Street Food, Blossoms and Kings

Now some of you have been asking about the food. What's the food like in Korea? etc etc etc. Well we thought it would be fitting to start at the beginning and show to you a few little things from the street. What many people eat on their way home and while out and about is street food. this is varied and usually pretty good value. Its also a key part of Koreas culture. Every where you go there are small trolleys and carts with old and usually very loud old women peddling their food.

Check out the clip.

We have also spent the day walking about a large park looking at the blossoms on the trees. Its usually a very japanesey thing to do but the Koreans love it too. There are loads of cool places and little secret nooks and crannies to hide away from the millions here. Its almost like you can hide in plain view.

It's pretty cools when the flowers are out.

This is a statue of king sejong. We just kind of walked into him. He was the dude that made up korean. the language. And he was also a pretty important general too. Massive statue, but i suppose he is sitting down so you can't really tell.

chesk this out.
a video of our school in action


http://tv.joins.com/channel/tv_player.asp?mov_id=2010_0406_182700&categoryID=101006001

Thursday, a bit of sun with a forecast of weekend.

Hi folks.

First of all, I must apologise for the shocking spelling and mistake laden last post. I was kind of tired.

It is a sunny day in Seoul today, and the yellow dust from dirty old china seems to be lessening from earlier in the week. I have resumed my training after a week off due to acute layngitis (sucky) and now have a body that is feeling the buzz of being used again.

I have been made to do 150 shoulder throws against a rubber cords to practice the correct position. We always said reps was the key. this certainly get the reps up. And the guys at the dojang certainly have no issues with getting you in the air. A work out without a weight in sight.

i am also enjoying being taught for a change. this is refreshing and exciting. I have a renewed interest in the martial arts because I get to try out new stuff. For example, last night we did stick fighting. Not like the Arnis/kali but with padded version of a shorter stick known in korea as a danbong. then we donned our protective helmets and proceeded to smash each other, always using the few rules that made it valuable training rather than a wild melee.

thats me.

Oh also. have discovered that envelopes other than the standard business size are very hard to find. A4, A5 etc just dont seem to exist here. strange huh.

later

An interesting experience, not recommended.

Hi,

On Friday Ol' Morg had a very interesting day today. Not so much about something fun or really even good. More like one of those times when you are not sure if it real or not. A day which has been the culmination of about 3 weeks tension and stress in the workplace.

Now this is not the place for gripes, and I do not intend to do this. But I would like to describe the situation myself and all the teachers at my school found ourselves in on Friday.

Basically, the way it happened is that each of the classes has a group of parents associated with it. This included all the parents of the students in the class. Each class has a parent president. Now on this very interesting yet not fun day, we were confronted with the opportunity to teach our classes with not one but all of these lovely people in the class too. Why? you may ask. not for fun or for their own curiosity but to check out how little jimmy or slow sally have been doing.Oh and also to check out on ......... ME. Not only was this stressful by simply having a bunch of people assessing your every move, but the school higher ups had also commented several times on this days importance.

Read this as " if you stuff it up they will hound you all year"

Great... awesome. Look forward to it.

Anyway. calss went well and i managed to swing it.

Then I found myself being interviewed by the parent group for a full 25 minutes. about all manner of tricky things. A mine field of probing and poking.

I fell i did well. and i think they are on my side now.

I think this is something that is an interesting way to view schooling, but do not wish this upon anyone. Well, an yone I like at least.

Later