Well, it means that it’s the one-year anniversary of the bonus episode series. We release one bonus episode per week and there are 52 weeks in a year. So that means that we’ve just turned one. How cool is that?

If you’ve been along here for each and every one of the bonus episodes so far, well, thank you so much for learning with me over the last year. And I hope you’ve enjoyed listening and learning with this series as much as I’ve enjoyed making it.

And we started the bonus episode series here at Culips as a way to give some extra content to dedicated listeners who are looking for more ways to practice and improve their English.

And we decided to make the transcripts to the bonus episodes available for free so that we could help learners from all corners of the world improve their fluency with us no matter what their economic situation is like. And in fact, there’s a free transcript of this episode as well.

So, you can get it just by visiting the link in the description or by visiting our website which is Culips.com. So, I hope you’ve been enjoying the bonus episodes so far and I have to say that the reaction to this series has really been positive and encouraging.

So, because of that I’m planning to keep going with the series into the future too. By the way, I really enjoy feedback and suggestions from listeners.

So, if you have some feedback or some suggestions about this series or anything that we do here at Culips, I’d love it if you’d share your thoughts with me and you can do that by leaving a comment on our website or by sending an email to me. My address is andrew@Culips.com.

So, in today’s episode, I’m going to tell you about how I spent last weekend. We had a long weekend here in Korea and I got up to some interesting things, at least in my opinion.

A little later on, I’m going to teach you about a useful idiomatic expression that I recommend adding to your English vocabulary to help your English sound super natural. And along the way, I also have a few updates about what’s new here at Culips that I’d like to share with you.

So that’s the plan. I hope it sounds OK to you. Let’s get this party started by talking about my weekend. Here we go. Can you believe that May’s here already? We’re already in the fifth month of 2023. Seriously, where does the time go?

May is one of my favorite months of the year, and here in Korea, it’s also one of the nicest spring months. The weather’s usually really nice and the temperature is just right. It’s comfortable to wear a t-shirt in the daytime and at night you really only need a hoodie or a light jacket. It’s just perfect.

I could say though that this is the calm before the storm because by the end of the month the summer heat will be here and it’s going to be really hot and humid from pretty much the end of May until the end of September.

So, I’m gonna try and enjoy the next two or three weeks as much as I can before I have to deal with the next three or four months of summer heat, which is the most difficult weather for me to deal with because I just get so hot and sweaty and swampy anytime I walk outside of a non-air-conditioned room here in Korea in the summer.

Anyway, the start of May is also a really busy time in my life because of all the holidays and special days that occur within the first two weeks of May. So here in Korea there are two days that we don’t celebrate in Canada, my home country.

They are Children’s Day and Parents’ Day and they both occur at the start of May. Children’s Day is a statutory holiday and statutory means that it’s a national holiday or a non-working day.

And it’s kind of funny, I was thinking about this this week and that is before I got married all of the holidays that I had in Korea were really, really super relaxing. Holidays like Children’s Day or Chuseok, which is the Korean Thanksgiving, or Lunar New Year, all these days were just times where I could totally chill and relax.

My Korean friends would be busy doing things with their families usually. And so that means that I could just relax at home and chill, or I could hang out with my other expat friends.

But now that I’m married and I have a Korean wife and I am a part of her family as well, well the way that I spend holidays now in this country has really, really changed. And usually that’s because I now spend holidays with family.

And over the weekend my wife and I got together with her side of the family to have a kind of two-for-one holiday celebration. We celebrated Children’s Day which occurs on May 5th, and we celebrated Parents’ Day which is on the 8th in one go.

In Canada we actually don’t have one Parents’ Day. We have Mother’s Day which is also coming up here soon in May. Happy advanced Mother’s Day to my mom if she’s listening and we also have Father’s Day which occurs in June.

But here in Korea there is Parents’ Day and it’s a day to celebrate and thank both parents at the same time. So yeah, we had a real family celebration over the weekend celebrating Children’s Day and Parents’ Day together at the same time and I imagine that many Korean families did something similar.

If you’re a Korean listening right now, let me know if you did the same thing over the weekend. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned here on Culips before, but my wife has an older brother, and he has two elementary-school aged children. So that means that after getting married, I now have a couple of nephews.

So, on Children’s Day last Friday, my wife and I made the trip from Seoul to the neighboring province, which is called Gyeonggi-do, where my in-laws and my brother and sister-in-law live with their kids. We met up there and we all went for lunch.

We went to the same grilled eel restaurant that I’ve mentioned on Culips before. It’s becoming a family favorite, I think, and we’ve had the last two or three family gatherings at that restaurant.

I have to say, again, it was super delicious, and I know it sounds weird to eat eel to many people, but trust me, it’s actually really delicious. And despite the nice weather that May usually has, it rained all day on Children’s Day.

It takes about an hour to an hour and a half to get from my home in the city to where my in-laws live outside of Seoul, and we get there by subway. Now, when my wife and I left our place in the morning, it was just lightly drizzling.

But when we were almost at the subway station, just about five minutes away from the subway station, that light drizzle turned into an extreme downpour, and both my wife and I ended up getting soaked.

Despite the fact that we both had umbrellas and I was wearing a raincoat too, it didn’t really help us too much because our shoes and our pants both got drenched.

And it was funny because the weather forecast called for heavy rain all day, but when we left our house, the weather actually wasn’t so bad, it was just misting. And so, my wife and I were talking to each other, and we were like, “Oh, the forecast is wrong, it’s barely raining at all.”

And then literally five minutes later we were right in the middle of this extremely heavy downpour, so I guess we jinxed ourselves with that comment. Anyways, thankfully after the long subway ride, we managed to mostly dry out by the time we arrived at the restaurant.

So, we met up with my wife’s family, we had a nice meal together, and since we were celebrating both Children’s Day and Parents’ Day, we prepared some gifts for everyone and I’m not sure what most families do in this kind of situation.

But for us, we just decided to give everybody money, which I think is the safest present to give, right? I don’t think anybody can really complain about receiving money as a gift. And I think especially when you’re a kid, getting some cash is always exciting.

I have some fond memories from when I was a kid, and my aunts and uncles would give me cash on my birthday or some occasion like that. Anyways, so we had a nice eel meal, grilled eel, and we exchanged gifts and then we all had coffee together. And then we went our separate ways.

And on the way home, my wife and I had a similar experience with the weather, unfortunately, because when we left, it was just lightly drizzling.

But when we arrived at the subway station closest to our home and we got out of subway station, it was absolutely pouring rain again and we tried trudging through the rain as best as we could.

But we were just getting soaked, so we made a in the moment decision to go to the nearest cafe that we could find which happened to be a little waffle shop close to the subway station. So, we hopped in there to get some refuge from the rain.

And to be honest, neither my wife or I are big sweet or dessert people. We don’t really eat food like cake or sweet desserts very often at all. But at that moment the waffles actually smelled really delicious and so I thought I’m gonna order one.

So, I ordered a waffle with strawberries and whipped cream, and we also ordered a cup of coffee to share. I think that was the first time in our relationship history where we’ve ordered only one cup of coffee and we shared it instead of ordering our own coffees.

I guess we were caffeined up and we didn’t need two cups of coffee. So, we just ordered one and we shared the waffle and the coffee while we waited for the rain to stop.

And it had been years since I’ve had a waffle like that, but it was really tasty, and it was just a nice treat and the perfect snack to accompany watching the rainstorm that was happening right outside the window. Eventually after about 30 minutes the deluge stopped and the rain let up.

And if the rain lets up it means it stops or becomes much, much weaker. So, the rain let up it stopped and the deluge was finished and deluge means heavy, heavy rain.

So the weather wasn’t exactly nice in that that moment it was still dark and gray but the rain pretty much stopped and so we decided to run home before the rain started up again. And when we got home we opened up a bag of some stuff that my in-laws gave us as we were leaving.

Often when we meet up, my in-laws will give my wife and I some food to take back with us. Now usually, it’s some Korean food, some Korean side dishes or kimchi or something like that. So that’s what I assumed it was.

But when we opened the bag, my wife and I both died of laughing because can you guess what was inside the bag? It was actually a package of Belgian waffles.

So, after not having waffles for years and years, suddenly on the same day, within the same hour, my wife and I not only ate a waffle, but we were also gifted a package of them. So, we were laughing about how the world works in funny ways sometimes.

After we got home, the rain started up again and it continued throughout the rest of the day and through all of the night on Friday. So, my wife and I took that as a good excuse just to hang out at home and enjoy some R and R time.

So, we kicked off May by celebrating Children’s Day and Parents’ Day. And the fun doesn’t stop there really because we’ll be continuing our celebrations throughout this week as well. My birthday is in a few days and I’m going to be turning 39. Yikes! 39 years old.

I’m not sure how I feel about that, but it is crazy how the time flies and I can’t believe that my 30s are almost finished. This is my last year to enjoy my 30s before hitting the big 4-0 next year.

You know, personally I actually really don’t care too much about celebrating my birthday and I don’t like to make a big deal out of it, but my wife likes to do something special to mark the day and that’s really kind and nice of her. So, I think we’ll be doing something small just to celebrate my birthday.

And then just a few days after my birthday is our anniversary, our second wedding anniversary. So definitely on that day my wife and I will be celebrating and probably we’ll just have a nice romantic meal together. And in fact, we’ve been talking about having a picnic at a nice park.

So, we’ll have to wait and see if the weather holds up and is nice for us. I guess we can check the weather forecast a little closer to the day to see if that’s doable or not. So yeah, that’s pretty much what I got up to over the last weekend.

A long subway ride in soggy shoes, a delicious grilled eel lunch, surprise waffles, and excitement about our busy celebration-filled week ahead. Aside from Culips, do you listen to any other podcasts? In my podcast app, I’m subscribed to tons of other podcasts, and they are one of my favourite things to listen to.

I think podcasting is a really good fit for me, not just because I enjoy making podcasts, but also because I love listening to them. I especially love listening to podcasts about science and technology, history, ice hockey, health and fitness, and comedy.

Now as a Korean learner, unfortunately, there aren’t too many podcasts that are made especially for people like me who are learning the language as a second language. There are some but they’re either a little bit too easy or they don’t upload frequently, but despite that fact I still listen to them all as well.

And you as an English learner, I think you’re really lucky because there are so many different podcasts that are made for you to study and learn English with. And of course, I’m really happy that you’re learning English with Culips. But if I were you, I’d probably listened to more than one English podcast.

That’s just the kind of person that I am. And as the saying goes, variety is the spice of life. And I think that the more exposure to different speakers and different speaking styles of English that you can get, well then, the more well-rounded and polished your English skills will eventually end up being.

This last week I had the pleasure of interviewing a really nice guy named Alistair Budge who not only shares the same initials as me, he’s AB and so am I, but he’s also the creator of a podcast for English language learners, which is called English for Curious Minds.

Alistair recently reached out to me to ask if I’d be interested in helping him create a fictional audio drama for English learners, and the project sounded really cool, so I was on board.

I ended up being a voice actor in the series, if you can believe it or not, and I’ll be playing a character who is a time-traveling historian. So, during the interview Alistair and I talked about the project which by the way is called Pioneers of the Continuum.

I won’t spill the beans and share all the details about what we talked about because I don’t want to ruin the interview for you, but it will be released soon here on Culips, and you can look forward to listening to it when it does come out in the next week or two.

Speaking of new episodes, we released a brand-new Simplified Speech episode last week and in that one I talked with my co-host Kassy about some of the interesting new things that she’s been up to over the last little while.

She shared a cool story about playing beach volleyball on a rooftop in Bangkok and she also told me about a new app that she’s been using to help her track the books that she reads and to help her expand her horizons and find new authors, new writers, and books that are in genres that she usually doesn’t read.

So, I thought our conversation was really fantastic and I think you’ll find it not only entertaining but also educational as well and you can listen to it just by visiting our website. And of course, there’s a helpful study guide and an interactive transcript available for the episode for all Culips members.

And now it’s time for this week’s vocabulary lesson.

Before we finish up today, I want to teach you about a useful English expression that I recommend adding to your vocabulary to help you improve your listening and speaking skills. In fact, it’s an expression that I used a little bit earlier when I was talking about how I spent my weekend.

The expression is R and R. R and R. Can you guess what the R and the R stand for and what this expression means? Maybe hearing the expression in context a couple of more times will help you to figure it out.

So, before I tell you the answer, why don’t we rewind, go back, and listen to that part of the episode a couple of more times so you can hear it in context. And then we’ll break it down and talk about the meaning. So yeah, let’s do that now. Let’s rewind, go back, and take another listen. Here we go.

OK, so now let’s talk about what R and R means. Can you guess what those two Rs stand for? Well, if you guessed rest and relaxation, then you’re right, correct, nice job.

And I guess rest and relaxation is a long phrase that’s difficult to say, so we can just cut it down and make it easier to pronounce by calling it R and R. So, we use this expression to talk about taking a break from work or our daily activities and to get some rest and do things which make us feel happy and relaxed.

For example, you could say “I’m going to the beach for some R and R” and that just means you’re going to the beach to rest and relax. We almost always use this expression with “some”. We talk about getting some, R and R. And we can use this expression with a variety of verbs.

As long as they fit the context of taking a break or engaging in leisure activities, then it will probably fit. So, for example, you could talk about enjoying some R and R, getting some R and R, having some R and R, taking some R and R, needing some R and R, or scheduling some R and R.

And those are just some of the options for verbs that you can use with this expression. Did you notice how when I said this expression, the “d” sound in “and” isn’t pronounced? So, we don’t say R and R. Instead, we smush it together and delete that “d” sound. So, it’s just R and R, R and R, R and R.

OK? It sounds like one smooth word, even though it’s technically the letter “R” plus the word “and” and the letter “R” one more time. But when we’re pronouncing it, we just say R and R. So, keep note of that and you’ll be able to pronounce this expression naturally.

So now that we know what R and R means, let’s listen to some example sentences so we can learn about how English speakers use this expression in their daily lives. I’ve got three examples prepared for us to listen to and let’s check out the first one right now. Here we go.

Let’s break this example sentence down. In this example sentence, we hear about a couple who enjoyed some much-needed R and R on their vacation. So that just means that they had a very restful and relaxing vacation.

They weren’t busy doing activities every day. Maybe instead of that, they just chilled on the beach and relaxed.

In this example sentence, we hear the expression, “We’ve been looking forward to some R and R for a while now,” which just means that the speaker is looking forward to resting and relaxing. I guess maybe lately he’s been very busy or stressed, so he is looking forward to some downtime in the near future.

Let’s break this final example sentence down. In this example sentence, we hear about a doctor who recommended that his patient gets some R and R while she recovers from an accident that she was in.

So definitely if you’re in an accident and maybe you have a broken arm or broken leg or trauma or anything like that, then getting some R and R in that situation, some rest and relaxation, is very important for helping you recover quickly and feeling healthy again.

So that brings us to the end. Thank you for studying English with me today and congratulations on completing this episode. Nice work!

If you’re looking for more lessons to continue your learning with, please check out our website, Culips.com, and you’ll be able to find hundreds more.

And if you’re a Culips member, you’ll get access to the helpful study guides and transcripts for all of those episodes. Just visit our website for more information and to sign up.

I hope you have a great week, take care, and I’ll talk to you again soon, bye!