Mr Cadbury, I love you!

First I feel that I must start with a slight amendment to the last email. When I wrote about the Christians of a ‘moron’ persuasion I hope that you all saw my real intention was to say ‘Mormon’. What can I say? It had been a long weekend and I was still tired when I wrote that email. On top of that there has been a lot of work going on in the apartments here which has shown the drilling getting closer and closer to my house until the day when I wrote that email when it felt like the drilling was just above my bathroom ceiling. Twas a little distracting trying to type while the computer and all other things in the house are bouncing along in pneumatic time with the workmen next door. Then finally the day of reckoning came and the drilling came to my house and I was exiled to an apartment in the floor below- close enough that I could hear the reassuring pounding coming from my house but far enough away that I did not have to smell the soju on the breath of the workmen. So I have been Helen in exile for the last few days. I did come up to the flat on the first night to collect some stuff and was more than a little perturbed to find my toilet just inside the front door and the kitchen sink next to my bed. I have never lived anywhere with work going on in in before and it was a very upsetting sight so I vowed not to come back until I knew for sure that they had gone. In typical Korean style that first night I found a half empty bottle of soju on the kitchen cabinet- obviously an essential part of everyone’s lunch box.

Anyway, I am back in my house now- and back on line more importantly. And today I was able to have my first really hot shower in nearly a week and for the first time in three weeks I woke up in my own house and not to the sound of drilling. Things are really looking up! The only signs that there was any work done at all is that I have new floor tiles in the bathroom and the plug for the sink has been sealed behind the sink now, thereby rendering it useless but funny!
It has been a funny old week though. Last weekend things got a little out of hand. Now, I realise that I say this nearly every weekend but this one was particularly bad. I knew this the moment that I found myself requesting and dancing to Robbie William’s Angel for the fifth time in a row. On leaving the bar all the people that I was with took it in turns to throw up. Helen needed a little sit down and I was steered over to a ledge for that purpose. And it was the comfiest ledge ever so how could I resist a little lie down? Apparently it took the boys quite some time to get me up and then I had to add my own contribution to pavement art. One of the lads took me back to my house and the next day I remained in bed all day, surfacing only to retrieve the pizza from the hands of the delivery man. It was certainly not a weekend to be proud of but at least Rory finally achieved his aim of seeing me more drunk than him so all was not lost. I managed to get BBC News 24 on my computer and watch all the live coverage of the Saddam Hussein stuff too.

Monday was back to work to the news that my employer has lost my original degree certificate and actually denies having it in the first place. I guess that it is my own fault for giving it to her but she needed to take it to immigration to register me and then just decided that she would keep it in case I decided to do a runner- which given how unhappy she was making me at that time must have looked like a distinct possibility- if only she had been able to see the contents of my bank account! So not only is she refusing to admit to losing it she also refused to pay for the replacement. Needless to say, this has led to a lot of tension at work this week. All communication has been through the Korean teachers who start each report back with the words ‘I’m sorry, Helen, I hate to tell you this but..’ And then on Friday I arrived at work to find that one of the little brats had broken into and eaten my 19th December calendar chocolate. I made up for it by immediately eating Saturday and Sunday’s. Things started to look up when my mate Sam rang to tell me that a wonderful Irish girl by the name of Caitriona had made good her promise and that there was currently a parcel in Seoul for me containing a Cadburys’ selection box. I would like to say at this point that I LOVE YOU CAITRIONA! Quite frankly the news could not have come at a better time! Knowing that I had chocolate to look forward to just made all the badness go away.

But it has not been an entirely bad week either. Sam booked our trip to Hong Kong the other weekend so it seemed only fair that I book our trip to Japan this week. So I phoned the ferry company and booked us onto the Pusan to Fukuoka ferry next weekend!! Hee hee! Very exciting. On Friday morning I had to get on a bus to Donghae (about 45 minutes away) to get my multi re-entry visa stamped into my passport. And then something wonderful happened- my passport is officially half full! The new visa is the first one past the seam in the middle. I know that this makes me a shameless anorak but I am pretty excited. And when we go to Japan and then Hong Kong we are just talking more stamps in the old passport then- hooray!
Friday night was all you could drink for 25,000 won at Bumpin.

There was a sign on the beer fridge saying ‘Fay First’ and after a while I realised that we weren’t going to be treating to some dodgy cabaret but in fact that we should Pay First. The disappointment didn’t last for too long! Any of you that know anything about my Bumpin habits know that I keep a tab at the bar and rarely pay for my drinks the night that I drink them. Therefore it was a novel concept to pay for the drinks before we drank them! Weird! But at least no scary tab to be hit with on Christmas Eve. Mr Lee had put all the spirits and mixers on the bar and we did indeed drink all we could. Was a drunk old affair. But I had learnt my lesson and played it cool. Which was all for the good when people needed help later. I held one guy up while he threw up outside and then carried him to a cab and popped him into it. Seemed like the least I could do after last weekend.

Yesterday we went to the beach for coffee and dinner and last night I had a quiet night in. Really. And truly. I just stayed in. Refused all invites and just plain got into my bed (for the first time in a few days) and just plum stayed in. Wonderful!

So the timetable for the next few weeks is this- Christmas (venue as yet undecided but I am sure that it will end in Bumpin at least a couple of times), the weekend after bus to Pusan and ferry to Japan. Then New Year in Seoul, Carl Cox is playing at the place we saw that Dutch DJ all those months ago. Should be a great night. Bus back to Gangneung on 1st January ready to work on the 2nd. And three weeks after that HONG KONG! I would imagine that February will be a pretty quiet month for me as I mourn the loss of my savings and try to decide what to do when my contract ends on March 16th. How time flies!

So I am going to leave you all with a hearty HAPPY CHRISTMAS and where are my Christmas cards? To date I have received one (cheers, Cheryl!) which makes me look like the most unpopular teacher in school!

Nuff whinging- the Christmas emails you guys have been sending me have been a lot of fun. It is
so great to know that I have so many friends who take time out to write and tell me what they are up to in their corner of the world. I love knowing so many people in so many countries! Made me feel a bit special in the post office the other week too- sending stuff everywhere!
I will write again the new year I guess!

Love a Helen who will be thinking about all of you this Christmas and missing her family desperately even through the inevitable tequila, soju and besiege fog!
Xxx

Nearly Christmas

And so this is Christmas- or is it? Doesn’t feel much like Christmas. Tried to get into the spirit of it but I think that maybe I peaked too early when I hung up my Christmas lights when I arrived in March. My mother came through with a sterling effort when my Cadbury’s advent calendar came in the post on the 1st December exactly- did she plan it that way? Hard to say but high drama to the end regardless. So Christmas for me this year has been mainly trying to get to the calendar before the kids each day for my daily chocolate- why don’t I keep the calendar at home in that case?? Well, we don’t get good chocolate here and all it would take was one PMT gorge and all the fun would be over. I made a calendar for the kids but they don’t seem to get it as every day I walk in and glue shut the 24 door again.

Ah well, keeps my interest anyway.

In case you haven’t guessed, or received a grumpy email from me to this effect, I will be celebrating Christmas in Korea this year. Hagwon (private language institutes) are not renowned for their generous vacation allocation. I have managed to get the week leading up to New Year off and maybe I will go to Japan if the money holds out, I have to admit that Seoul is pretty Christmassy overall. I went there a couple of weeks ago to the large Shinsegae department store and for a moment or two I was in a surreal world that transported me back to Selfridges in London but where all the staff and customers were Korean. They even have proper shop windows complete with incomprehensible Christmas scenes. There is a large tree outside where I spent a happy couple of hours before it got too cold drinking beer and filling in the time until I could get a bus home to Gangneung.

It is worth remembering that Korea isn’t a Christian country and the Christians that are here tend to be of the moron persuasion so any Christmas celebrations tend to be a triumph of marketing over tradition. We have a small Christmas tree in the school and many of my students have been caught recently singing ‘Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer’ though in Korean to be honest. A lot of the stores have Christmas lights and carols blaring out but I miss the street lights and the carol singers at Trafalgar Square. I miss looking forward to the Eastenders and Coronation Street specials and even just looking at the Radio Times Christmas edition. All those annoying Christmas jingles that most of you are fed up with on TV are sadly missing from Korea.
Still, holding it together. I have a solo Christmas card on my desk from home (though more have been promised) I have a Christmas present in my drawer at work- though the customs declaration does take a touch of the excitement off it since I know what it is and how much it is worth! I keep promising myself that I will decorate my classroom but always end up being distracted into a pub rather than the decoration shop. I had my most unsuccessful day Christmas shopping ever when I went to Seoul two weeks ago and ended up buying my whole family pints of beer which I drank myself. In my defence, it was very Christmassy in the pub (Murphys!), much more so that the streets outside. It was a good day for me but a bad day for Christmas shopping!

Not sure what we are doing next week. This is only my second Christmas away from England so I still firmly have my training wheels on how to handle it. The last one was five years ago and in the Southern hemisphere where everything was so different as to make one forget that it even was Christmas as we slapped on the sunscreen and danced on the beach. I do have hopes of a white Christmas and we have been forecast snow over the weekend so fingers crossed.
I am sure that whatever transpires next Thursday it will be a memorable day. I will be leaving a glass of soju and a piece of kimbap out for Santa anyway.

Not sure when I will be back in the UK as I am thinking of staying here for another year. I always feel such a fraud when I get emails from anyone telling me how brave I am to be here. The truth is, and don’t tell anyone and ruin my secret, my life here is so easy! I have a nice apartment which the school pays for, I consider it a hard day when I have to start work at 1.30 rather than 3.30- either way I am out before 9pm. I get taxis everywhere- day or night. I eat out more nights a week than is sensible. I have a wider social circle than I was used to in London because I can walk up to pretty much any foreigner I see here and ask them to join me for a pint. I know most of the foreigners in town- and certainly all those in the bar. If I need the bright lights and big city, Seoul and my mate, Sam, are just over three hours away by bus - which is actually not a bad place to sleep off a hangover, I have found. I get paid a lot and taxed a little. I enjoy the kids and even if I have a bad class the little sods are only there for 45 minutes.

There are problems, of course, and frustrations- sometimes I just don’t want to be stared at or welcomed to Korea by high school kids but I can’t really complain about it either. I don’t get much vacation, it is true, but I still get more than my bruvver in the States. The only problem with staying on next year is that most of the national holidays fall on a Saturday which is a normal working day for Korea so they don’t get moved onto a Friday or Monday. I have great mates here and a lot of great mates back home and in other countries to email me and make future plans with. All in I have to admit to feeling pretty lucky in life most of the time.
Anyway, it is only just after 9am and not usual for me to be up this early. I have put on the floor heating and am waiting for it to heat up so I can lie on the floor for a while and chase away those chills. Then I am meeting a mate for lunch before work. Let me know what your plans for Christmas and New Year.
Love
Helen
xxx