Dae-Han-Min-Guk Discoveries

2008-03-26T10:23:00.003+10:00

Matt's Music Night IV

So once again Matt the musical maestro has put on a talent show worthy of Korean Idol! A good sized crowed came along to watch the performances of many and varied musicians, and to get up and have a go themselves.

The night started out with a number or two from the organizer, Matt Amond.

Following him, were the very talented (and good looking) brother and sister team, Park Ji Sung & Park Ha Young on the piano.

Next up, it was the lovely Vanessa showing off her classical talent on the clarinet, which left the audience in awe.

Rebecca and her friend got up for some finger-plucking folksy type stuff and then Jim threw us a few classic rock tunes.

Next up it was my turn for some Radiohead, Femmes & U2.

Then Jens and his talented wife, Randi, got the crowed involved.

Noel crooned out some more tunes...

The owner of the music store downstairs gave us a few traditional Korean numbers on his squeeze box.

And then it was on to the Pre-CD release preview of the Jordan Emmans band.

Finally then night ended up with a Jam session, which kind of turned into the Jordan Emmans Band featuring Mr Matt Amond.

It was an amazing night of great music, good friends and fun times!

2008-03-24T14:39:00.000+10:00

Photo Time

Here are the photos from my summer vacation... enjoy.

:)

Seoul Night Lights

2008-03-24T14:38:00.003+10:00

Seoul Night Lights
Originally uploaded by Goulash75.

Sunset from Seoul Tower I

2008-03-24T14:38:00.001+10:00

Sunset from Seoul Tower I
Originally uploaded by Goulash75.

How Far?

2008-03-24T14:37:00.003+10:00

How Far?
Originally uploaded by Goulash75.

Shy

2008-03-24T14:37:00.001+10:00

Shy
Originally uploaded by Goulash75.

Me at .... a castle?

2008-03-24T14:36:00.003+10:00

Me at .... a castle?
Originally uploaded by Goulash75.

Ha Young and myself

2008-03-24T14:36:00.001+10:00

Ha Young and myself
Originally uploaded by Goulash75.

Changing of the Guard

2008-03-24T14:35:00.005+10:00

Changing of the Guard
Originally uploaded by Goulash75.

Keepin the beat I

2008-03-24T14:35:00.003+10:00

Keepin the beat I
Originally uploaded by Goulash75.

Contemplation

2008-03-24T14:35:00.001+10:00

Contemplation
Originally uploaded by Goulash75.

The Glowing Man

2008-03-24T14:34:00.003+10:00

The Glowing Man
Originally uploaded by Goulash75.

Flying Man

2008-03-24T14:34:00.001+10:00

Flying Man
Originally uploaded by Goulash75.

Ha Young Meets the Tin Man

2008-03-24T14:33:00.003+10:00

Ha Young Meets the Tin Man
Originally uploaded by Goulash75.

Kingaroy

2008-03-24T14:33:00.001+10:00

DSC_1495
Originally uploaded by Goulash75.

My home when in Oz. It's a bit out in the country.
:)

Matthew

2008-03-24T14:32:00.001+10:00

DSC_1452edit
Originally uploaded by Goulash75.

Glenda's son, Matthew.

Susan's Kids

2008-03-24T14:31:00.001+10:00

DSC_1427
Originally uploaded by Goulash75.

L to R: Angus, Nathan, Katie

Susan's House

2008-03-24T14:30:00.001+10:00

DSC_1393
Originally uploaded by Goulash75.

My sister's house. Farily typical house in Queensland.

Sydney Opera House

2008-03-24T14:29:00.001+10:00

DSC_1166
Originally uploaded by Goulash75.

I got a million photos of this while I was there.

The Rocks, Sydney

2008-03-24T14:28:00.001+10:00

DSC_1245
Originally uploaded by Goulash75.

Sydney Harbor Bridge

2008-03-24T14:27:00.003+10:00

DSC_1268
Originally uploaded by Goulash75.

Miji & I @ the Opera House

2008-03-24T14:27:00.001+10:00

DSC_1136
Originally uploaded by Goulash75.

Opera House through the trees

2008-03-24T14:26:00.001+10:00

DSC_1155
Originally uploaded by Goulash75.

Me At Sydney Opera House

2008-03-24T14:25:00.001+10:00

DSC_1132
Originally uploaded by Goulash75.

This was the first time I'd ever seen it in real life.

2008-03-07T12:22:00.003+10:00

Catch up time

Ok, ok... so I haven't written in AGES....

Truth is, I really haven't been bothered. It's not that nothing has happened. Really, so much has happened that I honestly can't remember it all... but I just haven't felt like writing it down. So, I'll see if I can remember a bit of what happened and just add the photos later....

Winter Camp

Waaaay back in January, I spend two weeks working at a teacher's training camp. Now for those few of you who don't know about this... it did not mean I was learning more about teaching. OH NO! I was the teacher! Can you believe it. What's even more bizarre is that I (with no formal training in teaching) have to teach Korean English teachers (with 4 years formal teacher training) how to teach English.

I've now done this kind of camp three times but this is the first time I was looking forward to it. It is also (apparently) the last camp I will have to do of this kind. During the camp, I was able to meet some great people and my team was by far the most fun to work with.

Good times.

Flew to Sydney

Two days after the camp, I was on a plane bound for Sydney. Now usually when I fly home, I try to fly directly to Brisbane, as Sydney is a long detour. However this time I had a good reason to go down south. I wanted to check in on my friend Miji. She moved to Australia a few months ago but seemed to be having a bit of a hard time there.

I spent a great day with her and got to see the usual tourist sites in Sydney. Strangely enough, this was the first time I've been there (besides a quick trip when I was 3 that I don't remember). I've always been a bit down on Sydney, but I have to admit, it is a beautiful city to visit.. just make sure you bring lots of money!

After this great day, I caught a train up to Newcastle where I saw my Aunt, Uncle and cousin that I haven't seen for literally half my life time. It was great to be able to spend some time with them and catch up on all those years. It was especially good to bond with my cousin again, as we were fairly good friends when we were younger.

After this, it was back to Sydney again.

The time in Sydney was good but on the last night there, took a strange twist into bizarre land. I won't go into too much detail here, but it involved Miji's ex- some drugs and a lot of scary psychotic, paranoid behaviour. Suffice to say, I'm not likely to ever talk to her ex- again.

Went to Brisbane

From Sydney, I jumped on a plane and went up to Brisbane and on to Kingaroy. It was really nice just to spend time with the family and relax in a familiar atmosphere. I got to stay a night at each of my sisters' houses and hang out with my nephew's and niece. It's amazing how fast those kids are growing up!

Back to Sydney

Again I headed back down to Sydney for one more day of looking around and seeing the sights. I got to have lunch with Miji and then spent the day looking around the city again. Unfortunately I left my hat at friends back in Brisbane and so I got very sunburnt. Numerous times I've warned my friends about the dangers of the Australian sun and I had been so careful up till that last day... but at least I came back with a decent tan.

Seoul

My original trip plans to Oz included a week stop-off in Thailand, but after such a hectic trip, and the strange night in Sydney, I really just wanted to get back home to give me time to relax before starting back at work.

Another incentive was that I'd made friends with one of the teachers at the winter camp, Ha Young and she was planning to head up to Seoul for a look around. I'd spent an evening chatting with her at a bar (for a short 5 or 6 hours) and had decided I liked this girl, but was fairly sure she just wanted to be friends. Either way, I thought it would be great spending some time exploring Seoul with someone as cool as her.

So I flew back to Seoul and spent an amazing few days there. The funny thing was, the more time I spent with this girl, the more it felt like one very long, very fun date. So on the last night there, I finally plucked up the courage to ask her out. After a pause that went on for ETERNITY, she said.....

Maybe!

I had to ask her three more times before she finally cracked and said ok.

Considering I'd planned basically nothing for the trip, it was probably the most romantic weekend I've ever had... and we weren't even dating at the time!

Week at school

So after an amazing month off, I finally had to go back to work... for all of one week. I didn't actually do anything during this week. Just sat around and played on the computer. But I had to be at work, so at work I was. Then they let me go play again for another couple of weeks.

It's by far the shortest term at school I've ever had.

Technically, the last vacation was winter break, and this one would be spring break. Go figure!

Jeju-do

This time round, I decided to head south for some warmth. On this “Hawaii of Korea” they had even more warmth planned than you would expect at this time of year. It was the Jeju-do Fire Festival where for about 4 days they had dances and games and the grand fanale was to be the burning off of a large hill.

So we spent a fun couple of days looking around this beautiful island. The weather was beautiful and the company was great! Then on the day of the big burning, Stu's famous weather phenomenon came again. Gale-force winds of about 60km's and it was a very lazy wind. There was no way it was going around you when it could cut right through you! After less than 10 minutes there, I'd had enough. We jumped back in our rented car and drove into town for some warmth and sustenance.

A while later, I found out from one of my friends that after hours of waiting there, they finally announced to the crowed that the burning off would be cancelled. Thousands of people had come down from every part of South Korea for this event and they were being turned back very disappointed. But to be fair, it would have been suicide (and possibly mass homicide) if they had lit that hill ablaze.

Motorbike ride

A few days later, I went up to Gwangju on Billie to meet Ha Young again. After a bit of smooth talking and a quick search around for a helmet, I'd got her all geared up for a ride on the back of the bike.

When ever I take someone on the bike for the first time, I always give them a safety drill first. So I told her the usual story about sitting there like a sack of potatoes and don't counter lean when I lean the bike over and to always hold on to me.... etc.

We got on the bike and I took it very steady and slowly through town. I was a little worried about the first part of the ride, as it went up over a mountain and had many sharp curves. I thought this might freak her out a little as I have to lean the bike over a bit to get around the corners and she seemed a bit concerned about this when I was giving her the safety instructions. She seemed to be doing well and after a while I asked her if she was OK and her reply... “Can we go FASTER around the corners?”.

I took that as a “Yes”.

In the end, I had to counter lean her as each time we hit a corner, she'd throw herself into it and I didn't have to do much at all. We ended up doing over 200km's and rode through some of the most beautiful country side I've seen in Korea.

A really amazing day.

Back at school

And now I'm back at school slaving away.

Well actually, the “slaving away” part might be a bit of an exaggeration.

All right all right, a gross exaggeration! I haven't actually taught a class since I've been back. To tell the truth, I've done nothing but play on the computer and do a bit of Korean study. I even got to take the day off on Tuesday (unbeknown to my school) and read and watch some videos.

Not bad for my first week back at school. If only I could be paid to be this “productive” every week!

2007-12-05T11:43:00.001+10:00

Rockclimbing @ Maisan

I've just joined a web group called Korea on the Rocks (KOTR). It's a site for rock climbing around South Korea, and last weekend there was this post:

"Quite possibly Korea's best kept secret, Maisan has incredible climbing at two stunning crags! With climbs rated from "5.fun" to 5.13, Maisan has something for everyone. It's a great place to practice leading, pump out your arms, or impress your friends on the tricky overhanging crux moves. If you haven't seen Maisan's unique conglomerate formations yet, you don't want to miss out!! And if you have been to Maisan, I know you're just sitting in breathless anticipation, counting down the hours until the weekend... "

How could we possibly ignore a sales pitch like that? So a few of us packed up Betty and headed for the next provence north of us, Jeollabukdo. We finally found the mountain, and began our day of fun climbs.

Everyone was amazed that we could still be doing climbs outdoors in December... and if you consider the fact that it was sub-zero temperatures and at times we literally couldn't feel our hands, others may think we were crazy! It is a very strange feeling being able to see your hand gripping a rock, but not actually be able to feel it. But despite this, and the rain on the second day, we had a great time.

Corey climbing in sub-zero temps in the rain = hardcore!

Dave on his way to the sky

The girl who put out the invitation, Lindsey, is a really cool chick who has only been climbing for about a year. She was going hard core on the first day and did 8 lead climbs without falling once!

Lindsey on her 6th(?) lead climb of the day.

Lindsey finishes another one!

Nicola, Jess and myself are all fairly new to the sport, but we were also giving the lead climbing a go.

Nicola & Jess... racing?

Nicola lead climbs her way up.

Sad to say, I didn't quite finish my lead climb, which made for an interesting climb for Terri later when, half way up, she realised she was not top rope-ing from the anchor after all. Instead of doing the easy thing, and coming back down to fix things, her husband decided to do some "engineering". They make a funny climbing team.

Brandon & Terri: Typical husband and wife day out?

Unfortunately I didn't get any photos of myself climbing, unless you count a shot of my leg. But I was able to complete a few climbs over the weekend. Strangely enough, I actually felt better on the second day, when it was raining and I couldn't feel my fingers or hands at all by the end of the climb!

Yes, that is my leg! The only pic of me over the weekend.

The rain started as mist on the second day and we were still able to get a climb or two in before it started becoming too uncomfortable. Instead of being upset by the weather, we took the opportunity to introduce one of our group to the wonderful Korean tradition of going to the Jinjilban (hot sauna).

The climbing group.
Back row L to R: Corey, Sonia, James, Jessica, Brandon, Terri, Dave.
Middle row L to R: Lindsey, Maggie, Nicola
Front: Me

It was a very fun weekend, with a great group of people! I hope to make it back here again... hopefully after the winter chill!

2007-11-21T11:16:00.000+10:00

BBQ Anyone?

Hey everybody, it's the first sub 0 degree day of the year... I have a great idea! Lets have a BBQ.

But wait... even better, lets make it outside. Oh oh oh... even better... lets wait till the sun has gone down, and put it out on the oval where the wind can really make us feel alive!

Ooooooh and maybe we can play tennis as well. Oh, only 4 people can play tennis? Well that's ok, the others can watch while we play!

YEAH GREAT IDEA!!!!!!

And so the logic goes at my school.

Oh Korea, how I love thee.... but you still bemuse me.
:s

2007-11-14T12:15:00.000+10:00

Autumn Roadtrip

I went on another roadtrip.

(Warning... a long blog followed by many purdy pics :)

This time we had 15 people come along, which meant having to hire two vans. The logistics of this one were much more difficult than the last trip. Originally I wanted to hire one mini-bus... the kind you see everywhere in Korea. All the schools use them to take the kids too and fro, so I thought it wouldn't be a problem finding one for hire. How wrong I was.

Every company that had one of these buses for hire, wanted me to hire the driver along with them. This is for a small bus. No more than 20 seats. An eighteen seater would have been perfect! I could have even scraped by with a 15 seater... but NO! If I want a bus, I have to hire the driver as well. This would mean also having to pay the driver, pay for his food and accommodation, struggle with the language barrier and also try to convince him that "Yes, I really do want to take this small back road with all the pretty trees and mountain scenery and not the super highway!".

In the end I found out my license wouldn't have covered anything over a 12 seater anyway. So this left me with the option of getting two smaller vans. Of course that means needing two drivers with appropriate licenses. As far as I knew, I was the only one in the group legally allowed to drive.

Thankfully a legendary guy by the name of Ian was able to organize a day off work to race over to Naju to get his Korean license. Great, so now we have two drivers... time to find a couple of mini-vans.

And once again the run around begins...

It seems this particular weekend is the one that the whole of Korea decided to hire vans to go see the Autumn Colours. (Did you know Korea has 4 seasons? You would think no other place in the world has by the way they proudly tell you... but I digress) Eventually my wonderful co-teacher found a company that had two mini-vans left and I organized for Ian and myself to pick them up from Gwangju the day before our departure.

So on Friday, I leave early from school and head over to Gwangju. Unfortunatelly I don't know exactly where this car hire place is. After quite a bit of messing around, we finally find it and get the two cars. Then we decided that since we were already in Gwangju, we should go have some dinner at the Outback Steakhouse. Then we had to drop my car off at Andrea's for the weekend. After visiting Andrea, we jumped in the cars and drove back down to Mokpo, where Ian then had to take his dog over to a friends place to look after for the weekend. He wasn't sure how to get there, so I came with him....

Finally I get into bed at about 1am the day before the trip.

Up again at 6am and I'm getting ready to meet everyone. Things actually went much more smoothly than I expected, with everyone arriving on time. We packed the cars and were away by a bit before 8am! Good going guys.

The rest of the trip went fairly well, except for the fact that my timing was badly off. I wanted to see sunset from a specific temple... but arrived there about a half an hour after the sun went down. Then the next day we arrived just in time to see the steam train I wanted to catch, pull out of the station. Appart from these minor things, we were able to see some beautiful scenery and it was nice just to be cruising around this lovely provence. Sometimes I forget just how beautiful Korea is, and it's on trips like this that I'm given a wonderful reminder.

Half way through the trip, we got a call to say Ian's dog had run away. Sadly his meant his wife, Amanda, had to do a quick trip back to Mokpo and missed the rest of the roadtrip. Thankfully she allowed Ian to continue on as second driver... and what a great job he did. There were times when I would think I had somehow lost him behind a slow car or at a traffic light, when he would suddenly come zooming up behind me again. I don't think I ever fully lost site of him in my rear vision mirror on the whole trip!

All in all, it was a great time that I hope to get to do again.

Here's some photos:

We would stop every few kilometers and everyone would pile out to take photos along the road. Safety second! Hahaha Lotsa fun.

We stopped at Daewonsa temple. It has a tibetan museum with these prayer drums outside.

One of the gates at Daewonsa

These giant beads were hung up in one of the Korean Maple trees. It must be about 20 meters long!

Some Buddhas lined up in the Autumn leaves.

Autumn leaves in a pond.

This super cute puppy lives at Daewonsa temple.

The leaves from a Ginko Tree.

A path at Daewonsa Temple.

Pedal power! A family having fun at the train museum.

This thing was weird. You hop in these little cages, and pedal to make it raise up using air-hydrolic pressure. Stop pedaling, and you go down. More fun than you'd imagine.

What's the best way of getting over the disapointment of missing the Steam train? Kiddie Dodgems!

This old fella (who was actually quite friendly, even though it doesn't look it in the photo) works at the historic village / film set weaving straw.

Weaving straw.

The end.

2007-11-07T12:18:00.000+10:00

Rock-Climbing in the ROK

So Korea has rock-climbing... who knew?

I've only been a couple of times now (using ropes that is...), but I've decided I really want to get into this sport. It's a lot of fun and a great way to keep fit. And Ohhhhhhhhhhhh how unfit I am!

I know once upon a time I was able to do a one-armed chin-up with a full backpack on my back and another one in my other hand. I know I could do this, because I had to do it half way up a cliff without any ropes! Now I find I can't even lift my own body weight... using both hands!!!

It's time to start working on that.

So I've actually put some money towards it in the form of my own rock-climbing harness and boots and last weekend I went out and used them. I went to a beautiful waterfall with some friends.

One of the guys, Brandon, is quite good and he was able to set up the ropes and give us tips as we climbed. I was very happy with my first two climbs, not dropping off at all. My third climb wasn't so good.

It started with an under-hang, something I still haven't worked out how to do yet. It was very difficult and although I almost had it at one stage, I'd just run out of strength in my arms to pull me up. Then I kicked the rockwall and my toe went crack! That was it for the rest of the day... I'd stuffed my toe again!. I'm gonna have to strap it in the future.

Yesterday I found the Yeongam indoor rock-climbing center, but of course, I was there on the only day of the week that it's closed. I'm gonna have to go there more often. It looks great! I can't wait!

Here's some pics from the weekend...

The Cliffs

The Crew

Getting ready

Looking for holds

"Which way do I go? Oh yeah... UP!"

Almost there.

Changing Feet

All good. On the way back down.

2007-10-31T14:41:00.000+10:00

All Hallow's Eve, Hallow E'en, Samhain, Halloween.

What ever you call it, it's today.

We had a party. Lots could be said, but I'm not gonna on the grounds that it might be incriminating... so here' the pics instead:

These photos seem a lot darker than what I originally uploaded... but you get the idea. It was fun.

:)

2007-10-24T10:52:00.001+10:00

Featuring the all new Nikon D40

So I've had my Canon for a while now and with the new zoom lens, it has been taking some amazingly good close-ups and some very nice pictures... but I've been struggling to get the pictures I want.

You see, with my old film Minolta, I rarely had to think about what settings I needed to get the photo I wanted. And the colours usually came out the way I expected them. Using it seemed intuitive. Maybe it was because this is the first SLR camera I learn't how to use properly.

Somehow, with my Canon Kiss digital camera, it's been more difficult. It does take some beautiful pictures, but I really have to think about the settings and often have to play with different values to get close to what I'm after. Rarely does it have the colours I want.

Each type of camera will cast a different hue on it's photos (much like switching between Fuji and Kodak film changes the photo). It's not that the colours are in-correct, it's just a different colour value. The Canon has a more blueish hue to it's photos. To me this makes it look slightly cold and sometimes washed out. My old Minolta had much warmer colours.

The other down side to my Canon is that it is a very heavy camera to take hiking and places where I'd probaby get great photos.

So last weekend, I had a photography weekend (see previous post) and struggled most of the day getting the photos I wanted. The next day I went to the mega-electronics-store, Kumho World and bought myself a brand new Nikon D40 digital SLR.

This camera actually has less Megapixles that my old Canon, but really, unless I'm blowing things up to poster size, the difference is unnoticable. By the time I'd taken the first 5 photos, I was already feeling much more in control of the camera. The metering and colouring of the photos were perfect!

I've now taken approximately 200 photos with it (in 2 days) and every time the pictures have turned out as good as I expected. Sometimes even better! And this camera is so light! The first few times I picked it up without looking, I thought the battery had fallen out or the lens had fallen off. There's just nothing to it.

That, together with the fact that it cost less than half my Canon, and I think I'm in love!

So here's some photos to show what this little baby has done for me so far...

These photos are all sunset shots, because I haven't had the chance to take it for a test run during the day... but I can't wait!

So... anyone wanna buy a cheap Canon Kiss Digital SLR?

2007-10-22T10:50:00.000+10:00

Wando by Camera

This weekend I invited a few people over to Wando to have a day of taking photos. Here are some of my results:

Through the Window

Coral

Spikey View

Melisa & kids

Halmonies II

Reflection

Decision

Contemplation

Colours of Grain

Collecting the Nets II

Old Man Stone I

Shingles I

The Lamp

Through the Hole

Outside Hall

Peek-a-boo

Thanks to Zepher, Dave & Tyrone for making it a fun day out. Hopefully there will be more days like this in the near future.

2007-10-12T17:59:00.000+10:00

The Photoshoot.

Last Wednesday was my schools birthday and how best to celebrate this wonderous event? Well... have a day off of course.

So I had the day off and decided to skip over to Mokpo. I spent the day hanging out with the wonderful Miji Kim. She very kindly agreed to act as my model for the afternoon so I could practice portriture photography.

Here are the best of the days play.

2007-10-08T17:08:00.001+10:00

Aussie Quiz

For those of you who are Aussie, you must get at least 90% to retain your citizenship.

For those who wanna become Aussie.... you've gotta get 100%

:P

2007 Australian Citizenship test

1. Do you understand the meaning, but are unable to explain the origin of, the term "died in the arse"?

2. What is a bloody little beauty??

3. Are these terms related: chuck a sickie; chuck a spaz; chuck a U-ey?

4. Explain the following passage: "In the arvo last Chrissy the relos rocked up for a barbie, some bevvies and a few snags. After a bit of a Bex and a lie down we opened the pressies, scoffed all the chockies, bickies and lollies. Then we drained a few tinnies and Mum did her block after Dad and Steve had a barney and a bit of biffo."

5. Macca, Chooka and Wanger are driving to Surfers in their Torana. If they are travelling at 100 km/h while listening to Barnsey, Farnsey and Acca Dacca, how many slabs will each person on average consume between flashing a brown eye and having a slash?

6. Complete the following sentences:
a) "If the van's rockin' don't bother ?
b) You're going home in the back of a ?
c) Fair crack of the ?

7. I've had a gutful and I can't be fagged. Discuss

8. Have you ever been on the giving or receiving end of a wedgie?

9. Do you have a friend or relative who has a car in their front yard "up on blocks"? Is his name Bruce and does he have a wife called Cheryl?

10. Does your family regularly eat a dish involving mincemeat, cabbage, curry powder and a packet of chicken noodle soup called either chow mein, chop suey or kai see ming?

11. What are the ingredients in a rissole?

12. Demonstrate the correct procedure for eating a Tim Tam.

13. Do you have an Aunty Irene who smokes 30 cigarettes a day and sounds like a bloke?

14. In any two-hour period have you ever eaten three-bean salad, a chop and two serves of pav washed down with someone else's beer that has been flogged from a bath full of ice?

15. When you go to a bring- your-own-meat barbie can you eat other people's meat or are you only allowed to eat your own?

16. What purple root vegetable beginning with the letter "b" is required by law to be included in a hamburger with the lot?

17. Do you own or have you ever owned a lawn mower, a pair of thongs, an Esky or Ugg boots?

18. Is it possible to "prang a car" while doing "circle work"?

19. Who would you like to crack on to?

20. Who is the most Australian: Kevin "Bloody" Wilson, John "True Blue" Williamson, Kylie Minogue or Warnie?

21. Is there someone you are only mates with because they own a trailer or have a pool?

22. What does sinkin piss at a mates joint and getten para mean?

My personal answers will be published later.

Good luck.

2007-10-01T14:29:00.001+10:00

PhotoChallenge Blog.

For those of you interested, I'm updating the PhotoChallenge Blog and changing it so there is no time-limit.

Now I'll just put up tasks randomly, and if you're interested, you can go out and take the photos when ever you want.

I've created a Facebook group called "PhotoChallenge" where you can put up any photos you want to show-off, or you can e-mail them to me and I will add them to the PhotoChallenge Blog.

Happy Photographing.
;)

2007-10-01T10:06:00.000+10:00

My Jaunt to Jeju-do

Chuseok holiday was another time for fun and games. Billie and I decided to jump on the ferry and head to the "Hawaii of Korea", an island called Jeju.

8am saw us ship off from the docks and it was blue skies and fine weather. I made a couple of Korean friends on the boat, and they kept me entertained for the 3 hour (which ended up being a 5 hour) trip.

Some of my company on the ferry

Sadly, as is becoming all to common on any of my planned trips, as I rolled off the ferry at the other end, the clouds rolled in and by the time I found our cabin... it had started raining.

Rocks on the wild and wet shoreline

That night and all the next day, I was in a foul mood. My friends had hired a car for the 5 days, and after a half hour ride in the pouring rain, I decided to ditch Billie and go for the dryer option. My mood very much reflected the weather and all day I couldn't get out of a funk... until 6pm.

We were on our way back home and it was getting dark, when we spotted a sign: ATV's. After a discussion that lasted all of 5 seconds, we pulled in and all 7 of us went to check out the quad bikes. They were asking 20 000 won for a 20 minute ride (that's about a $1/minute) but after seeing us hesitate, the lady dropped the price to 15 000 won and won us over.

The quad crew

I have to say, those 20 minutes (which I'm sure turned into more like half an hour) were some of the best 20 minutes I've spent on a motorised vehicle. The leaders soon split us into the advanced riders and beginner riders.

The old lady motioned I was to follow her, and I was thinking "Oh great, were gonna be putting around for the rest of the ride". I couldn't have been more wrong. This lady was crazy. She had us fish-tailing around courners, jumping over rocks and going up and down virtical hillsides.

By the end of the ride, I was almost dancing in one spot I was so happy.

That night (and all the nights we stayed there) we had a wonderful dinner cooked for us by our resident chef, JP.

Our Chef

The next day, Garrett and myself decided to take our bikes out for a spin. He was going up the mountain to find a crater to hike and I decided to follow him. Well, this turned out to be a little more difficult than I expected. As soon as we got to the mountain road, the fog came in and in no time I could hardly see a few feet in front of me. By the time we reached the parking lot for the start of the hike, Garrett had decided it wasn't much point hiking, as he wouldn't be able to see any of the scenery anyway. We gave the rest of the crew a call to see what they were up to and much to our chargrin, we were informed that they had had sunshine most of the day. It turned out half the island was covered in cloud and the other half was sunny.

We finally found the beach the others were at and had a quick bite to eat. Garrett decided to stop there, but I was chaffing for some proper riding, so I jumped on the bike and went off for some fun. And fun it was. By the end of the day, I'd racked up about 300 km's of mountain and forrest riding. I was happy again.

The next day started out a little later, and much sunnier. Half the group got up at the crack of dawn to go tackle the biggest mountain on Jeju, Halla-san.
Meanwhile, Jessica, Tyrone and myself went and met up with Jessica's friend and rock climbing buddy Dan, and his friend Danielle. Dan took us down to an amazingly beautiful (and very rocky) creek and here we spent most of the day trying to scale a virtical rock face.

The crazy small rock-climbing shoes I forced my feet into.

It was a few hours of sitting around watching intently, trying to pick up some pointers, followed by about an hour of intense full body, physical exertion. It was incredibly difficult (for us beginners) and Dan was a hard taskmaster, not letting me back down when I felt I couldn't go on, and always encouraging me to "give it one more good try". I was very thankful for this when I finally reached the top.

You want me to put my feet where???

Trying to scramble over the underhang

Trying again without the torturous shoes.

Actually, I didn't make it all the way to the top. I was getting very close when I noticed a massive boulder (which we would have to climb over) had come away from the rock wall. After Dan climbed up to check it out, we decided that it wasn't safe to climb over... so this became the new "top" of the climb.

Getting up there.

At the new "top.

After this, with very little convincing, I talked Tyrone into jumping on the bike with me and headed back to the ATV place. I was having a lot of trouble finding where it was, but passed another place that offered ATV rides and decided to give it a go. This one was different from the first. The ground was much more flat, but it did have mud patches to play in. It was fun, but I told Tyrone the other place was better, so we decided to go there as well.

Once again, we had about half an hour of adrenaline filled fun and adventure. It was one of the guys who took us out this time, and there were only the two of us riding with him, so it was full throttle the whole way. I was very impressed with how Tyrone went, considering he'd never ridden before.

All in all, it was an amazing trip and I can't wait to get back over there again for some more fun.

2007-09-10T14:34:00.000+10:00

Goat Trail Re-visited.

So this weekend we decided to climb the "Goat-Trail" on Wolchulsan again. This is definitely one of the hardest trails up the mountain, and I have a suspicion half of it was suppose to be closed at the moment, as the track virtually dissapeared in some parts, much the same as when I first climbed it with Max over a year ago.

This time we started out with 12 people and reached the top with 10 people about 3.5 hours later. A very good effort I thought. Don't worry, the other two just decided to take it easy and head back down on their own. We didn't drop them off one of the numerous cliffs up there.
:P

Here are some photos of the climb.

Maria and Nate having a rest part way up. We stopped often going up this track, but still seemed to make good time.

Jong Won in a tight spot.

Alex and Krista go climbing.

Me taking a rest.

The group. L to R: Ian, Krista, Jong Won, Alex, Virginia, Maria, Stacy, Sarah, Nate.

Virginia climbing the hard way.

Krista checking out some boulders.

Sarah contemplates doing some boulder jumping.

Ready....

Jump!

One of the harder parts. While helping Virginia down here, I got a heart-attack when two of the girls started sliding down a very steep part and didn't look like stopping.

Taking a short-cut across the rocks.

The girls decided to do some exploring.

Me on another cliff.
(Check out the view in the background!)

The vertical stairs on the way down.

And here they are... The Wolchulsan Mountain Goats! Made it to the top along the "Goat-Trail" and survived to tell the tale.

Thanks to all who came along. It was a great day.

2007-09-10T14:18:00.001+10:00

Billie's Bush Bash.

Here are some photos of my ride along the coast from Wando to Yeosu. I took two days to ride across to Yeosu and only 2 hours to ride back. That's how windy the coast of South Korea is!

This is Billie after she went through some mud and a bit of a crash. Poor old girl really had her "on-OFF-road" ability tested on this trip.

My boots and pants got a bit muddy too.

Billie in walkabout mode.

This was a path about 2km's long which lead across some mudflats to an island. I'm not sure, but I'd say the tide often rises above this path.

A beautiful little village with a small port.

Here's a back street of one of the villages I passed through.

A random little beach along the coast.

Billie finally getting a rest at my camp site.

My camp for the night.

The beach where I camped.

One of the strangest tourist attractions I've ever seen.

It was a very fun trip, but I think next time I might try to go when it's a bit cooler. Riding in full padded gear in 35+ degree heat isn't always the most comfortable.

2007-08-22T12:46:00.000+10:00

Holiday Catch-up

Ok, so I've been on holidays and as such, have been very lazy with the blogging. I didn't really do much over the holidays of interest. I had grand plans to go to Mongolia and buy a motorbike to ride around, but that fell through, so I was left sitting in Korea in the hot summer heat... Of course this just meant I spent many days going to beaches... but more of that later.

Damyang Teachers Camp

So my last week of school and first week of holidays, I was at a camp teaching Korean English teachers how to teach English. Rather ironic considering they have had 4 years of Uni to learn how to do this and I have had none... but anyway.
The camp was a lot of fun and I got to meet a heap of great people. During the camp, we went for a trip to the ancient capital of the Shilla Dynasty in Korea, Gyongju. This place was really interested and I learned a lot about the history of Korea.

Unfortunately our supervisor for this camp thought it would be a great idea for us to get up and "enjoy to watch the beautiful sunrise". Bearing in mind it's the middle of summer and the sun rises at about 5am... and he wanted to watch it from the top of a mountain! This meant we had to get up at stupid-o-clock to get on a bus and drive up a mountain. Once there we got to see some beautiful white fog! Later that day, we were told this is the foggiest place in Korea... would have been nice to know that BEFORE we got up that morning.

Anyway, we got to see some cool things like the inside of a burial dirt mound, and an amazing temple and restaurant that was more like a museum than the museum we visited!
All in all, a great trip.

Elementary Camp

While I was at Damyang, I was informed I was required to teach at an Elementary school camp... starting the day I finished at Damyang!

I was just a little pissed to say the least. I had been asking for 2.5 months prior to going to Damyang if I had any camps and no one could give me a definite answer. Then with a whole two days notice, I was told I was, in fact, expected to teach and that I had to come up with my own lesson plans in that time. Not that I knew how many kids I would be teaching, how long the lessons would be, what level the kids were or how many lessons I was suppose to teach...

Anyway, the day before I was to start this camp, my Waygook co-teacher, Linda, asked if it would be ok for her to teach the lessons if I played with the kids for the outside activities?

GREAT!

This meant I was paid to go to the beach and play with cute little kids for 3 days. Talk about a life-saver. In the end, I had a great time swimming and playing games.

Beach Camp
So I decided to have another beach camp. If you've been following my bloggs, you will notice in my last one, I hosted a camp which was a bit of a wash-out. Well, this time only two people came along, Virginia and JP.

We headed over to the beach and spent a relaxing afternoon sitting under the trees and having a few cold ales.

For the first time since I've been here, there was actually surf worth talking about at the beach. Unfortunately there was a bit of a stiff, breeze and I didn't really feel like going in the water. Instead, we spent a couple of hours putting a tarp around a pagoda to turn it into our own private little shelter... and boy did we need it!

The wind picked up and the rain started to roll in. In the evening, a police car pulled up and made an announcement. People ran over to the car and as soon as the police stopped talking, everyone ran for their tents and within half an hour, about 100 campers had packed up and disappeared. It was about this time that we were wondering just how bad this storm was likely to get.

As it turned out, there was a typhoon out near Japan somewhere and we were copping the winds from it. Much worse than the last camp, but at the same time, our tarp walled shelter stood up to it remarkably well. With JP only having to make one minor repair in the night, we kept relatively dry and warm.

I was actually having quite a bit of fun this time. Mind you, this stormy weather when we go camping is getting a bit beyond a joke!

Motorbike ride.

Over the break, I did quite a bit of riding. As it's the middle of summer, and I refuse to ride my bike without proper protection, this means I spent a good many hours of this summer dressed in padded jacket, long padded pants and boots. A little hot to say the least, but not too bad when I'm actually moving.

I decided to take my tent and spend a couple of days working my way over to Yeosu, along the coast. Now going straight there along the highway takes about 2.5 hours (or it did on the return journey) but following the coast, the roads are so twisty and there is so much to explore, that it is quite easy to spend a couple of days.

Along these roads, I often found little side tracks that looked interesting, so I would go and explore them. Turning down one such track, I realized I couldn't actually keep going in the direction I wanted, so I decided to make my way back to the main road. In doing so, I ended up going down smaller and smaller tracks, until I was on a two wheel dirt farm track. It had rained not more than half an hour before I got to this track and by the looks of it, the rain had been fairly heavy here. This meant that the nice little dirt track had turned into a bit of a boggy, mud-pit.

I have ridden on bitumen highways, gravel roads, sandy creek beds and dirt tracks, but there is nothing I hate more than riding through mud! At one point, after being sprayed numerously with nice dirty brown mud, I decided the second track looked a bit dryer and though it might be better riding over there. Unfortunately I didn't put too much thought into the decision to change tracks and so, half way through a mud puddle, after turning my handlebars, I found the front end of my bike sliding out from under me.

Thankfully I'd slowed down to a moderate 50 or 60km's / hour by this stage, so the fall wasn't so bad. The bike went over and I went with it, only sliding for a meter or so before it landed on my leg.

Remember me talking about that hot jacket and pants and boots I was wearing? Well, this is exactly why I was wearing them! I landed on one knee and the bike landed on the back of that same knee. I would say if I wasn't wearing the padding (with excellent knee pads I might add) I most likely would not have got up to walk away. As it was, I got no more than a bit of a bruise.
I was also very impressed with the bike. Hardly a mark on it. The guards on it really are well thought out and put in the right place.

But now for the hard part... picking up a bike that weighs almost 3 times as much as I do.

To be honest, I was surprised at how easy it was. Not long ago, I'd watched a video on the internet to see how it was done, but wasn't game to put my bike on it's side just to try it. So here was my chance. Turns out, after the initial bit of effort, it comes up quite quickly and easily.
But wouldn't you believe it, not half an hour later I dropped the bike again. This time on the other side. Got to keep things even I guess.

This time it was just a gumby drop though. I'd spotted my firs snake in Korea crossing the road (I almost ran over it), and I wanted to take a photo. In my rush to jump off the bike quickly, I didn't put the stand down properly, so over she went. Thankfully, I was still holding the handle bars and was able to stop it falling hard. Of course, by the time I picked it up again, the snake had gone.

And that was basically my life for the last month or so. Nothing major or exciting... just the usual random events that happen in this country of everlasting entertainment and fun.

Till next time.
:)

(PS Photo's to come)

2007-07-02T14:49:00.000+10:00

Full Moon / Canada Day Party

You know that bit when I said I was gonna go camping on the beach come rain, hail or hurricane.... well I was only joking about the hurricane part.

But the rain gods weren't!

(Warning, this is an epic blog with no pictures [so far])

On Saturday a few folks from the surrounding areas decided to join me for a party on Myeongsashimni beach. I've tried to organize 2 previous events there, only to be rained out, so this time I decided I was going to go even if it was raining.

Surprisingly enough, the morning started out bright and sunny. It looked like it was going to be perfect beach weather.

I had a few friends coming over from Mokpo on their motorcycles, but they seemed to be having trouble with my directions, so I went over to meet them. We got back to Wando about mid-day and I swapped Billie for Black Betty and drove over to the beach with all the camping gear and supplies.

I decided to set up a big tarp that people could rest in the shade or sleep at night under. It was massive. We had that and a number of small tents that everyone brought along, so there was plenty of room for sleeping.

I decided I wanted to play on Billie some more, so I skipped back over to Wando and picked her up. After some riding around and playing on the beach, I decided it was time for dinner. I'd previously cooked up 3 different curries for everyone to try and we cooked up a feast.

Then for some more playing on the beach and sitting around the campfire then around midnight it was off to bed. And this is when the excitement began.

The wind started picking up and I was a bit worried about the large tarp/tent, but for a while it seemed to be holding up well. It was just making a hell of a lot of noise as the wind was flapping it like a whip being cracked...

Then at about 2am, there was one almighty crack and all went silent. The wind was at super gale force by now. The kind of wind that takes roofs off houses and blows over full grown trees.

I jumped out of bed and scrambled out of my small tent, thinking the tarp had blown away. There were a couple of people sleeping under it and there was a lot of gear on the ground under it, so I was a bit worried. Thankfully though, only a couple of ropes had snapped and the tarp was now lying flat over everything... including the sleeping people. They seemed content enough and surprisingly, I think they may have been the ones who ended up having the best nights sleep.

With the help of one of my friends, we tied down the loose ends of the tarp and scrambled back to our tents.

Then someone's fly blew off their tent, so it was more scrambling around to tie it down as well.

As wet and miserable as it sounds, we were actually having fun with banter and jokes flying around in the pitch black from all around us.

Just after I got back into bed, there was loud ping and I realised one of the poles on my brand new tent had snapped. It was now being held up by a single pole and a wish and a prayer. I was too tired to do anything about it, so I just stayed snuggled in my cocoon. Unfortunately the snapped pole meant the fly over my tent was now loose and also flapping loudly. After a half an hour of trying to ignore it, I was once again back out and trying to tie it down.

An hour or so later the wind was gone and I can remember thinking, "finally I might be able to get some sleep!" Not two minutes later the rain started. And this wasn't a nice summer shower. It was torrential. It was the kind of rain that causes flash floods and turns cement dry land into a quagmire in seconds.

And then the lightening began. At first it was a fair distance and I enjoyed listening to the rain bucket down and the rolling thunder off in the distance, snug in the dry warmth of my crippled tent. But that distance was slowly diminishing. Eventually there was one that hit so close, the light and sound were simultaneous. I believe it couldn't have been any more than 500 meters away... and possibly much closer.

Finally about 5:30am, after no sleep, people started climbing out of their respective dwellings and surveyed the damage. Obviously the ground was drenched and covered in puddles. It had got so soft that one of the motorbikes's stand had sunk in the mud, causing the bike to fall over in a puddle about half a food deep (enough to half cover the engine) and break the clutch cable.

There were clothes and things blown away, tents broken, people taking shelter in the near-by public toilets and a lot of tired, wet, bedraggled looking people around.

We started the not so pleasant job of packing up wet stuff and the weather gods decided to help us by opening up the heavens again. Some of the crew decided to make a break for it and headed for the first bus out (which apparently came very late), while the rest of us did the best we could with cleaning up. Eventually when it started dumping down again, we took shelter under a wooden pagoda and after a quick survey, found we had all the makings of a nice hot cuppa under there with us.

After an hour of so sitting around joking and bantering about the weather gods and camping in a hurricane, I decided it was time to suit up and ride Billie back home to pick up Black Betty and come collect the camping equipment. It was a little scary riding Billie back to Wando. I don't mind riding in the rain, but when there is still lightning striking all round and on some parts of the road, I become the tallest thing around, it can be a little intimidating.

We finally got packed up and realised we still had the problem of a motorbike without a clutch and there fore unride-able. We decided the best course was to leave the bike in the town at the beach and the owner could take Black Betty back to Mokpo, then on Tuesday, I would go back, fix the bike and ride it back to Mokpo for her.

So we finally made it back to my appartment, dripping wet, dog tired and in good spirits. I realised that it was only 11am (I felt like it must be 5pm by this time... that's what you get when you wake up with the sun) and decided it was a great time to cook up breakfast.

I fried up a feast of sausages, bacon, eggs, toast and some lamb curry and we all happily chowed down.

In the end, it was a great adventure and even with the rain, wind and lack of sleep, I had a lot of fun.

I just hope next time the nasty weather gods will go pick on someone else!

2007-06-29T10:09:00.000+10:00

BBBBBBBBRRRRROOOOOOOOMMMMMMM

I love bikes!

I've been needing to do a bit of a refresher on my slow riding and there are a number of folks here who have bikes but have little or no riding experience, so I decided to head over to Mokpo and see if anyone wanted to do some motorbike exercises.

Virginia and Christa were the only two who braved the elements and came along. Actually it wasn't too bad as far as the weather went. It was just overcast and gloomy for most of the day, only deciding to bucket down on our journey home.

Anyway, the exercises were a lot of fun and I think some time soon, I'll have another day of exercises when the weather is a little nicer.

Here's some photos Christa took.

Teacher in the classroom.

On your mark, get set....

Head up, eyes forward... where you look is where you go.

Smile for the camera.

Look Mum... I can ride!

Please, please, please be careful with my baby.

2007-06-25T11:31:00.000+10:00

Matt's Magic Sajik Music Party

Once again, the musical brilliance that is Matt, put together another night of great music at the now famous pagoda on the top of the hill in Sajik Park. About 60 people came at different stages through the night and many new and some old faces got up to perform.
The variety of music was amazing. Rock, pop, country, classic and Korean music were just a sample of what was heard during the night and I think it's safe to say, everyone had a great time.

Here's a few photos of the event...

The organizer, MC and general funny man, "Matt the Musical Maestro"

Amazing Korean Trio with amazing harmonies.

Country never looked so fun.

I wish I could play like him!

Elton John... eat your heart out!

And yes, yours truly even had a bash.

Thanks Matt for another great event. Hope to see ya at the next one.

PS about 62000 won was raised for the Sung Bin Girl's orphanage in Gwangju! Great job everyone.

2007-06-20T12:23:00.000+10:00

Wow... Only 87% of the worlds countries left to visit!

2007-06-12T17:12:00.000+10:00

Randomness of Korean Car Washes

So I took my car for a drive to find a car wash this afternoon. It's just a tad dirty since the whole block has been turned into a construction site and the friendly workers decided to pour cement over my car and didn't bother washing it off. That plus the fact that every time it rains here, a nice (approximately inch thick) layer of dust that settles on it makes it look like I've taken it out-back for a month, means that it wasn't the cleanest car in town.

I finally find a place that has an automatic car wash and I stop to line up for it. He tells me I'm second in line. Ok... no worries I don't mind waiting. Then a lady turns up in a car and she is told to park her car and leave the keys in the door. Mind you, we are both in a spare allotment across the street and well away from the actual car wash. Anyone could come and jump in and drive away. But she seems to think this is normal and off she goes.

Well, the guy finally finishes washing the car and so I go to pull into the "next car" waiting area. As I'm pulling it, he motions for me to go to the "self service" wash area. You know... the place that bascially has a hose and a broom for you to wash your own car. I motion to the automatic wash and he just looks at my car and says NO! And points again to the self service wash.

Apparently he was afraid my car would make his car wash too dirty!

On top of this, he wouldn't show me which buttons I had to press to get the machine to work. So out of a whole minute and a half on the clock... I got a whopping 30 seconds to use the machine.

Bugger going back there again. Next time I'll get a broom and bucket and do my own bloody car!!!

2007-06-11T13:43:00.000+10:00

English Competitions and The Land Down Under

On Friday I had the dubious pleasure of being a judge for an English competition for the region. This means I get the whole day off school for a couple of hours work in Damyang, a beautiful place just outside Gwangju that is surrounded by mountains and amazingly beautiful scenery.

I was judging the high school students and was a little surprised to find that on average, they weren't much better than my girls middle school I taught at last year. I'm not sure if I should be sad at the low level of the schools in the region, or happy that my old school was so amazing. A little of both I think.

Anyway, for the lead up to the competition, I've been helping two of the girls at the Wando Girls Middle School. They are super cute (as is their teacher ;) and they were very thankful for the help. One of them has decided to call me "big brother".
On Saturday, I met up with them and the super cute teacher to have lunch and see how they went in the competition. Sadly they weren't to confident with the results, but we spent a fun afternoon hanging out in Gwangju. At one stage I commented that I really did feel like a big brother being dragged out shopping with his sisters... Not that I've ever done that with my real sisters. But I have done it with many adopted sisters over they years.

At some point during the afternoon I came across two of my friends from Mokpo; Neal and Crystal. While I was talking to them, the girls were giggling and whispering behind me so much (while looking at Neal) that finally he stopped talking mid sentence and asked them what they were giggling about. They turned bright red and one of them got up the courage to tell him that he was "soooo handsome". At which point I think Neal got a little embarrassed.
Then a minute later, two more guys that Neal knew came up and started talking. To be fair, one was very tall and both were fairly good looking, so you can imagine how the girls were now reacting. When we walked away I turned to laugh at them and they just said to me, "Stu we love you!" They weren't so much loving me... but loving the fact that hanging out with me, they got to meet all my good looking friends. Too bad these kids are only about 16 years old. They would have loved to go along to one of my get togethers.

So after all this fun in the city, I jumped on Billie and headed down to my next party. Virginia had her house warming BBQ in Mokpo. It was a fancy dress with the theme of any song title. At first I was thinking I might do "You can leave your hat on" but very quickly chickened out of this one.
Then I was thinking about dressing up like a bottle and handing out little phrases like "Be good to your mother" or "You are so cool".... can you guess? That's right: "Message in a bottle."
My next thought was to make a little boat out of cardboard and wear it around my waist & stick months of the calendar on the sides & have a bottle of water hidden in it that dripped.... "6 months in a leaking boat"
However all these were a little difficult to do last minute (except the first one I guess), so I settled on buying a white t-shirt and some pens and drew on it a tall man (6' 4"), a VW van, a woman who glowed and a beer keg that was flowing beer. There was a lightning bolt and a strange lady giving out breakfast and a guy throwing up. There was also a man running towards some shelter and a guy who was selling bread with a sign saying Brussels behind him.
Have you got it yet?
Oh and of course there was a large map of Australia drawn upside down.
You must have guessed it by now....

"Travelling in a fried out combie, On a hippie trail, full of zombie.
I met a strange lady. She made me nervous. She took me in and gave me breakfast.

How about now?

"And she said, 'Do you come from the Land Down Under? Where women glow and men plunder.....'"

You got it. "Land Down Under" by Men at Work.

Kind of appropriate I do feel.

So the BBQ was lots of fun. drinking and eating on the rooftop overlooking the see and islands off shore. Always a nice way to spend the afternoon. The party moved into the apartment and got much louder. By the time we decided to move on to a new location (p-club) I'm sure the combined association of Koreans living in that apartment were already drawing up a formal complaint and petition to get the waygook kicked out of there.

P-club was the usual bar thing. Nothing exciting. I got to spend about the last half an hour listening to the mumblings of a drunken Queenslander... you know... the kind of person you hate to meet overseas cause they give your country a bad name. Mind you, he wasn't loud and obnoxious. He just couldn't string to coherent words together.

Sunday was kind of interesting. I went to a local gym with Melisa (The Other Wando Chick) and saw a Korean sport called Gumdo. How this sport differs from Kendo, I'm not too sure. In fact, a friend here who came along and knows Kendo fairly well, said it was the same sport. But as I'd never seen either, I found it great to watch.
Everyone was dressed in big baggy pants and lots of padding, with a face mask that looked like the grill of an old MG sportster. They were in a square and faced off, then started wacking each other with swords made out of bamboo. Talk about fun.
I was watching the kids first and couldn't believe the obvious skill with a sword of these little people who probably maxed out at five foot tall. Man they could move fast.
The bigger people were fairly good too. I have to say, I'm proud of one of my students from the girls school who was there competing. She won 3 of her 4 fights. She did much better than the rest of her club.

Anyway, that's enough rambling for this week.
Till next time......

"...... where beer does flow and men chunder. Can't you hear, can't you hear the thunder?
You'd better run, you'd better take cover.........."

2007-06-04T17:44:00.000+10:00

A post for the sake of posting...

Had another busy weekend. Went to Suncheon on Friday arvo to take Virginia over to collect her cat and hamster and take them to their new home in Mokpo.

Went out Friday night to Julianna's and didn't get in till the sun was coming up. Then got up 2 hours later with a massive hangover to drive Virginia, cat and rodent back to Mokpo via Gwangju. Possibly the worst I've felt since arriving in Korea. Urg!

Got back home Sat evening and crashed very early.

Yesterday was a much nicer day. I jumped on Billie and took her for a ride, island hopping from Wando across to the mainland, up to Gangjin and back down to Wando. About a 150km ride including some exploring on the islands.

I found the most beautiful hill with nice views and some goats. There were black goats all over the place. So of course you can guess what that island is "most famous" for in the food department. I'll have to go back there and try some.

A really beautiful day topped off in the evening by going out to dinner with one of my (also beautiful) co-teachers and two students from the all girls school, who are competing in an English competition. We had an "English only" meal so that the students could practice speaking in English. A lovely meal with three lovely ladies.

:)

The end... I'm going home now... work's over.
See ya.

2007-05-28T10:13:00.000+10:00

Four days of Fun and Frivolity
For all the photos, check out my flickr site.

So I got back from Japan, only to find out on Monday that I had a 4 day weekend coming up. Thursday the 24th was Buddha's birthday so we were given that day off. I think my school decided that since we had Thursday off, we might as well make it worthwhile and take Friday off as well!
I love working in this country.

So on Thursday, I got up and went over to Miji and Tony's place for a massive feast of seafood. Miji's Mum owns two fishing boats on Jindo island and cooked up a massive meal for us to celebrate Buddha's birthday.

After this massive chow-down, I jumped in the car and drove over to Gwangju to catch up with Virginia. She went back to Canada for three weeks and had just arrived back in S. Korea that morning. I stayed in her hotel over night and got to hang out with her and JP, a guy that use to work in Wando but left soon after I arrived. He's back for another year and he and Virginia will both be placed in Mokpo. I think with all my friends now in Mokpo, I'll be spending a lot more time there.

The next day the real adventure started. I dropped off Black Betty for the weekend and hired a minivan for three days.

"Why would he do that?", I hear you ask.

For the first Jeollanamdo Photography Roadtrip of course!

Myself and a group of 7 friends jumped in the car and spent two days driving around the provence taking photos. I'd spent days planning a route that would take in some beautiful scenery and some interesting stops.

We went first over to a little town near Jirisan to see a steam train that runs 10km's between two stations.

The patriotic train.

Locomotion; Old and New

Unfortunately we didn't have time to wait for the next departure and have a ride, but it was cool looking at the old locomotives and playing around at the theme park there.

The driving force.

All aboard...

Then we meandered our way down a valley to Jirisan and the Korean Black Bear rehab program. There use to be many bears in South Korea but sadly they were almost wiped out. Now they are starting a breading program to try to build up the population and re-introduce them into the wild. They believe there are about 20 bears roaming around Jirisan, with another eight at the breeding center, including two cubs.

One of thirty-odd bears left in Korea.

From here, we went down another amazing valley. The whole way I was thinking I would have to come back there on my motor bike. As I was having this thought for the thousandth time, we came around the corner and lo and behold, on the side of the road was a motorcycle gang.

Hells Angles? ... No, it's Club Shadow.

This looked like the Korean version of the Hells Angles. Of course we had to pull over and take photographs with them.

Very cool bikies.

Far from being the scary type gangs we often associate with these kinds of groups, these guys were super friendly and posed for numerous photos with us. After telling them I had a bike, one of them gave me a business card with the groups website address on it. Not exactly the sort of thing you expect from a "Hells Angles" type group.

Here's the link if you wanna go check it out...

Club Shadow (since 2002)

After our stop here, we skipped over to Suncheon to watch a Korean National sport, Gumdo. This is a martial art based around the use of a sword. It was great to watch. Both graceful and deadly.

Looks dangerous.

That night it was onto Boseong and a hotel for some well earned rest.

The next day we were up and travelling again. Not as many stops on Sunday.

The first stop was just outside Boseong at the most famous tea plantation in Jeollanamdo... and possibly all of Korea.

And not a teabag in site...

We followed the coast down to a small town called Maryang and did two short ferry rides across to Shinji island for a play on the beach. Unfortunately it was a bit windy for a good swim, although Richard managed a quick dip.

From Shinji it was a quick lunch and long drive back to Gwangju to return the car, pick up Black Betty and do a U-turn back down to Wando.

Yet another amazing weekend!

2007-05-28T09:50:00.000+10:00

Catch up time...

It's been a busy few weeks. I believe I left you with my last blog about four weeks ago with the Hampyeong Butterfly festival. Wow, how time flies!

Ok, so the weekend after was suppose to be my big first year beach party, but as commonly happens, the weather gods decided to be funny buggers and made it rain for one day that week. you can guess what day can't you? Saturday! The day we were suppose to be camping on the beach, enjoying the sun and having fun. Instead it was bucketing down from the skies above.

So I decided to ride over to Mokpo and have some indoor fun with friends over there. I went to Crystals and with a group of friends, we had a night of board-games. Wow, have they changed since I was a kid. These days, board games seem to involve little electronic devices that throw words at you which you have to make others guess (without using that word) and DVD's that throw questions at you from the TV.

What ever happened to a board on the floor with some dice?

Am I getting old?

Sadly over this weekend, I also found out that a good friend, Nick Hamilton, passed away. Nick was one of my best friends in Japan and he was the guy who introduced me to Canadian Connections here in Korea. It was a big shock to learn of his death. Especially as he was exactly the same age as me... to the day.

So on the Monday, I went to work and asked if I would be able to get leave to go to a service being held for him in Japan. Thanks to my great co-teacher and caring school, I was on a plane the next day and heading back to my old stomping ground, Osaka.

I was very apprehensive returning to Japan because most of you know, I didn't really leave under the best circumstances. I had an old grandma trying to sue me because she ran into me on her bicycle and hurt herself, and I had quite a large tax debt that hadn't been paid. I was expecting to be grabbed at customs and locked away in a Japanese prison, never to be heard from again... or something to that effect.

As it turned out, I was let into the country with no questions asked. So I'm not a wanted man in a foreign country after all... Sweet!

I went over with one of my friends from Oz, living in Korea, Tony. He had to go over for a visa run and I said I'd help him find his way around. While we were in Osaka, we did a bit of site seeing... more for his benefit than mine.

Tony at the Osaka Castle

The Silver Ball. Where all the wanna be break dancers come to practice.

I stayed with a friend in Osaka and had the chance to catch up with most of my friends over there. I have to say, the 2 days I spent in Osaka only confirmed the idea that I'm much better off where I am now. I had a great time seeing my friends, but I'm very glad I'm not living in that city working for that evil corporation anymore.

I did a quick trip down to Hiroshima for the service and spent a day looking around the city. I was surprised at how clean and beautiful Hiroshima is. I didn't get to go to the museum but I looked through peace square and saw the Atom monument. Amazing to look at.

One of the monuments in Peace Park.

The Atomic Dome. This was virtually under the Atomic bomb when it went off in Hiroshima. Ironically, it was one of the least affected buildings.

In the park, there were thousands of kids (possibly no exaggeration) who were interviewing people for school projects. I think about half a dozen groups came up to me while I was there. They were sooo cute!

That night I went to the service and spent the evening with Nicks friends and workmates remembering the good times we had with Nick. He was one amazing guy. One of the most optimistic people I've ever known.

He will be missed.

The beautiful sunset from the KTX on the way home.

2007-05-28T09:48:00.000+10:00

1000 +

Yay! I've finally hit the 1000 + viewers to this site.

I'm a big time blogger now.

FAME AT LAST!

2007-05-09T14:44:00.000+10:00

Butterflies and Barbecues.

I went to the butterfly festival in Hampyeong last weekend with my friend Miji.

Every year, when the flowers come out and things are looking beautiful, they have a festival in this little town in the middle of nowhere. There are fields of flowers and pavilions selling all sorts of food and drinks.

Our first stop was to try some prime bbq beef. I don't know how anyone can be a vegetarian. This simple meal of beef, kimchi and garlic tasted so good!

Unfortunately it was "Children's day", so it seemed like every child and their family in Korea were visiting Hampyeong all on the same day. Just walking around was difficult, as the milling crowds were covering every bit of open space there.

Lucky the children are so cute in Korea.

Miji and I decided the best way to have a breather would be to go out on the little creek on a paddle boat. Now I'm not talking about a big paddle steamer or anything. This was one of those little boats that you have to peddle with your feet to get it to move around. It was fun, but also hard work. Miji was a crazy driver, she kept accidentally (on purpose) running into other boats. oops :)

After this, we decided to go for a stroll through the flower fields and have a break from the heat.

On our way to a nice shady pavilion, I got to watch some kids chase some piglets around a pen and saw others playing in mud, trying to catch little fish with their hands.

It looked like lots of fun.

Eventually, after resting for a while, we caught up with to more friends, Cathy and Monique, and headed over to the main attraction, the butterfly pavilion.

Inside were many different types of flowers and some butterflies fluttering around.

This one had just emerged from its cocoon and was drying its wings.

I'm not sure if our timing was out, but there mainly seemed to be one type of butterfly (which looked more like a moth) in abundance. In the whole pavilion, I only saw 3 types of butterfly.

This was the nicest butterfly I found there.

Still, it was nice to look around.

After all this fun in Hampyeong, we decided to leave the crowds and head back to Mokpo for a BBQ at a friends place. Kristen and Hyn-joong had been lucky enough to be given the use of Hyun-joon's cousin's house, with a large back yard, to host the party.

Quite amazing considering the Korean owners weren't there and they let a bunch of foreigners have the run of the place.

It was a great night with nice burgers provided by Kristen and Hyun-joong, some music provided by Matt Amond, David (?) and myself, and great company provided by all who came. I was able to meet some of the latest newbie crowd to come to Korea and we were also graced with the pressence of Alex's mother.

Not even the rain bucketing down put a dampner on the event.

In fact it helped provide some entertainment later in the evening...

You go girls!

Yet another great weekend in Korea.

2007-04-25T11:36:00.000+10:00

Wandoville....

So I've just moved to Wando. Island of Jung Bo Go the Emperor of the sea, place of great beaches and lots of fish!

It's been a hectic week. I had a crazy Friday, finishing at my old school with a picnic day. It was a great way to end my year at Yeongsanpo. I got to hang out with the kids outside the classroom and have some fun with them. I'm really going to miss those kids. They were wonderful!

After school finished, I went out to dinner with my workshop teachers and then on to a bar to meet the newbies. Not that many of then were new. Half of the teachers there were people who've lived in Korea before and are returning for another stint. Got home about 11pm and in bed by midnight.

Up early the next morning and went down to Wando with most of my gear. I basically dumped it in Nicola's / my apartment and went straight around to meet my new co-teachers. I can't believe how many young, english speaking teachers there are here. It's great! As long as the kids don't run rough-shod over me, I think I'll enjoy teaching here.

So from the school, I jumped in my car and headed over to Mokpo for Carol's B'day party. (Photo's coming soon)
It started as a BBQ in the park, then I headed over to a Tony and Miji's place to have a couple of drinks and get ready for the 80's party. I've gotta say, those pair are CRAZY... but in a good way.
:)

On to P-Club and the night finished at a rather late hour.

Up again early the next day and I did a mad dash back to Wando (about 1.5 hours), picked up Chad and Nicola and drove up to Yeongsanpo (2 hours) to pick up my motorbike. Then I rode the bike and Chad drove back down to Wando (2 hours).
Five and a half hours driving and little sleep is wearing this guy down a bit.

Next morning I turned up at my new school and started teaching straight away, finishing mid afternoon and jumping back on my bike to do the round trip to Wando again, for some administrative stuff.

I think if things remain this hectic for long, I'm gonna have to clone myself to get everything done!

(Oh yeah, I don't have internet at home yet, so blogs might be updated a little less often, till I do. )

2007-04-18T09:30:00.000+10:00

Now where are these toilets when you're in a small town in the middle of Korea?

Toto has been a pioneer in high-tech toilets fitted with pressurized water sprayers...

The popular Z series features a pulsating massage spray, a power dryer, built-in-the-bowl deodorizing filter, the "Tornado Wash" flush and a lid that opens and closes automatically. Prices range from $1,680 to $2,600).

(Thanks Monique for the article with this in it... worth a read: Beware the toilet :)

2007-04-09T11:52:00.000+10:00

Wow. What a weekend!

For the first time in many months, I actually spent Friday at home this weekend. It was nice just to sit back and chill and then sleep in the next morning. On Saturday, I got up, did some cleaning and went down to give Billie her first wash. There's something very relaxing about washing a vehicle in the warm sun. It makes me feel very content.

After this very domestic morning, my weekend got on track to its usual fun and games. I jumped on my bike and went for a slow ride, meandering my way in the general direction of Gwangju. Of course, now that my bike was nice and clean, I just had to find the only road in all of Korea that was washed out with mud!

I was looking for the perfect place for my PhotoChallenge picture, but it didn't present itself. The ride however was great. Following cherry blossom lined roads, beside streams and through fields. It really was the perfect day for being on my bike.

I finally got to the G by about 2:00pm and met up with my friends Carol and Mel. We went to the wonderful department store called Kumho World and Carol made Mel and myself extremely jealous by buying a brand new Nikon SLR digital camera. (WANT ONE!!!)

After this bit of fun, we headed into town and had a nice dinner followed by a stint at Speakeasy. It was a very quiet night, but still fun to hang out with friends. Unfortunately one of our friends, Lana wasn't feeling so well. I get the feeling she and her boyfriend are allergic to me or something... cause every time we plan to meet up, one or both of them get sick.

The next day, we had a nice relaxed day in town, then in the afternoon, we went to a beautiful park in the middle of town. Matt has made friends with some locals and is allowed to use this amazing, multi-storied pagoda building to host music nights and get togethers. We had a pot-luck lunch here and admired the amazing views from this hilltop building. Then after lunch, Matt and I played a few tunes on the guitars and Bryce joined in on the drums. For never having played practised together, I don't think we sounded too bad.

Following the late lunch, I jumped back on Billie and rode down to Mokpo. This time it was to meet up with my new friend Miji and to meet her Aussie boyfriend Tony. Unfortunately they weren't feeling so well either. I get the feeling something is going around. They went home fairly early, but that was ok, as I found out I had another friend who was sick and in hospital in Mokpo. Chad, one of the greatest guys in Korea, had caught pnumonia and has been admitted to hospital for a six day stint while he recovers.

After a quick visit to make sure he wasn't about to keel over and cark it right there, I finally jumped on my bike and rode, in the rather chilly night air, back to my apartment and a nice warm bed.

(PS... I'm crap... wrote this on Monday and forgot to post it. Was gonna do it when I had the photos uploaded. That can come later.)

2007-04-05T19:30:00.000+10:00

Oops

Up until about an hour ago, there were three motorbikes over 600cc in Naju...

Now there are two.

This is how I first saw it after it had just gone whizzing by.
I arrived 2 minutes after it happened. Actually saw the bike go past at about 100km/hr. And he hit hard!

Front view. This is what hit the ground first.

From another angle.

Rear view. This is what hit the ground second.

Objects in the mirror probably really are A LOT CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR!

How to take home a bike that until a few minutes ago, was worth thousands of dollars and now might be worth thousands of won... if your lucky!

Apparently he was riding up the road when a lady decided to pull out of a driveway on the opposite side of the road and crossed straight in front of him, without looking to see if there was any traffic anywhere on the road. He had nowhere to go except down a 20 food embankment. He was sitting on his helmet on the side of the road when I arrived. He seemed ok except for the hole as round as a watch face in the side of his knee, and lots of bruises around the leg. He's gonna be sore tomorrow though.

PhotoChallengers, please check out the site for your first mini-task.

2007-04-03T14:14:00.000+10:00

Photo Challenge

Ok Folks, Let the games commence.

So let me say straight up that this idea was stolen from another blog: photogamers.

I've decided I need to get out and be a bit more creative with my camera, so I'm setting up a blog where we can play a game with our photography. The basic idea is that every fortnight, I'll post a challenge made up of different tasks. We then go out and take photo's of these tasks and post them to a flickr account I've set up. The best photo in each task wins.

Simple? I think so.

So if you're interested, send me an e-mail and I'll invite you to the Flickr group and you can start shooting and posting.

The blog I've set up is PhotoChallenge . You can find the rules for the game there.

I hope you join.
Stu.

2007-04-02T11:48:00.000+10:00

The Weekend That Was...

It's now April. I can't believe it. We are approaching the one year mark in Korea. Where did the time get to? Of course, this also means it's time for people to either start a new contract, or pack their bags and head for home.

As most of my closest friends here in Korea are the ones who were with me in my original orientation group... and only 4 of the original 12 are re-signing, this means that it is time to say good-bye to some of the greatest people I've met since arriving in Korea.

:(

I decided that we should all have a get together to say one last good-bye in the same fashion as we first met... having fun in Gwangju. So I invited all the original crew into town for a weekend of eating, drinking and merry-making.

On Friday night, Brent, Steph, Virginia, Nicola, Max and I met at the Windmill hotel. A wonderful love hotel, where the rooms are cheap, clean and HUGE! We've all come to know this place well over the last year. From here we went to the Outback Restaurant. An Aussie themed restaurant that is totally American owned. But they do have some of the best steaks and western food in Gwangju. It was a great meal. After this, we went on to my favourite bar in Korea. Mike and Dave's Speakeasy. While we were here, we were joined by Steve Jr and a few of his friends.

There was nothing special on that night, but with the great company, the plentiful flow of alcohol and the friendly atmosphere, we were able to share stories and reminisce well into the wee hours of the morning.

Of course, this meant that the next day, we were all felling a little worse for wear and with the weather very bleak and wet, it turned into a very lazy day. We ventured out of the hotel at about midday and got as far as an Italian restaurant before having a massive feast and returning back to the hotel. In the afternoon, we lost a few of our crew, but were joined by Steve Sr.

Again, we went out and had a feast that night. This time it was at the other western restaurant, TGI Friday's. Again great food, followed by some more fun at Speakeasy. This time there was a band from Mokpo playing, and of course many of our friends from the Mokpo crew joined us. Yet another great night, although, not as big as the one before.

On Sunday, most of the original crew had left, but Virginia, Steve and I decided to visit a temple that we went to in the first week of our stay in Korea. This temple is set up in the mountains and is surrounded by forest. It was a misty day and the fog just added to the atmosphere. It's now Cherry Blossom season, and the trees had burst forth in amazing splendour. We hiked up the mountain to a grotto that Virginia and Nicola found the first time they were there. It's a very beautiful and serene place and made for a very relaxing end to the weekend.

Thanks everyone for making the effort to come along. You have all made my stay in this country an amazing adventure and I'll miss you all. Good luck where ever you may be in the future.

Now for the pics:

The Crew:

Steph and Brent (also known as "The Beautiful People") & Max

Virginia

Handsome Steve

Nicola and Steph

Steve and Kristin

The Band:

Lead

Bass

Drummer

The Temple hike:

Cherry Blossom and Pagoda

The Bridge

Mountain Trail

Buddha's Grotto

Cherry Blossom

2007-03-27T12:28:00.000+10:00

How to stay alive on the sidewalks of Korea...

So true, it's scary!

Thanks Max for passing this one on.

2007-03-23T10:03:00.000+10:00

English. How hard can it be?

Whirly-gig, thing-a-me-bob, wee-dodad, whosy-whatsit, thingy, doohickey, jigit, widget, gizmo, whosiwhacky,thingamajig, doodad, thingummy, gizmotchie, whatsit, do-whicky, do-wacky,
do-lolly, dohatchie, gizwidget, dooflautchee, doovalacky, whatchamathingie, loomaflachchee, grapplegrommet, mobywixit, whatchamacallit, wotsit, and my favourite, wing wong for a goose's bridle.

I love these words! There should be more like them! And these are just words for things... There are others too you know...

For numbers, we have:

squillion, bajillion, buhmillion, frillion, gazillion, jillion, kajillion, schmillion, zillion eleventy-first, mumblety, umpteen, oodles, scads, buckets.

For names we use:

Tom, Dick and Harry, So-and-so, Buddy, Whasisname, Joe Bloggs, Fred Bloggs (cousin of Joe :), Joe Blow, Joe Schmoe (Not quite as rich as Joe Blow), The Joneses, Mrs Kafoops, Lord & Lady Muck, and if you're an Aussie there's the all encompassing Mate!

Or when giving directions:

Out the back o' Burke, somewhere near the black stump, beyond woop woop, just to the left of Timbucktoo. (These are all common Aussie directions)

To places such as:

Auchterturra, Sainte-Clotilde-de-Rubber-Boot, Waikikamukau (pronounced ‘Why kick a moo-cow’), or Joe's Diner,

And who says English is difficult? Let's just look for a moment at our wonderful language:

There's the pronunciation:

The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
I did not object to the object.
The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
We got into a row about how to row a boat.
They were too close to the door to close it.
The wind was too strong to wind up the sail.
The accountant at the music store records records of the records.

And then there's the paradoxes:

There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger;
neither apple nor pine in pineapple.
English muffins weren't invented in England or French-fries in France.
Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat.

Quicksand is slow and so is rush-hour (which often lasts a lot longer than an hour).
Boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

Why do writers write, but fingers don't fing?
Grocers don't groce, and hammers don't ham?
If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth beeth?
One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese?

You can make amends but not one amend?
If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?
If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught?
If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?
We have noses that run and feet that smell?

And sometimes the same words have opposite meanings:

When the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible. How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? Have you ever noticed that overlook and oversee are opposites, while quite a lot and quite a few are alike? Recently, the weather can be hot as hell one day and cold as hell another?

We often talk about things only when they are absent?
Have you ever seen a horsefull carriage or a strapfull gown?
Met a sung hero or experienced requited love?
Have you ever run into someone who was gruntled or ruly?

And people wonder why my job can be difficult at times. Lucky I have all the time in the world to sort through this mess!

(much of this comes from the website: English is difficult! check it out...)

2007-03-21T11:37:00.000+10:00

Ummmmm

I have nothing to write about but I'm bored and feel like writting so I'm just gonna write a stream of consciousness and see where it takes me. Why do they call it a "stream"? It makes my consciousness sound all wet and slushy and gloopy. Not that I have anything against water....

And I love slushies.

But I hate gloop!

Is gloop a word?

Hate... now there's a word we hear too often. I'm sorry, I take it back... I have a deep abiding, strong anti-liking for gloop. Now I'm sounding like a Canadian. How PC can you get? No one does PC as well as a Canadian? Is that very anti-PC of me to say so? See I'm crap at this!

Crap... now there's a word we shy away from. Rightly so too. Not the Koreans though. They are fine with this particular bodily function. I was watching a TV show on Sunday (or was it Saturday) at about 10 in the morning and they showed, quite clearly, someone pooing his pants! Yuck! Not something I wanna see when I'm having my Sunday breakfast.

Not that I eat breakfast on Sunday. Actually I don't really eat breakfast, but if I was going to, I would most likely do it on a Sunday. Last Sunday was a great day. It was what a Sunday is all about. The day started nice and early at about 9am. I hung with some friends, watched "crappy" TV and then went to one of the coolest coffee shops I've encountered in Korea. Sitting on a deck (yes, it really had a deck) with some great friends (one very cool one I'd only met the night before) drinking coffee in the sun, listening to chilled music... what more could you want.

Truly it's the simple pleasures in life that make things worth while. I like sunshine. I like mountains and beaches. I like laughter. I like companionable silence. I like kids laughter. Adults laughter isn't to bad either. Especially when it comes from a little old Halmonie. Doesn't happen often, but when it does it lights up my life.

Halmonies... now there's an interesting topic here in Korea. The little old ladies who seem to be so frail and yet I'm sure they are the backbone of this country... Anyone younger than them seem to think so!

Monique likes cheese.

Sorry... couldn't think of anything just then. I guess that's called blocking the flow of the stream of consciousness. I wonder if you can stop thinking?

Nope... still thinking.

Pineapple... I bet now I've said pineapple, you can't stop thinking about pineapple... or at least, I bet it keeps jumping into your head for the next few minutes. Why is it that when we get something in our heads that we don't want there, it keeps coming back. Like "Yellow Submarine". I hate that song and yet when ever I hear it, or even the words, my mind rebels on me and keeps singing it in the background.

"We all live in a yellow submarine, a yellow submarine, a yellow submarine...
We all live in a yellow submarine, a yellow submarine, a yellow submarine."

Do you all hate me now?

Back to pineapples. There is a strange phenomenon here in the Po. At one of the main intersections in town, we have people walking up and down the lanes between red lights, selling slices of pineapple. This has to be one of the most dangerous jobs in this country. Have you seen the disregard drivers have for lines on the road... or road rules in general.

Mind you, it's the chaos theory in motion. It works. Mitchell Feigenbaum, Benoit Mandelbrot, James Yorke, you guys were on to something. Maybe a little strange looking at butterflies, but you want proof, come check out the driving here in Korea!
Because no one follows the rules, chaos seems to rule, but if you look closely, there are not as many accidents as one would expect. I think if I were to actually follow the road rules (as I know them) then I would probably cause an accident. Therefore, I think it highly unfair that I've been averaging one speeding ticket a month. Then again, that's only been since I put my Waygook Saram (I'm a foreigner) sticker on my car.... Hmmm? Coincidence?

Still stuck on that pineapple thing.

Ooo I got an e-mail... hang on, be right back....

MMMMMMMMmmmmmmmm Kimchi banana bread. Koreans would love it.

Burma! Sorry I panicked.
How can Monty Python be so funny and so terrible at the same time. Where is Burma by the way. For someone who wants to travel around the world on a motorcycle, I really don't know my geography very well. Is it a city or country? How many countries are there? I've lost count. They keep changing them. Every time I look at a new map, they seem to have thrown on another country. If you had to make up the name for a country what would you call it?

Names. I seem to go through stages with being attracted to certain sounding names. My first few girlfriends were (in order) Cassandra, Sandy, Cindy, Mandy. Then there's the whole M thing. The letter M doesn't seem to be working out for me... or maybe it is. But all my long term girlfriends names have started with M. What does this mean? Does it mean anything? Wow... now I'm sounding like a girl. Over analysing stuff is really good for messing with your head. I'm gonna get some flack from that last comment aren't I?

Do you still call it paranoid if it's real? And how can you have a paranoid android? Well... I guess Martin is a paranoid android, but he was from a TV show and I'm fairly sure he's not real.

Why do our eyes get glued to a tv even when it isn't interesting? Here in Korea, they have some of the worst TV I've ever encountered in the world... and that's the English speaking shows. Check out On Style channel if you ever swing by here. the expats here will know what I'm talking about. But it seems just because it's in English, we can't stop watching it. And if a TV is on in a bar or restaurant, our eyes automatically swing towards it. Why is this so?

You're still here? And still reading this garbage? Man, you must be almost as bored as I am.

Ok, I'm going now.

"We all live in a......."

(hehe yes I'm evil!)

2007-03-19T09:33:00.002+10:00

Bikido

Bikido....? What is Bikido I hear you ask? Is it some form of Korean martial arts? How about a strange food? I know... it's the 10 step path to enlightenment!

Well, no. Althought that last one sounds good.
:)

Bikido is the amazing, legendary duo of Matt and Darren. Two talented musicians resident here in Korea. The origins of the name Bikido is as brilliant as it is original. When discussing attire for their up coming gig, Darren happily announced he would be arriving in his best pair of speedo's, to which Matt replied it would match very nicely with his bikini.... thus the bikini & speedo'd duo of Bikido!

Thankfully there must have been a mix up in the wardrobe department as both the boys came in respectable jeans and shirt type clothing... but there was no mix up in their music. A wonderful mix of modern covers and originals left the crowed relaxed, happy and having a great time.

Thanks guys for a great night out.

2007-03-15T09:26:00.000+10:00

Lamentable Lappy

Please bow your heads and send up a prayer to the Great God of Gizmos, Gadgets and Gigabites...

Fred my constant friend and companion... a source of entertainment, wonder (and yes... a lot of frustration) is no more.

Last night at approximately midnight, my laptop shutdown for the last time. After numerous attempts to revive him, it was clear his last spark of energy... his last 1's and 0's had been passed.

I'd like to take a moment to remember the good times....

It was the year of 2003 I went on a quest to the tower in the heart of the city to find that which would fulfill my greatest desire. Alas it wasn't to be found here. It seemed my quest would take me to further, less traveled paths. After a few phone calls, I was advised to go to one of their partner stores and I would find what I was after.

At 3pm (with very little time before I was to start work) I walked into the Yotobashi Mega-store in Umeda, Osaka, Japan. A place full of electrical wonder and wizardry. I soon found my way to
the section I was after and it was here, just minutes later that I first saw Fred. My new Sony Vaio Laptop.

With a whole 1.8Ghz processing power, 80 whole Gb's of hard disk space and 256mb (later upgraded to 1Gb) of ram, this was the computer of my dreams. Windows XP and fully set up for maximum multimedia output, I couldn't ask for anything more.

It was the begining of a beautiful partnership. Together we would build whole worlds of website imagery to be thrown up into that great place of ether... the internet. We burnt disks, we surfed the net and it was Fred who kept me in contact with my closest of friends. That's right, it was he that helped me to become the socialite that I am today.

Alas, after almost 4 years of faithful service, with hardly a glitch in his sparkly little system, Fred is finally ready to move on to the Great Recycle Heap of Electronics.

We shall miss you dearly Fred.
:(

(PS for those of you who don't understand a word of what was just said... my computer has just crashed and died!)

2007-03-07T13:05:00.000+10:00

Introducing "Billie" my new Beemer.

I have finally done it! I am now the proud new owner of a BMW... a BMW motorcycle that is.

I've finally got around to buying the bike that I hope some day in the not too distant future, will carry me around the world.

It's big, it's black and it's beautiful.

Within the first 3 days, I'd almost racked up 1000km's on the clock. (for a funny story, check out Virginia's blog here) This machine is amazing. How could the Germans be SO far in advance of all other manufactures? They just seem to know how to get things right.

So for those interested, the stats:

	Engine Type	Single Cylinder, Water Cooled, Four-Stroke, DOHC, 4 valves
	Displacement	652 cc
	Fuel capacity	4.0 U.S. gallons / 15 L
	Seat height	78.5 cm
	Dry weight	(excluding options & accessories) 176 kg
	Wet weight	(excluding options & accessories) 192 kg
	Tires	Front: 19 in. Rear: 17 in
	Brakes	Front: 1 disc, 2 piston caliper; Rear: 1 disc, 1 piston caliper;
	Final drive	520 O-Ring Chain

It also has the added options of heated handgrips, electronics plug, raised windscreen, ABS brakes (with an on/off switch for off-road riding) and front fork fenders.

This is my new baby!

2007-03-07T09:39:00.000+10:00

Oz Vacation.

"I come from a land down under,
Where women glow and men plunder,
Can't you hear, Can't you hear the thunder?
You'd better run, You'd better take cover!"

Oh yeah, I went home baby! The sunshine, the beaches, the babes (and the friends and family)!!!

This may sound a bit weird, but I sometimes forget how much I love my country. Thankfully I get reminded every so often.

Ok, so mid December, and I'm on a (free) flight back to Oz. At first, I didn't really feel much like going home. I'd only been away 9 months! But then as the time approaced, I was getting excited.

After some hastles with getting my ticket, I was finally booked on a flight. A little worrying was the fact that it went via Japan. As some of you may or may not know, Japan and I have a little history and I may not get such a friendly welcoming if I go back there. But all's well, as I only transfered in the airport and didn't have to go through customs.

So I left Korea and the snow to arrive back in Oz to a beautiful 30 degrees C. I love it!

I was planning to cut down on the drinking when I got back home, but alas, the first night back, they decide to have a cocktail party. So much for the no drinking. Thanks Joe!

For the first week or so, I hung out with the family and caught up with the happenings of big town Kingaroy (my home town). Then I headed back to Brisbane and spent a few days catching up with friends. It was wonderful to see everyone again. I just wish my friends weren't spread over so much of Australia... makes it very difficult to see everyone.

After this the real fun began. I went back home for a day, packed up some camping gear and stole Dad's 4WD for a week of fun and camping in the most beautiful place in the world.... Fraser Island.

I had 3 Canadian friends come over from Korea during the break and so we decided to meet up and go camping on Fraser. I met Nancy, Christa, Brent & Brent's friend Bret in the nice little town of Rainbow Beach.

The crew

We spent a fun night at the backpackers catching up on each of our Oz adventures, then got up early the next day and headed over to Fraser.

A bit about the Island. It is the largest sand island in the world. 120Km's long and 28km's wide (at it's widest point) it has lots of room for some fun sand 4X4ing. The main road (and airport) on the island is the beach, stretching 70 miles without a break.

Main highway

None of the other roads (except for about 3kms around the resorts) are paved. There are only three rocks on the whole island... the three that started creating the island billions of years ago. These are Indian Head, Middle Rocks and Waddy Point. The island has the most diverse flora in such a small area compared to anywhere else in Australia (some say the world) and it ranges from barren sand dunes, to open forrest, to rainforrest. It has the most pure dingo's (Native wild dogs)

Dingo... "no babies to eat here"
Originally uploaded by knowledgepimp

in Australia and some of the best fishing... also a high number of sharks! In my oppinion, it is the most beautiful place on earth.

So the first day we spent some time driving up the coast and trying to find a camping spot. At last we found a beautiful little spot and set up our tents. After this, a quick trip up to Eli Creek to fill the water bottles and have a quick paddle in the fresh water, then on to the Maheno ship wreck.

Maheno now.

This is a ship that was built in 1904 as a luxury cruise liner. It was used in WWI as a hospital ship and finially sold to the Japanese in 1935 to be scrapped. On it's way to Japan it was caught in a storm and washed up on the beach. Then durring WWII she was used for bombing practice by the Australian Air Force. Fortunately these guys weren't so good back then and only scored two direct hits after many runs.

The poor ship has had a hard life.

After this it was a quick run up to look at the Cathedral Coloured Sands (or Pinicles)

Nice colours

and it was back to camp for dinner.

The next day was even more adventurous. We jumped back in the 4WD and headed inland. The inland tracks are usually soft and bumpy, but I'd never seen them as bad as this. No rain for so long has left them extremely soft and difficult to navigate. This and the fact that my fathers new 4WD is turbo charged and takes a very different style of driving when in these conditions, meant that I had a difficult (but fun) time getting around.

First we went to Lake Wabby. This is a smaller lake that is slowly being swallowed up by a massive sand-dune. Thankfully this will probably take hundreds (hopefully many hundreds) of years and for now, means that it is a very fun place to go swimming as you can run full pelt down the dune & into the water. Lotsa fun!
My friends were very impressed with the colour of the water. Apparently none of them had ever seen (clean) water that green before.

After this we headed over to Lake McKenzie. On the way, I was driving in between some backpackers who had rented 4WD's to drive around the island. The backpacers organise these tours and they cram up to 11 people into one 4WD! To get some idea of how this would feel, think about sitting on a narrow bench, shoulder to shoulder with the person next to you. Then put a second bench across from you so that you are knocking knees with the person sitting across from you. Add backpacks for 11 people, put a low roof on top and lock you all in. Then drive on some of the roughest roads in the world with in-experienced drivers, often breathing in deisel fumes from the car in front of you (or often your own car). Not the best reciepy for a fun holiday.
As I was driving along, I looked in the rear-view mirror to see one of these vehicles hit a hole so hard that its front wheels went almost verticaly in the air. I am not exagerating. I saw the full underbody of the vehicle! Exhaust, suspension, engine sump & diff! It bounced twice when it landed. Amazing!

So finally after bouncing our way along these roads, we made it to Lake McKenzie. This is a perch lake, which means it is basically a bowl shap in the ground, where leaf matter has built up over thousands of years and hardened enough to become waterproof... then this bowl fills with water and you have a lake. This doesn't sound too appealing. It brings to mind some sort of slushy bottomed swampy, stagnant waterhole. This couldn't be further from the truth. It is surrounded by a white sand shore and is crystal clear down to a depth that I couldn't reach with one breath. The water reflects the colour of the sky, so that on a sunny, blue-sky day, you feel you are looking into the largest saphire in the world.

Lake Mcenkie
Originally uploaded by Brent Poole

In my mind it truely is the most beautiful place in the world.
From here, we headed back out to the beach via Central Station, the old forrestry station that was used when Fraser was logged.

Next day it was on to Indian Head & the Champeign Rocks. As mentioned before, Indian Head is one of the founding rocks of this island. It is a large headland that has a nice sloping back and ends in a cliff over looking the sea. This is the first time I have ever climbed up to the top of Indian Head, and it made me wonder why I didn't do it many years before.

"Shark infested waters"

When we first arrived on Fraser, I'd mentioned to my friends that the waters were suppose to be "shark infested" but in all the years I'd been coming there, I'd never seen one. Well, this was about to change. As I was climbing up, I looked down into the crystal clear surf and saw a dark shape cruising through the water. It was massive! Here was a shark gliding through water that would only have come up to my chest. I'd swum much deeper in these waters before.
It seemed a bit strange to me as on the way up the other side of the rock, I'd seen some dolphins surfing in the waves. I'd heard that if there were dolphins in the area, you could be sure there would be no sharks, as dolphins are the only animals that will attack a shark. I decided it must be that they were on either side of this headland & thus far enough away from each other to not be bothered.
So I finally reached the top and looked down into the waters. It was teaming with fish. A massive school of them. I'm not sure what kind they were, but swiming in amongs them were larger fish trying to catch their daily quota of breakfast, lunch and dinner... all in one go it seemed. Then in cruised the Shark. He was just one of three I saw while I was there (about an hour in total). But what really surprised me was when the dolphin came in and started playing in circles around the shark and catching it's own lunch. Here were two animals that I'd always thought of as mortal enimies, swimming around each other quite peacefully. In fact, as though the other didn't exist at all. Then in comes the turtle. A loggerhead turtle comes cruising by, probably also catching some lunch. I couldn't believe my eyes. Below me, in a circle of about 100m's was a Grey Nurse shark, a dolphin, two types of large fish and a loggerhead turtle! Where else on earth can you see this? After the turtle went on his way, a stingray came cruising through. All we needed now was for a whale to turn up and we'd have all my favourite creatures of the sea in one place. Alas it wasn't to be. Maybe if I come back in whale-watching season I may have more luck.

After Indian head, I wanted to take my friends over to the Champeign rocks. Easier said than done. To get over there, you have to get through some of the softest sand on the whole island. Virtually every vehicle was getting bogged trying to get across. I saw some backpackers in a bit of distress (and a lot of deep sand) and decided to go help. I went and helped dig them out, so they could revers back and have another go at getting through. After giving the driver some advice, he just looked at me and said "do you want to drive?". I gave it a go, but didn't follow my own advice the first time, so got stuck again. But on a second attempt, made it through easily. And what was my advice I hear you asking? Easy, as it's a rental, "put it in first gear, low range four-wheel-drive, and rev the guts out of it." This along with a lower tyre pressure and these vehicles will go almost anywhere.

Unfortunately not so for my fathers 4WD. It is lower than most 4X4's on the island and so on two wheel tracks, where most other vehicles have a high enough clearance to avoid bottoming out, my fathers vehicle has to plow its way through like a bulldozer. I tried to get through using my own advice, but got bogged. Usually when you get bogged, it's fairly easy to reverse out, but the low ground clearance meant that the body of the car was just sitting on the sand. Impossible to get out. Luckily there was a 4WD club parked close by and they were more than happy to pull me out. It was obvious these guys had far more experience than I did in this situation, so I asked them for some advice. It was very similar to mine earlier on: "Lower your tyre pressure even more, but put it in mid-range four-wheel-drive, as this vehicle can't keep the momentum in low range." After doing this, the car virtually floated across the sand.
Lesson learned: never be affraid to get advice, even when you think you know how to do something.

So we made it to the Champeign rocks. These are a part of the Middle Rocks where they meet the water. They form pools that are perfect for swimming in as the rock is black and warms the water to a perfect temperature for swimming. They get their name, because when the tide is comming in, the pressure of the rising water forces air bubbles out of the sand and rocks, making the water look like champeign. A great little spot.

The Champaign Pools
Originally uploaded by Brent Poole.

So this was my Fraser Island experience. My friends asked me a few times, if I came from such a place as this, how could I possibly leave... I was starting to wonder the same thing myself.

The next few days I spent saying goodbye to my family and headed back down to Brisbane once again. I hired a BMW F650 Dakar motorcycle for two days and had a bit of last minute fun to end my vacation.

Great ride.

This is the motorcycle I wanted to buy when I got back to Korea. I thought this would be a good test to see if it is the right bike for me... Yes! Yes it is!
The first day I took it for a short ride over to my friends place, just to get use to riding on the road on a different type of bike. I use to own a road bike, so I had to get use to riding a different style of bike, but the amazing engineering of BMW made this very, very easy.
The next day was the real ride. Up over my favourite mountain, Mt Glorious. This is a motorcycle mecca. Every Sunday, people get on their bikes and head up the mountain, stop at a little cafe to admire everyone elses ride, then down the other side of the mountain, turn around and head back.

Lotsa money lined up here.

All up it's about 250km's of pure, lean right over, hard on the breaks, up and down the gears, twisties. So much fun.

What a great way to finish a holiday!!!

To see more photos, go to my flickr site here or Brents flickr page here (pages 7 & 8 have Fraser Island). Brent has more photos than me.

(Thanks to Brent & Brett for use of some of their photos)

2007-03-02T15:32:00.000+10:00

Catch up

Ok, so I've been slack... I know it.

So here's the lowdown of the last few months...

Christmas:

I had a great Christmas this year, spending time with friends in a small town called Gangjin. There was lots of food (including one of the largest turkys I've ever seen) and drinks. We did the (not so) secret santa thing and I got some nice pressies. A very relaxing and fun time.

New Year:

Again, new year was spent with friends, this time in Suncheon. We had a cocktail party at Steven's apt, then went in to Juliannas late that night. New Year countdown was spent on the roof dancing and singing and setting off sparklers till the security guard came and kicked us out. Lotsa fun.

My Birthday (6th Jan):

I went out with some friends to the Outback Steakhouse and had a great meal. Then we went on to a night club in Gwangju.

Now I should mention here that Korea makes a distinction between a "club" and a "night club". The typical idea we have of a bar with a DJ and dance music is called a club here in Korea. On the other hand, a night club is this and a whole lot more.

We were led into this huge building which looked something like a grand theatre except the bottom floor was much larger and had lots of tables and a dance floor. There were 3 "balcony" sections with more tables and chairs. We were on the second balcony looking over the whole scene below us.

Up on the stage, there were male strippers dancing as we entered. I was assured there were female strippers as well, but it seems we arrived too late for them. Now don't get to excited here... a strip show seems to consist of a guy doing weird movements which I presume are meant to be sexy and erotic, but which reminded me of some sort of uncoordinated spasm. In a final flourish, the guy would rip off his baggy pants (reminicient of 1980's style "Hammar pants") to be left standing in his g-string... then immediately bolting, as fast as his bandy little legs would carry him, for back stage.

After this bit of amusement, a hanging stage swung down from the ceiling and a girl pop band started playing. At least at first I thought they were playing... then I realised, none of them actually knew how to play an instrument. I don't mean the music was bad... I mean, they were pretending!. The singing was real enough, but all the instruments were just props.

The same thing for the boy band that appeared from under the stage floor a while later.

But the most entertaining thing for the night was a custom known as "booking".

This is where a "host / waiter" is asked to go and get a girl. He / she then goes off to any table in the area, grabs a girls arm and literally drags her back to the table, where she has the choice of remaining to talk to the bookie (usually drunk middleaged businessmen) or bolting back to the refuge of her own table.

I was quite amused, upon returning to our table after dancing, to find out that one of my korean friends, EJ, had been dragged off to another table. What was more amusing was the fact that she stayed there for half an hour... much to the cargrin of her boyfriend.

I have to say a big thanks to Riann for this night. He paid for all of us and spent a not so small fortune for such a great night out.

2006-12-04T09:40:00.000+10:00

Free Hugs & a Murder.

Free Hugs Mokpo

On Saturday we organized a day of free hugs to anyone walking the streets of Mokpo. Free Hugs is a world wide phenomonon started in Sydney by a man only known as "Juan Mann" (pronounced One Man). He didn't got out to be famous or even to make something world wide, but after a friend posted what he is doing on the internet, people started to take notice. To learn more, check out Free Hugs.

So at 1pm I headed to the meeting point and was a little concerned that no one would show. My reason for the concern? Well, the heavy snow hitting my windscreen was one factor... & the lack of people out in that snow another.

Sure enough, when I arrived at the sea side boardwalk, only one of my friends and two students were there. She had just sat through a rainstorm and was soaked and very peeved off. But after a phone call, we found out everyone was at the trainstation instead.

We headed over there and all gathered together ready to go hugging. But a few people wanted coffee & I was waiting for some of my school kids (who didn't end up making it. Such a shame, it was a great day in the end.) When I headed back to the others, they were all sitting in a bakery and mumbling doubts about wether to go ahead with the hugs day. I was in too good a mood to let a little bit of bad weather get me down. In fact, coming from Australia, I still get very excited about snow. I'm like a little kid in it. So I simply said, "I'm going to get some hugs." And walked out.

It turned out to be a good idea. The others followed and for the next three hours or so, we stook out in the snow being warmed by shy, but happy Koreans giving us hugs.

The majority of people willing to hug us were the kids hanging out in the streets. They seemed to think a bunch of Waygook (foreigners) giving out hugs was a very funny think, so they hung around getting hugs off everyone.

But we also had old people, little babies... and even one soldier! It was a wonderful day and I thank Crista and Nancy for organizing it.

Maura's Murder Mystery

After the Hugs, it was time to go celebrate Maura's birthday. The lovely and wonderful Crystal and Mary had worked hard to set up a Murder Mystery party set in a "Juice Joint" of the 1920's. Everyone went all out on costumes and did a great job of staying in roll all night.

Now I was sure I had the murderer figured out before I arrived... but then I found out there was no candle stick, no library.... & they didn't even have a Butler!
Back to square one!

So the basic story....

An Evening of Murder, Mayhem & the Mob

With the passing of prohibition and organized crime on the rise, The Juice Joint, a swanky speakeasy run by Rosie Marie, has been nothing but jumping. To celebrate its success, Rosie is planning a party to remember at the exclusive nightspot… and you are invited!
However, one of the names on the guest list is also on another’s hit list…and no one is safe from the consequences.
With the murder on the menu, you are certain to find a medley of individuals to make thenight most memorable. From the major mobsters and their molls to the swanky singer with her hopes at Hollywood. The cigarette girl with a temper that sizzles to the crooked police chief withnothing to lose—no one is safe from murder…but everyone will have a chance at solving it. Will the culprit be the Mayor who is capable of murder? The blacklisted bootlegger desperateto increase his sales? Or possibly the director with a shot at making history?

For this particular night, I was Hal Hollywood, movie producer extraordinaire! From Dolls & Dames, to Stars & Fame, Hal's the Name!

Now as a movie producer who was on the look-out for the leading role of the first talking movie, I was ready to do some wheelin' & dealin' to make some money and cast the perfect dame.

Unfortunately Natorious Nic, Mob leader of the North Side, had his own ideas about who should be leading lady & I was stuck with his gal, Molly Moll.

Sure, she's a cutie, but in my mind she was no match for the talented Dina Diva.

But with the heavies breathing down my back, my hands were tied!

That was until someone put a couple of bullets in Nic & all of a sudden, I was free to choose!

Being the sly business fox I was, I was doing very well making money selling info, when I didn't have any info to be selling. It's amazing what people will spend for just a whiff of a hint of a rumour. I was up thousands... but little did I know, some of the people I was swindling, were pick-pocketing it straight back.

Imagine! Being paid with my own hard earned bribe money? What's a good (dis?)honest movie producer to do?

In the end, I was so busy giving people false info that I forgot to look for the murderer myself. Turns out it was the shifty Police Chief Carl!

Who would have thought?

2006-11-28T20:04:00.000+10:00

Free Hugs Mokpo!

여러분 안녕하세요.

이번 주말에 목포에서 "안아주기 활동"을 할 예정입니다.

"안아주기 활동"에 대해 모르시는 분들은 아래의 사이트를 참고하세요 .

www.youtube.com/watch?v=vr3x_RRJdd4
(오리지날 버젼)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKILQPBcVTI
(한국 버젼)

여러분 모두 환영합니다.

그냥 간단한 글귀가 적힌 판만 준비해서 오세요. 위의 사이트를 보시면 글귀 내용을 참고하실 수 있을 거에요.

"무료로 안아드립니다" 혹은 "공짜로 안아드려요~" 혹은 "최고의 포옹 을 선사합니다"등등 내용은 자유롭게 쓰세요.

관심이 있으신 분들은 글귀가 적힌 판자를 들고, 12월 2일 토요일 1시까지 목포역으로 나오세요.

많이들 참여하셔서 그날 뵐 수 있기를 기대할께요.

Stu 선생님이.

(추신: 만약 더 알고 싶은 내용이 있으면 전화하세요. 010-5542-0675)

And in English....

Hi Everyone,

This weekend, in Mokpo, there will be a free hugs campaign. If you don't know what this is, check out:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=vr3x_RRJdd4
(original version)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKILQPBcVTI
(Korean version)

Everyone is invited to join in the fun. Just bring a sign saying:

안 아 드 립 니 다
Free Hugs

(or something like it) and your best hug!

Meet at Mokpo Train Station, December 2nd at 1pm.

I hope to see you there.
Stu Teacher.

(PS if you want more info, call me: 010 5542 0675)

2006-11-28T19:19:00.000+10:00

School Festival

Last week, my school held its festival. This comprised of a whole day of students performing on-stage. It was a lot of fun and showed some real tallent, expecially in dancing and music.

Here's some photos...

For more photos, check out my flickr site.

Videos coming soon....

2006-11-19T01:31:00.000+10:00

The Things Kids Wear

I am constantly amazed by the clothes I see in Korea, but it's not often that one like this comes along...

This was worn to school by one of the 13 year old girls. She has no idea what it means, and I'm fairly sure the other kids and teachers haven't noticed it either.

Over here, ANY English is cool.

2006-11-18T19:16:00.000+10:00

Wolchulsan in Autumn

Went to Wolchulsan again.

I'll let the photos do the talking....

Beautiful hey?

Once again, a great time was had by all.

2006-11-09T18:44:00.000+10:00

Youtube Pick of the Day.

Check out this kid... He's only 4 years old!
So tallented... and so CUTE!

falecki igor- 4 years [ drummer ]

2006-11-08T23:31:00.000+10:00

Bogildo Camp

It's raining outside, the temperature is about 15 degrees and it's the weekend... What's a guy suppose to do?

Pack up Black Betty and go camping of course!

Last week plans were thrown around for the last camping trip of the season. It's quickly been cooling down round here and we decided we had to get one more trip in before it got too cold.

After some ums and ahhs about where to go, we finally decided on an island called Bogildo. I'd been to this island once when I first arrived and was lucky enough to be driven around by a friendly korean guy and his family. I vaguely remembered there was a sand beach there, but couldn't remember much more than that.

So after sending out the usual group e-mail, we only got 4 takers for this trip. The Beautiful Mary, Lovely Crystal and the Handsom Neal as well as my charming self. Down a bit from our usual 20 or so. I guess the others decided winter had already come.

Saturday morning certainlly looked like it was proving them right. It was cold and raining but we decided it wasn't going to deter us. We spent a bit of time cramming enough camping gear into black betty for a platoon of people and hit the road.

Packed in tight.

By the time we got to Wando, the rain had stopped and things were starting to dry out.

Onto the ferry and an hour and a half later, we were on Bogildo. I was able to find the beach and we quickly picked out a great little camping spot. I was actually surprised and impressed with the beach. It was much better than I had expected. We set up our tents (some of us a little more quickly that others... Which way do we want that door facing Neal?)

Keep goin Neal... You'll get there.

and got onto the important task of making dinner.

Now for those of you who haven't been camping with me before, I'm usually a fairly plain eating kind of guy when out in the bush. A tin of baked beans and some toast usually does me well for a couple of meals. Not this time... Ohhh no! It was a meal... nay, a feast... A banquet I say!

Mmmmm Teriyaki Chicken with a Spicy Stir-fry.

Well, ok. Maybe not that great. But it was damned good even if I do say so myself.

After dinner it was time to get the fire a-burning, the guitar a-playin and the quiet drinks a-drunk. It was a wonderful relaxed evening. We even managed to fit in a swim. Although I think we were in the water for a grand total of about 2 minutes.

Latest fashion in winter swimwear... and still lookin cute!

Next morning we were up at the crack of 9:30 to yet another wonderful, blustery, grey day.

Oh what a beautiful day!

It had actually blown a gale the night before and made us glad we had pegged down the tents. Despite the looks of the weather, it wasn't that cold and was actually quite nice moody weather. Reminded me a bit of the few trips to the beach I made while I lived in Scotland. I think it reminded Mary of her home a bit as well.

Bit of a breeze today?

By the end of breakfast, the blustery weather had blown itself out and we packed up and headed off to see what the island had to offer.

First stop was the pebble beach, Yesong-ri. This beach is famous in Korea for the sounds that the pebbles make as the waves wash over them. It's very relaxing, but we descovered they were much better used as skimming stones than musical instruments.

Show us how it's done Neal.

After the pebble beach we headed to a garden that was created by a famous poet, Gosan Yun Seon-do. He lived on the island for 13 years after getting blown here in a typhoon.

From here it was on to the far side of the island where we found another rocky beach. It was fun to build our own little cairn of rocks there. Of course ours had to be the biggest, but I think it was the most colourful as well.

The Biggest... The Brightest...

All tuckered out but feeling very happy the weekend came to an end.

It was a hard weekend lazing on the beach.

As the sun was setting over the beautiful islands, we sailed back to Wando and made our way home.

As the sun sinks in the West....

2006-10-30T19:14:00.000+10:00

Halloween Highlander

Yet another great weekend has come and gone! This place is made for weekends.

Friday afternoon I jumped in Black Betty and cruised on over to Suncheon, city of beautiful people and current home of my friend Virginia (among others). The afternoon was a blast, as we jumped on Virginia's little red scooter and zipped off into the country side. Virginia even let me ride, with her on the back. Oh to be behind the handle-bars of something a bit faster than a bycicle.

As most of you people of the North American persuasion (and some from other parts) know, October 31st is Halloween. As most of my friends here are Canadian (or American) I thought I should probably get into the spirit and see what all this Halloween fuss was about.

So after a ride on a scooter, Virginia introduced me to the fun that is pumpkin carving. I'm not really sure if my pumpkin designs were quite up to Jack-O-Lantern standards, but I had fun.

Jakob checking out my Jack-o-lantern

That night we were joined by a motley crew of folks from Mokpo, Wando, Gwangyang, and of course other Suncheon-ites. We headed off to the first Halloween party of the weekend at Julianna's. Now I should mention, this is not the party I came for... it was just a taster for the big party later to come. But it was fun to see some of the costumes people had come up with for this event.

The next day I was up early and went for another spin on Virginia's scooter. This time I was by myself and got to see some beautiful scenery as the sun was rising up in the valley. Beautiful.

After some shopping, looking around, a test ride on a motorbike (FUN!) and eating amazing Indian curries (thanks Virginia) we were finally ready to head off to the main event of the weekend:

The World Famous 6th Yeosu Halloween Party Extravaganza!

This thing is talked about in every town and country.... well... in Jeollanamdo at least. Each year it is apparently bigger and better, and people go all out on their costumes.

Now I thought long and hard about my costume and went through a few different ideas, including Dharma Stu, the bug-eyed buddha dud from one of my previous posts. But after a long and fruitless search, no Buddhist surplus clothing store was to be found, so I fell back on a tried and tested costume.

The Highlander.

Some of you may have seen me dressed like this before. If not, go check out my walkabout wombat website.

This time however, I'm not living in Scottland, so it was a little more difficult to walk down to the nearest kilt shop and buy a kilt, sporran, long socks and all the other bits and pieces needed to look the part. Instead, I headed to the nearest school uniform making shop and bought 3 meters of tartan there. Now here's the amazing thing. In Scotland I paid about 150 Pounds Stirling for my tartan. That's about $300. Over here, I paid about 32,000 Korean Won. That's about $32. And it's only a tad lighter than the original material I bought in Scotland. Where do you think I'll be going next time I want a Kilt made?

Ok. I now have my material. All I need to do is hem the edge so it doesnt frey on me. Oh wait... I don't have a sewing machine. But the school does. Would you believe, when I explained to my co-teacher I was trying to make a halloween costume, not only did she organise for me to be able to use the sewing machine, she also gave me the day off to make my costume. How cool is that?

Now my 3 meters of material has a seam. Not bad considering I've not used a sewing machine since I was 13 (and even then I failed my class). Now for the hard part. Where do I get a sporran? After a trip into Gwangju to look for some leather, and finding out it costs almost as much as buying a whole cow back in Australia, I resorted to my second option of trying to find an old lounge chair that I could cut up. In the end I found a vinal seat that I was able to cut up and make into a sporran.

I didn't do a bad job either, if I do say so myself.

After a number of hours spent happily cutting and stitching leather, putting on face paint and making jewelry, I was finally set. My Highlander Costume complete.

We arrived in Yeosu booked into our hotel and headed off to the party. Well, it was a sight to behold. People from every part of Jeollanamdo and in every kind of costume you could think of... and some you probably wouldn't. Who was that in the Milk carton?

Nicola even managed to win 2nd prize for best costume with her rendition of "Fan Death".

"Fan Death" For those of you who don't know,
Koreans believe that if you sleep with a
fan on and the windows closed, you will die.
This is not a superstition. They truely believe it!

It was another amazing night of meeting new friends,

catching up with old friends,

drinking

and the obligatory end of the night Nori bang.

What fun to be had.

Anyway, enough of my ranting, go check out my flickr site for all the pics.

2006-10-25T15:02:00.000+10:00

Walkabout Wombat

I've almost completed my website for those who are interested. It's basically a place to store and show off my photos.

www.walkabout-wombat.com

(link is also to the right for future use).

2006-10-24T09:23:00.000+10:00

Playing Catch-up

Ok, so I've been slack in updating my blog in the last couple of weeks. What can I say... I've been a busy little social butterfly. So the run down since the beginning of the month.

Chusok.

Chusok (or Chuseok depending on who you talk to) is the Korean version of thanksgiving. But unlike America and Canada, this version goes for almost a whole week. It's when they have their harvests and then have a big feast and hang out with friends, family and their dead ancestors. A great party by all accounts.
I've already talked about my Chusok in the previous post... so enough said.

Canadian Thanksgiving

So as you all know, I got my job through a company called Canadian Connections. Run by Canadians. From Canada. As you can guess, that means Aussies are a bit thin on the ground here, while the Canadians rule the roost. So when Canadian Thanksgiving came around we all decided to celebrate in true Canadian style....
Eat lots and drink lots.
I love these people!
On the Saturday, I hung out with my friends and climbed Yudalsan. A small "mountain" in Mokpo.

Yudalsan

Virginia had her Mum over from Canada, so we spent the day showing her around the nice little city of Mokpo.

Then in the evening it was on to the P-bar for one of the best feasts I've had since I've been in Korea. There was chicken, mashed spuds & gravy, broccoli and cheese sauce, salads, more chicken.... the list goes on.

Canadian Thanksgiving

And when we had finished stuffing ourselves with the great foods, we over stuffed ourselves with amazing desserts. Great stuff!

The next morning I think we felt a little guilty for eating so much, so we headed out to play some Ultimate (Frisbee). Now I'm not sure how you play it, and I've never played it before... but it seems the people in Mokpo have the most unusual version I've ever seen. They start off at a huge stadium, then walk down the street carrying the frisbee for about 10 minutes. Then when they get to a park and realise it's full, they turn around and walk back down the street looking for another park. When they get to that one, and see it's also full, they go on to find another park... After doing all this walking around (which I suspect is the real exercise) they finally go back to the original stadium and after negotiating with some of the staff there, they jump through a window to get into the center of the stadium and onto the pristine field.

Ultimate Frisbee at Yudal Stadium

How pristine is this field?
Well... after warming up for about 10 minutes, we get kicked back outta the stadium with the grounds keeper yelling (in Korean) what seemed like a tirade along the lines of "Not only am I gonna lose my job for this, but they are gonna kill me in the process."
Apparently they had just laid new grass and the roots hadn't yet taken. We were literally the first to ever had played on that field.
So out we went and into the grassy area beside the car-park, where we finally played some Ultimate. Or at least a modified version of it.

School Picnic

Our school went on a "picnic". Now I'm not sure what the term "picnic" brings to mind for you, but I think going out into a nice remote area with trees and maybe a beach or stream. Baskets of food with a blanket on the ground. Everyone playing games and eating and drinking...

A Korean picnic? Well, it seems to consist of hoping on a bus. Driving for 2 hours to see a display of highschools in the area that the kids may want to go to when they graduate middle school. Then hoping back on the bus for an hour drive to Boseong Tea Plantation.

Boseong Tea Plantation

Here they hop out, go for a 10 minute walk into the tea feilds where they have their photo taken. Walk 10 minutes back to the bus and drive the hour back home. Fun.

Atleast the Bus Noriban (Kareoke) was entertaining.

Mary's Birthday

The Beautiful Mary from Mokpo had her birthday last weekend, so it was back down to the "party city" of Jeollanamdo for another bash. We started the night at a beautiful little restaurant where the owners made the grave mistake of telling us the whole place was ours. And so we took over.
Well, not really. We were quite well behaved, but being a bunch of Waygooks, I'm sure we intimidated most of the locals in the area.

Mary's Birthday Bash

After a nice diner we decided to move on to a bar. We went over the other side of town to a bar called Plastic. What kind of a place is Plastic? Well, it looks very nice, but looks can be deceiving.
When I got there, I was entertained by a little Korean boy (about two years old) who reminded me very much of my youngest Nephew in his early years. So I didn't really notice there was a bit of a commotion going on. Apparently the man at the door had come over and screamed at my friends to "GET OUT!". We are still rather confused by this as we were just sitting at a table and hadn't even started drinking yet. In fact, we hadn't even been able to order yet. Our friends at the table next door had a pitcher of beer, so we couldn't figure out why he'd decided the people at our table should leave.
A few minutes of confused milling around and he came back and once again screamed "GET OUT, GET OUT!" at us. Rather disappointed, we up and left the restaurant. Then the defiant Wagookness in all of us kicked in and we decided we weren't going quietly. We all trooped back into the stairwell of the restaurant / bar and about 25 of us proceeded to sing Happy Birthday on the top of our lungs to Mary.
As everyone knows, this song is designed to be sung as out of key and as loudly as possible. I'm not sure if we got a standing ovation from all in the restaurant, but by the time we left, the manager was standing at the top of the stairs with a phone in his hand. Somehow I don't think he was calling a recording studio to talk about the new talent he'd found in his stairwell.

Mary's Birthday Bash

Next it was on to P-club (P-club... sponsored by the Jeollanamdo Waygook Collective) for a more friendly welcome. And here we remained till the wee hours of the morning in great company and a happy atmosphere.

And that about brings me up to date.
Phew! That was a long one.

2006-10-23T22:21:00.000+10:00

Big Post Coming Soon...

in the mean time, check out the photos on flickr

2006-10-07T22:20:00.000+10:00

Seoul.... Been there - Done that.

I went to Seoul.

I was planning on heading up there for a couple of nights and watching some ice-hockey with a few Canucks. You might think it's a bit strange heading 400km's away to watch some hockey, but apparently it's a bit hard to come by in South Korea.

Unfortunately it was a bit hard to come by this night as well... The internet wasn't working and we couldn't watch it.

What to do?

Well, we were in a bar...

Dancin

Mmmm Molson.

A man with a happy face.

Another happy man.

Some lovely ladies.

Boys & their brew.

Come on Cathy... smile for the camera.

Cheers

Are you still taking photos?

Ya right Rob?

Awww... ain't they cute?

Wait!... this is my better side.

The Elusive Leah.

So after a late night and no sleep, due to the devil in dusgise as a mosquito... I didn't really feel like another big night out. Back on the train and home again in 3 hours. I love the high speed trains in this country. First time I've ever been 300km's per hour and not left the ground.

2006-10-07T20:23:00.000+10:00

Wolchulsan... Again.

The crew

So I went to Wolchulsan.... again.

View from top

Had a great time.... again.

Lunch Time.

Met a heap of new people.... again

Nicola, Amy and Chang In
(sorry, not sure how to your name)

My legs were killing me the next day.... again.

View from top

I love this mountain. Thanks to all who came along.

Nicola doin a dance (as usual).

2006-09-10T19:58:00.000+10:00

Yo Ho ho and a bottle of Soju?
Arrrh Me Harties, it be a wonderful day ta' be sailin the seven seas!

Ships Log
10th September of the year 2006

Capt'n Cutty Cutter
(Cruelest cur of the coasts and crests of the seven seas!)

"Tis be da voyage of yer life.

The hardie crew what be true pirates boarded the lovely little schooner "Koreana"

and, 'though vastly outnumbered, were able to wrest control of the ship from the sorry lookin land-lubbers, by simple force of loud and generally obnoxious behavior!

The lines were cast and we made a daring escape from da dangerous berth that be Yeosu Yacht Harbor.

Da call to hoist sails was made and with a few curses and harassin from Capt’n Firepants,

we soon set course to da remote isle known to the locals as "White Moss".

It was clear sailing all the way, and besides the late entry of two more buxom wenches to add to the host, der was not a problem to be had.

Anchor was dropped (kind of) and the crew let leave to make it ashore any way they wished.

O'course after a short half hour swim and none of the crew makin it half way to shore, da capt’n took pity and sent the longboat ta rescue the poor blighters.

Once all were safely ashore, ter was food to be had and land to be explored. Da day marched on and by mid afternoon, the crew were ready to be back on board. Sadly the treasure chest wasn't to be found. But not to worry, da fearless crew could not be daunted.

Off the prettiest little boat of the Korean seas set, bound again for the harbor. Entertainment abounded

with the buxom Capt'n Firepants dancing up a storm, and Cheatin' Dora Jones regalin us with tails of treasure and treason.

Arrrh t'was a good time had by all. Tanks to da hansom crew of Koreana."

2006-08-23T18:54:00.000+10:00

A Summer Vacation Story

By Goulash

Once upon a time, a young(ish) man was working in a strange, small, ancient, foreign country sticking out from a grand and ancient empire. His job was nice and simple and he got many benefits from working there. The latest benefit was a holiday which stretched over the long summer month of August.

At the start of his holiday, he was excited about the prospect of jumping in his car, called “Black Betty”, and exploring all of this small country he found himself living in.

He visited many temples with unusual buildings and statues.

The people here were even more strange, as they walked around in their long robes and sang unusual, haunting songs.

He went around the countryside looking at mountains and lakes. Coaxing Black Betty along rugged tracks and up steep hills.

Black Betty rejoiced in being off those boring flat highways and went ever more into the challenging terrain. Never complaining or giving up on the difficult tasks put in front of her.

But Black Betty was a very thirsty car and had to stop often for a drink. After many drinks, the young man decided it cost to much money to drive all around the country, so he stopped at a beach for a rest.

He camped at this beach for a week.

With sand stretching away to the East,

and sand stretching away to the West,

he decided it was a very beautiful beach.

During his time at this beautiful beach, he saw many weird and wonderful things.

The first night, as the large moon was rising over the sea,

he saw many fish leaping out of the water and playing with the sparkling ripples on the surface. A beautiful sight.

During the day, he saw the funny people from this funny country play and frolic by the edge of the sea. The young man was amazed at how scared these people were of going out into the water.

In his home country, everyone loves playing in the big, pounding waves and has a lot of fun swimming out into the deep blue ocean. But here, the people are not allowed to go out very far, and when they do, they get very scared. Especially when the water is deeper than their heads. The young many realised, that although these people had lived all their lives on a peninsular surrounded by water, they were not very good swimmers.

Later he watched the local people drive down to the beach on funny looking vehicles.

These people got out and started collecting sea shells.

For hours, the young man watched these people wade out into the water and drag nets along the bottom of the sea to collect these shells.

Whole families helped. There were old grandmothers,

young ladies,

and even the little children helped.

And by the end of the day, there were thousands, millions maybe even billions of shells in big, brown tubs that the people then dragged home. What a feast they must have had, the young man imagined. Nothing like his simple dinners at night.

Each evening the young man watched the sun sink in the Western sky,

throwing up a dazzling display of colours,

as if to wave a happy farewell to the earth,

and promise that it will be back with a similar display in the morning.

However, on the last evening the young man stayed, there was no sunset. Just a mist that rolled in from the sea and enshrouded the land, giving it a mysterious atmosphere.

One could imagine sailing ships looming out of that mist at any time, come to try to conquer this land that has been taken so many times in the past, and yet somehow, holds on to its ways.

After such a long time at the beach, the young man decided to visit some friends in a city. Here he met with friends of old and enjoyed many beverages of an alcoholic nature. It was great to catch up with his friends, but like Black Betty's drinks, the young man's days of drinking were expensive and after a couple of late nights, he decided it was time for him and Black Betty to return home to the comfort of his own nice little apartment. Here he stayed until he had to go back to that nice, simple job with lots of benifits.

The End.

2006-08-06T15:07:00.000+10:00

More on Buddha...

Continuing on my Buddhist theme... Do Buddhists believe in hell?

I always considered Buddhism as a fairly happy kind of religion where if you did something wrong in this life, you would simply be put lower down on the ladder in the next life and would have to work hard to make up for it. I never thought you would get sent to a place like this....

Dinner?

Taking prisoners?

Ouch!

I found these rather gruesome pictures on the side of a temple near Naju. So I asked one of my friends about this and there is some good news for my Buddhist friends... It is a type of hell, but not in the Christian view that you will be sent there for all eternity. That's right folks... the happy Buddha will let you out to try again.

I knew a fella that looks like this

can't be bad.

2006-08-01T19:27:00.000+10:00

The Monk Dude with the Bulging Eyes.

The Dude.

So I finally know who he is!!!!

I asked my Korean friends if they knew who this guy was. My friend EJ got back to me first and told me his name is Dharma and that he is accredited with being the first patriach of Zen Buddhism.

With this little bit of info, I went to the sacred texts of all knowledge, the bible of wisdom, the place of truths otherwise unattainable...
Google.

Here's what I found out...

Bodhidharma: (Sanskrit: बोधिधर्म; Traditional Chinese: 菩提達摩; Japanese: 達磨, Daruma; Vietnamese: Bo-đe-đat-ma).

He's also known as also known as the Tripitaka Dharma Master. (See my previous post "From Wooden Blocks to Big Buddhas" to find out about Tripitaka Koreana)
(Thanks Wikipedia)

This guy was originally called Bodhitara. He was born on Oct. 5th. (Chinese Lunar Calendar) around 440 in Kanchi, in the Southern Indian kingdom of Pallava, and was the third son of an Indian King; the royal family belonged to the Bhramin caste. (Aren't you glad I did my homework?... Bare with me.)

Now like Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha), who was a rich kid, Bodhitara gave up his caste and family and became a Buddhist monk, called Bodhidharma, training under an old fella called Prajnatara. These two had a master / student relationship that went to extremes. They were masters of "Mind Transmission". That is, they could speak directly to each others minds.

"Don't lie to me boy... I can
see into your mind!"

Cool hey? But wait... there's more.

As with all good stories, the student became greater than the master, and the master bade him transmit Dharma to China. (That is, teach the Chinese about "Dharma", or what I call the "Why me?" path of life).
Upon arrival in China, Bodhidharma got in good with a local military official named Shao Yang. This fella takes him off to meet the Emperor of China, who at that time was Emperor Wu Di of the Liang dynasty. Unfortunately they didn't get along so well, so Bodhidharma heads off to the Shao Lin Ssu Temple in Ho Nan Province.

"Hmph! Never liked Emperors
much anyway!"

It was, 40 years after this temple had been founded, and it had become famous for scholarly translations of Indian Buddhist scripture into Chinese. Bodhidharma sought entrance to Shao Lin but the abbot of the day, Fang Chang would not let him into the temple ( many sought entrance for various reasons ).
Bodhi Dharma was determined to enter and see the Shao Lin Ssu. So he did as all good Buddhists do... He went and hid in a nearby cave on the side of a mountain ( this cave can be visited when in Henan/Shao Lin as well as climbing to the top where a 40 foot Buddha is erected in honor of Bodhidharma [later called Ta Mo in China]) where (it is said) he sat in meditation facing a stonewall.

Now get this... He impresses them by meditating in front of a wall for 9 years!

Apparently by the end of 9 years, his deep blue piercing eyes had apparently drilled a gaping hole in the cliff wall. [can't see it today, although a permanent shadow is on the wall.]

That must have been one interesting wall! I wonder if anyone checked his pulse in all that time?

Anyhoo... He must have built up some excess energy in all that time sitting at the wall, cause once he is let in, he then teaches the Shao Lin about a little thing they have since perfected: You guessed it... He created Shao Lin Kung Fu!

"Watch it buddy, I got a stick and I know how to use it!"

Upon gaining entrance to Shao Lin, Ta Mo ( as he was now called by the Chinese ) saw that the monks were weak and unable to perform the rigorous meditations he expected that Buddhist Monks should be practicing. Whilst meditating they often fell asleep or were very restless and were not achieving inner calm or peace ( a state required to reach Enlightenment).

He spent some time in seclusion pondering the problem. Considering the time and health awareness of the period, Ta Mo came to a staggeringly accurate conclusion, that the monks were not fit to meditate. With this in mind he started working on a solution; he created three treaties of exercises.

These in-place exercises were later transcribed by monks as;
1. "The Muscle Change Classic" or "The Change of the Sinews,"
2. "The Marrow Washing"
3. "The Eighteen Hand Movements later named The Eighteen Lohan Shou (Lohan meaning enlightened and Shou meaning Hands/Exercises)

This marked the beginning of Shaolin Temple Kung Fu ( meaning hard work and perfection ).
Ta Mo later devised some defense movements based on his knowledge of Indian fighting systems ( Having been born an Indian Prince, he was well versed in Yoga and Indian Kung Fu ).

"Hey, don't make me come up there
and Kung Fu your butt!"

I love this dude.

He is also credited with bringing tea to China. Obviously a well cultured guy.

Now for the freeky part. He is said to have cut off his eyelids to stay awake during meditation, and so is usually depicted with bulging eyes.
This guy may know something I don't, as he is an enlightened one, but I found a couple of toothpicks usually did the trick for me at Uni. Maybe they hadn't invented toothpicks back then?
So this is the man who bought 禪 Ch'an, 선 Sŏn, ध्यान Dhyāna, 禅 Thien, or as it is most widely know, ぜん Zen Buddhism to the world and such gems in teaching as:

"To attain enlightenment you have to see your nature. Unless you see your nature all this talk about cause and effect is nonsense. Buddhas don't practice nonsense. "

"If there's a fragrance without a tree it's a different fragrance. If there's a Buddha without your mind, it's a different Buddha. "

And my personal favourite...

"The sutras of the Buddha contain countless metaphors. Because mortals have shallow minds and don't understand anything deep, the Buddha used the tangible to represent the sublime."

In my shallow-minded opinion, I think this bulging-eyed, Kung Fu creating, tea drinking monk has become my new favourite historical character. And at the moment, he even looks a bit like me.


Bodhidharma Original	Bodhidharma Stu

2006-08-01T10:38:00.000+10:00

The Wando Chick and The Emperor of the Sea.

So I went to Wando this weekend to see the Wando Chick (Nicola) and have relaxing times at the beach.

I think Wando has become my "get away from it all" place. Nicola, the ever gracious hostess, places no demands on me and I can just kick back and relax while I'm there.

This time round, we headed off to the beach on Sinjido and spent an afternoon playing in the water on inflatable tubes and kicking back on the sand watching the multitudes of Koreans playing in the water.

I still find it amazing how scared of the water the Koreans are. If they go into any water deeper than their head, they are liable to panic, even when they know how to swim. I think one local life guard got a shock when he went to investigate some strange foreign girl (not naming any names) who swam right out to the "swimming boundary" on her inflatable tube and opened an umbrella to catch the wind and sail back to shore.

The next day Nicola, another friend Amy, and myself jumped in Black Betty and drove around the island. First stop was a small bunker and pill box that has been left abandoned and is being taken over by the vegetation.

The barracks.

Through the window.

Nicola and Amy @ the pillbox.

I would love to get my hands on something like this one day and do it up. It would make a wonderful holiday house.

Nicola decided she wanted to send some pics home to here mum, so we did an impromptu photo shoot....

Nicola strikes a pose.

Nicola the thoughtful.

Nicola the demure.

Nicola and Amy.
Ya gotta love girls in skirts
on windy days :)

After the photo shoot, we went on to a beautiful little grove of trees that lead out onto Jungdo-Ri. A beach that sings.

On Jungdo-Ri.
A nice rock beach where you can hear the
music of the waves playing with the rocks.

It's actually a beach with nice round rocks that the waves move about making a beautiful sound. Musicians come down and play traditional Korean music to the sound of these rocks, but there weren't any there when we went. Still, it's a beautiful little beach.

Then it was on to the shooting location of one of Korea's previously most famous dramas, "Emperor of the Sea".

'Emperor of the Sea' village set.

This is a 50-episode drama based on the Choi In-ho's novel of the same title. The drama depicts the life of Jang Bo-go (?~846), who dominated the sea of the East Asia and international trade during the Unified Shilla Dynasty (676~935).

Apparently the story goes something like this...

Jang Bo-go is captured by the Chinese and made a servant, in a Korean part of a Chinese city, to a family who turns out to be fairly caring. The daughter somehow frees him and he feels indebted to her, so he marries her. Of course, this is a Korean drama, so it can't be that easy... There is another girl that loves him, and he finds he loves her, so we have the traditional unrequited love thing happening.

Actress Lee Yeon-hee, plays Jeong-hwa,
the "love that could not be" in Emperor of the Sea.

These two women never actually existed, but you have to spice up the story somehow.

Characters from 'Emperor of the Sea' on set.

Janb Bo-go heads back to Korea, where he is recognized as a military mastermind and is put in charge of the defense of the coast from the marauding Chinese. He builds a village on Wando island where many of his ships are built and a military / trade base on Chenghaejin (small island you can reach by foot at low tide).

Traditional hut in the village set.

Traditional costumes worn during
the filming of 'Emperor of the Sea'.
Thanks to the two unknown Korean
girls acting as models for me. :)

Eventually he becomes the "Emperor of the Sea" controlling the waterways of China and Japan and freeing Korea from sea invasion.

I haven't actually seen this drama, so my interpretation of it may bit a little different to the actual story... but I think it works.

Unfortunately the set is looking a little worse for wear now, with some of the ships actually falling apart and sinking in the harbor.

The ships a' sinkin' Captain!

After our visit to this drama set, we got a bit adventurous and started to check out small roads that lead off into the mountains. This culminated in me actually haveing to test out Black Betty's 4-wheel-drive capabilities to the extreme. Low range with only 2 wheels on the ground, bouncing over boulders and gullies... she did it all. I found the only thing she doesn't like is wet grass. Might have to invest in tires with a little more grip before I go off road again.

So that was my weekend on Wando.
Always an adventure.
Thanks for the great times Nicola.

2006-07-28T01:13:00.000+10:00

From Wooden Blocks to Big Buddhas.
I went on a road trip.
I decided I needed to try out my new wheels on a bit of a trip around this area and see some new sights. So I picked up my friend Nicola and two of her friends, Amy and JP, and we headed off to Daegu.

For those of you who don't know Korea, Daegu is the third largest city in Korea and is a huge commercial and industrial center... which of course means it's kinda large and dirty, but it does have a redeeming factor... two actually.

First, Nicola's sister lives there. A very nice girl, even if she does talk with a funny eccent. (She's from New Zealand after all.) And Second, there is a Costco in Daegu. Very over priced, but great for all that western stuff you just can't get elsewhere.

But the best and perhaps most unexpected part of the trip was all the temples we went to.

Now normally I feel that one temple is the same as another, generally, but on this trip, there were 3 that stood out somehow. I'll tell you a bit about them...

The first temple was a pitstop on the way to Daegu. We had some time to kill before we were expected in Daegu, so we stopped off at Kayasan National Park. A beautiful, mountainous place with flowing streams and waterfalls all around. Nestled into this lush, peaceful setting is Haeinsa. A temple that dates back to the beginning of the 9th century.

Entrance to Haeinsa.

Outside Haeinsa.

Although the main temple hall is only about 35 years old, there is a national treasure here that is amazing to comprehend. In fact, 80,000 national treasures. The Tripitaka Koreana. Carved wooden blocks that contain the complete Buddhist scriptures and some illustrations. That's a lot of chiseling!

The next day, we climbed to another temple. I didn't find this one as peaceful or beautiful as Haeinsa, but it was kinda cool in its own way. This one was called Tonghwasa. I should probably mention, "sa" at the end of these names means "temple".

Gate to Tonghwasa.

So Tonghwansa is a fairly ordinary temple, but in it's grounds, there are thousands of little stone carved buddhas of all shapes, sizes and facial expressions. Some were cute, some beautiful and some just plain strange.

From here, there was a hike up to the summit of a mountain to see the Grand Stone Buddhist Image for Unification Desire.

Tonghwasa Buddhas.

I'm not really sure what this is suppose to mean, but apparently it's the largest statue of Buddha in Korea. I guess that's kinda neat.

After Daegu, we moved on to Suncheon. I was only planning on staying for a night in Suncheon, but decided to stay a little longer and see two temples that were recommended to me by a number of people.

The first I went to was Sonamsa. I loved this place almost immediately. It was so quiet and peaceful. There were almost no tourists here and the monks were going about their usual business of gardening, fixing stone walls, and of course meditating in that melodious chant with the off beat drumming, that drifted through the compound and relaxed you where ever you were.

The Bell.

The Fish.

The Cloud

"The large bell calls those who have become decadent. The drum, made of an animal skin, calls the animals; and the cloud-shaped gong calls the beings of the air. The log carved into the shape of a fish calls all that live in water"
Quote from www.buddhapia.com/eng about the meaning of the instruments that are beaten before prayers in Buddhist temples

I was planning on looking around this temple and then doing a nice hike over a mountain to another temple, but after spending so much time here, I was pushing the time limit to catch busses back, so my nice hike (which I've since read in my lonely planet that it's suppose to take 6 hours) turned into the marathon race of 6.2kms over a 884 meter peak in just 2 hours. Not bad for an old fella like me. Ironically, when I got to the temple, I found out the busses run till quite late and I needn’t have rushed at all.

Not to worry though. It just meant I could spend more time at Songgwangsa.

Now for a short lesson in Korean Buddhist Religion: Buddhism, as we all know, started with Siddhartha Gautama. A fellow who was born around 563BC into a nice rich noble family. He spent a bit of his early life questioning the comforts that he was given and eventually went off to meditate on life a bit, to see if he could work out what it all meant. Eventually he achieved "enlightenment" and started the Buddhists on their road to Happiness. (Buddha in a nutshell).

Buddhas Inside Haeinsa.

As with all major religions, the people who followed studied it to bits and eventually came to different ideas on what Buddha was really getting at, so it fractured into different schools of thought and thus, different sects.
The main sect of Buddhism practiced in Korea is Mahayana (Greater Vehicle), which seeks the salvation of all beings. (Hinayana [Lesser Vehicle] concentrates on personal enlightenment). This school has also been split a number of times, but the largest school of Buddhism in Korea is Son Buddhism (Known more widely as Zen Buddhism). The largest faction of Son Buddhism is the Chogye sect and its main temple is Songgwangsa. This is the last temple I visited on my trip.

Songgwangsa is quite a bustling little place compared to Sonamsa, but it manages to keep the air of tranquility going with ease. There is a "school of Buddhism" at this temple, where the "layman" can come to learn more about Buddhism and to experience the life of a buddhist monk. You are able to stay at the temple and participate in meditation and classes on scripture. It sounds interesting. I think I might go back there one weekend and stay for a night. Not sure that I'll enjoy being woken up at 3am though.

So that was basically my extended weekend of seeing the sights.

I realize this was a super long blog and if you've actually made it this far, well done!!! Now you can let your brain relax while you look at all the pretty pictures I took on my trip.
:)

2006-07-28T01:12:00.000+10:00

The main temple "Taejkwangjon" was burnt down in 1592 and again in 1817. This current construction was built as recently as 1971. Good to see they still know how to do it.

2006-07-28T01:08:00.000+10:00

Praying at Haeinsa. These couple were walking around this pagoda praying "to make our dream".

2006-07-28T01:06:00.001+10:00

A moment of peace.

2006-07-28T01:06:00.000+10:00

Haeinsa Temple.

2006-07-28T01:05:00.000+10:00

Some of the 80 000 carved wooden blocks that make up the Tripitaka Koreana. The complete Buddhist scriptures and many illustrations. This the second set (the first was destroyed) and they were carved in the 14th century.

2006-07-28T01:00:00.001+10:00

The main Temple at Haeinsa.

2006-07-28T01:00:00.000+10:00

The Grand Master (Monk) at Haeinsa. This old man was facinating. You could feel the peace and calm coming from him.

2006-07-28T00:58:00.000+10:00

Buddhas at Hungjeam Hermitage at Haeinsa.

2006-07-28T00:57:00.000+10:00

Over looking Hungjeam Hermitage at Haeinsa.

2006-07-28T00:56:00.000+10:00

Strange building with many pots at Haeinsa. Don't know what they are for, but I'm sure they would hold a lot of Kimchi. :)

2006-07-28T00:53:00.001+10:00

Buddha Illuminated.

2006-07-28T00:53:00.000+10:00

Amy at the entrance to Tonghwasa.

2006-07-28T00:48:00.000+10:00

The Grand Stone Buddhist Image for Unification Desire. (Largest stone Buddha in Korea)

2006-07-28T00:47:00.000+10:00

Lighting a candle for peace at the Grand Stone Buddhist Image for Unification Desire.

2006-07-28T00:46:00.001+10:00

Mushrooms anyone?

2006-07-28T00:46:00.000+10:00

Candles in a grotto at Tonghwasa.

2006-07-28T00:45:00.000+10:00

Beautiful marble stone at the entrance to Tonghwasa.