Raindrops on Roses…

…and whiskers on kittens….

….how cute? I pass this pet shop on the way to my bus stop every day after school. It’s so tempting. I’ve ummed and aahed several times over whether or not to get a little  fluffball to keep me company here. But I’ll always remember what a heartache it used to be every morning when my Mom and I would leave for work and leave Peppy, our little West Highland Terrier, crying and howling for us in the hallway. She was a real crybaby right into her old age that little madam! Of course it was all our fault for spoiling her rotten. I’ll always be a person who treats her pets like a real child I think, and to think of falling for a pet here and then having to leave it behind when I go. Too heartbreaking!

It’s been a strange, gloomy week, haunted by thunderstorms and tragedies on the news. The glut of rain in Korea has resulted in landslides which have killed and injured dozens. My co-teachers are putting the fear of God in me that all this rain is carrying dangerous radioactive particles from Japan and I can look forward to having three-legged babies one day. Everyone is still trying to get their head around the mass-tragedy in Norway  and last Sunday I woke up to read the news of Amy Winehouse’s death. Hardly shocking, I think we’ve been watching her die slowly for years now in the tabloid pictures.  I remember seeing her years ago in her local pub in Camden, she was behind the bar serving drinks to the customers as she frequently used to do. I could see her beehive bobbing up and down beyond the crowds of heads standing at the  bar. She was really tiny and very pretty, just a normal London girl. This was before all the drink and drugs turned her into a haggard shell. What a waste to think her lifestyle took her whole life away like that. It’s a really chilling lesson to us all.

Well, what better way for a gal to lift her spirits than to treat herself to her first ever pedicure? I’m good to myself like that ;-). I visited the tiny nail shop in downtown on Tuesday and sat back and relaxed for an hour while the lady went to work on my tired ol’ feet. I chose a bright coral shade for my toes which looks bright orange in the picture but really isn’t! It was so relaxing, I literally almost dozed off, and my feet feel soft as a babies now. I  think this may just have to become a  regular treat from now on ^-^.

 

Korean foods I love & love to hate

Me eating delicious Korean Pa Jeon (파전) or pancake

 So many things I’m going to miss when I hang up my teaching hat for good in 2 months. The gorgeous mountaineous scenery I get to see every day when I leave my apartment, the kind smiling faces of my co-teachers every morning, the copious high-fives my students give me on a  daily basis. High up on that list will be some of the mouth-watering Korean cuisine I have grown to love. It was a different story when I first got here 2 years ago. To my eyes Korean food isn’t the most appetizing in its appearance and I’m all about the aesthetics when it comes to food. I very quickly learned however that in most cases it will taste far better than it looks. I’ve also grown very attached to the communal experience of korean dining. At barbeque restaurants the cooking, sharing and eating of the meat is a joined effort. Rather than having your eyes down on one plate you are all sharing from the oodles of side dishes that litter the table. It is customary to pour drinks for eachother and plenty shots of soju is a must if you have a Korean at your table. This style of dining encourages input, eye contact, conversation and a shared eating experience which I will miss sorely when I’m gone.

Sharing a cheese dalkabi at Tudari (fried spicy chicken)

Saying all that, there are certain foods that turn up on the menu over here  that I won’t be sorry to leave behind at all! Here’s my top 4 Korean foods that I love to hate~

1. Mook (무ㄱ) or Acorn Jelly

brown slime? I'll pass thanks

As I’m writing it acorn jelly actually sounds like it could be pretty nice. Not for me it aint. It’s cold, it’s wet, it wobbles. And it it don’t taste nuthin like acorns.

2. Spam

 

It’s a tasty meat treat. Apparantly.

Yep, you read that right. Spam.  And I’m not talking about slapping your friendon the forehead, I’m talking about the processed meat in a can. They’re crazy for it here and apparantly it’s too nice to buy for yourself. Spam can usually be found in marts in the form of  gift packs bound by a large ribbon.

3. Persimmon

 

The persimmon. A tricky fruit.

 

I’ve tried to love persimmon. Honest to God I have. I’ve given it chance after chance. My pal Mary hit the nail on the head when she said “it’s always presented to you like your getting such a treat”. After politely swallowing down its  fleshy, slimy blandness a million times I’m afraid it’s officially over between me and the persimmon now.

4. Rice cakes

Isn’t there enough rice in the main meal or what??

I have a huge sweet tooth which mainly demands chocolate and not dessert sweets made of rice with red bean paste inside. Enough said!

 

 

 

Pencil Case Wisdom

 

 

Annyong!

The idea for this post came from my friend Whitney, who a few months back quoted on facebook some of the corny and typically poor English that is stamped all over Korean stationary. This is the message her pencil case had for her….

“I’m walking on joyful color spectrums. I feel the love that’s really real”

~  what exactly joyful color spectrums are I would just love to know! I get the distinct feeling that manufacturers in Korea deem their products more saleable if they have some English text slapped all over them. However they clearly  feel it unnecessary to have an English speaker check over the grammar, spelling and punctuation of the text before producing it on a mass scale. No wonder some of my kids struggle to form a legible sentence when their t-shirt says ‘The Baetles’ or (and I actually bought this t-shirt because it was so hilarious) ‘Sungrasses’.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m a letter writer so I have bought at least 4 stationary pads here over the last 2 years and some of the lengthy messages and quotes printed on them are so incredibly saccharine and garbled I just had to share a few…

 

“Even we can not fly now, it doesn’t mean we can’t never fly. A dream that we have, we already starting flying to the sky.”

“On lovely day, I want  take a walk with you, I want to show you beautiful flowers and nice blue sky. It made my heart fill fully by just looking.”

“Love , which is a wonderful feeling, come to everyone at someting.”

“noting can be instead of you”

“Mere traveling either in foreign lands or at home is time half wasted.”

That last one just kills me. Even before translation it doesn’t make any sense. Travel is a waste of half of your time? What does that even mean!?

Saying all this I do have a real soft spot for Korean stationary, they’re crazy for stationary over here and when they get it right they really get it right. Check out this teeny cute squirrel bookmark I got from Gangnam Artbox:

 

Weekend Summer Camp

GYL Summer Camp, Okgye, 2011, a set on Flickr.

So to save money toward my next adventures in traveling I’ve taken on any extra work I can lay my hands on over these last few months. The biggest cash cow has been a Global Youth Leaders programme I work at 2 Saturdays every month which pays really well and is pretty easy money too as the Middle School students who take part in it are all exceptional at English. This weekend was the overnight camp for this programme and we stayed at a swanky Women’s Centre situated right on the beach with a lush panoramic view of the tree covered mountains.

There were plenty of photo opps and I snapped away with my iPod on the first day. As you can tell I’m pretty hooked on the Instagram app on my iPod! I love the range of effects you can choose from and the way some of them can pop the colors in an average looking photo and transform it into something that looks pretty gorgeous. I’m quite addicted to this neat little memory maker  ^^

Anyway, back to the camp. The kids had a bunch of team projects to do, they put on a talent show and we hired a dance teacher to teach the students and camp leaders a K-Pop dance routine which I may or may not have royally f*cked up in the teachers final dance performance at the end! Ah, nothing tops of a day better than making an ass of yourself in front of a bunch of teenagers!

This was how it should have been done

I spent a good dose of my time dedicated to one of my favorite hobbies- people watching. Or student watching as this was. There was the loner girl who sat all day solving, undoing and re-solving a Rubiks cube. There was the chubby flamboyant boy who performed the entire Miss A dance routine during his team’s talent performance, taking it all way too seriously. And there was the angel faced pre-pubescent girl wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with ‘I’ll show you mine if you show me yours’. Ah, sweet oblivion. I couldn’t help but chuckle and remember the time on the beach when my boyfriend spotted an ajumma pooting around wearing a t-shirt with the slogan ‘Vote Mike Hunt for President’…x

The Week in Pictures

July, a set on Flickr.

Started using the gym, mid-week balcony bbq, cupcake earrings, desk doodles, my first grade class, summer dress from G Market, delicious steamed pork and lettuce wrap, homemade bookmark, good old Pixar movie to enchant the whole class.

Coffee Date

I spent  a lovely evening out last week at my new favorite local cafe (every time I discover a new one a better one is usually  around the corner), ‘Andromeda’. I was out with my co-teacher Chang Mee and her friend Ji-Yun for some  girly time, Korean-style. Surprisingly I’ve not done too much of this in my time here so far, it involves a lot of linking arms and giggling. I chose the intriguingly titled ‘cookie nut tea’ from the menu, which revealed itself to be a cinnamon-y tasting herbal tea and nothing like it’s name suggested, but tasty nonetheless.

  After many many sessions of creepy people watching in Korean cafes I’ve come to the conclusion that you cannot truly immerse yourself in the modern Korean  coffee shop culture unless you~

a. sit silently opposite your date/friend/whatever and fiddle around with i phone/i pod/i pad for the duration of your coffee.

b. take a million pictures of yourself and your friends making victory signs.

Happily we opted for good old fashioned eye contact and girl talk interspersed with a healthy dollop of option b~~

Happy middle of the week everyone!

Not as easy as buying noodles

So finally, after 2 whole years of procrastination I did it. I took the plunge and sacrificed my hair, my crowning glory, to the mercy of the Korean hairdresser to give me blonde highlights. Acquiring a decent head of highlights in this particular spot on the earth is no easy feat and understandably so, the stylists here are just not used to dealing with light colored hair. Korean message boards are riddled with horror stories cautioning fellow blondies against the dreaded ‘orange job’. So fearful was I of a brassy do that I twice gave in to the lure of the do-it-yourself bottle die which, to be honest, left my hair a hue not that far from the color I had been dreading and so was, in the end, completely counter-productive. Last week I decided enough was enough and decided to get a little of my Nancy Drew on. After a lot of research (read this as googling and blog reading) I decided on Lucy Hair  in Sinchon, Seoul. Lucy and her stylists all speak excellent English and they trained as hair stylists overseas so they are fully capable with dealing with all hair types. Dennis, my stylist, was amazing and gave me exactly what I asked for in terms of hair color and the style. I am now one very happy blonde bunny!

Here’s a before and after of my hair color:

And finally, my banana feet. I’m not entirely convinced whether I’m wearing this color or it’s the other way round. The juries still out…

28 before 29

A list of  things I want to accomplish in the 294 days until my next birthday. I think it will be fun to look back over this list just before I turn 29 and remember the things I wanted when I was a year younger and hopefully be able to cross a few off. And maybe I’ll have completely changed my mind about a lot of things too!

1. Finish small collection of short stories

2. Visit friends in San Fransisco

3. Go back to India

4. Do a refresher yoga course

5. Get  tattooed again

6. Print all toy camera photos and scrapbook them

7. Apply for an online Nutrition course

8. Finish itunes playlists

9. Keep going with my blogs

10. Purchase a better blog theme

11. Go to a drive-in

12. Try a  root beer float

13. laugh, smile, snort

14. Successfuly grow something I can eat

15. Discover some great new music

16. Reconnect with family

17. Learn to cook a kick ass coconut curry

18. Practice using  an SLR camera

19. Christmas at my parents new home in Ireland

20. See at least one band I adore live

21. Be thrifty with my money

22. Buy a record player =)

23. Stay in love

24. Get my ass in shape

25. Maintain positivity

26. Mend a broken friendship

27. Read 2 new books a month

28. Keep growing my hair

Hello July

Buying new stationary makes me ever so happy. Especially Asian stationary, it’s the cutest. I splurged in Art Box in Gangnam yesterday and now my fingers are itching to pick up a pen and cover these pretty papers with letters home. Which I think I’ll do with my free time today. Three cheers for exam week!

This weekend was a good one. Visiting great friends, a baseball game, gratuitous shopping and my favourite bit…kissing under the umbrella in the rain ☂ x

Also, really loving this Photobooth App on my iPod.