Day by Daejeon - The orientation and early day of teaching

Introducing

Not a creepy statue. 

Blog readers of the world, welcome; mum, I'll email you back probably by Monday.   This is a long overdue update/entry with regards to my current living situation in the 'Rea.  Myself and the Turtle have returned to the Land of the Morning Calm Chronic Nationwide Hangover for another year.  We've moved
further north, not "The North" but closer to the bright lights of Seoul and life generally conducive to a greater living experience for a couple of Foreign Johnnys like us.

The big difference is that last time we came over as Hagwon teachers.  "Teacher" in itself is a real stretch on what our roles were generally considered to be.  Glorified and informative after school club tutors, maybe.  However this time, we've become actual teachers, working in elementary schools.  Like, proper teachers with elbow pads and shit.

A Confuscion school at the bottom of our
road.

A rather soggy eyed send off from my mother, in particular, in Heathrow departures set the tone for a sombre spell in the cramped, misery inducing hatebox that is long distance travel.  I think it was Paul Theroux who stated that you could only judge a good plane journey by how few negatives happened to you.  And by these standards, our journey went well:  We didn't crash and die.  We didn't get food poisoning and die.  We didn't get shot by Ukrainian separatists and die.  We didn't go missing and die.  We arrived.  Great successes were had.

Upon arriving in Korea, we were met by two ladies in Hanboks (colourful traditional Korean dresses) shouting at foreigners to get to the left.  Being the lawless rebels that we were, we didn't quite catch the drift of their shrieks and so march on ahead.  Turtle was close-lined to the ground and I had my jaw broken in two places.  That didn't actually happen but we were verbally assaulted until we inevitably moved left with the other foreignery.  After that it was almost plain sailing, disregarding a mild faux par with the immigration form, but that's not worth going into.

Orientation

Jordan and his biggest fan.

We were met in Arrivals by a woman holding our agency's logo on a piece of A4 before being shepherded to the EPIK (English Program in Korea - the recruiting body for all state school teachers here) main desk.  We had our names checked and were given a number.  I wanted to be number five so I could nickname myself V (yes, like the movie); unfortunately I was 35, a somewhat more explicit XXXV.  Whilst waiting, disheveled and in desperate need of a shower, we saw fellow EPIKers greeting each other as they arrived, as if there'd been some sort of prior communication.  I tried to join in with an ill-timed wave at someone who was happier to see someone else and thus went back to spectating, rather than partaking, in any greetings.

Once there was enough of us to warrant a bus leaving, we set off for our nine day orientation in Daejeon.  As we were getting comfortable and preparing for another tedious subsection of our journey, our EPIK herder (? for lack of a better word) wanted to take a photo.  An American-twanged "HASHTAG NO FILTER" from the back of the bus immediately made me envious of the audibly impaired.

The location of all our orientationing would be an emptied university campus.  Because of this I had quite high hopes: remembering the chip shop at the top of campus in Aberystwyth that did battered and deep fried cheeseburgers (with ketchup within the batter).  The times I spent reminiscing awful student food set me up for an almighty fall: we were in the only student campus in the world which had no terrible food vendors in or around it; just tyre shop after tyre shop after tyre shop.  This was inexplicably odd.

Before getting the keys to our dorms and our shiny little name and location depicting lanyards we had to be given a quick medical assessment to ensure we were free of Ebola.  This came the same day a bar in the international district banned all Africans due to Ebola.  Not that you ever get the feeling that in Korea there are only two types of people:  A) Korean.  B) Not.  Needless to say, I passed with flying colours.  I had not even a trace of the stuff.  I was then told my roommate (we had to do shared accommodation and because the Turtle has ladyparts and I do not, our cohabitation was strictly forbidden) was already up in my our room.  Given some of the people we met that week, my roommate was an enormous relief: a supercool fisherman fellow who'd been in Korea before but had no laptop (which meant an immediate monopolisation of the LAN line on my behalf).  So overall, I got off pretty lucky.

Pictures I'm using to make up for the
pictures I didn't take in Jeonju

Our first proper day of orientation was one of the most horrific days of my life.  That is, of course, a mild exaggeration also.  Jet lag combined with a one-off case of sinusitis meant my face ached and as a consequence I was a bit of a dick to everything.  The low point came half way through an opening ceremony.  An astonishingly talented taekwondo troop were well into their performance of faux-beating the shit into each other, of fighty dancing and kicking higher than their own heads.  It was a real spectacle, though as an almost outer body experience I found myself leaning over to whinge that they could never kick the first board during a sequence.  They could always kick and break the second, third and even fourth boards held up for them, but they always missed the first.  I did not make many new friends this day.

The main objective of the orientation was to educate the new teachers on what they had really gotten themselves into.  How to integrate into Korea and how to form co-operative partnerships with our co-teachers.  The lectures ran from 9am through to 8.20pm.  Long, long days.  The lectures were mostly informative, however there's only so much space in my brain and after about the third lecture little tiny informations just started to bounce off my head.  I did make some haikus to make me feel better.  The big issue with these lectures was that the scope for what conditions might actually be like for all of us was so wide; such a varying degree of possibilities, that no lecturer could give a definite answer on anything.

"It depends"

That will depend on the school/principal/school's area/education board/zodiac.  This was only mildly infuriating most of the time.

Drumshot.

Cultural field trip day!

We were allowed one day off from our schedule of lectures to go on a cultural excursion, to Jeonju.  For those of you who know me, or have even read any previous blog entry, you're probably aware I'm not the most happy-go-lucky "embrace life" types.  With this in mind, I will not go into just how awfully I perceived this little daytrip to pan out.  Despite my negative perceptions going into the day, it wasn't actually that bad.  What I envisaged was two old but heavily restored buildings to the point of being historically unrecognizable (no I will not make a Joan Rivers remark), with set walkways and signs decorating the tedious exhibitions.  What it actually was was a real, living place with shops, displays and actual people.

Our first activity planned for us was fan making.  I used my "Wind turbines, I'm a big fan" joke several times.  It didn't go well the first few times, but I persisted.  Reactions failed to improve.  The construction of the fans was largely down to how well you could glue paper to sticks to more paper.  An elderly Korean lady saw my efforts and decided to redo a large part of left flank of my fan, given its somewhat shoddy stickwork.

We moved on to drumming once the fannery was complete.  This was my favourite part in the entire day.  In an open room we sat in columns with the two-sided drums between our legs.  We were also given two stick-type implements that would be used to beat the drum.  I properly enjoyed it, if not was a little overeager.  Our group had a lot of issues maintaining the correct speed.  Unfortunately I fear it may have been my fault as to why the timing went askew more often than not.  It was a good experience.

More Jeonju replacement.
Taken from the park opposite our apartment.

Overall, the whole day was quite a spectacle.  The scale of the village was so much greater than I was anticipating, but also the liveliness.  It wasn't just a dead relic to only be observed through a glass case, but somewhere you could buy some weird double-ended chocolate puffcone arrangement, or over priced bibimbap.

TaeKwonNo, never again.

As if realising I hadn't quite had enough Taekwondo in my life, the EPIK orientation co-ordinators thought it'd be a good idea to put on a little Taekwondo activity for all the teachers.  We were each eyed up by one of the experts and given a set of white pyjamas which corresponded to our size.  

In lines we sat and watched some basic demonstrations.  Then it began.  The longest, most drawn out, painful warm up in human history commenced.  Stretching, as a generalisation, is not one of my strong points.  Given I creak when I bend down and make noises when I stand up, I don't think I'm quite designed for the agile nimbleness these crazed men possessed.  They made us twist this way, that way, any which way but comfortable.  

The low point came when we were made to partner up.  I was partnering a South African who was built like a brick shithouse and could have folded me like paper.  Thankfully though, he was delightful and did not do that.  We had to sit on the floor, with our soles touching.  This was doable.  We then had to lean forward and grip each others hands.  This was less doable.  Other groups full of bendy people could do this no problem.  The experts (ninjas?) noticed our struggles and decided to help in the most unhelpful way mankind has ever, ever seen.  One stood behind each of us, with their legs widened they shuffled forward and lowered their respective weight onto our necks/head areas to get us to bend forward more.

Now, when I was in university, and I would tell people I was to travel and to see the world.  I could feel the envy.  The freedom I had to go and make something of my life in a different country; a different continent!  However, with the ballsack of a 40-something Taekwondo expert perched on my neck, I did ponder how it all went wrong.  At what point did I stop going from star-chasing wanderer to a man yelping in pain whilst the back of their head gets teabagged by a chuckling Korean?

Relocating

By the end of our orientation, we were primed.  Our skills honed and our understanding of what to expect brutally lessened by "it depends".  On the final day we were to be taken, by bus, to our locations.  Those expecting a two or three hour journey took a change of clothes, in order to look a little fresher for their first meeting with their new co-workers.  Our bus, the Daejeon to a different part of Daejeon journey, took all of about twenty minutes.  In a hall we were each given a number and told to line up in said order.  We watched as our new co-teachers walked in and took their seats, not knowing which would be our helpers/allies for the next year.  Some looked terrifying, others looked pleasant cutesy, it was a lottery.

The instructions we were given were that when our name and number was called, we were to step out of line, at the front of the stage, and our co-teachers would essentially come and collect us.  It was a cross between a presentation and a livestock auction.

Not relevant, but this is how close my aircon
plug gets to the sockets.  

I was number 18.  Or 17?  I can't really remember right now.  The Turtle was number 1.  It was to be she who would make a precedent for proceedings.  The only issue was her name.  Kaylie is not a difficult name to pronounce, UNLESS of course you are a South Korean with a microphone, in which case it's nigh-on impossible.  We'd mentioned it to the announcer beforehand that it was "Kay - lee" not "Kye - lee".  This information was disregarded.  Maybe she thought we were taking the piss?  Anyways..  I was aware I was going to have to shake my co-teachers hand.  There was one colossally big issue with this, and it was to do with how awful my perspiration situation was.  I went all out with the suit jacket, to look the part of a confident and driven professional.  With the temperature in the high twenties/early thirties and the humidity at around 400%, combined with my nerves for the situation, I was somewhat enmoistened.  Given that first impressions are everything, I did not want my co-teacher's first impression of me to be "Oh wow, he's recently fallen into a lake.  Maybe that's why his hands are so unbelievably clammy".  The solution for this, I firmly believed, was to subtly sway my arms back and forth, in a desperate attempt to dry out my hand situation.

Upon my number's calling, I stepped forward.  A dainty woman came to shake my hand and took me back to my seat, where I was made to sit between her and another of my co-teachers (most people only had one, I was being spoilt).  It was during this seated period that I forgot how to sit like a normal human.  Where on earth do you put your hands when you're sitting like a normal person?!

School living

Whilst I'd love to write all about my school, obviously my hands are tied, to a degree.  So for this segment I'll write about some of the weirder moments/cock ups. 

1.  Dorky Dancing

Flowers given during my live broadcast.

On the same day as my collection which didn't make me feel at all like a child being evacuated during the blitz, I was introduced to my Principle and the rest of the school's hierarchy.  At these first meets and greets I was invited to attend one of the Vice-Principle's leaving dinner that evening, of course I said that it'd be an honour (before I realised no one knew what that meant, so just said 'yes' and they all seemed pleased).  By time we arrived the party was well under way and the karaoke machine had been unleashed.  Groups of people took it in turn to go up and make wallies of themselves in front of their cheering peers.  Next thing I knew, the head teacher had gripped me by the wrist, screamed something Korean and was marching me to the front of the hall.  The rest of my table had come along too, which made me want to curl and die a little less.  Now, there are a number of ways you can endear yourself to your new co-workers.  There are entire self help guides on how to improve your first impressions; how you can make people like you.  I solemnly doubt the "pat the midgets" dance is in any of these said guides...  People smiled at me the next day though, so how bad could it have been??

Get the feeling subtle notes were passed
around about me...

2.  Jordan LIVE

Elementary schools here are a little bit different to the school I attended as a child.  In my current school there is a studio or "TV room" where things can be recorded in a soundproofed room.  On Monday morning I was to give a speech which would then be broadcast live throughout the school (each classroom has it's own plasma telly).  It was during this speech that I forgot 

A) My name

B) Where I'm from

C) Why I'm here

D) All other words that weren't "so" and "yeah"

But with all that in mind, we're beginning to settle down and get into a routine.  We've made some pretty fantastic friends and the next year doesn't seem as bleak as it did in Heathrow departures saying goodbye again.  

I'm going to try and update this monthly, but we'll see.  But for now (if you're still reading) thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed. 

That kid loves dumplings.
This is the highlight of my blog.

Malay Down Besides Me

Greetings.  I'm sure you've had somewhere near a gut's full's worth of apologies regarding delayed posts etc. to the point where I'll just skip them and delve straight into words more blogworthy than the tedium of repetition.  So this Christmas, as a result of a mild translatory faux par with our superiors we inadvertently wangled the week off.  We were trying to get a week off in January, but never mind.  We decided, taking into consideration how cheaply Air Asia could take us to Malaysia, that Malaysia would be the best place to celebrate the birth of the Lord Our Saviour, The Patron Saint of Unnecessary Capitalising, Sir Baby Jesus of Nazareth.  Malaysia is Islamic.  The trip was split into two: we would spend the first three days in Melacca, about 90 minutes south of Kuala Lumpur, before heading up and spending the remainder of the holiday in the capital itself.   As with the Kyoto blog, this will be done in a kind of blog/diary entry concoction, complete with photos and titles in bold to signify place changes.  Have fun.

Melacca/Melaka

Melacca has two ways of spelling it and I'm not entirely certain which is correct, so I'll go with the one that looks least likely to be spelled out by a youth in a hooded jumper operating a "text messaging" device.  Melacca is the historical centre of Malaysia.  It was colonised by the Portuguese, then the Dutch, British and Japanese all took their turns in calling the place theirs.  Whilst the shenanigans of empire larked on; Chinese businessmen relocated in great numbers to the town, bringing with them their wealth, culture and traditions.  It was a peculiar mix of European, Oriental and local.  Anyway, enough back story.

Melacca riverfront of an evening

We arrived in Melacca around midday-ish.  On arriving to Malaysia the first thing I noticed, once out of the airport, was how nice it smelt.  Everything was lemony fresh or had the aroma of coconut milk.  Air has never since been so delicious.  The bus terminal in Melacca is also, I think, a market (if it isn't, I have no idea why three four-feet tall women had so many coats, nor why they were trying to flog them in a town two degrees north of the equator).  We found a taxi that was at least as old as the Cold War and made our way over to the hotel.  We were staying in the 'Old Town'.  It became a World Heritage Site about five years ago and has since become a hotbed of middle class British folk wearing stetsons, backpacks the size of a Smart car and saying things like "I just really need the atmosphere to find me" and other ridiculous waffle.  I realise you probably think I sound very much like the people I've just described, however when around these people, I tend to polarise in the opposite direction.  I start talking like a Trotter and walking with a limp, kicking old people and swearing at pigeons as I go.

One thing we noticed pretty early on in our stay was that the majority of the houses in the Old Town, built by the Dutch, were all incredibly narrow.  This was a result of the tax attributed to each property, which was based primarily on the width of the house.  Most houses were no more than four metres wide and usually around sixty metres long.  Most of the houses seemed to have a courtyard or two with maybe a small water feature.  It was incredibly pleasant.  Our hotel was one of these pleasant Dutch buildings, complete with the lemony fresh smell and a sort of inside-outside feel to it.  The room was rather nice with the only real downside being the bathroom.  The bathroom was spacious, had an open shower area, jacuzzi and a bench at one end.  I don't really know why you need a bench in a room with a jacuzzi AND a toilet, I'd have suspected at that point of fitting the jacuzzi and toilet that all sitting down necessities had been catered for; apparently not.  The issue came in the fact that the bathroom walls weren't as tall as the ceiling, meaning you could talk freely with the person in the bedroom whilst you were in the jacuzzi or having a break on your bench.  You could, if you were of an athletic or possibly hyperactive disposition, have a game of tennis or catch over the wall.  All these are fantastic features, however the incomplete wall throws up one glaring cringeworthy factor.  A conversation that goes a little like:

Me:  Uhh, darling....
Turtle: Yes Captain Lovegun?  (She doesn't actually call me that, but I'll make it catch on within a month I reckon)
Me:  I say, what's that song you really like lately?  You know the quite loud one?
Turtle:  I have no idea what you're talking about.  Did you enjoy your incredibly spicy meal by the way?
Me:  Oh yes!  That, frankly too spicy, meal was divine!  But back to the issue of the quite loud music... 
Turtle:  It just seemed so authentic, I loved how the flavours all worked so...
Me:   JUST PLAY SOME MUSIC I DON'T WANT YOU TO HEAR THIS
Turtle:  Ohhhh!.........  Okay..

Introduction to Gangnam Style begins on full volume..

Bunting ruining a good picture of mental paintings on buildings

In the evening we took a ride in a three wheeled Hello Kitty rickshaw, by a man whose dream was seemingly to be a tour guide.  We must have taken a good two or three detours as he exclaimed well-rehearsed facts about the area.  I don't know how much historical information you can take in with the Beach Boys blaring out from the stereo he had installed under our seats, but it was nice anyways.

On one of the days we thought it'd be nice to go for a 'river cruise'.  How posh and extravagant a river cruise sounds...  The cruiseliner, decorated heavily in Malaysia bunting, I'm fairly certain was built with the intention of being a vessel of rescue missions, as opposed to a vehicle of romance and purveyor of quality views.  Myself and the Turts had a family sat opposite us; the seats were so close that our knees all touched in a quite uncomfortable manner.  One of the younger children in the family had a twitch in his leg which didn't get irritating at all... Selfish shit.

Buildings from the boat - part 2

The sites were all very nice once we'd departed and set off on our way; knee knocking excitement subsided marginally as a cruiseboat passed us in the opposite direction and sprayed us all as bow waves collided.  Once moistened, or offered a 'complimentary natural cooling aid', we turned a bend in the river and saw a fantastic row of houses.  Each house a different mural.  The colours and distinctions in styles between each house were immense.  Some of the houses had recently been done up whilst others had been left for some time.  Both new and old, in their own ways, added something to the individualistic mesh and uniqueness of the place.  When everything is different everything is the same and that's a good way to be with regards to houses.  Too many people seem very conservative with houses.  Go mental, draw a drunk goat on your house, if your neighbour draws a spaceship on theirs it won't look so out of place.

The old Dutch square

On the penultimate day, before our coach trip back to the capital, we went on a tour of one of the old houses which was owned by a wealthy Chinese businessman.  The tour was fraught with difficulties from the off as a family (the size of which led me to believe they MUST have been Catholic) thought it would be good to bring along their infants.  Infants don't like tours around museums, they just don't.  They like colouring in and staring at bits of snot.  They care little for the interior design of a house from the 1800s.  It was an interesting gander round though and learned a little bit about the British influence: the designs of the crockery was all from the UK whilst a chair was created by the Chinese when their British business partners arrived.  It was like a normal chair, but with a fold out footrest and a "Gin holder".  Genius.  Later that day we came across a pirate ship, which was unusual.

Kuala Lumpur

Well this may well be one of my favourite places in the history of ever. 

Some rather large conjoined buildings

We got to the hotel mid afternoon.  Whilst booking the hotel, we noticed not of the grandeur of the place.  Identifying it as a dwelling within budget, we didn't presume of the luxuries we'd inadvertently booked.  It was the kind of place where there's a man whose job it is to take your bags from the taxi on an entirely separate journey as you to your room.  There was also a woman who knocked our door and asked if she'd like to "turn my bed down".  I have literally no idea what she meant, but given my track record with the ladyfolk turning down my kiss in a bus stop move during my teens, I thought a turn-down of the bed might be a bit too much to take.  Also, the Turtle was just about to get in the bath and was giving the cut throat sign at the prospect of letting someone into the room.  The hotel was next door to the Patronas Towers.  They can be seen from just about anywhere in the city and are very pretty all lit up and that.  

Our first night we spent in a taxi.  We'd reserved a table at a 'Dining in the Dark' experience, which was exactly as petrifying as it sounds.  Unfortunately, the taxi driver was yet to indulge himself in a bit of blind dining and thus had literally no idea where it was.  As we did laps of the general locality, passing bars and restaurants like pictures and plant pots in a Scooby-Do corridor, the minutes ticked by.  Eventually, the driver decided he'd be best maneuvering the busy streets of downtown KL on foot.  So he parked us on a one way street and scarpered.  He returned a few minutes later with information he'd attained after engaging in dialogue with a man selling meat on a stick to inform us it was about twenty yards away..

Once we'd made it to the restaurant we were greeted by some lovely um, greeters?  That seemed to be the entirety of their job, just say hello to people and ask them if they'd ever done something like this before.  Essentially, stall customers until the real waiting staff arrived.  By this point I was quite a bit nervous.  I don't have a phobia of the dark at all; I don't mind sleeping with the light off and I'm in no way racist.  The issue was more focused on the fact I'd be putting all manner of unknown things in my face and hoping for the best.  The greeters laughed at me and told me to calm down, which agitated me a bit but I didn't say anything.  In my head I told them to fuck off though...  

Food porn

A short time later we were met by our waiter.  One thing the Turtle had omitted (I feel I should add here that this was ENTIRELY her idea.  Whilst I agreed to it, obviously I was nervous and knew little of it, she'd done all the research-based legwork) the fact that all the waiting staff were blind.  BLIND!  I only noticed when he completely rejected my hand shake...  Once we'd been introduced and eventually shook hands, he made the Turtle put her hands on his shoulders and my hands on her shoulders as we essentially conga'd our way into the pitch darkness.  It felt like we were winding our way through the most elaborate maze and by time we got to our table I was entirely terrified.  I think the thing that really frightened me was the idea that it could be a social event.  In my mind, given that sight was so restricted, we'd be relying on our heightened senses of taste, smell and hearing, predominantly.  I worried that people would be quite vocal and we'd have to talk to people.  It's not like I hate my voice, it's just that the idea of having some freak allergic reaction with everyone listening was far worse than if everyone watched.  This fear diminished relatively quickly as the dull murmur of conversations surrounded us with a relieving sense of anonymity.  It was then that I realised something I never really noticed before.  The pitch dark is absolutely petrifying.  It seemed so intolerably encapsulating that brought about a horrendous feeling complete entrapment.  My breathing got a bit heavy and I was actually a bit concerned.  Then we overheard an American female and my feelings turned from fear and terror to abhorring despise.  "OH MY GAAAD I CEHNT FIND MY FORRRRRRRK"..... "LOL OH MY GAAAAD IT'S NEXT TO THE SPOON".  Flid.  

When you're in that environment you learn just how difficult it is to be blind.  You're always aware it's difficult, but Christ alive the waiting staff were like wizards of the night.  They'd always remember your name and inform you when they'd put your meal in front of you.  Almost always without you noticing too, which was even more mental.  In terms of the food, it was pretty delicious and just about all of the tastes textures were familiar, which was a relief.  The biggest issue I had was how utterly diabolically awful I was with my fork stabbing aim.  I must have truly decimated my plate as I chipped the living daylight out of it.  In the end I shoveled things onto a spoon, using my hand as a protective boundary at the plate's edge.  Upon leaving, we got to see the menu and realised we were actually pretty good at guessing what we'd had.  Overall, it was pretty fantastic, if not a touch terrifying.  

A duck-like creature with about fifty eyes

The Turtle (#nomakeupselfie)

The next day we were up bright and early for a touch of David Attenboroughing (it's a thing, yes).  We headed off to the bird park, known to local taxi drivers as "bud pak" and known to people who have blown up girlfriends as the World's largest free-flight walk-in aviary.  Some of the birds were massive, but then we got past the American tourists WITTY SLANG JOKE ALERT.  Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves as the birds all flew overhead or perched themselves in the canopies which followed the routes of the paths laid out before us.  Nobody seemed to care as much as a fraction as I about being in high-risk shat-on territory.  I tried to fashion a hat-come-shit protector out of the map we'd been given on upon entry but the Turtle made me take it off because people were looking and I looked a twat, apparently.  Saw some emus, they were cutting themselves with the paper they'd just written poetry on.  I think that's how you spell emu anyways..  We then went to the neighbouring butterfly park and they had rats scuttling about and some turtles in tanks.  Insert your own TMNT conspiracy theories here.

Batu Caves

Steps, 5,6,7,8 and so on...

On our last day we were taken for a treat by an old friend from university and resident of Kuala Lumpur to the Batu caves, just north of KL.  Francis, a man who has seemingly worked out how to avoid aging skin and a formula for perfect hair (what an absolute bastard), picked us up and became a tour guide for the day.  The caves are essentially a hollowing in the formation of a huge limestone rock jutting out of the landscape.  To reach the caves themselves you're first confronted with a good 320 steps.  That was hard work for the Turtle and I.  Francis (the bastard) simply skipped up like an irritating goat.  

The Caves are hugely important for religious reasons.  It's a site of great significance for Hindus and contains a good few shrines.  I can only presume it is because of this religious importance that we came up came up against one of the most peculiar examples of signage ever.  At the foot of the steps, a slinkymaster's paradise, there was a sign that told us we weren't allowed to wear shorts, dresses or dogs.  Needless to say my ensemble was ruined..  

Opening at the top of the caves

Once we'd reached the zenith, we looked more like gorillas that had been water boarded as opposed to those covering themselves in glory as a result of walking up 320 steps like the true champions we knew ourselves to be.  The conditions did little to aid proceedings either; it was 30 something degrees and muggier than a Dutch oven.  Once I'd stopped breathing like an asthmatic being tickled and stopped drawing attention to myself, we were able to take in the surroundings.  I've got some photos but they don't do the place justice whatsoever: it's impossible to gauge just how massive the caves were.  The sheer cliff faces reaching right up to an opening, seemingly away in the heavens.  On the steep faces of the limestone lived monkeys and, somewhat more obscurely, some chickens.  The monkeys seemed alright with having their photos taken, although Francis (not a bead of sweat, the bastard) told me of some awful stories about the little tykes doing some terrible things in the past.  I wanted to give it a bottle of water with the top done up properly tight but Francis warned against it.  It was an undeniably beautiful place, both in terms of the natural scenery and the man-made shrines.  The only real downside was that, given it's the epicenter of a great big annual festival, it does have the feeling of something entirely different to a God-based cave.  The cemented floors and towering floodlights made it feel a touch more like a car park than what it should've been.  Nevertheless, still a fantastic place.  On the way out we saw some old Hindu ladies talking about their sex lives as I tripped over a gate.

Francis then took us to one of his favourite restaurants in downtown KL.  It was up the side street of a back alley of a side street, or so.  We were given a noodle, beef, egg, sardines and crispy onions concoction.  Sweet Jehovah was it delicious!  I've never had anything like it.  Francis suggested putting some chili sauce on it.  I rejected as the hotel's bathroom door didn't close properly and I didn't want another Melacca music conversation incident.  It was honestly one of the nicest meals I've ever had though.  After another hour or so catching up and learning from our very kind guide, we were dropped back at the hotel, ready to pack for our 5am flight.

A few final words

Malaysia often gets bunched together with the countries around it, for perhaps obvious reasons, but I just can't see the likes of Thailand and Indonesia being quite as refined and polished.  I'm aware that's part of the whole charm.  But equally, the charm of Malaysia was definitely that it had such a past of empire and grandeur, of the wealthy and important.  Coming from a place where English speakers are rarer than cheese you can't use as a rubber, Malaysia was full of English speakers, full of hints at British culture and a suspicion of it pushing on to be a very, very exciting place in the future; not languishing in the mistreatment of its past or settling to be an equal of its neighbours.

Given there are three such prominent ethnicities, cultures and peoples all being crammed together, it would be naive to think there's no case of any underlying tensions, of course.  But it's a place that seems to welcome a break from the norm and, generally, embrace those different from their own for the greater good.  South Korea nor the UK could hold a candle to how well Malaysia deals with cultural differences.

All this has made it even more sad that such a tragedy as the MH370 will forever be tied with Malaysia.  Though I'm not particularly well travelled, I cannot recommend the place enough.  You should go, even if you don't get there, still try, it's worth it.

Never mind I'll find Seomyeon like you - The unreleased/released

Okay so as promised in the last installment of 'Jordan's use of the internet to save money on counselling', better known as my blog, here is the entry from October/November I disliked so much I stopped writing.  Things all got a bit crappy around this time and I just wanted to hide under woolen things and eat the weight of Canada in things comprising mainly of sugar and/or bread.  As a result, it remained unfinished, but given it's quite a lot I feel bad resigning it to the fate of deletion.  So instead, here it is.  Unfinished traumatisation (new word).

That song is stuck in your head now.  One thousand apologies.  It's been a month of change in the Land of the Morning Calm  Construction Workers.  The building next door has been complete so the same noisy bastards that were ruining morning nap times from the side window have moved across the street and are now destroying sleeping patterns from across the road.  Despite this, I'm going to try and sound more cheery in this blog post.  I read the last one back and I sounded a little close to the edge.  I feel it relevant to state that whilst I do come across as somewhat of a Victor Meldrew, I'm quite a cheery chappy.  So my aim for this post is to be more positive.  Happy go lucky.  Whoop-de-fucking-do, as it were.

The angle at which our sleep patterns have been audibly assaulted is not the only big change of October thus far, no no no.  It's marked the change in seasons.  Gone are the days of sweating like a pig on fire, waking up with sweaty eye balls and putting underwear in the freezer.  Autumnal conditions have set in and it's now fiercely nippy out. There are a number of pros and cons to this:  On one hand, I don't leave for work in a pastel blue shirt and arrive at work wearing soggy navy.  Whilst on the other hand, my nipples are visible through any amount of layers and my students bully me.  One of the best things about it being quite cold here though is the underfloor heating.  It's absolutely immense.  It also provides an excellent excuse for when the Turtle gets cross when I leave my towel on the floor...

This month has also seen us cross the midway point in our year of 'Rea fun.  It doesn't feel like six months at all.  But then I did lose a month to a jet-lagged daze and sitting under bed covers eating Nutella with a spoon because I was too scared of everything.  Overall though it's been a cracking experience.  To commemorate the occasion of passing the midway point I thought I'd treat myself to a haircut.  First haircut in seven months.  I'd stopped looking like man of authority and began resembling man with a cardboard house.  We took one of our Korean co-workers along for protection to a hair salon on the high street entitled Paris Hair Story.  There was little sign of any French narratives once inside though, so I did feel a little lied to.  We went through the usual thing of choosing a picture from a book of hair styles.  The only issue was that they all looked EXACTLY the same:  Shaved sides, long on top and at the back.  A variation of this was the almighty mullet, which I've thankfully avoided.  The woman cutting my hair (or 'hair artist') asked three times if I wanted my side burns off.  I was going to tell her I was preparing them for Movember but given the fairly large language barrier it would've likely gone arse over tit.

We've also had the celebration of Halloween to introduce to the natives.  I've seen myself as less of an English teacher lately and more of a Crusader, coming to the Eastern lands, sharing our traditions and beliefs and making them join in out of fear we'll do writing exercises.  We stayed up until gone 2.30am a few nights making spiders and bats.  The Turtle did the majority of the conceptual work whilst I was restrained from running with scissors and was allowed to stick the googly eyes on paper bats.

For the big day we decided it would be a lot of fun to set ourselves the aim of making a child so scared they cried.  I don't know if the Turtle was necessarily privy to this goal, but I went all out for it; make up and all.  One of the bigger issues with this was that I decided my Dracula make up should be completed at home, before going to the shop for more art supplies, before going to get lunch, and before the fifteen minute walk from our apartment to any of these places, including passing a high school.  Needless to say I received a few looks and thoroughly terrified the man in Morning Glory.  No, I'm not being uncouth, I'm merely referring to the stationary shop which is EVERYWHERE in Korea.  Means you can have Morning Glory staples, post its, pencils and my all time favourite, the Morning Glory rubber.  For those times where you really need to rub something out (okay now I'm being sordid, apologies.)

I know what you're wondering though.  Did I make a child cry?  I'm sorry to inform you that I've let you all down.  I did make a child fall on his arse though, which is kind of a victory of sorts.  Either way, we had a lot of fun and the kids got a decent understanding of what Halloween is like in the West.  Although I did refrain from bringing in some fourteen year old parents who never pronounce their consonants and never spell with their vowels to come in and egg people for them to get a real feel of what Halloween in the UK is like.

We also had a Firework Festival on the beach in Busan at the end of October too.  The fireworks themselves were very bright, very loud, very synchronized to a music ranging from Jerusalem to Coldplay to the scratchy disk music of the Dubbing Steppers.  We got there a short while after it started which meant we didn't actually get a spot on the beach.  It also meant we didn't get a spot on the road along the waterfront either.  It did, however, mean we got a fantastic spot right between a fish restaurant and a coffee shop, one street back.  It sounds a bit grim but being 5"11 in a country of Asian hobbits made it much better than just about any gig I've ever been to.  I'm not fond of being in big congested crowds of people.  I always end up feeling uneasy that people are feeling uneasy about me looking awkward.  This was perfectly summed up at the subway station after the fireworks had all gone off and gone home.

The subway station was like a scene about five minutes into any end-of-the-world movie ever made:  There were babies crying, army people shouting at people who were too tightly packed into an already small space and the customary wanker who thinks it's a good idea to bring a seemingly frictionless glass bottle into the fray.  (I know I said at the beginning of this post I'd try to be more positive...  Unfortunately that's starting to erode somewhat).  We waited as train after train stopped, opened its doors to a sea of uncomfortable expressions looking back at us.  We ended up waiting a good five or six trains before we managed to get onto one.  During this time I had a most unfortunate incident which slightly refers to my earlier issue of uncomfortability: Myself and the Turtle stood side by side, priming ourselves for the great shove necessary to get a decent spot on the train.  There were a group of ladies in front of us and the one in front of me had particularly wispy hair.  So much so, a strand of hair had actually placed itself in my mouth.  I hadn't noticed because a result of being a human sinus and a poster boy for gawpishness, worldwide, is that the majority of the time, my mouth is open.  Whilst we were all a matter of inches apart there was no real problem.  The issue escalated when I wanted to turn around to see how many people were on the platform, thus essentially fish hooking myself on a Korean woman's 'do as she and her friends discussed what manner of spackery would lead someone to manage pulling that off in thoroughly disapproving tones.



All in all, it was definitely an experience.


And that's where it ends.  Hope it makes up for the months of abandoned bloggery. 

Yulha-ve to forgive me.

Due to the fact it's been over three months of upsetting silence.  I'm aware I've let you down, myself down, but most importantly, the spamming bastards in Ukraine and Iraq (maybe I've misinterpreted that though, if I have, sorry to all the readers in Kiev, Kurdistan and so on).

It's been a rather hectic couple of months.  I don't mean that in the bad way though, we have spent Christmas in the tropics and in two days' time we leave for Seoul for the Lunar new year.  The reason for this post is primarily to briefly recap on what's gone on between my last post and now before doing more thorough posts on Malaysia.

I've also realised people are 94% more likely to actually read something if it's in a listed format, as opposed to bricked paragraphs of waffle.  So here we go,

Jordan's top five things he didn't blog about between October and January, excluding his trip to Malaysia which will be blogged about at a later date!!

1.  Foreigner seminars!  We've had two.  Equal in their depression inducing tedium, but different in their content.  The first came in mid November.  It was a compulsory seminar amongst all Hagwons in the area, being held in the nearby city of Changwon.  We were given two days notice that we'd have to go to it, but with little information of what to expect.  It was horrific.  We had a minibus (our hagwon's minibus) herd us up and take 10,000 won off each of us (including the Turtle and I, bastards) before chugging us along to the seminar room.  We got some free sweets on arrival.  I filled two pockets worth, just to sweeten my troubles and because, at heart, I'm an anti-establishment rebel.  I told myself that as I slipped an empty cola sweet wrapper back into the bowl and walked into the hall, knowing I was bringing the system down at a grass roots level, at the very least.  The talk was two hours long.  The first hour comprised of a man who couldn't really speak English very well and very clearly didn't understand the physics behind how a microphone worked.  He told us all about how we could go about getting the visas we all already have (the ones necessary to pass immigration on arrival to Korea...) and what visas US generals use.  After dragging out this talk for fifty minutes, he had ten minutes of free time.  What should he do?  He looked into the wings, muttered something in parseltongue, a muted response was returned, he shrugged.  At this point, it could've gone either way: we could've had a ten minute intermission, we could've seen sunlight, stolen more sweets, destroyed the system some more, but no!  He wasn't going to let us go without.  We came for speeches and he wasn't going to let us down.  Like a true hero, he started 'riffing', as I believe it's known in the entertainment world.  He opened his improv act with "I used to live in LA you know..." we were hooked!  He told us all that sometimes people in LA were rude.  Then I think he started talking about his wife.  By this stage he'd got so excited the microphone was here, there and everywhere.  People in the front rows laughed a few times whilst I tried to work out if they were sweat patches coming through his suit.  Something not seen since the dampened Lee Evans.  The latter hour took an even more macabre feel as a man, a professor no less, came onto the stage and told us all about how we definitely shouldn't

A - touch children

B - not even if the children don't mind

C - make sure you're not having a relationship with a child

D - NOT EVEN IF the child seems up for it

E - smile at natives, they might think you're being sexually suggestive

F - complain too much if you're the victim of domestic violence, you must simply ask the perpetrator to stop and come to a compromise.  (Yes, you must ask the person punching you in the face to stop doing so and COMPROMISE with them.  Maybe suggest they just give you a Chinese burn instead?  Compromise.)

G - talk about sex.  (It's a taboo subject here, despite seemingly everyone thinking about it every time you smile at them...)

We then got some fantastic advice on how to pronounce the 'L' sound in two different ways.  That was immensely helpful.  It turns out for 22 years I'd been using a G by accident and no one had ever bothered to correct me.  As a short footnote, this whole seminar began with a montage of songs being danced to by a group comprising of 15 year old middle school girls, all with either short shorts on and/or bellybutton revealingly small t-shirts.  One of the songs involved, by the way, was Sistar's popular K-pop hit, Give It To Me.  I'm only presuming it was something of a test: those who seemed to applaud too rigorously were taken out the back and executed.  

The second foreigner seminar wasn't a foreigner seminar.  We were very bluntly lied to by our directors as a way of forcing us to go to Seoul with them on the Saturday before Christmas just so we could be shown how to conduct an internationally franchised reading and spelling test.  To save money we drove there.  Four hours there, five and a half back.  The demonstrations/explanations lasted twenty minutes.  It made me hate everything for a good while, also because I was intending on attending the orphanage with the other volunteers to play Christmas games and such with all the children.  Instead I spent my day in the back the sole banger in Korea either listening to Mr and Mrs Kim having domestics or watching Mrs Kim get far too comfortable for a person to be whilst driving.  

2.  The pre-Christmas Christmas!  Knowing we'd be in Malaysia for Christmas we decided to have our present-opening/Christmas dinner day a few days earlier.  We'd been sent beef Bisto by my charitable parents.  We used it to drown away my meat faux pars.  The Turtle left me in charge of the pork.  I thought a nice honey roasted pork would be lovely.  Except the recipe ended up being for a Chinese style pork dish.  She spotted things were afoot when the whole apartment began to smell like soy sauce.  Unfortunately I'd also ruined the carrots a bit also.  Thankfully, with enough gravy to wipe out Kiribati, all was well.  Post dinner we exchanged gifts.  I'd gotten the Turtle a Polaroid digital camera with some printer paper and I got a brand new iPodding device, complete with headphones.  I also got a book of maps, because sometimes I imagine I'm quite cool and can be quite intimidating to be around, so if I spout geographical facts like an utter virgin, people might think I'm alright.  At least, I think that's her logic...

3.  Our jobs changed!  We still work at the same hagwon, but rather than being speaking teachers, we're now listening teachers.  At first it was a bit weird, but it's got easier.  It's just so unbelievably boring though.  The amount of times in a day I have to say "All finished?" before pressing rewind, and listen to the same USAish adults putting on nasal children's voices and making weird innuendos.  "Nooo, we're going to have to find my pencil harder.  Find it, have you found it?  Yes, that feels good!  I can use my pencil now!"  is sometimes off putting when you're busy trying to do a Rubik's cube sat in the corner. 

4.  New Years!  We're not the most sociable people at the best of times.  This evening consisted of caramel Bailey's and kilo of Cadbury's taken from Malaysia.  

5.  The Great Shanghai debacle.  So the plan was that we'd spend the LNY over in Shanghai, pretending to be Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson, roaming around and shooting stuff.  We were going to live the dream.  Unfortunately, for reasons I cannot go into too much, our visa applications to the People's Republic were denied instantly.  I can go into it quite a lot actually, I just wanted to say I couldn't to make myself seem more mysterious and interesting.  Alas, it was because our current Korean visas were within 6 months of expiry at the time of the Chinese application submissions.  For this reason, we were told no.  Instead, we're jetting up to Seoul, which is, if anything, a more pun-friendly city anyways, so I'll remain upbeat.  The best of it all though was we managed to get a full refund!!  I could've kissed Ravinda, the man who worked at the 24 hour Expedia call centre.  Such beautiful words he uttered at ten past three, his local time. 

At this point, I've just realised I actually have a blog entry from October/November that I never bothered finishing entirely, so I'll post this now before editing that and posting it.  It'll be something of a bootleg.  Something of an unreleased B-side for you all to enjoy.  

Again, I feel I must apologise for the delays. 

Oppa Gyeongnam Style

Blog readers of the world, I firstly would like to bid you all a short apology for the teenie tiny delay of this (last) month's addition to the blog.  But here it is, all revitalised and shiny, complete with pictures in colour.

It's been a rather hectic couple of weeks but things have rolled on rather pleasingly as we've integrated ourselves further into the local community by doing all manner of tedious things just to get them to like us a bit more.  I'll also be talking a little bit about teaching and some of the more humorous aspects of that as this month really has had some absolute corkers of passively offensive comments, racial slurs and poo-based ghost stories.

Getting a board marker for the bathroom
was the best idea of all time. 

Earlier on in the month we were invited by our agent (I like saying I "have an agent", she runs a recruiting agency and she got us our current job so in a sense, she is our agent) to an English speaking weekend of fun and games!  We said yes under the pretenses of free accommodation and a barbecue in a quite nice rural setting.  It was set up so that our agent's daughter and all her friends (aged 9 I think) could get used to speaking to foreigners and not run off screaming at the sight of us (happens more frequently than I'd like, particularly when I don't brush my hair).  We were told to meet at a coffee shop where ourselves, plus the other foreigners, would be greeted by some of the parents and be driven off into our mountainside retreat.  That bit wasn't particularly awkward at all, no no no.  What was even less awkward was when we were separated into the different family cars to get to the guest house; I was in a rather squashed family car with five kids, one baby and a set of parents.  We made the drive from Busan north between the mountainous landscape and rugged coastline towards our guesthouse.  There was some excellent views along the way, peppered with the new development projects we've become accustomed to seeing in Korea: huge sets of high rise apartments still under development, shopping malls all edging towards completion.  The conversation was a bit stinted due to quite a large language barrier.  At first that always made me awkward but now when you've been given the complete assurance they won't know what you're saying but are too polite to do anything other than smile and nod, you can say literally anything.  I ended up talking about water parks and what I hate about kids.  It was a nice drive.

We arrived at the guesthouse and it was as traditional as traditional gets, presumably.  The house itself was up a stony driveway which cut finely between the pear trees.  It was split into two buildings: one for the people who lived there and one for those who did not.  Between the buildings was a small courtyard which came with a delightfully loud drum and a wonderful bastarding organ.  The foreign teachers' quarters were gender specified which meant I'd be spending the night with a South African fellow who I'd only met a few hours previous.  Keeping in with the 'traditional' feel, our sleeping area consisted of a blanket and a cushion.  That was going to be oh so much fun...

Did the accessories for Prince Albert, apparently.

After setting our things down, we were introduced to the kids; six girls, all friends, all very happy, all very hyper.  We were each paired with a child.  There was one girl who had a broken leg/foot/ankle situation who I hoped I'd get (not much running around being my optimistic thesis).  I didn't get her, I got a girl called Violet who was actually one of the most awesome, both in terms of speaking ability but was also quite funny.
Once we'd been assigned our partners we then had another entirely non-awkward car journey down to the beach.  Some of the signposts worried me ever so slightly though as we started passing signs for "Gori Nuclear Plant".  Why that's not been the location for an apocalyptic mutant zombie movie I'll never know.  The beach was windy.  After the humid sweatbox of Korean summer in Yulha, surrounded by mountains on three sides, it was absolutely beautiful.  We played some games and the like before deciding it'd be a good idea to play touch rugby.  It was going marvelously until one of the more testosteroned dads wanted a go.  Fast forward thirty seconds to a rather quickly established HT whilst we tried to get two girls to stop crying.  "Touch rugby Mr Kim, touch rugby"...  We came back and had a barbecue before some more games and settling down for the evening.  We went into our traditional Korean sleeping quarters where myself and Ashley, the South African laid.  A few feet of uncomfortable floor separated us as we made conversation about cricket and such in the pitch black.  I tried to roll over and settle down before I monumentally twatted my funny bone off a (n undoubtedly traditional Korean) CD player speaker.  I made a bit of a yelp before Ashley said it was stupid and went and asked the lady people next door see about rearranging some of our sleep positions.  A straight swap between the Turtle and Ashley resulted in guilt-free spooning until morn.

A door made of paper next to an organ that must
have been made with revenge in mind.

Morn must've been forty five minutes away as the beautiful, sweet, indescribably cute children found the motherfucking drum and organ.  6.20 we were up, cursing the floor for making me ache, cursing the shower for only having cold water, and cursing the selfish swines who wouldn't just wear a sodding condom.  After a quick breakfast of traditional Korean rice bread and traditional Korean cafe lattes we were off melon picking.  This was quite fun until I got lost and a spider headbutted my eye.  I just wanted to go home.

A few hours of pretending to be okay with being woken up at dawn to Greensleeves on an organ to the beat of Night Fever on the drum slid by as slowly as watching The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, twice.  At around 11am we were treated to traditional Korean chicken soup, which was actually quite delicious.  The owner of the guesthouse then came out and started telling everyone they could stay passed the normal midday time guests usually had to leave.  We, the foreigners, were grateful but said we must get back and would need a lift back to Busan (as arranged) from the parents.  Miss Bitchface began telling us all about this wonderful bus stop down the road with this magic bus that only took an hour and a half of country roads to get back.

Just as I started to consider using a drum as a weapon, she brought out a CD she had made.  The cover was her, this fifty-something Korean woman, in a white suit with a pink fluffy scarf on, sat/laid a bit like Lionel Richie.  We all said how marvelous it was that she'd gone through so much trouble to do that, but really we must be getting home now.  Of course she wanted to treat us though didn't she.  She sat on a ledge, looked down at the ground, looked back up at us, her audience: six kids, two babies, five foreigners (one ran away), and four sets of parents.  Her face full of pain and emotion, heartbreak and the tormenting sadness of love.  She, of course, broke into Yesterday by the Beatles.  Four verses and two choruses later, complete with a few drawn out final notes and I was ready to end it all.  Maybe jump off one of the taller pear trees, or just try drowning myself in the chicken soup...

Saturday was good though.

Chuseok on the beach.

Since then we have had Chuseok, the Korean Harvest Thanksgiving.  This was immense because we had five days not teaching screaming days.  So what did I do to spend my time?  I went to the orphanage!  I love it there, all the kids are a bit weird but entirely awesome.  It was only for one day so I didn't mind going along.  We were told we'd be making Seongpyeon, traditional Korean (I feel I should keep a tab of how often I say that phrase) rice cakes that are sometimes filled with mung beans or even red beans.  DEEEEEEElicious!  I sat there for a while being climbed on and kicked in the face, normal orphanage practice, before we went through to the kitchen area where we helped the ajummas (Korean "aunts" [the old ladies]) with the rice powder/dough.  The kneading took ages!  They use such a little amount of water in the dough I think the only real moisture that went into it was the sweat of the musceless whiteboy who swore a lot trying to get the fucking powder to stick together.  Everyone else managed it though, the bastards.  The putting beans in the dough stage came next which was great fun.  I gave my little cakes a bit of crimping on the edge to give them a bit of fancifulness, a bit of joie de vivre.  One particularly judgemental granny just shook her head disapprovingly.

Twenty minutes or so of intense steaming and they were done!  The fruits of our labour, the prizes of our efforts, the light at the end of the tunnel!  They tasted rank.  I must have got one that I'd made because the outside, whilst gooey and gelatinous (like any kind of steamed rice would) was as powdery as the nostrils of Miss Moss on the inside.  The mung beans were also a bit disgusting too.  I was a bit disappointed so I went to the bathroom, spat it out, and scarpered.  Had a nice time though.

One thing I've definitely neglected in recent blogs is what I actually do job wise.  I'm aware there's a fine line between knowing what I definitely can say and knowing what my directors might decide to search at a later date.  But for the time being, I'll keep it sweet (as sweet as I can given they are spawns of Satan himself).  A few weeks ago my middle school students arrived at a Storytelling module in their books and had to create a a story themselves.  Here is my favourite example of some of the things they created:

"Pleasingly plump"

It was a hot humid night.  A man walked into a restaurant.  When he sat he saw a beautiful woman sitting across the room.  

He asked for her phone number.  She said "no" because the man is ugly.

He was upset so he threw water on woman.  She got angry, so she hit his cheek.  

He prod her eyes with a fork.

The waiter had a fight with him.  The waiter killed the man.  The woman stayed alive and ate the man.

The man was delicious.

They were given the first line or so and were told to go from there.  Truly beautiful work,

Yulha, the new city. 

Our schedules and classes all changed in September so we were each given a load of newly reordered classes.  A few of my new students were a little shy around me at first, now they're right at home in my presence.  I thought that'd be a good thing, it isn't.  I walked into a class last week to "Oh teacher, you look full today" as the delightful cherub got up and started mimicking how a heavily pregnant woman might hold her belly as she walks around.  In another class we were doing a unit on going to the zoo.  Except the Z is incredibly difficult to ten year old Koreans, so a lot of the lesson was spent with me absolutely creased listening to kids talk about what animals they've seen in 'Jews'.  One child, Julia, said she'd once seen a giraffe's head popping out of a Jew before.  The week since the Jew incident, we've had to do both workshops on A) what Jews are and B) how to make a Z sound.  The results
and degrees of success are varied.  On the one hand, they all know what Jews are; on the other hand, one class now calls me Jewdan Big Nose.  Whilst one boy who I was given a particularly hard time about saying Zoo and working on Zs actually has a lisp I'd forgotten all about.  Feel a bit bad about that now looking back.

Anyways, things are still going well.  We've been here exactly 6 months now too and it's all going rather swimmingly.  Still don't like the fermented cabbage arrangement lark though.

The 'Pan Diaries - Part 2

Day 3

Today we had to do the painstakingly awful rigmarole of breakfast again.  Sitting, surrounded by all happy chirpy families, talking about the events of their trips, both past and future.  It'd be lovely at any other part of the day, aside from when you'd be much happier dreaming away beneath the blankets.  The plan for today was to see the Fushimi Inari-Taisha (the big orange gates off Memoirs of a Geisha) along with seeing a Golden Temple before having another go at finding the Gion Walking Tour (of where the Geikos live).

We set off with all manner of gay abandon south-bound towards the Fushimi Inari-Taisha shrine.  It was during this time we got our first taste of public transport in Japan.  It's confusing.  Some lines are shown on some maps and some aren't.  I don't know who thought that would be a good idea, but they're an idiot.  Anyways, we found our way to the shrine with relative ease, due largely to the fact that we're well-travelled all-knowing wanderers of the East.  At the main entrance to the shrine a man asked me if I'd take a picture of him.  I made a joke about walking off with his phone but he didn't understand (at least that it was a joke) so I just took the photo and he took his phone and walked off pretty sharpish.  Walking up the OCD-ly neat main walkway (driveway really) to another set of massive gates.  Just off to the left of Massive Gates 2: The Gates Strike Back there was a little pond/water fountain piece.  We saw people walking over to it so thought we'd have a gander.  On closer inspection it was used by people to wash their hands and mouths out.  There were two large wooden containers of water with a stone drainage system all around it.  People would use large sticks with little bowls on the end to pour the water into their hands and their mouths.  The Turtle was well up for it, I was less excited.  I washed my hands but I wasn't putting a stick/bowl contraption that could well have just had some snotty kid that had come to be healed slobbering all over it near my face; it repulsed me no end.  What's wrong with a hand sanitiser and some Listerine??

The midday heat bore down on us with little reprieve as we sought shelter under the Massive Gates 3:  Return of the Massive Gates.  It was by these gates we saw some people ringing bells and clapping before doing a little prayer.  I'd like to have known where such a ritual came from.  Without knowing much of the religion it seems as if they're more just trying to get their God's attention.  Suppose it's only fair.  If we have to deal with Jehovah Witnesses ringing bells he's got Shinto fellas doing similar.  Behind Gate 3 we also found a wall where people had left tiny gate replicas (which couldn't have been any larger than six inches tall) on hooks all along the wall.  People had left the usual drivel, such as "Greetings from USA!!", "I wish all the sick would get better right away", "Good will and hope will set you free".  I wanted to get one and write "I wish no bollockpain on anyone" as a nice message for all.  Turtle said she'd advice against it, using her "Go on, try it Punk" stare.  I didn't have a pen on me, otherwise I definitely would have...  Or definitely thought about doing it some more...

On our way up some more immaculately well-kept steps, despite our nativeness to these lands, we came over all stupid touristish and ended up buying our own Yukatas for a far too expensive price.  We continued up some steps and came to the main event:  The big orange gates.  There were absolutely millions of them, winding off into the forest, up and over hills.  We spent a good forty minutes walking past slower, less able, tourist groups and soaking in as much of the scenery as possible.  The trail of gates went on for absolute miles but given our rather hectic schedule we concluded that after nearly three quarters of an hour of gates, we'd probably seen all the gates we'd needed to see and made a quick dash back to the train station.  Outside the train station we stopped at a shop and got a bottle of what we believed to be orange juice because we were both comprehensively parched.  Despite this Christian Aid appeal level of thirst, we didn't finish the juice because it was absolutely disgusting.  I have no idea what fruit makes juice as impossibly unpalatable but I've had bad relationships with less bitter aftertastes.  Think I'll stick to water next time.

After valiantly forging a path through downtown Kyoto, which definitely did not include me falling asleep with my face up against the window, we arrived at Kinkakuji Temple, otherwise known as the Golden Temple.  We weren't disappointed.  It was in a secluded area on the outskirts of Kyoto surrounded on three side by deep green rolling hills
and a small lake protruding from the feet of the landscape nicely in front of the temple.  It would have been lovely if approximately 45 million tourists hadn't been hogging all the nice view spots.  Nevertheless we tried to keep our distance from the rowdy crowds of excitable subcontinental Asians, the Japanese exploring their own culture and history, and the Americans screaming "OH WHADDA FANTASTIC PHOTO OP" every other millisecond whilst halting the progress of the masses and deathglaring any foe who dared to walk past the aging chubbies as they tried to take their photos.

The Turtle and I made good progress until we came to a little alcove in the lake where we saw some Koi carp.  At this moment I feel it appropriate to attest to knowing literally nothing of Japanese culture, especially with regards to what animals are seen as sacred and what religious beliefs they may withhold.  APPARENTLY the Koi carp is seen more as a pet and a symbol of friendship or something in Japanese culture.  It should also be noted that English speaking people in Japan are a lot more common than in Korea. As a result of living in Korea, I've become accustomed to making crude jokes, often talking about people in the room "Jesus, what's wrong with her face?!" and nobody bats an eyelid because I'm just being foreign and indecipherable.  In Japan, they know what you're saying.

Anyways, we got quite a nice spot in this quiet corner of the lake, we watched the Koi splash about in the shallow waters just beneath our feet as we stood next to a mother and her two young children.  I thought they (the fish, not the mother and kids) looked quite fat
with a decent amount of meat on them, so without thinking, I commented that they "looked delicious".  The mother of the children turned to me with a complete look of surprise and horror and repeated "Delicious?!" with a rather highly raised intonation.  At this point I could see the Turtle absolutely die of embarrassment.  Before I could dig myself any deeper she promptly told us we should "probably move on", which was probably a very good idea.

After destroying some more American photos we made our way around and came to the exit of the little walk.  It was another beautifully serene place, it's just a shame it didn't feel like it.

A quick relaxation period in our room and we were off again, on our way due south east to the area of Kyoto known as Gion, the hope of potentially finding the Walking Tour we'd so massively failed at just 24 hours previously.  We found them with ease.  A rather international bunch led by a woman called Mary or Molly (I couldn't tell, she even said it like three times, I still had no idea).  We walked around much the same route as we had done the day previous whilst trying to actually find the tour, which made me feel like I knew a little bit more than everyone else.  Getting a decent bit of background knowledge of the history of the area, the culture and the rise to prominence of the whole Geiko community was fascinating.  What was less wonderful was actually being part of such a big, very obviously touristic, group.  I truly hated being part of such a big group of people who were herded around much like sheep, just saying the same "wwooowww that's fantaaaastic" and "PHOTO OP" whilst intruding into people's personal lives with a 8x zoom.  It was made worse by the fact there was a really stupid person in the tour who asked too many questions.  Questions that need not be asked if one has even the slightest hint of common sense.  Nay, I'd go one further; questions that one need not ask if one has not yet been lobotomized.  The tour lasted about 1 hour forty minutes, but it probably should have only been about twenty five had we have avoided dragging round that human spanner.  My least favourite moment came when a Geiko walked past the group and Molly/Mary immediately burst into the loudest whisper I've ever heard that we should all take pictures.  And like gawping zombies most of us did.

Overall though it was very pretty and the tour was actually quite interesting, just a bit awkward.

We walked back into the main part of Kyoto on a promise of some wonderful sushi from a restaurant we'd seen high praise for on the internet.  After a good while of looking, we had no luck and asked a passing business man.  He showed us the place and it turns out we must have got the wrong name or something, so instead of just leaving it at that and getting on with his day, he walked us a good ten minutes or so to a sushi restaurant he thought would be of excellent quality at a relatively cheap price.  What a nice man.

It was my first sushi experience, and I was nervous.  I'd only just managed picking bits of fried chicken up with chopsticks and now I was being asked to pick up bits of uncooked fish perched (fish pun count [FPC]: 1) on bits of rice with my sticks!  In my mind I was going to cause haddock (FPC: 2) and be asked to leave after ruining the furniture. I didn't know how I was going to manage so I was a little hesitant to enter the plaice (FPC: 3).  We were shown to our seats in a booth next to the conveyor belt of oceanic goods.  Looking up at the assorted buffet upon us, I codn't (FPC: 4) believe the variety on offer.  There was green stuff, blue stuff, red stuff, pink stuff, all manner of stuff!  I decided to play safe and went for a salmon mayo arrangement.  After two or three of those I became more adventurous and got some other stuff, including some outrageously spicy things.  Once we'd got trout (FPC: 5) of there we both agreed that we'd had a halibut (FPC: 6) time and that we should head back to the hotel and use the baths.

I am now at wizard level with Asian bathing.  I washed, scrubbed and rinsed everything like an absolute pro before waltzing over to the roasting pit of bubbliness.  It was a lot hotter than I remembered it being and consequently had to do a little bouncing act as the water levels rose up my legs to the sensitive regions to try and acclimatize myself as quickly as possible whilst refraining from turning my goolies into third degree burnies.

Went back to Earl's Bar and Restaurant to drink Pimms.

Today was good.

Day 4

Did the same miserable breakfast shite.  Had the diced egg and some tiny sausages whilst trying to make sure blinks didn't evolve into tiny naptimes.  Today the plan was to mosey on down to the Nishiki Market before dallying up to the Philosopher's Walk.

The thing I first noticed about the market was that large portions of it smelt like socks during a particularly bad dose of fungal infection.  It wasn't conducive to browsing.  The closer to the centre of the market we got, though, the more things opened up and stopped making me wish sinusitis upon myself.  An assortment of shops ranging from those selling high-end bags to gypsy traders selling tourist tat to those seeing Kyoto for the first time.  I cannot comment on whether or not I bought relatives' Christmas or birthday gifts in the latter section of this market.  We bought the Turtle a couple of quite nice rucksacks as she's now a Tour De Korea contender and her basket just isn't big enough for a decent bunch of bananas (steady now) let alone any proper shopping.  She seemed happy so all was well.

After a mild but entirely expected issue with public transport I.E. the bus driver didn't want to let us on, we taxi'd our way over, somewhat ironically to the Philosopher's Walk.  One thing that really miffs my nuggets is the fact that Japanese maps won't necessarily point north; and if they don't they'll seldom make it clear which direction is up.  As a result of this bloody madness I got irate and suggested we stop for lunch before we'd started.  A beer and some wonderful pizza later, accompanied by some sun-position judging and intensive map scouring, we found the walk.  We'd already been on it, at least part of it anyways, whilst finding a map to tell us where it was.  It was basically a path that ran parallel to a little stream along the north eastern outskirts of Kyoto.  As it was a 'philosopher's walk after all, I kept quiet and contemplative.  I was philosophising.  Some highlights include:

He who scrambles may not dunk the soldiers.
He who does not sleep much can not dream well, nor can they get the required REM cycles required to feel perky the next morning.
He who eats the jam does not leave the bread.
A laptop is like a tray for those without WiFi.
When a man peels onions, he will cry.  When a woman has a baby, she will cry.  Peeling onions and having babies are the same.
He who cooks the pizza twice burns the pizza.  Don't eat at his house, he can't cook.
Those who look to the stars for inspiration, may walk into doors accidentally.
He who wishes to be a she, may tuck it betwixt his legs and just pretend that his name's Barbara.

By the end of the walk the Turtle seemed quite relieved just to be going back to the hotel, I have no idea why though.  The walk itself, or what I noticed of it when I wasn't being all wisdomic and stuff, was actually really nice.  It was a very peaceful part of town and it was just pleasantly understated, which is definitely not something Korea has cottoned onto just yet.

It was our last evening in Kyoto tonight.  So what did we do?  Did we go traditional sushi place?  Did we go Kobe beef?  No and no.  We went to Earl's Bar and Restaurant.  Why?  Because they did a Sunday Roast on Saturdays and Sundays.  It was glorious.  Whilst the absence of Yorkshire puddings was a heavy blow, it nevertheless transported me back to dinnertime at the Carr residence.  The potatoes weren't quite as nice as Papa Carr's, but they were still rather pleasing.  We were given a free plate of chips before our mains because we'd been such loyal customers.  I think the real reason we were given anything was to make us feel better after being told the awful news that we'd drank all their Pimms.  A night on the cocktails wasn't a bad way to round off our time in Kyoto though, all things considered.

Day 5

Went to the corner shop, cried because they had loads of delicious cheese.  Bought a lot of spices we can't get back in Korea before calling it a day and heading back to the station.  We did have a minor incident which involved ending up on the fifth floor of Osaka's train station.  Quite why a train station needs so many floors is beyond me.  Though our intentions were entirely innocent: we really did just want to get across to the bus station, we did walk in on a rather intimate photo shoot including a very well dressed (in terms of quality of clothing, most definitely not quantity) young Japanese woman and a much older, warmer looking gentleman clutching an undoubtedly quite expensive camera.  He looked cross that we'd walked in on their little shoot.  Never mind.  After making our way back through the station, a place as well sign-posted as Mid-Wales, we made the bus with one minute to go.  Feeling like absolute heroes, we settled down and fell asleep until the airport.

Saw a storm cloud from the window of the plane.  Terrifying scenes.  Squeezed my box of juice and it squirted all over the headrest of the guy in front.  

I hate flying.