Intercultural Life

Tag: living in korea (Page 2 of 9)

Too Hot

 

Too Hot

Worst summer ever! It’s been such a hot summer and we’ve been unable to do so many things we want to because of the heat and the humidity. Although I’m used to hot weather in Australia, Australian homes usually have air conditioners that cool down the whole house but Korean homes tend to just have air con in one room so most of the house can still be so hot. Also… no swimming culture. The heat has made me a bit sick lately, and sleep deprived as it’s too hot to sleep well. Hugh has been dealing with the heat by laying still while naked.

We do get warning messages on our phones about the heat, as well as other times there is any slight danger, like too much rain or fog. At first these messages would freak me out. Is North Korea invading??? But usually it’s nothing much.

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Seoul Life – Englishmen Visitors and a Wedding

I’m sure many people know who Josh and Ollie are, from the Korean Englishman YouTube channel, and if you don’t, I’m sure you’ve stumbled across one of their insanely popular videos at some point. Hugh’s good friend Joel is also in some of their videos and contacted Hugh because they wanted to film on a farm. Oh, we have a farm! So we headed back to the countryside so the boys could film in Hugh’s village. We will have a video of some of the behind the scenes stuff up later, once their farm videos come out. But for now, here is a sneak peek.

We complain more about the heat also. I wanted to point out that it’s almost impossible to keep air con on constantly in Korea. Hugh was telling me that there is an outdated law from the 1970’s where electricity bills double and then triple for people, but businesses are exempt. So Korean homes can be very hot in the summer because people try to rely on fans rather than constant air con. It has been way more uncomfortable than in Australia.

In this video we also talked about the yellow dust pollution and how it affects Hugh more. I do have a theory why: Hugh’s father used to be a smoker so Hugh grew up around a lot more cigarette smoke than me so maybe that’s why, because his throat and lungs have already been compromised, even though Hugh is not a smoker himself. In comparison, I have had very little exposure to smoke my whole life.

We also attend Cory and Marie’s wedding. It was a lovely wedding, and even in the heat, we had so much fun.

SEOUL LIFE EPISODE 6

We didn’t have time to sit down and film and talk as much as we usually do for ‘Seoul Life’ because my mum is here for 2 weeks and my brother and his girlfriend were here for a few days. This video is a bit more random. Hugh tries to play Pokemon Go, I find a cheese shop, we go to a restaurant called Pork University and spend time with family. And we find a random Ferrari.

SEOUL LIFE EPISODE 5

We go to the Seoul YouTube pop up space, eat some Vietnamese food, tell an awkward story about Hugh’s nudity and a delivery man, and Hugh tries to kill me with a watermelon….

Seoul Life Episode 3

Episode 3 of Seoul Life! Summer is getting hotter and we are still waiting for our air con to be installed…

We see a lot of friends in this episode and do a lot of things outside…. and eat lots of food!

Seoul Life Episode 2

Our second week in Seoul and yet it feels like we have been here for so long! In this episode we talk about celebrity sightings, show some more of our area and talk about what we do for a living.

It’s been great to easily go to restaurants we like as well as being able to cook at home. We are slowly exploring more and more of our area.

We quite regularly walk past the YG Entertainment building on the way to the station and there are ALWAYS fans there, but it’s actually pretty rare to see much there. Last night we went for a walk and there were a few fans waiting at 1:30am! The funny thing is that Bigbang members can be in the area… but just not there. I notice a lot of fans that wait are international fans, I think some people fly into Korea to just sit in front of the YG building. I totally understand wanting to see it and wait for a bit, but I’ve seen fans who have been there for 6 hours or more, because I walk past earlier and hours later when I have to walk past again… they are still there… Anyway we were pretty lucky to randomly see Taeyang like that when just walking home.

If you have questions, please leave them in the comment section or on social media and we may answer next video!

The big move to Seoul

We have finally moved to Seoul. We moved about 4 days ago but we are still very much in this in-between stage of not quite feeling like this apartment is ours yet, and lacking some vital appliances. The move was stressful, like all moves generally are but it has been very exciting. This is our first ever place that is just ours. Even though we have been married for over 4 years, we’ve never been able to have a place that is only ours. We’ve lived with my parents for a little bit, we’ve lived with Hugh’s parents for 2 years, and in Sydney we had to share an apartment because rent prices are so high (Sydney is the second most expensive city in the world). Now being able to afford our own place feels amazing.

People in intercultural/international relationships tend to do more living with parents and also take more time to get settled. It’s expensive to be in an international marriage with visa costs and flights taking big chunks out of incomes. There is also the fact that someone also has to start again in a new country and it can be hard to find jobs and settle down on the right career path. Also in Korea, it’s not unusual to live with parents as a married couple, so we were glad to have that time with Hugh’s parents.

If you follow the social media you would have seen this photo I posted:

Instagram vs reality

Our kitchen is a disaster but I cleared one corner and was proud! Instagram VS reality! Our apartment was pretty filthy when we arrived so there has been a lot of cleaning (we will talk more about that in an upcoming video). We also don’t have a stove top or a washing machine and still need a bunch of other furniture, so we are waiting for that stuff to be delivered.

We are actually 5 mins walk to the Han river (we can also glimpse it through trees from our bedroom window) so we went for a stroll yesterday and vlogged a bit.

Han river

HAN RIVER

I’m so happy to be close to open spaces, because feeling claustrophobic in a city was one of my worries about moving. Our apartment (technically called a villa in Korean) is in a really interesting area and we can’t wait to show it in videos.

We are starting a new weekly video series where we are going to talk about what it’s like moving to Seoul and show clips from what we have been doing through the week. If you haven’t subscribed to the YouTube channel, make sure you subscribe so you don’t miss that.

We still feel like we are in limbo at the moment as we can’t cook in the apartment yet, we don’t have internet… we can’t even wash our clothes. But we can’t wait to share this new journey with everyone.

This is the view from my window right now:

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Different from the countryside, but it’s going to be so interesting to see how people in Seoul live compared to those in the countryside.

Thank you everyone for all the messages of support on social media! We appreciate it and we can’t wait to show you our experiences in Seoul and what it’s like to be intercultural in Seoul.

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