October, Movember and now!

Ok, ok... I fully admit that I am pretty bad at keeping up with this blog... yes - I should take more time and actually dedicate myself in even a small way to keeping up with it but sometimes I just can't squeeze in a bathroom visit never mind attempting to create something of interest on here... but I will endeavor to try and make more of an effort!

So - what has been happening? Well... I'll start back in October then and work up to now...

October was a relatively quiet month - sort of...

First off - Danielle and I had the absolute pleasure of a visit from my Mum, Dad and brother Tomás! It is surprisingly difficult to encourage family and friends to come visit - we figure that it is almost like going on holiday to Australia, as in the distance travelled and the jetlag with it needs to be justified by the time spent away - so unless people can get away for 2 weeks or more then it is not fair to expect them to pop out to the other side of the world!  It is different for us popping home... I have this silly self-belief that I won't suffer from jetlag - or at least I can put it off for a few days before it kicks me to the ground.

The only drawback to the visit was that Danielle and I had to work during the week - which meant that they had to entertain themselves Monday to Friday until 5pm - though admittedly they had disappeared off out each day for a walk/adventure around our little city - which is another nice thing about where we live... it isn't that big that you can get really lost and it is simple to wander off and visit random new places too.


It did give Danielle and I the chance to revisit some interesting places that we thought might entertain them for a while - Independence Hall in Cheonan, the giant gold Buddha 15mins from Chungju, Daejeon (admittedly only for the night), even visiting Gangnam again to go to the giant caves there... a bit of an adventure in itself! lol!

We also got to finally go to the DMZ - a trip on their final weekend to round off their visit to the lovely South Korea... which was made all the better by having a few friends there too (Hannah, Elysia and Jordan).

   

Unfortunately the family had to leave us just before Danielle's birthday - though we did get to celebrate it a little early with them.  On the day itself we went out for a quiet dinner (as is the done thing at our age) and then the real celebration was the following weekend with a trip down to Daejeon to meet up with friends and  to let everyone go as mad as they wished!

October also gave us a chance to reclaim a Gaelic traditional event that many Koreans just assume is from America... a little re-education was called for in relation to Hallow'een!

Although we had looked online for costumes, early in the month, we didn't order anything or plan anything really - one of the other EPIK teachers (Aiden 'Party Boy' McVey) had suggested having a shindig on the Saturday before with a visit to an abandoned office building near his apartment.... so despite plans to go on boat cruises in Seoul, partying in Daejeon or hiding at home and watching scary movies - we attacked the whole dressing-up thing early on the Saturday evening by getting a few little cheap bits down town (including face paints) and then threw some costumes together.

Danielle went for the 'Elphaba' in tribute to her cousin who plays the role on London's Westend show 'Wicked' - and I went for a Zombie style thing... Nadia (who was having her first Hallow'een experience) went for a vampire look - complete with self-made teeth! Good job!

November seen charity and education on Men's Health come to the fore - with surprising results!

In an effort to raise some funds for research into Prostate and Testicular Cancers - I signed up for Movember and began the growing of a mustache much to the dismay of Danielle... though she fully supported the reasoning behind it.  I also taught my Grade 3 students about Movember, prostate cancer and even went so far as to teach them how to check their testicles for cancers too... which despite the giggles and embarrassment (from the female teachers) it all went rather well - though my official staff photo did see me taking the piss a bit with mo and glasses giving me a 1980s professor look!

All was going great until I developed a cough while trying to get a bit fitter.  I'd taken to running up from the ground floor of our apartment block all the way up to the very top (17 floors in total - the top two are only for maintenance) - pretty knackering in itself!  But when the cough didn't go away - and ultimately led to me spending a weekend in bed sick - I agreed that maybe it was a little more than just a cough, and a bit of a cold, and went to see a doctor.  Turned out (five x-rays and a lot of coughing later) that I had a sinus infection and quite severe bronchitis and was given a concoction of drugs. I ended up laid up in bed for 3 days before being forcibly returned to school to sit there instead of wrapped up in bed... (yeah... I know!)

So Movember ended with this....

but with also a very nice total of £374 donated by friends and family which I can only thank them for with all my heart! THANK YOU ALL!!!  This total also made me the second highest Movember fundraiser in Korea! Go me!!! lol!

So... now we are into December - I've turned another year over, we've got a Christmas tree up ready for Santa to visit, school is drawing to an end - we've a nice holiday planned to Malaysia and Thailand for January as well as 10 days home in Belfast in February before the whole year starts again... though this coming year we plan to spend significantly less, be consciously on the lookout for potential jobs back home (hope Skype interviews are becoming more common), also think about where we want to live when we get home (job dependent of course too)... and if we are blessed we will possibly have a bundle of joy to bring home too.  Though with all that being said, if the jobs are not there and costs are too high then we may consider staying here longer than just 2 years... hmmmm... no final decision on that until we are there!

Ok folks - that's all I have for now... possibly be back here at Christmas though I have set myself a target of recording 12 songs by the end of February (that was planned before the holidays were booked so I might fail!!!) so that may take up most of my free time unfortunately... BE GOOD - BE GRATEFUL - KEEP SMILING - and in case I don't make it back on here:

Happy Christmas to you all!

I've given up on the summer... lets just move on...

As you can see... my coverage and update of how we spent our summer months died a sad death - to be honest there was just so much to cover in the East Coast trip that I couldn't find the time to get back to it.

So, instead, I am just going to post a couple of pics below for you to have a gander at and then I'll move on:

This is a short bundle of photos from our trip but with over 1,600 shots it might be better for you to check them out at your own leisure at our Flickr pages here and here (two folders - 1 for each camera)!

It looks like water... ssshhh!

So, besides summer camps, driving all over the country and a couple of birthdays it was a reasonably quick and painless summer - in that we didn't have to spend unnecessary amounts of time in school doing absolutely nothing which was a massive relief.

September seen the 2011 Chungju World Martial Arts Festival happening out the road from us and as it was within walking distance we got to enjoy most of the festivities.  The weather was good, there was enough entertainment to keep us busy, and it even fired up some desires to learn some forms of martial arts for ourselves.

It all started on a Friday night - so most of the Guest English Teachers (GETs) in Chungju went down to see what was going on which led to some drinking and shinanigans!

The following few days had displays of various martial arts from around the world (as the title of the festival would have suggested) and it also provided great opportunities for us to try our hands at activities too!

Again - all photos are available to view at our Flickr Photostream!

Too long... so very long!

Let me start by saying... Sorry...

It's been too long since I last posted on here and so much has gone on that I will probably forget to include many of them.

At the time of the last blog, I was in school for the last official week of term - but that did not mean I was finished!  After school finished I had a tough schedule to keep me from resting and relaxing - the infamous desk-warming was not given the opportunity to raise itself.
For the following fortnight I was teaching 2 hours of guitar (starting at 8am), then 2 hours of English Essay, then a short break for lunch before 4 hours of English Summer Camp... I was knackered after 2 days never mind 2 weeks of this!
I had also been asked to take a summer camp in a country school which led to much negotiating and arguments / discussions.  Initially they had asked that both Danielle and I teach it together but Danielle's school went out of their way to make it impossible for her - even going so far as to tell her that although she did not have to come into school, she could not leave the city... nice!  So I was left to do it on my own.  My school proposed that I take my final 4 days of summer leave but teach in this other school for 5 days... but the other school would pay me too so it would be OK - for doing this my own school would then give me 2 weeks desk-warming from home (to do whatever I wanted... including going on holiday).  My school are nice to me!

Summer Camp wasn't as bad as I thought - though I was disappointed with the level of English at my school compared to the country school.  The students there (Angseong Middle School) asked me lots of questions about me, western boys, western girls, their education options, their aspirations - even what they could do to fulfill their dreams!  I had a very funny and enjoyable week with them and we even made a short music video for Justin Bieber's song Baby (click to see the youtube video we made)!

I did mention Danielle not leaving Chungju for the summer... so if you are working at Daerim Elementary School and you are reading this - SHE DIDN'T... she stayed at home watching old Grey's Anatomy re-runs and crying again at the last series of Brothers & Sisters....

...if you don't work at Danielle's school then we hired a car and went AWOL for 2 weeks to travel down the East Coast of South Korea!

There were two main biggies for me on this holiday - 1) getting away with Danielle and being able to do whatever we wanted, when we wanted to, and 2) being able to drive again - I miss the freedom of having a car and being able to live out of it!

Our trip brought us up to the very north of the East Coast - and our first night was bloody awful as we paid too much for a dire campsite too close to the beach in Sokcho.  We had planned to stay in the Soraksan National Park but it was already dark so we went for one a little easier to find (as directed by their Tourist Information services).  The noise didn't stop - and as a bad omen for the following 13 nights it rained most of the night keeping us even more awake than the pumping house music and bad Korean entertainment floated through the camp.  The next morning we woke (well, stopped lying down in a tent) with two missions - to go to the DMZ on this side of Korea, and to find a nicer place to stay that night!

And we did both!

The DMZ on the east is not really designed for international tourists... it seems that it is predominantly Koreans who go here (probably because they have to make special applications to visit the more touristy DMZ closer to Seoul in the west).  English was in very little supply other than to tell us that we didn't need to sit and watch a 30min video that was compulsory for the Koreans to watch.  Everything up here was a little creepy, a little dated, almost as if they were just waiting for the war to restart and therefore it was probably better not to tidy or clean as it would all be a mess again in no time once Kim Jong-Il and his son decided to visit Busan!
Abandoned building works, masses of barbed-wire, fenced off beaches with razor-wire, concrete bollards to narrow roads, even the modern attempts that the two halves of Korea had initiated together (before the North decided to shoot a civilian, blow up a SK ship and bomb an SK island) sit awaiting reanimation - highways which have stopped, bridges built but just not finished enough to use in a road-worthy car; left as they were... eerily held in limbo.

The problems in North Korea have been well documented (or at least as well as can be) over the past decade.  We know there are problems with food supplies, people dying of starvation, mass numbers still living in concentration camps - but standing looking at the North you could be forgiven for thinking you were looking at a 1st World country... the clean highway with surprisingly good lighting (though it was day time so we don't know if they work) linking North and South, the railway system doing the same, clean beaches (which as part of the DMZ have almost been left for nature to manage); and clean, well maintained buildings from which their soldiers stare enviably at the liberated South (or so I imagine - as I guess they live in fear for their families and friends, thoughts encouraged by watching the documentary film Kimjongilia).

Colm's nifty parking - it was a space... and we would fit!

More to come!

Friends to stay and a quick trip home!

Well, we've been busy over the last few weeks!

Between friends coming to visit from the US, and us flying home for my brother Michael's wedding, we also have had to plan our Summer Camp activities, sort out holidays, re-negotiate our holidays, debate about our holidays and then agree to lie about our holidays... more on this later!

June ended with a lovely visit from Meg and Isabel. Meg travels the world over all the time - well, it seems she mainly heads to Europe a lot... a lot a lot! But between interviews for new jobs she and Isabel bounced onto a First Class flight with Delta and slummed it with us for 5 days!
They got to see some of Korea... though since the monsoon weather had come early and it was raining heavily since the moment they landed until the moment we left them to fly home - we're not convinced they seen the best sides of Korea! lol!
Nights out at a Booking Club (where women are brought to men's tables and introduced - or PIMPED!!!), paint-balling in a forest, eating out every night and partying... maybe even getting a kiss or two - I think they liked it.

It was also Elysia's birthday weekend too - hence the Paint-Balling and trip to Seoul - so there was a good size of group (not too big to cause major headaches).

At least we think they enjoyed it... and of course there were tears before they flew home - from Danielle and Isabel!

The following week Danielle and I said our goodbyes to Korea too as we set off back to Belfast to celebrate Michael and Aoife's wedding on the 4th July.

The journey there and back was eventful - but not in a good way.

We started off by successfully getting a bus directly from Chungju to Incheon Airport - saving us the need to use the Seoul Subway system and the hassle of shifting our bags around the city.  Checking in was speedy and simple - our luggage was checked through to London Heathrow where we would pick it up and then jump on a plane to Belfast... if only it was so simple!
Our flight was announced as leaving 10mins earlier than planned which meant we would have a bit of extra time to wander around Abu Dhabi Airport, which is quite a nice place but 30 mins later we still had not moved.  When we finally did taxi out onto the runway and the thrusters we kicked into gear (Make it so No. 1) the plane rumbled, then rattled, then bucked, then shook itself to pieces... before the brakes were thrown on full and that fatal announcement rang out "Cabin Crew to man doors" which left the staff white faced - which considering they were mostly of tanned skin was quite disturbing.  Of course all the dials on the plane read 'normal' but something was definitely wrong!

After 3 hours of being watered, fed and watered again (all the time sat on the plane) we went for a second attempt following a suspension part being completely replaced by the engineers... and lift off was successful.

Now, considering we initially only had an hour and 15mins to spend in Abu Dhabi, Danielle's fears began to surface as she stressed about whether we would even make our connecting flight... and she was justified to - but since there was nothing we could do to make the plane fly any faster we calmed down and hoped for the best.  The best was landing 15mins before the flight was due to leave (thankfully our pilot had made up 2 hours due to a good tailwind and keeping the pedal to the metal... or the leaver to the geaver (if there is such a thing)... and we ran through the airport to our departure gate with minutes to spare.

Only London and Belfast left!

London was fine... except that when leaving the plane a gentleman was standing there waiting to greet us and kindly let us know that although we were in London, our baggage was not... and wouldn't get there until 6pm. This posed a small problem in that our clothes and presents for folks at home were in those cases and we had to get another flight to Belfast at 4pm!

To cut a long blog short - Danielle's bag was sent on the 8.30am flight and then delivered out to my parent's house on Saturday afternoon, and after numerous phonecalls and hassling the staff in Belfast, my bag came in on the 9pm flight that night.

It was great to be home - and made a nice change from Korea.  Seeing family and having some craic with them was medicine in itself.  It was also wonderful to see how the little ones had grown since we left in February - one of the hardest parts of being on the other side of the world is missing them grown up.

Of course - the whole reason for going home was Michael and Aoife's Wedding... another great event!
Although Michael barely looks old enough to buy alcohol - they both looked wonderful on the day and even the weather held out for them.  In a way it was very traditional with the Quinns pulling out all the stops for their daughter's wedding - and they did her proud.

I'll not even start on about the flight back - suffice to say Danielle and I will most likely never fly with Flybe ever again... 1.5 inches was enough to cost us almost £100 extra and the loss of a case merely.  You pay for the bag - and then they also charge you because the bag has it's own weight! Twats! And even the staff at Manchester wanted to kill the incompetent member of Flybe staff as they provided 6 luggage codes for 2 bags going to South Korea... they were not happy and told Flybe it directly! (Loved listening to that phonecall).

So, now we are both back in Chungju - and looking towards the summer... which has me teaching at 8am each morning for 4 hours, then taking English Summer Camp in the afternoons for two weeks... then being told to take 4 days holidays but that I will be working for 5 days at another school (1 day unpaid) taking their summer camp... and Danielle being told that she cannot leave Chungju between now and September... her life is owned by the school! lol! The chance of us not leaving the city is somewhere between the sun rising in the morning and an orange koala taking up residency in my desk! We are getting away from here for 2 weeks and exploring the East coast of Korea...GOSPEL!

Oh, and for those who read our last post and wanted to see Danielle's dress for the wedding:

'Til the next time!

...decided to do something different...

Its only 7 days until Danielle and I return home for a flying visit.  We are both really excited to see everyone and can't wait to jump on the bus to head up to Seoul ready to fly.

The reason for the trip is that my youngest brother, Michael, is getting married to his Secondary School Sweetheart, Aoife, after all these years together... and we are so pleased for the both of them.

So, as with all weddings, a girl needs a dress to wear - hence a trip up to Seoul, for the first time in a few months, to search for a dress for Danielle.  But rather than merely posting pics, I decided I'd do something a little different this time and upload a video instead... so here goes.

Championships, Frolics and Anniversaries...

I am quite conscious that this blog is supposed to partly function as diary of our time here in Korea... but since I don't have the time to sit and write it every week, it is proving difficult to always recall what happened when, with whom and where...

I guess I will go back to the middle of May and go from there - and casually try and piece together what has transpired from there on... (if I can remember!).

The last day I wrote was during my school's Physical Testing for all grades, partly in preparation for the school's Sports Day the next day.  This meant there were no classes at all for 2 days and so I was left preparing for the coming weeks and popping outside every so often to provide support and encouragement to the students, though the hot weather limited my input there to merely taking photos.

The day started with the strangest all-grade warm up exercise - which I think was an absolute waste of the students' time as none of them did it with any shred of intent - where stretching down to touch your toes was met with arms falling down by their sides and a general look of 'yeah, like I'm going to embarrass myself by bending over'.

I think the only people that actually did try to do the whole exercise with some conviction were the staff who were resigned to the back of the classes where they could follow along without the cat calls from any of the students who might catch them in action.

One of the most comical elements of the day was the array of slogans, names and titles that the students had printed on their shirts.  With the usual football stars from across the globe, titles such as 'champion', 'the best', and 'winner'; there was also a few that don't quite have the same meaning in English as they do in Korean.
The best, and cleanest example of this, comes from one of the Grade 3 students below:

The Korean meaning is 'as strong as a horse' but the more direct translation is 'muscle of a horse' which in the Western world has a slightly more phallic innuendo to it.

It was a great day and lots of fun - though I did nearly kill myself by playing in the Student vs Staff football match during lunch... too warm and fully clothed was a sweaty experience - I've yet to learn if I can wear shorts to school yet.

The week was topped off by our male staff making it through to the finals of the Chungju Volleyball Championships - which meant school finished after the 4th class on the Friday... but that did not mean I got to go home.  Danielle's female staff team had also made it to the main event but were put out early on the Friday much to their dismay but it did mean they had added time to enjoy their BBQ and allowed her principal to get torn into the soju and beer quite early too.  My team didn't have such luck...

After making it through to the final after a tight win earlier in the week we were faced with some very close matches that ran on and on as the points remained close together.  I had figured that since I'd shown my face I  had therefore displayed some commitment to the school and could then leave but my wife had other plans as she got more and more into the game and screamed support for my school from the sidelines with my staff - though the look of despair wouldn't make you think she was enjoying herself!

The day ended at about 6pm with our team narrowly missing out on the no.1 spot to a very strong team with an ex-National Champion playing for them.  But we all enjoyed ourselves and it was a real school bonding experience despite my wanting to leave early!

Weekends have settled down for us here... we are successfully not gallivanting around the country or up and down from Seoul each weekend.  Instead we have been going to the park or a Saturday or Sunday and relaxing with friends, playing sports and generally letting the world revolve and time pass.

This does allow us to get some colour (or burnt) but we can't complain... and yes, we have now bought some sunscreen, lotion and aftersun as Danielle was so sore from sunburn after our last weekend doing nothing in the park!

Last weekend was a long weekend off, Korea was celebrating Memorial Day on the Monday, so we decided  that we should head off for a long weekend somewhere.  The plans had been to go to Busan and enjoy the beach there but despite our best efforts and hours of translating websites into English we were unable to secure any accommodation.  In the end we opted for going to Daejeon, a place we have been before, for a quiet weekend of doing not too much other than go to a couple of sites and have a look for a Hanbok dress for Danielle.

The hanbok didn't really happen - and the one site that we really thought we'd enjoy turned out to be a bit of a horror.  We had planned on spending most of Saturday in O World, a zoo, theme park and garden park in one... but after going around the zoo we had completely lost all heart.  We were annoyed and sickened by the conditions that some (most) of the animals were kept, from dirty enclosures to those without any water at all.  This also extended to their attempts at the humane enclosures that they had for their safari sections which were just too small for the number of animals enclosed there.  Maybe its too much of watching Longleat on tv but we felt dirty having been there! This place was only opened in 2002 so it should have been uptodate, cutting edge, the pinnicle of modern zoology but it was far from it.

Overall we had a lovely time with just the two of us... and also got to see X-Men: First Class at a very nice cinema after a small tour around the city.  We headed home on Sunday and settled down for a nice quiet night  of relaxing and enjoying each others company - what we do best!

Yesterday was our 1st Wedding Anniversary... it really doesn't feel like it has been a year at all - especially since we haven't really stopped anywhere long enough to get bored or for time to drag along so everything has kept moving.  I guess we had imagined that we would be in Korea but we didn't have any idea what it would really be like... or indeed that we would even definitely make it here.  We had a nice quiet evening with a couple of friends, food and ice cream which was just what we wanted... not sure whether we will be here in Korea for the next one or not yet but I'm sure we'll be happy all the same.

If married life goes by as quickly as this year did then it is definitely going to be an easy life for us...

Finally, I'd like to say a big thank you to everyone who has wished well or sent us their love for our anniversary - it is greatly appreciated and even if we don't respond to each of you individually then know that we mean it nonetheless.