It's been a busy and exciting couple of weeks, ending in a trip to see the Korean Formula One race yesterday.Autumn is definitely here, and the temperature is dropping daily, but we've still had a lot of nice sunny days.The baseball season has ended for the Kia Tigers, as they lost last week, and the last football game of the season for Gwangju FC is next weekend.Graham went to see a couple of the last baseball games, as he got free tickets from Travis, the Australian pitcher, and a Korean friend.We also went out to dinner a couple of times with Travis, and he surprised Graham by giving him a signed shirt that he had worn early in the season.His is #99 and you cannot buy these shirts in the shop, so this was a fantastic gift.

Two weekends ago we did a couple of hikes, and spent an enjoyable evening at a local park with some friends and their children.Our first hike was up our local mountain on Saturday and then onto the park for the evening.It was great to see so many Korean children and families there enjoying playing games and flying kites.The next day we decided we were readyto hike Muedeung San.This is a much longer hike, and is the highest peak in Gwangju.It was a beautiful day, so four of us set off with our picnic and climbed to the top.The views were great, but the mountain was very busy with hikers making the most of the good weather. In the evening we met up with some friends to go for Haejangguk, which is a hearty soup with pork spine, dried cabbage, vegetables and ox blood.We were so hungry, but the four of us who had done the hike struggled to get up after sitting on the floor at the Korean restaurant!One of our Korean friends, Dr Kim, also brought along some yoghurt for us that his wife had made.He had recently been on a trip to Europe and thought that we might be missing good yoghurt.It had blueberries and honey in it and was delicious, and so thoughtful of him.

Last week we had a couchsurfer stay with us for 3 nights who we had met him in Beijing last month.He was from Portugal, and was travelling around Asia for several months, if not years, and writing about his experiences for a magazine back in Portugal every month.It was nice to have a visitor, and to offer someone help when they needed it, as so many did for us last year when we were travelling.

On Saturday we went to the World Kimchi Festival in Gwangju.Kimchi is probably the most famous dish in Korea, and it varies depending on its age and the region of Korea. Basically it is a fermented dish made of vegetables and various seasonings.The main ingredient is usually napa cabbage, but sometimes other vegetables are used like cucumber, radish (not like British radish) or spring onions.This is seasoned with lots of salt, red chillies, and either brined fermented anchovy or brined fermented shrimp.It is then left for different amounts of times traditionally in pots in the ground, and now in huge fridges, to ferment.We've tried many different types of kimchi, hoping to find one that we like, but I can't say that I really have!I think it's an acquired taste which the Koreans are brought up with, as I can guarantee that if I ask my students what their favourite food is, and majority will say kimchi.Equally, if I ask them what they ate for breakfast, lunch, dinner, the majority will say kimchi.And if I ask them to write an essay about what they need to take on a journey, the first thing on the list will always be kimchi!So the festival was an interesting experience.There were other food stalls too, exhibitions, singers and other performers, and lots of free samples of kimchi.It was possible to make your own kimchi too, but as we don't like it we just watched others.Surprisingly we didn't buy any kimchi, but we did buy some duck and some biscuits which taste like 'rich tea' biscuits!Kimchi is also the work that they say here when taking photographs, instead of smile, so the slogan of the festival was "say kimchi".

Yesterday we went to the Korean Formula One.It is only about an hour from us, so we had been debating for a while whether to go or not.It is a lot cheaper here than going to Silverstone, but still expensive, so this was what was putting us off.However, as the date drew nearer we started to think that it was an experience we should not let pass us by, and we managed to get some cheap tickets on the internet through the help of a friend and his Korean wife, paying only a third of the original price for some great seats in the E-a stand.We travelled early by bus with a group of friends and spent the morning ambling around the track, looking at the trade stands.The F1 merchandise was ridiculously expensive, but we found the Korean F1 stand was a little more reasonable, so we both got a T-shirt each and an F1 seat mat each.Graham kept chatting to the Korean staff, trying to get discount.They couldn't give us discount, but they gave us some free F1 lapel badges, as they thought Graham was funny in his cheekiness!It was great to get there so early, as there were few people, and there was a Korean touring car race which we saw some of.It was a great atmosphere at the race, particularly as we had some German fans sitting behind us.Vettel pretty much led the whole race after overtaking Hamilton during the first lap, but there were a few exciting moments between Hamilton and Webber competing for second place.There was also one small crash, which we didn't see, but we caught the aftermath as the two damaged cars came around the corner, looking in pretty bad shape before being taken off the track.Fun times and more to be had……

Maggie x