Hi Honey, I'm Home!

I am back in Saigon now after an amazing week in Korea. Having had to leave the country so quickly I really felt that I was missing something by not saying goodbye. Thursday was big, Friday night was bigger which must leave Saturday night as the biggest. I left you on the last post as I was about to take a nap on Saturday afternoon. About twenty minutes after typing that I had a phonecall from James to tell me that he was at the Dano Festival- something we had planned to do the previous two nights but had got waylaid in Bumpin.

Many mad phonecalls later

'can you see the tranvestite making lots of noise?'

'are you anywhere near the bouncy castle?'
'walk until you get to lots of strange looking food that you wouldn't eat.'

we met up and went for dinner. We found a restaurant tent with a whole pig roast outside (in fact, they nearly all had the same thing) and cold beer inside. We quickly settled in for the day. James did put up a small protest at the first beer since he needed to be back in Seoul that night but by the time that Rory and the dongdongju had arrived he was happy enough to stay for a tipple or two.

My friends seemed to work in shifts all weekend to make sure that I was having the maximum amount of fun which seemed also to be the maximum amount of beer. Thus, Neil and Annette turned up from Gwangju to take over from James on the night shift. More dongdongju, more beer and off to the 'All you can drink' party at Bumpin.

Which turned out, as ever, to be a lot.

Much dancing, frolicking and painting of bodies later and it was more than I could do to resist that norae bang urge. I have spent the last two years trying to get Rory to the norae bang and despite him being more than happy to strip to the waist and strum away in Bumpin, he has never given in. But Tanya proved more determined than me. When Rory said that the only way to get him to a norae bang was to carry him she stepped up to the plate and took him at his word. Much respect to the girl who managed to carry him all the way from Bumpin to the other end of town, ignoring the drunk Korean guys who were mortally offended at the sight of a girl carrying a boy, and onto the steps down to the singing room itself.

We piped out a couple of tunes and then the night was over.

Rory may be pissed off to see this photo here but, seriously, it could have been a lot worse!
For some. I appear to have then spent the next couple of hours in an alleyway, drinking beer with Dylan, finally making it back to Rory's shortly before 9am.

When my phone rang a mere three hours later I had to decide which was more important, sleep or friends, and was soon in a taxi on my way to Gyeongpo beach to meet Neil and Annette. My Uncle gave me a Sheffield squirrel for my birthday and so far he has been a little shy. Turns out that he is just scared of cities and very happy on the beach.

After a couple of blissful hours paddling in the icy cold water Neil and Annette had to get back on the bus to Gwangju. Shame for them as the fun was only just starting. I went to watch the contents of the bar the night before drag themselves around the soccer field for a while. Now when I heard that they were playing Korean teams I had no idea that they meant middle schools students in ties. Guess that they have been working themselves up from kindergarten since I left. But fair play to them, they were all standing upright after the ravages of the previous night and running around more than I could do after a week's sleep.

All too soon it was festival time again.

More beer, more dongdongju and a test of manliness on the rifle range. I am pleased to report that Heimi is the least manly of the bunch.

Sunday night we finished in the Warehouse before the sun even came up.

Monday, I had to go and say goodbye to my students again.

They were very sweet and gave me some letters. Fay even bought me some chopsticks from the festival because she knew that I kind of collect them. I also met Mona and Yongho for lunch. And I found the only thing that seems to draw more attention than a foreigner in Gangneung and that is a large dog being walked around town. Generally in Korea, people either have small handbag sized dogs which they carry around with them or larger dogs which spend their lives tied to their kennels. So to see a big beautiful Jindo dog strolling around town is a shock for most people. A nice surprise for some and terrifying for others.

Monday evening Dave had gathered some people together for dinner and after a surprisingly short time, considering the amount of people we had with us, a restaurant was decided on. Strangely it had changed hands and therefore menus since I was last there. And the boys supplemented their dinner with their own concoctions- see Rory's blog for the results.

We retired to Bumpin and the boys talked about soccer and fishing (or whatever it is that boys talk about) while the girls made dinosaurs. Me and Tania were finally reunited in a Jenga knockout- joined by Penny and Seung Hee.

Since we had new players we decided that the game couldn't be part of our ongoing contest (I think that Tania decided that actually shortly after she had the tower tumbling down). We didn't even get close to our best score. Ah well.

Tuesday morning, Tania helped me take my pesky boxes to the post office and after spending a fortune sending the last of my things back home it was time to say goodbye to Tania. I went back to the festival for one last look around then had dinner with Rory, Ryan and Mr Lee. One more beer in Bumpin and my time was over. Late drunk bus to Seoul and James' house then sleep.

I went to the airport with James today and got to Saigon around three o'clock this afternoon. I immediately checked into a hotel then back out for lunch and to buy a bus ticket to Dalat for tomorrow.

Now here I am digesting lunch and catching up with you guys! If I have forgotten anything, forgive me- I am tired after so little sleep on the weekend. I just want to say thanks to Dave for his support over the weekend. It was a shock to find out that he had received the sam bad news as me on the same day. I will let him say the words- Dave's blog

Overall, I am really glad that I went back to Korea. It was so great to meet everyone again and share news, good and bad, though I'm not so keen on the hangovers.