A Weekend in the Nineties......I mean Daejeon.

The very first weekend of November was spent in the city of Daejeon (not to be confused with Daecheon-which is a beach town in the same province, Chungcheongnam-do). Despite the fact everyone always gets off the train in Hongseong there isn’t a direct line between Hongseong and Daejeon, So on the Saturday morning we caught the train up to Cheonan and then got another train back down to Daejeon. The best thing about this was the omelette and cheese slice toast we grabbed in Cheonan. 맛있어요! Oh and the umpteenth conversation me and Rachel have had about food we miss from home!


When we arrived in Daejeon we took the subway to the World Cup Stadium to watch Daejeon Citizens vs. Daegu FC. The stadium wasn’t exactly bursting with fans but there was a pretty good atmosphere, even from all ten of the Daegu fans! Plus, tickets were only a fiver, which meant we could enjoy the match with a can of Cass and some noodles at half time. Yep, I am living on the wild side over here. We discovered that most of the players would have a good career as K-Drama actors or Olympic divers. For some of the game it felt a bit like being at a boyband concert, there was a small group of screaming school girls behind us who felt the need to yelp at the most ridiculous times. Nevertheless, it was a pretty entertaining match even with the game ending in goalless draw.

We had a nice chilled out evening once we had found a motel near the main train station. We ate out at a delicious Japanese restaurant, drank steamed milk, watched Body of Lies at the cinema and had another beer at a quiet bar. One of my pet peeves with bars in Korea is the fact you often have to purchase안주-a side dish to accompany the alcohol. If you don’t buy a side dish you can be refused service as it’s seen as the same as a cover charge. We just ordered the cheapest fruit dish on the menu-which turned out to be tinned peaches in ice. Korean drinking culture is a very sharing one, from the 안주 to the “one-shot” with the soju to the fact you can’t get a simple mixer (vodka and coke etc.) you have to spend £35 buying the whole bottle of vodka. All this is great if you are in a big group and plan on getting nice and merry, but it’s not so fun if you just want a quiet drink because that normally leaves you one option-beer.


On the Sunday we took a trip back to the nineties, 1993 to be exact, when we visited the Expo Park. Lonely Liar puts a nice glossy spin on it when it describes the “space-age pavilions” of the park, maybe they would have been space age in 1893, but even with, or perhaps because of, S Club 7 and Bon Jovi blaring out of the speakers (!) the Park felt dilapidated and unloved. You definitely got the impression it was a popular place in its hey-day (emphasis on day), as there were more toilets than you could ever want just waiting forlornly for the coach loads of people that will never come. Getting to the park and the Science Museum opposite served as a reminder that South Korea doesn’t get a lot of English speaking tourists, like in Gwangju there was no English signage for the buses and the confusing signs and maps gave the impression that buses stop in places that they don’t. Nevertheless, once I had eaten (I was very hungry that day) we managed to make it fun, and the autumn leaves gave the rusted up park some much need colour.

Update on my schedule-I am still only teaching the three one-on-ones Monday to Thursday, and as far as I am aware still getting paid the same amount. Obviously I shouldn’t complain about this too much, but in the back of my mind I know that my schedule will change again any minute. So it feels like I am constantly on edge. November has flown by so far though and I am nearly at the seven month mark. I guess I am just taking away different skills from this experience than I was expecting to.