Hey everyone, it's Andrew here, and you're listening to Simplified Speech, the QLIPP series that helps you improve your English by listening to natural, easy -to -understand conversations between native speakers.
In just a sec, I'll be joined by my co -host Cassie, and today's episode is just a casual catch -up chat where we talk about what's been going on in our lives lately.
Cassie shares some stories about day trips she's taken recently, and I talk a little little bit about voting in the Canadian election that we just had this week as an overseas citizen.
We also talk about a huge change coming up in Cassie's life.
That's very exciting.
And I talk about landscaping in my yard as well.
So it's a really fun conversation and it will give you a chance to hear how real English is used in everyday life.
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Let's bring in Cassie and we'll get going here.
Enjoy the episode. Here we go.
Hello, Cassie, how's it going?
Hey, Andrew, I'm doing well.
how are you? I'm doing great and Cassie today we have a catch -up episode planned.
This is one of our regular kinds of episodes where we just give some updates about what's new and interesting or exciting or maybe even a little bit frightening or stressful something like that that's going on in our lives and Cassie today you got a couple of updates for everyone and so do I And so who should we start with?
You want to go first, Cassie?
Do you want to give us a little update about something that's new with you?
Sure. So as listeners know, I had been living in Thailand for two years, and then I came back to Korea, and this was my first winter in two years.
And while I liked feeling the cold briefly, I forgot how long winter is.
and i was itching to get outside and if listeners don't know that phrase it means i was i was clawing at the walls i needed to get out of the house i was feeling uh you know a little bit claustrophobic almost that feeling like you need to break out you need to get outside exactly as i was saying i was feeling the itch to get outside and so i planned two day trips that that were about an hour to an hour and a half from my house because I now have a young baby and he can tolerate car rides but only to a certain limit before he's like, no, I'm done and screams. But he does really well within like
an hour and a half radius.
So that is the maximum distance you can go is about an hour and a half away from your home.
Yeah, we're going to have to extend that this summer.
But for now, we're training.
We're in the process of building up our stamina.
Anyway, so we went to two nearby cities and we did it to celebrate, one, my birthday and also my third anniversary with my husband.
Wow. Time flies. Yeah.
Crazy. The first one we went to was in the countryside.
side, it was in a town called Gure, and they were having a flower festival.
Those are pretty common in the spring.
It was not one of the famous cherry blossom festivals, but it was called the Sansuyu Festival, which is the Japanese Cornelian cherry flower, which I'd never heard heard of before.
Yeah. The interesting thing was, Andrew, was that we went on a Friday.
So it was kind of a weekend, but it was, you know, like 1 p .m. in the afternoon.
You'd think that people were still working, right?
And it wasn't a holiday or anything.
It was a normal, typical Friday afternoon.
And it was packed. There were zillions of people.
There was nowhere to park.
There was this loud, crazy, traditional Korean trot music playing in crazy speakers all over the place.
It was very overwhelming.
Interesting. Okay. So the festival was bumping.
Yeah, it was quite a party.
My son did not like it.
didn't like it so what did you do there like what do you do at a flower festival do you just walk around is it in a park are there the flowers that you can check out or are there vendors selling something like maybe some snacks or what goes on at the festival exactly yeah good question so usually I think they usually have some sort of road or course that you can go on for taking taking pictures that you can upload to your social media.
And then usually at a nearby park or open field or something, they'll have these white and green tents set up where they might sell food or they might have busking where they're like singing and dancing.
They might have kids games or, you know, little raffle ticket things, which I've definitely gone to in the past. But I kind of like the more low -key ones and this one even though it was a friday in the middle of nowhere was not low -key enough for me so uh we we did walk around and see the flowers but then uh we quickly skedaddled out of there and went to a nearby cafe and had a lovely time there it was quieter skedaddle skedaddle is a fun word to pronounce and yeah it just means to leave Eve, right?
To leave to skedaddle.
So you took off to a cafe.
Cassie, what does this flower look like?
The Cornelian cherry.
Could you paint a picture for our listeners?
Yes. Even though it's called Cornelian cherry, it does not resemble a cherry at all.
Cherries, when I think of cherries, I think red and circular.
These were kind of long -ish flowers flowers that had a bunch of little yellow buds on them.
And I guess that's one of the first flowers of spring, probably, right, that comes out here, signifying the end of the winter.
And it's so funny that you mentioned that when you were in Bangkok, you really missed the winter.
And then you came here back to Korea, where there is a winter season.
And then you're like, I need the warmer weather.
So yes, I guess it just goes to show that the grass is always greener on on the other side, right?
We always want what we don't have. Exactly.
This is why so many people want to live in San Diego and Los Angeles in California because it's just a straight, you know, 20 -ish degrees Celsius all year round.
Yeah, never too hot, never too cold.
And as the song goes, it never rains in California either, which, yeah, sometimes can be a bad thing, but But yeah, nice climate there, I guess.
So Cassie, you've been day tripping, going on a trip here or there.
And did you go on any other ones or was it just that one that you did?
Yes, I went on one more to Gunsan, which is about an hour and a half north of where I currently live.
And it's one of the few places where there's a U .S. military base, actually.
But I did not go for that.
um you might find this funny but the reason i went actually was because i had traveled there once before with a korean friend and i had the most delicious vegetable bread it doesn't sound delicious in english but it's super good okay it's it's like a bun that is filled with shredded shredded cabbage and carrots and a whole bunch of spices.
And it's super simple, but it's not sweet.
It's savory and it's just so satisfying.
And it costs like $1 .50.
And it's famous. I think it's been in Gunsan since 1940 -something, which is before the Korean War, which is crazy.
Yeah, a long time ago.
ago. So we went there and I remember it being packed last time we went and it was again, lots of people.
Really interesting.
You know, I'm here in Seoul, the biggest city in Korea, right?
And in many ways, it is the center, the heartbeat of the country.
And so you always hear these stories here in Seoul about the countryside kind of dying off in Korea, population decline, and there's no young people there.
And, you know, there's a lot of worry in the country that someday the countryside might disappear.
A lot of these towns and smaller places may go extinct.
But it sounds like, you know, you're going to some of these smaller rural locations outside of Seoul, but it's bumping.
You went to the festival, the flower festival, and there's tons of people there and you went to the vegetable bread place and there's lots of people there.
What's your sense about that?
Do you feel like that's true?
Some of this worry is true?
Does it feel like they're kind of on the decline?
Or is there still a lot of life in some of these countryside places?
I think the decline is definitely true, especially in terms of like student enrollment and families moving into the area.
But I do think because of that, these areas do a lot of promotion of their town.
Like that's why they're holding these festivals.
And that's why they have these museums and bread shops and tourist attractions.
So they can attract people from the big cities like Seoul and Busan to come do day trips there and spend some money.
Anyways, Andrew, enough talk about my adventures.
How about you? What's new on your end?
Well, Cassie, I got something that's a little bit interesting to share and something that I don't get to do every day.
And that is vote. Vote.
In Canada, we're having an upcoming federal election.
We're going to select a new Prime Minister at the end of April.
So I'm not exactly sure when this episode will come out.
It might be a little bit after the election, to be honest with you.
And I'm not sure who the Prime Minister will be at that time.
But yeah, I have to vote.
notes. It's my duty as a Canadian to do this.
Your civic duty. My civic duty.
Yeah. So I'm sure many of our listeners are not really interested in Canadian politics.
And to be honest, most of the time, I'm not super interested in Canadian politics either.
But just to give you a brief summary about what has happened over the last few years, there was the Liberal Party.
And the the Liberal Party is the name of the centrist party, I guess.
You know, Cassie, we call it a political spectrum, right?
Where you have different ideologies that the political parties have. So the Liberal Party, even though the word liberal has this meaning of more like open -minded or more left -wing, I would say, in Canada, the Liberal Party is a centrist party.
So they're right in in the middle between left wing and right wing.
So we have the liberal party.
They have been in government for over 10 years, probably for a long, long time.
And our prime minister was Justin Trudeau, but recently he resigned.
So he said, I can't do it anymore.
I'm going to quit. So yeah, because he resigned, then his successor is a guy named Mark Carney.
And Mark Carney called an election because yeah even though I guess he doesn't technically have to it's kind of one of those things where you feel like an unelected prime minister isn't you know it's not a good look for him to just continue being the prime minister and also he got a really big bump in the polls so he's kind of feeling like if we have an election right now then he can win and And then he'd have a mandate.
That's what we call it when the people select you and they want you to be prime minister.
That's a mandate rather than just inheriting the position and being the prime minister.
Is he also part of the Liberal Party?
Yeah, he's part of the Liberal Party as well.
Exactly. So when Justin Trudeau, the ex -prime minister, when he resigned, then the Liberal Party had to select their new leader.
so he was elected by the people who are part of that party and then yeah he was selected as the new leader and then he automatically became prime minister but he feels like he can win the election so he called the election and now we're going to have the election and one nice thing about canadian elections is that they happen pretty quickly like you know in the states cassie in in an election year.
They campaign forever.
Even me as a Canadian, since Canada and USA are so culturally similar, I end up watching a ton of American TV.
And that means I see a ton of American commercials and they're just filled with commercials for American politicians, right?
So even us in Canada, we have to suffer.
We have to watch all of these ads for people that we can't even vote for.
So yeah, it's kind of annoying.
I think these super long elections that happen in the States, but in Canada, they're pretty quick.
You know, it's only around, I think, six weeks maximum for all of the campaigning and then the election will happen at the end of April.
So I have to choose who I want to vote for.
And to be honest, I'm kind of undecided.
The party that I I usually vote for doesn't seem so great this time around.
So I'm going to have to think about whether I want to continue supporting that party or if I want to change my vote to another politician.
As always, I think most people always feel like this.
Maybe, maybe not. Maybe it's just me, but it's like, who's the least worst, right?
Like there's nobody that's a strong, like really really amazing politician that I really want to support.
I think they're all kind of so -so and I just don't know who I want.
But so it's trying to find who is the least worst instead of the best, I guess, because I don't think anybody is super, super great.
So yeah, I'm going to have to make that decision, which means I'm going to have to research and look into who I want as the the next prime minister.
And then I have to mail in my vote.
So that's really interesting.
There's this paper package.
So it is paper, you don't you don't have an email option, or like a electronic.
Yeah, no electronic option, you have to sign a document and select your candidate.
Interestingly enough, the last place I lived in Canada before I moved to Korea was Montreal.
And so even though my hometown is in totally the other area of the country on the West coast in British Columbia, I still have to vote in the riding where I last resided, last lived in Canada.
So I vote in Montreal.
It's cool. You have to select who you want to vote for.
And then I have to go to the post office and send it in my ballots.
That's what we call the piece of paper that you write your selection on, right?
Your ballot. So I'll be sending in my ballot here within the next couple weeks.
And you'll have to stay tuned to the news to see what happens and who our next prime minister will be.
How exciting. That's enough vote talk for now.
Why don't I throw things back over to you?
I know you've got a big move on the horizon.
And I kind of hinted about that at the start of the episode when I said we had some things to talk about that we weren't so much looking forward to or that stressed us out, that kind of thing.
So tell us about the move.
What's going on there it's funny because i move all the time andrew um i've never been in a place more than i don't know two and a half years max in my entire adult life and it's it's kind of draining on me oh but yes i've been living with my in -laws for the past few months when we came back to korea we decided to stay with our in -laws and help ask them to help us with the transition and raising my son for the first few months but I'm going to be starting a new job in the late summer and so we are officially starting to move out of our in -laws and make the the process to our new home that hopefully we'll
be at for more than two years this time wow that's wild so your whole adult life it's only been two or two and a half years that you've stayed in one place and And then you're always on the move.
Now you're trying to find, maybe not your forever home, but a more permanent place to stay, right?
And I guess having the baby now, that's going to make things a lot more complicated.
Honestly, we tried really hard not to buy too many things, you know, the necessities for him and for us the last few months.
But, you know, just transferring the basic things like clothes and kitchenware and a few pieces of furniture is never fun, no matter how little of it you have. But I'm starting the process slowly and I'll be excited to update everyone when I've made it to the new place and I can, you know, relax.
and my one goal for this new place is to actually decorate it a little bit more.
Andrew I've always felt this sense of non -permanency so I usually keep my my walls almost completely bare and I've just I've never made my place super homey because I knew it wasn't permanent and this next place also likely will not be permanent but it is my goal to even Even if I'm only there for two years, make it feel homey within the first few months so I can enjoy it for as long as possible.
That sounds awesome.
And I think it is nice to have a place that feels like home.
Cassie, I've been in your situation before as well, where I stayed in apartments that I knew were just going to be for a year or for two years.
And I kind of didn't really do any decorating or anything.
anything and it just never really felt homey or comfy and then i've lived in places where i have done some decorating even though i knew i was still only going to be there for a year or two but it just felt like more like my space you know like a place that i could call my own and so i think that's a great idea do you have any ideas for how you're going to decorate it or what you're going to do to make it feel homey for you yeah there's some artwork that i want to put up on on the walls for example we got this cool funky elephant poster in thailand while we lived there and my sister makes maps
as part of her job maps of the southern oregon mountain ranges there so i'll probably hang up one or two of her maps and yeah i don't know i'm gonna get some fun interesting kitchen appliances that I've always coveted.
I wanted them my entire adult life.
I'm like, ah, it's too expensive.
I don't want to buy them since I'm just going to move.
But no, I am going to get them this year.
Can I guess what they are?
Sure. Okay. I think one is going to be some kind of mixer for baking.
I'm thinking the KitchenAid mixer so that you can and make dough easily.
Is that it? That is correct, Andrew.
Yes. Do you have another yes?
I'm going to say the second one.
I don't think you're a huge coffee drinker, so it's probably not a coffee machine.
I think it's going to be a food processor for chopping up vegetables really into tiny pieces.
Is that it? That is also correct.
Wow, you're a genius.
Yes. We're also thinking of getting a milk frother because we love to drink tea.
But you are correct.
We don't drink coffee.
Well, the milk frother is not too expensive, but the other ones are a sizable investment, I would say.
Yes, but very excited for it.
And actually, speaking of this conversation, we can segue back to your last story, Andrew, Drew, which is also kind of about, you know, upgrading your house, your property.
So can you tell us about it?
Yeah, absolutely. So as listeners will know, my wife and I moved into our quote unquote new house about two years ago now.
It's crazy, time flies.
And we spent a lot of time working on the interior of our home, but not so much on the exterior and our yard. We have this little front yard and so this spring we decided okay it's time to get to work and to make our front yard feel more homey as well so we've been doing some landscaping we went to a flower market recently cassie and actually we bought some trees at the flower market so cute are they baby trees that will grow as you stay there or is it like a full -fledged adult tree?
I would say they are maybe three years old.
They're not like tiny little baby trees.
They're probably already about as tall as I am.
So I don't know how old they are really, but I'd say probably a few years old.
And yeah, we had to get them delivered because they were too big to carry with us on the subway.
My wife actually at first was like, Like, we can take these on the subway.
Could you imagine? That's hilarious.
I was like, I think we should just pay the $10 to get them delivered so that we don't have to carry these big trees on the subway.
So yeah, we got, how many trees did we buy?
My wife went a little bit nuts with the trees.
I think she bought four or five.
Wow. Yeah, different kinds.
we have a few deciduous trees which are the trees with leaves that fall off in the winter and then we got a couple of evergreen trees as well and already like we haven't really done anything except just put them in the yard but already it looks way way better and just nicer and so yeah we have to repot them and out of all of the trees we actually did repot one already and we We made a big mistake.
Like the roots of the trees are bound in this kind of cloth sack.
And when we were putting the tree into its new pot, because we're just planting them in pots, we don't really have any space in our yard to dig an actual garden in the ground.
So we have to put them in pots.
So when we put the new tree into the pot and we're planting it, we just cut open the sack that the roots are bound in, and planted the tree like we thought you would do.
But then afterwards, we looked online, and it said, don't do that, you will kill the tree.
If you open the roots, and let the roots go free, there's a high likelihood that you will kill the tree.
So now we're stressed out that we've already killed this tree.
I mean, it looks good so far.
We got our fingers crossed that it will be okay.
But that's something that we'll have to wait and see about.
out and Cassie one little other funny story regarding the trees is that our front yard is very uneven so it's not just like a level yard there's some hills and some bumps and so that means that when you put a flower pot like a big flower pot like you'd see a tree in that it's hard to keep it level right it's like on a slant so we are worried that if the wind picks up and blows really hard that maybe one of these trees would fall over.
So we've been trying to prop up the flower pot by putting something underneath it so that it will be completely level.
And so we've been looking for rocks to put underneath the flower pot to make it level.
So it's been kind of funny.
My wife and I probably look like crazy people.
We go out for walks and we're like walking along the side of the road and walking through parks looking for flat rocks that we could put under our flower pot.
Oh, look at that one.
It's perfect. Yeah, exactly.
My wife calls it rock shopping.
She's like, let's go rock shop.
I love it. Yeah, it's kind of funny.
So yeah, maybe once we get everything put together and somewhat arranged, because it's still kind of a mess right now, but once we get it all set up and looking good, then I'll I'll take some photos and put them on our social media so you guys can see how our landscape project is going.
How exciting! Do you think you'll ever start a little garden as well?
You know, maybe like a little box garden since you said you can't garden directly in your yard space?
base yeah absolutely I would love love love to have a vegetable garden and make some planter boxes and plant some seeds or some starter plants and then grow some vegetables that's on my list of things to do but right now I gotta make sure that we get these trees taken care of and then after I think I'll start with growing some some vegetables for the last couple of summers I've of traveled during the summer.
And so I didn't really want to commit to having a vegetable garden because I knew that I'd be away for several weeks in the middle of the summer.
And it's kind of a big burden to ask a friend to come and water your plants and check on your plants for three or four weeks.
So I decided just not to do it.
But this summer, I have no plans to travel.
I think I'll be here at home most of the summer, maybe a couple of little trips, but nothing major.
So I think this is the year to do it Well, I'm super excited to see pictures of it in the future Yeah, absolutely So guys, I think this is a good place To wrap things up here today So thank you for studying English along with us And congratulations on making it all the way To the end of this episode It was quite random We talked about flower festivals We talked about voting We talked about moving We talked about landscaping Cassie, we're all over the place but it was a good conversation.
So thanks guys for tuning in.
Don't forget that there is a helpful study guide, including an interactive transcript, detailed vocabulary breakdowns and explanations, usage examples, a quiz, questions for speaking practice and writing practice and more for this episode available to all Q -Lips members.
And speaking of speaking practice, we also have speaking classes available for all Q -Lips members.
To find out the details and to sign up and become a Q -Lips member, just visit our website, Q -Lips .com.
All right, so that's it for us today, but we'll be back soon with another brand new episode, and we'll talk to you then.
Goodbye. See ya.
