.
"hands up for questions"
"no korean"
:) main rules...
we're using this sticker system as a reward ... and you wouldn't BELIEVE how effective it is to get their attention.... it's just insane... in Aust.... it'd be very easily labelled LAME in a very short span of months days... if not hours :P but here it's like you're handing out free cocaine to these kids.... they love one... and they'd even KILL to get 4 .......
scary...

hmmm..... nokids really worth mentioning at this stage..... or not that my beer fuddled head can manage right now......

so work finished all sorted la di da.....
oh.. i might be getting my internet connection at my house (FINALLY)
so when that happens... i'm going to have to say bye bye to smokey hole..

so on the way back i grabbed my dumplings etc.
and i went to a homewares shop to grab a knife.... i also found a whole shelf devoted to chopsticks......... flat and round ones...... ALL METAL!!! it's like this shop was taunting me testing my self control seeing if i'd explode and just stabb everybody with metal fricken chopsticks...
BUT would you believe it?
the wood ones were around the corner :P
so now i have four pairs of wodden choppys :)
happy boy.

alright i have no idea what to erant about now.. i feel like having a nap in smokey hole .....
sigh* 2 more days til weekend...... and that'll be my first week done...
:S

.............thank god..

Kids say the darndest things.......Tomorrow when the war began

2008-05-06T22:31:00.002+09:00

Ok.
Today was ground zero..... today was when the fat lady opened her stupid mouth.....and not just her........ a big ass load of loud mouthed Korean kids did so at the same time too...

So i get up today... after sleeping WAAAAAAAAAY too late (the upside of this is that i'm like TOTALLY ready to watch the Satc Movie :P hahahaha) get up and make my (increasingly.. or so i think) fat ass some breakfast which consisted of a fried egg and some fried spam..... (yeah i know.. i could totally be in UK with the amount of fat there) HOWEVER!!!

i made it in a non stick pan. ;)
*DOINK*
Either way i get myself all sorted... oh wait.. no i don't!!!

here's the story.

I've got this weird switch thingy which i press for either "thermo"(stat) or "hot water" now, seeing as i've yet to see any kinda of visible result in the thermostat no matter what i set i figured that it'd be much more practical to just have a constant supply of hot water ... right?
WRONG!!
i left the thing on all night and got up this morning expecting to need burn cream after my shower... right?
WRONG!!!
i let the damn pipes run for AGES (not eseemingly ages but ACTUAL ages) and if you can believe it.. the water got colder.... -.- so i settled for qiping myself down *sighs*

okay so anyway i got myself a bunch of books and headed off for my first day at work. quite a nice walk actually about 20 mins.... up hill
then down. :P
so i get there no worries, head upstairs to the reception and i walk in looking kinda lost and the recptionsist sees me and says "ahhh, you must be Bevan" so i head in and get shown to my desk etc etc.
get the whole program explained to me.... and guess what?
no time to be gentle with me...
what does that mean?
it means that today on my first day i had a class every period except 1... 2 actually.
meaning that i had 7 periods today, girls you're bitching about 1 period a month? well i just had 7 in a day.... and almost bleeding from every one of them :P

7 different groups of kids, first one was lil lil LIL kiddies... the "Genki" group.... 2 lil girls and a boy. they were about... 6? or near there..
one of the girls just wouldn't shut up and wouldn't stop fidgeting,
the other girl was cute as a button and was so quiet... but also fidgetted.
the boy? this kid was like a genius... i said something and he got it.. it was scary... and as a bonus he didn't fidget make noise or anything.... he just sat there... listening and watching the girls, i love this kid already.

next class... i had 3 kids again... these kids were a bit older.... jack, justin and catrina (or something like that)
these guys are all pretty good value, all pretty fun, just played this weird version of snakes and ladders.

next... class of 5 if i remember correctly... 3 girls (one queen bee of some sort.. and her 2 , thoroughly beaten minions) and 2 guys (fatty and noisey.... in fact.. i might just start calling them that :P)
this is how i put it...
queen bee is a beater.. she hits everybody...
minion 1 is a screamer... i honestly thought she burst my ear drum when she let one loose..
minion 2 is not too bad... she's a translator.. her english is pretty good so i forgive a lot.

fatty is your typically abused and bullied kid.. the one that laughs at a joke that he finds funny.. and is then emotionally beaten up. he made a couple of calls and the kids just gave him the "pfft you suck" look and then just started rubbing their arms saying "*i thought it was otsu... but i dunno now seeing as chu'un means cold and otsu doesn't exits :S * " meaning COLD COLD"
i dunno.. it's their thing.... i don't say nuffin'
Noisey is like a wannabe "suck up and pretend 'teacher' is a friend" type so he points at the girls and says "crazy girls" and points at fatty and says "pabo" meaning stupid :P hehehe i lol'd on the inside:P that's fine by me.. except that to get over the sounds of QB beating her minions into submission he has to yell..... directly into my ear.

right....had .. about 3 other classes... but no1 really worth mentioning at this point.

so
something i've noticed witht the kids so far......
1/ they all think i'm korean... almost without fail.. each class asked if i can speak korean and were like "ooooh...." when i said no.
2/ they all said "really??!?!?!" when i said i'm chinese...... also almost without fail...
3 this one got the biggest oooh's .. "do you have a girlfriend?"
"yes"
boys and girls: "OOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH"

*-.-"

so the day finished (finally) as days do, and i stuck around finishing up my lesson plans (which i have to submit to the academic advisor) so i finish up and head home.. hoping to have something to eat on my way to smokey hole tonight.
on my way i managed to pick up some bread !!!!! :) so happy
so real breakky... with spam and egg tomorrow :P

meet up with two of the yank teachers one who lives on my way home ( tho after the school moves in july i'll be closer to the school .... *WIN*) and they gave me some tips about handling the kiddes (thank god). after that i sign on to the gym
alright.. so let's just picture this.

2 white yanks... walking into a gym with me (asian guy who looks korean) so the gym guy must think "oh yeah... two new white guys korea guide"....
Evan starts talking to the gym guy asking how much membership is... gym guys tell him but Even explains it's for me... so gym guy starts talking to me cept i just stand there looking ... confused.
situation in a nutshell... white guys between two asians guys... acting as a translator :P
2 wongs don't make a white
but a wong and a song might need a white to translate :p

So i walk away with a membership and the guy gives it to me right awy.. but i say i'll come back tomorrow.. so he's nice enought to start it from tomorrow... nice guy.

So i made almost all the way home.. walked past an old aunty and looked at the veggies she was selling... and she decideed that i simply MUST buy some :P and proceed to walk with my down the street until i said "no" ... and she looks puzzled again... i said "no thanks" and then she got the "huh?" look again and left me alone.

now i finally made it to a restaurant with food.. and more importantly a menu with pictures!! so i finally ordered out by myself.!!

and now i'm in smokey hole once again... praying that my internet gets connected soon
i'm sure i had more to write about... cept i had to take a dump while writing this so whatever i wanted to write must've been shit anyway
BUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH :P
like that ?

darling where's you lame stamp?

a tidy house....

2008-05-05T22:59:00.002+09:00

Alright... since arriving at my place i've been looking for a supermarket to conveniently buy everything... and after bitching about it to dad while i was in this particular smoke hole last and whaddya know? i walk downstairs.. turn left instead of right by accident.. and VOILA!!! asian supermarket :P
so of course i loaded up while i was there.... so got a pile of stuff... and two bottles of beer ;) long necks too.. just to keep me company ;) and so i went home ...

now here's something that i never thought i'd do this but i went home.... looked inside the fridge where i was supposed to store my food and just went "....... nope.... no way" so i left the food out... got some suds going and then proceeded to clean out the fridge.....
then because these things get out of hand... i started looking around to clean other stuff.. i looked in the lil storage shit hole and found a mop! so that went into a bucket of bleech while i cleaned all the crockery in the cupboard... then mopped the right end of the T while cleaned the lino underneath the crockery... cleaned out another part of the cupboard to store food, then mopped the left side of the T.... oh yeah also mopped the interior of the bathroom for good measure.
so there was plenty of cleaning happening

oh.. out of that shopping trip i should mentio nthat i found.... SPAM!!!!
and no i haven't suddenly worked out how to read korean fluently .... it's because of it's ubiquitous packaging... that the lord for packaged processed meat and its easily identifiable packaging.

so for breakfast (tho it was closer to like.. afternoon tea by the time i ate it) i had some cold noodles.. which came out of a packet....which went down well with my new metal chopsticks...

what DIDN"T go down well with my metal chopsticks was my dinner which was another packet of instant noodles....with fried spam and friend egg.... holy shit.... they got hot in a hurry.... that's one thing i've decided that i hate here.... the frigging chopsticks..... what the hell is the point of metal chopsticks? isn't the reason why chinese made them out of bamboo because (apart from being easier and cheaper) it wouldn't hold heat and BURN THE CRAP OUT OF YOUR LIPS when you used them?!?!
you can't even really cook with them. so i'ved decide that they must've decided to make metal chopsticks SOLEY for the purpose of moving cold foodstuffs about in small quantities which i personally find.... stupid.... and more criminal.. useless.

so darling... chopsticks... REAL chopsticks are on the "to bring" list for me thanks :)

speaking of things i miss..... i realised as i was lying on my bed trying to write in korean while watching SatC at the same time... is that i don't have a table..... i do everything on my bed... i've got a dining table outside next to my kitchen.... tho to be honest if it was any more IN my kitchen it'd be ON my stove... but naturally why the hell would i sit there?... unfortunately it's also too big for my room.... and i've got a stool and a low folding table to hold stuff up but.... damn i miss my big desk and my chair... *sigh*

So anyway... here i am sitting in PC Smoke Hole listening to some guy slurping up a cup noodle sipping on a "welch's white grape soda" and typing away.

tomorrow i begin teaching at Camp Korea, small group of 6-14 yo's, we'll see how things go there also need to hace face off number 2 with the gmy lady as well as get my phone and see about getting internet connected to my apartment. as well as need to look for some rice.. and some other cooking needs that i have....

BTW.... comment in my box :) or on the posts... just blood comment you lazy pricks :P

Ch'il Maan have some flat beer

2008-05-05T13:28:00.000+09:00

I know this is my second post on the same day.. but i'm gonna treat it like a "new day" post why? cos i CAN DAMMIT!

Alright so i got up late this morning... around 1130 :P from my queens sized bed which sit about ankle height from my floor....
Funnily enough i woke up thinking i was back home..... but reality reasserted itself even before i opened my eyes and *sigh* i realised i was not.... got up and did my stuff, watched some things on my lappy.

Was trying to get my remote control (yes for my lappy) and tried to do a restart.... and it couldn't restart.... so i'm just hoping iall goes well when i get back cos it was doing some weird thing when i left

So i went for a walk around see how things in my area. walked all the way to the other foreign teacher's place and went to check out the gym.
So i walk inside and am greeted by a very hearty "ANNYONGHASEYO!!!" from the female recptionist and the male chatting to her....
and i say "Hi......... how much?"
*smiles left there faces faster than a straight guy leaves a gay strip club*

"um...."

:P lol
so it's taken me the walk back to my place to realise how much it'd cost for a month
... "ch'il man" (no it's not said "CHILL MAN" more like "cheel maan") which is 70000won. (approx AUD$90) so anyway i'm thinking i might just join it if for no other reason it gives me a reason not to have to talk to anybody or walk around.. makes me look like i have purpose :P might go back tomorrow and sign up.
Anyway walked back to this pc cafe which is near my place and have decided that i really want net connection at my apartment mainly because if i spend too long here i'm either gonna go bald, get skin or lung cancer from the smoke .... it's not even direct smoke... it's more like smoke that has been... ingrained into the very WALLS of the little place so it's more like.... slow release fertiliser or like slow release anthrax or something.

oh yeah forget to mention "yesterday" that i went to this Irish-y kind of pub in the expat district.
lots of americans..... ew.
i asked for a Kilkenny and it came..... super cold.... and ....... super FLAT..... *grumbles discontentedly* that place does have a pool table however :P free too :P
so i'm sure i'll be back there.

Heading back to the apartment... .probably get some food on the way back there as well.
cos i really should eat, i think i'm gonna lose quite a bit of weight here.........

Welcome to the T

2008-05-05T13:08:00.000+09:00

Alright... so i'll give people the update thus far. (pictures will have to wait til i can get internet at my place)

Left old 'down under' at 955pm on sat night (some of you already know this .. you kind kind peple who sent me on my way) and spen the next9 odd hours in that stupid plane going over to Hongkie land.

arrived at 5 something am HK time then wiled away the hours until it was time to leave at 935 for Incheon Int'l Airport which i arrived at 240pm sunday.

I actually got some sleep on that leg of the journey.. whcih was definitely VERY VERY welcome.
--------

So i get throught the gates and there's Linda the Academic director of my school waiting there with a "BEVAN!" written on a piece of cardboard.
Y"know... with that.. i've decided that it makes a person feel super important to have someone waiting for you with a sign.... it's i dunno.. gratifying ? :P hahahaha

so anyway... we get on the limousine....... bus :P and head to city... takes about an hour to get there..get showed my place... which i gotta say could probably be found in the more drab... and heavily armed areas of sydney.... and even then it'd be in a tucked away corner of that suburb.
Still, i'm not paying the rent... i have a toilet and shower combined together, a kitchenette and 2 bedrooms.
If you can imagine it it's shaped like a T

you open the door and at the junction there's the kitchenette as you walk in, before the junction are doors to the 2 rooms the end of the left crossbar is the toilet/shower have of the entrance to that is blocked by a HUGE washing machine..... i'm not sure why they need one so big... like it's as big as the one we have back at home :| and while i know i don't wash much stuff. i think i could honestly ift all of my luggage in there.... including my shoes.... Moving on... on the right end of the cross bar is my table my fridge and on top of my fridge... my microwave, and on the top right of the "T" is a door to a balcony that is just full or random shit already.
Okay... so i have quite a few windows at my place.... but no sunlight. My front door looks like a recycled bulkhead of some inferior quality but seems to be completely made of steel...

SO i began to settle in and plan my battle against my house.....and for the first time i'm standing there thinking "i've gotta clean this place up..."