A Hallowed night approaches and in a small corner of Asia small children will consume large amounts of cheap confectionery and try to scale the walls....of my classroom.
For whatever reason Koreans really, REALLY go in for Halloween. This leaves me and many of my fellow ex-pat brethren cursing whoever created this poor excuse for a "holiday". Last year I think I recounted my experience of having to spend many extra (and unpaid) hours at my school planning and carrying out an almighty Halloween bash.....only to then have small children complain that it was "boring" and "no fun" whilst hitting me in the crotch with plastic weapons. So as you can imagine I was in no rush at all to repeat this nightmarish ordeal again this year. It came as a nice relief, then, when I was told that my current school doesn't really go in for the big party on this God awful day.
Last Wednesday two of the Kindergarten teachers had to return (unexpectedly) to the States so I was called in to do some small-kiddie-herding. This involved 12 hour days, kids with better English than George W. Bush and dancing to Abba and Barbie Girl (them, not me). It was a tiring experience but overall pretty rewarding. At one stage I was having a full blown conversation with a 7 year old about the past participle....absolutely staggering levels of English. In one class we made those "tumbler" (I think they're called weebles in the States) things that don't fall over even when you push them. By the end of the class I had questions like (exactly like) "But teacher, what would happen if the center of gravity was in a different place?". This is obviously in stark contrast to my classes of mump-heads who continually try and spout my own question back at me; Me, "What colour is it?", them, "What colour is it red", me "well done, genius". My favorite part of the whole experience had to be the singing/dancing time. This basically involves a shed load of wee-nipper tunes that they sing and dance about to for a while. Thrown into the mix they also try and sing some pop songs in English. The best by far was definitely a rendition of "Barbie Girl" in which there were solos and a six year old boy doing a frantic-robot-arms-out-stretched-full-body-vibrate, actually kind of scary yet extremely amusing.
So anyway as much fun as it was I'm in no rush to work for 12 hours a day again anytime soon!
This weekend there was a partaaaay at Mr. Harris' new gaff. And very pleasant it was too. He's managed to wrangle himself-up a good group of friends through his Seoul Ministry of Education (or SMOE as all the "cool" people call it) training week he went on. Anyways on Saturday him and his US army landlord Chris threw a Hawaiian style Lei party which was great fun and then some. I kind of want to have a housewarming party at my place but I don't think 20 people will fit into my one room, at least not comfortably.....
For pictures this time I'll provide you with a random mix of photos recently (expertly) swiped from Richard and his big fancy camera......

Random SMOErs enjoying cocktails and Hula at the Lei shin-dig.
Sunset over Seoul on the Hawaiian party day.
Ris' landlord/roommate Chris, the army bod.
Me and a fella called Jeff, nice chap.
An evening yonks ago in "the wine bar".
Not my picture (so don't sue me Harris) but I thought it was really cool. Taken at a Korean/US airshow.
A pagoda in a park.
Sunset in "Yongsan", a big shopping area of Seoul.
Big fish. In water. With little fish there too. I just thought it was a good picture.
Big Flag. The Parade ground makes it look a little communist dontcha think?