In April, I headed back to Australia with the kids. Hugh couldn’t come because of work, but I was determined to give the kids a good holiday. While living in Korea, the kids tv show Bluey has been a vital connection to Australian English and culture for us.

For those that don’t know, Bluey is a wonderful Australian cartoon that has gained popularity worldwide. It’s heartfelt, funny and quintessentially Australian. Especially during the pandemic it was wonderful for Yul to watch something Australian and hear real Australian kids’ voices. It helped his English a lot.

Even though the characters are dogs in Bluey, the world feels very real and very Australian. There were elements of the show that I wanted my kids to experience. So while filming a bit of what we did in Australia, I tried to match up some experiences to actual Bluey episodes.

An update before heading into hospital VERY SOON!

There is a lot more information for foreigners wanting to start a business in South Korea these days! We talk about a new center in Seoul that helps foreigners in Korea start businesses, or invest in businesses, or move their business to Korea.

Masks are vital for stopping the spread of Covid-19

We’ve known how important masks are in Asia for quite a while, as they are not just used for disease prevention, but for air pollution and even fashion.

Now the science is showing just how important they are in slowing the spread of Covid-19. While it can give some protection to the wearer, the most important thing is that it stops asymptomatic spread. There can be so many people within a population who have Covid but have no symptoms. It can be easily spread through droplets of moisture that come out of our mouth and nose while we talk. Even a simple cloth mask prevents these droplets. When a whole population wears maks while out, it is the easiest way to deal with this pandemic until a vaccine is hopefully made.

We better get used to living with masks! It may be weird or scary for those in countries where they aren’t used to wearing masks, but it’s quite simple and has other benefits beyond pandemic related ones. Masks have always been used in many professions too, so it’s not that unusual to wear one, and it is not going to make you sick. Finding one that suits your face does help though. In the video I show some some different types of masks in Korea and which ones I prefer. I also talk about how to wear makeup and glasses with a mask, and how to deal with annoying mask acne.

I’m sure there will be more videos on masks later so please ask questions over on YouTube if there are other aspects of mask wearing you’d like us to talk about.

Our video on the toilet paper hoarding panic in Australia.

You don’t even need to leave home to be criticized though. Plenty of people have lots to say to parents online too! I notice how much celebrities get criticized no matter what, there will be something someone will complain about in any photo they post. We assume most of the people who do this don’t have kids themselves. Or if it is another parent leaving mean comments, it’s someone who totally lacks self awareness.

We like to joke about mean comments so we took an opportunity to get into the heads of those types of people and troll ourselves. We looked through our own Instagram feed and tried to find reasons to criticize our own parenting skill.

Honestly, it was exhausting being that negative. If you want to find something to criticize, you will surely find it. But it doesn’t really make your life any better.

Although we have lived in Seoul for years, we have never done a proper apartment tour before.

It took years to work how best to use our small space. Since living here we’ve changed what room was the bedroom so we could have a bigger living room space. We moved in with almost all the furniture being given to us, so we just had to make do, instead of buying furniture that fit the space well. Even just a few years ago, options were limited for furniture in Korea too. Now it’s not just the IKEA option, there are many furniture companies designing reasonably priced furniture for small spaces.

Slowly we’ve been switching furniture and changing the space. Finally I felt I could do a video and also give people ideas on how to make the most of a small space. On sites like Buzzfeed they have lists of products that help in small spaces and I always check those lists. Often you don’t even know what awesome products there are that can help you manage a small apartment.

We do love this apartment, but it will be time to move on soon. We want to move into a bigger apartment, but still in the same area. I think if we didn’t have a two-year-old we could continue to live here, but we need more space. We also want more space for guests too and I want to be able to paint in a bigger space.

Seoul can be an expensive place to live, but our neighbourhood is amazing and we got lucky with our lower rent price. Our apartment has lots of natural light and has character. I hope showing our place gives others some ideas on how to live in a small apartment.

If you are moving to Seoul or Korea, be aware that the names for things can be different to what you may expect in English. For example, our place is technically a “villa” not an apartment. Apartments in the Korean sense are the very big buildings and have certain requirements.

Our son is bilingual and is learning in a simultaneous way. In this video we talk about how we do this and Yul also naturally gives some examples of how he understands both of us.

There will be many more videos on this subject later as he gets older.

Our son does child modelling in Seoul.

In this video we show a day where our son Yul has a photoshoot. He was a model for this kids suit company. We never had plans for our child to do any modelling. Agencies and companies saw his photo and we started to get contacted and asked if he does modelling. He only does a few things, and we say no to most things.

For us, when he does have a photoshoot, we try to make the whole day fun for him. These photos were actually taken over several months with three different sessions. It’s not easy to get a toddler into suits!

I wanted to talk a bit about our thinking behind letting our son do this. We really aren’t interested in pushing our child into a career so we don’t take him to any auditions, we only go when he is already selected to be in a final round and they need a screen test. We only do things where we can get some great photos out of it, or he can have a cool experience. Child modelling is hard, it’s easy to take photos of your kid at home, but it’s much harder to get them to perform in front of a strange photographer or camera man.

I do give some advice for parents who think their child can be a model in the video as well.

For this photoshoot, we really liked the CEO of this kids suit company, and the photographer and staff were very patient and kind. They also wanted to continue to work with Yul after the first shoot, even when they could have picked another model. But now that these sessions have finished, we aren’t interested in him doing any modelling for quite a while. We will consider if any amazing opportunities come up. But for now it’s important that he has a normal childhood.

We do hear horror stories about pushy stage parents and overworked kids in the industry, so we are always thinking about the downside of this. As we show in the video, we try to make the whole day fun for Yul. Luckily these types of studios are very big with lots of space so he can play. Other times when he has been a model for a photography studio the staff have super fun and he has had a great time. But it’s hard to get kids into different outfits and keep a positive mood. As parents we don’t want to be dragging him to many shoots all the time.

So while our son is definitely a natural, we don’t want him to have a career of this at this age. We’ll see what his interest is as he gets older.

It’s been years since we’ve done one of these videos! Let’s check out what Korean convenience stores have to offer when you are looking for a whole meal.