Stuck in Korea

Yesterday was a lovely day. Sunlight shone gloriously down upon our town and there was the slightest hint of a chill in the air. In other words, a beautiful November day. It was raining when I woke up this morning, which was a bit miserable.

Then, at lunch, it came. Snow. I love snow, but it didn't even touch the ground as it was coming horizontally on a scrotum-shrivellingly cold wind, which has been blowing ever since. So it's time to switch on the floor heating and get reacquainted with Korean TV for the next three or four months.

And as I watch, I have to wonder what the programmers for the sports channels are thinking. The presenters are the complete opposite of the sports they present. Take the footie shows. The presenter is invariably two businessmen who look like the boss sent them down to the station and they would really rather be in a boardroom, or a 16 year old girl who's dolled up and all ready to go clubbing (basabeall cap on sideways, anyone?). Or Pride FC. This is a brutal fighting sport that makes boxing look like a little girl's playground game. And the presenters are all about pride in a very different sense. One of them is wearing lip gloss as I write. And wearing a salmon coloured jumper. Is this really the appropriate choice of frontman for a sport so overflowing with testosterone that viewers can only grunt and drink beer as they watch?

Sort it out, people. It's going to be a long Winter otherwise.

Well it's not Monday anymore, so the mood's lifted. Plus they now know the song from five gold rings to the partridge, but everything from six upwards is of no interest to them - it's just a countdown to the gold rings bit so they impatiently mumble until they get to the good stuff, as it were.

I stumbled across a beautiful method of child control yesterday. Last year I told the kids that Santa was my friend and that incurring my wrath would end up with their Christmas presents being redirected to North Korea. This year I've gone a little further...

My father, God bless him, has a big bushy white beard. Show the kids one photo of him, tell them (truthfully) that he's my dad and (not quite so truthfully) that he's the one and only Santa Claus et voila! The most sweet little cherubs in the world. Of course I had to pretend to phone him yesterday and tell him that the kids had been misbehaving (which they had at the time), which produced expressions of pure horror on the nippers' faces. I imagine that's the sort of face I'd pull if I was about to have my gonads mangled by a steamroller. Today all I had to do was show them my mobile phone and they all quietened down. Magic. Pure magic.

Unfortunately every moment of their spare time today has also been spent making paper things, which are then given to me with instructions that they're to be presented to my dad. Little suck ups. I now have about half a kilo of hastily created paper gifts lying on my table which they are expecting me to send to my dad later - they think he lives in Edinburgh Castle (now known as Castle Santa) - I had a photo of it handy so I just went with it. Does a sheet of coloured paper folded in half classify as a gift? If so, would you really want to give it to Santa? What are you hoping he'll give you in return? Don't think it's quite enough to get you that PS2, kids.

Half a kilo of paper on the second day of my Santa deception. This may get out of hand long before Christmas arrives.

...and after almost a week that's the only part of that song the kids can remember. One kid seems insistent that there are seven sunglasses, while pretty much everyone except me seems to agree that my true love gave me three french fries as well. It's not that hard a song, especially considering they got Rudolph the Sodding Red-Nosed Bloody Reindeer after two attempts. Thank God I've given them a month to learn the songs. Here's what we have so far from the infants...

seven sunglasses
six eedamoomoo
FIVE GOLD RINGS!!!
four coreeborr
three french fries
two tottidoes
and a weedee guh eeya party!

It's going to end up like last year's "Deck the Halls" debacle - Deck dwee ho me bowza rolly, FA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA!!!

It's only been a month and already I need a holiday...

Ok. Don't get me wrong. I love Sokcho. But it does have its limitations when it comes to finding new things to do. Such as last night. Played cards, went to a noraebang and stayed there for three hours. Quite a session, fuelled by tons of soju, and I somehow still have my voice. I'm impressed, especially because I have a really irritating habit of being a microphone hog when I'm drunk. My throat really ought to be raw right now. Surely we could have come up with something a little more original to do on a Saturday night though? I guess not.

I'm a bit worried as that makes two nights in a row that I've ended up in a noraebang. Karaoke's awesome fun, it just requires alcohol and a complete lack of shame. Please don't judge me unless you've lived here. This town is not overflowing with a variety of choices in the evenings. You could go bowling or play pool, but it's all no smoking or drinking here. Which fool came up with that idea??? Or you could go to one of the nightclubs. I would rather spend a month in a Turkish prison, to be honest. Nightclubs in Sokcho make me want to go bowling. So the choices are bars, noraebangs and playing cards at friends' houses. There must be something else in this town to do...

Just watched England beat South Africa in the rugby. Bloody English. That's put me in a foul mood. Plus I've got to go back to work tomorrow. So it's off to bed I go.

So this is the blogging lark, huh? Just thought I'd test it out while I have a few minutes. It's quite a feat though as I'm currently typing one-handed and trying to fend off a horde of children who seem to think that I bear a passing resemblance to a playground. There's far too much sugar in these kids' diets.

More pointless blathering to follow, but for now I must face the nippers again...