Hugh has been out of Australia too long! He doesn’t remember the slang. He heard an Australian guy say this at a work event and then came home and repeated it to me. Unfortunately he thought it was “boom boom” instead of “whoop whoop”. Also, where I am from it’s not necessarily “out whoop whoop”. I am from a reasonably sized country city and it’s the much smaller places, that are further out, that we would say are “out whoop whoop”.

Hugh was also naked during the conversation last week but I drew some undies on him at least. (Some things never change). Yul also had no idea what we were talking about, but he still thought it was funny.

In this video we talk about our past jobs, well mostly Hugh’s past jobs! We have an unusual sponsor for this video. It was through a government scheme for matching YouTubers with companies and we didn’t have a choice once we signed. The company they matched us with is very nice but both of us were bewildered at who made that decision. But we did the best we could and it did give us a chance to talk about things we have done in the past.

We were in Australia for almost a month and then in the Korean countryside for Lunar New Year, so I haven’t had the chance to sit down and update on the blog.

If you are subscribed to us on YouTube you would have seen our videos though.

In this one we give a lot of detail and explanation as well as our footage. While our experience was not nearly as bad as many other people’s experience, it was still quite traumatic for us. That’s why I don’t want to type out too much here.

In this video that Hugh edited it’s most of our raw footage.

Since talking about our experience online and talking about the very clear link between climate change and the fires, we get harassed most days by climate change deniers. This has added to the stress of just dealing with an experience like that.

Australia, both my hometown and Sydney and down the South coast, is a place I no longer recognize. Sydney is constantly dealing with smoke pollution, my hometown has extreme drought and dust storms every week. So much of the South coast is destroyed by these unprecedented fires. To be honest we were pretty glad to get back to Korea. Korea may have air pollution but we all have air purifiers and apartments that seal up. My throat is still not good from all smoke we had no choice but to breathe.

These fires are still burning as I write this. I know it’s been fading from international news, but it’s still a massive threat. The temperatures are still extreme and there is still so much at risk.

Will Hugh swim in the ocean again?

I saw this drone footage of sharks swimming near people in a news article, and I wanted to see Hugh’s reaction. When we first met he couldn’t swim well but now has a lot more confidence and does like swimming in the ocean.

This beach is up the coast from where we go on holidays in Australia, but it’s a similar looking beach. Apparently the beach in the video is known for sharks though. I will be thinking about sharks more next time we are at the beach in Australia though!

3 mins of my toddler pranking me

Yul and I are still in Australia so I haven’t been able to make many videos, but I did have lots of footage of him playing with the garden hose. And since he always turns the hose on me, I thought I’d edit all the footage together. Enjoy!

We’ll miss having this space when we go back to Korea…

Flying with a toddler – 10 hour flight

This was actually the second time I had flown with Yul without Hugh but this time it was a little bit difficult! The first time was traumatic for me to be without Hugh (last minute change) but once I was on the plane it was okay as I had people around me help.

This time I felt very much alone as there was no one capable sitting around me to help me. I was prepared, but there are always things that can go really wrong.

As I mention in the video, they put an elderly man on the other side of me, on the aisle seat. It was difficult for him to get up and out of his seat so I felt very trapped for much of the flight. But several times I did have to get him to get up (he was very nice and I felt really bad) because I desperately had to get up and to the toilet with changing table. Watch the video to hear what happened before we even took off!

The most you can do to help with flying with a toddler is just be prepared as possible. You don’t want to over-pack, but you also want enough nappies (diapers), plastic bags, snacks and toys. The whole flight is just being alert to make sure your kid doesn’t start crying or having a tantrum meltdown.

Yul does watch the screens a little bit, so I put a kids movie on for him (the inflight entertainment), he can watch without sound happily too, but screen time only helps so much. Too much screen time with kids on planes can backfire because they can then have a tantrum when they can’t watch something or when it gets taken away from them. That’s why I don’t take an ipad for him on these flights yet.

I still have to fly back with him in a week! So I’ll be updating with more tips soon!

Yul’s first Easter egg hunt!

Last Easter Yul was just a round chubby baby, but this Easter he is old enough to do an Easter egg hunt! With no other cousins yet, it was just him, but he did understand the point of it really quickly and had fun doing it.

Easter eggs aren’t sold in Korea, and Easter isn’t really celebrated (it’s acknowledged but not CELEBRATED), even by Christians, so it was good to be able to come back to Australia and celebrate it with my family. Most of my family was home and we ate lots of good food, went to church and has nice family time together.

I’d like to always come back for Easter because the weather is so nice this time of year, but when we already come back for Christmas I’m not sure if it will work out every year. Hopefully we’ll be in a position soon to celebrate Christmas and Easter in Australia but Chuseok and Seollal in Korea.

Hot cross buns are in many countries but people didn’t know they are real!

Every year, at some point on social media, I’ll make a comment about hot cross buns. And every year there will be people who didn’t know they were a real thing! They will know there is a song called “Hot Cross Buns” but not that it’s a common Easter food in many countries. So this year, while back in Australia for Easter, I decided to make a quick video about hot cross buns in Australia.

It makes sense that it seems to be Commonwealth countries that continue this British tradition and why it’s usually Americans that don’t know about them. Seriously, Americans, you are missing out! While hot cross buns are available in some places in the US, it’s nothing like the traditions in other countries. Reactions range from “I did not know this was a real thing” to “I have seen them in some bakeries”. Nothing like the fevered desire and need in Australia to have hot cross buns at Easter. It’s a vital part of Easter here and symbolic for the Christian holiday.

As I mentioned in the video, there are different flavours now. But I still prefer the traditional type. Yul is happy to eat the traditional ones with fruit too, though many kids want the fruitless ones. We’ll see as he gets older though, if he decides he wants to be picky…

There are some bakeries in Seoul that do hot cross buns and Summer Lane Cafe which I’ve shown in a video before, has them. If we are not back in Australia next Easter I think I’ll try to make them at home.

What do hot cross buns taste like? They are lovely moist buns with spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, all spice and fruit like sultanas and raisins and mixed peel bits. And of course they have a cross on them and are best served hot with butter. They are a nice treat now, but I imagine they must have been even better in previous centuries when sugar and sweet things weren’t as easily available.

I filmed this video very quickly just to show what it’s like in Australia and how all the bakeries are baking many hot cross buns to meet the demand for them on Easter.

One of the reasons why we went back to Australia was for my brother’s wedding. Yul was a page boy! It was also his first Australian wedding and he enjoyed himself immensely. Australian weddings are much longer, and bigger events, than Korean weddings so it went for many hours. Modern Korean weddings don’t usually have a wedding reception with speeches and dancing like weddings in western countries. We did wonder how Yul would cope with all the people and long hours and noise. But he did really well! Having a flexible lifestyle with him does really help in these situations as he adapts well.

He also did such a good job of walking down the aisle with his second cousins. I wasn’t sure if he’d be able to, but since he’d had some practice he knew exactly what to do on the day. Even though there was a heat wave, the wedding was beautiful and we are so happy to welcome my brother’s wife into our family. She is Chinese Malaysian, so they also had a ceremony in Malaysia and celebrated lunar new year there. My parents and my other brother also went to Malaysia for those celebrations too. We had to head back to Korea for lunar new year here though.

If you watch the video to the very end you can see Yul in his hanbok in the car (that Hugh is controlling). We didn’t buy him that car! Friends bought it for him, but he really does love it.

This happened while in Australia. Yul would play in water almost every single day and he particularly liked played with the garden hose. Hugh discovered the parenting secret of just hosing your kid down in the backyard instead of going to the trouble of giving them a proper bath.

Yul didn’t mind.