"Do you know Park Ji Sung?": I'm back

Finally, a post! Christmas break rather messed up my schedule, and knocked me out of my regular blogging routine. This is not to say I didn't have time, I did in fact have more time than usual, but never quite the time to post.

Anyhow, I've now been back in Jinbu for two days, which has been my first chance to pause and catch my breath for some time. Since my last post I've been through Christmas, New Year, three weeks of English Camp and then four weeks in the UK. It seems like a lot, and it was. It's been nice to get back to some stunning, and relatively warm weather, given that when I left the thermometer was holding steady around the -10C mark. This winter was by all accounts exceptionally cold. Too cold sadly for my boiler, which froze up during my absence and spat water all over the floor. Fortunately it's back in some kind of working order, though nowhere near what it used to be. What wasn't good was getting back feeling terrible, and having to retreat to bed for a while. I'm not sure whether it was readjusting to Korean germs, or the collected effects of jetlag and hangover, but whatever it was I didn't feel particularly well. I'm almost back to top form now though. Here's a nice shot of round where I live, seeing this always makes me feel better.

I'm going to try to put up a few posts over the next few days covering my period of absence. In truth they'll probably be photo heavy and text light, but that's probably no bad thing.

I'll start with Christmas. It's not quite the same festival in Korea as it is in the Western world, with just a single holiday falling on the day itself, and even on the 25th a lot of shops seemed to be open anyway. It certainly wasn't much of a holiday "season" as it is in the UK; in fact I had probably my busiest week of the year starting the 27th December. All in all it didn't feel much like Christmas at all.

Linda's birthday falls on Christmas Eve, so we went out until very late and didn't get up until about midday on the 25th. We popped out for a wander around Incheon's Chinatown, and then (having failed to secure a traditional Christmas dinner) attempted to take down an entire duck between two of us. This noble mission was sadly halted when we realised we could get a doggy bag. We did manage about 2/3 of it though, and it was delicious. For those that don't know about Korean duck, it comes part garlic steamed and then you finish it off over hot charcoals in front of you at your table. Then you wrap it in a lettuce leaf with some bean paste, garlic and pickled onions, and eat. Delicious.

After that it was back home for a Skype call with my family (this is the first Christmas I've not been at home) and then bed. Perhaps not a normal Christmas, but a good one all the same.

Linda's colleague Cindy and her husband, whose name escapes me.

Birthday breakfast (well, lunch by the time we got up)

Incheon Chinatown's Mural Street

Me and Incheon

Not sure what this was.

Nor this. I realise that this is not the finest captioning ever.

Cabbage art.

Cool, isn't it?

Douglas MacArthur, whose daring landing at Incheon changed the direction of the Korean War, and thus nearly 60 years later the direction of my career. Cheers Doug.

Confucius. And you wonder why he preached respect for the elderly.

Duckfest: Two people and one duck will enter. Two will emerge feeling bloated, one will emerge in a doggy bag. BUT WHO WILL IT BE?

Grillin'

New Year here is similarly low key, partly because Korea has two calendars and so has two New Years celebrations, with the lunar calendar festival (the Chinese New Year) being the bigger deal. Still, this doesn't stop thousands of Korean's heading to the East coast to catch the first glimpse of the sun on New Year's day, usually after drinking heavily on the beach all night.

We decided that we'd go and try to do similar, braving some freezing temperatures to get to Jeongdongjin, where we'd also been in the summer. The key attraction was the turning of the giant hourglass on the beach there. We were told that the festival was cancelled, but headed down nonetheless. When we got there we saw a suspiciously large amount of sand left in the glass, and having stood for a while in the crowd, realised it was already two minutes past twelve. Happy New Year.

Still, we got some sparklers, and then retired to the warmth of a chicken restaurant. Neither of us fancied staying up all night on a freezing beach in the end, so we caught a taxi back to Gangneung just as everyone seemed to be flooding in to Jeongdongjin. A bit of an anticlimax, but we did get free doughnuts and persimmon from our taxi driver.

All aboard... the night train!