Spring is in the air.....

It is a lovely sunny afternoon here in Incheon, and I have just returned from a walk up to the Bus Terminal along the Seunggicheon stream. I am at pains even to call it a stream, it is more an assortment of stinky pools bordered by a cycle path and assorted ongoing earthworks. To give the Incheon city council some credit, it does look like they are trying to improve it somewhat, by installing boardwalks and water features, but they will need to improve the water quality drastically if they are to prove useful.

Here a couple of photos from this afternoon. Despite what I have said above, I do like to get out for a walk, and it is a pleasant enough stroll.

The bridges up ahead in the above picture are part of the Suin railway line, currently under reconstruction. When finished it will link Incheon with Suwon.

Looking across some rice fields to the Munhak stadiums.

The new football (soccer) season starts next weekend, which I am thoroughly looking forward to, and then baseball kicks off (?) next month. Incheon FC have thankfully got rid of the popular, but awful, No.31. he has gone to league winners Seongnam, and we (I like to think of myself as part of Incheon FC these days!) have brought in an Australian and ANOTHER player called Dragan, as well as appointing the former Serbian national team coach as manager. Maybe Incheon will fare better this season with him at the helm.

Since our return from Japan, life has hurtled along at the usual frenetic Korean pace. Earlier this month Greg and I and some other Western boys went for a kickabout on a blaze (sand/earth) pitch in Yeonsu-Dong. We ended up playing against and with a whole load of middle-school boys whose coach seemed keen for them to play with 'real' footballers. None of us were particularly good, mainly due to hungoverness and lack of practice, but I did a lot of aimless running about as usual and swung a few decent crosses in which I was happy about.

Team Photo

Last weekend we pulled an all-nighter (the first since university for me I think) before heading into Seoul early on Saturday morning to join the USO (the US army's entertainment organisation) tour to the DMZ. It was Greg's 1st time, Neil's 3rd, and my 4th! If you read the news reports, you would be forgiven for thinking North Korea is about to launch a massive attack on.......well on the rest of the world, but despite this you are still allowed to tour within a few metres of the North and at one point actually step into the country itself (albeit inside a guarded building). If you want to see lots of pictures of the DMZ, have a look at my previous blog posts, as I don't want to look like a broken record on this blog.

Even though this was my 4th trip, the good thing is that they've all been different. This time we were allowed to take a lot more photos, and we spent a good bit of time standing looking over to North Korea inside the JSA, just outside the South Korean meeting hall, something we had not been allowed to do on previous trips. There was only one North Korean guard visible, you can just about make him out in the photo below.

For more photos and video, here are some Facebook links.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=221333&id=777495416&l=06765

I have to say I still found it fascinating, even though a lot of the sights were familiar to me. I don't think there is anywhere else in the world where the atmosphere is so tense, yet it is also so calm. There is something crazy about thinking.... 'if I run 50m in that direction then I will die'. The guards don't mess around up there. Hopefully they won't be around for ever and one day the DMZ may be dismantled, but its certainly not going to be during my time in Korea. Relations between North and South are frostier than they have been for some time.

On a less serious note, Tuesday was Pancake Day so Lisa and I attempted to make our own. Following good old Delia Smith's recipe, we did OK, although the amount of batter was a bit small so we ended up making another batch. Greg and I are giving up beer for Lent, which is so far going O.K. I am also forgoing sweets, which may prove more problematic.

My tossing skills are not great!

And that about brings us up to speed I think. March is looking good, the football next weekend, then Lisa and I are heading to Chungju (in the middle of Korea, a big lake) for the weekend on the 14th/15th, and then Oasis are playing in Seoul on the 1st of April, which Greg and I are going to. The teaching is still going well, the kids are all back to school now so the schedule is back to normal. The new school year begins this week (unlike August/September back home) so a lot of the 6th grade kids are going into middle school, and there will be a new intake of very little people to look forward to as well. Very cute, but no English at all. Hmmmmmm.......

Well, as I look out the window, the sun is setting over the new Incheon bridge, which is now joined in the middle (due to open October this year), there are a steady stream of planes coming in to land at Incheon airport, and the skyscrapers over on New Songdo are inching their way upwards. It's not the same as the view from Lovedale that's for sure, but I still enjoy it.

Return to Japan

Hello,

After the craziness of meeting Tom Cruise last month it was back to reality for a few days, but before long it was time for Greg and I to experience craziness of a different kind, as we headed to Japan for a hectic 4 days of sightseeing.

We flew out on Friday the 23rd, my first and so far only experience of flying with Korean Air. A pleasant flight, and at around an hour and a half to Osaka not too long either. After landing in Osaka we picked up our Japan rail passes (which allow unlimited travel on almost all the JR network, very handy) and boarded the airport train. We decided we would head straight to Kyoto, even though we were going to be staying in Osaka (the two are about an hour apart). upon arriving at the very futuristic Kyoto station, we lockered our bags and hopped on a bus to the Golden Pavillion, Kyoto's most famous tourist attraction. It was impressive, a big gold-leaf coated temple sitting beside a small lake. Very peaceful.



At this point I'll also give the link to the rest of the photos on Facebook. Here's the ones I took.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=210280&l=e8359&id=777495416

Unfortunately my camera was playing up a bit so I couldn't take any pictures on the first and last days. Greg's camera filled in the gaps so i will try and post a few of his snaps on this blog too.

After the pavilion visit we wandered around Kyoto for a bit and then caught the Shinkansen (bullet train) back to Osaka. We went to the capsule hotel that Neil Munro and I stayed in last year and then headed out to acquaint ourselves with the Osaka nightlife.

The next day, we explored Osaka a bit more, and went to the aquarium/IMAX cinema (also where Neil and I went) They had a 'penguin parade' which was quite fun (similar to the one at Edinburgh zoo if anyone's been) and we were also gifted 6000 Yen (about 45 pounds) by a malfunctioning ticket machine, so that paid for our day!

That evening we met Gordie, who used to work in Korea but moved to Japan last year. It was great to see him and we had some good banter about old times, both in Korea and at Uni (he went to Stirling too, and was one of the initial reasons I came to Korea).



Me and Gordie. My favorite H&M shirt still gets a wear now and again!

The next day we managed to get up reasonably early and boarded the Shinkansen to Tokyo.

The Japanese rail network really is world-class. Trains are on-time to the second, clean, quiet and the Shinkansen was not too busy. There are trains every 10 mins or so between Osaka and Tokyo, and they cover the distance in around 3 hours. On the way up we had a great view of Mt.Fuji. It was just like you see in the pictures, snow-capped and beautiful.

Upon arrival in Tokyo we checked into our hotel and then set about exploring some of this huge city. First stop was an area called Harajuku, home of the Meiji shrine and, on a Sunday, an area where eccentric Japanese (and western) people gather to hang around and be photographed. There were a few goth-types, a Japanese cowboy and many other odd folk. The shrine was nice, located in a leafy park, and there was a Japanese wedding going on too, so plenty to see.
We left Harajuku and walked down busy shopping streets (paying a vist to 'Condomania'...no prizes for guessing what they sold) to the area of Shibuya....apparently Tokyo's coolest area. It also home of the busiest pedestrian crossing in the world, made famous in the film 'Lost In Translation' and The Killers video 'Read my Mind'. It really was a sight to behold. I took a video of one cycle of the crossing, bear in mind that during the day, that is happening every few mins or so. Crazy!

We headed out that night in the popular area of Roppongi, but being a Sunday it was pretty quiet. The next morning, it was up bright and early (5am) to head to the Tsjukii fish market. Why go to a fish market at 5am you may ask? Well, it is Japan's largest, and it is also famous as being the place where tuna are auctioned. It is a crazy place, lots of carts flying about and every sort of seafood/fish imaginable. I'd been to a big market down in Busan, but there was no tuna there. In Tsjukii, whole tuna were laid out in rows (all snap-frozen and numbered), some of them were HUGE! We briefly saw one of the auctions taking place

After a few more hours of sleep back at the hotel, we went to the nearby government offices (basically a big city hall) and went up to the free observation deck on the 45th floor. It was a bit hazy but we still got a good view of Tokyo. The Tokyo urban area has the largest population in the world (around 30 million) and being up that high it was possible to see how....the city stretched as far as the haze allowed us to see.

In the afternoon we paid a visit to the Ginza district, home of the 'posh' shops, and the Sony building. The Sony building is basically Sony saying "Look at all the cool stuff we make", and I have to say, it was pretty cool. I was only browsing, but Greg bought a nice wee MP3 player. After a nearby stop at a Nissan showroom

we headed back down to Osaka on the train for fish and chips at the British pub near the capsule hotel (very Japanese eh?) and had a reasonably early night for our morning flight back to Korea.

So that was Japan. Hectic and expensive, but incredible. It was tough going back to work but I settled back into the swing of things quite easily after a couple of days. Future plans include a ski/snowboard weekend at some point this month, DMZ again in March (providing North Korea don't start getting itchy trigger fingers) and possibly Beijing in April/May, depending on finances/holiday. I have been spending a bit of time with a Canadian-Chinese girl called Lisa recently, so we are going to try and go somewhere in Korea soon too. It is early days, but she is really nice, so we'll see what happens.

And on that note, I will sign off for now. Speak soon..........