Finally, an update! Part One

I’m still alive! Sorry, sorry, I apologise for the lack of bloggage, but I quite genuinely have been ridiculously busy for the last month, as the following (long-awaited!) blog entry will show. But I finally have a weekend off – no camps, no celebrations, no sight-seeing – so it’s time to update! Are you ready? Here goes!

Last time I wrote (properly), I had just put up my Christmas tree in school. It went down very well with the students, and teachers, and made me smile every time I walked past it, as it made me think of the joys of Christmas. While I was at the supermarket buying the decorations, I was happily minding my own business, when I suddenly realised that a member of staff was across the aisle from me, dancing. I looked around, and saw every member of staff standing at the end of each aisle, all dancing. This dancing went on for at least 5 minutes! And this wasn’t all that was strange about it – the song they were dancing to was a mix of lots of different tunes, and in the middle of it, there was a very clear section of the Hokey Cokey, in Korean! Which was particularly amusing to me since, at the time, I was teaching the Hokey Cokey at camp. Just one example of the bizarre happenings in Korea-land.

The following week, something happened which I am obliged to share with the world. Some of you will never speak to me again, others will applaud me, others will be indifferent. But it’s something that has to be done when you come to Korea.

I ate dog.

I wanted to try it while I was here, as it’s a very Korean cultural thing (whether you believe the propaganda of both sides or not), and I’m making it a point to try weird and wonderful cuisine. My fellow native teacher – Tony – had told me that he would take me for lunch one day, and not tell him what we were having. Turns out he’s not very good at surprises! So we went for bosintang, which is dog-meat soup. The meat was a lot more tender than I expected it to be – I guess I thought it was going to be tough. But it was more tender than most meats I’ve had. It was grand, no different from beef or pork really. I don’t think I would rush out and have it again, but I also wouldn’t refuse it if it was set in front of me. So, judge me if you must, but I stand by my decision!

The last few weeks of term were a busy time at work – it seemed that every time I turned around, someone dropped more work in my lap! As well as sorting out Christmas cards and presents to be sent across the globe, I had advanced classes to prepare for, interviews to conduct, and my lovely 30-page manuscript to work on. And the Monday before Christmas, when I’m finally just about to start working on this manuscript, I was told that I had to prepare a demo class for the upcoming Friday, which would be observed by 90 other teachers from the province. Tony had one to prepare as well, but he had known for longer, and his Korean co-teacher was putting a lot of work into it. Whereas my co-teacher “is too busy to work on it, so you need to prepare it”. Great.

Since it was the Friday before Christmas, I decided to do a Christmas lesson. I used photos from my own family Christmasses, told them what we do and what we eat, our traditions, and then had them write a letter to Santa (modelled on a letter of mine, on which the first item was “Johnny Depp”). I wore a Santa hat for the lesson and told them lots of stories of my family. Although it was stressful getting it prepared – my co-teacher spoke to me about what was happening in the lesson a full half hour before it started! – and I was incredibly nervous, it went very well. It was great fun, and the students were fantastic – they were my lowest level class, but they participated fully, were bright and attentive, and impressed all of the observers. The feedback I received from the teachers who watched was great, they thought I taught a very informative, enjoyable and fun lesson. So the stress paid off!

And then it was Christmas weekend. Finally! A group of us were converging on my friend Kirsty’s apartment in Daegu for some sort of Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve (since we all had to work on Boxing Day and so needed to return home on Christmas Day). On Christmas Eve eve, I headed down to Daegu to help Kirsty with some preparation (but not before I tried five different motels before finding a place for the rest of us ruffians to sleep!). We chopped and peeled and parboiled for about 4 hours. For dessert we planned – as well as a massive ice cream cake and various no-bake cakes that I had thrown together – an apple crumble-style pudding (bearing in mind all was being done without an oven). So we had some lovely cinnamony stewed apples, and some toasted granola for the topping. And then we decided it would be perfect with some nice caramel sauce: I rustled up what was quite possibly the most amazing caramel sauce in the world…if I do say so myself! Kirsty and I were drinking it from the jar it was so good. (You all know my obsession with food so you’ll understand that I’ll talk about it a lot!)

After spending all that time preparing, I met up with some of the other girls, and we headed out to start our Christmas celebrations, by going to see The Holiday – a nice festive romantic comedy, that got us in the mood for Chrimbo, and made Char a little homesick for England! This was followed by a (very) late dinner, in a beautifully decorated restaurant, where we dined at a table fit for a king (honest – the chairs were like thrones!) But it was a quiet night, in bed relatively early, to get a good night’s sleep before the excitement of the next day.

I was up early, and off to buy myself a new camera – my old one gave up the night before, plus it was a nice little present to me! Daegu has a whole area of camera stores (Korea is strange in that shops selling exactly the same thing group together – in Gumi we have a street of about 17 plant shops!) and then an underground shopping area with maybe six more. But I seemed to be out looking for a camera on Camera Shop Holiday, as I found a grand total of TWO that were open! And only one of them had a camera I wanted. But he threw in a good memory card and a case, and I was happy with it, so all was good. Finally, we were on our way to Kirsty’s for dinner.

Me being me, I spent most of the day in the kitchen, over the stove. Started off with a batch of mulled wine, an improvised recipe from what I remembered of Dad’s legendary wine from the past. It went down very well indeed! I ended up making six batches throughout the day, each one different from the last. I was told by a couple of people that it was the best they had ever had, so I’m taking that as a compliment! We started off with leek and potato soup, and antipasto plates. Main course was quasi-roasted vegetables: we parboiled pumpkin, potato and sweet potato and then fried them, to give them a crispy exterior; we also had some honeyed carrots, stuffing – donated by Char and Carol – and lovely gravy – also donated by Carol; all this was served with fried chicken – Koreans love fried chicken, so there’s lots of it available. It was delicious. Not quite the Christmas dinner we’re all used to, but an amazingly tasty Koreanised version of it. And dessert was our ice cream cakes, apple crumble, fruit salad, and my no-bake cakes. Mmm mmm good! We also had a Secret Santa style gift exchange, so all of that, plus the great company, and the Christmas songs playing on repeat, made for a superb Christmas. There were a few people we hadn’t seen in a long time, and new people to meet. It was fantastic.


In the evening, we headed out on the town; there were about 12 of us, and we serenaded the bar with Silent Night at midnight when it officially turned Christmas Day. It was a usual Korean night out – soju and noraebang! The next day was a late getting up and moving out; everyone was off home in time for work the next day. So it was a much quieter Christmas Day than I’m used to, which was fine, as I needed the day to recover! I was able to talk to the family lots, and we could see each other and wave Christmassy greetings to each other over the webcam.

Next day, it was back into school for an intensive day of finishing off the manuscript. When I finally finished, it felt strange not having any more work to do!

This will be all for today’s update – it’s taken longer than I expected (I got lazy), and the girls are coming in soon in time for another week of camp.

Next time: gorgeous snowboarding instructors, New Years shenanigans, and camp after camp after camp!