Here comes the sun...

I believe it has been a couple of weeks since I last wrote and since then the summer has peaked and we are experiencing the August heat wave. It hits over 30 degrees Celsius every day now and as well as being scorching the humidity is very high too. It's impossible to tread outside without sweating buckets and even inside we have had to resort to using two fans to cool us down.

We have made the most of the weather and the last two weekends have been really good fun. Two weekends ago we headed back up towards the mountains where we first lived when we came to Korea. There was a group of about ten of us and we took beer, barbeque supplies and bikinis up to a beautiful river that ran through the mountains. The water was crystal clear and wonderfully refreshing and the river was deep enough to swim. It was an absolutely gorgeous day and it was lovely to relax in the sunshine with a cold beer and good company. We are starting to form a social group here now- I guess we have befriended some of Jake and Sarah's friends. They are a group of really genuinely nice, interesting people and a few of them have boyfriends or girlfriends here as well. It has taken a little while to find a decent group of people to spend time with- a lot of the people here act like eighteen year olds and have limited imagination beyond alcohol. It was our friend Eddie's birthday so in the evening we bought him a cake and headed to DVD Bang to watch The Departed which I thought was fantastic.

Last weekend it was Jake's birthday and to celebrate we headed to Busan just after lunch time on Saturday to squeeze in some beach time before the our night out. We went to Haeundae- the most popular beach in Busan. I had previously been informed that over a million people have visited Haeundae beach in one day but I couldn't believe that it was true. However, the sight from the promenade was incredible. I couldn't see sand at all, just a swarm of red and white parasols saturating the length of Haeundae. To be honest it is everything I hate but it was so ridiculous that I actually found it absurd and therefore quite interesting. We spent an hour or so on the beach and managed a bit of a swim too. Its a bit of a bonus that most Koreans can't swim as it means the sea is empty once you get beyond waist length- so if you're a strong swimmer you can lose the crowds quite easily.

We checked into the best love motel I have ever stayed in which was a ten minute walk from the beach. It was amazing- it had a circular bed, a jacuzzi bath with coloured lights in it and a ridiculously huge flat screen TV.

That evening we all got dressed up and headed to a wine buffet at a very classy hotel on the seafront. It was a beautiful evening and it was lovely to be able to sit outside and hear the sound of the waves lapping gently at the shore. In the evenings Haeundae seems a lot calmer- the loudspeakers and trashy 'K Pop' music that is impossible to escape during the day turns into live music and the clinking of champagne glasses. All very nice. After a few glasses of sparkling wine we tried out the casino and then headed to a bar a few blocks away. It was a really good evening and fun was had by everyone.

On Sunday we went to the aquarium with Jake, Sarah and John-Henry. It was a great way to pass a couple of hours and I was particularly impressed with the nurse sharks who have the most violent and revolting looking teeth that I have ever seen!

This week at school we are testing the children to see if they have learnt anything in the last two months. So far I have actually been quite impressed with the majority of my classes!

We don't have a great deal planned for this week- we are trying to be good and save more money as the exchange rate continues to be poor so we get less £'s for our Won. Hopefully it will improve as time goes on...

Anyway, goodbye until next time!

A weekend on Geoje Island

We finally made it to Geoje Island as the rain is easing off now and the sunshine is definitely more prominent. Sarah and Jake have managed to loan a car for a few weeks so we decided to help them make the most of it and headed to Geoje. It's about an hours drive to the ferry terminal from Gimhae but as it is peak season the ferry was unfortunately full. However this meant that we got to take a drive along the scenic route which was very beautiful. The sun was shining for us and we stopped off a few times on the way to admire the coastline. We eventually found a beach to relax on for a bit and had a quick swim. The water was really quite warm and the waves were pretty good as the wind was very strong.

We found accommodation in a minbak on Saturday night which is a traditional Korean house where you sleep on the floor. It was a pretty strange arrangement as the woman who normally lived in the house just vacated to the annex for the weekend but still pottered in and out every now and again. On Saturday evening we went down to a pebble beach for an hour or so. We took a couple of beers and bought some sparklers and fireworks from the shop and joined all the Koreans in setting them off down by the sea. I'm not sure if fireworks is a pastime that they participate in every evening, but it was certainly popular that evening.

On Sunday we drove to 'windy hill' which is exactly what the name suggests. (Please see photos). We had a bit of a walk around and then took a picnic up to a Pagoda before embarking in an off-road adventure where we stumbled across an old Japanese fort. We took the ferry back across to the mainland in the early evening.

Geoje was really pretty. It's a very mountainous island with beautiful red and orange flowers running across the coastline. It was so good to have our own transport. We are considering getting a car between the four of us as they are really cheap and you insure the car rather than the person.