Mike's Space

At last the sun is shining….

It’s been ages since I wrote my blog… and I’ve managed to max out my schedule, so these days I’m not finding myself with too much free time… sorry for being super lame about replying to emails too!!!

So as I said we’re finally getting some decent weather here in Korea!!! We struggled through a long, seemingly endless winter and autumn but now we’re well and truly breaking into summer, it’s gorgeous. I went and bought two new summer t-shirts on the weekend to celebrate, in fact I needn’t have worried about it as yesterday was the best day in the educational calendar… Teachers Day!!!! I lucked out and ended the day with two (more) t-shirts, a Korean World-Cup football strip (I have dual loyalty now), a thermos coffee mug, a traditional wooden mask wall hanging, traditional bookmarks, some arty cup coasters (soon to be wall decorations), a bottle of wine (already consumed), two roses (romantic gifts from Hayden and Kevin), 3 bunches of flowers (again from boys), a mug (embossed with a “Kiwi 2” class photo - due to the curvature of the mug they look like aliens with dwarf heads), a key ring, a box of cookies and a heap of chocolate. It was like a mid-year Christmas Day yesterday, the teachers were eagerly awaiting new classes (gifts) and enviously comparing each others prizes. The funniest things were a small play-doe couple in a bottle (one of Suzie’s) and a short, denim, farmer’s-wife dress which I’m sure Erin has buried deep down in her wardrobe by now.

My teaching life has become busier both in and outside school… We have 20 or so more students and two more classes a week now which is great for Mrs. Kim (the owner) but, for us monkeys, it just means more lessons to plan, more tests to write and grade and more homework sheets to fabricate and sign. Free periods and break times alike are slowly morphing themselves into extended visits to the photocopier and countless hours of rearranging poorly constructed sentences. The staff list has changed a little with the ‘retirement’ of Korean long-timer Samantha ‘monkey baby’ Walker and the hiring of Francesca from the States. Outside school I’ve taken on a heap of extra work which means a few days a week I’ve got myself working 12 hour days. The extra work is always a daunting prospect at the end of your school day but when you’re actually in there teaching it’s quite pleasurable, teaching one on one (or two) is actually pretty rewarding when compared with a whole class of screaming kids. Most extra-curricular classes provide you with some sort of refreshment (ranging from gourmet sandwiches and fruit juices to a few slices of apple) thus normally satisfying my staple diet of random food.

Recent weekends have been spent between nursing hangovers and continued exploration of Korea. Back in June Chris, Sunhee and I set out to attempt the grueling climb to the top of the mountain which hosts Seoul tower. We took the subway into Seoul and then climbed aboard a 30 seater bus with 100 other Korean families all out to enjoy the first ‘spring weekend’ of the year. The bus gradually climbed high and higher up our ‘K2 challenge’ until it dropped us off barely five minutes from the peak… we duly followed the hordes of  families heading towards the tower and purchased our Seoul Tower tickets. The view from the top was surprisingly uninspiring, Seoul is a biiiiiiiiiiiiig big city and lacks any sort of central manifestation of business or culture. So the views are basically of apartments, offices and the random non-descript land marks. There were however geographically accurate markings on the glass, locating the major cities of the world… so we claimed our own (Sunhee’s pointing to a random city - as we were already in Korea).

Sunhee and I spent our long weekend visiting Nami Island and Chinchon. A two hour bus ride followed by short ferry trip took us to the island. The island itself is the setting of a Korean TV show (called Sonata – I think) and is real popular in Japan. So, in the same way English tourists flock to Ramsey Street, the island was awash with Japanese soap opera fans. We watched a circus act, hired bikes and rode a train around the island (Darren Mullins would have been proud). The queue for the return ferry journey was easily a kilometer long so I abused my rich westerner status once again and hired a speedboat which sped us back to the mainland. In the evening we went to an area called Dok-Galbi Street, basically it’s a long windy back street full of restaurants serving Dok-Galbi (a kind of chicken and cabbage stir fry type thing – kinda of). It reminded me of Brick Lane back in London, but instead of  enticing you with 20% discounts these guys were offering free cola…. bargain. Teacher friends from Sanbon had spread themselves around the country visiting Busan, Jeju Island and Seoul but every one of us had torrential rain all day Saturday so whities around the country were confined to motel rooms and bars to sit out the storms.

Back in April we paid 35$US and traveled for 3 hours to random forest to play paintball. It was great fun (besides the journey). After a basic instructions in broken English we were divided into teams and formulated our battle tactics. As the whistle sounded our plans were instantly disregarded, wannabe heroes ran forward and got shot in the face while those who wanted to remain bruise less and injury free cowered in more tactical positions behind trees or in make-shift trenches. We played three games. In the final seconds of the last game Chris demonstrated his survival skills with a solo run of desperation (miraculously dodging capsules of paint from all directs) to capture the flag and win the game. Unfortunately for us Chris was on the opposite team, but still I feel a little bit safer back here in Sanbon knowing I work with such a military expert.

We have been on a heap of trips with school; play grounds, flower hills, the zoo and  Partyland to mention a few. Next week we’re off to an exhibition of the human body. It seems to be rather similar to ‘Body Works’  (that formaldehyde-filled exhibition by that crazy Dutch guy). If I’m right, I foresee our kindy kids being suitably horrified and Korean staff having to contend with angry phone calls from parents about nightmares and bedwetting - one can only hope ;)

Back at the ranch we have been wasting our time having death battles: Yuki vs Bigwig (Belinda’s dog vs Nik/Jac’s rabbit).  Bigwig was clearly the underdog (or underrabbit) but over recent weeks she has started to stand her ground. We are all waiting to see Bigwig’s special move – which we predict to be a bite to the nose. After school one day last week Belinda and I took Yuki for a walk and ended up coming home with; an old cabinet, a chair and a satellite dish... hum…. why…. I hear you ask…. isn’t it obvious????…. well I guess not … we recruited Chris and Francesca and spent the following 4 hours cutting, chopping, burning, hammering, screwing (and eating pizza) and finally the Sanbon Herald Super BBQ was born!!! We celebrated the fact with a rooftop BBQ and ten pitchers of beer last Friday night.