As the dark nights and cold weather draw closer, we've spent the last couple of weeks close to home, in Gwangju. There have been TV nights, dinner parties, lunches, shopping trips, Halloween parties, a football match, a food festival, and much more. Our time here seems to be going very fast at the moment, as we are keeping ourselves busy and spending lots of time with friends. It's strange not to be in the UK at this time of year, as here there are no signs that Christmas is just around the corner, and no count down on the number of shopping days left for Christmas shopping. It seems odd to see people back home talking about this on Facebook, as I think here it will come and go with very little fuss or acknowledgement. This is a little disappointing to me, as I love Christmas, but we do have an artificial tree to put up, and I'm sure there will be some foreigner parties going on here over the festive season.

So, some of the highlights of the last couple of weeks have been: A South African themed dinner party where we ate bobotie (like a baked mince curry) and milktart (a desert made from milk). There are an amazing number of South African's here, and we were definitely outnumbered on this night. A BBQ, where we ate amazing ribs, and had a great evening chatting with friends whilst their kids played around us. Gwangju FC's final home game, where they lost 1-0, but played the best I've seen all season, followed by dinner with friends. And British comedy nights, where we have been educating my co-workers in British humour by watching the Inbetweeners.

This weekend was the Gwangju International Community Day. We headed down there on Saturday with some friends and saw nearly every person that we know in Gwangju that day. I've never seen so many foreigners in Gwangju before. There were food stalls from around the world, selling cheap small samples, so we had some Indian and Bangladeshi food which was fantastic. There was also a small Flea market and a stage set up for performances of all kinds. There were foreigners singing, groups doing Taekwando, bands, and various dance groups. We then went into the Gwangju Food Convention, as we'd heard it was worth paying the 1.20GBP entrance fee for the free samples of food and drink, and it certainly was. We tried various foods, mostly they were good, but some were really bad, particularly the root which they made into soup. We sampled many beers, just to make sure they still tasted the same, and sampled some wines and traditional alcoholic drinks like Makgulli, and a couple that tasted like vodka.

So, after an afternoon of grazing on free food and alcohol samples we were ready to put on our Halloween costumes and go to a couple of parties. Due to lack of resources here, we decided to hire costumes, so I was a pumpkin and Graham was the Grim Reaper. We had a fantastic evening, and so many people had made such an effort with their costumes. At the first party we went to our hosts had decorated their rooftop, and made Halloween related snacks (see photos), and then later we all went to Speakeasy to see a live band and meet up with the rest of the Gwangju foreigner community. It was packed with people all in costumes, but so nice to see everyone had made an effort.

So, November is nearly here, and it's going to be a quiet one for us. Graham is booked in for laser eye surgery on the 7th, so we're going to be staying in a lot, both saving money and as he'll be recovering for a while. We do have a few plans for next weekend though, before his surgery…..

Maggie x