One of the most interesting things about living in cities like Seoul is the juxtaposition of the ancient and the new This is a picture which shows that very nicely, I think. Taken from a hilly compound of Chondong Buddhist Temple, this shows the temple roof silhouetted against the backdrop of the Korea World Trade Centre tower, which itself reflects surrounding hotels and other highrises.

Seoul's got what's probably the world's best underground rail system, and the crowds are something to see (though not to Tokyo's 'cram-'em-in-by-hand scale). There are few non-Koreans to be seen, and when they DO appear, they're often completely ignored by the apparently-reserved locals, or else are almost guaranteed to be pounced upon and offered jobs as English teachers. Hilarious.

One of the first things we did was look up Laetitia's best friend in the country, Jung-Eun Lee. 'Julie' has spent the last couple of years in the U.K and had recently come back to Seoul where - as chance would have it - she'd ended up working with exactly the same group of people we were all working with three years before! She and Laetitia had not seen each other for almost three years and were happy to spend a few hours together on the first Saturday we were back in the country. 

This is a shot of the outside of our building. Our flat was the one you can see on the first floor on the right - and the people you can see are whatshername and Jess Arndt, the Director of our company, who was showing us around our new neighbourhood. Like all Korean residential units, the place is double-glazed and centrally-heated with ondol, the ingenious Korean system which pipes hot water from the building's pipes under all the floors. This would be worth its weight in gold when the freezing Siberian-style winters hit at the end of the year. Oh - and the rent? US$10 000.00 deposit and US$700 a month. Excluding water and power.

For the geographically- challenged amongst us, here is a map of the Seoul area complete with the relevant additions to show where we lived and worked. The green circle lower right marks the area of Apkujong where Laetitia worked, while the orange one shows you where I did. Our flat in Nonhyon was right between the two. The heart of the city is across the river and slightly to the left, and the foreigner 'ghetto' of Itaewon is just southwest of the Namsan Tower. When we were here a few years beforehand, we used to live and work below the Yongdungpo-dong area (lower left of the map, about where the two red freeway lines meet) and you can refresh your memory on that front here.

Our first two days back in Seoul were spent at the Institute's HQ in Kangnam where we underwent our training and general getting-acquainted routine. Part of this involved sitting in one of the conversation rooms and watching the ENTIRE series of tuitional videos available to the people who study English through Direct English (the company we worked for). This took the best part of a day and also took a large chunk of stamina and endurance. Thank God the vids were good. The institutes we worked at were probably the best in the country and we were well chuffed to be spending our working weeks in this type of environment. Adults only, excellent facilities, and a completely professional and thoroughly-cohesive programme to use. Marvellous.