Teachers Day!!!

Hot on the heels of Children's Day (which was the best day at school ever!), is Teacher's Day!
Yes, in your face teachers in other countries! In Korea, they have an official day for teachers! Its not a national holiday, but teachers could get free cinema tickets on the day! And loads of places were giving free coffee to teachers and free cakes and stuff like that. At my school, all the morning classes were cancelled, and we had an assembly that turned into a weird popularity contest. All the teachers were on the stage, and after the Principal and the owner said a bunch of stuff in Korean (presumably about how awesome we all are), the kids came up on to the stage, a class at a time, and got to hug their favourite teacher. All the classes have four main teachers; their regular (Korean) teacher, their assistant (Korean) teacher, then two English teachers; a bilingual (Korean) English teacher, and a foreign (i.e. me) English teacher. So we were keeping score. And more importantly, keeping track of the kids that didn't rush to hug you.
"Right you little sh*t, I'm giving you extra homework next time!" 

We also got loads of presents and cards from the kids. Apparently its tradition to give a carnation here, so I got some real and some paper carnations, some cards, and one of my kids made me a penguin, because I'd told them it was my favourite animal;

Happy Teacher's Day!

You may also be aware that last week was Buddha's birthday. He was 2576! That's a lot of candles. It also meant we got Friday off work, so I went down to Busan for the long weekend. Korea's second city is on the south coast, and is a major tourist destination. I bagged a hattrick of temples, including one on a cliff overlooking the ocean, and one carved into the rock up a mountain, which was pretty cool;

Koreans are very much an 'all the gear, no idea' kind of people. Now I climbed this mountain, and like a few other westerners that were there, I was wearing shorts, t-shirt, and trainers. It wasn't a massive climb, I saw one American dude in sandals. But all the Koreans are out in force, with full on mountaineering equipment; poles, gloves, super stretchy keep warm fabric, with hundreds of pockets, flashlight, compass, all this stuff hooked or strapped on to them somewhere. They look like a North Face store has vomited on them. For a gentle stroll in the woods on a sunny day. Its madness!

I also went to see the world's largest musical fountain! Its in a department store, and it was pretty cool. On the hour, every hour, they have a 10 minute show of lights, music, and water, and it was really something. This is indoor, with water falling from the 4th floor down to the ground, and shooting up. And the water sometimes spells out words and stuff like that. Check out a small sample here;

"here" 

Also, a note of caution. Learning English is obviously a really big thing in Korea, and there are lots of schools, and clubs and places you can go to learn English. But you do have to be careful. You should not, under any circumstances, send your kids here for example;

Lastly, the adventures of Tyrion the turtle!

This week, I put a mouse into his terrarium. He ripped it to shreds in seconds! Beware boys and girls. Turtles may look cute, but they are one of nature's most vicious predators.
You have been warned . . . .