Ste's blog

Pencil Vs Camera - 21

2011-10-21T21:52:00.001+01:00

Pencil Vs Camera - 21, a photo by Ben Heine on Flickr.

Brilliant

2011-09-19T22:26:00.002+01:00

From Deep Cover by Tim Eagan

Come into my parlour....

2011-09-19T09:57:00.001+01:00

Come into my parlour...., a photo by stewils on Flickr.

I suffered for art today. In this case getting way to close to his thing with a macro lens while my fear of spiders was saying MOVE AWAY!!!!!

Testing testing.

2011-05-31T19:18:00.001+01:00

Just trying out an iPhone app. See how well/ easy it is to blog. You never know, I might update more than every couple of years.

2010-09-16T22:36:00.000+01:00

A Sign From Above

If only God would help him out....

Made me smile...

2010-06-08T16:54:00.001+01:00

The Argyle Sweater Comic Strip, June 03, 2010 on GoComics.com

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Mindless?

2010-06-03T09:55:00.001+01:00

Zombie, Frankenstein, Dracula or Jesus Christ? Diagram, NSFC (not safe for christians) | Spreeblick

Are we really all mindless zombies? I'd like to think not.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

School Quotes II

2010-04-11T21:12:00.002+01:00

Working with NEET (Not in Education Employmet or Training) youths.
Teach maths to them I was told.
ok, how about fractions I said.

Whats that ---> 1/8, I said to the class pointing to the whiteboard.
'£20, £40 to you' came the reply.

School Quotes

2009-11-03T12:06:00.000Z

Child yesterday:What time is dinner?
Me: Same time it always is.
Child: But we went back an hour....

Made my morning.

Pimping XP

2009-03-13T16:54:00.002Z

As usual I've been tinkering with windows, recently in effort to get it to be more Mac like than just having an apple sticker on it, and this week, much success has been had!
I have found windows expose (go to Descarga (Downloads) on the left and there it is along with a few other bits of goodness)
Other wonderment to make your XP look all shiny is Rocket Dock a very nice looking dock that does that nice mac looking thing when you move over an icon. Try it, you might like it. This can be used with another of those bits of goodness of Matias Moreno, the stacks doclet. You can either get it direct from their site, or from the addons section of the Rocketdock site. The stacks docklet lets you open folders from your rocket dock in a very cool Mac looking type way, download and put into your /Rocket Dock/Doclets folder and right click on the dock and it's all you need to get you started.. For even more eye candy Winflip gives you that vista/ coverflow feel for alt-tabbing, Ubericon from the rocketdock bods makes your icons do cool things when you click on them throughout windows, AND your dock. From microsoft Taskswitch.exe makes even your standard alt-tab a bit more swish, and, finally a simple but very nice looking virtual desktop program Desk Hedron will make the eye candy goodness complete. Maybe. Enjoy.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

A New Blog...kinda

2008-11-20T15:29:00.001Z

I stumbeled across this rather odd thing where a website checks the activity on your microsft gamer tag and then turns it into a blog for you 360 Xbox console. Obviously I signed up, and now my XBox is blogging more than me. Ah well.
It's early days et, but if you want to have a look here's the link.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Summers gone

2008-09-09T15:33:00.002+01:00

Well, it's back on the dole after spending the summer, well July and August, teaching Italian teenagers to speak better English as well as dragging them round Chester, Manchester and Nottingham. The job was in Sheffield where I was a residential teacher, or as my job description would have it...an EFL Entertainer. Things I've learned about Italians:
1) They walk soooooo slowly. Pensioners would overtake us as we meandered along through the drizzle.
2) They like their mothers cooking. English food was all potatoes, potatoes, potatoes and too spicy. This despite the fact that the food was usually of good quality and very tasty.
3)They actually do say mama mia!!! I was surprised.
4)They can't cross roads. The group starts to cross, a car comes round the corner, the students still cross, the car gets closer, closer...the students ignore it and keep crossing like lemmings over the cliff, out infront of the oncoming traffic they walk...
5)Three essential words in Italian: Regatzi, Andiamo, Velochi. Attention, lets go, quickly.
That's about it really.
In other news had a nice time at Greenbelt and went to Haworth for the weekend to do that Bronte thing. Even got to ride on a steam train!!

I'm going to get medieval

2008-06-15T20:21:00.003+01:00

Before going to the bodyworlds exhibition today we went to Tatton park where there was a medieval weekend. As we were walking around I commented that it's the kind of thing Robin might be at, only to walk around the corner to see him in full battle dress. This pic is of him marching onto the field of battle while I heckled from the sideline.

Not Robin:

The pitched fight to the death.

New addition

2008-05-27T17:34:00.000+01:00

All was excitement this morning when, upon looking out of the kitchen window I spotted a hedgehog in the garden. Upon further observation it seems to be setting up camp underneath the garden shed. Photographic evidence to follow.

Ubuntu Samba Server

2008-05-04T17:50:00.001+01:00

The most exciting things this week have been the arrival of all my boxes from Korea, so I'll be joining Alex and John online this week in some Halo madness. The other exciting news is that I've managed to do something with linux! Rach had a dead pc upstairs, so after resurrecting it with a ten quid hard drive I've installed Ubuntu server, plugged all the external hard drives in it and now we can wirelessly access the many files on the many usb drives!!!
for anyone interested, and to help me to restart it all in the future when if all goes wrong...
here's what I did.

Download Ubuntu Server
Install it on the knacker ed machine in the corner. This is a fairly painless process.

When asked install LAMP, SSH and Samba.

When it's all finished type: ifconfig

make a note of the number with lots of dots in it, 192.178.1.1. or something like it. Switch off the monitor, unplug the keyboard and switch on your windows pc and download a program called putty.

In the host name box type that number

This should open a window that now controls your server!!!!

Log on.

type: sudo apt-get update
type: sudo apt-get upgrade

just to make sure alls up to date.

type: sudo fdisk -l

make a note of the names, eg sbd1 or sca3 or something like that. Next make directories where you want to find your hard drives, so something like /media/movies1 you'll need to do this for each usb drive you have connected to the server.

eg type: sudo mkdir /media/movies1

Next edit this file so that when you start up your server it will let you find your files in the directories you just made.

type:sudo nano -w /etc/fstab
nano is a simple text editor.
Add the following line for each drive:
/dev/sbd1 /mnt/media auto    users,owner,rw,umask=000    0   0

changing sbd1 to the names you noted earlier.

type:sudo mount -a

Last step.
type: sudo nano -w /etc/samba/smb.conf

scroll down to the bottom of this document and add

[movies1]
   path = /media/movies1
   public = yes
   writable = yes

one for each drive, change the names from movies to whatever you called yours earlier.

Check your network neigbourhood on you windows pc and the drives should be there!!!
Now i just need to work out how to get the xbox to read them....

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Jobs, and being a criminal, or not

2008-04-26T22:15:00.003+01:00

The last couple of weeks I've been ringing round teaching agencies and sending out CVs which is always fun. So the responses have started to come back, and the thing I need right now is a CRB, a Criminal Records Bureau check, an enhanced one at that. Thats not rally a problem in and of itself, as I don't have a criminal record, but, it takes up to 6 weeks to get one and I can't just get one as an individual, I have to get it through the company I'm working for.....this seems a little strange. Quite why I can't apply for one myself and then show it to every employer I go to is somewhat frustrating, each agency I go to wants to enter their own application...no wonder it takes up to 6 weeks....
In other news, just got back from watching 'In Bruges' a darkly funny and violent movie you should go and see. To round things off in this post here's a photo of two sauce bottles having a good time.

Blogging again

2008-04-21T17:32:00.001+01:00

I know it's been a while, and most of you have given up checking, but I've been thinking it's time to get back blogging again. Not that I've got an awful lot to say, but thought I'd say hello and let anyone who cares know that I'm now back in the UK. I left Seoul in mid Feb and then had a holiday in NZ and a brief stop over in Sydney and Dubai before landing in Manchester. I'm now in Sale near Manchester with Rachel. Currently I'm on the job hunt which is as fun as ever. Hopefully it won't be too long till I get some gainful employment. In the mean time nip over to flickr at have a look at the NZ photos.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

India

2008-01-31T07:46:00.001Z

Well, Ive been back off the hols for a few day now, so it's probably time to tell a disinterested public about them. An initial impression with important details from Rach can be found here. It was a good couple of weeks, great to see Rach again and spend some time together. The madness started almost before leaving the airport at Delhi. The building seems to be half renovation site and half working airport, unfortunately immigration was in a bit they hadn't got to doing up yet, so it was a long slow moving clue in a very dinghy area. Then of course comes the joy of leaving the airport. being mobbed by the touts, the taxi drivers, the rickshaw wallahs...but that was ok, I'd booked ahead with the hotel, they would be sendnig a taxi to pick me up, all I had to do was look for the little man holding my name and all would be fine....but he wasn't and it wasn't, I had to fight the screaming hoards. Upon eventually arriving at my accommodation, pre paid for and booked, i was informed that Ii wasn't actually staying at this hotel because they were full, but i had a room at a not quite so nice place round the corner. Lucky me. Still things can only get better right?

On the camel trek

Well, they kinda carried on in the same vein: Connaught place we said to the driver, who grinned and nodded, so off we went. and stopped outside some emporiums we'd been taken to by another driver the day before. Been here we have said I, take us to Connaught place. The driver nods and says emphatically 'Connaught Place', this is Connaught Place. Noooo we said it's not is it? Oh says he, it's closed. This is a central area of Delhi were talking about. We threatened that if he take us there immediately or we would get out and not pay. As if by magic we arrived. He then had the nerve to be put out when we didn't pay him what he thought we owed him ie three times the going rate. And so it continued for the rest of the holiday, it's a shame because it becomes the central theme of the holiday, not the places you visit or the places you stayed. In 30 years time might be the anger at the rickshaw driver, not the beauty of sunrise at the Taj Mahal or sunset in the desert that stays in the mind. It's a sad because once you can get get past the endless litany of lying cheating greedy touts, guides, rickshaw drivers and the like India's a great place with friendly helpful people and some amazing things to see and do.

You didn't think you'd get away without seeing a Taj pic did you?

Enough ranting, on to the good stuff: Sunrise at the Taj Mahal. Cold but not many other tourists around. Not getting dysentery in Varanasi again, always a bonus, and we stumbled on a very nice Greek restaurant of all things. The Pink Palace where we stayed in Jaipur, not, as you might think, the campest guest house EVER, but named in reference to the Pink City as Jaipur is known, due to the colour of the buildings. Jalsimer, staying in the old fortress was nice. Lots of small streets with the occasional surprising view of the city below and riding a camel was fun, though I'm glad we only did it for a few hours.

Ok, enough for one post. I might revisit India stories later and flesh out some of the good things, and maybe a few more arguments with rickshaw drivers.

Blogged with Flock

My Blog is back.

2008-01-08T05:01:00.000Z

Not that most people will have noticed it had gone, after all I don't post THAT often, but, for the last week I couldn't post even if I'd wanted to. The reason for this is that some automatic software of blogspot thought that my blog was a spam blog...
May be it's the insane amount of posts I don't output every day, or the number of visitors who regularly don't come flocking to my site. Maybe it's the many hundreds of links I don't have all pointing to the same site in a vain effort to get you and your wallet contents to part ways? Maybe...
Anyway, someone human has now obviously looked at my blog, deemed not spam, probably just a little dull, but as dullness isn't against the terms and conditions, I can blog once more. Hooray.

Schools out for Winter...almost

2007-12-28T09:12:00.001Z

Merry Christmas and a happy new year to you all.
Inspired by Mr D's recent blog entry I thought I'd dust off my blog and regale you all with another anecdote about life in Korea.
Last week, the week before Christmas, was the last week before the winter holidays, which are like the summer holidays, but colder. At the start of the summer holidays their was a teachers trip away for the last Thursday night and returning on the Friday, and so at the start of the winter hols, except, this time, no one invited me....
I knew I didn't have any classes on Thursday, so I took my laptop into school, prepared for a day messing with photos and, when no one was looking, playing PC games, so I set up at my desk and whiled the morning away until the first teacher asked 'Are you coming on the trip today?' 'Trip?' I inquired. 'The staff trip to somewhere' they replied 'Uh?' was my insightful comeback. Through the rest of the morning this conversation replayed apart from the teacher who organised the trip, who came and told me he was sorry I couldn't come, so he obviously already knew I wasn't going.......
Eventually the deputy head asked me if I was coming on the trip, and so, one again I said that I didn't know, nobody had asked me, so no I wasn't going, I'd a bag full of laptop and no toothbrush etc. 'Ah' he replied 'Our mistake'.
He thought for a moment. 'You could come for the day, a lot of the teachers are coming back tonight' This seemed like a good idea, so I packed up my things and climbed on the bus.
It was an interesting trip, first stop was hill walk. It's not a day out in Korea if you don't walk up a hill, then lunch which was served in a well insulated greenhouse/ tunnel house. The surroundings were basic but the food was very very good.

Next stop was an animation museum somewhere north of Seoul. we watched a 15 min computer animation with these new fangled 3d glasses, not the old fashioned red/ green ones. Animation was good, didn't contain any dialog and the 3d worked well, though as it was about a mosquito it did make me itch.
Then it was onto see some puppets which were much better than anticipated. Some skillful marination (is that the right word?) and some very clever plate spinning with acrobatic hand puppets.

After that it was food time again, which was nice, then I headed home and had many more...'Why are you going home?' conversations. I asked if someone didn't want me to go and got the nervous Korean laugh in response that means they can't answer that question with out causing a loss of face somewhere...I blame the teacher who organised it, strange bloke. Maybe it was revenge for posting this?
Still, not a bad day out, and I had a relaxing Friday at home.

Of course the question your all asking now is why is school only nearly out for summer? Well, thats because, just like in the summer, I have to work for 3 weeks of the hols :(

Blogged with Flock

Coming home...nearly

2007-12-14T15:05:00.001Z

Well, it's all starting to get a bit scary, Christmas is coming, and then it's all over bar t' shouting here and I have to contemplate the real world again with all it's problems, not least of which being what do I want to be when I grow up, and what do I do in the real world? Currently I'm looking at continuing with the teaching thing, looking for TEFL jobs. On a brighter note, I'm procrastinating a little bit longer by taking a quick holiday when I finish and heading over to NZ for a few weeks and then as many free stopovers as I can manage on the flight back to the UK (Sydney and S Africa would be nice) but thats yet to be sorted. What is nearly sorted however, is the date I leave Korea and head out to NZ. Today i filled in the form and reserved my ticket for the 25th of February. Now I just have to wait for it to go through the official channels of the Gov bureaucracy as they decide whether or not to allow me to fly there and not back to the UK. So I could be home at the end of Feb, but hopefully it'll be the end of March.

Blogged with Flock

On the way to the fireworks..

2007-10-18T13:36:00.001+01:00

On Sat my mate Dave had managed to wrangle a prime viewing spot on the roof of a building owned by the company he works for which overlooks the Han and the evenings fireworks display. All I have to do is meet him there. An easy task, I know where I'm going, the subway runs there, one change of trains, no problem. But it is at the changing of the trains that the madness starts. I'd not counted on the million other Koreans who also wanted to watch the display. My transfer was three stations away from the show, and when I got there their was a queue about five people deep all the way down the platform, but nice, orderly queue. Then the train pulls in and it's packed fuller than a commuter line in Delhi rush hour, and trust me, that's packed. But, this isn't India, I think to my self, this is Korea, people will wait for the next train...The guard blows his whistle and shouts constantly as people surge forwards, limbs sticking out of the doors, pushing for that EXTRA little bit of space to get on....and I'm two places further forward. Now however the platform is filling up. Gone are the nice orderly lines blended and absorbed into a sea of people waiting for the next train. Elbows working, shoulder shifting, trying to gain that one or two person advantage that will see them safely squashed onto the next locomotive, and the next train pulls in, if possible more full than the last, an the crowd surges forward, people on the train are fighting to get off, to little avail against the press. After much whistle blowing and shouting by the guard on the platform people stand back and the train moves off. By this point I'm so nearly there...a couple of people back, but to the side of where the doors open (the train stops and the doors open where the little marks on the platform tell you to wait, no milling on the platform, then running down the train to get to the nearest door first). Right I think, I'm getting on the next train, so as it comes into the station I walk into the space between the mob and the still slowing train inches from my nose. The doors open and I step on as everyone else on the platform tries to follow me. People are screaming, pushing, shoving, and my camera bag is trapped in the crush outside the train, as I try to pull it aboard. Eventually someone sees and pushes back, shoves it towards me as people behind me on the train put up a valiant attempt to escape and get off onto the platform, and then the doors close and I stand very still(with this little space getting enough elbow space to remove my ringing phone from my pocket proved impossible) and contemplate rush hour in Delhi.

The Hols

2007-10-07T13:41:00.000+01:00

Well, I've been back in sunny Korea a week now and no blog, so I thought I'd tell you about my week in Japan. Your excited already, I can tell.
Tokyo

I arrived on the Sun night, and, not having booked ahead I went own to the hotel booking desk in the airport in the vain hope of getting a cheap room for night. Hopes were dashed as I was informed that Monday was a bank holiday and everywhere was full, was $100 a night ok? So I took a deep breath and, in a slightly high pitch voice said 'ok'. An hour or so later on the limousine bus I arrived at a large hotel complex. Oh well, it thought, a bit of luxury should be nice. Once more hopes were dashed as I found my small cupboard sized room, with the worlds smallest bath shoehorned into the corner. The next day was Tokyo. First up was the Imperial palace, which was nice, but not amazing as you can't go round , only look round some of the gardens. Then it was onto the war memorial, the one the Japanese Prime Minister keeps visiting and causing international controversy. Other highlights were the Sony building looking at shiny things and dribbling as I stood in front of a 70" LCD TV and then having an Indian for tea in a small restaurant in one of the downtown areas. The following day was spent trying to walk as little as possible having walked miles the previous day, and checking out a temple before heading onto the over night train to Hiroshima. Tokyo was a lot like Seoul, big, busy lots of neon, but seemed to be more colourful and varied, and nobody walks into you, and cars stop at red lights...all very strange.

To Hiroshima and cultural discord.
I was sharing the sleeper compartment with an elderly Japanese couple, and, when the guard came, you could tell he clearly wasn't happy. Now I know I don't speak any Japanese, but when the guard came I'm fairly sure the conversation the old gent had with the guard went 'why is a foreigner in here, the trains empty, why isn't he in another compartment, I don't want to share with a foreign person (although he possibly just didn't want share with anyone....)'
The guard smiled, and I'm sure apologised, and said he'd see if he could organise something.
Off I went to find a buffet car and some food, only to find that their wasn't one, but a couple of vending machines....
Upon my return the old gent was sweetness and light, told me to sit on the bottom bunk with him, not up on my top bunk, and in very bad English we talked about what I was doing here, that he'd visited London etc...
He then tells me that I really don't want a top bunk, I can have a bottom bunk, they'll find another compartment, and so when the guard comes back, off they goo, smiling all the way, like they were doing me a favour.....

Hiroshima
Hiroshima was....sobering. The Peace Park Memorial Museum tells of the dropping of the bomb and the aftermath, with disturbing accounts of victims and from survivors, with the over-riding message that this must not be allowed to happen again. In one area of the park a flame burns and will continue to burn until all nuclear weapons have been destroyed. While I was looking at the A-Bomb dome, a ruin to be persevered in its it's post bomb state, a friendly chap with an 'official free guide tag' said hello and showed me the spots where the bomb dropped, relayed statistics of the dead, the clean up etc. He himself was, technically, a survivor of the bomb, his mother being 4 or 5 months pregnant with him when it happened. I asked how the Japanese felt about the Americans, the British etc.. He said that mostly there was forgiveness, that this was a part of Buddhism, and that the Japanese liked the ideas that came after the war, Democracy etc. The next day was a quick trip to the castle, rebuilt after the bomb, and then to the train station and onto Kyoto.

Kyoto
Kyoto was great it's what you expect Japan to be. Tea gardens, small traditional looking back streets, Geisha running round. No ninjas though, at least non that I saw. It is to Japan what York or Chester is to the UK I guess. I spent a couple of days there cycling to and walking round many many temples and the odd castle. Kyoto Castle was perhaps the highlight, with beautiful grounds and impressive interior. The little tea garden set up for the tourists was almost iconic.

Photos have gone up from Tokyo and Hiroshima on flickr, so go have a look. Koyto will be arriving shortly. I'm even going to update my Pic a week blog now!!!!!
(unlike some people (Mr D) who haven't blogged in AGES.

Sorry it's long one. Making up for missed posts...

Ste

Japan

2007-09-23T01:25:00.000+01:00

From the land of the morning calm (Korea) to the land of the rising sun. I'm spending a week in Japan, and taking out several bank loans. Expensive it is. Will blog all about it upon my return.

1000!!!!!

2007-09-17T11:37:00.000+01:00

Big news, 1000 hits to my humble blog. In over a year....
Of course a couple of hundred will have been me until I found the 'ignore from this Pc' option, and I seem to get a steady stream of 0 second hits from NTL....not quite sure what's going on there, but all the rest are from real people!!!!!
Amazing eh? So now the pressure is on to get up to 2000 by next year. Oh, the excitement, bet you can hardly wait.

Dogs

2007-09-12T06:45:00.000+01:00

Well, on Monday I finally did it. After 3 years and been asked more times than I can count, the answer is now yes. I have eaten dog. On Monday it was the men teachers night out and the menu choices were chicken, duck and dog. I went for the duck, and very nice it was, but as most of the teachers were tucking into the Korean style BBQed dog, it seemed rude not to sample a small bit. I can report it's quite a dark meat, greasy, like goat. (which I think I've had before...but I wouldn't bet on it)I was quite happy to eating the BBQed duck.

mmm, tasty

Another boring post

2007-09-07T16:12:00.000+01:00

Well, the hols have been over for a couple of weeks now and school is back in full swing. I'm now teaching 6th grade students, so 12/13 yrs old, and there not as nice as the 5th grade. They are a little older, with more 'can't be bothered-ness' about them.
One class on Friday was certifiably comatose or possibly dead, given the amount of response from the students...
The holiday was good, had a good time with Rach in Cambodia. I think we ticked all the tourist boxes while we were there. The beach was good, although I did pick up a stomach bug which left me feeling a little queasy but, fortunately, didn't really hit it's stride until a couple of days later when we'd got back to Bangkok where it attacked with a vengeance. I blame it all on a friend of Rach's. She'd visited the beach area before and so recommended a restaurant for the quality of the fish. So we told the moped drivers where to go, hopped on and sped off. As we left the main road and plunged into darkness I did start to become a little concerned but, unusually, the drivers seemed to appreciate that when you can't see where your going, it's a good idea to slow down. Eventually we arrived intact, expecting a lively, cosy place tables spread out onto the private beach a few lanterns on poles illuminating the water......Instead it was empty, one group of Asian business men sat in a corner and that was it. The outdoor beach seating consisted of a few concrete chair/ table combos, no lights on the water, just lots of dark. Ah well, at least the foods going to be good....one bbq'd fish, no side dishes. Then it closed just as we finished eating. We were kicked out as soon as our moped drivers returned to take us back. The journey back was slightly longer, but much better lit on the main roads, which was nice.
And that is the story of how I got a poorly stomach.

Nearly over :(

2007-08-24T10:09:00.000+01:00

Well it's been a relaxing few days at the beach doing mostly nothing, just watching the waves coming in and going out again. Had a nice little bungalow that looked out onto sand and sea. Rach is now the proud owner of many many bracelets and bookmarks purchased from small children who incessantly ply their trade up and down the beach. The weather was a little hit and miss as it had a tendency to rain heavily in the mornings before ,fortunately, clearing up in the afternoon. It's back to Bangkok early tomorrow morning and then back to Seoul the day after.

What Wat?

2007-08-18T10:58:00.000+01:00

Have spent the last couple of days trekking around temples. The mighty Angkor Wat (the world's largest religious building)has been viewed at a disappointingly grey sunrise, but after all the tourists had left shortly after it was surprisingly deserted while we looked round. After two days of stomping around we are now templed out and heading for the beach for a few days, which should be nice and relaxing.

Bang Bang

2007-08-16T14:33:00.000+01:00

Now moved from Phnom Penh to Siem Riep. Had a wander round and had a very painful massage from a blind bloke. Tomorrow it's off to the temples and Angkor Wat. The few days in the capital were spent visiting the mass graves left by the Khmer Rouge and the detention centre. Estimates on the death toll range from the hundreds of thousands to 3,000,000. The detention centre was an old school and looked like something from Silent Hill, lots of barbed wire and suffering. Ironically, after witnessing theses scenes of mass murder and brutality we went to shooting range where I fired a Kalashnikov. For $200 it could have been a rocket launcher. I managed to hit the paper target at the other end of the range, and got to keep it as a souvenir.

Rach is having fun bartering at the markets and buying stuff.

It ain't half hot mum.

2007-08-13T11:33:00.000+01:00

I'm finally on holiday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Friday was the last day at work and a difficult one. Having to watch Nemo and the Incredibles while eating pizza with the kids. It's a hard life. Got into Bangkok on Fri night and the lovely Rach arrived the next morning, a little jet lagged but otherwise non the worse for wear. A chilled time was had and day spent on Koa San Rd watching backpackers wander by and eating banana pancake (Rach was reading 'The Beach'...so passe) Other highlights were trekking around a huge and very busy market (apparently 22,000 people go there every day...) Highlights included not trying the deep fried locust on sale....
Were now currently residing in Cambodia having arrived here early this morning. Phnom Penh seems like a pleasant city, we have already acquired our very own personal tuk tuk driver. Now we just need to make sure he doesn't rob us blind. Probably not going to get any pics up as the connection is, not unexpectedly, slow, so you'll have to wait till I get back. The excitement's palpable isn't it?
Ste

Welcome to the Blogsphere

2007-08-06T00:07:00.000+01:00

Just a quick not to inform one and all that Rachel has started her very own blog just here and, so far, contains information about shopping, The Simpsons and packing for holidays.

The almost weekly non news

2007-08-02T09:26:00.001+01:00

I feel like I should bring you up to speed on the exciting and entertaining events of the past few weeks, but, to be fair, I'd be struggling, as nothing much has been going on at all really. Last week I worked hard, doing morning classes, then, chucking down lunch, catching two buses and teaching again all afternoon. Knackered I was. this week however has been relatively easy, just working mornings, which is nice. Been surprisingly productive with this time I have too. Got my mouse fixed, purchased currency for the hols, in just over a week, (YEAHHHHHH!!!!)posted a couple of things back to the UK and run around shooting things on the xbox!
Living life on the edge.
Ste

Weekend away

2007-07-24T12:58:00.000+01:00

This last Friday was the last proper day of school, it's now the holidays, at least for some (I'm still doing 'Special English classes'). To celebrate the last day of term school closed at 11 in the morn and about 40 teachers jumped on a coach for a trip SW of Seoul to an area near the coast. It was a pleasant weekend where I visited, I think, the ex home of a famous Korean poet, if it wasn't his old place it was a small collection of his stuff, and seemed to be fairly underwhelming. After that it was a jaunt across the road to see the chrysanthemum village....a village with a lot of chrysanthemum fields and some nicely painted walls.

Chrysanthemums
Originally uploaded by stewils.

Next stop on the magical mystery tour (well it was mystery to me, the itinerary was in Korean...)was a temple famed for it's camilia trees which cover the hills behind it and look stunning when they flower in the winter. I think that's what the sign said they were, anyway.....from there it was a short stroll to the youth hostel where we were spending the night. Dinner was eel, which was quite tasty. The night was spent on the floor on roll out mats in a room with 4 other teachers and, if my feet were anything to go by the next morning, all the mosquitoes for 50 miles around. The next morn was a disappointingly, maybe even distressingly Korean: breakfast. It's at moments like that in which I wonder if the people around me are.....well....not just from another culture, but an entirely different planet. As I walk into the dining area my nostrils are assailed by the unmistakeable reek of kimchi, and at 8am after a bad nights sleep, it's definitely reek, it doesn't move to appetising smell until sometime after lunch. So breakfast is...just like any and every other Korean meal, Kimchi, rice, same heavily spiced veg and same flavoured meat, just not what you want to face in the morning, well, at least not what I want to face in the morning, but my fellow teachers are wolfing it down. Don't they ever get tired of rice and kimchee? Don't they ever, one morning think, right, I never want to see another grain of rice or bit of cabbage ever again? I know I do....all this and not a decent cup of coffee to be found.
After breakfast it was time to start heading back in the general direction of Seoul. The first stop on the way was at a small fishing town to have a look around the market. Seafood and soju was consumed, though not by me ('twas only 10am and I hadn't recovered from breakfast), and we watched the gulls flocking to eat the discarded fish heads before moving on.
Next stop was a walk to see a waterfall, quite an impressive one, and a pleasant walk in and back through some pretty scenery. So, we get to the top of a hill, round a bend, and there in the distance is the waterfall (see pic) and a viewing platform. The path continues on toward the waterfall, do we continue along until we can feel the spray from water as it tumbles down past us? (well I'm guessing that the path does, it might have turned sharply away offering no views of it whatsoever, BUT, I'm thinking, to the waterfall it went) Nope, we stay at the viewing platform...still a nice walk and view. :)

The waterfall
Originally uploaded by stewils.

Upon returning home I was glad that I went, and despite my moaning here, I had a good time, but I was glad to get back to my own bed and 5,000,000 less mosquitoes.
(Pictures to follow shortly)

Beans

2007-07-22T03:18:00.001+01:00

Very funny, try it :)
(click on the read more link below to actually get there....)

read more | digg story

Ste on the web

2007-07-16T01:54:00.001+01:00

While looking checking my flickr account I noticed this photoseemed to be gaining an insane amount of views, seemingly over 100/ min....it's at a thousand and some and still counting....so I wondered why the sudden interest, maybe someones blogged it thought I, but how to find out? So I headed over to bighugelabs to check out my flickr DNA and then use the search things at the bottom to see if I could find out who was sending so much traffic to my pic...Didn't find out, but I did find I'd been blogged here and here
as well as on Mr D's blog so I'm putting down her insane view count to a Flickr error...unless it's all coming from this Korean site
Theres another of my pics gone up on this site here but one seems to be looking at that one....

A moral victory

2007-07-13T07:54:00.000+01:00

Well, it's been a traumatic week. Well, at least Monday was. On Monday I had an appointment with the Labour board for arbitration between me and my ex boss from Grace Private School. I had to leave school before lunch for the two hour slog across the citie's subway system to get there on time. Fortunately I didn't miss any stations where I had to change and arrived a few mins before my appointment. I wasn't entirely sure what to expect, as I'd been summoned by text, and didn't receive the letter telling me what to bring until a couple of days after the event. When Grace arrived I quickly got the idea that this was where things were going to be sorted. I think I was at a disadvantage in that, although the arbiter spoke English he wasn't fluent and so, I'm sure, missed some of the nuances of the conversation between myself and Grace as she accused me of lying to her because while I worked for her we agreed to an amount of overtime hours I would work and the amount that would be paid for this, but apparently, through some manipulation of the hours and a strange interpretation of the contract, I'd not worked any overtime at all, so couldn't get a bonus payment...confused? I was. In the end after talking to both of us individually, as having us both in the discussion was causing problems, it boiled down to the arbiter saying he wanted to help, but as I had absolutely no evidence to support my case there wasn't a great deal he could do. I told him I'd never been given a pay slip...
The decision was made to offer me about 300,000 Won (2000 = £1 = $2) or I could take it court. I decided to take the cash and draw a line under things. Sucks been at least 700,000 won out of pocket, but I'm claiming a moral victory.
And now 'tis Friday, one week of normal school left, after which it's the hols!!!!! Almost... Everybody else has a nice five week holiday, I however have three weeks of special classes. Still, it's mornings only, and then I get two weeks off, so I'm heading to Cambodia and meeting up with Rachel, which will be nice. Home Time!!!!

Busy I have been

2007-06-28T03:35:00.000+01:00

It's been a surprisingly busy week so far, and, as I have no classes today, I thought I'd take this opportunity to bore you all with it. On Monday I met up with Ben and we headed to the Nikkon service centre where Ben paid about £15 for a small bit of plastic that's the battery cover for his camera, and I got my dead pixel on the sensor problem miraculously fixed for free! No more is there a small annoying green spot on my photos. Tuesday was a frustrating day, as I called my ex boss for, I think, the last time, and she told me I didn't deserve any more payment. I might go into the full saga later but for now the Labour board has since been contacted, so I'll see how things go.
Frin managed to escape on Tuesday from her manic schedule, being very busy on the board of a charity attending theological lectures and lots of bible study. So I met up with Frin and Rachel in the evening. We went to the only vegetarian restaurant I've found in Seoul. Fortunately it was in the nice 'traditional' tourist area so it was easy for a mini tour of the city centre. Here's Frin and Rachel looking for some quality tourist tat.

Yesterday was a training afternoon, so the 5th form teachers and myself headed out to the confluence of the two Han rivers into the one Han river. It's out to the N W of Seoul. It was nice to get out of the city, and for once, the view wasn't spoiled by the endless apartments that dominate the Korean landscape. This was followed by a perilous drive up to a nearby temple where we had a traditional Korean tea ceremony, and an only slightly less perilous drive down again.

Tech Support...

2007-06-25T13:40:00.000+01:00

A while ago I bought myself a shiny new xbox 360, and am having much fun with it. Perhaps the best feature of it is the ability to hook up with friends, then talk to each other in the game as you play it together. Adds a lot and means I'm staying in better touch with Alex, who also recently purchased one. But, I wondered what about bringing the shiny toy back to the UK...will there be any problems with discs from there running on a machine from here, and would Microsoft do nasty things like stop me bring able to chat to mates while playing games if I took things into my own hands and got it 'modified' at one of the many dodgy electronic stores here. So I contacted XBox support by e-mail. After a preamble detailing my situation viz. teaching here (here being S Korea for anybody that doesn't know) etc. I asked (with out the bracketed bits):

" Am I going to run into localisation problems? If I get it chipped (modified) to bypass localisation (the nasty thing where machines in one region can't use things from another, in an attempt to stop people importing software from other regions, take note of this) *at my own risk and invalidating the warranty etc..*will my machine be locked out of x-box live (the thing that lets me play and chat on the internet with my xbox)? Is there any way I can bring my console back to the UK and play UK games?"

They replied about a week later saying:
Dear Mr.Stephen

Thank you for your email, for your convenience the console sytem will be different we support PAL system only ,the market place will be linked to the location if your address in S Korea then their will be things that you can't load or purchase .items:

If this didn’t resolve your issue please contact Xbox customer support on the following phone numbers (sic)

Eh, what? Can they read, and or write, English? You know what, that didn't come even close to answering the question. Lets be fair, it didn't come close to being coherent.

So I phoned them up, and after several attempts (thank you Skype for dropping the line much and often) I had a conversation that went something along the lines of:

'No Sir, if you get it modified you will probably be locked out of x-box live'
'Ah' I reply.
'You could buy all your software from Korea' the helpful man tells me.
'So, your telling me that my only solution is to import all my games from Korea' I ask, with a hint of incredulity creeping into my voice.
'Ermm yeah' Comes the reply.
''That's not a great solution is it?' asks I.
'Er...no'
And that's about as far as it got, no further avenue forward was offered.
Because of a system to stop imports I will have to import all my games...ah the irony.

Why?

2007-06-16T02:33:00.000+01:00

Why, on a week day, does the alarm go off, and all you really really want to do is go back to sleep, and it's a struggle to wake up, and yet, on the weekends, with no alarm, you wake up at the same time, and can't easily get back to sleep? Why? It just doesn't seem right.

Hogwans!

2007-06-12T15:18:00.000+01:00

Well, today may have been the final straw. Which should have been about 5 months ago, but there was always the reasonable tone and the promise of things to come. I am talking about my much beloved ex boss and her lack of bestowing to me my final months payment. But things were looking hopeful a while back, I got some money from her, and, the rest would be along as soon as she could check some things, so I hoped, that, with a little patience and some nagging, I would get the remainder. Hope is now gone. I am just fed more and more excuses as to why I have to pay for the schools increasing incompetence. I guess it's now time to threaten them with the labour board and immigration, which is what I probably should have done..about 5 months ago. Korean hogwan (private school) owners seem to be a nasty bunch. Every teacher here, if they haven't been robbed or abused in some way by their school, knows someone who has and it's a taste that spoils the experience in Korea, because, often, they will be nice, friendly, even reasonable, right up until it comes to the point of been paid, and then you start to wonder about the rest of the Koreans you know and work with. A friend of mine summed it up I think with the following:"Koreans, there lovely, unless they owe you money, or your leaving your job" good job that doesn't happen much with us wayguks (foreigners) on our year contracts eh?

Apologies

2007-05-31T14:30:00.000+01:00

Many apologies to all my regular readers Mr D and Greg in particular. It was not my intention to cause you any undue distress or offence by naming only Frin as a regular reader in my previous post. The reason for Frin's singular mention was due to a recently received e-mail in which she berated me for my lack of recent Blogness. I was unaware of, (and indeed, taken surprise by) the passion with which my other readers followed my humble blog, and so, once more I offer my sincerest apologies, rest assured no slight was in anyway intended to the rest of you.

Longtime no blog

2007-05-30T11:51:00.000+01:00

Well, apologies to any of my regular readers (Frin) for not updating for a while, but I still think I'm more frequent than Mr D's Blog has been recently. What's up Mr D? Anyway, on to Ste news. There is big news, and, Greg will be pleased to know that it's almost juicy. Rachel, my girlfriend, came over for a visit. Being a little crazy she only just spent longer here than the actual time it took to travel to and from here. Apologies to Penny for increasing our carbon footprint. Still, a good time was had, much food was eaten, and some minor tourist/ shopping activities were undertaken. Other highlights would be the noraybang, or, for our English speaking readers, Karaoke. It differs from the UK variant in that you have your own little room and it's just you and your mates, a book full of song titles, large screen TV and a remote control, so your only singing/ making a fool of your self in front of people you know. Rachel has a surprisingly deep singing voice, and belted her way through a few classics. She left on Monday night after visiting an Ergonomics professor at a University. Fun Fun Fun. Other than that...I've been quite busy, head over here at my photo a week blog where I'm going to try and back date some photos from the missing weeks. Hope alls well with you dear read, whoever you are, send me an e-mail, let me know :)

A tightrope walk.......

2007-05-05T11:19:00.000+01:00

In Seoul this week it's been the 'Hi Seoul Festival' and as part of this there has been tight rope walking competition across the river Han. I thought this would be a good thing to see, so after checking the time by phoning tourist information, I trekked across Seoul on the subway. I followed the directions from the subway and found myself at the Han, looking at the wire strung across. I spotted another wayguk, and enquired if he knew when it was starting, but as he didn't know I sat down to wait. A few moments later things took a decidedly troubling turn of events. The barriers around the tightrope towers were been taken down. An enquiry of the barrier removers told me that, contrary to the posted time, and the time given by tourist info, the high wire competition didn't in fact finish at 6pm, but had already finished somewhere around lunch....
I wasn't happy.

Thousands of Japanese scammed: sold sheep and told they were poodles

2007-04-28T14:52:00.001+01:00

Flocks of sheep were imported to Japan and then sold by a company called Poodles as Pets, marketed as fashionable accessories, available at $1,600. Ha!

read more | digg story

Cheers for this story Greg, but, unfortunately, it's a fake :(

Stewils online!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2007-04-22T14:45:00.001+01:00

Well, I now have a web site!!!!! YAY!! Well, I suspect it's going to be even more of a white elephant than this here blog, but, my thinking was I could put up some of my favourite pictures and maybe a few other bits and pieces, although what is as yet to be decided. Any suggestions will be welcome. The thinking behind this endeavour is that, as I am now spending most afternoons sitting behind a desk, being bored, creating this wonder of technical achievement will keep me suitably occupied. Maybe. It can be found here and, as you can see there is MUCH work to be done.

Busy Busy

2007-04-16T13:15:00.000+01:00

Been busy this weekend, went to see the cherry blossom with Min on Sat at Yoido, then Sunday I went way up north of Seoul to see the Seoul Motor Show. Many photos were taken of many pretty models, and I'll be posting some on flickr as soon as I've culled the number of shots down to a manageable amount. In other new, went skating with my students last Thurs morn, which was fun, and did absolutely no work whatsoever on Fri, as the morning lessons were cancelled as the kids once again went skating. So there you go.

Wot, no signal?

2007-04-03T11:29:00.001+01:00

Wot, no signal?
Originally uploaded by stewils.

Just one last thing, that may, or may not, give you an insight into Korea. So there I am, at the top of this mountain, miles (well subjectively so) from anywhere, enjoying the peace, tranquillity and remoteness of it all, and then the phone rings. Well it didn't, but it had the potential to, thanks to these things, a solar powered mobile phone transmitter stuck at regular intervals on the top of the hill.....

Hiking

2007-04-02T14:00:00.000+01:00

On Friday I left work early with a few other teachers on a 'training afternoon' or something. Apparently we get these things once a month. This month it was hike up Soraksan (Sorak Mt) and a good day it was. The view of Seoul were mindboggeling, the endless rows of apartments representing soooooo many people. The hike was good too, the weather was good, and the walk along the ridge, while not quite Helvellan, was enough to keep you very very focused on not plummeting to the ground. I'll leave you with a pnoramic view from the top, and, if anyone knows how to get rid of the join lines, let me know, please.

The Blog Problem

2007-03-26T01:36:00.001+01:00

What, you may ask, is the problem with blogs? Well, once they exist, they need to be fed with a constant stream of, as Mr D would say, interesting and pithy remarks in order to keep them and alive and prevent them from becoming old and dying and that is the problem with blogs, or perhaps more pointedly my blog. I feel I should update it, keep it alive, let people know whats going on, but nothing much has happened really, no points from the last week coming rushing to mind as 'THINGS TO BLOG' which is why this particular post doesn't actually say anything at all about anything much, but I've used up quite a few lines saying it, so that's OK.

Time.....

2007-03-15T05:22:00.000Z

Well, things are settling in well, the TV arrived yesterday, the internet and more TV channels than i can imagine are arriving tomorrow and my stuff that I left here will be arriving on Sunday so it's all good. With a bit of luck I'll be able to ride my bike (bicycle that is, not motor)to work on Monday. Other exciting news...er....ok, there IS no other exciting news.

Introductions

2007-03-09T02:31:00.000Z

Well, my first day at the new school, and already i have time on my hands until lunch. All seems to be going well, I've watched/ taken part in two lessons this morning and have two more this afternoon....busy busy busy.
This could mean that I'll have to change my blog title by removing the word intermittent, as I think I'll probably be posting a little bit more.

The New Place

2007-03-08T12:58:00.000Z

Well, I've arrived at my new place, and very nice it is too. About the same size as the other, but a better layout. The schools provided me with a new set of furniture too, which is nice. Hopefully i should be able to get the internet up and running by next week. School seems nice, everyonne was very friendly. Dept head took me out for food. My co- teacher is nice too, so the signs are, currently, faverable for a good year.

Back in the South

2007-03-08T11:49:00.000Z

As the more observant of you will notice, this has already been posted on my other blog, but was supposed to put up here...
Well, I'm once more in the Seoul area about to start a teaching job. This time I working at an elementary school near the Mia-sagorey station up on the blue line in the NE of the city, which is good as it's close to Ben and Sarah, so I'll have some friends not to far away. I'm currently at a conference center in the middle of nowhere learning the basics about Korean with about 50 other teachers. It would be great if this was my first time here, but not quite so good for a lot of us who have already been here. It's not too bad, but the combination of the location, the loose schedule, (which I'm not complaining about) and a lack of wifi means there is a lot a free time with not a great deal to do. Still, having fun getting to know my fellow teachers. Right I have to head off now, so I'll update later.
Ste

The End is Nigh

2007-02-14T12:09:00.001Z

Well, the flight back is now booked and I'll be leaving sunny Blighty on the 28th of this month. Currently waiting for my documents to return from Korea, so I can send them to the Embassy here and get my visa. The courier seems to be a little slow on the return journey, must be overcompensating for the almost impossibly quick journy my docs took to Korea.

In other news, I visited my friend Phillipa in Bangor. She was very pregnant, but otherwise fine. It was good to see her and Simon again. She's now no longer pregnant, but a new mum with a healthy 3 day old boy. Hope she dosn't mind me putting that up here.

Happy valentines day.

I've got a job

2007-01-30T21:56:00.000Z

Well, I've got a job offer from the Seoul Government school program, which is good.
It means a more stable job with less work to be done and slightly better hols for next year, which is always a good thing.
On the down side I'm not sure where in Seoul I'll end up as it could be at any of their schools. I've mentioned a preferance for the east side of Seoul, but where I end up is anyones guess.

Sunny Keighley

2007-01-26T12:17:00.000Z

Well, I'm back in the UK now, been back at the parents for about 4 days, and they are starting to drive me insane, and everything smells of mothballs. Might be time to escape.

Harbin Ice and Snow Pics

2007-01-23T22:00:00.000Z

Ice Ice Baby

2007-01-18T02:22:00.000Z

Well, good news, finally got tickets sorted and will be returning to the UK over the weekend. Bad news, the Boss didn't get them sorted. Good news, she apologised and said she'll send me the money. Bad news, she also said the woman who does the money isn't speaking to her anymore.
Any way, back to Harbin. I've been having a fairly chilled time here. Muriel has been working in the mornings, and I've had limited Internet access, so I've had to sit around and veg. It's a hard life. On Tuesday we went to see the 'Harbin Ice World' which was a little disappointing. Lots of buildings made of ice with lights in them. Ironically this year the ice world was sponsored by the Korean tourist board, and a lot of the buildings were Korean historical ones. I'm sure i recognised the south gate near Suwon fortress, and Namdeamun gate was probably there as well. The cool think about the ice world was the slides. The one down the great wall of china was very fast, and to stop you collided with a bank of snow.

Yesterday we went to see the snow sculpture park, which was perhaps more of what i was expecting from the other place. Lots of very good sculptures carved out of snow. The centre piece of this was a 20m sculpture of Indians crossing the bearing strait and an equally large Niagara falls complete with the 'Maid of the Mist' sailing out.
Which links nicely with one of my favorite bits of Chinese English I've seen. On the map of the park, the Maid of the Mist was titled, 'Young Girl of Fog'. Well I thought it was funny. Right, I have to head out now, but I'll post a couple of Ice and Snow pics when I get the chance.

Cold Cold Harbin

2007-01-15T04:33:00.000Z

Well, I've arrived safely in China and am just vegging for a few days.
Which is nice. Have been shopping in Harbin and now own a pair of nice thermal
trousers. Keep me warm when we go to look at the ice sculptures tommorow night.

All would be well if I knew when i was leaving, but as my boss still hasn't sent me the ticket details....
Well, if they havn't arrived by tommorow I'll get my own. It's vry annoying though. I mean how difficult can it be? Or just send me a mail saying she'll give me cash instead, stop me waiting around like a muppet....

Anyway, Harbin...a couple of pics.

This is the old orhtodox church.

Cash but no flights

2007-01-10T14:23:00.000Z

Well, good news is I've been paid last months wage, and the remnants of my bonus, after a years tax has been paid too. At least I'm farily certain the bonus has, as I asked for that to be put into my UK account, so it will probably take a day or so to clear. Still no flight news yet....

Still No Cash

2007-01-10T09:35:00.000Z

My boss assures me that a) I will be paid and b) she will get the flight info as an e-ticket.
Both these things will happen before I sleep tonight.
My trust is wearing thin.

It shouldn't be this difficult.

2007-01-10T05:28:00.000Z

Well, here I am, last day in Korea, my boss STILL hasn't sorted out my ticket home from China, or given me the cash. Sh also hasn't paid me my wage (1/2 paid so far) for my last month, or my last salary bonus, AND she tells me thay havn't payed tax for me all year, and now the government wants it all, and it's ok if i pay that isn't it? NO IT'S NOT! I've a feeling i'm going to get ripped off, but, I'm about to pay the school one last visit in the hopes of getting my cash. Then it's off to china tommorow. YAY.

The Class

2007-01-04T15:12:00.001Z

Well, just a quick post of a pic showing my students who have been mostly fun, if , at times very frustrating to teach. Don't they look angelic??

They are:
Robin, John (trouble), Cindy,
Emily, Dorothy, Nana (Frighteningly clever)

New Blog Toy and New Blog

2007-01-03T13:43:00.000Z

Well, I've found a great new toy, roll over most links in the blog, pause for a second and a thumbnail of the page pops up. Cool eh? The other news is that, along with a bunch of other people at a site called DP Challenge have set up blogs for a photo a day, or in my case, a photo a week.

The Last Day

2006-12-29T10:04:00.000Z

Well, thats it. I've finished work. Taught my last class. Said goodbye to my kids. Bit sad really. I'll miss them a little. So now I have a week to sort out my things and spend a little more time on the job hunt thing before leaving on the 11th of Jan!

The End is Nigh

2006-12-22T11:25:00.000Z

Well, after 10 months I've just had my last yoga class and said good bye to Min, though I'm sure I'll see her again before I leave. It's finally starting to hit home that I'm almost leaving. Yoga has been good, if painfull. I can now touch my toes, and sit up stright with my legs crossed, though both these acheviments still hurt. I've only one week left of teaching too, which is nice. I'll be leaving here on the 11th then visiting my friend in Harbin, China and taking lots of pics of the ice sculpturesn (random page with some pics) and being very cold. Then I'll be heading back to Blighty, at a piont as yet unconfirmed, as the travel agent has to work out whats happening, which seems to be a more complicated affair than in the UK.
I look forward to seeing you all in Jan, have a great Christmas, and New Year.
See soon.
Ste

Snow

2006-12-17T10:17:00.000Z

It started to snow last night.
It stopped this morning.
There's about 4inches of it now.

Hong Kong and back.

2006-11-26T11:13:00.000Z

Well, it's been an interesting weekend. A friend of mine, Rachel, was over in Hong Kong for Hols, so I managed to get a Friday off work and nipped over to see her for the weekend. Much fun was had and a few pictures taken, but it almost didn't happen...

It was a bit of a last minute thing, (Ste, leaving things till the last min, surly not I hear you say) I'd sent an e-mail to the travel agent the week before to get the tickets booked, phoned to check the dates, and even sent payment details...however, I did feel something wasn't quite right, a certain lack of urgency on the part of the travel agent perhaps. Well, thought I, the agency says the tickets are booked, so, I'll pick them up, pay for them, then go straight to the airport.
I arrived at the travel agents with much time to spare before my 8pm flight, sat down, the lady showed me the flight details and then I had a sinking feeling...the seats were booked for dates in December! When I mentioned this her face dropped, the key board was frantically tapped to get a flight booked in about 3 hours time. One was found, the details printed and off I ran across COAX to the city air terminal, only to get a phone call from the travel agent that she'd printed off the wrong details and that she too was sprinting towards the air terminal...
So, now I have tickets to get me to Hong Kong and back, and I'm ready to jump on the bus to the Airport (about an hour drive) with the correct tickets to catch the 8pm flight. It's now 5.45pm and Seoul is just getting warmed up into rush hour.
The plane left at 7.45pm, I eventually arrived at the airport at 7.25pm thinking, they're not going to let me on, they're not going to let me on!!!
I staggered up to the check in desk and breathed a sigh of relief as I was asked if I wanted a window seat, then despaired moments later as I was asked where my re-entry permit was. In all the excitement I'd forgotten that my working visa was single entry only! The man behind the desk took pity on me took me to the right immigration office in the airport, explained to the lady behind the desk, then pushed me into the thankfully small line for passport control and hand baggage checks. I'd made it, with about 5 mins to spare before boarding closed.

After all that it was great to have short break from Korea and chill. Friday was an easy day wandering around and cathing up. We visited Macau on Sat, which was nice, but we didn't hit any of the casinos that it's famous for. We did how ever fall from grace as we had a Mc Donalds, then went stright across the street to starbucks for coffee. Slack, I know.
I'll leave you with this picture from the trip, which, for some reason, made me smile.

Same Old Same Old

2006-11-08T12:54:00.000Z

Well, things are plodding along here, nothing much happening of note. Sad but true. Works ok, although there does appear to be dark clouds on the horizon. A couple of the Korean teachers are leaving, either because they are moving on, or there's lots of Korean politics going on that flies right over my head. There seems to be a rash of kids leaving aswell, but on the other hand a couple of the classes have grown too, so it's probably just the way things go here.
In other job related news I had the saddest conversation ever with a seven year old the other day. In the course of a lesson I asked 'So whats your favorite toy?' to which he replied, 'well I don't have any toys' 'None!' asked I with icredulity, 'What do you do for fun?' and now came the equally as tradgic respose 'Well most of my schedule is taken up with lessons, im always busy doing.....'
What is this country doing to it's children? Still, his English is amazing..

Right I've waffeled enough for now, but I'll try and post here a little more. Some of you may (ie Diccon) the new toy in the side bar, show where in the world your looking at this from. Oh, an I think I might put up a couple of work related pics here and Flickr, as thats not really something about my time here I ever mention. Let you see a couple of their angelic faces and maybe some of the other teachers. And somebody leave some comments, let me know whats happening back home.

The holidays over

2006-10-12T17:22:00.001+01:00

Well, the holiday is over. Well it was over on Monday, as that’s when I had to return to work, but Alex didn’t depart till last night. It’s been a fairly hectic week, been running round Seoul visiting all the tourist stuff. Highlights include the trip to the JSA where North and South meet, the ‘we still don’t like the Japs’ prisoner of war camp and the trip out to Hundai to hit the night clubs. I’m still sorting through the pics, so a slightly more detailed retrospective will be arriving via here and Flickr, I’ll leave you with my fave shot from the JSA to keep you entertained.

The JSA

2006-10-12T17:17:00.000+01:00

This was taken in the Joint Security Area which is the N/ S border. The two blokes are N Korean soldiers watching us watching them....

2006-09-25T14:18:00.000+01:00

Yet more new blog toys....
This one won't see much use, but it's great...
Click here
and you'll get a page almost EXATLY like this one, except for a rather nice little chat window. You can embed them aswell, thought given the vast amount of traffic through this site (ie, me and the occasional unlucky soul to stumble in here looking for something else) the chance of two people been here at the same time seem, to say the least, remote. So I'll just put the link in, then, poor soul, whoever you are, just before you migrate to web pages more interesting, you can click, think 'yeah thats quite cool' and then move on.

In other news my mate Alex is coming over this Thursday for a couple of weeks so that should be good. Showing him the joys of Seoul. I'll post an update post visit, and maybe a couple of pics. Bet you can hardly wait.
Ste

Someones used one of my pics!!!!

2006-09-07T14:00:00.000+01:00

For anyone who cares, one of my pics is being used here
in a bird watching in Thailand site. The feathered kind, no really.
Anyway, go have a look, my pics a the bottom of the page.

Slide Shows

2006-08-17T16:18:00.000+01:00

Not that I'm bored or anything, or becoming obsessed with sticking the the digital equvilent of bling in my blog, but i stumbled across this today and thought it was cool, so heres yet another way to show off my pics...theres another one living in the footer....

Breathe in, breathe out....

2006-08-14T11:10:00.000+01:00

This would be the aforementioned Yoga instructor that is min Kyung. Dosn't like having her pic taken, which is a shame. Only managed this one due to the joys of the zoom lens.

No dog, no cry

2006-08-14T04:05:00.000+01:00

Well, Chico left last Monday to spend the rest of his time in Seoul with Ben and Sarah. I've missed him a little. When I went over to B&S's on Thurs he went absolutly crazy...obviously plesed to see me. :) In other news, things are going well with my yoga instructor, which is nice. All I need to do now is learn Korean...

My Dog...not for dinner.

2006-08-04T10:53:00.000+01:00

This is my dog (but only for 5 days). I'm not sure he likes me.
He just kinda stares at me accusingly. Think he's missing his family, all this moving around is stessing him a little..bless.

Who's next?

2006-08-04T08:18:00.000+01:00

Who's next?
Originally uploaded by stewils.

This was taken at Moran market (down on the yellow line, any date with a 4 or 9 in it). Koreans eat dogs, they don't like to talk much about it, you have to know where the restraunts are, and it's usually a bloke thing, but they still eat them. They realy didn't like me taking pics though....

Small Dogs

2006-08-02T14:13:00.000+01:00

Well, i am now, for the first time in my life, the owner of a small dog. It's only temp, i'm baby siiting for for friend, but even so...I have to now think about walks....getting home in time...and other exciting things. I'll let you know how it goes. Heck, i'll even post a phot of the little chap, but i think he's a little over whelemed at the moment.

Join The Marines

2006-07-26T11:43:00.000+01:00

A small girl with a slightly inappropriate t-shirt

2006-07-23T05:44:00.000+01:00

The Picasso Exhibition in Seoul. most of the paintings seemed to be of naked women with displaced anatomy.

The South Gate

2006-07-14T19:31:00.000+01:00

The South Gate
Originally uploaded by stewils.

Just a picture if the old South Gate of Seoul.

Food glorious Food

2006-07-12T14:55:00.000+01:00

Well, in the absence of anything new to right, I'll go with a general update.
The first thing, and I've been meaning to post this for a while, is the wonderful new foods I recently experienced. The first local delicacy I tried was Chickens feet. Mmmm mmm mmm is what I know you’re all thinking, but, depressingly, it's chewy and bony. The second item on the menu is another part of a chickens anatomy which isn't usually associated with the thought 'tasty snack’ Can you guess what it is yet?
Chickens sphincter. This also falls into the category of chewy and tasteless, though it's rubbery as opposed to the feet, which are bony.
The third and perhaps the most exotic, but also the best tasting was soju and tuna eyeball. This was sampled at a sushi restaurant, and its good review may, in part, be accounted for by the previously imbibed bottles of the aforementioned drink. The eyeball is dropped in the soju, mixed until gone, then handed out to unsuspecting/ pissed foreigners for an exorbitant price. Still tasted ok.

In other news it's raining, hot and humid. Air con is wonderful and Korean drivers are really really bad.

Photos can be found as always on the link over there --->
Have a look and leave some comments...please!

Be the Reds

2006-06-17T11:31:00.000+01:00

Be the Reds
Originally uploaded by stewils.

Be the Reds

2006-06-17T11:30:00.000+01:00

Be the Reds
Originally uploaded by stewils.

Be the Reds

2006-06-17T11:29:00.000+01:00

Be the Reds
Originally uploaded by stewils.

Photos from the first Korea world cup game.

Eat, Sleep, Teach, Yoga...

2006-06-01T13:39:00.000+01:00

Well, I thought I’d update this thing, not that there’s much to tell really.
More pics can be found, or will shortly be found (that’s tomorrows mission) on my Flickr site, the links just over there on the right. So what news…well, not a great deal really. I have a bicycle, and it’s very nice. A Schwimm if anyone’s interested. I’m told by Diccon and Greg that it’s worth sending home when I leave here. Works keeping me busy, but I’ve currently got a couple of days off, I’m just vegeing and catching up, hence the update here. Yoga is going well, I can now touch my toes with relative ease, something I couldn’t even get close to doing before I started 4 months ago.
Hope all well with you, leave a comment an let me know. Go look at the pics, they tell what I’ve been up to for the past few months far more eloquently.

Ste

2006-03-13T14:19:00.000Z

Just a couple of shots of kids and classroom.

Doesn't she look sweet?

And there they are playing happily.

2006-02-24T14:12:00.000Z

The Old South gatte of the city.

2006-02-24T14:11:00.002Z

The aformentioned small funfair.

2006-02-24T14:11:00.001Z

Freedoms Bridge. This is the railway line running from South to North Korea in the DMZ - De-Militerised Zone, along one of the worlds most heavily fortified boarders, just next to the small funfair....

2006-02-24T14:11:00.000Z

War Memorial for the Korean War

2006-02-24T14:10:00.000Z

Nang de mun market Seoul.

Oasis in Seoul

2006-02-22T12:58:00.000Z

Well, surprisingly, it’s been an eventful week. The news being that I’ve started Yoga classes. Yep, Yoga. I’m not entirely sure about it being relaxing though, I spend most of my time concentrating far too hard on keeping my body in as close an approximation of the required position as possible. It hurts as well, still, with a bit of luck I’ll achieve my goal of being able to touch my toes, something I’ve not been able to since….well as long as I can remember really. The other big event this week was the Oasis concert. Yep, Oasis, in Seoul. Who knew? Ben’s friends (Ben of Ben and Sarah, who put me up for a while when I came out here and was job hunting) had a spare ticket, so I snapped that up last week. The concert was great, singing along to Wonderwall etc.
The venue was quite small and we had a good view from the floor. Distressingly Koreans aren’t quite as short as most of you believe so there was need of the occasional use of the elbow in order to stand behind the more traditional short people. I also learned that ‘Oasis’ is a three syllable word (O—ay—sees).
Some shockingly bad footage from my mobile can be found here. You can just about tell it's wonderwall if you listen very hard.

And I thought I’d have nothing to write about.

Ste

Happy New Year

2006-02-07T10:42:00.000Z

Well, it's back to the grindstone after a wonderful week off courtesy of Chinese new year.And what a great week.It started with some trepidation as Rachel (probably the only person whose going to read this, at least before it gets edited at her recommendation) was coming over. I didn't really know her. What would she think of Korea, this been her first time in Asia, what would she think of the accommodation, i.e. the floor of my one room apartment, and what, finally, would she think of me once she got to know me a little more?
Fortunately all was well, we had a great week and got to see some tourist type things here in Seoul. Edited highlights would be a couple of palaces, markets (well she liked them, though on the plus side, I think I’ve found my dads late Christmas pressie) and a DVD room, which was agreed to be a good thing and should be imported to the UK.
The only down side to all of this is that the week is, alas, now over and Rachel has returned to the sunny UK, leaving Korea just a little less fun.

Erm

2006-01-21T14:12:00.000Z

So, I post here and this becomes my Blog?
What to Blog, that is the question.
I'm an English teacher in Soeul. Life's good.
Teaching small children, which is mostly fun, occasionally frustrating.
Wish I liked kimchee more, and I miss bacon sarnies.
I'm at loss what else to write now, so i'll stop here and see what, if anything happens.

Ste