Author: Simonette

A year and a half ago my husband and I moved to Korea. I wanted to write about my life and experiences in Korea along with my current interests. Initially we came to Korea to use it as a stepping stone to immigrate to another country. But now since we’re here we are thinking of making it our new home even if it is just for the next few year as no one knows what the future holds. If you told me ten years ago I will be living in Korea now I would have called you out for bullshitting me. My brother always quotes Robbie Williams by saying “I sit and talk to God and he just laughs at my plans”. This is absolutely true. We have made so many plans with our lives but in the end its not up to us, no matter how much you try to take it into your own hands. So… here we are in Korea, living it up

Holiday insigts

February 3, 2017February 1, 2017Leave a comment

For the past 2 weeks we’ve been back in South Africa. We’ve been soaking up the sun and visiting our families. It feels like the time have been flying at lightning speed.

At least we got to spend some quality time with our families. I feel sad because I miss them, but they all seem to be doing fine.

I also had the opportunity to spend some time with my stepmom. It took me some time to get use to her as my dad married her barely 6 months after my mother’s passing. After my mom died I didn’t really want to form any new connections in my life. It was so painful losing someone so close to me, and I had a lot of regrets. I remember telling my husband that I wanted to visit my mom on the weekend because I’m worried about her, by then she was already bedridden and didn’t really open her eyes or speak, but I use to talk to her in any case and sometimes, just sometimes she would open her eyes and faintly smile at me. But that Thursday, my dad phoned me and told me that she had passed away.

Since then I stayed away from new people and new relationships, but after this weekend I feel that I can start allowing people back into my life.

My outfit this week is my little Korean style dress. I like wearing it because it reminds me of Korea. It also has a loose fit and allows you to move around in it. I got it form Teeny Weeny in Seoul, Korea.

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Bewitching Valentines food ideas

February 2, 2017February 1, 20171 Comment

Since this week’s Valentines theme is Witches I’ve decided to make some foods that looks like it has a lot of herbs , vegetables and fruits.

For our bewitching food basket today we have potato cookies, mini spinach quiches and “Mama’s more lemon than meringue” tart/pie.

These are mostly side dishes but you can add any kind of meat or other veggies to your Valentines meal

Potato Cookies (makes 12-15)

Ingredients

3 large potatoes(grated)
1 onion (grated)
2 eggs (room temperature)
3 tablespoons flour
hand full of chives
oil for frying

Grate the potatoes and onions and mix them together. Then mix in the 2 eggs. Add the flour and chives and mix together.

In a frying pan heat some oil, just enough to lightly cover the pan. Scoop a generous tablespoon of the mixture into the pan. Fry until browned on both sides. Let them cool for about 2 minutes before serving.

Creamed Spinach Quiche

Ingredients

700 grams frozen creamed spinach
1/2 cup mozzarella or other white cheese (grated)
1 fresh onion grated
200 gram fried onions
4 slices of ham, chopped into small squares
6 eggs
2 tablespoons flour

Mix all the ingredients together. Scoop mixture into a pie dish or multiple small pie dishes and bake for 25 minutes in a preheated oven. I made mine in tiny bread pans.

Mama’s More Lemon Than Meringue pie

This Lemon Meringue is the one my mother in law always bakes for my husband on his birthday. She’s not a fan of too much meringue so she only makes a thin layer but her lemon filling is the best I’ve ever tasted. Its firm and has a subtle balance between sweet and sour. One pie only lasts 1 day in our house.

Ingredients

For the crust

2oo gram biscuits
2 tablespoons melted butter

For the filling

2 cans of condensed milk
1/2 cup lemon juice
2 egg yolks ( keep the egg whites for the meringue)

For the Meringue

2 egg whites
4 tablespoons sugar

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees (356 fahrenheit)

For the crust.

Crush the cookies until only rough crumbs are left. Mix the melted butter with the cookie crumbs and push it down into a pie pan.

For the filling

Mix all the ingredients well and pour onto the cookie crust.

For the Meringue.

Mix the egg whites and sugar until it is light and fluffy and scoop it onto the Lemon filling. Bake in the oven for 30 minutes. Served chilled.

I hope you enjoyed these recipe’s. The meringue is to die for so I hope you try it 😀

Enchanting massage oils for Valentines

January 31, 2017January 30, 2017Leave a comment

While we had the vampire valentines day theme last week, we’ll opt for a witch theme this week with love potions and enchanting massage oils. Valentines day should be about love and spending the day with your partner.

Its always a good idea to relax, and what better way to do that than massages and massage oils. Some oils are said to be stimulate your libido, these include black pepper, orange blossom, ilang-ilang, sandalwood ( now we know why so many male fragrances contain sandalwood 😉 ) and ginger. Therefore any one of these oils could help set the mood, similarly scented candles can do just as well.

If you’re in a DIY mood you could always make your own mixture for a relaxing sensual massage.

Massage oil for women.

25ml almond oil
10 drops wheat germ oil
3 drops ilang-ilang oil
3 drops geranium oil
2 drops sandalwood oil
2 drops English sage oil
2 drops orange blossom oil

Massage oil for men

20ml almond oil
5ml jojoba
4 drops Ginger
2 drops black pepper
4 drops sandalwood
2 drops lavender

Essence to burn in the bedroom ( in water or on the burner)

2 Drops ginger
2 drops English sage
2 drops ilang-ilang

Source Everybody’s Aromatherapy: A Comprehensive Guide for All Ages by Helen Ranger

A Witchy theme for Valentines Day

January 30, 2017January 25, 20174 Comments

This year I decided to change it up a little for valentines day so each week I’ll be featuring a different theme. Last week we had a Vampire theme but this week we’ll have a witch theme. This idea has a lot of wonderful features, from love potions, herb infused meals and massage oils to enchant your lover this Valentines day.

Today I have made a ‘Love Potion’ and a ‘Lust’ potion. I was watching Shrek 3 the other day and noticed that the fairy god mother added some lust, passion and desire to her little love potion so I decided to do the same and what better way to throw all caution to the wind than to include some alcohol :p

To start off you need some cute bottles that looks like it can hold potions. Then you’ll need some old paper to label your potion. I got my little bottles from our local Daiso store ( its like a $5 store). To make your paper look old, you can soak it in some tea and bake it in the oven for 5-10 minutes. It works better if you tear the paper before baking it rather than after.

First pour some hot water in a container and leave a teabag in there for a few minutes

Then write your message on a piece of paper and place it in the container. Use the teabag to soak and colour the paper. Make sure you wet the whole piece of paper then remove and place in a baking pan or dish in the oven for 5 minutes. If you feel that you need a more burned look you can leave it in for another 5-8 minutes.

I glued the paper to the bottles with syrup. That way I could easily remove it after use and reuse the bottles for something else later on.

I made two different cocktails mainly because the first one had grapefruit in it and my husband doesn’t care much for grapefruit. The second one I made with berry juice instead that’s also evident in the colours of the two ‘potions’. I also used LOTS of Vodka…maybe too much, so if you don’t mind a very strong vodka flavour in your drinks you can rather use 1 shot vodka per cup of juice. To be honest the drink is very potent so if you’re not used to drinking rather go for the softer version, because I only had a small sip here and there to taste the drinks and at one stage I was swinging around the living room… not really ideal when you’re preparing stuff for the blog.

Love potion

Ingredients

8 Tablespoons grapefruit juice
2 tablespoons apple or white grape juice
4 tablespoons strawberry Vodka

Combine in a blender and mix. Pour into cute little bottles for display

Lust Potion

6tablespooons Grapefruit juice
2 tablespoons Berry juice
4 tablespoons strawberry vodka

Combine in a blender and mix. Pour into cute little bottles for display

As mentioned above you can do a milder version of either one of the drinks by using 1 cup of juice for every shot of Vodka. You could also try my White wine sangria recipe.

Split review

January 27, 2017January 24, 2017Leave a comment

This past weekend we went to see Split. I have been waiting for this movie for a while now. I’m a huge fan of James McAvoy and especially like his movies with a psychological undertone. I’ve seen Filth, which was a bit depressing, and absolutely loved Trance.

Image source www.movienewsguide.com

This review contains spoilers.

The movie is about a man named Kevin Wendell Crumb. As a child he had an abusive mother and this caused the young boy to develop 23 distinct personalities. In the movie we are only introduced to 8 of the 23 personalities. McAvoy does an amazing job in portraying all of these personalities. In the movie there is a scene where, faced with the death of Kevin, all the personalities takes a turn in the “light” within a matter of minutes, each with their own manner of speaking, voice, gestures, reported age and physical features, for example Dennis, a big bulky guy is strong and can carry a girl around like she’s nothing while Hedwig, a 10 year old boy personality can’t even push a door open while the girls push it closed. Here McAvay was just brilliant. Its movies like this that shows just how versatile an actor can be.

I’ve always thought that its amazing that a person could split their personalities, I know that its because of trauma that this disassociation happens but its still amazing to think that our minds can help protect us by developing different and sometimes stronger personalities.

In Split, Kevin has more docile personalities and then he has what the other personalities call “The Horde” which consists of the more dangerous/volatile personalities that Kevin possesses. These are the personalities that are more bad-ass, so to speak. For example, Dennis is a perfectionist, that came to the fore when Kevin was just 8 years old. Kevin’s mother was abusive but if everything stayed clean then she would punish Kevin less, therefore the perfectionist Dennis was a real saviour in this situation.

Overall the movie focused on how one personality may have a physical illness etc while the others had not, it also refers to a study found in 2015 of a blind women who lost her sight after a traumatic event in her 20’s that suddenly regained her eyesight in 8 out of her 10 personalities. According to the study the women’s brain scans showed that her sight spontaneously recovered. Source www.medicaldaily.com The movie therefore focused on the assumption that if a personality believes something to be true it could happen. For example Jade, one of Kevin’s personalities, had diabetes while the others did not, even though they all live within one person.

The 24th personality the trailer talks about is called THE BEAST by the others, according to Dennis’s description of THE BEAST, he is much bigger than all the other personalities, he has long fingers that enables him to climb walls like a spider and his skin is impenetrable, he also feeds on young girls…EEEEK. When the Beast finally makes his appearance all these unbelievable characteristics are in fact true.

I really loved the movie although I thought that it dragged on a bit long before reaching the climax.

What did you think of this film?