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

Pregnancy Dinner Ideas

May 12, 2020May 12, 20202 Comments

I’ve recently been gifted the HelloFresh food boxes and really enjoyed the variety it provided. It however takes me longer to make one of these meals, and estimated 40-50 minutes, compared to when I cook my own meals, only 30 minutes. I’ve decided not to continue using the food boxes but to rather make my own little weekly menu of things that I like and that I can make.

SInce I am pregnant I do crave a lot of things, sometimes unhealthy foods like the donuts or chocolate I have once or more a week. These meals are just things that I either know how to make or that I’ve discovered online….today 🙂

Let me know what you think of my selection

Broccoli and Blue Cheese Frittata

Obviously I’ll change the blue cheese for Edam cheese, since that’s what I have at home

Recipe from www.kidspot.com.au

Strip Steak with Lemon Mashed Potato

The idea of these mashed potatoes with lemon makes my mouth water

Recipe from Countryliving.com

Thai Pork Stir-Fry

Doesn’t it look yummy

Recipe From Kraft Canada

Roasted Veggie Pasta Salad

I first tried this at the first house I stayed at in New Zealand. The lady I lived with use to make it all the time and I loved it. I also didn’t know what Chorizo was, I just know its something that Coco’s dad choked on in the movie COCO 😛

Recipe from A Saucy Kitchen

Shepherds pie

Recipe from The Wholesome Dish

South African Style Braai

We’re planning to have a South African style Braai on the weekend with either potato salad or garlic bread but if it rains then we’ll just have sausage rolls

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Image from Adelaide’s Outdoor Kitchen

What are your dinner plans for this week?

Having a dog in Korea

April 28, 2020April 20, 20202 Comments

In 2017 we got a dog. At the time, we have been living in Korea for almost 4 years and since we had just signed a contract to stay at our then current work place we decided it was time to get a dog. Generally dogs provide a lot of joy and is also a good stress reliever. Research even suggest that people who own pets, are happier than those who don’t. Therefore…. since there’s research involved… we got a dog

Getting the perfect puppy

If you do research about where to get a puppy you’ll come up with a lot of bad reviews about dogs from pet shops. Furthermore, if you walk into some pet shops you can immediately see that some of those dogs are either under fed or already looking sick.

Therefore we decided to get a puppy from an owner who already has his own dogs and is not a dog breeder. We were in luck as my friend heard that we were looking for a dachshund and she saw an advertisement in the local ‘cafe’ about dachshund puppies for sale. Luckily the owner was really particular about giving his puppies to a good home and to us, it meant that he really cares for them.

Because we lived in an apartment we had to crate train her, which really helped her. Even today she still finds her comfort in her little crate although we changed her crate from a plastic one to a cute fluffy little house. She knows that she’s safe there and even though she eats my shoes, I won’t touch her in there. The crate training also helped her a lot when we traveled across Korea and overseas.

New Life New Rules

April 21, 2020April 20, 2020Leave a comment

In 2009 we had a dream. Our dream was to immigrate to New Zealand. Back then we still haven’t studied, I had just lost my job at the flower shop and we wanted to get away. But getting into New Zealand meant that we had to have qualifications in our professions and experience would be a plus. We set out to get our degrees. I got mine in Education and my husband got his in Accounting (because these were jobs in high demand). By the time we had finished New Zealand didn’t need teachers or accountants any more. We wanted to leave so we applied for teaching jobs in Korea, in November 2014. By December we both had job offers and we got on our flight on the 31st of December and landed in South Korea at 12pm on the 1st of January 2015

Skip forward 4 years to the beginning of January 2019 when my cousin sent me a new report about New Zealand hiring teachers because of the shortage of primary and early childhood teachers. I did my English test and Teacher Registration and 8 months later I arrived on the sunny North Coast of Auckland. Unfortunately my husband had to wait until October before he could join me as we have a a little dog and her permit took a bit longer than expected.

Now let me tell you another thing. Since just after we arrived in Korea we wanted to start a family. We’ve been trying for years to have a little baby but to no avail. We saw doctors and specialist and all they said that it might be stress, so we kept trying hoping that maybe someday we might have less stress. I remember when I told this story to my colleague she said that I should keep faith because there is something in the water at our school because all the cooks always get pregnant. I laughed it off as one does when you’ve been trying for so long…. but still… here I am, sitting and writing this post to you with my little girl kicking in my belly. Shortly after my husband arrived I fell pregnant and we’re expecting our little one to arrive at the end of July 2020

This just goes to show that once 1 little thing in your life changes, everything might change.

Apartments in Korea

June 11, 2019June 9, 2019Leave a comment

When we first came to Korea, we were very ignorant of how things work here. We had “free” housing included in our contract so we were very happy to know that we didn’t have to pay rent every month. The problem was that we didn’t expect what was waiting for us here. Our apartment was a little bigger than a shoe box. After about 6 months we asked our director for a bigger apartment. We were now living in a one bedroom apartment and although it wasn’t huge, it was big enough for the two of us. We lived in this apartment for another 3 years. Before we moved down to Busan we decided to try and get a housing allowance instead of the housing the school offers. Check out the type of apartments given with contracts in Korea.

When we were negotiating our contracts, we both asked for a housing allowance to rent our own apartment. We got a lovely 2 bedroom apartment in Marine City, Heaundae. Here is our monthly rental breakdown

1,000,000 won – rent
300,000 won – management fee; free gym, sauna, parking, electricity

We’ve lived here for almost 6 months and although the apartment is more expensive than anticipated, we’re very happy with our decision to live in a 2 bedroom apartment.

What would you prefer?

Why would anyone go vegetarian?

May 29, 2019May 29, 20191 Comment

When I was 16, I once considered changing my diet to vegetarian. It sounded like a great and healthy idea. I started off by telling my dad, who was the cook in our household,to stop giving me meat for dinner. Being a household that relied heavily on meat as the biggest part of our meals, I felt hungry all the time. The lettuce and tomato for lunch also didn’t cut it, I constantly felt hungry and underfed… so naturally, I gave up.

A few times over the years I’ve considered trying a vegetarian lifestyle again but I was always reminded of how starved I felt when I tried it in High school. About 2 years ago my friend told me that her family will no longer eat meat. Later I started doing Yoga and saw a lot of yogis eating vegan or vegetarian meals but still… I was afraid to try it because of my teenage experience.

It was only when I moved to Busan that I met a vegatarian, who doesn’t shout his beliefs at me, who told me about how he became all vegan. His journey took over 10 years. He first started cutting out certain meats, then fish, dairy and eggs until he ate only vegan foods. This sounded like a better way towards eating vegetarian.

Cutting out a whole food group at once has never sat well with me, but doing it slowly, over time can work, especially that it now gives me time to experiment with healthy dishes to see what works best for me, instead of deciding to eat only lettuce and tomato …