Our Christmas class

So every year we try to do something fun with the kids before Christmas. This year we decided to get my family involved and asked my nieces and nephews back home to send my students a video message. Just something short about themselves.

We then showed the messages to my students and allowed them to respond in whatever way they wanted. The results were so wonderful, we have some amazing videos, cards, mini presentations about Korean food and some origami.

Everyone involved had a lot of fun. My students loved seeing my family back home and were so excited when I told them that I would send all of their cards back to Ireland.

I absolutely love doing these fun activities with my kids, it allows the lower level students to express themselves in other forms and it allows my higher level students to show off their English skills.

Here is a collection of some of the cards, videos and other miscellaneous materials that we made:

6th Grades Christmas messages to my family.

Merry Christmas!

2014 The Best Parts

2014 was a great year for myself and Jason! Here are a few of the memories that stick out in my head:

We got to go to Ireland twice in one year! 

This was so wonderful for me. Since we'll be moving to America next year I know that I won't be able to visit my family as often as I have while in Korea. The first trip was taken a couple of days after Christmas and happened because my sister won a free return flight to Ireland for me in a competition! Myself and Jason were just newly engaged (on Christmas day last year) and kept it a secret until we arrived in to Cork airport. It was so nice to be home in Ireland during the winter (although I forgot how dark it gets) and we spent our entire time drinking champagne and celebrating with the people that I love most!

I got to bring my nieces and nephews to the panto.

I love Ireland so much!

We got a car and were able to take some fun road trips.

Right before Willys surgeries we realised that we would need a car since the surgeon was located in Haeundae in Busan which is about an hour and a half away from us. Having the car allowed us the freedom to take trips and not worry about if Willy will be allowed on the bus or having to find a sitter for him. Now he gets to come on all of our adventures with us! 

Jason and Willy on one of our adventures!

The beauty! As you can see Willy loves
to chill in it.

Our puppy had a surgery to help him take adventures again.

When we rescued Willy his front paws turned inwards. This didn't cause him any pain in the beginning but we gradually started to notice that he couldn't walk for long distances. It got to its worst point when I brought him for a hike and he just layed down after about 15 minutes and couldn't go on. Since then we found a specialist orthopedic surgeon who managed to remove Willys joints completely (they were what was causing the problem) and replace them with some of his stem cells, cow bone and blood. Amazingly his body grew new bones where his joints were and he can now do everything that every other dog can do.

This was Willy in the vets office after his second surgery.

His first walk after being stuck in doors for about 6 months!

We got married!

What can I say, it was an incredible day and a day that we won't forget for a long time to come. To read about our wedding day click here! 

Happy, happy, happy!

We signed our last contracts in Korea.

In September we signed our final contracts in Korea (we hope!) So that means that as of the end of August our time here in Korea will come to an end. We are both excited about what new adventures America will have in store for us.

We became debt free.

This actually only happened at the beginning of December. It was such a great feeling to pay off our final debt and know that when we move to America, whatever money we have will be ours! I cut up my Irish credit card also. We have both learned to live modestly while here in Korea and are hoping to bring that lifestyle with us to America. Which means no more loans unless it's for a house!

We bought a bottle of champagne to celebrate becoming debt free.

I hope you all had a great 2014 and an even better 2015! Merry Christmas everyone!

I got to see this lovely lady twice in one year!

Willy is back to hiking like a pro!

Just after arriving in Ireland and surprising
my family with our engagement!

Don't cry over a turkey...

At least we have our tree decorated! (It has since collapsed, but we have managed
to keep it upright)

Being an expat definitely has it's pros and cons. Unfortunately the biggest con for me is having to spend Christmas in Asia. Christmas is the biggest holiday for my family and unfortunately this will be the 5th Christmas in a row that I won't be spending it with them.

Myself and Jason try to make the best of our Christmasses here in Korea. We usually go to Nampo-dong in Busan to see the beautiful decorated streets or watch movies, bake cookies and drink egg-nog and wine. Unfortunately we have both been so busy this year that we haven't managed to do any of those things. It has been hard, so now it's the Monday before Christmas and I have no Christmas spirit :(

Ghosts of Christmas past in Nampo-dong.

...and again.

And one more.

We did decided however that we were going to cook a turkey for Christmas dinner. Of course being in Asia makes it hard to find a turkey so we packed ourselves and Willy in to the car and went on an hour and a half journey to Costco looking for our turkey. We were both so excited to be able to buy some food for our Christmas dinner. But, as life goes, they had no turkeys. I was so upset. Yes I know, getting upset because of a turkey is ridiculous. But it felt like so much more. I'm fed up with living the expat life. I'm fed up with having to go searching for 2 hours for something that is in every shop back home. I'm also fed up with missing Christmas with my family.

I try to be positive in my blog postings but sometimes it's hard.
So I came in to work this morning feeling down about life when I noticed a Christmas card waiting for me on my desk by some of my wonderful students. It cheered me up and has given me the spur to try and find some Christmas spirit before Thursday!

The beautiful card.

Wish me luck everyone and I hope that you all have a wonderful Christmas wherever you are! 

I know that this guy will always try his best to make our
Christmasses fun :)

A girlie weekend in Seoul

This photo is courtesy of Ane.

I love taking photos of the places that I go but sometimes I get scared of what the world is becoming. I look around and see people in coffee shops not communicating with each other, with their heads stuck in their phones or people spending hours trying to take the "perfect" selfie.

So this past weekend when I went to Seoul with my good friend Ane, I actually had too much fun shopping, drinking, eating and chatting to really take photos! I think everyone needs a weekend like that every once in a while. Unfortunately I only took about 5 photos and realized afterwards that I should have taken more for the blog...oh well.

So, I'm not going to lie, I love Seoul. I love how it becomes even more multicultural every time I visit and you can find anything that you want there.

We flew up from Busan on the Friday evening, it gave us plenty of time to check in to our hostel and have a nice dinner. We stayed in Itaewon. Itaewon is a huge foreigner area and you can find every type of foreign food or drink imaginable here. I love staying here when I visit Seoul because I can get so many things that just aren't available in Gimhae.

I always say that if I lived here I'd be fat and penniless. That first night we went to The Wolfhound, an Irish pub for some dinner. There is also one in Busan that I love to visit. We had some delicious fish and chips and I got some alcoholic cider so I was a happy girl. We spent the night just chatting. I love having friends that I can literally chat with for days on end and never run out of conversation! We then met Anes friend from home (South Africa) and spent so much time chatting that before we knew it it was 3am!

The next morning we decided to look for some brunch (BRUNCH!! It's impossible to find in Gimhae) First we went to a beautiful coffee shop and I ordered a coconut latte, which was absolutely to die for! Brunch was equally good, we had salmon and rucola and a chicken sausage dish.

My amazing coconut latte and Anes Mocha latte.

The beautiful Christmas decorations where we had brunch.

Then it was time to head to Myeong Dong for some shopping. Myeong-dong is a huge shopping area in Seoul and as my Christmas gift this year Jason decided to give me a shopping weekend. I've been feeling pretty bad about my weight lately and the fact that I'm a double xl (if I'm lucky) here in Korea doesn't help matters (I'm usually a size medium back home). I've also had some comments from teachers in my school about my weight which affected me quite a bit so we both thought that some shopping up in Seoul would do me well.

SHOPPING!

We had a great day shopping and 300,000w later we decided to head back to Itaewon for some Greek food for dinner. Afterwards we headed to some pubs and began chatting and once again it was after 3am when we were heading back to the hostel!

Enjoying our girlie chats.

Our final day in Seoul was spent with both of us sniffling and feeling under the weather so we had a yummy brunch of paninis and a cheese and bread set. We then headed to the train station for the trip back to Gimhae.

All of the carbs, but it was amazing!

I'm sorry that there aren't many photos, but we just too much of a good time :)

Where we stayed:

POP hostel: We booked a twin room but were given a double room which was fine with us. It is in a really nice location, right in the center of Itaewon but down some nice side streets away from the action. They are basic rooms but did the job perfectly.

Website: http://www.guesthouseseoul.net/

You can see their tripadvisor reviews here.

How to get there: We booked an Air Busan flight up as the regular KTX seats were booked out and the flight was only 10,000w more expensive than the 1st class train tickets.

We then went to Seoul station on Sunday and managed to get seats on the next available train to Gupo station (in Busan) in their movie section. Unfortunately for us the movie showing was the new Dumb and Dumber...it was shocking!

There were Christmas decorations everywhere! 

It was the perfect way to get in to the Christmas spirit.

Day trip to Jeonju

Every year around this time the program that we teach for (GNET) take all of the teachers in the program for a day trip. I usually enjoy them as it gives me a chance to catch up with people and make some new friends. Last year we went to Haeinsa and it was such a beautiful area. This year we were told that we would be going to Jeonju.

Our bus left at 8 a.m. as it's a three hour drive from Gimhae to Jeonju. Our first stop was at an apple orchard to do some apple picking. It was in a gorgeous countryside area and the farmer had the sweetest little dog that we got to play with for a while.
I picked a few apples but we all managed to keep about 15 apples each (I'm sure there'll be a lot of apple crumbles being made this weekend in Gimhae!)

Myself and Jason on the bus bright and early.

The incredible views from the orchard.

The apple orchard.

One of the many apples that we picked

The adorable dog at the farm.

My lovely friend Ian took this photo.

After our apple picking it was time to drive in to Jeonju city and have some lunch. Jeonju is famous throughout Korea for having amazing food, especially bibimbap. After our bus getting stuck after going down a one way street we finally arrived at the restaurant. I'm not a huge fan of bibimbap (I have this weird thing where I hate mixing all of my foods together and that's exactly what bibimbap is) But we also got some paejeon which was the best I've ever had! Paejeon is a Korean style pancake made with lots of spring onions and usually squid too. It's really delicious!

Some of the GNETs enjoying our lunch.

After lunch we had 2 hours free time to explore the city. Jeonju has a big historical center right in the middle of the city where every building is traditional style. They had beautiful little stores and restaurants and a huge park with temples inside. After going to see the temples and the beautiful Autumn coloured trees surrounding them we decided to relax at a little coffee shop and people watch for a bit. Afterwards we got some delicious ice cream and wandered in and out of the shops.

The entrance to a small bamboo forest.

Autumn is well and truly here...and I love it!

The beautiful temple area of Jeonju...I just love those beautiful trees!

Then before we knew it it was time to head back to Gimhae. This was my first time visiting Jeonju and I'd 100% recommend visiting it to anyone that is visiting Korea. I'm sure that we were lucky that we went on a weekday because there were still tourists around...I can't imagine what it's like on weekends! But regardless, a part of me wishes that I lived there.

Myself and my good friend Ane standing in front of a 500 year old tree.

Hiking Mucheoksan

A couple of weeks ago myself Jason and Willy decided to go for a hike. Jason teaches right out in the countryside and sees a beautiful mountain everyday from his school. He's wanted to hike it for a while now so that Saturday was the perfect time.

The mountain in question was Mucheoksan in Saengnim. It is a beautiful mountain and is actually quite famous here in the south for it's rock climbing.

We had a great time hiking it, We parked the car and then had to walk up a road for about 30 minutes, that warmed us up quite nicely for when we actually got on to the path. We had left it quite late to begin the hike (3 o'clock) So luckily for us we didn't see many people of the trail.

Willy was off leash at the beginning but the more we hiked the more I realised how many scary drop offs there were and how close Willy was getting to them so we put his leash back on him.

It was at this point that I realised it was too dangerous for him to be off leash.

Jason and Willy on the way up.

It was one of my favourite hikes in Korea because after about an hour and a half hiking you reach a beautiful little lake with a nice pagoda and some benches to relax at for a while. When we reached the top we found a great viewing platform and were just in awe at the beautiful rays of light that the sun and clouds had formed. We stayed at the top for about 20 minutes, we would have stayed longer just taking it in but sunset was fast approaching and our stomachs were rumbling so we made the quick descent with an amazing sunset as our companion. The entire hike took about 3 hours.

The beautiful view from the top!

Willy wasn't too impressed at being stuck tied up to a tree while we climbed on to the ledge.

We made it!

Sunsets are something that you don't see very often in Ireland so it is the one thing that I never take for granted here in Korea and the places that I've travelled to. One thing I can 100% say about this country is that it has some beautiful sunsets!

That night we decided to cook some yummy pasta and relax with a movie. A perfect Saturday if I do say so myself!