4 Months in 1 Day!

In about 4 weeks we will be making our way to California for our National Lampoon's American vacation - I can't wait to go to Wally World! Realizing this it dawned on me that I need to do some catching up before our next adventure, otherwise the backlog might become a little overwhelming. So here goes with a captioned pictorial of what we've been doing lately.

For some reason I wanted a bit more of a challenge than walking over uneven terrain for kilometers at a time. So it seemed like a perfectly reasonable suggestion that I made to my friend Frank that we should climb Ulsanbawi rock. While it is only a 3.4km walk (one way) the kicker comes when you realize that the last 1km contains 800+ steps - a steep incline in anyone's language. We were obviously very pleased when we reached the top, only to have to turn around and come back down again.We have even had the opportunity to go inside a North Korean submarine. Not such a big deal I hear you mutter. Well it becomes a big deal when you find out this particular submarine beached itself in 1996 - that's right, only 11 years ago! Apparently the captain shot and killed the crew when they beached, and then he and 16 soldiers were on the run for 49 days, during which time they killed 17 South Koreans and injured 11.














Jenene and I use to ride the 98 almost on a daily basis when we lived in London, and here it is sitting out the front of a hotel in the middle of a national park in South Korea.



One of our favourite dishes is the 'Scillion Pancake' - full of spring onions, cuttle fish, and octopus. Yum yum!






Gotta love that dried cuttle fish as well - keeps you chewing for hours.






Whether it's hanging out in caves, relaxing by streams, or visiting Buddhist temples, we are enjoying every moment of it.

Reaching for the Top

Well after nearly a month of being on the go, I finally have a day where I don’t have to go anywhere! This means I now have some time to go back and catch up on what we’ve been doing during October.

At the beginning of October, during our Chuseok holiday, we spent a few nights in Seoraksan National park – a beautiful part of Korea on the North East coast. You might think that being a national park should mean not many people, not true. Even though this time of year is supposedly one of the quietest, there were still lots of people there. It took us about an hour to drive the last 2 km to get into the park where our hotel was.

One of the highlights was climbing to the top of Mt Seolag – a precarious peak which sits 933m above sea level. Fortunately there is a cable car that takes you the first 780m, and it’s not until the last 50m or so that it gets pretty demanding. There is a narrow path of sorts that leads up one side of the peak to the top. There are no guard rails or ropes to stop you falling into the valley, and the path is about 1m wide, with people going up and others coming down at the same time. We were smart enough to get there early, so the crowd was minimal and Harper and I had a clear run to the top.

When you get to the top there is a man there with a table set up that has different sized medals hanging off it. Depending on how much you want to spend, you can purchase a medal and have your name, age, and date that you climbed engraved on it. A bit tacky, but a good piece of memorabilia for the kids. The climb was a bit too risky for Promise, but Harper and I decided that she should get a medal anyway.

The kids were great, and I was amazed at how far they managed to walk each day. They had no trouble completing 5km hikes without complaining or stopping. These hikes weren’t well manicured garden paths, they were very uneven, rocky trails that were all uphill for the first half. I think the kids are developing a real love for bush walking – I can’t wait until they get a bit older so we can do our Himalayan adventure.

My 30 minutes with a Singaporean Bubba

Say the word ‘massage’ and most people conjure up images of darkened rooms filled with the smell of aromatherapy oils as they drift in and out of consciousness due to the magic hands of Lars or Helga, the Swedish God/Goddess who can take you to the brink of ecstasy by simply kneading the erogenous zones in your back, neck, and shoulders. I too have had illusionary thoughts of myself in a similar situation, hence the reason I found myself lying face down quietly whimpering while being slapped about by a Singaporean assassin, telling myself that this would not be happening if I had not just spent six hours on a plane, if I wasn’t so tired, if I hadn’t been fooled by all the images of people being pampered and transformed through massage – what a crock!

I don’t know what came over me as I walked past the sign that read, “Back & Neck Massage – 30 minutes for $25”. I was obviously blinded by the almighty dollar sign, which is the only way that I can explain not taking in my surroundings and noticing that I was walking into some sort of Changi prison cell, and not a massage parlor. I still could’ve backed out when I entered the claustrophobic chamber, only demarcated by what I will loosely call a shower curtain, the type of curtain that you daren’t wash because you know that the stains and mildew are the only things holding it together. I could’ve backed out at this point, but I didn’t. As I continued I found myself laying my bare torso onto a towel that had seen more than its fair share of skin suits since its last wash – I fought hard to push thoughts of just how many bodies it had seen far to the back of my mind. At least Klaus (not his real name but sounds like it could be the name of a torturer) was kind enough to put down a clean (semi) towel around the place where I had to put my face. This was to later prove a blessing, as I was not know at the beginning just how hard I would be pushing my face into that towel during the next 30 minutes!

This is where the tiredness of my mind played a cruel and nasty trick on my body. Because my feet, legs, and back were no longer bearing any weight, my mind relayed a message to my body saying, “It’s OK, you can relax now.” And of course I did. In my state of relaxation I didn’t even notice that there was no “Sounds of the Rain forest” CD playing, nor was there any nice smelling oils floating about for me to breathe in. What I had was the smell of Chinese cooking (4 week old oil and rice) and the sound of some children’s TV show coming from a TV above my head – this is when it really hit me that I was not at a day spa at Versace, I was in the middle of Chinatown in Singapore. Enter Klaus!

From various massages that I have had in the past, ranging from day spas to pre-chiropractic adjustment to in-room deep tissue visits, I knew that all massages generally start off with the laying of hands and application of gentle pressure to stimulate blood flow and encourage muscle relaxation. My friend Klaus was obviously sick the days that this section of his course was given because he was extremely slap happy from the get go. After slapping on some oil he went straight into his attempt to insert his fingers 2 knuckles deep between my shoulder blade and my spine. I thought that if I let out a bit of a groan and some deep expirations, that he might understand that I wanted him to lighten up a bit. It seemed, however, that the more I groaned and the deeper that I exhaled, the harder he pushed. This created a very unfortunate situation where the louder I groaned, the harder he pushed, which made me groan harder, which made him push harder, which made me groan harder – well I think you get the picture. Adding to the ambiance of this whole experience was the periodic phlegm induced throat coughs that were occurring. At various stages I was expecting to hear a glob of lung juice hit the floor. At one point he even burped! How relaxing is that!

I decided the only course of action I could take was to lie there and silently take it, while trying to pretend I was relaxing, quietly hoping that he would try to rip me off and only massage me for 15 minutes and then say, “OK mista, time up”. As I walked back to my hotel I couldn’t help but ask myself, ‘Did I just get a massage or spend 30 minutes in a prison shower block?” Either way, it was an experience that I won’t forget in a hurry!

The Things You See

Part of the fun of traveling is that you get to see some pretty weird and wonderful things along the way. Here's just some of what we saw on the North East coast of South Korea.

Our day at the beach was met with an unexpected obstacle! Puts a bit of a dampener on your day when you have to walk for countless kilometers to find a hole in the fence so you can get to the beach.








As you drive along the coast you can't escape the smell, and the sight, of drying cuttle fish. Once dried, this makes a significant portion of the staple diet.

As you enter one small town, you are awestruck by the sight of two large ships up on the hill. At first glance you get the impression that these were once floating ships that were decommissioned and placed on the hill for prosperity. This would be misleading however, because these ships were actually never meant to be in the water! The luxury cruise liner is a resort, complete with loud speakers that pump out the sounds of seagulls, rolling waves, and the obligatory fog horn at regular intervals. The sailing ship is actually home to a Gramaphone Museum?? I'm not sure what the link is here, but then any excuse to build a life-size sailing ship model will do I suppose.



Up on the DMZ you will find some little tourist stalls that sell all kinds of tacky memorabilia, gifts, and of course toys for the kids. At one stall they were selling these bottles of wine - not sure what they are promising, but by the looks of things you'd better lock up the cat if you are planning on having a few glasses of this stuff.

Each year in September, Koreans celebrate Chuseok – a time for families to get together and exchange gifts, albeit some very strange ones!

Nothing says I love you like a Spam and olive oil gift pack!

There's aisles of the stuff!

Speaking of strange things that go on, check out these little beauties.

Make sure you never run short of Tuna again

Nothin' like mashed potatoes straight from the can

I guess they couldn't find anyone to fill this job - hard to get directions from these guys

We love the fact that even after being here for one year, this place still manages to amaze us.

Eyes front soldier!

Well we’ve been back in Korea for 6 weeks now, and they have been 6 of the busiest weeks of our lives. Work is keeping us extremely busy, and there have been a lot of Saturday and/or weekend activities that we have been involved in as well.

One of these weekend activities was our staff retreat – a weekend where the schools takes all the staff to a resort for an all expenses paid weekend of food, fun, and seminars. this year we went to the Miranda Hotel in Inchon, about 1hr from Suwon.

The hotel was nice, and we enjoyed the fact that there was a water park in the complex, although getting to the pools was an experience in itself. Koreans love their public saunas/spas/baths or whatever you want to call them. Basically they just love getting naked and plunging themselves into a number of different pools of varying temperatures and colours. So to get to the pools we had to walk through the bath area first, where we were met by a large number of naked men of various sizes (I’m talking about body size only) and in various positions. There were men showering, shaving, sitting in the pools, lying flat out on their backs, and some even had their knees pulled up to their chests and were rocking back and forward. Talk about not knowing where to look! Of course Jenene and Promise went through the ladies side, where they were faced with a similar situation, only different.

After finally negotiating our way through the sausage factory, we made it out to the pools for the clothed people. There were 3 different pools, and about 2000 people for each pool – ok, there weren’t that many people, but it certainly was crowded. The word capacity does not seem to exist in the Korean language, so as long as people are willing to pay, they keep letting them in. We have become accustomed to crowds, and we are even beginning to accept that personal space is more of a luxury than an expectation.

We are heading to a national park in the north east next week, so it might be an opportunity for us to rediscover that feeling of walking without a sea of people surrounding us – and some of the trees might actually be taller than me, so that should be nice too.

Our New Wheels!

The Coopers have just added to the traffic congestion on the Korean roads with the purchase of our new car. Being in Korea, we had no choice but to buy a Kia – a Kia Carens is its official name. As part of my new job we were able to get an interest free loan through school, and all the extras like registration, insurance, maintenance, and even gas (LPG) is paid for by the school – a pretty sweet deal. Having a car will allow us to get out and explore a bit more of Korea, particularly outside of the major cities, so we are very excited about this prospect.

I wonder how many times I’m going to get in on the right hand side of the car and wonder where the steering wheel has gone?

The kids had a ball ripping off all the plastic.

We're Back!

Well after a long summer break, we are back in Korea and putting the Blog back into action. I had some big plans for posting regularly during our holidays, but I’m afraid it just simply didn’t happen. We had a great break, and it was great to catch up with family and friends whilst enjoying the beautiful weather and outdoor lifestyle of Australia. I’ve decided to make our first update a pictography – after all a picture is worth a thousand words, and there is no possible way that I could capture our Australian adventure in under several thousand words. Hope you enjoy the happy snaps.

Life's tough when you have to eat breakfast in this sort of scenery

The kids had a fun camp out with Nanna

Prince Harper and Princess Promise at the Bli Bli Castle

Now that's a sunset!

We even got to feed a wild dolphin

This is what happens when you run on the sand without shoes - lesson learned

Captain Harper taking us to feed the dolphin across the sandy staights

The kids had a ball climbing the sand dunes - what a backdrop

The good thing about traveling with the kids is we now have someone to take photos for us

Is this the next Steve Irwin?

That was one heavy snake

Getting up close and personal with a hungry elephant

The Pen is More Expensive than the Sword!

Recently we had a fundraising dinner to get some funds together for the purchase of gym equipment and library supplies. It was a very elegant evening and we managed to raise just over $100 000 US, so it was quite successful.

Tickets for the dinner were $120 US for parents, and $80 US for staff, however a lot of parents were very generous and covered the cost so that all staff could go for free. To show our gratitude for this gesture, the Principal strongly suggested that all staff be involved in the silent auction, a concept that seemed to be completely lost on the Korean parents. The motivation was that if we got in early enough and made some bids, then the parents would be sure to outbid us later in the evening. Unfortunately this did not happen.

This now brings me to the introduction of my new pen. I jumped in as the 2^nd bidder on this pen at a very reasonable $75 US. Unfortunately nobody else thought it was worth that much, and consequently mine was the winning bid. It could have been much worse though, I did bid on another 2 items, but luckily the next teacher who came along and put $10 on top of my bids took home the prizes. Our Principal woke up Saturday morning to find that his bank book was $900 US leaner, thanks to the purchase of a necklace and some soccer lessons for his son. With this in mind, I think I got off very lightly.

Beauty & the Beast

Every parent is proud of their children and even the smallest of their achievements. In this respect we are certainly no different. Jenene and I are amazed at how much Harper and Promise have grown during the time we have been in Korea, and we always comment about how much our family and friends back home will be shocked when they see the kids in June.

Something in the water here has certainly made them both shoot up – so much so that they have both had their complete wardrobes replaced (the clothes not the actual piece of furniture) due to the fact that they keep growing out of things so quickly. As well as their physical growth, they are both quickly becoming very worldly children. It is amazing to hear what they talk about when they are playing together – their trains travel everywhere from Seoul to Southbank to the Great Wall to South America to Legoland, and even to the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

Promise has recently started doing Ballet, and she thinks this is very cool. She often prances around the apartment showing off her new moves, which sometimes causes the people downstairs to complain about the noise. She’s not the lightest little thing on her feet, but perhaps that will come soon. She is a very feisty little thing, and there is no way that anyone will ever be able to pull the wool over her eyes. At the same time she is a very loyal and loving friend, and she provides us with many laughs.

Harper has really gotten into his Tae Kwon Do, and it’s surprising how flexible (or lexible as he says) and agile the big fella is. He was very shy and timid at first, but now he gets right in there and he even yells out at the top of his voice. He has no idea what he’s saying, but it’s what everybody else is yelling out so it must be right. He has his first grading next week, so hopefully by Tuesday afternoon he will be a yellow belt – this scares me a little as I think he is going to be able to kick the crap out of me by the time he’s 7!

The kids have developed a really close bond since coming to Korea, and we often get comments about how lovely it is to see a brother and sister take such good care of each other. In fact we gets lots of comments, from people we know and from others we don’t, about what great kids they are general. This make Jenene and I gleam with pride because we think they’re pretty cool too! We are truly blessed to have these two wonderful people in our lives.

Running Man

Well it’s done! I ran a half marathon this morning – a total of 21.1km in 2hrs and 3mins. It’s something I‘ve been working towards for about 8 weeks, and now that it’s done I’d be lying if I said that a little more preparation time wouldn’t have been useful.

It was a lovely overcast morning and a balmy 16-18 degrees – great running conditions. The recent rain meant that the air was relatively clean, as the dust and pollution had been settled. It was a great challenge and definitely something that I’m glad I had a go at. I’m particularly pleased that I was able to make it without walking, and in a fairly respectable time.

I’m not sure if my legs have been this sore since I was about 8 years old and use to spend all day on my bike, but it’s a good pain (if there is such a thing?). Jenene, Harper, and Promise were at the finish line to greet me, and once I had received my medal Harper wore it so proudly that you’d think he’d completed the run. When’s the next one I hear you ask? I think I have realized that I may be more cut out for specializing in the 10km class, but you never know, maybe I’ll be stupid enough to try another one if the opportunity presents itself – it’ll depend on whether or not I can walk tomorrow!