It's Christmas here in Korea. We have a new conservative president, Kim Myung-bak. The students are in holiday mode. School has broken up for a month. Thankfully, there doesn't seem to be the same excess here as back home. Turn on the TV and there are hardly any festive ads, walk round the neighborhood and there a couple of trees but not much. There are always neon lights in town, some department stores have trees and a Christmas display, but there is not t...

11/52. Christmas approaches. Have got over the cold and the general stress which was making me irritable and not looking forward to work. It's a lot colder now, although I have started to wear short-sleeved shirts in the office to prove a point that we don't need all of the heaters on full-blast. The kids like to use the word 'crazy' a lot, as well as 'delicious' and 'funny', especially in their diaries. The worst oil spill in South Korean history dominates t...

The blog site is finally back online. It's been unavailable for over a week, possibly due to site construction. I thought it was just my laptop, but having done a google search it appears that the site has jumped into the top 10 for searches... all different blog entries.... finding me has never been easier(!) kinda scary actually.Woke up this morning to my landlady and a gaswoman in my kitchen! Seriously, ""Mr Philip, Mr Philip." Whaaaaat? I ope...

9/52. 2 months gone already. Another pay day looms. I woke up this morning to gun fire, the kinds of sporadic bursts of shells which you normally here from Iraq or a similar war-torn region on TV news. There is a firing range in Changwon, near the first mountain i climbed, but it seemed closer than that. There was also dogs barking and the usual banging from next door - lots of activity, moving furniture and so on, so I''m glad it's Sunday as I have woken up ...

8/52. It's Saturday, at the end of week 8. I don't know how many are still reading the blogs but a lot of people seem to be checking out the photos. I'm writing this blog from a local jimjibang. Just had my first Korean bath, in a steamy room full of hundreds of completely naked men and boys, bathing and washing each other. Homosexuality doesn't even enter the psyche of the average Korean male... so it's all very natural. In the communal areas, are a mixt...