School lunch ettiquette

So I after graduation in my school I had to go to a dinner with the faculty. After being told it was raw fish the best I could hope for was sushi. Unfortunately my worst nightmares came true when I was confronted with strips of raw fish, whole fish with the heads on you eat, yes, whole, and a selection of raw shell fish-  things like looked like star anise with bum holes attached and something a consumptive patient sneezed out.

The absolute highlight for me was the 'gaebul' which literally translates as 'dog penises'. They were still alive and writhing around. Needless to say I tried to stick to the soju which the older teachers were moving around the table serving. You have to down a shot then pour one for the them that they drink. You do this with two hands to show respect and use one cup round the whole table. This doesn't bother me but bearing in mind how extremely hygienic they are with everything else it was a little odd. Especially as it's apparently acceptable to get completely rat-arsed in front of all your colleagues and bosses. It made for an interesting afternoon anyway.

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.