It's a sad fact, and one that does the profession no good at all, that English language teaching can be seen as something to do for a kind of working holiday; a chance to see the world for a bit while earning a little pocket money, before returning to your home country to get a 'proper' job. Strange then that I seem to have worked far harder over the two and a bit years since I left the UK than I ever did within it's borders. This has never been more true than over the last few weeks since getting back. Fortunately, things now seem to be settling down a little bit after the initial slog at the beginning of the semester, and my weeks are starting to be punctuated by public holidays, elections and school trips. Good news for you, dear reader, as I actually have some time to write my blog, and I have some half-interesting things to write about.
School Picnic
My first non-teaching day for 7 weeks fell last Friday, when the high school decamped to the sports ground for the day for the school picnic. This was a nice diversion, and was largely a chance to eat all day and play dodgeball, football and foot-baseball. The only photos I have are of my first year girls foot-baseballing; this is a shame as it doesn't show my triumphant performance in helping class 1-1 overcome 1-3 in the big football match. I don't think I've ever played a higher pressure game, as the respect of my students was on the line. Fortunately we won 4-2 and class 1-1 are now eating out of the palm of my hand. Class 1-3 were also suitably impressed, expect for the one of my students who I managed to headbutt. Oops.
My co-teacher, who for a woman of five feet two in her late 40's possesses a pretty decent right foot.
Cherry Blossoms, Raw Fish and Caves
The weekend after the picnic Linda and I set off to see the cherry blossoms in Gangneung. Though time seems to pass fairly quickly here, it does seem like a long time ago that I made this post about them last year. It was great to catch them in (almost) full bloom this year, though the howling wind was stripping them from the trees as we watched. It also gave me the chance to visit the lamest festival I've yet been to in Korea. A ragtag collection of stalls selling 1,000 won crap, and a hotdog stand. Still, we managed to pick up a pig ornament for Linda, so all wasn't lost.
After that we headed down the south coast to Samcheok, one of my favourite places on the east coast. It's port area has an array of excellent raw fish restaurants, which was a big reason we headed there. The fish was excellent, but the highlight (sort of) was the dish of still moving octopus tentacles you can watch me chow down on below.
Meat that moves! from Alexander Grevett on Vimeo.
The following day we headed out to Samcheok's principal attraction (perhaps even more famous that the penis park), Hwangseon cave. This is a 12km series of tunnels deep into one of the mountains around the town. Only the first kilometre is open to the public, but it's a pretty spectacular distance, as the cave roof is in places at least 100 feet high. Sadly the atmosphere is somewhat spoilt my the multi-coloured LED lighting that marks the gantries and rather detracts from the earthy feel of the place.
More cherry blossoms.
The funicular railway. Korea calls this a monorail. Fools.
Tee-hee.
Rejected Marilyn Manson B-side title winds up in Korean cave.
A spiral lime deposit, possibly unique in the world. Que exciting!
That's it for tonight, as I have some work to do on my teaching blog. In an attempt to make it look nice I'm learning to code CSS, which seems to be easy enough at the moment, but will doubtless become horrifically complex in the next few steps. There's not much exciting coming up in my life, but I should write about going to see Gangwon play last weekend. if I have time I'll post that up tomorrow.
Adios,
A
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