old friends~

this doll bench thingy has a head bigger than mine, and lacks more of a neck than me.... although in this photo.... im throwing up a good challenge....

for the first time in 6 months since i've been here, i finally made some sort of effort to catch up with a friend from sydney....

today i went out to a "traditional" street with sonya, a friend from sydney.....

it was a good day out..... had good food... and the weather was excellent.....

it was definitely good catching up with friends from back home.... and for dinner, i also met other people that i had known from australia.... really... its good to hang around with people who u can relate to (culturally).... coz sometimes, i dont understand koreans here.... and to be fair, im sure they dont understand me sometimes too....

last weekend, i made the loooooooooong trip out to the other end of seoul... and beyond.... my high school friend Joe lives out there, and that was also the first time in 6 months i met him in korea.... went out almost 2 hours on public transport, but it was definitely worth it....

ah~~ nothing better than old friends from back home~~

another sports update...

A Korean wins the US PGA Championship.... the first korean, the first asian to win a golf major....

and he beat tiger woods in the final round to win.... woah~ woods had a 2 shot lead going into the final round, and in the end, Y.E. Yang beat tiger woods by 3 shots....

that was a good story to wake up to....

also on sept. 5, Korea vs Australia.... soccer.... in korea...
it is a saturday... so i'll be trying to hunt the tickets down for that ^^

i dont know who to support..... i'll just... go for the winner... =)

what a day~~!!!

today was an eventful day.... the day started in the wee hours of the morning while i was online, i found out that my MSN account, which i've been using with no problems for..... 10 years.... now has been hacked and has a virus...

well... thats just MSN... so meh~~

then... i went to work today... and the principal of our academy wants to see me.... first time ever i had a talk with her....

it was about the foreign teachers meeting we had yesterday... due to the farce that goes on at my workplace, the foreign teachers have a lot to complain about....

i also added a complaint about the students who do nothing in class and just ruin the class atmosphere... students who repeatedly fail their tests were SUPPOSED to be expelled from the academy... but of course, the academy is a business... and from the business point of view, student = money.... so they never kick students out....

instead of the dropkicks getting kicked out, the good students walk out because the classes become a joke with kids who sit there and do nothing....

so.... the admin wanted to have a "chat" with me today.... about my issue.... which went from that one issue, to me being responsible for all foreign teachers' complaints... riiiiiiiiight

well, the outcome of the "chat" was a lot of back-chatting and telling the admin that they need to pull their finger out... i dont think they were too impressed with me telling them to their face how i felt about the 'disorganised' admin....

now the people wonder where i get the confidence to be cocky to the admin... well... it comes down to... they arent going to kick out shitty students... they arent going to kick out teacher who back-chat....

one of the issues in our academy is that the foreign teachers' class results have no influence to whether the student levels up, or repeats the same level again.... the admin says that the reason for that is that many foreign teachers dont try hard, nor do they really care about each student....

my answer to that was... they need to improve their recruitment policies, and for the teachers who do put in an effort to teach, that is just a slap in the face, and gives them a reason to just bum around in class.... the students know that the foreign teachers class has no influence on their final score.... so......

as u can see in the photo of my post today.... korea played soccer vs paraguay.... the game started at 8pm..... i was in class.... i use powerpoint classes now.... another "BRILLIANT" waste of money policy introduced by my academy.... so.... i just let the slideshow roll while i peep on the soccer on my screen.... i guess... its not my problem anymore.... the boss can consider it lucky that i didnt put the soccer on the big screen for the kids.... ^^

damn korean admin......

summer vacation - Geoje Island

from busan, i got on a ferry with ruadhri and went to the 2nd largest island in korea - geoje island. while we were on this island, we had really good luck.... the island was packed with people coz it is summer vacation season here... so many people go to this island for their vacation....

despite how busy it was going to be, we didnt book any accommodation for the 2 nights we were going to be there... and also, i read in the lonely planet that there will be a local bus going around the island to take u to tourist attractions, but it didnt say that the bus only comes once an hour!!! and also there was so much traffic on the island with so many people... the island has one lane roads.... so the bus was like 20~30 minutes late as well....

as soon as we arrived on the island, we were lost at the wharf... we got in a cab to go to the general area that we wanted to.... and we got off at a beach halfway there.... we took some photos, then waited and waited for a bus.... eventually it came, and lucky for us, the bus took us to exactly where we wanted to go...

we wanted to get on a tourist ferry to see this 'cave' on water.... but the ferry was booked out for the day... while we were just about to buy a ticket for the next day, a guy came and cancelled his 2 tickets on the last ferry of the day... so we bought those and got on the last tour ferry....

we found accommodation on the hill looking out to sea, which was pretty awesome....

on the second day, we had to call for a cab to take us to the ship yard... and then we went to a quiet beach for a swim.... after the swim, we wanted to head into the city centre to stay there for the night... while we were waiting for a bus to take us to the city, a kind couple pulled up to me on the roadside and asked if i wanted a lift to the city...

this couple had seen me and ruadhri on the tour ferry the day before, and also saw us at the beach.... and while they were driving into the city, they saw us again on the roadside waiting for a bus that even we werent sure when it would come.... so that was awesome~

that evening in the city, ruadhri and i went for a random walk thru the city... we didnt even know where we were walking, but i saw a stadium with a few lights on... so we walked towards there, and when we got in there, we saw a concert stage and people singing karaoke on the stage with tv cameras.... it was 10pm, and the stage was actually set for a korean chick dance group to come and sing at 4pm... but they were 6 hours late!!!

the stadium must have been full at 4pm, but by 10pm, people got sick and tired of waiting so 2/3 of the stadium had left.... ruadhri and i rocked up at 10pm... and the singers came 10.30-ish~ hahahaha.... i mean... they arent good singers or anything... but they are HOT~~~!!!

awesome vacation~~ had good weather fortune, and good fortune on the whole~~ sweeeeet~~

summer vacation - Busan (2)

after 3 days in busan travelling on my own, ruadhri came down to busan too... his vacation only started on the thursday last week, while i had the entire week off...

that day, we went to 2 different beaches... the first was Haeundae... which is one of the best beachese in korea, and at night we went to gwanganli... which has a bridge that lights up at night and gives a fantastic night scene....

the great thing about gwanganli was that we could sit at tables on the sand, and order food there... so we ordered dinner and had beers on the beach, which was very reminiscent of our time in yantai, china....

these days there is a movie called 'haeundae' that is in cinemas right now, and its about a mega-tsunami hitting the haeundae beach in busan.... i thought its a good movie... i highly doubt there would ever be a tsunami in korea, but the general story alright, and it was funny...

there are a few good korean movies at the moment... there is a ski-jumping movie that i really want to see this week some time....

the 2nd photo is a sign we saw in gwanganli.... i've been hit by a car twice in korea when i was young..... if the road signs allow cars to pass while the pedestrian lights are green.... im gonna guess there would be a lot more accidents to come... haha

summer vacation - Busan (1)

after my stay in my hometown, i went further south to Busan... the main city in the south...

i stayed here for 4 nights, and did alot of things... mainly i spent my time meeting people in busan... of course i toured around the city too...

one of the first places that i went to was Tae-Jong-Dae... which is the south east corner of korea.... there is that lighthouse there... a needle thing.... and there is this beautiful cliff called the 'suicide cliff'... its called the suicide cliff because alot of people in the past have committed suicide there since the old times... supposedly, they once built a barracade to stop people jumping off, but they removed the barracade because i guess it just took the gloss off the name 'suicide cliff'....

the people i met there were 3 friends that i met in sydney while they came on their working-holiday visa.... the girl on the left is now married and has a baby on the way.... wow~ we were saying how it only seemed like yesterday when we were hanging out in sydney, but that is already 5 years ago... ~~~

i also met a year 12 student that i taught in china last year.... while i was in china, i played a few online soccer games with him and kicked his ass~ and when i went down to busan this time, he said he had practiced... haha... beat him again~ (i played it alot last month while my cousin was in seoul)....

summer vacation - Andong

just got back today after a 9-day summer vacation... niiiiiiiiiiice~

the first place that i went to was my hometown - Andong.

i stayed with my grandma, and i also took some time out to look around my hometown.... i guess i went to australia when i was so young, i dont really know anything about my hometown....

the main thing i did while i was in andong was eat.... eat.... all grandmas are the same around the world... they just keep feeding u....

its not a big town... so there isnt that much to see, but the markets and alot of the old buildings are still as it is in my hometown....