Strange but inviting country

Hello, my fantastic people!

Today I’m writing about the country which economy is developing by leaps and bounds, by milliseconds))), there is a cafe with dogs, cats, raccoons, kangaroos and meerkats. Many consider this country being the center of world plastic surgery. Unfortunately people there also eat dogs (but as far as I know this fact connected with elderly rich local citizens only). You can also eat a live octopus and it’s very dangerous. I watched it in the TV show called  “Oryol and Reshka” and the presenter said that when eating a live octopus you need to chew for a very long time because the octopus is sucked by its tentacles to the palate and if you do not sufficiently chew it, it will stick to your throat and you can suffocate. That’s such a positive story I’m starting my current article with)))

So anyway I’m talking about South Korea! My acquaintance with the country began with Seoul but I spent much more time in Busan.

I don’t even know where to start. Perhaps I’ll just share with you some photos and write my comments about them.

Put this photo as the first one as it’s all about WELCOME to Seoul! 🙂 (and even in Russian language)

The underground map scared me straight away I saw it)))

Olympic Games
The first thing I had forgotten for some reason was the fact that in February 2018 were going  to be Winter Olympic Games in Seoul! Therefore I was particularly pleased to be in this country (and of course for that moment I had no idea what the situation would be with the team from Russia). Right at the airport I was greeted by the talisman of the upcoming games.

Korean Won
The second thing that shocked me was the local currency which was almost 20 times less than the Russian ruble, therefore,  you could feel like a millionaire after exchanging even a bit of money. Although I had about 300 000 Korean won when I changed some of the money at the airport. What’s more interesting that even with the time, after a month spending there I was still shocked when my breakfast cost me around 5000 (won) or when I bought a pair of very simple slippers for 3000 (won). Another example I can think of was the whole watermelon which cost around 15,000 that in my opinion was very expensive. In general if compare prices with the same ones in Omsk where I come from almost everything there (in Korea) was double-priced or even more.

Koreans and their English
Another thing that really surprised me was the ignorance of English. Well, I agree that the situation is not better in Russia but since I speak Russian I don’t know how I would feel if I was a foreigner in my motherland. It was extremely difficult to find a person who could speak English even in large expensive shopping malls in Busan. Therefore I was very glad that the purpose of my trip was to teach English to these lovely people as I really wanted to help them in this difficult task. I must also say that despite their problems with the language, most of the local residents were very friendly, always ready to help, show the way, even with the use of gestures or help of Google Translator. Anyway I really liked local people.
And I always had fun there when I saw a poster or an ad where one word was written in English and I seemed to stand and think that now I would understand everything but no … the only word in English followed by the whole text in Korean))) It was too early to be happy, hahah
And there was that discrimination. When I came across a big text in Korean in a museum that was translated with the only one phrase in English! I do understand that Shakespeare’s language is great and mighty but one phrase?))  Come on…I demand the proper translation for non Korean-speaking visitors! 😀

Apart from the stories about my teaching, interesting places that I was lucky to visit, my international team I would also like to tell you about Korean cuisine. How can I resist this subject on my blog? Then I would not be myself, haha

Teaching English in a language cafe
As you can see from the title above I didn’t teach English in an usual way. I worked 4 hours a day, from Monday to Friday. There were students of different ages, interests and beliefs that were coming to us and our boss Neo (alas it was not the same Neo from the Matrix))) was telling which teacher was with this or that student. It was almost like a Russian roulette as you never knew for sure which student you would get – it could be a sociable, energetic young man with a good level of English or maybe a listless, sleepy, lazy student who had nothing interesting in his/her life. And whoever you had as your student you had to communicate with him / her for 2 hours (in rare cases it was for an hour) while teaching the language.

It happened that I was often given new students, I spent 2 hours with them and the next day they were given to a new teacher. One of my colleagues (the one from Latvia) joked that I was like a hook. The student arrived, spent 2 hours with me and enthusiastically left the language cafe thinking about the cafe with such a cool girl from Russia (just so you now these are not my words). Thus he was ready to go to the cafe, paid for the lessons and the next day our  boss changed the teachers and again he gave me a new student))) I believe it was exaggeration and some kind of compliment from my Latvian colleague because all the teachers were really creative and good in their own way but thank you Ervins for such nice words about me 🙂 and thank you for missing me tremendously))

In general I want to say that I like this teaching method a lot because we were teaching English during our communication which couldn’t be better. In addition to that this experience helped me to understand the culture and mentality of local residents. And at times I found it difficult to maintain a conversation with a stranger for 2 hours and this difficulty I also liked because “what does not kill us makes us stronger”))). It seems to me that by teaching very different people I learnt a lot about myself and I am grateful for such an experience.

And I was also over the moon about living with my colleagues because all of them came from different countries such as Canada, America, Latvia, France, Poland, Mexico, Holland, Germany, etc. Accordingly most of my time I spent in a very international get-together, which certainly made my life looking like a fairy tale. It’s hard to describe in a couple of words how much happy I was although I’m always happy)))

You can easily notice how we are both excited on the photo during the lesson)))

A little bit about Korea

Toilets
The first thing I want to mention is the availability of toilets. Yes, they occupy one of the first places in my article, haha. The matter is that I have been to many countries and I do not remember that I saw toilets at each subway station. What’s more I am talking about free toilets! I remember a day when I was walking with a close friend in London and was about to use a public toilet for 50 pence. A friend (being a young successful man, Philip hello!))) said to me: “Natasha, you’ll pay 50 pence now, and then another 50 and another 50 next time. So one day you’ll realize that you could have bought an apartment instead of spending this money on the public toilets”)))) Thus, I can conclude that it would have been easier to buy an apartment in South Korea for me than in any other countries, hahah.

Masks
Another thing that surprised me there was the popularity of face-masks. It seemed to me strange and to be honest sometimes terrible (please forgive me if it sounded offending now). My American (although she has not yet confirmed her nationality, because people used to say she was Russian)) female-friend often wore a mask and even her husband said that it looked like underwear on her face))). However my darling Caitlin opened the whole world to me))) because I was sure that every passerby wearing a mask had some kind of illness and just did not want to infect others or get sicker. My American girl told me that this masks also protected from polluted air, people hided their skin from ultraviolet rays and thus could prevent the appearance of wrinkles. Well, I didn’t care that much… because at the age of 28 I believe I look 20))). And the polluted air did not frighten me much as I was originally from a city with an oil factory and just to mention that my inner happiness was better than any masks. In any case I did not have anything against Caitlin’s masks, I just laughed but always kindly and always with her by my side. I love this girl with the mask or without it! (See the photo below)

And this is obviously not Caitlin on the photo with me but Josh who got this mask as a present from…yes, right – Caitlin))))

Etiquette
The Koreans use a special hand shake (when showing respect): you should slightly hold your right hand  with the left hand during the shake. I noticed that the same gesture was used in all the stores when I was given a change and a bill. And one of the students told me that once Bill Gates had met with the Korean president and shook hands in the usual way as was customary in the west and it looked very disrespectful and rude from Mr. Gates. I decided to mention this story so he will read it (of course from my blog) and will not do it next time when in South Korea))).

(The photo was taken from the internet)

Koreans and laziness. Myth or reality?
Alas, there were many of my students who confessed their laxity. The thing is that before the trip I saw a few programs about the country and in each broadcast it was said that the Korean people were very hardworking and purposeful. Communicating with my students, I often heard that their favorite thing to do was sleeping, that they did not particularly like to go anywhere, preferred to stay at home and do nothing, and quite often I got statements like: “Natasha, I’m just lazy”. Then I used to ask them if they were real Koreans. But on the other hand they could honestly admit what their nature was. This was a good thing I believe.

 

Korean language
Before traveling to Korea, I was very motivated to learn the language and take the most from our Korean lessons that the company provided us with. However after my arrival there I found out that the lessons were going to be for just an hour and only twice a week. Thus I realized that it was a drop in the ocean and of course during that time I learnt almost nothing. Hieroglyphs did not succumb to me, the pronunciation escaped me insolently, the sense of language never came across to me, haha. In fact I was very disappointed with myself because I thought that any language was like a piece of cake for me, but in this case my motivation was too weak to reach some level in Korean. In any case I do not regret that I attended quite a few lessons there, because we had a very nice teacher and we often sang Korean children’s songs with my kids, oops…I mean my colleagues))). It was fun. It’s something I can sing to my own children in the future… though I hardly remember a single word we learnt but I can study them again, specially for my kids))

Do not remember anything from these notes…what a pity 😦

After seeing this picture one of my Russian friends asked me if we were doing some black magic and inviting dead people come to us)))

as you can see from my cheeks I am smiling = I am happy = singing session in Korean is about to start 🙂

Oryol and Reshka. The search for treasure
I suppose many of you don’t know the program “Eagle and Tails”. According to the best source ever (Wikipedia, hahah) it “is a Ukrainian television travel series that launched in 2011. It is broadcast in the Russian language in Ukraine, Russia and Kazakhstan, and reruns are also available on Polish, Israeli and Transnistrian television”. We were very lucky that the filming of the show took place in Busan while we were there. I was informed about it by my Russian friends-neighbours (Katya and Ksenia). If I remember well it was Sunday evening and they told me that the release of the broadcast was posted on their official Youtube chanel only a couple of hours ago. Of course we felt a great desire to find the treasure of $100 (they hide $100 in every show wherever they go). In addition to that a bottle of money was hidden on the Haeundae beach which was 10-15 minutes walking distance from us. But it was a very windy evening with the storm warning and obviously noone really wanted to go to the beach late at night, but who would stop the Russian soul! What is more the Latvian soul joined us. And so there were four of us who went to search for the treasure.

We didn’t have shovels but 4 table spoons, a spoon per person (well equipped team))).  The road was fun because we always had fun being all together. When we came to the beach we started looking for a point from which we had to count 13 steps forward and 13 steps to the right. It was very funny searching for this exact point, looking at buildings, on a map…And imagine that there was some construction work going on exactly where the bottle of money was buried so everything was dug up or fenced. It’s hard to express our disappointment! But we still had fun especially when we saw the same searchers as us but with a shovel and then another one and another…”Oryol and reshka” is a popular TV-show for travelers and adventure lovers))

Russian Texas street
There was a Russian street in Busan where you could exchange currency (not rubles, a bit oddly), buy Russian products and feel as in Russia. This street was called Texas Street  (logically)) and located next to Busan railway Station. I went there a couple of times for oats. I had some funny and nice photos but could not find them…that’s a mystery of my life))

Was it dangerous to be in South Korea?
Majority of my friends and relatives were worried about how I was planning to stay in South Korea! What if there was a war started?! So, I want to say that in the autumn 2017 there was absolutely no fear, no panic (probably there is the same situation now). People live for their own pleasure and live very well I must say. The only thing that confused and surprised me was that they had glass cabinets with gas masks and something else (maybe food) at the underground stations in case North Korea attacked the South.
But at the same time have a look at the poster that was hung at the main railway station in Busan.

Me and my American friend were very shocked by this statement. Of course, I understand that the relations between the two countries were sharply negative, but still… Especially if consider the fact that they are neighbors and any threat of North Korea can be reflected and include South Korea. Anyway I was really glad to see that everyone there continued to live, enjoy life, and do their usual things. In general I would say that being in South Korea was not only a big pleasure for me but it was safe! For example there were several times when me and my friends returned home at 3-5am and we felt absolutely calm and protected, at least in Busan.

Free shower !!!
And I really liked (or rather it made my day that time) a poster in our room with this saying: “There is free shower! Let’s take a shower every day!” Finally for my 18 years (my true age)) I found a free shower. Definitely used this opportunity to wash for 20 years ahead))) I wish I could share a photo with this poster here but I believe I deleted when trying to have some more memory on the phone.

My dances
I really wanted to dance. It was required by my body and my soul. However I could not find a suitable place in our building, we were going to a few night clubs quite often (1-3 times a week), but it’s different as I could’t do crazy, dynamic dances, which I wanted and in addition there were a lot of people there, it smelled tobacco and it was stuffy. Then, one day I decided to go out, just outside the building, put on headphones and start dancing. It was like connecting with my true self or even with the cosmos. I did not care that some people reacted strangely or some man tried to speak with me or the passing cars slowed down to watch my dance. I was totally in my dance and in the music. I kind of liked doing it and then it became a usual thing to dance outside, near the road. It’s good to not be really shy but just a bit)))

Nate and his flexibility
Once we were sitting at work with the collegues in our language cafe but doing nothing. There was no work and no students for such wonderful teachers as we were. But, at the same time some of our colleagues were working and teaching this magnificent international language to the Korean population))). And suddenly it became quiet and  by chance everyone heard our dear Canadian mate – Nate and his dialogue with a student. Specifically we happened to hear a phrase he said to his student: “are you flexible?” We burst into laughing.  Only we calmed down more or less and suddenly there was another Nate’s sentence appeared in the silence: “Well, I used to be flexible when I was younger”. I must say it had been one of our favourite jokes about Nate and his flexibility for quite a while))

with Nate 🙂

Tooth-brushing couple
We had a couple of teachers from Amsterdam. They were often separated from us but together all the time. However when I managed to spend a couple of minutes with them and talk, I was really glad about it as I liked them a lot. What attracted me the most was that they often brushed their teeth together in the hall (I know I found pretty weird things attractive, haha). At first it seemed strange to me but I told them that it reminded me of Groundhog day and every morning when I went out into the hall and saw them together with their toothbrushes, I smiled and I knew that the day was going to be wonderful! After sharing my thoughts with them I decided to join and cleaned my teeth joining this lovely couple in the corridor though just for a couple of times. A sort of trio tooth-brushers))), they even began to call themselves toothbrushing couple))

Guys, I really hope you don’t mind I use the photo from your Facebook! If so just let me know, I can remove it.

Prair, apples, peanut butter and memory

I could not resist of  telling you about one lovely Thai girl in our language cafe and the teachers’ house. Her name is Prair. I think she is about 30 years old. She is also very sociable and a bit loud in a good way.  So it turned out that I tried to get up early (although my work usually began at 2pm), and Prair got up even earlier and therefore we had breakfast together almost every single day. I was eating a toast or just bread with an egg, as well as a piece of bread with peanut butter, and Prair was eating spicy chicken in breadcrumbs with noodles, vegetables and apples (at 8-9am!).

By the way I need to stop here and tell you about apples and peanut butter. Apples in Korea are terribly expensive or at least for a Siberian person who came from Russia. For instance we can buy a kilo of apples for 2 euros in Russia (or even less) while ​​5 apples cost about 7 euros in Busan. Ok, they were large, sometimes even huge but still it was very expensive. And very often it happened that I decided to buy them, came to the supermarket or to the market but seeing the price, calculating it into rubles I thought that I could wait till I come back to Russia))). Seeing that Prair was eating my forbidden fruit I asked if she did not think it was unreasonably expensive and I was really surprised when she explained that in Thailand apples were more expensive (even more expensive? Seriously?))) And therefore she was happy to eat them in South Korea . That’s all about comparison and different perspective!

And here is the story about peanut butter. I may be wrong but as far as I remember I had never tried it (and how many countries I visited, with so many people I lived!)  Also my association of this dessert was with one of the most beloved films and actors: “Meet Joe Black “and Brad Pitt whose character eats the butter with a spoon and speaks of his pure love for this food product.

Many of my colleagues bought peanut butter and I was not an exception (still talking about Busan). It was a very special day for me when I finally tried it! And I must say I really liked it! What a delight to have it with a hot crispy toast where the butter melts a little… in general, I said him YES!)))

So, let’s return to our lovely Thai girl. Many of my friends think I am an angel but have they seen me in the morning? I’m not the kindest and sweetest person in the world at the time. I’m  for sure not a walking positive and sometimes it is even better not to touch me and be near me. I am talking about myself real as I can be with my family. And since I often live with other people’s families, colleagues, friends, strangers, I try to behave very friendly and people think that I always have a smile on my face. Such naive people, hahah. Though I believe that I became much better with all this traveling I have had. Anyway my story is about Prair who once in the early morning asked me about my plans. I was kind enough to tell her more or less in details when and where I was going to. The next day we also “met at breakfast” and she asked me how long I had planned to stay in Busan, where I then was going to fly. Despite the fact that I answered the very same question a day earlier I repeated. The next day it was deja vu situation again and even though she didn’t ask word for word while changing the question a bit, the context remained the same… I could not stand it any longer and told her that I had already told her about it. Then we laughed together and she apologized for such a bad memory and she told me she didn’t know most of the teachers by name and so we talked about it. I assured her that I knew everyone by her or his name and even all of my students. What was my secret? Probably I love people so much that for me remembering someone’s name is a must if I want to communicate with this person. However  it was harder in South Korea than anywhere else before. I had to remember that one student’s name was Shihan Kim, another one was Song Ming… so I had to ask my students to write their names on the board at the beginning of our meeting, then I fixed the inscription in my head (in extreme cases on the phone) and remembered their names pretty well.

As about my colleagues I remembered the face of the new teacher and fixed the name with the face (in my head as well) and if I needed to remember about 6 or more names a day, I could come up with an association. For instance Prair was easier to remember as there is a verb “to pray”. Another example is an absolutely amazing German guy called Simon. One of my PR-teachers in London had the same name (the image of this teacher is still being very bright in my head))), Diana (Princess Diana) and so on … I think that the only problem for me was the name of Thornton that I could neither remember the first time nor pronounce normally. And also there was a very nice and friendly American guy named Josh that I at first called George)))I just misunderstood a bit and had been calling him by another’s name for about a week. Josh, I apologize if you read this!)) The point was that my memory was pretty good and that Prair helped me a lot to learn how to calm down when the nervous system began to rage because of the morning question-time! Afterwards I just sent her a message on Facebook with the dates and points of my destination/route))))
Yes, I’m creative in terms of solving my problems))

Natasha is miss cleaner of November!
I could not miss this story about cleaning. When I had my Skype interview for this position my boss told me that I (like everyone else) would have to clean up our home once a week. No problem. But when I arrived at the place and started teaching I found out that after all only the boss himself was cleaning. I believe that one day he got tired of it and he hung several sheets with a schedule of cleaning duty. Everyone had to choose the day and time and write his/her name in the box. After a few days there were still empty columns with no names written down and then a girl from New Zealand (as I later learnt, as my sources reported to me))) wrote my name in all the columns which basically meant that I was the one cleaning from Monday to Sunday. I remember how I came home in the evening and my Mexican friend (Isabel) said to me: “Aww, Natasha, thank you!” I was surprised: “for what?!” The answer was: “Because you decided to clean every single day! How kind of you!”)))) It was very funny and even though I didn’t meet their expectations I enjoyed to be the main person in this prank.

The best teacher ever! 
I’ll tell you another funny story about how one English teacher taught another one. Being precisely it was me and my good friend from Morocco. Chadia came and said that she had washed the bed linen and could not find it on the terrace where she left it to dry and therefore asked me: “Natasha, do you know what is it called in English?” I never liked that word because it’s sheets and shit sound pretty the same in Shakespeare’s language (and I wonder if he used the second word by the way?))) Nevertheless I shared my knowledge with Chadia. And the same day later on when I was sitting in the kitchen with my Latvian friend Ervins, Chadia came to us and said a phrase that sounded a bit like this: “I still can not find my bed shit!!” I must say me and Chadia made that day so dear friends if you have a question about English language I am for sure the right person to ask! Even if I don’t help you I can certainly make your life funnier!

With Chadia 🙂

Canadians and their Putin
Another funny story involved a very sweet couple with a great sense of humour from Canada. It was evening time when I went to the kitchen (well, not that late so you would not think I went there for eating at night, haha). They said to me: “Natasha, we’re thinking about making Putin party. What do you think about it and do you think we need to write some information on our kitchecn board? We should also find out who would be in and so on?” Of course I had a feeling that I could get them wrong while standing infront of them and imagining Russian posters being everywhere, Russian songs, a portrait of Vladimir Putin on the wall and his visit to us, in Busan))) then I decided to clarify whether my associations were true and what specifically the Canadians wanted to do. We all laughed because Putin was a traditional Canadian (Quebec) dish which was fried potatoes with cheese and some kind of special sauce. In general healthy food and all that))) and unfortunately I still have not tried the dish but I’m sure that one day I will go to Canada and try it!

(These Adidas lovers from Canada are superb, cool and wonderful people! Cannot wait to see them again. The guy on my left has parents who are the owners of a bakery in Canada. That’s why I said so many good words about them. Hopefuly they’ll offer me a pastry to try, hahah)

My Canadian friends of Putin organized the party a week or two later after I left Korea. However I wanted to support them so I sent them a nice message)))

And by the way they write a blog, have their own site about traveling in Asia for a few months on a budget. Have a look if interested https://www.thetrippingcouple.com/

Earthquake
One day when we were all sitting in our beloved language cafe, teaching English I suddenly felt that my chair was shaking under me. I decided that it was a joke of the teacher sitting behind me. Thus I turned around in the hope of attacking the humourist but there was noone behind. I continued the lesson but suddenly we all felt the shaking of the floor, furniture, everything. Our boss came to us and said that everything was ok and that it was an earthquake. Mickey (not Mouse, but our Mickey – a very charming girl from Japan) said: “I don’t trust this building, can I leave it please?” Natasha (as usual talking about myself) decided to defuse the situation and said rather loudly in English: “Guys it was very nice to meet you! Just in case, I want to say that I love you all!” everyone laughed, the earthquake ended, the curtain closed, applause)))
In fact I was not scared but rather it was even interesting for me because it was the first earthquake in my life (hopefully the last one) and I was glad to experience it.

My search for an Italian speaker
I really wanted to practice Italian and where else if not in South Korea. As my dad joked: “then you will go to Italy and will search for a Korean in order to practice Korean language”))
Actually I tried a lot of options: different websites such as couchsurfing, conversionexchange, facebook (I found a girl from Milan on FB and met her once, it was a great meeting that I enjoyed but I continued to search more). I asked my friends and friends of my friends, and students who worked in an Italian restaurant or a cafe. I could find no one and nowhere… And one day somehow we went to the club. It was around midnight and we accidentally noticed a Russian guy on the subway, started talking to him and I asked where his friends (there were 4 guys) were from. He told me that one of them was from Russia, one was from Holland and the fourth was from Italy…so if you search you will find it for sure! I had a big pleasure communicating in Dante’s language for about 15 minutes while being on the train! All my friends were slightly shocked because they knew how much time and efforts it took me to search for a person to practice Italian with! Which advice I can give you, my dears? … Do you want to learn languages? Underground is there to help you out!)))

Cultural village
A massive thank goes to my American friend that she took us into a cultural village. She was the one who offered to go there, learnt all the details of the route and was practically our guide. The trip was wonderful because the place was very artistic and interesting, the weather was good and most importantly the company was magical. There were all my close friends-colleagues! More precisely there were: Ervins from Latvia (who started almost every single lesson of his with an explanation of what Latvia was and where it was), Nate from Canada (that flexible guy), Chadia from Morocco (the one with lost sheet), and my dear Caitlin from America (lover of Korean drama, food, fashion and masks). I’ll just post pictures here. I hope they will give some sense of our adventure there.

Also, Caitlin organized another trip to the city called… I do not remember the name of it, it was something in Korean language))

This time we went there together, just two of us. I must say this trip was not quite easy for me because I went out the night before our mini-trip. As far as I remember I went with the guys to the beach. I was with the Canadian, the Latvian and the French guy. My three musketeers! Guys, I miss you so much! (And I wrote the same phrase in my Russian version in case you have learnt Russian and you read it there. Just so you know I miss you in English, Russian, Italian and French – all the languages I can speak!))). Anyway lets get back to the story: we returned late and they arranged a small concert of singing with the use of some helium balloons. It was mega-fun and at 5 am, sitting all together in the kitchen (we were joined by Simon and Josh so there were already 5 musketeers and just one lucky girl from Siberia)) I suddenly remembered that I promised Caitlin to wake up at 8am! I told her about my crazy lovely night in the morning and she said that I was still young because I had slept only 3 hours and looked pretty good. You can see it from the photos.

Talking very briefly about our trip the road both ways took us about 5 hours I think. So, alas, we managed to see only one temple but what a temple! And we certainly enjoyed our walk, delicious street food, some ice cream in McDonald’s. And most importantly we spent time together and it’s priceless! (Especially I feel it now, sitting in Russia and missing my girl and the time we had spent together).

 

Delicious chicken stuffed with some rice (street-food)

My very first Korean student

I’m afraid of offending someone by not writing about a person on my blog. After all, everyone or almost everyone was special to me, gave me happiness and joy but I simply cannot physically write about everyone. I hope you’ll understand it.

I want to mention that I was really worried on my first day of teaching in Busan and I had a student who also came to us for the first time and she worried no less than I did. How fortunate it was that we met that day! She was (and still is) a wonderful person, very kind and purposeful student! I even had the honor of visiting her house and getting to know her family. Thank you, dear Lydia!

ALWAYS CHEERFUL
There is another story I want to tell you which is about my lesson with the Korean guy called Sean (this is his English nickname). By the way I fell in love with this student (as a friend I mean), because he was such a quick-learner, was very motivated and apart from 4 hours of classes in our language cafe, he was also spending 4 hours a day learning grammar independently. And he was very open, kind and interesting. With such students you never notice how time flies, the lesson passes instantly.

Well, anyway, one day I decided to share my methods of studying languages ​​with Sean and one of the methods was studying words with the cards (stickers) written with the black ink on a yellow background. I explained him that according to different studies this combination of two colors helps to memorize words better. Literally a couple of seconds later he noticed that I was wearing a black top and a yellow cardigan and we began to laugh that I was dressed in a special way so that the students could remember my lessons. Then Sean could not get together (and so did I), we all talked about me and my love for the yellow color. And the next day he gave me a yellow bracelet and said that I had been always cheerful. Now I wear this bracelet very often and at hard times I see “Always cheerful” on my hand and I am sure it’s about me! This present is very important to me as a memory and also it reminds me that I am always on the positive side and there is no other way for me! Thank you so much Sean!!! And I miss you too!

Food
I feel this paragraph will be the longest because we all know what the path to the man’s heart, to the woman’s emotions, to the obedience of the animals, to the madness of all the hungry is… oh, yes! The answer is the food!
Actually as often my plan was to eat rice, vegetables and noodles provided by our boss but when I arrived, I realized that unlimited noodles were Ramyeon (instant noodles)

there were only white type of rice and only frozen vegetables. In fact I pretty often ate this food while sometimes experimenting and mixing noodles, rice and vegetables all together. But, at the same time, I managed to try a lot of interesting and tasty dishes outside our teachers’ home. Time from time I was treated by my students or the students of my friends or some other people.

The first thing I want to mention is the love of Koreans for the red beans in desserts. I never tried the famous white dessert with red beans on its top. But I tried the pie with beans in the form of fish.

(Photo was taken from the internet)

I also tried an ice cream with a layer of beans, also in the form of fish.

Once I bought a couple of donuts for some reason being sure that one was with cheese, and the other one was with chocolate but not!! The beans were waiting for me even there!))) I had a strong impression that Koreans added those beans everywhere.

I also managed to try two unusual ice cream that for some strange reason I hadn’t even seen among my favourite Italian gelato. I am talking about a cheese ice cream and grape one. I liked them both but the cheese one seemed tastier for me.

I really liked Pepero. It’s a sweet stick in chocolate glaze or in coconut, with cheese or almonds, etc… There was Pepero day celebrated on November the 11th in South Korea. A couple of weeks before the day all the supermarkets began to sell these most delicious sticks. The holiday reminded of Valentine’s Day and it had its own traditions and rituals: couples in love were eating these sweets in a special way on 11/11. (Just like in the good old Disney cartoon “Lady and the tramp”)

(Photos were taken from the internet)

One of our students (Shihan Kim) was very generous and took us all (about 20 people I think) to a restaurant in order to try Korean national food. That evening we tasted a pancake with vegetables and seafood in it, a pancake made from kimchi (Korean spicy cabbage) and tomatoes, thinly chopped pork fried in egg and a spicy soup with kimchi and noodles in it. The guys were drinking beer and soju, the Siberian lady was drinking water)))

Loved those crisps with seaweed a lot.

Another time there was a party that our Turkish man (Gurkan) organized. We all went to the bar/pub where he ordered a lot of fried chicken in different types (with bones, fillets, spicy, sweet chicken) and beer. It was delicious and fun (and I am not talking about beer as I don’t like it).

Just to let you all know – it was not the whole plate for me but we shared it)))
It’s interesting how Koreans connect a couple or few words into one. For example famous local food is the chimek (originated from chicken and begmek which means beer). There also was a drink called somek (soju and begmek).
And while being on the flight from South Korea to Russia I looked through S7 magazine  and I found out about such a strange modern trend (and business field) like mukbang. It is when the video blogger eats fast food in front of the screen (usually a lot of food, a lot of fatty food and the blogger is a pretty slim girl or guy) and talks about his/her feelings. I hope I will not offence someone but honestly I don’t understand why people would watch such weird things and spend their priceless time on this kind of things! Whatever I say it’s gaining tens and hundreds of thousands of views! The magazine that was on the plane informed that “mukbang” originated almost 10 years ago in Korea and the word was formed from two: meokneun (“to eat”) and bangsong (“translation”). So it looks like the Koreans are still inventors of words and not just words but whole cultures, concepts and trends.

Once I was really lucky to visit one of my students house. Her mother cooked lunch and I really enjoyed it! I was especially impressed with the dish called chapche. I mean I am not talking about being impressed but rather loving it, the taste of it. It’s my Korean cup of tea)). Unfortunately I haven’t tried it again since that time (but already found a Korean restaurant in Saint Petersburg where they had it!) I plan to go there one day.

Another time we went with the guys to the restaurant as we wanted to try the famous Samgyeopsal. It took me about a week to memorize this name (forget the paragraph were I was bragging about my good memory). Anyway Samgyeopsal is grilled pork belly and the name literally means “three layer flesh”.

That time I was sitting with my loved ones: the Frenchman Jeremy, the Latvian man Ervins and the Polish girl Dominika (although she did not eat, she just sat with us, for the company). I liked the dish because I generally love meat. But of course it is quite heavy and I would not eat it often. Fortunately afterwards we went to a nightclub and did some dancing. It was possible to burn the calories eaten and get another portion of happiness because dancing is such a bliss for me!

My dear readers, as I have visited quite a lot of places during my stay in Korea and I simply do not have the physical ability (and especially I am lack of time) to talk about everything, I will post some photos so you’ll get a better idea of my Korea. And if one day you decide to go to South Korea, to visit some of “my” places then please do not hesitate to contact me. I will answer your questions if possible and I will try to help you! Though nowadays my life is busier than ever…

You can see me on the picture there

Meditation time

With gorgeous Domi 🙂

A bit of art on the sand, made by me (I would write “by myself” but I am afraid of my flexible friend Nate, I am not sure I suppose to use the word “myself” in this context)))

Cute 🙂

Some kind of creative fun with my friends 🙂

I liked Gyeongju very much. However it was very cold there on my arrival even for a girl from Siberia. Honestly I hardly managed to cope with that cold! Apparently I’m not Frozen, just Natasha (and it looks like not from Russia)). In any case the city made a big impression on me because I stopped near the hanok village where there was a large concentration of traditional Korean houses and all these buildings looked amazingly surrounded by autumn colors of foliage of trees, as well as girls and boys dressed in national costumes.

Seoul
At the end of my teaching course my way was lying to Russia but through the capital of South Korea – Seoul. And although I planned to be there almost for a whole week I decided trying to find a shelter through coachsurfing (I will not tell you about this site in details as I have covered this subject already a couple or a few times on my blog). I was a bit nervous because I was looking for options, plunging into the profiles of hosts, sending them messages, and I had no answers…until one day when my Latvian friend advised me to create a so-called Public Trip, where I wrote in a few words about myself and asked people kindly to host me for 6 days in Seoul. Right after that I started to get offers but all of them were from men and quite often with the offer of sharing a room or even a bed. For those who have never used the services of the site this may sound strange but I’m sure that there is nothing horrible in it and many people have really spent the night on the same bed with a stranger but I was not ready for such a risky proposition so I had been looking for a long time and I found the beautiful Mongolian girl Undra who by that time had been living in Seoul for the seventh years and spoke Korean and English languages fluently.

When I arrived in Seoul Undra met me at the underground station near her house and I must say I liked her at first sight. Arriving at her little cozy studio she immediately offered me to eat what she had cooked before and was very hospitable and kind all the time of my stay there.

Dear Undra, writing this I do remember our lovely conversations, sharing stories and emotions, dancing together, laughing and cooking…I am still very thankful for the life that I have met you in Seoul! And here I want to apologize that for the 5 months since the time I left you I have sent you just a couple of messages and I have become a very bad person at keeping in touch with all the friends I love and adore. My life is really busy and I remember about you even if I don’t text you! (Like with everyone else) I know you understand me and thank you for that!

I visited several wonderful places in Seoul. One of them was the library which was opened in a shopping center only in June 2017 (I was there in November 2017). Another advantage of couchsurfing is staying with a local that in my case was charming Undra. She advised me to visit this book paradise about which I hadn’t known and many guidebooks hadn’t covered this point. Arriving there I felt like Belle from “Beauty and the Beast” which was my favorite childhood cartoon.

The only thing I was missing there was a beast or a prince and almost the whole library was in Korean language and there were a lot of people in the hall. But non of those facts could let me down and my great mood. I was over the moon that time! In addition to that this whole beautiful atmosphere was supplemented with amazing music played there. I spent more than an hour there or maybe even two hours! I tried to find books in English but it was equivalent to finding an Italian person in Busan))). Though I found magazines in English and looked through one about traveling. I really liked the phrase: “life is just one big journey” so I thought it was about my life (and hopefully about yours whoever read this).

Of course I could not skip to mention the one and only Gangnam district! It’s the same one which Psy sings about in his amazingly popular song “Gangnam Style”. The area consists of futuristic towers (skyscrapers) and is different from many places I’ve seen before.

Despite the fact that the Gangam area is very expensive there is a shopping center under the ground which you will see immediately when you arrive at the subway station. I was also advised to visit it by Undra. There are a lot of things: clothes, shoes, accessories, food and a lot of discounts, sales. Obviously there are not all the things have good quality but most of them are. As talking about food (again, I know))) I really liked the shop with bread stuffed. They sold bread with chocolate, bread with cheese, with sweet potatoes, with red beans (of course, there is no place without the beans, haha) and something else. I must admit I became a sinner! I bought bread with chocolate and OMG! There was this great chocolate not only on the bread but there was also a lot of melted “sweet drug” inside. It was unrealistically tasty and very caloric but I could indulge myself as it was “op, op, opa, Gangam style”. I ate a loaf at once. I’ve never done this and I usually don’t eat bread at all. My conclusion is that I should never ever move to this city. I will be addicted to that bread, ahah. There won’t be any photos because I am afraid to put it here)))

And I also went to the park as I wanted to visit this famous I . Seoul U. It’s kind of like a local landmark. I really liked the park where those letters were located and I even managed to swing in the cold. And I also took some photos of myself frozen and realized that the best make-up was happiness!

Still so much has been left behind the scenes! I cannot say how much I would like to write and show but as you understand life dictates its conditions. Just imagine I was in Korea from October to December and only today (about 5 months later) I found the time to write about it! And there were so many things happened after I left Korea and what a pity that I didn’t have some time to write about it (as I spent 1 month in Lapland, about a month in Helsinki, 2 weeks in Germany, a month in Saint Petersburg and a  few days in Denmark, Sweden).

Therefore my dears I wish you to have more time, to be happy and feel the moment! This moment is YOUR LIFE! Don’t waste it for nothing! I know it’s very obvious but I wanted to write here, once more time and who knows, maybe I’ll change your life a bit.

It took me ages to write this post, I hope you did enjoy reading it and I apologize for any grammar mistakes in the text 🙂

Best wishes, from yours NATASHA…with LOVE!