the green green grass of...

Well i would like to say home but i'm afraid not. Its weird. Everything has changed and nothing at all. it all looks the same, same dingy streets, same pubs, same food, same people. I think i have changed. The things i was looking forward to...cheese cider..walkers crisps have all lost their appeal. Actually i think my taste buds have been manipulated. Nope. I have seen the special people in my laugh. caught up, cried and laughed. I have been to Turkey had a fab time but still there is something missing. A huge gap that i did not expect. I think its about belonging and this trip hope i realised that i just dont belong here anymore. Thats not to say it is bad,its me whi has changed. I still love the same people i loved when i left but i feel like an outsider looking in on something that is no longer mine. Weird huh??? I yhink so! Korea wait for me coz i'm coming HOME!

Midsummer Madness in Mokpo

Okay just a quick update. What has happened recently. Well of late i have taken to hibernation which is highly rewarding. I have moved into Annes officially. Its great, stupid antics galore. Lets face it any thing is better than a 40 degree shoebox. What else.....um Aileen's leaving. Sad. very Sad, i am a little lost already. Laura and i are gearing up for the big move. Highly ecstatic. I am going home for a month....yipee...CHEESE-blue cheese, edam, camembert, brie....CHEESE. Oh yeah and family of course although right now cheese. Just cheese.

last weekend we took a trip to Kosan...fantabiedosey kind of....It was fantastic, two hours on a ferry to peace tranquility and beautiful scenery, a great sunset sea and sand. Awesome. Things were going well on our deserted idyll. Then we got hungry. OOPs. We trooped off, Laura todd, Jane, Rossa, Ann and i...we found a restaurant and perched eagerly at the table. Although we are not experts o the korean language or menu for that matter we usually find something mutally agreeable and vaguely recognisable. Not this time. Zip nada f all. We looked and looked again and not one of us could figure out what we might eat. So we did what any sane person would do, 35000 won for something we didn't know, figuring that as it was quite expensive for Korea it might be good....no such luck...we got a whole chicken...a whole boiled chicken, no soup no nothing...terrible. it was amusing though. Although we have a new in game which involves dropping the words 'boiled chicken' into every available space and giggling profusely. Its fun!

So anyway after the whole chicken thing we decided to go back down to the beach to chill. hmmmm. Not a good plan. Apparently it was Mosquito's annual day out. We did what is usually required in such situations. Drink alcohol. Anne, god bless her managed to forget about the mosquitos by promptly passing out. We all clambered into Todd and Laura's tent and thought better of it when we saw the army of moggies waitng to prey on fresh meat. Jane Rossa and i decided that we should find somewhere to sleep. A comfortable place to stay came in the form of some random birds attic. The woman was sweet but it was hot and not too good. Both Jane and i hate Spiders, the windows on the outside were covered in huge black fat bodied spiders, alright there were 4 but it was every aracnaphobics worst nightmare.

When we woke up...3 hours later we went for a quite swim in the ocean. We eventually caught up with Laura and Todd. Who looked worse for where. they had spend the entire night searching for Anne after she slipped off to go to the bathroom. We eventually found her, bruised and scratched. She was abducted by two men in a care. Lucky she a tough chick even though shes less than the size of a milk bottle.

Anyway enough off that...all in all it was a good weekend but it doesn't hurt to be reminded that nowhere in the world is safe, bastards sprout up everywhere it seems to have become a fact of life. The moral of the story is don't eat boiled chicken.

Barenakedladies

For some time i have had a closet addiction, kind of . Actually its becoming quite a problem.

It started as a curiousity and grew bigger and bigger until it cannot be stopped. The words you'll enjoy it, its great rang in my ears daily, go on its not that bad. And its not. Getting naked in Korea is actually a relaxing, wonderful thing to do. I love it, so much so that almost everyday i traipse up to my nearest jingilbang, 3000 won in tow and strip to nothing. yep i said nothing, starkers absolutely zip all. At first i was reluctant to go, of course what sane person would consider being naked in front of korean ajummas staring at the size of your bits as a pleasurable non tramatic !. They don't stare. You go in the jucuzzi, the cold bath, the green tea bath and nobody takes a blind bit of notice. Its amazing. I can't believe now that i love it so much but i am truly a water baby. Water makes me happy, the ocean, the shower even the rain i love it. You can do alsorts of things at the jingilbang, sauna, pc bang, eat drink, massage, sing and of course as only in korea...sleep...all night...every night! Best thing i ever did in Korea!

Hello Sushi!

It was as oftentimes on a saturday afternoon just the three of us. The plan was a simple one, good but uncomplex you know the kind, turn up eat drink and be merry. Laura and Todder turned up at the shabu shabu restaurant (with bicycles in tow) that i had been stood outside for twenty minutes because i am a little dense sometimes and i constantly miscalculate that if you peddle like hell on a bike you get to places quicker, thats just the way it works. So anyway i was there watching the world go by, almost tasting my noodle soup and thinking just how good it was going to taste when they arrived. We went to go it and the damn place had had a fire in the kitchen the day before so they weren't open, bloody inconvienient i thought! okay we needed a new pan, Todder knew another good restaurant but i being an ackward sod didn't like it. Not the concept of going to that restaurant but the actual food, it just wasn't good the last time we went so we decided to set of in search of something new. We wandered in the sun for a while and then found a new restaurant, it looked nice, we wnet in and it was super cold. PEFECT when its at least 40 degrees outside! The menu well blood sausages various intestines and well quite honestly a little new for our taste buds. Any other day maybe we would have tried it but this day was a day for good food. A saturday usually is. We concocted a plan. A fantastic cunning plan. LOTTE MART. Not just lotte mart but the very hub of lotte mart...the rotating sushi bar and the best of all the very best of all PIZZA. So the 3 of us trooped over to the little pizza stand and brought a 1000 won pizza each, small but delicious and cheesy which is quite frankly all that counts in the land of No cheese. We collected our pizza and went to the sushi bar. I think we sat for a least 20 mins watching the various strange looking fishies zooming past us. We tried bamboo rice and ate tuna and crab and salmon and of course pizza to our hearts content. It was one of the best meals i have ever had, full of novelty value, impromptu and of course in the company of my two bestest what more could i ask for?

Of course afterwards we needed alcohol to wash it all down so off we went to the traditional teahouse and then to jimjilbang for a nice soak in the baths and a general relax. A perfect day methinks!

Some people just don't like the colour Orange

I am not leaving Korea, your stuck with me, my blog and my general welshness for.... well lets not get excited...shall i say AT LEAST one more year. I have been in a pondering mood of late. As ever when in such a mood i think it is probably best not to think at all because before you know it you've solved world debt, flown to mars and beaten Richard Branson in shares. Anyway my ponderings led me to the inevitable why?

Why? Why? do some people truly hate Korea and others well love it? I thought about attitudes (this was a mighty long think so i apologise if you sleep during this) I thought about personality, i thought about backgrounds, past experiances, food preferences, intelligence, sexual orientation, gender, music and then i thought about Laura. She gave me the answer the first time we met. 'Some people' she said just 'don't like the colour Orange'

Ministop Antics

Here goes, i have spent the weekend, well as ever surrounded by good people drinking eating and generally mingling in the mokpo antics. Ministop drinking has become the new thing, the Miniskirt of Mokpo, fashionable , trendy, cool at least us trendsetters think so. Its perfect in every sense. Outside tables, mini jenga, copious amounts of all things needed for a perfect night. Alcohol, potato chips, peanuts, chocolate and of course water and coffee for the last drags! Inevitably in our little town ministop has become the hub of all life, as our evenings slip into drunken revellry our crowd slowly expands until what started as a simple gathering of a few turns into a full blown fiasco.

Bastard bosses and more bullshit than a shitting bull

alright, this time, my only time, my first my last and my everything...this is hayley rant. It won't happen again, i am not, by nature a ranter, i don't like hassle, i don't like whingers and i don't like being pissed arssed around. When i am i don't shout about it either. Anyway apology over i'm justified.

Okay here goes. One more thing...i am low maintence. Extremely low in fact so low that i can be out of the door showered and shaved numerous body parts, smoked two fags and had a cup of tea in twenty mins max. Okay well i'll start where Maria started...the beginning for those whose childhood wasn't permeated with Uk re showings of the sound of sodding music......

I have a plane ticket, a return to good ol' Blighty..one year one year only simple lol. I had to change the date to the expiary date of my contract the 20th Sept...I did except that i had to change it to the 15th of September. Not particularly because i wanted to or because i am akward bitch with nothing better to do but because the darlings at Asiana air stipulate a one year ticket which rather conveiniently lasts (any guesses???) one year. Anyway i accepted my change date, i figured my boss would rather me leave a few days early than buy a new ticket.

OH No, i told him that i would be leaving early, incedentally ny departure is the middle of chusok so i technically only loose 2 days of work, which if i am going to picky the dick wad stole of my holiday ( my useless piece of cheap paper says that i allegedly get 5 days IN ADDITION TO WEEKENDS....you guessed it i'm getting 5 days INCLUDING the weekend!)

Anyway the guy had a mestural moment and decided that he couldn't afford a foreign teacher and fired one month before my contract ends. This guys a joker believe me. Remember the aforementioned phone bill, well yet again i am phoneless because said geezer hasn't paid the bill. Anyway now don't know what to do, no severence no wages probably.....aaaarrrghhhh.

That said i still love Korea, i love the friends i have made, i love the food, the culture it seriously rocks but just like anywhere you can't escape the assholes. Its an unfortunate but inevitable part of life. Although i have a fab idea. Richard Branson or someone equally loaded should but a huge island somewhere.... anywhere and put as many assholes onto it as possible. I don't mean like a horrible place or anything, you know a cool holiday resort and that way all the dicks in the world can amuse themselves screwing each other over and stay the fuck away from us poor sods who just want a quiet non invasive life. Any sponsors?????

Singledom

As you may recall i mentioned my boyfriend briefly about a month ago. Well the romance bubble has well and truly burst. i am as ever returning to my life as miss eternally single. Am i sad? No. Am i bitter? No. Am i happy? God damn, Yes!!! i love my life, i love my friends and i love the sound of silence. End of boring story!

Wolchalsan-owwwwch

okay so one bright spark decided that cycling 30km to Wolchalsan would be an adventure...and it was. No seriously my legs hurt a little but i have the new found glow of pride that no i am not as unfit as i should be...do the maths...too much soju....too much Tv and a distict lack of a gym membership. Anyway laura (AKA the bike drama queen) Todd and me made it all the way there and all the way back in three whole pieces and it was fantastic. We paddled in a stream, sat by a waterfall, ate the most gorgeous Tak Dawree Tang ever created by any Korean ever, pedalled through rice paddies, watched traditional music at the top of a waterfall and brought new bracelets to add to our ever increasing collection. It was awesome, i seriously could not think of anything better to do ever. oh yeah, thanks Aileen for the aid relief message it was funny and very sweet of you to think of us...i'm glad i didn't go to Gwangju though, an air lift would have been neccesary for that one!!!!

Oh yeah i almost forgot. We camped out on Saturday night in the stupidly named 'muti purpose' park... (thanks Jeff for my very comfortable canvas it was great! okay so why stupidly named? Well, muti purpose...meaning for many purposes right? Wrong. what are three chirpy campers to do with a big expanse of green convieniently located next to the gwajangshils.CAMP....and we did, very happily, until jobs worth decided to give us a morning call. Some jumped up rubbish collector for the no pupose grass banged on my tent and woke us all up at 8:30. WHY? apart from being a nosy swine and having nothing better to apparently by the speed his stumpy arms were waving one of the purposes of the muti purpose grass was not camping. And so we taking our sweet ass time and laughing all the way. It was great a free night away and a wake up call what more can you ask for...well..he could have brought us a coffee and a muffin but that i think would be asking a little much!