Category Archives: Our home
Celebrating Cinco de Mayo in Korea
12 069 km. That’s the distance between Seoul, South Korea and Mexico City, Mexico. While the populations are very similar, the cities are like night and day from each other. So are the cultures. But that didn’t stop us from celebrating Cinco de Mayo!
I apologize for the lack of pictures, but I was having too much fun and was way too busy to take any. But I did manage to take lots of pictures of our pinata!
We made our pinata into a donkey, here’s a picture of the body in its beginning stages.
We put two balloons together, taped paper tubes for the legs and constructed a head out of cardboard. In order to make the middle less, well, balloony shaped, we put two more pieces of cardboard around it, but didn’t really tape it down. This might have added to the strength of it in the end, which made it last longer.
We used a flour and glue mixture for the paste, because we couldn’t find anything like plaster of paris or anything. We used 1 part flour to 5 parts water, mixed them together and boiled it for 3 minutes. After the first layer, we stopped boiling it and just used 1 part flour to 1 part water, and it worked just the same. But the first layer was thicker paper than newspaper, and that added a good strong base. We then left it to dry, and then continued to use newspaper for the rest of the layers. Ross added in a few pieces of magazine paper, which worked just as good. Overall, there were 5 layers of newspaper and stuff on it before we put the decorations on it.
For the decorations, we used Korean tissue paper, which is a little stronger than North American tissue paper, cut it into strips, then frayed the edge on one side, and taped it around the body. We wrapped the head like a present, and gave him a red headband.
Anyways, back to the party. We had awesome food, courtesy of just about everyone who came to the party, which included guacamole, salsa, tacos, chicken wings, kebabs, and strips of beef. It was an amazing spread, considering the lack of good things available in this country.
For those of us who live in Korea, we know that there are things here that can be difficult to find. Avocados, limes, brick cheese, good salsa (and I emphasize the ‘good’), sour cream, taco mix and hard taco shells are all things that you either have to search for or are completely non-existent in this country. If you are planning a Cinco de Mayo party, look for avocados and limes in big grocery stores like Home Plus and E-Mart. (Although I just happened to run across perfectly ripe avocados in our local Lotte Mart, but I think fate put those there for me…) You can get large vats of sour cream and salsa, as well as large bricks of cheese from Costco, but you have to be lucky enough to live close to one. There are websites, however, that can send you cheese and even refried beans on time if you time it right. These include NiceDeli and EZShopKorea. The taco mix will have to come home, unless you happen to make your way to Itaewon in Seoul (which, if you live in Seoul isn’t difficult, but when you live in Masan it’s hard). Hard taco shells are the worst to find, because they just simply don’t exist here, but you can find plenty of soft tortilla wraps, so at least you’ve got that.
Anyways, after the food we took the pinata to the park, for the extra room, and also in hopes that there would be some Koreans to watch. And there were plenty of people there to watch!
Steven getting ready to hit!
Hanging it from a tree.
Spinning around 5 times. (I pointed him in the wrong direction.)
Tom giving it a final whack.
This was one of the little girls watching, she got SOOOOO much candy!
Wonky’s head!
We had an awesome party, and I am so thankful for everyone who came!
We made it!
After a 13 hour direct flight, a 5 hour layover, and another one hour flight, we finally made it to Masan on Thursday. Here’s our update!
- We met an awesome girl named Laura at the consulate while we were picking up Ross’s visa (finally! I still have to write about what happened, I’ll get to that), and she happened to be on both our flights, so we hung out with her. It was her first time going to Korea, so we were able to help her go through immigration and get food and such. Although I don’t think she needed that much help, she seemed so comfortable right away. 
She took a job in Busan, so we’re gonna be close and we’ll be able to hang out.
- We got to the school after our recruiter picked us up from the airport. Dylan has been so helpful with everything, and I would recommend him as a recruiter for anyone. He works for DFL Recruiting. Let me know if you want his contact.
- Our neighbourhood (Samgye) is kind of like a small suburb of Masan, with a much different feel then Songchon-dong in Daejeon. There are definitely more stores and taller buildings then in Songchon-dong, because SCD was all restaurants. Hopefully soon we will meet more people in our area.
- Our school is very very nice, all wood with U-shaped desks and nice teachers. We didn’t teach at all on Thursday, the school let us unpack and rest and do what we needed to do.Vicki and Paul, the teachers we are replacing, took us around the neighbourhood, showing us where stuff is. I hope they’re able to come back to the area.
- We were super jetlagged, but we needed a sheet for the bed, so we ventured to Homeplus in the middle of the city, and ended up having to spend 60,000 won on a fitted sheet. *sigh* Too much money for something we could have got at home for $10, but oh well.
- We fell asleep at 6:30pm. I ended up waking up at 1:00am, thinking that it was 5:00am or something, but nope, it was 1. Didn’t get back to sleep until 4am. I still don’t think my internal clock is right…. woke up again at 7:30am.
- We taught on Friday for three hours. We shared our classes, and didn’t really teach – we just played a riddle game with them, and the Korean teachers helped to translate if the kids had trouble. It was interesting, and I think our kids are gonna be a lot of fun to work with.
- We headed out to Daejeon Friday night, taking a bus from Masan to Daejeon. It takes 2 hours and 20 minutes to get there, so it’s not such a bad trip. We slept the entire way. It was nice!
- Getting to see everyone in Daejeon has been the best thing about returning to Korea, I think. We ate dinner at the dalk galbi place beside Dada’s, then dropped our bags off at Kim and Bart’s, then headed to Dada’s for a drink, then went to Dunsan-dong to hang out. We didn’t last long there, because we were super tired, but we got to see a lot of people which was super awesome. Made me feel like we were home.
- Today we went on a walk, and got accosted three times by kids, saying ‘hi!’ and ‘nice to meet you!’ and ‘what’s your name?’. Made me feel like a super star. LOL
- Dinner tonight will be at the smoke house, then we’re gonna head back to Masan tonight so tomorrow we can go food shopping and relax before our week starts.
And that’s it! That’s what has happened so far. No pictures, because we’re not shooting pics with our digital cameras, we’re using our new lomography cameras. So we have to get the film developed. But that’s okay, because the pictures will be wonderful. I will try to post pics ASAP though, so everyone can get a feeling of what it’s like in Masan.
I hope everyone is having a great weekend!! Miss everyone at home already….
xoxoxoxo nicole
The end, for now
Well, this is it. It’s 2:30am Wednesday morning, and we board a bus for the airport in 4 hours. We’re just about finished packing, I have to transfer a couple of things from one suitcase to another, and Ross is going to finish cleaning while I get a couple of hours sleep, but other then that we’re done. We’re outta here. Until February, that is….
It has been a pretty epic finish to an awesome year. Our going away party was fabulous, with the most epic noraebang session EVER. (20 people! It was crazy!) Thanksgiving dinner at VIPS was delicious (thanks to Marisol and Amy and Kim for helping to organize it) and our Songchon-dong party night on Monday was the biggest turnout to Dada’s bar we’ve ever had. There are so many people we are going to miss, but we’ll be back and see many of them again. And everyone is on facebook, so we’ll still keep in touch. (Thank goodness for FB!)
This year has gone by so fast, I cannot believe it’s over. There have been many highs, and many lows, but overall it’s been pretty damn awesome. I’m sad to say goodbye, but so excited to come home. We need a long, LONG vacation!
What’s next for us? 1 week in San Francisco and Yuba City, 1 month in Arkansas, 1 1/2 months in Canada, and then back to Korea to a town called Masan. (I guess we’re going to have to change the title of our blog now to Adventures in Masan, South Korea!) We have a sweet job lined up with the most wickedest apartment ever in Korea. But until then, we’re gonna enjoy the finer things of life in North America.
I will post pictures from the last week or so, plus pictures from the plane and San Fran when we get a chance in Yuba City. That will probably be the next chance I’ll have to sit down and stare at a computer for longer then 10 minutes. So, for now, I say 안녕히 가세요 대한민국 (good bye Korea) and see you on the other side of the ocean!!
xo nicole
Our apartment is falling apart.
Our apartment, for those of you who haven’t been privileged enough to receive a Skype tour, is an old, fairly large ‘villa’. A ‘villa’ in Korea does not mean a huge, resort-style getaway that the word means in English – it means you live over a business. Simple. And these businesses have been here for a LONG time, so the apartments are really old and don’t conform to building standards. Needless to say, our apartment is falling apart, fast.
I did a blog post last week on what happened to our sink. It still isn’t fixed because we couldn’t get a hold of our landlord. And our wall above our bedroom window is getting worse. It leaks when it rains (which, lately, has been quite often) and it’s spreading across the wall underneath the wallpaper.
As far as I know, we’re not going to have to pay for the window, because that is not our fault at all, but we will have to pay for the sink. What sucks even more, is that the reasons we have to pay for the sink are as follows:
- we didn’t tell them when it was loose, so if we had of told them before, they could have fixed it
- we have friends over, so who knows who actually broke it – it could have been our friends who broke it, which would, according to our landlord, put the responsibility on our friends and us rather then our landlord
- nowhere in our contract does it say that the school is responsible for repairs. nowhere in the contract, however, does it say that WE are responsible for repairs. it falls on the landlord to decide, and the school to agree. so, of course, who comes out on the losing side? us.
it’s just frustrating to have this all happen now, when we are 82 days away from leaving, and we want a good recommendation from our school for our next jobs. we don’t want to piss them off, nor do we want to pay for the repairs when we feel that they aren’t our fault. well, maybe the sink was our fault, but if it’s going to be outrageously expensive, we can’t afford to pay for it.
*sigh*
the life of being in a country where the rules are completely different from your own.
KOREA TIP - make sure to read your contracts over VERY VERY carefully, and make sure that they stipulate who is going to pay for repairs. also, keep your apartment clean, because your landlord could use that as an excuse for not paying for repairs as well.
xo nicole
We’ve discovered the source of the smell
DISCLAIMER – This entry should not be read while eating. You have been warned.
For the past month of living here, Ross and I have been complaining of an awful smell in our apartment every time we come in. At first we thought it was the food caught in the sink drain. We cleaned it out, flushed it with draino, and bought new catchers for the sink holes. After it continued to smell, I thought it might be the heat. After all, it was when we had the heat on that it stunk, especially after it was on all day while we were at work. (Speaking of which, we got our heating bill two days ago for our first month here – 247,000 won. Needless to say, we won’t be leaving the heat on much more, and we’re definitely going to be investing in a big blanket, because that was FAR too high.) So, we experimented with turning the heat off while we were at work, and for a little while that seemed to do the trick. But about a week ago, we started coming home and experiencing the worst musty smells EVER. And it came to a climax on Thursday, when we walked into our place and just about puked the smell was so strong. What the hell could it have been?
Ross decided to go on a hunt. He smelt around the place, starting with the sink, going back to our original thought. It sort of smelt. Then he went to the fridge, thinking it was old food or something. The fridge smelt bad, so he smelt the side of it. It smelt worse. Then he poked his nose behind the fridge. BINGO! He pulled the fridge away from the wall, and this is what we found.
This is what has been growing behind our fridge. I have no idea for how long, but it looks like a long time. Now, we have cleaned up other mold since we’ve been here. Our bathroom was FULL of it, and Ross was the sweetest husband and took care of it. He scrubbed the walls, behind the sink, underneath the shower caddy and the washing machine… our bathroom is now safe to take showers in. We had no idea about this. And to think, it’s so close to our food and our dishes and everything. Now we understand about the smell. Because as soon as we moved the fridge, the smell just emanated from there like something fierce. We freaked out, and I even had to skype my mom to ask her what we should do. We looked up online what to clean it with, and took pictures of it to show our boss, thinking that she could call our landlord and he could look at it to see if they needed to get behind the wall or something.
Turns out, mold is extremely common in Korea. It’s all over the place. Old buildings, improper drainage, humidity, everything contributes to this petri dish of a country. One of our friends, Becca, was telling me about the mold in her place. It was all over her bathroom. She tried to combat it, and finally just gave up. She also told me how many Koreans deal with the problem of mold – wall paper over it. How gross! I guess they don’t realize that it will continue to grow underneath the wall paper, and get worse. I have a feeling that’s what has happened in our apartment.
Anyways, our boss said that she has mold at her place too, and grocery stores sell special spray to help get rid of it. She wrote down the word for mold in Hangul, and we took it to Home Plus Express to see if they had anything. They did, so we bought some of that, along with masks and two sets of rubber gloves. We also have bleach we can use, and Easy Off Bam. We are about to go and clean it, along with the other mold that I noticed afterward, above our entry door. See?
How did we not notice this before? I think I might have noticed it, but thought it was dirt. Now, we’re gonna clean it like it’s mold, and get rid of it. HOPEFULLY this will eliminate the smell from this place, at least for a little while.
Later, maybe tomorrow, I’ll blog about our awesome weekend with our friends, including the epic party from last night and tonight’s trivia night, as well as some of the crazy stuff that our students have been up to.
Wish us luck with this mold!
xoxo nicole
Christmas party!
I just happen to be beside the computer right now, so I figured I would let the blog world know how our party is turning out. It’s awesome! We’ve been making snowflakes, making food, having good drinks, playing Wii, and basically enjoying the company of other expats over the holidays. There are about 16 people over for dinner, its crazy in here!! People in two different rooms, our front room and our clothes room, which we’ve tranformed into the Wii room… so much noise, so many people, so many good feelings….I can’t believe how blessed Ross and I are to have so many fantastic people over. At the moment it’s 5:15 am in Toronto, 4:15 am in Arkansas… soon everyone will wake up and be able to enjoy the wonderful day that is Christmas for themselves.
Here’s just one pic from the party, I will add more tomorrow when I have more time.
Merry Christmas everyone!
xoxo nicole
Merry Christmas!!
Merry Christmas everyone! We just Skyped with our families, and opened all our presents. Now we’re going to prepare for our awesome party, so I can’t type much. So, I’ll leave you with a picture of our finished tree.
MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!!
xoxoxoxoxoxoxox nicole (more x’s and o’s then usual, just for the holidays)
Merry Christmas everyone!!!
Saturday afternoon
It’s a beautiful, cold Saturday here in Daejeon, and it definitely feels closer to Christmas. Ross and I went Christmas shopping last night at Home Plus (yes, we had McDonalds again for dinner, and it was delicious – epic win!) and got a few things for the house.Home Plus at midnight on a Friday is MUCH less crowded then a Saturday afternoon. I think we might end up doing our shopping late at nights now. Yay for it being open 24 hours, AND only a 2500 won cab ride away! I mean, on a nice day we can walk it in about 20 minutes, but last night it was brutally cold and snowing, so there was no way we were going to be walking. We can seriously find everything we need at Home Plus though, except peanut butter. Can you believe that? We can find peanut butter at the grocery store across the street from work, but not at Home Plus, where they have EVERYTHING. Very weird. We also didn’t find any Christmas lights, but I’m sure they are there.
We have made plans for Christmas day now, and they include our place! Yay! We’re having all the neighbourhood people over for dinner, so that means about 13-14 people over, not including Ross and I (I think). We are going to borrow someone’s oven (it’s a luxury for a foreigner to have an oven over here) and hopefully find a turkey to cook, but if we can’t find a turkey a chicken will do. Everyone is going to bring food, and everyone is gonna sit on the floor and have a delicious Christmas meal! (In Korea, having meals on the floor is DEFINITELY not uncommon, it’s actually common practice in most houses and restaurants, so don’t think we’re weird sitting on the floor.) I’m very excited, and like my mom said, I’m definitely my mother’s daughter, inviting everyone over to our place for the meal.
Hopefully we can get our floors cleaned by the time people come! We still haven’t found floor cleaner, so we’re either going to have to just use soapy water, or find a recipe for floor cleaner on the Internet.I think soapy water with some bleach in it will work. We also have this really funky smell coming from over by the kitchen area that’s been around since we moved in, and I think it’s the heater smelling that way, because even when we don’t have ANY garbage, it still smells. We left the heater off yesterday when we were at work, and we came home and it didn’t smell. We’re just gonna have to get a few Glade plug-ins, hopefully that curbs the issue, at least for Christmas. It seriously smells though. Arg.
Classes this week were kinda stressful, just because we had to plan for two weeks in advance on top of teaching, so we had very little time to do much of anything. Plus, we had to do monthly reports. Fun. I got my elementary ones done on Tuesday, but Ross still had his to do. We both still have Kindergarten to do as well. But yeah, over the Christmas holiday the whole school is getting a complete makeover. I hope it turns out nice, especially our office. It would be nice to have new desks and shelves and stuff.
I have one girl in my older Kindergarten class who hasn’t been here all week, Bella. She’s a super sweet girl, but has the attention span of… well, me when I’m not taking my Ritalin. She also has an issue with TRYING things. She won’t do anything without me prompting her, saying the word first and her copying me… I don’t know whether it’s because she doesn’t know it, or if she just doesn’t care. Anyways, I now know the reason she wasn’t at school all this week – her mother has decided not to send her anymore. Apparently her mother feels that she isn’t progressing enough, that she isn’t learning enough English. I don’t know how to feel about this. I mean, I am kind of excited that my class got smaller, because you can give the other students more one on one attention and she was quite a handful trying to prod her along, but I feel bad because I don’t know if it’s my fault that she wasn’t progressing enough. I mean, I’ve only been there for a month, and the only thing we’ve really worked on has been animals (and reading a couple books, but that’s only like 5% of the time), but I’m super sensitive when it comes to stuff like this, so of course I take it personally. It might also be because we have a new owner, and Bella’s mother was just saying that she’s not progressing because she wanted her out of the school before the new director really took hold of the school, but in all honesty she really wasn’t progressing as much as the other three in the class. I don’t know, I feel bad that I couldn’t do more, but I have to keep telling myself that it’s not public school and the kids have a choice whether they want to be there or not, and I’ve only been there for less then a month and there isn’t much I could have done in that time.
Time to do something around the house. We have so much to do!!!!! I’m going to get Ross out of bed so that we can finish the tree. Once we get it done, I’ll edit this post and put a pic on, so check back later!!
xo nicole
