Namhae for Chuseok

https://maps.google.co.kr/maps?hl=en&q=namhae&ie=UTF-8
Chuseok as far as I can gather is a kind of harvest festival at the end of September and the Koreans do what most people do on holidays and eat everything. What this means for foreigners however is time off ,which is a rare commodity. At this time the weather is great too as it has stopped being so humid and raining but it's still hot.

I decided to take one of the organised trips as with no car and no language skills it sounded like a nightmare to get anywhere. This turned out to be the best option as what we hadn't realised was that everywhere would be closed and it was really hard to find restaurants even. It came in handy to have a Korean trip organiser even though it was a pain having to follow loads of people.
So the place itself is an island and it's really beautiful. We spent time on the beach during the day and built a fire and had firworks on the beach at night. We moved to a different area and went sea kayaking.

There was also and Okktoberfest while we were there. This was slightly odd but basically during WW2 some Koreans went to Germany to be nurses. When the war ended they came back with some Germans and settled here establishing a community. There are only 2 Germans left as far as I know but the area has German architecture and feel and they still celebrate Oktoberfest.
The event itself was outside with beer tents selling Paulaner and a stage. They had various acts, dancers and  a beer race. The mayor was totally pissed and dancing with us which was quite a sight to behold. I got accosted by various Koreans trying to speak to me in German (I look pretty bloody German). There were loads of cameras and I wouldn't know where to look but there is probably footage of a load of mortal cretins clutching beer stieners. Us. At night the place turned into a massive rave and was actually brilliant with a light show and everything.

Oh yeah and we trekked up to a temple. It was temply and I broke muscles I didn't know I owned scrambling down the bloody mountain. I am not built for hiking.   

Mountain of doom

Boriam temple

Ulsan World Music Festival

Ulsan world music festival is on the first weekend of October and it was really good. The two best acts as far as I'm concerned from this year were Iva Lankum, a soulful female vocalist and Babylove and the Vandangos, a ska act. There is a dance tent and a couple of different stages with various differnet worldwide acts. There was a French Dj 'Click' on both nights who really got everyone dancing with his slightly bizarre but great gypsy-dance. They sell CDs of the acts and various different stalls show up selling bits and bobs. There are lots of different food stalls with food from all over. We tried the Turkish kebabs and German sausage. There was also a cocktail stand and draft beer. Being scumbags we bought beers from the corner shop and took them in though. Overall it was fun and something different to experience. All completely free too! 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bdxwnv39LA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paRpgIx3rGk

Jinju floating lantern festival

We only managed to get the for an hour and a half because we thought the last bus to Busan went at 9:10 but there are later ones if anyone is ever planning to go. There is other stuff to do but we just had a walk around and saw the floating lanterns and the tunnels full of lanterns. you could make your own lantern, cover them in wishes and send them down the river. All along the banks were these little glowing lanterns floating past the big ones. It was beautiful and I would highly recommend it. The pictures don't do it justice.

Rock and roll health and safety centre.

http://safety.posco.co.kr:8041/S91050/S91050010/front/tour/popup/movie_popup.do
So I went on a school trip and where better to take a load of pre-pubescents but the health and safety centre in Pohang. Now I was not looking forward to this at all, especially when my landlord banged down my door the previous evening to show me a text telling me to be at school early. There seemd to be a problem with just telling when I was at school at any point the previous week. HOWEVER, it was one of the funniest things I've ever done.
The whole point of the centre is to promote safety in the work place and in general life. So, the first room we went into the put the kids in a convertable and drove it at the wall (slowly mind). This is what I do to them in my head on a regular basis, but with a little more momentum. Then there was a display of beer goggles which made it dificult to see and the kids wandered around banging in to things. The piece de resistance though was the fat suit which one girl climbed into and the other kids forced me into before running around poking me and laughing. So I death grip hugged them. The shocked silence when they dragged me on the scales though was quite an ego boost.
The next room was about the importance of emergency exit signs. For this there was a winding corridor in the pitch black with just occasional flickers of emergency exit signs. Hanging from the ceiling was tumble dryer hose, the floor was littered with bean bags and stairs and at the end it narrowed into a tunnel of about kid height. The kids went though and my co teacher pushed me in after them (as you may have gathered she's not a fan) and I stumbled around trying not to crush children, I was doing Ok until I slammed my head into the wall when it went into a tunnel. The kids around me died laughing and when I finally made it out I realised the other kids were watching on CCTV and had seen it. They also died laughing along with my co-teacher.
The third room was a 4D cinema where the seats vibrated, pummeled your back, shot air in your face and you wore 3D glasses. They showed us loads of videos of people falling of buildings, drilling themselves, getting electrocuted. It was actually fun. I really wish I'd had that for training at work instead of the the wrist-slittingly boring H&C briefings I've been through.

Innappropriate use of English

I'm hoping other people that have lived abroad can add to this. When in Italy I saw a babygro that said 'I heart blowjobs' and here this ignorant use of language is rife. Granted it is the equivalent of Chinese and Arabic tattoos on people who don't even know which countries speak Arabic or that Mandarin is not just a small orange. There is one kid in my 4th grade class who wears a T-shirt saying 'Goodtime speedlover' on a regular basis. A friend told me he saw a woman holding her 5 year olds hand with a T-shirt saying 'Fuck me I'm a bitch'. I will add to this as I encounter more of these gems but I have to go check film times for the 'Megabox' cinema.

Toilet humour

Not neccesarily the most appropriate topic but who would have thought dropping the kids of at the pool would have been such a minefield.
Best case scenario there is a porcelain throne in a cubicle with toilet roll of a reasonable thickness within easy reach. Unfortunately most of the time this is not the case.
For starters usually the bog roll is usually either on the outside wall of the toilet room or near the sink and you have to estimate how much you need prior to starting your business. Not such a big deal but if you forget you're up shit creek, quite literally and no-one can even understand you to pass you some. It's also a pain rationing if you underestimated or were taken by surprise.
Another issue is the toilet itself, usually it's a hole in the ground and as far as I'm aware you're not supposed to flush toilet roll (I do, uumm). This means you are usually hovering with your face uncomfortably close to your own jobbie, next to a pile of other peoples used toilet roll. This also means if you do flush you risk flooding the bathroom do to the fantastic plumbing system and having to move quick enough to exit nonchalantly making 'what idiot flushed?' faces. Even if there is a 'Japanese' style toilet it has a million buttons and usually a heated seat. It took me about three goes to work out how to flush them without shooting water at myself as they resemble a small time machine.
Another pleasant attribute is that there aren't locks on the doors. This means people check whether the bog is occupied by knocking. The correct response is to knock back, not shriek, lose concentration and wee on your foot. Children don't seem to have the grasp of this yet though and tend to just barge in while you're squatting on the floor. because of this I tend to cling on to the door handle, keep my feet as far away from the precipice as possible and speed wee. It's a talent I assume most foreign people aquire fairly quickly in Korea.

The basics

So I've been here just over a month now and there's a few main things I've learned about this country. I think the best place to start is to point out some of the differences. The basic things you need to know to live here.
1. You are REALLY foreign here, more or less the only non-Koreans are Waegooks/teachers. There are very few tourists and the majority of the teachers come from USA or Canada so as a Brit I am very much in the minority. As such there is a lot of staring and pointing, kids especially sometimes look horrified like you are some sort of pasty monster. Which I probably am.
Another thing to know is that it's pretty desirable to look white and western so you often get weird compliments like small face and big eyes. I also get told I'm fat quite a lot. That's not a compliment.

2. Koreans have a hieararchical system whereby showing respect is really important. This means foreigners are at the bottom of the pile regardless of qualifications and age but the older and maler you are the more respect you command. I'm not sure my principal actually does anything because he's so old and manly.
This also means that women are not supposed to be seen being unladylike, drinking, smoking. The adopt a kind of whiny thing they think is attractive too. They don't really care what foreign women do but I do get shushed on the train a lot. It's a good job I'm so couth and demure anyway.

3. Teaching is different, I am used to high pressure environments in terms of having to get results or behaviour management but this is a different level. Although I haven't experienced it that much because I work in elementary school the high school kids study 16 hours a day and I see them coming home at 10 when I've left the pub. It's intense and there are repercussions, such as a high suicide rate in teens. One friends co-teacher spends every waking hour either in the temple or on her own praying her son will do well in his exams. My co told me she is very worried about her son too. It's a bit much really, poor things.
Some weird things in the classroom are that they see you as more of a friend than a teacher so play weird games with you. One involves poking you really hard up the bum but thankfully I haven't experienced that. I might enjoy it a bit much. They also find things like jewellery or tattoos fascinating and ask really personal questions.

4. They are obsessed with technology, even the kids have smart phones. They are also really forward thinking in terms of lots of things. They have expanded their economy drastically, are obsessed with education so thinking of the future, they also recycle a lot and are trying to bcome more muli-cultural.

5. Korean women, they love westerners. Some blokes have never been attractive and this is their playground. You see quite a few with hot Korean girlfriends or wives. Once they bag a westerner they try and marry them as soon  as. They don't really do birth control so that tends to be fairly easy. Something like 40% of korean women have had plastic surgery which is a bit disturbing too. 98% of Korean celebrities have and I think the rest are mixed race. It's really worrying. Even the kids will call girls ugly when they're like 11. I don't even think I was aware of what attractive is when I was that age. It's sad.

6. Korean men, they also love western women. Sometimes they just come and hold my hand. Or just talk at me in Korean. It's a little strange. Kind of like living on the tube. They also spend most of the time drunk. Check out blackout.com for photos. They are often passed out or vomiting in public at all times of day. It is also apparently acceptable to come in to work completely hung-over. Win.

7. Food. Some people love it. I don't. They eat some weird stuff. Bean paste in cakes is normally the sweet dessert type thing. It's in a gelatinous rice blob. Gelatinous is a positive adjective by the way. Yum.
They also eat loads of bizarre sea food. Squid, jellyfish, eels, octopus, anything they can get their hands on really. It's quite normal to see some bizarre petrified sea-creature where the women in the garage would normally try flogging you softmints. One delicacy is tentacle soup while the tentacles are still moving. Another is pig spine soup, yes that's right a bowl of vertabrae, also known as hangover ramen. Definitely what I crave after a heavy sesh. They also have Kimchi wth everything. It's a fermented spicy cabbage. I spat it out the first time I tried it but now it's more or less all I eat at school because it's preferable to a boiled fish head in water.
The things I do like so far- seaweed crisps, they're actually salty when most things are sweet so I love them. I often have green teeth because they get EVERYWHERE. But I can't stop. I also feel like they're better for me than potato crisps even though they're prob not. There's not a lot of green veg either so it's quite refreshing. Ramen is just essentially pot noodle but it's safe and filling. I like shabu shabu although it's actually Vietnamese. It a bowl of boiling water you fill with veg and meat and make little rice parcels with. However I don't like the rice parcels because they taste like condoms, so I just eat it on it's own dipped in sauce. Then you add noodles and eat it, then rice and make like a risotto so it's 3 courses, It's yum. I also like Korean barbecue either pork or beef (bulgogi) it comes with sour, salty soya bean paste and loads of veg and sesame and chilli oil and you make little lettuce parcels. That is really nice and not too filling because of the lack of carbs.
Ok so there's a few things to get me started, I'm sure I will have more boring ramblings to come.