And at last I see the light....

So (lol that's for you Sarah!), I yet again have been abandoning my responsibility of telling the kind folks of England what I am up to. A lot has happened since my last post, but in classic 'Katie Style' I have forgotten quite a lot so I will just update you, in no particular order, on a few things I have been doing.

I went to a fabulous festival in Jin-Ju; the famous lantern festival (and therefore the people who have seen the Disney film Tangled will understand the title of this post)! I met up with a few friends and we walked round the castle which had massive lanterns everywhere of all kinds!

 There was also a place where you could write a wish and stick it to the lantern that was shaped like your Chinese birth-year symbol (mine, unfortunately, is a snake). Later more people joined our party and we made our own lanterns with candles inside and another wish taped to it. Then we went out onto a platform on the water and set our lanterns off floating down the river; it was a beautiful sight to see all the candles gliding away with everyone's hopes and wishes on.

A love that will last a lifetime!

We also got to walk across a big bridge that, although pretty unstable, was a perfect view point to see all the massive lanterns that had been made and set up in the middle of the water. There were all types of lanterns there including....Disney ones!!!

Oh yes, that's right!

I was of course over the moon! There was different musical performances and a great fountain display! Later we sat in a little tent for something to eat and drink. Later we wanted to go to a bar with proper walls and so some guys directed us to a place to get a drink. As we were walking around said place, we slowly all start to notice the abundance of middle-ages women with skimpy clothing standing in doorways; to cut a long story short, we had unknowingly stumbled into the red-light district of Jin-Ju -OOPS!

Over the Chu-Seok period (which I believe is like the Korean thanksgiving) I had a few extra days off and so I went to visit my friend in her new rural town called Bu-Yeo where there was a cultural festival going on. They had an amazing firework display! There were many stalls selling food (where you can get curly whirley potatoes on a stick!)and some activities which were for the kids :( . The also had this very strange performance which is the traditional Korean mask dance; there was a man and a woman and the man obviously liked the woman but the woman was being all coy, the man later turned around after attaching a massive...erm... well you know! I couldn't believe it, the old people in the audience were loving it and found it hilarious! A couple of weeks later there was a mask festival and I'm not sure why I didn't learn my lesson from seeing this little expo. I went on my own but some lovely foreigners took me under their wing and we had a great day, despite seeing some strange stories.

  

I have actually seen some more entertainment that is more suited to my taste; to add to the musicals I have seen, me and a few friends went to Seoul in order to see Chicago in Korean which was amazing despite me not understanding the language! There has also been a fair few nights out, mainly supporting my friend with his musical exploits and also not to forget Halloween when I dressed up as a giant monkey! I also went to an all you can eat and drink (I'm talking wine as well) in Gangnam and free entry in to the 'biggest' club in Gangnam which wasn't all that great so we went to a different area.

Yum!

I have been desperate to start celebrating Christmas, but my American friends would not allow it until they showed me how they celebrate Thanksgiving. I have had one other Thanksgiving celebration at uni, but this time a massive turkey was ordered from a company that delivers it cooked with gray and stuffing (being as most people here don't actually have a full-sized oven). Everyone cooked something and as I can't cook I brought alcohol and bread! It was great we ate so much and had so much wine! We played Mario-cart and Settlers of Catan! It was a great night and I found myself walking home at 7:40 in the morning!

Catan!!!

I am not sure if I have told people of the games rooms they have here where you don't pay a lot to sit and play any games the room has. When people lose they have inflatable hammers to hit them with or a tin tray which is dropped from the ceiling onto their heads!

Well at the moment it is the testing period which means that the foreign teachers (i.e. me) have only half their classes which is great! I actually only have 6 and a half weeks left which is crazy! I cannot believe how fast it has gone! I am sorry for this hap-hazard way of giving you information but hopefully it has done the job (at least a little bit as I haven't included everything). Love to all!

Posts are like buses...

Yes, here is yet another post to make up for my lack of posts recently. So aaaggeeesss ago I went to Seoul to see  (drum roll) WICKED!!!! That's right how amazing!




The night before we stayed over and ended up going to a pub that was so much like being in England it was unbelievable! They had the English pub smell, carpet and I'm pretty sure they hired typically English people to sit in there for authenticity!

Me, Hannah and the witches!!!

The scary dragon!!!

There's no place like home!

Galinda- with a Ga!

Elphie

Needless to say it was absolutely amazing - especially Defying Gravity!!! It was the Australian cast and they were epic!!! In a couple of weeks I'm going back to the Seoul to see Chicago with a Korean cast which will be great!!!!









The weekend after my Seoul trip I was off to Boryong to experience the Mud Festival!!!!It is such a strange concept- get a load of mud and people will come!!! And go we did! there were inflatables to run on, a place where people just painted each other, a place to get painted with colored mud, a jail where you could get mud thrown at you and a mud-wrestling pit! There was drinks free flowing and no personal boundaries! You get mus everywhere (places you don't even know you have), but luckily they do it right next to the beach so you can just go in the sea to wash off or the big swimming pool that is provided.

Clean

Dirty

Painting each other

Mud wrestling!

I have also been experiencing some typically Korean activities, for example I went for acupuncture where they use suction cups and needles with an electric current! I thought I dealt with it quite well but it wasn't exactly relaxing but my back did feel a bit better after. When I got home I had six large red circles on my back where the suction cups had been- I looked like a number six on a die! I have also been to a K-POP (Korean pop) dance class to get some exercise! It was so funny, and yes before anyone asks we did dance to Gangnam style! This year has been one for the records as we have had the hottest day, coldest day and the other day had the biggest typhoon. I was expecting a terrifying few days with the typhoon but it turned out to be little more than a spot of rain and a gust of wind. I thought it was a bit of an over-reaction until I was told that the typhoon had luckily avoided Daegu -phew!

There has also been a couple of changes in the last few months. Hannah, one of my close friends has moved away from Daegu to a more rural area which is cool because I get to go visit her and hear some of the funny stories she has to tell, but I also miss our weekday coffees! Also two of my close friends Lauren and Rami have moved back to the US and so they are sorely missed!!!One thing that has stayed the same is that I have been going to my friend from work's (Devon's) gigs as he is in 3 bands which has resulted in some great nights out and brilliant music.


The other week there was an amazing body-painting festival where you could watch the models being painted before and then watch the cat-walk. Then on the night there were some great fireworks! Here is just some of the amazing body-painting:

There were so many I couldn't put them all on, but you can see how beautiful they were! There was even a Madagascar themed design but I unfortunately don't have a picture of it, but I imagine my nephew would have loved it!!!!

I hope you have enjoyed catching up with my recent goings-on :)! Love to England and all its inhabitants!!!!

I got Seoul but I saw some soldiers!

So my birthday was on the 12th which was a Wednesday and we went out for the regular Tuesday party and at 12 my lovely friends from work presented me with various cakes and sang happy birthday!

Surprise!

The Wednesday I opened my presents on the morning (thanks to everyone who sent things and gave me things, it made my day : D) and got a round of applause from my students for being alive this long which, because it's me, is quite an achievement. The absolute best news I had was that my brother was coming to Seoul with his friends in celebration of our joint birthday!!!

So on the Friday night straight after work I headed to the train station to catch the KTX to Seoul! I got there and on seeing Chris did the dramatic slow motion run toward him. I met his two mates, Dan and Graham (aka Widge). We headed back to the hotel and had a Cass (one of the few beers that is widely available alongside Hite and Max), no not a regular Cass but a lemon Cass (classy I know)! We sat outside the hotel and had a chat about what we were going to do and decided on going to Everland (an amusement park just outside of Seoul) the next day. The hotel was amazing and it was one of the comfiest best I have ever slept in.

The next day the journey to Everland was EPIC! We not only got the subway and a taxi (which I tried to tell the driver that we wanted to go to Neverland)but then two buses (one of which was 40 minutes long with only standing room available)! We actually ended up in waiting a while for a bus in Gangnam which has given us some negative feelings towards it despite the awesome song (if you haven't heard it, check it out - Gangnam Style)When we got there it was great, they were celebrating  Halloween (random) but enjoyable as they had creepy but funny music on. We went on a wooden roller-coaster which held the record for being wooden and having the steepest drop - it was AWESOME! There was also a wildlife area with beautiful tigers, bears and sea-lions among other animals.

 

 Me and Dan waited do long for the steepest drop we died and came back as zombies.

This water ride was made by the park attendants doing an awesome camp KPOP dance!!! We were mesmerized!













Some brotherly love being displayed there!

                                                                                     




The record-breaker! The steepest drop on a wooden roller-coaster in the world!

Everland offered a good display of, in my opinion, Korea's best fashion phenomenon - matching couples!!!! There were so many at the theme park that we nick-named them MCs. The winner of the day though, was the great effort here that Chris is discreetly trying to get in the background of this photo - notice the matching bow-ties!

My future pet !!!!

 We were absolutely cream-crackered when we ready to come away and so we got a taxi ride home -much easier than the way there!

There was time for a quick nap and then we were out hitting the town in Itaewon (the foreigner are in Seoul)! We ate at an Outback Steakhouse (very Korean eh?) and hit a few bars. Then we ended up in a club called Circus where a waiter could juggle like there was no tomorrow! They also had steps leading up to the bar for people to dance on and they poured drink into people's mouths! At one point they set the whole bar on fire!!!

A birthday shot!!

Amazement at Newcastle Brown Ale in Korea!!!

Chris doing his male modelling bit!

The next day, feeling a little bit fragile but not too bad, we headed off on a trip to the DMZ! We got in a little mini-van with our Korean guide who spoke excellent English and her English name was Eugene. On the way there we learnt that some mini-arches that were over the roads are called tank traps and are there in order to be blown up if any North Korean tanks try to get through. There are also barriers in the Han river to stop submarines. When we got to the outskirts of the tour area we changed to the official bus that was to take to the main DMZ. In this are it was quite strange because it is so close to danger area but they had a full on fair with rides and entertainers. We got on the bus and it took us across a bridge where we could see another bridge called The Cow Bridge, because to help North Korea the head of Hyundai (who is North Korean) sent hundreds of cows across this bridge to aid the hunger there. Our first port of call was a train station only just inside of South Korea that is completely empty!!! It  was like a post-apocalyptic scene; a station fully built and ready to go but completely deserted because of the severed connection between the North and South. 

North Korea

Us pushing the North and South together!

We then went to our next stop where you can see into North Korea, but you cannot take pictures to close to the barrier, there was a line you had to stand behind to take a picture. Eugene told us that the North Korean flag is a little bit higher than the South Korean flag because they each kept trying to get their flag that tiny bit higher than the other, but South Korea stopped this petty feud. We next went to a tunnel that connected to the tunnel that the North Koreans had tried to dig right into Seoul until they were caught. The South Koreans caught them because they had intelligence that they were digging a tunnel and so they drilled holes and put water in them so when the North Koreans set dynamite off, the water would shoot out. On being caught the North Koreans claimed they weren't trying to invade, but dig for coal...despite it not being a coal mine and it not being in North Korea but South Korea!

Just casually stood near a mine

 It was  a great and interesting trip that bizarrely ended up in an amethyst jewelers  (we think Eugene must have known the lady who owned it as it had nothing to do with the North/South divide).





On the Sunday evening we went to an amazing show called Nanta. It's primarily a drumming show but it is cookery themed and it is also a kind of comedy! The combination of being the only westerners and being on the front row resulted in two of us being picked to participate. Graham was chosen to take part in the competition between the left and right side of the audience (and obviously won- wooo blues!!!). I was picked for a more embarrassing role however, one of the characters got 'stuck' in a bin and asked me to help him get out which I obviously couldn't do! Just when I was getting desperate and calling for Chris (what else are big brothers for if not to help their sisters pull strange men out of bins), the main guy waved me away and was miraculously able to stand up quite easily - what a fool I was eh?!

So for me that concluded the activities and I left on the Monday morning and the lads stayed on until the early hours of Tuesday! It was such a great weekend! Thanks to Dan, Graham and of course my Big Bro!!!!
The celebrations don't end there as some awesome friends have been organizing a night out for this weekend :D! Thanks to everyone who has made this birthday so special!!!