Training for Guest English Teachers to Reinforce their Teaching Abilities

[Greg:]  The training was about as useful as the title (Kathy is being generous in her assessment) but a good time was had by all nonetheless.  We got drunk, went to the beach, went to a noraebang (Korean private karaoke booth), broke into the water park at the hotel and Kathy got stuck on a fence (yes, there's bruising).  There was nudity, free-flowing alcohol, biting and even a naked, 53-year old woman stuck in a hedge.  Fun times!

These people are trusted with the education of children!

Karaoke room

More beer arrives

[Katherine: ]  Unfortunately, all the high jinks were preceded by the worst conference ever.  Our day began at 7am in Buan, when we had to get up after about 1 hour of sleep as I was stressing about my move to Sintaein and my skanky, dirty new apartment.  Photos and description will follow later.  We had to get up so early, despite the conference being local to Buan, as greg had received no information about getting to the conference (or that the conference was even taking place because his co-teacher is hospitalised in the UK with gout).  My old co-teacher (Bitch Lee) had said that the two of us had to assemble with the rest of the EPIK freaks at some random culture centre in Jeonju(90 minutes from Buan) and board busses back to Buan.  As you might guess, I was none too pleased and whined and moaned at poor Greg for the whole journey (he's a real hero).  When we got to Jeonju, we managed to find the culture centre (with some difficulties) as, fortunately, our taxi driver was one of the 1% of taxi drivers in Korea who wasn't a dick.  Greg had obtained some reasonably accurate directions from a Korean friend since Bitch Lee gave us next to no information, as per usual.  However, my mood declined rapidly when we arrived at the meeting point and came face to face with my nemesis, Chae Chong Lee, the English education supervisor in Jeollabuk do and the man (partly) responsible for my horrible living situation and who lied to me about moving to Jeongeup.  This smug, self-satisfied, shiny-suited arse informed Greg (he obviously has no idea who I am, or just doesn't care) "ah, you are from Buan.  You should be meeting at the Buan Education Office at 10.40am".  This meant we could have had 3 more hours sleep.  As you've probably guessed, this did nothing for my already horrible mood (again, poor Greg).



[Greg: ]  And they made us eat "delicious Korean food" the whole time.  As usual, we were the only two people (out of 120-odd) who wouldn't (or couldn't) stomach it.  The hotel did have a Lotteria (rubbish Korean McDonald's rip-off) but it didn't even do fries!!!!!!!!!!!