Of the week!

Ready.  Disclaim.  Fire

One of my main concerns around the commencement of this blog would be that if I did anything more than one blog post a month I could potentially compromise the content and end up posting any ol' drivel.  However given that the blog is conventionally written in 'prose', there will be some odd offshoots, trinkets and other such things that wouldn't necessarily fit into the blog but I'd still like to document regardless.  The Ode de Toilet being a prime example.  As a result, the dodecagannual (I am taking full credit for that word, fuck you oppressive red squiggly line) blog will continue, along with a series of side stuffs: lists, 'Racist of the Week's, etc. etc.

I remember before I came here, one of the greatest source of information was the blogs of people already here.  Obviously every director is different and every area of Korea will have a different set of circumstances, different cultural perceptions and so on.  All I can really do is try to give an accurate description of what is really just an 'average' ESL job in SoKo (yes, yes I just did).  If there's one thing I love, it's a good informative list, so going by that, here's my Top 10 on things I wish I'd known before coming to Yulha.

Jordan's Wondrous Fantastically Informative Top 10 Things He Wished He Knew Before Coming To SoKo (just did it again, deal with it)

10  Korean is important

English is one of the most common languages in the world.  The language of business and of science is often English.  English is everywhere?  WRONG!  In the bigger cities like Busan and Seoul, you'd more than likely be able to find someone to help you find where you want to go; or be able to order a meal without pointing like a simpleton on day-release.  Out in the towns of the outskirts of the satellite towns of the suburbs of aforementioned big cities, life is a little different.  So far in Yulha I've found a woman in a post office who speaks passable English and I think that's about it.  Now, don't get me wrong, I love charades as much as the next jovial chappy, however there's a stark difference between playing it half cut with your family on Boxing Day and using it to describe 'passport sized headshots for Alien Registration Card needed urgently, please help'.  

Helpful advice: Learn Korean, or at least the alphabet so you can read place names.

9:  It's not English, it's American

"Teacher!  Teacher!  Say 'wohdrrr'"  that is the sound of my middleschool pupils in a rather confused state.  'Wohdrrr', of course, is 'water' and to pronounce it in the British way truly baffles them.  All kids here are taught the American way of spelling and pronouncing English.  It's all trashcans, soccer and leaving the 's' off maths.  I found it quite distressing at first and a small part of my soul erodes into nothingness every time I ask a child for an 'eraser'.

Helpful advice:  Desensitise (spelled with an 's', yes.) yourself from all emotion.

8:  That I'd be living in Yulha

Okay, to give some context to this one, here's a rough guide to exactly what Yulha is.

Yulha is small, it's near

Jangyu, which is a bit bigger, that is near

Gimhae, which is a bit bigger than that, and Gimhae is near

Busan, the city!

A common trend amongst directors in Yulha is to understate Yulha in the job description.  And by 'understate Yulha' I mean 'lie about location'.  Myself and the Turtle both applied for a job in Gimhae.  Gimhae's subway link to the Busan main subway network makes getting to the golden beaches, sparkling ocean and bustling, cosmopolitan streets, laden with cafes, galleries and European clothing brands a breeze.  After passing the interviews we were told Jangyu.  Only when talking to the people preceding us did we find out where we'd actually be living, a few days before we flew out of the UK.

Helpful advice:  Presume you'll be in the arse end of nowhere.  It's actually quite nice here anyways.

7:  How to use chopsticks

Handcramps and splashed noodle juice all down my new trousers.

Helpful advice:  Practice to the soundtrack of Rocky.  Start by trying to lift Quavers and move up progressively to things with less friction, like Lego bricks.

6:  Korean people will have better hair than you, you suck.

Some things in life I'll never understand:  Brian Cox, Alan Pardew's 4-5-0-0-0-0-1 formation in the 2012/13 season, the geometry of Nicki Minaj, and how on earth a Korean's appearance can be so perfect.  It's rainy season, it's humid as hell and yet some how every Korean has maintained a perfect image of hair Godliness.  Their hair doesn't budge from it's perfectly sculpted mold and they don't even sweat!  I had one student last week comment on my shiny forehead.  It doubly upset me as that day I was attempting to sport a fringe.  

What they look like

When I try to look presentable

Helpful advice:  Invest in a paper bag, you look awful.

5:  Race of Spades

Given that you are a disgusting oaf with a mop made of wire and dispair, it is clear you are only here to indoctrinate the youth and steal the beautiful women.  This point is more just about a lot of the older generations here having an almost immediate dislike of us vanillas (I see myself more as a Caramac/beige, but that's by the by to them).  I think given the fact that thirty years ago their writing system was vertically, moving right to left, and has since been altered to suit foreign investment (The US = some Americans are white = I'm white = I DESTROY CULTURE).  I had no idea of that aspect of the Korean mindset, that was more just ignorance on my behalf though.  

Helpful advice: Don't be white.

4:  Proper Tea Ladder

After a long, stressful day what's that one thing that provides the ultimate release?  Opening the doorway to unspeakable divinity?  Nope, not heroin, tea!  Tetley, PG, Yorkshire tea.  Or as I find myself repeatedly needing to specify:  "English breakfast tea".  The ridiculousness of this is that it's perceived only to be drunk at breakfast.  Fools!  It also bears the chronic, unforgivable, Anglocentric blindness to the Celtic contingent of the British Isles, where tea is consumed by equal impressiveness in quantity.  Unfortunately, EBT has not quite caught on as one may have envisaged.  Korea likes tea, there's no doubt about this.  There's an entire isle dedicated to it in most supermarkets.  I am devastated to announce, however, that this is not what we would assume to be 'real tea'.  These innovative Asians will literally have a bash at making tea out of anything:  Apricot tea, berry tea, corn tea, other kind of berry tea, endless rows of herbal teas, green teas, blues teas, teateas (lol) but no 'proper' tea.  Homeplus, a supermarket chain in SoKo (oh, just did it again) which is owned by Tesco does stock good, honest tea.  But so far, that is the only place we've found that distributes the liquid Jesusness that is "English breakfast tea".

Helpful advice:  Bring tea.  It doesn't even matter if you go over your weight allowance on the flights over here, the fines are worth it.  You can earn more money, you can't earn more tea.

3:  What Korean actually sounds like

We've all seen those English speaking films that often have scenes based in China or Japan to add an air of exoticity (new word, fuck you red squiggles).  You often see the Asian characters talking in their native dialect to one another before shooting the side kick of the good guy, usually the side kick who gets shot in the chest makes a full recovery from the mere flesh wound, punctured lung and ruptured heart just in time to save the day.  The point of all this is to emphasise (oh, another 's'.  What of it?) the fact you seldom get to see or hear Koreans speaking their own language.  It's far more guttural than other East Asian languages.  This is presumably due to it being considered by many etymologists to be part (please keep reading) of the Altaic language family, which is a family stemming from Central Asia: the land of the stan's.  As a result of this more earthy, back-of-the-throat dialect, people can often sound like they're dying mid-sentence.  Vowels can sometimes last for hours and can evolve from a simple "Annyeonghaseyo" to "Annyeonghaseyoooooooeeeerghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh".  Don't worry, they aren't distressed, they're saying hello.

Helpful advice:  Just because someone sounds like they've fallen awkwardly on a meat cleaver, doesn't mean they have. 

2:  Churches, churches everywhere

I read somewhere, probably on Wikipedia that religion played a little part in life in Korea.  This seed was planted in my head and it soon developed into a "Korea doesn't need religion, it's got common sense!".  I was wrong.  I'm not sure on the statistics, but there are churches here, there and everywhere.  They're unlike the ones we see back home, in that they aren't hundreds of years old.  They look more like buildings designed by the council when it's got too much money: a lot of unnecessary glass and curves.  We actually live next door to a church.  The big difference, for me, is that in the UK, Christianity is seen as a given: you can just say you're religious, whilst sinning to high heaven without it making too much of a difference.  Here it seems it's a lot more about proving a point; showing you are Christian, not just having people presume it.  As a result it's kind of a big deal here.

Helpful advice:  Don't.  Say.  Jehovah.

1:  How to teach Korean children 

This isn't to say we came here with no teaching experience.  But it's such a vast shift from what we had both experienced it was hard to grasp at first.  There's not really too much I can say on this in case it ends up as part of a smear campaign against them poxy under-qualified whites by one of the national broadcasters.  

Helpful advice:  Speak slower and louder to people who don't speak English.  This should be sufficient practice for you.  For more thorough practice, steal Asian children from parks or supermarkets and talk to them to hone your skills. (If they're going to quote me I may as well make it a good quote)

Ode De Toilet*

Bit of something extra

(*Courtesy of the Turtle for excellent punnery) When we first moved into our new apartment, despite the fact we were gutted it was the size of a shoebox and were up at 6am every morning because of the fothermucking builders next door, we were thoroughly chuffed at our new toilet.  The suction from it is like someone's burst an airplane window, it's phenomenal.  For those who weren't aware, our previous toilet worked about as well as the idea of multiculturalism in the Third Reich.  As a result, my relationship with the Turtle became a lot stronger because of some rather horrific plunging experiences.  

Anyways, at around 7.30am on our first morning in our new place, I decided to focus my positivity (also because we didn't have any internet) and wrote a poem.

Pulses racing, the adrenaline rush,

At the sounds you make, at the way that you flush.

With water cascading, you efficiently drain,

To end the misery, to halt the pain.

With a warmth in my heart, joy in my eyes

To see the ways your waters don't rise.

From all around, people will flock

And look at you flush and refuse to block.

To have a toilet like you!  I must be a dreamer,

With your suction like a great vacuum cleaner.

I look at you, my heart growing fond,

I look forward to the times where we can bond.

Sometimes you'll cause arguments which will make Kaylie frown,

Because I will have forgotten to put your seat down.

But seat up or seat down, I'll always love you;

Even if I fill you with weewee and poopoo.

Yulha One That I Want

(You Are The One For)

oo-oo-oo honey!

That time of the month (blog time)

Some rather pleasant, uniformly steps.

Hello blog readers from across the continents, or as I like to call you, my mum and her bored work colleagues.  Another month has passed, I'm still alive and things are generally going rather well.  I'm getting better with chopsticks and North Korea still hasn't condemned me to a sea of fire, so it could most definitely be worse.  It's been a little quieter this month in terms of not having to move apartment on 14 hours notice again, it's always nice to have that little bit of time to relax and not sweat like a maniac lifting a mattress up some stairs on a sweltering Saturday afternoon.

The Great Culinary Impasse

Gel for your Bumooly, has nothing to do with
this section, but it clearly says BUMOOLY
Worth sharing I believe.

Despite some of my greatest efforts, I'm disappointed to report than Korea has not fully accepted the knife and fork.  I'd considered that my bringing of cutlery, like the man who brought the potato to Europe, would be seen as a masterful, life changing (does anyone actually know his name?) hero of a man.  Instead people just look at me funny as I fling plastic forks down hallways screaming that they just don't appreciate true genius.  I don't actually do that (I do).  I was well aware that I'd have to brush up on my chopsticking before I got here, and though I wasn't great to begin with, I am becoming more of an intermediate with them.  The thing that struck me that I reeeeally wasn't prepared for though was scissors.  I don't mean for like, wrapping paper or cutting tags off things, I mean for cutting up their meat.  Rather than just knife and fork their meal they'd rather get all Neil Buchanan on it.  It's less 'tucking in' more making a sodding collage.  I think I suffer more being left-handed: all scissors being designed for right majority.  It's just yet another notch in the bedpost of Rightist brutality against us left-handers.  I'd hazard that contextually, I could write blues music about it.  I won't though.

Thunder on the Mountain

One of our big exploratory days of the past month was a voyage up the mountains to see a more 'Traditional' Korea.  First we visited our maiden Buddhist Temple (complete with authentic Buddhist giftshop, filled with all manner of Buddha spoons, key rings, bracelets and tapes). We walked up approximately four hundred thousand rocks/steps (rustic looking to say the least, also not wheelchair friendly.  So if you are disabled and were thinking of converting religion, I'd stay away from the workings of Siddhartha Gautama).  We passed a very pretty pond, going over a little humped bridge with a neat water feature off to the right-hand side, which made me wish to use the toilet facilities of the giftshop rather sharpish.  Once at the Temple we were treated to some spectacular views of the mountains away to the South and West.  I should say at this stage it wasn't as such one temple, it was more a commune.  There were a number of old fashioned Buddhist pagoda buildings.  The surrounding silence made it feel like we'd stepped back in time, until I turned around and noticed one of the buildings was covered completely in scaffolding.  

They were thinking about getting the lounge
knocked through but were reluctant because it just
wouldn't add value to the property.

We were later treated to a very 'Traditional' Korean tea house.  I'm not sure where on a map you'd find this place but I know it was around the 14th century.  The only road leading to it wasn't a road, it was more a dirt track.  Once we arrived at the tea house a man in grey pyjamas greeted us and we took off our shoes (why on God's earth are Converse so fricking difficult to remove under the pressuring eyes of a watchful Korean pyjamaman?!).  Our room was shown to us; there was a table which came to around 18 inches off the floor and there were no seats.  I feel I should mention right now that we were shown all these things by our wonderfully helpful and kind co-teacher/Korean mother, Why (that's her name, I think.  It maybe a code name, I'm too scared to ask).  Why sat down with all the grace and elegance of a petite Bolshoi performer.  Kaylie also dealt with the task of performing the stand-to-sit-down-lotus-position with relative ease.  Conversely, I looked like the darted elephant you see on wildlife documentaries that needs urgent medical attention.  My legs kind of wobbled around as I didn't know how I was actually going to attempt the manouvre, I ended up just falling on my left arse cheek as my right knee cracked the dwarf table on the way down.  Why laughed.  We were treated to a charming selection of little transparent teapots and tiny, like seriously tiny, cups.  Rather than drinking the tea we just did shots of the stuff; felt like I was in Yokos in Aberystwyth, rather than wherever I was at that moment.  I was very close to starting a "WE LIKE TO DRINK WITH KAYLIE" chant, but I didn't want to break the tranquility of the surrounding area with my yobbish lout-like behaviour.

After we'd been filled with Japanese apricot tea, corn tea and the other less important teas, we headed to a less traditional US chain restaurant in the foodcourt of a Mega Mart.  It was going so traditionally well...

One Race to Rule Them All

Yulha at sunset.  I took this photo.

I've read a lot lately about the seemingly larger-than-expected issue of racism in Korea.  Before coming here I'd heard very little about Koreans being racist, so I never really had any grounds to worry about things from that perspective.  It actually turns out they're chronically racist (GENERALLY).  You know how your grandparents talk about immigrants?  Like that, but worse.  A nationwide broadcaster called MBC will produce endless amounts of accusatory stories about them darnded white folk coming over here and molesting our children whilst forcing our women to marry them!  I now hate myself for being an evil child-snatching woman-thief.  But in all seriousness, given the fact that in Yulha, a pretty rural, countryside kind of place, it's not been that bad.  We get the odd grumpy taxi driver but that's about it.  Other than that, people just stare at you because you're different, but it's mostly a curious, naive-like stare, rather than a 'fucking foreigner' style stare.  I hope...  One thing that did bug me was the fact that on the kids' report cards there are two feedback sections: one box for the "Teacher" and one box for the "Native".  Not "English teacher", not even "Native teacher".  Just, "Native".  Seems they haven't quite got over the fact we 'look different ergo must be different'.  I suppose we were the same though when immigrants started docking boats on our Western lands not so long ago (see Grandparents for reinforcement of point).

Koreafication

Gwangali Beach at night.
One of my favourite places ever.

We aren't quite blending in appearance-wise, but I have noticed myself picking up a series of Koreanisms.  I find it second nature to bow my head whilst giving change at a checkout.  Although that did need a bit of perfecting: you need to start to bow in the middle of giving the money.  If you start bowing and THEN outstretch your arms (two hands, I'm not an amateur) it just looks like there's some weird magnetic connection between your head and your hand.  You'll look odd.  My spice tolerance has also greatly improved.  When I first arrived I'd have a bowl of noodle soup and cry sweat out of my eyes for three days, now I'm absolutely fine.  Although we've both noticed that 'spicy fart smell' (see Gimhae I Just Met You) has disappeared... Further indication of integration, surely.  As the foods go, the fruits are both weird and stupidly expensive.  Paid four quid for a mango!  I don't care how juicy, juicy a mango is, I'm not paying the amount I could pay for 20 Freddos on one solitary mango.  The Turtle also had a minor issue with what she thought were lemons, but actually turned out to be melons.  'Oriental melons' are in abundance here, they're like the melons you see back home, but a lot smaller (you have a disgusting mind).

"Teacher!  Teacher!  Rock.... Scissor........ HOUSE FIRE AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH YOU'RE DEAD NOW"

"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.