Weekly Wishes

Hello and welcome to my Weekly Wishes where I talk about my goals and wishes for the week ahead. Popping them here on the blog will hopefully help me to stay on track with the things I want to do or get done. These posts are part of a link up by The Nectar Collective where Melissa has a wonderful community of women who link up their weekly wishes and are there to support and encourage one another. It's also a great way to make new friends and find new blogs to follow, why don't you join me?

It's Monday, and the perfect day to share my wishes for the upcoming week. If you'd like to join in simply click here (and then click on the comments section of the top post) and link up your blog post. 

For the most part, I was able to fulfil my wishes from last week. I made a most delicious cheesecake (recipe to follow soon...and no oven is needed if you use store bought cookies for the base, I made my own cookies to use as the base). I completed my English Camp plan for the summer vacation and I am about to finish the 30 day yoga challenge, yipee! I haven't been so good about keeping my phone in the other room while I sleep, mainly (here comes all the excuses!) I have the charger next to my bed and so plug it in as soon as I go to bed. I'm going to move that charger when I get home today. I also did manage to make a donation to Precious Women Ministry in Cambodia for the work they do in helping women who are and have been involved in human trafficking. Putting this last wish here on the blog really did help me get this done, as I felt accountable putting it in writing. 

This Week's Wishes

1. Raise awareness for The Exodus Road, an organisation that is fighting to end child slavery. You might be wondering why all of a sudden I have been posting more about human trafficking, click here to read why. One of the things the Exodus Road does is to do fund search and rescue as well as investigative operations in the heart of the red light districts in cities all around South East Asia. It costs $35 a night to fund an investigation team (this money goes towards paying the girls for their 'time' literally, in the form of a drink while the team is able to ask questions and get valuable information needed to help these girls). If you would like to donate, click here to read more about the teams and what they do. You can donate via paypal or credit card. You may not be able to physically go and rescue children trapped in brothels, but you can send investigators to break down doors on your behalf. You can hire a mercenary of hope to look for victims of sexual slavery, to gather tips for police partners, and to begin collecting key evidence for rescue. As a thank you for your donation you will get a welcome packet in the mail from The Exodus Road with information about your team, a bumper sticker with “Rescue is Coming,” and some other small gifts and information. You’ll also receive regular updates from your field team about their efforts and will be given specific ways to connect with them via letters or special projects. The Exodus Road

2. Start my lesson planning for the Photography English Camp I am teaching in July

3. Book a cooking course for our trip to Bali in August (my mom is coming out from South Africa to join us in Bali! I can't wait to see her!).

4. Remove my phone from the bedroom, charger and all.

5. Join another yoga challenge for July.

Do you have anything you really need to get done this week? Drop me a comment below, I'd love to hear from you.

Have a wonderful week everyone <3

Sex Trafficking

This blog of mine is for the most part, a place for me to share beauty, to inspire and give people a break from the not so nice things out there that we are constantly bombarded with. I never wanted it to be a live journal, where I pour out my deepest woes and you feel sorry for me and write me comments of encouragement (although, that's always nice!). I want my blog to be a happy place where you can come to see pretty things, learn a recipe or two; a place to visit and feel good.

Then I went to a screening of the documentary Nefarious Merchant of Souls and I realized that the pretty-ness that my blog has to offer can do nothing for the millions of women and children caught in the horror of human trafficking.

My world has been rocked, my heart has been shaken and my eyes have seen things that my mind will never be able to forget. And I don't want to forget. We are so unaware of the evil that is happening in this world, we don't see it on our drive to work, we don't really hear it on the news and most of us simply don't know anyone who has been affected by it. But that doesn't mean it isn't happening.

Infographic from Compassion.org

Right now I feel so passionate about the injustice of it all, and I feel so helpless at the same time. What can one privileged girl do in South Korea that could possibly make any difference? Right now I'm not sure. I am Christian, so I will be praying, but often I feel that "well, you should pray" is just not cutting it for me right now. I want to get my perfectly manicured hands dirty, I want to physically go out there and do something that might pale in comparison to what missionaries are doing in Thailand, but at least I will be doing something. I've been reading Eddie Byun's book Justice Awakening - How you and your church can help end Human Trafficking and this is something that called out to me: "Time and time again, the biggest frustration I would see in others was not knowing what they could do to enter this fight for freedom and justice around the world. Beyond just giving money to other organizations - as good as that was - the questions that kept coming up was, 'What could an individual or a church do to end human trafficking in our day?'...Whatever your gifting is, use it to send a message to your sphere of influence. Whatever your passion is, use it to spread this message of justice for all. So write, paint, draw, speak, publish, compose, act, campaign and do anything else to the glory of God and for the freedom of all people".

I know that a lot of people get a bit iffy with the God word, but I want to point out that Eddie Byun doesn't say that only if you are Christian, and if you can draw, paint, write etc should you be allowed to do your part in this fight. Human trafficking is a worldwide problem, it isn't a Christian problem, or a Jewish or a Buddhist problem, it is a human issue, and we are all able to do something, in our own way.

And so I want to use my gifting; this blog and my camera, to help in some way. I am not sure how yet, but I do hope you will join me in this journey.

I hope I haven't made you feel uncomfortable, actually, in a way I do hope I have. Because it's not when we are in our comfort zones that we can make a difference. It's when we are pushed beyond our bubble, to the point where we are so angry and hurt and frustrated that we can evoke the power within ourselves to make a difference.

And after all of that, I have to also say something else. The fight to end human trafficking may not be your battle to fight. Everyone is wired differently, and different causes may appeal to you more than others. I really don't want to be here on a soap box trying to covert people to join this fight. I just want to raise awareness for something that has made me feel so angry, as a woman, and more so as a human being. I will be posting more information here on the blog, with what I hope will be useful posts about what is happening locally here in South Korea, and more globally. If you're interested that is. If you're not, I will still be posting recipes and pretty pictures for you enjoy.

I want to leave you with these:

Weekly Wishes

Hello and welcome to my Weekly Wishes where I talk about my goals and wishes for the week ahead. Popping them here on the blog will hopefully help me to stay on track with the things I want to do or get done. These posts are part of a link up by The Nectar Collective where Melissa has a wonderful community of women who link up their weekly wishes and are there to support and encourage one another. It's also a great way to make new friends and find new blogs to follow, why don't you join me?

It's Monday, and the perfect day to share my wishes for the upcoming week. If you'd like to join in simply click here (and then click on the comments section of the top post) and link up your blog post. 

Last week I didn't do very well with putting my phone in the lounge when I went to bed, but I am going to FORCE myself to do this from today. I need to get into a routine with it, and having it outside the bedroom forces me to get up when my alarm goes off or risk going crazy at the annoying buzz that I currently have set. I have upped my water intake (I keep a 1 liter water bottle on my desk and force myself to fill it up 3 times a day). I did get to bed earlier 3 nights of last week, so that's a small start. I will see if it helps me stay awake during this week. I am still on track with my yoga challenge too. I have yet to finish my English camp planning and will get my basic plan done this week as it has to be handed in by Friday. Hmmm...not too bad for my first week of goals.

This week's wishes

1. Make the most epic cheesecake for hubby's birthday on Tuesday (and not let it be a complete disaster like the last attempt).

2. Remove phone from the bedroom EVERYNIGHT.

3. Finish English Camp plan

4. Continue with the 30 Day #summersplits2014 yoga challenge (and make sure to have had a cardio workout of either a hard 1 hour power walk or a session of Jillian Michaels before the yoga).

5. Make a donation to the Precious Women Ministry  which is fighting to end the war against human trafficking and exploitation in Cambodia (this might seem an odd thing to include here but I have procrastinating with this donation because of the difficulties in sending money to Cambodia from South Korea. I am writing it down here to remind myself to get my A into G and get to the bank to sort it out before it gets put to the bottom of the pile of things to do). 

Have a wonderful week everyone <3

Weekly Wishes

I have seen these kind of posts on a few of the international blogs that I follow. In a nutshell, they are all about your goals and wishes for the week ahead. What you want to achieve, and what you hope to get out of your week. Popping them here on the blog will hopefully help me to stay on track with the things I want to do or get done. I get rather distracted (if you could just have a quick peep into the drafts section on my website...half written posts hiding away, left forgotten, or simply discarded after I got bored or changed my mind with the topic). Nadia does a wonderful 'Meet Free Monday' post on her blog every Monday...perhaps I can convince her to join in this community with her posts.

Today I am linking up with The Nectar Collective where Melissa has a wonderful community of women who link up their weekly wishes and are there to support and encourage one another.

It's Monday, and the perfect day to share my wishes for the upcoming week. If you'd like to join in simply click here (and then click on the comments section of the top post) and link up your blog post. Melissa has some guidelines for you to follow, and to give you more of an idea of what's what with these posts.

Have a wonderful week everyone <3

Weekly Wishes 

1. Go to sleep earlier (I have been so tired over the last few weeks, and before I take the vitamin/blood test route I am going to give the 'more sleep' way a try first). I wake up naturally beore my alarm every morning at 05h15 so I can get some exercise in for the day. Then my day begins at 08h00 and I am home by 16h45. Three evenings a week Farmboy and I have night classes at 18h00and we only get home after 20h00. We still have to eat supper and then I have to do all the little things around the house I usually do when I'm free in the afternoons. So I have been going to bed later and later, and this is probably the culprit for my mid morning slumps. It's usually around 11am that I start nodding off at my desk, and only gets worse after lunch. Hoping that a few extra zzzz's will do the trick.

2. Remove my iPhone from my bedroom. I have a terribly habit of checking my phone ALL the time. It's the first thing I do when I wake up. I have read some studies that say the blu LED light from cell phones can cause disruptions in your sleep cycle, so I hope that by keeping my phone in another room while I sleep will help me sleep better, and help me get the balance right between social media and just enjoying real life.

3. Finish my 30 day yoga challenge (if you want to join in simply search for the #summersplits2014) and pop on over to my feed and say hello (@roxyhutton)

4. Drink more water

5. Finish my English Camp planning (I'm hoping to do a photography based English camp for my middle school girl this summer...they can already take the perfect selfie, so let's see if they can so the same with different subjects and themes).

What are some of the things you're hoping to get done this week?

The Wonderlust Tag

I saw this tag on Emma's blog (Emma is a fellow English Teacher & blogger based here in Korea and blogs over at Cupcake Traveler) and it inspired me to write a post using the Wonderlust tag too. If you do a post on your blog, please do drop me a link so I can read it, or link up on my Facebook page, I'd love to know more about you x

1. Your most treasured passport stamp?

I had to spend a bit of time thinking about this question. I think it would be a mixture of my first South Korean stamp which I got when moving to Korea the first time back in 2010, and then the stamp for Greece which we got when we went on honeymoon in 2012. 

2. Can you recite your passport # from memory if asked?

Ummm...no. I might be able to if I didn't have to also try and remember 2 sets of South African ID numbers, passport numbers and Korean ID numbers...now I have to rely on scanned coppies of all of the above in my emails.

3. Preferred method of travel; planes, trains or automobiles?

Planes, trains, bikes and feet! I don't really have a preference, I think time would be the only limiting factor for me. Trains are great when you don't have to be anywhere in a hurry (especially the overnight train we took in Vietnam). Also, we have spent a fair amount of time in buses too as they tend to work out better for our pockets (and of course when time is a again not too much of an issue). As I am quite little (5'5 to be exact) I can usually curl up easily anywhere, and so legroom on planes/buses isn't too much of a problem for me....I guess it also helps having someone who doesn't mind having me leaning on him ALL THE TIME.

4. Top 3 travel items?

Down travel pillow, kikoy (a cotton towel/sarong/blanket/) and my iPhone (for quick snaps and it's indispensable 'maps' & hotel booking app features).

5.  Hostel or hotel?

Both. If it were up to my husband, we would never stay in a hotel. But, I am, as he calls, rather 'precious' and he doesn't mean it in the princess kind of way, and I have a habit of breaking out in rather unsightly rashes and bites when staying in hostels. But, I love the experience, and right now our budget only caters for hostels, and we have had all sorts of adventures staying in them. I may be a city girl, but I am rather adaptable (and with the help of my own pillow) can sleep anywhere.

6. Are you a repeat visitor or do you explore new places?

We have yet to go to the same place twice, there are just far too many places to explore in this world, and not enough time to see anything more than once. Having said that, the one place we would go back to, again and again, would be Greece.

You can see photographs from some of our travels by clicking here>>> Vietnam, Malaysia, Greece, Cambodia, Hong Kong & the Phillipines)

7.  Do you read up on your destination (culture, history, safety) or do you wing it?

We pretty much wing our holidays. I don't think this is the best way to travel, but we enjoy feeling like we are the first people to experience something or see a particular place. It's not for everyone, but we enjoy our travels and so far so good!

I usually do a quick search for the top things to do in a particular place, and then rely on locals and their recommendations for attractions/restaurants and activities. As we don't get very long for our holidays, we find ourselves constantly on the move (which we enjoy as we like to jam pack as much as we can into a trip, knowing we will mostly not be returning).

8. Favourite travel website?

I spend quite a lot of time on Trip Advisor, and then highly recommend apps like Orbitz and Hotels.com for great deals on places to stay (they often have amazing discounts for using the app too!). I spend a lot of time on forums and personal travel blogs, but it can all get very daunting when first researching a country. I like to have a pen and paper out, as well as Google Maps open so that I can start to get a feel for the place first. Once I have a basic idea of where I want to go, I create an excel spreadsheet and get to planning the finer details. We don't often book accommodation in advance (this has worked both well, and worked terribly in the past!) but again, we like to wing our travels and not be too tied down, as often we will really like a place and want to stay much longer there, or really not like a place want to cut our stay shorter. Having a good skeleton planned in Excel helps a lot, and then allowing yourself breathing room when it comes to accommodation works for us. 

9. Where would you recommend a friend to visit? Name the city & why

Here is a small list:

Hoi Ann in Vietnam for their tailors, incredible night life and delicious food

Lazy Island, Koh Rong Saloem in Cambodia (just off Sihanoukville) for the wonderful, quiet & relaxed beach atmosphere and their incredible hosts. They have a small selection of beach bungalows and the island is small and peaceful, the perfect place to unwind.

Buan, South Korea our current home town. It's small, and very much in the countryside and gives you a real feel of genuine Korea. It's close to the beaches and not too far from the major cities. And we live here and can show you around :)

10. You’re leaving tomorrow, money is no option, where are you going? 

On a roadtrip in a vintage (but carefully checked by a mechanic) comfy RV motorhome to explore America. 

Our new apartment in Korea {the before photographs}

A few weeks ago I posted some photographs of our apartment here in South Korea. Since then we have moved into a much larger (but very much older) apartment and have spent the past few weeks getting stuck into scrubbing, clearing and DIYing.

In my haste to get my hands dirty, I didn't take very many (or any good quality) photographs to show you the real 'before' shots, but here is what I do have. We took over this apartment from a good friend who finished up his time here and went back home. In no way are we saying he was a dirty creature, but, mess and clutter and dirt has a way of slowly creeping up on you, to the point where you don't even notice it anymore. And if you're not an OCD cleaning machine like I am, then you wouldn't even notice the layers of grim collecting in all the nooks and crannies. So, these pictures are pretty bad...We love you Owen, but boy oh boy did we have our work cut out for us moving into your place :)

Some of these photographs were from the day we moved in, and others are from a few days after when things were tidied up. The weather on both of those days doesn't help the photographs, and makes everything look worse. It wasn't pretty for those first few days...

The Kitchen:

Dining Area (part of the Kitchen)

Main Bedroom

Bathroom

Lounge & Front Patio

Spare Room (to become Farmboy's Man Cave)

Second spare room (to become my office)

Laundry/Outside Patio

So as you can see, we have a huge amount of space to work with, and that alone was enough to help us look through the mess. This will probably end up being one of the biggest houses/apartments we ever live in, and is more than triple the size of the first flat we lived in after being married in 2012. 

Since these pictures were taken we have spent countless hours scrubbing and cleaning, sticking, moving, spraying and throwing out. Make sure to pop back next week to see how our little home is coming along.

Do you have any great cleaning tips to pass on? We don't know whether to replace the bathroom tiles (a big expense to spend on a place we will probably only be in for another year or two) or any other tips for getting rid of mould and grime? I'd love to hear from you!

Yellow Ribbons...South Korea still in mourning after Sewol ferry disaster

If you're here in South Korea you may have noticed little yellow ribbons hanging from trees, or pinned to peoples clothes. These yellow ribbons are part of a campaign (노란리본달기 캠페인) to pray for the victims of the Sewol ferry disaster in which more than 260 people have died, most of whom were high school students on a school trip to Jeju Island.  The ferry started to sink 3 weeks ago, and divers are still searching for bodies.

The yellow ribbon tradition is said to have originated from an incident that occurred on a bus bound for Miami, Florida. It seems that one of the passengers had just been released from prison and he was bound for home. He had written to his wife and let her know he still loved her and wanted to be with her. He asked her to tie a yellow ribbon around the lone oak tree in the Town Square of White Oak, Georgia, if she still had feelings for him and wanted him to be with her. Everyone in the bus asked the Driver to slow down as they approached, and there was the yellow ribbon gently blowing in the breeze.

University students designed the above image of a simple ribbon inside a yellow square and began circulating it on Kakao Talk (an instant messaging application) on the 19th April.  The yellow ribbons began as a way of representing the wish for loved ones to return safe and sound to their families. 'The meaning began as a hopeful one, "one small step, big miracle" but as as the death toll rose, it evolved into a national sign of grief'. CNN

These photographs were taken in the centre of our small town where all my students gather to pay their respects to those who have died. 

Happy Easter Sunday.

Wishing you all a wonderful Easter Sunday. And what a glorious reason to be celebrating today. Strangely enough, Easter isn't a very big occasion here in korea. You would that with with the hundreds of churches everywhere, it would be a bigger holiday. And we haven't been able to get hold of one Easter egg...so make sure you eat your fill of chocolate for us too!

x

Sad days for South Korea and it's sinking ship

On Wednesday morning a ferry bound for Jeju Island, set sail from Incheon carrying over 450 passengers (of which about 320 were students traveling with their teachers on a school trip). Just three hours from it's destination, the ferry began to list and start sinking. From there things seem to get a little hazy, with some reports stating the captain (who was a fill in for the actual captain away on leave) first told passengers to stay where they were, grab a life jacket and sit tight, and then issued the evacuation call, which it seems may or may not have been heard over the intercom system.

Farmboy and I have been on ferries just like the one that is sinking, and they are a nightmare. Everyone pushing and shoving under normal circumstances when entering and leaving the boat, never mind when there is the threat of a sinking ship. The stairways are narrow, metal and therefore very slippery when wet. It must have been terrifying. Coupled with the fact that I'm sure many passengers are not strong swimmers, and the water is 12C or 55F. 

I recently read Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers which offers some ideas and plausible reasonings behind previous Korean airline crashes, stating that the Korean culture of respecting ones elders and superiors is so deeply ingrained that obeying orders often overrides common sense. Could this be a reason for the delay in evacuation? It's something to think about.

Passenger Koo Bon-hee, 36, told the AP that many people were trapped inside by windows that were too hard to break. He wanted to escape earlier but an announcement said passengers should stay put.

"The rescue wasn't done well. We were wearing life jackets. We had time," Koo, who was on a business trip to Jeju with a co-worker, said from a hospital bed in Mokpo where he was treated for minor injuries. "If people had jumped into the water ... they could have been rescued. But we were told not to go out." (Fox News)

As of publishing this post 179 people have been rescued, 28 have died, and 268 are still missing. My students are devastated by the news, and it's hard to try and teach them English when their minds are occupied. If you are interested in keeping up to date with the news, click here for live video coverage (it's all in Korean but you do get a good idea of what's happening).

Our Apartment in South Korea

A lot of family and friends have asked us about our apartment here in South Korea so I thought I'd post the pictures here for those of you who might be interested to see how we live here in Asia. This apartment is what is known as a 2 room apartment (one bedroom and one living room). Most teachers are placed in studio apartments which are one room, and that one room houses the bedroom, kitchen and living room. There isn't much space in Korea and nearly everyone here lives in apartments. We felt rather ungrateful asking for a bigger apartment this year, as there are families of three or four living in apartments the same size as ours. Luckily for us, a friend of ours is leaving soon (he was randomly placed in a huge three bedroom apartment in our town) and we are very fortunate to be moving in there next week It's much older that this place, and needs a lot of work done, but I'll take scrubbing for weeks on end for three bedrooms any day. These photographs were all taken with my phone, so they are a little on the blurry side but they do give you a good idea of where we have been living for the past year.

The picture above was taken from our front door. As you walk in the bathroom is directly ahead, and the door on the left houses the washing machine and boiler for our hot water and underfloor heating system or Ondol as it's called here. The picturebelow left is what is inside the washing room looks like (as you can see it's impossible to buy toilet paper in anything less than packs of 36...#toiletpaperforyears). And the photograph above right is of the front door. The white cupboard is a show cupboard. We have gone all Korean and don't wear our shoes in the house at all. It keeps things a lot cleaner too.

Below is our kitchen area. All of us teachers are given the basics in our apartment (microwave, one or two plate stove, bed, wardrobe, table, fridge and TV) the rest of the appliances we have to purchase ourselves. It's a pretty good deal considering we don't pay rent at all! We bought the little stove online (it works like  bomb) and found the milk crates outside. As our space is very limited, everything is very compact (you can se where my exercise equipment lives too!)

From the kitchen we have a sliding door which leads to the bedroom. We do have quite a lot of space in our bedroom, and  lovely big window which lets in plenty of light. Apart from our small kitchen window the bedroom window is the only other natural light source in our house, which isn't so great in winter time.

As you can see we make use of every inch of space for storage. We found the most amazing vacuum sealing bags that shrink mountains of clothes and bedding into small, manageable bags (as pictured above my wardrobe). And yes, those are aeroplanes planes you can see hiding behind the TV and on top of Farmboys cupboard (there were five, but I managed to convince him he only really needs two at the moment). They are actually really amazing little machines that Farmboy built himself and flies all over our town. You can see some of them in action here. 

And finally the bathroom (or wet room as they are called here as the space is completely with no actual 'shower area'. We are lucky that our shower is in the corner of the bathroom. Most apartments have the shower placed above the toilet, so when you shower, the entire room gets soaked (including the toilet paper!). And I've included a sneaky pic of my bathroom cupboard too (hubby thinks I own far too many products, what do you think? And yes, the top right hand corner is just for him, how much more space does he need really?)

So there you have it. Our two bedroom apartment in Buan, South Korea. It actually looks pretty spacious from these pictures, but I took them on a day when there was no laundry hanging out to dry, when we didn't have guests staying over and the blow up mattress was out, or when I was baking. It's been a lovely little home for the past year, but we are VERY ready to move into out bigger place next week...yippee! You can see our old apartments in South Korea back in 2010 by clicking here (they were studio apartments and much smaller than the one we are in now).

Happy Friday everyone!

I hope your week hasn't been too tough on you, and if it has, well you've got 2 days to recover and gain back a little joy in your step. We're off to the coffee expo in Seoul this weekend, and I'm also hoping we manage to find out way to this amazing looking coffee shop below on the outskirts of the capital. Will post my findings if we manage to get there.

Happy weekend everyone!

x

Spring Blooms in Korea

Todays post is a little Instagram round up of all the pretty Spring blossoms and blooms I've seen so far here in South Korea. I'm not sure if I've ever seen such pretty flowers, or whether I am appreciating spring a lot more since having just been through such a cold winter. Spring is quite possibly my favourite month of the year, there is a buzz in the air, and the world seems full of endless possibilities for dreams to come true and for adventures to be had. Wishing you all a very happy Friday and a lovely start to your weekend, wherever in the world you may be.

P.S. Today is your last chance to enter my #Motex labeler Giveaway! Click here to enter <3

Beauty in Korea {and our renewal interviews for year 2}

For those of you who are new here to my blog, my husband (Farmboy) and I have been teaching English in a small town in the South West corner of South Korea since June last year. We packed up our first little home after getting married in 2012 and decided to head out here to build a nest egg and do what we love doing most, traveling and adventuring together. We were here in Korea back in 2010, as a dating couple in the bustling metropolis of Daejeon. After finishing up one year we headed back home to South Africa to get married and get a feel for the job market (which obviously wasn't very exciting as here we are again!). This time around we are able to put a lot more money away as we now live together and share expenses (we chose not to live together before we were married) and because we are in a very small town out in the country. South Korea offers many benefits to their English Teachers (free housing, return flights, renewal bonuses, extra pay for being out in rural areas and for being at multiple schools and relatively inexpensive living costs).  Farmboy teaches at 4 schools, whereas I am lucky enough to be at just one, an all girls middle school. It has been an amazing experience so far, and we have, as planned, decided to stay in our same town and at our same schools for at least another year. 

Since June last year we have been to Malaysia, Vietnam, had to cancel a trip to Mongolia  and traveled extensively around Korea. There have been highs, and a lot of lows (being in a country where EVERYTHING is done so differently from your home country is difficult. The food is strange, the people can be strange, the way that a school is run is strange, the kids can be terrors and you will miss your family and friends more than you can ever prepare yourself for. But, at the same time, if you don't throw yourself head first into situations like these you will never find out how strong you are as a person and how much you are really able to handle. And then there are the positives too (our jobs aren't exactly rocket science and in most cases we are treated really well by our schools). There are days when all I want to do is go home, have babies and spend all day photographing them while baking up delicious chocolate treats. But then I am reminded that this opportunity here in Korea allows us to save for a house back home, meet interesting new people and travel the world. 

BUT the title of this post is about beauty and Korea ( and our interviews), and I seem to have gotten side tracked...I had planned to do an outfit post here, hence the pictures below, but it has turned into more of a reflective post on our time here. This often happens when I blog...and to be honest happens all day in my classroom (my kids love this as it inevitable means less learning and teaching and more stories about South Africa).

Where am I going with this...oh yes...Image and looks are extremely important here in Korea. That sounds awfully shallow but when you live here long enough you being to understand the reasons why. I do not agree with the Korean mentality that beauty is everything, but when someone spends time on their appearance and care has been taken to look neat and tidy this translates to an overall better image of that person than someone who looks sloppy and smells funny. Koreans always look amazing, their makeup and hair is always immaculate and they always look incredibly smart. It gives off a sense of pride, pride in their appearance and pride in who they are. On the other end of the scale, this obsession with outward beauty has led to a unbelievable amount of money being spent plastic surgery, makeup products and diet pills. I understand that for Koreans appearance is everything, this is ingrained into them from birth, and culturally this something us Westerners will never really be able to fully understand. For us, beauty is linked to vanity and is seen as something more on the negative side of things than what it is for the people here. 'Beautiful' people get boyfriends, get married and have a family. If this doesn't happen, the older generation will have no one too look after them when they get to old to work. That is pretty much how it works here. The older generations worked incredibly hard to put their kids through school and university so they can get good jobs. It is then expected that they will provide and care for their elders. It seems a bit odd considering our Western mindsets, but here in Korea there are very few old age homes. Family members are cared for until death, living with their children and their families. Hence why there is such a strong emphasis placed on family.

So it seems that beauty leads to a family which leads to safety and security for the old. Beauty is that important to Koreans. Having said that, I think that one should always try to look neat and tidy, and have a certain level of pride in our appearance. But as the younger generation starts to blend into the same person (having had the same procedures to achieve the perfect lips/chin/cheeks/eyes/mouth) as shown by the latest K-pop (Korean Pop) singer, it starts to be ridiculous. The young women in this society seem ashamed of their Korean looks and heritage , opting for eye lid surgery, cheek implants, lip injections, eye brow lifts and contacts to achieve an impossible level of beauty that borders on lunacy. Here is an article and the picture that went with it which circulated a few years ago about the Miss Korea pageant, I'll leave it up to you to decide for yourself whether or not the contestants all look the same (they are beautiful, for sure, but they look eerily similar, wouldn't you agree?) 

I have nothing against plastic surgery, I know lots of people who have had some form of surgery or another, and it's a very personal decision. What I don't like is that it's being done to such a point that people are barely recognizable as their 'pre-surgery' selves. I must still say that I do have Korean girl friends who don't agree with the plastic surgery craze, so it's important for me to note that not every Korean woman has undergone surgery. But, it is alarming when I ask my middle school girls (13 - 15 year olds) whether they think plastic surgery is a good thing and 65% of them put up their hands and tell me what they are going to have done when they are old enough. It's as common as makeup shopping, and apparently Korea is the cheapest place in the world to go under the knife. You can get your eye lids done during your lunch break and be back at work the next day with little to no recovery time needed.

It's rather strange that the first thing a Korean person will say when they meet you will have something to do with your looks "Oh...beautiful", "Pretty", "Handsome", "Small face", "Big eyes". It's all very flattering at first, but, when you actually think about it, it's really strange. Would the first thing you tell someone when meeting them for the first time be "Oh, you have such a small face. And really big eyes. And you're so pretty"? For Koreans, a small face is seen as 'cute' and whereas a big face is seen as masculine (my students have told me that this is why they make the 'peace' signs with their hands and fingers in pictures, to make their faces appear smaller and therefore more cute and feminine...bizarre).  

And now after all of the above, it seems rather conceited to be posting pictures of myself all dressed up. But I wanted this post to be an outfit one, and then I got a little carried away with the topic of beauty and anyway, here we are now.

This is what I wore to our renewal interview last week. We were meeting with the VIP's in the Education Office and had been advised by friends to go all out to really make a good impression. There have also been lots of rumors of budget cuts and a number of our friends have been been moved/lost their jobs due to these cuts. So we really did want to make a good impression, and were rather nervous throughout the entire interview. But, after lots of smiling and bowing we were done in a very short amount of time and have just been told that we have been accepted to renew. Phew! Then those heels (as little as they are were killing me!) and thin stockings in the middle of winter were worth it!

What do you think about plastic surgery? How do you feel about the fixation with beauty that seems to permeate not just Korea, but the entire world? Are we all just shallow beings, or are we trying to hide what we think is ugly, in the hopes that people will love us for who we really are? I've spent a lot of time thinking about these things since being in Korea, i hope this post today has given you something to think about.

x 

Teaching English in Korea...

Here are a few photographs of what I do all day here in Korea. It's not always this much fun, or this messy though. My main job is teaching middle school girls (click here to see more of that), but Farmboy and I both help out at an elementary school too. He mainly teaches the older students, and I get to to sing and play with the smaller ones.

Often they make me want to tear my hair out, or scream at the top of my lungs or just laugh out loud at the absurdness of certain situations. But on other days, they win me over with kisses and hugs and smiles that go on for days. And besides, I get to sing and dance to my hearts content, and they love it! It's a good way to get rid of the crazies, with sweet little souls who join right in.

This is what happened when we learnt about colours and shapes, with flour and water and a whole lot of paint...recipe to follow soon!

{sorry that the pictures are a little blurry…busy hands don't like to keep still for more than one second}

February through Instagram

March has just arrived, and with it the first signs of spring. All of our colleagues have said this has been the mildest winter they have had in years, especially in our small town out in the country. But, for me I have had to layer up all day everyday and as soon as I arrive at school I have had to spend half an hour thawing in front of the heater. The temperatures haven't been excessively cold (to my poor South African body they sure have felt excessive) but it's been the wind chill that has made it worse.

But yesterday we had a balmy 12 degree (Celsius) high and I removed my down jacket for the first time during the day...yippee! I might soon be able to stop wearing my gloves to bed!

Here is a little look back at some Instagram snaps from last month:

Why I'm getting a divorce this year

A friend sent me the following article and Farmboy has been mentioning it a lot lately. But, no sooner have I decided to make a change than I get sucked back into the digital world.

I have used a powerful title for this post because I feel very strongly about this. I am utterly guilty when it comes to what is written below, but I am finally ready to make a change.

Jarrid Wilson wrote the following article at the end of last year. Jarrid is a pastor, and although a lot of what he has to say on his blog might not be everyone's cup of tea, I think he makes some very good points below. Let me know your thoughts on this in the comments section below. I'd be interested to hear what you make of this (and all the other articles like it).

"Before you start assuming I will be leaving my wife, let me just tell you that’s just simply not the case. I’m looking to leave someone else. Someone you may not know about. Someone who takes up most of my time, distracts me from spending time with my wife, and even spends time with me during the late hours of the night.

Her name is iPhone 5. She’s extremely smart, funny, reliable, and keeps me up to date with all the latest trends. And although she’s always by my side, I can’t help but notice that she is keeping me from spending time with the people who matter most in my life: God, my wife, my family, and my dreams.

She’s really good at keeping my attention. So much so that I’ve been known to completely ignore people when they are trying to have a conversation with me. She tempts me to use her apps while at church, weddings and funerals, instead of enjoying the moment un-distracted. She even keeps me from working on personal projects that have strict dead-lines.

She’s extremely insensitive when it comes to my safety, and is always tempting me to be with her while I drive. I can’t help but notice she is slowly infecting my social life, my marriage, and the lives of those around me. Many people act like it’s no big deal, but I imagine the longer one ignores this issue, the worse one’s personal relationships will be affected in the long run.

We need to bring our phones back to being an accessory, not a priority.

2014 Challenge: Divorce your phone, your apps, your social-feeds, and engage in relationships with people that actually matter. Vow to spend a significant amount of time off your mobile-devices, unplugged, and instead get back to making personal relationships that will stand the test of time.

Other than God, my wife deserves to be the #1 priority in my life and I don’t want anything to get in the way of that. The reality is, we’re all married to our phones in one way or another.

Mind you. Not everyone struggles with this. But I hope you will take this into consideration regardless.

1. Learn to balance the time you spend on your phone.
2. Make your phone an accessory rather than a priority.
3. Give yourself limitations as to when and where your phone can be used.
4. Control how you use your phone, and stop allowing your phone to control you.
5. Try spending parts of your weekends unplugged, offline, and away from your mobile device.

In 2014, I vow to divorce my phone. Will you join me? Share this with a friend, and let’s get the “Divorce Your Phone” movement going."

-Jarrid Wilson

I am going to be weaning myself off Facebook from today, removing it from my phone and only checking in once or twice a week. Now I realise you've probably landed up here on my blog via the link I posted on Facebook, and this may seem hypocritical to you. I guess it is. However, I don't want to be one of those people who rants about Facebook and then has to tell the whole world that they have removed their profile. I just want to say here that I will be out of touch there (and on all the other platforms) for the time being, opting instead to be contactable via the 'old school' methods of phone and email (citygirlsearching@gmail.com).

One of the biggest advantages of Facebook for us has been the constant feed of photographs we have been able to share with our family and friends while living here in South Korea. I am going to continue with sharing snippets of our lives and photographs of pretty things, but I will be trying to limit it to being only here on blog. I love blogging and it takes up enough of my personal time as it is, but the combination of Facebook, blog, Twitter & Instagram is just too much of a life sucker. 

If you would like to stay in touch and check in on us, you can pop by here on the blog. I will keep the Facebook Page for the blog active, mainly to post links to blog posts. Please don't berate me if slip up and you see me liking and commenting on peoples statuses on Facebook. As with any addiction, will power is key. Addiction may sound like an exaggeration, and although Social Media may not be as harmful to my health as drugs and alcohol, it is just as harmful to my personal relationships with my friends and husband.

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Have a lovely day everyone, I'm off to attempt a new book I have been meaning to read for months. I'm sure a whole lot of free time is about to open up and I plan on enjoying every moment, rather than trying to capture it and share it with the world. Will you join me?

x

Tea for One

South Africans tend to think of themselves as avid tea drinkers (along with the Brits). I take after my mom and simply cannot function without at least 3 to 4 cups of tea a day. For most, it's coffee, but for me, I much prefer a steaming cup of sweet tea (oh, and it's not real tea unless its 5 Roses!).

When we say tea, most of the time South Africans are referring to black tea, or English Breakfast/Ceylon tea. I drink my tea with milk and sugar, without which it just simply isn't tea.

But since moving to Korea and being invited to friends houses and offered something to drink, I have learnt to always enquire about the kind of tea on offer. There are hundreds of different kinds of tea here in Korea (green tea, brown tea, root tea, ginger tea...the list goes on) and I just can't adjust my taste buds and always turn my nose up unless its 'black tea'.

That is until my American friends Cassandra introduced me to a special blend she loves from the States. She has a whole cupboard full of tea here in Korea, and I have been very hesitant to taste of any of them, but I finally said yes to her offer and I am thrilled i did! And then I proceeded to drink about 4 cups of it. The blend I tried is called 'Evening in Missoula' and consists of chamomile, rosehip, raspberry leaf, papaya leaf, peppermint, spearmint, blackberry leaf, vanilla, passion flower, red clover, star anise, wild cherry bark, lemon peel, wintergreen, and lavender.

Heaven in a cup. Now to get my hands on some of it here....

What tea do you like to drink?

Are you a Chai tea fan? I have heard that Chai lattes are pretty yummy too!

See you in the New Year!

Source

Dear CGS readers,

It's been an interesting year...if you'd like to catch up what's been happening these last 12 months, here are a few highlights:

-Celebrated 1 year of marriage...for which Farmboy made this video (I love this man to bits!)

-Returned to South Korea to teach English

-Spent our summer holidays traveling around Malaysia

-Photographed some gorgeous people, namely Caitlyn and Laura and I did a traditional Korean wedding shoot for Minhee & James

-Had some stressful situations involving a laptop

-Took part in a Creative Business Series aimed at inspiring other creatives to follow their dream and launch their own businesses

-Started a new series interviewing married women on their lives after their Wedding Days...for some matrimonial inspiration have a squizz at my Life After the Dress series

-Featured in 2 online magazines for photography (Photographers in Korea & Consol Glass Ebook Christmas Chapter) and 2 real print magazines (Wedding Inspirations and Grazia)

Last but not least I built, designed and launched this newly branded website and my online stationery store selling hand picked, boutique stationery in the form of pretty packages. Click here to start shopping <3

2013 you were good to me, but I am very much looking forward to the adventures that lie await in the new year.

Thank you to each and everyone of your lovely comments here on the blog, and on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram.

I'm looking forward to bringing you lots more pretty-ness next year.

Wishing you all a very Happy New Year and a wonderful festive season with your family and loved ones.

As of tomorrow, Farmboy and I will be soaking up some sun in Vietnam, and so the blog will be back to normal by the middle of January. I will continue to post bits and pieces on Instagram if you'd like to follow along.

Happy holidays everyone!

With Love,

Roxy

x

Who is St Nicholas anyway?

At this very special time of the year it's easy to get caught up in all the present giving and tree decorating that Christmas time brings, that we can lose sight of the real meaning of Christmas. For Christians, we are celebrating the birth of baby Jesus, bringing love and hope to all mankind. So then where does the big bearded, reindeer driving, present giving man come from then? Farmboy and I have been chatting about Christmas and God lately, and I have been wondering about how God must feel to have the birth of his son so misplaced by stories and songs and an immense amount of money spent on the very worldly idea of Christmas and Santa Claus.

I learnt something new today from a family in America on a great Christian website, On Faith. As with a lot of Christian websites, there are a few things I don't wholly agree with, but this blog post, written by Mark Driscoll, father of five, made me think.

I wanted to share it with you today. 

Even with keeping the below in mind, Farmboy and I still have a Christmas Tree up, and we also get caught up in the gift giving and receiving that is Christmas. We don't claim to be perfect Christians living a perfect Christian life. But it's important to stop and think about what the real message is behind Christmas. It's not just a day to get a whole bunch of new and expensive toys from a wish list; it's a time for family and friends to come together and to share in the joy and love of Christmas.

"The larger-than-life myths surrounding Santa Claus actually emanate from the very real person of Saint Nicholas. It is difficult to know the exact details of his life with certainty, as the ancient records are sparse, but the various pieces can be put together as a mosaic of his life.

Nicholas was born in the third century in Patara, a village in what is now Turkey. He was born into an affluent family, but his parents died tragically when he was quite young. His parents had raised him to be a devout Christian, which led him to spend his great inheritance on helping the poor, especially children. He was known to frequently give gifts to children, sometimes even hanging socks filled with treats and presents.

Perhaps his most famous act of kindness was helping three sisters. Because their family was too poor to pay for their wedding dowry, three young Christian women were facing a life of prostitution until Nicholas paid their dowry, thereby saving them from a horrible life of sexual slavery.

Nicholas grew to be a well-loved Christian leader and was eventually voted the Bishop of Myra, a port city that the apostle Paul had previously visited (Acts 27:5-6). Nicholas reportedly also traveled to the legendary Council of Nicaea, where he helped defend the deity of Jesus Christ in A.D. 325.

Following his death on December 6, 343, he was canonized as a saint. The anniversary of his death became the St. Nicholas holiday when gifts were given in his memory. He remained a very popular saint among Catholic and Orthodox Christians, with some two thousand churches named after him. The holiday in his honor eventually merged with Christmas, since they were celebrated within weeks of one another.

During the Reformation, however, Nicholas fell out of favor with Protestants, who did not approve of canonizing certain people as saints and venerating them with holidays. His holiday was not celebrated in any Protestant country except Holland, where his legend as Sinterklass lived on. In Germany, Martin Luther replaced him with the Christ child as the object of holiday celebration, or, in German, Christkindl. Over time, the celebration of the Christ child was simply pronounced Kris Kringle and oddly became just another name for Santa Claus.

The legends about Santa Claus are most likely a compilation of other folklore. For example, there was a myth in Nicholas’ day that a demon was entering people’s homes to terrorize children and that Nicholas cast it out of a home. This myth may explain why it was eventually believed that he came down people’s chimneys.

Also, there was a Siberian myth (near the North Pole) that a holy man, or shaman, entered people’s homes through their chimneys to leave them mushrooms as gifts. According to the legend, he would hang them in front of the fire to dry. Reindeer would reportedly eat them and become intoxicated. This may have started the myth that the reindeer could fly, as it was believed that the shaman could also fly. This myth may have merged with the Santa Claus myth, and if so, explains him traveling from the North Pole to slide down chimneys and leave presents on fireplace mantles before flying away with reindeer.

These stories of Santa Claus were first brought to America by Dutch immigrants. In the early twentieth century, stores began having Santa Claus present for children during the Christmas season. Children also began sending letters to the North Pole as the legends surrounding an otherwise simple Christian man grew.

In sum, Saint Nick was a wonderful man who loved and served Jesus faithfully. So, we gladly include him in our Christmas traditions to remind us of what it looks like for someone to live a life of devotion to Jesus as God. Our kids thank us for being both honest and fun, which we think is what Jesus wants." Mark Driscoll

Wishing all of my readers a very happy and love filled Christmas. May it be jam packed with family and friends, laughter and good memories. 

x

Happy Friday & Happy Thanksgiving!

Farmboy and I aren't American, and as such we don't celebrate Thanksgiving Day. But, we know it's a very special day for America, and it's always a good thing to give thanks for what you have and to be thankful of just how much you do have in life.

So, here is a little list of what I'm thankful for. I'd love to know what you are thankful for today, pop me a comment below <3

And I also had to share these beautiful photographs of a Thanksgiving table, found via The Glitter Guide.

I'm thankful for the following big (and small) things:

*our feather duvet for the very cold nights we have been having lately

*my hot water body (aka my hubby, Farmboy)

*that we are able to keep warm while the temperatures plummet, and many people around the world, especially at home in South Africa, barely have a pile of sticks to make a fire with during the winter times

*for each and every comment here on my blog

*for my family, ALL of them, from my step parents and step sisters, to my baby brother (who actually isn't a baby at all!) and to having all 8 sets of grandparents alive and well

*my sweet students who surprise with me little handwritten notes and chocolates when I least expect

*Whatsapp and Skype (and Facebook!) for being able to keep in touch with family and friends while we are here in Kimchi land

*for our jobs here in Korea. It's far to easy to get used to the stability, comfort and the disposable income that comes from ESL teaching in Korea. I am so grateful to have a job like this right now, when so many of our friends are back home in South Africa are either hating their jobs, or desperately trying to find one

Have a lovely weekend everyone.

x