Advertisement
Published: October 3rd 2013
Edit Blog Post
Hello :-)
I don't normally blog about my time in England but considering it is now a holiday destination for me, I thought I would include a little bit about my summer activities (plus I had photos I wanted to put up!) I can't actually remember the order I did things in now but I had a great cream tea with Mum at Springfields (where I spent as much money as I always do when I'm there!), attended 2 weddings, and spent time with loads of people including Claire (on the way back from the airport in my Skoda!), Debra (back from Zambia), Kate (on many occasions but most importantly we had great Vietnamese food in Sheffield), Sam (for our usual lunch at the Spirit in Boston), Carly and Abdallah (so nice to meet you!), Stacey, Jimmy and Gav 😊
I also took a trip to London to see the 'Thailand Girls' - Jess, Lusty and Nicky. We went to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in the West End (which everybody should see!) and Nicky cooked us a delicious pad thai round at hers 😊 I made the most of my time in London also popping in on
Laura for a quick lunch at Waterloo, and seeing Rachel - weird to see a 'Korea person' in England!
One of the highlights of my Summer was Gill Wow's hen do, as I wasn't going to be able to attend the wedding. A bit of quad biking and sumo wrestling, with a lovely 'homemade cream tea' interlude was wonderful! This was followed by drinks and a 'butler in the buff' to top off the day 😊
It was also lovely to see so many people at Mum and Dad's for the BBQ - thank you all for coming 😊 And thanks to Mum and Dad for doing all the hosting! Love a bit of BBQ'd meat and a toffee cheesecake!
A trip home wouldn't be a trip home without a visit to Prezzo's! This time with more people than usual as Hugo and Sarah had arrived, along with Hugo's Mum and Christy. A great meal as always, and worth a mention as a highlight of my trip!
So all in all, a great summer at home 😊 The skoda did me well (despite the mishap with the missing oil cap) and I managed to see almost
everybody! Looking forward to Christmas for a catch up with those I didn't get to see at all / need to see more of!! 😊
Then I returned to Seoul with Sarah and Hugo in tow! Tears at home this time, instead of at the airport (much more appropriate!), although it did make it more difficult to drive! The flight was slightly more interesting than usual having people on it with me, but there was no time to suffer from jet lag with Sarah and her itinerary around! Turned out my jet lag was pretty bad as well because I had slept too much the night before, knowing I had to drive down to Heathrow without falling asleep!
Anyway, Sarah’s itinerary started pretty much on Day 1, after I had dragged her and Hugo to ‘Homeplus’ to stock up my cupboards. One of our many events was a trip to the fish market, where we bought 3 huge dead prawns and one huge live crab. We were led up an alley by this man who carried our purchases in a carrier bag, and we arrived at a restaurant, where they cooked it all for us. Hugo was very
excited by the fact that there was meat right into the end of the claws of the crab! He is a lover of seafood!
We also went up Namsan tower - my fourth trip up in a year, but a necessity for visitors and looked out over Seoul at sunset. Then we took a trip to Insadong for some tourist shopping and we all had a good time at the Dulwich staff party, eating sushi and drinking wine 😊
My favourite day was our trip to Suwon, as I had never been there before. This is a city on the outskirts of Seoul, which you can reach on the subway. We walked along the fortress walls, Sarah and Hugo ‘rang the bell’, and we all got really hot and sweaty because it was absolutely boiling! We then watched some Korean traditional dancing and a martial arts display before heading back to Seoul.
Of course, we had some great meals whilst they were here. Jessica took us for a traditional Korean dinner, I took us for a traditional Italian dinner, and we enjoyed a bit of the old street food too 😊
So after 10 days of
doing more sightseeing than I’ve ever done in Seoul, Sarah and Hugo left for London. I finally finished unpacking from England, got my apartment sorted and got my bedroom back. I then did pretty much nothing for the next 3 weekends as I just needed to rest.
However, Chuseok holiday wasn’t far off, which is a bit like the Korean Christmas as families all get together and celebrate, and we get 3 days of school, leading into a weekend. Katharine, Rachel and I had booked bus tickets to the beach on the East Coast, and a hotel for the night, We basically spent the 2 days we were there lying down on the beach, getting a pretty good tan. I commented that “it was just like an Asian sun”, forgetting that it was actually an Asian sun. I was referring to the fact it was like a South East Asian sun but still sounded like an idiot. Anyway, that was great, and we spent the rest of the time chilling out, going out and eating! It was my last weekend of being unhealthy before the ‘I’m going to Guam’ diet kicked in!
And that pretty much brings me
to the now. I am currently sat on my sofa on a Thursday having another random day off (National Foundation Day) but I have a stinking cold to go with it. I went for a really good curry last night to try to spice it out of me but it appears to have failed! Vics vapor rub might do the trick instead 😊
Over the next few weeks I will be heading to the fireworks festival again, attending the school fun run, going to see a football match - Korea vs. Brazil (hopefully) and becoming famous. Yes, you heard…. not only will I be on Korean radio talking about buying things online as a foreigner (I was approached in the street and it was really awkward!), I will also be on TV in an ‘Olympic Games’ event. I will be skipping, with 9 other people at once, in a huge rope, trying to beat the jump record of 60 skips! And it will be televised….wow! Yes, I’m highly embarrassed by both of these things! 😊
Right, I must get ready for the birthday BBQ I’m attending today. More meat! Woo!
Bye 😊
Advertisement
Tot: 0.115s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 12; qc: 52; dbt: 0.0586s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb