I am back from Thailand in one piece, just about anyway. It was a sensational and unforgettable trip . However, things are starting to go a bit pear shaped. On the last day the scooter I hired has a slow puncture and I took a bit of a nasty spill onto the road. I did not break any bones or do any major damage but it is an interesting experience to feel like you have pulled, well your entire body. Then, when frolicking that evening, went out and had a bit of a drunken mess about in the water. When I came back, my wallet, T-Shirt, trainers and glasses had all walked. Moron. Anyway, I just about held it together and was actually laughing about everything on the ferry back to the mainland. However, now that I am home I cannot open my bloody door. It works like a bank machine almost in that there is a code that needs to be punched in to allow entrance. Mine is seven or six digits long and I cannot for the life of me remember the last few numbers. Bloody stupid I know, but what is genuinely astonishing is the fact that no one seems to have a copy of the number. Not the fucking apartment office, not the fucking work office. I swear, how hard is it to keep a copy of a number in a file. They gave me my workmates code, but well the thing is, that is his apartment, not mine. And he knows his code. I have not slept right in days, I am genuinely bloody exhausted. Right now I feel like Michael Douglas in Falling Down, on the verge of an absolute meltdown.

Cheeky, quick, wee post before I leave. I teach one class and then I am off to get the airport bus.

Finished the Harry Potter novel, the last hundred pages were just bloody brilliant. Looking forward to cracking open some Oscar Wilde on the plane.

Quick congratulations (to people that never read my blog I think, but hey) to Dr Helen Penny and to new parents Charles and Siobhan Dundas. Awwwwwwwwwwww!!

In very exciting news, I am off to Bangkok for about five days! Niall Rowantree is out there working on solar panels or what not and I am to go and experience the thrills of Thailand. My colleague and buddy Phil is also coming along for this rampaging romp of revelry. I really, really cannot wait too get out of Korea and I have long, wanted to visit Bangkok. Should be smashing.

I have also started reading the last Harry Potter, I ripped through quite a lot of it last night and I have cleared my busy schedule to finish it off this evening. I love the adventures of the boy wizard. Naysayers be damned.

Some intriguing experiences on the subway yesterday. Now usually, no one ever talks to me when I am on the subway. Not surprisingly, people just keep themselves to themselves. However, yesterday two Koreans both approached me on the subway. The first was an Elderly woman who enquired as to whether I was a doctor or some sort of intellectual. The reason being that she thought I looked very intelligent reading a Nick Hornby novel on the subway. She probably did not realise who Nick Hornby is. I mean he writes some very good , yet eminently accessible books, its hardly Dostoevsky is it? Nevertheless, she continued to pleasantly witter on in no way put off by the I Pod headphones in my ears. Eventually I heard those magic words: “Have you heard of Jesus Christ?”

This happens quite happen actually, I would say a good third of the times I have been chatted to by strangers here, it has merely been a prelude to some evangelising. I have developed a stock answer which usually works rather well:

“Jesus Christ, why yes of course I have heard of him. Gold, frankincense, Mir and all that jazz. I know this as I was raised as a Christian actually. Good Church of Scotland boy, Boys Brigade and everything where I was in fact a champion at both Bible knowledge and reading, Yet as many questions as I could answer, as many indoor games of crab football I played and whenever I wen to church , I just , just.....never saw God there. However, I respect the faith of individual Christians a great deal, although sometimes I am wary of the institutions behind them. Nevertheless, I do overall respect the incredible importance of Judeo - Christian morlaity in forming the modren, western system of ethics of which I am a product. Does that answer your question? Oh theres my stop, bye!” Typically leaving a somewhat baffled looking Korean in the seat.”

After that I met a very nice Gentleman who was a subway worker. He also guessed that I was a teacher and said he was proud to meet a man of such intelligence. (These guys really need to any of my university coursework.) Anyway, he was very interested in speaking to me as he said studying English was his hobby. He was once a businessman who now only worked part time. We then had a long discussion during which I let a few trains go by, as I explained the geography and political make up of the British Isles. It ended up being a tad garbled as he seemed to be under the impression that the Republic is in fact actually ruled from London and that the Queen rather more day to day influence than she does. Possibly he was once taught by an elderly Conservative. However, I gave him some banter for a while and he was impressed to see my passport I was carrying.

Anyway, I just finished a class that really makes me want to get on that plane. This class are to be entirely honest, a bunch of morons. Not nasty or anything, but just appear so sluggish and dim witted that they could be outfoxed by an actual fox. A fox that was a bit pissed and everything. The class now has two girls in it who like to sit next each to other. This is always a problem as they sit there and cackle and giggle away like a scene from Macbeth put on a by school for those with learning disabilities.

Ah well, I love you long time!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Some interesting incidents in Korea over the last few days.

Yesterday, I went off to the cinema to see the new Harry Potter movie. It was good but not great, rather badly paced as many of the Potter films can be. Anyway, I was there nice and early, and was one of the first people in the theatre. As the masses began to pour in another white guy sat next to me. “Must be the Westerner seats” I said. Then another white guy came in and sat down, and then another and then finally two girls. We sat there, a little Caucasian nucleus, in a cinema full of Koreans. I kept looking around to see if a firing squad was going to rush in during the trailers or if we were going to be gunged, Noel Edmonds style during the credits. Very bizarre. I don't think the cinema did deliberately, but it is still a very big coincidence.

Before I went to the cinema, I visited the hairdresser. Getting a haircut is usually a somewhat challenging experience. It involves miming a razor around my head and then pretending to cut the top. I have been before and it is usually a humorous and good natured sort of cultural mix up, with bashful smiling and nervous giggling. However, yesterday I got my hair cut by a woman who seemed to have a stone heart. She was not amused by my barbershop charades and generally seemed to view this corpulent and ignorant foreigner with contempt. Nevertheless, she got on with the job shifting around my head with such velocity that I suspect she may be a former Ultimate Fighting Champion. Mid cut, a little girl came in with her granny ready to have her locks chopped. Well actually she was not at all ready and proceeded to start a bit of a tantrum. Fair enough I suppose, I might have had a tantrum too if I was a four year old about to have my pig tails brutalised. During this, my hairdresser looks over with a gaze that carried about as much compassion as an Anaconda looking at a goat. The wee girl then starts crying which evidently triggered the mental part of my hairdresser who begins to savagely berate the little girl whose frustration very quickly turns to fear at this Hitler with curling tongs. I am not lying, she was a proper mad evil bitch. Even if she did speak English, I do not think she would have been asking where I was going for my holidays.

A nicer incident actually happened a couple of weeks back. I was travelling on the subway when the car rapidly began to fill up. A middle aged business woman was standing next to my seat looking bloody knackered frankly, so being the chivalours Gent that I am I gave her my seat. This prompted an Older Korean to come up and tell me what a nice thing I had done in broken English. As he left he then told me I was very handsome. The truth will out.

The past week or so has been a weird adjustment.

Imagine if a football coach suddenly went from working with the Brazilian international side to working with a bunch of non league amateurs. This is the kind of adjustment I have had to deal with. After being involved with world schools and watching some of the smartest and most articulate young people in well, the world, coming back to the asylum is very deflating. It is very, very difficult to feel enthused about going through very basic English textbooks, with very basic kids.

It is also interesting to see lots of my new facebook friends making little jokes like: "No more kimichi for me, tee hee." Yes very good, but what do you think I got as a sidedish with dinner last night. Generally, at the moment I just can't be arsed.

At the moment though I have two things keeping me around. I am DCA for the Korean High School Championships and that should be a good experience as well as an obligation I really should fulfill. Also, I have accrued six months of my bonus thus far and I am loathe to leave without getting any of that. With the asylum going the way it is I would really like to try and get some sort of pay off.

As I noted a few blogs earlier, it is monsoon month here in Korea. However, thus far the monsoon has been somewhat lacking. It has certainly rained a few days and there have been some big thunderstorms, but not the fireworks and drenching I assumed was coming.

Otherwise, numbers continue to shrink at the hagwon. Weekend classes have been combined, so I am now only in the academy for about half the time I was. Nice of course, but I am still intrigued as to how long the powers that be will continue in this failing and futile exercise. Maybe until my colleagues are back. They are currently doing some work with some older students down in another part of the city. Ah well its not my money I suppose.

Enough to make you forget the Falklands.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tb2hhidKLDk&mode=related&search=

Ah so world schools is now over. The debaters, coaches and adjudicators have returned home. However, flying home the happiest will be Team Scotland, who are now the world schools debating champions. Fantastic. I can honestly say watching them speak so well in the final and then be announced the winners, is the happiest moment I have had in Korea. Without exaggeration, it wholly makes up for all of the bullshit and the problems. It was a privilege to be there.

Moreover, being involved in the tournament was a fantastic experience. In fact I would even go as far to say that it has been the most rewarding tournament I have ever been to on a variety of levels. World schools brands itself as not purely a competition, but an educational experience as well. I was somewhat skeptical about this, but it really is true. World schools is not all about the results, the debaters and coaches care absolutely, but I think everyone recognizes there is a greater purpose. A value in taking some of the most gifted and articulate young people and just having them talk to each other, be it in formal intellectual exercises or just over breakfast.

It was also great on a social level. University debating competitions can have a nasty sort of social hierarchy to them. Sometimes the oxbridge guys can seem a bit cliquey and it can seem that the higher you are on speaker tabs, the more people want to come and say hi. “Ooh, ten more A Level Points and you would be able to sit here.” Nothing like this was present at WSDC. People seemed genuinely interested to socialise with each other and people were just well, really nice. I personally met some great people and will always look back at the 'OB Camp' down Gangnam way with great fondness. ( I am fairly miserable everyone is gone actually. )

The kids were also amazingly respectful. I gave back lots of feedback to some obviously gutted kids. Yet, never once did their glare seem to say: “What debate were you watching you fat Scottish moron?” Comparatively, at university level, pissed off speakers have been known to hire the Mossad for reprisal killings of judges. In reality, speakers were almost universally respectful when being given constructive criticism. Astonishing, when at the world uni championships for example, the sheer density of massive egos threatens to tear a hole in the fabric of space and time.

Amazingly, I thought it was a fantastic event despite many of the problems that occurred. Most prominently the debates were supposed to have large audiences of school kids to watch. (Part of the educational aspect.) However, some of the rooms did not have seats for the spare team members and coaches. Communication was not great, the hotel was priced towards Donald Trump not kids and the buses had gear changes like a panzer tank. Nevertheless, I had an extraordinary week and I am delighted and gratified that I was there. For, at the risk of sounding saccharine, I would have to say that at WSDC I did not just see debaters at their best , but I saw people at their best.

Not posted for a week or so, as I have been very busy at the world schools debating championships. They have been absolutely brilliant and I have had a great, great time. At the moment, I am a bit gutted Team Ireland have gone out, but I have loved being involved generally. I will post my thoughts in more detail later.

I am sitting here watching a Fox News update, relayed through the US Armed Forces Network. They are talking about the investigations into the terrorist attacks. The terrorist attacks at Glasgow Airport. Glasgow airport, where I live. Scary. Apparently, the terrorists were not Scottish, but this surprises me, as they seem to be such crappy terrorists that they must be Scottish. Driving an unexploded van, full of nails into Glasgow Airport. Hardly a work of twisted logistical genius. I am being glib of course, honestly I am of course delighted no one was hurt. Still, surreal and alarming, and a definite wake up call.

Otherwise, back in Korea, I have had a really awesome weekend. On Friday night, I went to Hongdae to attend 'club night.' Club night is where a ticket can be purchased for about fifteen dollars that gives admittance to around ten or so clubs participating in the promotion. This means you can attend a load of different clubs for very good value. A lot of places play hip hop, but there is also house, techno, and even some classic rock thrown in. One place called 'Saab' however particularly stood out. It's interior decoration seemed to be inspired by a snuff movie and it was horrific. The place was very dark, had chains hanging from the ceilings and was equipped with a smoke machine that seemed to being operated by someone who thought he was working on the film set of a First World War movie. I swear I thought I spotted some German's equipped with pointy helmets roaming next to the glass collectors. It was packed to the rafters and the circulating body heat made the place like an absoulte sauna. People were sweating so much in the hip hop joint that the dehydration were causing lucid fantasy's of Biggie and Tupac's spirits. Despite this it was a really cool night. The overall area is really busy and the atmosphere is really cool, making flitting between the clubs a very cool evening.

I am just back from seeing Transformers. To be honest, I thought it was going to be total shit. Michael Bay was directing, and I have long believed that he should have been taken to the Hague for war crimes after Pearl Harbour was released. However, I was pleasantly astonished by how much I enjoyed it. The special effects and action sequences are amazing and it all moves along at a cracking pace. It has some pretty nice touches of humour in it and Megan Fox looks very attractive. Nice to know that Optimus Prime has still got it.

Finally, I just realised I have been in Korea now for over half a year. Half a year, I honestly never would have thought it. After the way things seemed early on, I never thought i would have lasted.