Hello everyone, and welcome to bonus episode number 121 of the Culips English Podcast. My name is Andrew. I will be your host and your study buddy for today. And, in our bonus episode series, what I do is I tell you some stories from my everyday life as a Canadian guy living abroad in Seoul, South Korea, and I hope that by listening to my stories, you will be able to B.I.G.B.

That is our motto for our series. Those are the goals that I try to help you accomplish with this series. So B.IG.B stands for build your fluency, increase your cultural knowledge, grow your vocabulary, and become a clearer and better English communicator. So, if those are your goals, then you are in the right place.

And, in this episode, what I'm going to talk to you about some of my favorite things about fall. It's finally fall. I couldn't be more stoked, and I'm going to talk about it in this episode. But before I get to that, let me tell you about the free interactive transcript and vocabulary glossary for these episodes.

They are fantastic study tools that we give away for free to help everyone around the world who is trying to improve their English, and I highly recommend checking these study tools out.

The link to get them will be in the description for this episode, and if you are a Culips member, then we'll also throw in a comprehension quiz so you can take the quiz after you complete the episode just to see how much you are able to understand.

And knowing how much you are able to understand can actually be really helpful for showing you where you should focus your attention. Right? I don't know if you are like me at all. Long time Culips listeners will know that I am a Korean learner, so I'm learning the Korean language and have been for over a decade. And from time to time, this is what I'm curious to ask you guys about.

From time to time, sometimes when I'm listening to something in Korean, I think I get it. I feel like I understand what I'm hearing, but then later on, if I reflect on that, I'm like, oh actually, there are big chunks of that podcast or big chunks of that movie or something that I was watching where I felt like I was kind of following along, but then really, I wasn't.

And so, a comprehension quiz can sort of point you in the right direction, right? Like oh, you did understand this, or you didn't, and if you didn't, that can show you oh, you need to spend some more time on that area of the episode.

So yeah, Culips members we’ll also give you the comprehension quiz, and if you're not a Culips member yet, then of course I highly recommend that you join.

When you are a Culips member, you'll get tons of benefits and bonuses and extra learning materials and extra study content that our team here at Culips of expert English teachers has designed to help you increase your fluency and reach your goals with the language.

I won't go into all of the details right now. It will take me 10 minutes to tell you about all of the bonuses and benefits that we give our members, but if you would like to sign up and become a member, the link to do that will be in the description for this episode or just visit our website, Culips.com.

And of course, a big giant thank you and shout out to all of our members out there who are improving their English with us, who are becoming clear communicators, and who support the work that we do here at Culips, allowing us to make awesome English lessons each and every week. So, thank you to all the members out there for your support, guys. We really, really do appreciate it.

One more announcement here quickly before we get started, and that is about this week's speaking classes. So, each week here at Culips, we have three classes where we discuss a recent Culips episode. And as a Culips member, you are welcome to join one, two, or three, or zero of those sessions. It's up to you. We're not forcing you to do anything that you don't want to do.

If you don't want to join, you don't have to, but as a member, you are welcome to join us for up to three of those sessions. At no additional cost, right? If you are a Culips member, you are welcome to join.

So that is like three hours, potentially of extra English-speaking practice that you could do each week with our classes, and of course, each class is hosted by one of our great teachers as well. So, this week, we have classes on October 15th, 16th, and 17th.

We will be discussing on the 15th Real Talk episode number 63, which is how to talk about being unemployed, a useful episode indeed, a useful lesson indeed. And on the 16th and 17th, we're talking about Catch Word episode number 279 where we taught you the expression "over my dead body" and some related expressions as well.

So, Culips members can check the full schedule, you can see when they start exactly in your time zone, and you can also see the information for joining the Zoom session by logging into your Culips account and just clicking on the speaking class schedule.

And I hope that many Culips members join us this week for those speaking classes because they're a great opportunity for you to connect with the Culips community and our teachers and to practice and improve your English speaking. So, with that being said, it's time to get started with this episode in earnest, and in this one, I'm going to talk about fall and some of the things I love about fall.

And if you are a fall lover out there, I hope that you will enjoy this episode, so let's get right to it. Enjoy.

Here in the northern hemisphere, it is finally fall! And the reason I say it is finally fall is that it has been a very, very, very, very hot and long summer here in Korea. In fact, all the way until the end of September, it was really hot, really humid, and in my opinion, really uncomfortable.

I love the summer… usually. As a Canadian, I love the summer. In my opinion, in western Canada, where I grew up, the summer is amazing. It's hot but it's dry, and it's not like unbearably hot. Maybe in the summer, we'd get into the mid 30s as a peak, but usually, it's pretty comfortable.

The sun can be strong, so you have to be careful about sunburns or sunstroke or just getting too much sun, but otherwise, it's lovely. I love the summer back home in Canada. However, here in Korea, I have to say that summer is one of, well not one of, it is my least favorite season, and that is just because it's too hot, it's too humid, it's too rainy, and it's just not that pleasant to be outside in the summer.

And in fact, also inside unless you have a strong fan and some air conditioning, it's pretty unpleasant. So, I'm very, very excited, very, very happy that summer is finally gone for 2024, and yeah, it's fall now, and I love the fall.

I would say that fall is my favorite season in Korea, although maybe ask me this question again at the end of winter when spring is starting up, and maybe I'll change my tune and I'll say spring is my favorite, but those two shoulder seasons, unfortunately, they're also the shortest seasons here in Korea.

But fall and spring are the most pleasant, the most lovely, in my opinion, and I love them, and I'm so excited about fall. I have made a list here of the top six things that I love about the fall and that I'm excited about for this autumn, and I'm going to share those six things with you.

I don't think they're in any particular order, guys. I think all of these are awesome, but I will count down starting with number six, and we'll go down to number one. Although, like I said, I just randomly jotted these down, and I didn't really put them in order of favorite to least favorite or anything like that.

So, they're not in order, but let's get started with my list, and we'll talk about some of my favorite things about fall, and I want to know your opinion as well. Do you share any of these things with me, or are these particular to me? What do you think about fall? Maybe depending on where you live, you have a different style of fall than the one that I experience.

But to be honest, Canada's autumn and Korea's autumn are pretty similar, so I think there's a lot of similarity between the two, and it feels pretty much the same for me, no matter where I am, which country I'm in. OK, so let's start with number six. Number six is the back-to-school mindset. I guess this is a pretty nerdy way to start my list, but the back-to-school mindset.

Because in Canada, we always start the school year in September. So, after the summer is finished, and it's time to go back to school, September rolls around, fall is here, usually in Canada, September signals the start of fall, and that's when the weather starts to get a little bit cooler and crispier, and yeah, it feels like fall.

And so, what I like about the back-to-school mindset, when school starts up again, is really, you can just get into that groove of learning.

And I don't know, when I was growing up, I always never studied during the summer, of course, that's like our free time, we have our summer vacation, no matter if you're an elementary, middle, or high school student, or even a university student, I really didn't study that much during the summer.

But then fall comes around, and it's time to get back into that learning mindset and start studying again, and that has stayed with me even as an adult. So, whenever fall rolls around, I feel like it's time to double down on my study of Korean, maybe double down on reading books, and just spend more time learning and studying.

And I always think it's really easy to focus and concentrate in the fall for whatever reason. The summer is just too chaotic, too hot, it's just not a good time for studying for me. So, I try to take the summer as a time to refresh and relax and rest, and then in the fall, it's time where you can double down and really get into some learning.

And now that fall has started, I've been doing this in my own life. I've been studying Korean more, I've been reading more books, and I've been trying to spend more time learning, and it just, I don't know, maybe it's like the time that you take as a break in the summer helps you get focused again in the fall. I'm not sure exactly what it is, but for me, I love that about the fall.

I always get down and get back to work, learning things in the fall, so that is my number six, the back-to-school mindset. I love that about the fall. OK, and let's move on to point number five. Fall holidays. Some of my favorite holidays occur in the fall.

The ones that immediately come to my mind are Thanksgiving and also Halloween, and here in Korea, we celebrate a holiday in the fall called Chuseok.

And Chuseok is similar to the Thanksgiving holiday, I guess is the most similar comparison that you could make. It's a fall harvest celebration, just like Thanksgiving is, and both of the days, Thanksgiving and Chuseok, are centered around having a delicious meal. And I love eating delicious meals, so maybe that's why I enjoy both of those days.

Unfortunately, here in Korea, I don't really get to celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving the way that I would back home, just because the centerpiece of a Thanksgiving meal in Canada is turkey. And turkey is rather hard to come by here in Korea, so it's not like I have a turkey that I can roast in my oven over here, but the… the memories remain, and yeah, I always just enjoy that holiday.

So, Thanksgiving, Halloween, Chuseok. I love all of these days, especially Halloween. I don't even really celebrate anymore, to be honest. It's not like I'm getting dressed up and going to a costume party or anything like that. I think those days are behind me now, but I still love Halloween.

It holds a fond place in my heart, and I have a lot of great memories about celebrating Halloween as a kid, and it being one of the most exciting, fun days of the year. And so, yeah, because of those great memories growing up, Halloween will always hold a special place in my heart, and I'll always love Halloween.

And it's kind of a fun time to watch some scary movies or something as well, not that I'm a huge horror movie fan, but something that's not too scary, sometimes if I am gonna watch a horror movie, it will be around Halloween. OK, point number four about why I love fall is fall fashion. Fall fashion.

Now, you guys maybe have seen me before if you're watching the YouTube version of this video, definitely, you have seen what I look like. If you look at our Instagram page, the Culips Instagram page. There are many photos of me up on there. You can see what I look like. You can see my style, and if you look at those resources, you'll be able to see that I'm not really a fashion person.

I just enjoy basic, simple fashion, and I just, yeah, I have nothing against fashion. I think it's cool. I just personally don't have any talent when it comes to putting outfits together or the time or the money to be too invested in fashion, so it just is what it is. But that being said, I still really enjoy fall fashion. It's like the season where you can dress up a little cozier, right?

You can bring your pants out again and start wearing pants as opposed to shorts. You can put on some sweaters. You can layer. You can get that cool layered look, maybe even wear a jacket again, scarves in the fall, especially later in the fall, boots, maybe you can wear, so you get to have more options, more creativity with your fashion.

Like here in Korea, in the summer, it is just so, so hot and humid that really, it's like shorts and a t-shirt, maximum. You don't want to be wearing any more than that, and in the fall, then that changes, and you have more things that you can wear, and more creativity and more freedom. And also, I think I personally just look better in those kinds of clothes that you wear in the fall.

I'm not one of those people with an amazing body that looks great in summer clothes. You know, some people probably love when the summer rolls around because they get to show off the guns. Remember that expression that we talked about not too long ago on Culips, “Sun's out, guns out” right?

When the sun comes out, then you can show off your muscles and show off your great body. I'm not one of those people that has an amazing body that I want to show off anyways.

So, when the fall rolls around and I can kind of cover it up and be cozier and also have a little more creativity with the outfits that I put together and with the looks that I create and how I walk around in the world with my fall fashion. I don't know, I just love it. As a person who's not really into fashion, fall fashion is my favorite.

OK, let's go to number three. Point number three about why I love the fall is outdoor activities. Yes, outdoor activities, and you guys know me probably by now if you're a regular listener of Culips, you'll know that I love running. It's one of my hobbies. I also like cycling. I like hiking. I like doing many things outside, and to be honest, I do them year-round.

Sometimes it's much more uncomfortable than other times, like in the hot summer or the crazy cold winter, sometimes it's like, yeah, a little bit uncomfortable to be doing outdoor activities during those times. But I still do them, just because I like being outside, but fall is perfect, right? It's not too hot, it's not too cold, and it's just an amazing time to spend outdoors.

Now, because I do outdoor activities year-round, this point, I want to emphasize, is more about I get to do outdoor activities in the fall with my wife. Things like hiking. It would be impossible to convince my wife to go for a hike with me in the summer. OK? It's just too hot, too humid, too wet.

Here in Korea, we have a monsoon season, which means that it rains a lot, especially in the earlier parts of the summer, like in July, and that means the ground is often wet. And in fact, sometimes it can be even dangerous to go up into the mountains in July when it is the rainy season because of landslides or floods, those kinds of things.

So sometimes it's off-limits, but assuming that the weather technically is OK and it's safe to go for a hike, it's just like, there's no way that my wife would join me for a hike in summer. Or, yeah, even in the winter, maybe when it's too cold and too icy.

So doing those activities, and I love going hiking with my wife, it's just, yeah, a great way, in my opinion, to spend time with your significant other or with friends, with anybody really. It's just a great activity, again, my bias, but I love it. So yeah, when the fall rolls around, and my wife is not a huge hiking fan, so it does take a little pushing, a little convincing, a little twisting of the arm to get her to go for a hike.

But whereas a hundred percent of the time, she would say no in the summer, and maybe no in the winter, in the fall and in the spring, then I have a chance. So, I love that! And usually, we haven't done it this fall yet, but I threw it out there the other day, like, “Hey, we should go for a hike.” And she was like, “Yeah, that sounds good, like, let's do it.”

So, I think probably here pretty soon we will be going for a hike at one of the local mountains, and yeah, I just love that, pack a picnic, hike up the hill, hike up the mountain, stop, have a nice lunch, see some great views, enjoy that crisp fall air. Maybe the trees here in Korea, at least where I'm recording and when I'm recording at the moment, the leaves haven't changed color yet, but they'll be changing colors pretty soon.

And that's not on my list, but that's another thing that I love about fall, is the fall colors. And yeah, it's just beautiful here in autumn in Korea when all of the leaves change colors in the mountains. You have a lot of the not so many pine trees in Korea or the evergreen trees, you have a lot more of the deciduous trees where the leaves change colors.

So, it's just beautiful in the fall time when the mountains are ablaze with color. I love it, I love it. And let's move on now to point number two. Coming in at number two is fall food. So, this is one of the things that I love just about life, is like the seasonal change. I'm lucky that I come from a country where there are four seasons, and now I live in a country where there are four seasons.

And it's just nice to have a change every three or four months, you get to cycle through the changes of the season, and with each new season comes some different foods that you can eat and enjoy. But one of my favorite things about the fall is the delicious food that comes in the fall.

I'm thinking about things like, like fruit and vegetables, apples, pears, pumpkin, squash, sweet potatoes, all of these vegetables I really love. I love roasting vegetables. This is something that you can't really do in the summer. I mean, you could do it, but I don't do it because if I roast vegetables in my oven in the summer, it just makes my whole house even hotter than it already is.

But in the fall, when the temperature cools, you can roast these vegetables, especially like root vegetables, turnips, sweet potatoes, those kinds of vegetables. Delicious! If you roast them in the oven, they taste absolutely delicious. Also, you know, I'm not a huge tea drinker.

I go in and out of drinking large amounts of tea, in the summer, I rarely drink tea, even cold tea, it's just not something that's on my radar or something that's appetizing to me in the summer, per se. But as soon as fall rolls around, and the temperatures start to drop, then it's tea time, and I find myself brewing and drinking ungodly amounts of tea.

It's just one of those things that I like to do in the fall and winter is consume and drink a lot of tea. What else, of course, Halloween is a nice excuse to eat some sweet treats and some candy. I'm not a huge candy guy, but I'm one of those people, like if I get some candy in the house, then it's for sure, I'm gonna eat it.

I'm really good at controlling myself with staying away from junk food when it's at the store, but if I get it into my house, it's game over, and I'm totally gonna eat it. And so yeah, I allow myself to buy some sweet treats to celebrate Halloween around Halloween. So yeah, Halloween candy, I really like to eat in the fall.

And apple crisp, that's one of my favorite desserts, apple crisp and apple pie, maybe even banana bread, is something that I usually make in the fall. Again, it has to do with the oven, it's just too hot to run the oven in the summertime. But when fall comes around, then it's bake time, and I do enjoy doing some baking.

So, maybe even some cookies too, and I would like this fall to experiment with baking bread, which is something I've dabbled with a little bit in the past and haven't had much success. So, I'm sure we have some amazing bread bakers in the Culips community, so if you are a bread maker, maybe you could share some tips with me because that's something I would like to experiment with a bit as well.

So yeah, in general, fall foods, they're very delicious, they're hearty, yeah, even like some soups or some chili, I love, I love it in the fall, it's just like fills you up, warms you up, makes you feel good, those comfort foods, right? Fall is a time for comfort foods. So, I really enjoy that about this time of the year. And let's get to point number one.

In fact, it's very serendipitous that I'm talking about this on today because today is the first day of the new hockey season. The 2024-2025 NHL, National Hockey League, hockey season. And as a Canadian, of course, I love ice hockey, and I, yeah, I've liked it my whole life, but I've really been obsessed with ice hockey for the last maybe three or four years.

I've really focused in and got in way more into it than I have in the past. And so, the ice hockey season takes a break in the summer, just like the school year does, actually, it really mirrors pretty closely the school year. And so we've had a nice three or four month break from hockey during the summer and spring, and now it's back.

And so, my favorite team, the Vancouver Canucks, they're actually playing their first game on the day that I'm recording this, which happens to be October the 10th. So yeah, probably a few days in advance of when you guys are watching it, that game will be long done by the time you're watching or listening to this episode, but yeah, I'm really stoked again to enjoy some hockey.

I find it's a nice distraction from some of my other commitments in life, and it's a good way that I can connect with my friends back home. I can connect with my family back home. It gives us all something to talk about, and it's something that we can share in common, even though we may have other interests or other hobbies or other things that are going on in our lives, we can connect over this one sport of hockey.

And it's just really fun to watch, so I'm really geared up for today's first game of the new season. And this season we have 82 games, so it's going to be a long season, but our team is looking good. My team. It's funny that we use those words to talk about a sports team that I have no involvement with whatsoever other than I cheer for them.

But we call them “our team” or “my team,” so yeah, my team is looking good this year. I think we have a nice lineup, some good players, and I think we'll have a pretty successful year, knock on wood, assuming that everybody can stay healthy, all of the players can stay healthy, and yeah, looking forward to enjoying some time watching ice hockey.

Just as a way to connect with my Canadian culture back home, even though I live abroad, it's a nice way to maintain those ties, and who knows, maybe I can even get some of my Korean friends to be interested in the sport.

It's funny, I spend during the hockey season, I spend probably too much time on the Vancouver Canucks Reddit community, which is a social media community where everybody talks about the team.

And yesterday I saw posting by a Korean person, not sure who they are exactly, but it's all anonymous, Reddit, so you don't know exactly the age or the gender or anything like that.

But somebody made a post, and they said, “Hey, I live in Korea, I'm a Korean fan, what's up?” And I thought I didn't, I didn't respond to that person, but there were a few other people that did respond, and they said they were in different places in Korea.

Of course, I'm here in Seoul, but there was a Canucks fan that replied from Busan, down at the tip of the country, the southern tip of the country, and another person that replied from Gyeonggi-do. So I don't know, there are a few fans here in Korea as well, and it could be cool to maybe connect with them during the season, who knows, but yeah, I'm stoked, and it's one of the things that I get excited for in the fall.

So, I'm looking forward to a good season here up ahead. Coconuts glow! That's what Vancouver Canucks fans say, because it sounds like, “Go Canucks go!” Coconuts glow. I don't know, there's a lot of memes around the Vancouver Canucks fan community.

So, coconuts glow, and yeah, I'm looking forward to a nice season here up ahead to enjoy throughout the fall, throughout the winter, throughout the spring, and hopefully all the way to the Stanley Cup championship.

So, everyone, I think I will wrap this up here. Those are the six things that came to my mind immediately when I thought about what I love about the fall. I would be super interested to hear your thoughts as well. What do you like about the fall? Do you like the fall? Do you have a fall in your country?

Depending on where you live exactly, you might have no fall, I guess, if you're like around the equator or something. But let me know about your thoughts about this topic. What is your favorite season? All of that information, let me know in the comments for this episode.

You can leave it here on our YouTube page if you're watching on YouTube, or if you're listening to the audio, then our Discord community is a great place to connect with all of our Culips community. We have thousands and thousands of people who are practicing and improving their English on our Discord community, which is absolutely free to join.

We'll put the link to join the Discord in the description for this episode, and I would love to have you over there to participate with our community and to improve your English even more and to make some good friends at the same time. Discord is a place where we can do that, so yeah, come on over and join us on the Discord. Now, I also have to leave a completion code for you.

So, let's go with the completion code for this episode. Probably you're thinking, “Oh Andrew is going to say autumn or fall, right?” If you are thinking that you're completely wrong. The completion code for this episode is going to be: “Coconuts.” Coconuts. Because I told you about that meme chant that the Vancouver Canucks fans say just a second ago, which is “Coconuts glow.”

So, the completion code for this episode then is going to be: “Coconuts.”

And I would like you to leave a comment with that word or make an example sentence using “coconuts” and leave it on one of our social media services like Discord or YouTube or Instagram, and that will show me and that will show our Culips community as well that you listened all the way to the end of this episode and completed this week's study assignment.

So, you got your homework. You know what you need to do. Go go go: “Coconuts.” And with that being said, it's time for me to take off. Thank you for completing this English study session with me today. I gotta say, I'm proud of you. You did a great job, and you can pat yourself on the back for that. Up ahead here during the next week, have a great week of English learning.

Please take care as always, and I'll talk to you in the next Culips episode. Bye-bye.