First box by ship arrived!

So our airmail box (*sent from the post office at Incheon airport...click here for more info*) arrived a little while ago. And we are no happy to announce that box number 1 (of 5 or 6 from what we can remember) that was sent by ship, has finally arrived...yipee!

Shipping items is a whole lot cheaper than sending them by airmail. It cost's roughly W50 000 (+-$50) to send a 20kg box from South Korea to South Africa. Ok, it takes a whole lot longer but if you've got lots of clothes/books/extra stuff like stationary which I seemed to horde over there then it's the perfect way to get you stuff home!

We have been waiting about 3 months for this box, but it arrived safe and sound. Now it's just time for the other 5/6 to come!
For more info on shipping stuff and how to go about it click here.

*any other questions you may have feel free to drop us a line using the contact form above!*

**Airmail**sending stuff from South Korea to South Africa

A few weeks ago the first (*of many*) boxes arrived safe and sound in sunny South Africa. The only difference being that this particular box was sent via airmail (costing me an arm and a leg) from Incheon airport.

Now the reason for sending this box from Incheon is rather simple. Farmboy and I arrived at the airport (click here for more info on the airport limosine that runs from Daejeon to Incheon Airport) all rather excited to be finally heading back home after we had completed our contracts. Now, imagine our smiling  faces as we breeze through the ques due to the fact that we had already checked in on line the night before, and of course after organizing extra weight for both of our suitcases on Singapore Airlines (you can do this by either calling their help desk on +82 234 556 560 or sending then a very polite email at kr_feedback@singaporeair.com requesting more luggage space because you have been living in South Korea for a year bla bla bla). 

Now, the only thing we did not manage to do was weigh our suitcases. Big mistake. Farmboy managed to scrape through 30.5 kg's, but, unfortunately for me, my bag weighed a whopping 36 kg's. **If you are flying to or from the US or Canada, the above weight retrictions of 1 bag weighing 20kg's does not apply to you...not fair! But because we are flying to South Africa, our allowance was 1 bag of 20 kg's...later upgraded to 30kg's**.

From this it is quiet easy to work out that I was pretty over-weight EVEN with the extra 10 kg allowance. What can a girl do?? I asked the lady whether I might be able to pay for excess baggage, her answer "You are over-weight. No payment allowed". Well thanks for nothing Singapore. But after some awkward silences and me asking her what exactly I was supposed to do with my extra weight (*luckily she didn't ask to weigh my hand luggage or handbag or coat or laptop bag*) I found out that there was a Post Office at the airport.

To cut a long story short, Incheon Airport has a Post Office on the middle floor to help in these kind of situations. Because we had already gone through the hasstle of shipping 6 boxes home which we are indeed still waiting for 7 weeks down the line (*click here for more info on shipping boxes from South Korea to South Africa) and I had packed the **essentials** into my suitcase, I decided because I was prepared to pay for excess bagagge anyway, I would AirMail my extra 10 kg's. Easy enough, the procedure is exactly the same as shipping a box, only quite a bit more expensive:

1. Pick you box size from those available. (prices for the boxes range from W1 000 - W3 000)

2. Get a green form and fill in all your details

3. Tape up your box

4. Stand in the queue and get your box weighed and pay for it to be airmailed.

Easy Peasy.

And that was that. Well, not exactly, it did end up costing me W118 000 (+-$120) but that was still cheaper had I been made to pay for excess at a rate of $70 a kg. My box weighed 9...you do the math :)

And there you go. 2 weeks down the line and I had my box, safe and sound! Now here's to waiting for the rest of our boxes coming by ship!

**GHD's** in Korea

So...we are both back safe and sound on South African soild, but I'm still feeling itchy to blog about stuff to help out those South Africans (and of course everyone else too!) living in Korea :)

Here is some info on GHD hair-straightners that I was researching just before we left..hope this helps any one trying to find info on it too!

In my opinion, GHD's are the bes thair- straighteners ever **although other people might disagree and say they just happen to have the best packaging and this ultimnately leads to everyone thinking they are the best** but enough with the digression! Click here for their official website and see for yourself *plus loads of free videos and tips for styling your hair!*


After some web surfing I came accorss some comments from other GHD fanatics. Apparantly the starightner goes by the name "B2Y" in South Korea. Umm, why? Who knows. But apparantly, the work as well if not better that the GHD, and at a price of +-W118 00 (R740) they are about half the price of GHD's in South Africa!


You can get your hands on one on gmarket *click here*. For more info on how to use Gmarket, *click here*.


Happy Shopping!

Arriving back in South Africa!!

After a grueling 25 hours of traveling and waiting around at airports (and the huge hasstle of discovering that I was very much overweight despite my careful packing!), Farmboy and I arrived here in South Africa safetly :) And have already stuffed our faces silly with delicious bread rolls filled with ham, gourmet cheeses, basil, sundried tomato and *avocado*! Yum Yum Yum!

What a lovely surprise to see both my mom and dad waiting for us :) And a very special stop at my Granny And Grandpa for breakfast!

And so begins the next chapter in our lives. We will of course still be keeping this blog up and running, with the hope of adding on an "Africa" section soon!

Lots of love
Farmboy and Citygirl (now enjoying life in South Africa~until our feet get too itchy and it's time to move on!)

**16 000** strings of honey??

On a recent trip to Seoul, we found this guy performing/selling 'The Kings Dessert", a traditional Korean honey candy :)

*TED*~ Idea's Worth Spreading

If you have never heard of TED, then I'm afraid the following bit of news we want to share with you won't be very exciting. Thats ok. Maybe afer watching a video or 2 of some previous TED speakers, you may share a little in our excitement.

A few weeks ago, I came accross an advertisement for TED saying that the next local TED event woud be held in Dajeon. Now, as you may or may not know, we live in Dajeon...and of course, we just had to go. Apparantly, to be part of the audeince of a TED gathering  in the States goes for thousands of dollars (well that's what I was told, please don't burst my bubble if this is entirely untrue), anyways, all we had to do was apply (write a short blurb about us) and then wait to hear if we had been selected to be a part of it or not.

Success! Both Farmboy and I were selected (we had to do separate entries so that was rather lucky) and today is the big day! Here's a little bit of info if you're still no seeing what the big deal is :)

TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design.Since then its scope has become ever broader. Along with two annual conferences -- the TED Conference in Long Beach and Palm Springs each spring, and the TEDGlobal conference in Edinburgh UK each summer -- TED includes the award-winning TEDTalks video site, the Open Translation Project and Open TV Project, the inspiring TED Fellows and TEDx programs, and the annual TED Prize.

Here is one of our favourites:

*Myeongdong* and *shopping* and *food* oh my!

In our previos post on Myeongdong, we recommend going there if you could just go ther for the shopping. Well they have loads of cool restaurants and things to see too :)

Here were some of our highlites:

Lunch at this crazy delicious Indian & Nepalese Restaurant called Om Dristi

Then shopping up a storm at Forever21

And then coffee in the ultra posh area of Sinsadong

Finally ending off with supper at *most* people's favourite watering hole when your in a rush and strapped for cash:

All in all a very successful day in Seoul!