Rakhi: The heaven's have well and truly opened this last week in Korea. As you lucky people in the UK are in the midst of a heatwave and experiencing 'the hottest day ever,' Joel and I have been wading through rivers to get to school! I think I need to swap that oriental fan I bought in Insadong last week, for a rain mac!

The Han river in Seoul has over flowed and literally turned into a massive mud bath

Above is a picture from a province in the east of the country where Joel and I are going on holiday this weekend.

I'm hoping the rain dies down before our trip starts but i'm not holding my breath! Aaah, it's like the good old days of living in Manchester!

Something interesting and as we're told, inevitable happened this evening. Joel was out getting some things from the supermarket when our doorbell rang. It was a young boy called Steve who we had met near the recycling bins last week. He is a young Korean boy who has been living in New Zealand for the last 6 years and returned to Korea a few months ago to be reunited with his mother and father. So, there he was with his mother and younger brother at our front door. Joel returned in time to hear his mother explain (in pretty good English) that Steve had told her about meeting us and she would really like us to do some private English tuition with her younger son. Joel and I have been aware from the start that this sort of request was very likely to happen during our time here as people are absolutely desperate to learn English. We told her that we would think about it and get back to her tomorrow. Now we have to break it to them that it we don't want to take on the extra work and more importantly that it is a breach of our contract with the Office of Education. I feel really bad though, as I would really like to help, they seem like a lovely family.

There's now only two days left of school before the summer holidays start. Working in a school is really taking me back to my days at Manchester High. At the moment, the kids are so excited about the up coming holidays that it's hard to control them and settle them down to study. I can really remember what it was like to be coming to the end of school before the long summer break and how the last thing I wanted to do was learn. I can also empathise as i'm looking forward to having a break too! Joel and I are off this Saturday to Cheonan (in the same province as the picture above) in the east. We're going to travel from there to Mount Seoraksan on the east coast near Sokcho, then to a little island called Ulleungdo, a province called Gyeongju which is steeped with Korean tradition and culture and finally to the the second biggest city in S. Korea - Busan. Check out the map below for our route;

We bought rucksacks and sleeping bags today so we're all set. Of course, we'll only be camping if the weather clears up...

Only two days to go. Actually, one, I think i'm finishing early on Friday as the rest of the teacher's are going on a trip. Luckily i'm excused, not that it won't be fun but we're leaving for the east coast early Saturday morning and the teacher's won't be returning from their trip until Saturday evening. Naturally, I was only given all the information regarding the trip yesterday. There are two things that are very different about England and Korea; the first is NO personal space, people walk, sit, stand really close to you. Just the other day, I nearly fell over an old lady that had sneaked up right behind me at the subway station. Also, if someone bangs into you or stands on you, there's no apology. People jump queues here all the time too. I really need to learn to be less British and cut all the politeness! The second thing is the last minuteness. Arrangements are made at the last second and Koreans are obligated to do them. There is no 'Are you free next Thursday? OK, shall we go for dinner?' It's more like 'Oh, the teachers are all going out for dinner tonight- you have to come.' Thankfully, regarding the obligated dinners and trips, us foreigners are excused somewhat.

So, we're off on Saturday, keep your fingers crossed that the weather is nice and do a sundance for us please!

Joel: There are public holidays a plenty here in Korea and today it was great to be able to relax and enjoy our long weekend.

On Friday the Bucheon International Film Festival opened. There are old and new films of many types showing over the next week in loads of venues all over the area. We decided to go and see Breakfast at Tiffany's, which neither of us had seen before, and I must admit I really enjoyed it. Easy to see why Holly Golightly has become such an iconic figure - she's mad as cheese!

On Saturday night we went to Debbie's parents house for dinner. We took a bottle of red wine as a gift and met Debbie in the rain outside Sindorim station. As do many Koreans, they live in a huge appartment complex surrounded by many others. Debbie and her younger brother still live with their parents but her older brother had travelled over from his home because he was so keen to meet us. We ate in the traditional Korean manner - sitting on the floor round a low table - and her mum had prepared absolutely loads of proper Korean food for us. The food was lovely and we washed it down with a creamy white spirit called makkolli. I don't think either of us committed any faux-pas but it wouldn't have mattered anyhow - the occasion was very relaxed and lots of fun. Debbie's older brother spent six months in Melbourne a couple of years ago so his English is very good. We had a good natter about loads of things and continued after the food was finished. Only when Debbie's folks' card playing partners turned up for a tournament did we feel maybe we should make a move to go. They are a really lovely family and I hope we get the chance to meet again.

Yesterday and today we've just really taken it easy. We've heard reports about the scorching weather in the U.K - Vernon Kaye had absolutely nothing else to talk about on his Sunday breakfast show - and I'm green with envy. It's still raining here but at least it's cooled down quite a bit. I really hope the sun comes out again by next weekend when we break up for the summer.

Plans for our summer holiday are really coming together now. We leave here next Saturday morning for a seven day run down the east coast - including temples, beaches and a bunjee jump - to Busan. From there we will travel back to Seoul on the superfast KTX train in time to get to Incheon for the Pentaport festival. One of the students at my school has lent my a tent so we don't have to shell out for one - let's hope it doesn't become a Glastonbury mudbath. Then, on the following monday, we fly out to the sub-tropical paradise of Jeju island for a week of R&R. Highlights there include waterfalls into the sea and spectacular volcano-side sunrises, but mostly I think we'll be down at the beach. Rakhi's highlight of course will be the food we're served on the plane, but that's only to be expected.

Joel: This week has really flown by. For the last two days I've been playing "Scattegories" pretty solidly with the grade five and six kids, and they've been loving it. The syllabus has now all been taught so I've been contributing more to the planning of the regular lessons, and games like this work a treat. Minimum planning time and maximum fun! It's got to be the way.

Yesterday, it rained harder than any day since we've been here and harder than I can remember. It's now full monsoon season and it's strange to be walking to school in a light T-shirt but holding up an umbrella to sheild myself from the downpour. It's only a ten minute walk but I have to take on a very steep hill on the way and, no matter how slow I go, I always seem to arrive at school sweating and have to stand by a fan for a bit. Yesterday the principle allowed the air-conditioning to be turned on for the first time this year and it made a massive difference. One week until the summer break and he finally cracks.

But I feel very lucky with the school I've been placed in. I'm made to feel incredibly valued: today I received another invitation to go for dinner with principle - this time I choose the food but when we're going is still being kept a surprise for the moment - er...great! More exciting than this is that Rakhi and I have been invited over to Debbie's house for dinner on Saturday night. She lives with her parents in Sindorim, and her brother - who speaks English very well - will also be there. I've read that to be invited to someone's home for dinner in Korea is a great honour. We need to take some sort of gift for her mother and brush up on our Korean etiquette but I'm sure it will be very relaxed and a quite memorable experience.

One thing that's bugged me a little since we arrived is the occasional negativity I've sometimes felt from some of the westerners we've met towards Korea and Koreans - even some friends who are, on the whole, pretty sorted. A couple of weeks ago, on a night out, a friend of a friend, who has been in Korea a year already, informed me that "Koreans are very racist". When I asked which Koreans he was talking about, he was taken aback, and told me he was speaking "generally". I told him that his general speaking was the closest thing to racism I had witnessed in Korea and that my experience so far was that the vast majority of Korean people I had encountered had been incredibly friendly and generous. Surely "general speaking" is the root of bigotry. A few days after our heated debate he e-mailed me and told me that, since we had spoken, he had begun to see the place once again with the eyes he had had when he first arrived here. I felt it had been a minor success.

But it's true. Shop-keepers have knocked money off our bills when there's been no reason to. All our neighbours say hi to us on the stairwell and wave in the street. My co-worker has gone beyond the call of duty to look after us and the kids bring me sandwiches they have made or sweets on a regular basis. Of course there are some idiots around and the odd nutter who stares like a psycho at us in the marketplace but, as strange a Korean culture can seem at times, we have been made to feel comfortable here by many people - in large ways and small.

I'm really looking forward to some time off now so we can begin to explore further afield.

Rakhi: Joel and I went to Chinatown in Incheon yesterday; it's the biggest Chinatown in Korea so we thought we'd check it out and have some traditonal Chinese food. Little did we know we had an even better sight in store for us...
Incheon is on the western coast about 30 minutes by subway from us. It's a port city with fresh fish markets, promenades and lots of little islands that you can get boats out to. There are many different boats that you can get but I think we made the right choice. We set sail aboard 'Cosmos' at 2pm. As we walked up the ramp we could hear really, really loud rave style music with heavy bass coming from one of the events rooms. We wandered in and found 100+ old Korean men and women 'avin it large' on the dancefloor. They were going mental! There were hands up in the airs, whoops of enjoyment, bumping and grinding. Of course, we had to join in! We were the only people under sixty-five there! It was hysterical, these folk would put the clubbers in Sankey's to shame. Later, Joel and I went and sat on the upstairs deck, the views were lovely but what was even better was that it seemed to be some kind of chill out area for the older people to relax and have a break from raving! There were gangs of men and women sitting together eating dried squid (a favourite drinking snack -yuk!) and drinking soju (local strong spirit) and beer. Needless to say, there were a few wobbly legs getting off the boat but Koreans didn't earn their title 'The Irish of Asia' for nothing you know!

On Saturday, after visiting a Buddhist temple, Joel and I met up with some friends in Insadong which is the massive arts and craft area of Seoul. We decided (well, I decided!- I miss my mum's cooking) that it would be a really good idea to go for some Indian food. Every week in the Korea Times, there is an advert for a restaurant called 'Chakraa' which claims to be authentic Indian cooking, Indian owned and Indian run. I was slightly wary, as about a month ago, Joel and I spotted a restaurant called 'Delhi' in Gangnam and went to look at the menu. It was a fraud Indian restaurant that had things like 'curry pasta' on the menu (a speciality in Delhi you know!) and other strange fusion foods with an Indian/Korean twist- we gave it a miss. Unfortunately, we weren't so alert at the Spanish restaurant in Itaewon where the 'paella' could have doubled up as fried rice with soy sauce and my simple 'shrimp pasta' with a light sauce was actually a fishy broth with noodles and parmesan. Anyway, we thought we'd try Chakraa out- it did advertise Dosa's after all so there had to be some authenticity about the place. It turned out to be really good- not the cheapest Indian meal but it certainly satisfied all our taste buds.

The monsoon season is well and truly here now and i'm told that a typhoon is on it's way aswell. The humidity is incredible, I had to invest in a cliche oriental fan on Saturday as I was dripping with perspiration! Joel and I are on the top floor of an apartment block so it gets pretty hot at home and we only have one fan. We try to keep the windows open but the fly screens that pull accross aren't perfect so we've both woken up with mozzie bites on a couple of occassions. And, we ain't seen nothing yet- towards the end of July and throughout August it's going to get even hotter apparently! Yikes!

Joel: We've just got back from a swim at the Olympic swimming pool in Sosa (one stop away)and I'm feeling pretty envigorated. My lack of exercise since we did the Liverpool half-marathon in March has been shocking. Now we've discovered the pool I'm determined it's going to become a part of my life - it's far too hot here to go running. I had to shell out for the manditory swimming cap but wearing it can only be a good thing - I feel like a pro! Soon, so we're told, the open air pools along the river open up for the summer. I really can't wait.

I had some exciting news today. Debbie told me that in the "fall" there's going to be an arts festival at my school. Along with dance perfomances and piano recitals, she told me, the principle wants me to put on an English play of my choice with some of the students. It will be a performance for all the teachers and parents and the technical staff are down to work on the building of the set. I think it's going to be great fun. I'll have to come up with something pretty special.

And now we have our tickets to the festival at Pentaport. To have a gig like this going on just up the road couldn't be missed. There'll be loads of Korean bands to check out along with the British and American headliners but more than anything I'm looking forward to feeling that festival vibe. Camping for four nights...relaxing in the sun...crates of beer...portaloos...okay, it's not perfect, but I bet the Koreans have developed some high-tech, odourless loos and kept them a secret from the world. Here's hoping.

And I'm not even going to mention the football. Anyone who needs one final cry to get it out of thier system should check out this nonsense. You need the audio. They couldn't have got it more wrong:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZRrkCLXzjU&search=rooney%20song

Rakhi: I am fit to burst! We've just had a lovely meal in one of the restaurants near us. Everywhere you go there are so many restaurants and hofs that very few of them actually get really busy- it's a wonder they manage to survive. Actually, I don't think many places do for very long, new places seem to pop up everyday. How do I know this? Because, for some reason in Korea, people advertise the opening of a new restaurant, hof (and even pc bangs) with a big ballon arch over the doorway leading to the place, one of those big balloon people things (the ones that moves side to side, forwards and backwards) and girls in skimpy clothing dancing to really bad Euro/Korean pop. It's quite strange that all new places seem to hold the same ritual. Anyway, we went for dinner to a place not far from my school. It had a grill in the middle of the table in which we cooked up a massive pot of spicy soup with 2 different types of mushrooms, greens, potatoes and some meat (which can be omitted easily). After we had cooked all the meat we had some fresh noodles placed into the dish. Then, after this, when we were really full, the soup was removed from the pot and a bowl of rice with veg and eggs was cooked up. All of this was supposed to be a 'small' version of the dish aswell!

When I last wrote, Joel and I were getting ready to go to see a quartet called 'The Takacs Quartet' hailing from Budapest. They consist of two viollinists, a viola and a cellist. The quartet had so much energy and enthusiasm for their craft that their music was infective. I really enjoyed the experience. For the rest of last week, Joel and I laid low as we have been burning the candle at both ends since we got here. Everything was so new and intriguing that we had too much energy and excitement to sleep. I think the exhaustion of having an early start everyday, being surrounding by energetic kids, the humidity and action packed weekends had burnt us out.

At school, my co-worker and I cleared the air and everything is back to normal (as it can be in Korea!). Last week was pretty easy as grades 4-6 were away so I didn't have any lessons for the first couple of days. I think it's going to be similar for the next few weeks as the school is wrapping up for the summer holidays. The students have to sit various tests and do other activities so everything's up in the air in terms of regular teaching hours. It's only two and a half weeks until the holidays start which means that Joel and I are going on holiday soon! We've managed to get just over two weeks off so we're going to do a little tour of Korea. We're not sure of the precise details yet but we know that we're definately going to this festival; http://www.pentaportrock.com/english.php.
Franz Ferdinand, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs! and The Strokes are on along with lots of people i've never heard of. Still, it'll be fun to do a festival Korea style and we're gathering quite a crew to join us. After the festival, we're thinking about heading to an island of the southern tip to relax for a week before beginning English summer camps at our schools. It'll be really good fun but a mission to organise as most of the sites regarding travel details and accommodation are in Korean!

Last but not least, a quick mention of the disappointment of last weekend. It all started off great, we met up with some people that we've not seen since our training, and headed into a pub in Itaewon in Seoul for the football. We were there nice and early at 6pm in order to get good seats and build up excitement for the match. It didn't start here until midnight, finished at 3am and we didn't get home until about 5am- I wish I hadn't bothered now!