I've decided that tonight I will sort myself out and write another update, (thanks Emma G for reminding me to write another) so I'm here armed with tea and honey nut cornflakes with my writing head on. I just came in through the door to my 13 degrees house and I'm under the covers typing with gloves on which is proving tricky, excuse any typing errors. I just saw a foreigner on my way back from work and we did that thing that people with VW campers and MINI Coopers do and we nodded at each other, like we were members of some sort of cult, it made me chuckle. I've seen about ten foreigners in my area in the past three months so I suppose it is quite an event to see one.
Again, I'm sorry it's been so long since I got in touch, I've been waiting for enough events to accumulate to write about in one clean swoop. I'm half writing these to keep you all updated on my life and half so that I have some recollection of my time here when I am old, dull and beffudled.
Thank you to everyone (Dad and Sue, Gran and Grandpa, Grandama and Grandad, David and Lorriane, Auntie Nikki, Auntie Margaret and Uncle Warwick) who sent both Chris and I lovely presents for Christmas, it was really nice to have things to open and more importantly, chocolate to eat.
Christmas was as Christmas should be. We just had a lovely relaxing lazy day with nice food and wine. We went up to Cintia's apartment later where 2 Brits, 2 Mexicans, 2 Kiwis and a Korean (sounds like the start of a joke) celebrated a truly global Christmas with Mexican corn wrap things, kimchi and roast chicken, the world isn't ready for my culinary masterpieces so I provided wine, wine I understand.
So, Christine went home on Saturday after three weeks, I'd missed her so much. We had a brilliant time and I was so sad when she left. I burst into tears on the bus home from the airport and then thought I'd sorted myself out and then a friend called me and I started off again. Anyway I'm obviously fine now and I've returned to me pre visitor life. It is strange coming in from work to an empty apartment though, I got used to coming in to the heating being on, incense burning and a cup of tea waiting for me. I didn't keep her locked up in the house all the time though and we did do stuff.
Soooooo, what did you do, I hear you cry.
Chris came to school with me and taught one of my classes for me which was really helpful, I'm such a novice at this teaching caper and had to hit the ground running with it, I have a lot to learn. She helped out at the school play of school plays too, which was complete with hired costumes and microphone headset things. I've attached a photo of the Hare and the Tortoise, my choreographed masterpiece.
We went skiing! Myself, Christine, Cintia, her brother Edgar, my workmate Euhnee and her friend all went for three days to a resort about 3 hours from Seoul. Christine was beside herself with excitement after accepting, two years ago that once she moved to Cambodia she would never ski again. After we missed the bus to the resort because we were standing with some (what we thought were) overly polite Koreans, hoping that they would see us to the right bus, it turned out that they were from Hong Kong and just as clueless as us. In Christine's words " never rely on other people, they'd still be there now, smiling and nodding if we hadn't sorted it out". So we had a frantic rush across Seoul in a taxi to catch the bus. We got to the resort which was massive. I've never been to a ski resort before so it didn't mean much to me but apparently it was good. We stayed in a hostel of sorts, sleeping on mats on the floor. Euhnee brought a kettle for Christine and I (she understands that the we Brits need tea to function).
I'd only ever skied on dry slopes and that was about 8 years ago, and Cintia and Edgar had never seen snow until a few weeks ago so all in all we were a hopeless trio. I said to Christine "well just teach me to stop and I'll be set", she laughed, I quickly understood why. I stood at the top of the nursery slope with a 'it looks simple enough, watch me go' attitude and shot swiftly, legs waving about like bambi on ice into a fence, where I flapped my limbs about for a good few mins, like a turtle when gets stuck on it's back. It didn't progress much for about three hours and the nursery slope ended with me having a full blown tantrum, nearly including tears and pouting lip, thumping my stick things at the snow because I still could not for the life of me master getting up. All in all, the three of us looked pathetic. Christine then took us up a bigger slope and taught us to stop (albeit in a very unglamourous manner). I eventually shot down the slope, unable to slow down, and due to lucky misses of other skiiers and some very wobbly attempt at balancing, managed to get to the other end in one piece where I rolled to a stop in a snow ball fashion. Note to self: don't learn to ski wearing sunglasses and a cool looking saggy hat, the more you make yourself look good, the more of a plank you look when you fall, leave the posing to the pros.
So Cintia and Edgar decided that sking wasn't for them and spent day two in a spa, I think it was wise, I, however, had no such option, coming from a family of skiers, quitting would make me a social outcast, so I (snow) ploughed on. I seemed to gain my ski legs that day though and due to brilliant coaching from Christine, only fell over once, (although I didn't mess about when I did it and landed, legs out-streched in front of me and face buried in the snow between my knees, I thoroughly winded my self and nearly threw up). We finished at 10pm on the intermediate slope and once reaching the bottom, still on my feet, I decided to call it a day, I sensed my lucky streak was over. Overall, I see why people love skiing and I will definitely go back but it was still terrifying and I have a new found respect for the upper middle class.
What else?
We went to Seoul Palace, viewed a few ancient placenta jars, and ate a bowl of crushed up mushrooms.
We got a cable car to Seoul tower which was brilliant. I'd been told to go there and I didn't really have that many expectations of it but the view of Seoul at night was incredible. The whole viewing deck is covered in padlocks (thousands of them) all locked onto the railings, it's meant to symbolise eternal love or something, if you split up with the person you go back and remove the lock. Ever so sickeningly cute but it does make a good photo.
So, that was my time with Chris in a nutshell, we also had many a good meal, laughed lots, went to the British Embassy's pub (AKA the Rovers), saw the ntcracker that the ballet and planned Christine's tour company that she's starting. Oh and we went to the biggest church in the world, I must tell my boss that actually, I'll throw her a bone, it might keep her off my back for another few weeks.
So other than that all is pretty much the same.
The weather still seems to be trying to see how much it can throw at me, It's Korea's way of trying to smoke me out I think but I'm standing my ground. It's now minus 12 and is meant to drop to minus 20 in the next week. If I switch the heating off for half an hour it plummets to 13 degrees and takes a day to recover, winter here utterly joyful experience overall, roll on spring. I have ice on the inside of my window and the washing machine has been fully frozen up since sunday and I refuse to have a repeat of last time, (putting the pipes into the shower to defrost). Blackpool toughened me to a substantial level of cold weather endurance but this is almost arctic. I am still faffing about trying to find a coat I like but I doubt I will break the habit of a lifetime and eventually buy one, so for now I cocoon myself in inches of woolen accessories and hope for the best. Uni made me hate Ugg boots but we've reconciliated out of necessity, mmmmm toasty feet
Myself and the food are growing fond of each other too, I can now tolerate a heafty amount of chilli although something Christine and I bought of a street vendor was too much for me and I thought my eyes were melting. Some of the food in Korean restaurants is just heaven in a bowl. I'm becoming more than a fan of miso soup and rice although I'd still kill for some spaghetti hoops and cheese on toast.
School is much the same, my class of naughty kids had learned to say "th" which is always good and I am now tackling saying "s" not "sh" as I taught them "sit" the other day and it took on a whole new meaning.
The books we teach also keep me entertained, cultural differences can't always be catered for. The kids call any other girls in their family or friendship groups "sister" and all the boys "brother". I taught my kinder class about family the other day and I told them to draw 'mum' in the box labelled 'mom' 'dad' in 'dad' etc. I left the class for a few mins and when I returned I looked at the box labelled 'brothers and sisters' to see it was... overpopulated, to say the least, with lots of very tiny stick figures.
I'm really starting to get to know the kids though and I love my job more and more. They like me too now, I think they found me a bit odd to start with, I don't think the Korean teachers they are used to are very spontaneous. I had a class of 6 year olds doing some form of conga around the room today to the Hokey Cokey song (although it's apparently the hokey pokey in the rest of the world) complete with some kind of Egyptian hand movements and animal noises. My boss looked through the door at me in despair again but bloody hell, they're six years old, they shouldn't spend all their time on their text books.
Anyway I will go, the heating has just reached 17 degrees, oooohhh it's almost tropical!
much love as always,
get in touch,
Em xxx
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