Getting last minute jobs done.

Sunday night and Em and I are packing the remained of our belongings. Some people always complain about not having enough things when they move, but there’s no way I’m feeling like that with the amount of items we have packed and shipped to China.

Today we finished off a few tasks that needs to be done. The computer has been wiped clean, and I have extracted the large hard drive, the DVD burner, and a memory card from it. No point buying them again in China right? I’m sure the ne teacher, whoever he is, will be resourceful enough to put the remains back together.

So all my blogging, his one included, will be done on my iTouch. It’s a little slow but it gets the job done.

A few more things to do tonight. Will blog again before I leave.

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Last Friday morning in Korea.

The dawn shines down on my last Friday here on the Peninsula, and after having a few drinks last night, was happy to roll out of bed around 10 this morning. With all the early starts I’ve been having, from rushing to the vet with the rabbit, to carrying boxes to the post office, I was happy to have a slightly more subdue morning cuddled up with my Em in my ever so soft bed.

That’s how a good morning should start.

Ideally a freshly brewed cup of coffee would be waiting, as with a big greasy breakfast, but seeing as we have neither of those at our disposal, I’ll skip coffee and breakfast and enjoy a nice lunch instead.

It’s a funny feeling knowing this is my last full week in Korea. This time next week I’ll be in Beijing waking up at Em’s grandparents place wondering what sort of rice or noodle dish I should be having for breakfast. And, thankfully, there’s a Starbucks, with wifi, around the corner from their place. Imagine that, a Starbucks in suburban Beijing.

Last night I was pleased to enjoy a quiet drink with both Rob and Sterling at WA Bar. Beforehand, we also engaged in some fine dining at Mac Donalds, which seemed like one of the few place any of us felt like (although Rob resisted the urge to eat the devil’s food). It was nice to sit down with the boys and enjoy a few drinks and talk about Korea, work, and other aspects of our lives here and back home.

Cheers for the drinks, guys.

On the way I couldn’t help but notice the rose/flower guy selling stuff from his van. Earlier in the day, while I was at work, I had Em running around getting Millie’s papers sorted out. I was a little insistent for her to get things done, more for my peace of mind than anything else, and she did so without complaint. I thought some roses and flowers would be a nice way to show her that I really appreciated her efforts and her patience with me over the last few stressful weeks.

And of course a white chocolate bon-bon from GS 25 never hurt either. She was, of course, moved.

This weekend we’re heading up to Busan tomorrow, for some last minute shopping and snacking. And on Sunday is a free day to clean, pack, whatever needs to be done.

So whatever you’re doing today, I hope you have a wonderful day.

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Quick update on Millie’s travel plans.

Visited the vet today to let him know what I required from him when I am to take the rabbit in on Friday morning. I didn’t actually need a lot, just the rabbits vaccination certificate (including rabies shots) as well as a statement from the vet that the rabbit was fit to travel, injury and disease free, and had been living inside for the past 6 months.

With this information, we can then go to Seoul and get a government medical certificate that will be recognized by the Hong Kong government.

The vet seemed ok with everything, but called Incheon Airport to get some further details, mainly to do with our request for the letter and certificate to be in English, which is a requirement for the Hong Kong side of the trip (the government certificate will be in English, too).

He told us to bring the rabbit in as early as tomorrow for her check up, and then he’ll supply us with the papers, which I’ll fax to my Seoul contact later in the afternoon. She also got back to me (my Seoul contact) regarding a flight for the rabbit, which should be booked as soon as she get’s the medical information.

Things are back on track. The world can get back to whatever it was doing now.

Update: There’s no need for us to go and get the government certificate in Seoul as my contact can do that with just copies of our local certificate. It also means we don’t have to rush to Seoul next Wednesday.

We also bought a pet carrier online this afternoon for her to be in during the trip. Hopefully that will come by this Friday.

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Updating: Rabbit, looting, academy business.

The plans for transporting Millie is looking good at the moment. Over the 4 or 5 days I’ve been trying to contact my agent in Seoul who will be organizing the rabbits flight and what have you. However each email has been unanswered, and the few times I have called was followed with a ‘I’ve already emailed you and will send it again within 10 minutes’. And again, I received no emails.

So upon further conversations with my agent over the phone, it seems like my email account has been goggling up her emails, or has been lost in the depths of cyberspace. I’ve checked my spam box, filters, and setting, but can’t locate any of her emails. Strange.

So, I used my gmail account, which seems to be working ok.

I was in a state of a little panic seeing as I had heard nothing from her in the past week, and with only a week to go, I didn’t want to wait any longer to organize her flight to Hong Kong (the Chinese leg of the trip has all been paid and organized already).  It seems everything appears ok, however, and my agent is simply waiting for the airlines companies to get back to her with what deals they can offer.

Sweet.

Still, I’ll be completely stress free when Millie is with us in Beijing.

Sterling, the newish teacher at the academy will be coming over today before lunch to raid some of the stuff we’re not taking to China with us. This includes the oven (my beloved oven), badminton set, tent, sleeping bag, bb gun with automatic target range, and a few other bits and pieces (including stuff from the fridge).

The more he takes, the happier I’ll be.

Rob will likely come tonight and take whatever is left over.

Spoke to the head teacher about last minute things (bills, money, etc) and I’m happy to say we’re both to the same page with our math.

So, things are looking good.

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Seoul. COEX Mall. Aaron, Stafford, and Co.

As I mentioned last week, Em and I went up to Seoul this weekend to catch up with Aaron, and take a bit of a last minute wonder around through some parts of Seoul. While we had a schedule of thing we wanted to do, we both agreed to take to take it easy and just do what we felt like doing once we got up there.

Our first port of call in Seoul was to find a motel. As per usual, and this is a good travelers trip to anyone who visits Seoul from the rest of the country, get a place near either the bus terminal or train station, depending on how you want to get home. It makes getting home later that day a lot easier, not to mention avoiding the subway with all your luggage.

We ended up getting a place near East Seoul Bus terminal, our usual motel, for 70,000 won. It’s not that cheap, but it’s clean, comfortable, and has a nice big TV for me to watch when Em is in the shower.

On Saturday afternoon we visited the COEX mall. I used to always hit up the COEX mall when I first came to Korea as it had good food, a Mac store, and an ok book store. This time we visited the COEX aquarium, a place I had previously visited nearly 5 years ago. Em had never been and I, as usual, was happy to revisit and see some of the animals again (although I’m sure none of them remembered me!).

Afterwards, we walked around for a while, before bumping into Aaron and Cindy at Paris Croissant. We had planned to meet them in about an hour, for dinner, but this way we could all go together and catch up with the rest of the crowd.

We headed over to the Sport Complex area (apologizes for not remember the name of the area) and caught up with Stafford standing outside Starbucks (no surprise there).  There, he showed us his magic iPhone which didn’t look too magically as he had dropped it earlier in the day leaving the screen cracked. Em and I actually thought it was some new screen cover he had purchased, but after realizing it wasn’t, I wanted to do nothing more than give Stafford a hug and tell him things would be ok and that there was a tomorrow.

A few minutes later, his girlfriend Jen came, and we headed out to the galbi (beef bbq) restaurant.

We enjoyed a very nice meal together and I was very happy to be able to meet Jen, who I had only once previously talked to when I was on the Seoul Podcast in the summer. We actually ended up going to the same meat place I had previously gone twice before, once to meet Stafford for the first time, and the other time during Christmas 2008 with my parents and Em. It’s a great place with good, cheap, beef.

When dinner concluded, Aaron and Cindy set off for the long haul across Seoul. It was fantastic to see Aaron and Cindy before we left Korea, as they’re both off to Borneo for a few weeks and I wouldn’t have a chance to see them again. I have no doubt we’ll be seeing them both again in the future, be it us visiting them in Korea, or more likely them holidaying in Beijing. Either way, it’ll be a enjoyable time.

We headed to ‘Twosome Cafe‘ for drinks and a piece of cake where we enjoyed another chat. I was pleased to find out that Jen had spent some time in Perth, my hometown, so we’re able to talk about that for a while.

Then of course we had to go. Like Aaron and Cindy, I’m sure we’ll be seeing Stafford again (and hopefully Jen, too!). Asia is a small place.

On Sunday we had planned to go to Suwon to see the old fortress, but after rolling out of bed around noon, we just couldn’t be bothered, We spent a few hours at TechnoMart before heading home.

Upon arriving home we noticed the rabbit’s cage was open and Millie had had free range of the apartment for the better part of the weekend. Thankfully none of the cables seemed to be chewed, but Millie  was rather spooked and took a while to get out from under the bed. Her cage, too, oddly was out of shape. She had also, and God only know how, jumped onto a big table and chewed the box for a bottle of Chinese rice wine we had. Interesting.

Anyway, some photos of the weekend. Enjoy… Read more »

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Heading up to Seoul. Daegu Stadium.

So the week has rolled on at full steam and here we are, nearly at the weekend. I’m rather amazed that I can only say that one more time, as this time in 2 weeks I’ll be doing something, somewhere, in Beijing. The whole gravity of the move is only starting to settle in these days, especially when I realize that I have only 1 more full week at work.

Where did the last 5 years go?

This weekend Em and I have planned to head up to Seoul where we’ll be doing a little Duty free shopping, meeting up with some friends, and visiting Suwon for the first time. We don’t actually have anything in particular to buy duty free, but I’m sure if Em sees a nice pair of sunglasses, etc, I’ll try persuade her to buy herself something nice (as she rarely does).

On Saturday night we’ll be catching up with Stafford (with girlfriend?), as well as Aaron and his girlfriend, Cindy. We’ll be heading to the Sport Complex in Seoul for a delicious galbi meal, the same place I’ve previously been with Stafford and my parents (2008).

On Sunday, Em and I will travel to Suwon to have a walk around the old fortress, before heading back to Daegu by early evening. All up, it should be a most enjoyable day.

Speaking of enjoyable, last weekend we caught up with some of our Korean friends. Fondly called Emo and Ahjosshi (Aunt and Uncle), they took us out for a delicious meal of galbi-jjim (beef stewed ribs) before taking us to Daegu Stadium, one of the main stadiums during the 2002 Soccer World Cup. Incidentally, it’ll also hold the 2011 World Athletics Grand Prix (and I think maybe the 2011 Asian Athletics World Meet).

I took a couple of shots, so please enjoy;

It’s always sad saying goodbye to friends, even more so when there’s a whole swag of them during our last month here.

Thank God for facebook, huh?

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I got an iTouch.

Last week Em and I decided to take out jars of coins to the bank and see how much we had collected over the past 2 years. I’ve never been great with change, and in Korea I have a habit of just not using coins, especially when they come in values of 10, 50, 100, and 500 won denominations (1c, 5c, 10c, 50c AUD). In the space of two years we half filled a huge coffee can with 100 won coins, and small containers with other value coins.

In the end we’re a couple of dollars of 200 dollars. That’s impressive and is a good indication of the money you can waste by not using your coins.

We also promised ourselves that if we had a good amount, say over $100 worth of coins, we’d buy an iTouch for ourselves, seeing as my old iPod Photo has been causing some problems over the last few months (the hard drive inside wasn’t spinning up sometimes). We headed over to Emart, on the same morning, to pick one up.

Unfortunately they were all out of stock of the 8GB ones. I can’t tell you what a bummer that was. It was only until last Sunday, when we’re downtown, that Em and I managed to buy one from another electronics store.

And the verdict? I love iTouch. Actually, and I don’t say this too often about things I buy, I really, really, love it. Where does one start explaining all the cool features it has?

The wireless internet surfing is amazing and wipes the floor with my old PSP in terms of speed and compatibility.  It’s at least twenty times faster (although YouTube always seems slow for me in Korea) and I’ve yet to encounter any problems visiting sites.

The maps feature is also fantastic. It’s practically Google Earth and will let you get from one place to another without any dramas.

I also like the fact that I downloaded a Skype application for my iTouch. While an iTouch isn’t an iPhone, the Skype application gives you the ability, with enough credits and a wifi connection, to call anywhere in the world (well, most places) for a very small amount (about 4 cents a minute). All I need to get is a headphone with a microphone (which will be my planned trip to Emart this morning).

There is also a nice facebook application I’ve downloaded, too, which makes facebook’ing a tad easier.

I know all you with iPhone are probably rolling your eyes and saying your iPhones do all this, and more, but please let me indulge for a few moments in the magic that is modern technology.

8GB is a little restrictive, especially as I’m used to a 60GB iPod, although I’ve just had to be a little selective with my 5000-odd songs (of which I bet I only listen to 200). I managed to cut it down to 500 songs, which takes up about 3GB out of the 8. That’s not too bad, but doesn’t leave a lot of rooms for movies (although my PSP will primarily be in charge of playing movies over the next few weeks of travelling).

Ok, time to get this day going.

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Field trip to Gyeongju National Museum.

Last Saturday was my third, and final, field trip with the academy. As with last winter, we again decided to go to Gyeongju Museum, and even though most of the teachers and students had been before, we’re all fairly happy to go on another visit. The other 2 sister academies weren’t going this year, for reasons I was not able to get out of the head teacher, so it was only going to be us lot, which I think made the trip a lot nicer (and certainly less crowded).

Actually, the last time we went on the winter field trip to Gyeongju, I met up with Em afterwards as I had a taekwondo camp that, amazingly, also was on the same day in Gyeongju. This time I was staying, as well as having a nice dinner with the teachers once we returned to Daegu. It would be nice to sit down with them again and share a meal, especially as I’m only 2 weeks away from leaving.

I also took my camera and managed to grab a few snaps here and there. I also managed (thanks to some info on Paul’s site) to play around a little with my ISO settings and my ‘dark’ photos came out a lot better than they had in the past.

I’m still getting huge amounts of fun discovering features on my camera.

Speaking of which, here’s some shots of the day… Read more »

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