I've had a great couple of weeks, I started the new year with another snowboarding vacation. I went with 4 friends from the church: their english names are joon, sarah, Olivia, and Evelyn.
The slopes were much better here actually and it was real snow haha. We snowboarded for 7hrs! a lot of that turned out to be teaching because 3 of the others had never been on skiis before haha.
Actually joon has now returned to the US for studying. He is one of the few people here who are actually my age haha, i think most of the guys my age are currently undergoing their 2 years military service
The following week I moved to a new apartment. The legend that is Ko helped me find a cheaper place (actually i recently discovered Ko's name is 고대훈 - Ko Dae-hoon haha but i'll just keep calling him Ko) So yeh, Ko found a place that is not only cheaper but better in every way! haha, its bigger, cleaner, better functioning, internet included, a non-flooding bathroom, a kitchen, shelves!, a lot further down the hill, and other cool things like an electric blanket which is properly the most appreciated thing in existence, the first night in my new bed was bliss - 'babies don't sleep this well" (fightclub quote), My old bed left me with neck and back aches so im definitely enjoying the change haha. much more at ease with the landlord to she's been really kind, helping me move in and making sure everything is ok.
Here is a picture from outside my 하숙집 hasook-jib:
And my new room:
This is my bathroom - its touches the outside wall so its absolutely freezing before i get the shower going - a real way to wake in the morning, but this bathroom also has a hidden strength as you may have notices that i am storing my milk in this room, it works brilliantly as a fridge (i have a shared fridge but its out in the corridor and a bit kimchi-smelly) oh and its not usually got my washing stuff in it like that
actually the day i moved in was a bit crazy, i had to wake up early on saturday - ko was there to help me, what a legend, and we moved my bags to the new place but we couldn't move in because the old tenant hadn't quite left, so we left my bags in another room and then i had to go to worship practice and teach taekwondo in Mok-dong, this is a trip which i make 4 times a week which is fine but it sometimes takes and hour to get there and i seem to always be late. Anyway in the evening i had to come back and move in unpacking into the late hours of the night, and jumped into my wonderful bed.
the temperature has really dropped and we had some decent snow - looking for more though.
School has been really fun, it's getting far more challenging but thats good, wish they'd lay off the homework tho hehe. We had exams this week, i think i did alright, unfortunately i barely did any revision. The weekend before i was moving and having a generally busy time, and then the monday before my exam i had been asked to teach taekwondo in Okyi's place! she told me i would be teaching taekwondo for an hour to children who dont understand english (remember that my taekwondo is of a different sort) anyway i agreed but i was a little nervous about the whole thing haha, i haven't really ever taught by myself so yeh. But it turned out, as it often does with these things, that agreeing to go was the best thing ever. I arrived and before i had said or done anything the kids just came at me confident and curious, and willing to try. So it turned out i was to teach for 2hrs and more english than taekwondo - most of them had never even done taekwondo. so yeh we just had some fun, and most of the lesson was playing games. I really loved the Kids, especially because i feel that often they are out of touch with fun and games being often subject to the highly competitive education system here, strangely i get quite worked up about this - children missing out on childhood, putting cares in your carefree years, they just want to play and some of them dont know how they stuggle with it, and as i still love playing games and dont feel ready to let that part of me go i loved having fun with them.
They invited me to come sledging with them which was brilliant, the cute little kids, they all cling on to my hands or elbows or any limb that isn't already taken, and it was really good for my Korean too because their english is similar to my Korean so they can laugh at me and it gives them confidence to try some english too.
by the way those who know hye-young this is her church, and the other helpers are really cool too - oh yeh i was saying, after teaching on monday i was invited for a meal and didnt get back until really late hence the lack of revision - but i dont regret it at all, one of the helpers - joohee, spoke good english so we managed to talk properly, and it was too much of a fun night to be spoiled by revision.
But i have no pictures to document either experience because my camera broke while snowboarding! gutted. and i didnt even crash - it just got wet and stopped working.... and then i crashed. So when me and Ko took it to some repair guys they said it was pretty ruined, and the price quoted was as good as buying a new camera - so i went and bought one haha. I figured i have to have a camera cant forget these moments, and obviously i want to share them with you all haha. Yeh so i looked for the same camera but the only one they had similar was actually a lot better hehe so now i have an awesome camera (panasonic lumix DMC-LX2 and i got it for about £170 which is much cheaper than England, so yeh thats why all my pictures are suddenly in widescreen.
I also met with Joo-hee (who stayed in Bristol) which was great, she was my Korean teacher in england haha, so she was checking up on my Korean but that was really good, i have found speaking Korean to her easier than anyone else - its either that she's asking the right questions or im just performing under pressure.
And Today as Ko's birthday so we went to pizza hut haha, i've got to admit i appreciated the western food - the pizza was good... but no ice-cream factory T^T, but actually they had unlimited fruit so i guess thats better for you and doesn't leave you feeling bloated haha. the topping on pizza in Korea is a bit crazy it looks more like a wok of vegetables and meat than a pizza.
yeh... so thats the summary, as for me im doing well, enjoying the endless stream of experiences and the korean busy lifestyle. need to say yes a little less i think, got a lot of projects underway and unfinished, promises and commitments too, but yeh thats fine. I was struggling at church a bit missing Bcf a lot haha, but actually thats ok too, and i think there is lots to learn and inspiration to be caught from the our Korean friends here.
