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!

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.

1000 +

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

I'm a big time blogger now.

FAME AT LAST!

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.