Happy 2012 everyone!

새해 복 많이 보내세요! (Much good luck/many happy wishes for the New Year!) ^_^

How was everyone's NYE? If you were lucky, I'm sure it was full of love and hope, spent with those dear to you. If you were super-lucky, I hope it was also full of fireworks! And possibly also at least a little alcohol. Because let's face it, that's what NYE is all about, right? Or maybe that's just the Australian in me talking... hehe^^

So I had quite a lovely weekend! Even lovelier because I took Thursday and Friday off so it was actually a four day weekend, and I got to pack some things to start sending home, Skype my parents, and (even better! Sorry Mum and Dad!) Skype my favourite Busan ladies, Nat and Christy! Even though Nat isn't actually there any more, I hold out hope that she'll be back before too long ^_^ This was a big thing because many failed attempts to navigate time differences and personal schedhules meant that Skyping opportunities have been few and far between. Oh and I also went to the boardgame cafe and actually WON a game of Settlers of Catan against Carey-Ann, aka Grand Catan-Master, and two others.

And then on Friday the real weekend started - Ryan and I set off for Deoksan, Resom Spaland and Moong Pension. I don't know if you know this about me, but I actually really like road trips, especially when they are to somewhere new. I love seeing the landscape change and looking for interesting buildings and natural formations, as well as having the chance to talk and listen to music and just chill productively with someone I like. Sound boring? Haha, maybe a little^^ Simple mind, simple pleasures I guess. The upshot was that the drive seemed to go pretty quickly, since it was only about an hour and a half away anyway, and we found our accomodation pretty easily too. It was a really nice place! Except for the fact that there was a distinct smell of gas in the kitchen (five minutes with everything open and some tissue stuffed up the gas nozzle later that night cured this) and we hadn't thought to bring any sauces or condiments for cooking (a good excuse to eat out!), it was lovely and very homey. There was plenty of space, and since it was an ondol style pension, the heating was fine and I think even the bathroom floor was heated a little too. Sadly we didn't have the time to really try the jacuzzi in the bathroom, but since we went to the Spa Castle anyway this wasn't such a big thing.
And OMG was the Spa Castle amazing! By the time we got there, it was getting a bit crowded since it was a Friday afternoon, and you could see why! We only really wanted to try the different spas, for which you pay the base rate of w24000 (our tickets were included in the cost of the pension), but if you want to go on any of the rides like the Tube Ride or the Wave Pool Ride, you have to pay extra for that - around w1000 or w2000 on average - as well as to rent the life jackets, so the cost can go up pretty quickly.
Oh and you have to wear those weird little Korean swimming caps, but you can wear a normal cap over it and frankly it wasn't a very heavily policed policy. But if you just want to kick back like us and relax in the many spas, there are plenty to try, inside and out. Warm water gets piped over the floor and stairs between levels outside so it's not so bad, but you can also just use the ones indoors if you want which are like big communal swimming pools.

Outside, as well as the various 'special water' ones like the blueberry and bokbunja (raspberry vinegar) ones, a hinoki spa (to help with skin irritations apparently) an 'alcohol' spa, and a green tea spa, there were 'themed' ones like the massage pool, the classic pool, the jazz pool, the gayageum pool and such, most of which just meant spas of various temperatures in some sort of special setting, like having classical or gayageum music played. There was also the 'romantic' spa, which could only fit about three couples in it, a really hot spa, a lukewarm spa, a spa-cafe (yes, the cafe is IN the spa), a dry sauna room, a 'health road' foot bath where you walk with one foot in the hot water and one in the cold (or if you do what we and most people did, you just want to sit in the hot water you can just about squeeze yourself in) and the most interesting one, a doctor fish spa!

It was only w5000 for half an hour or until the doctor fish ajumma kicked you out, and a full body thing, so we gave it a whirl. If you're like me and extremely ticklish, and also easily freaked out by things nibbling at you, it may take a while to get used to it, as the fish get spooked when you start giggling and will all swim away, but if you're like Ryan and quite calm, then you'll probably really get your money's worth and the only thing you'll have to worry about is fish swimming up your shorts. Some of the fish were quite big and not so cute (big as in maybe 5cms long) to have nibbling all the dead skin off you, but after we got used to it it wasn't too bad. Ryan even took the dare to put his face under for 30 seconds, but the fish were a) too scared or b) too smart to come near ^_^

So we spent a good few hours there. We might have tried some of the rides but it was getting late and had already gone dark and the temperatures were dropping - the attendants had actually started salting the walkways to stop them freezing over - so we went in search of dinner and had some delicious smoked samgyopsal and kalbi. The next day, we made good use of our kitchenette before we headed out and had a semi-English breakfast of baked beans, bacon, fried bread (no toaster) and fried tomatoes but since there were no knives or forks, or flat plates come to that, it was with a slightly Korean twist :) Ryan then headed off to his parent's place and I to Busan for NYE with Christy.

You know what I realised? I think that this is the first and only time I've stayed up to watch the sunrise for NYE. I stayed up all night last year, but that was just so we could catch the first bus back from Seoul and I was in a nightclub in Seoul anyway so the rising sun could have been the Teletubbies baby for all I knew. At any rate, it's also definitely my last, at least my last in any Northern Hemisphere country where you risk freezing various parts of your anatomy off to wait for the bloody sun to take it's sweet time to haul itself over the horizon at 7.34am. Unfortunately it was a bit of a disappointment, and we never actually saw the sun or any kind of sun-coloured glow in all the fog. The only reason we knew it was sunrise (apart from the lightening sky) was when they let off all the golden wish balloons people had written their wishes on, which is supposed to co-incide. Apparently it's a little foggy every year, but this year was particularly bad.

And no, I was not wearing a skirt that said "skirt" too :p

Anyway, at least we had a fun night waiting for the non-sunrise. We had some yummy tacos for dinner, played Apples and Apples (a word association game), let off fireworks at midnight on the beach (freezing our arses off), went to a hole-in-the-wall makkolli place that did particularly yummy bacon-wrapped ggochi (꼬치 - snacks on sticks; I don't even know what everything was, besides wrapped in bacon!), and, of course, noraebang. I think all of us bar the superstrong Christy and Jessica micro-napped at some point in the night, and Tom and Bailey headed off home around 3am (now that they're an old married couple and all we could excuse them^^) but the rest of us more or less made it in one piece!

Midnight at Haeundae beach with Bailey, Danielle, Tom, Val, Dan, Jess, Christy

Christy showing off her incredibly long limbs - "It's like you're not even a real person - you're a cartoon character!!" (Jessica)

Rockin' it out at the noraebang!

Trying to use breakfast at Breezeburns to stay awake... ㅠㅠ~~~~~~*

So all in all it was a good NYE, and although there was no actual sunrise to see, it was fun seeing in the New Year together and a good start to 2012 to spend the last night of 2011 in such good company.

Which I suppose brings up New Year's resolutions - old hat I know, but it seems to be expected, going from everyone else's blogs. Let's see how many I can write with a straight face, haha :p

1. Ok, this sounds a tad bitchy, but it's one I've made every NYE for the last three years and the only one I've actually managed to keep and find useful. Don't waste time on people who aren't worth it. Conversely, spend more time with those who are and who appreciate it. I know I don't seem like it at times, but I'm kind of sentimental and an old-fashioned romantic about some things, and one of those things is about believing in people and friendships. So up until I made this, I found myself committing a lot of myself to certain people and certain friendships that ended up being a waste of time and energy, and finding myself ultimately disappointed when I should have been more realistic. People are sometimes unreliable, or two faced, or use other people to get what they want, or just plain jerks. It happens, move on, appreciate the ones who aren't.

2. Be more health conscious. Now I like to think that I do fairly well on this in general - I'm not and never will be an exercise junkie, or a gym person, so making a resolution to go to the gym every day is just unrealistic, but there are other ways I can keep fit and that are more than feasible, like resolving to exercise at least three or four times a week, even if it's just taking an hour long walk or going to a bellydancing class, which by the way I am keen to continue when I get back! This also involves being better about keeping to a low-GI diet (which I pretty much gave up on when I came to Korea, a.k.a. white-rice kingdom) to keep my IR in check, and making sure I get enough vitamin D, folate and zinc to help keep my immune system up. I haven't made much effort with those last three either lately, which may or may not have made any difference since I'm exposed on a daily basis to those little germ hotbeds known as 'children' and have had bronchitis three times this year, tonsilitis/throat infections twice, numerous colds, hayfever and gastro-enteritis. I've actually got bronchitis again now, which makes it twice in three months, and had an awful, nauseous, painful and very disgustingly mucousy two days when I ran out of medicine on Monday night until Ryan took me to see an ear nose and throat doctor yesterday who gave me some sort of nasal spray and bronchial steam thing, as well as more drugs. I don't know what the spray was but it was incredibly painful, so I'm glad it at least helped. Anyway, sorry for the digression! Upshot, be healthier, avoid germy children when possible.


3. Spend more time with my loved ones while I can. Good lord that sounds awful - ever since reading Evelyn Waugh's "The Loved One", those words make me think "corpse". But don't worry, I don't have a stack of corpses I keep and dress up and have tea parties with, I just mean close friends and family, especially in light of the fact that I've spent the last two years away from home, even though it's been great and I've made many new friends that are just as dear to me :)

4. Travel to at least one new country. Haha, there's always a selfish resolution in there somewhere, right? What's the New Year without a bit of self-indulgence? ^_^

Ok, done. I'm not going to ask for your ideas about anything I've missed, since I'm sure there are many things I need to improve about myself. But any constructive feedback is always welcome :)

Happy New Year y'all!

Merry Wednesday Good Gentlefolk!

Apparently a middle school student died recently in Cheongju after getting into a fight with another students/other students. Has anyone else heard anything about this? My co-teacher told me about it on Tuesday, after one of her homeroom students ended up in hospital with a possible broken rib after being punched in the chest by another student and finding it hard to breathe (he turned out to be ok). I think she said it was at Seo-Gyeong Middle School but I'm not sure - she might have said Seo-Gyo or Seo-Hyeon. Which brings to mind the stabbing incident at my school last year - I can't remember if I blogged about this or not (I certainly should have if I didn't), but last year after the movie "아저씨" ("Ajosshi" or in it's English title "The Man From Nowhere") came out which features a lot of violence, apparently it became popular amongst the second year boys to mimic the stuff done in the movie. To this end, one of them brought a knife to school (I think, or he could have been using his craft knife which all students quite ridiculously have and are allowed to carry around at all times, even when they aren't using them in any subjects, to semi-disastrous results) and was mock-stabbing his classmates. And of course, ended up actually stabbing one of them, sending the stabbed student to hospital for stitches and making the student who stabbed him have a panic attack and start crying because he genuinely thought he'd killed his friend. Which I guess was quite a smart move (although involuntary) because it made it harder to punish him for it since he was already mid-nervous breakdown. And then of course there was the incident with Jin-Seon. Don't get the wrong idea, it's not always the boys - the first year girls have been in trouble for going to visit their friends at other schools and starting scrag-fights there too, where apparently the go-to move is scratching up each other's faces. *Sigh* Teenagers.

Anyway, today is my last day of regular school before my winter camps start. I'm taking tomorrow and Friday off to use up my holiday days since they don't get paid out if I don't use them, and am overjoyed at the prospect of never having to teach my Thursday and Friday classes again (a jubilation that has lasted since last week). Hooray! Today I also only had one class with my favourite 1st graders - the "super-smart" class (my co-teacher's nickname for them). But unfortunately I completely stuffed up on that one - our timetables got changed so I had them first period instead of sixth (I normally wouldn't have class until 3rd period anyway), and wouldn't you know it, but I turned my phone off last night (so losing the alarm on it) and forgot to set my clock alarm, so I didn't wake up until 8.53am, 33 minutes AFTER I was supposed to be at school and 3 minutes AFTER my first class was supposed to start. On any other day it wouldn't have mattered but of course today... *double sigh* It's official - I'm a cotton-headed ninny muggins (I've been watching "Elf" with some of my students ㅋㅋ). Luckily my co-teacher knew that I wouldn't do something like that on purpose and wasn't angry - it's also her homeroom group so they were fine.

놈놈놈 (nom nom nom, haha^^)

I guess it's really a pretty typical way of ending my school year - violence and tardiness, although it's a nice change that it's me being late for once and not my students. If it was any other class than my good class I might still have wandered in 20 minutes late, just to be a jerk and interrupt their movie, since they do it to me all the time. Anyway, I better get going with finishing stuff for my winter camps! I have 20 hours of conversation class across the first two weeks, then 10 hours of a teacher's class and 10 hours of a students' class in the third week so I'll be pretty busy. And after last year, this time I know for sure not to be stupid enough to tell the VP or Principal about the class magazine/newspaper we're making, no matter how proud I am of my students :) Oh and it's 오징어덮밥 (ojing-eo deopbap, as in the picture above), which I love, with egg and vegetable soup (계란야채국) - which I also love! - and chocolate cake for lunch because it's Wednesday, so hooray!

Oh and one last reason to be happy: Ryan also has the day off on Friday! At least I hope so - if he doesn't I'm going to turn up at his hagwon, take a kitchen knife out of my bag and sit there glaring angrily at his boss while I stroke the knife blade for the whole day. A bit of a complicated story there that I won't go into, but it basically involves his boss dicking around and telling the Korean teachers that they had Friday off, then didn't, getting angry that they assumed they did, and then telling them that they DID have the day off and he was faking it to encourage them to work harder. Hi-LAR-ious, no?

Anyway, now that he apparently DOES actually have the day off, we can do what we had planned to do which is go to Deoksan to the Reesom Spa Castle, which is a warm water theme park, and then stay at this cute pension which has a jacuzzi in the room! How awesome is that?? Ryan originally tried to book us a place that had the in-room jacuzzi outside because he knows that I like outdoor spas, but since it will be the New Year's weekend places are pretty full up, so we couldn't find one that was free and also not horrendously expensive (like more than 400 000 won). And then I'm going down to Busan to meet up with my favourite ladies, including the Cheongju posse and my KBFF II, for what I'm sure will be an amazing NYE! So it will be a very exciting three day weekend ^_^

Oh and I'm meeting one of Ryan's sisters on Sunday for an early dinner/late lunch before she heads back to Seoul on the KTX and we go back to Cheongju, so wish me luck! I'm obviously going to have to go easy the night before so I don't look like I just fell out of a tree on Sunday when I meet her, haha :p

Anyway, happy Wednesday everyone! Hope you're having a delicious lunch today, if not a brilliant day :)

Best Taekwondo demo ever!

*sigh* I still lament the fact that I never got to do Taekwondo as a kid. I don't think we had the diversity to have lessons in our area and my parents (well ok my mum) always seemed hopeful that I'd one day turn into a princessy girl and to this end made us do ballet (short and unsuccessful) and fan dancing. Having said that, we did also get to do Little Athletics, which I remember liking since I was pretty good at high-jump, and play netball (which is, granted, a fairly girly sport) and soccer. Anyway, that's a pretty roundabout introduction to this video which is awesome because a) it's a frickin' AMAZING show of taekwondo skills and b) they picked two good songs to do it to. Yay! ^_^

This is the link to the site if the video doesn't work. Thanks 9gag!

And not to trivialise it, but Happy Special Day to my mum and dad and beautiful sister! It was our first family event where all of us were there (mum being pregnant with Fran at the time) so it was a very special day indeed. Sadly the Post Office didn't share this view and as a result, I still haven't gotten my new Terry Pratchett book and acoutrements that mum had sent me three weeks ago :(
 

On the upside, I did get a pretty new mp3 player as a gift yesterday, thanks to the wonderful Mr Smiles :) And yes, it's bright pink, but I love it anyway, especially because it combines the gadgetry of Samsung with the only feature of Apple products I actually like - the design. Isn't it pretty? Oh and lol, I used this picture because it looks like the player is being pervy and has a fetish for women in sports bras, but I'm pretty sure this was supposed to allude to its Fitness mode. Anyway, it's very cute and has its own USB jack in the bottom so you don't need any extra cords or anything to connect it to your computer.

Oh and since today is a slow day, I've been watching The Lion King and LOVING IT! Like you needed to be reminded of it's awesomeness but here you go anyway. I love how you can re-watch "children's movies" from your childhood and now find it doubly brilliant because you now also get all the references they put in for parents :)

Haha^^

Hope everyone's having a lovely Wednesday out there :)

Saying goodbye to November and my sanity

Just had class with one of the terrible first year boys' classes - the one where there was almost murder once if you remember? Anyway, they're little ... idiots... in that class. In most classes, but particularly in that one because there are so many of them. Luckily there is one kid I really like in that class too, Jae-Gwan, and I love that his number is 1 and that my co-teacher for that class makes them sit by number because it means that I have him sitting right at the front with his eager beaver smile beaming up at me and it makes the rest of the class not seem so bad. Still bad, but not so very bad. And that's saying a lot because they're terrible. There are actually a few good kids in that class but they mostly get drowned out by the others. For example, one of the others, Jeong-Won, who is actually quite bright, always without fail gets sent to stand at the back (actually with that class it's pretty pointless because there are never less than five students standing as punishment and once there were as many as nine of them arrayed around the classroom which is a lot for a class of 29) and today was supposed to be kneeling quietly because the back of the room was full. I looked up at one point in the lesson and he was rolling on his back and holding his knees with his legs in the air, pulling faces and apparently trying to lick his own butt. Or he could have been trying to Marilyn Manson-esque it up. Anything's possible. Another kid that I dislike with extreme prejudice (on the grounds that he's an ADHD little meathead with no off switch) put the whole class in an uproar for five minutes by answering the question "what animal do you think this is?" with "SEX MONKEY! F***K YOU!" at the top of his voice. *sigh* Even my extremely unimpressed death glares of disapproval don't work on them and my co-teacher for that class is lovely but useless and does nothing, so it takes ages to restore order, especially since they're teenage boys and don't know how to listen. Just another reason I'll be glad to be going home in February. I've adamantly shot down the idea of having summer or winter camps for first grade this year on the grounds that they would be a waste of time and effort, and with examples like that I think you can see why.

Anyway, so that was my Monday. The rest of the day was ok though and I don't have any after school classes so that's ok. I think if I go home, get a bottle of wine (or a big cup of tea first, more likely), Skype to Franniken, watch a movie and then go to bellydancing slightly drunk, I'll feel a lot better. You are more than welcome to join me dear readers, in spirit if not in body :)

But I shouldn't be so down. I actually had quite a lovely weekend, which is perhaps why today was so sad, what with the downswing from it and all. First of all, my KBFF II, Christy (haha, don't worry Lara and Nat, you guys still retain respective KBFF 1 statuses!) came to visit pokey old Cheongju for a weekend of gossip, good food, wine, more gossip, more wine and general merriment. We discovered a new restaurant called JJ's Grill that had less opaque glass than we thought, had a Thanksgiving potluck with some friends (i.e. we all ate ourselves into a food coma) and hit up a noraebang. I miss Facebook for the photo sharing aspect so I'll just post a few choice pics.

 So it was a lovely Saturday ^_^ Sunday saw poor Christy off on her long trek home (3.5 hours on a bus and another hour or so on the subway), and me off to Seoul to do some shopping and see "In Time" with Mr Smiles (my code-name for the new boyfriend I can now mention publicly^^ - so called because he is a very smiley person). And lo and behold the movie actually turned out to be a good one! Most of the Western stuff that ends up being shown in Korea is generic Hollywood crap ("Immortals", "Columbiana" and "Skyline" anyone?) but once in a while something good gets through and luckily this one had Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried in it to pass muster as popular enough to show in Korea because it was a good movie! Well, I thought so anyway :p If you haven't heard of it before, it's about a kind of dystopia where time is currency. Humans have been engineered to live to 25, at which point they both stop physically ageing and their body clock kicks in and they have a year left of time to both live and spend, meaning millionaires can live virtually forever and buy anything, while poor people scrape through day to day existences where seconds and minutes can make precious differences. The story kicks off when a guy from the ghetto (Justin Timberlake) ends up being gifted with 110 years from a millionaire sick of living and finally manages to break free of his 'time zone'.

Anyway, if you have the time and especially if you're in Korea and the choice is this or Breaking Dawn (Mr Smiles is, sadly, a Twilight fan ... *아웅*ㅠㅠ;;) I'd definitely recommend seeing this one. Both JT and Amanda Seyfried put in some good performances, as does Cillian Murphy, who plays the 'Timekeeper' (police) hounding our protagonists.
 

Oh and lol, yes, Korean men like shopping. I have a very cute blue fluffy Totoro doll for my cousin's baby daughter (hopefully she'll love it without questioning what it actually is for years to come) as a consequence :) After the movie, we went for dinner at La Grillia and I had real gnocchi in a real gorgonzola sauce! It was chestnut gnocchi, which I've seen but never had before, and the waiter was quite surprised that I ordered it and thought I should pick something else because it was quite heavy (not to say fattening). I'm guessing he's never seen a girl eat that dish before there, and was probably even more surprised when I not only finished the whole thing but also had dessert too. Hehe^^ Pictured is our vanilla ice-cream, almond and Earl Grey pannacotta, grapefruit wine jelly and blueberry yoghurt. Delish!

So anyway, here's hoping that the rest of the week improves from today. I have most of the rowdy classes under threat of making them do more work after exams rather than letting them watch a movie so fingers crossed that they all remember me telling them that last week. How about you, my lovelies? How's life out there in the Real World?