Joel: And so this is Christmas. Or so it was. It's now the day after boxing day and I'm sat in my classroom with nothing left to do but write this. I arrived today expecting to teach five grade 4 classes and discovered that my co-teacher is ill and, since it's the last day of term, all the classes have been cancelled. Hooray! I've finished for the winter. I have to pop in for an hour tomorrow (for no good reason) but at ten o'clock I'll be leaving and heading to the airport to meet Mr Haynes.

We had a superb Christmas weekend. With no Korean class last week we reaquainted ourselves with the joy of Friday nights and arranged to meet up with Malcolm and Matthew, who we don't get to see that often because they live quite a way out of Seoul. It was top to catch up and it seems Matthew and his girlfriend might be up for meeting up on New Year's Eve for the bell ringing at Jongno. It's gonna be a bit busy there I hear but, since we will probably never get to experience a Korean new year again, I think we should do something a bit memorable.

On Saturday night, we met up with the legend that is Barry, in a bar in Hongdae. Barry is the Irish guy we met at the orientation who spent the tour around Hwasong Fortress complaining it was boring, and supping from a can of lager hidden in his inside pocket. I ended up having to assist him from the coach when it broke down. He's also the guy who, for a spell, went out with a psychotic Korean girl who, when he broke up with her, threatened to go to his school and tell his principal that he was a womaniser and an alcoholic, and also threatened to kill herself and come back and haunt him if he didn't take her back. He's a bit of character then, but also a really top guy. A few others came down to meet us, including Shano, and we ended up having a late one (the latter part of which, I can remember very little). But, it was a Christmas party of sorts, since it involved catching up with a few good friends and also bumping into David Nam, a good fella who was our scheme's teacher liaison guy when we started in May. As we've definitely discovered, drinking alcohol is a huge part of Korean culture. It's no wonder they're regarded as the Irish of Asia. Of course, this gives us the excuse that every time we go to a bar, we're having a cultural experience. If ever we needed an excuse that is.

Christmas Eve was also dead nice. Rakhi and I went into the city in the evening and walked along the Chungyecheong, an artificial stream that runs through the centre of the city. We started at Dongdaemun stadium and walked all the way to City Hall where there were loads of Christmas lights on both sides of the stream. I can't remember ever having seen more people in one place. Clearly the lights and the ice rink were a draw for thousands of people looking to have a magical Christmas Eve. It was top.

We both woke up at about 5:30 on Christmas day so we got up and had breakfast. I reckon Rakhi was desperate to tear into her stocking, haha. I'd managed to download lots of English language Christmas things to watch including: National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation; Scrooged with Bill Murray; and the Spongebob Squarepants Christmas special. On the topic of TV, on Friday, Malcom told me about UKNova, a torrent site that allows you to download things from UK TV soon after they've been on. So, now I can get things like football focus and Match of the Day as well as British music programmes and comedies. What a find! Anyway, we had plenty of Christmas TV to watch. Shano came over in the afternoon with his veggie roaster and Rakhi cooked up a fantastic Christmas dinner, which was washed down with an abundance of wine and finished off with the Christmas deserts my Nan and Grandad sent for us. Cheers guys!

I had to go to work on boxing day (it's not a national holiday here) but I'll not be complaining with the time off I've got now. It works out as three weeks off, followed by three weeks of days when I finish at 12:10 and can be home by twenty past. I'm really looking forward to going on a ski trip (something I've never done) and heading over to the Hwacheon Sancheoneo Ice Festival where we can go ice sledding and play football (I hope they don't mean American football) on ice. I'll put a link up on the right. It looks ace.

Joel: The snow stuck for three nights, but today it began to melt. I'm not too disappointed. On Monday, I skidded over on the ice just inside the school gates. Three or four of the kids saw me but luckily they were the younger ones. If any of the grade 6 lads had seen my fall from grace, I doubt I'd have heard the end of it. They've definitely got cockier in the last six months of school and are now clearly ready to move on to middle school. There's only three weeks left of the academic year; one before Christmas and two after the winter break (which seems a little odd). Then it will be all change.

Christmas is now only five days away and it's been great to receive so many cards and parcels from friends and family. We bought a little crimbo tree from the pound shop in the station and now have a lovely stash of little presents beneath it. Thanks to all. Despite the distance, we're going to be having a right old proper Christmas. Brussels sprouts are conspicuous by their absence, but we've got stuffing and gravy so we'll be concocting a right old Christmas feast.

Going over to Sam's on Saturday was great. Sam and Shane are both dead funny and Shane had helped Sam to put on a great Christmas spread. The snowball fight was really good fun. Dumping such an enormous snowball on Shane's head was Rakhi's idea by the way. Notice how she set up the photo. I was only taking orders - honest.

So, now I've got two more days at school before Christmas, and five before Luke arrives then I'm off for three weeks. Today, the girls from my grade 5/6 special class found it quite amusing to reel off a list of my most frequent utterances. Among them were "BE QUIET!", "LISTEN", "OK, soooo..." and "Put your hand up if you can tell me...". It was pretty funny to be presented with quite how much of a teaching cliche' I've clearly become. It was all in good humour though. I'm still really enjoying working with kids. So often, they have me in stitches. And some of them are so bright and perceptive. I'm right with Jarvis cocker when he suggests that, if anything, people become "more stupid" as they get older. It's definitely been true in my case.

Rakhi:

Last night Joel and I were invited over to Sam's house for a Christmas dinner. Sam's going back to Oz next week to spend Christmas with her family so she wanted to have a little do here before she goes. Also, her mum had sent her a goodie box of Christmas delights like mince pies and Christmas cake that she kindly wanted to share with us. Her and Shane cooked up a delicious feast; there was a cheese board, 'chooks' (or chicken to all us non-aussies!), loads of roast veggies, FOUR desserts and plenty of wine. There was so much food that we all walked away with huge tummies and doggy bags! More incredible than the spectacular Christmas banquet though, was that as we began tucking into our main course, it started snowing! It was really sweet to see the look of awe on Sam and Shane's faces, as being Aussie's they're not used to seeing snow. Within a short time the snow was at least 4 inches thick so after dinner we giddily headed down to the local park for a snowball fight and to make a snowman. During the snowman making process however, the snowman's body ended up getting thrown over Shane! Ha ha!

On Friday, we had our Korean language test. Before the test, we had a short lesson which was actually the best that we've had with this teacher. I found that I understood more and although the teacher would start on one topic then flit to another halfway through, I could just about keep up. Anyway, we did the test and both Joel and I did okay on it. Our teacher even asked if we wanted to move up to the next level to which we laughed and replied with a determined 'anniyo' (no)! Each level of the course is supposed to be 4 lessons long but as next week there is a Christmas party, this section of the course has been 4 lessons worth of work crammed into 3. Joel and I both know that we will benefit far more if we repeat this part of the course before advancing. Luckily though, we've managed to change to the Monday classes so we can have our Friday nights back.

So, this week is my last full week of school until after the winter vacation. I can't wait for the holidays; this semester has been a fairly long and exhausting one. It can be quite draining having to be lively and alert for the students all the time, I don't know where they get all their energy from! After resting over this weekend, tomorrow we have to get back to marathon training. At the moment, I can run 7k easily but that won't really cut the mustard considering the marathon is over 40k! As it's Christmas we're going easy on ourselves though, come January, the real hard work starts!

Rakhi: Yes, Joel and I have had some decisions to make in the past week and a half. Firstly, we've decided not to go to Japan. There are too many extra costs and all in all, for five days it's going to work at about 500 quid each even though we have a place to stay. That amount is just too extravagant considering we could spend a month in SE Asia with the same amount once our contracts have finished. Speaking of which, we've not come to an absolute final decision about definitely leaving Korea but we both agree that we should strongly consider moving on. Both of us are having such a great time here and we haven't experienced any negativity despite ignorant foreigners warning us we will. Actually, the only negativity I've experienced is from the ignorant foreigners. This is a really tough decision for us to make because there are so many pros to staying and only a handful of cons for leaving. At the same time though, both of us would really like to explore another country now that we have gained some more teaching experience. Aaaargh! I think I'm going to have to consult a magic eight ball on this one!

One thing that I did find out on Friday that has made the cons list that little bit larger, is that my school is planning to become a 'model school.' Schools can appeal to The Education Department to become model schools representing a chosen subject area. Other schools then look to these model schools for inspiration and to imitate. My school is hoping to become a model school for after-school lessons in various disciplines including English. From what I gather from other teachers, it's just a title and doesn't mean that these schools excel in any way. Quite the opposite, more responsibility comes with the title, as model schools are continually checked by the Government. Teachers have more pointless paperwork to do for The Office of Education and less time to concentrate on teaching the students. This seems like a massive contradiction to me.

On Friday night my head was well and truly pickled after two hours of Korean. Our current teacher of "Beginners Korean" hasn't slowed down at all. Bearing in mind that Joel and I have now only had 5 or so formal Korean lessons, we thought it a bit much that this week our teacher covered the present tense, past tense and future tense in the space of about 10 minutes. As an English teacher, grammar points and tenses are approached in a slowly, slowly manner and all three tenses certainly aren't introduced in one go; same when I think back to learning French. Our teacher is being too ambitious and the boring handouts we get are very uninspiring. I understand that the emphasis should be on autonomous learning and as we have a test this Friday, I'm going to study extra hard for it. The test is to see whether we can advance to the next level but I've already decided that moving up isn't going to benefit me so I'm happy to stay down until I get to grips with the tenses.

On Saturday, Joel and I went to the Olympic Park which was built to host the 1988 Olympics in Seoul. The first thing that you see when you come out of the station is The Peace Gate, symbolising a desire for world peace (kind of self explanatory really!). In the middle of the gate sits the Olympic flame above The Seoul Peace Declaration. The park was more interesting and beautiful than I expected it to be. Our main reason for visiting was to see the 'Papertainer Gallery,' a temporary museum designed by a Japanese architect. The museum structure itself is a work of art consisting of 373 paper tubes (some are 10 meters tall) and 166 cargo containers. Within the paper gallery, the main exhibition was photographic and painted portrayals of famous female figures in Korean folklore and history. It was very interesting to see although I couldn't quite understand some of the artists visions. There is also a permanent gallery, 'Soma,' in the park dedicated to contemporary art. A lot of the work here was utter tripe like bog standard rubbish displayed on shelves, rubbish hanging on clothes driers and clothes made out of plastic bags. Complete pretentious rubbish!

The Peace Gate














Papertainer Gallery

Besides the stadiums, galleries and an Olympic Museum, in the park there are also over 200 sculptures which were donated to Korea by participating countries of the '88 games. I'm sure we didn't even see half of the sculptures. Many of them are conspicuous but many lurk in the background within leaves and trees. Our favourite sculpture was 'The Thumb' which was presented to Seoul by France. We had hours of fun setting up artistic and creative photo's, we could easily rival any of the preposterous 'art' in the Soma gallery!

This week, the challenge to get super fit and marathon-ready begins! We completed the application form and paid the fee yesterday. There's no backing out!

Joel: Rakhi and I have made some major decisions this week. The first is that when Luke arrives on the 29th we've decided to permit him to sleep on the couch. That is ,of course, on the condition that he's able to rustle up three square meals a day for us and keeps on top of the housework. No, really...we have had a fair bit to think about over the last seven days. We've both now had confirmation of our winter holiday dates and we want to make the most of our free time. Luke will be here for two weeks over New Year and early January and it's going to be fantastic to see him. We've asked him if he could save up a few Observer Music/Sport Monthly magazines for us but unfortunately (but predictably) he's informed us he's still a staunch News Of The World reader.

So, we're planning to have a brilliant two weeks while he's here. We're going to go on a skiing trip at some point, maybe head up to the DMZ to spy on some North Koreans going about their lives (which is actually possible - there's a huge observatory on that allows people to do this - bit weird) and hopefully give Luke the opportunity to enjoy many of the things we've discovered here in Seoul. When he leaves on the 12th January we still have five days holiday left so we're thinking of heading to the airport with him and flying to Japan to visit Rakhi's mate, Rose, who's teaching not far from Hiroshima. It's the perfect opportunity since we might not get such a chance to visit her, or Japan, again.

The reason for this is that we've kind of made another big decision. I don't think we'll be renewing our contract at the end of April. Now, this is a pretty big one. I'd always though that, unless it was absolutely amazing living here, we'd only be staying for the duration of our one year contract. The problem is, it IS absolutely amazing. And it might prove to be a terrible, terrible decision to leave. I love my job, especially the kids; our apartment is superb and we've made it home; the location is superb - we're right by the number 1 underground line that runs right through the centre of one the most vibrant, happening cities in the world. There are so many reasons to consider staying another year. We've got very little to grumble about. I just think we both want to take on something new. If we stayed, we'd only have a short break in which we'd have to travel abroad somewhere on a visa run, and then we'd be straight back into teaching. I think we both fancy spending a few months doing something else - perhaps visiting parts of South-East Asia. It's all vague right now, and our decision isn't completely final, but I know that, come the new year, my principal will want to know my plans and, unless something completely unimaginable happens before then, I'll be telling him that I'm leaving. Which will be tough.

Actually, I received another gift from my principal last week. It seems he heard about our kimchi-making class a couple of weeks ago, and decided to surprise me with a huge polystyrine container of the stuff - to see us through the winter I suppose. And this, hot on the back of the SPAM gift set I received for Korean Thanksgiving. I truly can't think of two more unwanted presents. It such a nice gesture, but I really don't know what we're going to do with it. Eat it? I don't think so.

The other big call we've made was inspired by a chance sighting of a poster en route to our Korean class last week. We were informed that March 18th marks the occasion of the annual Seoul International Marathon. And we're going to do it. It's exactly a year from the day we ran the Liverpool half-marathon, and that has to be a sign. A sign that we no longer have the ability to make sensible decisions perhaps. It's going to be tough. But from when our winter vacation finishes on the 17th January, we'll have two months to pull ourselves together. We still go to the gym regularly and are both in decent knick I'd say, but for those two months we'll have to really pull out the stops. I'm quietly confident anyway. We haven't subscribed yet but we have a week to get our applications in and we're both really keen. The race route meanders through the city and finishes up at the Olympic stadium, where we visited yesterday. It would be such a boost to be running, knowing that the finish line lies on the track of such a prestigious sporting arena. Maybe even more inspiring than the outskirts of Toxteth.

My new co-teacher, In-won, has now settled into things a bit. She's really lovely and I think we've worked pretty well together so far. She spent one free period last week translating the next fortnight's school dinner menu for me, which I'm sure was quite challenging for her. The only slightly peculiar thing she's done is tell the students that she's older than me. I do understand this - again, everyone is so aware of how their age gives them their status level in Korean society. Kids give 30-year-old teachers much more respect than they give 24-year-old teachers. And it's one of the first questions the kids ask. It doesn't bother me in the slightest. The kids all know my age, and they also know that, if they give me any gip, I'll hit them with a wad of lines. So, my age isn't important at all.

Rakhi: Wednesday, or 'Open Class Day,' began pretty appallingly for my co-teacher. She was so stressed and confessed to not getting any sleep the night before. To make matters worse, the principal and vice-principal came into the our classroom halfway through the first lesson of the day and started rearranging furniture and questioning Yeonhae's organisation of the classroom. All of this got Yeonhae even more fraught and finally she broke down and started crying. Oh no. When the time for our demonstration lesson came and teachers began to arrive, Yeonhae was still tense. Luckily, everything came together for the actual lesson and I think it went well. We got lots of positive comments and as the students were so well behaved they made us look like excellent teachers totally in control of the classroom!

After the open class finished, I was looking forward to getting home and relaxing as it'd been a pretty taxing day. However, my prinicpal had other ideas and organised an impromptu dinner by way of a thank you. Of course, it wasn't an invitation, it was an obligation for me to attend. The dinner itself was fine and Yeonhae and I hatched a plan so we could leave early. What was rather grim was having to share the principal's saliva. Here in Korea, drinking is an integral part of so many things and there are many drinking customs to be aware of such as how to hold a glass, pour drinks and also exchanging glasses. After someone finishes their own drink it's customary to give their empty glass to another person and fill it up for them to drink out off. The principal kindly handed me his glass which still had some of his dribble in the bottom. I felt queasy accepting it but there was no way I couldn't take it as I would have caused immense offense. Urgh!

On Friday, Yeonhae and I had a little party for the students who we did the open class with. They were so well behaved and enthusiastic so we wanted to thank them for helping us.

Last night Sam and Shane came over to our German Market! Joel and I keep hearing from cruel people back in Manchester how great the German Market is this year. 'The bratwurst's tastier than ever,' 'the gluhwein's better,' 'the singing moose is amazing...' blah blah blah. Not ones to be left out of a good thing, Joel and I recreated the market in our living room! We found some bratwursts in Costco, bought some good cheese, some Hoegaarden and Krombacher and made some lovely gluhwein. It was great and Sam and Shane were thoroughly impressed.

Today, Joel and I found a whole new area within our area! Just behind my school there are lots of vegetable plots and a forest. I see it every day from my school window and have been keen to see what lies beyond for a long time. Walking only two minutes from my school, we came accross a train track, a stream, lots of greenery and farmland. It was a great discovery.

What was even better though was getting in from the cold and warming up with a mug of hot gluhwein! Mmmmm!

Joel: I'm sat in my classroom on a fantastically quiet Friday morning. Yesterday afternoon, I was introduced to my new co-teacher Lee In-On (or something to that effect - I've not seen it written down). She's a recent graduate and I'm thinking this might be her first teaching position. Anyway, she seems nice. Again, in being introduced to her, it became apparent how age and status are so prominent in Korean society. I'd just wound up my G3/4 special class when Bo-yun brought her over to meet me. Her first words were, "This is the new English Teacher. She's younger than me - she's a recent graduate." It appears, in Korea, this is vital information for people to be able to work out their status in a relationship. Isn't this all a bit much? I did some reading about it last night and it seems this status stuff is completely ingrained in the language. The word for "friend", "chingu", is only used for people of exactly the same age. People call their "friends" who are older than them, "older brother/sister", and those that are younger, "younger brother/sister." It is completely out of order to call anyone older than you by their name. How nuts is that? Pretty bonkers if you ask me. And of course, it's not the fault of any individual, these ways are just completely ingrained into the fabric of society. I'm mostly exempt from abiding by them, of course, and I kind of hope the new teacher realises that she doesn't have to pander to me. It would do my head in.

The weather's been crazy again this week. Last Saturday it was stunning and too hot for a coat; Monday, it rained; Tuesday was freezing; Wednesday, it was completely clear and bright all day; yesterday, we woke up to see a layer of snow on the rooftops; and today it's so foggy, I can't see my nose. It IS getting colder though. Our herb garden isn't doing too well. I'm going to need those long-johns.