See You on the Other Side!

On the 25^th May, 2014 it had been 6 months since I left the UK. Nearly half way through and the time has gone so quickly. I’ve been quite lucky that I haven’t felt any homesickness, obviously it would have been nice to see friends and family during that period but it won’t be long until I’m back, and sparing any UKIP deportations everyone will be there waiting for me when I get home.

A reason why I possibly haven’t really felt any homesickness so far has been that I’ve been surrounded with familiar faces since leaving the UK. When I was in Thailand I met up with Amy and Kelsey, two girls from uni. In Australia, I met up with Ed and Amy, a couple of Bedford companions. I got to Korea and met up with Toner, a great friend from home. Soon after, Ben came out to visit for a week. In February, Karl, one of my best mates from uni, came to Korea to teach for the year. And most recently Kate, another mate from uni popped over to Korea to visit Karl and I as she was passing through Asia on her travels. In only a short period of time, I have gone from a tourist to a tour guide, as I showed Kate and her bum-chum Rose around the sights of Seoul. Although when most people think of Brendan the tour guide they immediately think of a flamboyant, overweight twat… Maybe it’s more accurate than I thought.

Kate and Rose arrived in Seoul to torrential rain. The heavens had opened despite my promises to Kate that it would be hot and sunny when they arrived. She was not impressed. We started the catch up with a few pints in the local, as we shared stories and got to know Rose a bit better. A quirky, fun individual to say the least!

Unfortunately, due to our teaching hours Karl and I couldn’t spend as much time as we had hoped with the girls during their stay, but this gave them some exploring of their own to do without us. There’s a lot to see and do in Soeul but when you’ve only got a week you have to start cramming. We suggested the truly touristy attractions; cat café, dog café, palaces, temples, museums, and of course soju and kimchee. Korea in a nut shell.

On Saturday we took a trip to the baseball. We found a good spot in the stand to watch the game and cracked the first beer open in the afternoon sunlight. It was nice for about 10 minutes but standing in the unbearable heat stops becoming fun very quickly. I soon became a hairy, sweaty mess. My chest was like a rain forest, my arse was like a swamp, and my bollocks had mushrooms growing on them. I spent most of the afternoon with my legs apart trying to give the twins some breathing space. And apparently the summer gets hotter here in Seoul, my heritage derives from Ireland and England, I wasn’t designed for the hot climates. I’m happy in the cold and rain, I’m a human slug.

I look so camp in this picture.

The baseball game was enjoyable despite “supporting” the team that got dicked 23-1. In attendance were Kate, Rose, Somi, Karl, Bernd, Angie, and I, we’re hardly what you’d call die hard baseball fans. Our excuse was to show Kate and Rose something different that they hadn’t experienced on their travels so far. In the crowd I happened to see this guy watching TV on his phone, upon further inspection he was watching the baseball game that was happening live in front of him.

If he had lifted his head up 20cm then he would have seen the game live. Baseball is hardly that interesting at the best of times, if you watch the game live and then watch the replay on your phone you’re only going to be bored twice.

As we were leaving the game we also saw this pair of sad acts.

“Together Since 2010.” So what? Rihanna and Chris Brown were together since 2008, and look how that turned out. (Although, based on the pictures Angie has been drawing of us maybe I shouldn’t comment on other cringey couples).

We showed the girls the highlights of the Hongdae night life. We went to the park and they got to meet the notorious Makgeolli Man.

Both Friday and Saturday night were filled with drunken adventures which ceased around 5am.

They said they had a great time in Korea, and would like to come back again. It was great having them here it’s just a shame it was only for a week. Korea is an awesome place, and you know the old saying ‘Once you go to Korea… you get gonorrhoea?’ I was trying to think of something more accurate, but that’ll do. 

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.

Fishing Is Boring, Unless You Catch an Actual Fish, and then it's Disgusting

Here’s the story of, possibly, the most random weekend of my life. It all started normally, Friday came around and it was pay day! This was the second time since leaving the UK that I was able to tick something off the bucket list, this time it was becoming a multi-millionaire. ₩2,100,000. I was debating whether to mention how much I got paid as I remembered the advice of The Notorious B.I.G. “Rule Nobre Uno: Never let no one know how much dough you hold, cause you know the cheddar breed jealousy ‘specially if that man fucked up, get yo’ ass stuck up”. But then I remembered the advice of Big Sean “I done paid taxes, paid dues, paid bills my whole life. So I’mma throw money in the air like I’m tryin’ to pay the sky”. So I’mma make it rain.

I met James and Josh at 11pm and decided to go for a few beers. The night started off slow and didn’t get into the rhythm of things until it was about 2:30am and we all realised ‘Shit! We’re all still sober!’ So we headed for a Ho Bar, got a bottle of Jack Daniels, and a fruit platter. We somehow became celebrities for the night in Ho Bar, so many Koreans approached us chatting away like we were important. I was feeling confident and fancied trying my luck with some of the local ladies. I saw a pairing and convinced Josh to be my wingman. We went over and it started really well, after about 10 minutes it was apparent that the girl I was talking to hated me. I don’t know what I said or did to upset her but she hated me. I had to leave; I made an excuse and went back to our table. Josh came over and asked how it was going, and I explained. He told me that he was getting on really well with his one and asked if I could go back with him as he hadn’t quite sealed the deal yet. Being the good friend that I am (and a little protesting) I went back with Josh to the girls and struck up another conversation with the girl that hated me. “Alright, remember me?  I’m the guy you loathe and can’t bear talking to. So, come here often?”

We awoke Saturday afternoon and didn’t feel too bad. Josh crawled out of bed and searched for a cigarette from the night before and he was in luck, he had one left. He lit it and casually sat on the arm of the sofa fag and coffee in hand. Me, probably still drunk from the night before, saw a pair of socks balled up on the floor. I thought it would be mildly funny to kick the socks at Josh while he sat blissfully. I kicked the socks so sweetly, they lifted off the ground and cleaned out the cigarette, leaving just the fag butt in Josh’s fingers. I have never kicked something so cleanly (not that surprising if you’ve seen me play football). It was like Becks-Fergie-boot-Gate all over again. Josh was furious. “What the fuck, bruv?!” I couldn’t stop laughing. We picked up the afternoon where we left off on Friday night, with beers and Soju.

The infamous socks with cigarette burn.

We had decided to have a ‘chilled one’ on Saturday due to our big plans on Sunday. Josh wanted to buy a ukulele, I wanted a curry, while James met Susie for dinner and a movie, and we all decided to meet for a few rounds of bowling that evening. We headed into Seoul but Josh and I didn’t fancy eating too early so we postponed the curry. We looked for an instrument shop but did not find one. So to make up for our lack of accomplishments we went to a bar. We carried on drinking and before we knew it, it was 11pm. We met James and Susie and found out that there would be an hour and a half wait for a bowling lane so we stayed in the bar. No ukulele, no curry, no bowling, just beer. We achieved nothing on Saturday, that’s the sort of thing alcoholics do. The only difference is that we didn’t drive home and crash into Snappy Snaps. We did however have an early night and retired from the bar at 3am. Early by recent weeks’ standards.

The big day had arrived, our major weekend plans were to go to the Hwacheon Sancheoneo Ice Fishing Festival. I didn’t know what to expect from such an event other than ice and fish. We left Seoul early on the two-and-a-half-hour coach journey north to Hwacheon (only 20 miles or so from North Korea. I know, we’re bloody nutters!). Around Hwacheon is where the rivers freeze first in Korea so it was rather chilly. We rodded up and found a few holes in the ice. It was quite funny for a while, we were even dancing on the ice to the terrible power ballads the event organisers had put on for us. Then the novelty wore off. Thousands of people on a river, in the cold, on the last day of the festival trying to catch the non-existing fish. Due to the lack of activity it became very boring very quickly. Inuits had been ice fishing for hundreds of years for survival; we had done it for 20 minutes and were already moaning about it. My only aim for the day was to catch one fish, a single, tiny, little fish. Then some activity, I saw fish in my hole, near my lure. The hook teases were circling my lure but not biting! I remained patient but still no luck. One buggar was just next to my hook, teasing me but looked uninterested. I was very animated on the ice. “Just bite the bloody hook! What’s wrong with you?!” I could never be a fisherman; you need to be calm and patient, not me. I lost my temper and just yanked my line. The hook wedged in the side of the fish and I pulled it out! I caught a fish! Then I thought “Argh! I caught a fish, what do I do?!” it was like the scene in The Inbetweeners. I was panicking holding the fish at arm’s length not knowing what to do. James, my saviour, came over and unhooked it and eventually, after dropping it, popped it in a bag. I caught a fish! I explained my method to Josh and he pointed that I hadn’t really caught a fish, rather I had hunted a fish. Either way, I was happy. James caught a fish not long after, this time through more traditional methods of waiting for it to hook onto the lure and pulling it out.

We headed off the ice for some food and alcoholic beverages (it had been about 8 hours since our last drink). I had my first taste of Makgeolli. A milk-like alcoholic drink, not bad. We wandered around the festival and came across the stupidest idea on the planet. There was an opportunity to catch fish with your bare hands. People would wade into ice-cold water, wearing nothing but a pair of shorts and a t-shirt and submerge themselves trying to catch a fish. A ridiculous idea. Unsurprisingly, James was up for it and tried his best to convince Josh, Susie, and I to do the same! We all protested saying how stupid it was. We wandered over to enquire about James doing it and the organiser said because we are foreigners we could all do it for free. Thanks mate! Not only is that pretty racist but the ₩12,000 (£7) fee being waived was hardly a tipping point, it was hardly the bargain of the century! James’ nagging continued and he wore us all down and we caved. “OK, James. I’ll risk pneumonia if you stop annoying me”. We all thought it would be a good idea to sink a few Soju’s for courage and to form some sort of beer blanket, it helped… a little. We went into the changing rooms and took off the many layers of clothes that we had on to opt for shorts and t-shirts in sub-zero temperatures. We stepped outside and it was mental, ludicrous. We sat of the side of the ice pond and the organisers selected a few people to take the first plunge in front of the hundreds of spectators, and surprise, surprise muggins was chosen. He tried to drag me in but I insisted “one toe at a time!” I got in, knee-deep in water that a polar bear would say was nippy. All I could hear was an eruption of laughter from my “friends” behind me. The “volunteers” waded into the centre of the pond and the games started, the chap with the microphone announced that on the count of 3 that we should all start splashing each other. I was not amused. I walked away from the splashing nonsense. The organiser next announced that we would all join hands and fall backwards into the glacial drink, again an outrageous suggestion. He counted down and all of the naïve Koreans fell for it.

Time for the main event, everyone jumped in trying to catch the fish. Some cheeky bastard got one immediately and threw it down the back of my shirt, I squealed in horror! James was rather nifty with his hands and got one with ease. Josh, Susie, and I weren’t so good. I ran around the pond trying to avoid them. A Korean caught one for me and passed it to me, I held onto as my evidence for “trying”. It was 5 minutes of lunacy. Josh put a fish down his shirt and my trophy fish went down my front. Some people may say it’s cruel, and I agree, watching a foreigner with live fish down his shirt scream like a little girl is very cruel. The time was up and thankfully we were able to leave. James and I posed for the paparazzi, we even made the local news. The second time of the weekend I felt like a celebrity.

We dried ourselves off and changed into some sensible clothing. We carried on our wander and went to cook our catches. They had an enormous furnace that baked the fresh fish. 15 minutes later we were eating the fish we had caught, it felt very manly. Pretty much the first time I’ve ever felt manly. The trout was delicious, the meat fell straight off the bone. We tucked in to possibly 10 fish, and you know what goes really well with fresh fish? More Soju.

The journey back was long but rather enjoyable, a belly full of fish and feeling slightly buzzed. The end to a great weekend. I’m now suffering from a lack of sleep but at least I’ve got a few stories to tell.