They killed Wash! (i.e. I ♥ Joss)

Life
Somehow life got busy. I don't know how, or when, but not so long ago the days at school were seriously dragging and I was struggling to get through to the next 'checkpoint', be that the next national holiday or kindy field trip. But somehow, I guess since we stopped feeling guilty about leaving over an hour earlier than the other teachers at school, the days are flying by and with them the weeks, and now, months.

But not only that, it seems my Sundays in front of MegaTV have been somewhat limited lately. It's a shame, since I do love a good Sunday afternoon film, but travelling Korea's most "well-touristed" sights, fuelling my growing salsa dancing obsession several times a week, and working on my slowly improving Korean skills seem to be taking up the majority of my free time. Nonetheless, last Sunday I sneaked in a morning film.

Serenity
Reminiscent of my childhood obsession with vampires, I spent a good portion of my revision days at university watching all 7 seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer plus commentaries and generally falling in love with creator Joss Whedon. On chatting to a fellow Whedon fan about Buffy's final villain Caleb, I learned that the actor was the star of another of Whedon's creations: Firefly.

Now I've heard several times over that the show was a flop due to FOX airing the series out of order, and yet a good handful of my geeking acquaintances were selling the series to me. The concept - set in the future after "Earth-that-was" has long been destroyed, a bunch of misfits follow captain Malcolm Reynolds in his Firefly spaceship, taking on whatever jobs they can to rub a few pennies together - honestly sounded a bit, um, crap. Sci-fi isn't my preferred genre of big-screen action, but in true Joss style, the characters are so endearing, and Mal is so dry-humoured and witty, that to this show, too, I became addicted.

So of course watching the follow-up film Serenity was a must-do on my ever-long to-watch list. I am in fact amazed that it took me this long to get around to it.

If I'd not seen the series I'm not sure I'd have been quite as enthralled: even though the plot was well executed I didn't feel all the characters were developed well, and that it was taken for granted that the viewer knew the background of their relationships. (Like, was there any sexual tension between Caleigh and Simon? And where did Inara spring from?!) Nonetheless, Mal's character shone through from the start, and the film resolved all hanging issues nicely. And of course, someone had to die; I can only apologise for the spoiler.

OK, enough rambling about random films I'm watching.

Another national holiday
Yesterday was Buddha's birthday and thus another day off work to take advantage of. Unfortunately due to frolicking in Busan, we missed the Lotus Lantern parade last weekend. Still, last night Lauren and I got to Jogyesa Temple in central Seoul to witness the lighting of the lanterns that have been slowly increasing in number across the country over the past couple of months.

It was a beautiful ceremony, and I was dead impressed at that monk playing that really big drum, but not being of remotely Buddhist origin the mass praying became a bit much for us.

Meeting the locals
Now admittedly people often like to practise their (occasionally limited) English skills on foreign passers-by. You can feel the covert looks on the subway, and can tick down the seconds until they pluck up the courage to engage you and ask the inevitable "Where you from?".

Not quite so covertly, on the ride home last night a bunch of high school boys were rock-scissor-papering it up under my gaze, daring one another to talk to me. Not fitting the usual motives, it actually turned out they couldn't even understand my basic "How old are you?" question despite the fact they've probably been studying English at school for a good several years now. Rather raised some doubt regarding the intense Korean education system. Still, it was amusing watching the boys beating each other up (literally and mentally) and simultaneously handy getting a free Korean lesson in at the same time. As politely as I knew how, I declined the invitation to meet them again...

Pottery making
To back-post even further, on Saturday Lauren and Anne-Sophie, a friend from my Korean class, hit the traffic-logged roads towards Icheon: a small city in the southwest of Seoul famous for its pottery and annual ceramics festival that is currently being hosted. Icheon is also apparently famous for its rice "that tastes so good it needs no side dishes", but it would seem that I'm no rice connoisseur as it neither looked nor tasted much different to the various rice-based creations that are doled out in every food establishment I've visited.

However, rather than a rice tasting day, we booked a pottery tour, of which the highlight was making our own clay creations.

Lauren turned out to be some kind of ceramics master, but without a doubt, despite a self-titled aptitude for arts and crafts, out of our group including the two fellow Brits who'd joined up with us, my attempt was literally the flop as it just failed to sustain any kind of pot-like shape. The nice lady watching over me was even in looks of despair, shaking her head with noises of "어떻게!" under her breath.

Unable to face the failure any longer, I succumbed to my clay and embraced the shape it was insisting on assuming. Still, with a burst in the fiery furnace and a lick of celadon, I'm sure my makeshift dipping dish will serve me well...