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Published: December 2nd 2012
Hello!
Well it's been 4 weeks since I blogged; the reason being that I've been waiting for something exciting to happen! I've been noting down things that are slightly exciting and then after the Charity Christmas ball I attended on Friday night, I now feel that I have enough to talk about :-)
Coming back to Seoul from the Philippines was a bit of a shock due to the sudden drop in temperature and general 'going back to work' feeling. When we left it was getting chilly, but was still about 15 degrees during the day. When we got back it was about 6 or 7 degrees and has dropped ever since! It is now averaging minus figures every day! So the under floor heating is on and the hibernating has begun....although this has mainly been due to the report writing I've had to do, and illness, rather than the weather! Anyway, we returned to school and it felt like we had never been away. The first week back the children had a Halloween disco and so on the Friday night I stayed at school unitl 9pm helping out on the food table (don't know how I landed that
job - ha ha!) and judging the dancing competition. The highlight of this evening was the cycle ride back. As we went along the bridge we cycle on every day, there was a music and light show so there were rainbows all around me and really quite eerie music! I didn't get any pictures as we were in a rush to get home and get back out again for a few drinks, but I may return one Friday night and try and get a few snaps as I think it happens every week! It reminded me of the lights they have in York on the Minster around bonfire night so made me feel like I wasn't missing out not being back home!! :-)
Anyway on the Saturday me Rachel and Katharine went shopping in Sinsadong, which is a lovely little place to buy exciting Christmas gifts (I may have blogged about it before). We ate alot and shopped hard. We found a 'Forever 21' and spent a small fortune each, but basically had a new half of a wardrobe - finally a place where the clothes fit me and I don't get called fat! I bought the best ever
Christmas cardigan, which I imagine you will all see at some point over the festive period. I'm wearing it to school tomorrow as it's our first 'December' day. I'm also decorating the classroom in the morning! Eeeeeeek the excitement! Anyway....I digress (I just can't help it as my brain is officially tinsel at the moment). So shopping was great - I also bought an incredibly expensive coat but as it's lined with feathers I feel like it is a necessary purchase for the -18 degrees that is to come in January / February time! We then went to the Seoul Lantern Festival, which took place at the Cheonggye Stream in the centre of Seoul. I swear the whole of Korea was there as we had to queue for ages and it was really crowded, but the lanterns were amazing! All made out of paper - it must've took ages! So we had a wander around, made our own lantern, and floated it down the river. We all wrote really cheesey messages on it and then when we went to float it, it somehow went against the current and under the bridge!! Ha ha! We watched it for a while and
it did come back out again so we didn't feel like such losers anymore! We then ate some horribly fatty food in a disgusting American bar and then went home to bed after a very cultured evening!
We continued to be cultured the next day as we went to 'Paris Croissant' for our breakfast. This is one of the wonderful French bakeries they have here, with delicious pastries and other delights! We drank English tea, and I ate sandwiches and a lovely chocolate pastry. I also bought some olive bread to eat at the flat, which was amazing!! I then spent the day doing boring supermarket shopping, flat organising and school work, but had a lovely evening with my friend Hazel and her boyfriend who were visitng Seoul from Ulsan. We had a delicious Greek dinner a couple of beers and a good chat! Hopefully I will go and visit her soon - maybe when the weather heats up a bit and we can hit the beach! That Sunday was also 'Pepero day', which is a bit like Valentine's day, exept that it was invented by the company who make pepero basically to make loads of money. So pepero
are like thin sticks of biscuit, with one end dipped in chocolate, and on 'Pepero day' everybody gives them to each other! You can write messages of love on them or just give them to your friends. I got some on the Monday from one of my kids - cute! In the supermarket they had them EVERYWHERE! They stuck the boxes together in the shape of hearts and animals and you could buy huge gift packs of them - it was crazy! There was even a man dressed as a giant pig advertising them! Of course, this happened to be the same day as 'Rememberance Sunday' so when trying to teach the kids about 'poppy day' all they could think about is chocolatey biscuit sticks!
After that slightly eventful weekend I ended up ill, due to long hours at work and not resting enough! So the next 2 weeks really were very boring. Katharine was ill too so we spent a whole weekend in our flats, watching DVD's and not much else, and during the week, when I came home from work I basically slept! For 2 weeks straight......boring!
Last weekend was a little more exciting as we
were both fit and well again. We did LOADS of Christmas shopping in Insadong and Myeongdong on the Saturday and ate a great lunch at this place that is basically an 'all you can eat' buffet with loads of random foods - a bit Korean, a bit British, and a bit American! I then went for a curry at the 'head of P.E.'s' house as he was thanking everybody who had helped out with the after school clubs this term. So I had a good gossip with a few of the staff! On Sunday I had to stay in and write reports, which I finally finished on Thursday night this week (the only exciting thing I managed to do in the week was buy some very lovely snow boots as I was working on the reports every evening!) But now they're done so I can have my life back again....
Which brings me to this weekend! So I knew that Dulwich Charity Christmas Ball was happening and I'd decided not to go! It then turns out that more and more people bought tickets during the week so I finally gave in and bought my ticket at lunchtime on Friday,
ready for the evening! So off we went to the ball at the Marriott Hotel, where we were met with a 'welcome' glass of champagne! We then took some comedy photos (the props were blatantly set up for the teachers as we're so very excited about Christmas and love a good British chippy van!) and proceeded to the dinner hall. There were about 7 courses of food, which were mainly delicious! I was not a fan of the lobster soup, which surprised me considering I am normally a fan of a good bit of lobster, but the turkey with gravy went down very well! They even had Christmas pudding absolutely drowned in brandy! During all of this there was entertainment in the form of Jason from Security dancing Gangnam Style with some of the kids (bless them, providing entertainment for the evening) and the raffle, in which I failed to win anything! I did get a goody bag at my table though, which contained vouchers for one of the local bars (owned by a parent), a toothbrush and floss from a private dentists, a magazine about plastic surgery (great!), money off a hairdressers, vouchers for B.A. flights to London (which
I can't use) and some post-it notes! The bar was free so I obviously had my fair share and then the dancing ensued, and before I knew it, the night was over! The parents of some of my kids were there, whom I mainly managed to chat to before I'd hit the bar hard. However, my chiropracter (whose daughter I also teach) was on the dance floor at the same time as me and was either thinking "no wonder her back is so bad" or "I can't believe she teaches my daughter" as I was doing the twist to "Let's twist again....like we did last summer" to the floor, in competiton with Mark! I couldn't quite tell from his face exactly what his thoughts were!! Whoops! I figure with things like that, what happens at the ball, stays at the ball! Either way, my back cracking appointment on Tuesday could be entertaining! Anyway, a good night was had by all and I made it home in one piece, all be it in the footwell of a taxi as there were 5 of us squeezing in!
Then on Saturday I had to get up at 7.30am to go and umpire
at a badminton tournament at school, as I have been helping out with the badminton club! Ouch! I was fine once I got there and had a cup of tea and a chocolate brownie! I then went to get a Christmas tree for my classroom and accidentally came away with one for my flat as well, and a handful of decorations :-) A successful supermarket trip :-) I stayed in Saturday night, decorating the tree and eating my first Thorntons advent calendar chocolate that Mum sent me!
Today I have been chilling out and I just got back from another shopping trip to Myeongdong. I bought more Christmas decorations in Daiso, which I know I've talked about before because it's amazing - like Wilko's and Boyes, and a sequiny party dress, because I wanted it! I also got a few more presents :-) The best thing about today though was the street food. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw it but there it was..... a battered sausage and chips all on one stick! I bought it, I ate it, and then felt a bit sick! Amazing :-)
In other food-related news, there is a new pizza
place close to us, which popped up out of nowhere - a brand new building and everything, but it is AMAZING! There 4 cheese pizza actually has lumps of cheese on it, which are half melted from the heat, and you can get half of one pizza and half of another for the same price! Cheese is not easy to come by in Korea and is usually very expensive, so this is definitely something to be excited about! I have also had a really lovely Italian in a place called La Bocca, followed by a gorgeous carrot and cinnamon cake! Due to the winter weather there has also been an increase in the amount of soup available! I am now a fan of sweet potato soup - delicious!
So tomorrow I'm going into school early to decorate the classroom with all the things I've bought! Jessica, my T.A. already made some decorations and hung them but now I'm going to go in and make it really Christmassy and tacky with my 60p decorations from Daiso! I'm then going to try and do a writing assessment with my children first thing as it's the only time we can do it
this week.....not the best timetabling in the world as they will all have tinsel brains after seeing the classroom. Although to be fair, they've had tinsel brains for a while due to my Mum sending me an advent calendar for the class. Instead of using it properly we are using it as countdown until we break up from school and they get giddy every snack time when I get it out and choose somebody to eat the chocolate that day! They'll just have to have a rubbish score in their writing assessment and I'll blame Christmas ;-)
Two weeks until I fly home for Christmas!! :-)
See you all soon!
Claire xxxx
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