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0:00Hello, and welcome to bonus episode number 163
of the Culips English Podcast. Happy New Year,
0:07happy 2026. Guys, it is an honor and a privilege
to be your English teacher here for another year.
0:14So thank you for clicking play and joining
me for today's bonus episode. If you're new
0:19to the series, let me quickly explain what
it's all about. My name's Andrew. I will be
0:24your study buddy here. And what I do in our bonus
episode series is I tell you some stories from my
0:30everyday life. I'm a Canadian who lives abroad
in Seoul, South Korea. And I hope by listening
0:35to my daily stories you will be able to improve
your English fluency, to understand more English,
0:41to be a clearer and more confident communicator,
to grow your vocabulary, all of these things. So,
0:46if those are some of the things that you
would like to achieve with your English,
0:50then I'm here to help you. And I really do think
that you will enjoy this series. Now, for today's
0:56story, I'm going to tell you about how I've been
spending the holidays here in Seoul. I'm going
1:00to tell you about Christmas Eve and Christmas
Day. But before we get started with my story,
1:06I have a huge announcement for you. That's right,
it is the Culips sale. Each and every year,
1:12we have a New Year Sale, just to welcome the
New Year and start things off on the right foot.
1:18So from now until the 15th of January, just for
the first two weeks of January, you can save 25%
1:26off a yearly membership or membership extension or
renewal. So, this sale is available to absolutely
1:33anyone. It doesn't matter if you are a new member
or a member who wants to renew their membership.
1:38Or maybe you're in, like, the middle of your
membership period and you'd like to extend for
1:43an extra year at the sale price, no problem, you
can absolutely do that. To become a member and get
1:49the sale price, you don't need a coupon code or
anything. Just visit Culips.com and you can sign
1:54up. The discount is automatically applied. And
guys, I really do think that this is a tremendous
2:01value. With the discount applied, the yearly
membership works out to around $6.58 per month. I
2:10did the math. I calculated it. So that's a really
incredible value considering all the awesome tools
2:16that you get as a Culips member. And, to tell you
the truth, there are so many things you get as a
2:21Culips member that sometimes I have a hard time
remembering them all. So, I wrote them down on
2:25my phone. Let me just read them here to you.
OK, as a Culips member, you will get ad-free
2:32audio. You will get access to our member-only
series, which is called the Fluency Files. You
2:38will get speaking classes. We have three speaking
classes each and every week that you can join,
2:44which are hosted by me and Indiana and Alina, our
awesome Culips teachers here. We have interactive
2:51transcripts and helpful study guides for our
episodes. We have bonus content and even more.
2:58Sometimes we have, like, special bonus episodes
or special extended episodes for members and all
3:04of these things. Plus, we have our member-only
Discord channel, and I hang out there often,
3:09and so does Alina, our Discord moderator,
and Culips study guide writer, and teacher
3:14extraordinaire. So if you have a question or need
some help, you can send me or send Alina a DM,
3:20and we definitely try to prioritize responding
to members first, and we'll get back to you right
3:25away with an answer to your question. So, I think
it's really a tremendous value. I challenge you,
3:31in fact, to try and find more bang for your buck,
a different way to study and learn English that is
3:37A) as effective and B) as cost efficient. We
know that you guys work hard for your money,
3:43and I work hard for my money as well. And we
just want to make sure that it is affordable
3:47for everyone around the world to study English
with us. So we tried to keep it as affordable
3:53as possible. So now's your chance to save big and
to study with Culips and improve your English over
3:59the next year in 2026. So, take advantage of this
great offer, guys. Visit our website, Culips.com,
4:05right now, and you can sign up and study with
me, and study with our team, and study with
4:10our community in 2026. And I think if you do that,
when you look back at this time next year in 2027,
4:18you'll be very, very impressed and proud of
yourself with the progress that you can make
4:24in a year studying with us. So, yeah, hope to
have you join us as a Culips member in 2026. OK,
4:30and with that announcement out of the way,
why don't we jump into my story for today? So,
4:35I'm going to tell you about how I've been
spending the holidays here. And in Seoul,
4:40it's been pretty wintry. It's been cold and it's
really weird. It's like yo-yo winter. It'll be
4:46super cold for a bit, and then it will warm up
for a bit, and then super cold and warm up. And
4:51as I'm recording this right now, it's a little bit
chilly outside. However, there's been no snow. So,
4:57we didn't have a white Christmas in Seoul,
unfortunately. It doesn't matter. We still had a
5:03great Christmas with some wonderful sunny weather,
in fact. So, let's start with Christmas Eve. And
5:08my wife did all the planning for Christmas Eve,
which was awesome. I love when that happens,
5:13and I can just follow her around and she takes
responsibility for everything. So let's see. The
5:19first thing that we did was we went to an area of
the city called Buamdong, which is a real hidden
5:26gem in Seoul, and I don't even really want to
promote it too much because it's like this hidden,
5:32cool spot. And a lot of areas in Seoul these days
are like really popular tourist destinations.
5:38And when you visit them, they're just not the same
as they used to be like five or ten years ago. And
5:44they're changing and evolving, and that's great.
And lots of visitors are there, and new people are
5:48coming and hanging out with them. But at the same
time, they're losing a little bit of their charm,
5:54I would say. However, Buamdong is like this hidden
gem in Seoul that really feels almost like a city
6:04within the city. It has a totally different kind
of quaint feeling. I would say it's almost like
6:11as close to a European village as you could get
in Seoul. At least that's sort of how I would
6:18describe it. And one of the reasons why it's
isolated and feels quite different from other
6:25parts of the city, I believe, is because there's
no subway access. So if you want to go there, you
6:31have to drive your car or take a taxi or get on
the bus or walk. Or ride your bike. It's actually
6:39a place where I've ridden my bicycle through
many times when riding in the mountains. However,
6:45yeah, Buamdong is this hidden gem, this little
neighborhood that's just lovely here in Seoul. So
6:51first of all, we went to that neighborhood and we
went to a cafe that my wife wanted to visit, which
6:57was just this really lovely cafe. And it had a
great view. So, we could sit at the window. We sat
7:03at the bar. There was this bar by the window, this
huge open window where you could look out into
7:09the neighborhood of Buamdong, and there were lots
of really cool houses to look at and just a nice
7:16view of a kind of bougie Seoul neighborhood, to be
honest. Buamdong is maybe more of an upper class
7:24neighborhood. There are a lot of really fancy big
houses there. And so it was cool to sit in this
7:30cafe because you could look out over some of these
fancy big houses. And yeah, I really like looking
7:36at the different architecture and different styles
of houses in the city. So, that was a great view
7:41for me. And this cafe was cool because they played
Brazilian music, Brazilian jazz and samba. They
7:48had a great stereo. And they were playing vinyl
records, so that was right down my alley. I was
7:54down with the soundtrack, and the food was good as
well. We ordered kimbap and a sandwich and French
8:02onion soup plus two Americanos. So, a pretty
eclectic menu. The kimbap, again, like I said,
8:10Buamdong is more of an upscale, a little bit
slightly upper class neighborhood compared to
8:17some other areas of the city. And the price at
this cafe reflected that because this kimbap was
8:25definitely bougie kimbap. It was like double the
price of regular kimbap. And for those of you who
8:32are not familiar with kimbap, this Korean food,
it is just this really staple of the Korean diet,
8:38a really kind of common Korean-style fast food.
Perhaps it looks visually a little bit like a
8:45sushi roll, but it tastes quite different than
sushi, and there are tons of different varieties,
8:51but usually there's vegetable and maybe a pickle,
some kind of pickled vegetable. And some meat,
8:58sometimes some kind of meat, and then there's
rice, and it's wrapped with a dried seaweed called
9:05kim, and then there is some sesame oil that's
placed on the outside. So, a super delicious
9:12kind of Korean fast food. Maybe I could call it
Korean fast food. Korean listeners, let me know
9:18if you agree with that. However, usually a roll of
kimbap is, I don't know, maybe around 5,000 won or
9:27a few US dollars. However, this was over double
that price. So, it was expensive bougie kimbap,
9:34but the presentation was lovely and it was super,
super delicious. Some of the most delicious kimbap
9:40I've had in a long time. I wouldn't really
say it was traditional kimbap, but yeah,
9:44it was awesome. So we enjoyed the kimbap and the
soup and the coffee and the nice view and the nice
9:50music in this cafe. And it was just a really cosy,
warm kind of place to hang out and spend Christmas
9:56Eve. So that was our first stop. Hi everyone!
Join our free January challenge that's happening
10:06on our Discord server. This time we're keeping
things light and fun and learning some animal
10:12idioms. So every other day you'll get a task where
you'll be practicing a new idiom. And once you
10:19complete every single task you will get a special
completion certificate. To join the challenge all
10:26you have to do is join our Discord server and
then go to the monthly challenge channel. Best
10:32of luck and I'll see you there! And then after
that we walked from Buamdong down to another one
10:42of our favorite areas of Seoul, which is called
Seochon, or in English I guess that would be the
10:48West Village. So the West Village area of Seoul.
And one of my favorite bakeries in the city. I'm
10:55going to give them a shout-out. It's called Scoff
Bakery. One of my favorite bakeries in the city is
11:00there, and we went to go to Scoff to get some
bread for Christmas morning. I can't remember
11:05all the different kinds of goodies we got at the
bakery, but we definitely bought scones because
11:10the scones there are amazing, and we like to
eat those for our breakfast. So, we got some
11:15scones. Ahh! My wife got a pecan pie, a slice
of pecan pie, and I got a gingerbread cookie and
11:23maybe some… ah! A mince tart, mince tart. Like, I
believe, if I'm not mistaken, the owner of Scoff
11:30Bakery is actually from the UK. So at Christmas
time and the holidays, he has very authentic
11:36UK-style desserts and breads and cookies. And so
we had this mince tart, which was delicious. And
11:43yeah, it was very good. So, we picked up some
bread from Scoff at the bakery. And then, right
11:50very close to the bakery, there's an arcade. And
I always, every time we're in West Village, I love
11:56to go to the arcade. They used to have, I'm so
sad, they used to have Tetris and Street Fighter,
12:03and now both of those games have disappeared. And
it's so sad to see the disappearance of old-style
12:10video arcade games because they're so fun to
play, especially Tetris. My wife and I loved
12:14to sit in that little arcade and play Tetris
together. But the Tetris game is gone now. And
12:20so we were sad when we visited the arcade and we
looked around. We're like, what can we even play?
12:25There's like Bubble Bobble and some different
fighting game. I can't remember which one,
12:30but not like a Street Fighter. Some one that's
not as fun. However, there was a really old style
12:38whack-a-mole game. You guys know whack-a-mole?
It's that like mechanical game where you have
12:43to hold a kind of mallet or a hammer and these
little wooden groundhogs or moles, they pop up
12:52from the game and they only pop up for a second,
and you have to try and bop them on the head as
12:58fast as you can. And if you can do it quickly and
bop all of the different moles as they pop up,
13:04well, then you can get more points. And so I think
you get to play for a minute or ninety seconds,
13:09and you have to see how many moles you can
successfully whack and bop with the hammer in that
13:15short time. And so, we decided, OK, let's play
whack-a-mole. We haven’t… I mean, I haven't played
13:22this game since I was a child, so it was really
fun to see it there. And my wife and I are both
13:28really competitive people. So just before I was
about to put the coin in the game to start, she
13:35was like, “Let's make a bet who can win.” I think
she must have felt very confident because she was
13:42wanting to make a bet right before we even started
and before she even saw my skills. And so, yeah,
13:49my wife's a competitive person. I'm a competitive
person. So I said, “OK, it's on. What do you want
13:54to bet?” And her first suggestion was like
some money. I think she said, like, “Let's bet
13:59five dollars” or some equivalent of that in Korean
money. And I said, “No way, I've got a way better
14:05bet idea, and that is walking the dog tomorrow
morning.” Christmas Day. It's like a holiday.
14:13It's a lovely day to just get some extra sleep.
And I think we are both sort of looking forward to
14:17maybe sleeping in a little bit longer than usual.
However, because we have our dog O’Wall, who's
14:25actually just sleeping here beside me, she's great
at sleeping. She can sleep in every day. However,
14:32we can't. We have to get up and walk her every
morning. And my wife and I usually take turns
14:38and I end up usually doing most of the morning
walking, which is why I challenged her to walk the
14:46dog on Christmas morning. Because I thought, if I
win and then she has to walk the dog on Christmas
14:51morning, then I can sleep in. And so that's the
bet that we went for. Walking the dog on Christmas
14:57morning. The loser has to get up early to take the
dog out, and the winner can just sleep in. Yeah,
15:03OK, so high stakes. It was on. And so I played
the whack-a-mole game first. I was up first. And
15:11I felt like I played really well. I didn't miss
any moles. They were popping up and I was whacking
15:16them. However, it's like really difficult. You
have to move quickly and go fast. And I was
15:22pooped by the end of the minute or ninety seconds,
whatever it was. It was exhausting and it took a
15:27lot of my energy up. So I did pretty well. I felt
like I really nailed a lot of them. And then it
15:35was my wife's turn. And I don't know if my wife
had a special strategy before we even started,
15:42like if she had a strategy prepared going into the
game. Or if she was just trying to improve upon my
15:50style, because she had a slight advantage, right?
She got to see how long the game lasted for,
15:55how I played, what my score was. So she was going
in with a slight advantage, I would say. And she
16:02took this really unique style where she almost did
like a double hit every time the mole popped up.
16:09She tried to hit it twice. So, you know, I played
the drums and it almost reminded me of when I'm
16:15practicing the drums. Sometimes you want to do
this double roll. We call it like a two-stroke
16:20roll, where you hit the drum head two times with
just one movement of your arm or of your hands.
16:28And so she was doing this kind of two-stroke
whack-a-mole. Like she would hit it once,
16:33but let the hammer bounce in her hand so she would
get two hits. So, when I saw her doing this, I was
16:39like, wow, that's a crazy strategy. I'm dead meat.
There's no way that I'm going to win this game,
16:45I'm toast. However, maybe that slowed her down. I
don't know. It was super, super close. As the time
16:52was counting down, like a few seconds remained, I
could see my score and she was getting very, very
16:57close to my score. And when she was almost at my
score, then the game finished. And I guess she was
17:03a little bit too slow with those double hits, just
a little bit too slow, because I ended up winning.
17:10So, that was awesome. I won the whack-a-mole game.
I was in a great mood, having a lovely Christmas
17:14Eve at the arcade, at the bakery, at the cafe.
And then after that, it was time for dinner. So
17:23originally, my wife and I wanted to go to this
French Canadian restaurant that serves almost
17:29like a Canadian style, I would say Christmas Eve
dinner. And so we thought that would be nice,
17:36for me at least, to have some traditional Western
holiday fare at Christmas. However, when we called
17:43to make a reservation they were sold out. There
were no seats available. And so we went back and
17:50forth. Oh, do you want to try this restaurant for
Christmas Eve? This restaurant, this restaurant,
17:55and every restaurant that we tried to make a
reservation at, it was impossible. They were all
18:01sold out. All of the spaces were filled, and there
were just no places for us to go for our Christmas
18:07Eve dinner. And my wife called around and called
around, and then finally we settled on an Italian
18:14restaurant in this other area of Seoul called
Daehakro. And this area of the city is a place,
18:21I guess, where students hang out. There are quite
a few universities around that area. And in fact,
18:27the name even has the word university in it.
Daehakro means, like, University Street. So, I was
18:34a little bit concerned, not concerned, but I was
like, hmm, I bet this restaurant that we're gonna
18:39go to is gonna just have like university couples.
And here in Korea, Christmas is rather a romantic
18:46day, especially, I think, for younger people who
are maybe just dating and are not married yet. I
18:52think often on Christmas Eve, they like to go out
and have a date together. It's like this romantic
18:58time to spend with your significant other or your
partner. And so, yeah, we got to the restaurant
19:04and we walked in, and exactly what I predicted
in my mind, we were the oldest couple. In fact,
19:10like sitting right beside us, it was really
cute. There were this, like, younger couple
19:14on a date. And the guy was in his military uniform
because military service in Korea is mandatory for
19:21all guys. So they have to do a year and a half or
two years of mandatory military service. And so,
19:28often you'll see some younger guys. Usually
they go when they're in their early twenties,
19:34right? Like 21, 22 is the most common time to
serve, I believe. And so sometimes when they're
19:41on leave or they're on break, you'll see them
walking around in their military outfit. And
19:46the couple that was sitting beside us, the guy
was wearing his military camouflage fatigues and
19:53he was with his girlfriend. And I thought, oh, how
excited must he be to get leave on Christmas Eve
19:58to go into Seoul and to meet his girlfriend for
a romantic dinner date. So nice. And of course, I
20:04was very excited for my romantic dinner date with
my wife as well. So we had Italian food. The menu
20:11item that I wanted to order was actually sold out.
It wasn't even available. So, that was a little
20:17bit disappointing, but the other food options were
very nice, and we had a lovely Italian dinner. And
20:22that pretty much wrapped up Christmas Eve. And
then fast forward to the next day, Christmas
20:28morning. Let me just tell you about it briefly
here. I slept in a little bit. My wife got up to
20:34walk the dog, but pretty much by the time she got
back home from the dog walk, I was making coffee
20:40and getting ready. And we just had like a nice
relaxed Christmas morning, just the two of us.
20:45Really sunny, beautiful weather, a little chilly.
But no snow, unfortunately. So we just enjoyed
20:52some coffee and those delicious scones that we
got from the bakery. Put on some Christmas music
20:58and we did our gift exchange. Actually, my wife
and I promised each other that we wouldn't spend
21:06too much money on each other, but we both didn't
hold our end of the bargain, and my wife ended up
21:13buying me a pair of running shoes, and I ended up
getting her some sunglasses and a lamb's wool hat.
21:22Like a winter toque or beanie. In Canada we say
“toque.” In the rest of the English world, I think
21:28“beanie” is more common of a word to use. So, this
lovely Made in Scotland beanie, at least I thought
21:36it was lovely. And I think it looks really
good on her as well. So, yeah, we didn't hold
21:43up our original plan of just buying each other
little tiny gifts for Christmas. We both broke
21:47the rules and spoiled each other a little bit.
But yeah, I was super stoked to get a brand-new
21:52pair of running shoes, some Adidas shoes. And
after the Christmas morning and the activities,
21:59the gift giving and the lounging and the hanging
out and the breakfast eating, after all of that
22:04calmed down, then I had to get out there and try
out my new shoes, especially because the weather
22:09was so nice. So I got on my runners and I went out
for a little run. I don't know how far I went. Not
22:17too far, maybe just like 5, 6 kilometers. And came
back home and I thought, originally for Christmas
22:24Day, I just wanted to stay home and relax. But the
weather was so nice that I told my wife, we gotta
22:30go back out. So, we went out on Christmas Day back
again to a different cafe for some coffee, and
22:37then we went to a restaurant again for dinner, and
we just ate Korean food, a food called gamjatang,
22:44which is like this stew with vegetables
and pork, and it's really delicious. So,
22:49we had gamjatang for dinner and yeah, not very
traditional Western Christmas dinner, but a
22:56delicious dinner nonetheless. And that pretty much
wrapped up my Christmas Eve and Christmas. So,
23:03it was an awesome couple of days. Nice to relax,
nice to get out there, enjoy some awesome food,
23:08and of course, awesome company with my wife as
well. So guys, thank you for making it all the way
23:14to the end of my story here. If you did something
special for Christmas, if you celebrate Christmas,
23:19let me know what you got up to. You can share your
story with me and the rest of our community on our
23:24Discord server. It's free for everyone to join,
and the link to do that is in the description for
23:29this video. So, guys, have a great week up ahead.
We'll be back soon with another brand-new Culips
23:34episode very soon. In fact, Indiana and I just
finished recording an episode all about our goals
23:42and plans and resolutions for 2026, and we'll be
releasing that episode very soon. Plus, we have
23:48our speaking classes as well. If you want to see
the schedule here for January, it's now online and
23:54available for you. You can just follow the link
that we'll put in the description for this episode
24:00to check and see what time the classes start for
you in your time zone. And of course, please don't
24:06forget about the New Year's sale. This is your
best opportunity to become a Culips member for
24:12a great affordable price. OK, guys, thank you and
take care. We'll talk to you next time. Bye-bye.
