Feb 5
After a massive day out on the Waitangi Day Circle Line Pub crawl we were treated to some snow on our journey home. Reports say as much as 10 centimentres fell in parts of London, I think we received about half that in Wandsworth Town.
Here are some pictures from our snowy street. Enjoy!
How will you survive London’s winter? Don’t you know it gets really cold there? Oh the Winters in London are so miserable…blah blah blah. The weather people keep telling me it’s been quite a mild winter, but even so; it’s still nothing like spending it in the deep freeze I call South Korea and now I have the stats to prove it.
Summer, sunburn and sausage sizzles, these are all things that remind me of a Southern Hemisphere Christmas, things that I’ve experienced at some stage during my twenty-six years worth of Christmas celebrations in New Zealand. Now that we’ve transported ourselves to the frozen Northern Hemisphere I’m expecting the opposite. I want sleigh bells, skating and that all elusive thing called SNOW!
Jan 18
About a month ago I posted a blog entry about the minus something temperatures we were experiencing and I was curious about how much colder it would get. Surprise surprise, this past weekend has seen the mercury drop to minus 23 as South Korea experiences some of its lowest temperatures in decades. An article in the JoongAng Daily suggests that these temperatures, coupled with wind could see temperatures in the middle regions (that’s us in Chungbuk) drop to minus 30 degrees. Brrrr!
Saturday was a collection of firsts for us. Our first Christmas in Korea, our first Christmas away from home, our first white Christmas and the first time we’ve been hung over on Christmas Day. So let’s start at the very beginning.
On Christmas Eve we wrapped up warm and headed to the Chungbuk POE’s EPIK Christmas dinner. We were treated to some good food, a little wine and some excellent karaoke (video coming soon). The venue was a little isolated (for your local taxi) so after dinner we braved the minus 16 degree temperatures (cold enough to freeze your lip gloss) and walked for ten plus minutes before finally catching a taxi and heading to our local.
Early afternoon on Christmas Day, Mahir and kiwi Gav joined us for our kiwi Christmas lunch. Despite the hangover, Neil cooked us some very tasty roast lamb and I set about mustering up the remainder of our lunch dishes. We ended up with roast lamb, mint jelly, roast kumera, Manuka honey carrots (thanks for the honey Gav), garlic bread, bread rolls, broccoli and cheese sauce. We ended the feast with some trifle, a few more beverages and some Christmas music courtesy of The Rock.
After a quick nap Neil and I donned our Winter woollies and with lamb number 2 and Christmas cake in hand we headed off to Globalville (a building with bunch of other expats) for round two of our potluck Christmas feast. The menu here was extensive; roast chicken, veggies, lamb, pierogis, mashed potato, curry and rice, Yorkshire pudding, shrimp fried rice and burritos with home-made sour cream.
All of this was then followed by ice-cream cake, fruit cake, Oooey Gooeys, apple pie and a Gingerbread house. In true Christmas style we managed to stuff ourselves silly before settling down to watch Bad Santa with a cup of eggnog and some sparkling wine.
After saying our goodbyes and wishing everyone a Merry Christmas, sweet sweet Lara surprised us with a present each. Cute cat slippers for me and a lovely bottle of wine for Neil. Thanks Lara! Outside we were treated to some more snow, which made walking home a little interesting but also provided the perfect snowy Christmas ending.
Korea is well known for its four distinct seasons; Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter all make their presence well-known throughout the year. Like I mentioned last week, Neil and I arrived in Korea when Winter was on its way out. We’ve almost survived all four seasons so I thought I’d reflect on our experiences.
After leaving the heat of the NZ Summer behind we arrived in February the day after it had just snowed in Seoul. We changed into our thermals in the arrivals bathroom and braced ourselves for the walk outside of the terminal doors. As soon as those auto doors were opened we were hastily reminded we were on the other side of the equator, it was winter and it was freezing! We sucked it up, wore five layers of clothing, hastily drank our collection of Milo and then two months later, after some unexpected snowfall in March and a few additions to my sock collection it was Spring.
Spring lasted two weeks. Period. As quickly as the first blossoms appeared they vanished again, giving way to a sea of greenness. When we arrived EVERYTHING was brown and dead and we were convinced that was how it was going to stay, not so. Spring was great. We spent a lot of time tripping around the country, enjoying the blue skies, sunshine and mild temperatures. Then along came summer…
Summer was hot, humid, sticky and we struggled; a lot. It arrived overnight, much like spring. One day we walked out the door of our apartment and were met with a wall of humidity, like a slap in the face with a wet towel. We started limiting our trips outside to early morning adventures or evening escapades and would duck into random stores just to bathe in the joys of their air conditioning. One afternoon we made the mistake of setting out for groceries before 3pm, it resulted in a couple of sweaty kiwi messes. As soon as we arrived back to our apartment we jumped in the shower. Though this wasn’t enough for Neil, who opted for a swim in our bathtub full of cold water and freezer ice.
Thankfully our schools hand roof fans and AC and they were a lifesaver… when they were turned on. For one month and only for three hours a day, usually in the morning. Not too bad as those three hours are usually the hottest, except when you have Summer camp, that starts at 1pm for three hours…Summer also brought the typhoons. Whilst they didn’t really amount to much in our province, torrential rain that causes flash flooding and wind that wakes you up is pretty impressive.
Mid September we made a trip to China, when we returned to South Korea, Autumn had arrived. The leaves started to change, the humidity had vanished and my jandal days were numbered. The days were getting shorter, the nights cooler. My flip-flops were packed away in exchange for warmer footwear and I hunted out my tights and scarves. Neil and I both remarked about how much we enjoy this season. The hillsides are transformed into all kinds of colors and something about adding a scarf to your wardrobe makes your attire much more classy.
After wishing for cooler weather all summer my wish was granted in October. The temperatures took a ten degree dive and we were reminded of just how cold it gets here. Whilst the chill only lasted a few days it was enough to encourage us to add to our winter woollies, purchasing new hats, jerseys and scarves.
It’s now November and our schools have turned on the heating which means we can cook ourselves silly in our classrooms before being exposed to chilling temperatures when we walk the halls or leave the school grounds. Increasing my likelihood of losing my hands to frostbite or catching some kind of crazy Korean super bug. (I’ll post about Korean sicknesses some other time).
Today marks our first snowfall for the Winter season which means my chances of a white Christmas are improving dramatically. Wish me luck!
Here’s the video… ENJOY! xx
On Monday I came across a website with the five-day weather forecast for Cheongju, I was surprised to see the word SNOW on Wednesday’s forecast. After checking with my co-teacher we decided it was a mistake as it’s uncommon for snow to fall in March.
Seongnam is the city of choice for 500 EPIKers teaching in Daegu, Daejeon, Incheon, Gangwon, Gyeonggi, Chungbuk and Jeju. We’ll spend ten days here learning all we can about how to teach English in South Korea. We are two of only five kiwi’s at this orientation, most of the population is American, Canadian and surprisingly South African. It’s great meeting so many new people!
It’s only day one and we’re already exhausted! We’ve done quite a lot of exploring, up and down the main street outside the university, visited the local botanical gardens, found a back alley market, several bars and a great karaoke spot.
Just up the road from here are the local botanical gardens (we think). At the entrance to the gardens they have a little platform with high powered air hoses… to clean your dirty tramping shoes… brilliant idea.
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