Snow, Snow, Snow

As it has also snowed heavily in England this post isn't really that cool but I love to talk about the weather so here goes....we have snow!!!!!! Real heavy 5/6 inch thick snow! (On the right is Holli posing in the snow downtown on Friday night)

We were watching Elf last Thursday and when the movie finished we decided to check to see if it was snowing on the off chance and it was. Amazing timing!

It has snowed pretty heavily every night since. The kind of snow I have never actually been in.

It is fabulous to look at but the city isn't exactly on the ball with salting the roads. Businesses are responsible for the pavements outside their building but that means that huge strips are left covered in snow which becomes compacted ice and is very slippy. I KO'ed once and broke my bloody camera, which is very annoying. I also got dragged down more than once by a drunken friend. I would defiantly recommend the video on facebook. It is the drunken ramblings of two fools but very funny. (My poor bike on the right).

We are apparently going to get a white Christmas but in all honestly I'm not that bothered as we will be sightseeing in Busan (the 2nd biggest city in Korea). What does bother me is that home might get a proper white xmas for the first time in however many years when I am not there. That pisses me off.

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Matching Undies

I think I have mentioned the 'couple look' that many young Korean couples wear before, but for those who don't know it is basically when they wear matching outfits as a declaration of their love for each other.
Apparently they go even further and wear matching underwear too. There are dozens underwear shops downtown and they all feature 'couples' underwear in the window. These are definitely my favourites.

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Unhealthy obsessions

Whilst I've been in Korea I have heavily indulged in my love for Kpop. The bands are all totally manufactured 'idol' pop groups, usually consisting of 5 to 13 members who sing, dance and look perfect. Random english words and phrases are thrown in indiscriminately and the lyrics appear to be non-sense even when perfectly translated. It's fabulous and I love it!

But..... apparentley not as much as a girl who sent a letter to Taecyeon of 2pm (one of the guys on the left, not sure which).

This particular fan letter was written in blood. Not prick your finger and let it drip blood but period blood. Yes, seriously. She even included a sprinkling of pubic hair. When the letter somehow became public no-one believed that it was that particular kind of blood. To prove it the fan girl decided to post a picture of her bloody sanitary towel. You can find the pic online but it is too disgusting to pass on. However, I simply must show you the letter. Translation - I dedicated to Taecyeon my period blood letter. Ok, Taecyeon. You cannot live without me. Sprinkled with a few strands of my pubes.

Gross, just gross.

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Seoul Sound (Get it?)

Last weekend a friend, Holli (fantastic southern accent, like reliving Streetcar Named Desire/ Gone with the Wind all over again) and I took a little trip to Seoul to shop, and by god did we. You only get one size fits all in Gwangju and that size is tiny. So Seoul was our opportunity to shop for girls with a little bit of T & A.
After getting up hideously early on saturday morning we made our way by bus to Seoul. A four hour trip that I slept solidly through. Holli woke me up to show me the torrential blizzard blowing outside but nothing was keeping me awake.
It all went freakishly smoothly. We started with a mazzive steak and shopped all day saturday. I paid far too much money for a coat but it was so bloody cold that I was quickly and easily convinced.
In the evening we met up with friends and raged around the bars in Hongdae (sp?), the university district. The live band bar was shit but as a britney and K pop fan I am never going to enjoy punk. In the end we went to this bar filled with westerns which was a bit of a shock. In my city a white face is not that common and the expats all seem to know each other.
The next day we indulged in an amazing breakfast. Savory waffles, pancakes, bacon. The works. It was awesome. The only thing missing was a massive head sized mug of english tea and some marmite (which I am running out of, what will I do???). We did even more shopping and in the fatty section of one of the malls I even managed to find some amazing jeans. I honestly haven't seen any fat Koreans, I think they may hide them in the plus sections of the shopping malls as there were plently there. But my favourite purchase was a Super Junior calendar, love it!
Seoul is a fab city. Its enormity makes it resemble a dystopian city from some japanese anime. It has everything you could imagine and it grants you a dramatic anonimity. I found that the westerners there had a rather different attitude to those in a smaller city. Besides a few little things Seoul could be any city around the world therefore there seems to be little of the true korean experience. So many people spoke English and although it may be hypocritical to say the english teachers seemed happy to loose themselves amongst the white crowd and ignore the Koreanness (I know it isn't a word) around them.
We returned to Gwangju satisfied that we had made the right choice in not getting jobs in Seoul.
xoxoxoxo

Gorilla (of course, why not?) and our sexual brunch.

Fattys section was clearly labled incase the lard had clouded our eyes

The festival of lights (pretty lights everywhere) and a powerful smoothie apparently

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Good old fashioned family racism

I have been reading a few blogs and some of the English language newspapers based in Korea and they seem quite keen to constantly remind me that Koreans are racist and nationalistic. Supposedly they hate the Japanese (which is rather understandable considering the history between the two nations) and consider themselves to be the master race.
I haven't experienced anything that I would consider to be especially racist. I do get stared at a lot but maybe that's because I'm so bloody gorgeous (or the fact that I am a big blond giant). And I find the AIDS test/ health for my visa particularly offensive.
However there is an online community on Naver (the main Korean search engine) called the Anti-English Spectrum. They are dedicated to preventing the evils (real or imagined) of the native English teachers. Below is something that appeared on their website a few weeks ago.

It made me laugh a lot.

P.S This picture was stolen from Brian In Jeollanam-do's excellent blog  (http://briandeutsch.blogspot.com/). Sorry it took me so long to put the link up!

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Thanksgiving

Last week was American thanksgiving and as nearly everyone I work with is American and we decided that a Turkey was definitely in order. Unfortunately the closest thing to an oven that any of as have to an oven is a tiny little toaster oven that struggles to heat up bread, let alone a turkey bigger than a baby.

So we decided that we should deep fry it. Yes, I'm serious. I didn't even know this could be done. Fortunately one of the girls deep fried a turkey that her uncle had shot at a tail-gate party (how american is that, it's like a stars and stripes kick in the teeth). We got a very large pan filed it with oil and went down to the car park under our building to heat it up. Luckily our little cute old land lady thinks we are hilarious and had no problem with a load of weird white folks starting a hot oil fire under her building.

It took an hour and a half to cook and it was the most delicious turkey I have even tasted! I will never go back to oven turkey again. Oh and the reason the turkey looks so pathetic is because we had to crush it so it would fit in the pot. We killed that turkey good!

I have also found a partner in crime. Some-one that loves to indulge in lifes little luxuries as much as me. Awesome!

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