I found this picture on Korean Beat (a website that translates news articles from Korean into English) from Monday's Inauguration ceremony for Lee Myung-bak, the new big Cheese here in Korea. This picture cracked me up. 
The grade six students are off to new schools around the city but one of my favorites refuses to go. Sung Hee is the smallest in the class and is part of the special education program. She knows two words in English (hi/bye) but mixes them up to get a reaction out of me. When classes are on she is constantly roaming the halls (her grade six teacher doesn't make her stay in class) and she makes her way in to visit whenever she can. Our conversations are in Korean and always review what has already been established. "Where's your mom? Canada. Where's your dad? Canada. Do you have brothers? Yes, two. Where are your brothers? Canada." Throw in some jokes about her refusing to give me candy and then my urges for her to get back to class and you can see the relationship is one sided.
The other day she picked up my hand phone/cellphone/mobile (which word is right?) and her normal joke is to change the setting into a Korean. This last time she picked it up she called herself and stored my phone number. I now get multiple calls a day. I try my best to not answer but then I get the text messages begging me to answer. Her latest text was the "??????????????????????????????????????" after ignored two early morning calls and then hung up on the third call because she wouldn't stop talking or reply to my goodbyes in Korean.
In Canada a student having your number would get you thrown into the nearest jail but here it's normal and many times necessary for students to have their teachers numbers. I understand she is in the special ed program and try my best to be nice but this is getting ridiculous. My newest hope is that her new English teacher is far nicer than me and has Korean language skills and the patience to entertain her for hours. She is great but man alive I'm bored of guessing what your doing and or eating at the moment you decided to call.
Last Saturday was Teddy's afternoon potluck and I finally have the pictures of his amazing pad. The usual gang first to show for the party and securing seats closest to the jungle in his living room. 
The smoking balcony. 
Each person got the tour of the house and Ted's favorite part was asking you to look at his bed where he would then push you onto it for a cuddle.
Oscars will be given out this weekend and here are my picks:
Actor in a Leading Role: Daniel Day-Lewis, I hated the movie but loved him in the role.
Actor in a Supporting Role: Philip Seymour-Hoffman, the academy loves him and I see why.
Actress in a Leading Role: Marion Cotillard, amazing movie and great job being Edith Piaf but she's French so she won't win.
Actress in a Supporting Role: Haven't seen all the movies here but liked Rudy Dee in American Gangster.
Directing: The Coen brothers even if I don't want the movie to win.
Best Picture: Atonement. Best movie by far.
I still have to watch many of the documentaries and foreign films so I'll stay out of these ones until I do.
At times it can be hard living in Korea. As expats or as travellers there are always ups and downs and learning to deal with them is the most important thing to being abroad. Ninety-five percent of the time I have no problem here but there can be somethings that just grate on your nerves. My top four here are..
1st...People horking up phlegm inches from your person.
2nd...Overly crowded subways/buses/roads and pushy people creating space to get into these when space doesn't exist.
3rd...Idiots that hate you just because you're a foreigner.
4th...Many Koreans constantly do things at the last minute. I'm all for procrastinating but if something big is coming up I'd like to know about it more than a day before.
Obviously I'm on holiday this week so everything has a cheerful glow but this week really has been great. Another handy top four:
1st...New subways on Line 4. It's so retarded that this makes me happy but the trains running this line are usually old, stinky and if you travel at the wrong times, extremely full and not just in a westerners sense of space invasion. Think no inch on your body not being touched and fondled. This week I've hit brand new trains three times and they make me smile. They have a the new car smell and the connecting doors between cars where I usually stand open by a simple push of the button. Ah, technology.
2nd...I have a new fruit lady. Yesterday I finally tried out the ajumas stall nearest my house and the lady was a bubble of love. She pushed me hard to get the good strawberries and although I understood all her Korean she summed up her whole spiel in English, "Number 1 Strawberries!!!" She also threw in the all important "service" fruit making my day.
3rd...I dropped twenty bucks on the sidewalk the other day and a young University student, who like all University students, could of had a great night out on this. Instead he back tracked and handed me the bills and pointed out the site miles away where I had dropped it. I love good people.
4th...Did I mention I'm back on vacation? Please excuse this overly joyful post. I'm off to see Jumper tonight and the pessimist in me fully expects it to annoy me.
We had our grade six graduation on Tuesday and I'll post about that later but as a sneaky peak it was cute, there were tears and an embarrassing speech by the principal was given for me. We then all went out for lunch at a Korean barbecue and got a nice beer buzz before being told we were on vacation again until March 3rd. Since then I re adapted to lazy holiday mode. (I'm not sure what I'll do when I have a job with real work hours!?)
I did go do my class with Dong Ook and he constantly cracks me up. This kid is 16/17 years old (Koreans count age differently) and is so honest and fun that our forty minute free talking goes by without a thought of the time. In class we were talking about Aliens and if they existed.
He is a huge movie buff and pulled all his responses from the movies he's seen. When I asked why there have been no reports of Aliens in Korea, he quickly shut me down by saying there isn't much land here. The land that there is has way too many people or is used as farm land. Obviously Aliens avoid cities and Korean farmers would be PISSED if aliens landed on their crops. He said the farmers would attack and kill the Aliens if they tried to land here, so they just go elsewhere.
Asked if he would admit to friends that he'd been abducted, he proudly said he doesn't have many friends. (I can see this, he's super geeky. I think this is why I love teaching him so much.) Instead of talking about it he said he'd keep it a secret, research Aliens then build a spaceship and go back to visit them. After this he planned to write a very successful book about this becoming rich.
Saturday was a fun filled day from start to finish. I met up with Shelly, Raymond and Jes at 1 o'clock and we headed off to Teddy's House for a pot-luck party with a bunch of other regular customers from Bar Bliss. Ted's place had everyone drooling with envy. He has a fantastic view of the Han River, has huge plants making the living room feel like a jungle and his trinkets from all over the world added to the place's feel. With bright red and yellow walls, it definitely did not feel like a stale Korean apartment.
The party was fun and Shelly, Raymond and I were having such a good time we were half an hour late in leaving for the Bjork concert. This wouldn't of been too bad except the taxi driver took us to the wrong extrance to Olympic Park and we had to make a mad dash through the park to find the concert hall. Thankfully the show started late and we had five minutes to spare before Bjork took the stage.
The concert itself wasn't the best. Bjork only sang for an hour and twenty minutes and didn't perform many of her more famous songs. I do like the new album so it wasn't so bad but I would of loved to of heard "Violently Happy" or "It's Oh So Quiet". Bjork just seemed to be going through the motions and couldn't wait to leave the stage when she finished singing "Declare Independance". I'm not a fan of artists like this. The show was good but only good. I'll definitely be skipping her next concert.
After the show we decided to let the crowds leave before us and we went into the closest GS25 for a beer. After the demand for taxi's let down we went to meet up with the others from the party who had now moved onto Bar Bliss. It was the perfect end to a great day of fun.
This past week was the useless week of school nestled between winter vacation and spring break before the new year starts in March. The kids have finished everything already so they mostly hang out in their class trying to make as much noise as possible. The Korean teachers are all running around getting ready for graduation on Tuesday or else getting all organized for the new year and their new classes. I've been doing just about everything to avoid falling asleep, I watched movies, read, worte emails and then spent coutless hours watching Bjork videos on youtube. .jpg)
This weekend Bjork is in town and Shelly, Raymond and I are heading off to the concert on Saturday night. I'm ready for some weird "art" like stuff and can't wait to hear Bjork sing. There is something about her voice and songs that I just love.
Namdaemun gate is the South gate to the city of Seoul. It is dated as being 610 years old. When I first got here it was a smack dab in the middle of a traffic circle but a couple of years ago they added a small park to it's side to make it a real tourist destination. It is a major symbol of Korea's past and stands among some of the biggest buildings in the city. On Sunday night it was set on fire and the nation watched it burn live on television. 
There is no shortage of blame as to how this happened. It had no guards protecting it at night. The company that has the contract to patrolling the place had their sensors fail when the arsonist climbed up to it's second level to torch it. The emergency services also have been blamed for their slow response. 
This is what people woke up to on Monday morning. Two days later a 70 year old man confessed to the crime saying it was in protest to not being paid in full from a property developer. If it was him, it is the second time he has set fire to a historic building. What's more scary is that he had thought of attacking a subway but thankfully didn't because he didn't want to harm any people. If this guy is indeed the arsonist I can guarantee he won't be out of jail anytime soon. Koreans are rightfully pissed.
By sheer luck my friend Hannah was also travelling in Malaysia while I was there. She was on her way home when I met up with her in Kuala Lumpur. If you ever want to meet a friend in K.L. I do not recommend meeting up at the Petrona Towers. After an afternoon of near misses we finally passed each other near the subway. We then set off in search of beer to catch up on what we'd been up to for the past five years. That night turned into a tiny bit of a bender but we blamed the downpouring of rain that kept us safely dry in the bar. We stayed until the super drunk and overly philosophical owner closed shop and kicked us out into the rain. The next day being her last in KL, we met up early and set off for the Batu Caves just North of the city.
These caves are a popular Hindu Shrine that hosts an annual Thaipusam festival. I read all about this festival on the plane, having just missed that years fun and it was definitely a place worth going to. From the pictures and articles I read about the caves, people walk out to these caves from downtown KL and then climb the 272 (I counted 271 1/2 stairs) often carrying something with them (read coconuts hooked onto naked bodies) for good luck the next year.
The newspaper said there was close to 2 million people at the three day festival but when we were there it was quite empty. In the pictures Hannah is clearly upset that we couldn't claim the march up to the top as exercise. Admitedly we didn't make it to the complete top of the caves. Once inside the main cave area there were way too many monkeys for our comfort (I love Hannah for hating both monkeys and rats, I didn't feel so stupid having someone else jump at their sight). They were guarding the last set of stairs and each attempt we made to get past had them skuddle closer to us and we ran away in terror.
After the caves Hannah used her bargaining skills to get a cheap cab back into the city. The one Taxi driver was very impressed with her haggling skills and told me to never marry the woman because she'd take everything. Having her with me was perfect to head into to Chinatown to haggle down prices on some cheap fake goods. Unfortunatly all the stuff there was the same crap knock of goods that you can get here in Korea for about the same price so we just window shopped.
The last picture of Hannah before she had to set off for the airport and her long journey back to England. It was great hanging out with her and made for an excellent break up of my solo trip.
I flew into Langkawi on my third day in Malaysia and had three great days resting up on the beach. The only reason I left was to meet up with Hannah in K.L but once she confirmed it as being the best place she'd been to on the mainland I booked a ticket back and stayed here for the last six days of my trip. Langkawi is a Northern island just next to Thailand, the government made it a duty free zone so it's very affordable. This beach here was the busiest but the worst on the island. It never got deeper than my waist and tiny baby jellyfish were everywhere making it a tingling swim. 
Right near my first hotel was a "living museum" that basically just acted as a way for farmers to capitalize off of tourists by opening up their rice paddies. In the main building there was also a day spa along with a Thai restaurant that looked out over the green fields. 
The cable car park and peak were definitely the highlights of non-beach activities. The coolness of the peak was exactly what I needed after a Dutch guy twisted my arm into drinking with him the night before. 
My favorite resort on the island a cheap simple place run by the nicest German lady. The beach was a two minute walk through the woods and was much better than the beach I spent my first three days at. A quieter, deeper, jellyfish free beach that was definitely my favorite on the island. 
The worst place I stayed in on the island. It was right on the beach, had lots of people to watch and a restaurant no more than five steps from my patio. Sounds great until you opened the door and there was sand everywhere and the place had locked in smell of backpackers. I had been having such good luck with places on the trip that I assumed this last place would be great. It wasn't but it also wasn't so bad especially when having a cocktail and watching the sunset each night.
One of the only pictures of me on the trip. This is the owner of a restaurant I used to frequent. Jason is super kind and had loads of advice about sights on the island. The other pictures are our Jason and his wife and in the other are some of the other chatty locals that used to hang out at the restaurant's bar. 
I had a fantastic time in Malaysia. Kuala Lumpur was a city I quickly got comfortable with. I roamed the streets until I got "overly sweaty" (read dripping sweat from more than just the head and arms...not a pretty sight) then I'd duck into almost every tourist trap the central part of the city had to offer to cool off. I visited the Petrona towers everyday first for the awe then for the city's best airconditioners.
The largest covered bird park in the world...aka the stinkiest fowlest place to go if you really don't care too much for birds park. 
Lake Park is a great place to get away from the crowded streets of K.L. 
I loved exploring all around the park, but once I saw the monkey crossing sign I knew I'd better leave. My critical eye sees nothing cute in monkeys. Carolus Linnaeus made a huge mistake not classifiying them along with rats, sure they have thumbs but those just make stealing things that much easier. 
Around Merdeka Square, the first picture is what Kuala Lumpur is named after the two rivers meeting up. 
Flowers, flowers and more flowers.
