Intercultural Life

Tag: my korean husband (Page 16 of 128)

Seoul Life Episode 2

Our second week in Seoul and yet it feels like we have been here for so long! In this episode we talk about celebrity sightings, show some more of our area and talk about what we do for a living.

It’s been great to easily go to restaurants we like as well as being able to cook at home. We are slowly exploring more and more of our area.

We quite regularly walk past the YG Entertainment building on the way to the station and there are ALWAYS fans there, but it’s actually pretty rare to see much there. Last night we went for a walk and there were a few fans waiting at 1:30am! The funny thing is that Bigbang members can be in the area… but just not there. I notice a lot of fans that wait are international fans, I think some people fly into Korea to just sit in front of the YG building. I totally understand wanting to see it and wait for a bit, but I’ve seen fans who have been there for 6 hours or more, because I walk past earlier and hours later when I have to walk past again… they are still there… Anyway we were pretty lucky to randomly see Taeyang like that when just walking home.

If you have questions, please leave them in the comment section or on social media and we may answer next video!

Extra Large

Extra Large

Hugh runs into this problem sometimes where he says something in English and is not understood because he hasn’t used the Konglish version of what he is trying to say. It doesn’t matter if his English was correct if they can’t actually understand him. My problem is going back to Australia and using Konglish words like English.

He also sometimes uses Australian English which can further confuse people. Instead of using the American English of “take out” he will say “take awayyyyyy” in Aussie English. Some people understand it, but some don’t.

Washing Machine

Washing Machine

One of our biggest disagreements is about taking the plastic of new appliances. I always want to do it right away but Hugh NEVER wants to remove the plastic. It drives me crazy because the plastic looks messy, but it drives him crazy because he wants to keep the plastic on as long as possible to keep it “new”. I took one line of plastic off the new TV, but wasn’t allowed to take off anymore. When we got the new washing machine I took the chance to take the plastic off right away, much to Hugh’s horror.

Seoul Life: Episode 1

Our new video series! We’ll be making a Seoul Life video every week and we’ll talk about how we are adjusting to Seoul, show some footage we have filmed and answer some questions. In this video we talk about dirty apartments and ghosts, show you the Han river, answer some questions and show you the chaos of moving into an apartment and not having essential appliances yet.

Childhood Memories

About 2 weeks ago we traveled to the area where Hugh’s mother is from and where Hugh spend a large amount of his childhood. It has been many years since they had been back. We visited his grandparents’ burial mounds and paid respects, we also saw many elderly relatives and found the house that Hugh lived in as a small boy.

When Hugh was only about 1 year old, his father became very ill and he had to go live with his grandparents as his mother spent all her time looking after his father. It’s not unusual for children to live with grandparents in Korea, either back then or today. You still see grandparents doing a lot of the child minding in Korea and sometimes children live with their grandparents for years like Hugh did. It was very strange for him to see that area again. He was close to his grandparents and grew up thinking they were his real parents, so the transition of moving back with his parents was difficult for him. His grandfather passed away when he was quite young and his grandmother passed away while he was doing his military service.

Korea has had such rapid development in the past few decades, so it’s interesting to think about what Hugh’s childhood was like in the 1980’s and how it differed from mine in Australia.

Fashionista

Fashionista

I don’t think so… I do try to throw out some of these old items of clothing that are falling apart but they always seem to come back to him. Anyway, he has only been in Seoul for a few days, let’s see in a few months what his fashion is like.

The big move to Seoul

We have finally moved to Seoul. We moved about 4 days ago but we are still very much in this in-between stage of not quite feeling like this apartment is ours yet, and lacking some vital appliances. The move was stressful, like all moves generally are but it has been very exciting. This is our first ever place that is just ours. Even though we have been married for over 4 years, we’ve never been able to have a place that is only ours. We’ve lived with my parents for a little bit, we’ve lived with Hugh’s parents for 2 years, and in Sydney we had to share an apartment because rent prices are so high (Sydney is the second most expensive city in the world). Now being able to afford our own place feels amazing.

People in intercultural/international relationships tend to do more living with parents and also take more time to get settled. It’s expensive to be in an international marriage with visa costs and flights taking big chunks out of incomes. There is also the fact that someone also has to start again in a new country and it can be hard to find jobs and settle down on the right career path. Also in Korea, it’s not unusual to live with parents as a married couple, so we were glad to have that time with Hugh’s parents.

If you follow the social media you would have seen this photo I posted:

Instagram vs reality

Our kitchen is a disaster but I cleared one corner and was proud! Instagram VS reality! Our apartment was pretty filthy when we arrived so there has been a lot of cleaning (we will talk more about that in an upcoming video). We also don’t have a stove top or a washing machine and still need a bunch of other furniture, so we are waiting for that stuff to be delivered.

We are actually 5 mins walk to the Han river (we can also glimpse it through trees from our bedroom window) so we went for a stroll yesterday and vlogged a bit.

Han river

HAN RIVER

I’m so happy to be close to open spaces, because feeling claustrophobic in a city was one of my worries about moving. Our apartment (technically called a villa in Korean) is in a really interesting area and we can’t wait to show it in videos.

We are starting a new weekly video series where we are going to talk about what it’s like moving to Seoul and show clips from what we have been doing through the week. If you haven’t subscribed to the YouTube channel, make sure you subscribe so you don’t miss that.

We still feel like we are in limbo at the moment as we can’t cook in the apartment yet, we don’t have internet… we can’t even wash our clothes. But we can’t wait to share this new journey with everyone.

This is the view from my window right now:

20160606_094427

Different from the countryside, but it’s going to be so interesting to see how people in Seoul live compared to those in the countryside.

Thank you everyone for all the messages of support on social media! We appreciate it and we can’t wait to show you our experiences in Seoul and what it’s like to be intercultural in Seoul.

« Older posts Newer posts »

© 2024 My Korean Husband

Theme by Anders NorenUp ↑