Rakhi: I was dreading going back to school after our three week winter vacation but as with the English Camp that I did in the summer, Winter Camp is an absolute doddle! For the past week and a half, I’ve been getting to school just after eight and finishing just after 12. This week will be the final week of Winter Camp and then it’s back to school proper… for two weeks, after which the school is closed for another two weeks before re-opening for the start of the next academic year. It’s a strange system and the Government are trying to change it to the kind of system we have back home. I’ve heard that in the two weeks before the end of the academic year, the students are not very enthusiastic about studying because they know that they’re on the brink of another vacation. I'm ready for them though!

Other than school, Joel and I have been laying low since Luke left. We’ve managed to get to the gym nearly every day after school to try and get into shape for the ever encroaching marathon. Last week, along with smaller runs, I managed to do a 10km run in an hour. This week, my target is 14km, aargh, I still have a long way to go. On Friday night we went over to Sam’s house to celebrate Australia Day. It was good fun but it meant that we missed out on a pre-booked temple orientation the following morning because of our unplanned, super late night. Today, we went to stretch our legs in Incheon, a port city by the Yellow Sea. We had a walk around the city, stopped in China Town to eat mandu (dumplings) and went to The Incheon Landing Memorial Hall, a museum commemorating the role of the UN and General MacArthur during the Korean War.

Our main news is that there have been some developments in our plans once our contracts finish here. We recently re-applied to a company called MediaKids based in Thailand. The package that they offer is similar to the deal that we have here, they place native English teachers in public schools in Bangkok and northwards. Joel and I were actually offered a place with them last year but declined in favour of Korea. We’ve sent completed application forms and the requested 4-5 photos (seems that our appearance is as important as our employment and education history) and this week we received an e-mail saying that the company would like to put us forward to a school in an area north of Bangkok. The contracts begin in May and are for four months after which we plan to spend a few months travelling before returning home for Christmas. Nothing is definite yet though and the fact that the contracts begin a few days before we finish here could be a bit of a snag. Fingers crossed.

Joel: I returned to school on Wednesday to begin the first of the winter camps. It's nice to start with the grade 3 kids because they're probably the easiest to teach and they're also the sweetest - most of them that is. Two of the boys are proper little gremlins and there's a girl whose behavior at times resembles that of a Tourettes sufferer. All said and done though, it's been pretty easy to get back into the swing of things. For their final day on Tuesday, I'm going to do a lesson on "the family" and then show them "Lemony Snicket's - A Series of Unfortunate Events" in English with Korean subtitles. Rakhi and I watched this film just before Christmas and, like most good kids stuff, it's pretty dark. It's about three kids whose parents die in a house fire and so they have to go to live with their evil uncle who will stop at nothing to kill them and get his hands on the family inheritence. It's a PG but it might be a bit scary for some of them. If there are any tears I can always turn it off and stick some sesame street on. Oh dear!

At the risk of allowing this blog to become one of those in which the writers harp on about the minutae of their lives, as though completely everyday events were of any interest to anybody else whatsoever, something personally quite significant happened to me this week. I had a haircut! Ha ha! Rakhi recomended this guy she went to in Hongdae who worked in London for three years so of course speaks dead good English. Even so, I took a photo along with me and ended up with the works: a wash, a head massage and one of the best haircuts I've ever had - at least on a par with the excellent work that Mad Percy from Whitby village used to do for me.

Also, this week we've been detoxing. It's been pretty necessary, I think. We ate and drank so much rubbish over the Christmas period that I think my body needed a break. For five days we stuck to a strict vegan detox diet - not even any bread - just fruit and vegetables, nuts and beans. I feel like it sorted me out a bit really. That is, until Rakhi cracked on Friday night and roped me into popping out to Homeplus to grab a bottle of wine to go with her dinner. A leopard never changes it's spots!

Speaking of food, when Rakhi and I went to the kimchi making class a couple of months ago, one of the women from the cultural centre came round at the end to ask for suggestions for other activities that the centre might be able to organise. On the spot, I suggested a Taekwando class. When Rakhi had a look at their site on Friday, she noticed they had arranged an English language Taekwando class for yesterday at one o'clock - so we went. It was a superb experience. First we were given an insight into the philosophy of Taekwando and offered a demonstration from three highly skilled practitioners and then we were taught some basic moves - punches and kicks. I really enjoyed it. Near the end, one of the Korean Taekwando specialists challenged me to try a new super high kick and break a board that he was holding in the air. I was a bit unsure at first but gave it a go and managed to snap the thing in two first time. I couldn't quite believe it to be honest. And Rakhi managed to get it on camera. Jackie Chan, bring it on! Rakhi was pretty good too - especially with the kicking. I'm going to have to be careful not to upset her now. I wouldn't want to get my lips kicked off.

Joel: So....I suppose it's out with the old and in with the new. With Luke leaving on Friday and the pair of us back to school to start our Winter Camps this week, it really feels like the end of one era and the beginning of a new one. In the two weeks Luke was here we had a proper winter holiday and ushered in 2007 in a truly unforgettable manner. On NYE, the city centre crowds were setting off handheld fireworks for five or six hours solid - an awsome spectacle. The smell of sulphur was equally unforgettable. I think it was Barry who asked me if George Bush had recently passed through. A top night.

I'm absolutely made up that Luke had such a fun time staying with us. It's been brilliant to have him here. Our ski trip is also my stand-out highlight. I wish I'd been able to video Mr Haynes as he bombed down the slopes. I ate a bit of snow myself on numerous occasions but never at such speeds and never to such comic effect. I feared the worst a few times times only to see him rise from the snow, shake off the flakes and head back up for more. Amazing resilience! I'm laughing now just thinking about it.

Our Nore-bang marathon was also a bit special. Egged on principally by Sam, who wouldn't let us go home after three hours and convinced to stay another one, we set sail on a journey through some of finer moments in musical history. Rakhi dazzled us with some Stevie Wonder, I shrieked out some Radiohead and Luke let rip with the Whitesnake classic "Here I Go Again On My Own". If you've never heard Luke sing, believe when I say it's a unique experience.

The trip to the Ice Festival was pretty cool. We must have picked the grottiest guest house in the town but for one night we coped. I was a bit disappointed the discover the ice-soccer was to be played on ice-skates with a puck and furthermore, they had no skates to fit me (damn little Koreans!) but the sledding was superb and the whole experience was very memorable.

Last night, Rakhi took me out for a meal to the nicest restaurant I've ever eaten in. The "Top Cloud" sits in a glass case perched above Jongno tower in Insadong, perhaps the most striking building in Seoul, and the views over the busy, neon-lit city are extrordinary. It's also the first place I've been to that has NOTHING Korean on the menu. Not even Kimchi. There was a jazz pianist and accompanying band and both the food and the company were incredible. It was a fantastic and unforgettable Christmas present.

Tonight we're going to send off our final forms for the teaching positions in Thailand. It seems like a very similar job to this but it's such a vastly different place, I think it would be a great experience. And with a four month contract, if it doesn't work out, it wouldn't matter too much. We've decided now that we're definitely leaving Korea at the end of our contracts. We've crammed so much into this year that I think another year here would only be a disappointment. I suspect it would feel a lot more like a permenent situation rather than the working holiday it feels like we're on at the moment. And I don't want to be so far from home for another whole year. I've vowed to be back in the UK for the Christmas period next year. Defo!

Rakhi: It’s certainly has been a very eventful few weeks, I think Luke’s ‘guest blog’ summed it up pretty well. We really appreciate him coming to visit us; we had a lot of fun.

For the day after Luke arrived, I had reserved us a place on a Buddhist temple tour but as it began really early and Luke needed a decent kip, we didn’t go. To make up for it, Joel and I took Luke to one of the huge temples in the city where they had lots of beautiful lanterns up and a statue of a pig as a homage to the Chinese character for 2007 (in fact this year is the year of the ‘Golden Pig’ which only comes around every 600 years and is believed to bring with it wealth and prosperity). We also went to one of our favourite restaurants, ‘Sanchon,’ where they serve up thirty courses of delicious temple food whilst you relax and watch a traditional Korean dance and drum performance. We were all thoroughly impressed, or perhaps it was the gallons of soju and bekseju which also went on to fuel our norebang adventure later that evening! Speaking of which, we could hardly tear Luke away! After nearly four hours of singing our little hearts out, Luke still hadn’t had enough so we didn’t end up crawling into bed until the sun was rising on the following day!

The dead dog in a bin was one of Luke’s personal highlights but for me, I’d have to say the skiing. Luke aka ‘The Silver Bullet’ was an absolute star. After the initial worry off seeing him hurtling down the slopes before ending in a huge pile with his skis twenty metres apart in opposite directions, it was hilariously, gut wrenchingly funny! On the first such occasion, I was slowly traversing this steep slope when out of nowhere somebody went darting head on, straight down the mountain, as fast as lightning. This person was going at such incredible speeds I thought it must be a professional with outstanding control; until the individual crashed into a painful heap. On closer inspection, I realised it was Luke! This happened many more times but each time he gracefully and sportingly got up and queued for the ski lift only to repeat the anguish again! Joel and Luke were both utterly disappointed that I hadn’t fallen over once and there was even talk of tripping me up on the way home. Luckily for them, I did suffer slightly sledding at the Ice Festival in Hwacheon, where I developed a sore eondoggi (bottom) and hip from bashing about on the icy sled run.

The lack of animal rights in Korea became apparent when watching the bare handed fishing contest at the ice fest. It truly was one of the oddest things I have ever seen, it was like something straight out of one of those cruel Japanese game shows. Groups of shivering people dressed in shorts, t-shirt and flip flops, awaited the moment they were let into a small, icy pool to grab at salmon with their bare hands. First off was the kids and teen competition. People were grabbing fish and viciously bashing them either around the head or on the side of the pool only to be met with rapturous cheers and applause from the crowd. The fish carcasses were then placed in pockets or down t-shirts before fishing for more. However cruel though, it wasn’t a dead dog in a bin.

As part of Joel’s Christmas present from me and to cap of an excellent couple of weeks, last night Joel and I went to the glitzy, glamorous ‘Top Cloud’ restaurant from where there are amazing views across the city. However, now that holiday time is nearly over, Joel and I have to curb our over indulgent eating habits and prepare for the encroaching marathon that we’ll be running. We also need to start planning our winter camps which begin this Wednesday and run for two and half weeks. A couple of films and difficult word searches should keep the kiddies busy until 12pm when we finish for the day!
So, now it’s the middle of January and we have such a small amount of time before our contracts end in May. Our main post-Korea idea is to go to Thailand. We’ve been in touch with an agency that places teachers in government schools around the north of the country. We’ve applied for a short four month contract which, if all goes well, we’d be starting as soon as we finish here and completing in September of this year after which we hope to spend a couple of months travelling. Fingers crossed.

I'll be posting some pics on the photo site so keep your eyes peeled! And no, the dead dog won't be there.

Luke: Well where to start? It's certainly been an action packed couple of weeks, with my friends and hosts proving their worth as tour guides in and around the immense city of Seoul and surrounding areas. It's truely a huge place, making someone who's spent their formative years in the 'Big Smoke' of London feel very humble. The best way to describe the amount of people there are in Seoul every where you go, would be to say it's like Christmas Eve in a busy English town with a 75% off everything sale on. The rules are different in Korea but it doesn't take a leap of imagination to see yourself fitting right into them (eating food really loundly, pushing by people, drinking a hell of a lot) although putting pickled cabbage covered in red pepper sauce in the middle of a doughnut will always be quite simply wrong. My first full day in Korea saw Joel, Rakhi and myself take a trip around Olympic park. Now I don't want to enforce any stereotypes people may harbour of Korea or Koreans but as I innocently went to throw a bit of rubbish into a park bin I was confronted with the shocking sight of a dead dog in there. I wasn't sure at first if it was dead or maybe just sleeping but on closer inspection it certainly was irafutably dead. Of course I took a picture but the founders of this blog have deemed it unsuitable to be posted on the site but anyone who knows me can always ask for a butchers. In hindsight this incident taught me a valuable lesson for my stay in Korea, not to take anything for granted. It also gave me a very good yard stick to gauge things by "There's a load of pigs heads in a basket" "Look at those dozens of octopuses in a tank waiting to be eaten" Well it's not like it's a dead dog in a bin. I'll stick to the highlights now although I have to say and not just because it's their blog that Rakhi and Joel have been fantastic these past weeks and I've seen and experienced so much that it's hard to scale it all down, which I sincerely thank them both for. Now I've had some memorable New Years Eve's in London, the millenium being a particular one, but I have to say Seoul rocked on New Years Eve and so did we. Preparing ourselves in the most suitable way with a few beers in various bars of Hong Dae we made our way down to the bell ringing ceremony in the centre of Seoul with a few of Joel and Rakhi's friends. The place was buzzing and full of coppers although I think they were there for the more mundane aspects such as stopping traffic. Armed with hand held fireworks the sky was a sea of red and green flashes and ash rained from the sky. On leaving the bell ringing we made our way down to a packed subway platform where I promptly announced a "Happy New Year" to everyone, this was greeted by hundreds of Koreans staring blankly at me but it felt good anyway. We eventualy found ourselves in a club where everyone was a bit too cool for school so it was left up to us to show them what dancing was all about. My freestyle moves were good, Rakhi kicked arse with some crazy break beat fusion dancing and Joel cleared the floor with his own particular brand of 'Wacko Parry' breakdancing. We were a sight to behold.
We obviously spent a day in hibernation but nothing could stop us from going sking later in the week. There were three distinct styles on display again. Rakhi's consumate professional, just effortlessly traversing the slopes (not falling over once). Joel's rookie, not silky smooth but acomplished and improving all the time. Finally my style the kamikazee, with out a fear for my own safety and that of others. I was dubbed 'The Silver Bullett' on account of my attire and from what I am told my great speeds reached. It was a lot of fun but it became very painful for me as I may have reached great speeds but I also crashed at great speeds too, and to be honest I'm not sure how I made it off the slopes in one piece although I do have a possible broken rib.
We have managed to fit so much in it's been a brilliant couple of weeks. Going to an ice festival and seeing children catch and kill fish with their bare hands in a freezing cold pool. Visiting various historical sights most having been rebuilt on account of the Japanese burning them down. We've been up towers and drank beer on the 59th floor of a giant building and felt just a bit like Donald Trump. Cruised on the Han river and visited countless bars and eaten in some beautiful resteraunts. I also discovered the glory of No Rae Bangs (rooms devoted to kareoke) where you can sing with your friends until your heart is content or your booze runs out. I never knew how well we all could sing we were probably as good at singing as we were at dancing so we were pretty sensational. All in all 'Joel and Rakhi Tours' is well worth checking out,it's been funny, insightful,boozy, and at times dangerous, it's been a great couple of weeks in some very good company and I only have one last thing to say "gamsa hamida"(thank you)

Rakhi: Happy New Year everyone! Joel, Luke, some friends and myself rang in 2007 at the Bosingak Bell in Seoul. At the stroke of midnight, this huge bell which was erected centuries ago, is rang 33 times. There were thousands of people all letting off hand held fireworks. The sky was a huge cloud of smoke and it was raining soot and sulphur from all the explosions. The atmosphere was electric, it was really good fun. After the bell, we crammed like sardines onto the subway and headed to Hongdae for drinks. It was a great way to bring in the new year.

Christmas was also really good and we managed to make it fairly traditional. Thanks to everyone for your cards and presents, they made Christmas feel more authentic and stopped us feeling homesick.

Here's us tucking into our Christmas cake and custard- thanks to Joel's nan and grandad, they were thoroughly enjoyed!

All the best for 2007!