New flatmates

Evening,

I got paid last week, so after taking care of the important things like buying more cornflakes, topping up my subway card and clearing a bit off my credit card bill, I decided it was time for a "Neil Jardine silly purchase". There have been many (Skip Dr, a surround sound amp and speakers which I then wrecked, and probably best of all, a body board and bag in Newquay last year that has not been used for its intended purpose since) but I would say this is up there with the best of them.

If there's one place in Korea I have found so far where there are a multitude of silly purchases available under one roof, then it's E-Mart. Think Tesco, Pets At Home, Dobbies and BHS rolled into one. So it was here that I trundled on Saturday (slightly hungover) to spend my hard-earned cash. First purchase - a fish tank and assorted extras. Cost - W100,000 (about £50).

As the tap water here is dodgy, I was not sure if it was O.K to use it to fill the tank so I then went to my local corner shop and bought nearly all his bottled water. It took around 20L to fill it, but at least it was now ready to be occupied.

And so, yesterday (Sunday) I went back to E-Mart and bought my new flatmates, two Crayfish. I originally thought they were shrimp but the poor pet-section attendant (who spent a good chunk of her weekend trying to help/talk to me) said they were Lobster and so after some browsing the net I have worked out they are actually little Crayfish. Nevertheless, I have named one "Bubba" (after Bubba Gump from the film Forrest Gump - he liked shrimp) and the other "Harry" after legendary Chicago Cubs brodcaster Harry Carry (it's a long story).

Here is a picture of their new home.

You can just about make out Harry on the right hand side languishing in the little pot. Bubba was away round the back at this point, skulking. They seem to get on pretty well, they stay out of each others way but they both have decent size claws so I am a little worried they will finally lose it with each other and I will get back from work to find a mess. I fed them tonight but so far neither of them have touched it, maybe they know the jar of food says "hermit crab food" and are turning their.....antenna up in disgust .

I am of the opinion that they make the flat look nicer, and I am quite nejoying looking after them so far. And, if it all goes wrong, or they last the full 10 months I have left here.......they'll make a good dinner.

So apart from that not a huge amount else to report, it's getting a bit colder now, I think I will invest in some gloves soon. I am now teaching 3 middle school classes each week as well which I am enjoying, it is giving me the chance to put my own ideas into the lessons and have some more conversation, as the kids in the middle school classes have a more advanced level of spoken english.

Next weekend we return to the DMZ so IF I get back from that then I shall blog further.

Until then, much love.

Neil

Oh, for any Rangers/Celtic fans reading....here is "diehard" Rangers fan Neil Munro's recent reaction to the Old Firm game (I wonder what the score was?). We had it on the PC and EPL on the TV. It's a wired nation...........

Also notice the can of "Raid" strategically placed on top of the T.V. Mosquito "dowsing" is becoming a new hobby of mine.

DMZ visit 1

I've called this post 'DMZ visit 1' because I'm hoping that I will be returning in a few weeks to see the village of Panmunjom, and the Joint Security Area. However, on this trip we didn't go. There are many tours to the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone), and many different companies vying for your business. I went on the half-day tour with Neil Munro, and his friend Liz who is visiting from America. Liz is only here for a week, so we had to book on one of the tours that doesnt go to Panmunjom as the ones that did were all full. I won't go into detail about exactly what the DMZ is, instead I would suggest going to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Demilitarized_Zone for a description.

So, after a pretty early start (up at 5am!) and a subway ride into Seoul, we went and met Liz at her hotel and boarded our bus. We had an english speaking Korean guide called Laura, who was very good throughout. After a mini-tour of Seoul while we picked up more people at different hotels, we headed along down beside the Han river on our way up to the DMZ area. At this point I've got a wee map so you can an idea of where we went. We headed up to the area near the 3rd tunnel (I'll talk about that later). Seoul is about 50km from there.

Pretty much as soon as we had cleared the suburbs of Seoul I started noticing a big barb-wire fence and watch-towers along the side of the river. Laura explained that these were here because North Koreans sometimes try and swim down the river into South Korea (or walk in winter when the river is frozen over). here is a photo of the fence and guard tower on the way up to the DMZ.

Our first stop was the Imjingak park, where the "Freedom Bridge" is. This is a bridge that many prisoners of war used to return to the South when the Korean war "ended". It is estimated however that there are still around 10million people seperated from each other beacuse of the DMZ, and so North Koreans who live in the South come to this bridge to pray for their families in the north, as it is about as close as they can get to them. The military installations were visible on both sides of the river, and I took a photo of a watchtower that actually had two soldiers in it. The bridge in the background is a rail bridge for the railway that it is hoped will eventually link the North and South. Neil and I joked that we would tell everyone that that is North Korea on the other side of the bridge, but hey, I can't lie, it's not!

Now you will see from that photo that I wasn't supposed to take a photo there. In fact, our guide was very quick to tell us where we could and could not use our cameras. You knew it was OK if you heard her say "Enjoy taking pictures". I was a bad boy. Because I had a camera phone, I basically tried to take photos whenever I could, with varying results (please don't arrest me).

After leaving the park, we went through our first checkpoint where we were told our passports would be checked (but weren't....slightly disapointing) and acroos the "unification bridge" funded by the CEO of Hyundai, who has family in North Korea. He's a big fish in South Korea. We then piad a visit to Dorosan station, opened in 2002 by the legend that is George W Bush. It is a bizarre place, there is this brand new statin which is ready to be a hub for cross-border rail travel if it ever happens, but right now it is pretty much deserted, apart from tour groups. Right next to it was a motorway that goes through the DMZ to North Korea, but is only used by some South Koreans who 'commute' to North Korea to work in a factory there. Here a couple of photos of the station.

Maybe one day!

Nelly and a soldier.

Dubya at the station. A shame the train is not moving.

We then got back on the bus and headed up a steep hill (with minefields on either side of the road) to the Mt.Dora observatory, the closest point of in South Korea to North Korea. It was the highlight of my day. Although it was a bit hazy, there was a good view across the DMZ (we never actually went into the DMZ, the observatory was just outside the southern limit) to North Korea. I could see the massive North Korean flagpost and flag (biggest in the world) and the smaller South Korean one, the deserted motorway and railway line crossing the DMZ and numerous fences, watchtowers and soldiers patrolling. There were lots of soldiers at the observatory itself, mainly stopping people from taking pictures. I managed to take a couple, though they didn't come out very well.

The orange stripe in the foreground is the southern boundary of the DMZ, and was lined with watchtowers and fences. The land in the distance is North Korea. I found that pretty exciting.

The next stop on the tour was the "3rd tunnel of aggression". This was a tunnel that the North dug into the South in the hope that they could move troops through it, but it was discovered before they could put it into use. We watched a video on the DMZ that ended with some babble about the DMZ being a symbol of peace (what? it has the highest concentration of military hardware anywhere in the world) and then donned our hard hats and went underground. We had to walk down a 768m long access tunnel to get to the actual NK tunnel, here is a dodgy photo I shouldn't have taken.

The actual NK tunnel was very small (Nelly had a nightmare!) and we were able to walk about 250m up it to the boundary with the DMZ(the full tunnel is 1.7km long). The North Koreans had painted bits of the walls black in an attempt to make out that they were mining coal, but it didn't really work! The boundary of the tunnel at the DMZ was sealed off with a big concrete barrier and lots of barbed wire. Here is dodgiest photo I took on the whole trip, there were cameras everywhere! ahhh!

And here is Nelly in the actual tunnel.

After resurfacing we got back on the bus and headed back into Seoul, stopping off at an amethyst centre (apparantly Korean amethyst is very good) which was basically a hard-sell opportunity. So overall the tour was excellent, but I am keen to get into the DMZ and see the meeting area in Panmunjon. I don't think I'll be taking any photos there.

We went back to Liz's hotel and had a nap, and then took at taxi in the evening to Cheonggyecheon, a stream that flows right through the centre of Seoul. It's course used to be covered over and was a road I think, but the city government decided to get rid of the road and bring the stream back. A stroke of genuis in my opinion. It is lit up by great lighting and the water looked really clean. We bought a couple of beers and just sat on the side and played "I'm thinking of........" for ages. Here is a photo of the beginning of the stream, and a video.

After some dinner we went to a PC Bang and watched the Scotland game and then went out on the town to celebrate. I have spent today recovering, I think I'm going to have an early night, it's a school day tomorrow you know! I will hopefully be returning to the DMZ in a few weeks so I will update further when/if I return, haha.

Until then, much love as always, Neil.

6 weeks.......

I'll set the scene first.

It's 11:37pm on friday, I'm sitting in my apartment, I got back from the gym (yeah I joined a gym) about an hour ago, had some gimbap and a ramyeon (pot noodle but a bit better), i've got Discovery channel on in the background (something about robots....not really watching) and I'm feeling very relaxed. Happy days.

Since Chuseok, things have settled back into the rhythm of teaching that I was getting used to. However, me and Neil got a shock a week ago today. I was not sure about putting this in my blog but I think it is important for everyone to get an idea of what it is like out here so I'm going to.

I went down to Neil's last week and we went for some dinner in his area, then decided we would get a taxi to Bupyeong, an area with a lots of bars and a good aptmosphere. The taxi rank is at the subway station but we had to cross the road (an 8-lane highway) so we went down the subway entrance on one side, under the road and started to climb the stairs on the other side.

We were about three steps from the top, when we heard a long screech and then a bang. Being a naive island boy, my first instinct was to go up and see what was happening but Neil held me back a bit in case there was a chance we were going to get hit by something. After the noises stopped we went up and looked at the road. On a first scan there was no mass pile-up, there were two cars stopped mid-road, a taxi and another car. However, after closer inspection we realised what had happened. A young guy, god knows what he was doing, had wandered out into the road and been hit by the taxi. He was lying face down, flat out on the road, motionless. In the UK, I'm sure I would have done something, even if it was just to call 999 and report it, or direct traffic or something. But me and Neil both looked at the situation and realised there was nothing we could really do, so we just stood, along with lots of other Koreans.

After about 10 minutes a police car (1) and an ambulance arrived, and this is where it got a bit weird. The paramedics got out, felt his pulse on his wrist, got back in the ambulance and drove off.

So he was dead.

I don't know much about what happens with things like that in the UK, but i'm sure they might have maybe done a couple of more tests or something. It just seemed a bit minimal. Meanwhile, some recovery van drivers had sprayed a couple of marks on the road but the taxi that hit him had already driven to the taxi rank and parked up so the scene had already been well altered. The taxi driver disappeared. The one policeman on the scene did seem to be directing things, but no other policemen arrived for about 25 minutes.

Another ambulance arrived after a while and they put a sheet over the guy and put him in the back of their ambulance. I found out afterwards that if someone has died at the scene then the 1st ambulance was not allowed to take the guy away, another ambulance has to do that. As all this is happening, traffic is still flying past on both sides of the accident, and, on the other side of the road, cars are crashing into each other as they take their eyes off the road to look. It was an entirely surreal experience, and one which I hope I never have to witness again, either in Korea or anywhere else. I suppose the one blessing for Neil and myself was that we missed seeing the guy being hit, though only just. 5 seconds earlier and we would have witnessed it all.

So, we made our way up to Bupyeong tightly strapped into the taxi and had a few strong drinks. I'm ok about it now and I think Neil is too, but at the time it was quite shocking.

Onto happier matters. We had a(nother) holiday this wednesday so I decided I would go and explore Incheon's "centre" itself. I got the subway to Incheon terminal and then took a taxi to Wolmido, a promenade area with an amusement park that I had high hopes for. Wolmido itself had a bit of a end-of-season feel to it. I think it didn't help that it was a bit of a hazy day, but the place was a bit run down. The promenade itself was ok, but some of the buildings looked like they'd seen better days. Here is a photo of the promenade.

I decided I would take the ferry to the airport island, Yeongjongoo. Although it has the main airport it is a big island so there are lots of other villages on it as well. I bought a return ticket and headed onto the ferry. The boarding arrangements are slightly different to the "Loch Buie's". Vehicles and people go on at the same time, though to be fair it was pretty safe. Here we are........

Although it looks like quite a fast boat, it only did about 8 knots and the trip over took about 20 minutes. It was a very hazy day and so unfortunately the views weren't great, I could just make out the massive bridge they are building between Songdo and the airport, but I was just happy to be on the water! Koreans LOVE to feed seagulls, and so we were followed by hundreds, which were very skillful at plucking the crisps and other thrown food out of the air. I decided not to get off at the other side, as the terminal didnt look like there was much to see, and so we chugged back again. The sea was very busy with lots of little boats and some bigger ones too, all sporting big Korean flags as it was an anniversary day in Korea I think.

I caught a taxi back to the station and then headed into Chinatown, which is Korea's only official Chinatown. Here is the main gate.

There were lots of restraunts and a few shops selling toy tigers and trinkets, and I had a good look around, but didnt spend any pennies. I then climbed up the hill into Jayu (Freedom) park, and saw a statue of General Macarthur (American), who is a bit of legend in Korea, because he landed in Incheon during the Korean war and fought off the North Koreans, but then the Chinese arrived and kind of took over everything again (Neil's Korean history guide.....in shops now). On a non-hazy/drizzley day there would have been great views over the port area, but I couldnt see much. Still I got an idea of the scale of the port itself, it is massive.

Here is a photo from the top of the hill.

I headed back down, got stared at a LOT in Incheon station by old people (im getting used to it) and then headed back to the flat. And now its the weekend again! Going to head into Seoul again on Saturday, so that will be good. I'm now waiting for my next pay cheque and I am hopefully going to purchase two things: one; a decent camera, because I am fed up of taking grainy ones on my phone. And two; some pet shrimp/crayfish. They are on sale in Emart for £2.50 and I can get a tank and all the rest for about £50, so I think they will make great companions in my apartment. Just imagine the line "Hey, do you want to come back to mine and help feed my shrimp?" Irresistable. I'm going to call them Bubba and Lt. Dannnnnnn. (film reference anyone?)

So that's all for now, I'll leave you with two videos shot on Wolmido promenade. Both slightly odd. One is of a guy catching a fish whilst a lone saxophonist plays on a MASSIVE stage out of shot, the other is of an old woman dancing around with some oddly dressed people play music. I love this country.