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
One of my favourite childhood movies. Little did I know that this little teen movie is in actual fact based on Emma from one of literature greats, Jane Austin. Only when I read the book in my first year at uni did I realise where the idea for this movie came from. Jane Austen herself said that she was writing about a Heroine that only herself would like. It turns out that in modern times her heroin is much loved by many.
From Prada to Nada
Another teen movie based on the Jane Austen novel ‘Sense and Sensibility’
She’s the man
This delightful movie is based on Shakespeare’s Twelth Night.
10 things I hate about you
Yet another movie based on Shakespeare’s work. A lovely teen movie based on the Taming of the Shrew.
Apocalypse now
This movie is based on Joseph Conrad’s book ‘The Heart of Darkness’. Although the movie is set in a different time and circumstances than Heart of Darkness the same themes are represented. It captures the madness that the Congo caused on the colonisers in the late 1800’s.
For Halloween we made this well. I say we because it was mostly my sister in law. I only did the finishing touches namely blotching grey paint on the edges.
We started off with a square box a the bottom as our base.
We then glued shoe boxes in a circle to the box. We were lucky enough to have picked up a bunch of polystyrene squares on our way from work one night as they were building in our area. If you don’t have access to polystyrene bricks then you can use small boxes and shoe boxes. We used various sizes to make it look more authentic. When painting the boxes however, rather use a matte type paint otherwise it will look really shiny.
We cut the top polystyrene bricks with a Styrofoam cutter . We cut it into uneven pieces to make it look like the well have been broken and we laid some off cut peices on the floor to make it look like broken bricks
We painted everything black and then used grey paint to blodge the sides of the bricks, I also used some green and brown paint at the bottom of the well to make it look like dirt and moss.
I then took some of those plastic aquatic grass that you use in fish tanks and cut it into small pieces. I glued this (with a glue gun) to the well into most of the hooks and crannies.
Our well was now ready for display. We have collected some leaves the week before and threw this on the floor to cover the brown base of the well and some silk lavender flowers for effect. My sister in law also added some pictures with smoked glass to the scene to make it look scarier.
Living in Korea we often deal with temperature between 29-33 degrees in summer with approximate humidity between 60-90%. This means that as soon as you step outside an air conditioned area you will begin to sweat. Your hair is constantly glued to your forehead and all your dresses stick to your bum when you stand up after sitting.
To survive in the humid weather firstly I rely heavily on braids. I love my long hair and my husband doesn’t like it when I tie my hair away from my face so I tend to go for a single braid to one side. My favourites are the reverse fishtail braid ( from luxyhair), and the Boho braid a la Blake Lively.
Dresses are the easiest thing for summer but be careful of anything silk. Silk sticks to anything wet and in humid weather that will most likely be your thighs. It can be very embarrassing when standing up and fishing your dress out your bum crease. Another must have item for humid weather is a slip dress but go for nylon or cotton instead of silk
I’m not a huge fan of foundation and in humid weather its more of a nuisance than anything else. When the sweat start to drip down your face, so does your foundation. I found an amazing “men’s beauty” product here in Korea. It is a face cream but it has a tinge of foundation worked into it. It therefore gives you a little coverage and won’t drip down your face when you’re sweating, in addition it has 35 spf to protect you from the sun. A must have makeup product for humid weather is primer. It helps to keep ‘most’ of the makeup on your face in humid weather. Since I’m such a fan of urban decay I usually use their eye primer.
The best makeup looks for humid weather would include anything that would stick to your face when you sweat a lot. Stay away from eye pencils and rather use eye shadow to define your eyebrows. Koreans use tint for their lips. Its like a liquid stain that lasts for hours. It doesn’t smear or smudge, which is great because when we sweat a lot we tend to try and wipe the sweat from our faces and it often results in us smearing our lipstick on the rest of our faces.
And last but not least. When working in humid weather or planning on being away from home for more than two hours you will need some body mist, face mist and a handkerchief or tissues to dry your face and make you look fresh again.
I love anything lemon and my husband loves lemon meringue pie. I’ve recently discovered that I can make flavoured yogurt and therefore I’ve made some Lemon meringue flavoured yogurt. Its a real easy way to spruce up plain yogurt and you are in control of how much sugar you add.
Ingredients
Powdered sugar
Plain or vanilla yogurt
1 Fresh lemon (juiced)
Directions
Mix the lemon juice and yogurt together. Use a half teaspoon of powdered sugar and add more to suit your taste. Scoop into cute glasses and serve as a light breakfast or snack.
Spending lots of time on Facebook looking at pictures of friends could make women insecure about their body image, research suggests.
The more women are exposed to “selfies” and other photos on social media, the more they compare themselves negatively, according to a study.
Friends’ photos may be more influential than celebrity shots as they are of known contacts, say UK and US experts.
The study is the first to link time on social media to poor body image.
The mass media are known to influence how people feel about their appearance.
But little is known about how social media impact on self-image.
Young women are particularly high users of social networking sites and post more photographs of themselves on the internet than do men.
To look at the impact on body image, researchers at the University of Strathclyde, Ohio University and University of Iowa surveyed 881 female college students in the US.
The women answered questions about their Facebook use, eating and exercise regimes, and body image.
‘Unrealistic images’
The research, presented at a conference in Seattle, found no link with eating disorders.
But it did find a link between time spent on social networks and negative comparisons about body image.
The more time women spent on Facebook, the more they compared their bodies with those of their friends, and the more they felt negative about their appearance.
“Spending more time on Facebook is not connected to developing a bad relationship with food, but there is a connection to poor body image,” Petya Eckler, of the University of Strathclyde, in Glasgow, told the BBC.
She added: “The attention to physical attributes may be even more dangerous on social media than on traditional media because participants in social media are people we know.
“These comparisons are much more relevant and hit closer to home. Yet they may be just as unrealistic as the images we see on traditional media.”
‘Sense of identity’
A spokesperson for the Beat eating disorders charity said body image was a key part of our sense of identity and not a trivial matter or personal vanity.
A preoccupation with weight and shape was one of the key features of current popular culture, and was a global phenomenon, she said.
“The fascination with celebrities, their bodies, clothes and appearance has all increased the pressure that people typically feel at a time when they seek to establish their own identities and when their bodies are growing and changing,” she said.
“Young people compare themselves to the images that bombard them and feel it is their fault that their bodies compare so unfavourably.”
Simi's trinkets and treats 