October

So, long October! My last full month in Korea...you certainly kept me busy.




I climbed the biggest mountain peak in Korea, Jirisan. We did a little miscalculation with the amount of daylight that we had left and nearly had to finish it in the dark. This was made even scarier by the fact that there were 'Beware of the Bear' signs up all over the forest. Check out the link if you want to see some good mountainside fashion...or not!





Trash, Treat or Stash continued with reviews for Etude House's GOBACK Firming cream, Proof 10 Auto Pencil and Rosy Tint Lips. Will you give any of them a try?





If you're looking to do the touristy thing in Busan, the Sites and Bites post can tell you what to see and where to eat amazing food afterwards.





I went to a kimchi making event at a temple with a HUGE golen Buddha. This turned out to be a competition, which I was completely unaware of. It I had known then I would have tried even harder and won a prize, obviously! I shared the recipe afterwards.





I also shared the recipe for my favourite Korean drink, banana makeolli. Delicious.





October was a big month for Busan roller derby. The team had a big meeting and a couple of practises. I also played for the existing ROKD roller derby team in our mixed scrimmage against OH! The military team in Korea.





It was the Busan Film Festival, and I fell in love with the film Prince Avalanche with Paul Rudd and Emile Hirsch. You should definitely watch it. We also saw some very creepy things in the Cinema Museum.





Speaking of creepy, we got our caricatures done at the Gamcheon Culture Village. An old slum in Busan that has been transformed into an art village. We were watched by brightly coloured birds with human heads.





The hunt began for all the travel necessities that I am going to have to invest in. The first step was a good bag, perfect for day trips or weekends away.





A typhoon hit Busan on the school's sports day, meaning that the craziness was even more chaotic as they did every event at high speed to try and finish before the storm arrived.





The month of October went out with a bang as Halloween was celebrated. We won 1st place in the Halloween themed quiz that we went to, no thanks to me!

So now we're into our last 23 days of being in Korea. We're going to be busy bees, lots of packing, sorting and selling to be done!



Follow me...

Busan International Film Festival 2013

This week has been Busan's International Film Festival. A week long celebration of film. We'd tried to get tickets but they all sold out really quickly, so we have managed to get our hands on a couple of cancellations.

To be honest, the most enjoyable part has been just hanging around the square and soaking up the atmosphere, particularly over the weekend when the typhoon was supposed to hit and was causing mischief by blowing empty chairs and cups everywhere. We also paid a visit to the Cinema Museum.

The museum was pretty bizarre. It was a collection of busts of famous characters from Hollywood films that a Korean music composer has collected to 'decorate his man cave' as it was worded on the information. Some of it was pretty terrifying to look around, and I wasn't surprised to see one little Korean boy crying his eyes out due to pure horror!

It freaked me out that the collector had lots of life size replicas of Heath Ledger as the Joker, Michael Jackson and Edward Scissor Hands. Obviously having a bit of spare time on his hands he had taken them out and taken photos of them just standing in front of landmarks. I wouldn't like to wake up to one of those peering out from a dark corner of my room.

As I mentioned before, we managed to get cancelled tickets for two films. The first was called Ceylon, a Sri Lankan film based in the civil war in 2009. I really didn't enjoy this film, it didn't really give any context about the setting or what was actually happening in Sri Lanka at the time, and I never really grasped any more about it than what I already knew. Some of the characters were endearing but it was painful to watch the chain of terrible things that happens to them within what appeared to be a few short hours. I left feeling really depressed, eugh.

The second one was so much better. It was called Prince Avalanche, which has Paul Rudd and Emile Hirsch in it. This is based in Texas after the wildfires in 2008. Paul Rudd is a road maintenance guy, who has offered to help out his girlfriend by taking her helpless brother to work with him as they try and fix the damage of the fires on the road. I found it hilarious in its own charming little way and laughed out loud throughout the whole film. I loved how they ended it with a wisp of a ghost story as the two main characters whizz off into the sunset towards what the weekend may have in store for them. I would really recommend this to anyone who fancies watching something different.

It's weird to think that when the next film festival rolls around I will be long gone from Busan...

















Follow me...

May

May's been a quiet month where I've really been trying to watch my spending. The faster the months go past, the more I realise I need to save, ready for the next adventure after I leave Korea. Here's what we got upto:


May was the month that my group of friends decided to explore Namhae Island and the Wineglass Festival. A long weekend to celebrate Buddha's Birthday can't be bad. The company was great, but the festival not so much!


As it was Buddha's Birthday, there were lots of festivities going on around Nampo. I loved the night time lantern festival in the park below Nampo Tower. So pretty!


Also, it was the month that I discovered lots of other bloggers around Korea by taking part in The Colors of Korea project. Here's what pink means to Korea. Also, please take a look at Mimsie's collaborative post which features all of the colours. Pink wasn't just about cuteness, it also proved to signify religious and cultural traditions too. Notice my struggle with the British and American spelling of colour, or color. Something I have to be very careful with infront of my kids too!


I went to see The Great Gatsby, and I have to say that I loved it! Despite the reviews that I'd heard before hand. We went as a belated celebration of Tasha's birthday. See what I have to say about it here.


I carried on the Trash, Treat or Stash, which has been really popular. I even got Natasha to guest blog one week, and she gave us our first Trash rating! Products that did better than Daiso's nail wraps were Etude House's Face Masks and Tony Moly's hand cream.


I got to watch my Korean colleague get married. It was the first Korean wedding that I've been to, and was enough of a mix of Korean and Western to be slightly bizarre. She looked beautiful though.


I was showered with gifts for Teacher's Day. I really think that this day should be adopted by England!


Trying to save my money meant nights in were alot more regular, so I got crafty and made these phone accessories from a DIY kit.


I hope that your May was good! June looks like it should be good, we have a national holiday this week and Nick's birthday to look forward to. I've already booked his birthday present, but can't say too much as it's a surprise!

Follow me...

The Great Gatsby

In the grand scheme of things, I was incredibly late to the book The Great Gatsby. It was only when a friend literally threatened to withdraw his friendship if I didn't read it, that I finally decided to. And I am so thankful that he did. Since the day I've finished it, I've forced it upon others, as if it had been a life long aim of mine to convert people to Gatsby fans.

The film was announced before we'd even left to go to Korea, so it feels like a long, long time that I've been waiting to see it. Baz Luhrmann is one of my very favourite directors which made the wait feel even more longer, although I was sure that it would be worth it.

Then the reviews started to trickle out and they were all but average. I wasn't sure whether that was just because the film was awful, whether people wouldn't like Baz Luhrmann's style layed on top of the classic novel, or whether the book was just cherished too much by people that Luhrmann could never do right. Maybe it was a little mix of everything. So, I went to the cinema a little apprehensive and I am so glad I did now.

Natasha and I went to see it last Tuesday afternoon, a bit of an extended celebration of her birthday. Going to the cinema is so cheap here, in comparison to back in the UK. Being back in a cinema did make me miss my unlimited card that I had at home though. Rainy afternoons spent watching 2 or 3 films back to back. Sigh.

Having little to no expectations of the film only made me love it more. I loved the characters and the casting, Leo was perfect for that role, I adored Lana Del Rey's addition to the soundtrack, and I thought the flamboyance of Luhrmann perfectly complimented Fitzgerald's image of Gatsby's lifestyle.

My very favourite scene is when you see a flicker of Gatsby's insecurity come through as he prepares to meet Daisy after so many years apart. You know that every choice he has made was to lead him to that moment, yet he blows it so disastrously. It's uncomfortable and unrefined, the opposite of how he wanted it to be, and so ridiculous when they're surrounded by mountains of macarons and flowers.

Up until the pivotal scene in the hotel room on the hot Summer's day, I thought the film was perfect. From there I did find it a little slow, but I guess it reflects the waiting and the tension that ties the characters so tightly together. I loved how it portrayed Daisy and Gatsby's dance with nostalgia and Gatsby's time consumingly constructed visions of how things could be.

Overall, despite Tasha falling asleep part way through the film, I have to say that I did like it. It was different from the book, but I liked that it came with Lurhmann's stamp on it too. It was wild and wistful, tragic and unvarnished all in one sparkling cocktail.

Follow me...