White Day

It's good being a girl in Korea when White Day rolls around. White Day happens on March the 14th, exactly a month after Valentine's day, which is no coincidence. Apparently Valentine's day is solely for women to give the men in their life a gift of chocolate. A month later, the men are expected to return the favor, three fold.

It's also tradition in Korean schools for the students to share presents with their friends. As Elementary school teachers, we were incredibly lucky and got showered by gifts from the children. Mostly they gave lollipops or small bits of chocolate, but other students had prepared goody bags filled with a mixture of things.

Nick and I went for a skate/run in Busan after school on White day (unfortunately it proved how unfit I am as he was able to run faster than I could skate!). I forewarned him that my students had set a high standard, but I wasn't disappointed. When I went to pick up my stuff I had a nice surprise waiting for me in my locker, accompanied by a somewhat questionable letter.


So, happy belated White Day to all the girls!

You don't have to wait until White Day rolls around again for some treats though! Enter my giveaway that's running all this week and a Korean care package could be making its way to you! Just like the facebook page or follow me on Bloglovin'.

Happy Belated Pepero Day

Pepero day treats

It's been almost a week since Pepero day, 11th November in Korea, which is the same day that Remembrance Sunday in the UK fell on. It was strange to celebrate such a weird little holiday on the same day.

Pepero is a snack in Korea, I think people in the UK would know them as Mikado, which is the Japanese counterpart. Because of the way the date looks when it's written, 11.11, the company decided it looks like four of the chocolate covered sticks, so they decided to make a holiday out of it.

The point of Pepero day is to give your loved ones and friends a gift. Cue lots of chocolatey sticks on sale, small boxes of them stuck together to make massive hearts, one covered in coconut and hundreds and thousands, it was hard to resist temptation while shopping.

My lovely co teacher bought us a box of strawberry flavoured ones each, and my students on Friday  bombarded me with sticks in the hope that we wouldn't do much work that day.

It reminded me that I hadn't mentioned it on the day after receiving a huge one from my last class of the day, which she said was her leftovers from the weekend. I like that I was her last resort. But a Pepero breakfast was a nice start to our weekend in Seoul.

Chuseok

Chuseok is just around the corner. This is the Korean version of thanks giving where families get together and remember their ancestors. It's a 3 day holiday which means that we don't have any school until Thursday.

With no school we've decided to hit the road and visit a closeby city in the West called Gwangju. I'm looking forward to lots of sleep and the adventure of exploring a new place.

I'm so excited that every morning I wake up following a dream that today's the start of Chuseok...only to then realise that infact I have to head to school. I think the kids must be delighted too as they are being even more rowdy than usual this week.

This is also the lead up to my 100th post. I'm proud that I've managed not to be too flakey with my blog, and have managed to record so many of the things we've stumbled upon in the last 6 months. I've also just crossed the 10,000 view mark, so lots of thanks to everyone that keeps stopping by.

July

One of the promise lock trees at the top of Seoul Tower

The one good thing about Summer camp has been the fact I could leave school at 1 and not have to sit at my desk until 4:30. But it also means that the few hours I usually use to write my blog have been taken up by sunning on the beach or meeting friends...it's hard sometimes!

It was really nice to have a whole week all to myself to do whatever I wanted this month. We made the most of the weather by spending a few days relaxing on the beach, reading and eating watermelon. Another day I went for a really long walk in Hwamyeong which is becoming one of my favourite places in Busan. Then there was our trip upto Seoul where we explored the ancient palace and got a kitty overload at the Hello Kitty cafe. Visiting Forever 21 and H&M was also great, and I was excited to see the opening of the H&M in Shinsegae department store when I got back to Busan.

These few days were followed by a hot, sticky weekend in Jisan where I got to watch Radiohead, James Blake, The Stone Roses, Owl City and M Ward. I loved the festival, but my favourite part was definitely dipping my feet in the stream that ran through the grounds and being introduced to Bubble Pong drinks!

As if that wasn't enough festivities, there was Boryeong mud festival where we all got covered head to toe in mud. The atmosphere was amazing and running into the sea afterwards to wash it all off and start the madness again was definitely the best bit. Although I had to try and not think about how dirty the water must have been, especially everytime I walked through a suspiciously warm spot of water. No matter how exhausted I was on the bus ride home after that weekend, I couldn't help but laugh at everyone on the bus serenading the drunk guys.

This month was filled with superhero movies, we went to see Batman at the IMAX and Spiderman too. I love that in Korea there's no messing about with movies and they don't show any adverts before hand. I also visited the DVD bang to watch Toy Story 3 as I realised it was getting a little ridiculous that I hadn't watched it yet. I also finished the first season of the Wire and am well on my way to finishing the second. Is anyone massively anti McNulty like me? For some reason I just can't stand him!

I finally started my language classes this month, so I'm hoping to be able to speak alot more than I can at the moment, and stop giving blank looks whenever I'm asked anything. The teacher seems really sweet and as the weeks go on there are less and less students, which means more teachers for me!

We had our second event day session where I was a weather girl and Tasha was made to dress as a polar bear, not exactly what she needed when the weather was so hot and humid here.

Finally I shared my love of soju and the perhaps insincere compliments that we're peppered with day in day out on the last couple of Friday Favourites. I've decided to give Friday Favourite a break as it was becoming  harder and harder to think of things.

Finally I shared my love of StumbleUpon (Noone's bought me the Gatsby jumper yet), we discovered a tasty new Mexican called O Taco and just couldn't stop singing Carly Rae Jepson, thanks to everyone at Mudfest! Someone help me to get it out of my head!

Jisan Rock Festival

So the second half of my Summer vacation was spent at the ski resort of Jisan Valley, which turns into a ski paradise in the Winter. But the sun was blazing and all the slopes were green and grassy so that's where we headed to watch some bands at Jisan Rock Festival.

I think it's the most green I have seen in one place while in Korea, as most areas are pretty populated and built up, so it was nice to be back in nature.

Some of the bands I managed to catch were James Blake, Radiohead, M Ward, Owl City and the Stone Roses. Although I wouldn't say I'm a massive fan of any of the bands that played, I really enjoyed how mellow James Blake was and the effect he had on the crowd. I saw a grown man sobbing in the crowd at Mr Blake's music, although I'm not sure whether that had more to do with the vodka bucket in his hand.

I tried a delicious Bubble Pong drink, which is like a frozen smoothie/tea with pulses in it. I can't really do it justice with words. I also had an amazing strawberry frozen yoghurt drink. I wish they would come to Busan and open a branch.

The only downside was how hot the sun was and how little shade there was...thank goodness for the stream that ran through the festival grounds and the air con in the porta-loos!

Us arriving in Jisan looking fresh faced// a well deserved drink was had after putting up my tent// Watching M Ward// The Stage and grounds// Luigi and Mario coupling! By the third day she had discarded the hat, but he was still going strong!// Max Hammock// Cooling off in the stream// Bubble Pong Tea// Leave my camera with Caroline for two minutes and look what happens// Our array of bands// The way to our tents// Pretty Girls with Pretty flowers// Watching Beady Eye and waiting for our 1am train to take us home.

The first day of camp was pretty hard as we didn't get home until 6am and I had to be at work by 8am but I made it was well worth the fun that was had there...