Adventures of Countess in Corea

I am off again!

2008-10-09T23:42:00.010+01:00

Yes I have booked my ticket and am going to Korea for two months! I am so excited and the day is drawing ever closer. However so is my fear of packing. I have always packed for a minimum of 1 month max. However I am not sure about two months. The last time I went to Korea was for three weeks and that time was during the months of May – April when the weather was reasonable.
I shall be facing the bitter cold when I arrive. What made me choose the month of December you ask? Well I thought it would be a lovely way to spend Christmas and the New Year; both in another country and experience their traditions and customs.

Yet I am in a quagmire of decisions what to take. Of course clothes would be good and warm clothes at that. I would need to create layers as I am bound to be experiencing temperatures of up of 1- 9 degree Celsius. Brrrrrrrr………

The Korean tourism website recommends scarf; gloves; a good down filled jacket or a wool coat. Definitely a heavy sweater; warm pants and boots preferable fur lined. Although my friend says she has hardly ever worn boots whilst living in Busan; but then she is a native and I am a foreigner…. unaccustomed to the climate. I feel a shopping trip abound…. I have already picked out a few coats from the Debehanhams range and have already perused the Office shoe catalogue for their latest winter boots…..

Although I feel two months is enough time to prepare the few odds and ends; but knowing how time tends to pass these days; before you know it December will be here and I shall be tearing around the west end attempting to buy the last minute items.

Lets see what extensive list I will come up with to take. At least if I have my suitcase out the way its half the planning done. The other half is making sure I have the necessary travel papers and insurance. Well really that is ¼ of the worry. The remainder lies in the planning and structure of the trip. My previous trip to Korea was very laid back and I had hardly planned much. I took each day as it came; and my friend/host was very hospitable showing me around Busan and Seoul..
This time my agenda is to see much more of the country as I can. I will write up my plan. Of course keeping in mind that there will be a few things that I would like to do but won't be able to due to the weather. One of these was to climb mount Hallasan. Of course I should always leaves a few stones unturned and a few paths untread; this way I get to come back and fulfil them.

Love in the time of Korea

2008-09-02T19:38:00.022+01:00

Before we delve into the delicious details of excursions and adventures; we must start at the very beginning. What is the beginning you ask? The beginning to all adventures; the idea... the need and desire to travel. When we have this initial idea to go somewhere else; a place that captures our fancy, how do we get to know about this place? We may have read about it, a friend might have mentioned something in passing, we perhaps heard something on the radio or saw something on the television. It just captures our fancy. So in order to expand on this fanciful idea, what is it that do we do next? Do we just pack our bags and head to the airport or train station? No..! We conduct some research. We look for information and surf the net or perhaps something more tangible. We turn to books! There is nothing like a good book to educate us about our place of interest. You can imagine my dismay walking into the many bookshops that peppered the city and hardly finding anything on Korea.

To fuel my first trip I had only to turn to the Korean lonely planet guide for much needed inspiration. There was little else.

I have now acquired quite a library of literature on this subject and wanted to share with you the books in my current possession and how I acquired them.....

My Corean Collection

1) Hamel's Journey and a description of the Kingdom of Korea ~ Hendrik Hamel

This is Hamels account of his stay or capture rather in Korea. This is considered to be the first western written account of Korea. I picked this up when I was in Busan

2) The Koreans; who they are, what they want and where their future lies? ~ Michael Breen

This was one of the first books about Korea that I picked up. I got through Amazon. I don't know what drew me to the title. I guess I thought it could enlighten me about the Korean mind. It is interesting although a little dry to say the least.

3)Korea, A walk through the land of miracles ~ Simon Winchester

The first book, along with The Koreans, that came through Amazon. The only difference is that I actually finished reading this one. I love the way Winchester writes about the history and the adventures he encounters along the way. Although there are very few pictures and the ones that are in the book are a little outdated.

4) Korea; Lonely Planet guide

What more can I say about this. There are other travel guides such as insight that write about Korea. I have always been a fan of the Lonely Planet series since my first purchase on Romania back in 1999. I got this edition from my favourite book store that no longer exists. The Pan Bookstore on Fulham Road. I was lucky, I had obtained it during the closing down sale at 50 % off. Up until then, I had been referring to the library version!

5)Korea Old and New; a history ~ Carter J Eckert, Ki-baik Lee, Young Ick Lew, Michael Robinson, Edward W. Wagner

What can I say.. it isn't a novel and this purchase took place whilst working for Waterstones. So I acquired something of a discount. I wanted to know more about the Korean history. The only thing is I use this more for reference rather than a cosy stay at home and read book

6) The memoirs of Lady Hyeyong ~ JaHyun Kim Haboush

I first laid eyes on this book in Waterstones Gower Street and was hooked ever since. The only trouble was I never picked it up at the time and spent years practically (okay it was 9 months) trying to track this book down. I did not have the sense at the time to jot down the name. I only remembered that it had a wonderful red cover and it was the autobiographical writings of a crown princess in 18th Century Korea. So romantic! I was finally able to locate it on Amazon. Ah Amazon.. where would I be without you?

7) The Red Queen ~ Margaret Drabble

It appears I was not the only one to have fallen in love with Lady Hyegyong. The English author Margaret Drabble had too read the autobiographical account and decided to create a fiction story out of it. The Red Queen is her version.

8) Meeting Mr Kim or how I went to Korea and learned to love Kimchi ~ Jennifer Barclay

The most up-to-date modern western account of Korea travel book going! Although I would not say it covers absolutely everything about Korea only the surface, it is quite a fun read and Barclay manages to capture an essence of Korea in her quirky style

9) Human Decency ~ Gong Ji Young

My first translated novel from Korean to English which I picked up in Busan.

10) May all beings be happy ~ Beop Jeong

Something I picked up in Busan as well. I was so overwhelmed with the amount of English books about Korea that I decided to go for something a little different. Something that showed me the essence of Korea, rather then tell me about Korean culture and history. I decided on this book about Buddhist Master Beop Jeong's collected sayings on life. It is quite spiritual and refreshing to read

11) Teach yourself Korean

Need I write anything more? How I taught myself to read hangul.

12)Kuka the poems of Choi Hyun Suk

Picked up in a second hand book store near Gloucester Road, I got this for my birthday, it was a nicely presented hard back edition in a case by a Korean Poet with the poems being written in Japanese, Korean and English.

13) Korea - Land of the Morning Calm (coffee top book) ~ Craig J Brown

This is the worst purchase in my collection. I picked this up in Thailand, being so overjoyed to see a nice hard back coffee table book about Korea. It is terribly written, although it has nice photos but inspires me to write as I know I could do a better job.

I have ordered Korea and her neighbours by Isabelle Bird and can't wait to get my hands on that book. I will do a feature on this book next week alongside the UN memorial Park in Busan. That however brings me up-to-date with my collections of books on Korea. As you can see, it is not an easy subject to come by in the UK. So you can imagine my joy having recently discovered the Korean Cultural Centre. See blog Countess' Corean Weblog for further info! They have a lot of books on Korea and there I plan to stay and conduct my research into this country.

Toodles for now!

The acceptance onto the Korean blog list and Pigs in Space!

2008-08-20T23:49:00.005+01:00

Hello. I must admit I have been somewhat abysmal in updating this blog. Now that it has been accepted as a link on the Korean bloglist, I feel an added pressure!! *bites nails* Seriously, I will update at least once a week, but I have created another blog more recently with word press. Countess's Corean Weblog A bit bizzare having two blogs about virtually the same thing; but I realised that this particular blog works just like a word document itself which is much easier to work with!

Not that I am going to abandon this blog, on the contrary; I will keep up both and use this to show case my adventures in Korea and the other page (the weblog) to talk about Korean culture and customs.

Just to whet your apetite, I have included a picture of me on my excursion to the UN memorial Park; Busan April 2007. That is all for this moment, but tune in (or log on) next week where you will hear Miss Piggy say... whoops I thought this was pigs in space for a moment I mean log in next week where I will recount my experience at the UN memorial Park.

Toodles for now.

Korean Concerns...

2008-07-16T20:44:00.005+01:00

Hello fellow bloggers.....!

It appears I brutally abandoned my blog site for a while. I went through a series of ups and downs and ins and outs.. basically and came full circle!

This blog started off about being an outlet to document my journey to Korea. I wanted to go and work there. To soak in the atmosphere of this lesser known country. Many people have asked me what is my desire to visit such a place when not much is known about it..Which is sort of my point...

We know about Japan, and also China. Many people tend to go to these places to travel, teach english and generally hang for a while. Korea fascinates me; its almost undiscovered; its not as popular as China or Japan and that is what makes it unique.

If I can get to the land of the morning calm and discover its inner world, that would be truly a treat!

Unfortunately, I have hit a few snags along the way and although have decided against teaching in a public school or private for the time being (for reasons which I won't document just yet) I thought I would go there and learn Korean for a while.

My journey should start around mid November 2008. Until then I have decided to work up until end October whilst still here in the UK.

I will keep you posted of my journey along the way and document my time off from work (1 year career break!) Whu-hu...

Titanic

2008-04-16T08:11:00.010+01:00

96 years ago in memoriam

On April 14, 1912, Titanic struck an iceburg during her maiden voyage. Two hours and forty minutes later, she sank on April 15th, 1912, taking the lives of 1,517 people with her.

The beginning

2008-04-13T14:56:00.010+01:00

So here I am in blog land.. learning well how to er... blog. It was not too long ago I owned a website... about a year ago... or two... or ten. Okay it was a while ago, the point was that it happened. That was the time I was on the world wide web, posting frantically and exchanging my thoughts with the web community. Since then I have stuck to emails and face book. Until today!

I wanted to detail events of my ongoing journey to live and work in Korea. The idea came to me a while back and I never really did anything about it. You know you have an idea in the back of your head and you think to yourself. 'How great would that be if I did that...' But nothing ever really comes of it because it takes effort and time and planning etc.

It was about this time last year that I found myself in Korea. Yes you know how it is. You go outside one morning, thinking to walk around and take a wrong turn and end up wandering down a street you have never seen before.. and then before you know it you are in a totally different country... Well it sorta happened like that!

Okay seriously, I thought I would visit my friend who lived in Busan.

This was the first step in making this thought into a reality. I would go there to Korea... look around and see if it was a place I could hang out in for a year!

It was! I thoroughly enjoyed it! I loved the food, the culture and the people! I also took some time to learn Hangul! Its quite easy. You can easily learn in within a 48 hours to a week. Of course the language itself will take time!

But the script is useful. I tired out my host no end stopping in the street to read anything I could.
I returned to London, to my job and my friends and for months, the idea was just still an idea. I actually did not do anything much to add to my experience of Korea.. until I decided it was about time I took the CELTA course. (certificate in English language teaching to adults)I thought this would best equip me to deal with the nuances of teaching the language. It has and I met some really great people on the course. (see pic below on the left) I did it for a month at St. Giles International, Highgate.

It was an intense course but fun nonetheless. Both bouts of pleasure and pain were felt at the same time. Endless night of staying awake worrying about language analysis sheets with my nerves ripped to shreds. Not only were you teaching a real class, but you had your fellow colleagues watching you and your teacher assessing you! THough you do come out of the course much stronger in terms of confidence.

There were ten of us and the class seemed equally balanced in terms of the sexes. Five boys and five girls. They truly were a unique bunch and I hope we all keep in touch. We all passed thankfully! I had stopped work full time for a month to commit to the course and resumed straight after finishing!

I had completed stage two of my plan for Korea. Now its on to stage three. This is where I currently find myself. Submitting resumes and making applications! I have been on different websites and have contacted various agencies. I never guessed the sheer volume of them. Lets see what I find when I click away on the sites...Toodles for now.