Joel: Seoul is now sweltering in incredible heat. We returned from a tropical island on Tuesday to find Seoul is even hotter. Gone are the clouds and the never-ending barrage of rain. Now it's all sun and hot, hot, hot! I don't know how long I can cope.

Highlights of the last two weeks (in no particular order) -

1. Being able to wake up and jump straight into the sea. For four of the nights we spent on Jeju we were thirty seconds walk from the beach. And the sea is so clear. On Monday we took an early dip and were surrounded by small schools of fish. Great way to start the day.

2. The views over Seoraksan national park. Absolutely stunning! We made our way up in the first cable-car of the day and were treated with amazing scenery. Check the pics.

3. The Strokes and Franz Ferdinand at Pentaport Rock festival. Both gave absolutely superb performances. We discovered that this was the first ever multi-stage rock festival to be held in Korea. They tried something in 1999 but it was rained off and despite heavy rainfall this year it appears they had made better preparations. Also worthy of a mention - a magical moment came for me when approaching the main stage after arriving on Sunday. At the close of a song I didn't know, the American singer/guitarist standing centre-stage declared "We weren't going to play this one - but what the heck!" and then (the hairs on my neck are on end as I write!) plucked out the first few bars of the Extreme classic "More than Words". It was the Extreme man himself, Nuno Bettencourt, with his new band the DramaGods and I felt like I was accending to heaven. And I'm not joking! I sang every word.

4. Busan. It seems like a great little city. Much easier to get your head round than Seoul. Like
Seoul, it has a tower but strangely, wheras Seoul tower is ultra-modern and very touristy, a trip up Busan tower is like going back in time. Very few people were there and at the top all that existed were a few old photos of Busans most famous buildings going up and a grotty little cafe - a Korean greasy-spoon. Lots of nice shops and bars in Busan though - we found a Bob Dylan-themed bar called "Crossroads" with a great selection of on-request music. Also, we chose the hotel in Busan based on the knowledge that they served an "American style" breakfast. And it was lovely. Is it sad to include this as highlight?

5. Playing beach football with some Korean lads in Hamdeok. We played three on three, first to five and my team won 5-1 after a virtuoso display of trickery from the only foreign player, who set-up four then scored the winner. Move over Eric Cantona.

Lowlights were very few, but here they are -

1. Being scammed out of fifteen quid for a smal bowl of fruit at a beach-side eatery.

2. The mud at the festival. I never experienced the famous Glastonbury mud baths but this was pretty bad. Still, it didn't seem to dampen anyone's enjoyment. I would have liked to have camped but think we made the right decision to sleep and shower at home each night. I was absolutely caked on Friday.

3. Okay. The story of the legendary "Tottering Rock". Folklore has it that high on a hillside in deepest Seoraksan there exists a rock that can be moved by one person (be it only very slightly -making it "totter") but 100 people or more can not push it from it's ledge. And many thousands have tried. We had read it could be found after a 3km hike from the centre of the park and it was signposted all the way. So off we set. The day was fairly cool and the climb not too tricky but we were relieved when we came upon a sign reading Tottering Rock 0.6km. A short while later I thought we had arrived when we came upon a group of people having their photo taken by a rock on a ledge. I began to approach them but was called back by Rakhi, who had seen a sign. "No", she cried "This isn't it. Look. Ulsanbawi, this way." I took her word for it since she had the guide book and we continued with the climb. As the track began to steepen and we both began to tire, I offered Rakhi words of encouragment, constantly assuring her it would be just around the next corner. But it never was. Then we stumbled on another signpost only bizarely this one said "Ulsanbawi 0.8km. "You're joking!" we both gasped, "This can't be right. They've made a mistake." But by now we were determined, so we battled on and barely noticed that our climb was taking us into the clouds. Soon all foliage and greenery was behind us and we were just climbing rock staircases, high in the sky with no view but cloud. In the distance we saw a red metal staircase bolted to the side of the verticle rockface ahead of us. "I must be just over this staircase" I assured her. But as we began to make our way up Rakhi lost her will. "I'm sorry, I don't think I can do it. I can't see anything below me. You go on alone." "It's okay", I told her "If you don't want to go any further we can head back down and find somewhere to eat our picnic". Which is what we did. Rakhi felt like a failure but I tried to tell her we had still done amazingly well. We found a small flat area to sit and eat and rest. And as I tucked into my first sarnie, Rakhi rifled through our guide book and then froze. "Oh my God. You're not going to believe this." And she read me the following passage.

"Heundalbawi is a rocking stone located in front of Gyejeom Temple. It rocks even if only one person pushes on it, but it will not fall even if as many as one hundred people push it.
Ulsanbawi is a rock mountain located in the north of Oeseorak It rises to an elevation of 873m above sea level. Every side of this rock mountain is a precipitous cliff. The path up the slopes is rather treachourous making it popular among serious mountain-climbers."

Serious mountain climbers? Precipitous cliffs? We were going for a picnic! When we'd stopped sweating and caught our breath, we laughed pretty hard.

But now we're back in Seoul and back in school. Today was quite odd. I didn't see any other teachers in the school - just lots of workers revamping the playground area and toilets. The first day of my summer camp went okay. The kids are there of there own accord so I'm trying to make things as fun as possible - lots of drawing and making things rather than drilling. It's great that Rakhi and I can share our ideas, plan lesson together and lighten the work load.

The next big thing we're looking forward to is having my folks come to stay at the end of next month. I'll just have to make sure they know not to let Rakhi be the tour-guide.

P.S. You can see some of our pictures if you click the link on the top right of the page. I take no responsibility for the captions - they're R's