Found some awesome pics of Liverpool's Istanbul Champions League Victory and Celebrations!

Cisse and Traore showing off the bodies that are produced by running 7 days a week!



















Stevie G with the cup that every player dreams about hoisting once in his career.


















Wow, when he missed I almost passed out, but when the rebound went in I almost passed a bus!!!!

















A showing of fans that will never be matched at the club level by any team in history.

Just wanted to share some of these pics with all my visitors. The pics say enough, I need say no more other than it was my Mum's 65th birthday on May 25, 2005. She became an old age pensioner, the coolest and most hip OAP that I know, other than my dad!!!!!!!...
That day Liverpool won the Champions League for the 5th time and are now proud owners of the trophy forever!

Say hello to some of the people at Avalon that I work with!

The first picture is of Rebecca with her usual Cheshire cat grin. She is from the West Coast of Canada. Rebecca is always full of fun and a very good teacher of course.
Lyndsey is the next picture. She is American and I am not sure whereabouts! She talks almost as much as I do, if that is possible. She has a a great spirit about her and watching her interact with the students is a treat.



Avalon School is the name of the school that I am working at. The main headquarters are located in Jonga-Dong in Bundang. The school boasts approximately 10 to 11 campuses with a total of over 50 English teachers. Most of the teachers are either Canadian or American, but there is always the exception to the rule like myself. They hired me to teach them PROPER English!
The schools are run very professionally and they have a system in place that ensures that the students all learn English progressively. There are quizzes and tests on a regular basis as well as input from the parents. The Korean teachers have a big workload and are a great help to us at the school with matters relating to student's attitudes as well as positive reinforcement.
I am working at Sunae campus with 6 other English teachers. The pictures below are of the teachers at my school and there is a brief description about each of them and where they herald from. Some of the teachers don't like their pictures being taken at all, so I have had to improvise and try other ways to get them onto my web page; hence the picture of the inside of an Avalon promotion book!
Wayne and Scott are not on this page, but James, Lyndsey, Rebecca and Dave are.

This is a page taken out of a promotional book by Avalon. The picture shows most of the teachers at my school, but there are several teachers not in the picture, including myself.

This is James, another one of the teachers at my school. He is American too. As far as I know he has been in Korea for a few years. James has a good sense of humour and is a pleasure to work with.

Friday night out with the fellow teachers at Avalon.

Last night was Friday night and a few of us decided to go and drink some soju. Lyndsey, Scott, James and I from Sunae met a Korean guy, Jay, who used to work at our school, but has decided to go back to school. We went to an eel restaurant that also had pork and of course some soju. My girlfriend was with me and Scott met a Korean girl, Mee Hee that he has just met. My friend Dave showed up and met us also as well as another Korean guy from the Sunae school whose name I always forget!!!!!! Sorry dude!We had a good time and we laughed a lot and drank a lot. The picture below of Scott and his friend Mee-Hee and the Korean guy from our school was taken in the singing room too.


After the restaurant we went to a beer place and drank a few beers. Then we went to the singing room and were there for about an hour or so. We all had a good night and ended up getting home about 4am.
Ate some curry and rice when we got home and then crashed into oblivion.
We are off to Hongdae tonight to the ATC recruiting party. Should have a good time there too!

The picture of Dave above was taken in the singing room and the bottom picture is of Lyndsey, taken in the office at the school in Sunae.

Hey fat boy.... Time to get back to the gym!

Back to the gym again this week to shed some of the pounds put on over the Winter season. Due to the lack of activity caused by my bad elbow, I weighed in at a nice whopping 235 pounds. It is strange though as I didn't show it in my face, but sure as hell did in the midriff!!!
The gym is across the street from my apartment and is literally a one minute walk away.
The gyms here are quite unique. The supply you with a t-shirt and shorts and also with towels and soap and after shave lotion. I have my own overnight locker, whick I use to keep my running shoes and shaving bag in. I don't have to take anything to the gym with me, as everything is there already. No towels to wash and only underwear and socks to wash. It really is a cultural phenomenon. The gym has universal machines and a power rack and a larger array of dumbells. It also has treadmills that feature a t.v. at every machine complete with headphones. It makes it a lot easier when you are running and can tune out the pain.
The place is a good price by Korean standard too. I paid 160 dollars for 3 months, but as I said everything is there for you. By Western standards the gyms here are a little expensive or should I say by North American standards.

To tell you the truth, I was going through the pics on my computer and found this one and for sure it has inspired me to get back to the gym and get healthy again....... Hahahaha........

Intenet at home and finally English on the t.v.

This week has been a great week for myself. I have full internet service at home and full cable service at home.
There are several all English channels. one of which is called AFN (American Forces Network). It is actually quite an eye opener at times as the channel is shown for the soldiers that are based up in Seoul and a few other cities in South Korea. There is quite a bit of propoganda shown on there, but all in all it is a good channel as they have The Leno Show and The Letterman Show plus Dr. Phil and Oprah. I enjoy keeping up with the Western world through this channel.
There is also Star Sports, which is hit and miss in English as it is predominantly Chinese broadcasters that are on the channel. There are a lot of Premier games from England shown, so that alone makes it worth watching.
The Koreans now have 2 players playing in the Premiership; Pak Ji-Son and Ee-Yong Pyo, so we get to watch every Man U game and every Tottenham game that is played. It is cool as I get to see some of the less statured teams when they play these two teams.
All in all, I don't feel lost at all with all this modern technology to work with and hence this blogsite that I am posting on all the time.
This weekend there is a big party put on by the agencyATC, the agency I used to get my job at Avalon. Avalon uses only ATC to hire the teachers at their schools. The party is 15 dollars to get in and you get a free t-shirt and two beers and a small snack included. It should be a good time for all. Most of the teachers at my school are going as well as Dave, my best friend and Eric, one of the teachers that I met when I first arrived at the Jongja Campus at Avalon.
Eric hails from Vancouver and is a really cool guy. I don't have any pics of him, but hopefully starting next week, I will post more pics of different things in Korea such as school and students and friends.

Some pictures from The World Club Championships from Tokyo.

The pictures show a snapshot of the crowd at the Yokohama World Cup Stadium, which is crap by the way, Sean, Stu, Paul and I dressed with headbands on that said kamakazi in Japanese and finally Paul and I in the subway in Tokyo.
We were there to see Liverpool play in the World Club Championships. We went for 5 days and had a great time, although my elbow was a little bit of a downer for me. You can see from the picture how I am holding my left arm. It was very painful at the time to do anything with it, but seeing Liverpool play made me forget about it quick.
Although we lost in the final, we totally outplayed and outclassed Sao Paolo. Liverpool had 17 corners, 21 shots, hit the post 3 times and had 3 goals disallowed, one of which was not offside and should have counted. Gerrard was pulled down on a breakaway down the wing and the Sao Paolo player only got a yellow. Kewell should have had a penalty right at the end of the game. Our spirit was not killed or dampened and we sang them off the field after the game was over!!!!!

Liverpool's F.A. Cup win over Manchester Utd, the first in 85 years!

After more than an 85 year drought, Liverpool finally defeated their rival and nemesis, Manchester Utd. Peter Crouch scored in about the 20th minute with a powerful header to send the Anfield crowd into a frenzy.
It was a well deserved win, although the quality of football at times was quite boring and unadventuress.
There was however a sad note to the victory; Alan Smith was badly injured at the end of the game, breaking his ankle and leg at the same time while blocking a free-kick.
Over 8 minutes of injury time was played due to the long delay caused by the medical care administered to Alan Smith. Sadly, his dreams of going to the World Cup are now finished..... he will be out for at least 8 to 9 months. Fortunately, he is very young and this will not be a career threatening injury.
Liverpool now move into the quarter-finals of the FA cup with the draw to be held for the next round soon.