Of Skanks and Skunks.

Its Korean installment time! I am just so excited for you guys. you lucky fish.

Ha ha, so I told you about the freckle issue. Well after moaning about this in the staff room (and you all know I can whine and moan) I found out that these little kids also find arm hair fascinating. So thankfully I don't have particularly hairy arms, but the guys do! So the kids grab their arm hairs and pull them and then they start to attack the leg hairs. I was in hysterics. The smallest things make me laugh these days.

After only one month in a completely foreign country I have managed to find my own coffee joint. They even know my order! I just walk in and the lady says: "americano hot", no question mark on the end, just a statement. I LOVE THAT. So now even if I don't really feel like coffee I go anyway because it makes me feel like I have achieved something. It helps that the coffee is FABULOUS. And I have finally achieved a goal of mine, which is to have coffee black with no sugar. It happened by mistake really, because of the language barrier I didn't manage to articulate that I wanted sugar with no milk, she just thought I said no milk and sugar. Only after half of the cup did I realise that it was no milk no sugar, I was in heaven. So, two birds one stone at Indigo Blue, my favourite coffee shop in Pyeongchon.

So there is no Z sound in Korean, as stated before, and instead of 'z' they seem to say 'j'. Now one unit in the text book was dealing with Zoo's. So for a week now I have been listening to how the bears in the joo are in a cage. It is so flippin difficult no to laugh when these little ones are being dead serious about the sentence construction they have just mastered. No matter how many times I get them to pretend to be a bee and buzzzzzzz around the room, they still say "I love going to the joo". It's too much. I will have rock hard abs by the time I leave here from teaching these kids.

You know how there are teachers bloopers pages where teachers have recorded the mistakes pupils have made in tests/worksheets etc. Well here is a hilarious one to end off this installment with:

3. I am black. I have a white line on my back. I live in the forest. People don't like the way I smell. Who am I?

A: I am a skank.

peace out

HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY MY WONDERFUL HOB!!!!!

I found these images and thought of you, naturally. So until I get paid and can afford to post you a present these will have to do.

I hope you have simply the most wonderful fantastic day filled with gorgeous men, fabulous hair and delicious food.

You deserve only the best chikin.

I keep gloating about the Trans Kei and how nothing on earth compares to its beauty. So hopefully all these great people will descend upon the TK with us as guides. And Bongi in tow - on a LEAD.

Morgan's Bay

So this weekend I finally made a trip out to Morgan's Bay - a place that earned me many incredulous looks when I said I had never been to. Which I always thought was a little unfair, but having spent a weekend there, was definitely worth the trip.

It had been a friends birthday in the week and on Wednesday she had decided to go away for the weekend, given the short notice and limited houses on offer, it ended up being a girls weekend away in the Morgan's Bay caravan park. We were staying in this tiny park home on the river, which essentially meant we were rather overdressed trailer-trash for the weekend. But there was a lovely deck on the river - certainly a high-point of our accommodation.

We only arrived after 7pm on Friday night, and so had a sedate night. The lack of curtains and the ability of our house to carry sound meant that we were all awake on Saturday morning by 7am - so we went for a walk on the beach. (with Sue-Ann waiting for a suitably deserted section of beach to go for a early morning skinny dip) and later 'borrowing' the paddle boat docked near-by to mosey about on the river, only to discover that one of the paddles was broken, with me on the working side, so it was a very short paddle.

That afternoon we went for longer beach-walk and swim (not wanting to traumatise families, we had our costumes on this time), ambitiously setting out for the lighthouse on the hill. En route we ran into some hikers who had been hiking for 13 days, starting a Port Edward and were hoping to make it to East London by Monday morning to catch their flight back to Cape Town - at that point our walk felt decidedly less ambitious. However, we did find this deserted, dilapidated old house right on the ocean.

We never reached the lighthouse because we had decide to go for sundowners on this hill near the hotel, but we got the time wrong and arrived an hour early, with the wind howling, so we took cover in behind a bush, hoping our Savanna's and Amarula would help keep us warm, but we gave up shortly after discovering the bush was a rather painful thorn bush and so headed back down the hill to have sundowners out of the wind.

Anyways, that evening we had plans to be awesome, but after all the Amarula and wine and sunshine and walking, we ended up watching "So you think you can dance", critiquing the judges and just sitting outside on the deck.

Early Sunday morning again, with less wind, so did a take-two of the hill before we were kicked out of our trailer. We ended the weekend with a pub-lunch at the hotel because the petrol-pump was closed between 12 and 2pm - I kid you not - and we had no petrol to get home.

Anyways, if I'm clever, there may be pictures attached, but Chericles an Tanya know that it took me a while to work how to post.

the fat cactus

so on friday at 5ish i get a call from the tan-'i'm in town, let's go for a drink!' Things went downhill from there. hahaha. Anyway we decided on the fat cactus (it's this amazing place that sells jugs of margaritas :) ) we were just about finished our second jug when stace and emily arrived, they were in for a shock, allegedly i did something resembling a swan mating dance towards their car when they got there. I dispute this entirely. Likewise the fact that I had to be assisted across the road to draw money. This was because I have an aversion to traffic and normally panic when i  cross the road, that  night was nothing special. So we had 2 more jugs of margaritas :) and wrote some interesting postcards (which can be found outside the ladies room) which some of you will be getting in the days/weeks to come!hahaha gtg now will continue update later

The crew!

Freckles and the 'South African accent'

Right, so here is another installment. It might be a long one, depends on how I feel. Brace yourselves.

There are no stars here. It is killing me, that is the only downside so far. There was one star that struggled through the clouds the other night and i was disproportionately excited by it! I did a little happy star jig in the street, only to be almost knocked over by a scooter on the sidewalk. You cannot afford to lose your concentration on the pavement for even a second! I have almost become pavement carnage at least 10 times in the past three weeks. It's mostly because I am conditioned into thinking that it is a safe space for pedestrians. Which is mistake number one in Korea. Scooters and Motorcycles have free run on any surface. They even use the zebra crossings, as though two wheels means you can abandon the rules of the road and become a pedestrian when it suits you. Walking with an ipod is also a bad idea as it means that if they deign to give you some forewarning of your immanent danger you don't hear it and then it's your fault that you lost a leg.

In case you hadn't noticed I'm covered in freckles. This phenomenon is not often seen in Korea. My one class, after endlessly pointing and whispering amongst themselves (as if the teacher cannot see this, I mean really espionage is not their strong point), finally asked me what the spots on my arms were, when I said they were called freckles ( I duly wrote it on the board) they screwed up their faces in disgust and promptly stopped discussing it any further. well that did nothing for my confidence.

Then I was out the other night with the other teachers and I saw this girl in the bathrooms and randomly started chatting with her, mostly because she had freckles and I wanted to know if it was just me that they didn't like or if it was freckles in general. Turns out she went to the Dr for some reason unrelated to skin and he was like "Don't worry we will fix you and get rid of these as well (pointing to all her freckles!)"!!!!! I just laughed. It made me feel better about my so called affliction. ha ha.

The enigmatic South African accent. Does it exist? According to all the Canadians here Leonardo Dicaprio has the deffinative South African accent from Blood Diamond. Now I haven't seen this movie, but I have heard that it was a dire attempt, and thus it is not to be used as a reference for South African accents. This fell on deaf ears. I had to endure an entire night of "South African Accents"...all of which sounded New Zealandish, it was bizarre to say the least. And if I said anything they just said, you dont sound South African, you sound British. So I was no longer a reference for anything regarding SA. oh my days.

Talking of Canadians, they are not as fishpaste as previously thought. I really maligned the entire race unjustly, I was convinced that as a nation they were boring and I had no time for them. However I was mistaken and must swallow that bitter pill as the Canadian teachers here are hilarious and not boring. They may be other things, but boring not. So this is me retracting all those nasty statements made previously in public.

this one's priceless!!

pics from cape agulhas

this is for you zo :)

Eastern Cape trip

So last week I was in the Eastern Cape with Ulrike (the German boss) and Mike (the computer guy). It was fun. And tiring. And frustrating. So we left on Monday (Ulrike picked me up and had to wait outside while i chucked my half dry clothes into my bag and wore a wet jersey that was dry by that evening! Hahaha) Anyway, on Monday I called the woman we were meeting on Tuesday at 9 to confirm the meeting I had set up the previous week. She said no problem,she’d see us the next day. So on Tuesday we arrived at the municipal offices and asked to see her. She was off sick, wasn’t there the previous day and was off for the week. Awesome. Anyway a friendly guy called Dumi took us around and acted as translator. The next day we went to Queenstown and then finished in EL. Nothing exceptional happened. On Friday night Cath and I whaled at Tania’s playing poker. Allegedly i have an awesome poker face J hahahah.  Anyway was back in CT by Sunday night. Went to hiphop dance class last night, was fun but i’m really not very good!! Today I’m going to work in the soup kitchen with margot which should be fun. What is happening with you guys and why the lack of updates??? I think we should make it compulsory to update the blog once a week. 

I'll have what he had!

wkend update

hello randoms, i just have a few minutes to update you on what's up in my life recently. first i'm leaving for durban today to do a week long trip to all our sites in the e cape. better than being in the office! anyway we're wnding up in EL on Fri to do a presentation to provincial govt and then the randoms are flying out and i'm spendig the weekend at home :)  i am writing this while i wait for my clothes to dry as typically i left doing the washing til the last moment and am now surrounded by clothes on every surface as well as the floor trying to dry.


yesterday i went to cape aghulhas with margot and her friend jeff ( who it turns out is friends with cathicles!-small world) anyway i had to get up at 6 cos marget wanted to leave early so that wasn't really a problem. then we drove to hermanus and looked for some whales, they were not being whaleish (hahahah) and refused to surface for us. never the less we enjoyed a nice cup of tea before moving on to cape aghulas. we had to stop every few kms so that margot could take photos and this slowed down the process a bit! anyway we eventually arrived in aghulas and had to pay R17 to walk to the top of the lighthouse. it was quite a climb up old and slightly wonky wooden ladders. when we got to the top it was so windy i almost lost my sunglasses (which i purchased on friday at a 2nd hand place in wynberg) we took some cool pics which i will upload later. then we wondered around and had yummy fish and chips for lunch then tasted some wine next door and then left to come home. J and M wanted to do some rock climbing on the way back and i (NOT a rockclimber) was planning to watch. so we arrived at this place and i realised that the rock was not just on the side of the road and that we actually had to hike to get there. This did not bode well for my littlle  woolies pumps (I really didn't think that out) about half way up it felt like my shoes were about to come apart which is when i decided to come down abit and watch from the bottom of the mountain. while i was waiting and watching(from very far away) I was planning next wkend in EL, the plan is something like this on friday whale with tan/cath and on sat whale with tan/cath (burger night?) admittedly not the most well laid out plans but by that stage i was tired and being abused by the wind. i tied my scarf around my head and must have looked like a muslim mountain goat crouched on a rock!!!! Two separate groups of ppl came past and both of them had dogs which barked at me! WTF?

anyway i really have to go now, ulrike's picking me up in 45min and i haven't even started packing yet...oops


later kids :)

bloodyshowers!!

right, so this is the next installment.

the bathrooms here are grossee! really in every way they are such a
trauma. firstly the sewer system is outmoded so there are signs in
every toilet block saying "Do not throw your tissue paper in the
toilet" and then there is a conveniently placed bin next to the toilet
where you are meant to deposit your used toilet paper. WTF. it is
beyond disgusting at the end of the say in a public toilet, and dont
judge me for having to use public toilets, there is no choice if you
have been in Seoul the whole day shopping and then you're about to
take a 50min train ride back to Pyeongchon! it makes me sad everytime.
apparently the pipes just cant take the strain and so in that way it
makes sense. however for such an advanced nation it just doesn't make
sense that they cant sort that problem out. needless to say i do not
follow that principle in my own home, nor in most of the public
toilets as i cannot bring myself to do that. its the same thing in
Greece too, antiquated pipes are a problem i hope we never encounter
in SA.

Also in the bathrooms in apartments there is no such thing as a bath.
There are only showers, I mentioned the space issue before so it makes
sense as baths take up room,also the way they do the showers is that
they are a part of the whole room. There is no enclosed shower area
and I can deal with that if there is a demarcated shower space,
however it is one small room so EVERYTHING gets wet when you shower.
Wet toilet paper is the pits. So I have taken measures and it is
improving. Also the shower pipe is connected to the basin tap, so you
have to turn a leaver to divert the water from the tap to the shower.
Now after a fairly warm relaxing shower you tend to just leave the now
very wet bathroom and go and get into Pj's clothes whatever. Then when
you are in your slippers and go into the bathroom to brush your teeth
and you turn on the tap the bloody shower comes raining down on
you!!!!!!! So now not only is your toilet paper wet but so are your
slippers and dry clothes. and yet i do this every time! honestly.

Shopping in Korea is such an experience. Firstly there are whole ailes
of things that I simply do not know what is on the shelves and I
cannot for the life of me figure out what to do with it if I had to
purchase it. I mean I can figure out that it's food, but cooking
instructions are beyond me at the best of times, and in Korean it's
impossible. Also in most stores there are assistants who walk around
with head sets on and these are attached to a speaker and they are
advertising the products on sale. Which in itself is not a totally
strange thing, but it's weird when they follow you around the store.
This happened to me last week and he knew that I didn't understnd a
word of what he was saying and then when I finally picked up some
carrots I think he announced it to the whole shop because everyone
started looking at me and smiling in that inside joke sort of way. It
was infuriating and embarrassing all at once. you win some you lose
some hey.

Also fruit here is ridiculously expensive! to demonstrate this I can
tell a little story. I bought 8 apples the other day (bear in mind
that this is less than a normal size packet of apples we get in SA)
and it came to 5000 won, which is roughly R35.
!!%*)^&*^*&%^%$%$#%$!!!!! and then I went into another store and
bought slippers for 1000 won, which is R7. Now tell me in what
universe does that make sense?

haleluya!!!!!!!!

After all these years at university I've finally achieved something. Stace just smsed me from the other side of campus asking if I want a Souper Sandwich!! woohooo, you have no idea how long this has taken. 2 and a half years actually. She always comes to my office with a piping hot, delisous? (spelling is not my strong suit) smelling soupr sandwich that I then have to watch her eat...and today she finally offered...woo hooo. I'm thrilled. She probably wants something tho, she's probably gonna ask me to summarise her Ecos textbook again. For those of you priviledged enough to have attended uct you know the whaleishness of the souper sandwhich, for those of you who haven't...sorry for you. 

Robbery @ No. 22

So I came home on Friday evening after a few beers at the office to the welcome site of a flat that had been broken into.

I swear they must have been watching me. The bastards left meat in my bed, drank my booze (don't worry, the peach brandy is still there!) stole all my very precious jewelry and then had the audacity to crap in my loo and leave huge flemmy boogers in my hand basin!
The Fluckers even went through my underwear drawer, I know because they left strings of beads in there!

Shit , what a great start to the long weekend! Now I don't even want to go home, I'm kak bang!

it's a long weekend baby :)

wooohoo :) keen for the long wkend, not that it really matters to me since I have a 'fairly' flexible schedule anyway ;) hahahaha. But seriously looking forward to Monday, going to Cape Agulhus and Hermanus (to watch the whales) with Margotttt, she wants to go rock climbing on the way back but not sure I'm up for that. I feel the possibility of falling is quite high and hence damage to one self inevitable.


Also doing a sewing course with is so much fun, learning all sorts of cool new things :)


Hope you all have a whale of a weekend :)

HI hi

I am making progress with the zzzzz's, so some of them can say Zoe,

some still say a mixture of goee and joey, its weird. But its my

personal aim to get them all saying the right thing.

Had a good day yesterday with the kids, starting to know their names and

they are helping me with the pronounciation. There is one teacher

here, an American, who has the mentality of the old colonial: "If I

speak loudly enough the natives will understand me"!!!!! really, I can

hear her when I'm at the end of the passage and she is teaching in the

class at the other end. At first it was funny, but now its just

annoying. She is possibly the worst teacher ever. She said to me that

in her one class there were some really smart kids and some really

stupid kids, so she figured the stupid kids were never going to get it

anyway, so she just taught the smart ones. can you handle that! I

implied that a teacher's job is to help ALL the kids. I dont think

she understood what I meant. If she were in my class I would think she

was one of the average to poor students.

Also it's weird because we teach the kids with set books and the little ones are given a new book each month, so to make it easier they made the books into months rather than numbers, and each month has a theme, December is obviously a Christmas theme. Now the thing is, that each class progresses at a different rate, so theoretically it's meant to be a book a month, some kids simply cant grasp all the material in a month so it may take a month and a half or two months in total to finish that book. And then some kids join the SLP later in the year and then a new class is formed and they get given January book no matter what month it is. There is a point to this guys, sorry its taken so long, but context is imperative. SO, yesterday all morning all we heard ringing down the passages was "Santa-Clause is coming to town" and "Jingle Bells". It was bizarre, two classes were on December therefore they had to sing ALL the Christmas songs, over and over again. which in itself I can handle, but not when its a mixture of Amercian nasal twang voice and little high pitched Korean voices singing words with an asian twist.

ahahhahaha.

forgot the name of the site

oops, not to worry i've bookmarked it now :)

right so this is going to be my area in cyber space to update everyone on my impressions of South Korea and my general musk.

here is the first installment for any other potential readers other than us few authors, i have to put this in so that it makes sense for everyone else:

Ok, so here is some news.

I'm going to start with food cos it's a subject that is close to my

heart, and actually most of us here have healthy appetites as well. So

the term 'vegetarian' is only used loosely in South Korea, which is a bit

disconcerting I have to tell you. The first meal I had I ordered gim

bap, which is similar to maki in sushi, except that it's full of veges

and fruit (I think its fruit, it might be more vegetables though as

there are soooo many kinds of produce in the shops that I have never

seen before, really it's quite a challenge buying things here) and then

the vege's are wrapped in rice and then surrounded by sea wead and

chopped into circles. So I ordered the vegetarian gim bap and was

alramed to find a polony looking substance in every piece of it. And

then I asked our group if I had actually ordered the vege option, or

if I had made a mistake because I was sure I had pointed to the right

thing. Only then does Tobin say that its pork and it comes with almost

every meal. So be warned if you ever come here, even if it says

vegetarian that just means that the majority of the meal is

veges...there could be anything else with it. Or they just dont think

pork is a meat, but they are an intelligent race so that cant be it.

Or they just like messing with people. Who knows.

The reason I have become a strict vegetarian here is because they eat

dogs and cats and rats. for real. And not being able to read or speak

Korean I felt it would be wise to stick to veges while I'm here as I am

strongly against eating pets or rodents. And it is not an urban legend

that they eat these animals. On my first day here when we went to

Anyang, there was a restaurant called Dog-Bug. Now I'm not sure whether

the bug meant that they too are a delicacy here and that they are also

served in this restaurant or whether they just decided it sounded cool

so they put it next to dog. The strange thing is that loads of Koreans

have dogs as pets. Surely you can see a problem arising out of eating

your pet? Well this is causing trouble as the proportion of dog owners

increases so does the protesting against eating dogs. I get that, you

suddenly find it hard to swallow something that could be your dogs

sister or mother. You know! I'm just glad that I wont be eating any

canine while im here.

Yesterday was a good day as I finally figured out how to turn on my

geyser (cold showers are fine in this heat, but I'm thinking long term

here and winter will be the pits if I cant have warm showers) and I

managed to turn on my gas stove without singing my eye brows or

burning down the apartment block. sjoe wee. I really felt as though I

had achieved something. also I taught the whole day, and I think it

was a success. The little monsters are soo lovely and cute, loud and

high pitched as well, which is a detraction from the cuteness, but

still I can deal with that. Also they are small enough to pick up if

they're being naughty and not listening or walking in a straight line!

That really surprised them! hahahahahhaha.

Z is not a letter that is used in Korean. so I am called Joey. It is

killing me. So my mission this year is to teach this small population

how to say zzzzzzzzzzz. And then the natural progression is Zoe. I

feel like this is an achievable aim.

wowzers guys. I am 25. a quarter of a century. I'm looking at the wrong

side of 50. I had a mild mid 20s crisis on Sunday. Especially as I

couldn't get pissed for my birthday as hung over Zoe is like hell on

earth and I coudn't do that to the kids or myself yesterday. so I

spent the day in the park. Like an old woman. oh my days. But talking

of parks makes me think of an interesting side fact here. Because

there is a shortage of space having a garden is a major luxury, all

the apartments are teeny weeny and the blocks are crammed together. So

to make sure that the population didn't go insane because there was no

nautre around them the government created parks, lots and lots of

parks in the cities. There are two small parks just 2 minutes away

from me and 2 giant parks 5 minutes away. And it gets better. In most

of the parks there are sections that have gym equipment in them!

actually circuit training gym equipment just in the parks for anyone

to use. Don't you love that? So you can go for a run in the park and

then do some weights/training. It's the shizzness. And the thing is

they can do that here cos there is hardly any crime!

I cant begin to describe to you how wonderful it is to just walk

around this giant city and not feel terrified that something might

happen. The Americans laughed at Rachel and I when a guy ran past us,

because of the smallness of the side streets you are always bumping

into people and this guy ran past us so closely that he bumped us a

little. We're so used to idea that this could be someone about to

mug us that we grabbed our bags and turned around sharply so that he

couldn't get to the bags. It was the last thing on his mind. In fact I

don't even think it ever passed through his brain to steal from anyone.

I think this might have to do with them being a Buddhist nation, they

are so gentle and peaceful. It's been so wonderful, I walk around at

night often now, sometimes I do it just for kicks. but don't worry, I

know a place is only ever safe until its not, so i'm still careful and

I look after myself.

I think thats all for now. hope I haven't bored you to death.

shit that's funny tania!!!

A visit to the GP

So yesterday I finally decided to take myself off to the GP after having spent a week trying to self medicate this nasty cough.

So 1:30 I arrive, meet my new Doc (the old one left) and take a seat in his guest chair that makes a lovely farting sound as you sit down.

2 hours later I emerge after having 7 vials of blood taken, x-rays on my wrist , 2 surgical procedures(+4 stitches to boot) a referral letter , a prescription for my cough and a very red face!

What the hell kind of person , in the 3rd minute of meeting you, tells you to whip off your pants so he can give you pap smear!! I need preparation for that kind of thing dammit!

Oh, and the best part is that after all of that I go outside, clearly shaken and discover that I had left the lights on in my car the entire time! FML

A few lifts, phone calls , push starts , finally jumper leads and a depleted medical aid later, it was 4:30 and definitely time to go home!

That'll teach me!

ok is this gonna work?