Back home again…

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Monday 14th February 2005
Hello hello,
Well, the last couple of days of our trip were a little disappointing, everything seemed to be closed because of the festival, including over half of the things on our city tour, despite the fact that they made us pay extra cos it was a holiday!! However, we both saw so much in the first few days that we needed the rest anyway!
A few clothes shops were open, but apparently everyone in Vietnam is tiny, cos each time we went into a shop we got variations on ‘we have no big size’, ‘large size only in black’ ‘you come back tomorrow, I make you special large size’….. it ended up making us both a little paranoid – I mean neither of us are exactly petite, but we’re hardly elephants!! Continue reading →

Fun and games at the office…

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Tuesday 1st February 2005
Time for another installment!
Well, we’ve had huge dramas at school over the last few weeks, and I can’t remember if I’ve said any of this before, so I’m sorry if I’m repeating myself!
Basically, Jenny, one of the Korean teachers, who’s really lovely and works her arse off here, has been getting screwed over by Julie, our director. They’ve been having tons of big fights lately (all in Korean, so I have no idea what’s being said), but it turns out that Julie had a meeting with Mr Kim, the big boss, a few weeks ago, and told him that Jenny does fuck-all work and then Julie handed over to Mr Kim the new kinder schedule, which I have watched Jenny working on for weeks, and claimed that it was all her work etc. Jenny nearly got fired over that drama, but luckily it turned out in an amazing twist of events that Jenny is Mr Kim’s cousin (actually he is her mum’s cousin) but he had asked her to come and work here to find out why the school’s going so downhill. So, Jenny’s actually been here kind-of undercover (the other teachers didn’t know she was related to Mr Kim), and she’s such a sweetie!! (she gives me the inside scoop once in a while when we go out for drinks).

DMZ, JSA, MDL etc…

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Monday 17th January 2005
Hey guys,
I’ve had a busy couple of weeks, but happy New Year!!
My friend Dom came to stay with me for about 10 days, so we did some sightseeing, and last weekend we crammed in some fun and games.
On Saturday we went to Seoul racecourse, and while Cal and Dom studied the race forms and worked out the odds etc, I picked which horse I liked based purely on what colour it as and whether or not it looked happy! Amazingly I won on three races in a row (sadly I was only betting between 50p and 1.50 each race) but I managed to come out about 10 quid up by the end, so I was pretty chuffed! Continue reading →

Soju Daze…

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Tuesday 28th December 2004
Hey Hey people,
Christmas was wondeful, I had a lovely time, ate fantastic food at a ridiculously classy restaurant, saw mum, got tons of great pressies etc. On Sunday Penny and I went to see Bridget Jones 2, which was awesome.
Monday was back to work as usual, but our end of term staff do got moved – it was supposed to be on Wednesday, but Joanna couldn’t make it, so at the last minute we decided to have it last night instead. The big boss, Mr Kim is moving house, so he couldn’t make it, but he insisted on bankrolling our night out anyway!!!

Christmas joy

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Thursday 23rd December 2004
 
Hello everyone,
I have had a fun few days and am well and truly ready for Christmas now.
I decided this week that our school was far too un-Christmassy (we only had a pathetic little tree in the foyer), so I set the children to work!
We’ve spent the last few days in class coloring pictures of santa and xmas trees and sticking them up all over the walls. Then I broke out the glue and scissors and taught them all how to make paper chains!
It was awesome, the kids loved it, and they took to it incredibly well. After two days we had enough paper chains to decorate all the classrooms and the hallway too!! (God isn’t child labour amazing?). Continue reading →

Hot little Potatoes!

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Wednesday, 15 December 2004
Hi guys,
Sorry its been a while since my last email.
I’ve been busy at work, and came down with yet another rotten cold over the weekend – I must be breaking records!!
Anyway, other than that have a lovely little story to tell you. I was walking back from work last night, and it’s now freezing at night, so I popped into the little shop on the corner for some milk. The lady in there is just so adorable – she’s always smiling at me and trying to give little extras like a bunch of grapes here or a lollipop there. She was laughing and pointing at my nose, which when I looked in the mirror behind the counter was bright red from the cold and the fact that I’m sick! She gave me my change, and then pointed at her electric heater and mimed something. I stood over it to warm up, but she just laughed again, picked up these lumps of mud from the top of the heater, wrapped them in newspaper and handed them to me. They were so warm and toasty!!! They kept my hands beautifully warm the rest of the way home, and it wasn’t until I had taken off my coat and settled down that I looked at them closely and realised they were actually sweet potatoes!! She must have been slow-cooking them on top of her electric heater! I cracked one open, and there it is, perfectly cooked like a little baked potato, and I’ve got myself a lovely hot tea.
Isn’t that sweet? Continue reading →

Medieval Torture…

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Sunday 21st November 2004
Note – there was clearly an email missing between this one and the last one, but sadly I can’t find it. Suffice to say the gist of it was mostly about how I was feeling a bit miserable and down for no apparent reason. Also it appears that Cal was being a bit of a prick, which may have also made me feel rubbish.
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Hello,
Big huge thanks to all of you for all your lovely messages!!
It’s hard to feel sorry for yourself when there’s twenty people telling you you’re fabulous!!!
Anyway I got a rotten cold right after my last email, so no wonder I was feeling all ratty and emotional. Am feeling much better now and have more cultural news to report!
I told my friend Sarah all about Cal and she was really nice about it. She called me up on Friday at work just after my last class, told me to get straight in a cab and come to her house, cos she’d booked me a massage at the sauna and she’d made me mac and cheese for dinner!
We went over to the sauna (me, Sarah, and Canadian girl, Beth) and all had massages. I have to say I’ve never really been a huge fan of massages, but I think I’ve figured out how they work now. Continue reading →

The one with the toilet…

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Thursday, 4 November 2004
So, I had another good weekend, lots of fun and games.
On Friday we had a Halloween party at the school for the kids, all dressed up in silly clothes and paraded around the block etc. I was in charge of the apple bobbing, but apples here are expensive so we bobbed for tangerines (and let me tell you after the 50th child has bitten into the same tangerine, the whole game starts to look a lot less appealing!).
Anyway, then at about 7.30, I was just about to go home when they told me we were all going out for a staff dinner so I only had 20 mins to run home and change.
We had a nice dinner, and Julie the director got absolutely smashed – she tanned about 8 bottles of beer in less than an hour, plus numerous shots of soju (sort of like Korean saki), and then dragged us all off to the Nori Bang. Continue reading →