Water disaster, White Day and teaching.

Woke up this morning to find that there was no water coming out of my tap- not that there usually is when I wake up but it certainly hurries along whenever I turn the tap on. This time there was none to be coaxed out at all. Of course, I didn't find this out the moment that I woke up as I had to conquer my fear of the huge spider that had moved into my sink overnight first. I couldn't help wondering if the spider had been employed by the Mokpo City Council to stop me finding out about the water shortage straight away. I wonder if everyone else had one too!

Turns out that the water is out in the whole of Mokpo for the next two days at least. Also turns out that most of the people at work knew about this- being able to read the notices up that had been put up in Korean. Obviously my bragging about my Korean classes and the advances I was making there (counting up to 11 now!) led them to believe that they don't need to tell me stuff anymore and that I will find it out the hard way instead. This seems to happen on a regular basis according to some of my friends here- the water shortage that is rather than the lack of communication between the Korean and foreign members of staff at the hagwon. Therefore a lot of the buildings have water tanks on the roof for just such an eventuality- not mine of course- but some do. Which at least means that there is still bottled water in the shops and tonight I intend to wash in only the cheapest mineral water that my won can buy. How I am going to flush my toilet is a matter I don't even want to think about right now!!!

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To change the subject for just a moment. I was speaking to a friend of mine earlier on today- she is still home in London- and it occurred to me that I haven't told you much about the actual teaching here. So, as a brief aside from tales of drunken debauchery (well, drunken tales if not debaucherous) I will tell you about my hagwon.

I am employed to teach 30 hours a week though I am falling far short of that at the moment. Classes are forty minutes long with a five minute break between classes- just long enough to run back to the teachers' room and grab the books I need for the next lesson- and go back and get the CORRECT books whenever my mind has malfunctioned and I have picked up the wrong books. I don't wear a watch so I keep a little alarm clock on my desk to make it easier to pace myself. But I don't need to check the time for the beginning and the end of the lesson as this is marked by a sudden blast of loud music- sometimes Korean and sometimes Westlife. Now, which do I prefer, let me think.....

Anyway, my longest day at the moment starts 2.50 and finishes at 8.45. I have one break for 50 minutes while I have no class but the rest of the time I just have the regular five minutes between classes. I teach kids and adults and none of my classes are bigger than six students presently. The kids' hagwon education is in addition to the time that they spent at their regular elementary or middle school. My shortest day is only two classes- one at 7.20 and one at 8.45. it is quite humbling to know that by the time I am starting classes the kids have already spent around 12 hours in various classrooms or at music or martial arts lessons(nearly wrote marital which would have have you wondering about what kind of a country Korea really is!).
I alternate classes with a Korean teacher so the kids have me one day and Sandra the next. So I see my students either 3 or 2 times a week and one class (lucky little devils) have me every day. I only work Monday to Friday though there are lessons on a Saturday- as the kids will tell you as they go to school and the hagwon on a Saturday most of the time. Some of them even have private lessons at home so their education never stops. Very different from back home.

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I also forgot to tell you about White Day last week I believe. As you are aware, Valentine's Day is on the 14th Feb and over here it is not celebrated by receiving cards from nameless admirers- rather it is a day where girls give boys chocolate. March 14th is where the boys get a chance to give a little back as they buy the girls candy. And, as it should be, on both days it is traditional to give your teacher something- so we were inundated with candy last week from the kids- hooray!! There is Black Day on April 14th- where all us sad singletons get together, dress in black and eat black Chinese food (though the kids were unable to be more specific with me than that), we also have Teachers Day, Children's Day, Parents' Day, Rose DAy, Wine Day and Ring Day to look forward to- to name but a few that I can think of right now. Must admit to looking forward to Wine Day! And why don't they have a Soju Day???? Because every day is a soju day!!

HOORAY TO THAT!

Nori bang, trousers and Paddy's Day....

Well it has been another hectic week here in Korea. Full of triumphs rather than downfalls so that is pretty cool. First achievement had to be the purchasing of trousers last week - hooray! Just when I thought that I wouldn't be able to buy any clothes over here EVER I discovered that they do make clothes for the odd freakishly fat Korean. Most chicks have a waist about the same as my upper arm - my thighs are bigger! But I found two pairs of trousers last week and so am made up and was more than ready to wear out my new nastily checked trousers for Paddy's Day at the weekend.

But first I had to make it through Friday night. There was a right old gathering at the pub with a much higher percentage than usual of Koreans in the group - which made it even easier to order beer which was nice. Then we moved onto the soju and things started to go a little hazy for me. Just how confused I had gotten was immediately obvious the moment nori bang (singing room) was mentioned and I smiled and said that I would love to go. There was a pretty even distribution of foreigners and Koreans at the nori bang so we had a bit of a bi-lingual session. And I made my nori bang debut with no other than the first record I ever bought - 'Take On Me' Aha. Another proud moment in my life. We finished on a rousing chorus of 'My Way' and tumbled into the street. This seemed like a good opportunity to make it home before things got even more hectic so off I went - leaving the others to go off to the night club unchaperoned.
I got home OK and checked the window was still shut before entering and in I went. Time for a bacon sandwich and a quick chat to the goldfish before bed (have a strange memory of trying to stroke one of them at one point and wishing for a more interactive pet!).

Saturday morning I went down town for my traditional 'can't do anything more hectic than this' Saturday McDonalds. Then it was time to go home and pack my bag ready for the trip to Seoul in the evening.

A group of us met at the bus station. The guys all got completely eyed up by some bloke in the toilets who made a point of leaning into the urinals to get a better view. the girls fared much better, and off we went to Seoul. The journey was pretty quiet with only the odd worry about accommodation being voiced. Well, I guess that we had all relied on someone else sorting it all out and none of us did. Ho hum.

Still we made it to Seoul OK and met up with the rest of our mates in the pub (The 3 Alleys in Itaewon). We bought our official Paddy's Day pub crawl t-shirts and started on the green beer a day early. Once again it was weird to be in Seoul and so surrounded by other foreigners after all this time in Mokpo. I managed not to stare too much and because this was Paddy's Day weekend it was OK to say hi to everyone because there was a little festival atmosphere going on.
The night finished for me around 5 in the morning when I ran back to the motel to nab a space in the only room that we had managed to book between us. There was a condom machine on the wall in the bedroom and a communal brush hanging by a piece of string off the mirror in the hallway - lovely gaff.

The next morning it was Irish breakfast in the pub - which meant, of course, plenty of Guinness was being ordered. The poor Korean barman really had my sympathy and I had money on him having some kind of a nervous break down by lunchtime. He was taking orders for pints of Guinness and other bar staff were just giving them away. He even asked us if we would order something else! On 17th March - I don't think so buddy!

After breakfast we had to go to the main street in Itaewon for one of the weirdest Paddy's Day parades I have ever seen. And I marched in it!!! Surrounded by Koreans in their traditional dress and even a bunch of beautifully made up ladies decked out in full highland outfits playing Scottish bagpipes. It was surreal to say the least. I had a shamrock on one cheek and a green star on the other. We got separated and when my little group met up with the others again they had procured a huge banner from somewhere and were marching in the middle of the parade proudly bearing it aloft. All of a sudden my little white flag didn't look as cool - though I was pleased when I read the Korean (I have been practising my alphabet) to discover that it said 'Saint Patrick’

But it was very weird to see all these Koreans with green hair and even a little baby with green smudges on his face. Definitely one of my most interesting Paddy's Days even if I was knackered yesterday after having gotten back to Mokpo around 5.30am!

And on that note I am sure that you will excuse me if I leave you here.

Take care.
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Shopping, noses and numbers...

Well, hello there one and all,

So here I am in Mokpo and it is lovely and warm today. Which is great but worries me a bit since I have no summer clothes here. But it is good to see the sun. Though it is still a bit chilly at nights.

No sign of anyone trying to break in again so that is a relief. I have also relaxed enough to be able to sleep with my back to the window- though it has taken nearly a week to do so. So what has been happening in the exciting world of Mokpo that I have to tell you about?

Friday night started off fairly quietly. Then someone suggested going to a club- oo-oh! We stopped at the convenience store on the way and bought a few bottles of soju to swill on the way to the club. It is rude to walk along the street eating and drinking here in Korea but this was of little consideration when we had soju and a thirst. So we went to the club. The guy put us up in the balcony as far away from the dance floor as it was possible to get while still being in the building. They brought over the usual beer, fresh fruit platter and dried fish which we then abandoned to head downstairs to the dance floor. Now I take back all I said last time about the Koreans not getting into the whole dancing thing. In this club they were animals! It was great. First off there was a singer and dancers on the stage. These were then replaced by three gorgeous young bits of totty in suits- but they seemed to have forgotten to put their shirts on- shame on them! Just as we were all getting into it the DJ took it down a few notched and everyone left the floor. We did temporarily ourselves and then decided to just put on a show for everyone so we leapt back downstairs again and put on the wayguk (foreigner) floor show of their lives! Well, we enjoyed ourselves even when the bouncer came and got the bar towels off us.

Still it was fun and only one of us didn't make it to the Korean class the next day. Progress on Korean class is as follows- I can now count to ten - which theoretically means I am sorted as all other numbers are combinations of that. That is apart from the other numbering system they use. Yes, nothing is easy over here. There is one lot of numbers for hours and one lot for minutes. One lot for counting things and another for asking for a number of things. Just the kind of thing that is really easy to learn when your lesson is on the Saturday morning after the Friday night before! I now have the alphabet sorted- mostly- and now just need to learn what the words mean. It is like learning some secret code. It is funny when you decipher a word only to discover that it is the same word in english- such as bus, lighter and lemon juice. I even found out that my roach spray is that old favourite Raid! Quite fun. I still can't talk to cab drivers though and generally just smile a lot and say fungus (english) in answer to all questions. Seems to frighten them off.

But I think that my crowning achievement in Korean class is finally mastering 'Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes' in Korean! A skill worthy of much celebration I am sure that you will agree! A vital life skill- it has stood me in good stead for all these years in English speaking countries after all. And I am learning enough Korean to freak the kids out when I understand them (or just pretend that I do- hee hee!)

After Korean class we went shopping and took with us a Korean guy that I met in the PC bang a few weeks ago. He was amazed to see just how much western adults are like teenage Korean girls! We bought danglies for the phones and key ring for each other. We all have our favourite cartoon character- mine is a little character called Gamzadori (potato boy) whose catchphrase is 'I love potato'. I have attached a photo of him to this mail. I have writing paper and notebooks with him on. Some of the others like a character called Dalki- she even has her own shop here. Gamzadori is often drawn sitting on the toilet- weird. But not as weird as what I saw in the window of the Dalki shop- a cuddly toy poo- complete with grinning fly! And inside was a toilet paper cover that is a man squatting over the squat pot doing the business- complete with little felt 'business'. It is a strange obsession over here and I have been told of flash cards that just show different coloured poo for the kids to learn their colours from!

So now I have three things hanging from my phone- the very cool turtle that I have had for a while, a power puff girl and a key ring with a photo of me and my mates from Saturday in it. I feel so Korean. But none more so than when I went into town this morning and bought a pair of check trousers- very popular here. Now, as a foreigner in Korean I am more than used to getting stared at- my life is a constant round of saying hello and getting embarrassed giggles back from the young girls that have plucked up courage to say hi first. Fine. This has led to a rather dangerous philosophy of 'they are going to stare at you anyway so you might as well do what you want'! So on the way home from town (i was walking as it is such a beautiful day) a lady stopped me to ask if I was living here. I said yes. Then she asked if I was working here to which I had to admit that I was. Then she said that she hadn't seen many.. I was patiently waiting for the word foreigners at this stage... BIG NOSES around! Well, that is a first for me. I quite like being a foreigner and I certainly give the locals enough cause to dismiss us all as a crazy breed- but BIG NOSES! Well, my hand flew to cover my nose (which is actually fairly big it has to be said!) and then she said that her husband is the only big nose that she knows. I know the Korean for nose and now I will listen out for Big Nose comments!

Still, I managed to buy clothes so now I am going to go home and try them on. Oh yeah, for those of you worried about how I was going to get on with the ATM- fear not- the first thing that I found was that two of the three ATMs near me have a button clearly marked 'English' and the rest is plain sailing!

Up to Seoul for a very Korean Paddy's Day this weekend!

Taxis, Glasses and Socks...

Hello All Over the World type folk,

Here's Hels in Mokpo again to share my last week (or so) with you all. This might be a quickie but then I always promise that and then it turns into a long one and I have to go back to the beginning again and delete the bit saying that it was going to be a short message. And in taking the trouble to explain that this has now become longer than a lot of the messages I have sent over the years!

No Korean class this last Saturday which all involved were eternally grateful for. I, for one, was way too hung over to even wake up enough to put my contact lenses in for quite some time. We had a bit of a soju party on Thursday night at Tim's and then led onto to the other side of town to continue until the wee small hours (I love not starting work until 3.35!!). Feeling a little fragile the next day, I hauled myself out of bed and to work where Tim had already been for an hour. Had to laugh when I walked in and saw an empty Red Bull bottle on his desk- hee hee! And you can't even get it here, he brought it back from his recent trip from the Philippines for whenever he is too hung over to make coffee so the other teachers couldn't appreciate the joke as much as me. Friday night was party night over at Trish's and despite promising myself a soju-free weekend (after much discussion with various folk about whether or not Thursday REALLY counts as the weekend) I was back on the lemon stuff almost as soon as entering the room. Highlights include falling over and breaking beer bottles. Well, you have to question the logic of a country where you aren't allowed to wear your shoes in the house(through tradition rather than strict law enforcement before you get the wrong idea) having really shiny floors in all of the residences! People, in this case drunk people, sliding around shiny lino covered floors in their socks- well, it is a disaster waiting to happen really, isn't it! But at least it is easy to clear up the beer, i guess, which wouldn't have been spilt if people had slid on the shiny floors, which are easy to clear beer off etc etc. I ended the night phoning Trish from the car park to let her know that I couldn't find my way out and that I was having a go on the swings and hoping not to throw up. Got home just in time to hear the cockerel on my neighbour's roof crow in the dawn.

So I was thrilled to bits (in an almost unconscious sort of a way) when Reb rang to cancel the Korean lesson. The reason?? The Korean teacher was too hung over to take the class. So it is a contagious affliction. At least this gives me more time to study for the test. I have learnt the vowels now and some of the consonants (I'll have 2 vowels and four consonants please, Carol!) and can count to the astronomical heights of 7 (10 if my kids help me!). Problem is that the learning over here is done by rote rather than understanding which explains why I understood nothing the first time. Tim told me two things today that will make learning the Hangeul script really easy- apparently it is written in the form that your mouth and tongue take when saying the sound. I will have to explore this idea further. But if we were told that from the start or that two lines make a 'y' at the beginning of the sound then we would probably be further on now. I guess that it is just different ways of learning. Me and Tim get very frustrated here that the kids aren't taught to sound out new words when they see them (C-A-T etc) which means that they don’t' know where to start when they see new words. Most of the time they won't even get the first letter right- they are just guessing. they can say 'bed' and 'room' but don’t' recognise the word 'bedroom'. It's enough to make you spit (and swear sometimes which you can get away with if you use words that don't appear in Hollywood movies as no-one can understand even if the kids repeat it later!!!) but we will see what we can do with that one.

I am now a legal alien- I picked up the product of my finger-painting, sorry printing, session today- my shiny new alien registration card- and there isn't one from Venus for the women and Mars for the men, much to my disappointment. And now I have my address written down in Korean which I assume is right after they read it off the form that I had to fill in! So maybe now I can get a taxi all the way back to my house sometimes instead of to the nearest landmark.
The Immigration Office is near a huge apartment complex that most of the other teachers here live in. The block in called Boo Young (which I read in Korean off the side of the building though I guess it is cheating a bit if you already know the name!). Did i tell you about the car park at Boo Young (yes, the one where I got lost) which gets so overcrowded at night that people leave their handbrakes off so you can push the car in case it is in your way. Failing that they have little embroidered cushions in the window with their phone numbers on so you can just phone them and tell them to come down and move the car! Near Boo Young there are a lot of my favourite machine in Korean- the Telephone, Can and Coffee machine! It looks like a normal can dispensing machine but half way down the front of it is a public phone. All it needs now is a seat and there are usually plenty of those abandoned on the streets (where else do you regularly see bus stops with three piece suites in them?) Fantastic idea- i can see the benefits of that even though I don’t' drink coffee. So i thought that was one of my favourite things but it has been superseded even since this morning when I went into the bank. I don’t understand the bank at all and while i was trying to work out where to stand and who was queuing and who was just starting at me I noticed the pens on chains- perfectly normal almost universal bank furniture. But imagine your irritation when you get to the bank and realise that you have forgotten your glasses and you have to go home and get them so you can read the forms you have to fill in- well, Korea has catered for that by attaching handy pairs of spectacles to the chain for customers use! Fantastic!

I just want to add a little something about taxis here too. They are plentiful and very cheap and have far less people on board to stare at you than buses. So I use taxis all of the time unless I am walking somewhere. I do walk to work though it can be quite hazardous since there are no pavements (and many pigs heads) on the way (imagine how you feel when you see an ajumma chopping up a piece of meat on an old fashioned wooden block when you realise that the bit she is holding onto to make sure that the meat won't just slip out into the road is an EAR!) and the drivers here are very fond of using their car horns. Now I thought that they were using them instead of brakes but I have sussed what it is all about now. Taxis want to use them and can't understand why you don't. If you stand still for more than thirty seconds, for instance if you are trying to cross the road, they will stop and try to entice you in- unless you are in a hurry and then it will be 'National Korean Catch a Taxi Day' and there will be none spare. But they are far more cunning than I previously suspected. They can't understand why you would choose to walk down streets that have no pavements and you are quite exposed. So they beep to draw your attention to your own stupidity and also to upset your nerves so much ('ohmigod all this beeping is scaring me half to death') that you decide to get a taxi for the rest of the way! If they can't entice you in they will scare you in- cunning so and sos!

Well I had better go now and delete that bit at the beginning of the message about this being a short one!