But for those of you who are new, first of all, I want to say welcome and second of all, I want to tell you what this series is all about. So, in our bonus episode series, what I do is I share some stories with you that are true stories from my everyday life, and I hope that by listening to them you’ll be able to build your English vocabulary, improve your listening skills, develop your fluency, and become more knowledgeable about the culture of English-speaking people.

And for every episode, there’s a 100% free interactive transcript that you can access just by following the link in the description. There’s also a vocabulary glossary that we provide that will explain some of the more difficult vocabulary and expressions for you. So, it’s a great resource and like I said, you can get it for free just by clicking the link in the description for this episode.

And we also provide a comprehension quiz for Culips members. So, if you’re a Culips member, just look in our member-only channel on our Discord server, and you can get the comprehension quiz as well for this episode. It’s just a fun way to check how much you were able to understand from listening to this episode today.

And I love it on our Culips discord server many members are posting screenshots of their score after they complete the quiz. I’m seeing a lot of high scores posted: nine out of tens, tens out of tens, eight out of tens. So that’s really awesome, it means that a lot of you guys are just excellent English listeners already and keep it up. I love seeing the scores posted to the Discord.

And speaking of Culips membership, if you’re ready to take a big step with your English fluency and reach the next level, then we’re happy to help and support you achieve that goal.

If you become a Culips member, not only will you support the work that we do here at Culips, but you’ll also get access to our learning materials which are designed to help you reach that English fluency goal. And that includes full and unlimited access to the study guides and transcripts for all of our episodes plus many other great bonuses as well, like our member-only series, the Fluency Files, access to our member-only Discord channel that I was talking about just a second ago, as well as invitations to our monthly member-only live streams.

If you want to learn more about becoming a member, just visit our website Culips.com or click the link in the description, and you can sign up and become a member today. And speaking of our monthly live stream, we have another one coming up. Alina, our Discord moderator, and myself, we are going to be hosting the next live stream, and I’m just pulling up my calendar here to check the date.

I believe it will be Tuesday, December 19th. Yes, it is Tuesday, December 19th at 8 p.m. Korean Standard Time, and you have to convert that to the time zone that you are in, in your neck of the woods, but for me here in Korea, it will start at 8 p.m. on December 19th.

To join the live stream, you do have to be a Culips member, and you do have to be a part of our Discord server because that is where the live stream will take place. So, all Culips members out there, please mark it in your calendars: Tuesday, December 19th at 8 p.m. and we can’t wait to hang out with you and spend some time with you during the live stream. We’ll see you then.

So, how did your weekend go? I hope you had a good one and had some time to rest and relax. I certainly did. Here in Seoul, this weekend, it’s been very, very warm, bizarrely warm. We had a cold snap earlier in December but suddenly it’s warmed right up.

It’s almost like spring and yesterday reached a high of about 16 degrees Celsius, which is bizarrely bizarrely warm for this time of the year and I’m loving it, to be honest. You guys know that one of my hobbies is running, and I always struggle around this time of the year when the weather shifts from being comfortable in the fall to cold in the winter.

And I guess I’m just a big baby because it always takes me a long time to get motivated and to go out for a run when it’s colder outside, and I always tend to have really cold hands and ears when I run in the winter. So, even when it’s not really too cold, like even if it’s only minus one or zero degrees, then I have to wear a big toque to keep my ears warm.

And a toque is a Canadian word for a beanie, or a hat made out of wool. You know, the kind of knit hat that you’d wear in the winter. So, I have to get my toque on, and I also have to put some big mittens on to keep my hands warm.

So, I always look pretty ridiculous when the winter comes because I’m out there wearing these big mitts and a toque, and a lot of the other people that I pass are still wearing no gloves or no hats at all and just running comfortably. But for whatever reason, I tend to be really sensitive to the cold, and I need to wear that extra protection.

But this weekend, I didn’t have to do that because, like I said, it’s been super, super warm. And in fact, after I finish recording this episode today, I’m going to try and get outside and take advantage of this fair weather, so that I can enjoy a nice run before it returns to the norm for this time of the year, which I think by next weekend, it’s supposed to be around that minus one, minus two level again.

So, I got to get out there and run before that happens. But today, I’m not going to talk about running. I quickly wanted to mention that I went to a Christmas market over the weekend. And if you’ve been a Culips listener for a little while, you’ll know that I talked about attending that same Christmas market last year. Well, my wife and I went on Saturday.

We went again this year, and I don’t know, maybe a lot of Culips listeners came this time because there were just so many people at this Christmas market. It was insane. So, the Christmas market is billed as a European-style Christmas market.

And when I say it’s billed as this kind of market, that just means it’s advertised as that kind of Christmas market. So, on all the advertising that you see, it’s called the European Christmas market, even though we’re here in Seoul, South Korea. But it’s cool, I guess. Maybe it’s organized by different embassies from European countries, so there is a slightly European flavor to the market.

And also, Seoul and Korea in general isn’t a very multicultural place, but the Christmas market was very multicultural. There were people from all over the world at the Christmas market. But the problem was, there were just too, too, too many people. It was insanely crowded and busy. So, my wife and I arrived at the market location, which is a little square in the Seongbuk neighborhood.

For all of the Korean listeners listening, they’ll know where I’m talking about. And there’s a big Christmas tree in the middle, and the whole square is surrounded with booths, and all of the booths are selling different kinds of food. Each country has a food that they’re selling.

Now, personally, when I arrive at a place like this, that is just so busy and so crowded, usually I’m like, uh-uh, I don’t want to stay. I just want to get out of there. But I felt like it would be a shame just to bail right away, as soon as we arrived. And to bail means to leave. So, I didn’t want to bail right away. I didn’t want to leave right away because we had just gotten there.

So, I told my wife, OK, here’s the plan. There are too many people that we can’t really go through the crowd to look at all of the different booths. So, we’ll go to the Christmas tree quickly, we’ll take a picture with the Christmas tree, and then I’m going to try and get some food really quick from the booth that looks like it has the smallest line.

I didn’t really care about what kind of food I could get. I just wanted to get something because I arrived hungry in anticipation for going to the market. So, I said, OK, we’ll take the picture at the tree. I’ll get some food very quickly, and then I wanted to get a glass of the Glühwein, which is this hot wine that is served traditionally in many European countries at Christmas.

And I also talked about that last year in the bonus episode about going to the Christmas market last year. So, if you’re interested about my thoughts on Glühwein, you can listen to that episode. And maybe even I’ll search for it and add the link in the description for this episode, so you can find it easily. But those were our three goals.

We wanted to quickly take a picture with the tree, quickly get some food, quickly get some Glühwein, and then leave because it was just too crowded. My wife and I arrived at the Christmas market separately. My wife had met up with her family earlier in the day, did some shopping, and went to a cafe with her mom, and I was coming from home.

So, we were arriving from different parts of the city, and we were planning to meet at the Christmas market. And right before I left to go meet my wife, she texted me and asked, “Andrew, could you bring a backpack? Because I bought a lot of things when I was shopping with my mom, and it’s difficult to carry them.

So, if we could throw them in your backpack and you could carry them around for me, that would be great.” So, I said, “OK, of course.” So, I grabbed my backpack and went to meet my wife. Now, getting from my house to where the Christmas market was is a little bit of a pain in the neck. There’s not really a clear bus route.

If I want to get there by bus, I would have to transfer, you know, ride two buses, which is super annoying. Also, there’s not a direct subway route. I’d actually have to transfer like three or four times to get to this area, which is also annoying, especially because the total distance is like less than five kilometers from my house to where the Christmas market was.

So, it’s not very far, but it’s just awkward to get there by public transportation. So, I had a plan, which was to just ride to the closest direct subway station, and then from that subway station, just walk. Like I said, it’s been nice weather outside, so I didn’t mind having to do that, and I think it was only around a two-kilometer walk from the nearest direct station to that area.

So, that was my plan. And we planned to meet up at something like 3 p.m. or so. So, I figured, OK, if I arrive at that subway station by about 2:40 or 2:45, then I should have enough time to walk over there, and it would be perfect timing to meet my wife.

So, I left the house, and as I was walking to the subway station to grab the subway, I realized I forgot the backpack that my wife requested. So, I ran back to grab the bag, and then went back to go to the subway station again. But when I arrived at the subway station, I missed the subway just by a moment. And I’m wondering if that’s an experience that you’ve ever had.

I’m sure anybody who takes public transit regularly, whether it’s the bus or a subway or whatever, occasionally, you know, you’ll just miss the timing by a second, and then you have to wait what feels like forever for the next bus or the next subway to come, right? And it’s really annoying. Guys, you know, I’m a runner, like I was talking about earlier.

It’s my hobby. I’ve been doing it now for many, many years, and I think I’m pretty good. I’m a pretty good runner. I, yeah, obviously not an Olympian or anything, but it’s something I really enjoy, and I do think that compared to other things in life, it’s one of the things that I’m good at.

But there’s one part of running that I’m terrible at, and even people who don’t run are much better at me than this skill, and that’s running downstairs. I don’t know why, for whatever reason, when I try to run downstairs quickly, I always feel like I’m going to lose my balance, and I just can’t move my feet in that kind of way to run downstairs quickly.

So, when I was at the subway station, I could hear the train approaching, and I was running down the stairs as quickly as I could to try to get down there to get the subway. And unfortunately, I just missed it. And it’s really frustrating in that moment too, because I’m like self-coaching myself, you know. I’m like, “Come on, Andrew! Come on, Andrew, go, go, go! Run faster! What’s wrong with you? Why can’t you run down these stairs faster?”

But yeah, I’m just not physically coordinated in a way to be able to run down the stairs quickly, I suppose. So, I missed the train. OK, so I missed the train. I had to wait a full seven or eight minutes for the next train. In Seoul, it’s a big city, and during peak rush hour times, there’s usually trains very quickly every two or three minutes.

But on a Saturday afternoon, it’s not a peak rush hour time, so there’s a longer interval between trains approaching. So, I had to wait seven or eight minutes. I caught the next train, I got off at the station where I was planning to start walking from to the Christmas market. And it was about 10 minutes before I had to meet my wife, and a two-kilometer distance.

But I thought, “It’s OK. I won’t really be late to meet my wife, because she’s always usually like five or ten minutes late, and then that will be perfect.” So, I kind of had that in the back of my mind, and in fact, as I was thinking that thought, I got a text from my wife.

I heard in my AirPods the little ding, indicating that I got a text, and I thought in my head, “Oh, this will be perfect. That’ll be her texting me to say, ‘Oh, I’m running five minutes behind schedule.’” And so, I was fully, fully anticipating to see that, but instead, it was the opposite. She said, “Oh, I arrived here early. Where are you? Are you almost here?”

And so, I started to panic a little bit. I was like, “Oh my God, I’m gonna be late because I forgot the bag, and I had to turn around and get it, and because of that, I missed the train.” So, in that moment, I decided to put my running skills to use.

OK, I wasn’t able to put my running skills to use to go down the stairs to catch the train, but I am able to put my running skills to use in that kind of situation where I have to run because I’m late. So, it was about a two-kilometer distance, and I know that I could probably jog there in less than 10 minutes. So, I thought, “I got this.”

So, I told my wife just to hang on, and I’d be there as quick as possible, in 10 minutes or less. So, now the problem was that I was wearing just my regular everyday clothes. I wasn’t wearing any exercise clothes. I had a pair of jeans on, I had a sweater on, and I had a light jacket on. Now, also keep in mind, like I said, the temperature has been really warm recently.

In fact, I was probably overdressed for this kind of weather, but it’s still like December, you know? I guess humans, we have that prejudice in our mind sometimes. Even though we can see that it’s warm and feel that it’s warm, we have this mental block that sometimes prevents us from dressing weather appropriately because you’re like, “It’s December, it’s winter, it’s gonna be cold out there.”

So, I was maybe a little overdressed, plus I had the backpack on that I was carrying. So, I started running. It was great! I made it there in like record time. I think only seven or eight minutes. Was able to meet my wife before she got mad at me for being late, which is good. So, perfect! But the problem was, I was extremely hot.

I was like, “Oh, I’m sweating here,” once I arrived at the market. So, the first thing I had to do was take off my sweater and take off my jacket. And then, my wife asked me to carry some of those things that she bought at the market. So, we loaded up my backpack with those goods from the market, which I think were avocados, actually.

She got a great deal on avocados and bought like 12 of them for only five dollars or something. So, amazing! But then, we had to go into the swarm of the Christmas market. And I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a really busy, crowded situation, maybe at a market like this, maybe at a concert, maybe even on a busy bus, or a busy subway, or in an airport somewhere like that, where it’s really, really crowded.

One of the most annoying things has to be wearing a big backpack because people are constantly trying to squeeze by you and walk past you, but they’re always hitting the backpack. And so, your body always gets jostled from side to side. Jostled means hit from one direction to another direction, almost like you’re a ball in a pinball machine, just getting bumped around all over the place.

And on top of that, it’s also really annoying because you have to be super careful when you’re walking. You have to make sure that when you turn, you’re not bumping other people with your bag. And I honestly feel like it’s a little bit rude to wear a big backpack in a situation like that. So, that’s another one of the reasons why we wanted to leave pretty quickly.

So, we had our plan then, like I said. Take a picture with the Christmas tree, quickly get some food from the booth with the shortest line, get some glühwein, and then head off. We had some other things that we had to do in that neighborhood. So, that was our plan. We were able to get the picture with the tree quickly. Like, did I mention? I don’t know.

I can’t remember if I mentioned or not, but in the middle of the square, there was a giant Christmas tree. So, we got our picture with that, but the pics didn’t come out that well, just because there are so many other people around that it’s impossible to get really a nice picture. But I guess it’s kind of a nice Christmas market picture.

You can see the bustle of the busy market there in the picture, as well. So, with the picture goal accomplished, then we moved on to getting some food, and the booth that I saw with the shortest line was the French booth, and they were selling some sandwiches and sausages. And I can’t exactly remember the menu, but that’s because I didn’t really pay attention to the menu.

I only paid attention to the length of the line, and I noticed that their line was the shortest. So, I was standing in the line for about five minutes or so, when the people behind me got my attention and they said, “I’m really sorry, but you actually budged in line. This isn’t the start of the line, the line starts way back there,” and they pointed to across the other side of the market.

And I was shocked! I totally didn’t notice that the line was snaking all the way across the market and was super, super long, way longer than I had anticipated. And where I thought the line ended was actually not the real place where it ended, and I had rudely, but mistakenly in my defense, budged in line. So, I apologized, and I got out of the line, and then I quit.

I was like, “There’s no way I’m standing in this massive line to get a little sandwich or something from the French booth.” So, I had to give up on the second goal of getting some food. Instead, I went over to where the Glühwein was being sold, and for those of you who don’t know, Glühwein is just wine with some spices in it that’s served warm.

It’s quite nice, and thankfully, that line moved very quickly. I guess when you’re serving food, it takes a lot longer to actually serve each customer, but with the Glühwein, they had a couple of staff members working the line: one taking money, one pouring the drinks, one setting up the cups, and the line was just quickly, quickly, quickly passing from one customer to the next.

So that was great. I got my Glühwein in just a couple of moments, and also, that same booth was selling candied almonds. And so my wife was like, “Should we try some of the candied almonds since we can’t eat any of the other food?” And I said, “Yeah, let’s do it.” So, we bought a little bag of the candied almonds, and guys, I have to say, they were so good.

I ate like the whole bag right away. I just wolfed them down. I think my wife only got to eat a few of the almonds. I felt bad because I ate most of them myself, but they were delicious. And actually, we left the Christmas market and went across the street to find a bench to sit down and drink the Glühwein and eat the candied almonds, because the market itself was just way, way, way too jam-packed with people.

So, I guess in the end, the Christmas market was good. I mean, I felt in a pretty good mood after eating the almonds and drinking the Glühwein, but I think maybe this will be the last year that we visit.

Unless it’s moved to a different venue where more people can be accommodated, or there’s some kind of controls on the amount of people that can visit, then I think we’re just going to skip, probably, for next year, because it’s just too crowded, and I’m not the kind of person who enjoys big crowds like that, and neither is my wife.

But I guess, yeah, it was a good time, and I was, like I said, in a good mood after eating the almonds and drinking the Glühwein, and it was a nice kickoff to the Christmas season. And last week, I met up with Kassy, and Kassy and I recorded our Christmas 2023 episode, where we talked about what we’re doing for Christmas.

So, I won’t go into too many details here about Christmas 2023, for now. I’ll save it for that Simplified Speech episode, which will be coming out shortly, as soon as we prepare the study guide for that episode. Then, it will be ready to release to you all. So, please keep your ears peeled and your eyes open, and you can learn about how we’ll be celebrating Christmas in that episode.

But yeah, I guess now, after attending the Christmas market, I do feel a little more Christmasy and getting pumped up for Christmas. My wife and I spent some time last week wrapping presents and going to the post office and sending those presents off to Canada, as well. So yeah, the Christmas spirit is alive and well in our house this year.

And the only other thing I did last weekend of note was to watch a hockey game. And in fact, that was what I was planning to talk about in this episode. I was going to talk all about hockey, because my favorite team, the Vancouver Canucks, are playing really well this year, maybe the best so far that I’ve ever seen.

So, it’s been really, really awesome as a Vancouver Canucks fan just to have so many great moments watching them so far this year. The season started in September, so we’re a few months in, and it’s been awesome so far, and there’s nothing that puts me in a better mood than watching my favorite hockey team win. And I’ve been able to do that a lot this year, so it’s been great.

So, I guess I’ll save my hockey talk maybe for next week, or for a different day. But for now, guys, I think I will wrap things up here. So, I hope you enjoyed this episode. Again, don’t forget that there is an interactive transcript for it, along with the glossary to the difficult vocabulary, which you can get for free by clicking the link in the description for this episode.

And there’s also the quiz for Culips members that will be available on the member-only Discord channel. Speaking of the Discord, I would love to hear your thoughts, your feelings, your opinions about this episode, and the place to let me know what you think is on the Discord server. So, if you haven’t joined our Discord yet, what are you waiting for?

Come on over and let’s continue the discussion there. Let me know what you got up to over the last weekend. Let me know if you’re celebrating Christmas or if you’re not celebrating Christmas, what you do around this time of the year. Maybe you have a local festival or celebration that you do to end the year. I would love to hear about it.

Please share your stories and leave a comment in the Discord, and I look forward to hearing from you there. So, that’s it for me for now, everyone, but congratulations on making it all the way to the end of the episode and keep up the great work. You put in some time today, you put in some effort.

I know it’s not easy to listen to content in your second language as a learner, but you did it, so you can feel proud of yourself. And remember, keep going! We create these bonus episodes as a way to boost your motivation at the start of the week, and now, I’m going to toss it over to you, and I hope that you can continue to be strong and perseverant and stay motivated throughout this week studying English.

And remember, on our website, Culips.com, we’ve got hundreds of episodes and stories and lessons that you can listen to, if you need help with that. All right, it’s time for me to go. Take care, happy English studies, as always, and I’ll catch you next time. Bye-bye!