Just like Animals, Animals, like Animals

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Well hey my delightful followers, as you can tell I am in a hella better mood than the last blog post. With good reason too, life is amazing and October is a fabulous month to be in a great mood we had Hangul day last Friday which meant a 3 day weekend!!!! I also have a wedding to attend in 7 days plus halloween is just around the corner! (honestly, where is the time going?)

I took the meaning of loving my food literally.

So far so good, I went out with my girls Emily and Elly for some super delicious Lobster. It was amazing! Never had lobster in a while and definitely not in a restaurant it was a mini feast and I will definitely be making a trip there again despite being a little pricey.

Despite being only a 4 day week after Chuseok the week dragged due to the fact Elly and I had a trip to Seoul planned. We left Thursday night and arrived in Seoul 1am we stayed in Gangnam at a fantastic guesthouse. We got back got ready and hit the bars, clubs at almost 3am in Itaewon. It was quiet being a Thursday so we got home about 6.30am. The next day we woke up at 10.30am which was pretty early considering we didn't actually goto bed until 7am. We hit the coffee shop for some overpriced green tea latte and went shopping in Gangnam. We bought some bits and pieces, had some fantastic lunch looked around some more then headed back to our guesthouse to doll ourselves up for a Friday night out in Itaewon. Despite Seoul being so hyped up I have no real love for the place, it was nice to visit but nothing that I haven't experienced before. It's a large place like London and full of many foreigners but the population being so high is stressful and overwhelming and puts me in a constant bad mood.

Harry Potter Beer

Bulldogs food

We met up with Kasper, a friend from Gwangju who recently moved to Seoul to study, we had dinner at an English restaurant called Bulldogs, we drank Harry Potter Butter beers and ate hot dogs which was just a british banger in a bun but with a twist it had mashed potato on top with gravy lol. We drank alcohol and partied until 5am, before heading home for some well needed rest before heading back to Gwangju. Our bus back to Gwangju was at 14.15 and I we got back in good time, but there's no rest for us animals so after I had done some well needed shopping in E-mart and Elly had finished her tutoring we headed back out in Gwangju for an awesome night with all the amazing people in Gwangju we see every weekend and partied yet again until about 5am. I ended up not actually going to bed until 7am, I genuinely don't know how my body hasn't just shut down on me yet due to the amount of partying and minimal rest i have in between. Fun times Gwangju, honestly despite having a great time in Seoul with Elly, Gwangju will never be beaten, I always know whenever I'm out on the weekends here I will see tons of people I know and I am guaranteed an awesome night out!

It's all just a fond memory and nostalgia to me now, back to work tomorrow *cries*. It was amazing, laughing and loving life. Let's kick this week in the ass so I can have yet another awesome weekend :)

From strength to strength

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So I haven't written on this blasted thing in a while and I feel it's long overdue. My life has been a whirlwind since I wrote a blog post, I went through a lot of up and downs.

Let's get the negative out the way so I can end on a positive note.

Since I last wrote I was in a difficult place and had been for a long time I was ridiculously heartbroken and I felt so alone. You can probably remember me mentioning it in a past post but literally up until last week I was carrying this great weight inside. I hid it well I think with just drinking a shit load and going out more and meeting new people. That's the good news and I'll touch on that in the next part. I find myself everyday fighting with my thoughts trying any way to distract myself it really truly affected me, I don't know why I wasn't prepared for it because falling in love with someone does that to you.

But I'm not writing to discuss him, it's what happened during this time that I ultimately regret, I made a decision which at the time seemed like a great way to move forward and heal. Now this decision started a chain of problems of which I have only just nipped in the bud last week, I went through stresses of fighting with this guy who I called my friend, he came between me and one of my girl friends and he manipulated me at a time I wasn't at my strongest and I had let my guard down.  He was a serial liar and probably one of the best actors I have ever come across. He thought I didn't know but I knew what his real intentions were, never underestimate a girl whose been hurt a billion times, I'm already 1 step ahead of you. So me being smart I retaliated in the best way I know how, mind fuckery, I killed him with kindness but at the same time never let him win at his pathetic game playing he thought he called the shots and every time I would just shoot him down. In the end I got tired and bored of fucking with his mind so I ended our friendship. If you could ever call it that in the first place. I win asshole!!! 

Elly, Brian and Kasper and I at Tequilaz

Now every tunnel has a light even if that tunnel is like 5 months long lol so here's the light, the night the cracks in that so called friendship started to show, was also in contrast the time the day my life would change for the better. I started to make friends, I met Elly and Brian aka Hansol and Suyoung and that was the beginning of a beautiful friendship. From then on my friendship circle grew dramatically, literally weekend after weekend I was networking and meeting foreigners and Koreans. This was the all mighty sweet cherry hehe on top of my mountainous cake of self-loathing, since then my life has dramatically turned around I've done some amazing stuff with amazing people in the short time I've known these new friends. I can't go anywhere in Gwangju now without spotting people I am acquainted with.

Chuseok was probably the most memorable so far, I did things I wouldn't even dream of doing i.e. 40 hour benders and drinking 5 days straight. This is just the beginning too this week I am going to Seoul and the following weekend I am going to a wedding and you can't forget halloween!
Another gleaming beacon of happiness that entered my life was on the 13th September, I brought home this 3 month old ginger kitten who I've named Jackson or Jax for short after the notoriously sexy and bad ass Jackson Teller from Sons of Anarchy.

He's so sexy when he's angry ;)

Now normally I am a dog person, I still think I am at heart. But realistically cats are lower maintenance and can be left at home pretty well too, but I love my cat all the same, despite being a pain in the ass at times.

Jax loves naps

Tequilaz!

More Tequilaz!

Watching ant man in 3D

Wet, wild and freaky nakedness!

16:43 Unknown 0 Comments

my babies (students) and me at the water park

Well another week has passed, the first week back to work mind, but it was the easiest week of work ever!!!!! I came back to work (on Tuesday) when the kindy were off for summer, but the school failed to mention this so you can imagine my frustration the first day I was up early after 3 hours sleep waiting for a school bus that never arrived and then arriving at school at 9.30am to be told I didn't need to be there until 12.30pm. The foreigner is always the last to know!!! Well after establishing this the whole week except for Friday was a 12.30 start woo!!! Friday was the exception as it was the day of the elementary school trip at the waterpark, which was so damn fun!!!

just before i started having a water fight with my students

Now we all know how possessive and slightly crazy my boss is, well this day was no exception, why you so obsessed with me??? She was insisting I join her in the spa, now if you don't know traditional Korean spa's consists of removing EVERYTHING!!!!!! So you can imagine how uncomfortable I felt when she insisted me, Scarlett and our manager joined her. I voiced my concerns to my manager who is very kind and understanding and she managed to get us out of it. To be honest no amount of money or her insisting would have seen me remove even one piece of clothing or sit in that tub with her!!! I downright refused, there was no way this woman was gonna catch a glimpse of my bare flesh not in a million years!!! The sense of relief flooded me thinking yes this is a victory I do not have to see my boss naked and I can die happy with that thought, little did I know what was to come later! So once the trip came to the end of course the kids had to take a shower and get washed, now all the kids stripped down completely in the buff which didn't bother me these are children, but I was surprised how open they are about their nudity here, the changing rooms all the women walk about completely naked. It was time to help the girls shower and I was soon warned by Scarlett our boss was completely naked in the showers with the girls helping them wash. Never in a million years would this ever be allowed in a western school! In fact me and Scarlett were the only clothed people in that whole shower room! Straight away the principal came to us completely naked and asked us if we showered straight away we were like "YES!" because we really didn't want to get naked.

strawberry and red bean bing soo.

We got back for 4pm and i finished at 4.30 2 hours early wooo!!! The awesomeness didn't end there, after work me and my gal from work Scarlett went out for some Korean dessert at Cafe Bené, it was stupidly hot so it was well needed. I met her sister Yun So, for the first time and bless she is the sweetest girl I have ever met, after Korean dessert we went to a place called 'Chicken in the Kitchen' we ordered Korean chicken, half of which were spicy and half were original, with a side of dips and some wedges, we were given a complimentary pizza and Korean frozen dessert. We drank lots of Soju probably the best part of the evening, we started with shots of peach soju, then pomegranate, then blueberry then we moved onto 'Somac' which consisted of 3 the big bottles of Cass beer and a bottle of Soju.

beer and soju

Scarlett's sister stopped drinking after the first bottle of Soju so Scarlett and I were drinking like no tomorrow! It took me a while to realise I was drunk because it was going down so easy and this was all assisted with Korean drinking games which was so much fun. I learnt some new Korean words and phrases. The main and most important being "cheers" in Korean, which is "Jan" :D it was nice, we spoke about life, our plans on travelling, the ups and downs of work and just how awesome we thought of each other, it was super nice. Scarlett and I have very similar personalities, mindsets and tastes which is amazing. It wasn't until the next morning, did I realise I could not remember anything after getting to my apartment, I don't remember falling asleep, its a complete mystery to me! I spent my Saturday sleeping and watching Netflix and today I went to downtown to pick up a few things, did shopping, manicured and pampered. I still haven't got round to doing a clean and tidy, it will have to wait until tomorrow! My bed calls!

100 days of Cherry...

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Well hello my internet minions, it's been a long time since I've updated, a lot has changed since I last written, and for that I apologise, it's been crazy mental here, the run ups to my vacation I was buried in so much paperwork for school, I even spent my birthday doing just work, I'm 24 now, 

Scarlett and I

It's now the night before I return to work and to say the least I am not dreading it as much as I thought I would be, but I am hardly jumping for joy either. I've had an adventurous week meeting up with various friends, doing various things as you do, nothing particularly out of the ordinary, drinking and partying, shopping, eating out and chilling with the best people I know in Korea. I got paid early so I went shopping and sent out a few packages which was on my to do list for a long time, mum if you're reading this, prepare for the huge box coming your way this week! That same day I went to Sul bing with Scarlett and we did some shopping in downtown then we went to Lotte Department store which by the way is the best place in the world!!!!! Lotte is the hugest department store in Gwangju according to Scarlett. It was freaking amazing they had a lush there A FREAKIN LUSH!, Benefit, Makeup forever which is near impossible to find in England unless you know where to look ;), Clarisonic!!! Yes I will be purchasing a clarisonic next month!!!! plus all the other typical designer brands everyone knows and love with some other well known high end brands Koreans are more familiar with and also some other high end American brands too! It was down right incredible, I had goosebumps walking around that store because It felt so much like home!!!! Afterwards we visited U square bus terminal and then Shinsegae department store which again was awesome but Lotte definitely had the wow factor!

Mango and Cheesecake Dessert

My birthday cake with candles that say I am 25 (korean age)

Looking back a bit further I spent the Friday and Saturday just before my birthday with my sister we went out for dinner followed by some drinking and dancing on the Friday and stayed out until about 2.30am maybe??  We played pool, jenga, Russian roulette and I suddenly became appointed as the "DJ" of the bar that night which was a lot of fun I must say. In the usual Cherry fashion I got talking to lots of different people that night just because I am just a very social person. I met some guys from the UK, yes! You read that right from ENGLAND and SCOTLAND, Lincoln and Glasgow to be precise. It's nice to listen to people from back home talk, I kinda have started picking up the Americanised English due to the lack of Britishness!!!! After the nigh
t we headed home to mine we lit the candles, had birthday cake and popped party poppers. The cake was gorgeous it was a beautiful blueberry and yogurt cake from Paris Baguette which got totally devoured after two  days in my fridge.

Then on Saturday I spent it with Jest doing what I do best, drinking and dancing!!!!! We went to German bar then we discovered this new place which was this secret hidden gem of a bar, the bar owners are super kind and welcoming, they have a cute beagle which was wondering around the bar and on the bar itself wanting to be fed with its adorable puppy dog eyes. Jest and I drank an array of concoctions with a side of Korean sweet snacks and frozen blueberries, which mostly the dog ate because I just couldn't resist feeding him. Then we hit the usual club. As always time with Jest is always time I appreciate and enjoy. He is probably one of the nicest, most kindest of my male friends. Everyone loves the Jestmeister!

Oh yeah during this time I also took it upon myself to do the Fire noodle challenge, which I had to film twice thinking I lost the footage the first time around, (video at the end of this post.) I also tried Orange soju and Pomegranate soju which are yummy, I will be trying blueberry soon! Trust me just because it's sweet do not underestimate it's potency!

To conclude it has been a busy but fun time off for summer I just wish I had travelled somewhere :( I can't believe I have been here just over 100 days already!!! Time is flying by!!!!

Thought of the day: Which flavored soju is your favorite?

Heres the video for anyone who wants to see me eating fire noodles!

Food, booze and more booze.

15:00 Unknown 0 Comments

Leaf printing with the kids on the trip

So my lovelies, it has been 2 weeks of ups and downs with no blog posts to enlighten you with. I have a lot to write about so, here goes.... Apologies for the abundance of pictures, I will try and be concise with my words whilst updating you on the life and times of Miss Von Dee.

So where to begin, work is work. I dread Mondays, my positivity has started to tarnish a little, mainly because I am asked a lot of at work, I feel my teaching is never at a good enough standard no matter how hard I try. I need to do this and that more, I need to type up multiple things and all that need to be done before I am holiday on the 28th July.

Stunning Lake View :)

I went to a school trip on Friday to a lake and forest, which I fucking loved, everyone was saying how hot it was, it was hot but nothing I couldn't handle, even with leggings and a long sleeved top on I was absolutely fine. I had a great Friday, it must have been the most enjoyable easiest day at work ever, I toured this forest and lake, came back to work was bought Kim Bab by the school, I sat and ate with the Kindergartens who brought their own home made Kim Bab and fruit and snacks etc. I genuinely hardly touched my lunch bought by the school because all the cute little munchkins kept toddling over with their chopsticks and feeding me their lunches, I was easily stuffed on their lunches and fruit. I think what happened was it started as a kind gesture but turned into lets feed Colleen teacher so we can get rewarded with kisses, cuddles and tickling. How can you not kiss and squeeze the heck out of their cute little selves!!! So adorable!!! I'm majorly broody just writing about it ^_^ 

The view of the mountains from the Boss's house

When I finished the remainder of my teaching for the day, me and the rest of the teachers left Gwangju and spent Friday evening eating a korean BBQ feast and drinking beer, chatting and being crazy females, that we are. It was a nice bonding experience and the teachers were so nice in paying me compliments and including me. Also the bosses, house is huge!!!!! She lives in the mountains and has the most epic view I have ever seen. It was an amazing experience and I was home by 11pm, which was awesome! I was also gifted two traditional Korean hand fans which i have no decorated my room with :) I'll update with pics later.

Sometimes I cook for two people :) Mine and Jest's dinner.

Taking advantage of the beauty bulbs in the bathroom with Mimi ;)

We have a new teacher at the school, which brightens my days, we have made multiple plans for travelling Korea together, so I'm so excited about our trips. I've been spending more time with the Jestmeister, went out for meals, drinks and clubbing, he is a delight to spend time with and I cherish our time together, it's always a good time with the Jestmeister, playing scrabble at a foreigner hotspot restaurant in downtown has to be my highlight of the past 2 weeks, followed by him teaching me the ways of playing pools like a pro, followed by beer and shit loads of tequila, best night ever! Which leads me on to my birthday, I turn the ripe old age of 24 in precisely 14 days and my plan is a meal with my friends, then followed by bars and clubs, the predicament and rather annoying thing is my birthday falls on a Sunday and I have to go back to work just for 1 day before I am off work for summer, Silly, right??!!, so it has to be done on Saturday night, it's still so bizarre to me, but I plan to get totally wrecked for it.

My passed few Gaturdays, have been partying and shopping. I've spent a shit ton on shopping for my mother and a couple of friends to send them stuff. When I've met up with Mimi we've been doing our usual, eating out and shopping and we actually hit some photo booths in town and got pics together. Asians are crazy about taking photos especially selfies and editing them!!! Now when I say photobooths, I don't mean your bog standard passport photo booth or even the ones you can do with friends, these ones here are from Japan and we all know how advance their tech is for everything!!!! This includes their photobooths! They have special lighting inside, green screen, effects, the shots can be full body shots and when you are done you can edit the fuck out of them from makeup, hair colour, to adding frames, stamps and writing in a huge selection of templates and styles. It cost a mere £2 which gives you two sets of photos of 6 (one for you and one for your friend/loved one).

Photo booth pics lol

The weather has been mad crazy here, it's hot and humid, regardless of rain and storms, I even believe it's even more humid before and after rain. Next weekend the plan is to hit the mud festival on the beach in Boryeong with Scarlett (the new teacher at my school), but we haven't put anything into action so I have no idea, but I really wanna go as this is my only chance,  I heard it's choca block with foreigners!

So that's all I have to say on the events of the past 2 weeks, Its been a blast but at the same time major stress on myself. Phew!


Closing thought:

How do you guys cope with stress? Any good techniques for de-stressing?

Nal bogo michyeo!

14:39 Unknown 0 Comments

What can I say? This week has been crazy as f*ck. I've been ill, technically I'm still not fully recovered Let's hope I don't catch MERS!!!!! D: I've been slap banged with a change to the curriculum due to new management, which meant a last minute pile of tests and vocab sheets to write. Thank F*ck for coffee! It's all done now, the big test is on Thursday but in the run ups I need to teach this vocab to them.  Grrr.. I'm slightly freakin' out about that in all honesty.

appetiser and sides

spicy seafood fried rice and pho

finding my next mad conquest in a store of cute things

SURPRISE! found a tiny child's party hat

cute snapbacks! That shit Cray!

Asia complex downtown

Asia complex downtown

Asia complex downtown

Shopping in Korea

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So since I got my first pay check, I have done some well needed shopping, mostly for things I really needed but I did grab a few extra things I did want rather than need but they didn't break the bank and I still have plenty to live off and some to put aside for my birthday in Busan.

£10 for Tom style shoes

£7.50 for super comfy jelly pumps

Death by Camels, Love and Lesbian Inmates

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So the mood of this blog will be different to my others and hopefully this is one of those blog posts that will only occur once in a blue moon. So i'm currently listening to a "life sucks" spotify playlist because yes my life does suck right now.