Deliciously Dangerous

Who doesn't like a slab of meat?

Unless of course, you are a vegetarian :s

In that case you are NOT gonna appreciate this post.

  One doesn't have to go far in a Google search to find out about the etiquette and occurrences for school dinners with your co workers. There are sooo many ESL blogs out there with people's stories of their dinners, what they ate, the shenanigans that they all got up to, instagramed pics of their food etc. In fact, I think I might have even posted one myself. My most memorial school dinner to date was my first one (you always remember your first time, right??) where we went to some fishing village and ate freshly caught prawns. Me, who doesn't eat seafood, was force fed prawns by the head teacher who was drunk on soju. Since then I have come to see that this is entirely normal behavior and I just kinda "go with it" now. 

  Last night was another one of these dinners. It was a little spur of the moment, all the schools in out local area have been participating in volleyball competitions for the teachers and it just so happened that this weeks game was being hosted at our school. So teachers from schools around out immediate area came and played volleyball. It was actually kinda fun to watch, they were so competitive!  

  Anyway, afterwards the participating teachers and some extras (like myself) went out for dinner. We went pretty local, to a samgyeopsal place (삼겹살 - barbecued fat pork slabs) and gobbled it down... I parked myself with 2 of the young girl teachers who are super nice and cute. So it was kinda the three of us and then the rest of the group.All the male teachers got drunk, which is standard, and then around 6:00 the principal called it a night and we all headed home. I quite like that these school dinners don't go late - you get a free meal and get home reasonably early. Usually. 

  There are 4 of us teachers that live literally around the corner from each other - myself, one of the young girls and 2 young guy teachers. We are all under 30, I actually think I am the oldest out of us at the ripe old age of 27. Im just gonna acronym names for ease, and for privacy... PSN is kinda religious, she doesn't drink and she usually heads off to church a few times a week around 6pm. So she doesn't tend to get a cab back to our area. But the 2 boys, who were already well into their beer and soju, are always keen for round 2 after a dinner. So the three of us headed off for fried chicken and more booze. Funny how they are sooo much more chatty and able to speak English when they are inebriated. Regardless, it always ends up making the night for me. They are hilarious, and both speak pretty good English but not to the point where they don't make hilarious slip ups. And the topics of conversation always floor me. Things like - 

- which teacher is prettier, A or B?

- who is more handsome, me or him? (pointing to each other)

- Bonnie why don't you invite us out anywhere? We want to meet foreign girls... (particularly KDA, who has told me that he isn't so concerned on what said foreign girl looks like, but he wants a curvy girl with big breasts)

- Bonnie you haven't had a boyfriend in over 3 years, we have plenty of special Korean words for girls like you

- Do you want to be set up with my friend? 

- Don't you think KYJ has funny eyes?? Like a clock?

  And I always get good gossip out of them too, like who is arguing with who in the staff room and what teachers hang out etc. The more we all drink, the more the conversation flows... Next thing you know we are teaching each other new swear words and using them in practice sentences. The owner of the fried chicken shop was laughing along with us... But my favorite part of hanging out with the boys?? Its a MASSIVE ego boost for me... The more drunk they get, the more they tell me how beautiful I am, how I am the perfect woman, how they can't believe I am not in a relationship, I have a perfect "S" line etc etc. I always walk away feeling awesome. Not gonna lie, I was a little hung over this morning but totally worth it to hear compliments. 

  So, boys reading, if you take anything away from this read, don't think about school dinners and delicious meat. Say something nice to a girl you know, complement anything. Even something like "wow, that is a nice shirt you are wearing today". It will help cheer her all day. I mean, don't be drunk and go overboard so you come across like a creep, but just a kind word here and there can really brighten someones day^^

Sorry kids classes are cancelled today - WE MUST PLAY VOLLEYBALL

xoxox

What do I have in my pocketssssss

Did you used to have weird things in your pencil case when you were in school?

  By school I more mean elementary/primary school, but I guess in general. I think for me, the strangest thing I used to have were things I found outside, like interesting rocks or sticks. There were other more "normal" things like tazos or other collectible cards, and kinder surprise toys. 

I am sure there are other people out there who had more interesting things in their bags and pencil cases. 

  Kids doing and having weird shit is not Korea specific, I have come to believe that children are, in general terms, the same globally. They all tend to like cute fluffy things like puppies, boys tend to also like gross things like squished bugs, and girls like pretty pens. They tease each other, and draw all over their things. They hit each other, cry, and then make up within 10 minutes. Some are sleepy during class, others are full of beans and won't shut up (and different kids fill these sleepy and rowdy roles every day). 

  Some kids like blue, others green, some can't speak properly in their own language, let alone a second one. Some have a heap of friends, some a few. Some have none. You can generally tell a child comes from an unsupportive home, or a bad environment by their behavior or the way they dress. Or the way they associate with other kids. 

All children, all over the world, are strange. 

  I guess some things they will grow out of (like, at some point little Kang Joo Min is going to stop crying when he doesn't get to sit with his friend, and eventually Hye Jin is not going to try to sit in her partners lap during class... 

  Anyway, this isn't Korea specific, as I said, but I want to tell you some of the things I have seen the kids carrying around. Let me know if yours do the same, where ever you are...

• a frog in a jar
• Stanley knives in pencil cases (they don't tend to use a normal pencil sharpener here)
• a watch face, no band on it
• Pokemon cards
• smartphones with cases so big they need to carry them in little shoulder bags
• fluffy pencil cases shaped as various animals (the best was the fluffy blue whale that one of my gr 6 boys had)
• dead bugs - usually dragonflies
• candies
• vitamins (which they eat like candies)
• passes to get them on to the Air Base - I am constantly telling the kids to keep these in a safer place than their jacket pockets. Its like, a national security risk or something
• hot packs
• k pop memorabilia 
• mini slinkies
• play dough and clay
• nail polish
• spare phone batteries
• sand from the sports field
• a hamster

In other news...

  We had first snow yesterday for the season... and its totally early. Last year it didn't snow until December. But, I have been told by a semi-reliable source (yes, that's right, you know who you are...) that early snow can mean new love is on the horizon! So that, coupled with my new found interest in feng shui love charms means that any day now my milkshake should bring all the boys to the yard. I am still the most unlucky in love person I know, so maybe the snow will bring in some romance. Don't think I don't know that you are all waiting for some smutty stories...

  But the snow is beautiful. I mean, it was really just a fly by blizzard of sorts, and although it snowed a little again today its still not quite cold enough for it to settle and stick. I am a crazy person who actually loves this time of year, when the snow starts and its all exciting. If only they would let me have a heater on at school... But this is old news, everyone surely remembers me complaining last year about the cold?? No??? Rest assured, cold fb status updates are coming. 

  Countdown is on for heading home for 3 weeks. We are down to under 40 days... So I best get started on my Gillian Michaels 30 day shred. Which I was supposed to start this morning but unfortunately due to a mistake on my part my alarm didn't go off. I was late for work AND I didn't get shredded. Was so stupid too, I have like, a million cables under my side table at home, and I plugged my phone into one of them over night to charge and the stupid thing wasn't even connected to the wall. I plugged the phone into the camera charger or something... It amazing I woke up in time for classes at all.

Anyway, that's all for now... I want to do a write up of my touristy trip to Gyeongju soon, so stay tuned. It was a great weekend and pics turned out amazing. 

xoxox

Exploring Songtan

  I have lived in this town for more than a year now, and I regret to say I actually haven't explored it much. I just walk the some tried and measured tracks and don't really try anything new. I eat at the same places and order the same things.... Until recently. It's all part of my "see Korea" mentality, and what better way to see Korea than to start with my own town? I have wandered around Seoul more than Songtan!!!

  Milky and myself went for a walk yesterday, and can I just say, Fall is such a nice time to explore. The weather is pretty cool here, but the place looks amazing with all the colours. Some trees are still holding onto their leaves with a death grip, and some are even still green! So in my area I have a lovely mix of leaf colours - green, brown, yellow, orange, red and all colours in between. No purple or anything like that, which is unfortunate.
  Anyway we walked up the street and I decided to go to the park off to the right instead of the left where we usually walk. I like to go to the left because there are a shit load of stairs on that side, and I tend to walk that path with intent (my idea of exercise). Seeing as we were just strolling on Sunday, I figured we may as well check out a new route. And I am so glad we did.
  The park on the right has the same things as on the left, in terms of exercise equipment strategically placed around, but the thing I right away preferred about it was the distinct lack of path. Its as if this mini park/hill/forested place is trying to be a mountain and you can trek and hike it. We trekked in and followed the track up to the top, past all the oldies doing their routines in the bars and leg swingie thing (it can't possibly working any muscles, I have no idea what the deal is) and up to the top. I saw a clearing through the trees and came across some burial mounds.
  WTF BURIAL MOUNDS IN THE MIDDLE OF SONGTAN??? Yes, thats what they were, complete with little grave markers and trimmed grass. It was weird, I never knew that it was up there... On one side was the park/forest and then a clearing with graves,

and then a house! And a bathroom :s TOTALLY WEIRD! I am not sure what the deal is with taking pics, so I quickly snapped one and went on my way. We continued strolling through the park and I decided to take us down a slope which opened up into another clearing. Ahead were new buildings, apartments and a new road. To the right of me was another grave, but this one was bigger, like a full on shrine. And it was recently tended to, there were fresh flowers there. And to the left was a cleared hill with more grave mounds at the top. Now, I have so many questions about this so I need to get asking, but are people just allowed to buy their family members anywhere they like? Are there people in there? Or cremated people? In jars??? And, the land around here is pretty hard to get at the moment I would think. There is always a new building or something going up... So do the families own these plots? Or does the council? With so many people living in Korea it seems unlikely that everyone would have their own little park for graves, so is it only rich people??? Sooo many questions!
  Either way it was a peaceful place, out of the way of other houses and the road, and away from the park too. I want to include the area in my walks now...

  The next place I want to talk about is the new cafe that has opened basically across the road from my apartment. Me and Jess went there the other day for coffee and decided it was the best, and then I went with Ben on Saturday and we ate. The food was amazing, its all organic and they cook it all there and you can tell that it tastes better than the usual fare. The price kinda reflected that, Ben's salad was something like 13,000 and my pasta was 15,000 but it was sooo tasty. AND YOU GET FREE BREAD so bargain!!!
  Its also a gallery, and whoever the owner is has put pics up from around Songtan, and I liked trying top guess where the photos were taken. The photographer has also been to Paris and taken some fab photos there, and the Paris pics are all on display upstairs. Its really trendy and looks like the whole place would fit in better in one of the trendy Seoul areas, not in Songtan. But I am glad it is there and I am totally gonna eat there again!!!

The free bread (eaten lol) and Ben's huge
salad.
And the cool coffee :)

 
It makes being in Songtan more fun, going and finding new things to do and see... I a few weeks I am planning a mini trip to another province to see some more interesting things. To be honest I was feeling a bit stuck in a rut of late, and I needed to get myself out. I mean, I have great and fun friends so they are always handy but you need to be able to get yourself out of a slump too. I think it was the initial change in weather - it is getting really chilly. And I felt like I didn't do enough with my Summer... I spend too much time doing the same things. So first I started planning other things to do. And then decided to explore my area. And I plan to continue my adventuring! Time is going by soooo quickly and I don't want to look back on my year and feel like I have wasted it.

  So I am mega saving... After I get back from Aus I want to put cash aside for a trip to Hong Kong, and of course I want to see more of Korea.

The cheesy pasta - 15,000 won

  Hope everyone is having a stellar day, and not freezing. Even though outside it isn't too bad I am in my classroom with a blanket wrapped around my legs. No lie. And I forgot my lunch. And looking at my food pics is killing me.

Sigh.

xoxox

It's a trap!

I know I have mentioned this before, but I want to expand on something...

Coffee

  I was told that the coffee in Korea wasn't great, and at the time I honestly didn't really give a shit as I wasn't much of a coffee drinker. For starters, I think the coffee is pretty good. For someone who arrived in Korea as a non-coffee drinker, I now have at least 2 cups a day. The coffee in Korea has lead me into a trap. 

I also drink various teas, but that is another tale.

  I have 2 different types of coffee that I keep in my house. One is just the normal, run-of-the-mill instant coffee from Emart or something. The other is a box of coffee sticks. My previous brand of choice was French Cafe, but actually they are a little sweet so the next box I buy will be Maxim sticks. These coffee sticks are hardly any coffee, all sugar and instant milk. They must be SO bad for me but I can't help but love how convenient they are. 

  Basically, you rip the end off the stick and tip the contents into a cup and add hot water. Amaze. And they also have an iced coffee stick for the warmer days... These are also the type of thing they have at school in the tea room, which is where I first discovered their sugary goodness. I used to LOVE the sugar, because I wasn't a massive fan of coffee but drank it to be social. Now, however, I tend to make my coffee at home with less than half what has got to be in these things. Still, they are tasty and easy. AND MAKING ME FAT I HATE YOU.

  The other coffee, the best coffee, is what they make at the cafe's. You can get any flavour you can think of, from lattes to caramel macchiattos, to sweet potato lattes. Whatever you want! My fave is just a regular vanilla latte, and I will have one pretty much every time I go out to meet people. Which is almost every day :s so that leads me to realise I am also spending a fair bit of money on coffee. 

  Your average cup of coffee in Korea will cost between 2400 - 5000 won depending on how fancy you wanna go. You can get to go coffee at all cafes.

  Another stupid phenomena that is the norm here is drinking your coffee (or whatever hot drink you are sipping) out of the stirring straw. If you look at this pic here, you can see the stupid stirring straw is sticking out of the drinking part. Yes, that is what I sip my boiling hot coffee through. and often I forget that the liquid is hot, and I will suck on the freaking thing and send a stream of scalding coffee down my throat and giving my tongue third degree burns. I do it every time, and yet I still get the stirring straw and use it to drink. Why? Because thats what everyone else does and we know I am all about conforming (awkward...).

  There are coffee shops absolutely everywhere near me, and only once you get into more rural areas do they start to drop off. In Seoul you can hardly walk 10 steps without finding another one (or a Paris Baguette which also have coffee), and each is about as good as the next. They have all the big brand coffee places, so if you are craving your soy milk skinny frappe from Starbucks then you can find it here too. I have seen Tom and Toms, Gloria Jean's and The Coffee Bean just to name a few. Dunkin' Donuts is huge here also, and they actually have pretty good coffee and its cheap. And they sell hash browns for like, $1.50 for 6. 

  My big beef with the non-chain coffee stores, therefore basically all of them near my place, is that they don't open until around 10am. So if you are a morning coffee person you would like to hope that there is a Starbucks around, or a McDonalds or something. Even some of the name chains don't open until a bit later, so wanting to stop and grab a coffee on your way to school is out of the question. 

  Another thing that is kinda annoying is that the coffee places usually have a pretty shit food selection. They don't really do sandwiches here, and the cakes are, well, Korean. So don't expect awesome snacks with your coffee. 

  This is all just my opinion, so if you find or know of something that goes against this please tell me! I am always excited to hear of a decent place to find coffee :) So you can see how I fell into the coffee trap, huh?

Till next time, citizens

xoxoxo

It's Cool in Fall

What is this?

  What type of blog is this?? 

I read on some page somewhere that all blogs should fall into some sort of category... Which got me thinking. Is this a travel blog?? I certainly talk about my travels, but I don't know if the whole content falls here. It's def not a cooking blog, although I do post what I am eating and have been known to add a recipe here and there...

Lifestyle blog? Maybe... But I feel that implies I need to either have kids or talk more about my sex life (gotta have one to talk about it I spose...)

So what will I call this? I think it is a "life experiences/conversational/mind dump" blog. Hope this title is ok with everyone...

*mental note to change the blog description*

#wantsmoretraffic

#missuseofhashtags

#hashtags4lyf

What really happens in Johto...

  Myself and a friend got chatting the other day, and for whatever reason our conversation turned to one of my favourite topics - pokemon. He raised some disturbing points that I want to flesh out here on my life experiences/conversational/mind dump (henceforth called ECMD blog). 

  First, I want to say that these are questions that can be applied to all Pokemon regions, not just Johto, but as I am playing Pokemon Ruby on my phone atm, note that I am referring to the Johto region and all Pokemon I mention will be from there. 

  Ok. So, you get given a Pokemon by the good Profession Littleroot, and you start catching Pokemon. You battle with them, and end up a champ. Let's apply this to a real life situation. You capture an animal and train it to battle until it passes out. Some of them you keep in the back of a van in the dark, others are sent to a warehouse where they are kept in dark cages and never seen again. The ones in your van you train to fight, and regularly challenge people and are challenged in return. You right your animals for money. You force them to grow up with growth hormones (yeah, "rare candy" my arse) or prevent them from growing. You do this repeatedly for your own personal gain. And yet people tell you that your animals like to battle. 

  Let's now look at what is happening in the world of Pokemon. I used to watch the show. It was good. Here are some interesting observations - 

You never see any farm animals, or see any regular fish or birds. 

You see Ash and his friends eating burgers and pizza and other things.

Sometimes you see Pokemon doing hard labour. 

Here is what I think:

They are eating pokemon. They need meat, and there are no cows or whatever so they have, as my friend put it, "pikachu steaks"... And for sport, do they hunt the deer Pokemon? And shoot the bird Pokemon? 

Is there illegal fishing of the sea Pokemon? WHO MANAGES THESE THINGS?

Do people keep goldeens in a bowl like a normal goldfish?

What about that Pokemon that kinda looks like a giraffe? I wonder if someone out there has pelts hanging on their wall of that one... 

  And we who are playing are like sick hunters... we look for the most rare pokemon, the ones where there is only ONE LEFT IN THE WORLD and we try to catch it. And then we force it to fight. What the hell are we turning our children into??

  As you probably know I am eagerly awaiting the next Pokemon game to be released. I will be all over that like Asians on rice. 

In other news...

  I was mega emo last Friday, just missing people who have left Korea and also home... I have had so many dreams lately where I am in Australia. Its prob cos of all the planning for my trip back in January. I will be home for about 3 weeks before heading back to the land of kimchi, so hit me up if you wanna hang. Anyway I had too many drinks and ended up yelling at some poor guy I know (overwhelmed him with English and girl tears. He was suitably freaked out), and then went and had a cry to Steve, Jinsook and Shanda. Sorry everyone... I am not usually a teary drunk, but I was feeling kinda overwhelmed. And lonely. I miss my old friends sooo much. Korea isn't the same without them. 

  I want to buy a new camera. I have pretty much decided to get the Sony NEX 5T, it seems to have all the cool features I want. I don't know much about cameras and stuff so this is a decision based of recommendations by friends. I will let you know when I get it and start posting stupid pics and hopefully doing some new videos. 

Ok, I think thats all I have for now. Let's talk again later, ok??

xoxox