Yes, I should be… we’ve got up to 20 people coming over for Christmas dinner… silly girl, whywhywhy did you think this was a good idea when you know that your husband can’t be around to help you?  Well, it has helped to light a fire under both our butts to get furniture ordered (no, I don’t want to talk about how slow we are on that front – nor do I want to talk about how most of it is coming the week after Christmas).

Right.  So I played the patience game with the butchers at Costco and … I lost.  The only way to get what you want is to keep smiling and wait them out.  Freaking out doesn’t help.  But for some reason there’s the mentality that “the shop owner ALWAYS knows best” and if you suggest something you’re scoffed at.  Well, I’ve had enough with not getting what I want so I’ll just stand here and stare at you … FINE!  I can’t handle it anymore.  You win.  Ok.  Perhaps I should explain.  I’m cooking a roast for dinner but the only ones they had were those 80,000 won ones that are 20lbs and WAY too big for my measly oven.  I only really wanted half of it and wanted them to cut it for me.  Lots of waiting and asking and smiling and waiting later I ended up with the whole 20lbs but cut into 5 pieces – still a lot of freaking meat.  I’ll cook 2 or 3 of the hunks when the numbers are finalized.

I kind of just feel like curling up and watching a cheesy movie … need to make bruschetta and a dessert tonight … dips, sliced veggies, and cleaning all tomorrow.  Lovely friends are bringing a pork dish and various side dishes.  I have a feeling we’ll have way too much food and be eating leftovers for weeks (fingers crossed on roast beef sandwiches!!)

I went to the dollar store again – I kind of tried to sneak in because I’ve had hubby return 2 things within the span of a day because they were the wrong size and I was worried I’d get the stank eye.  I was creeping along the aisles searching for a meat thermometer and string (to tie the roast together) and needed to ask for help.

(AND how is it that many of the things made in these countries (that I’ve lived in in Asia) make all this cheap crap but export it to Canada, to never have it here again?).

Meat thermometer – no go.

String?  Well, first they offered some baby fine thread which I tried to emphasize would go up in smoke in the oven.  Then they pulled out some metal, Christmassy looking stuff which I shook my head at.  Finally, bless them for trying so hard, pulled out shoe laces — um… to wrap around roast …  no thank you, but thank you for trying to help!

Never fear guests that read this, no shoes laces will be used on the beef.

But I may need to break into the chips and dip tonight to encourage me on …

  I came home the other night, after helping a friend to get ready for a birthday party that he was hosting the next evening, to find hubby still slaving away with work at 1 am.  I, having had a few glasses of wine, felt the need to tell more stories of no consequence than usual, and wrapped up with a request that he send the birthday boy a text.  Hubby was off to China for a day and a half and would be missing the party.

 At the party, the host asks:

“Do you know that your husband sent me a happy birthday text?”

“Oh, yeah.  You got it, good.”

“Do you know what it said?”

“Uh-oh, no….”

“It was “Happy birthday.  Enjoy your time with my wife.”

  To which we all burst out laughing.  Ah yes, I should also note that the birthday boy is gay.  

  Now some people in the room that don’t know hubby and I very well seemed to give me the look like I was this horrible person laughing at his English.  The truth is that his English is getting much better and now I can generally assume that he gets the double entendres – although he may not fully be able to explain it he gets that ‘feeling’ that something else is happening here. haha.

source: naturewallpapers.biz

Ahh spring is upon us.  With it comes lovely cherry blossoms, the start of a new academic year, new people to Korea, yellow dust, the beginnings of mold, the start of sweaty summer and mosquitos.  You may be asking “What does this have to do with me, the newbie in said country?  I’m hear to learn about the culture, the people, the food, the drink, the language.”  Yes, well, when you’ve had a full day of that and you want to come home and get comfy, only to realize that the apartment that your hogwan promised is a dump and no one is willing to help you out you may think about this post.  Here is my list of things that you really need to be comfortable and ergo happy.  Disagree if you want, but trust me, your mom would agree that you need this shit.

If you’ve been here through winter, then I trust that you are now putting this away:

And dusting off this:

First off, a few known items.  Electricity in Korea is expensive and most likely you will be footing the bill for it.  Not only that, you know you should try to conserve power.  Although it may not feel like it these past few days (it was -1 this morning) she is about to get hot.  Really freaking, sweat on the back of your legs and on top of your knees hot.  If you don’t have an air conditioner start weeping.  Haha.  First, ask you school kindly, to get one.  It will most likely take them weeks to get it done so go out and get yourself a fan.  Don’t be cheap.  Trust me, you will need this that first night that it starts to get warm; when you feel the energy of the night, the Korean food in you belly, the pull of your first ‘real night out’ to have fun and drink — when you inevitably say “Sure I’ll drink sojo.”  Secretly thinking to yourself that although it tastes shitty that the effect can’t be that bad, hell you just got out of university and drank your face off all the time, you can handle this.

Anyhoo.  Get the fan.  Your sweaty, pain filled, garlic smelling head will thank you later.

Now let’s talk about that bathroom.  I’m sure that potentially you are freaking out because of this:

Yes, that is your bathroom.  No, there is no shower door, or curtain or tub.  Relax.  At first, super annoying as everything gets wet.  Things get better as you learn to twist yourself around, not raise your elbows too high, and actually go out and purchase some 3M hooks to hang your towels on the back of the door.  But then you notice that it is awfully dirty in there.  You go to the store and buy some local brand of cleaner only to find that it does NOTHING and start to find this:

(I gagged a little with this picture – you should see the others I found… eeeeewwww full body shiver).

Here’s the thing, in Korea the home is considered to be an almost sacred place, and therefore should be cleaned DAILY.  (I’ve been told that the reason why Koreans shower at night is so that they go to bed clean, to maintain the “at home clean” phenomenon) As in, get out the mop and bucket and scrub that shit down every day.  Hence, what I can only assume is the reason why cleaning products are about as powerful as your spit.  Now you could head out to the store and purchase some internationally recognized brand but it just isn’t worth the money.  (I saw a bottle of Clorox bleach for almost $30!).  The stuff I buy is in a green bottle and says in huge letters “Mold Remover” with a lovely font that will make you want to clean.  Spray that everywhere. I mean it.  The walls, ceiling, toilet, behind the sink and get a sponge and scrub that down and then rinse it with scalding hot water.  You do know that mold, particularly black mold, causes cancer and is airborne, don’t you?.  Stay on top of it.

Excellent, clean bathroom, life is good again.

Next we need to address the mosquito issue.  I can already attest to having 2 bites as of March 31st.  There isn’t much that helps.  There are the poison plug ins

which, although they work, you can feel minutes of your life also being sapped away when you breath that crap in.  Others purchase the electric swatters but personally at 2 AM I don’t want to be bothered.  I turn this on for about 1 -2 hours before I go to bed and then just hope that I don’t get too many bites during the night.  You’ll see loads of these on sale soon.  You first need to purchase that white plug in part and then also the poison itself.  Then you can buy refill poison as you like.  Any brand will do, they all stink.

Also with spring comes the lovely yellow dust.  If you have asthma, go home, go home now.

=        

If you listen to the radio or read the newspaper you will see advisories suggesting to wear masks.  Most often you will see ones like this:

Let it be known that this is useless.  You might as well tape a pair of underwear to your face and save yourself the cheek impressions from the hard plastic.  No my friends, if you really want to protect your lungs I suggest something like this:

I have this one from MEC (Mountain Equipment Co-op).  I originally bought it for driving my scooter in Taiwan and will admit that I haven’t actually worn it on the streets here (I obviously prefer the hacking, soar throat approach to life).

Next comes the rain!

I have never actually seen someone wearing this but would pay to do so!  HAHA evil laughter of forcing my own potential children, or those of friends! to wear one.

Right, back on track.

It rains, the wind blows, it makes the rain come at you from all directions.  IE don’t buy this type of rain coat, it won’t help.

One final thing to prepare you for summer:

It’s a fan that can also spray water – you really have no idea how sweaty you’re going to be here….

My final tip to help you is to buy this:

Yes, a vaccum.  I know it seems excessive but the dust is insane here and buying one of those noname swiffer things is such a waste for the environment.  I suppose if you are only here for a year you may not care that much but for those of us here for a while, it is too handy not to own.

That’s it.  That is realistically what Korean’s are talking about when they tell you about the 4 seasons.  Do you have anything you want to add?

We don’t have internet at the tin-o-minium yet and when it takes 3 minutes to load basic gmail … well, I can’t handle it and so haven’t written anything… not just a post but anything to anyone.  That and at the rec center I either hear the piano playing that reminds me of the Overlook Hotel or get to watch the grandma’s playing bowling on the Wii (not my grandma’s mind you, but the universal kind).

It was my mom’s birthday the other day – that was an especially difficult ‘first’ for us.

What have I been doing, you may ask?  Well, cooking.  I’m trying to get my dad set up with some meals and so slowly, ever so slowly, have been teaching how to make some family favourites.  It has also been crappy weather so I’ve been hanging around the house watching my dad like a hawk to make sure that he doesn’t slip into a depression (oh, have I mentioned that my family is intensely bipolar?  As in, my aunt’s doctor told her and us that she was the poster child for Canada for how intense the disease was in her.  Yeah, fun times.  And, this is the first time that I have ever heard my dad admit that he is bipolar… )

Right, so hanging out, waiting till the “Pulled pork dinner at the Baja Bistro” begins tonight at 6:30 (to which you bring your own dishes, cutlery and glasses) and I can only assume will end around 8 … or till the pork runs out.

Have I mentioned how cheap cheap cheap it is in the US to buy food, and how freaky deaky convenient it is here?  Gottta love being able to pull up the gas station where there is a laundry mat, casino, pizza place, pawn shop with guns and jewelry, and a minimart!  I also bought a 6 pack of massive chicken boobs for $6!  

I’m rambling and wondering if the internet will last….

More to come.

I need some cute!  So here, you do too.  I just found this blog and if you feel the urge for cute watch the first video and listen to those peels of laughter.

Conversation with coworkers at dinner tonight:

Man: “… I’d really like to just go to Japan for a long weekend just to get away.  Maybe Kyoto, go to the hot springs… you know, just to relax.”

Woman:  ”Oh, I know what you mean… about Japan that is.  But I don’t care about the hot springs, I would just go there for the sushi.  I’d wake up, eat sushi and then wait around till I was hungry again so I could eat more sushi.  And then drink some green tea.”

Me:  ”We could so travel together anytime.”

Food is near the top of my list for priorities, which I only recently realized from living in Taiwan.  I found that having a good meal could make or break my day and let’s just say that at first there were a lot of broken days.  Part of it was that I realized I didn’t really know how to cook, especially without an oven, the other, that I had never really tried a variety of food and had no idea what I was missing.

—————————————-

Hubby got home about 10 days ago and we actually got to spend the weekend together (minus 2.5 hours on Sunday that he had to go to work and so I went shopping).  

The problem with my last job was that I worked Wednesday to Sunday and so we never got to see one another.

Now, I have loads of time on my hands and he is never here.

I had hoped that he would be able to make the transition into ‘normal’ working hours sooner but alas that hasn’t not happened.  I didn’t notice that I was waiting around for him until, when out for dinner with a friend, she commented “Well, at least you know that he won’t be home at night and can plan around it.  My husband’s plans seem to change every hour.”  So true (for me that is).

So, when he was gone for almost 2 weeks (didn’t bode well for our hero.  As I told my mom “I realized that I really do talk a lot, but I assume that most people don’t want to hear my banal chatter and so he gets it all… and well, since he’s not here, I’m like a geyser of conversation, ready to spew forth inane aspects of my everyday life… haha and so now you get it instead of him!!! – my ever patient mom just smiled (we were on Skype) and said “I know honey.”)

The plan of attack for the ‘mission’ (newly observed- overly -used -stop -saying -that -word) was to plan a lot of things so to make myself busy and well, it didn’t work, not for the time that he was gone at least.  Rather it spilled forward to the next couple of weeks and time has been flying even faster but with more giggles.  

What have I been doing you ask?  EATING.  Yup, out for lunch, dinner or coffee with all sorts of people.  At first, I was feeling a bit guilty about going out so much without my husband (as in not having fun together) but I was getting bored and antsy and so needed to do something.  Now the jealousy is beginning to emerge.  haha (but not really cause that’s mean and I would love for him to be with me having fun).

Anyhow, back to the food.

Husband bought me fantastic Godiva truffles (OMG so good and so freaking expensive even at duty free).

Then I went to Thai Orchid with a friend for dinner and some wine.  We went to the one near city hall, in the Lotte department store on the 12th floor (?) at the Euljiro 1-ga stop on the green line.  We had the tom yum soup and the chicken pad thai noodles.  I’m drooling right now.  Yum yum!

Next I went to this restaurant and had a fantastic lamb dish – just the right combination of spices and the meat was so tender it just fell off the bone.  Sorry, I can’t remember the name.  If you click on this link, and then the map associated with it, it’s number 19, the one on the corner.  As of last week there was construction right beside it and I hope that it’s still there.  (just got it ‘Marrakesh Night’, but have now been told that a place called Petra is better…)

On the weekend, sometimes we go to Novotel in Gangnam because they have a happy hour from about 6 to 9 where for 23 000 won it’s all you can drink wine or beer, along with a small buffet.  There is also a live band that comes on around 8:30.  The current one is from the Philippines and does an amazing number of cover songs, both English and Korean.

Also, only recently have I discovered the joy of Ho Lee Chow!  And again, OMG it’s soooo good.

Speaking of Chinese food.  I would also recommend The China Factory and another one in Gangnam, again, I can’t remember it’s name (perhaps there wasn’t an English name….).  Anyhoo, go out exit 6 at Gangnam and head towards TGIF.  At the intersection just before TGIF turn right.  There will be, again, construction, but you will see Nolita (another great place to eat) and Pasha (yummy Turkish food) and you will see this Chinese place on the second floor.  It has it’s own set of stairs to get in it – very busy though so go early.  The dumplings were amazing.  The are cooked to order (is that the correct idiom?  damn English teaching is stealing all my idioms) and the price of them matches their taste.  And, I can’t find any decent links for those two places.

Attibassi in Gangnam has a wonderful mushroom salad where they grill maybe 3 or 4 kinds of mushrooms with garlic and then add them to fresh greens – but bring a breath mint ’cause yikes it’s strong.  Their lasagna is okay, but I generally find they put way way too much cheese on things here.

Sta Sera is always a favourite.  They have those super thin pizzas (I was told by a former Swiss student (Italian speaking and looking) that that is how a real pizza is supposed to be…) and their pastas are superb!  And of course, they have lovely wines too.  But again, not easy on the pay cheque.

Ugh, it’s 11 at night and now I’m craving everything.  Have you seen that ad with “Rain” where he is trying to convince himself not to eat late at night and then drags himself to the kitchen?  If you find it, can you toss me the link… I’m going to go rummage in the fridge!

The current buzz around these parts is K-Blogosphere Travels Down to Jeollanam-do, Throws Brian a Cheer-Up Partythe KOTESOL conference that happened this weekend.  This was my first conference and I was a bit disappointed.

Overall, it just didn’t seem very professional.  I was told that this happens every year, but to my way of thinking, well, shouldn’t those issues be dealt with then?

Specifically, the rooms were of such varying size that most sessions that I attended didn’t have enough materials for all of the participants.  

Then there were the technical issues.  I can’t be certain, but it felt as though every session had some sort of computer problem – be it, sound or lack there of, passwords needed, missing _________.

Some of the volunteers were…. well… less than helpful.  This comes from, a) they’re volunteers and b) cultural expectations of professionalism.  My prime example would be the international woman organizing her volunteers and having to tell them (I lost count after 4) numerous times “Don’t stand in the middle of the door way.  People need to get by you.  You are standing in the door way.  You are there to greet people and answer questions not for them to push past you.”  You get the idea.

What I did get out of the sessions I attended was confirmation.  Nothing resonated with me as groundbreaking but I did have many of my own thoughts and approaches confirmed.

And books.  I think I purchased 7 and supposedly publishers will be sending me some too.  I mostly purchased ones related to the first two modules of the program and being the keener that I am, I’ve already started to read one of them.  My favorite quote from it, in regards to the Berlitz style of teaching is “enthusiastic amateurism” ouch.

And people!  I met lots of people that I knew already and others hadn’t seen in ages and quite a few new ones.  I ran into a guy that trained me for my last job, from Vancouver, people now working at that institute, tutors for the masters program that I want to take, the director of the center where I want to take my masters — he started talking to me in the hall after hearing Scott Thornbury speak and then offered to take a look at where my application was in the system (!!) for no apparent reason.

I tried to find out some specific information about becoming an IETLS examiner, and I swear it’s like some sort of secret society where no one wants to tell you the ‘key’.  

And, as with any public forum, I got to see the regular run of yahoo’s that gather at these things.  Namely the folk that feel that when a rhetorical question is posed, or even worse, when the speaker is framing their discussion by stating questions that lead them to pursue certain research — these people, the yahoo’s, THEY ANSWER THE QUESTIONS.  Heads whip around in a vain attempt to spot the yokel that feels they need to be heard.  I so, so, did not come here to hear about your 7 months of experience working in a hogwan.

It’s not to say that I won’t go to the one next year, it’s just that I had hoped for a bit more out of the speakers.  Some of them didn’t seem to take it too seriously.

Oh, I almost forgot the “spidey” thing. 

I went to see about another masters program that was being marketed and what I heard made me feel like I was being signed up to sell Cutco knives or something.  There was far too much focus on the bells and whistles rather than the quality of the program itself.

On Wednesday I went and looked at a few brand new apartments (villa style) that weren’t quite finished yet and wowsers did I fall in love.  Three of them were way out of our price range but not that far out.  If I weren’t going to do my masters and actually worked more than 12 hours a week we could certainly afford it (after more saving that is).  The one place that we could afford, but perhaps just barely, is freaking wonderful!!!  It’s on the 4th floor, has a wrap around patio for about half of the apartment, 2 bedrooms, private roof top patio and did I again mention that it’s new?  LOVE LOVE LOVE.  

  But, the cautious bank teller in me was doing the math and well… you’re supposed to only spend a max of 30% of your income on your home.  AND if you have any other debt, the total expenditure shouldn’t exceed 40%.  

The other issue is I am not sure how long mortgages here are.  I don’t know what a practical time line is for saving either.  Obviously the longer the mortgage the higher the rate, but damn that apartment was so pretty and I’d mentally already began unpacking and organizing furniture and searching for a couch!  (yikes, don’t tell hubby ^^). 

This afternoon I’m meeting up with another realtor to go see some places that are supposed to be much more affordable.  So I’m completely working the English speaking realtors in Seoul.  I think I was in contact with 4 of them but only have appointments with two.  

One of the others sent me pictures of a place that at first I swore was my current apartment … and then kept sending pictures of really dodgy- old-looks like filled with jumping spiders-dark-dank places. 

And I’m off~

Totally stolen from Denise’s profile (SORRY!!)  I’m not sure if it’s a button that she owns herself or not.

Have you seen this before?  Bwahahaha