Why I love Koreans

In the last two days I have had a lot of help.

Firstly some kids stopped to say hello to me while I was wheeling my bike (this isnt uncommon). They usually giggle if you respond any further than a hello in return but I thought I would ask if they knew where I could buy a hand pump. Not only did they understand they pointed me to a shop that sells bicycles, spoke to the man working there for me and he blew up my tyre for service! (free of charge).

Then last night I was in a bar and the owner came over and spoke to us. Quite a friendly lady who was proud just to have an englishman in her bar (and 2 Americans). She said she would take us out today but we thought nothing of it. At 12 o clock I get a knock on my door and she is waiting to take us on a mystery trip. Being on my own at this point and a little hungover speaking to a stranger whose English is only mildly better than my Korean I was a little worried but managed to direct her to my friends house and the 4 of us went and had a lovely day out. She wouldn't accept any money off us for petrol, food, drink or entrance into this herb garden.

I get another knock on my door before I came out tonight and it was one of my 3 adult students who said he was now going to Seoul tomorrow. He knew I was going so came to get my number and made a promise to show me around (which I was glad of as I was a little nervous about going on my own with my poor language skills).

Don't you just love friendly helpful people. I must be damn chaming sometimes!!!!

(sorry about my use of exclamation marks!!!)

a cling to english

One of the strange things I have found out here is how much I cling to anything western. I guess its easy to become instituitionalised but I have never read so much or been so keen to speak English. When I think of how different everything is I guess it's a wonder I feel settled at all. Of course it was all expected but I guess knowing what to expect and experiencing it are two different things. I am quite proud of how I have adjusted especially after my first fortnight when I hadn't even met another English speaker. I have been here over a month now and when I look back it has flown by. In fact I feel I have almost wasted a month trying to get my bearings, confidence and settle down. I now only have 11 months and have only seen 2 or 3 things that I wanted too. With that in mind today I am going to Daegu as its a 3 day holiday here so I will stay overnight there. Hotels are really cheap (about 10 dollars/euro's a night - I'm not sure of the exchange rate but a dollar or euro seems similar to 1000 won and I'm not a precise man) so I will have a chance to see a few things around the city.

An American on holiday came into my school last week, she was only 16 but had Korean parents and felt like she was stuck in a strange city I guess it must have been messing with her mind as she declared that I sound more British than American and looked shocked when I told her I was British. This was followed by "didn't you guys win the world cup?" I told her that Italy did and was shocked by the next question "Isn't Italy a part of England" At this point I thought the poor girl can speak 3 languages fluently (Spanish - apparently everyone can in California, English and Korean) but do they teach Geography in American high schools. I then realised that my knowledge of America wan't much better, in fact when trying to name all the states I named 56 and only 41 of those were correct (my excuse is I only had 5 minutes or I would have checked my answers).

Im off to have an argument with a taxi driver which is great because they have phones in the cars where you can ask for a translator. Also they have a habit of hitting the horns whenever they go past anyone whether they already have a passenger or not. This is bizarre behaviour to me as I always jump when they drive past thinking I am walking on the wrong side of the road or something.

Photo's of Korea and me

I don't know what this sign means. I told them a child would use it to symbolise a rabbit. In many pictures of Koreans you will find 'peace signs' but for this they insisted that my fingers were bent.
A night time shot from my balcony
I went walking up the hills and crossed this waterfall, it was pretty fun.
There was some kind of festival going on at the local park. This is where I am being taught how to roller blade or as they say in-line skating (literally translated).
Finally I get a go on the Norry bang (singing room) this is funny as first I thought they were asking me to go to moggi bang which would mean mosquito room. Why would I want to go there.
Apparently this is an old traditional style pub. In the middle of the table is a bbq. You eat with the gloved hand.
There had to be some way of getting water off the hills.
A buddhist temple. I have also found what I assume to be christian churches as they have a cross on them.
Me looking very worse for wear. I had been climbing, clambering and sometimes walking up that hill for about 2 hours at this point. My legs have never hurt this much on English hills.

Hi there,

wow january was a long time ago. Guess i am temporarily back til I can fix up old cross arm. i wrote a massive post as well. nevermind guess we will just have to catch up another time. just wanted to let anyone who was worried a bout the disappearance of a blog after a down post that it was an accident. speak to you soon

The adventures Of Chris And Steve

I've let you all down enough previously for you not to be disappointed that this isn't going to be an adventure like I promised because I wanted to write something else instead.

There are many times a super hero can die. They always comeback. There's even a comic novel on The Death Of Superman. It records his 4 deaths. Each one as final as the last. Some like Jean Grey may become a phoenix, others may not actually be dead but end up having disappeared like Captain America. The only real time a suprhero dies is when people stop reading. The dead is then buried when the publisher stops printing.

His head hit the ground with a thud. His fingers twitched once, twice, then went completely still. His lips trembled two nearly three times and never moved again. His eyes blinked and a tear trickled down his already greying cheek. The tear however was not made of saltwater but was red and his last breathe was not so much exhaled as choked.

And so how do the good men die. Not by silver bullet or sharp knife but drowned under a wave of emotion and throttled by their own self rightousness. Without benefit for their actions as they never wanted gratitude and with no remorse over their losses that they gladly gave up.

Tags first, story second

Ok first Chris drags me up Birmingham to dance the night away and maybe be a little drunk then he drags me up Wolverhampton the following night. Im not so much hungover as ridiculously tired and sporting many muscular injuries! Damn that crazy dancing kitten.

I've been tagged by Toothfairy and as Im doing final things I may as well do one final tag. I mean it. Last one.

4 jobs I've had - Worked at a Pizza Hut, for the Child Support Agency (stop booing me this isnt a pantomine), as a salesman for a local Newspaper called the Express and Star and now in Customer Services.

4 movies I'd watch repeatedly - Most recently this would be Anchorman. I tend not to watch movies repeatedly so these others are gonna be quite old. Happy Gilmore, Young Guns 2 (I thought the first movie was shite in comparison and I know Im greatly in the minority for that belief) and when I was a kid I rememeber watching Back To The Future, rewinding it and watching it again.

4 places I've lived - Good Quarry Bank where I am now, Brierley Hill with my parents, Liverpool while I was studying and Risca which is where I was born (Yes technically I'm Welsh)

4 t.v. shows I watch - I love Scrubs. Prob my favourite of all time. I get addicted to Pop Idol (I know I'm sad and we're sorry America - you can send Simon Cowell back home). I watch Match Of The Day whenever I can and canI still use Futurama? I know its finished but I watch the DVDs still.

4 Places I have been - In most recent order Staffordshire for the 'V' festival weekend, Prague, Blackpool and Cornwall. I may need to get out of Britain more.

4 websites - skysports.com, astonvilla.vitalsports.net, bbc.co.uk, google - almost daily.

4 fave foods - Food is all the same.

4 places I would rather be - at home, in bed, in a bath, at a cinema as there's loadsa things I wanna see.

4 people I tag - the Boogeyman, Santa Claus, A Poddington Pea, Super Ted

Im done being argumentative now.

Devil Mood is right its time to do one more post:-

Sorry to all who have put up with me over the last few days. Somethings got out of hand when they weren't suppossed to; others I thought needed to be said but I'll stop being argumentative with people now and move on.

Instead of being argumentative I feel like being creative. I tried this a few months ago and think its time to try again. If you have ever read an adventure of Chris and Steve you will realise I try to include a few nods to pop culture and make a few silly jokes while having a slight edge of surrealness. I think Im gonna do one final story with your help. Over the weekend while Im away could you please leave ideas of things you would like to see included in an adventure for me and Chris to get up to.

I'll try to include them all and hopefully get at least a sympathy laugh. Speak to you soon and to steal Chris's phrase have a good freakend

Time to delete that horrible post

For all who thought I was being very over the top yesterday Im sorry. I was palying around I guess you can't show tone in writing (well not unless your a good writer - which coincidentally Chloe is). I thought Chloe was playing around and so was I. Or at least I hope it came across that way. I'll email a personal apology.

However something did come to light before I move on. Princess you have made numerous comments about people being sycophantic and while I know sometimes people are can't you accept that sometimes people are just nice to each other with no motive. I cant beleive it is so strange to you that people can be friends with other people online.

Sure when I started blogging it was just a way to record some silly thoughts but then I met people I liked and spoke to them, read about them, told them about me. I don't need to physically meet someone to be friends with them. Did it never occur to you that people like talking to me through a comments page. That people come back here because they liked reading what I had to say and not because they felt they had to. Why would I waste time reading about and talking to strangers if I didn't like them too. I know that you have friends across the country who you can't always see and keep in touch with them via the internet, I know your signed into MSN as I write this. Does that mean you cant really be friends with them if you can only talk online. I open a lot more on the internet than I ever do in face to face conversation. Maybe I have just met people online who appreciate me more than people in other social circles and yet you say they don't know me? No offence but you insulted 10 or so people in your last comment who you havent even spoken to once, I would rather talk to the one's who are nice to individuals they apparently know nothing about. Just because you may not like what I write (and why do you keep coming back if thats true), it doesnt mean that no one does. If you cant open your eyes and see that people have different tastes or understand that any kind of communication can lead to a friendship then I laugh that you call me pathetic.