Independence Day

August 15th is Korean Independence Day, so we get a day off school, there are flags everywhere, and everyone is watching that movie with Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum;

So it seems like a nice time to tackle the issue of the excessive heat in Korea during the summer. They have a rainy season that lasts for around 6 weeks from the beginning of July. Its over 30 degrees every day, and it rains pretty much every day. With rainy season now over, we're back to heat of easily over 30 degrees every day, but at least its not raining all the time. With humidity of over 90% most of the time though, you just get used to living your life drenched in sweat. All the time. And I'm not talking about patches around the armpit. I mean that you start to sweat the second you walk out of the door of your air-conditioned apartment, and about 15 minutes later, you don't have sweat patches, because your shirt has reached a uniform level of dampness. At school, I am quite literally dripping sweat, from my head, my arms, my legs, everywhere. I occasionally have kids saying "Teacher, water why?" and pointing at the water dripping off me. Its not fun, but you do get used to it.
One of the ways I deal with it, is by eating bing-su, a Korean snack involving fruit and lots of shaved ice. You can get small cups of it, but you can also get big bowls of the stuff, and its delicious;

                                              It really is delicious! And best of all, its cold!

Another way to cool down during the summer, is by getting wet. Obviously there's plenty of coastline, and a lot of outdoor swimming pools, but there is also the chance to go white water rafting. Which is something that quite a lot of people, Korean and foreign, do at the weekend. Korea is quite mountainous, so the river water is usually pretty cold. And its a lot of fun;

Now that the rainy season is over, its also time for the baseball season to resume, so I'll be back out there on Saturday. I also hope to resume my football career the next day, after 18 months out with a serious knee injury, we'll see if my creaking joints can hold up.

And on the subject of Korean Independence, I had one of my students come up to me last week, while we were writing stories, and ask me
"Teacher, are we North Korea, or South Korea?"
"We're South Korea." I replied.
"Hmmmm . . . . good. Good." He said, and went back to his seat. I have images of this poor kid watching the news with his parents and thinking "I hope that's not us, they sound like dicks!"

And finally,
The Adventures of Tyrion the Turtle

Well sadly, the Game of Thrones TV series from which Tyrion derives his name, is finished. So my little turtle has nothing to watch on TV. He has made his feelings very clear;



Summer Holiday

Well the tragic part about summer holidays in Korea, is their length. The kids here work really really hard, and unless you're at a public school, then the kids get one week off in the summer, and one week off in the winter. And that's it. Two weeks off all year. Compared to the 14 weeks off that kids in the west get.

So I made the most of my summer vacation, and jetted off to Okinawa. Part of Japan, but a 3 hour flight from Tokyo, stranded in the middle of the pacific, and with its own language, its really another world. And a beautiful world it is too. This is the view from my hotel room on Akajima. 

I had a wonderful time, there's a lot of history from World War II, where the Battle of Okinawa was the largest and bloodiest land battle of the Pacific theatre, claiming over 200,000 lives. There's also a lot of history from the time of the Ryukyu Kingdom, that flourished from the 14th-18th century until mainland Japan took control. So I visited many monuments, and old castles and tombs.

There's also an abundance of wildlife, including wild deer, that I saw just walking around on the beach, aswell as giant Okinawan tree spiders, of which I also saw a fair few. The waters are also perfect for diving, and the the number and variety of aquatic life I saw when I went snorkelling and scuba diving was simply breathtaking. Aswell as a multitude of fish, sea snakes, eels, and coral, I got incredibly close to a giant sea turtle, which was a wonderful experience.

They also make their own special alcohol on Okinawa, using the venom from a poisonous snake species native to the islands. You can buy jars of the stuff, complete with coiled snake at the bottom;

But after the vacation it was straight back to work, and back to playing games and singing songs with the kids! Its also nearly the end of the rainy season in Korea, which means we'll soon be done with temperatures over 30 degrees coupled with rain every day, which is not a nice combo. And it also means the baseball season is back this weekend, so while England can bask in the glory of retaining the Ashes in a real bat/ball sport, I'll be back out on the diamond this Saturday, playing crossbat shots at full tosses.

Finally, the Adventures of Tyrion the Turtle

This week, I thought I'd share with you a picture of one of little Tyrion's big cousins, a giant sea turtle from the tank in the Sea Turtle Museum on Kumejima;