beautiful target

I can’t stop watching this video!! Beautiful Target by B1A4. It is soooo cute and k-poppy! I love how the words “you zoom zoom my heart like a rocket” come out as “you ju ju my heart like a locket”. Purely for entertainment purposes, this song/video is awesome!

the Seoulite guide to avocado

Without a doubt, one of my favourite foods is avocado. At home, I would put these in everything and ate them on a regular basis. Doing this in Korea has proved to be quite challenging as avocados are so EXPENSIVE! So, in order to avoid breaking the bank, I have found some ways to get cheap avocados and to make them last.

1. Where to buy? One word – Costco. At your local mart, avocados can range from 4,000 to 6,000 won. At Costco, a bag of 5 costs 11-12,000. If you do the math – this is quite a deal!! If you can’t eat 5 before they go bad, split with a friend. Do not try to freeze them!!

2. Stretch it out. To make your avocados last, try to buy a bag that has avocados at varying stages of ripening. Keep green ones in the fridge and leave one out at a time to ripen. Once it’s ripe, only eat half. Avocados are amazingly delicious and sooo good for you, however they are quite caloric, so half is plenty! Plus, rather than enjoying it once, you can enjoy one avocado for two days :)!

3. Eat. Well, that’s self-explanatory. I like to eat mine with tomatoes and a splash of balsamic vinaigrette. I am not an expert in the kitchen, so I will let you google some avocado recipes from people who are.

4. Leftovers. Say you forget about your half-eaten avocado and you find it a few days later a little too brown. NO WORRIES! Avocado is an AMAZING skin product!! There are so many skin care ideas that use avocado. For a simple face wash, add a beaten egg yolk, a 1/2 cup of milk and 1/2 a mashed avocado. This is apparently especially good for keeping your skin free of pollutants, which, let’s face it, are not scarce in Seoul. If you have oily skin, skip the milk and use lemon juice instead.

Even the peel has benefits. Simply massage your face with the inside of the peel and let the natural oils sink in for at least 15 minutes. Your face will turn a lovely shade of green, so don’t plan on leaving the house in those 15 mins.

Also, if you don’t want to waste any of your precious avocado, you can always plant a tree with the pit (a bit difficult to do in Seoul, but kudos if you try!) or use it as a golf ball.

These are a few tricks I’ve used over the past few months to use my precious avocado to their fullest potential. Happy peeling!

turning korean, i really think so

No matter where you live, you’re bound to pick up some habits and pieces of that place’s culture. Over the past 9 months I have noticed certain things that I have been doing differently and I’ve adopted a few customs that I definitely never thought I would. And so ensues part 1 of:

You know you’re turning Korean when….

You do the ‘peace’ sign in EVERY picture. The sign is actually a ‘V’ for victory, and for some reason it becomes everyone’s picture ‘stance’ as soon as they get off the plane. Exhibit A:

You start leaving all the articles out of your speech. OK, let’s face it, my grammar has gone to sh*t in the past 9 months, and it’s only going to get worse. Sometimes I feel bad for the kids I am supposedly teaching English when I hear myself talk. Not only do I slip up on articles, but my verb tenses and conjugations take on a mind of their own when I’m speaking quickly. Whenever I hear myself say “go bathroom” or “what is rainbow?” I just shake my head and resolve not to say it again… for 5 minutes.

Your head gives an involuntary nod/bow when you meet or pass someone. In Korea it’s custom to bow when you first meet someone or when you’re greeting someone formally. I feel obligated to follow this custom but I get so awkward about it, it usually just comes out as a jerky nod.

You carry a cake-box with pride. Eating cake is great, but carrying a cake box to a function lets people know that you are not only generous but that you’re probably going to a fabulous party with lots of really cool people.

You use a nasally “aahh” sound to show you understand something. This happens more often than you think. I catch myself doing it ALL the time. I think it’s a habit I’ve picked up from my students.

Your collection of bow-themed accessories overflows your jewelry case. I was never a fan of cutsie ultra-girlie accessories but for some reason the allure of bows, hearts and all things frilly grew exponentially when I came to Korea. It’s lovely to walk down the street with a giant bow in your hair and nobody thinks it’s strange. I can’t pull it off as well as the Koreans, but I try.

You know the lyrics to every song that blares from hi-mart. K-pop is everywhere you go in Korea – it’s playing in the corner store, on the subway, at Daiso, at the bar etc etc. Hi-mart is an overstaffed electronics and appliances store that blares music from dawn to dusk. There happens to be one right across the street from our school and I find myself humming along way too often.

You embrace the pale. When I came to Korea, my friend Paige and I said we would never get into the ‘pale’ look that is so sought-after by Koreans. However, two things happened to me to change my mind. First, the tan that I worked so hard to get in Boracay peeled off of me in about 2 weeks after I got back, mostly because of the very dry air. Second, I noticed my wrinkles for the first time. My mother (who still denies she has wrinkles herself) will probably call me crazy, but I looked in the mirror one day and there they were! So, I have made an effort to take better care of my skin and the first step in doing so is to stop intentionally giving myself skin damage by way of tanning. I have NOT gone so far as to buy whitening skin products and I hope I don’t get to that stage.

These are a few of the things I have noticed recently. If you have other ideas feel free to comment :)! Anyeong gasaeyo!