Blogs from Boeun, Cheongju, South Korea, Asia - page 4

Dear Blog Readers, Thus far, it has normally took a couple of days to get going with potential events to put into the blog but 8am on Monday morning I had already had a couple of classics. Monday morning’s aren’t too bad actually here. Laura gets her most difficult lessons out of the way with early doors and I teach at Wonnam where the kids are great fun and my co-teacher, Jinny, is really good fun (she is now the proud owner of a new iPhone!). Unfortunately for Laura, the bus ride to school is a point of awkward contention since a little girl who she teaches gets the same bus and wants to sit next to her. Does she let the girl sit next to her and have a bus ride of awkward silence or ... read more

Dear Blog Readers, I’m sitting in a beautiful ‘Angel-in-us’ café supping on a comparatively ridiculously priced hot chocolate in what can only be described as a chalice. The girl who served me tried out her English before dropping all of my change on the floor, much to the (embarrassed) laughter of the other waitresses - gutted. I need to try and make it last though. Laura’s gone into Cheongju to buy another pair of jeans which will be exactly one inch less than the same ones she bought from the same shop last week because the extra one inch on the current ones make all the difference. I’m sure all of the women reading this are agreeing wholeheartedly with her actions whereas all the blokes will be scratching their heads and adding it to the list ... read more

Dear Blog Readers, I woke on Monday morning with breath smelling like something had literally crawled into my throat and died during the evening, but more worryingly, that whatever had died had also caused my vocal chords to more or less cease to function. The Daejeon Rock Festival had well and truly taken its toll. Fortunately, Wonnam is a pretty small school and there was no need to be shouting to 30+ students so I was able to push through without sounding too ridiculous. The coughing fit that ensued in the second lesson prompted my co-teacher to get my a jinseng drink, which apparently pretty much solves any health problem in Korea. It worked a trick, and the embarrassment of me nearly dying in front of the students was soon forgotten when one student offered an ... read more

Dear Blog Readers, Wow! What a mental week! I’m sure you’re all pleased to hear from me amid the drastic ‘kimchi crisis’ currently hitting Korea - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7680371.stm. So as my champion volleyball status flows through the gossip and talk of the middle aged Korean women of Boeun, Laura and I decided to get out for the day and got a bus to Cheongju. It was about 10 minutes before getting off that we didn’t actually have a clue how to get the place that we normally go because the previous times we have been with our co-teachers! Laura got a taxi from the bus stop to the ice rink to get some skating done. The map that we had in our guidebook showed that the downtown area was straight down a road from the bus stop. ... read more

Dear Blog Readers, We get ushered into the finance department of the Boeun Education Office after another horrifically awkward meeting with another supervisor who is the supervisor of my co-teachers’ supervisors’ supervisor. Angela, Laura and I exchange confused looks as to what the 20 minute meeting could possibly have been about but then were overwhelmed as everybody in the department stood up and began applauding us. After this welcome, one of the supervisor’s introduces us to the department, “Please welcome, Angela, Simon and Neall.” So, quite a good, well actually, funny end to our third week at school! Last weekend we completed our settling down period in Boeun by finally getting our mobile phones! Thanks to our co-teachers Yuni and Eun-bi, they managed to wangle us a good deal. Laura has got a swish touch-screen phone ... read more