Hello kitty madness

This Hello Kitty Cafe just opened in Daegu so we went and tried it out on Saturday. Extreme is a bit of an understatement! Completely kitsch. I love it. Every part of the place was covered in hello kitty, including the food and drinks.

apple picking and rebecca's new korean family...

My friend Nikki took me, Rebecca and Sara to her parent's farm to partake in their annual family get together to pick apples and we had a great day! The weather was a bit miserable so the family didn't do much apple picking but Nikki took us out to collect some apples to take back with us. We had a walk around the farm which was pretty. We then had dinner with Nikki's family which was great, lovely food and nice to participate in a Korean family custom. My personal highlight was when the whole family bow to the oldest member of the family, Nikki's father. Nikki managed to signal to me and Sara that we should sit at the side of the room but unfortunately Rebecca didn't see and preceded to do a FULL FOREHEAD TO FLOOR BOW in time with all the family! I'm laughing even thinking about it now. It was brilliant. The family all joked that she was now part of the family. Seriously one of my favourite moments in Korea! 

Gyeongju DMOE trip

So this blog post is exceptionally photo heavy...even for me! This is because they were taken on a DMOE organised trip to Gyeongju! This trip was amazing...a day off school (I sound like a child saying that but it was pretty blissful), completely free and visiting a beautiful place I had been wanting to visit since I was still at home researching Korea! For unknown reasons I still hadn't managed to get to Gyeongju so I guess it was fate that this trip came along! It was a great way to see the city because we got ferried around between the sights and also got to experience 'cultural activites' such as participating in a tea ceremony, korean crafts. kite flying and much much more! Pretty unbelievable that Daegu's Ministry of Education bother to put on such an event. They even put us in a lovely fancy hotel! Seriously lucky teachers!    

Kite flying! My kite: year of the tiger. You cans see the famous burial mounds in the background.

Korean crafts at the Shilla culture centre.

Tea ceremony.

Pounding rice to make Korean rice cakes.

A walk around Anapji pond, lantern in hand. Spot the tourists!

Reflections at Anapji pond.

Great time of year for first visit to Gyeongju.

WOW.

Bulguksa temple.

This golden pig should bring you good luck when you touch it. 

Fancy hotel.

A whole family of matching clothes...2x adults and 4x children! Amazing!

board game cafe

For the last two girl's nights we have spent hours playing Monopoly at a board game cafe. For a very small fee you can hire a board game and buy drinks and snacks and spend hours playing games. We've got a little obsessed with monopoly. At the end, the loser has to stand underneath a tin plate which is dropped on their head. Losers must suffer the consequences in Korea!

wolseo school festival

Highlights of school  festival day...seeing naughty boys such as the ones in the photo above wearing strange women's clothes; the bring and buy sale and the sales techniques of my students...hence why I came away with such gems as a globe ('look Sarah is goes around and around, you need this!) a back massager and a pencil case shaped like a coffin; paying 500 WON to squirt water in a students face, watch the talent contest...personal favs being a rendition of Muse's 'Time is running out' and my sweetest student from my afterschool class singing 'I'm Yours' AND of course having no lessons for the day!

demonstrating the benefits of a globe

limbo time

all hallows eve fun

Halloween is one of my favourite holidays. This year was a three pronged approach- school halloween lessons, Daegu halloween night out and finally, halloween movie night with the girls. I played a really fun halloween game with some of my classes and wore a pumpkin headband in class. The weekend before halloween, loads of expats dressed up for halloween and headed downtown. I went to a little halloween gathering at Janis' house first where we had a halloween cake and homemade falafal. Yum. In a slightly last minute effort, I dressed as Bellatrix Lestrange (Helena Bonham Carter's character in Harry Potter for those of you non Harry Potter fans). Wasn't the best costume ever!
On actual Halloween night, we went to Jaclyn's place to watch Hocus Pocus and eat chocolate apples Sara and Rebecca whipped up.
Today is Bonfire night which is making me a bit sad because I usually love wrapping up warm and going to watch fireworks and bonfires! Next big holiday we'll be missing is the biggie...Christmas! But plans are underway for a fun christmas party so I have faith it'll be a great chritsmas! And I've just booked flights to go home for 3 weeks in January, followed by a week in the Philippines so I can't really complain. Exciting times ahead!

jirisan camping in the rain

I'm a bit behind in my blogging and the last few weeks have been hectic so this may take a while. I'm going to be as concise as possible.

Two weeks ago, against all advice and logic, me and a few fellow Epikers set off in the pouring rain to Jirisan National Park for a weekend of camping and hiking! We were umming and ahhing all day about whether we should go or not because of the weather but in the end we all wanted to get out of Daegu for a weekend so decided to risk it. After a long bus journey after work on the Friday, we arrived at the campsite in the pitch black and rain and then had the challenge of putting up the tents. Not fun. Luckily, there was a shelter where we could light a BBQ and chill out for the evening. We ate a lot and also made smores- a delicious American concoction of digestives, marshmallows and Hershey's chocolate.
On Saturday we got up and made a big breakfast of bacon and egg sandwiches then set off on a hike past a series of waterfalls. Jirisan looked so beautiful and thankfully the weather stayed pretty good all day. Saturday night involved more eating and drinking then a return to the big smoke on Sunday morning. I am so glad we went despite the weather , it turned into one of my best weekends/trips yet.

smores

Everything looked a lot better in the morning

Jimmy the breakfast chef (on Kim's instructions of course) 

My Jirisan neckerchief.