15:36
leewhat
Don't think I mentioned this, but I managed to get Dream Concert tickets for next month! It's an uber K-pop concert 'for charity' that costs only 5,000 won a ticket (about 3 quid). Apparently, the K-pop fans are so dedicated that one year a fight broke out between two different sets of fans - bear in mind that these fans are mostly 15 year-old girls - and someone died :O Needless to say, it's gonna be badass :P I just hope I don't accidentally cheer for the 'wrong' K-pop group and get headbutted by a middle school girl :/This is the website for the concert: http://event.gmarket.co.kr/html/201004/100415_dreamconcert/100415_dreamconcert....
Friday, 30 April 2010
Wednesday, 28 April 2010
Here they are!
This weekend I went to Ganghwa, an island just off of Incheon, to see some cherry blossoms. And I found them, yey \o/! After being in Ganghwa for a few hours, and after having an amazing duck lunch, we went to Jayu Park! It's a large park located in the more 'touristy' part of Incheon and there were cherry blossoms and sights galore :) Plus, the weather was amazing, which was a pleasant surprise seeing as it's been raining a lot here (apparently it's the worst spring here for 30 years). It's raining as I write this, actually. Here are some pictures from the weekend:This is a picture I took in Jayu Park in Incheon of a cherry blossom tree. Notice...
Monday, 26 April 2010
4:30am wake-up call
Picture this: you're in your bed at 4:30am fast asleep when the fire alarm goes off; you think 'ah sod this' and you bumble out of bed to go to the 'safety point' to wait for all the excitement to end so you can get back to sleep. It's happened to most of us, halls at university springs to mind or when your at a hotel. But this crap happened to me this morning and I was actually panicking a bit because it's twice as bad being a foreigner in Korea.So, I hear the alarm and it does the usual ringing sound but in between rings it has some voice informing the building of something in Korean.. A fire alarm is inherently panicky anyway but add this unknown Korean into the mix and you can guess how freaked out I was. So in my dazed state, I was rushing around grabbing clothes and my phone and that...
Friday, 23 April 2010
Deja Vu
Sometimes when I'm on the bus to work it feels a little bit like I'm in the Truman Show. I don't mean I feel like I'm being watched, but that it all feels a little too similar. For example, I have got on the exact same bus for 4 days now - I can tell because the graffiti on the seat is the same - and that's both to and from work! Also, I keep seeing the exact same Korean midget crossing the road at the same time my bus hits the traffic lights. As well as that, there's the same ajumma scrambling around to get off the bus and she wears the same grubby clothes everyday too - a purple anorak and tracky bottoms. Seem to sit next to the same middle school girls and they even scoot up at the right time to let me past 'cause they know when I'm getting off... Things seem to run like clockwork and it's...
Sunday, 18 April 2010
Where are all the cherry blossoms?
Last weekend was supposed to be the big weekend for cherry blossom (known as 'sakura' in Japan and 벚꽃 (beotkkot) in Korea) blooming in Seoul. So we trundle all the way to Seoul (Yeouido, to be more precise) and what do we find? Leafless trees and overcast weather... great. Or so we thought :OWe wander around and take in the area a bit and we see that there is a huge bike route going down the side of the island along the Han River. Sod it, we thought, lets hire out a bike. 4000 won (I think) for an hour rental? Doddle. Bike with a basket or mountain bike? I wanted the one with the basket, but it only had one gear :/ so I went with the more masculine...
Tuesday, 13 April 2010
Lotteworld!
OK, so, I walk to the subway station at some ungodly hour (7am I think - cue the gasps) and board the train to Bupyeong so I can change there and head to Seoul for LOTTEWORLD (:D :D :D!). I board the train and it doesn't seem too busy. However, the closer I got to Seoul the more people piled on. And I mean piled on lol.. I managed to find some of my school's students waiting at Bupyeong for the transfer to Seoul and, after a couple of stations down, we got closer than I cared us to be - sardine style. It was interesting though :PAnyway, so after the mission to Seoul, I turn up and there are thousands (4000 apparently) students on school trips....
Monday, 5 April 2010
Everland
Everland was amazing! The best part (by a huge margin) was going on the 'T Express'. It's the world's fastest and steepest wooden roller coaster and it scared the crap out of me :P It was probably the most exciting roller coaster I've ever been on. While I was in the queue, I saw the people who were just finishing up on the ride clapping and I was like 'what kind of mug claps a ride? The engineers who built it aren't watching..'.. it was so awesome I ended up becoming one of those mugs.Saw some white tigers, polar bears, and sea lions up close in the 'safari' section of Everland, which was pretty cool too.As it was a really nice day, we went to the 'beer garden' section, which actually was a row of restaurant stalls selling various draft beers, and I had some random beer (that I can't remember...
Friday, 2 April 2010
The next week...
... is going to be epic! Tomorrow I am going to Everland (http://www.everland.com/) with my mates and then on Wednesday I'm going on what my co-teacher described to me as a 'business trip' to... Lotteworld (http://www.lotteworld.com/Global_eng/Main.asp)!You can rest assured that life in Korea is going well :)teaching is getting easier. some classes are a bit rowdy, so i'm going to have to implement some kind of discipline system for those classes. On the whole, though, everything seems to be going well. Getting into a routine too which goes something like this:1. wake up2. go to have cereal3. realise that i've forgotten to buy milk4. eat a cake on the way to work5. fall asleep on the bus on the way to work6. work7. fall asleep on the bus on the way home8. meet friends and do whatever (eat,...