hello korea!

i'm so glad my photos are finally organised and i can share this eye-opening experience with you all! 

back in august of this year, i made my first mark on korea after signing up to teach english there for a month. i knew no one, knew nothing much about the trip (in fact, my mum was worried i might get deported), and i did not know an ounce of korean except hello and thank you.

saying bye to my dad and sister!

as exciting as this was, there was a mini cloud over me holding my worries and fears. but all that was gone the moment i met part of the team at heathrow airport.

we were a good mix of uni students in second year, third year and some graduated; it turned out too that i was the youngest among us all! we entertained ourselves for a bit looking for our departure gates, grabbing food and pondering what the next few weeks would be like.

leaving the uk

first glimpse of south korea

it has been a good 8 years since i've been on such a long-haul flight, and i admit i was pretty well prepared for it (thank you pinterest). plane food wasn't as bad as i remembered it to be, and their makeshift bibimbap rice bowls weren't even that bad tasting. i also managed to get a good morning grind moving, watching zootopia during breakfast before we landed. 

once we landed, we were introduced to the team that flew over from america that same day. i grabbed a quick taro bubble tea (i mean, first things first) - before we got a taste of the humidity and heat outside when we boarded our coach to the city of danjin.

after a 2 hour drive, we saw the massive church we will be based in for the duration of our trip, which claims to hold 1000 people for services. we had a quick orientation where we tried to combat our jetlag, before being introduced to our homestays who will be looking after us. 

i was put into pairs with a korean girl, also from the uk, who was particularly helpful in translating between me and our host family who only knew limited english. our family consisted of 2 girls and a little boy who was very shy with us at first. they were the most welcoming and cheerful family too.

they took us out for dinner to an italian-korean fusion restaurant where we munched and got to know each other. it was an early night for us that evening despite how humid it was in the apartment even with the fan on!

church started off with 5am services, but we attended the one at 11am after a cute breakfast consisting of fresh goods from the bakery down the road and a strong coffee.

the big church.

 their services were so different to what i'm used to back in the uk. the children were so enthusiastic with their praises, and their prayers were filled with so much passion. we got a chance to introduce ourselves to the thousand people at the church too - a bit of daunting experience if you ask me. 

after church, i went exploring with my roommate, hadarm. the heat really got to us so we sat down to enjoy some bingsu, which eventually became a frequent dessert for us as it was so hot. 

we popped back to church for their evening service at 7pm before heading home for dinner.

dinner was beautifully laid out (and tasted great!) and afterwards we popped down to the corner shop to get some of the most funkiest ice creams for dessert.

i already know this will be the most yummiest trip yet.

Croatia: part 3

carrying on with my story of croatia.... visit part 1 and part 2.

the beautiful archaic streets

day 5// unfortunately i've been struck ill and woke up with a sore throat :(
nevertheless, we proceeded with a prayer walk this morning, visiting the town centre, church and market. as we walked back, the heat caught us; what better excuse for a good ice cream ^^

praying for the market

ice cream which are like vienesse put on a lolly stick!

this afternoon we were briefed before the first day of our UNA festival commenced! our aim was to hold three days of this event where we went into the roma village and spread the gospel and love of Christ through plays, songs and arts and crafts.

performing Jonah

we attracted a lot of children today - about 200! after performing our first play "jonah and the big fish", i got the privilege of leading group 7 where we gave out tshirts, made a jonah craft and coloured booklets. it was a very successful day i must say and ended up having dinner late at 9:30pm.

this little girl put my nickname on her shirt!! how cute!

for the first time of our stay, i didn't get ice cream that evening as my cough was getting so bad. oh wells, at least i had an early night!

sunset by the river.

day 6// i had a good ole lie in this morning till 9am and drank lemon honey to soothe my throat which was throbbing with pain D; we went out for grocery shopping and tried some burek, a traditional sausage roll pastry type food, super scrummy!

after lunch we gathered back for a debrief and according to some members of our team, i didn't look well at all. my temperature was taken and confirmed i had to be sent back to the apartment to rest. i was heartbroken i couldn't take part in todays UNA festival, but was prayed for and caught 3-4 hours of sleep.

i was awoken to dinner and caught up with my team over some cheesy pasta before debrief and followed by an ice cream walk - i'm back!!

day7// sunday today! after church and rescuing the cutest stray kitten ever, we went grocery shopping yet again as our rather large team consumes QUICK!

it's the last day of our UNA festival today and i managed to join - hooray! the kids had missed me so much and i got the chance to perform "the good samaritan" today. it was an extremely hot day and i got to say, the kids were so good listening and making tambourine crafts so enthusiastically!

as a tradition, we walked around the village with the kids to spread the love of God, however the blazing heat really got to me and it shattered me by the end! a lot of sweat mingling went on too as the kids held tightly to my hands.

dinner was carbonara and bacon, though i officially lost my voice that evening and was exempt from ice cream once again doh. that night we played banagrams until late late late - 2:20am!!

Croatia: part 2.

so you've heard part 1...and i'm hoping you've not gotten bored with me bombarding the blog with croatia fever, though i do feel it has been one of the best experiences of my life so far, and i do enjoy telling some of my favourite stories from the trip over and over again. i assure you though, they're not in the slightest way boring!!

these gorgeous kids in the village!

//day 3. rainy morning so instead of exercise in the park to jolt and refresh ourselves, we lay in bed and sang frozen. we reflected on our uniqueness and ways in which we could step outside our comfort zone during our devotional time. how great is it to have people encouraging you and supporting you on trips like this? :D

rain, rain, go away!!

we dived right into preparing more crafts this morning at the iclub, cutting ribbon and counting 600 of them. we met some of our helpers again, who are around 10 yrs old, some even younger, and taught them how to make the planned crafts for the festival, so they could be more involved and serve alongside us. :) 

ribbon-cutting crew

teaching the little croatian helpers how to make the
pasta tambourine craft!

anna claims cutting ribbon is tiring!

 what was great about this session was being able to bond much more with our helpers. now that its the second time they've met us, they're much open.....to tickling, chatting and learning a handshake i do with one of my best friends! 

the two girlies on the left came with a small group of kids from the
village to help out and get involved :)

this evening consisted of doing some more grocery shopping (a team of 11 eats lots.), playing banagrams and chopping up watermelon triple the size you will find in your average tesco's! 

croatian chocolate spread - yummyyyyy

banangrams at its best

big, huh?

weightlifting watermelons up to our apartment!

we made a trip to the village again this evening after dinner, loaded with packs of loom bands. around 30 children turned up and our team tried teaching as many of them as possible to make the bands. i taught a group of 7/8 year old boys to do them and in no time they surprised me by sitting in a circle on the floor, concentrated and knitting their own bracelets! 

teaching the children how to knit their own loom bands in the
village ministry house.

i'm ever so thankful we bought the kids so much joy this evening and it wasn't as chaotic as i expected - a sitting down activity was defo much relaxing than duck duck goose and running round the fields!

success!! we've officially brought the loom band craze to the
croatia villages!

we left the village at 8:30pm and went back to the apartment to jam with the guitar, debrief and pray, and go on our ice cream walk (which is fast becoming our norm and engraved into our weekly routine!) 

we also stopped at a fast food resturant along the way, grabbing some fries cos we all know how much we love a bit of shredded potato dunked in oil! the day ended with a good game of monopoly deal and boiling and peeling 12 eggs for our potato salad lunch tomorrow.

fries - oh yes!

ice cream walks quickly becoming a norm

 

which flavour ya want?!

quality ice cream. ^^

//day4. howdy sun, you're back! we held a helpers party at the iclub this morning to thank the helpers for their time learning the crafts and helping prepare for the upcoming festival. which means.....pizza!
i also spent the time making some more props for our plays, this being a set of donkey ears and a tail :) we chilled together, continuing our loom band craze and playing some music together.

testing the ears and tail of course

loom band craze goes on!

playing the violin...or at least pretending to.....

getting to know a teen from the village (left)

 after some briefing and logistics planning for the festival, we headed back to the apartment for dinner, which included peeling potatoes into empty watermelons as bowls were scarce. 

anna captured our inventive potato peeling

once again, we drove to the village after dinner where the kids were all excited about more loom bands! unfortunately, we miscalculated how popular it was going to be and didn't have enough loom bands for them all to play with :( it was a bit dissapointing for us as we could've so easily bought more for them and they would be so happy. 

the bright yellow ministry house!

darlings!

but this wasn't the case, and God used this opportunity for us to do other activities together. this being nail painting with the girls! i can't even recount how many dainty nails i painted that evening! we also engaged in singing together (popular in roma culture) and had lots of fun dancing, even giving each other massages! - the unexpected came out from our initial disappointment.

this sweet girl wanted me to paint the same nails i wore - summery pineapple ones!

pleased with their new nail colours

their massages are g-o-o-d!

 annoyingly, i felt a bit ill-ish and as if a cold was gonna haunt me. nevertheless: ice cream walk and even hopped over to surf 'n' fries, a chicken wing shop! oh yes pleaseeee!! after some gurrrd evening snacking and games (and exercise :/), lights out shifted to 1:30am!

dipping into surf 'n' fries after fetching our ice creams

THIS is midnight snacking.

what ice cream forces you to do....or not in my case..