I'm also not looking forward to having to argue my working hours again on Monday, as they want to extend it by a further 30 minutes which is not in my contract and extra work I am not getting paid for plus the time I travel to get home, settle down eat, workout etc. it literally means going home and going straight to sleep with no time to unwind. 

Aside from that I'm ok, I'm planning for Busan but it might get pushed back into August just for more preparation time etc. Either way this summer I'm hitting the beaches, pushing back dates is not necessarily a bad thing as my birthday I can hold a crazy booze filled weekend and gives me more time to get this body in tip top bikini ready shape. The weight loss is going amazing! I have been here just under 2 months and i've lost more weight than I lost in that 3 months in England. I say weight loss, but the scales have not done much in changing, I however have been measuring myself regularly and I am noticing real changes!!! I reckon all the protein I'm eating means I'm gaining muscle at the same time hence the lack of weight changes. My fridge is packed full of eggs, protein milk, fruit, organic vegetables, chicken! WIN!!!! 

So the weekend was crazy, I've been so good with my spending since I got here, I've been out on the lash once and that was when I arrived, I go out Saturdays to eat and cycle with the gaturi sister, Jest came over one weekend and we drank a load of beer and soju but nothing that broke the bank, Korea I love how cheap you are! I really don't spend much money on food, it's kinda samey at the moment, but as I eat lunch at school, I find it doesn't bother me so much. So this weekend I went a little crazy on the shopping for the first time, I bought quite a few beauty things, stuff for the kids at school, stationary, some clothes and accessories. I also want to add there was sales everywhere so majority of the stuff I bought was half the price, so despite buying so much stuff I really didn't spend much at all.

The sis and I went to a Vietnamese restaurant for lunch, it was banging! We had a seafood fried rice and pho and an appetiser, with some ice jasmine tea, it was immense, it was so clean and healthy I was so full but not feel bloated it was awesome!  

After that we got started on the retail therapy, it felt like christmas for me, everywhere were sales and things were so damn cheap! That may seem like such a typical female thing but shopping with me is not a normal affair, in fact put me with someone just as mentally unstable together in a town full of shops *COUGH*Mimi*COUGH*, you have trouble on yours hands. I like to mess about, play and experiment with things that aren't necessarily age appropriate, be an idiot in general public in all honesty I revel in what I do best and thats be 100% crazy! Embrace the madness...or so I keep telling myself ;). Here's some fine examples of what we get up to when we were out and about in Downtown.  The weather was complete sh*t though but that didn't put too much of a downer on my weekend.

So after shopping the plan was meant to go out and have a mad all nighter getting crunk with the Jestmeister and Yunwoo, the first people I hit the clubs with when I got here actually. I haven't seen Yunwoo or spoke to him since then actually. Anyways the reason I didn't get to see them, was well a huge ass storm decided to come by and fuck up my weekend and I was buried under a load of paperwork, so Cherry's mad weekend turned out to be a quiet night in, banging out vocab sheets and tests. It wasn't so bad though, I got it all done with plenty of time to spare today, so much I had done my shopping, pampered myself, cleaned again, watched 4 episodes of game of thrones and it's still reasonably early. Is 10.30pm early? 

It's been a chill weekend and its only 10 days until payday, I still have so much dough left for this month! I still can't fathom that I send home half of my wages and still have way too much money to live off for a month!

I'm gonna close this post today with a thought: I question my sanity at times, I can't work out if I'm genuinely fucked up or if it's a coping mechanism. Is it really true, all the best people are crazy?

I love the fact my pay is way more than I actually need every month. I send half of it home just to pay off debts back home, by next month I would have paid off all my credit and by the end of the year everything would have been paid off.

Caffetiere £3, Blender £11, Ipad Cable £7

Mini Blender £11

Tiny Cafetiere £3

£1.50 per MODI  nail polish

These things I bought from downtown not online, MODI polishes are the best polishes I have ever used hands down, the gloss factor, the colour choices, affordability, the longevity, the drying time. Make MODI my number 1 nail polish brand, I have no need to try any others because I am so impressed with this brand. They also sell gel polish too which I would love to invest in one day. At the moment they even offer a limited edition Sponge Bob selection of colours and gel starter kit.



I've also been raving in one of my past blogs about how amazing this face cream is, it comes in 3 varieties depending on your skin type in their own pretty coloured jar, Green = Combination Skin, Blue= Oily Skin, Pink= Dry Skin. The best cream I have used yet, especially due to the climate my skin gets oily and shiny in summer and I have constant breakouts in the T-zone because of the excess oil. This cream actually controls it and smells gorgeous, the cream itself is the same colour at the jar. It is one of the most popular creams in Korea. It was half price in the sale when I bought it, but I will be changing creams come winter time for my extra dry skin.

£6 Aqua Cream for combination Skin

Now onto footwear :) I bought a couple of shoes because i needed some other shoes other than trainers to go with outfits and for the summer that are cute. These shoes were so cheap and bought them from NC Wave department store in Downtown. The Tom style shoes are super comfy and don't differ in quality to Tom's these are cheaper, super light and come in an array of designs, so I will definitely be purchasing another pair because these lavender ones will get dirty pretty quick.

I saw the purple peep toe leopard print pumps and I had to buy them because they were so comfy and they were cheap and I don't own any jelly shoes, these will be coming with me to the beach in Busan! The only down side is they rub at the heel but I'm sure that plasters can fix that :P.

Sick Masks make me look like a ninja/criminal/someone  who belongs in Mortal Kombat.

I'm writing this from my sickbed, I have caught something and it has progressively got worse, over the past week, it's your typical cold symptoms, but in combination with the hot nights I am feeling absolutely shit, not to mention my hormones are running havoc with me and sending me into tearful episodes, so you can imagine I am feeling the ultimate shit fest right now. With the current outbreak of MERS in South Korea that has now reached my city the fears of me possessing it is constantly on the increase.

I haven't felt this low in a very long time, I really don't know if this has anything to do with the fact that a few weeks back I had made a really difficult choice, to cut ties with someone who for almost 8 months was the most important person in my life and someone I genuinely believed would be 'the one'. Now this isn't something I have really spoke about on here because I want to keep the mood on the positive side and despite being a mix of angry, heartbroken and being plagued by the constant bittersweet yearning for him, I do think out of the men I have ever been involved with he deserves my respect and that is why I won't divulge the details to our "relationship", but I will say looking back now, I do know I did love him, I still do, I just didn't ever had the courage to say, I guess if you know me well enough I am stubborn and I tend to put up walls when it comes to relationships, I lie to myself, pretend I am this strong person but in all honesty, I'm scared as fuck because of this very occurrence, I guess its a catch 22 sort of thing and I have no one to blame but myself. Honestly, not one day hasn't passed when he isn't constantly on my mind, even to the point the thought of him is in my dreams. Why does love have to hurt so much??? 

Moving on from my life woes, the week passed by pretty quick, I have learnt a few classes names but it's extremely hard when you are a Korean school that refuses to give your students English names, now if you don't know most Korean names are made up of 3 names and to add to the confusion the family name is at the beginning. Most students names are two names so it's confusing as hell, because they're not relatable so I find it so hard to remember and many names clash because they sound similar just to add to confusion. But that's not even the top of my list of frustrations, I have been here almost two months and I am getting fed up with my boss picking and choosing when she can stay here, this week I was told she is staying here Monday to Thursday, which I am extremely angry about, I refuse to let this continue any longer I am extremely ill and this is not in my contract. Why am I always unlucky with bosses who feel the need to be extremely possessive?? So yes my week hasn't been great, in combination with feeling like I am dying I had a pretty rubbish week. Until Friday came around, there was some good news, the new season of Orange is the New black was released on Netflix earlier than anticipated, so I spent my Friday evening ill but "happy" in bed watching it religiously, I say happy with quotation marks because as much as I laughed, I cried a hell of a lot too, I genuinely was not expecting so much feels.

My baby

Ta bokki

Gaturdays always makes my week way better, Mimi and I went on our usual bike ride, I brought my beautiful new bicycle and Mimi rented a brand new beautiful bicycle which actually looked like it could be my bikes twin sister. We didn't cycle along the river very long because the heat was really bad and I felt extremely ill, so we just cycled around shops and had lunch. We had Kim bob because I was feeling sick I couldn't stomach much food and we had "Ta Bokki" on the side which is a spicy vegetable, noodle mix in sauce with long rice cakes, which is great for the cold.

Organic Macha Green Tea Smoothie

After the meal we cycled to Gong Cha the best place for teas and smoothies of every variety, normally I order a Taro milk bubble tea when I visit, but I was laying off any dairy due to my cough. Instead I ordered a delightful Organic Macha Green Tea Smoothie with a milk foam, I know I just said no dairy but it looked so goooooood, plus I reckon foam was probably better than normal milk itself.

Afterwards, I headed home and spent the rest of Saturday evening continuing my OITNB binge watch whilst munching on Katsu Kim Bob which resulted in me going to sleep at 5.30am just because my cold was keeping me awake and I was so hot even with the fan on. I ended up sleeping through most of today because I am just so Ill still and extremely tired. But here's to a new week, due to my sickness I had to abstain from my 30 Day challenge but I want to start it again from Day 1 again as soon as I am healthy again.

So since I quoted Simply Red I am now in fact listening to Simply Red on this super hot weekend, I am chilling indoors waiting a couple of hours to cool down so I can take a trip to Home plus to do some much needed shopping I have no food in the house whatsoever and I need to find bulk packs of candy and some packs of stickers etc. so I can bribe children to learn and listen in my classes.

The Mandatory weekly update:

It's best to get the bad stuff out in the open before I talk about the good stuff. Whatever part of the world you are from if you have been watching the news, reading the papers etc. you would most likely be aware of the recent new outbreak of a deadly virus called MERS, if you haven't I won't bore you with too much information, thats what google is for, but there has been an outbreak in the Middle East and has since travelled to South Korea, so everyone has been warned including myself to protect myself by washing my hands often, staying hydrated, keeping healthy and wearing masks in order to prevent contamination. There is no known cure for it yet, but as I have cold symptoms this put the fear of god into me and I have been super vigil about taking extra care with myself. My week like always has been a mix of stress and ups and downs. I don't think I ever have a substantial amount of rest at the weekend, I am just constantly feeling drained and surviving on my daily black coffee. On the plus side I have started the 30 day challenge (more info on my progress on my other blog here) and I'm feeling more confident in myself and determined than ever. One thing I have learnt this week is that despite not being happy with how much weight I've gained in Thailand, I am learning to love my body, I am exercising and eating right because I love my body and want it to be the best it can be, this may sound cliché but my body is "my temple", you only get one body so you need to look after and maintain it the best way you can, so it can look after you later on in life. 

The positives of this week is though I have been paid and reimbursed my plane fare, I paid most of my debts back home, so soon I will be debt free, I did a bit of shopping, for well needed things for the house and some other stuff, (I'll update you about my shopping in Korea once I have received everything).  I also have finally addressed the food waste issue I had since I got here, the Korean trash system is annoying but is environmentally friendly, kudos Korea, kudos. Disposing of rotting food waste that had accumulated over weeks was not pretty I tell ya!!!! I will spare you the revolting details. I have also started making plans with Mimi for my birthday weekend in Busan :P 

What did I do this weekend you ask? Cycled by the river in Samgu in the scorching hot sun for a couple of hours, whilst again belting out at the top of our lungs the lyrics to Western songs including Miley Cyrus' "Wrecking Ball" which then refused to leave my head for the remainder of Gaturday, it was so bad "I came in like a wrecking ball" kept escaping my mouth like word vomit, it actually got really annoying lol.

So, I know back in the UK people were saying it was 24 degrees well today is 24 degrees and I'm telling you now Korean 24 degrees is probably way more powerful and stronger than back home. I don't burn, thank you asian genetics! but I do worry about the risks of the sun here because the suns ray are extremely strong. 

So after the bike ride with Mimi, we went to an Italian restaurant that she recommended because everything is organic and fresh, yes it was a bit expensive but we definitely got our moneys worth and for a special and good friend, she deserved the best, it was my way of saying thank you to her for being a good friend but also doing everything she could to always help me (even though I am pretty sure it must get very annoying).  

We scoured the menu of delightful food I asked her to recommend the best dishes because she's a regular there and I know what ever she suggests it will be amazing. So we ordered a risotto and a pizza and shared both between us. We also had the most amazing bread I have ever had the pleasure of tasting as an appetiser while we waited for our dishes with a mango spread, the amount of mmming we did whilst eating there was silly, we were food-gasming with every bite and were stuffed when we managed to devour the sumptuous dishes. It was then followed by a dessert of either coffee, iced tea or panna cotta with apricot? i think. Mimi had an iced tea, I had the panna cotta, how could I not?? It was delightful and we left took a walk around Samgu to walk off all that food because I tell you I was so stuffed I was bloated and most probably looked 3 months pregnant with a food baby but this was just the beginning of the eating....

blue cheese pizza with honey dip

...Mimi decided to take us to an amazing place that does the best green tea things, green tea cakes, desserts and ice cream!!! So as well as a being a complete red bean fiend, I am also a green tea addict especially Macha green tea. The ice cream was so refreshing and not too sweet which I liked, it was a good way to end our Gaturday together. Two scoops was plenty I would of been happy sharing two scoops between us. But thanks again to Mimi for showing me the most delicious foods of Gwangju, next Gaturday we have a picnic planned together, I am so excited for!! 

green tea ice cream

We parted ways which is always a sad moment because I only see her once a week, but by this point I was not feeling great the heat had brought on a headache and I was feeling knackered from all that cycling. I went home to rest and what next happened surprised me...

...I was chilling at home on the phone too my mother then Sanya back home venting about life's many woes, I was a combination of fuming, ill and exhausted so i was not in the best way. Then Hanna my old room mate turned up from out of the blue, it was her birthday and she brought a massive tub of Baskin Robbins ice cream filled with a mix of more Green Tea Ice cream, Coffee, mango and honeycomb flavour ice cream. There was me thinking my consumption of ice cream was over lol, I had a small amount but I needed to eat dinner, so we decided to get Korean Fried Chicken. This is what it looked like and it was delicious in all its greasy deep fried goodness. Now I'm not a huge deep fried food fan but once in a while is always nice :D It was well earned anyways as I spent most of the late night trying to sort out the food waste situation, scouring the streets for a shop that had the things I needed. It was a success, with Hanna's help we sorted it out and we called it a night after devouring our well earned chicken. 

It was a good Saturday even if it was food filled with many naughty foods hehe.