The high school that I went to was a great school - it had a 100% pass rate, the facilities were top of the range, the classrooms were neat and tidy, each class had under 25 students and the teachers were always available to talk to if you needed them. It was a private high school, and it was fabulous. A lot of people say that they hate their high schools experiences, and I am not one of them. My high school days were some of the best.

One of the things that made my high school days better than those of primary school and marginally better than those of middle school (though the middle school was also a private school and part of the same system as my high school) was the uniform. In primary school, we had a very strict uniform. All the girls looked identical from their white collared skirts and ghastly maroon pinafores to their white socks and black shoes. On sports days we were allowed to wear tracksuits, but only on sports days. In winter the white socks were to be replaced with black tights of a regulated thickness, the short-sleeved collared shirts with long sleeved replicas, and a maroon tie was added to our repertoire of fashion decision-making. If your hair was long enough to touch your shirt collar, it had to be tied up and it had to be tied up neatly. Earrings were not allowed, and girls would often scramble for the nearest brush to pull out a pin to replace their earrings with. It tells you something about the military style of my primary school. Another not-so-fond memory that I have is of having to walk down the corridor in a long line being careful to tread within the boundaries of the third tile from the left. If we stepped out of line, there was hell to pay. The school wanted us all to be drones, perfect carbon-copies of each other and were prepared to beat us into submission if we didn't co-operate.

When I came to middle school, the uniform was slightly more relaxed. A far more dignified navy blue skirt accompanied a white shirt with the Herzlia badge. Your shoes had to be closed and black, but that was as far as the restrictions went (within reason of course - you couldn't exactly turn up in high heeled black boots and expect to get away with it.) We also had choices. If you didn't want to wear the white shirt, you could wear the blue gym shirt instead. If you didn't want to wear the skirt, you could wear your the navy tracksuit trousers. In winter, you could replace your short sleeved white shirt for a long one with a tie, but hardly anyone did that. Most opted for one of the two jerseys that we could choose between or their tracksuit jacket. It seemed like joyful freedom compared to the nazi-like inspection at the hands of the Welgemoed Primary School teachers. The school itself was far calmer as well. I recall sitting in a class and the teacher, Mr Rabbitz, calling on me from the front.
"Yes, Sir," I replied. The reply had been drilled into me when I was not even six years old, on the first day of primary school.
His face turned a dark red.
"This wasn't the military," he screamed, "and I am not a Sir!"
I had never been so frightened in my life. Everyone else thought it was hilarious.

And then I came to high school. I had heard of the joys of the high school uniform (though it could hardly be called a uniform anymore) but I hadn't dared to believe that they were true. You could choose between one of two golf-shirts, one of two jerseys, you could still wear the tracksuit if that was your cup of tea or you could wear your skirt. But, bliss of all bliss, you could wear jeans. There weren't regulation jeans - you could wear almost anything as long as it wasn't too embellished or flashy and you could wear a jean skirt as long as it wasn't too short. And so my high school years were spent in luxurious comfort. I even became a bit daring at times, leaving my hair loose, wearing the occasional item of jewellery, growing my nails as long as I wanted and investing in a pair of slightly platformed shoes that made me look a little taller than I was. I never got into any real trouble, though I do still remember being caught by Mrs. dos Santos wearing a plain white t-shirt underneath my hoodie. She wasn't impressed. I got told off and had to write her a note of apology. No harm, no foul.

By the time I left for University, jeans were my standard. You would hardly ever see me in anything other than jeans and a t-shirt unless it was a special occasion or all of them were in the wash. I would occasionally throw in a skirt or dress if I was feeling particularly girly or a pair of cargos if I was feeling particularly grungey, but jeans were my go-to.
"What are you going to wear to go out tonight?"
"My nice jeans and a sparkly/cleavagey/smart/combination-of-the above-top."
"What should I wear?"
"Jeans."
"But I was kind of thinking of wearing..."
"Jeans."
"What is the answer to life, the universe and everything else?"
"42. And jeans."
This was my way for four years.
And then I came to Korea...

Before I left South Africa, I felt the need to go on a shopping spree. Okay, so maybe more than one. But I was allowed to. I had gone through my closet and found that I had no appropriate clothes for a job as a teacher. Sparkly and cleavagey were unacceptable, my smart tops were too tight and, horror of all horrors, I wasn't going to be allowed to wear jeans to work. I had heard horror stories about trying to find clothes in Korea and I was not prepared to chance it. And so, I went out and bought some smart trousers, a handful of appropriate tops and a couple of skirts in the vain hope that I would bring myself to wear them. And then I got here.

For the first few months I refused to broach the shops, knowing that they would just make me feel fat and horrible and I would never ever find anything in them. And then, one day about a month ago, I wondered into LPM in Shinae. I was drawn to the pretty dresses and I couldn't resist. What was the worst that could happen? They wouldn't fit, I don't buy them, my money is saved for better things. And so I tried them. And to my surprise, they fit! I left that day with three dresses in hand, a small fortune having been spent, but feeling like I was rewarding myself for the weight that I had lost and the sense of accomplishment I had gained.
The next weekend came, and I made my way into Seoul where my friend convinced me to come shopping with her at the "Western-sized" H&M and Forever 21. Well, it's summer, so I need shorts. And the top is too pretty to resist, I must have it. And I need a world-cup shirt in support of South Africa anyway!
The next week I was back in Seoul for the Mika concert. Even though Dawn needed to go back to Forever 21, I convinced myself that I could resist.
"I don't have to buy anything! I have enough clothes! I can live without!"
And then my resistance weakened ever so slightly.
"Okay, well I will just try it on. That doesn't mean that I have to buy it!"
And then even more.
"Well I like it, but I am not going to buy something that I just like. It has to be something that I love."
I ended up leaving with yet another dress.
"That is the last," I said to myself. "No more! Bad Lara! No biscuit!"
And I was very good for the rest of the month. Until yesterday, when I wondered back into LPM with Shaina.
It started off well enough as it always does, just looking and commenting and touching fondly, avoiding taking anything to try on. But as soon as someone else picks something to try and I know that I will have time to waste, I can't resist trying something on. I tried them all, one at a time, and one looked pretty good.
"It's not expensive," I say to myself. "It won't even come close to breaking the bank. What harm can it really do?"
But it was the gateway that led to me buying another shirt that I didn't really need (though I do love it to pieces) and a pair of leggings. I wanted to buy more, but did manage to resist.
Which is why, when Amy asked me to go shopping with her tonight, I politely declined. I know that another shopping spree will push me over the edge. I won't be able to resist!
And a big part of me doesn't want to.

I realised something this weekend. Or perhaps re-affirmed is more apt, since I already knew this thing, but had been doubting myself of late. I really really don't like sports.

Despite my telling my friends this on multiple occasions, they seemed to believe that I had somehow not experienced sport in the right way and therefore convinced me that I should try it one more time by coming along to the South Korea vs. Uraguay World Cup game on Saturday night. This was the first World Cup game that I would watch from start to finish, and hopefully the last.

Patrick and I decided early on that we would try to avoid the crowds when we went to watch the game, and thus made our way to Pearl Jam, a smaller pub that was likely to be full of Koreans, but less full than anywhere else. But, on our way to Pearl Jam we happened past Buzz Bar where we bumped into a group of my friends, and Patrick convinced me that it would be a good idea to watch with them. And so we made our way into a crowded Buzz Bar, and found some spots in the crowded room on the slightly raised platform. Bar stools or couches would have been preferable, but all of those were full, so we made do. We could see the projector, we were in good spirits, everything was good.

The game started and the vibe was great - a Korean had found himself a cheaper, plastic replica of the cheap, plastic vuvuzelas and would occasionally blow it to the tune of "Dae han min guk" (Korea), which was followed by choruses of the tune itself. Alcohol was flowing freely (though I decided not to partake in this, not wanting to be nursing a giant hangover on a Sunday morning). People were chattering away happily. The first half of the game went by in a happy blur. I wasn't watching too much of the soccer but was rather happily chatting away, sipping on a drink, joining in with the singing and occasionally glancing at the screen. And then the first half ended. The break was spent trying to hold peoples places and watching their drinks while they ran to the store to get cigarettes or made their way to the crowded bar for more alcohol.

The second half started and more people had arrived. I had been pushed further down the platform and was stuck sitting behind a group of people in chairs. I could see between them if they were sitting down and sitting still, but of course that was the minority of the time. Not that it bothered me too much, of course, since I was too preoccupied with how uncomfortably squashed I had become and trying to have conversations over the shouting fans. People started to become pushy and were getting riled up with excitement over the game, and I was not enjoying it. I looked at the screen. Only 7 minutes had passed. The second half of the game dragged by as I counted down the minutes until it would end. Yes, I wanted Korea to win, but I didn't want to be in a room hearing about it. But, as you know, Korea didn't win. And after the game I made a quick escape before someone could talk me into staying for the America game.

And so it dawned on me in the taxi on my way home that I am not made for sports. Though I occasionally enjoy playing one or two, I have never enjoyed watching them. One exception to this rule is Grand Prix, and even that isn't so much enjoyment as it is tolerance. I can go and watch a race and have a good time, but it is not something that I generally go out of my way to do. If I enjoyed it, surely I would have made some kind of effort to watch a race out here. But that hasn't been the case. When Grant comes, I am sure that we will watch many a race together. But until then, I can't really be too bothered to find a pub that is playing it on a Sunday afternoon, and quiz seems far more entertaining on a Sunday evening.

Looking at other people's blogs, I get the feeling that I really don't post enough! So here I am, trying to post more about my everyday life in what is now sunny, sticky, steamy Korea.

This week marked my fourth month in Korea. It doesn't feel like four months have passed, and I am going to take that as a good thing. Last month, it seemed like the three months that I had been here had taken forever, and yet here I am, one month later, feeling like I really haven't been here all that long. I think that means that things are starting to get better again. Last month I looked around my apartment and had a minor panic attack thinking that there was no way in hell that I could stay here for nine more months. Today I walked to school and there was a feeling of contentment that surrounded me. Just looking around me at the kids walking to school and the people cycling to work, I had a feeling that everything was really going to be okay. I didn't mind so much that the people around me were speaking a language that I couldn't understand, though last month that was one of the main reasons I was considering leaving (though, to be fair, it was more that no one could understand what I was saying rather than not being able to understand what they were saying). Everything just had a very familiar air about it. I was walking down a street that I had come to recognise, I automatically looked left then right when trying to cross the road. I just didn't feel quite as out of place as I have been feeling recently.

This week was also the first time in three months when I didn't have tutorials to worry about. I took advantage of that on Tuesday night by going out to dinner with my friend, Amy, and though the dinner was not the greatest, the company was good and I had a nice time in general, which always tends to happen when I hang out with Amy. Thursday night I took advantage of the extra time off in a different way - by just staying home and relaxing. It was a nice change from the hurried preparations that would happen after school and the precious ten minute naps that I would enjoy before rushing out the door to my tutlings.

The upcoming weekend is likely to be another of quiet contemplation, series and a sprinkle of partying spread in between. Tonight, there is Indian food and norebang with Shai, Jen and Dawn (a girls night out, which I feel should become a regular occurence, since my girls nights out have been sorely missed since my university days, and were rare even then). Tomorrow is movie night with Patrick and possibly his co-teacher, Ashley, followed by food and soccer. And Sunday night is quiz nite, as always, and hopefully this week I will stand a chance at winning! We shall see.

In the meantime, I am going to return to my day at work, which is looking rather empty and boring. But hey, I'm not complaining - it's better than being busy and overworked!

Five years ago, I was at crossroads in my life. High school was coming to a close and there were choices that needed to be made. What was I going to do next?
Go to university like my parents wanted me to do?
And study what exactly?
Take a gap year?
Travel the world?
Find a job?
A year earlier, my sister had been faced with some choices of her own - her university career was coming to a close and she could get a permanent job or take a gap year. She decided on the gap year option, and she looked at a number of different possibilities, including that of teaching abroad. Though I was never involved in the decision-making process, the prospect of teaching abroad was the one that appealed to me the most. It wasn't her final decision - she instead decided to work on cruise ships in the Caribbean - but the idea stuck in my head, and a year later when I was making decisions of my own, the idea was looking very very appealing. I didn't get very far with the planning of it at that stage, since my parents were pretty adament that I would go to university before anything else, but the idea stuck in the back of my mind.

Three years later, I was at another crossroads. I was about to finish my degree. I had applied to do a post-graduate diploma, but I was worried that I wouldn't get into the programme and I wanted to be prepared for that possibility. The idea of teaching abroad which had been at the back of my mind for three years came to the foreground when I got an e-mail from Teach Korea, a company based in Cape Town that looked for bright eyed and bushy tailed graduates to come and teach on this side of the world. I hadn't really considered Korea before then - I had been focussing my attention on Thailand, but had recently heard that it wasn't really the place to go. And then this opportunity fell into my lap. Teaching in Korea. It didn't sound too bad to me. I looked at the benefits, and almost responded to the e-mail right then and there saying "sign me up". But then I got a response from the journalism department. I had been accepted into the post-graduate diploma programme. I had been given an amazing opportunity, and I wasn't about to let that pass me by. Korea could wait, I decided.

I started my journalism course and got stuck into it. I put my heart and soul into the programme and loved it to pieces. But, on the sideline, I was still doing research. I looked into Thailand once more, and decided that it definitely wasn't the place for me. I looked into Japan, but the cost of living was too high and the benefits weren't even close to those that I would get in Korea. I looked into China, but found that they wouldn't accept me because I have no prior teaching experience. I looked into Taiwan, but the pay wasn't as good and and I would have to pay for my own apartment on top of the reduction in salary. My focus was always on Asia, since I wanted to go somewhere that was completely out of my comfort zone. I wanted an experience, and in my mind going somewhere completely removed from the Western world was the only way I could guarantee getting that. And so I went through my options and started gathering my paperwork and filling out applications.
Resumes.
Police Clearances.
Reference Letters.
Interviews.
Teaching course.
Though the teaching course wasn't compulsary, I had been told that it would help my cause a great deal and make it easier for me to get a job as a teacher in Korea and anywhere else in the world. So I went for it. By December I was told that I had been accepted for the February intake, and I couldn't have been happier. It was perfect - I would have two months to prepare myself, to save up some money and invest in some work-appropriate clothing, to say goodbye to my friends and family, and to come to terms with moving halfway across the world. I was told that I would have my contract by the beginning of January, and so I waited with baited breathe.

The beginning of January came and went. I had sent e-mails to the company asking what was happening, but got no response. I had been informed late in December that the contracts could arrive as far in the future as mid- to late January, but I started getting nervous. By the time the 20th came around, I was a nervous wreck. Screw it, I decided, I was phoning them. The call was one of the hardest I have ever been through. Being told that I had been shortlisted, rejected, that I could leave as late as August if then and trying not to cry while I was being told this was nightmarish. I hung up the phone and realised that I would have to find a job. A decent job, that is, rather than the one that I already had working for my aunt on a part-time basis. Three weeks, they said. They would give me three weeks of notice before I would have to leave.

I started the job hunt that I had seen Michael going through, and though I did better than him initially, getting lots of interviews and lots of praise, I couldn't find anything even vaguely decent. I slipped into a mild depression, feeling that everything in my life was going wrong. And then, one morning, while driving Michael to an interview, I got the call. My contract was on its way. They wanted me to leave in a week and a half. From there it was a rush of
getting contracts read and signed by various parties,
shopping,
booking plane tickets,
shopping,
getting contracts signed,
shopping,
quitting my part-time job and,
oh yeah,
SHOPPING!
I had to prepare for the cold winter that I would be facing. I had a week and a half to get ready, and somehow I managed. My contract arrived on the Monday after the phone call and was quickly scanned, signed, and sent off to Pretoria along with my visa application.
"It will be ready on Wednesday and we want you to leave on Thursday."
Tuesday morning came the call from the Korean embassy.
"You forgot to sign the last page."
Sending off another contract to Pretoria.
"It will be ready on Thursday and we want you to leave on Friday."
"It will be ready on Friday morning and we want you to pick it up at the airport."
"It will be ready on Friday afternoon and we want you to leave on Saturday."
"Perhaps it is best if you leave on Monday."
All of this came in the midst of hurried goodbyes and dealing with Catherine from Pangea Travels who insisted that I travel with them despite their plane tickets being R1000 more expensive than the airline was advertising for the same flight. Eventually the day arrived, and I left South Africa, a 21 year old recent graduate with no real work experiences who had never travelled on her own.

I arrived in Korea an inexperienced bundle of nerves, hardly prepared for what it would be like, and hardly prepared to be a role-model to teenage children. But that is what I have become, or at the very least what I am becoming. This is the story of my year in Korea - the ups, the downs, the happiness, the sadness and all the details of the things that happen in between. Enjoy.

This week I have been sick. I hate being sick. There is nothing worse in the world than being sick. Except, perhaps, being sick in Korea.

So apparently I am really really terrible at this blogging thing. I tend to be better with the mass e-mails because I get family back home asking me where the next one is, but so few people read my blog, and most of them get the mass e-mails in any case so that the blog ends up being a little pointless. I need to find new things to put into the blog rather than just adding the mass e-mail stuff and expecting people to read it and find it interesting. Someone did give me an idea today though. I am making myself a Korean bucketlist.

A bucketlist, for those who do not know (though I am sure that all of you do and this is just another pointless ramble), is a list of things to do before you kick the bucket. My Korean bucketlist will be things that I intend to do before I leave Korea. Since I only intend to be here for a year, this list will have to be doable and not involve things like "visit every city" or "adopt a Korean baby". Also, since I do not intend to be a teacher for the rest of my life and, in fact, would rather avoid teaching ever again after this year, it will not involve things like "become a better teacher". So here it is, my Korean bucketlist in no specific order whatsoever:

1. Visit Jeju-do. I wanted to live there, for goodness sake. The least I can do is fork out a little cash and pay the island a visit.
2. Go to at least one city in every province. There are nine provinces. Thus far, I have visited five if you include my day trip into Daejeon. Visiting Jeju would count as another two in fact, because I would have to hop onto a ferry from a province that I have never visited to get to Jeju, which is another province in itself.
3. Have a conversation with a taxi-driver in Korean. I feel that if I learn this much Korean, my time here will have been a success. And no, telling a taxi-driver that I don't speak Korean in Korean does not count as a conversation.
4. Earn some money. I did not come to Korea to save. I came here for an adventure. But it would still be nice to put away some money at the end of that adventure for when I go home and find myself in need of cash. I haven't been doing too badly so far, but there are plans for trips in the future to Thailand, and plane tickets from South Africa for one specific visitor, that need to be paid for. After these expenses are paid, it would be nice to have a little cash in my pocket. Please?
5. Learn to play the guitar. Since I arrived in Korea, I have been doing things for other people. Tutorials for other people, taking trips because other people want me to, going out because other people insist that I get out of the house. Don't get me wrong, I like making other people happy. It brings me great amounts of joy. But I want to do one thing just for me, and that is learning to play the guitar. I started learning when I was back in South Africa, and I was thoroughly enjoying it, but I ended up not having enough time for it. Well, here I am. I have one year. I must learn to play like a pro, even if it means ruining my fingers forever (which looks to be the case so far.)
6. Write mass e-mails on a regular basis. It doesn't really matter if no one ever reads them. It just means that I am writing something on a regular basis. I might end up looking over those letters and stringing them together later to tell the story of my year abroad. Or I might end up never looking at them again. My point is just that I want to be a writer, and this requires me to write things. Often.
7. Write. This one goes a little bit beyond merely writing mass e-mails. Sure, those are handy and might come in useful later on in my life when I want to string them together to make a comprehensive view of my year here. But I also want to indulge in my creative side. This is why I intend to keep my second blog going while I am here. That way, I will have an outlet for my creative work as well as one for my adventures. I also intend to keep what I write in my blog different from the mass e-mails that I write. This blog is supposed to be for random rants and ravings whenever the need comes about. This is where I will write all my happenings. The mass e-mails will merely highlight the most important events and I intend them to be interesting, but far less so than the blog. I can't write a mass e-mail whenever something interesting comes up, after all, but I can certainly write a blog!
8. Make a Korean friend. And by this I don't mean a Korean-American or Korean-Australian or a Korean who has lived abroad for most, if not all, of his or her life. I mean a Korean. And by friend I don't mean one of my co-workers who I see on a daily basis but who only speak to me when they need something or when I need help with something or who invite me places out of a sense of pity or who I tutor on a weekly basis. By a friend I mean someone I call up to have a drink with after a rough week. Someone I go partying with or call over for a movie. I have yet to make one of these kinds of Korean friend, though I have many of the other kind (both Korean-American and -Australian and co-workers and tutlings, etc.)
9. Hike. There are so many beautiful trees and hills and mountains and they all have these lovely hiking paths that I am dying to go running up. But there is no way that I can. I am not even close to fit enough for running up mountains. But I can try to hike my way up. I want to start hiking on a more regular basis and I want to bring my camera along when I do and take tons of pictures that I can feel proud of.
10. Take pictures. Last year, I took a camera and started snapping. And some pretty cool pictures came out of it. I looked at them and thought to myself, "Wow. I can be a photographer if I put my mind to it." And then I had to give the camera back. And it made me sad. Now I have a camera of my own, albeit a mini-me one, and I am going to take advantage of it dammit! I am going to take pictures like there is no tomorrow! I am going to tape the thing to my hand if I have to, but I am going to take photos!
11. Go somewhere else in Asia. I mentioned earlier that I am hoping to take a trip to Thailand. That is going to cost some money. But I am excited about it nonetheless, because I am in Asia! HELLO!!!! When else am I going to have a chance to hop onto a plane for a minimal price and be in Thailand the same afternoon. Bangkok here I come! Phuket too I hope!
12. Find a Dr Fish. All the searching in Busan has gotten me very very excited about the prospect of having my feet nibbled on, and I don't think that I will feel complete if I leave without having the experience!

There are likely to be many many more things added to this bucket list over time, but I feel like I may need to add to it in sequence because not only am I getting overly excited about all the possibilities that lie before me while I'm in the staffroom, which I feel is really inappropriate, but my brain also happens to be turning to mush while I am trying to think of other things. And a mushy brain is no good in a classroom, which is where I have to be in 15 minutes. So more on the bucketlist later, perhaps when I actually write these things down. For now though, I bid you all (well, the four people who actually might read this thing) adieu!

When I was a little girl of about 10 years old, I went to Disneyland. It was a little girl's dream - filled with colour and parades and rides... and I didn't go on any of them. Sure, there were a couple like the teacups that suited my fancy, but when it came to the rollercoasters, I was terrified. I refused to go anywhere near them (and for good reason, since I have quite a vivid image of my very pale parents coming out of Space Mountain, and that in itself should have been enough to stop me.) And so, Disneyland was largely wasted on me. It was pretty and it was fun, but I didn't take advantage of it when I should have and I regret that now. See, a couple of years later I was forced onto the Cobra at Ratanga Junction (hardly a comparison to Disneyland, I know, but still...) and I found that I loved it! Since then I have become a giant fan of rollercoasters, and when I heard that there was a theme park just outside of Seoul, I knew that it would only be a matter of time before I would find myself there. And so, when I was invited to Everland last weekend, there was little hesitation.

Saturday dawned and my bags were packed and ready to go. We had decided that the best idea would be to spend a night in Seoul and catch a bus to the park early on Sunday morning to miss the queues. But before we could head through to Seoul, Patrick insisted that we go to see Iron Man 2 - he had apparently been waiting with baited breathe since the first one came out - and so, I met Patrick and Blake (another friend who was joining for the trip) at the movie theatre at 11:00 for an early lunch and a quick show. The movie was good, but it wasn't the reason for my waiting on the edge of my seat. I was dying for it to end so that the trip could finally start! It eventually did (after what seemed like an age) and we made our way to the bus terminal and booked ourselves some tickets on the earliest bus to Seoul. Of course, we forgot to check exactly where in Seoul we would be winding up, and ended up in a completely unfamiliar area. We walked around for awhile, trying to figure out where we were and how we would get to the park the next day, and after about an hour of scouring the bus schedules (all in Korean, and me being the only person there who could read Korean), we managed to figure out which bus we needed to be on the next morning. Once we had figured that out, we decided to try and find ourselves a place to stay for the night. The only trouble was that we had landed up in what seemed to be the only motel/hotel-free area in Seoul. We asked a passerby, who thankfully spoke a little bit of English, and were informed that there was nowhere to stay in a two mile radius. And so, we split up (agreeing on a time and place to meet later) and started searching for places based solely on the flashing neon signs that surrounded us. After about half an hour of walking the streets, Blake and I bumped back into each other and managed to discover a little motel on a sidestreet, with a bright red flashing sign overhead that screamed "CHEAP", which we hurriedly booked into. Having realised that three people would be staying in the room rather than two, the owner quickly brought us a variety of matresses and duvets to make up a bed on the floor, and once that was done and we had found Patrick, Blake and I headed to the English bookshop (a godsend that I had not been expecting filled with delights like Jose Saramago and Salman Rushdie, though I decided to skip buying these in favour of copies of Catcher in the Rye, To Kill A Mockingbird and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, all of which I had been dying to read but had never gotten a chance to.) Patrick decided to stay in the motel and take advantage of the giant bath. When we returned, it wasn't long before we were all fast asleep and dreaming of the rollercoasters of the next day (well I can't speak for the other two, but I certainly was.)

We all woke bright and early on Sunday morning, at 7:30, and made our way down to the bus stop. We all decided that we were going to need some food and hot drinks to get us through the bus trip, and so we made our way to the cafe just outside the stop. As we walked out of the cafe, we saw our bus driving away and started cursing our stomachs. So we ended up sitting at the bus stop for an extra half hour or so until another bus came along, and this one was full, so we ended up having to stand uncomfortably as the bus weaved its way along windy roads and through ridiculous traffic (all apparently headed to Everland), and after about an hour we had finally arrived, all grateful to place our feet on solid ground. We pushed through the people and, after buying tickets and going through a suspiciously simple security check (no metal detectors? No body searches? What the hell?!) we were through, into the park, and were confronted by a tree that looked like it had crept its way out of the Avatar set and covered itself in as many colourful flowers as it could find to disguise itself. The queues were already fairly crazy, and so we made our way to what we knew would be the longest one, realising that it would be even crazier later in the day. And so we came to the T-Express; the steepest wooden rollercoaster in the world, and certainly the steepest that I'd ever been on. Looking at it made my stomach churn, and yet somehow I found myself happily making my way through the queue to the front of the line, placing my bag in the cubicle, getting into the rollercoaster and strapping myself in. It was only after I had done all of this and the rollercoaster had started that I began to wonder what the hell I was doing. I asked Patrick (who was sitting next to me) over and over again why he had let me get on the ride? This was followed by choruses of muttering and swearing to kill him if I survived, which were shortlived because by this time we were at the top and about to head over the edge of the giant cliffhanger of doom. Two minutes later, with my hair ever so slightly dishevelled (it's to be expected when you are going at a sensory speed of 200 km/h), we all got off, looking slightly pale but all with the same question on our minds: Should we go again now or later?

This was the start of the day and was followed by another smaller rollercoaster, another ride on the T-Express, a water ride involving a raft, and an electric guitar ride that liked to throw all of us around (this was by far the scariest and gave a whole other meaning to the word headbanging for me, as we did somewhere around 10 loop-the-loops and were upside down for about 80% of the ride). Because it was the first decent weekend of the Spring, the park was packed and so these five rides took us all day. By the time we finished on the guitar ride, it was almost 6pm and Blake and I decided that we were over the queues and that it was time to head home. Patrick wanted to stay with his friend, Carene, who had joined us later in the day, but didn't want to bus back on his own, so he reluctantly joined us, but insisted that we not go back to Cheongju through Seoul. Instead he thought it would be quicker to go to a town on the outskirts of Seoul known as Suwon and from there to catch a bus to Cheongju and that way avoid the hustle and bustle of the city. And so we got onto a bus to Suwon (which took an hour and a half) only to find when we got there that there weren't any busses to Cheongju. So we decided to take the subway back to the bus terminal in Seoul in any case (taking us another hour and a half) and we arrived at the terminal only to be told that the earliest bus we could get tickets on was leaving at 23:05 (it was about 21:45 at this point, and we had been hoping to get tickets on the 22:00 bus, which would usually have been fine but a great deal of the Everlanders seemed to be from Cheongju.) And so we boarded a bus at 23:05 and arrived in Cheonju an hour an a half later, thoroughly worn out and unimpressed. From there, it was still a 15 minute taxi-ride to my house, and so I arrived back in the comfort of my own space a little before one in the morning - just in time to miss getting a full 6 hours sleep after I had showered, changed and tidied my room ever so slightly (involving taking things off the bed and finding places to put them so that I could in fact get some sleep.) And so, what should have been a 2.5 hour trip in mild traffic, 3 hours at the very most, ended up taking almost 7 hours.

And now I am back at work, having a typical Monday. Though the weather is beautiful (I am feeling hot in my long-sleeved shirt), my classes have been very difficult. The techniques and games that worked in all of my classes last week are refusing to work today, and I had not been told that I would be having my school photo taken today, and so was thoroughly unprepared in the clothes that I grabbed off the line this morning because I was too tired to find anything else. I am, however, extremely grateful to note that it's almost over - I only have one class left - and I will be able to sleep soon enough. Plus, Wednesday is a public holiday in South Korea - while you will all be celebrating Mother's Day on Sunday, the Koreans will be celebrating Children's Day on Wednesday. I quite like this tradition. Not only does it mean that the kids get appreciated once in awhile, but it also means I get the day off school! Hooray! I have already been invited to a hike up to the fortress that surrounds Cheongju on Wednesday, so you can be expecting some pretty pictures soon enough. For now, I must stop daydreaming about the holiday to come and get back to reality where I am faced with a lesson to teach in half an hour.