Home at last

Hello again! Weekend in Seoul was absolutely amazing. We finished work at 10 o'clock on Friday evening, and were in a taxi by 5 past. Over to Dong Daegu station to get the KTX bullet train from Daegu up to the big bad city. Even though it wasn't that late, alot of people seemed to be sleeping, and although I personally feel we did a credit to both ourselves and the soju we were drinking with how quiet we were, we did still get shushed several times. Arrived in Seoul and waited in line for ages for a taxi. We had the address of the hostel on a mobile phone, and we showed it to the taxi driver, who delivered us safe and sound to a darkened back alley off a brightly lit strip. Fortunately, we were actually just around the corner from the hostel, and met up with the rest of our party for galbi (indoor barbecue- yuumy!). After some food, we found a cute little basement bar where we danced the night away. Despite some altercations with a snaggletoothed harridan and a scarred psychopath, we emerged unscathed into the inebriated night air of Seoul. When I say inebriated, I mean it was ridiculous. The first impression I got of the second geographically biggest city in the world was- yes, everybody here is insanely drunk. People passed out in every concievable position- in doorways, on busy freeways, standing against lampposts- ridiculous! People shuffling and wobbling home, old men being lifted by their old ladies- everybody was soused. The poor unfortunates we found outside The Vault were no better- three college students asleep, surrounded by pools of vomit. Ask Aiden O'Donoghue, he might show you the photos. Or maybe not, he was very busy being beaten up by a girl at the time.
The next day we headed for Gyeongbukgung, a 14th century royal palace, where we wandered around and looked at amazing old buildings. It was tremendously peaceful, and had a beautiful gardens attached, so we had a lovely walk.

There was also a folk museum there, but because the guys I was with wanted to go get some food, I didn't really get to spend as much time there as I liked. But I shall be back, never fear! We went for some delicious bulgogi, a beef dish, and drank dongdongju, an actually potable rice beer/wine thing. I don't know if it was the effects of the wine but walking down the street, carrying my balloon, wearing the new hat I had just bought and eating a delicius maple syrup cake thingy, I reached a plateau of happiness. Everything was magnificent. I was seriously as happy as I've ever been.

And then a parade came past.

All the lanterns were made from paper, and some of them were absolutely enormous- huge lit up sculptures painted in beautiful colours. We headed back to the hostel to regroup, before going for some excellent galbi- this time delicious beef. Yum. A few drinking games later, we tore up the floor in a nightclub, and then asked a select group of newfound friends (basically everyone we'd met) to join us for some noraebang. Which they did.
The next day was a little rough alright, and we didn't really get to make paper lanterns as we'd been planning, but the stalls in the street were unreal, with loads of Buddhists from different countries represented. We went to a large temple festooned with lanterns, and I bought the monks some rice.

The parade was starting soon, so after some Indian food, and encountering a few more Irish people, we settled in to watch. If I had thought the floats the day before were amazing, this melted my mind. I'd say there were easily fifty thousand people marching, and who knows how many more watching.

We snuck up to the front for the after parade show, which consisted of drummers, dancers and singers, pop and traditional alike, fireworks and huge jets of flame from the stage. Then everyone was standing up, I assumed to go home. But no, I was grabbed at either hand by two middle aged Korean women, and flung around in a circle, singing and dancing. What followed was the most energetic, surreal helter skelter of a conga line I have ever been part of. If Jack Kerouac had ever played ring a ring a rosies, he would have played it like this. I gave and recieved more high fives in that half hour than ever before in my life. And all the while there was a group of dancers on the stage, telling us what to do. We didn't understand, but we could sure as hell copy their actions. So, withall the cameras in Seoul watching us, and with all the noise and confetti of a Flaming Lips gig, we danced and laughed and danced and laughed. It was amazing. These Buddhists sure know how to thow a party. And clean up afterwards, for that matter. A little over an hour later, there was no sign of there having been a parade at all- everybody was gone, streets were cleared, floats being packed away. It was surreal. If it were Ireland, the guards would still have been carrying people off the street and the place would have been a mess of beer cans and puke. And you can drink on the street here!
Coming back by bullet train this morning was pretty rough, but I managed to study a little Korean- I'm slowly but surely getting the hang of the alphabet... I'm so exhausted now, but the spicy pork spine soup I had after work gave me just enough energy to come and write this. But I'm sure as hell going to sleep tonight- I've been wrecked all day, and coughing, from the yellow dust I'm sure. But more on that another time...

Man, I wish I had the internet.

Writing to this thing would be so much easier. Everytime I need to use the internet I have to go down to the PC bang (room) around the corner. Alright, it's not very far, and it's not too expensive either, but it is a bit of hassle. And most of my limited time then is spent on facebook or checking emails or whatever. I'm used to having hours on the web, rather than just snatches here and there. So today, I'm being clever. I'm writing a nice long one here in my apartment, and I'll upload it later, so as to maximise internet time. Plus, I have apple juice here and I don't have to wear a shirt. (I like living alone in a warm country.)
I can't get internet in my apartment because I don't have my alien registration card. This is issued to you roughly three weeks after you do your medical test, which myself and Maccon Fionn did on Friday last. Until you get this card, you can't get a mobile phone, bank account, cable TV or health insurance either. So once I get sorted for this card, basically, I can have everything I need. But it is a bit of a dose, going from being all wired up at home to being relatively uncontactable. I know, sure who'd be phoning me anyway, right? But still, meeting up with the lads is difficult. You can't just say “Give me a call,” because people can't.
The medical test was no bother, the worst part of it was giving blood. I'm not a massive fan of having needles stuck in me anyway (who is?), but it was quick and relatively painless. The funniest bit was the eye test. The eye doctor lady made me stand in the doorway of her office and read the letters. When I went to take off my glasses, she said “Annio, Annio!” (“No, No!”). So I left them on, and read the letters she pointed at. So the test must just have told her... how good my glasses were? I don't understand. Then she sat me down and opened a little book. And sure enough, it was a colour blindness test, that little mosaic of different coloured dots. “What number?” she said. Ahaha, I thought, I know I usually can't do these, but I'm pretty sure I can see this one. “Nine?” I said, albeit somewhat hopefully. The noise that came out of her mouth was one of utter astonishment, and she looked at me as if I were simple. I really think she'd never encountered anyone who was colour blind before. I had a couple more stabs, “Six? Thirteen?” before giving up. She just stared. “Colour blind!” I said, waving my hands in front of my eyes. I'd say she thought I was a real character. I left the room slightly confused, but one step closer to my alien card, at least.
I think I'm still getting used to the heat. Well, the humidity is the real killer. I suppose it's not that bad, like a really nice day in Ireland, but very close. And it's like that all day. It's great when I step out of my apartment in the morning, but it gets a little bit much by the end of the day. I find myself taking naps, and would probably take more if I didn't have to work all evening! Course, it's going to get hotter and more humid. I can't wait! Today we had a few drops of rain. Nobody else in the office noticed it, but I'm an expert at recognising rain, being from Ireland and all. You know the way they say “It's not worth writing home about”? Well this seems to be, because I am. It made everything a whole lot cooler and nicer. Roll on rainy season!
Last weekend was mainly spent taking it easy. Saturday I spent getting a little more acquainted with my neighbourhood, Siji. It's on the outskirts of Daegu, and if I had Google maps in my apartment, I'd surely work out how to link you to it. But it's only ten or fifteen minutes by subway from the centre of the city, so it's alright. There are plenty of restaurants, and although the Korean places can be a little intimidating, they're handy enough to manage as there are usually pictures of the food somewhere. Everything Korean is delicious, by the way. I love it all, and I'll write in the coming weeks about all the amazing food I'm eating. Sunday was supposed to be spent hiking Palong mountain, the highest mountain in the reigon. Apparently there are buddhist temples all the way up. I say apparently, we had to change buses at one point and ended up going the wrong way. We ended up at a lake at the other side of the city! It was quite fun though, we took swan pedalos out and played some mini-golf.
Tomorrow we're going to the train station to buy our tickets to Seoul for this weekend. It's Buddha's birthday, the lucky man, so there'll be parades and a lantern festival. The girl in the office who's organising the trip has, I think, signed us up to a latern making workshop. Expect photos. I promise I'll post some of the better ones up, I know I've been really bad about it, but I'm going to plead the No Internet defence again! Anyway, I'll love you and leave you, and hope this satisfies those of you looking to get your Alex fix...

Yesterday was my first day of school. I really enjoyed being in front of a classroom, enjoyed the banter with the kids and the feeling of teaching- asking questions, getting answers, doing excersises. I was really hyperactive, despite the lack of sleep and the heat, so even in those air conditioned classes I was sweating buckets. It was all going really well until the listening class. These generally are the ones that go wrong anyway, when you're relying on CDs and players. And the classes at this school are doubly difficult because you have to have all the right paper, and give each of the students a test, and put them in the door, then give them a different test, and put those in the door and then do the rest of the lesson on a different piece of paper. So of course muggins here brings all the wrong tests, all the wrong paper, generally getting everything wrong, and makes a massive confusion of everything. And this was only compounded when the next listening class I was timetabled to do (which I had prepared for in the break) was actually a higher level, so I had all the wrong paper. Again. Miserable. But, on the plus side, I went for spicy pork spine soup and a few glasses of wine with the other teachers, and that was a good way to let off steam!

Today was much better- I really feel I learned from the mistakes I made and put them into practice- preparation, preparation and all that jazz. ANyway, time for me to sleep...

I'm still alive... just about!

It's kind of hard to believe I've only been here three days. Maybe it's the jetlag, maybe it's the unhealthy amounts of alcohol that people keep making me drink, but it feels much longer. Well, I'm not to badly jetlagged, so it's probably the other one!

I was picked up from the plane by the “reinforcement team”, guys whos job it is to help us settle in. The apartment was missing a few bits and pieces, my matress was on the floor and there was no dinner table, but I really didn't care. I went straight to sleep. I woke up as it was getting bright. It must have been about five, I'd imagine, but I had no idea- I hadn't reset my clock on my mp3 player- the only time telling device I had! I made myself sleep some more, even though my body was sure it was the wrong time of day, then I went down to the Emart.

The Emart is a massive supermarket, on three levels, and they sell absolutely everything. Well, I presume they do, I didn't recognise very much of the food! I got some apple juice and noodles to tide me over, but I don't think I'll be eating at home very much. It's quite cheap to go out for food.

At 2 o'clock myself and Maccon Fionn had induction training in MoonKkang headquarters, and then we went to our respective schools for observation. The other “foreign teachers” (whenever somebody says foreigner, I keep forgetting that I'm one too...) are really nice. There are some really diverse and interesting teaching styles, and I'm actually just really excited to get in front of a class!

Then it was into town for drinks and food. There are a few other teachers starting at the company, so we all headed out to a Korean barbeque place. You cook the food on the table, and press your little button when you run out of food. It's amazing.

Anyway, I've got to iron shirts for tonight- (another drinking session?), but I will post tomorrow with more news. Oh there will be news!