Estoy aquí en Valladolid

Ayer, llegué en Madrid. All is well.  A quick picture update. I am having fun and I start work tomorrow

North Korean Life

At least they look like they are having fun

In Patagonia

For part of my Spanish A-Level Unit 3 exam I have to write a case study on a geographical area, a piece of literature or a historical study - the 4th option I forgot as obviously I would go for the Geography option! It has to be a Spanish speaking region and I chose Patagonia. So I am spending a lot of time finding out about the region that is shared between the 'Cono Sur' Southern Cone countries, Argentina and Chile. It really is a drastic, beautiful area and is 'Man's struggles to tame wilderness'!
As a learning aid, I purchased this book by Bruce Chatwin - accounts from his Patagonian adventure. I have so far only read the introduction by Nicholas Shakespeare but it already is so interesting!

Oh yes, 10 days countdown till Valladolid! I found out yesterday I will be working in my selected area of Tourism and it will be great!

What is in the box?

My precious box arrived from South Korea, sent by my lovely friend. Since I don't write much updates on my sub pages, I will put my post on my Korean page. Check it out to see what I received and what I also sent! Soon!

In regard to my previous post about North Korea

There is that phrase 'broken beyond repair', and I think it is suitable to use when talking about the blood-line of leaders in North Korea. It was very cruel indeed killing the country's second in command Jang Song Thaek (tyrant leader Kim Jong-Un's uncle) however, Kim Jong-Un wanted to have more revenge, more greed, more assurance of his power and killed his whole family, apart from his blood Aunt. He didn't even kill only adults, he killed minors too. Read about the recent North Korean occurrence here.

Timidez

Hi all! I am still counting down the days till I leave for Spain (19 to be exact). I still don't know my work placement so hopefully it will be confirmed soon! Recently I have been listening to a couple of songs in Portuguese and a few more in Spanish after having some recommendations and wanting to break out of my habit of just listening to Shakira to learn. I also aim to watch some movies in Spanish and start watching a Tv series. The songs in Portuguese are both by Adriano Ribeiro after seeing my friend share a cover of his song 'Cenário de Novela' and I some how came across 'Timidez'. I would suggest you give them a listen. I do not understand Portuguese but somethings are guessable because the amount of Spanish I know and limited French as the languages have their similarities. Do you listen to any songs in other languages?

North Korea asking for reconcilliation with the South and an end to the military hospitalities

Today, I had my usual browse on BBC Mundo and I saw the headline 'Corea del Norte pide a Seúl "poner fin a las hostilidades" ' and my first thought was  'caramba!' '드디어!' and '말도안돼!' without thinking about the amount of times peace must have been offered just as an attempt ambush! Most of the comments were negative, saying how 'North Korea are at it again' how the letter has a 'hidden motive' but I would like to think 'what if?' What if they tyrant was unlike his father and grandfather? What if he had enough of the suffering in his country? What if he wanted to create ties with the world again and become one with the South? What if this was genuine? It is unlikely considering the endless threats North Korea makes, the fact that Jang Song Thaek was executed a few weeks ago for conspiracy and that well, it is North Korea. However, I really wish the North Korean leader would open his eyes and therefore opening the eyes for the millions of civilians blinded by propaganda or too suppressed to escape. Read the article here. What is your take on the recent news of Kim Jong-Un wanting peace?

Any Korean learners?

The way I approach learning Korean. If you are a beginner or are curious,  THIS should help you! There are a few things that need changing, I literally tried to make this in two hours for my Korean class juniors (내 후배들) and I didn't use every verb or word that I know. It is just basics :)

A different similar point of view

So before I had mentioned Kim Han Sol - grandson to the infamous Kim Jong Il; he was interviewed about his life in North Korea and away from North Korea. I have previously talked about life in North Korea from the viewpoint of an escapee, but this is from the perspective from a member of the actual 'royal' family, who too does not agree with the ways his family have been ruling the country. Watch part one to the interview (in English) here and part two here!

Guess who got a new Atlas..?

It was I! Treated myself to a new big atlas ♥_♥ . I love Atlases! It was originally £90 then £15 (but I got staff discount so it then became £8) ;) yaay discounts and geography!!
It may be obvious but I love geography. Some of my friends also used to call me Atlas due to my knowledge of the locations of countries and places on the world map!
Do you own an atlas?

How much easy questions can you get right?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vWjobDRp3w&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone; and a happy new year!
Feliz Navidad y Próspero Año Nuevo!
성탄축하해요! 새해 복 많이 받으세요!

Fascinating facts about North Korea

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/northkorea/8965694/50-fascinating-facts-Kim-Jong-il-and-North-Korea.html
Fascinating facts about North Korea. My favourites are 1,3, 5, 9, 10, 22, 29 and 35...I informally declare North Korea a messed up country.
http://theweek.com/article/index/242471/kim-jong-uns-less-responsible-disney-obsessed-older-brother though this did make me smile. Since North Koreans do not have passports, this black sheep of the royal family faked a Dominican passport of a guy called 'Fat Bear' to go to Disney Land.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2282134/North-Korean-fashion-women-encouraged-choose-18-officially-sanctioned-hairstyles.html North Koreans are only allowed (or in their words 'encouraged') to have certain hairstlyes!
http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2013/12/17/2013121701475.html the brother that wanted to go to disney land is now possibly wanted. I feel he got a different gene from his brother and it spread to his son who looks like he could be a K-Pop star! Kim Han-Sol now studies in France
http://mentalfloss.com/article/31611/kim-jong-un-wins-sexiest-man-alive-how-onion-tricked-chinese-newspaper Kim Jong Un sexiest man alive! (In the eyes of who may I ask?)

Help build a bridge to North Korea. Rescue a game changer...just by watching this video

I think everyone has a country in need on their heart. My one is North Korea. I pray in my life time the North Koreans will be free. Watch this short video and share to help https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9HDVoi6n0g&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Recently

Hello, hallo, buenos días, bonjour (I just realised bonjour is literally good day as in bonne jour meaning good day...I am a slow bunny), 좋은하루, guten Tag (for you Angela :-* )
So I am sorry (if anyone is a loyal reader) for neglecting this blog a bit. I have so much plans for it, but not enough time sadly.
Like I have mentioned before I am now in A2 year of a-level and am expecting to go to university next year (I have 5 conditional offerer! I need to maintain grades now). I am doing my Spain Work Experience in Valladolid in the Spanish region of Castile and León next year as well which I am really looking forward to and nervous about at the same time.

I have been resuming some research on North Korea. I am looking at the Juche idea and more into the royal Kim family. In the news recently, it has been mentioned that Jang Sung Thaek, husband to Kim Kyong Hui (who I share my Korean name with) who is sister to the late Kim Jong-Il, father of current leader Kim Jong Un...has been executed for treason. So Kim Jong Un has killed his uncle in other words for trying to betray him and North Korea. I also read that Kim Kyong Hui and Jang Sung Thaek had a daughter who studied abroad in France but then committed suicide after she was requested to return to North Korea and because of her parents insupportableness to her relationship with her boyfriend.

 I have been very lucky to have five different Korean teachers in the space of a year ranging from Sunyeonim (sister-nun in Korean) in year 12 and four Korean students this year. Of course my lovely penpals too.

Anyways, enough of me for now. If anyone speaks another language apart from English, that I have never mentioned on this blog, mention it to me and I might do some research on your country and language :) because apparently I have quite a widespread audience so I'd like to reach anyone who reads in whatever nonsense I write about.

Stay cool!

Shoutout to Lisa쌤 & 우정쌤 who have recently started to view my blog

Ever thought about learning esperanto?

I recently came across a really fascinating blog called fluentin3months.com . Check it out! Polyglots have always been a subject of interest to me (and a dream for me to become one...only a dream haha). The blog is written by an Irish male called Benny who can speak English, French, Irish, Italian, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, German, Mandarin, Dutch, Asl....and esperanto!

I first came across what Esperanto is when I was browsing wikipedia and saw 'esperanto'. I thought to myself 'what is this language?' as it sounded like it was a Spanish or Latin type word. Esperanto has a elements of Spanish, Italian, French, English and German so if you know any of these languages, words should be familiar. For me, it is familiar because of the English, some of the Spanish and limited French and Italian I know.

It is proved that is helps making any of the languages above easier to learn (so mainly Latin based languages) easier to learn. You can easily find links between all languages and Esperanto uses these links in a way. Esperanto is a man made language...I think the purpose of it was so that we could all speak one universal language one day for world peace. It's a nice theory, but if I do decide to ever pick it up in the future, I'm sure it would be for the utility side of it. 

Kbee London 2013

So the 6th of November 2013, I decided to go to KBEE London with a friend of mine. It was a very enjoyable time (KBEE by the way stands for Korean Brand & Entertainment Expo). I was able to go to a karaoke room 노래방 (which was weirdly placed in a modern art gallery) where I sung two 2NE1 songs with my friend. Unknowingly to us there were people in other places in the building that could hear us through a webcam set up haha! I got to see the 2NE1 hologram concert >twice!< and the Psy one as well. I won a Psy mask >twice!< I saw some familiar faces from other similar events and had a general great time looking around, watched an amazing drum performance, bought a Pucca pencil case and got some freebies as of course it was an expo! I must have forgotten something...oh of course meeting my favourite girl group 2NE1 who were the ambassadors of KBEE this year. They had a meet & greet and unfortunately I didn't get to see CL or Dara, I did meet and speak to Minzy and Bom and get their signs! My korean failed me that day >.< I was so shocked and happy that I couldn't speak properly (or even look at them properly). Security was very tight and banned picture taking, however I am very satisfied with the outcome of that day and wish to go to a similar event in the future.

G-Dragon display

2NE1 display

Big Bang display

Who doesn't like freebies

Spain 2014

Well hello all! So I just found out today that I am going to do work experience in Spain for a week in February 2014. I am soo happy it is no joke! I hope this will be a good opportunity that I can learn a lot from, improve my Spanish and find a bit more about Spain with my love for the country from being in Spain. I will not know yet if it will be in the hotel but it will help out with applying to tourism management. Wait for more updates :)

Hello once more

Hello everyone. So long time no post I guess. I am in my (hopefully) final year at sixth form and I want to next year do tourism management at university. Most of the tourism courses I looked at are four years as one of the years would be a placement year (mainly abroad). I also carried on with learning Spanish like I said I might. Yes it is hard but all of my subjects are really. I have a new Spanish and geography teacher so it is a bit different but they are nice profesoras :) I also would like to do sixth form work experience in Spain..which would help with my May speaking exam and my general confidence in Spanish because if I am forced to speak in the language for a week I would have to polish it. I am definitely for it as long as it is a yes from my mother. It would also be a great help for tourism management if I can do my work experience in a hotel!!
I am planning to do my Spanish exam essay on Patagonia / chile / the Andes and the importance of that certain geographical area (tourism, fauna y flora). Korean update: as the 수녀님 (Korean nun) that taught us before has briefly returned to Korea, we have two Korean students teaching us which is fun as always. That is all I have to write for now - I must concentrate on my university application and grades. More updates soon I hope! Shoutout to some of my friends abroad 지영, 수민, Lilly, Yolanda and you :p

One more

I recently walked the Alzheimers society memory walk and passed some interesting places in London so I will post some pictures as soon as I get the opportunity. Also a lot of foods of the world page I may as well add in soon...not that I'm a food critic but it is something interesting I guess haha :)

The start of spanish for me is this video :) ...even though it is in english

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weRHyjj34ZE&feature=youtube_gdata_player

See?

I do keep some promises. Holidays on Spain coming along on holidays and 2 Spanish presentations in one week. Oh you so lucky...whoever is actually reading...apparently someone says my stats...:p

My current stats

My current stats. I hope it can increase as I increase the content of this blog

Slacking

I have been slacking but I have one new update - A presentation on Bolivia on the Spanish page and another one soon on the Canary Islands. I hope all you Brits are enjoying the heat...I'm not; and I hope everyone else is having nice weather

Hello all! Salut! Hola! Hallo! 안녕하세요....I'm all out of languages ^^

Hiya all. Exams are over which means I'm supposed to be UPDATING! Hopefully do so soon so I can have a blog that I enjoy writing and hopefully someone enjoys reading. So I'll be spamming everyone soon :) so urm have a nice day
...also I've almost reached 1,000 views. Yay!

Exams!

I will stop blogging until I am free from exams next month but (if anyone cares) I will make loads of updates next month!! My first exams are geography and Spanish, my favourite subjects. Pray for me that they go well!!

Korean event

On Friday was my Korean class' annual Korean event (this was my first one, since I officially joined in September). This just reminds me,I hope you've read the Korean page. Interesting things. We had to present and perform to the heads and some teachers of the school.
The older girls done a dance compliation of about 8 k-pop dance songs, one sung two songs accompanied by guitar, they were given certificates, two of them presented on their trip to South Korea last year, we served Kimbap and Ramyeon and it was a good time

Inside North Korea BBC Panorama News Programme

Inside North Korea BBC Panorama News Programme
very interesting guys! Do watch it and be educated! Click the link

Flatford Mill 2013

My tiny geography class and I have returned from our geography trip at Flatford Mill in Suffolk. We went to gather secondary and primary information for unit 2 of our geography exam and to find out how to tackle the questions.
It was a good time. The environment was lovely, the scenery idealistic, I was chased by a swan and our room was beautiful. We rowed a boat. We also had a first hand experience to how people from a certain Isle act (I'm sure my class are the only ones that understand that reference). I will be sure to post pictures soon :)

Documentry and upcoming trip

Did anyone watch the Panorama documentry on North Korea last night? Any views on it or interesting / shocking things you found out? It was quite sad, wasn't it? If you haven't seen it it's just 30 minutes - watch it on iPlayer.
I found it sad. Actual footage from North Korea. The documentry showed such a difference just miles North of the boarder and a few miles South. North Korea was like a different planet compared to what was shown of Seoul - capital of South Korea. In the hospital there were no patients, the fields no crops, the farms no livestock, the bottlling factory no production and the tour guides were nervous and desperate for the tourists to not capture the poverty. You could see most of the people they talked to were trained to lie and lied to the tourists so naturally. When something goes wrong e.g a power cut, everyones says 'we blame the americans...this is because of the americans!' There was a clear quite scary idolisation of Kim Il Sung and his son Kim Jong Il who the North Koreans look at as 'gods that can never and has never done anything wrong'. They still worship them - even though they are dead they still have a force and rule over the country. It has been said that 'North Korea is the only place ruled by a dead person'. North Korea is clearly a place on Earth like no other.
I promise I won't only go on about North Korea forever; especially as there's a geography trip coming up!!

Books!

Hello all. My books about North Korea has arrived! So far I have listened to  'The Aquariums of Pyongyang' and I will eventually read 'Nothing to envy' and 'Escape from Camp 14'. It's weird how North Koreas publicity is increasing because of their nuclear threat, hopefully with that the world will become more aware of the fowl humanity there and hopefully many lives will be saved from the drastic food shortages, the political camps, the lies and the North Korean government in general

Colour the world!

Quick update; I am planning for my map to be coloured...almost completely.

These are my audience stats: 

United Kingdom	331
United States	67
Germany	25
Russia	20
Mexico	7
South Korea	4
Greece	3
France	2
Canada	1
Spain	1

As you are all aware I am quite lazy so I'm sure it will be a trek to colour the world but one day I will conquer you all! Mwahaha. No.

Easter break

Hello all. I am currently on my Easter break. I hope you are all full on chocolate right now. I have my first views from Mexico. ¡Hola! I am sure I know the main culprit 안녕고양이씨 ^^ Here are the view distribution for this week so evidence it's not just me reading this and speaking to myself (unless I've really travelled to all these places...but that's time and effort).

I finished listening to 'The Aquariums of Pyongyang' and wow. That was amazing; by amazing not the positive amazing but astonishing, shocking, sad and dramatic. I felt like I was listening to a movie - the things that happen in North Korea are dreadful and inhumane. They go to such a far extent to maintain privacy but more people are becoming aware.

The author explained how even when there were family visitors from Japan the whole neighbourhood would have a clean out and be under high surveillance so the family can not mention the condition of the country and conversation was small with their visitors. Some things I found unbelievable was the high level surveillance, the near 'worshipping of their leader, the prison camps that many innocent were forced to live in, the rough food conditions that led them to sacrifice their corn to lur in rats ro eat the rats, the public executions where children would see 'betrayers' and 'criminals' be killed in the most vile ways, the selfishness that the author had to go through just to escape North Korea leaving his family including his little sister and the girl he loved, the North Korean government system and the crimes against humanity in general. Animal farm guys...that country is full of propaganda!

If you want to find more about North Korea (there's google...I kid) check out my page 'The countries you don't hear much about'. I really recommend this book - it's a real eye opener and even though the content is sad it is interesting to learn about it. You might now look at North Korea as 'communist country with 'little, fat hitler in a boiler suit' ruling constantly threatening the US and South Korea' but now you might see it as a place where many live with extremely unjust rules, unfair punishments, sufferring with a corrupt paranoid government.
See you all soon

The Aquariums of Pyongyang - Update

I'm not usually one for learning about history. In my secondary school years history was the one subject that was 'hmm..interesting' but I never wanted to keep on with. Listening to 'The Aquariums of Pyongyang' is really interesting history complex and shocking - so much adjectives to describe it and I'm only on chapter 4. The total duration of the audiobook is 7 hours 22 seconds...I have a feeling I might be listening to the remaining 5 hours and 50 minutes in the next 24 hours.

Did I even mention what the book is about? There were three people involved in creating the book, one of the three being the Kang Chol-Hwan - the person that the story belongs to; it is about his childhood in North Korea, North and South Korea's history briefly mentioned, Kang Chol-Hwan's families' history (Jeju Island, Japan, North Korea) and North Korea in general. Kang Chol-Hwan escaped from North Korea and through 'The Aquariums of Pyongyang' he is able to share the custom in North Korea,  educate people about the sad condition in North Korea and ask for help for North Korea citizens. 'The Aquariums of Pyongyang' is also one of the first published accounts of the prison system in North Korea. I can't fathom my high interest but yes I recommend it

The Aquariums of Pyongyang

As I love Amazon.co.uk a lot I always look at the e-mails I receive from them. A lot of deals, discounts and freebies. One e-mail gave me a free audio-book and I was previously debating over what 2 books out of 4 books on North Korea I should buy, so I got one for free to lessen my choice - The Aquariums of Pyongyang. I am listening to it currently - very interesting. I'll let you all know how it goes.

I fear no one is reading my other pages or don't even know they exist outside the home page so be sure to click the other pages under the blog header like holidays geograpghy and I Korean Spanish etc

Spanish battle contined

Dramatic title sorry but I'm just really happy. I got another A in Spanish and some praise from my other Spanish teacher. Times like this I really love Spanish. My teacher asked if I considered an exchange program or anything like that. Not really, because I don't know if I will definitly carry on with Spanish (depends on my grade) but it'd feel like such a waste if I give up now. Hope you're all having a nice week