West Sea Isles: Getting Away From It All

Tiring of the rain in Seoul, following a reliable Google forecast for further showers in Incheon, that's where we headed on Tuesday afternoon.

We took line 1 of the Seoul subway the full two hours to the last stop of Incheon to be greeted with a scorcher of a day. Shying of imminent sunburn we enjoyed a late lunch served by genuine Chinese people immersed in a sea of red in Incheon's China Town. I know they were Chinese because they weren't speaking Korean.

Full to the brim with pseudo-Chinese food (I hear that the popular 'Chinese' dish jajangmyun was invented here in Korea's China Town) we took a very slow crawl up to the top of Freedom Hill where we found a statue of US General MacArthur who led South Korea into victory against the North back in the days of the Korean War. Surrounded by flowers and a beaming sun, we spied on a nearby couple doing the couply thing of snapping posed pictures of beautiful girlfriend in front of beautiful flowers behind huge camera lens. People seem big on photography here, and nearly everyone has a big SLR camera. If you have a girlfriend I'm sure it's like an unwritten rule that you must photograph her, with as big a lens as possible. That's just what I've noticed.

Now by the time we'd taken our really slow wander round Incheon city walking off our really huge lunch and watching guys take photos of girls with really huge cameras, it was a bit late to make it to the islands off the coast. Instead we made the alleged twenty minute walk to Wolmido Port in around forty minutes. Being predominantly main road lined with factories I'd probably recommend the recommended five minute taxi ride next time.

Save the Korean drummers in drag bouncing up and down to Korean pop music, we could easily have been walking the sea front of Blackpool. I was impressed at how few the crowds were considering this is the Korean summer holiday (and they generally don't get a whole lot of that). Maybe this just isn't a prime holiday spot, but that works for me.

Having heard a rather large downpour overnight we took a lazy start on Wednesday morning before pouring hot water into our instant coffees at the nearest convenience store. We took the 3000 won ferry (with Koreans intent on feeding their corn chips to the gulls) across to Yeongjongdo (home to Incheon International Airport), waited a half hour before swiping our T-money cards on bus 222 to take us to Jamjindo wharf before getting another 3000 won ferry over to the little island of Muuido.

We were lucky that it was only intermittently spitting during the day and was otherwise a pleasant sort of overcast. We hopped on the local bus across the island to Hanagae beach where - after a huge bowl of kalguksu (shellfish and noodle soup) - we flitted between frolicking in the water and lazing on the sand. We were definitely the only foreigners to be seen, but no one seemed to mind I wasn't swimming in my clothes like many of the other women. The evening brought low tide where the water seemed to instantly disappear, leaving behind a huge stretch of shellfish ridden wet sand. It was absolutely beautiful to walk across and to look confusedly at the various crawling sea life between our toes.

We were offered a lift back to the ferry port by an eager university student (and his less eager girlfriend) ready to practise his English. It was very kind of him and saved us a bus journey. Back on Yeongjongdo we justified the 13000 won Airport City Limousine Bus that would take us right to our doorstep by the fact that we'd have otherwise had to fork out for accommodation for the night. Escaping the sounds of Seoul, not seeing another white person for two days and breathing in fresh sea air, it really did feel as though we were well and truly Getting Away From It All.

Our New Fave Korean Rastas

Here I present 우주히피 performing "I'm Sorry", recorded at 12:38 Sunday 29th July, 2008. Enjoy.

Incheon Pentaport Rock Festival 2008

It wasn't Glastonbury (and certainly wasn't supposing to be) but the heavens opening for the first two days of Pentaport was certainly reminiscent of true summer festival weather. Ian and I got ourselves a couple of day tickets for the final day of the weekend where we were graced with blue skies and sunshine ready to enjoy some live music.

I was very impressed with how they'd dealt with post-downpour mud issues, rather rendering all the wellie sellers redundant. The ground actually seemed to be chiefly sand which is always going to be a lot easier to walk on than wet grass, but crates were laid out to step across the particularly muddy areas making the walk from one stage to the other a lot less arduous.

Despite being a small festival, there was a decent amount of advertising going on with various stalls and activities set up. We especially enjoyed the Guitar Hero at the Microsoft stand before we were told to move on due to the queue forming behind us. They had a bit of ingenious cash system set up where you charge the chip on your wrist band, but since you'd still need to carry cash on your person it was a little irritating to have to trudge across the field for a top up when you needed more beer.

It seemed as though all the foreign acts had been called in from the UK with the likes of Travis, Kasabian and The Go! Team playing. I heard that The Vines were pretty patronising towards the Korean stage crew, but otherwise it was good to see the British rock scene being represented across the globe. I was pretty impressed to see the Korean crowds rocking out to the likes of Staines massive Hard Fi, but I guessed here would be one of the few places you'd find people moshing to Feeder.

There were also several Korean bands of varying genres. Oh! Brothers with their rock 'n' roll spin impressed us enough to buy their CD from the cheap Hot Tracks stall, but our favourites were definitely this Korean reggae band. They weren't playing on either of the main stages so weren't well advertised, but I have later found out these Asian Rastas to be called 우주히피 (Space Hippies?). Video to follow.

There wasn't anyone who I was particularly dying to see - apparently they had Muse in last year which would have excited me more - but the sunshine and chilled atmosphere made it a great venue for a few drinks and a few live bands.

Norae-blogging

The cosy little street that I live on in the suburbs of the big smoke is home to a supermarket, a hair shop, several restaurants, a handful of bars, a couple of fast food outlets, and 3 noraebangs. I'd say this is a pretty standard set up for the side streets of Seoul. All of the above establishments have their own welcome signs, be they in bunting, logo-ed up vans, or the favourite: neon lights. There's always a man with a megaphone selling today's produce, and everyone is zigzagging up and down the street making their way from the mandu shop to the kimbap lady.

Lauren was due to leave Seoul on Thursday morning to set sail for our Japanese neighbours. After a never-ending course farewell meal at a traditional Korean restaurant with our co-workers she had two options: take a fleeting sleep and get up in 7 hours time, or spend a final night with her university friends (a.k.a. her fellow English teacher and boyfriend) on the beer and soju. I say she chose wisely.

Now I always thought Seoul life was 24 hours. A life of convenience if you will. I was put right when I left the PC Bang (in the days before home internet) at 1am to find no convenience store to sell me strawberry milk; another time when I wandered out at 8am in search of breakfast at the bakery but to no avail. Inconvenient. Heading out in the torrential rain at 2am on Wednesday night we were faced with a dark street. Quite the opposite to the usual buzzing daytime scene. Our options were Noraebang 1, Noraebang 2, or Noraebang 3.

Apparently it's illegal to sell alcohol in these singing rooms, but little seedy places like the ones listed above waver this rule. A couple of hours in a private room with a couple of dodgy mics, a list of dated songs to blast out and a bit of illegal beer, and Lauren was right set to board her 4.30am bus to Seoul station. I got a text at 10am to say she was on the boat. A good night had by all.

The Biggest Electronics Market in the East

Hoping for better weather was certainly optimistic as we're forecast for heavy showers all week. To escape the rain on Sunday Ian and I headed to Yongsan: host of the largest electronics market in Asia.

The market is apparently spread over several buildings, each containing hundreds of shops selling anything with a plug. However I'm only yet to explore the iPark Mall, the huge building just by the subway station. With several floors of cameras, computers, games, TVs, MP3 players, mobile phones and any accessories you can think of, plus clothes, stationery, jewellery, other usual department store peripheries and a multi-screen cinema, I don't see why I'd really need to venture outside of this safe haven of commercialisation.

Outraged by my poor sound quality when attempting to watch DVDs on my computer, Ian went in search of some new speakers. Unfortunately we've decided it's a PC fault, but he's still come away with a nice low-cost pair of speakers.

Even though bartering is a supposed must, it seems as though if you ask one seller for a price, you'll be kept a close eye on by all neighbouring stall holders, ready to pounce with a similar quote. It's difficult to tell if the sellers are actually in competition with one another, or if they're all just out to rip off unsuspecting foreigners. Still, whether fair or not, compared to our Western counter-shops it seems you can usually pick up an electronic bargain or two here.

Summer rain

After 7 months apart, Ian has finally made it to Korea in time for my summer holidays next week.

As the perfect introduction to the country, Seoul (considerately) decided to pour it down all day. It did alleviate the feared mugginess, however a trip up Seoul Tower for an overview of my new home will have to be postponed. Instead we headed for a meander around the National Museum of Korea. It still contained all the usual findings from the various eras in Korean history, but we managed to catch a 'summer concert' by some K-rock band under cover while it rained in the distance. It was fun.

We also went to the "The Glory of Persia" exhibition there, on until the end of August. Naturally I then proceeded to plan our next trip to (ex-)Persia. So much world to see! The exhibition was actually really good - easy to navigate, English translations, and a video with a load of Persian images.

I took Ian salsa dancing in the evening, but naturally having travelled 5000 miles in the last 24 hours, he's still a little jet-lagged. I hope the weather brightens up a little tomorrow!

Musical English

To celebrate the coming of the summer holidays, this afternoon the kids performed the musical that they've been rehearsing in their 'Musical English' class. It was hilarious (stroke cringeworthy in places) watching the kids simulating the theatrical style of their wacky teacher, with emphasis on the hip wiggling and dramatic arm movements. I especially enjoyed the stage snogging by Snow White and her Prince. I will hunt down a picture.

Ooh talking of pictures (not that I took any), an apartment opposite our school caught fire today. Apparently some kids sprayed mosquito spray on the gas stove and it blew up in their faces. Eek.

We also had parent-teacher conferences today. Unfortunately my worst kids' parents didn't turn up. Kind of shows which parents care about their kids' education and which are fobbing them off on the English classes just 'cause they're available. Goodness I'm a cynic.

So I guess I've got caught up in the pre-holiday spirit of things; even though my kids are off on a field trip tomorrow morning and I don't technically have to go work, I think a picnic in the mountains sounds like a mighty fine idea. Sun, kimbap, mountains...and the Korean teachers'll be there to control their kids - woo!

Mud, mud, glorious mud

Last weekend Lauren and I went down with WorknPlay to Korea's leading festival: the Boryeong Mud Festival. I'm not entirely sure what we spent out 70 000 won on since we were given a lot of 'free time' to sit on the beach (or paint ourselves with mud as we pleased), though we did partake in the compulsory military training in the mud flats (see right) and a large pork dinner.

I think we met more Brits that weekend than I've met in my entire time in Korea so far, and though we opted out of the mud slides and wrestling, we had a lot of fun exchanging "remember that TV programme..." stories and avoiding burly drunk (muddy) Americans.

Despite having been eaten alive by mosquitos and forgetting the sun cream, it was a great getaway for some sun, sea and...mud.

The sounds of summer

With some parts of days reaching 100% humidity but no precipitation to show for it, air con is now my friend. It dries the room out nicely before sleeping, and prevents melting into a puddle of sweat each time my heart takes a beat.

Still, despite the air conditioner having taken a fonder place in my heart than the fan (that will ultimately kill me), the hot weather doesn't do too many wonders for my day to day mood. It's definitely too hot for any strenuous activity such as rigorous nursery rhyme actions, and I certainly don't want to raise my voice above usual conversation levels. Unfortunately we can't always have what we want, though.

In our introductory phonics lessons Lauren and I decided to follow the British Jolly Phonics program. I cannot commend this program enough. Rather than most of the standard phonics books that teach the alphabet first and then focus on the sounds that the letters make, Jolly Phonics focuses on learning the sounds of the letters from the very beginning in the order that they are most heard, before building up to each of the 42 most common sounds in the English language.

It has worked well in getting many of the children to sound out simple three letter words, but now that we're moving onto more complicated vowel sounds (e.g. 'ai' in 'snail', 'ie' in 'die') the split in the levels of the kids is becoming more apparent.

It's optimistic to think that every child goes home at night, enthusiastically sounding out every English word they lie eyes on. However realising that some children aren't even familiar with the letter 'a' while others are reading full sentences without prompting begins to make me feel uneasy.

"Teacher, teacher!" they wail. "What's this?" they ask, pointing to a pig. Wide eyed and infuriated, I turn to the child intelligently asking the final sound in 'train'. "Teacher!" they persist. Manners nor patience are something I've been able to successfully instill. I have hopes yet.

It's not as though we haven't reviewed every letter every lesson since the beginning. Naughty children anger me more than I ought to let them. Enthusiastic children with no memory retention are irritating, but I suppose they get bonus points for trying (but if they'd tried a bit harder at the beginning we might not be in this mess now). But there isn't even a word that describes my contempt for stupid AND naughty children.

Now, it is likely that there is a strong correlation between poor understanding and bad behaviour; if a child can't get my attention by giving correct answers they'll be damned if they don't hear their name once in a 15 minute English session. This doesn't stop me from disliking them the most, though. Go ahead, climb out of the window; at least you won't be disrupting my lesson.

Unfortunately I'm not allowed to pick and choose the kids I want to teach. Nor am I allowed to actually encourage them to climb out of the window. In reality, their dying would probably disrupt my class a whole lot more.

I hope to stream my classes for the next semester. I just have to convince myself that a class full of the worst kids in school that make my blood boil (and it's already reaching boiling point, so it won't take long) will be worth the one with the angelic bright sparks, happily nattering on in English, eager to soak up all the knowledge I can impart...

The finished hanji masterpiece.

In desperation to make a hanji lamp, Lauren scoped out this nice lady in Insadong to help her make one. Being interested in that kind of thing, I tagged along last Saturday to make the bulbs; today we papered up the wiring to make it look more lamp-like. Bleach gave the added 'aged' look.

Shame that this newly discovered lady is leaving this month to the next province; I would have liked to have made more stuff with her. We literally got in there at the last minute, and I'm glad we did. I've expressed my excitement over papier-maché before.

Despite the fluctuation between heavy rain and heavy humidity, I'd kind of forgotten it was the rainy season now. So unusually (just when you don't have an umbrella and you're squeezing two people plus a few several shopping bags under one) it poured it down, forcing us to guard our freshly made paper lamps with our lives. We didn't pay sa-man-won for these for nothing, you know.

An Introduction to Seongye Practice

"This has changed my life. I mean, I'm a bit of a sceptic, but this really does help," a long-timer meditator informed us as we waited for our logo-ed t-shirts and sweatpants to be delivered to us. "Help with what?" I wondered as we were getting changed. "I can't help feeling this is a bit...cultish," Lauren whispered, confirming my own feelings of bemusement.

Avoiding eye contact with one another to prevent bursting into laughter as I felt a smile flicker at the corners of my mouth, we began the energetic bouncing routine, shaking out the impure energy generated by negative thoughts, being sure to actively imagine burying them deep beneath the surface of the earth. "If you do not do this it is pointless; they will just stay on the surface of the room and can flow back into you."

Seongye practice, as I understand it, is based upon the belief that the body is made up of interconnecting energy lines. These lines become blocked through stress of the mind or body, and through meditation exercises may be released to encourage the flow of positive energy.

With this in mind, alongside rolling on the floor like hyenas, we were instructed to "breathe from [our] Danjeon". This is essentially the muscle that contracts when you cough, but according to this practice is the place we store energy but without this understanding cannot function. Allegedly this is where we breathe from as babies, but as we get more stressed as we grow older, the higher our breathing becomes.

We were also told to concentrate on a time when we were young and free and to contemplate what is preventing us from being "the person we want to be". We had to contract all our negative feelings into a ball inside ourselves, project them from our Danjeon onto the palms of our hands, roll them up our arms, down our sides, and through the soles of our feet and bury them deep under the surface of the ground. I imagined mine was blue.

Cynicism aside, it was an opportunity for a good stretch and some self-reflection.

That is, until the lecture began.

The title of this week's discussion was "Wavelengths and Antennae". I wasn't sure how science played a part in this very spiritual process, but I was to learn. All around us are waves. Yes. I learnt that in school; I still believe it might be true. Waves transport energy. Sound so far (no pun intended). This is also how "vital energy", or "Gi", is transported throughout nature. The ultimate goal is to be awake to this vital energy so that we may be as one with nature.

If a little far removed from science as we commonly perceive it, I think there is some beauty in this notion of understanding and being close with nature. However the cynicism dropped as soon as they said that once you are proficient at releasing negative energy, the centre for Seongye practice in Seoul will issue you with your own personal antenna (an imaginary aerial on the top of your head, depicted as yellow in the slide show) that you may use to transmit and receive vital energy from in the world. This transmits to a larger, physical antenna that is on top of the centre, and there are some hundred-odd such others across the globe.

Some people (such as Van Gogh and Mozart) are blessed enough to be at one with nature from birth, and can receive pure energy from nature which they express in their arts. So to suggest that when you stop practicing this form of meditation the centre will take away your imaginary antenna, it all got a bit much for me. "To begin with we just do the exercises for our health and for ourselves. But it is good to know that this kind of thing is possible, and is something we can aim for."

Despite the fact I will not be parting with my money with the aim of getting a personal aerial, if you have differing opinions on the potential on this kind of meditation you might like to drop by the centre in Insadong, Seoul (tel. 02 722 6653). Their website doesn't work, but it should be at www.suseonjae.com. Since they already subjected us to fake meditation advertisement photographs at the end of our session, I figured I may as well give them a free shout-out. They did give us free tea after all.