Number of mosquito bites acquired this year until approximately 2am this morning: 0 Number of mosquito bites acquired since approximately 2am this morning: 17 Every insect in the country is following the lead of my ex-pet cockroach and taking up residence in my home. Taking into account the fact that I’d only just plucked up [...]
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The old lady of the apartment building is sitting on the steps, as she often is when I return from work. She likes to watch the world go by, and interrogate the residents of the building as they come and go. Many’s the time I’ve been late for my French class or a date with [...]
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Often, living in a (very) foreign country makes you feel a bit like a child. When you need someone to take you to the doctor, for example. When people take pity on you and try to speak slowly with big, positive smiles, and pat your arm encouragingly when you manage to say something correctly. When [...]
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I was just about to write a post about how terrified I am of insects, when I realised that I’d already written it, almost exactly a year ago. Clearly the Korean summer and I are enemies on many, many levels. And I’ve learned, since last year, that that Creature on my window screen was actually [...]
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My name today is Monster Teacher, which doesn’t make me feel great about my general appearance, to be honest. I have conjunctivitis for the first time in my life, and oh, the pain! Being unable to find an English-speaking doctor nearby, and reluctant to bother my boss or colleagues at the weekend, I spent Saturday [...]
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Today was Blue Day. Not an official Korean holiday, nor a day on which to feel a little bit sad without really knowing why, but the second in a series of our school’s theme days. The idea is to get the kindergarteners excited about learning English by teaching them vocabulary and sentence structures while disguising [...]
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First post in a series for the Blog Your Backyard project at WorldNomads.com. (Click on the link to read more about it.) Do talk to the local people. It can be very easy to avoid contact for fear of the language barrier, but a little awkwardness is worth it for the experiences you can have just [...]
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Without a doubt, one of my very favourite things about Korea is the way the streets come alive at night. It is actually hard to describe it all in a way that paints an accurate picture for anyone who’s never been here: the hustle and bustle of late-night shoppers; the market stalls selling jewellery and [...]
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The service in Korea’s restaurants is rather different from what I’ve been used to in other countries. There are two main groups when it comes to restaurant staff. The first is the ajummas, who tend to work in the kimbap diners or in the ‘specialist’ restaurants (the places where your meal cooks in a pot [...]
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The number one cause of tension in my classroom is temperature. I have no recollection of it being like this when I was at school. Either the building was always kept at the perfect temperature, or we just endured it without complaint, I don’t know, but there was nothing like the constant complaining that goes [...]
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You Say Goodbye, I Say… Historical Snapshots It Just Makes Me Happy
