"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.