I was delighted a while ago to find that I had been given permission to take part in a department leaders' course in Seoul. I mean who wouldn't? Non teachers reading this stuff may not find the sessions on collaboration, importance of feedback, ways of sharing information about SEN children, intervention strategies etc etc a particularly riveting way to spend two days but, for me, working with other international school teachers on matters of shared interest was very useful and a good yardstick in trying to judge how well my school is doing compared to others in the region.
"In the region" is probably pushing it a bit though, given that Seoul is a six hour flight from KL and the school I visited is the furthest flung of the network of schools that my place is connected with. It is also a very different climate to KL and while I enjoyed hunting out my warm winter clothes the real reason for getting rugged up with four layers, plus hat and gloves as I stepped out of the airport soon became apparent. At 12 degrees at midday, more than 20 degrees colder than KL it was a bit of a shock. And then there were the chilly mornings and evenings to cope with.
The timings of the course combined with the times of the flights really worked in my favour. A 7.30 am departure (meaning a 4.30am taxi) meant at there was some time for exploration on Thursday evening, once I had arrived at the rather pleasant Seoul Palace Hotel. The taxi driver had unfortunately driven via The Palace Hotel and was most apologetic for the unexpected extra tour of the vast city.
Seoul Palace is in THAT area of Seoul, you know the place made famous by THAT song. Satirising the YUPPIE culture of Gangnam I am pleased to report that PSY's observations of the area, being full of up-market cafes, bars and people are probably right. Having slept rather than eating on the plane I was ravenous when I arrived and set out to find local grub. I avoided the ubiquitous world known coffee shops and patisseries and settled instead on a noodle shop, selecting a picture of a bowl of noodles with chilli and beef. The picture looked rather small so I took the precaution of ordering five small vegetable dumplings as a sort of chaser. The looks were very deceptive as after a few moments of waiting and watching every customer in the place engage with their smart phones at very close quarters a tray of grub arrived. A bowl of white rice, tray of kimchi, small brown dried vegetable things and some green stuff all accompanied a huge bowl of bubbling and steaming noodles that had both a nourishing as well as herbal infusional effect. And then came five massive dumplings. I could hardly move after doing the banquet justice. I was also rather proud of my use of metallic Korean chopsticks and soup spoon and managed not to spill any soup down me.
The bill came to 13000 Korean Won. And so here is the metal arithmetic section of this blog. I am usually pretty good at mental sums but two days earlier, when changing some ringgit at Desa Park City, I stood in a confused state while trying to work out how much cash I might need and what it all meant. After much calculation it appeared the RM1 was W318 or W1000 was about US$1 which in turn was about RM3.2. And then just to confuse things £1 was about W1600 or RM5.4. To make the few days pass without mass financial confusion I decided I had to think dollars, but made sure, at all times, I avoided telling people to have a nice day.
A few delegates, the course organiser and I met for a natter and a beer on Thursday evening. Slightly confusingly the beer was called 700 and priced at W4000.
Friday's training went well but I am making the reasonable assumption that people are not that interested in tales of teaching and especially not tales of teachers training each other. Instead I really should mention the global reach of Movember. I walked the 15 minute stroll to the Seoul school in the company of two other be-stached teachers one also from KL, via Northampton, and the other from Taipei, via London. On arrival in the school we were taken in a tour of the school where I met another delegate sporting daft facial hair. Men are clearly taking this facial hair growing thing seriously. This is the second and final time that I will grow a moustache for all sorts of reasons, the main one being that it looks ridiculous, but I have enjoyed the conversations that have begun "So is that a real or charity 'tasche?" Please send Movember some cash.
After Friday's educational exertions I decided to go for a run before dinner. Yes it was cold but the run felt rather good. Staggering through cold weather instead of tropical heat felt rather nice and the running / cycling track next the Han River was well maintained, populated mainly by walkers and cyclists who were mostly in contact with their smart phones.
Dinner on Friday evening was at a local Korean barbecue restaurant. I know that some people get very cross by this sort of food, complaining that when they go for dinner they don't expect to have to pay for the privilege of cooking it themselves. I rather enjoyed the experience though. Cooking strips and chunks of beef to just the right level of done-ness and then munching through them with salads, rice and spicey things was all very pleasant.
After the course finished on Saturday I was left with a couple of hours to do some intensive sight-seeing. Wanting an aerial viewpoint to start with I made for North Seoul Tower, conveniently placed on top of a whopping great hill. The Seoul underground system is very efficient and cheap at W1150 per ticket (do your own mental arithmetic) and with a connecting bus up to the top said whopping great hill it didn't take too long for me find a good viewing point for the city. It is huge. My 15 minutes of research at 4.10am on Thursday morning told me that the city had at least 9.82million people, and despite the winter evening mists, the city seemed to stretch for miles around.
Probably more memorable than the tower itself were many fence loads and Christmas tree shapes of padlocks. Apparently since a TV soap opera couple had come to the tower and placed a padlock there to symbolise their eternal love for each other thousands of others had done it too, and by the evidence of my time there, were continuing to do it. I felt relieved that David and Ruth Archer had not done a similar thing outside the Pebble Mill recording studio many moons ago, especially now as the writers of The Archers appear so keen to export them to Northumberland. The other love-token at North Seoul Tower was an installation of two interlocking hearts raised about three feet off the ground, made entirely of, wait for it, cabbages. A splendid collection of green, purple and white leaves got the visitors flocking to be photographed as near to this fine artistic thing as possible. Naturally all the photos were taken on the smart phones that tourists and locals alike appeared to be in near constant contact with.
After a hot drink, a lot of walking, a lot of searching and a helpful bloke with a helpful smart phone I managed to find my way to the Cheong-Gye-Chong lantern festival, which was quite a nice ronseal-like tourist event. Lots of very large lanterns of all shapes and sizes were floating along a waterway in the above named location. There was the option to queue for up to two hours to join visitors and walk by the side of the waterway and take lots of photos on one's smart phone or walk at street level above and take more aerial shots, again with smart phones. I took the second option and was treated to views of elaborately lit, full-scale pagodas, warriors, ships, musicians and trees. It was all rather lovely and well worth the journey there.
With a few hours before my flight back to KL this morning I enjoyed a chilly mooch around the former royal palace and, getting down with the local culture, took lots of photos on my smart phone, but not a Samsung phone, sorry South Korea. There has clearly been something of a mighty industrial revolution in South Korea. Strolling around around the tiny part of this country that I have seen in the past few days I have seen countless Hyundai and Kia cars, lorries and buses,while every other machine appears to have Samsung written on it somewhere. South Korea appears to have gone self-sufficiency crazy. And fair play to them as the products that they have made are very high quality. My Kia airport coach was fast, luxurious and smooth while the Hyundai taxis glided from place to place as efficiently as the Korean made underground trains. I drive my Hyundai to school each day while Lexi departs in her Kia.
The Koreans also appear to be experts in making socks. I passed many stalls while out and about yesterday the were selling piles and piles of novelty socks. I hope colleagues and immediate family like the Korean made presents that I have brought back for them.