BEAUTIFUL BALLOONS IN THE BEAUTIFUL SKY ON THE BEAUTIFUL GROUND IN THE BEAUTIFUL SEA

I went to the season opening game of the Korean baseball league last week. Exciting as always with the full stadium chanting and striking their thundersticks in unison. The home team, Doosan Bears, whose colour is white, released about a thousand white helium-filled balloons during the ceremony. Of course it looked very pretty against the overcast, yellow-dust* filled sky. But as they drifted away, I wondered what next? The balloons sink and land in the mountains or sea somewhere. And then? Just sit there for a thousand years? Or get eaten by a tortoise? Or what? On reflection it seems like a pretty horrible thing to do to the earth and nature for a couple of seconds of mild pleasure on our part, doesn't it? Or am I just thinking too much? And I was also wondering, if we have laws against littering and other types of pollution, and the Doosan Bears (as well as lots of other people like the organizers of the St Patricks Day parade recently) 'litter' live on national TV, shouldn't they be fined?

*yellow-dust (황사-hwangsa) is toxic sand that blows over from China and covers the sky and everything under it here in Korea at this time of year.

The pitterpatter of an unexpected winter (?) rain
The pre-dawn walk to work greets me
With double streetlight-umbrella-shadows

The pitterpatter becomes a roar
And a taxi splashes me in the darkness
But it's ok , it's going to be a good day.

WINTER HIKING

I went for my second winter hike last Sunday. Three Korean friend and I went to Cheongae Mountain. Although there was still a lot of snow, it was bright, warmish and breezeless so it felt more like spring that winter. Before this year I had never hiked in snow, but now am really starting to enjoy it. Though for safety, I must really get a pair of crampons soon if I don't want to continue bruising my bum.

[My hiking partners]
[Hyunjung's unique and energy-efficient method od descending the mountain.]
[Mijung, the weakest of the group, collapsed after only an hour.]
[Yours truly.]
[Hyunjung mixing it up with some freestyle sliding. Mijung and Jungoo laughed at her. Bad friends!]
[Two ladies and a wannabie gangster.]

LIFE'S 50 GREATEST PLEASURES

These days I'm very interested in the 'science' of happiness. I've read some great books about it like The Happiness Hypothesis (Haidt) and The Geography of Bliss (Weiner). And today I was very pleased when one of my students brought in a related article for News Day.

Batchelors Cup-A-Soup recently did a survey of 3000 Brits to find out life's greatest pleasures. I can't find drinking, making or buying soup anywhere on the list but the results are interesting.

It seems that most things that make us happy are quite small, and usually free, like the first snowfall of the year or catching up with old friends.

I've copied the list below, but I don't know how to reverse the order. So if you want the best last, you should scroll to the bottom and read up from number 50.

Top 50 greatest little pleasures in life:

1. A good night’s sleep
2. Finding a forgotten tenner in your pocket
3. Cuddling up with a partner in bed
4. Crying with laughter
5. Having a lie-in
6. Sleeping in newly laundered bedding
7. Getting a bargain
8. Making someone smile
9. Catching up with an old friend
10. Laughing at things that have happened in the past
11. Eating a Sunday roast with your family
12. Someone saying you look nice
13. Curling up on the sofa with a good book and a hot drink or soup
14. Discovering you’ve lost a few pounds
15. Breakfast in bed
16. Waking up thinking it’s a work day and then realising it’s the weekend
17. A random person smiling at you in the street
18. Looking through old photo albums
19. Eating a takeaway
20. First snow fall of the year
21. Singing your heart out to your favourite song in car
22. Having lunch with friends
23. Listening to a baby laughing
24. Having a massage
25. Reading a book or listening to your iPod on holiday by the pool
26. Playing in snow
27. Finding a pair of jeans that fit perfectly
28. Being chatted up
29. A girly-night in
30. A pampering session at home
31. The smell of freshly cut grass
32. Sitting in the pub with your friends
33. Looking at a baby asleep in a cot
34. Waking up in a room with an amazing view
35. Clothes shopping
36. Receiving a letter from a friend
37. Fitting into an old pair of jeans again after losing some weight
38. Staying up all night getting to know someone special
39. Your mum’s cooking
40. Getting dressed up for a night out
41. Watching a live band
42. Drinking a cold beer after work
43. Browsing in a secondhand book shop
44. Going to the cinema
45. Getting a new hairstyle
46. Your queue being the quickest in the supermarket
47. The cold side of the pillow
48. Watching a DVD
49. Getting tipsy
50. Popping bubble wrap.

TOP TEN TOP TENS

One of the topics we did this week in my adult general conversation class was Top Ten Lists. For homework I asked them to prepare their own top ten list of anything they want, preferably something interesting. There were the usual lists of favorite foods and places, but lots of original stuff too. Here's my top ten favorites of my student's top ten lists in no particular order:

TOP TEN...
1. situations I can't bear on public transport.
2. surprising things about mosquitos.
3. most beautiful English words.
4. longest bridges.
5. accidents I have witnessed.
6. lies men tell women.
7. things that surprised me in China.
8. world's healthiest foods.
9. Korean foods that Japanese people like.
10. times/places I'd go if I had a time machine.

RANDOM CAMERA SNAPS

Here are some random photos that I snapped on my phone in the last few months. (Above are flowers on the Han River).
[Broken mirror in the street.][Bus driver watching TV on his mobile.][Coworker Faye and I in work.]
[Tyler checking the map on our east coast bike trip.][Rainy afternoon siesta.]
[Me and Jolie in work.][My friend HyonJong getting a facial.][A lady practising violin under a bridge at Yangjae stream.][A chipmunk or something at Soraksan.]

MY MOON

I gave you my heart
My love and my soul
It wasn't enough
You still wanted more

So you tried to take
What's bigger than you
Despite all I gave
You wanted my moon

But I didn't share
Cuz inside I knew
You'd destroy it all
My night heaven too

And now we're alone
All is dark and blue
And as I look up
I don't think of you

NIGHT SNAPS

I took some snaps last night around my neighbourhood just to have a play with the camera.

LOVE TEETH

I've been complaining to my students about my coming wisdom teeth. I had the uppers removed in Japan and maybe I'll need the lowers taken out here. I haven't been to the dentist yet becuase I'm already suffering too much with a suspected broken rib (thanks awesome boxing master!) and stomach problems (though getting much better). So surgery in my mouth is not what I want right now. I'll wait a while and hope it just goes away.
Anyway, my students taught me that the Korean word for wisdom tooth is 사랑니-sarangni, which translates as 'love tooth'. It's a sign that real love is ready to come in to your life. Hearing that really cheered me up. And I'd much rather be in love than be wise :)

JEJU ISLAND

This month when my brother was here we finally took my long awaited trip to Jeju island. I had been looking forward to this trip for over six months as I'd planned to do it with my best friend from Japan, Ryuta, when my contract finished. Although I extended my contract, I was able to get enough time off for a nine-day trip.
[Ryuta and Ronan: Enjoying the sunny "day"]Jeju is just south of peninsular Korea. It's the most famous and popular tourist destination for Koreans, especially in summer and for honeymoons. The climate at the start of October is supposed to be perfect; dry and not too hot. That suited us well since our trip was to be one of adventure and excercise. However, just before taking off, I heard there was typhoon warnings and lots of rain promised during our trip. 'Highly unusual for this time of year', I was told :(
Ronan and I flew down to Jeju on the Friday and Ryuta arrived from Japan on Saturday morning. We rented bicycles with a plan to cycle the 240km coastal path around the circumference of the island. We allocated four days to do the entire distance, with an extra day cyling and sightseeing on a smaller island called Udo.
[Out on the town, with no thoughts of tomorrow's hangover]The first day, amazingly we notched up 75km in the sunshine. No prob for Ronan, a fitness machine, and Ryuta had no problems. But I hadn't excercised in 7 weeks becuase of my hand and chest injury (at least that's my excuse). Man, I swear my thighs were in such agony for the last 15km I thought I wouldn't be able to walk the next day. But luckily we found a bathhouse near our guesthouse and could soak and stretch our muscles.
[Sibling rivalry. I won.]Day 2 and the weather was still holding up ok. Just fifty hungover km today, but it was even harder than day 1. But Ryuta and Ronan are great fun, never complain and regularly do dumb things on the bike to get a laugh, so it was always bearable.
Day three the rain came. It was definitely not fun then. Ronan and I had bought a couple of matching blue jackets last minute in Jeju city and we were sure glad of them when it started to pour. By this point we were on the southeastern part of the island and towns were few and far between, so we just had to keep going to our planned destination for the day. With everything wet and heavy, including our spirits, and the cumulative hangovers adding up, day 3 was pretty gruelling for us. But once shacked up in a cheap motel, we found another bathhouse and soaked ourselves as it continued to pour outside.
Jeju is an island and thus seafood is popular. We went to a fancyish seafood place one night, but most of the time we were so hungry from biking we just wanted meat and enjoyed BBQ with the local delicacy 'black pig'.
On day 4 we took a ferry out to Udo, a small, supposedly beautiful island nearby. It was pouring! But we got motivated, put on our damp clothes from the day before and headed out.
Bad idea really. It was just miserable. The island wasn't beautiful, nor was it different to the other places in Jeju that we'd seen. Well, at least not on grey day.
So our plan to cycle around the entire island was quickly aborted and we caught the first ferry back to watch movies in our room and eat cookies. My Canadian coworker, Tyler flew down from Seoul in the afternoon and seemingly brought some good weather with him. Because following another night's drinking of the infamous Jeju alcohol 'Halasan Soju' we had clear skies.With a new member in the group and only a few showers along the way, the energy levels were higher and we covered the last 60km or so to Jeju city in record time.
We spent two nights here drinking heavily to make up for our general disatisfaction of the beauty of Jeju. We also hiked Hala-san, Korea's highest mountain. Again, we were unimpressed, but it was nice to get into the mountains.[Me and little bro at Halasan]So in summary, the trip was pretty good. Great to hang out with the lads do something physical. But as for Jeju island; not beautiful and not really fun, especially in the rain. I'm glad I went, but I wouldn't go back. Or maybe I'm just spoilt from seeing too many pretty places.

[Ryuta taking a nap in the pub. Trying to keep up with two Irish and a Canadian isn't easy.]