First time camping in Korea

May 24, 2016May 23, 2016Leave a comment

I’ve never been much of a camper. The last time that I can actually remember camping was when I was 14 years old.

We’ve been planning to go on a camping trip for about 4 months now so we slowly started buying everything we needed for our summer trip. My husband bought a “one touch tent”, some sleeping bags and a small grill. I packed some “braai” meat (in South Africa we call BBQ-ing… braai), potato and avocado salad, bread dough and some no bake cheese cake.

So on Saturday morning we packed all our camping gear and hopped on a bus to Boryoeng beach near Daecheon. When we got to Daecheon we had to take a 10 minute bus to Boryeong Beach.

There is no laws against camping on the beach in Korea except if there are camping grounds nearby. Boryeong has camping grounds near the beach so that’s where we went. When we arrived at the camping grounds we couldn’t find any ticket offices. Luckily after walking around looking dumbfounded for a few minutes another foreigner explained to us that we can just set up our camp and that the management will walk around later and charge us for the amount of days we are staying.

We set up our little “one touch” tent and started the barbecue. We had a lovely weekend. The atmosphere was great and the beach was right across from our camping grounds. We walked around on the beach, ate ice cream and some coffee when we weren’t sitting around our camp-fire. There are a lot of restaurants, coffee shops and street vendors on the Beach strip. Although we only stayed one night I will easily do it again. it was also great to have a small break from technology and the internet.

Getting the Chills in Summer

May 19, 20161 Comment

As summer approaches I’m noticing more and more scary movies on Korean Television. I remember the same thing last year.Apparently the reason why we see so many scary movies here in Summer is because the Koreans believe that if you get chills(goosebumps) it helps to cool you down in the extremely warm and humid weather

Furthermore Halloween is a huge thing here in the private schools and as a foreigner you are in charge of planning a whole Halloween. A good idea is always to show the kids some scary movies to get them into the feel of Halloween.

Here are some of my favourite short scary movies that you can show the Korean kids for Halloween 🙂

Suckablood – Fairytale (Bloody Cuts Films)

2. 2AM: The Smiling Man ( from Mark Evans)

3. Don’t Move” – Award Winning Demon Short Film (Bloody Cuts Films) This movie is better for older student, its too scary for the elementary students and there’s some swearing in the beginning.

4. Lights out (ponysmasher) (there’s some nudity at the end of this one so maybe not appropriate for kids but still a good one to watch)

5. a function 이계도함수 – a short horror film This one is pretty scary especially for Korean kids who study all the time.

Hope you enjoy these snippets as much as I did and if you have some more suggestions feel free to comment below.

Diner en Blanc ( Seoul)

May 17, 2016October 24, 20162 Comments

Diner en Blanc is a prestigious event held all around the world. It is inspired by François Pasquier who invited a group of his friends to meet him after a long journey. They decided to meet each other in a public park and everyone was requested to wear white so they could easily find each other. In honour of this event I’ve decided to collect a number of outfits one can possible wear to such an event. If you’re not attending one of these events you can always invite a bunch of your friends to a park for a casual picnic ( all dressed in white)

ROBERTO CAVALLI

ROLAND MOURET

DOLCE & GABBANA

STELLA MCCARTNEY

Nastygal

Revolve

These outfits were taken from Net-A-Porter, Revolve and Nasty Gal. Remember to keep your outfit classy.

What you need for a white picnic in the park. Ask your friends to bring a table and 2 fold up chairs along with their own table cloth and maybe some table decorations. It can be as elaborate as you prefer.

Don’t forget the French Inspired food. For more French inspired food you can look at the blog Manger. She is a French food blogger with great recipes and ideas.

Macarons

Escargots à la Bourguignonne

Raspberry Tart

Cheese platter

TURKEY ROLLS WITH MUSTARD & CREAM

Some more inspiration for arranging your own flowers and party treats.

The Flower Recipe Book & Sweet Designs: Bake It, Craft It, Style It

Not yet living the dream

May 12, 2016September 6, 20163 Comments

One of my first jobs was in a flower shop. I started of as a florist in training and later became a branch manager at one of our stores. I absolutely love flowers and colours and it was my dream to one day have my own flower shop. As time went by I changed jobs and left my dream of owning a flower shop behind. Someday I would still like to have my own shop but maybe more as a retirement hobby. I still love flowers and regularly buy flowers to brighten my home, sometimes I buy real flowers and other times I get silk flowers.

I often look at flower shops for ideas for my future “flower shop”.

There are different ways that you can store your flowers, these include tin buckets, woven baskets ( with water tight containers inside) and glass vases.

Glass Vases

Tin Buckets

Woven baskets

I love the idea of floral arrangements on display, it gives you the chance to get creative ideas or to buy a ready made arrangement, especially if it’s for a special occasion like a dinner party at your home.