Mr. Gorbachev, Tear Down this Wall!

The cherry blossoms came and went last week and Korea went crazy for them. Everyone was telling me to go out and see them before it was too late. So I did just that, I soon realised how my life has changed. I left my apartment on two different occasions to go and look at flowers. We care so little about nature in the Fennell household that we haven’t even bothered to put up a Christmas tree in the last two years.  The flowers were nice, and it gave me the opportunity to feature in the most Asian picture I’m ever likely to be in.

During the week I also managed to find a football team to play for. I’d be craving to play football having not kicked a ball in over 4 months. I turned up and no one spoke English and rather predictably I couldn’t speak Korean but as we all know I had no concerns, football is a universal language and I got on just fine. Playing with an entire team that you don’t know can be awkward but it makes it even more so when you can’t communicate at all. Hopefully it doesn't lead to me picking up a stupid accent like Joey Barton.

I watched Arsenal not win again on Saturday night. Despite not winning they still managed to (unconvincingly) progress to the FA Cup final. It’s slightly disappointing to say that the most celebrated goal of the season was a late equaliser against Wigan but even so football is about success and we won a huge game, an FA Cup semi-final. Having said that Arsenal have been getting a lot of stick about celebrating the victory too much as it was “just Wigan”. But it’s more than that, the celebrations were about getting to the final, getting the monkey off our backs, the possibility of tasting success for the first time in almost a decade, it shows how much this win meant to the players and the fans. In 21 games against Wigan we’ve beaten them 15 times so it’s not the victory we we’re celebrating. When it seems that the media is constantly against you, every set back is mocked, and Arsenal’s lack of a trophy for 9 years is highlighted every game, and when the team qualifies for the FA Cup final it’s still marked as they shouldn’t celebrate as they’ve only beaten Wigan (who are the current cup holders and the team who knocked out the favourites in the previous round). You can only tolerate this for so long so I say they can poke their opinion up their arses. I’m rather bored of hearing the same old drivel from the likes of Andy Townsend, Garth Crooks, Mark Lawrenson, Jamie Radknapp, Stan Collymore, David Pleat, Roy Keane, Michael Owen, Alan Shearer, the list goes on… Why aren’t these punditry jobs given to statisticians who can back up opinions with facts and figures, or to respected journalists who have a record of being unbiased and informative? Instead they go to former professionals who offer no insight. As Karl Pilkington put it these people are like dung beetles pushing bullshit around the room.

Arsenal won the penalty shoot-out, they progressed to the FA Cup final, and I for one am going to enjoy it. I’m just hoping we can see another fortunate result in the final against Hull City (just less stressful this time, please).

On Sunday we did a spot of sightseeing and went to Berlin Square. It was less of a square and more of a corner. Interesting to see the wall but it is still only 3 blocks of concrete.

Here are a series of pictures of me with famous walls. Wall-to-wall walls.

The Berlin Wall

The Great Wall of China

Hadrian’s Wall

Wall-e

No bullshit. 

After we went to an all you can drink makgeolli bar. Makgeolli’s not bad, it’s basically alcoholic milk. All you can drink is always a challenge, not the best idea on a Sunday evening but it’s never stopped me before.

Anyway, off to Busan this weekend for a peasant reunion.

Ain't No Mountain High Enough

It’s been a while since the last instalment from The Tefl-on Don. On my latest adventure I went hiking, a pretty nerdy activity. The only other time I’ve had the opportunity to go hiking was when I was at school and it was part of the Duke of Edinburgh Award. Do you want to give up your weekends to hike on a wet Welsh mountain, or to volunteer at cleaning arses an old people’s home, or how about getting molested by a “supervisor”? Maybe that’s why I’ve never been hiking before because I associate it with shitty arses and paedophilia. Anyway, that’s the Duke of Edinburgh in a nutshell.

I rounded the troops and we went hiking up Achasan Mountain (possibly the smallest mountain in Seoul, but still a mountain all the same). Hung over from a steady Friday night in Cheonho it didn’t seem like such a good idea that morning but we powered through. It was a steady stroll to the top, not too steep but pretty long. The higher you go the better the view, at only 287m high it didn’t take too long to get to the top but even so it was high enough for me.  I can tick it off the bucket list now and can write off climbing Everest, I’m content with that. We found a viewing point and we cracked open the soju. After such an achievement it seemed rude not to have a celebratory drink. It probably wasn’t the best idea to have a few drinks and then stumble down the mountain but never mind. As we enjoyed the view it was perfect for a photo opportunity. I pulled out my Arsenal flag that I kept quiet from the guys and held it proud (even despite the shocking end to the season that we’re currently having). I stood there with Karl as two true Brits abroad. Karl wearing his Nottingham Forest shirt and the Arsenal flag blowing in the wind, you can take the boys out of England… The only things missing were our Union Jack shorts and bright red British tans.

We decided to carry on the trail which for some reason continued up, we in fact weren’t at the top of the mountain so we carried on, finally we reached the summit. Having reached the top officially we had to drink some more soju just to make the arrival official.

We sat down on the grass and enjoyed the view. For only the second time in Korea I was racially targeted. A Korean guy told us to get off the grass as there was a sign which said we couldn’t sit there, understandable I suppose. So we got up and moved but he didn’t seem to mind the other 20-30 Korean people sitting on the grass. Maybe the sign said “No dirty foreigners are allowed to sit on the grass”. I should have remained seated and I would have been known as the Rosa Parks of Achasan Mountain. I’ll know for next time.

One of the problems with being at the top of a mountain slightly hung over is that after walking for many miles you have to walk all the way back down. You start to question whose stupid idea was this? Then I realised it was mine.

We reached the bottom and Scott’s pedometer read that we had hiked 9 miles. It got me thinking about the song by Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell – Ain’t No Mountain High Enough. The lyrics to that song are:

There ain't no mountain high enough
Ain't no valley low enough
Ain't no river wide enough
To keep me from getting to you

They’d obviously never hiked a mountain between them. I'd just hiked a mountain - there are plenty of mountains high enough to keep me from plenty of people. It's exhausting. I don’t think I like anyone enough to climb a mountain just to see them. What kind of person says that, anyway?

“Where are you?”

“I'm on the other side of a mountain, through a low valley, and across a river. If you want to see me then you've got to go through that.”

Not worth it.

Anyway, it was another new adventure for the Tefl-on Don. Maybe I’ll do it again, who knows? 

Losing Feels Worse than Winning Feels Good

Anyone that’s in the know has found out that Josh has gone home. For his own personal reasons he has decided to bring his Korean adventure to an end and head home back to Bedford. This was strange for me, since arriving in Korea I was welcomed by Josh, James, and Susie and settled into life very quickly. A little over 3 months later and James and Josh have both departed, as it happened Susie was busy this weekend so I had my first weekend without any of them. I felt like Heather Mills, something was missing.

In all honesty I didn’t think Josh would go although maybe it’s a good thing that he’s gone. In the absence of James and Josh I might learn some more Korean and it’s likely I’ll meet some new (hopefully more interesting) friends. C’est la vie. “I hope you ready for the next episode. Heyyeyyeyay!...”

Anyway, I went to watch White Lies with Angie during the week. They’re an English rock band but I’d never heard of them. We arrived at the venue and they didn’t serve beer. Yeah that’s right, they didn’t have beer at a music gig, mental. Standing in the crowd I felt very old. I’m only 24 but felt 44. I had come straight from work so I was dressed in work attire. I looked at the young people around me and they were wearing vests and baseball caps backwards and I was dressed like a teacher, jumper over the shirt look. I didn’t know any of the songs. I was holding both of our coats, and as my sober mind wandered I started to look around at the venue and I had the most boring thought ever known to man; “isn’t the brickwork lovely?” I mean the brickwork was delightful, but Christ! Could I get any more boring?

Watching a gig in Korea was different to any that I have been to back in the UK. No beer, no moshing, no cups of piss being thrown. If there was a suggestions box at the venue I’d have suggested “more piss, please.” One other thing that annoyed me about the gig was the bassist. He was sweating throughout the gig but he never removed his beanie hat, I needed to have a word with him. Having said all of that, the band weren’t bad and I had a good time.

We took a trip to Gyeongbokgung Palace on Saturday and it was very interesting. I went with Karl and managed to time it well enough to get to the palace for the English guided tour, we had 20 minutes to kill but our boredom took over. We went off exploring around the palace grounds on our own. I managed to piece it all together anyway, that building was the king’s throne room, that one was his bedroom with en suite, that was his walk-in wardrobe, that one was his games room, and that one was his kitchen with adjacent conservatory. A nice place, I wouldn’t buy it though, too many tourists and with a place that big people would be expecting to stay over all the time.

We saw the changing of the guards, a bit of a drawn out occasion.

The guard were dressed in traditional apparel, they went a little far with the dodgy stick on beards though.

After we went to Itaewon to a sports bar, a big weekend of football for both Karl and I. Chelsea vs. Arsenal and Derby vs. Nottingham Forest. Unsurprisingly the bar opted for the Chelsea vs. Arsenal game. To be honest, it didn’t really matter which game they put on, both teams got hammered. This was another game that I’ve watched Arsenal lose since leaving the UK. I noticed this pattern a few weeks back, I haven’t seen Arsenal win a game live on TV since leaving the UK back in November.

This is a list of Arsenal games I’ve watched live since leaving the UK:

11^th December, 2013 – Napoli 2-0 Arsenal

14^th December, 2013 – Man City 6-3 Arsenal

23^rd December, 2013 – Arsenal 0-0 Chelsea

8^th February, 2014 – Liverpool 5-1 Arsenal

12^th February, 2014 – Arsenal 0-0 Man Utd

19^th February, 2014 – Arsenal 0-2 Bayern Munich

8^th March, 2014 – Arsenal 4-1 Everton*

22^nd March, 2014 – Chelsea 6-0 Arsenal

* I watched the first 60 minutes of the game before leaving the pub while the score was 1-1.

The best 2 results I’ve seen have been two 0-0 draws. A depressing 4 months, I can tell you! I even went to “support” Seoul FC in their opening game of the new season and guess what? They lost as well!

8^th March, 2014 – Seoul FC 0-1 Jeonnam Dragons

I’m hoping that the next few Arsenal games are an improvement; we’ve got an important cup game coming up soon. Maybe I shouldn’t watch it? Probably for the best.

Work is the Curse of the Drinking Class

A while since the last; here’s another edition from The Tefl-on Don with two weekends to catch up on.

Another week gone by and more exciting activities ticked off that I’ve never done before. This travelling malarkey’s quite fun! Every Friday I have usually finished work by 10:50am and in an attempt to not waste (nearly) an entire day off I decided to go to the Seoul Olympic Park, or Olpark for short. It’s started to warm up here, and by that I mean it’s just about above 0°C, so time for a brisk stroll. I got there and there wasn’t much happening, many arenas and stadiums but on a clear day I didn’t want the crowds just somewhere nice to walk. As I wandered I looked at all the art dotted around the park in celebration of the opening of the 1988 Summer Olympic Games. I’m not really into art, for some people it’s used to express themselves in ways that words can’t, for others it’s used for seeking unnecessary attention such as this man. This particular art student decided to lose his anal virginity on stage, in front of his peers as part of a university project. He’s just a poor man’s Paris Hilton. There were kids at my school that got in trouble for fingering girls by the bike sheds, but if you take a ride down a man’s dirt track on stage you’re an artist, apparently. 

I don’t know what these are about; a giant thumb and two attempts at a Scrapheap Challenge. The sculpture (right) was unnamed by the artist, to be honest I wouldn’t know what to call it either. Maybe, “Fuck it, that’ll do”. The park was very nice and I felt a certain pride to see the flags of my nations blowing in the wind.

Anyway, onto the main event of that particular weekend and we went to Seoul Race Park. I’ve never done a day at the races, I’ve always wanted to but it never seems to be something that you do on a whim. I met Josh and James at the subway station and we headed in. There were lots of sculptures of past winners around the grounds of the park, to a Korean racing aficionado they may be well known, but to me they were just horses. Upon closer inspection the sculptures had cocks, I know the artist wanted them to be as genuine as possible but honestly you can add too much detail sometimes.

We paid the enormous entry fee of ₩2,000 (£1.20) and headed for the bar, only to find no such thing. We saw a convenience store within the ground so we went over in an attempt to subtly drink a few cheeky cans, true class just like the Royle Family. But again, only disappointment. What do you do in that situation? We did like all other alcoholics living in denial and headed out of the Park to search for soju and beer. We found some easily, enjoyed one beer and took plenty of soju for the day ahead.

Once back inside we enquired into the logistics of gambling. I am familiar with the process having done it a few times in the past betting on the National but what made the selection process difficult was that all the horse names and betting form was in Korean (unsurprisingly), so I opted for numbers sticking with 4, 6, 7, 8, 10 and 14 (Vieira, Adams, Pires, Ljungberg, Bergkamp, and Henry if you’re wondering).

I wasn’t betting an awful lot but even so it was pretty exciting. A few races in and my plan wasn’t working – I was losing money! How could this be happening? Gambling is a sure fire way to make money, everyone knows that. Race by race I’d repeat the gamblers code “I’ll win the next one for sure. I’ll quit when I’m ahead. By the end of the day I’ll be a millionaire!” Then the unexpected happened, I won a race. Patrick Vieira came in! I collected my ₩20,000 winnings and was as happy as if I’d just won ₩2,000,000.

We decided to skip the last race and headed for Hongdae. James went to meet Susie and we decided to meet up later in FFs (a club we often frequent). James, still feeling a little tender from the night before had held back from the soju during the day which left more for Josh and I to drink. We continued drinking in Shamrock and Roll, an Irish pub in Hongdae at this point we realised how drunk we were. Christ, this is what happens when you start drinking at 3pm.The drinking didn’t stop there though. By the time James and Susie had arrived in FFs we were both passed out. I was completely asleep taking no notice of the 100 decibel music pumping from the speakers, and Josh semi-conscious in a state that James described as “couldn’t stand unaided”. Somehow we made it home.

I will now fast forward to the next weekend and it was a big one. We had two new arrivals, and two peasants came to visit all the way from Masan. The Friday night was my first exposure to Gangnam, the wealthy, upper class region of Seoul and probably the only place in Korea where it’s unacceptable to do the Gangnam Style dance. Alejandro set us up with free entry to a very swanky club, certainly too good for us. The bouncers looked down on us as our tragedy of commoners strolled in. Gangnam is good, rubbing shoulders with the elite, going to the nicer drinking holes, but only for one night. The girls were incredible, like nothing I’ve ever seen before. I’d brag to them about my seven-figure income and they’d walk away unimpressed like I am a short, overweight Russell Brand wannabe. A far cry from the girls of Nottingham, the kind of girls that would be impressed if you told them you had a job. But anyway, one of the main problems with drinking in Gangnam is the cost, something that will bleed your wallet dry. We opted for a cheaper option of making dashes to the nearest 7-Eleven to polish off a few bottles of soju and then head back to the club, past the judging bouncers, and onto the dance floor to enjoy the always delightful house and techno music. While everyone else was trying to keep face by giving the illusion they belonged in Gangnam our group was like the Price Harry of the party. A bunch of Jack the Lads crashing a party they shouldn’t be at.

We nursed Saturday’s hangover with some sightseeing around Dongdaemun. Later that afternoon I got the call I’d been waiting a few weeks for, Karl Egan had arrived in Seoul and was ready to get his drink on. Karl’s a good friend of mine from university. He's not from Brum, not from Leicester, not from Leeds, not from Manchester. He's from Nottingham, AKA Shottingham, Hottingham. (Although, he actually lives in D*rbyshire, but I won't tell anyone, Karl). Petro, Leon (the two peasants from Masan) and I met him and immediately went to Hongdae to meet up with Josh, James, Susie, and the other new arrival, Ben. We had a few drinks in Shamrock and Roll (surprise, surprise) and then went to FFs (surprise, surprise). A rather uneventful night, the usual drinking, storytelling, joking, laughing, occurred and we eventually got a cab home.

In the drunkenness Karl got in the front seat of the cab, and before we knew it everyone was asleep. We arrived in Kundae and the taxi driver was demanding ₩40,000 for a journey that shouldn’t even cost ₩15,000. In my best Korean I was trying to say that we wouldn’t pay that and that he was ripping us off, Karl still asleep during the commotion awoke to an angry Korean man shouting in his face demanding money. Karl had no idea what was going on which was hilarious. I had the opportunity to inform Karl of the situation but what kind of friend would I have been if I did that? The Korean man got louder and angrier and Karl began to get louder and angrier. Karl gave the driver ₩20,000 but the driver still wanted ₩40,000. Karl would shout “I’ve given you the money; I don’t know what you’re saying!” Karl then started to throw ₩1,000 notes at the driver and eventually told him to politely “go away”. Karl got out of the cab, angry but in a typically British fashion ‘I don’t know what you’re saying but I’m still right’ kind of attitude. It was one of the funniest things I’ve seen in Korea. We woke up on Sunday to discover Karl had lost his wallet and it was most likely lost in the taxi. This story sums up why Karl is one of the best and worst human beings I know.

Sunday’s hangover was rather bad. Two nights of drinking was taking its toll. So what better way to get over a hangover than go to Noryangjin fish market and eat raw fish?! There’s only one man to blame for such a silly idea and that is James. It was really interesting as it happens. You buy your fish from the market traders then take the fish to a restaurant to be cooked. The fish are still alive in tiny tanks, once picked out the fish receive a heartless blow to the head with a wooden stick, not a sight I needed to see when I was already close to vomiting. James and Susie put a selection of fish together which included salmon, flatfish, oysters, mussels, prawns, and live octopus. Not your typical hangover food. For the most part it was good food, I was slightly out of my comfort zone eating raw fish but YOLO ‘n that. The one thing I refused to eat was the live octopus. It had gone from straight out of the tank to cut up on a plate in a matter of minutes. When it is sliced apart the muscles continue to twitch for an hour, I just couldn’t eat it morally. During the meal beers and soju were ordered, this was not on my agenda for today but it continued. I lost count of how many drinks we had during that meal.

We headed out and as we were all saying our goodbyes someone suggested going to a noraebang (a karaoke bar). Going to a noraebang was not only not on my agenda for that day but it was not on my agenda for the entire year. I know I can’t sing, so why do I have to demonstrate it to my friends like I’m some delusional X Factor contestant? Luckily my friends were there to record it. I can only blame this misjudgement on the copious amount of alcohol consumed that weekend. 

With the exception of one final error of the weekend it’s been a cracking couple of weeks in the Land of the Morning Calm.