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.