EV Ball

Camping in Mokgo

New Red Bicycle

Now a have a pretty red bicycle. I bought it from Home Plus (Tesco). I took it into work at the weekend and used it to 'get around' for most of the day! Everybody else who was working used it too. I think they are jealous! :)

Heyri

I love Heyri! Heyri is an Art Valley/Culture Zone! This is a little complex that is down the road from Paju English Village. There are many wonderful art galleries, film studios, workshops and cute cartoon character status and toy shops. On site are also funky coffee shops that serve delicious panini's and gorgeous home made cookies There are quirky jewellery and crafts shops, as well as Korean-American-Italian style restaurants and lovely desert shops. I love this place as it has a bit of everything. I love it because it is very random, very Korean.

Dried chillies chilling on the road.

In Korea you quite often see chillies drying on the road. Sounds common enough but it's not uncommon to see chillies drying on a motor way or dual carriage way and even filling parking spaces in car parks.

Girls ONLY!

This parking space was in the World Cup Football Stadium in Seoul. As you can see it is pink with a symbol of a lady which means, this parking space is for GIRLS ONLY!!! Cute or what?!

Soup in a bag!

Shabu Shabu is our favourite local restaurant. Shabu Shabu is a spicy chili soup served in three courses. First with smoked meat and vegetables. Second with noodles and finally fried rice is served. As it's so much food there's always a lot left over. On this visit we decided to take the left over soup home. The owner gave us a bag to put the soup in...How convenient!

Quirky Pink Cafe

We found this strange cafe whilst on our trip in Daegu. It is called Suu Cafe. It costs three pounds per person to hire a little box room filled with pink cushions, over sized teddy bears and general frilly things, for two hours. Included in this fee was all you can eat ice cream, honey on toast, soda, cereal, tea, coffee and pop corn. Also available was Internet, karaoke, computer games and Korean music videos all on a jazzy wide screen TV. Value for money or what! Quirky things like this are why I love Korea!

Cute tiny puppies :-)

In Korea pet animals are sold everywhere. Just today we passed an ajjuma selling mongrels for five thousand won which is about two pound fifty, kittens for two pound and tiny little yellow chicks for twenty pence!!! I wanted to buy them all! The puppies in the pictures above were taken in Daegu on 'Dog Street' a main street that sells only pedigree pups. The shop keepers place the dogs in the window wearing the most adorable outfits and jewellery, mostly pearls and diamante necklaces! The cost of these cuties would set you back around one hundred and fifty pounds to five hundred pounds!

My Pretty Scooter :)

I bought a scooter of a guy in work. It is not the prettiest thing but I am sure I am going to have a lot of fun with it.

Yum Yum Yum I heart cereal!

Making Kimbap

David decided to try and make Kimbap. This is a Korean dish that is served all around Korea. It consist of seaweed,radish, spam, egg, cucumber and rice. Sound delicious? It is!

The first post...

(*Click on the title to see more pics!)

So here we are six weeks in, we have finally decided to start our blog. We are working in Paju English Village which is North West of Seoul and right by the DMZ. We can see North Korea from our apartment. When we arrived on our first night our apartment was decorated with a cute welcoming sign and some little balloons. We also got given some supplies of food, we thought this was a nice surprise. Our apartment was a lot bigger than we expected, which was an extra bonus. So far we have had an interesting time at school. When we first arrived the school was in the middle of an intensive course. We managed to observe a few classes. They were fun, much better than last year! David is a drama and music teacher and I am a cooking and movie making teacher. The second week at work the school got a case of Swine flu. Six adult students and one teacher became infected with the H1N1 virus. As a precaution the students were sent home and all of the staff got put into quarantine. This meant we had to stay in our apartments the majority of the time. We were allowed outside to wonder around the grounds of English Village but we would have to wear attractive face masks. We have been out of quarantine for three weeks but the school still has no students because they are scared of catching the virus. This has resulted in many boring training workshops. Although we are grateful that we are getting paid!

Outside of work we have been very busy. We have bought a car and are making the most of it by seeing as much of Korea as we can. The first few weekends was spent exploring our local area and taking short trips to Seoul. We went to a Love Camp (Admission fee = 1 candle + a flower) which is a strange hippy party on the side of a mountain. It was cool as it was pretty small and isolated with loads of laid back Koreans. (Quite an unusual occurrence in Korea.) One weekend we drove down to Daegu to visit a few friends and collect our stuff from last year. It was nice getting all of our bits and pieces back. Last weekend we visited the DMZ in Imjingak. There is a peace park and peace train, a death bridge as well as a freedom bridge and many monuments explaining the significance of it all. It is strange to find all of these cultural artifacts next to an amusement park!

Friday 18th September was the start of our two week vacation as it is Chuseok. Chuseok is one of Korea’s most largely celebrated holidays. It is a time when families and friends gather to share food and enjoy their time together, giving thanks to their ancestors for the year’s bountiful harvests. We are planning a road trip around the coast of Korea. We are very excited because we will be exploring parts of the country that we haven’t seen before. Hopefully the summer will hold out and last just a little bit longer.