Archive for the ‘ Authors' posts ’ Category
You may have noticed last week that the Olympic gold medal winning figure skater Kim Yu Na had ended her successful partnership with Canadian coach Brian Orser. The sudden and unexpected news wasn’t top billing in Korean media, until Kim and Orser decided to air their differences in public. Revelations about the coach walking away to [ READ MORE ]
It hit me like blanket as I exited Incheon International airport upon my recent reentry of Korea: it was real humidity, not the sort of thing the weather girl goes on and on about on the local news at home. Summers in Korea are really damp. The air is thick, hot and sticky. It’s the beginning of [ READ MORE ]
The message from the Ministry of Justice in Korea is don’t come to the country if you are holding a fake identity or your reasons for visiting are deemed “suspicious” – the outcome is you’ll have your photograph taken and the fingerprints too. Stricter immigration regulations are being brought out in advance of the G20 summit [ READ MORE ]
So, last night I packed my bags and moved out of what was my home for the past fifty-three weeks. I think it was a home solely because it was the place I crashed in for a year. Knowing I would not be staying on in my job as far back as February meant I [ READ MORE ]
I can’t believe I have been here for 53 weeks now. I still recall the fifteen minute drive from my family’s home to Dublin airport. My brother, an English teacher in Japan, was in the car during undoubtedly the saddest journey of my life. He was home for two weeks visiting the family. He told [ READ MORE ]
In Korea many women think they can lose their virginity to a tampon. All images of having sex with a tampon aside, this essentially means they believe they will break their hymen if they use them, therefore marking themselves “deflowered”. This isn’t a completely accurate definition of virginity itself. That said, the tampon misconception is another [ READ MORE ]
You may have seen this last week, but a Newsweek “study of health, education, economy and politics” has ranked South Korea as the 15th best country on the planet. Finland, Sweden and Switzerland occupy positions one, two and three. Unsurprisingly, North Korea did not feature in the top 100. According to the findings, Korea has a [ READ MORE ]
Consider the fattiest cuts of bacon, three, no, four times thicker than normal, frying on a pan roasting with onions and garlic. As they cook, fat oozes out of the meat, self-greasing the pan. The smell of pork wafts through the air into your clothes and hair. You flip and cut these lardy strips of meat [ READ MORE ]
Foreigners living in Korea are divided between those who like kimchi and those who don’t. But nobody can claim to be a hater until they’ve tried it with bossam – tender slices of pork, often quite fatty, served with the sweetest, most delicious kimchi you could imagine. Well, perhaps you can’t imagine it. Kimchi on it’s own [ READ MORE ]
www.xe.com is one of the biggest on-line sites when it comes to currency conversion. Chances are you’ve used it from time to time. You might have spotted that the Korea (South) Won is not listed on the first page, and that it requires you to click ‘more currencies’ in order to get what you’re looking [ READ MORE ]