Updates of our Whereabouts 2003

We've made it! We're currently in Dunedin, on the South Island of New Zealand. So much has happened so I'll be concise. We started at Christchurch, Volunteered at a farm where we saw Hookers sea lions, yellow eyed penguins, some strange birds, and a heck of a lot of sheep. Had a good time on the farm, too.

South to Dunedin, where we are staying with a friend for a little while, before we turn North and see the west coast. Having fun, healthy, happy. Cheers. Off to watch Rugby... GO ALL BLACKS!

And here we are at the final week of our Korean stay, which spanned 2 years, 1 month and 2 weeks. Its been an excellent, mind opening, learning experience. Its hard to let go of the comfort and friendships we've made here, but at the same time we're excited about our Odyssey, which begins real soon. Stay tuned! In other recent travels...

Seoraksan was GREAT! Despite inclimate weather (we ran into the remainder of typhoon Maemi at the top of Koreas 3rd highest mountain) it was a tiring yet rewarding 5 days, and we were able to travel in our own style bery well.

We took a quick yet memorable trip across the country with our coworkers. It was really intereesting to experience some dynamics of Korean culture at work, though we also spent almost all of our waking hours in a car.

Dennis and his girlfriend Dawn came to our place for a couple of days so we took a look around Gyeongju and Tongdosa. It was great seeing Dennis again and meeting Dawn. Their visit seemed to conclude our stay, in a way. No angry cabbies this time.

Almost September, and only 2 months until we leave Korea! We're really excited about our Odyssey, which starts in New Zealand at the end of October, but we're trying our best to live in the present.

Since our last update we've taken a very Korean trip to Maisan with some Korean friends/teachers, took in interesting trip to Seoul and had a really enjoyable summer vacation travelling around Southern Korea with Carolyn (from England) and Eva. We've also been to Daegu to watch a canadian basketball team beat Estonia 73-69 (Woooo!), and traveled to Haeinsa, one of our favorite buddhist temples here in Korea. Next trip will be a 5 day trip to Seoraksan National Park in North-eastern Korea during Korea's Chuseok (Thanksgiving) vacation. Weee!

We have our black belts in Tae Kwon Do! After finding out that we earned them a month ago, we finally received the belts today! Wow! What a feeling. We also just returned from Japan, where we had an AMAZING weeklong holiday. From seeing the A-Bomb Hypocenter in Nagasaki and the Kamikaze pilot museum in Chiran to camping in the rain, its a trip we won't soon forget. School, teaching and life are great! Five months remain in our contract here in Korea.

Didn't realize it had been three months already since we last updated. A lot has happened in that time. At the end of January we rang in the Lunar New Year with a 5 day trip to Jeju-do, an island province off the south coast, and home to Korea's tallest mountain, Hallasan. This was our main reason for going, and yes we did manage to reach the summit, in spite of a snowy trail and a blizzard on top. In addition to this little adventure, we met a very generous family who invited us to their place for a night and then spent a wonderful day on the island of Udo, trying out our new tent that night. Once we returned from this trip, we devoted ourselves to preparing for our black belt test in Taekwondo and stuck around Yangsan most weekends to practice. It also gave us the opportunity to hang out with friends we don't see to often and times with them included going to a great little concert at a local pub (put on by our friend himself), a night of Korean cooking and experiencing a DVD room for the first time (finally we are able to see Korean movies with English subtitles!). Our black belt test happened on March 16. We were tested with 2200 other people, and waited for four hours to have two minutes on the floor, 1 minute of which was shared with 10 others. Unfortunately, we still don't know the results. Last weekend we went to Jinhae with Eva and a friend of hers, check out the cherry blossom festival. We then returned to Geoje Island with her and took a wonderful hike in the warm spring weather the next day, using the blooming azaleas to experiment with our cameras. The flowers both in Jinhae and on Geoje Island were gorgeous.

The last few months have been quite eventful. With weekend outings to close-by cities and temples, the Busan International Film Festival, holiday gatherings with friends and a number of good books at our fingertips, we have not been bored. December proved to be the most eventful month of all with the arrival of Eva, a good friend of ours from university, three days before Christmas. A week later we (Dave and Kendra) took off to Jeollanamdo (the neighbouring province) for a 4 day trip to see the sights and climb a few mountains. The trip was spiced up a bit by an overnight stay at a motel located above a karoake room and an afternoon of wandering lost in the forests of Wolchul Mountain. We made it back unscathed though and arrived back in Yangsan just in time to celbrate New Years with Eva in Yangsan. Three days later we accompanied her to her new place on Geoje Island and had the unique opportunity of socializing with a crazy expat hiking group that has formed in those parts. We were initiated into the group by having to pour beer over our heads and were assured that we would have to do it once again when we had completed our third hike and received our nicknames.