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Published: January 13th 2013
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Oranges!
Katharine and Ian under the orange tree :-) Hello!
It's been absolutely ages since I blogged, so as the title suggests, this will encompass before Christmas, Christmas itself and a few weeks after Christmas too!
So there were 2 weeks in Korea between when I last blogged and when I flew to England. To be honest most of that was taken up by Christmas shopping, whenever I wasn't at work!! Myeongdong, Sinsadong and Insadong were the shopping areas of choice and I spent all my hard-earned cash on Korean tat and some non-tat! There was also the Key Stage 1 Christmas meal, where we enjoyed a huge amount of meat at a Bulgarian restaurant, and the Christmas concerts at school, which were all getting me into the festive spirit! Then there was the excitement of snow day of course....
It snowed for about 4 hours one day in the penultimate week of school and it really settled so the roads were too dangerous the next day for getting the kids to school! This meant that the staff also got a day off - hurrah! Katharine and I decided to join Ian on a 'snow walk', which turned out to be quite amusing as Ian had lived
in Malaysia for the past 4 years so was like a child playing in the snow! We walked through the local national park, on the way up to Seoul tower, playing about and taking photos (as you can see!) It was quite a trek up the hill, which left us in the need for soup and hot chocolate, so we went to a cafe at the bottom and had delicious food! Katharine and I then took advantage of the extra time away from school......and did a job for school! A nice job though, as we bought presents for the kids in a new bargain shop that one of the T.A.'s told us about! I do love a bargain shop :-) We then went home and watched Love Actually to make us feel really festive! It was the perfect snow day!
The weekend that we were all flying away was also lovely. We finished school on the Friday and me Katharine and Rachel went out for dinner to exchange gifts and say bye bye for the Christmas season! In all of the unwrapping frenzy I almost set the whole place on fire when a piece of tissue paper accidentally went
into the candle but the waiter was on the ball and put it out with his hands as I wildly blew at it!! Oooops! The french onion soup at this restaurant is delicious so I went back last night and had it again - and yes, they did let me in despite my pyro tendencies! I went to salsa after that, which was great as always, then realised I was completely dead on my feet and had an earlyish night, ready to wake Katharine up to get her flight the next morning. That was another adventure in itself as she managed to electrocute herself half an hour before she had to leave to get the plane. I'm sure we were taught at school that sticking your fingers into a plug socket to get something out is actually very dangerous!
Anyway, once I got Katharine safely on her way, cleared out her fridge, cupboards, bins and closed all of her windows I went to meet Rachel to go to an amazing sushi place in Hongdae. We had to queue to get in (that's how good it is) but we were then sat at our table with the 2 hour time
limit to eat as much sushi as we possibly could! It was AMAZING! If anybody visits me and likes sushi, we are going there! Basically £8 to eat as much as you like, and it's of a good quality. Great! We then parted ways so I could go and pack and Rachel could go to her choir rehearsal for the concert she was in that evening. I sort of packed (good for me as it was at least 15 hours before my flight!) and then I went to watch the concert Rach had been rehearsing for. It was a performance of 'The Messiah' in an old church, which was also a great way of feeling festive! I was so exhausted that I could've fallen asleep a few times (not because of the concert, but because of extreme tiredness) but it was a really lovely thing to do on my last evening :-)
So I got home, finished packing and went to bed for about 3 hours. Then it was time to fly!! I made it to the airport and then finally relaxed as I was in the right place at the right time! I had the short flight to
Beijing, on which I didn't see the take off or the landing as I was fast asleep. Then I had the long flight to Heathrow - again I didn't see take off, but I did see the landing as I was sooooooo excited!
I won't go on about my 3 weeks in England. It can be summarised as follows: sleeping in/on lots of sofas, floors and other people's beds, Christmas, presents, cups of tea and hot chocolate, catching up with wonderful people and eating LOADS of amazing food! I think my favourite meals were KFC and BFC (for old times sake), Christmas dinner (obviously!) and best of all....my first home cooked meal.... pork chops with vegetables and gravy. I'm salivating at the thought! Thanks Mum :-)
Anyway, it went too fast and soon I was saying goodbye to the cat and my car :-( We then carried onto the airport, had the obligitary unpacking of the suitcase at check in to make it lighter, followed by the obligitary tears at the security area with Mum! But then I was safely on the plane (direct this time - and for every time in the future if I can have
Me and Katharine...
...looking like a couple on our matching outfits :-) my way!) watching 'Taken 2' to keep me awake before food. There was a good 4 hours sleep and then I watched 'Ted' and lots of random TV series episodes. There was a fabulous sunrise about 2 hours before landing (a tip if you visit me and are on this flight: look out of the window at this time) - it was all the colours of the rainbow - and then I landed and it was like I'd never been away as me Katharine and Rachel were eating pastries and drinking tea in Paris Croissant that very afternoon!
So now I've been back a week and there was no 'easing in gently' to school. The children were straight back on Monday and it honestly felt like I'd never had a holiday as the work piled up! Luckily I have been organising my holiday to Thailand this weekend, which is only 4 weeks away it would seem, so that has made the week more bearable :-) I've also been asked to go to Shanghai the weekend before to deliver a workshop and attend other people's workshops at the school there. I'll get Sunday morning to do a tiny bit of
sightseeing before I have to fly back so I can look forward to that as well. The airport will be like my second home and hopefully my blogs will be a little bit more interesting! :-)
Bye for now,
Claire xxxx
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