the blog

Life This Week in South Korea: Jan 8-14, 2023

Mon., Jan 8 I have a vague memory of leaving y’all with some sort of cliffhanger last week…oh…yeah…”Sun., Jan 7: My body was saying PLEASE PLEASE JUST STAY HOME but I had to run an errand and then a friend asked if we could do a little shopping, and then we got lunch…and
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Life This Week in South Korea January 1-7, 2024

Mon, Jan 1 2024! Happy New Year! I’m still sniffly and snuffly from last week’s cold, but I Theraflu/NasalSpray/Mucinexed myself up and went to lunch with my friend. Our first choice restaurant was closed (sadface) but there was another vegan restaurant within walking distance so we went there instead. I had 잠퐁
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Life This Week in South Korea Dec 25-Dec 31, 2023

Monday, 12.25 Merry Christmas! It was a white Christmas here, very pretty…but not enough to impact travel. My building friend and I went to the big mall for vegetarian lunch. Schools, offices, and government buildings were closed, but stores and restaurants were open. The mall was PACKED on Christmas Day! We had
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Life This Week in South Korea Dec 18-24, 2023

Monday 12.18 Yep, it is pretty gosh darn cold out there. It was 18 degrees (F) when I left for class, but honestly, on a sunny day with no wind…and my body being the hard-working furnace that it is, I was not so uncomfortable walking the half-mile to class. I pulled my
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Life This Week in South Korea Dec 11-17, 2023

Monday, 12.11 Rainy. Dreary. Chilly. Want to stay home in bed. But. Must. Go. To. Class. Dinner: Cream of Corn soup (out of a pouch, they don’t do canned soup here) with house rice mixed in. I always have to doctor the slightly bland soup up a bit with butter, milk, salt,
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Life This Week in South Korea Dec 3-10, 2023

Monday, Dec 3 Big Day! My first trip to Korean Costco! A friend has a membership, so off we went. However, even in Korea, Costco is for people with cars and sufficient home storage. So I couldn’t get much, but I did get The Prize – a Costco Rotisserie Chicken, oh the
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Where Bloggers Live: My Favorite Winter Holiday Decorations

Welcome to the monthly edition of Where Bloggers Live. It’s kind of like HGTV’s “Celebrities at Home,” but…Bloggers! Who doesn’t like to peek behind the scenes and see inside people’s homes and lives? Every month a group of six bloggers share their work-spaces, homes, towns, thoughts, with posts based on specific prompts.
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Life This Week in South Korea: Nov 27-Dec 3, 2023

Monday, Nov 27 My feet hips knees thighs heart may never forgive me for today. We went to Namsan Tower, another iconic Seoul landmark. At the highest point in Seoul, you get a wonderful of the city spread out below, with the mountains beyond. On a clear day. Ha. We tried to
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My First 100 Days in South Korea

In Korea, 100 Days is a significant time marker. I believe it started “back in the day,” when there was a low mortality rate among babies and to protect them from disease they didn’t take them outside for 100 days. If they survived til then there was a celebration called Baek-il, a
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Life This Week in South Korea: Nov 20-26, 2023

Monday, Nov 20 Opened a Korean bank account today (oh boy). Got a pretty pink debit card with some cute bear character on it. I’m one step closer to getting a Korean phone plan AND FINALLY BEING ABLE TO ORDER THINGS/FOOD ONLINE. Had a tutoring session in the morning and spent the
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Making Friends in South Korea – or Anywhere

So, as you know, I recently moved to Seoul, South Korea to attend a language program at a local university. Did I know anyone here? No. No, I did not. I thought it would be fine as I have never been a person who felt I “needed” people. I have always had
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Life This Week in South Korea: Nov 13-19, 2023

Monday, Nov 13 It is finally actually cold here. Hallelujah! I was able to wear LAYERS and a light jacket and not die lugging myself up the hill. Yeah, not sweating was pretty much the highlight of the day. Tuesday, Nov 14 Early early tutoring session, 7:50am. How am I NOT a
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Life This Week in South Korea: Nov 6-12, 2023

Monday, 11.6.23 Morning: Tutoring Afternoon: Class Evening: Dinner out with friends from class. I have wanted to try soy marinated crabs since it seems to be such a popular item on kdramas. The girls I went with are sisters from Taiwan who have been to Korea several times before this and wanted
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Where Bloggers Live: Top Ten Things I’m Most Grateful For

Welcome to the monthly edition of Where Bloggers Live. It’s kind of like HGTV’s “Celebrities at Home,” but…Bloggers! Who doesn’t like to peek behind the scenes and see inside people’s homes and lives? Every month a group of six bloggers share their work-spaces, homes, towns, thoughts, with posts based on specific prompts.
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Life This Week in South Korea: October 30-November 5, 2023

MONDAY, OCT 30 I’m so tired. Finished my class essay, for better or worse. Had tutoring. Went to class. Went to the market. Rested at Starbucks with a new favorite drink (only here, not in the US), Grapefuit-Honey Iced Tea. I’d pick that over McDonald’s sweet tea any day. And if you’ve
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Life this Week in South Korea Oct 23-29, 2023

MONDAY, OCT 23 My Alien Registration Card is here! My Alien Registration Card is here (sung to the tune of The New Phone Books Are Here! The New Phone Books Are Here – a la the Steve Martin movie The Jerk)! Actually, it’s now called the Residence Card as there were grumblings
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The One Where I Found a Place to Live in South Korea

Note: If you’re new here, you might want to check out The One Where I Got Myself to South Korea and I’m Moving to South Korea before reading this post… When we last left our hero…she was on the verge of having to leave her fancy South Korean hotel and go OUT
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Life This Week In South Korea October 16-22, 2023

MONDAY, OCT 16 After my fun and exhausting weekend, I was NOT prepared to go back to class, but…sigh. I went. I had the tutor, Joon, in the morning, and he’s great. Helps me a lot. I try to do the lesson with him that we’re going to do later in the
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Life This Week in South Korea: Oct 9-15, 2023

I know I’m all out of order here, but if I wait to catch up to The Big Picture before I start writing current posts, I’ll NEVER CATCH UP. So please bear with the back-and-forth timeline for a bit. Think of this as a well-played k-drama – they are masters at the
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There One Where I Got Myself to South Korea

Intro: I know, I know, it’s been a long time…I’ve been ridiculously distracted (not to mention exhausted, sweaty, and busy) ever since I got here and the times I DID try to write a blog post it was just a jumble of…mess. I swear I left half my brain back in the
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