We had our coldest day yet yesterday, something around -11 degrees. The kids were telling me it was even colder, but I suspect that they like to exaggerate even more than I do. I do know however that it was -9 when I left work at quarter to five in the afternoon. I've become completely obsessive about checking the hourly temperature here - kinda like us Darwinites in the wet season, checking the rainfall patterns. Except here it's "wow, -5!" "Wow! -8!" or "WOW! -10!!!" only I'm not saying wow (insert expletive of your choice).
So I am becoming quite the expert at layering up - there are exactly 6 different tops on under that jacket that I'm wearing in the photo, and although you can't see it I'm wearing two pairs of tights under my jeans, which is a very tight squeeze, let me tell you. Also I finally found the answer to my predicament of "do I go for the beanie or ear muffs today?" Both dammit!! But then of course it was only -5 this morning so I got hot on my walk to work. Yes I know there's something not quite right with that statement but things have been turned upside down here in Korea. Oh and still no snow since my last post, which is the equivalent of waiting for a storm in the buildup; you know the weather would be that much better if it would just storm (or snow) already. Sorry for devoting this entire post to talking about the weather, but it seems to be all I think about these days!
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
School hike
This last weekend I had the end of year school hike with the other teachers from my school. As usual I'm not exactly sure of the details for exactly where we went - about 2 hours south of Seoul - but it was very pretty. The weather is kinda perfect at the moment - crystal clear skies most of the time, so nice for a hike even if it is freezing cold. It was a pretty easy hike too, given that we took a cable car for most of the way up there, something I definitely approve of where mountains are involved. I'd never been in a cable car before so that was lots of fun - although I'm sure they weren't originally designed to fit the 25 people that managed to squeeze in there. Kind of like taking the last train home from Seoul on a Saturday night; don't worry about holding on, you can't move even if you wanted to!
I was very amused to see how glamorous the other teachers were for a hiking trip - and slightly embarrassed for the "just-rolled-out-of-bed -wearing-last-week's-clothes-lucky-I-at-least-brushed-my-dirty-hair" look that I had going. I mean, I figured we're going hiking right? So yay, no make-up today, no point washing hair etc. Wrong. Not only did all the female teachers have full faces done, their hair looking like they just came out of a salon, and all wearing the latest in hiking fashion, they actually took every opportunity to duck into bathrooms or to pull out little hand mirrors to check their hair and make-up on the off chance that some stray hair might have dared get out of place. So there's some lovely photos getting around with all the teacher's of Maehwa elementary school looking great in the group shot taken on top of the mountain - and me, standing out even more than usual with my pale face, red nose and hair sticking out all over the place. Makes me miss the solidarity of the Ris cycling trips :-)
I was very amused to see how glamorous the other teachers were for a hiking trip - and slightly embarrassed for the "just-rolled-out-of-bed -wearing-last-week's-clothes-lucky-I-at-least-brushed-my-dirty-hair" look that I had going. I mean, I figured we're going hiking right? So yay, no make-up today, no point washing hair etc. Wrong. Not only did all the female teachers have full faces done, their hair looking like they just came out of a salon, and all wearing the latest in hiking fashion, they actually took every opportunity to duck into bathrooms or to pull out little hand mirrors to check their hair and make-up on the off chance that some stray hair might have dared get out of place. So there's some lovely photos getting around with all the teacher's of Maehwa elementary school looking great in the group shot taken on top of the mountain - and me, standing out even more than usual with my pale face, red nose and hair sticking out all over the place. Makes me miss the solidarity of the Ris cycling trips :-)
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Snow!
I was running late to work today, which means of course that when I got down to the ground floor and was about to walk out the front door of my apartment I noticed that it was SNOWING! Which meant going back up six floors and grabbing all my snow gear - boots, umbrella, ear muffs - and being really late for work. It was so pretty though I didn't care (hopefully the principal who greets me at the school's front gate every morning felt the same). I've never quite experienced snow like this - usually it's all fallen by the time I've seen it, and you just walk over it. Plus it's on mountains and stuff, not at your front door! Luckily my body's temperature control seems to have finally switched from 'summer' to 'winter', so for the past two weeks I haven't been completely freezing. I think I'm also becoming an expert in layering clothes which helps, so I might just survive the coming winter - bring on a white Christmas!
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
On singing and being naked in (semi) public
This has been an adventurous week for me as I have confronted two of my fears - singing and getting naked in front of people. Actually, I exaggerate a little - I'm pretty okay about the naked thing, especially after the hamman in Morocco and the gym here. The singing on the other hand... as I said to my friend Corrie, I'm happy to get naked with you, but I'm not singing! Okay, I did sing, and it was actually fun even, although I have a new found respect for people who can hit the right note at least once in a song; karaoke is hard! Plus it turns out that I have no idea what passes for pop these days, so I have to resort to the classics. But they have a cool set up here for it - instead of an open bar scenario you have your own private room, so you are free to sound as atrocious as you like and only your friends will care. Although it did feel a bit like I was walking into a brothel, as I entered this very flashy lobby area with young men standing around waiting to hustle you off to your room... I should say here that I have no actual idea what a brothel is like, I'm just going from books and movies :-)
Okay now the naked thing; last night I finally got around to visiting a jimjilbahn (spell check really doesn't like me) which is a Korean spa. Seriously, this idea needs to get picked up in Australia. First you scrub off, then you pick a spa to get into, there's about 3 with different temperatures. Oh and a freezing cold ice pool that I went into for exactly 4 seconds. So you loiter there (in the spas) until you're all nice and pruny, then get out and exfoliate all over. After rinsing you put on some lovely pink PJ's, and go to an area where both the men and women can hang out together. We just grabbed a mat to lie around on and ate something called Patbingsu, which is shaved ice with fruit and red bean and syrup and cornflakes (?!) and which is completely delicious (see above). Then we got into a sauna and sweated a little more, then finally went back to have a final rinse off and get dressed. I think it may actually be worth living in a cold climate if I get to do this often - anyone who ever lived with me in Melbourne knows how much I love my baths, and this is even better. I will definitely be a regular!
Okay now the naked thing; last night I finally got around to visiting a jimjilbahn (spell check really doesn't like me) which is a Korean spa. Seriously, this idea needs to get picked up in Australia. First you scrub off, then you pick a spa to get into, there's about 3 with different temperatures. Oh and a freezing cold ice pool that I went into for exactly 4 seconds. So you loiter there (in the spas) until you're all nice and pruny, then get out and exfoliate all over. After rinsing you put on some lovely pink PJ's, and go to an area where both the men and women can hang out together. We just grabbed a mat to lie around on and ate something called Patbingsu, which is shaved ice with fruit and red bean and syrup and cornflakes (?!) and which is completely delicious (see above). Then we got into a sauna and sweated a little more, then finally went back to have a final rinse off and get dressed. I think it may actually be worth living in a cold climate if I get to do this often - anyone who ever lived with me in Melbourne knows how much I love my baths, and this is even better. I will definitely be a regular!
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