Plenty of stuff.

I have been away from my blog for a wee while, so I'm going to fill ya'll  in on the past events of late.

13th April

I had just finished teaching at about 3pm, with grade 2 and they had been pretty terrible when one of the teachers came in and told me were going hiking right then.  I had no hiking gear and I was dressed far too formally for such an activity.  However I had no choice, but to go along with it.  So I hopped into the Principal's car and proceeded to be a passenger for about an hour and we winded our way to a hill in Busan that we would climb.  Once we finally got there we had to wait around for about half an hour because some of the teachers in another car had gotten lost on the way over.  Finally when we were all together we set off up the big hill.  I have to say dressy shoes, smart trousers and a shirt are not the desired items of clothing for hiking.  They did not stop me, but it certainly made the going much tougher than it needed to be.  Parts of the hike were up well walked paths, but others took us onto paths closer to animal trails.  The views were great and at one point we came across some naturally growing flowers.  This was amazing for me because prior ro this, other than cherry blossoms I had seen no real flowers.  I have never really considered myself a flower man, but I think when you have been brought up in a country that appreciates them and then without for several months, one misses them. 

The exercise was certainly good for me, but the hike munched up much of the day and I was left dusty and tired, yet I was unable to return to my humble abode.  No, I had to go for a meal with the staff.  I thought that it would suck, not because the food they normally choose to eat is bad by any means, but because I just wanted to go home.  However I was happily suprised when I found that we were going to a buffet, because there, there would at least be options.  An amusing point is that when I was asked if I like buffet, their accent and just the general way they said it, made it sound like they were asking me if I liked pupa, to which I flatly said no.  But they persisted and one of them showed me the translation on his phone, so naturally we all had a good laugh.

When we arrived at the resteraunt it because clear that this was not your normal buffet, this was going to be good.  Looking around we looked somewhat out of place, my group was all dressed for hiking, whereas the rest of the clientel were dressed up, I felt at least my being overdressed would make me blend in...well the best one can when you are one of the few white people there.  The resteraunt was called 'The Party'.  The food was good and there were options of dishes from around the world, plus it was all you can eat, so I just tried a bit of everything, then picked out what I liked and ate plenty of it.

However after the initial joy of finding that we had gone to an eatery that I would enjoy, there was the issue of the group did not seem to understand the concept of leaving.  We must have been in there for at least 3 hours.  All were done a fair while before we finally left.  I could not say anything about wanting to leave because I was entirely dependent upon someone else for a lift.  So I kept stum and twidled my thumbs for about an hour.  Because although conversation would occasionally float in my direction, for the most part people wanted to speak in Korean, which is fair enough, but it just turned me into a third wheel.

All in all the excursion had been good, but it had taken up all of my afternoon and night and for long periods throughout the day I was fairly silent since I lack the language skills to otherwise participate.

16th April

On this day I went into Busan to meet up with Matrt and a bunch of his friends, they were all in the city for a stag do.  Two of the attendees were going to be getting married shortly after.  I did not know either of them, but that had let me tag along.  I arrived a little later than them, since I was coming from a different direction.  At first I had to get past the not knowing anyone bit, that any one suffers at first being the odd one out.  But I was looking forward to a day of being around people that I could properly communicate with.  It was supposed to be a whole day and night of festivities.  So when I arrived at the Fuzzy Naval in Haedunae I made sure I got some food down my neck. Then afterwards we set out to drink a couple of beers on the beach.  At first this was fine, but as time eeked on I began to feel the chill of the wind because I had changed into smart attire as I had been told we would be visiting a casino, which would be a first for me.  But acting on standard western thinking I dressed up.  However we spent an inordinate amount of time on the beach, so by the time we left I had lost feeling in much of my upper half, so the wind was not bothering me so much, but regardless I needed to get out of the cold.

As with having a fair sized group of guys (12) we had the standard group mentality, in that we seemed unable to make a decision between us and so we spent long periods of time standing and waiting or arguing about the next course of action.  Howver we finally made it to the Casino and I discovered three interesting facts.  1.  I did not need to be dressed up.  2. The minimum bet on most of the games and tables as well as the slot machines were very low.  3. Koreans are not allowed to gamble, so there would be only foreigners in the Casino.

I spent a fair amount of my time at a roulette table, just passing the time really.  I put roughly $20 dollars down as my stake money and as the time wore by my money ebbed and flowed, but by the time I decided I was done with the game I left breaking even.  I had won no money, but I had lost none either and I had bided my time as the others won or lost much higher amouts of money than I was willing to part with.

After a long period in the Casino I was getting hungry and after persuading enough people we finally made our move onto somewhere to eat.  We had some very Westernised food, basically burgers all around, I think.  They were good though.  At this point I realised that other than the beer I had had on the beach, I had not been drinking.  I was not excesively bothered, but rather just suprised, since this was supposed to be a stag party.

Then we finally moved onto a bar and we came across some people we knew, not from Busan, but the area we were in is an area frequented by western teachers.  We spent some time in there and some of the group left for home at about 10pm.  Then we moved back to the Fuzzy Naval and it was a good atmosphere there and soent some time in there before atempting to go to a club.  At this point only 3 of us were together: me, Matt and another guy.  But we were turned away, they said that we were not dressed correctly and too old.  I can tell you that I was neither under nor over dressed and I cannot be too old, unless this club is designed for children.  I believe the actual answer is that we were white, because Koreans worse dressed and older stumbled past without issue.

Finally we came to the end of the night at a place where you pay to sleep on the floor.  You get a duvet and a floor mat.  I had thought it would be terrible, but it was not allo that bad, yet I still awoke naturally early and returned home to get some real sleep.  All in all the stag do had been infuriating.  There had been some high points, but due to the lack of organisation it had dragged on endlessly with long periods of boredom.  Yet, not the worst time either, when it did finally get going things were alright.

20th April

Not a long one here, just that we played volleyball again.  I did in fact have gear I could wear for this, I had pre-empted it, by just bringing some comfier clothes in case.  Basically all that can be said here is that I was terrible and made a complete fool of myself.  Yet this is basically the second time I have ever played, so I wish they would stop expecting me to suddenly get good.

21st April

This day was interesting and as ever tinged by infuriation.  I arrived at work early as always and dressed in my normal rather formal attire.  I had gained some knowledge of some students going on a trip that day from the messages that fly about on the school messenger.  However the messages are in Korean and I must translate them, so obviously they do not make much sense and I must use a lot of guess work.  I watched as the students formed up outside.  Then I became a little suspicious, so I approached one of the teachers and asked which grades exactly were going.  After a few attempts of explaing, I had thought I had myself partially clear and the teacher said grade 1&2.  Satisfied I went back to my room.  Then she came in and gave me a piece of paper which had a chart and Korean on it.  I just sort of blankly nodded and then sat back down.  She came back once more and then said grade 5, then left.  I became rather confused, why would grade 1, 2 and 5 go on a trip together.  At first I pushed it aside and just thought they would do differnt things.#

Then after a short while longer I looked out of the window and saw most of the school outside.  Once more my suspicions arose.  I looked up and down the hallways and they were clear of teachers and students and many rooms were locked.  I did however find one teacher and I knew she would understand me because she has better English than some of the others.  I asked her what was happening and she just happily said "We're going on a trip".  I returned with, "Oh, and what about me, am I to stay here?" She looked a little confused and said, "No, you're coming too."  I just stared at her for a moment and then explained that no-one had told me this.  She said that the trip had been moved forward a day due to forthcoming weather.  Again I explained that no-one had informed me of any trip that I would be attending. 

She told me I should pack up and get my stuff.  I hurried along best I could and met her outside when I was done.  She told some of the other teachers about my predicament, all looked suprised, but none could do anything for me.  Once more I was expected to just tag along, regardless of whether I was ready for it or not.

I was piled into a car with some kids because there were not enough seats on the coaches they had hired to seat everyone.  The journey was not too long.  Once at the place, I had some fun with the kids and saw some interesting things at the Millenium park that we were at in Gyeongju.  I saw some mock battles and a display of horse archery and horse acrobatics that was pretty cool.  But once again I was wearing the wrong attire and because I had had no warning I had not been adaquetely prepared to spend the day in the sun.  So as you can probably guess, with my colouring I got sunburnt.  There were some pretty cool things in the surrounding area that I would like to go back and see, for instance there was a building that had what looked like a cut out of a pagoda in it's middle.  Pretty cool.  I also saw a huge hot air baloon in the sky.

All in all it was a good day, I got out of a busy day at school and I got to view some pretty cool sights and I also got to hang out with the kids outside the school walls.  Yet it was still tinged with irritation due to the fact that once more I had been unprepared because I had been left out of the loop until the very last moment.  I guess from now on I just need to have a spare change of clothes at work, in case.

22nd April

Another short one.  This just to say that I finally got around to ordering an oven.  This should improve my quality of life some because it will re-open culenary doors I have had blocked from me for the last 4 months.  I know many people here who eat out every day.  But for me, I like to cook and I really miss oven baked foods, but baking and general cooking.  I will actually be able to have baked potatoes again!

This weekend

 I have done nothing of note.  I have cleaned my flat, cooked spaghetti bolognase from scratch (no premade sauces here, nor even tinned tomatoes) and let my sun burn heal some.