"Koreaa, you've gotta see her" - D. Harry, Blondie, No Exit, 1999, Beyond Music

Part 1: Reaquaintences

How time flies; it’s that blogging time of the month again.  It’s been a rather eventful month, with the majority of the events worthy of any particular note occurring in the last few days or so.  The natives inform me that the Korean summer has just about started.  I’m not sure if I believe them or not, my Britishness dictates anything over 18 degrees is a ‘scorcher’ and thus any differences in degrees are indecipherable.  There is no difference between 26, 24 or 30, it’s all just scoldingly glorious (the squiggly red line is already notifying me of two “mistakes”, the oppression against the freedom of speech displayed by Microsoft is positively Democratic People’s Republic).  I’m well aware we’re 120 words in and all I’ve done is talk about the weather – you can take the boy out of Britain.  I won’t talk about it much more, honestly, only a little bit.  The humidity is something I’m definitely struggling with though, it’s an oppressive, suffocating soup that makes the air seem thicker than even the most mentally-challenged EDL members.

Part 2: Gallivanting adventures

Myself and the Turtle ventured out of our imaginary comfort zone on Buddha Day (it has an official name, but for now I’ll bastardize it with simplicity), a Korean Buddhist national holiday a week or so ago.  We undertook the arduous journey, with nought more than what can only be described as ‘minor’ hiccups, to Busan (specifically Haeundae Beach).  Busan is South Korea’s second biggest city; the 100 minutes spent crossing it via the subway to reach its coast paying homage to that (though not accounting for any minute mis-translatory errors which may or may not have occurred as a result of my incompetence).  Haeundae itself is a restless sea of life, all swaying in the directions of opposing currents.  A man who I can only guess was of Turkish decent mimicked stabbing me in the chest with an empty ice cream cone he held on the end of an iron rod as I walked past his stall.  I’m not sure how entrepreneurial he is but I can’t imagine he’d get much investment on Dragon’s Den with a sales pitch like that.  Deborah Meaden telling him “I love the idea, I’m in” as she dabs off the monkey blood from her blouse with a damp flannel is not something I can foresee, ever. 

Something that shocked me in a ‘culture shock’ kind of way that I really wasn't expecting to affect me quite as much was the number of white folk in Busan.  There were literally shitloads (at this stage I have to mention that Microsoft has warranted the use of ‘shitloads’ but won’t accept Busan.  Draw your own conclusions) everywhere.  After living in Yulha and being one of a handful of Ben Afflecks for the two months or so has made any sightings of other Caucasoids a major event.  I wanted to bound up to each and every Vanilla and strike up a conversation, about anything, just because they’d understand.  Reintegration into Britain upon return maybe more difficult than expected.

Part 3:  M-Day

Whilst I’d say we’re both doing pretty well at adopting a completely different lifestyle in a completely different culture, one thing we’re still struggling with is the wibbly-wobbliness of Korean planning.  We were told last week that the contract was up on our apartment come the last week of June and we’d have to move out, estimated the 1^st of July.  Friday afternoon we were then informed by one of our co-workers that because of some catastrophically unforeseen circumstances our moving date had been shifted forward, to the Saturday…  Bearing in mind we didn't finish work until 9 and 9.50 respectively, this made life a little difficult.  We were asked what time on Saturday we’d like to be picked up and transport all our stuff over to the new place – a place which we knew nothing of, other than a rumour it might be a similar size to our original (one person) apartment.  We told them 2pm.  Just before I left work at 10pm Friday night, I was told there’d been a vetoing of our previously-agreed rendezvous time of 2pm, and they’d be picking us up at 11 instead.  Joy upon the joy of fucking joy.  

That moves us on swiftly to the new place: it’s in one of the most sought after areas of Yulha, it’s right on the stream that weaves through the town, and the accompanying mass of European-styled coffee shops, bars and pizzerias which all seem to share an air of middle-classed exclusivity in this part of the world (8 quid for two “Macchiatos” echoes this).  It’s marginally closer to work, closer to our favourite restaurants, a lot newer and generally nicer.  Unfortunately, I’d hazard that the boot in my Dad’s truck has marginally more space than our apartment.  If our last place was a one-person apartment, our new place is an, albeit pleasantly lit and nicely decorated, coffin of Tom Thumb. 

The reason why I've highlighted the oppressive nature of Microsoft (current red squiggly line count: sixteen.  I imagine I’ll be shown my Gulag accommodation in the morning.  If, of course, I've not already been shown it...) is because we’re yet to be given internet so I’m writing this on Word and doing a CTRL+C CTRL+V job directly to this blog.  We also went without gas for 48 hours, prohibiting any cooking or shriekless (seventeen) showers as the Arctic waters made my underwear regions retreat like an Italian war effort.  On Sunday evening, knowing I had to shower and shave ready for Monday, I decided to hatch an ingenious plan: I would get to the point of being so unbearably warm I would thoroughly relish the idea of a cold shower.  At around my 70^th lunge whilst holding two bottles of shampoo in a desperate effort to build up a sweat I began to wonder where it all went wrong.  The shower was still awful.  The first night we also went without curtains, which wouldn't have been too much an issue if it wasn't for the fact there’s a heavy amount of construction going on level with the window situated at the end of our bed.  Woke up 6.20 Sunday morning half mooning twelve or so of Korea’s finest construction workers.   Oh, and yes they start work at 6, even on weekends.  

The toilet does flush like a dream though, so every cloud…  Although the bathroom is probably my favourite 

room (though that also didn’t escape the downsizing), there is a small issue that bugs me: just above the toilet is a lovely little cupboard to store all your cleansing amenities.  The exterior of said cupboard is decorated in nice little flowery swirls and has a mirror panel on each door.  As a result of these mirrors, I now get a second angle to watch myself number one.  It’s unpleasant.  It kind of reminds me of the feature on Emirates flights where your in-flight entertainment can be watching yourself fly on the plane as a result of the three cameras installed on the aircraft.  Unfortunately, me having a wee is not destined for the Middle East, nor does it travel at 38,000 feet. 

Part 4: Teaching and swearing

In terms of teaching, we both feel we are improving massively as teachers with every passing week.  Turning devil children into top learners is becoming nothing more than a hobby.  The introduction of tongue twisters has also been one of the funniest experiences of my life: “I saw Suzie sitting in a shoe shine shop” has just resulted in a lot of Korean adolescents informing me they saw Suzie defecating in a shoe shine shop.  I have a new student in one of my younger classes who has English named himself Obama.  Obama has recently had a falling out with another member of his class called Allan (formerly known as Tom).  I asked one of my co-teachers who told me about the falling out if it was anything to do with Allan being a keen Republican.  She didn't laugh.

Gimhae, I just met you.

Okay, this is a blog.  Hello blog.  Dear Blog?  New readers start here?  That will do.

So this is a blog all about how my life got flipped, turned upside down, but more of that later.  My name is Jordan and my partner, Kaylie, and I have been living in Korea (South) for nigh on a month now.  I decided at first not to do a blog out of fear I'd have nothing original to say after all the other decent bloggers who are already doing what I'm doing.  As a result I will try to alter the focus slightly from "Incredibly informative and helpful" to a more "distracted and mildly amusing".  The plan is to update this blog once a month for the year I'm here.  I'm undecided on a Christmas Special, we'll see.  But in the meantime I'd like to take a minute, so sit right there, I'll tell you how I became an ESL teacher in South Korea (I told you).

Upon arrival

In West Philadelphia born and raised We arrived here on a Wednesday evening around 9pm after a 30 hour (plus time difference) journey, which in all honesty wasn't as bad as expected.  The first minor issue when we arrived was that we wouldn't be moving straight into our apartment as the couple who had preceded us wasn't moving out until the weekend, so we got to stay in a cute little motel.  And when I say 'cute little motel' I, of course, mean Korean sex dungeon.  The bookshelves of porn which lined the corridors, the mirror above the bed and the red lights which barely illuminated anything past the smutty atmosphere of affairs and prostitution were enough to suggest this wasn't part of the Hilton chain.  Needless to say there was no breakfast included in the cost.  In all honesty though, it wasn't that bad.  It was spotlessly clean, it had a fridge, internet and a massive TV.  Everything the post-coital Korean needs.  We stayed there until Saturday when we were escorted by the Academy's director to our recently emptied new apartment.  For those of you who are yet to experience the Carr-Turtle pad Skype grand tour, it's not massive.  Really it's a one person apartment with two people in it.  You could probably swing a cat in there if pushed, however your proximity to the walls at any one time would put you in danger of being hit by a rebounding feline.  As of yet though, no cats have been swung, flung, or shot-put.

Local cuisine

Given the fact that just about any confined space which occupies humans smells (according to the Turtle) of spicy farts, the food is not bad.  Although saying that I haven't had much as it's been three and a half weeks and I still struggle with the fucking chopsticks.  My students assure me they're a brilliant invention because they free up one hand.  But logically, it frees up your weaker hand.  What can you do with your weaker hand when eating?!  Actually, I don't want to know.  Food in Korea, thanks to globalisation, can be largely what you want to be.  If you want to go local, eat some spicy fermented cabbage that smells how it does when it leaves you, then that's fine.  If you want to eat Italian pizza or French baguettes then that's fine too, you just have to look a little harder (I'm yet to find a Scotch Egg though).  That said, very often the Koreans will put their own spin on it.  And Koreans either like their food monumentally sweet, or just very spicy.  So instead of loaf of bread, you have loaf of bread with chocolate, jam and cream piped through it, which would be fine if you knew of its rich innards upon purchase, rather than the gut-wrenching disappointment of knowing your egg on toast ensemble idea is truly out the window.

The Academy

Is on the 7th (or 8th for our American friends) floor of an office block, which is surreal at first.  Classes are between 45mins-1hour in length and the ages are between 6-15.  Or if you're a singer in Lostprophets the age range is: "That'll do nicely" to "Farrrr too old".  So far I've been called dangerous, told I have a big pointy cock-nose and a big crazy white man.  Although that was mostly Kaylie on the walk to work the day I'd forgot to take the bins out.  Most of the kids are kind and easy to teach, although I do have one child I would happily smack with a Yellow Pages directory.  All in all though, they're pretty nice.  They also assign themselves an English name, to often hilarious consequences.  Kaylie has a student called Obama and another called Jobs (after Steve).  I have an eleven year old called Bill, which is less glamorous, but always makes me chuckle.  Bill, coincidentally, sings Eternal Flame to me at any given opportunity.

First thoughts on Korea

We're some distance away from the main city, sort of 'in the sticks' if it wasn't for the fact that our small town has 30+ mahoosive blocks of apartments jutting out the landscape.  At first they're quite imposing, the first night walking home I felt watched by a group of monumentally tall youths.  Since then you just get used to them; realise they're there to preserve the pretty spectacular landscape around the town.  For that reason I can see why they'd build up as opposed to out.  

Something that I absolutely love is how much effort people make to say hello, or 'annyeonghaseyo'.  If you walk into a shop, more or less everybody will have a go at shouting hello at you, often in unison with a bit of harmony, which is nice.  What's less nice though is when they immediately snigger after your attempts at speaking Korean back, but I imagine I must sound quite amusing so it's understandable.  

Being off the beaten track and two of only a tiny handful of Caucasoids (I'm yet to see another Vanilla in our town, Kaylie's tally currently stands tall at two) we do attract a fair amount of attention, just for being 'different', like a friendly kind of racism.  We had a man come up to use in a supermarket last week, shake our hands and said he was pleased to meet us, before gallivanting down the cabbage isle.  On the flip-side though, just about any man over 40 is likely to hate you for being a white man coming over here trying to steal his women.  Their reasons for disliking Kaylie remain foggy.  I wonder if it's because she's coming over here, stealing their jobs, I'm not sure what the Korean is for "Daily Express" but they must have one.  

So first impressions, it's pretty good.  I have a job where I can wear a shirt and tie and start work at 2pm.  It's not quite Bel-Air, but it could be worse.