Jeju - The Hawaii of Korea! (Not really)

A couple of weeks ago three of us teachers visited Jeju for the weekend. Jeju is a small island, just south of the Korean mainland, and is every Korean's favourite place. It's the top honeymoon destination, it's everyone's dream holiday destination, it's where everyone wants to go, and Koreans call it 'The Hawaii of Korea.' I'd heard from foreigners that it was a bit rubbish, so I didn't really have high expectations, but it was pretty good. Nothing at all like Hawaii, more like a Korean 'Isle of Wight.'

We visited some nice scenic locations, Jeju is used to shoot many of the Korean dramas on TV, so many locations have helpful signs pointing to the 'Flimming location' (not sure what that is?), we saw some waterfalls, some nice temples, took a trip on a submarine, and visited a Teddy Bear museum. Now if, like me, you've often wandered what visionary businessman and Apple founder Steve Jobs would look like as a Teddy Bear, you are in luck! Because here it is;

If you also want to see great works of art re-done with a Teddy Bear theme, again this is the place for you!

And also, if you are easily confused by doors, and are confused by whether or not they are open or closed, and you like every single thing you see to have a helpful sign, then you'll love this;

                                            Though what happens if someone opens this door?


Overall, Jeju was much better than I expected. It is a genuinely nice place to visit. Though certainly not the paradise that Koreans make it out to be.


My last post mentioned some of the unusual names of students at my school (such as Milk, Blue, and Carrot), so I thought I would add a few more, as I keep coming across kids that I forgot to mention last time. So the latest bizarre names of children at my school include;

- Lucifer
- Bean
- Ain
- Lamech
- Sun (see below)
- Sunny

Remember these are all 100% genuine names that the children have either chosen themselves, or had chosen for them by teachers or parents. These names are on the register, and the kids wear name tags with them on. I've highlighted Sun because the different classes have different names. We have BlueSky class, BigTree class, and SunShine class among others. Each of these classes is then split in half for activities. So BlueSky class becomes Blue team and Sky team, BigTree becomes Big team and Tree team, and SunShine class becomes Sun team and Shine team. The student named Sun is, of course, in the class called Sun. He was called Evan, but like a lot of students decided to change his name, and chose the name Sun! Imaginative!


Away from school, spring has sprung, and sports have returned to Korea! Tragically for England's chances of success in the World Cup in Brazil this summer, I have managed to injure my other knee (regular readers will know I have not fully recovered from knee reconstruction surgery on my right knee), so am unable to play football again until I have another operation to repair the damage. However, as I am a reckless lover of sport, I am still playing baseball every Saturday and cricket every Sunday. This weekend saw the first games of the new baseball season, and next weekend sees the first games of the new cricket season. At the baseball, a hobby enthusiast (you could say 'geek'), brought his remote control helicopter and gyro-camera and took a bunch of aerial shots of the game.

                                    Combining America's two great loves; baseball and drones


Finally, the Adventures of Tyrion the Turtle

Obviously little Tyrion is delighted that his namesake has returned to our screens in Game of Thrones, but sadly, he hasn't read the books, so he doesn't know what's in store for his favourite character. To cheer him up for the dark times ahead, one of my students made a tiny origami turtle for him! Check it out!

What's in a name?

So its the start of a new school year here in Korea, which means a whole new bunch of kids, and a whole new bunch of names. And this year, we've got some good ones!
In Korea, any child learning English has an "English name." Sometimes they choose it themselves, sometimes their parents or their teacher chooses it for them. Sometimes they change their name. With the bizarre obsession with the Disney movie 'Frozen' here in Korea, a bunch of kids have changed their names to Elsa, Anna, and Olaf. Below is a selection of my favorite names this year, in no particular order;

- Cap
- Carrot
- Plin
- Blue
- Shiny
- Milk
- Adonis
- Buzz
- Barbie

I can't decide which is my favourite, which is yours?

We've also got a lot of new teachers this year, and one of the Korean bilingual teachers complained to me last week (about a class that I teach for 45 minutes, and then she teaches for 45 minutes right after me);
"The kids keep correcting my pronunciation, you've taught them to say things with a British accent."
"Yeah . . . that's how I talk. That's how they should talk. That's how everyone should talk."
"But they sound like Game of Thrones!"
I was delighted! I will now teach all my kids to say "Winter is coming . . . "

So that's my new kids, this year I'm teaching little tiny toddlers (3 or 4 years old), who can barely speak Korean, let alone speak English, aswell as some 7 year olds, and I no longer teach Science. Regular readers of this blog will naturally be disappointed that I have to retire all my bunsen burners, chemicals, and other highly scientific equipment.
Fortunately, all my kids from last year that graduated have come back to the after school club, so I'm still teaching them which is good. In Korea, schools put on a full graduation ceremony at every level, not just at university like we do in England. So my little 8 year olds, had a graduation ceremony, with musical performances, speeches, and songs, before they left to go on up to 'big' school. The graduation song they had to sing included the lyrics;
   I don't know how I can go on without you.
   In this wicked world,
   I'll be all alone.

These kids are 8. They're going to elementary school. They'll be fine!


Away from school, it was also St Patrick's Day recently. Seoul held a big St Patrick's Day Festival, as they do tend to have a 'festival' for pretty much anything in Korea. One of the organisers got on stage and announced;
"I want to welcome everyone to this wonderful Irish/American festival here today."
Wait, what?!?! Irish/American? Where did those Irish/American people come from originally again? Oh yeah, Ireland!

The festival included lots of Irish music and Irish dancing. Sorry, Irish/American music and Irish/American dancing, aswell as lots of that famous Irish/American drink; Guinness. The above group in their red outfits are actually a Korean group, who took the gold medal at the recent Irish/American Dancing World Championships. Or so my Irish friend told me (but she's Irish, not Irish/American, so what does she know?).


I also discovered that Korean's have lower standards than English people. I was writing a message to a Korean friend, saying that I thought a recent movie (Robocop) was alright, not great, and gave it a score of 6 out of 10. I ran the message through my translate app on my phone, and it came out as 8/10. I checked again, and according to my translate app, 6/10 in English is equivalent to 8/10 in Korean. And 8/10 in English is equivalent to 10/10 in Korean. I guess that means that Koreans are more easily pleased . . .

Finally, the Adventures of Tyrion the Turtle

Well needless to say that little Tyrion is very excited about the return of his namesake in Game of Thrones series 4 starting next month. Its all he can think about. So in an effort to distract him, I took him flying. Some people were a little surprised, but Tyrion had a great time . . .

Covered in Confusion

Its been a confusing few days in Korea for lots of reasons. Firstly, I was given a spam giftpack from my school as a lunar new year gift, which was confusing enough to earn 5 confusion points. As such, I've been trying to find ways to make spam edible, and have so far had spam and eggs, spam curry, spamghetti bolognese, spam stew, and spamghetti carbonara. Sadly, they don't really have normal bread (i.e not sweet bread) in Korea, so I can't make simple spam sandwiches. (Lack of normal bread = 2 confusion points). All that has only used up 3 cans of spam, so I've still got 6 cans left! Spamtastic!

I then went into Seoul with a group of friends, and saw a number of confusing sights. You do quite often see people wearing clothes with random English words of phrases on them in Korea, but this one is my new favourite;

Yes, it does say "WHO DON'T WHAT ARE YOU FREE ON"
And it's not even a question, just a statement. 10 confusion points for that one.
Another favourite slogan on a top was 'Not bad girl street Los Angeles' Again, just random words. Additional 3 confusion points.

We then went to a Trick Eye Museum, which was confusingly cool. Lots of opportunities to take amusing photos of yourself in impossible situations, with clever angles and such like. Its not quite as good as Puzzling World in Wanaka, New Zealand, but was certainly better than Puzzle World in Keswick, England (sorry Keswick fans). One of my favourites was this one;
 

                                                      Subtle bit of cheating at cards
                                                   

But another favourite was this image. The 'trick' part here is the money supposedly 'falling out' of the painting at the bottom, but the really confusing part is why are these renaissance era merchants using a laptop? And a really small mini laptop too? 2 confusion points

                                                           Macbook Pro circa 1620


Back at school, I was further confused by one of my students' homework. Each week, we teach them a new phrase, and ask them to write some sentences using that phrase. The phrase this week was a simple one; "I might . . . " So while most students wrote things like "I might go for a walk", "I might read a book", "I might play a game", one student wrote this;

And the really confusing part is, who taught him what a panther is? I didn't. And its a pretty unusual animal to know when you're 9 years old. 6 confusion points (I have no idea what 'wintow' is? Window? But what does he mean by that? I might look out the window? Maximum confusion).


And finally, the Adventures of Tyrion the Turtle

Well this week, even little Tyrion was confused. He did not know what was going on . . . .

Total confusion points = Dypthalmologist . . .

New Year . . . and then New Year again

I decided to visit Cambodia during my winter vacation, which meant I was in Siem Reap, location of the world famous Angkor Wat on December 31st. It really is a magnificent place, used as a location for many movie scenes, and the ancient temples are just breath-taking. And unlike many tourist attractions in the west, you are free to explore yourself (by which I mean, 'explore on your own' not that you can discover your innerself), and you can scramble all over the old buildings. Which is no doubt doing irrecoverable damage to these centuries old structures, but is lots of fun!

Having visited 'The Window of the World' in Shenzhen last year, a sort of model village theme park, I had already seen it though. Don't know why I bothered really. Once you've seen the model, you've seen it in real life really haven't you? See if you can tell which is real, and which is the model;

While I was there, I also visited a crocodile farm. They had over 600 crocodiles! And for $8 you could buy a live duck to throw to the hungry crocs! (A live chicken was $10). I was tempted, but didn't do it. The crocs didn't have any hoisin sauce for one thing, and forcing anyone to eat duck without hoisin seems unnecessarily cruel.

Back at school, we are busy getting ready for the start of the new school year at the beginning of March. The students are all learning a graduation song as they prepare to head off to big school for the first time, and almost all of the Korean teachers are leaving too! I will soon be the longest serving teacher at the school!

Then at the end of January, it is new year again! This time it is Lunar New Year (as they call it in Korea), or Chinese New Year (as they call it everywhere else!). Which means good news on two fronts. Firstly, we get two days off school to make a 4 day weekend, but even better than that, the Principal gave us teachers the traditional new years gift of spam!

                                              Please note that this is original, classic spam.


Finally, the Adventures of Tyrion the Turtle

Well this month, as temperatures plummeted, I took Tyrion ice-skating. And he was no Bambi on ice, that little turtle has some serious moves! He was skating around, doing little jumps, half-pikes, triple twists, the works! It was something to behold!

Christmas in Korea

Well Christmas has come and gone, my first Christmas in Korea, my first Christmas away from my family, and it was a strange but enjoyable experience. Christmas is a massive non-event in Korea. In a very Christian country, with churches on almost every street, Christmas ranks below Thanksgiving, Lunar New Year, and even Children's Day as a holiday. All the shops were open as normal, most people went to work as normal, you would never have known it was Christmas Day. Our school was open as normal on Christmas Eve, and it was back to school as normal on Boxing Day. The foreigners all got together at a local pub to have a proper roast turkey dinner which was nice, though I did miss pulling Christmas crackers, wearing the paper hats, and reading the obligatory dreadful jokes.
On Christmas Eve, I had to dress up as Santa at school, and the kids had loads of pictures taken with a cardboard sleigh, some cardboard reindeer, a cardboard Christmas tree, and me in my big red suit standing behind them. One of the Korean teachers then grabbed me for a quick selfie;

I also had my students pose for a picture for me to put on a card and send to some friends, so you can see my kids in their mixture of school uniforms. The orange jumpsuit that looks like they're training to be henchmen in some James Bond movie is their P.E. outfit. Also note, the abundance of neckerchiefs, very popular in Korea;

As winter has started to bite, we've had temperatures hit -7C in the day, and I'm told that in the depths of winter, daytime highs of -15C are not uncommon. Yikes! We've also done some winter themed science work in school, analyzing the crystalline configuration of snowflakes and such;

                                                            Very scientific


In the sporting world, the Ashes has been nothing short of a disaster, so the less said about that the better. As most sports take a winter break in Korea, I have now started playing in a social 6-a-side football league for fear of suffering from sporting withdrawal symptoms otherwise. And am also very much looking forward to the Hong Kong 7s rugby tournament in March.
My last trip to Hong Kong to watch Manny Pacquiao fight was certainly an adventure. As my friend, who is a Hong Kong resident, did not take his passport to Macau, he was therefore refused entry, and escorted back to the ferry to Hong Kong. With time running out to go home, get his passport, get back to the ferry terminal, and get back to Macau (a one hour journey by ferry from Hong Kong to Macau) before the fight started, he sent me a message saying he wasn't sure if he could make it, although the helicopter only takes 15 minutes, and costs $4000. To which I jokingly replied in my best Arnold Schwarzenegger impression - "Get to da choppaaaaaaaa!" Which he did! Dedication to sport! The fight was excellent, with Manny winning a 12 round unanimous points decision.
I got to hear Michael Buffer and his legendary "Let's get ready to rumbaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaal"
And sitting ringside were such luminaries as David Beckham, Paris Hilton, and one of the Baldwin brothers (it doesn't matter which one, nobody knows the difference).

Next up on my adventures will be a trip to Cambodia for new years, and a visit to Angkor Wat. I am sure I will write a blog all about it next month.


And finally, the Adventures of Tyrion the Turtle
 
Its been another exciting month for the little fella. He had another trip to school, where I let the kids take it in turns to hold him. Tyrion decided to wee on one of the boys, so I quickly picked him up, which was his chance to poo on the floor! This was greeted by much screaming from the kids, and much laughter from me! I will soon be testing his endurance and survival skills, as I leave for a week's vacation, leaving him free reign in my apartment. So here's hoping he doesn't host any wild parties in my absence . . .

Science school

This month has been another busy one, with two open classes at school, much action in both cricket and baseball, and the onset of my first Korean winter.

There's been lots going on at school, with preparations beginning for the next school year starting at the end of February, and a couple of open classes. The school is a private kindergarten for kids aged 4 years old to 8 years old from 09:00 - 15:00, then a private English academy (or Hagwon) from 15:00 - 18:00 for kids aged 8 to 11. However, only kids that went to the kindergarten can go to the Hagwon, so there is obviously a big push to get the kids who are leaving the kindergarten and moving up to elementary school to come to the Hagwon next year. For that reason, we had an open day for the Hagwon, when all the parents come in to watch me teach a lesson, followed a few weeks later by another open day, this time in the kindergarten. Both went well, and it looks like the school will be expanding next year which is good news. The owner was very pleased, and took all the English teachers out for a very nice meal, where I saw some very rare cheesecake;

                                         Rare Cheesecake - Almost extinct in the wild


We were also given some tickets to a concert by a famous Korean opera singer, called Kim Dong Kyu. None of the other teachers went, but it was really good! He did some Elvis songs, and some Frank Sinatra songs, aswell as some classic opera 'hits.' The only downside was before the concert, we had to sit through a 45 minute talk from a bank about saving money, interest rates, tax, and various different savings accounts. All in Korean. With the usual fascinating powerpoint presentation demonstrating how interest rates have changed over the last 10 years. That was less fun, but the concert was great.

Elsewhere, my science classes continue to stray further and further away from actual science. We have four 'immersion' classes that have extra activity classes in addition to their regular English lessons, the activities being science, art, music, and reading. At the start of the year, my science classes were reasonably sciencey, but they've got more and more arty, as we have drawn pictures of a bee, painted a bag, and recently, just drew a vase and glued some flowers on to it. I really feel sorry for these kids. When they go to high school, they're going to have a very confused notion of what science actually entails.

                                                      They don't do this at CERN

In sporting news, the cricket season is over in Korea. It ended with me playing in the Allstar game (yeah, I'm an All Star!), and meeting the Sri Lankan Ambassador to Korea, aswell as the President of the Korean Cricket Association. Very much looking forward to the Ashes, the return of the domestic cricket season in April, and hopefully going to see some international cricket at next year's Asian Games, right here in Korea!
In baseball, my team had their most successful season ever, winning through the playoffs to make it to the Championship game yesterday, against the regular season winners. As expected, it was a tight game, until a couple of individual errors allowed them to go from 2-2 to 5-2 up in their final innings, and we were only able to pull one back, to lose 5-3. Still, I thoroughly enjoyed my first season of baseball, and after I was shockingly omitted from the All Star game next weekend, it will be a few months before I swing a bat again.


And finally, the Adventures of Tyrion the Turtle

Well the little man had a real adventure last week, as I took him into school so the kids could play with him. They are currently learning a song about a little turtle, so it was a good opportunity for them to see one in real life, and despite a few screams from scared girls, and a few less scared boys trying to pull his head off, he's still alive! He's also very much looking forward to Christmas, and celebrating the birthday of Je2sus



Everland and the Korean GP

Its been a busy couple of weeks, with two bank holidays, and a couple of action packed weekends, so lets get started!

First up, was 'National Foundation Day', which no Korean person I asked was able to explain. Was it the day Korea was first founded? When was that? How is it different from 'Independence Day' a couple of months ago? Either way, it was a day off school, so me and one of the other teachers went to Everland, a theme park, and one of the biggest tourist attractions in Korea. I wanted to go for one reason, and one reason only. To see a liger. For those that don't know, a liger is the offspring of a male lion and a female tiger (as opposed to a tion), and as they don't exist in the wild, there's only a very few in captivity in the world, and Everland is one of the places that has one. Sadly, the place was packed, so I didn't get to see the liger, but I will definitely be going back. I did see one of my students, who was crazy excited to see me, despite the fact that she saw me the previous day at school, and would see me again the next day at school. She was so happy to see me, and told everyone at school that she had seen her teacher at Everland. It was hilarious!

That weekend I went down to Mokpo for the weekend to see the Korean Formula 1 Grand Prix. The race is held right down in the southwest of the country, about 5-6 hours away from Seoul. The idea was to build the track, then build a new town, loads of facilities, and make it into a resort to really regenerate the region. However, once Korea had built the track, they ran out of money, so now they have a Grand Prix, miles away from anywhere, which no-one wants to go to. The place was empty, whole grandstands were closed because there was no-one there, and there was maybe one seat in 50 occupied. Despite being ridiculously cheap. It will definitely be the last time they hold a race in Korea. But I saw a couple of crashes and a car burst into flames so I was happy. Here's a shot of Kimi Raikkonen zooming past

We then had another day off this week for 'Hangul Proclamation Day' which commemorates the creation of the Korean writing system, which was only about 150 years ago, as the Korean writing system is incredibly simple and easy to learn. For this day off, I visited a traditional Korean folk village. I saw some traditional Korean tight rope walking, some traditional Korean pottery, some traditional Korean houses, a traditional Korean wedding, some traditional Korean dancing, and had some traditional Korean food. It was all very traditional and very Korean. I also saw some traditional Korean horse skills;

It was actually very good, my only criticism would be that there were too many traditional Korean houses. Once you've seen a couple, (and there are over a hundred), you are quite literally just going round the houses.

In school we're getting ready for another open class (when all the parents come in to watch your lesson), this time for our after school kids, who are more advanced. The school is a kindergarten from 09:00 - 15:00, then an after school club (or Hagwon) from 15:00 - 18:00. I say more advanced, some of the after school kids aren't great. The system we use works on levels, with each class completing a level every two months, and moving up to the next level. So the kids go through 6 levels a year, so a kid on level 18 has been learning English for 3 years. Some of the kindergarten kids I teach at level 12 are super smart, and some of my after school kids at level 20 are . . . . . well . . . . not. Here is an example of a kid's journal;

I should say, that one of his classmates wrote in perfect English about how he'd read a book about Hercules, and that he liked Hercules because he was very strong, and he liked Greek Mythology. He likes Apollo who is a very good hunter, he likes Poseidon because he makes big storms, and he likes Hermes because he is very fast. The kid that wrote the journal above, is a little behind the rest of the group. Or to put it another way, he sometimes takes off his socks in class and chews on them. True story.

In sporting news I was back on the baseball field on Saturday, smashing balls all over the park as my team got back to winning ways. Its nearly the end of the season, with only a few more games before the playoffs. But more importantly, I am playing international cricket tomorrow! I'm playing for a World XI against the Korean National Cricket Team! Korea is hosting the Asian Games in 2014 (like an Asian Olympics), so the Korean Cricket Team is desperate for as much practise as they can get before they get thumped by the likes of India and Pakistan and other Asian nations that actually know how to play cricket. But I'll do my best to give their players a masterclass in batting tomorrow.


And finally, the Adventures of Tyrion the Turtle.

This week, Tyrion and some friends went jewelery shopping! Check it out;