Summer Holiday!

After 5 long months of working hard, it's finally our Summer Holidays!!

The whole English department celebrated on Monday night with some tasty sushi and soju at a restaurant in Haeundae, followed by some drinks in Jangsan. As I explained before about work nights out here in Korea, everybody had a great time eating lots of food and playing drinking games. I felt very bad for the teachers who had to be in school the next day.

Sadly the sun has disappeared since we broke up from school, so I've been getting things ready for my trip to China and Kuala Lumpur. So excited to explore some new cities while seeing two friends who I have missed a lot, Clare and Grace!!!

So this is goodbye from me until August 5th! Hope that you all have a great time!


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Job Themed Event Week

Last week was Namsung Elementary’s English Event Week. We hold Event Weeks with the purpose of teaching the kids a little more English with lots of emphasis on speaking, and having fun. Previous themes we've had are Under The Sea, Outer Space, Christmas in England and the environment.

This term the theme was jobs and we turned the English Department into a hospital, a TV studio, a catwalk, a court, a police station and finally a kitchen. The kids got the opportunity to spend their English classes in all of the different zones, trying out new activities, singing songs and speaking English.

I got to work in the Broadcast room, where we had them compete in a dance competition in a Britain’s Got Talentesque battle, we had a movie and broadcasting quiz and finally they filmed their own news programme, with an ice cream commercial included.

It was funny to see how the kids reacted to the dancing. The ones I expected to hate it most, the 6th grade boys, really got into it, where as the girls were a lot more timid. Although there was one little 3rd grade girl who turned out to be a complete super star!

I hope we helped them consider what they might want to be when they grow up, or even just cross a few things off the list. Lots of fun was had by all, but by the end of the week I was ready never to hear the Hot Potato song ever again!



























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Our Weekend: What to do when you're not at Boryeong Mud Festival

This weekend was the weekend of the annual Boryeong Mud Festival. This is a festival in the North of the Republic of Korea where loads of mud is driven into the small coastal town and everyone has fun in the mud. We went last year, but I decided not to go again as it was so close to my China trip.

Here's what we decided to do instead.

On Friday the sun was shining and it seemed rude not to go to the beach. We picked Dadaepo as it's usually so peaceful down there. It has a long stretch of soft sand and there is nothing to obstruct the view of bright, blue sky. I hadn't made much use of my tent since Jisan festival, so we packed it up and thought we'd stay the night. We hit the beach with a picnic of Nachos and Makeolli, just in time to watch the sunset. It was really amazing to watch, especially as a gaggle of photographers turned up at the same time to snap some pictures. I loved watching one couple, the girl walked down the beach, taking pictures here and there, while her partner took pictures of her taking pictures of the sunset. It was all very Inception-esque. It's a pity that he didn't seem to actually take any notice of the sunset.















Once the sun had gone down we went to Sau-re, a chain of BBQ restaurants, to get our fill of meat. It's not my favourite BBQ, but the meat was amazing. On the way there I finally got to watch Dadaepo's Sunset Fountain Of Dreams. Koreans love their fountains, and compared to the fountain show at Lotte, this one was amazing!



After dinner we stocked up on drinks and food and headed back to the beach and put up the tent. The beach was completely deserted, something I'm not used to in Korea.

The next morning the sun woke me up at 5 so I caught some early morning rays. I was surprised to see so many people on the beach. There were people walking their dogs, jogging, and a handful of elderly ajummas and ajoshis scouring the sand for any treasures the sea had left behind. I had a snooze and when I woke up at 8 the beach was deserted again.

We spent a few hours there, ate some breakfast and dipped in the sea, trying to avoid the mini crabs that were scampering around on the sand. By 11 the sun was really hot so we left to get a well deserved shower and bit of air con time.








Feeling refreshed and ready, we lathered on the cream and headed upto Songjeong beach, another beach that is not so popular as Haeundae or Gwangalli but is still really great. We met up with Katie and Alex and spent the afternoon playing ball games.

When the sun went down, we headed back to their apartment and cooked ourselves an amazing Spanish themed feast, including a tortilla, garlic and lemon prawns, spicy rice, roasted vegetables and some salad. We topped it off with some Sangria which sent Nick and I to sleep as soon as we sat on the sofa to watch Ground Hog Day. Ooops.


Sunday morning we lazed around Katie's apartment, and then went for a breakfast picnic on Dongbaek Island. We sat on a rock, looking out to see and ate in the shade. It was so nice and cool compared to the beach. Having had my fill of the heat, we went to Nampo so I could grab some things for my holiday, and then finished the night off with an episode of Luther. Is anyone else watching it? What do you think?



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Comic World: Busan's Comic Convention

Comic World is a bi-monthly comic convention held at BEXCO in Haeundae. I'd heard about it the first few months I got here, but information on it seemed a little elusive, so when I finally found out definite dates for this weekend, it was on!

As soon as we walked into BEXCO's square, we could see girls with long candyfloss coloured hair, lots of masks, tails, wings and other unusual body parts. There were some pretty impressive characters just casually milling around, nonchalantly posing for photos whenever anyone asked. It was a swelteringly hot day, so I don't know how any of them could stand to be in the heat in their big, padded costumes, but they all looked fantastic.





We decided to hide from the sun and went inside. The entrance fee was only ₩4,000, so even though none of us are avid comic book fans we decided to check it out. It was a massive room half filled with stalls advertising all types of comic book characters.

Lots of the characters were manga-esque, all doe eyed with long pigtails and big smiles. Even more amusing were the comic books that made it very obivous where they took their inspiration from. We saw a Mr Burns style character and no face looked like he'd been lifted right out of Spirited Away. Every stall was selling comics, pens, badges and bags, to the point that it all got quite samey.

Lots of noise came from the stage that had been set up, and literally everyone started running towards it and sat on the floor, we followed but sadly it was a quiz completely in Korean that wasn't very visual.









From inside the event, you could tell it was a frequent thing, it lacked the atmosphere and excitement that one off events have, and it felt more like a gathering of old friends who saw each other at every event. Not that that's a bad thing. Before leaving though, we found our favourite costume of the day, which we aptly named Bag Head. There were so many intricate costumes with lots of props and poses to boot, that this guy stood out like a sore thumb with a painted paper bag on his head. I would love it if anyone could tell me if this is actually a character or whether it was his own artistic endeavour.

We eventually headed back outside to take some more pictures. We found a nazi who was very modest about what poses he was happy to do in his uniform, a girl with wings that looked like they weighed more than her and the most extravagant costume, which was a girl in a pink, frilly number and a long green wig.

I loved seeing everyone dressed up, it was interesting to see how much effort they made and the attention to detail they paid to their costumes. It's pure dedication travelling across the city in costume in that heat!! If you're a comic book fanatic then I imagine this would be the perfect way to spend an afternoon. If, like me, Scott Pilgrim is the limit of your comic world knowledge, then I don't think you would miss much from not going into the actual event. The spectacle of the other guests outside was enough for me!























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