Greetings from Cambodia

Well here we are in Cambodia! I thought I would give you a quick summary whilst on the road before going into more detail with pictures when we return to Korea. We spent our first three days in Siem Reap exploring the ancient temples and visiting the floating village on the Tonle Sap (Tone lay sup). Our fourth day was spent travelling - we flew down to Phnom Penn before taking the 5 hour bus ride to Sihanoukville. This is a beach side town that resembles something out of that Leonardo de Caprio movie "The Beach". It is a stretch of beach lined with bar after bar after bar. Food and drink is very cheap and we really enjoyed just laying about and swimming. It was a very relaxing 3 days. Our 8th day was spent travelling back to Phnom Penn - I went out and explored the local area in the afternoon while Jenene and the kids stayed at the hotel and swam and relaxed. This morning we went to the Killing Fields and S-21 - the Khmer Rouge prison and torture cells. A very sombre day. This afternoon I visited the Russian Market, which is very similar to the Silk Market in Beijing without the constant hassling from the store sellers. Tomorrow we will visit the National Museum and the Royal Palace before catching a midnight flight back to Seoul. This has been a truly amazing adventure and one that we will always remember fondly.

Hangin' Out in Bundang

Recently we have discovered a suburb about 20-30 minutes drive from our place that has become our favourite place to hang out. The main reason being that we have two choices of places that serve a real breakfast – actual bacon and eggs and real pancakes and waffles. This may not seem like a big deal, but in a land where there is no effort to distinguish between what foods should be eaten at what time of the day this is quite a treat. I still can’t face a bowl of noodles first thing in the morning – sure I can go a hot dog with bacon and onion or a kebab at 3 am, but noodles at 7am; that’s just ridiculous! Another thing we love about this area of town is Central Park – it’s central, and it’s a park! This is actually a beautiful place to hang out and fill in a day. I’m pretty sure it’s also the only place in the world that has a fully equipped gym at the top of the hill – an outdoor gym that is. You have to hike up the trails to get to the top of the hill, and then you can have a work out. Of course it also has a phone booth at the top – very necessary. We also found a place last week that does Bungee Jumping – for only $25 who could resist. It certainly wasn’t as much fun as the last time I did it back in 1991. I think I actually screamed! We continue to discover new things in this great country, and we are now counting down until the snow season begins in about two weeks.

Taking it Easy in the Tropics

We recently had the opportunity to take a family trip to Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, on the island of Borneo. I had to attend a conference so Jenene and the Kids came along to spend a few days relaxing by the pool and soaking up some sunshine before facing the full force of winter back in Korea. The resort was fantastic and the conference was great – it was a wonderful trip and we wouldn’t mind going back there one day.

The Things You Can Eat!

I recently had the good fortune to spend 4 days in Beijing for a work conference. This is my third trip to Beijing in the last 18 months and every time I go I have a really great time. It is wonderful place. Of note this time was the Wangfujing Food Market and the Panjiayuan Antiques Market.

The food market was great, with all sorts of weird and wonderful gastronomic delights on sale. Everything from Dog Meat Pot to Centipedes on a skewer. I opted for the 4 small scorpions and the skewer of snake pieces. The scorpions were deep fried and were very crunchy and chewy – each one took a good couple of minutes to get down. I was expecting the body to be a gooey combination of liquids and intestines, so I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was more like sausage meat. Quite tasty indeed. The snake pieces were a little disappointing because they were covered in so much seasoning, including chilli powder, that you couldn’t really get a taste for the meat. Perhaps this was a good thing. It was also very crunchy and chewy. They also had centipedes, grasshoppers, sheep’s penis, big black bugs, and other unrecognizable delights on sale as well, but I limited myself to the scorpions and the snake.

The antiques market was a real cultural experience and a welcome change from the heavily touristed shopping markets that Beijing is famous for. This market is only open on the weekends and is frequented by many locals, with stalls operated by a wide range of people from the city and the rural areas. As I sat to enjoy a beer at the end of my voyeuristic walking stint, I was joined by an elderly Chinese man. It is very hard to judge the age of Asian people, but if I had to guess I’d say he would have been about 60. He has lived in Beijing his whole life and was very poor. I thought he was prepping me for a sting – I thought he was going to ask me to buy him a meal or give him some money. How narrow our western views of people’s intentions can be. This was not the case and the next 40 minutes turned out to be a very interesting and humbling conversation. He was teaching himself to speak English because he couldn’t afford lessons, so he pulled out his Mandarin-English dictionary and a Dictaphone and asked me if I would pronounce some words for him so he could go home and practice. So I went through 5 pages (H into I) of the dictionary with him – me saying the word in English and him repeating it in Mandarin. What made this most funny is that I was reading words like ‘Hypochlorite’ which made me wonder it what context he was ever going to use some of these words. He knew a lot about world affairs, particularly Australia, America, and Japan. He said he had always wanted to travel overseas but because of his socio-economic status and Government policy he could not get a passport or a visa. This really made me think of just how lucky I am to have the freedom and opportunities to do all the traveling that I get to do. Experiences like these are a real highlight when traveling – it is great to see monuments and famous buildings, but nothing beats mixing with the local people to get a real feel for the place.

I really really enjoyed this trip to Beijing and can’t wait to go back there again with the family.

Mt Gwanggyo

Recently Harper and I have been exploring Mt Gwanggyo – a hiking park that borders our city of Suwon. There are many different paths to choose from, however the one thing they all have in common is the steep ascent.

This morning we set off on what we though would be about a 90 minute hike. When we reached the top though we took a bit of a wrong turn and instead of coming back down the same side of the mountain, we followed a path down the other side of the mountain and into the neighbouring city of Yong-in. When we got off the mountain- about 2 and a half hours after we started - we found a small store where they called a taxi for us - $10 and about 15 minutes later we were finally back at our starting point.

All in all it was a fun morning and we hiked some very challenging terrain. We are looking forward to going back next weekend to try out some of the other trails.

Bulguksa Temple

We recently attended our staff retreat in Gyeongju Province which is situated in the South East of the country. It was a great weekend that was all expenses paid by the school – all we had to do was turn up and enjoy the food and the festivities. Of course I had to attend a couple of meetings on Saturday, but it goes with territory I guess.

While we were there we got to visit Bulguksa Temple – a beautiful remnant from the Silla dynasty. It is amazing that considering all the temples we have been fortunate to visit over the years, this one still blew our minds. It was absolutely fantastic with all the different levels – it was like an imaginary wonderland. Hope you get this feeling from the photos.

Harper was very excited to actually see the monument that he and Promise are standing in front of because he has been learning about this in his Korean classes. History really becomes meaningful when you can actually see what you are learning about.

Back in the Saddle

Well it’s been a long time between posts, but I am finally back in the saddle and hope to be a bit more regular this year – we’ll see how things go.

Back in May I spent a week in Guangzhou, southern China, for a work conference. This was a great experience and Guangzhou is a fantastic city where you can see both the old and new China, often on opposite sides of the street. Xing Ping market was a highlight, and when you get into some of the back alleys and side streets of this market you get a real feeling of being in a totally different world.

In June we went back to Australia for our annual summer vacation. Jenene and the kids left 1 week earlier than I did, so it was very quiet and lonely here in Korea during that time. We had a great time back in Australia with some really memorable highlights:

Teaching Harper to surf and seeing how much he enjoyed it

Catching up with all our school friends and their families in Brisbane

Having a lunch and movie date with my beautiful wife

Taking my Mum out for dinner and spending some quality together

Celebrating Promise’s 5^th birthday with family and friends

Spending lots of fun time with the cousins in Bundaberg

Spending a day with Brent – I haven’t engaged in conversation like that for a long time

Having an awesome early morning surf with Frog and Schuhy, and then the 3 of us joining Jorgo for breakfast

On our way back to Korea we stopped in Singapore for 5 days, where we did lots of sightseeing and spent lots of time in the hotel pool. This was great because I got to teach Promise how to swim, and she picked it up really fast – she is a real water girl. The kids really enjoyed Singapore, and Harper thinks that we should go and live there after our time here in Korea – who knows, we
may end up there one day.

A Sight to Make Rover Rollover!

When researching our trip to Busan I came across the following in the Lonely Planet travel guide:

“Gupo Market has a large selection of clothing, pungent Korean food and butcher shops specializing in fowl and dogmeat. Whatever one’s take on the ancient practice of using man’s best friend for human nourishment, images of an eviscerated canine carcass are bound to produce lasting memories.”

Being the type of person that has to see things with my own two eyes before believing them, I set about finding this Gupo market to see what the fuss was all about. When I arrived I wondered about the usual Korean style market, stall after stall jam packed with as many goods as the vendor can possibly fit into their allotted space. As I walked around I noticed that every now and then there were staircases leading down to a level below street level, that in actual fact when you followed it out you ended up back at street level, just in a different section. You must admit though that it sounds much better if I talk about this underground section of the market that you enter at your own risk.

This lower level was certainly the food section and I passed stall after stall of chicken, seafood of all sorts, and every type of Kimchi you could imagine. But still no pooches on parade! That was until I reached the far northern end of the market where I noticed an alley that appeared to have live dogs in cages. As I got closer I recognized the breed of the dog by its appearance as being the one that is most commonly used for gastronomic purposes. All in all there were about 10-15 shops that had 1 or two cages with anywhere from 4 to maybe 15 live dogs in them out the front. What was in the display cases right next to the cages was what I had come to see though.

Now a 190cm westerner with a large camera around his neck tends to stand out in a crowded Korean market – now imagine how much I stood out in this section of the market being the only person there, Korean or western! The word travelled fast and the shop keepers kept a tight vigil ensuring that my hands were not getting too close to the camera. At one stage I even asked if I could take a photo – an emphatic NO was the response. So being photo-less, I will try my best to describe what I saw.

Each shop had a refrigerated, closed in case out the front that was well lit with glass on all sides, and a glass sliding lid on the top. In each case was about 4-6 dogs fully intact, head and all, with their mouths agape and their legs tucked up tight under their body it gave a fair indication of their last terrifying, painful moments. I won’t go into the details of how the dogs are killed, because my information is based solely on here say and rumor, however, seeing the horrified look frozen onto their face leads me to believe that the rumors may actually be very close to the truth. All the dogs were neatly arranged, splayed flat on their backs with their chest cavity cut open to reveal parts of the animal that would normally only ever be seen coming out of a dog that didn’t quite manage to cross the road quickly enough. The open chest cavity was used as another type of display case to proudly show off the intestines. I guess there is no point in wasting anything. This was quite unlike anything I have ever seen before – seeing ducks hanging in the window or a pig carcass hanging from a hook in the butcher shop just doesn’t seem to compare. Don’t get me wrong, I am not against this practice, nor do I think it is any different to eating any other animal – it’s just not something you see every day.

So the question remains – would I eat dogmeat? You betcha! I’ll give anything a go, and when the opportunity presents itself I’ll be in there paws and all – sorry for the bad pun. I don’t think it is any different to eating a cow, or a pig, or a fish, particularly when here they actually breed dogs to be eaten. You may have to think twice before accepting our next dinner invitation, particularly if it says ‘pets welcome’.

What do you do during the winter?

For those of you living in the wonderfully warm land of Australia, this is a very legitimate question. What does one do when the daily high temps are below zero and the sidewalks are covered with a thin layer of almost invisible, but nonetheless dangerous ice? The answer is to seek out indoor (or undercover) activities or become a snow bunny. We are fortunate enough to have both of these options on our doorstep.

Our apartment building has an underground carpark that is never busy, but is always dry, out of the wind, and clean – the security guards actually mop it on a regular basis. This provides the prefect place for the kids to practice their skateboarding and roller blading. Harper is becoming quite the little Tony Hawk (he even rides goofy) and is very confident cruising around at great speed – he is even beginning to try a few tricks. Promise got roller blades for Christmas, and after her first attempt I didn’t know if she would ever get the hang of it. She has been going great guns and is now cruising around comfortably on her own – a great relief for Mum and Dad’s backs.

When Jenene’s Mum and Dad were here for Christmas, we discovered that we have a ski resort only 30-40 minutes away – too good an opportunity to pass up. So we bought Harper a snowboard for Christmas and I took him out and gave him a few pointers on how to do it. To my surprise he actually managed to get up and get going after only the second time – in spite of my coaching. Since it has been 11 years since I last stepped on a snowboard, I thought I should head out and see if I could still do it – just like riding a bike. We are now at the stage where we ride the lift up together, I do up his bindings, and he says, “See you at the bottom.” Promise was very jealous about us going into the snow so I bought her some plastic skis to see how she would go. As you can see from the photo she goes pretty well – looks like I’ll be footing the bill for real skis and boots next season. The great thing about this is that we can usually leave home at 8am and be on the lift at 9am when it opens – it takes less time for me to go snowboarding than it use to take to go surfing, especially when Frog had to check out every beach between the spit and Nambucca Heads!

Having interests and activities to keep us busy during the winter certainly makes the time pass by fast – I can’t believe we (read Jenene) are already busy making travel and accommodation plans for our trip back to Australia during June and July. I’m almost excited about winter setting in now!

California Uber Alles

I’ve been staring at the monitor for about 5 minutes now trying to figure out how to begin this post – I guess the best place to start is at the beginning.

At the check-in desk we were told that the plane was overbooked and that there didn’t appear to be any seats for us. After about 20 minutes they finally handed over some boarding passes, however Jenene and Promise were sitting together, Harper’s seat was on the other side of the plane and about 4 rows behind them, and my seat was a further 5 rows behind him! I’m generally a very patient and flexible person, but the thought of our little man spending 10 hours sitting next to a complete stranger backed me into a corner. I very assertively (politely but firmly, probably a little more firmly) informed them that I needed to be sitting with my son. So after an hour of them running back and forth, each time a supposedly more senior person coming to talk with us, they finally had us sitting together, in fact that managed to have all four of us together. To compensate us they gave us some refreshment vouchers (worth about $60), unfortunately when I tried to use them nowhere would accept them! Not the ideal start to our Christmas vacation, but we were on our way none the less.

We were met at LAX by our limo service and we headed straight down to Anaheim – the home of Disneyland. We spent the rest of our first day getting oriented and booking tickets for our next 5 days – 2 days at Disneyland, 1 day at Legoland, an LA tour, and a rest day, before hiring a car and heading up the coast.

The car we hired was supposed to be a Chevrolet Impala or similar – we ended up with a V8 Cadillac! Our drive up the coast saw us stop at Venice beach for a few hours before heading onto Santa Barbara where we spent the next two nights. While we were at Santa Barbara the weather started to turn a bit inclement, and when we left there we didn’t know that we where going be driving into a severe storm that was making national news. We spent 3 ½ hours driving up the Californian coast (through torrential rain and howling winds) to Hearse Castle – unfortunately when we go there they told us that they weren’t doing tours due to the high winds and the castle being situated high up on a hill. We were then informed that the road we were traveling on was closed a little further north due to rock slides. This meant that we had to back track a little, then head inland, drive north past our destination, head back to the coast, then south to Big Suhr where we were staying for the night. When we arrived at Big Suhr, after 7 hours of driving, it was dark, pouring with rain, and our cabin had no electricity – all part of the travel adventure I guess.

The following day the rain had cleared a little so we continued our drive up the coast heading San Francisco. As we drove up the coast road (very similar to the Great Ocean road in Victoria) we saw some of the biggest waves that I have ever seen – the sea was very big and very angry. We made it into San Francisco just after lunch time and headed to our hotel in Fisherman’s Wharf, via Lombard St of course – what sort of tourists would we be if we didn’t drive down the crookedest street in the world. We spent the next 3 days exploring San Francisco – hanging out at Fisherman’s Wharf and Union Square, doing the Alcatraz tour, cycling over the Golden Gate Bridge, and making the most of the gastronomic delights that were on offer.

This was a very memorable holiday and the kids got to experience some great things. I’ll pick out a few of our more memorable events and write more detailed posts about them soon, but for now I hope this gives you a summary of our US trip.