the blog

Life This Week in South Korea: March 18-24, 2024

Monday, March 18 Tutoring in the morning, class in the afternoon, convenience store for dinner and studying. I’m trying to study “out” a little more so I’m not just in my room every evening. Tuesday, March 19 Newsflash: I Slept Straight Through the Night. Woohoo. That’s a rarity these days. After class
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Life This Week in South Korea: March 11-17, 2024

How many weeks do I start with, “well, THAT was a week!”? Well, add one. Monday, March 11 So my tutoring schedule has lightened up since I’m in Korean 101 for the mumblemumblethirdtime. Instead of 5 mornings a week, we just meet (zoom) two mornings a week. Which is nice as it
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Life This Week in South Korea: March 4-10, 2024

Monday, March 4 Started the week off with a tutoring session bright and early…followed by a cafe meetup with a young woman from my class this term. Very nice person with a warm, outgoing vibe. After the cafe we came back to campus here and sat by the lake for a pretty
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WHERE BLOGGERS LIVE ~ How I “Manage” Money

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: Feb 26-March 3

Monday,  Feb 26 Continuing to just take it pretty easy over the break. One day I do a thing…the next day I do not do a thing. I can live with that schedule. Today I went with Building Friend to a “western” breakfast place in Gangnam. THEY HAD ACTUAL WESTERN STYLE BREAKFAST
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Life These Weeks in South Korea: Feb 12-25, 2024

Aka: SHE’S ALIVE Ha ha. Yes, I’m alive. I’ve just been…not here. I’ve been…here… So. That’s where I’ve been and what I’ve been doing. The term ended on Friday, Feb 17 and I’ve been on break since. I’ve mastered food delivery and online shopping. My knee has kept me immobile for many
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Life This Week in South Korea: Feb 5-11, 2024

Mon., 2.5.24 Back to the hospital today as I was just about out of my painkiller prescription. That’s always a stressful visit. And no translator this time. But the Dr. spoke better English than he gave himself credit for. I told him his English was very good and he was like 아니
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Life These Weeks in South Korea: Jan 22-Feb 4, 2024

Okay, a) this is the way my weeks have been shaking out these days, so…I’m just going to go with it; and b) if whining annoys you, maybe skip this post. Days I Had Kidney Stone Pain No one wants to keep hearing about that, so we’ll just move on to… All
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Life This Week in South Korea: Jan 15-21, 2024

Mon., 1.15.24   One of my classmates has spearheaded a weekly dinner where we go each week to a different nationality’s cuisine, based on the nationalities of the students in class. We have Vietnamese, Mongolian, Nepalese, French, Malaysian, Belarus(ian?), Korean, and the boring American (me). So this week eight of us went
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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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