Bad Banana

Today the kids at school, being charming as ever, gave me the nickname of Bad Banana. Now they mention it...

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Danger Mammal

I'm just making some last minute changes to the things I've packed ready for our climb tomorrow. Although I can't help but notice I'm going to be wearing exactly what I wore when we went to Seoroksan, I looked like a garden gnome playing football!

I'm about to head to meet Nick for dinner. It reminded me about last night when I was waiting for him at the train station and the fountain show started. This drunk old guy in a suit and trilby kept thrusting his hands towards the fountain as in going 'TA DAAAA' expecting the water or the lights to change and making it look as if he was magically gifted to change the lights. Unfortunately it didn't work for him, so he decided to climb onto the stage, but missed the stage and fell in a crumpled heap! The last thing I saw of him he was straddling a wall and having a cigarette! I'll miss the old, reckless drunks in Korea!

Finally, because the kids had tests all this week, I decided to have a bit of fun with my after school. They had to draw an animal that was a mixture of other animals and then write a couple of sentences about what it liked or didn't like. Danger mammal came first, followed by cat bee! So cute!





Well I hope you all have a good weekend and wish me good luck on the hike!



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Sports Day 2013

The sports day at Namsung is far closer to an episode of Takeshi's Castle rather than the traditional egg and spoon race I'm used to in England.

All the old favourites from last year were played again, plus a few new ones. It started out with Natasha and I, plus maybe thirty of the mums wafting a long, thin piece of material while dads threw their first grade kids onto said material and were flung across the tempestuous waves the mothers were creating, while screaming as their loved ones were flicked around. I was sad that the put your child in a sack, mix them all around and then give the mums a minute to find their offspring event wasn't featured this year.

Next, came with the good old, fill-the-windsock-with-balloons race followed by hockey played with wooden spoons and huge plastic pigs, relay races, flicking giant balls into the air and team races whilst riding a huge inflatable sausage and wearing a wizard's hat!

I love that all the mum's give it their best shot too and get involved. The vice principal stepped in at one point to stop a Grandma trying to mount the inflatable sausage, I also noticed the dads were playing dirty in the relays. One poor dad got pushed over, managed to do a barrel roll and get back onto his feet, will keeping his first position, we were all very impressed!

The highlight has to be the kids making a huge mountain by trapping air under a huge piece of material made out of the same stuff as a parachute. It was then that we got told that the aim of it was for us to climb the mountain and try and push the air out of it! Pretty terrifying but made me feel like a massive kid again!

It was lots of fun, and the kids finished off the event dancing to Crayon Pop's Ba Ba Ba song. We all rushed out pretty early as the first typhoon of the year was making its way to Busan.













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August

Whhaaaat? It's September already? August whizzed by, and took the blooming hot weather with it too. Finally I can stand outside for more than 30 seconds without standing in a puddle of sweat. September also means the imminent arrival of my Mum. She loved Korea so much last year that she's coming again on the 13th of September. Exciting! But while I count down the days, here is what I got up to in the month of August.


For the first three weeks of August we were helping out at the school's English Summer Camp. This meant half days packed with chaotic lessons that resulted in a play that we had to perform to the school.


Big News! I went to my first noraebang after a year and a half in Korea. Noraebangs are private karaoke rooms that Koreans love.




Trash, Treat or Stash, my bi-weekly beauty review feature continued by looking at Skin Food's Argan Oil Hair Mask and Tony Moly's Hello Bunny Perfume Stick. What do you think?



Nick and I celebrated one year of being-togetherness by going to watch a Lotte Giants Baseball game, where I got to see my first home run! Go Lotte!


With an extra day off in the middle of camp we went to explore one of Busan's secret beaches.


I shared some of Joe's photos from the Beijing trip at the end of July. They brought back lots of funny memories that I had already forgotten.


I also couldn't help but show you all what I bought myself when I was in Beijing and KL and had summoned up the courage to haggle.


I spent my second week off in and around Busan, at the beach, being a tour guide for Nick's friend, Dave, who was visiting from the UK, and I spent the afternoon in my favourite cafe.

So Summer's on its way out, and Autumn is coming! My favourite time of year in Korea. I'm currently trying to plan what to do when I have my visitors here in less than two weeks. Also, Nick and I are going shark diving next weekend, so hopefully I will still have all limbs in tact for the rest of September! Eeek!

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Summer Camp

This year's Summer Camp went really, really well. Last year I hated it so much that it made me want to leave Korea, but this year it seemed to go really smoothly. The kids were pretty eager to learn, the books and schedules well organised and we were all assigned one class who we had to direct in performing a play.

My play was called 'The Pumpkin Ghost on Halloween Night' and I worked with a group of 11 3rd and 4th grade kids. Some of the times they'd have me tearing out my hair, but I had to say when it came down to the performance in front of the rest of the school I was really impressed by them.

Some of the younger kids looked so cute doing their plays, and the 6th grade boys made the school laugh by taking the girls parts in a performance of Beauty and the Beast.

Now it's at an end I'll kind of miss seeing some of their faces everyday!



















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July

I know, we're nearly half way through August already so this post is a little late but the sun is shining and the beach is hard to resist after work at the moment! After the rainy season at the start of the month the weather really started heating up, meaning air con is on full blast and I'm going to have arms like Popeye by the time I've finished with my fan. It was also vacation time for my school, here's what else we got up to!


Having been back in Korea since March, it had become apparent that I'd been in the country for too long, so I shared 6 clear reasons.



Luckily I managed to get a break from Korea by having my Summer holidays in Beijing and Kuala Lumpur. It was great to see Clare and Grace, and everyone else that I was lucky enough to catch up with. Plus I loved exploring these two cities, they seemed to really compliment each other.


Just before we broke up from school we had our English Event Week that was job themed. Cue lots of cute kids doing cute dances.


I decided NOT to go to Busan's annual mud festival, instead I went camping on Dadaepo beach and got to watch the 'Fountain of Dreams' which was very dreamy.


I witnessed the spectacle that was Comic World, Busan's comic convention.


We cat sat for Mufasa, the cat with the strangest hair style I ever saw!


I spent some time exploring one of Busan's most well known temples, Beomosa temple which is in the North of Busan.


Trash, Treat or Stash continued with reviews on Etude House's Oh M' Eye Lash Mascara and I compared Innis Free and Etude House's glittery nail polishes. The next edition will be coming this Wednesday.



Finally, Google Reader closed down through July, so now you can follow this blog through Blog Lovin'. I shared some reasons why I loved this site, add me here if you haven't already!

I hope that July was good to you!

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