Change of plans

The <3 of my (bipedal) life

Coming home on the 18th of February rather than the 3rd of March as originally planned. Or actually that's not right - I originally hoped for the 11th of February, then decided the 3rd of March, and now it's back to the 18th. So I'll be home then, a little older and sadder, but happy to be back with family and friends and maybe even some sunshine by then. Christy thinks I have SAD (Seasonal Acute Depression) and I think she's right - there's nothing like snow to make me mopey and with everything going on right now it's hitting me pretty hard. Not quite the same as last year - last year it was a lot colder, there was more snow and I hadn't been home for a year, so even with Lala around to cheer me up and force me to be social I was still generally irritated by everything and toeing a fine line between unhappy and angry. Now that the home date is in sight, it's definitely reminding me of how happy I was to finally step off the plane, change into my Havvies and rush through those arrival gates into the arms of my family and my old familiar life. Not so great that I still haven't found a job at home and have to sort out mundane things like a new phone contract, re-starting my health insurance, renewing my driver's licence and passport, buying a car and finding a place to live, but hopefully keeping busy with things like that (and jobhunting if I can get organised and give myself a sufficiently good kick up the arse to get moving) will at least stop me from missing things in Korea. Now if only the exchange rate would comply so I don't lose so much money when I transfer it all home! Don't get me wrong, I'm glad that our economy is doing so well, but it's a pain in the proverbial nonetheless that I'm probably going to lose at least a couple of thousand one way or another.

Freakin' scary view from the top of the Rainbow run

Anyway, I'm not one for a big farewell (after all, I like to entertain the somewhat sentinmental hope of seeing close friends again at some point and in this day and age, there's really no excuse not to if you're determined enough), so I'm planning on copying dear Lala's idea of eating my way towards a goodbye. I've pretty much done or can do everything else that's a must before I go. I went snowboarding on the weekend at Yongpyeong (where the winter Olympics will be held) and am proud of myself for making it down the green circle/black diamond 1.5km Rainbow run TWICE without serious injury and without having to ask to be towed down. I may or may not have had to walk the last 100m (which should be re-named 'Super Icy Death Alley') on the second run, and wondered once or twice why the hell I'd decided to snowboard it the second time after almost shattering my tailbone and winding myself three times the first, but that's besides the point. Sadly I probably won't have time to go to my beloved Spaland in Busan before I go, so I'll guess I'll have to make do with the Dreamplus one and keep Spaland for next time. Foodwise, these are on my 'must-eat' list:

Bossam

     -Jja-jang-myeon (black bean noodles)
     -Bossam (steamed pork and cabbage bundles)
     -Jogae-gu-i (grilled shellfish)
     -Naengmyeon (cold buckwheat noodles)
     -Dalk-galbi (sauteed spicy chicken)
     -Samgyetang (spring chicken soup)
     -Soondae (pig blood noodle sausages), preferably with ddokbokkie (stirfried chili rice-cakes)
     -Haejangguk ('hangover' pork bone stew)

Naengmyeon

     -Soondubu-jjigae (soft tofu soup)
     -Samgyopsal (barbecqued pork)
     -Makkolli (a sort of yoghurty-beer-flavoured rice alcohol)

Most of these I can really make at home, but it's nice to have the real thing without also having the washing up :) Hopefully there's also some magic way I can eat all of these without putting on all the weight I've lost recently, especially since I'm also sure to pig out  when I get home too ㅋㅋ

Anyway, on that note I'll leave off. The teachers at my school were supposed to all go hiking today at the fortress, but with it being a balmy 3 degrees outside right now and all - now being 12pm so significantly warmer than it was three hours ago when we were all supposed to set off - only the pro hikers appear to have actually gone for it. I guess they had no choice after turning up to school in their serious outfits and all with all their kit! I think the rest of us are just going to meet them for lunch (which in Korea also means alcohol of course) and defrosting somewhere soon. Happy Monday all and for those of you at home, see you down undah sooner rather than later :)

One last thing

So I wasn't going to blog today, seeing as I did yesterday and don't really have anything interesting going on my life right now to add to, but I had to change my min after reading this article on "Illicit Sex in North Korea" from the blog Clever Turtles (thanks to James at The Grand Narrative for the referral). I know stuff about gender roles, sex and sexuality comes up occasionally here, so skip to the end for my cheery farewell for the weekend if it bores you or you don't want to be fairly horrified by the second article on sex trafficking in Australia - sorry.

First one:


An article about how North Korea is becoming a pit of sexual decadence.
A few things have to be kept in mind whenever reading stories "from" North Korea. Pretty much all news comes through a few anti-North Korean activists who cultivate communication channels with dissidents inside North Korea and refugees who have recently run the border. Several of them have religious motivations and ties with the South Korean evangelical community, who remain the most actively interested audience for news from North Korea. This is transparently obvious in this article. That said, it is an interesting window into the daily lives of the people of North Korea, and a reminder that they are no more or less than human.
I did find it humorous how the article emphasizes that extramarital sex or vaguely transgressive sexual activity is the fault of Chinese influence. Because pornography, adultery, and prostitution were alien to Korea until recent foreign influence. An ironic case where the North Korean party line matches that of anti-North cultural conservatism.
On a side note, apparently the 109 Group is special group formed under the People's Safety Department of the National Defense Committee. It was apparently formed as a task force specifically to crack down on transgressive social behavior in the northern border regions.
Original posted in the Segye Ilbo.

Prostitution, '8/3 couple' . . . Even in the North decadence spreads
Financial support to lure into adulterous relations often . . . teens prostitute in order to buy cell phones
Porno videos popular in marketplace . . . influence of weakened control over people
Also stripshow bars for the exclusive use of upper echelons
In North Korea's society, that is so closed that even romantic matters between men and women are regulated, decadent sexual culture is spreading. It is reported that prostitution as a livelihood is a matter of course and sexually promiscuous behavior is spreading like toadstools, to such a degree that they have created the neologism '8/3 spouses' for adulterous couples that finish up at the end of the workday.
An anti-North source, who early this year contacted refugees from the North Hamgyong province adjacent to China, said on the 9th, "In North Korea, in order to earn money for living expenses or disposable income, prostitution of women is spreading, and it was reported that the reality is that even young female students are appearing as prostitutes in order to buy cell phones." The source reported that in North Korea's interior '8/3 spouses' with adulterous relations are spreading like they are fashionable and some among them indulge in drugs, porn, and group sex. '8/3' refers to the date August 3rd, 1984, when Chief of the National Defense Council Kim Jong-il, who was named the successor at that time, laid down the pronouncement to "utilize the by-products in the factories and enterprises to make the necessities of daily life." but it has degenerated into a term for fake and shoddy products.
It is reported that recently they haven't stopped avoiding the net of surveillance and secretly steal looks at pornography, and even businessmen have appeared who mobilize North Korean women directly to produce and sell obscene videos. According to the results of one research study of domestically resettled refugees, 'adult products' are so popular that adult video CD-Rs, popularly called 'Sex-Rs', trade for higher prices than general movies and dramas in the North Korean markets.
Experts on North Korea see it that after the 'Hard March' period of the 1990s while economic difficulties were prolonged, they took advantage of the opportunities afforded by the weakening of the government's control over the people, and in the process of the rapid inflow of outside culture into the center from regions adjacent to China such as northern Hamgyong decadent sexual culture also spread.
In this way sexual culture became popular in all parts of society, so in a 2009 revision of the penal code North Korea strengthened the crimes of the transportation, possession, or distribution of decadent culture, strengthening the enforcement and punishment regarding sexual disorder, such as estabilished provisions so that in the case of transporting, possessing or distributing adult videorecordings one would face a 5 to 10 year sentence of labor reeducation.
But there are indications that North Korea's ruling class are an obstacle to the eradication of decadent culture. In several large cities strip show bars are operating that only party and public peace officers may enter, and refugees messages are that there are cases where public safety officers use financial support as bait to form adulterous relationships. In particular, they report that it is often the case that even agents of the 109 group, established to crack down on antisocialist activities, receive sums as bribes to pass over these matters.
Reporter Kim Po-un spice7@segye.com

Anyway, so I thought that was interesting, regardless of bias in the initial reports etc., especially after reading a novel about family and romantic relationships in North Korea (can't remember the name, sorry ㅠㅠ) that I think I got one Christmas as a present or was loaned to me by a friend which was written from the accounts of defectors, one of whom detailed falling in love with a boy in North Korea and then meeting him again when they were both adults and had made it to Seoul and the different dynamics and expectations that were at play each time they met or corresponded. I don't know where the original reference came from, but I also remember reading about someone (either a DPRK official or a visiting RoK politician) who had caused a lot of uproar when he drunkenly praised Kim Jong Il's sexual prowess at some meeting and how the DPRK Government had had problems dealing with it.

Second, a tragic article from the SMH (thanks again James) on sex trafficking in Australia. I have mentioned it here partly because one of my friends mentioned the other day about how Koreans sometimes don't see Korea as a developed country, and the fact that stuff like this happens so easily and that predators can find victims to walk into the trap of their own free will through the lure of 'education' in an English speaking country seems to kind of support that. Not to say that stuff like this doesn't happen in English speaking countries (because let's face it, there are always scam artists around anywhere you go) but I didn't realise that it happened in such a highly developed country as Korea. It's possibly also more evidence of the (somewhat ridiculous) lengths that Asian countries go to in order to pursue this desire for mastering English. Anyway, the article is really long so I haven't reblogged it, but please take some time to read it, even if it it's only to make you reconsider what you think you know about how 'safe' our country is.

Ok well that's my depressing stuff for the weekend. Sorry to bring you down! For those of you who read all the way through (and those of you who skipped to the end), here is some happiness to take you back up again into the sunshine :)

Disabled doggie still loves his walkies! Retired police dog with arthritis still living life to the full :)

cute monkey says what? ... BANANAS! teehee^^

Have a lovely weekend everyone! ^_^

And p.s. yes, I tagged this as 'love' because I don't want the kind of disappointment bound to follow from people looking for blogs about sex.

Back to the salt mines...

Aka school. The new semester has started. I think most of the people who read this blog have already asked me about how my trip home was, or if not, I actually saw them, so I won't bother rehashing that in detail. A quick summary though would be "heart-warmingly wonderful but way too short". It was good seeing my grandparents again and spending time with both them and my sister (and my parents of course but I saw them fairly recently anyway), and those wonderful and understanding friends of mine that I managed to squash in around the edges. Apologies to those that I neglected - I really am a terrible person and deserve cat aids.

Oh and just for Timmy, so you don't get bored, here are some pictures. Haha^^

With JP, my travel buddy in Phuket

With Kate, Rekha and Lucy in Canberra

Getting rained on with Fran

Roast lamb dinner with Kate and Chris

Mum ♥

With T-bo in the 'Gong

mmm birthday seafood banquet courtesy of my awesome Grandparents!

Anyway, so that aside, I had a really wonderful teaching morning today! It was one of those rare times when everyone is in a great mood and everything goes more or less according to plan (100% to plan would just be downright freaky). My first years loved the Jai Ho video I showed and the food bingo game I played with them and their ferociously competitive little natures meant that they even demanded we keep playing past the bell until there was a winner. Second years were even better, as the lesson we are doing is rather dry and last year was a bit problematic since there was nothing I could do to spice it up beyond a few funny pictures in a powerpoint, but they really got into the debate I asked them for at the end and about 80% of the class managed a good non-BS opinion about their topic by the end. Even those that did BS, like the one who said he agreed with corporal punishment because it was very "sexy and wild", were hilarious so I forgave them. For those of you not on Facebook, these were my favourite quotes (for those of you who are, 미안해!)

Me: Do you think it's good or bad to give children candy whenever they want it?
Jun-Kyeong: It's bad because the candy is mine.

Me: Ok so why do you think corporal punishment is bad?
Seung-Euk: Colourful penniesmen is bad because I must have it too often.

Haha. You don't know how much I wanted to laugh every time Seung-Euk said "colourful punishment" or variation theorof ㅋ ㅋ ㅋ  I love it during this time before the good effects of the holidays have worn off and they revert to little vampires trying to suck out my spirit and patience. At any rate, I walked out of my second class with 2-5 (boys) feeling very happy and thinking that having class 1-6 (also boys) in the morning was a vast improvement. This feeling soon evaporated however as I realised that it now meant that due to these timetable changes, I no longer have class 2-5 (a relatively good class bar the general afternoon and boyish inability to concentrate or stop shouting out the first thing to cross their minds) last thing on Fridays - I now finish with class 2-6, who are absolutely appalling, at any time of the day since they are all the worst students from all the first year classes last year. Seriously, who in their right mind would group these students together??? Positive attitude with them is like throwing jelly against a wall, which is pretty much what also happens to my patience after 15 minutes with them. Anyway, hopefully they enjoyed their holidays sufficiently to get bored at home and we can get through the lesson on Friday. Be positive! Only 6 more months :)

So anyway, I'm still feeling that glow from this morning. I have one of my favourite 2nd year's girl's classes next and then the endearingly silly (read: stupid) but enthusiastic 1st year boys class after, so I think Tuesdays are quickly going to become my favourite teaching days.

Oh and one more thing - a comic strip for you! It's about a 'real' mystery about a girl walking home from school late at night who meets a woman looking for her lost baby. In the cartoon, the woman asks the girl where it is and the girl says "over there" and tries to keep walking...

Don't forget to turn your sound on before you watch it. And if you scare easily don't watch this when you're by yourself or at night. Might take a little while to load.

scarrrrrrryyyyyyyyy o_O!


For those of you interested in the food lesson, here is the link to download the powerpoint. The lesson is based on my textbook (Cheonjae Education's Middle School English 1 , Thomas Orr et al; chapter 7: 'Namaste from India') obviously, but it's easily adaptable.

How it works:
Announce that we are playing international food bingo (make bingo grids of 4x4). But first we need to go through the foods we will use. Students must guess what each food is and which country it is from (explain that each country is only used once or you'll get the same three or four countries screamed at you over and over again.. which will probably happen anyway) using the pattern in the slide. Whoever can guess the answer and make a full sentence (first hand up of course) for each food before we repeat as a class gets a point/other reward. Or just the satisfaction of beating everyone else perhaps. After allowing students to guess, lead students through each slide before moving onto the next one. I usually just say the "when I went to ..." and get the students to finish with "I ate ..." because of time limits but you could get them to finish the whole sentence. This whole process works as a kind of game in itself if you have enough competitive students. After going through them all, show students the final slide, ask students to fill in their sheets (with only the foods usually but they can do the countries if they are REALLY low level) and hand out the bingo grids. You should have printed out this final slide also. Read out the first half of the pattern sentence and students should guess the food and finish it, e.g.teacher: "When I went to England...? (What did I eat?)" students: "I ate fish and chips". If you are doing this for particular grammar, you shouldn't move on to the next one until they have finished the sentence properly, rather than just let them shout out the food. Winner gets whatever prize of course.
This also works well as a co-teacher lesson because during the slide the CT can help prompt the students make the second part of the sentence, and during the game you can alternate picking countries. Doing it my way usually takes about 25 minutes, but you could easily drag it out to 40-45 (i.e. a whole lesson) if you were being really thorough.

P.S. Please don't anyone wish cat aids on me.

uh-oh

I think one of my co-teachers is annoyed with me. When we were talking about heroes I told our class that Mother Teresa was born in Albania, and I didn't realise she'd been telling them that she was Indian Brahmin. Needless to say they got very upset because I wouldn't give them any class points (since it wasn't a correct answer) and we had to start talking about someone else very quickly.

Ok - so obviously it's not good for teachers to contradict each other, that goes without saying. BUT. Even before I knew where she was from, I knew Mother Teresa wasn't Indian, she just lived and worked there for most of her life. It's pretty obvious from just looking at a picture of her, even a picture of her as an old woman (which most of them are) that she's not Indian, as racial features - heck, all features really - get less distinctive as we age. But anyway, somewhat tangentially (is that a word? It is now!) the whole thing made me realise once again just how multicultural Australia must seem to people, even though those of us living there know that while we have a lot of ethnic diversity, this doesn't necessarily preclude us from being an extremely racist country. And just to clarify, unless you're a complete idiot, you know that racism doesn't just mean white people hating non-white people and multiculturalism doesn't just mean you eat Chinese takeaway once in a while. Unless you live in an extremely small country town, by the tine we grow up, most of us can tell the difference between Indian and Filipino, know that Europe is a continent, not a country, and have eaten something more exotic than Teriyaki chicken at least once in our lives. Most of this is due to the fact that everyone in Australia except Aborigines is either an immigrant or descended from one (well, two to be biologically accurate). Korea doesn't have that. Even though it's pretty centrally located, as indicated by centuries of occupation, colonisation and general warfare for ground, for the majority of the world it's still a mystery. It's not somewhere that people know and automatically think "I'd like to go there someday" - it's somewhere they go either completely by chance (e.g. people looking to teach English who use recruiters and exchange students) or because they have some sort of connection with the country like family. Even though there's a large military presence (...) and there's been an increase in the number of South Asian immigrants here as wives or workers, there still isn't a lot of racial diversity and not much general knowledge amongst the population about other countries. Similiarly, even though a lot more people get the chance to travel these days, those of you who are familiar with the Korean travelling style (a whirlwind tour done with other Koreans, speaking in Korean most of the time and eating Korean food as much as possible) will know that it doesn't always give the most accurate impression of a country. Which is not to say that there aren't Koreans who don't take genuine interests in other countries, travel independently and can go for weeks at a time without rice or kimchi, and that people from other cultures don't do the "I don't actually travel outside of my own head" thing either (Aussies in Bali anyone?). This is just a generalisation. Hee~ :D

At any rate, the racial thing is actually one of the paradoxes of living in Korea for me - even though I look pretty much like the majority of the population and here I can be just part of the crowd for once, unless I keep my mouth shut and dress to the princess standard, I kind of stand out more than I do at home in Thirroul, which is a small and VERY white suburb. As someone who is ethnically Korean and who doesn't have any tattoos or weird hair I'm obviously not as sensational as much as some other foreigners, but I still wasn't raised Korean, I still don't have any Korean mannerisms (that I'm aware of) and I still don't carry myself the same way or have the same facial expressions as everyone else. So for someone like me, unless you're in Seoul, you still stand out and people WIL stop and stare at you in the street. Or stop you in the street to have a chat about the Bible. Or ask you about your life story and give you their opinion on why you should/shouldn't track down your birth parents (taxi ajosshis). Or goggle at you from their car windows as they careen through intersections because they find you more interesting than red lights, pedestrians or other vehicles.

Anyway, I find this double standard of obscurity/celebrity ... well, curious. It's a bit hard to call something interesting when it also means unwanted attention. If I'm a bit tired or having a bad day, sometimes I don't even say hi to my students if I see them in the street, I'll just smile and wave because I don't feel like having everyone turn and stare at me or try to start a conversation about random stuff when I have somewhere to be.

More after lunch.

Ho hum

Hello dear readers! Profuse apologies for being so lax of late and essentially being so lazy as to not post for a very long time. There is not really a very good reason for doing so, merely that I have been enjoying being home so much that I've rather put my blog on the backburner for a while. Henceforth however, I will probably be posting with more regularity as I return to icy Korea and my even icier school and many hours of deskwarming (although contrary to what the name suggests, really my desk is freezing). For you see, this will be my last post from Australia for a good while, possibly for 13 months until I finish my contract on February 26th, 2012. Unless of course North Korea does actually decide they have nothing left to lose (having already said goodbye to their last shred of sanity) and decide to go out guns (or nuclear missiles) blazing, or something else equally calamitous happens that brings me back early, or that I really do just get completely sick of being there, in which case I might be back a little earlier, but at present I'm trying to steel my resolve and aim to stick it out for the year, irregardless of personal feelings on the matter.

Which is not to say that I am not looking forward to going back to Korea! Although I'm dreading having to go back to the cold and the insularity of Korean society and the lack of multiculturalism (ok, the lack of multicultural food options really) and of course, having to go back to work, I'm also looking forward to lots of things - Korean food, shopping, the convenience of Korean life, and of course, my friends. Actually, to be honest, I feel a bit ambiguous about seeing many of them, because for quite a few who have been important people in my life last year, it's not just about looking forward to seeing them again. Many of them will be leaving now that they have completed their year of teaching, and although this is thing I hate to believe is true and can never quite bring myself to say, it may very well be the last time I'll see them again, so for many, it's a goodbye too. Now those of you who are either Australian or are acquainted with Australians (which you should all be since you know me and to channel a Westie I know, you can't get much better than what's already awesome! :D) know that we are a nation of long distance travellers. We have to be if we want to go anywhere outside of the country. So there is a fairly large likelihood that of the many friends I have been lucky enough to make this year, I will see them again. In the words of someone well-meaning who probably ended up with a long line of Australian couch-surfers: "never invite an Aussie to stay with you if they're ever in the country unless you actually mean it, because they'll actually take you up on it." Nevertheless, depressing thoughts and accomodation-cadging aside, it will be good to go back and spend my last week of school-less freedom seeing everyone again, just in case. And frankly, also because some of them would also be likely to send me long abusive emails about my moral deficiencies as a friend if I did not see them at least once before they go and this is something I wish to avoid :)

Which brings me back to my original point (kind of) about my last day in Oz. The weather has actually cleared up a little and turned out semi-nice, so a swim with Fran later on in the (hopefully) less burny time of day is definitely on the cards. I'm also baking sticky-date pudding with butterscotch sauce (two actually, one for our grandparents and one for us), if we have any room for it after dinner with mum, dad, Fran, Edna and Allen (some family friends visiting from Wales) at Altitude 1146 perched on Bulli Tops, which according to a friend with an inside scoop on the owners (....) does some mean curries since they actually have a curry chef. I'm hoping the sticky date pudding will also make me less sentimental when I go to say goodbye to my grandparents for yet another year - a kind of Trojan horse I guess - but I'm glad that we at least have the miracle of Skype to keep in touch. I also have the last of my packing to do, or rather, re-packing, now that I've gathered all of these things that I somehow managed without for a whole year but have now decided I can't, and also all of my shopping for stuff I can't get in Korea, like Dilmah tea, peppermint tea, herbs and a decent stain remover which you'd think would be a cinch for a country that uses as much chilli as Korea.

Anyway, rather than writing about it and sitting on my butt enjoying the campness of Peter on Ready Steady Cook, I should probably get onto actually doing some of that stuff. My second sticky-date pudding is almost done so I should check on it too, and of course the crickets and cicadas chirruping outside in the sunshine are reminding me of my 'one last swim' resolution with Fran. Here are a few of my favourite photos from my trip to tide you over until my next post (I'll probably be whingeing about how cold I am). Bon voyage!





With Miss Lucy and Jini

With Lyss and Tracey

With the 2009 Wollongong OPSM girls :)

MC multi-tasking her way to fabulousness as usual

Kookie sitting on the proverbial wire

Strewth it's hot! Apparently it's only 35 degrees (celsius) with 30% humidity, but it feels hotter than that - high 30's at least. A well-chilled beer earlier today and now a refreshing gin and tonic are definitely helping though :)

By now, I'm almost at the halfway mark of my holiday home, so not quite close enough to have to think about returning to the frigid ice-box that is Cheongju in winter, but close enough to be realising that I should be getting on to doing a whole bunch of things that I wanted to or need to do before I head back. Looking back at my bucket list, I've managed a fair bit already - at least 27 of the 40 or so things on it (you can see my to do list here if you need a refresher) and another 8 or 9 of those schedhuled in before I go. I also managed to find my absolutely delicious vanilla coke (which has become very scarce for some reason) which should have been there, and drink an enormous amount of it, some of it while watching "The Biggest Loser" and cackling, yes, CACKLING at the hapless contestants. Unsympathetic, yes, perhaps, but also because it was the premiere episode of the 2011 season, in which they made the trainers go live with the families that they'll be training and eat what they eat for a week. Watching the teeth-bleached, hair-bleached blonde barbie doll Tiffany (the name says it all don't it?) being forced to eat a huge plateful of creamy pasta (made with a jar of Alfredo sauce, a pack of sour cream, a pack of thickened cream and three types of cheese) was as ironic as it was disgusting. By the way, I have to say here, I love the Commando's no-bull attitude, especially in the face of the fact that his team are all women (much to his horror) and quite giggly and likely to drive him up the wall. I'm betting his 'surprise twist' this year (or whatever his tagline was) is that he smiles :p And of course, Michelle and Shannon are as awesomely hardcore as ever (although it looks lie Shannon had his tatts re-inked for the show), but really, I like my crazy, and The Commando is just the right amount of crazy to be awesome.

Well, shamefully crass commerical television aside, it has been BRILLIANT being at home. Here are some of my favourite pictures so far.

Pamela, Georgie and Maria (b), Mum and Fran (f).

Catching up over some yummy goodies! We are well-versed in the Georgie = delicious food equation :) 

To the right are some of Georgie's biscuits and some that the girls made. Luckily these came out after the cheesecake and the girls' cheese triangles, so there were enough left to take a decent photo of them :)

Authentic seefood! The barbequed octopus Fran and I couldn't bring ourselves to eat, as it appeared to be eye-balling us throughout dinner at a local Thai restaurant.



With Naomi at the Lunar New Year Festival in Hyde Park in Sydney. Although I don't look it, I was actually quite happy here, as at this point we hadn't yet been approached by the dodgy bogan derro trying to bum a light and calling me 'sis' so he could nick my handbag. 

Dad feeding the Eastern Rosellas on the balcony one morning.  Fran actually took this as it was at the ungodly hour of 8.30am, so I was still dead to the world.

Mum's pav - a fruit and cream topped meringue base. Mum was actually very sneaky and mixed fruche (a very creamy yoghurt) in with the cream on this one, but Grandy didn't notice (or perhaps mind) so it was all good.

Having brunch with Nadia, aka the smilingest woman on earth, and my personal favourite mood-lifter :)

Anyway, that's about it for now. I should get back to my TESOL coursework - I have 25 days left (well, less really if you consider travelling and visitors etc) to complete 48 units, but I managed to do 5 last week in less than 5 days so I think I can manage it!) if I want the pay rise next year. You'd think my study habits would be better now that I'm a teacher, but it's really not the case :p Wish me luck!

HOME!

Yes, it is true. The eagle has landed, and Amy has come home. And good lord does it feel GRRRRRREEEEEAAAT! Although I'm used to travelling, it's always a little weird for me when I'm overseas for a long time somewhere where the climate is diametrically different to what I'm used to, especially over holiday periods like Christmas and the New Year and it's really different to my memories and habits of how I usually spend that time at home. It makes me slightly homesick and very mopey (not to say anti-snow) to look outside (having first had to defrost my window) and see frost and people wrapped up in six layers of clothing inching across icy pavements when everything is telling me that this is the time of year when people should be walking around in the blazing sunshine in summer dresses, thongs, sunnies and a tan, drinking cold beer or a refreshing gin and tonic on the verandah and listening to the crickets and cicadas chirping. So needless to say, coming home and having a sense of everything being set right again has been absolute BLISS. I haven't worn socks since I got off the plane (I immediately put my thongs on as soon as we landed) or even closed shoes, and I've been gradually crisping my feet and legs every morning by propping them up on the railing in the sunshine as I sit out on the verandah doing the crossword with my dad (who has now also become a sudoku nut but unfortunately with much the same "guess and hope and then blame the paper for making mistakes when it's wrong" technique as he used to have with crosswords).

Speaking of planes, I should mention some highlights of my flight(s) home here. The first leg of the trip from Seoul to Shanghai was pretty good, mainly thanks to my plane neighbours Brady and Jihye, also teachers, who were on their way to Singapore and then Malaysia. I was still exhausted from a busy weekend and the anticipation of coming home, but we got chatting over a beer.. and then another.. and then another.. I actually think the stewardess was getting a bit annoyed as Jihye asked for more beer for all of us, as she kept telling us to wait for the drinks cart, but she eventually gave up and gave in. So it was a pretty entertaining flight. Until we got to Shanghai. Our flight had been delayed by about half an hour, which was fine for me with my 7 hour stopover, but it meant that Brady and Jihye now only had about an hour and fifteen minutes to make their connecting flight. 75 minutes? Fine, no worries... in a normal airport. So we said goodbye and off they rushed while I proceeded at a more sedate pace. And then China confirmed my worst misgivings about going through there. Luckily, I didn't contract anything nasty (as far as I know) like I did last time, despite being surrounded by hordes of people with the usual and very charming Chinese habit of hacking, snorting, clearing your throat, coughing and sneezing with no attempt to cover up and all sorts, but that was probably due to my own paranoia rather than luck.

So first of all, the gate we'd come in was a ridiculously long way away from the rest of the terminal - fair enough, it's a big airport. After a nice 15 or 20 minute walk, I reached the "transfer lounge"... which was either non-existent or synonymous with "immigration" because we had to fill in an arrivals card and be processed and photographed before we could go through. I spotted Jihye and Brady in the line ahead of me, and wondered if they'd be rushed through as they would now have less than an hour to get to their next plane once they got through. When it was my turn and I asked where I should go, I was told "third floor" with a hand vaguely waved in a random direction, so I hopefully set off that way and then roamed around looking for a way up, finally spying a "transfers" sign over an escalator. Coming out onto the third floor, it had actually come out into arrivals, which I wandered around until I found someone to tell me where to go. Luckily I didn't have to check in again, but I DID have to fill out a departure card and go through immigration and security AGAIN. And guess who else I ran into with less than 15 minutes to make their flight? I wished them luck (again!) and set off in search of my gate, determined never to fly through China again unless I had absolutely no chance and no money to do otherwise. Waiting wasn't too eventful, although the 7 hours did give me a chance to become intimately acquainted with the swine flu information video being shown on a 15 minute loop. It was very cute and very funny - have a gander! (Unfortunately, I missed the first bit which said "Pay attention! Swine flu comes from America. It's other name is H1N1. What a shame!")

After boarding my plane and finding myself sitting across from a slack-lipped germ factory who kept sneezing and spraying gross yuk everywhere but into a tissue and coughing loudly, and thanks to the lovely H1N1 video making me even more of a hypochondriac than normal, I immediately covered my face with my scarf as a make-shift face-mask, which I wore for most of the 11 hour journey. The woman sitting next to me seemed perfectly healthy though, and as a bonus, was also fairly lightly built (this sounds prejudiced, but experienced flyers will know the discomfort of having someone three times your weight trying to squeeze past you and most likely over you to get to the toilet multiple times and be as relieved as I was that I didn't have to experience it again). We exchanged smiles and then settled down to wait for dinner. Unfortunately, the people in the row in front of us (the first row) weren't content to simply sit for the announced 15 minutes it would take to serve it. So, being hungry, they decided to have a picnic. The menu? A whole marinated roast goose, vacuum packed in foil. The four of them ripped into it with much gusto while I and the other three women sitting next to me in my row had a fit of giggles at their antics. Luckily the rest of the journey was pretty uneventful as most people crashed out right after dinner, and I didn't have the misfortune to be stuck across from someone with horrific and constant gas issues like I was coming back from America, so it was all good, and a huge relief to finally be home and step off the plane into that familiar mix of Australian summer before the terminal's air-conditioning hits you. It was pretty funny coming through customs and seeing the inevitable crowds of disappointed tourists thronged around the quarantine bins and hurriedly scarfing whatever they could because despite the many signs and warnings on the plane, they only just realised that the (probably very expensive) foodstuffs they brought with them to see them through the wilderness that is non-whatever their own country's cuisine is won't be allowed through Customs. (NB to people who've never been here before - Australia has really strict Customs and Quarantine laws because, duh, we are an island. A big one yes, but an island nonetheless, so you aren't allowed to bring seeds, dirt, shoes that have dirt in them, most animals, fresh food, food not sealed to commercial standards, wood, wood products, plants, tea, grains ... a lot of stuff. If you forget this, you may end up wasting a lot of money on food presents). Immigration was chaos - someone obviously decided that to make their own hellish day slightly less godawful, they were going to pass the bollocks around by making EVERYONE confused and pissy, so none of the signs made any sense, and the officers arbitrarily changed their minds about who could go where and which nationalities and types of passports were allowed in which lanes. But at last I got through and was home! Absolute bliss ^_^

Also, I've already managed to eat my way through a goodly number of things on my wishlist! Baked ham dinner, roast lamb with gravy and perfectly roasted potatoes, trifle (and a chocolate one at that!), nectarines (sadly, or perhaps luckily, due to the rain they are scarce, so I haven't eaten myself silly on them yet), chocolate gelato in Circular Quay with my sister, home-made muesli, smoked salmon bagels, my sister's mince pies - MANY things! And tomorrow I'm making home-made banana ice-cream for my grandad, and then next week my mum's making a pavlova for Australia Day so the gorging is good to continue. Fran thinks she's put on 2 kgs already in the three days that I've been home, and the dogs are overjoyed to have yet another person to scab from.

Ooh and also more importantly!! ...
... Okay, male readers (if any), you should probably skip this part, because I'm about to launch into a shopping story. Yes, it's about underwear, but not in any kind of alluring way - I stress, it's about underwear, NOT lingerie. So sorry in advance, but this stuff is important to women, so proceed at your own risk!

So, ALSO! Something that makes me incredibly happy - UNDERWEAR! I went shopping in Sydney yesterday with my sissy poo, and there was still plenty of stuff on sale from the Christmas/New Year's sales, so I had a field day! For those of you unaware of this fact, comfortable, well-fitting underwear is extremely hard to find in Korea, especially as most knickers are a kind of 'one size fits no-one' (for the most part, Koreans have no butts) and the only place you can reliably buy anything bigger than a B-cup is at American chain stores in Seoul, and even then they don't usually fit that well. Seriously, C-cups are usually advertised as "large sizes!", and everything has the hell padded out of it anyway, so if you are planning to go to Korea and wear underwear ladies, it is a given that you should stock up on it before you go, unless you want to spend the year with some very unflattering bulges and your bosom twice the size you want and perched right up under your chin. So anyway, Christmas money in hand from many people in a very generous family, and having gotten home to realise that contrary to my expectations, I'd actually taken ALL of my non-lingerie underwear with me to Korea and so had not one pair of practical (and comfortable) knickers left at home, I hit up Myers underwear department like there was no tomorrow. $150 later, I was much happier. And then of course, we couldn't go past the clothes floor... ^_^ I was very happy to discover that there were still lots of bargains to be had in the Princess Highway section, one of my favourite brands.

It's good to be home ^_^

My Aussie Bucket of Happiness List

Woohoo! I get to come home earlier than I thought! YAY!!!!

Although I said it already on facebook, I have to say it again here - my co-teacher Ms Shin rocks! She was awesome before this, but this news makes her super-co-teacher of the frickin' year!

Just to clarify what happened, holidays are kind of a big deal for us Guest English Teachers or Native English Speaking Teachers or whatever the hell we're supposed to be officially called over here, as we are supposed to get so much time off, but also do winter camps and extra classes. So the time we can get off is mostly dependent on the school's own timetable, and there is no country like Korea for instititutionalised last minute-ness so a lot of the time (or all the time according to the 'real situation' nightmare scenarios in our guide book) GETs try to be organised and apply for (and get) time off and book tickets waaaaay ahead of time only to find out closer to the date that the school's schedhule has changed (or actually been decided on) and conflicts with their plans which they now can't change. (Some very naughty people actually do this on purpose too.) So bascially holidays can be a big headache for both the GETs, their co-teachers and their schools. Now, as someone who is extending their contract (oh yeah, so I have decided to stay on for another year in Cheongju at the same school. I should really write something more about that later!), we are supposed to get 14 extra CALENDAR days holiday as well as the 10 WORKING days winter break in our contracts. There is also the week we are supposed to get off for Seolnal (the Lunar new year) but if you aren't careful and your school decides to stiff you, your extra calendar day leave might run into this, cheating you of a few of your precious days. Which is why we specifically get working days, as we don't work every 2nd Saturday like our Korean counterparts. There is also a week before the new school year starts in March that the teachers have to be back at work for admin stuff and to organise graduation for students that completed their last year, before you get another week off and then have to come back. Originally, I was very annoyed, because after asking about holidays a while back when I was still considering moving to a new area (which would mean a new contract and no extra holidays), I was told that yes, I do get two weeks, but depending on winter classes which might run until the end of January, it was entirely possible that these would be non-consecutive, and therefore I would only get to spend one week at home unless I wanted to buy two lots of plane tickets. And because of my contract running until February 25th here, but having to go to the new area's training session at the START of that week, I might in effect only get one week off because the second week would be taken up by moving and training. So not good. Nothing to do with my co-teacher or my school (although I did wonder at the time if this was part of the blackmail to try and make me stay with them), but if I wanted to be one of those jerks that made a bad name for GETs everywhere I could have kicked up a fuss and just bought my plane ticket for late January anyway and left a great school on a bad note.

BUT THEN! Flash forward a month and a half - having decided on patience and trusting in the eternal last minute serendipity of Korean planning, I asked Ms Shin again this week about the possibility of going home for Australia Day, since I won't be able to go home for Christmas. I had already told her a while back about how important Christmas was to my family and how we all get together and just kind of enjoy spending time together, and how we hadn't really had that many proper family Christmases over the last couple of years, what with people (ok, me and mum) being out of the country and then us all going to Canada and so not being able to spend Christmas with the rest of our family and so on, so she knew how important it is to me and what I meant when I told her that we would usually have a family dinner on Australia Day and especially that I would like to spend it with my grandparents, as I haven't been home this year since I left and they can't travel overseas. Once again, I have to state just how awesome Ms Shin is in that she actually tells me things BEFORE they happen sometimes, rather than AS they happen. She told me that actually, there was a possibility that my extra classes would only run for one week instead of two, so as well as my winter camp for a week, I might be able to come home as early as the third week of January! O_O!!

Needless to say, I was overjoyed! Even if it does turn out that I have three weeks of school over winter instead of two, I will still be home for Australia Day and eating delicious food with the people most precious to my heart :)

So in order to make the most of my time at home, I have decided to start a list of things I want to do/eat while I'm there. Let me know if there's anything I've missed or you have any suggestions!



mmmm...



I want to:

• hug my grandparents and my parents and my sister and my dogs and never let go
• hug everyone else until they tell me to go away or start to turn blue in the face
• eat a roast lamb dinner with lashings of gravy and mum's special extra crunchy baked potatoes.
• eat fish and chips and calamari rings on the beach




Bill comma Bubble O's :D


• get Thai takeaway and a bottle of wine with my little sister Frangipanni, watch a bad horror movie, and spook ourselves/laugh
• go to the video store and understand the blurb on the back of EVERY single video without having to refer to the pictures or my electronic dictionary



Sam "Calippo Muncher" Shin's ice-lolly of choice :)

• eat a Calippo and a Bubble O'Bill ice-cream with Sam! (if you don't know, these are FABULOUSLY DELICIOUS! ice-creams like so) 
• make a pavlova
• eat (a) pavlova 
• watch mum make a trifle and then eat it for dessert at every opportunity until it's gone.
• eat a lamington
• send a billion Timtams to my friends around the world (let me know if you want to be added to the list!)
• sleep in my bed
• hear one of my grandfather's brilliant stories and my grandmother telling him he's a silly old bugger
• see my big sis Kate and Chris' new house
• watch the news and discuss Graeme the ABC weatherman's sexuality and bad fashion choices
• never watch the 7.30 report now that Kerry O'Brien is gone
• watch "The Biggest Loser" and laugh at ... oh so many things! (I'm hoping there'll be a new season out by then!)
• walk around in a low cut (i.e. NORMAL) singlet top with my bra-straps showing and no-one caring
• go to the beach, swim in the ocean, get a little sunburnt and walk around with beach hair all day
• eat a meat pie
• eat a sausage roll smothered in tomato sauce
• drive and listen to awful music and sing along with it ^_^
• go shopping with franniken in sydney, hopefully while there's still some good stuff left from the new year sales
• buy a new pair of slim strap havianas
• buy some new jeans that actually have room for my butt
• ooh! go shopping at JAG with katie for new jeans :)
• go (swing??) dancing with miss lucy-lu!
• catch up with all my OPSM peeps and see Jeanne's wedding pics!
• catch up with all my Canberra crew and see Meggles' wedding pics!
• gossip with jini and lyss and ms bouf and all my favourite Canberrans over too much champagne
• eat pho and play some (in my case, 'suck at') Wii with Nuong, Kit Kat and Meliphant
• eat a cherry pie at Dobinson's and a steak and onion pie at Cornucopia (bakeries in Canberra)
• go to the Lindt or Guylian cafe (chocolate cafes) in Sydney and poison myself with dairy products
• stock up on herbs so i can cook real pasta dishes next year
• go to t2 and sniff every kind of tea I can, try every kind of sample and perhaps buy something delicious and exotic ^__^
• drink tea with t-bovo and enjoy being cynical and amused
• buy a pair of shoes with actual support in them
• go underwear shopping and revel in beautiful underwear that is actually made in my size!
• take my dogs for a walk on the beach every day
• cook Korean food with Franceline to stave off my inevitable kimchi withdrawal and stink out the house with the smell of garlic
• have a HUUUUGGGGEEE food-feast (otherwise known as a pig-out) with Naomi and Aya!
• go to the fish markets in Sydney and eat sashimi (I've never been!)
• be driven crazy doing the morning crossword with my parents (most often heard quote: "just because it has the right number of letters doesn't mean it's the right word!! you can't change the spelling to make it fit! it doesn't even have anything to do with the clue!")
• read the Good Weekend, Spectrum and National Times from the SMH every weekend
• eat grilled cheese and tomatoes on toast
• eat avocados on EVERYTHING just because they taste so good
• eat some sort of focaccia sandwich
• eat a whole tub of "Nuts About Chocolate" ice-cream (I love it because it's so chocolatey yet so cheap that about 30% of it is water and thus somewhat lactose-intolerant-friendly)
• eat some Cadbury's Caramello ice-cream
• eat cherries and nectarines until I pop (or possibly poop... tmi? >_< ㅋㅋㅋ~ )
• eat some good ole Aussie prawns
• eat a good steak
• eat chips and gravy
• drink Pure Blonde, White Stag (low carb beers) and James Squire Golden Ale again
• sit on the verandah with mum, dad, fran and the dogs drinking tea (if it's the morning) or a gin and tonic/beer (if it's the afternoon) just enjoying the summer

 

*sigh* ^_^ ...

 

.. anything you can think of that I missed?