Joel: Today brought the opening the "English Village" in the classroom next to mine. It's essentially a private English academy that's been set up to provide lessons in smaller clases for kids whose parents can afford it. At lunchtime, I bumped into Joe, a guy from the states who will be teaching these classes. Pretty strange to no longer be the only non-Korean working in the school. Then, this afternoon, Seon Yeong was called downstairs to greet her new co-teacher, Laura from Cheshire who, amongst other things I noticed on her CV, once worked in the Frog and Ferret in Nantwich, a pub I've been to a fair few times. I met her when she came up to the classroom but didn't have much of a time to chat. We've got quite a few household things to pass on that she might find useful.

I'm still not sure what's happening with our apartment. The new native teacher has been put up in an officetel and my school have told me that the new teacher from Rakhi's school will be living here (although Rakhi assures me her school don't have a new teacher lined up yet). Now, get this. Instead of just leaving the furniture here for the new teacher, I've been told that, because when we arrived, my school bought the furniture, it belongs to them and they will be moving everything out even though they have no use for anything - the new teacher's officetel is furnished. So then Rakhi's school be have to kit out our appartment with brand new furniture. They're both goverment schools! It's beurocracy gone mad. They're hapy to shell out for all new stuff rather than allow one school to give or sell the furniture to the other. Bonkers.

This time next week we'll be boarding a plane for Bangkok. This last week, I've really started to come to terms with fact we're reaching the end of our Korean journey. We've been busy sorting things out, throwing lots of thing away and trying to be brutal. We were stung by being over the weight allowance on the way out here and I'd hate for the same to happen again. Unbelievably, Rakhi's got her wardrobe down to a decent size although she's made it clear she thinks I'm being a bit obsessive. We have still got a fair bit of stuff.

I managed to get to the Thai embassy on Friday and our visas should be ready on Wednesday, Sam's going to pick them up for us. Last Wednesday, we went over to Jeff's for his house warming. He had been living with a Korean family until recently (which turned out to be a bit of a nightmare for him) and his new place is pretty nice. He cooked all authentic Korean food which was pretty impressive. Then on Friday, we took him and his friend Min-Ji to our favorite Indian restaurant, "The Himalayan", in Dongdaemun - a place that never fails.

On Saturday, we did some shopping in Myong-Dong then met up with Barry in the Irish bar for a few farewell drinks. He left today to spend a few months travelling around South-East Asia. Everyone we spoke to about our jobs seemed to think we'd landed a pretty good deal. Last week, Rakhi got an e-mail saying that the school wanted us to start a week earlier but in exchange would give us two weeks holiday together mid-contract. I think that more than makes up for it.

I'm so excited now about moving to Thailand. I'm a bit concerned about how I'm going to handle the heat and the bugs but I'm sure I'll find a way of coping. Rakhi's instructed me to stay awake every night to guard her and make sure nothing attacks her, so with only being able to grab bits of sleep here and there through the day, I might be a little tired most of the time.

We've still got so many things to do this week we'll struggle to get a moments rest. With packing, bank accounts, bills, farewell dinners with our co-teachers and a wine cruise I'm hoping that by Sunday we'll be able to relax knowing that everything is sorted. Fingers crossed.