Who needs an iPod when you've got Americans?

Finally, the blog returns. The two week wait for an update seems to have ousted my fan base. What have I been up to? I'll keep it long and sour, as usual.

Since my last post, I have now joined two football teams. It feels good to say 'football' - the Yanks have infested this land with the blasphemy of 'soccer'. I thought originally that learning Korean was going to be hard. Turns out I need to learn 'American' too. I have to pronounce certain words in my really bad American accent. Consequently, my lessons can often sound like a really bad automated phone call.

OK back to football- so I wandered down a week last Sunday to the local astro-turf and two teams were playing. After half an hour of watching, they gestured at me to start playing. They asked where I played- I told them centre back or centre midfield. They put me as a lone striker. The communication difficulties are clearly subsiding.

Well, actually, they are on to something. I scored eight goals in three hours of playing. That's more than in my last three years of Sunday football combined. Clearly, the key to stopping me is to have a crew of thirty-something blokes with a penchant for Carling and pork scratchings as your back four.

That was my first team. On Thursday, a new team appeared when I was doing my workout down at the astro-turf and quickly ushered me in their direction. Apparently, the other team had told them about me and they wanted me to play for them as their star player and talisman. As I only know five phrases in Korean, I can only assume this is what they meant. What else could it possibly be??

However, the main highlight of the past two weeks was this past weekend. It involved Sea Rafting, Paint-balling and a Pumba festival- oh, and my first taste of Soju. What's Soju? It's basically Korean Vodka and it was responsible, along with a quantity of Korean beer, for a bout of skinny dipping and a hangover that felt like a second round of Jet-lag. Lovely stuff.

The weekend involved ten hours of sleep in two days- five of which were spent sleeping on the floor. Apparently, in Korea it's OK to run a hotel that has no beds at all. There weren't even mattresses- just a pillow and what was basically a picnic blanket each. However, the 'hotel' had deemed it necessary to splash out on a television, a fridge, a washing up sink and various pots and pans for each room. I should point out that there were no actual cooking facilities available. Brilliant.

Anyway, I feel the last paragraph validates my decision to consume the previously mentioned Soju and Korean beer combination. See, the only way I was ever going to get any sleep was to literally pass out on the floor. Genius in theory. However, my eyes' blatant refusal to stay open the next day was a slight hindrance. Some slight adjustment to the Soju/sleep balance may be required...

OK, finally- the actual trip. First we headed for the Pumba festival- this is a festival celebrating traditional Korean beggars, where we dress up and pretend to be one all day. It involved us dressing up like skint clowns and a LOT of Korean people swarming around paparazzi and taking photos of us making stupid faces. I felt exactly like a celebrity- I wanted to punch them too.

During the three hour bus journey to the festival, I got to know the people sitting near me. They included Kyle- a 6'6 Yank who actually makes me look small. The two tallest guys on the bus sitting next to one another- a wise decision for my cramped legs. I was about to write 'the two biggest guys' -but that would have been a deviance from the truth.

Now, when I went to Seattle in 2010, I was stunned by how slender and fit all the Americans were- this wasn't what we read about in newspapers. But, this weekend I met some of the real Americans- health is securely locked in Seattle, it seems. When we hit the beach, I was actually very glad that my eyes would not stay open.

In addition to the 'plus-sized' passengers, there were a lot of loud, black women on the bus. I'm sorry, I mean loud, African-American women- I was worried this blog was beginning to sound culturally insensitive. Anyway, the 'African-American' women were of the “Ohhhh! No he didn't” and “Ohhhh, snap!” variety. This made for entertaining listening on the bus journeys. My iPod stayed firmly in my pocket.

Now, I will finish on what was possibly the best moment of the entire trip. Despite my ranting being all too offensive and blunt, I don’t think I could beat this moment if I tried.

OK, so we're sitting on the bus just talking away to the girls opposite us. Inevitably, when you've run out of anything interesting to talk about, the conversation always regresses to the obvious- sex. So, at this point, Kyle declared to a girl sitting opposite us that was not, in fact, attracted to black or Asian women at all. Now, this girl was sat next to a black woman. Behind them were two more black women and behind us was a black guy and a Korean-American lass. Behind her, another Korean-American girl. Oh no he didn't...