Working, sleeping, working, sleeping, working, sleeping, working, pub!

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Hi everyone :-)

I have been writing notes since I last did a blog about what I've been up to, and have had the photos uploaded to this blog for over a week now, but have now only just found the time to write it! In fact, I have specifically timetabled this into my schedule, otherwise it just wouldn't happen! I'm afraid it's not very exciting due to the fact that I spend most of my life in work (what's changed?!) but I'll try to write mainly about the fun parts of my life! Soooooo here is the last 3 (4?) weeks of my life:

I'll start with food! I'm not sure I've mentioned about the food at school before. We get free lunch and there is always a Western and an Asian option. It's all amazing and I usually have both because I can't choose! There are some weird mixes, like potato croquettes with rice and spaghetti bolognese (slightly carb heavy) but on the whole it is delicious! So then by the time I get home I usually just have an omelette or something if I'm eating in, although this rarely happens as people are always going out for dinner and I end up eating another huge meal and am gradually watching my stomach expand! There are LOADS of choices for eating out. In the last few weeks I've had Korean BBQ, where they bring raw meat to the table and you cook it on a BBQ, Italian, lots of Thai meals, Bulgarian, which is basically just hunks of lovely meat and traditional Korean, which is unbelievably cheap when you go off the main high street. So basically, I'm well fed and still love food as much as I always have!

Now onto the second thing that an English person must talk about.....the weather! It's quite changeable in these parts. We have lovely sunny days, followed by typhoons and torrential downpours the next. It's now coming into Autumn so the mornings and evenings are a little cooler but it's just the right temperature for walking / cycling and getting on with your day to day business. I have been caught in the downpours on many occasions, without an umbrella! I have literally walked home and looked like I've just had a shower more than once. I need to buy an umbrella that fits in my handbag so I'm more prepared, but I'm waiting until I find one with owls on it! I didn't think it would be that hard as they love owl tat out here but I have yet to succeed in my quest! My camera also fell foul of the rain as on one of these occasions it was in my handbag and it got soaked and finally gave up! I have had it for 8 years so it was time for a new one, but I haven't got the heart to throw it away either :-)

I have also had some interesting and amazing shopping experiences recently. We found a market type place under the bus terminal near school and I maanged to buy some shoes that fit me for cheap, and a lovely hat for sunny playtime duties (and my holiday to the Phillipines, which is now booked for half term - excited!!) I also found 'Daiso' - the best shop EVER! It is a mix of Boyes, Wilko's and Poundland all in one. I got some very practical items from there, as well as some not so practical items, like a cat neck cushion and pretty gift box. It is my new favourite shop :-) We also went on a bit of a touristy trip to 'Insadong', which is basically a 'tat' shopping area. We bought novelty chopsticks, novelty socks, novelty coasters and other 'I heart Korea' based items! It was a great day and my Xmas shopping is now officially started! ;-) We also explored the area around us a bit more as we always walk along the high street and see places we want to go in, but are always on the way somewhere (and usually running late) so we never go in them. So we made a special day to go along it and see our local area! We found an Aldo for Western sized shoes, some cool handbag shops and an apple shop where I can get myself a macbook for slightly less than in England! I also bought some fantastic Gangnam Style socks! Finally, we also found a Zara just a short bus ride away so the English credit card came out to buy some 'big size' clothes (this was before my shipping arrived and I was really fed up with wearing the same clothes day in, day out!)

Speaking of shipping - IT ARRIVED! On the day they said and with no breakages or losses! :-) So excited!! My owl collection is now out in the living room (I feel very sorry for the cleaner having to move it all and put it back again - but she's very good at it!) and I had a proper cup of tea and toast for the first time since I got here! It was one of the best days of my life to have a mouthful of toast followed by a mouthful of tea after so long. I LOVE TEA AND TOAST! :-) It took me 2 days to unpack and I was still ironing the clothes 2 weeks later as so many of them were creased from their journey. I cheated and washed loads of them and hung them out straight so I didn't have to iron them all :-) The most useless item in my shipping had to go to the chopsticks Emma bought me back from China! Weirdly, it's not that hard to get chopsticks out here........

So as well as feeling much more settled due to having my shipping, I also became an alien last week by receiving my 'Alien Registration Card'. This meant I got a bank account, got paid and got myself an iphone, so I'm now back in the world of contact with everybody! It's great :-) I was expecting to be at this stage within 3 weeks of arriving, but it has taken 6 overall, so I'm glad it's finally sorted! I'm finally living here legally and can deifinitely leave the country and come back again!

I'll quickly give you a low down on all my nights out recently as they've been pretty similar. We found 'Gold Bar' which basically plays pop music in the English chart, as well as 'Gangnam Style' of course, and we keep ending up there on every night out to have a good old boogie. I have also started going to Salsa classes, followed by a little bit of social salsa dancing, and that's been really fun. I've met some really nice people doing it, as well as going with a couple of people from school who I don't normally see that much outside of work, so it's been really good! We also went to Hongdae, which is classed as the clubbing area of Seoul, but we were quite tired when we got there so had a chilled night. We are going to go again soon when we are more up for it, now we've checked it out ;-) One of our most raucous nights out recently was actually on a school night and ended up with the 'pushchair incident' you can see in the photos!! Essentially, it is like I live in halls again, as we stacked the water bottles up on it outside our friends front door, after Mark pushed Katharine home in it and she fell out at the end. All we were missing was the traffic cone!

Finally, in other news: I know I mentioned it earlier, but I have a cleaner!! :-) She is amazing. Every Thursday I come home from work and my flat smells lovely. You know what I'm like with everything being in it's right place, and she is really good at making sure it all goes back correctly. I am also trying to learn a little bit of Korean with my teaching assisstant Jessica as my teacher. She's great and has taught me quite a few phrases already. I'm now great in taxi's at giving directions and can also say "I don't speak Korean' - very useful!! :-) At school we had a parent presentation evening recently where we basically had to talk about how great we are to all of the parents. I managed to get a horrendous cold on the lead up to that, so bad that I couldn't smell Vicks Vapur rub (!!!!!!!!) but I muddled on through and don't think I passed it onto any of the parents. I have also started walking home from school some days now the weather is nicer, and when I realised how fat I was getting. It takes about an hour but is a lovely walk along the river and can chill me out after a long day at work. I'm gonig to buy a bike soon so I can cycle it some days :-)

I now have a lovely 5 days off school because of Chu-Seok holiday (it's like the Korean version of Thanksgiving). We had a fabulous Chu-Seok day at school yesterday, but I will write about it next weekend and upload all the photos when I write about the rest of the stuff I have done during the time off :-) It will probably be a slightly more interesting blog than this one as I'm actually going to be a proper tourist for a few days, rather than just working, eating, sleeping and drinking heavily (although there may be some of that I imagine).

Sending lots of love to England!

Claire xxxx

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Photos

My shipping...
...dumped all over the floor by the delivery men and me1

My favourite and most useless items....
Owl chalkboard and chopsticks Emma brought back for me when she visitied China!

PG tips
Katharine's favourite thing in her shipping.

Katharine and her laminator.....
....the second favourite thing in her shipping!

Kettle plus toaster
..... equals tea and toast! My favourite :-)

The owl chalkboard....
....it made it :-)

My newly designed kitchen table
With my mugs from Megan and Harry :-)

Me and Katharine
.....the first picture of me with my new camera!

The pushchair adventure concludes
.....with Katharine folded in half!

The pushchair in the lift....
.....with Katharine looking lovingly at it!

Shhhhhhh.....
....don't wake Ian, whilst we stack a load of stuff outside his door!!

Comments

[Bekkifer]

I particularly enjoy the gold bar sign which essentially looks like they forgot to write "bar", realised they had no space, and put it at the top with an arrow. Hah! :) xx