Joel: Had the day off today for the local elections. Since we arrived here we've been woken at 7 every morning by amped up recordings of the Korean world cup song from campaign floats in the streets near our flat and tomorrow it will be no more. It seems all the local politicians want to be accociated with the national football team and it's no wonder. The fanaticism is incredible. The Koreans played a friendly agianst Bosnia last week and place went crazy. Everybody, wherever they were, was watching the game. Every bar and restaurant was showing it - I'm not exagerating - I was so amazed I checked quite a few. Every worker in every shop had a TV set up - even the news kiosk at the subway station. I think it will be easy to find good places to watch the actual world cup games.

We spent the day up at the huge market in Dongdaemun. The scale of this place is beyond belief. There were lots of shoes and fabric type stalls to pass but eventually we found the building for more interesting clothes shops - little designer boutiques housing some really nice clothing. Amidst the mass of outdoor street stalls we spotted some kind of sports stadium and decided to check it out. It was an old sports stadium - possibly for football - but now it contained a massive flea market - hundreds of stalls piled up with mountains of bric-a-brac. We found some lovely Korean art work and haggled one guy down from 10,000 won to 6,000 (about 3pound fifty) for a cool little print. Also picked up a lamp for our living room - in ordinary shops here lamps are really expensive...strange.

My first days in school were great. Being back in a school environment has got me thinking about my school days - back in England but also in Oz. I suppose its the sandy playing pitches and the tannoys that take me back to Oz...and also the heat. It's now pretty humid every day.
I've got involved with some of the lessons and the kids are really responsive. I'm clearly quite a novelty for them and when they hear I've come from Manchester they go crazy. They seem to think Park Ji-sung is the only footballer that exists. I already don't find the principle half as intimidating at I did on the first meeting. I'm sure he's just a big Korean softie.

I did have something sprung on me yesterday though. The principle wants me to interview all the 3rd to 6th grader who are interested to decide who should be given the chance to do special English classes. I have to choose 7 or 8 from each year. About three hundred are interested. Three hundred. I have tomorrow and Friday afternoons to conduct them. I spoke with Debbie about the fact that she must have a good idea who the brightest and keenest are but she told me the principle wanted me to do it alone with fresh ears and ideas so as not to demonstrate any bias. So now I have two killer days ahead of me during which time I will make some key decisions about some children's futures. Each interview will have to be three minutes max and I have to give a mark out of a hundred. Can't wait for the weekend to come.