So I realised that it has been quite awhile since I last updated my blog, so thought I would get onto that since I have a little free time right now.

So, two weekends ago I decided to take the 7 hour (there and back) journey to Chuncheon to celebrate the fact that Jax (who I went to university with) was born. It was a damn long trip for just a night, but I felt that it was highly worth it. The following photos are proof of the fun that was had during the scavenger-hunt themed party. There aren't many, and none of them are really mine to distribute anyway, but here they are.

Six of us squashing into the first elevator leaving the apartment where the party was kicked off. More tried to fit in, but the elevator started closing on them, and so they jumped out of the way fairly quickly. Out of the six people in the elevator, three were South African.

Eshentree and I completing one of the tasks for the scavenger hunt - have a photo taken with a soldier. These four were particularly friendly and made us take many, many a photo and then insisted that the cameraman take more with their cameras and then sang happy birthday to Jax in the middle of the street. It was quite something to watch.

I think that ginger suits me, don't you? Perhaps I was born to be Scottish. Richie certainly wasn't born to be a drag queen - that hair is a birds nest that no self-respecting queen would be seen dead in.


This last weekend was slightly more relaxing, and though partying did occur, it wasn't anything noteworthy. What was noteworthy were the cherry blossoms that I saw down by the river. Here are some examples of said cherry blossoms. I don't think any of them really need any explanation.

has lost her voice completely. Cannot say a word. How am I supposed to teach?!

hates Tuesdays.

got to school this morning only to be told that she wouldn't need to teach because the teachers want her to rest.

I have finally taken the time to clean up my apartment so that I could take people on a virtual tour of my house. There are many more photos up if you look on facebook, but I feel that these are enough for a blog tour. If, however, you are a friend of mine on facebook, check out my Cheongju photo album and the pics are all in there.

I live in apartment 201, The White House. Please notice the awesome keypad that has replaced my lock.

This is the view walking into my apartment. On the left is what constitutes my kitchen, straight ahead is the door to the bathroom and on the right is my door leading into my bedroom.

Before you walk in, please take off your shoes and stow them in the shoe cupboard - Koreans disapprove of shoes being worn indoors, even in one's own home. At any non-Western restaurant you will have to do this as well.

Now, a closer look at the kitchen (ignoring the dishes in the sink, if you don't mind.) My sink, gas range and my three cupboards. Exciting is it not?

Now, we get to the bathroom. Please put on the plastic slippers - you are not supposed to walk around your bathroom barefoot either - and mind the drain on the floor - the water from my shower this morning might not have dried completely yet.

Bow and exalt before the showerhead of doom that, together with the drain on the floor, constitutes my shower. I still need to get used to this.


Okay, now that you have seen the kitchen and the bathroom, it is time to backtrack to the main entrance and turn right into my bedroom. Here you might notice my gorgeous grey, pink and white duvet and the school's laptop (which has been my saviour) lying on my bed. The sliding door at the back of the room leads through to the laundry room, which I will show you a bit later.

This is my room from another angle. Here you can see one of the two closets that I was given (the other, which is in the laundry room, wasn't feeling particularly photogenic, but is very similar to this one. Just a little shinier. You can also see my TV (adorned with some relics from home) and my bookcase, which was given to me by a South African family who were returning back to Cape Town and were generous enough to give me some essential items of furniture and some useful crockery.

From this angle, you can see back into the kitchen (on the left hand side of the photo) and you can see my coat rack (another essential item from the South Africans), my dining room table and pair of chairs (a luxury in Korea - most people prefer to sit on cushions on the floor and, once again, in many restaurants this is what you are expected to do) and my fridge and microwave. The last two cannot fit into my minimalist kitchen, and therefore must reside in my room with me much to my dismay (the fridge has a bit of a multiple personality disorder, and is sometimes compeltely silent while at other times being ridiculously loud.)

Finally, this is my laundry room. As you can see, I had just done laundry when this picture was taken. My suitcase also lives in this room, out of the way. This is also the only room to have any windows, but the view is of the apartment block next door.

And this concludes the virtual tour of my home. I hope that you have enjoyed your visit.

So after arriving at work at the beginning of last week completely exhausted and dreading the week ahead, I decided that this last weekend would need to be a slightly more relaxing affair. And so, on Saturday I headed out to Shinae - the city centre - to look around with the Canadian that I met earlier in the week. The pictures that follow are evidence of our excursions on Saturday and Sunday.

This is the CGV - a three storey movie theatre that shows a lot of English movies with Korean subtitles, which I was very excited to discover was showing Alice in Wonderland in 3D. And so I dragged a slightly reluctant Patrick to the theatre and forced him to watch what we ended up agreeing was a pretty good movie. I will be keeping CGV in mind the next time a movie that I am dying to see comes out on circuit!

This is the main street downtown. I am fairly sure that it doesn't look like this during the week, but on weekends you suddenly find carts popping up everywhere selling food and drink, scarves and socks and other various odds and ends that I have no need for, but find myself wanting to have regardless.

These are the dreaded silkworms that I have heard are a delicacy here. I didn't try any, but decided to take a picture as evidence of how popular they are These were only three of the bags that the lady was selling.

At about 1 pm, the street went ridiculously dark as clouds came in and the thunderstorm began. This was just before the storm started when Patrick and I were staring at the lights, hoping that they would spring to life, since I had seen them on a couple of weeks before and they are beautiful when they are lit.

This is a fishtank that we found in the underground mall. Surrounding the tank itself are a number of seats and a number of screens, that I can only assume were televisions.

This kind of random building that doesn't seem to fit in anywhere in a modern city is quite a common occurence in Cheongju (I can't speak for the rest of South Korea.) It is definitely a modern building, but it's almost like they see this kind of style as being modern, which I find quite amusing.

So, after a day in Shinae, Patrick and I decided to head out to Chungjae jungmun and meet some more Westerners. It was St. Patrick's day after all, so we expected there to be many many people out. After stopping at all but one of the bars, we were almost ready to give up on our night out because everywhere was dead. But we decided to give the last bar a chance, and it was here that we found everyone huddled into one space.

My travel companion and I was the shamrock stickers plastered on our faces. They wouldn't let us in without one.

The first people I met when I got inside were some randoms who were sitting by the bar. We started chatting, and it turned out that one of them was from Durbanville! I decided that I needed evidence of this coincidence. He is the one in the middle. I went on to meet two more South Africans at the pub that night.


On Sunday, Patrick and I were supposed to go touring the city by bus. But Patrick (poor lad) was far too hungover, and so we decided to go on a hike in the hills next to his building instead. And I am glad that I did, because it gave me a completely different perception of Cheongju. From my area, all that you can see are buildings in every direction. It was nice to learn that there is some nature out there as well.

This is the view from the foot of one of the hills, and was the only place where I could get a good shot of the city without the hundreds of trees getting in the way.

When I took pictures of this, I honestly had no idea what it was, but I was impressed by whatever it was. I later found out that this is a tombstone. I hum'd and haw'd about whether to put the picture up at all once I found out what it was, but I ended up deciding to put it up because I think that it is a beautiful tribute to a life once lived.

Having realised that I was supposed to be cooking for my two co-teachers on Thursday night, since they were coming to give me a Korean lesson, I made the mission to GSmart on Wednesday evening to go and buy ingredients (I still haven't found anything closer.) With my trusty camera in hand, I documented my journey through the city.

This is GSmart - the mega, super department store where you can buy absolutely anything that you can think of. When I say anything, I mean from cameras and electronics, to groceries and household items, to clothes and accessories, to hedgehogs and baby turtles (live ones, to be kept as pets.) The shop has about 5 levels, and takes up a whole block.

This is a typical Korean building. You see all those signs? Those are telling you what is in the building. Some of them will be for companies, some for restaurants and some for internet cafe's. The internet cafe's are the easiest to spot because they all say "PC" in big letters. The restaurants and other things, not so much. I went to an amazing restaurant in one of these kinds of buildings with Kim, but I don't think that I will ever find it again.

This pet store nearly broke my heart. The puppies were so cute and were vying for my attention as soon as they saw me. The maltese poodle started rolling around as soon as it saw me and the poodle jumped up with its paws over the side of the box and stared at me with its puppydog eyes. It took all my strength not to buy one of them, and I think that I am going to have to chain my wallet to the bottom of my bag for the next time that I walk past. This isn't in GSmart, interestingly enough, but just another shop on the way there.

This is a typical apartment building in Korea. These are the kinds of buildings that most english teachers are given. Apparently EPIK owns a couple of these buildings in the big cities and will place all english teachers together in one building. That wasn't the case with me, but I find the buildings so interesting. I'm rather glad that I don't stay in one though, because the only distinguishing features on these buildings are the sign and the number, so I feel I would end up getting horribly lost and confused.

This is the street at night with all the neon signs lit. It really is quite pretty to walk through at night. I still remember Jodie's desciption of walking through the more populated areas as being "like walking through Las Vegas".


That night it actually snowed in Cheongju. By the time I woke up, the world was covered in white once more. So I took my camera with me to school, snapping a couple of shots on the way, intending to take more when school finished in the afternoon. But, when Ginny (one of my co-teachers) saw the camera, she insisted on taking photos then and there, saying that the snow would have melted by the afternoon (she was right.) So Ginny, Cindy and I all headed to the park across from the school and had a mini-photo shoot instead of going to class (which thankfully I wasn't teaching anyway, though it was the only class yesterday that I didn't have.) Here is the evidence.

This was taken on the way to school and this is the park that we had the photoshoot in.

This is the playground of the school. I won't lie and say that I took it to show you more of the school. I just couldn't resist taking a photo of the beautiful tree. But you CAN also see the basketball hoop in the background.

The entrance to the school, this time covered in snow. You tell me which you think is prettier. I know that my mind has been made up.

Ginny and I at the start of the photoshoot, just outside the entrance to the school.

Cindy and I with the park in the background, about to start our winter wonderland adventure.

All of us being the photographers that we were meant to be. This was not the only time that we were all taking photos of the beautiful scenery.

An example of the beautiful scenery.

Some handcrafted benches that Ginny and Cindy walked past. They must have been so used to them by now, but I thought they were hilarious and, having never been into the park before, they were entirely new to me.

Some normal benches covered in snow. Scenery.

Me holding my first snowball, which I never got to throw at anyone. Apparently some of my friends at other schools had their lessons cancelled so that the kids could have a snowfight. I was incredibly jealous!
Cindy capturing some more of the scenery, and me capturing Cindy