My Korean adventure is coming to an abrupt end. I never wanted it to end this way but I brought it upon myself. Today I will return my apartment keys to my employer of the last 13 months. Tomorrow I fly out of Incheon Airport, back to Heathrow, UK and then home to Wells-next-the-Sea. It will be difficult to say goodbye, as I managed to achieve so much in my first stint. Even the second stint wasn't going too badly, but ultimately I paid a hefty price for m...

It is somewhat inevitable with me that i fall into a rabbit hole of depression every so often. Factors conspire to get me down and i quickly decend into a lack of confidence, apprehension, anxiety, lots of negative feelings etc. Having completed one year at the hagwon, albeit split by a 7 week break in the UK, I now found myself in the situation of losing my current job. Things haven't been right since I came back, despite everything being so familiar. I be...

It has been Ramsar Convention week here in Changwon. What is Ramsar? Well, established in Ramsar in Iran, 1971, this is an international convention, which meets with the concern for the protection of wetlands and wildlife habitats. 157 countries are signed up. There are 1,702 Ramsar sites around the world, with 5 in the Republic of Korea. The 10th meeting of the Conference of the Contracting Parties took place in Changwon, Gyeongsangnam-do. Under the theme ...

Back into the swing of things at work. The dizzy spells seem to have stopped now. I know that things are tough back home, economically for some and emotionally for others. The price of things in Korea has noticeably gone up. Taxi fares, samgyeopsal, bread, cereal, soju, maeshilmeul (plum wine), webcams. Jungchul is cutting back on wasted paper and use of OHPs. The credit crunch is hitting. The exchange rate was 2,300 won when I went to my local bank to do ...

Greetings from Changwon 1/51 (1 down, 51 to go - thanks for reminding me, Garry) Having decided not to write any more blogs, I have now decided to do a U-turn on that and write the occasional entry. I'm thinking of doing a separate participant observation study into the dating game in Korea, but that is not for this (publicly accessible) site. It's good to be back in Changwon, after seven weeks in Wells. I missed it. I didn't really need that long in We...