Reflections on Busan (Summer 2014)

It's over four months now since I fled the Korean coop for the last time.

My year in Busan was left undocumented in this space, quite deliberately. When I began this blog in February of 2010, I wanted to convey the novelty and excitement of a wonderful Oriental adventure - the exploits of a young, wide-eyed Irishman, amidst the exoticism of a different world. I wanted to regale friends and family with tales of sampling Eastern delicacies, hiking the cherry-tree-covered hills, cycling past rice-fields, exploring Buddhist temples, drinking pitchers of Hite, and the countless cultural oddities and eager exchanges with bemused locals. I wanted to explain new words like soju, maekkoli, bulgogi, samgyetang, boshintang and noraebang. I wanted to share the benevolent chaos of a Korean elementary school, and the alcohol-fuelled mayhem of a K-League season ticket. I got all of this, and more, in my two years in Sangju. It was really a wonderful time.

After a few weeks in Busan, I knew it was going to be different. I knew the Korean novelties would be well-worn, but I hoped for a similar level of stability, comfort and job satisfaction, with a few new adventures and sights in between. It didn't help that my apartment was a dingy shithole, across the road from a scrapyard, with pungent rubbish and debris constantly strewn around the entrance of the apartment complex. My school was a forty-five minute commute by subway, involving a change at Seomyeon, and a horrendous uphill walk towards the Mordor-like edifice of my Middle School in a particularly dense, run-down area of the city. While I initially enjoyed the funny, crazy adolescent banter with the students, the classes were next to pointless. I was given complete creative control over the lessons, and told not to teach from a textbook - this was not a result of any real faith in my teaching ability, but a general feeling that no-one in the English department really gave a flying fuck about the content or effectiveness of the Native English classes.

Perhaps they knew, even when I began, that my position - like those of almost all middle school NETs in Busan - was to be discontinued after the 2013 academic year. I was informed of this after a couple of months, which really did not help any flagging motivation to excel at my job. I felt like I was phoning it in. I was getting piss-drunk in PNU and Gwangalli almost every weekend, spending the hungover Sunday evenings rushing the week's lesson-plans, running through the lessons on Monday, and doing a tedious rinse/repeat for the rest of the week. My teaching evaluation, somehow, was still outstanding. I'm not sure how that happened. If I was putting on an act, it seemed to be convincing the right people - but it was an act, nonetheless - I had fuck all enthusiasm for the job.

While I was delighted to fall in with my old Sangju buddies who had drifted south in the intervening year, the social scene was very different. Every night out was a 'Let's Get Weird' night. No relaxed pints over football chat in a quiet local with a couple of mates - it was full-on, party-hard, rock-out-with-the-cock-out, MTV Spring-Break excess. That's grand at 23 - not so much when you're approaching 30, when hangovers begin to resemble whirling vortexes of endless agony, stretching out for several days. I also noticed that the cliques in Busan often fell along national lines. Yanks hung out with Yanks, Irish with Irish, Brits with Brits, Saffers with Saffers. In Sangju, the social environment was very open and inclusive - mostly because of the small-town circumstances, where it was in everyone's interests to maintain a close-knit community. Busan was a hard-partying city that chewed up and spat out its revellers without sympathy.

Also present in that scene was the cautionary tale of various forty-plus 'lifers' in the expat bars - those who had stayed beyond the adventurous post-college years, preferring life as a perennial outsider in Korea to the prospect of returning home. While these rotund misfits congratulated themselves on learning Korean, finding Korean mistresses and getting handy university jobs, their lives mostly boiled down to the same thing. Getting rat-arse drunk all weekend, sitting up at the bar and self-righteously shouting at people who weren't ordering their drinks in fluent Korean. That could be me if I don't get out of here, I thought.

During the summer vacation, I gave up the booze and went off to climb a few mountains, including Jirisan, which was a nice experience, if a solitary one. As autumn set in, I knew I was 'done' with Korea, and the chaos of living the Busan expat lifestyle, as well as the futility of the classes, the bureaucracy and sycophancy of the English departments; the ugly, concrete, polluted, dystopian uniformity of the city; the claustrophobia of living alongside 3.5 million people in an area built to accommodate far fewer, and the excesses of the 'lifers' and waegook cliques in the Western bars. Cynicism had taken over. Novelties had worn off. It was time to bid farewell.

Korea can be a decent post-college destination, and if you're relatively easy-going, happy to 'go with the flow', and a lover of alcohol and weird, spicy food, it can be fantastic. It is a different world - not as picturesque as other Asian countries, but you will get a 'different' experience. Not a bad place to build up a few years of teaching experience, make friends and connections, and get some good partying in before leaving for sunnier climes.

A lot, in the end, depends on your job and apartment - they will generally make or break your experience. I was lucky enough in the first two years to get a good deal with both, giving me a cosy, secure foundation to any further explorations. I can't say the same of my year in Busan, and my difficult home/work situation set the tone for a year which generally failed to live up to expectations. It is, in many ways, my own fault. You get what you put into the Korean experience, and while the first time around was borne out of a thirst for adventure, to meet new people and sample a new culture, the second was just an attempt to return to a limited comfort zone.

Busan

And we're back. A full month has passed since my arrival in Busan, after a couple of days skulking around at orientation in Jeonju. Despite being low on cash for much of the first month, and inconvenienced as a result, I've settled in nicely. Getting paid - particularly getting paid a sum of money which I can't possibly spend in a month - always offers a nice reward, particularly after a period of penny-pinching. Being broke is one of the most appalling conditions in the spectrum of human misery. My diet for the fortnight prior to payday consisted mostly of instant noodles, meatless pasta, and the unpredictable Korean school lunches.

First, lets get the inevitable niggles out of the way. My apartment is smaller, pokier and in slightly worse repair than my Sangju domicile; my toilet constantly refuses to deal with the concentrated deposits that are usually forthcoming from my ignoble behind, and for some reason my immediate neighbour insists on cluttering around, doing odd household chores at four in the morning. This doesn't help me in clocking up the requisite hours of sleep for my daunting 6:45 rise. This ungodly waking hour is forced upon me by a 40-45 minute commute to my Boy's Middle School in Jwacheon-dong, a hilly, inner-city district. My classes are generally fine, apart from the lethargic third graders, whose collective apathy towards a seemingly-superfluous English class is understandable, if somewhat frustrating. Oh, and I got my first mosquito bite last night, which formed a large, white lump on my arm in roughly the shape of Africa.

However, those trifling inconveniences pale in comparison to the positives. It's great to be back, even if I'm comfortable in relative familiarity, rather than doe-eyed with Eastern novelty. The dynamic is a little different. I'm not, as I may have thought in 2010, out here on a 'Super Awesome Finding-Myself Oriental Adventure!' I'm here, simply, because I like it here. I'm comfortable, working in a job I find generally tolerable and occasionally quite fun, with a relatively stress-free schedule, and a sweet lifestyle. My down-time at the weekends is going to be very enjoyable. Whether I want to do 10km runs by the Gwangan river, sip on pale ales on a sun-soaked rooftop in PNU, lounge on the beach near my flat in Gwangalli, watch rugby in my local New Zealand-themed bar or go hiking up a bunch of big, cherry-tree-covered hills on the city outskirts, it's all there for me to do. Added to that, a few of my Sangju buddies are now based in the city, adding to the celebratory atmosphere of the fresh start. The weather is getting good too, reaching the twenties today.

The bustle and noise of Busan (population of 3.5 million) is a huge contrast from the peaceful quaintness of Sangju, where I could just hop on the bike, or stick on a pair of hiking boots, and be out in the midst of rice paddies, Buddhist temples and winding forest trails within minutes. Away from the beaches, Busan is a pulsing, uncompromising, cluttered concrete jungle, with few aesthetic frills. Given that Limerick was the biggest city I had lived in before this, it's a small shock to the system. But with metropolitan chaos comes a greater range of amenities and stimulus. It is nice to have the option of going for a good burger/kebab and a pint of cider/ale when the urge arises. It is also nice to meet Korean ladies with passable conversational English, and to have a choice of good people to hang around with - in a town like Sangju or Jeomchon, things can go downhill very quickly if the new EPIK crop happens to be a bunch of douchebags, as you're pretty much stuck with each other, regardless of uncommon interests or personality clashes, unless you want to be a shut-in - or spunk away all your money in bigger cities every weekend.

Isotonic drinks are for pussies.

Last weekend summed up the experience so far. Went out boozing with the Sangju lads in Gwangalli on Saturday night, then got up at 7:30 the following morning to do a charity 10km run. Ten pints of Cass still swilling around by distraught bloodstream, I managed to stumble across the line on a rather mediocre 57:39 (51:00 is my PB) before joining a bunch of older Korean men for the important post-run nutritional intake, which consisted solely of beer, maekkoli and kimchi. Good fun.

In school, the kids are spirited and boisterous, but generally in a positive way. They are kept in check by the teachers, so behavioural issues haven't been any source of real stress. I usually get a moment of guilty juvenile mirth in class from listening to the dark, piss-taking humour of the adolescent boys - something which seems to transcend all borders. Today, when I asked where two absentees were, a kid told me: 'Teacher, they have knife-uh fight. Now in the sky.' My supplementary class, themed 'surviving a zombie attack' brought out a great deal of sick-minded creativity, of which I was quite proud. I also confess that it's hard not to laugh when I hear the kids trying to curse at each other in English, i.e. 'shut-uh puck up'. It's all a good laugh.

So Farewell, 상주 초등학교.

And so, just like that, it's over. Two months remain before I head back to Ireland, but I've taught my last class in Sangju Elementary School. I came into work this morning, having planned my lessons for the day. Two hours after coming in, I was told that all lessons were off, the semester was closing, and we could go home after a brief teacher's meeting at noon. Still thinking I had to 'desk-warm' next week, the principal wished me a 'happy vacation' and bade me farewell. Holy Shit! No work until the 9th of January, when I start my two-week Winter Camp at English Town. And after that? Nothing, probably. I might get called in for a few days around the students' graduation ceremony in February, but whatever happens, I'm at leisure for the next ten days.

It would have been nice to know this in advance; I could have booked a few days abroad. However, with flights home looking ominously expensive, maybe it's best to save a few quid for my Grand Tour of Europe. I can also work full-time on the novel, and make sure it's well and truly completed by the time I come home. It's a little bit of a poignant departure; I can't really remember how I felt on my first day in Sangju Elementary. Wide-eyed, taking it all in; enjoying the near-hysterical attention from the kids and polite greetings from teachers... Part of me being hugely confused and wondering how the fuck I was going to manage this job.

Like any job, it became a routine, and once I found out where to get decent resources and how to effectively manage the curriculum, I settled into it. 21 months, 17 co-teachers, roughly 700 students, hundreds of weird CD-ROM dialogues, songs, role-play activities and Power Point games later, I'm done. I was looking forward to finishing up, because it's been a hectic few months since late August, with extra classes all semester. I've had no real break, aside from two days for Chuseok in September. I've been a little stressed out over the last couple of days, and now it feels like a weight has been lifted. Time to recharge the batteries.

Its not the time to wax nostalgic, as most of what I've enjoyed in Korea has occurred outside of the 영어실, and outside of the countless hours mindlessly browsing the web in my office, but I will have fond memories of the school. It's been a relatively easy ride, and my first year was particularly special, with 'Patrick' and his mates looking after me, making sure I was getting involved in things, and welcome to join in the general 'mischief' outside of school hours. Some of the students have been great, and I've had a good rapport with them, in general.

But that's that. The kids will be someone else's responsibility next year. Another foreigner will be in my seat, probably wondering what kind of irresponsible slob had 'Championship Manager' and 'Sonic 3' installed on the work computer.

Foreign English teachers: 네 or 아니요?

There's been some talk recently about Korea reducing the numbers of foreign teachers in their public school system, and questions arising about the actual effectiveness of the English teaching policy here. With more and more teachers brought in to fill vacancies in rural schools, the hiring criteria for Native English Teachers is certainly less stringent than in Europe, South America, or even other Asian countries like Japan and Vietnam, where relevant experience and further teaching certifications are required. People get accepted without any experience - a degree in any discipline being the minimum requirement. Some teachers in the TALK programme, for example, are hired as part of 'work experience' for mid-college gap years.

Thus, the job attracts all sorts. Most teachers are able to get a handle on their duties, and on basic Korean language and cultural idiosyncrasies, and they adapt accordingly. Some turn into 'Super-Waegooks' - they learn the language near-fluently, completely immerse, find a Korean significant other, and stay in Korea for years and years. Some people decide after a few weeks that teaching in Korea is not for them, and just go through the motions and bitch about the place until it's time to go home. Then there's a melange of personalities in between. Like in any large community, you get the minorities of piss-heads, spoiled brats, recluses, religious nuts, party animals, manic depressives, moaners, sociopaths, and sometimes a combination of all the above - even if the vast majority of NETs are just normal people trying to make an honest living, while having a new and interesting experience.

There's a similar mix in terms of teaching ability; some won't be cut out for it. Some will be amazingly gifted, passionate teachers, and in a position to really make a difference to their students. Some people land in jobs with limited responsibility, where they're never given a chance to develop any teaching skills, and are working as glorified babysitters or tape-recorders. And some are simply terrible, and only here because they're doing nothing else.

In retrospect, I was pretty awful starting out (as I was in my early Spain days), but I'd like to think I've improved and got to grips with things. I'm outgoing in class, I explain things simply, I speak slowly and try to make things as clear as possible, while giving students every chance to speak and practice for themselves. I try to interact with the kids outside of class, and the kids tend to enjoy my activities. I do tend to over-use PowerPoint games, but with an average of 28-30 kids in each class, with very little space to move tables, my options are limited. Even dice and flashcard games tend to end in chaos, while print-out or project-based activities are simply impractical, given that I generally teach 120-150 different kids in any given day. So I have to work and make the best of my situation, like most teachers here. You try to make a difference in what little way you can, and hope that some of the proverbial shit will stick to the wall.

Given these difficulties, are Native English Teachers really worth the investment to the Korean public education system? Given the vast numbers involved, it may appear to be a slightly dysfunctional policy. I've met people here that I wouldn't trust to boil an egg without burning their apartment down, let alone be an English educator, but they are in the vast minority. Most of the people I've met, particularly from the EPIK programme, are genuinely decent, well-behaved, intelligent and well-travelled folk, and it's a pleasure to meet such people. I don't see how exposing Korean children to educated English-speakers could be anything but beneficial.

However, for all our 'cultural ambassadorship', are we actually making a difference to the general proficiency of English in Korea, for our 18,000 euros a year? Could our job be done just as effectively by Korean teachers? That's the big question in Korea at the moment, and there are valid arguments on both sides. The best case scenario for Korea is a higher level of fluency among Korean teachers, but at the moment, that's something of a pipe-dream, as many designated KETs lack basic pronunciation and syntax skills, having limited experience of interacting with Native English speakers at home or abroad. If they're passing Konglish habits (change-ee, nice-uh, page-ee, hwighting) to kids, it simply becomes a self-perpetuating linguistic basket-case. Without NETs, kids aren't going to learn a lot of basic pronunciation or sentence structure, let alone the more advanced subtleties within the English language.

It's a fair point that, given the difficulty of translating between Korean and English, most kids will grow up without any real handle on English. Most kids lose interest over time, as the curriculum gets more complex. Most kids simply don't have the kind of linguistic intelligence to deal with it - similar to how I could never saw or chisel in a straight line in secondary school Woodwork class, no matter how I tried. Some kids have a certain kind of intelligence, some don't. That's life. I would see our most valuable assets in terms of enabling the gifted kids to polish their raw ability and reach their potential, while making sure that, at least, the average kid learns some basic vocabulary and useful expressions. It's not much, but there are plenty of people out there who get paid fortunes for far less, and for far less ethical practices.

Some of the criticism of NETs is based on xenophobia, and an inherent fear of diluting Korea's preciously homogeneous society with Western arrogance, excess and perversions. However, despite our sporadic propensity for letting loose and making retards of ourselves in the odd Korean bar, it's not like we - as a tiny ethnic group within Korean society - are causing the kind of socio-economic issues that immigration has caused in other developed societies. The 'foreigners don't respect Korean society or culture' argument from Korean nationalist types is a well-worn, emotive, over-generalized, over-simplified and, let's face it, pretty moronic and borderline racist line of argument.

Of course, there could be a more rigorous screening process, with a higher standard of qualifications required - but let's face it, a fully qualified teacher in Ireland, with a H.Dip and experience of teaching in Ireland, isn't going to take a salary cut of 20,000 euros a year to travel 6,000 miles from home and teach in a rural town. Even a Native English teacher with some experience, and a TEFL/CELTA course, has the option of teaching in Japan, Vietnam, Thailand, China, the Middle East, South America, or even Continental Europe, if they dig deep enough. Even from a jingoistic Korean point of view, it would make no sense for Korea to throw out their Native English Teachers, just to provide a 'brain drain' for direct economic rivals.

Having English teachers who can't communicate with the students in their first language, or put things in context in that language, is undoubtedly not the most efficient way of engendering widespread fluency in a second language. However, it's preferable to the alternative, of possibly cultivating a bastardized, indecipherable mutation of English, or breeding a generation of students who lack the confidence to speak to foreigners. It's not a perfect system, but in the short-to-medium term, it'll have to do - at least until Korea can meet the difficult task of appointing fluent Korean-English teachers to every school in the country.

Dad's visit/Back to the grind

So, that's the end of my summer vacation. Work resumes from tomorrow until my winter vacation in February, with only a smattering of public holidays for a break. Can't believe how quickly the two weeks have gone; Dad has been here for the duration, and we've taken in Seoul, Gangneung, Hwanseong caves, Busan, Fukuoka, Nagasaki and Daegu on our travels, along with a boozy succession of nights in Sangju with my fellow waegooks.

It's been interesting having Dad around; I'm not sure what his expectations were before coming, and I've no idea whether or not the trip has lived up any pre-conceived ideas, but it's certainly a different experience for him. He's more used to 'resort' holidays, rather than slumming it in dodgy motels in between long-haul bus/train journeys and bouts of heavy hill-walking. Korea isn't exactly a 'tourist' country; most of its foreign visitors are either English Teachers or US Marines, so they don't have too many resorts or Western-style 'tourist' amenities. Although Korea's inter-city transport system is very reliable and comprehensive, it's much more difficult to get to the areas of real natural beauty; such journeys involve entire days of bus and train-hopping, trying to decipher the all-Hangeul schedules at some of the more 'rustic' stations.

I've also had a few hungover/run-down days when I wouldn't have been the most buoyant of travel companions, but I'd like to think he's enjoyed the trip. He hasn't been complaining too vociferously though, which is a good sign! I've seen a few places that I really wanted to see - such as Nagasaki and the Hwanseonggul caves - and I've had a good quota of pintage with Dad and the Sangju lads, so it's been a good two weeks overall. I've slipped behind on the marathon training, after being well on track before the vacation; so I'll have to get cracking again this week. A diet of booze and burgers (Dad didn't take kindly to Korean grub) is not quite appropriate for an aspiring runner!

Dad returns to Ireland on Wednesday morning, and I return to Sangju Elementary tomorrow. Back to the office. Thankfully, no Citizen's Classes until October, so no long Mondays for a while. The weather is still quite hot, but the first signs of relative moderation are beginning to appear - yesterday was very cool, and today's sunshine was bright and breezy. Barbecues will surely be on the weekend agenda during the autumn!

 I'm desk-warming for the next week, as classes don't begin until next Monday. I'm pretty much at liberty to show up whenever I please, as long as I show a face at some stage of the day. Contractually, I'm obliged to sit at my desk from 8:40 to 4:40, but thankfully, I think my school realises the pointlessness of the exercise. It effectively gives me another week of long lie-ins, lazy days and late nights. Hurrah!

DMZ and stuff

The trip to the 'De-militarized zone' (DMZ) between South and North Korea passed off peacefully; thankfully the North Koreans refrained from shelling us or blowing us up. For our 78,000 won, we got to see some live minefields, the biggest flagpole in the world and a North Korean soldier. After gorging on jingoism and propaganda from the tour guide all afternoon, the bus made a special stop outside the souvenir shop, where I bought a bottle of North Korean blueberry wine. We went on the piss in Seoul afterwards, staying out all night in Itaewon and returnng to Sangju on the 7am bus. Here are some pics of the DMZ:




The last week dragged a little bit. Perhaps it's the short days, freezing cold weather, or the fact that it's the end of the school year and the kids couldn't be arsed learning anything - but the last week was a bit underwhelming. Without soccer or gym to keep the blood flowing, I've been quite lazy. Just a midwinter malaise, I suppose.

It snowed yesterday, leaving the city quite picturesque. I've been meaning to go for a walk in the wilderness near 'E-Mart hill' and take some nice, pretentious nature pictures, but the snow's thawing now, so I might wait until the next snowfall. I'll let you know how that goes.

Jeolla trip essay for EPIK

Went on that aforementioned 'obligatory cultural trip' at the weekend. We were told to write a two-page essay about the trip, with the best ones getting published in some book at the end of the year. This is my effort, churned out in a couple of hours earlier on. I hope they like it. I've tried to keep the invective to a minimum.

On the first weekend of November, I went on a Guest English Teacher’s trip to Jeolla province, on the Western side of South Korea, courtesy of EPIK. It was the first trip of its kind that I had attended; I had been to a co-teaching seminar in Gyeongju in May, but never a trip designed specifically for ‘culture’ and socializing. At first, I had my reservations about going. The trip would give me a Friday off work, but would also take a Saturday out of my weekend. I’m something of a free spirit; I will work diligently from Monday to Friday, but come the weekend or holidays, I’m not a huge fan of being told what to do or where to be. The previous weekend, I was hauled from my comfortable bed at nine o’clock on a Saturday morning to judge an English speech contest, so I wasn’t too enthusiastic about the prospect of a second week in a row of extra-curricular GET duties. Besides, I had already travelled quite extensively within Korea from my midlands home of Sangju.

Nevertheless, I approached the trip with an open mind. Jeolla was the only province I hadn’t already been to. My main co-teacher, ‘Patrick’ was accompanying me on the trip, and I was happy for that fact – his home town is Gunsan, and he was eager to show off his old stomping ground. It would also alleviate the need to organise my own transportation between Sangju and Daegu, where the buses were departing for the West. So, on Friday morning, I travelled to Daegu with Patrick and my American colleague, Lori. When we arrived at the office of education, I ran into a number of familiar faces from my March orientation group, including friends from the USA, South Africa and Northern Ireland, so my mood was quickly lifted. The ever-pleasant Mona Shin directed us towards our buses, and we set off for the Wild West.

I spent much of the journey catching up with sleep; I was up before dawn, so despite the bolt-upright bus seats, it was relatively easy to nod off. When we eventually arrived in Jeonju, we found that the Hite brewery tour was cancelled, due to an inspection. This was slightly disappointing, as I was half-expecting it to be like Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, complete with Oompa-Loompas, beer fountains, rollercoasters and bottomless stein-mugs of the wonderful lager that is Hite. But we were to be denied. Now I’ll never truly know how much formaldehyde and other toxins they actually put in their crippling hangover-inducing, liver-rupturing death juice.

After a brief trip to a museum, we had some ‘special’ Jeonju bibimbap in a restaurant. Lets be honest, it tasted exactly the same as normal bibimbap. There’s only so much you can do with rice, red-pepper paste, egg and stringy vegetables. Still, it filled a hole, and after that, we went to the Hanok traditional village. After a short but impressive Pansori performance, which reminded me slightly of Mongolian throat-singing, we descended into the village. I saw an exhibition of traditional rice-cake making, and was offered free samples. Now, a few weeks previously, I had eaten some kind of flavoured rice-cake mixture which induced near-immediate vomitus, so I was rather reluctant to partake in the finished product. Rice-cake is one of those traditional Korean foods – along with the horrifying silkworm cocoons – that do not agree with my Irish palate. I’ll try anything once, but will not promise that I’ll enjoy it. Rice cake tastes of absolutely nothing, and the texture is akin to that of ectoplasm. So, not to deviate too far from the narrative, I joined some buddies from Mungyeong over a few nice bottles of Maekkoli. The afternoon sun shone down mildly upon us, as we feasted upon the sweet, creamy goodness, and chatted the hours away.


After that, we sped off to our restaurant, where bottles of soju were devoured in admirable quantities. I was quite merry after a few glasses, and we got back on our buses in high spirits. To our delight, the novelty of ‘Norae-bus’ was fully operational for the hour-long trip to Gunsan. I did a wonderful duet with Max Irvine, the Beatles Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds being our object of butchery. After we hit the hotel, more bottles of soju were consumed in one of the rooms, and a happy set of warriors hit the sack. I somehow managed to misplace my shirt and name-tag, but reclaimed them from a fellow reveller in the morning.


Despite a raging hangover and minimal sleep, I got on the bus in plenty of time, and at around 9 o’clock, we set off to see the very impressive, Netherlands-esque, land-reclamation project near Gunsan. After that, we set off on the road east, back through Jeonju. I fell asleep for a little while, and the next thing I knew, we were at a monastery of some sort. Now, again at the risk of sounding like a cultureless thug, our visit to this temple reaffirmed my sneaking suspicion that all Korean temples – however impressive – all look exactly the same. I bought a nice necklace with a Buddha pendant in one of the gift shops, though.

Onwards we went, after our Lotteria lunch, to Maisan National Park, with the distinctive ‘horse’s ears’ rock formations. Walking up the main path, I almost gagged on the pungent, wafting aroma of boiled silkworm. I rejoined my co-teacher for the walk, and, as we walked past a stone Buddha, we wondered aloud if the great man was fond of a sup of soju in his day. At that very moment, a large branch fell from an overhead tree and crashed to the ground no more than two feet from me. It would have caused considerable injury had I been walking one pace to my left. It seems like the great Buddha has learned something from the Abrahamic Gods about the concept of wrath.

So, that was the last landmark of our trip to Jeolla. We made our way back to the bus and sped towards Daegu, another two hours away. I retreated into the comfort of my I-pod for the remainder of the journey, and once we reached our destination, the waegook chingus bade each other farewell. I’ve just realised that I have to fill another few paragraphs, so I’ll regale you with the story of my journey home.

My travelling companion had to get back to Sangju bus terminal before 8:30 for his trip to Seoul, and he had an hour to spare when we left the office of education. Given that it’s a journey of roughly seventy minutes, he was in quite a hurry. We ran into heavy traffic outside of Daegu, and once that was negotiated, he put the foot down. After narrowly escaping death on several occasions, we got to the outskirts of Sangju with ten minutes to spare. I’ve never seen such imagination and cunning in the defiance of red lights in all my years as a passenger, and we were both in a fit of giggles when we got into town. We reached the bus terminal just in time to see the Seoul bus pulling away, much to my friend's despair. It was a fun ride, though, and I was happy to get home earlier than expected. So I went back to my apartment, made a tomato and mushroom omelette, watched a bit of EPL football, watched the Irish rugby team’s pathetic defeat to South Africa, and drifted into a welcome twelve-hour sleep.

So, what did I learn from my experience? Well, I learned that I can add Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds to my noraebang repertoire. I learned that bibimbap and temples are not terribly different across the Gyeongbuk/Jeolla divide. I learned about Pansori singing and Korean sea-land reclamation. I also learned how to dodge a Korean red light if you’re in a hurry. And I made a few new friends and got drunk in a new province. All in all, it was a worthwhile experience.