Martina comes to visit her old stuff! Simon and Martina (Eat Your Kimchi) were in Korea for a few days and Martina came to visit our apartment (Simon was sick unfortunately). A lot of our furniture is from their old apartment and their studio. It has been such a big help to us to already have this furniture and not having to buy it all once we moved to Seoul. We are really lucky to have them as friends. We actually talked about when we first met in Sydney years ago, and how far we’ve come.

Going back to the countryside was a bit strange. There were things that were comfortable, but other things that were weird. Also not really having a purpose because its not our home anymore leaves a weird feeling of not knowing what to do.

Rainy season has started! There is no way to not get soaked during this time. Luckily it’s not every day, just a more days of torrential rain during this time.

I saw a quote that was something like “Marriage is asking each other what you want to eat until you die” haha. Hugh is sneaky as he always gets in first and asks me what we should eat so I can suggest 10 things that he can say no to. Although I can be a pickier eater, he is pickier when choosing what we should eat because he takes his food so seriously.

We live a type of double life where we are in the countryside doing countryside things and then in the same week we’ll go to Seoul and have meetings and socialize with cool people and all sorts of fun things like that.

We had a bunch of meetings and then we had dinner with our friends Simon and Martina from the very famous Eat Your Kimchi. Although we stay with them often, we are both usually quite busy and don’t actually get the chance to go out for dinner that often, but this time we did!

So this really happened! Simon and Martina have recently moved to a new apartment and when we came to stay they wanted Hugh to check the ondol heating because it wasn’t working. We ended up getting the apartment guy to have a look and there was a problem. While he had his head under the sink, this gross brown water suddenly started spurting up. But it wasn’t poo! Don’t worry. It was rust water. Apparently the previous owner had never cleaned out this thing. It was pretty bad. The sink was about to overflow and the dishes in the sink were getting covered by rust water and the animals were waiting to get fed. But while all this was happening, Simon was in the living room uploading videos. Now, he could see us, and he could hear us, but he ignored it all! And then finally when we wanted a reaction from him, he was more excited about finding the remote under the sofa cushion. You are no help at all Simon!

So as most of you know, we went to Seoul for the opening of the You Are Here Cafe. We went to support Simon and Martina (Eat Your Kimchi) because they are our friends and it’s a huge thing opening a cafe! Wow, we realise now how stressful it is! The You Are Here Cafe is not just Eat Your Kimchi but also Talk to Me in Korean (and also third party investors). So we got to meet Hyunwoo and some of the other Talk to Me in Korean people, which was great because we’ve known each other online for a while but hadn’t had a chance to meet yet.

We really really respect Simon and Martina for all the work they put in for this cafe. Those that were there on Saturday would have seen how busy they were all day. They didn’t have much sleep the night before, got to the cafe early in the morning and I think it was after midnight when we left. Then they had a meeting with Soo Zee and Leigh into the early hours of the morning. But it all turned out amazing! I heard there was over 1000 people there on Saturday. I can’t believe how many people were lining up! Some people waited 4 hours to get in? It was amazing just how excited people were about this.

It was great for us as well. We got to see some of you guys and we really appreciate everyone that said hi to us. What is really cool about the cafe is that it is a space for creative people to come together as well. In our video you’ll see a bunch of other bloggers. Often it’s hard for bloggers to meet up just because there isn’t anywhere good to hang out, but the You Are Here cafe is perfect for this. It also means it is easier for us to see you guys as well. When we are in Seoul we can let you know on the social media if we are going to be there and anyone who wants to see us can just come by.

Simon and Martina are so involved in this as well. They didn’t just leave everything for other people to do. Things like, some of the recipes are Martina’s own recipes, both of them are so involved in what goes on the menu (and it’s difficult catering to both international and a Korean customers), and even down to mundane things like it was so rainy on the Sunday when we went into the cafe, both Simon and Martina were out on the front lawn at different time putting away chairs and putting down lawn umbrellas in the rain and the mud. No matter how successful and popular they get, they are still just down to earth people.

On the Friday night there was the smaller, private opening which was really fun. We got to meet Brad from Busker Busker and his lovely wife. Hugh was too shy to talk to him for half the night because Busker Busker is huge in South Korea. But later they had a good chat.

We also invited Prince Mak from JJCC who I’ve been chatting to for a little while because we are both Aussies. Yay Aussies in Korea! Kpop stars’ lives are very very busy but he managed to get the night off and came and hung out. JJCC are going to be doing something very soon I think…. so make sure you check them out.

And now here are some photos (most of these are from Instagram):

Love is not easy…

Meemers is Simon and Martina’s cat (Eat Your Kimchi) and is famous in his own right. Whenever we stay with them Meemers comes into our room early in the morning and wakes Mr Gwon up. Only Mr Gwon! He seems to know I’ll keep sleeping but Mr Gwon always gets up and plays with him.

We were in Seoul for the weekend for the very cool You Are Here Cafe opening. It was so nice to see so many of you guys there!

At the moment the plan is to live in Korea for 2 years but that is flexible.  It’s something we’ve been thinking about ever since we started dating because I really want to have this experience, and it will be good for my husband to be near his family. We’ll be staying with them first before finding our own place. Still not sure if we will move somewhere near Seoul or Busan.

We will be blogging full-time, which is hard to explain to some people. A lot of people aren’t that aware of how bloggers make money. Also a lot of people can be quite dismissive about our book deal as well. Oh well, if we’d listened to people in the beginning we’d never have started a blog, but now look how far we’ve come. We’ve got money saved up so we can survive for quite a while as well.

It’s something we’ve really thought about too. In Australia my husband had a pretty easy job with good pay but if he works in Korea for a company he will be working twice as much for only half the pay. He’d be away from me all the time as well even though I’d be in Korea too. If he had to do that we probably wouldn’t be moving to Korea.

Hopefully we’ll have some interesting videos coming up. My husband’s family lives in a very rural area and don’t speak any English. I’ve done about 1 year of Korean study and am constantly hearing Korean, but I’m still very much a beginner. It’s going to be hard for me.

I have a feeling my husband may get some reverse culture shock as well. He has been in Australia for a while. But it’s still all very exciting!

Our video of the Eat Your Kimchi meet and greet!

Well it is very catchy…

So I mentioned before, it was 8 days filming for just 30 minutes. When things are all edited and put to music it looks so fun, but the reality is… you really are just walking along the street haha. Mr Gwon tries to imagine how it will be later by humming music, but he usually ends up doing some Eat Your Kimchi music instead of ours.

I’m curious to what music the documentary program will use.