Hong Kong in March

Spring brought with it the promise of warmer temperatures.  Now that we are into April, the temperatures are warmer, but not quite at the level we are looking forward to in the next few weeks.....

We decided that we needed to head somewhere where we were guaranteed some higher temperatures, so in the first few days of Alice's Spring break from school, off we went to Hong Kong.  Russ met us there from The Philippines, and we had 5 days relaxing and exploring.

The thing that stood out to me was that Hong Kong is not just wall-to-wall buildings and people (although, there are a LOT of buildings and people).  There are plenty of green areas and the scenery is magnificent in it's contrasts.  It is a beautiful place and somewhere I'd love to go back to.

We stayed out of the city, in the New Territories, with about a 30 minute bus ride into the city.  This meant that it was quiet (we could sleep with the windows open at night, with little noise!), and the bus trip was a great way to see more of Hong Kong.

The city is amazing - very modern and well-kept, beautiful contrasts of buildings, mountains and water.  We loved the harbour! You could get lost exploring for days and days..... what fun!!

Here's a few photos of our trip:

A mix of old and modern buildings, and LOTS of shops - from high end brand shops to cheap markets!!

Despite the weather being hazy, the harbour was lovely!

Looking towards Hong Kong Island from Kowloon (on the mainland).

Alice with a friend.....

Another one on the harbour.  This Chinese junk just goes up and down the harbour, presumably paid for by the city for tourists to have photo ops!!!

Don't think I really need to say anything here.....

Russ and Leanne waiting for a bus (of course, we always wait for buses just like this...)

On our way into the city....

Russell was very excited about his coffee shop!!!

At Hong Kong Park

Part of the skyline at night - very pretty!!!

An interesting shop - not sure what they are selling...

After much searching, we finally found the shop that sells dragon bait!!!!  Phew!!!!

The entrance to the Temple Street Market - a fun little market that was worth seeing!!

The beach near where we stayed - not quite an Australian style beach, very very pleasant.

Me being creative....

The little 'house' where the lifeguard sits while watching the swimmers.  There was one of these every 100 metres or so....

We shared this 'treat' on our last day - it's an egg made out of white chocolate, filled with cake, vanilla custard and cream, with a mango 'yolk'!!!  Very yummy - almost 100% sugar and fat!!!

Sammi

At the beginning of March, our lovely little Maltese dog, Sammi, died.  She was the most wonderful little thing, with a fun-loving, bright personality, and we enjoyed many years with her in our family.

When we moved to Korea, Sammi was adopted by the Frost family - Julie, Bill, Alisha and Nicola, and was loved equally by these wonderful people.

She had a great life, and gave us all many happy moments.

A New Year begins....

Twelve months have come and gone, and we are finding our feet in South Korea.  It has been a year full of adventures:

Russ has completed a year of work.  It has been fascinating for him to see the contrast between his old workplace and new.  The are many more people working on rice research here than at Yanco (there's a surprise.... not!) and more resources directed towards research here.  He has had lots of fun (and many challenges) with the language differences, but with the help of his lovely office manager, Sunny, and his scientific colleague, Dr Kim, he is able to communicate. He has enjoyed seeing the full cycle of research with the rice here, and the next year will bring a few experiences that aren't new to him. He has also visited some interesting countries (Vietnam, Turkey, The Philippines, Japan) and met some very interesting people.

 

Alice finally finished Year 10..... after 18 months (12 in Australia, 6 in Korea!!). She is now half way through Grade 11, and has done a remarkable job settling into her new life - making friends, working hard at school, having a little look around Korea.... she misses her friends in Australia, but has found a whole new group of friends here.  She has had some great experiences playing sport and meeting people from other international schools, and has had a trip to Jeju Island for a theatre camp.  This month she will visit Japan with the school basketball team.  The best thing is that she is building relationships and growing in maturity and tolerance.

I have had a lovely year.  The first few months were a great adventure in  having coffee and exploring, along the way making some great friends.  I have had some work at Alice's school, relieving for the Elementary ESL teacher's position while she was on Maternity Leave.  This was a wonderful experience, and a great opportunity to meet new people and make new friends.  I will continue to do some substitute teaching in the next few months, and also look forward to spending more time with Pam, Paula, Leanne, Heather, Kelly and others....

We have had many visitors over the past year: Brett and Bronwyn in April, Cathy Dando in May (for 1 night..... hopefully they'll be back), Christine Ford in early September, and Rob and Catharina later in September. 

     

A highlight was Nicola Frost (one of Alice's extra special friends from Leeton) coming for 2 weeks in late September/ early October.  Mitch was here in November, and it was great for him to see where we live, and for us to see him too.

In between we have spent some wonderful times with the Gobius family, great friends from Leeton who now live in Daejeon (just 2 hours to the south of us)!! It has felt like we have family right here in Korea.

We are making friends and building relationships as we acclimatise to living in our new country.  The Freeman family have been great companions on our journey, and have become fast friends (Bob is missing from the photo). 

Korean language is slow, and we are having a break until February.  I have moments when I feel like I'm getting somewhere with the language, and many more times when I despair at my inability to remember the simplest words or phrases....  at the very least it is a lot of fun, and our class and teacher are wonderful to spend time with (I fear that they will have progressed far beyond us by the time we return, and so we may be in a new class....).

Our Korean class on a recent trip to a 찜질방 (Korean Sauna/Bath house)
 - those are little towels on our heads, with the ends rolled.

Our year finished with a visit to Australia - great to see both our families and to have a few days at the end at Kiama (NSW south coast). We celebrated Mitch's 21st in style in Canberra.

The climate here in South Korea is the most extreme for its latitude of any country in the world - we have experienced this first hand, and it's quite amazing!!!  HOT and humid in Summer, COLD and dry in Winter, the most beautiful Spring and Autumn (only a bit too short for my liking).

September 2012

September 2012

January 2013

               

January 2013

And now, to start our year perfectly, Hayden is visiting for 2 weeks on his way home to Australia.  He has had an amazing 12 months in Sweden, and is now looking forward to his new adventure - University in Canberra.  It has been just wonderful listening to the piano and guitar, and Russ and Alice have enjoyed a few 'jams' with him since he has been here...

7 months.....

It's been a long time between blogs for me.  Russell's guest blog helped fill in the gap, but now I return. It's been 7 months since Russell, Alice and I started our adventure in South Korea, Hayden his in Sweden, and Mitch his in Sydney.  All of us have had an amazing few months, and our relationships as a family have grown, despite us being in different places, on different time zones and experiencing very different things.

Alice and I had 3 weeks in Australia in late June/early July - at Maleny with Russell's Mum and Dad, Leeton with many of our friends, and Canberra with My Mum and Dad.  In between we caught up with the Whites and Nobles in Sydney, Scott, Ingrid, Maddy, Jack and Harry in Mittagong, and we had the great privilege of meeting and having time with Peta-Erin, Mitch's gorgeous girlfriend.

It struck me how much I appreciate my family and friends.  We don't always see each other a lot, but you provide the value in living and the reason that it's important to maintain relationships with honesty and integrity.  You keep me sane, keep me honest, listen when I need it, share yourselves, open your homes, make an effort to keep in touch, call me just to say hi, and mostly just share my journey. You live in Australia, Sweden, East Timor, South Korea... you are travellers or not.... we have spent a lot of time together or a little.....

My family are important to me.  I am so unbelievable proud of my wonderful husband and children (who are no longer children... a bitter-sweet realisation).  Each of us has tackled challenges head-on this year, and we are creating our own, intertwined, life stories. Some of it has been difficult, some has been inspiring, most has just been getting on with life, albeit in a different environment.

For me, our settling-in time in Korea seems to be evolving into another phase of our lives here.  We have made some great friends already, and are meeting more and more as time goes on.  

Alice has done a great job of settling into school, and living in a city environment.  It was an enormous thing for her to leave her very special friends in Leeton and move so far away, but I feel like she has done so with amazing style!! I know her friends in Australia will be friends forever, but it was hard leaving them behind....

Russell continues to amaze me, with his determination to work hard at his new job, and to maintain a balance in his life.  Work is challenging on a professional level, and he is learning things I imagine he never thought possible.  Nothing like being immersed in a culture!! The people he works with in his office are very good to all of us, and their value as allies, interpreters, and willing assistants in all things Korean cannot be overstated!

For me, my time without paid employment has been refreshing and revitalising.  I knew I needed the time, and it hasn't disappointed.  To be able to keep our home calm and (mostly) tidy has been good for all of us - I even enjoy the housework.... sometimes.  I've had the opportunity to meet and spend time with some lovely people, and to explore a little of the area around where we live.  This includes some visits to Seoul, which is only 30-40 minutes away by bus. Even so, I am feeling like I need more, and am hoping to start soon with a little work (paid!!).

Our language skills are improving, although we aren't up to having a full-speed conversation with native Koreans.  Even so, we can see the difference from a few months ago.  Alice has started learning Korean as a subject at school, so it will be interesting to see the progress she makes. We have no doubt that she will soon be much better than  Russ and I.....

So... what have I learnt? How have I changed? Where to from here?  Well, I've learnt much, but then, my whole life has been like that (as with everyone).  I've had it reinforced that, despite our differences, people are people, with relationships, joys, tears, and a desire to be loved and to love.  There are good people everywhere! Some of the  most wonderful moments are the simplest moments, and often come in the most unplanned way. Being a long way away from someone doesn't make our relationship any less important or special. 

Not sure that I've changed dramatically.  I feel like life is a continual process of changing and growing, of making the most of the circumstances we are in, and so that continues for me.  My hope is that the longer I live, the more I will embrace this process.  I hope that I will become a more tolerant, more caring person, and that I will invest more and more time into relationships.  And so.... I continue the coffee shop meetings that I love so much. They aren't the same as my times with Cindy, Cathy and Marg, but Pam, Paula and others are helping me to explore the coffee shops in South Korea!!!  And we're becoming good friends in the process.

I'm hoping to include more photos next time.

Keep smiling!!!

The excitement of going home...

Russell's guest blog. 

One of the issues of living a long way away is that trips home are a major event. They have to be planned months in advance, tickets bought, an itinerary developed, family notified, visits planned and finally a countdown of the days to departure. 

We have now been through that process for the first time, and as I write these words Leanne and Alice are ensconced in their seats, on Korean Airlines Flight 121, 13 minutes into their flight with 7,973 km left to run until their early morning arrival into Sydney tomorrow.

You'd have thought Alice might have done a little study when she
had time to fill  in - but no, a game of tetris was all she could manage!

The more astute among you will have fathomed the reason as to why I can be writing these words and publishing them online as the flight is taking place, and that's because rather sadly, I am not with them. Making a change such as we have necessarily entails forgoing the leave built up in the previous job, and starting from the very beginning again. And that's just where I am. Consequently I have my own little countdown in progress, and, dare I say it, there's just 181 days left on mine...
But this article is not about me, it's about the excitement of going home after a long absence, to re-connect with family and friends, to see familiar sights -and particularly the familiar sounds of the Australian version of English as she is spoke! And as long as Alice and Leanne enjoy their time at home, then I too will enjoy the experience through them.

Airports are either one extreme or the other. To the weary business traveler they are mostly functional, cavernous, aseptic places to be transited as fast as possible. To the less frequent traveler they are much more exciting, ripe with the hope of the journey ahead and it's ultimate destination. Today was both happy and sad for all of us I think.

The old couple...

It was 150 days ago that we touched down in Seoul, peering out of the windows of the plane at the patches of ice and snow alongside the runway, fresh from the warmth of an Australian summer, and wondering what we had let ourselves in for... In the subsequent months we have worked our way through a number of issues, we have found an apartment, negotiated the traffic, worked out public transport, survived the worst of the breath-takingly cold winter, we can mostly get what we need at a supermarket (although some things are still a "lucky dip"), Alice has completed the latter half of year 10 with distinction, and we are getting to know a few people. In short, we have survived the change thus far, and we have much to be thankful for.

Happy to be going home?? Just a little bit...

Going home is exciting though. No matter what new experiences we may have, amazing sights we may see, places we may go, home will always be important and there will always be a spring in my step when I begin the journey homeward.

Through security and off home. Enjoy yourselves. You deserve it!

Russ and I celebrated 24 years of marriage on the 21st May.  The three of us went out for dinner to a local Chinese restaurant, which was VERY nice.  

We could just see Seoul Tower throught the haze

Last Friday, Pam and I joined Rekha Rao for a ferry trip on the Han River, which flows through Seoul.  Rekha's daughter, Rohini, is in our Korean language class, and Rekha was visiting for a week from the US.  The River cruise was a lovely thing to do.

Seoul Olympic stadium

This morning I went walking up in the hills near our apartment, and the transformation from when we first arrived (in winter) is remarkable.  Lush green foliage, birds and bugs - beautiful!!!

This was in the same area in February, when we first moved in!!

Roses are out and we've found a few on fences near apartments - it took me by surprise, but they look and smell perfect!!