One fine "lesson"... and going out with a (norae)bang!

So, this is it. The last week. The home stretch. It feels so WEIRD thinking that this time next week I'll be on a plane heading back to sunny old (*cough*) London. How can NINE WEEKS go so quickly? It's ridiculous! I'd be lying if I said I wasn't looking forward to going home, but that's not any slight on Korea's awesomeness - psychologically, I'm just ready. I came here knowing that September would be when I was going home, so, in my mind, September's always been the finish line ...and, of course, I'm actually just rather looking forward to being home for home's sake!

Not that that's going to stop me savouring my last week! So, with that in mind, I decided to ditch the classroom for my last lesson with Ha Young (my conversational English student) and have a field trip instead! First stop was the National Museum of Korea. Now, this is usually the point where you'd get some flashy, probably weird-angled photograph with an impressively witty caption, but, if I'm honest, there was fuck all worth photographing. No, I'm not demeaning Korean history (I'm working as a history TEACHER, for goodness sake!), but even I find it hard to get excited over rocks in boxes. Because that's exactly what it was. Rocks. In boxes. Not even special shaped rocks, or rocks that can do tricks, just plain old rocks. I don't care if they're older than time itself. THE'YRE JUST ROCKS. *YAWN*

Luckily, Ha Young shared my lack of enthusiasm, which was good, because I could drop the facade of being interested in rocks in boxes and admit that I was slowly coming round to the idea of breaking a bone just to get out of that place. So, next stop was the mildly more interesting Kimchi Museum at COEX:

...now I'm sure you don't need me to explain to you that posing with kimchi-wielding mannaquins wins over rocks in boxes any day. But, sadly, this was about the height of the Kimchi Museum. I don't even know who thought it'd be a good idea to give it the misleading label of a "museum". It was literally just a handful of rooms with a few models of kimchi in. But still, compared to the National Museum of Korea, those few rooms were a sanctuary. And at least the subject matter was interesting.

Having been well and truly museum'd to the eyeballs, I needed an injection of fun. So, milking the "it's our last lesson, we've got to do something fun!" motto for all it was worth, I somehow managed to get away with moving the "lesson" to COEX's Board Game Cafe. What's more, I was being paid for it. Geinus.

Okay, now while the title "Board Game Cafe" is, I'm sure, pretty self-explanatory, I'm going to explain it anyway. Basically, it's a cafe where, alongside the drinks menu, you get another (gigantic) menu... OF BOARD GAMES. Thereafter, you get charged by the hour, and can "order" as many board games to play - one at a time - as you want. A simple yelp will bring the waiter scurrying over with your next board game of choice and, if you ask politely, he'll even set it up for you and explain the rules. And it doesn't end there. You even get supplied with a nifty little rubber hammer, the purpose of which I was not entirely sure, but which the girl on the table next to us seemed to be using to beat her boyfriend into oblivion every time he came close to choosing a good block in Jenga. Needless to say, that Jenga tower didn't stand a chance. But really, this is why Korean kids aren't knife-wielding lunatics. They have noraebang, they have board game cafes: all good, cheap fun with your friends. And I'm not lying, it really is fun!

So, of course, we had to start our two hours of board-game playing with at least a thin veil of intellectualism. So Scrabble it was. By the end though, the pretence was lost and we were playing some strange Korean game which I think had something to do with making animals out of clay. I have no idea. But it was still hilarious.

After literally my most enjoyable "lesson" thus far as a teacher in Korea, it was time to venture out once again with Willow and Linda to... yup, you guessed it, NORAEBANG.

Now, bearing in mind that this may well have been my last noraebang, I intended to, quite literally, go out with a bang. So, when the Britney came on...

...there was literally nothing that was going to stop me from getting a perfect score. And it didn't even matter when Linda temporarily broke the screen during Kelly Clarkson. I'm not going to lie. I know all the words. Other highlights include Minnie Riperton's "Lovin' You", Shakira's "Objection", yet more Britney ("Womanizer", "Everytime", "Gimme More") and an awesome rendition of The Cardigans' "Lovefool". So, if you want to take me on at noraebang, all I'll say is this: come prepared! :D ...and if Alicia Keys is your thing, you won't want to face off against Linda - she does a mean "You Don't Know My Name" and has got the dialogue interlude down to a tee. I actually wet myself a little bit when I heard it.

P.s. - BREAKING NEWS! Me and Merv - in typical "us" fashion - have booked a last minute trip to Jeju-do for our final weekend in South Korea! Now, if you're thinking that that sounds like a funny name for a place, then it might help to know that "do" is simply Korean for "island", so the English would just be "Jeju Island". With that very taxing Korean translated, you're probably wondering where the hell this mystery island is! Well...here's a map!

So, that's Jeju-do. The tiny little bean-shaped island right to the south of South Korea, which is apparently a favourite holiday-sport for Koreans! So, teaching finishes on Friday, and we're flying out from Gimpo Airport on Sunday morning (which should give us enough time for one final celebration in Seoul on Friday night, as well as what I'm sure will be some much-needed post-celebration recovery time on Saturday!) and then getting our flight back from Jeju-do to Seoul on Tuesday evening, ready for the big trip home the next day. ...got to squeeze the last few dregs out of what South Korea has to offer before it's back to the normal life!