A brief scrapbook of memories........

Just a few memories from the past couple of years.  enjoy

Sun is shining...head to the beach.

There are some things that should never really be put into writing as a record of events. This weekend might be one of those occasions...

Adnan organised a pension in Nakseon. This is in the North East of Korea. Not too far from them crazy buggers firing rockets and pretending they have a clue what's going on.....anyway, I digress. 

Adnan organising things means another trip up to Chuncheon. This in itself not an issue, I just have memories of the last ride back from Min's Cabin. All in all about 40 people are probably attending so we've rented out a huge place and organised a bus to take us all there. The bus leaves Cgu town at 0930 Saturday morning. So it would be foolish to go out Friday night....mwahahahahahahahahahaaaaaaa

The next thing I know we're getting ready to leave for the bus...sleep count 0.00. Oh dear. 3 hours on a bus to the beach isn't going to us with joy. But we rock and roll our way there. We've packed a few provisions and there's a Starbucks right by the bus so that should sort me out. ......sidenote. The girl that served me coffee is going to England and spending some time in Brighton. I very possibly gave ut some phone numbers of people in Brighton. Ooops. 

Buses in Korea can vary dramatically from spacious seating to shit holes mule pulled crappers. We organise a norebus...translation singing bus. After a night out that's the last thing you really want to get involved in.......unless you're like Andrei and myself and think that a we nip of soju's finest into a latte would grease the wheels and keep everything ticking over. Needless to say everyone had packed similar provisions, and when we had a wee stop our supplies were well and truly restocked. 

This was not only the longest three hour bus ride of my life, but by far the most insane, outrageous, song filled and fun bus ride of my entire life. 

We arrive, change into some beach gear and head to the sands....again packed with provisions for such an event; frisbee, bat and ball, juggling balls, towels, sunglasses and enough booze to sink a ship should we have gotten on one. 

They day consists of drinking games, ball games, drinking, swimming, wrestling, drinking catch, sand sculpting, some drinking and at one point i think there was a dog and a small Asian child involved. 

With good times being had by all, the Sun eventually had to ruin everybody's fun. Back to the pension....after resupplying, of course, we order 7000 giant pizzas to snack on and it's time to lay claim to a space on the floor to kip on later. 

Showering would have been my next priority, but sharing 2 showers between 50 (and having had a skinful) decided the sea had done this job for me. 

I had an extremely surreal moment when the pizzas arrived about 8pm and I was convinced it was 8am and found it strange that a pizza company would deliver so many pizzas this early in the morning. A chuckle was had by all and a beer put me straight back in the frame. 

The rest of the evening I can leave to the imagination of people in a remote countryside pension, we had a kareoke machine, pool table, hammocks, swings, cards, face paint, fireworks, random Koreans and of course drinking games. An excellent night was had by me, and I can only presume everyone else. But after being awake for about 45 hours, I'd had all I could take. 

We spent Sunday cleaning, hit the beach and then I had the same exact problem getting back to Daejeon!!! Took me another 8 hours to get back!!! Not really what you want on a day like that. Oh well. It was worth it.

Buddha's Birthday Bash

Time for the Fat Man's birthday.....long weekend time. WOOHOO

The Plan...head up to Chuncheon Thursday night...party...off to stay in a cabin Friday and Saturday in Inje, Gangwon-do.....party. Sunday...feel terrible and revel in weekend antics.

Love this time if year. The weather is turning pretty hot and all you wanna do is go outside. So where better to go than the countryside......This is Min's Cabin. The owner is the closest thing to a hippy a Korean can be. He's awesome and his job is basically to entertain people who come and stay. This includes white water rafting, drinking, cooking bbqs, drinking, table tennis, drinking, horse shoes, drinking.....you get the picture. Our first day he was awake for about 30 hours. Legend

Set in the mountains of Inje, the cabin is a really cool retreat from inner city struggles. We had a cool little room that could probably have slept 8. I use sleep in a lose term as it's traditional floor sleeping. Not my cup of tea. But we drank enough to get over that. 

We start the night in Chutown as pirates..cause pirates are cool. We maybe stayed out longer than planned....I blame Jenn

Start the night as pirates....of course

Hungover, (and in Adnan's case looking like the proverbial hipster) but full of a pretty good brunch we make our way.

Braces...like a sir

It was pretty busy and we had to sit in the middle of the bus. Not sure this is legal in England....but Korea....no worries. (turned out we'd be doing a lot of improved seating in public transport that weekend)
T was in a pretty bad way....hehehe
But the sun was shining and we were finally on our way....

Not very happy

The bus to Inje wasn't much fun....I've never been more tempted to fart on someones head. 

 The weekend is spent chilling during the day...enjoying the surroundings. Streams, rivers, horse shoes, frisbee and sun bathing, card games and an interesting and competitive game of scatagories.
Another group of foreign teachers came with Andrei so there were about 20 people or so causing shenanigans.

The evenings were spent eating bbq and drinking games til the very early hours. Min runs on an honour system and everyone really just helps themselves and crazy cocktail concoctions. Min's awesome!!

Good times

Jenn came out with some crackin remarks this weekend...."i've had this birthmark
since I was born"

Safety First

It's Sunday and I'm hungover and I've just re read this post.

It's written so badly that I'm gonna stop now and just leave it as is......enjoy

Meeting new people
Being a pirate
Playing beer pong

"I drank all this????"

The worst journey home of my life.

It took 8 hours to get home.....we were uber tired. But an awesome weekend was had by all.

Sports Day

Sports Day....surely every kids favourite day? Well I have fond memories of egg and spoon races and three legged races and stuff like that. Different houses competing against each other for glory and bragging rights for the rest of the year.
But it's been a long time since I've taken part in a sports day for a elementary school so I was pretty excited to get involved in this one. So I was gutted when I couldn't take part in anything because my knee is still not up to par.

A glorious day greeted our fearless competitors. The school split into the Blues and the Whites. After careful consideration of the athletes (which consisted of finding my favourite students, and seeing which team had more) I nailed my banner to the white team. 

After the entire school does the warm up together with military precision it's game on!

Running races, skipping rope competitions, group wrestling, tug-of-war, random stuff I can't describe and the finale of a relay races between the grades.

The skipping contest was fun to watch. 

The kids got so competitive....the rules are basically the last kid standing. 3 rounds of skip until you can't skip anymore. 

Blues won this event. 

The rabble of kids here were holding one student up and the aim of the game was to make the other student fall. Sort of wrestling, rather dangerous and gladiatorial.
Disclaimer: No child was hurt in the process of these games

 You pick one side you're gonna make friends and enemies. 

Made some serious enemies that day. But this rabble were cool. 

Too cute for words

Even cuter!!! 

Just chilling

 A weird flag/banner game that I have no idea meant. Cultural differences kicking in here.

The day culminated with the last two events. The tug-of-war and the relay. My White Team were ahed and needed just one victory to seal an overall win. The t-o-w went to the blues....It was an epic performance on their part. It was OK though...the relay. Anything can happen. I'd seen spills, trips and even some poor mongrels following the wrong lines and run off in some random direction. So all to play for. 

They lost! Bugger!

But it actually squared off the teams. 1200 - 1200. So I wait for whatever tie-breaker is to come. I'm expecting jousting on midgets, or dwarf throwing....or the more likely rock, scissor, paper face off between the schools best rsp experts (yes these kids take that very serious)....but no. Nothing. It ended in a draw. I was outraged. Flabbergasted. Bemused. 

Kids need to know the thrill of victory and the bitter taste of defeat. None of this wishy washy 'we're all winners' rubbish. 

It was a really fun day, and made me want to be 12 years old all over again. 

Road to Recovery

Another month zooms by and I enter May in higher spirits than last month. The simple fact that I can now walk has really boosted my spirits. It's not all plain sailing but way better than before.

I have started Korean physiotherapy....not to be confused with psychotherapy, which one of my friends though I was going through, and explained why she all of a sudden was treading on eggshells around me. Oh Korea. My doctors and nurses at the little physio place are really nice and try really hard to make me feel comfortbale. I can hear them practising their English before they come and do some procedures on me. To their delight I always try out some Korean on them. 

Koren treatment includes shoving needles in me and hooking me up to electricity. Then some pulling and pushing. Followed by more electrodes and then a quick bash of laser treatment. Seems to be working because my knee has been getting a lot better. 

In other news I have been to my first baseball game in Daejeon. Home to the Hanwa Eagles. Literally the laughing stock if the Korean Baseball League after losing 13 games in a row. Oh Dear!! Not like my US experience of nearly getting arrested and paying for overpriced beer, the Eagles allow you to buy food and beer outside and bring it into the ground. Along with an MC boosting everyone and some agile cheerleaders rousing the crowd it's really worth the W10000 (6 quid) we paid to get our tickets. 

I must have been their lucky charm because they dismantled Busan Giants in an excellent display. 

There's way more theatre to it than any other sporting event I've been to. Definitely a must to anyone coming to Korea and it's baseball season. I'll be going again for sure. 

Another reason to love Korea

Finally getting to grips with this bum knee situation. It's now (what feels like) day 1500 and I have seen the physio for the first time. Seems like a nice chap, much better than the last plonker I saw at the last hospital.

Takes me in straight away and says that I can ditch the crutches..."it's been long enough on those, unless you have pain you don't kneed them...(chuckle)"

I go through and get some physiotherapy that includes; electro acupuncture, stretching, heat wraps and more electrodes, taking about an hour. I was a touch worried at the cost of this, but with my insurance it comes to the mind blowing cost of 7000 won....this is about 4 quid. I mean what's the point of charging really.

But I'm all the better for it (well the doc was a little concerned with the swelling still in my knee....but we're watching that) and off to my favourite coffee and I'm met with such surprise and splendour of not being on crutches anymore I get a free portion of scones with jam and butter. Whilst not UK standard it was exceedingly pleasant. The gesture meaning more than anything else.

So here's to lees hopping along and more stumbling along....tbc

50 Days and counting.....

Day 50 on crutches!!!!

I'm a broken man....all the other joints in my body hurt now...hip, elbows, wrists, other knee, ankle!!!

Hopefully not much longer to go....the crutches are starting to fall apart......

FED UP!!!! grrrrrrrrr