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.