And off we go...

New Year

2008-01-17T22:39:00.001-05:00

Hello everyone,

We are starting the New Year and have many things to figure out and complete. We are well and can't wait to move on to the next step in our lives. Right now, I am finishing off teachers college and hope to be working next fall. Karina is working and helping me out. We are enjoying the cold weather but we miss the beaches we visited last year. Too all our friends around the world, we wish you the best this year and if you are anywhere near Ottawa, let us know.

Later

More holiday pics!

2008-01-05T19:49:00.000-05:00

Galavanting at the cottage with my bro Christopher and my friend Kristen. Much fun was had!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Years

2008-01-03T18:11:00.001-05:00

To all of our family and friends we want to wish you all a fabulous start to 2008.

It's amazing how in one year so many things can change! This time last year Christian and I were in Vietnam, eating bananas and mangoes galore, riding around on scooters or in tiny little wooden boats, wondering what we would see and who we would meet in the next village, thinking about the future and what would be instore for us once we returned home.

We are now home, surrounded by meters of snow. For the past two weeks we have been enjoying our holidays. Our first Christmas at home in three years, and we spent most of the time at the cottage, away from the bustling life which has become the norm.

Feeling like little kids again with all this snow, we literally played outside for hours. Christian made his first quincy (kind of like an igloo), which might I say was a fine example of his engineering skills - enough room for 6 people and an entrance hall! How grande! Though the temperature at times soared to +4, we managed to get out onto the lake and go for a nice skate. It was pitch black and the snow was falling. All you could hear was the creaking ice and the coyotes in a neighboring bay.

When we weren't outside we were bundled next to the fire, reading good books, playing hilarious games, drinking fine of wines and eating tasty German treats!

Our holidays were shared with our family and friends. For those of you we were not able to see, you were in our thoughts, and we hope to be able to spend time together in 2008.

More pics to come!

All our love, Karina and Christan

Life in Ottawa

2007-08-21T12:41:00.000-04:00

Hey everyone! We are slowly adapting to life in Ottawa - we have been attending weddings, playing ultimate, relaxing at the cottage, studying and looking for jobs! Here are some pics from the last 2 months - picking Christian up at the airport in Ottawa after his 2 weeks out West with friends; at my best friend Lara's wedding shower; at her wonderful, perfect wedding with Christian in his snazzy Vietnamese suit and trimmed beard; and during the wedding ceremony. We'll put up some more pics soon! Ciao. K

O Canada

2007-07-19T10:45:00.000-04:00

Hello everyone,

We are safe and sound in Ottawa. The last month has been pretty busy with weddings and real life but we are adjusting. We are now looking for jobs in Ottawa. We are pretty busy with that and hope to make some money real soon. We hope to keep this blog going for while.

More pics to come shortly.

Later

Christian and Karina

Fiji Pics 2

2007-06-05T21:18:00.000-04:00

We went on a walk at this beautiful resort called Bayside Resort. We loved this place and it was what we thought all the other resorts would be like. It was the Fiji we had expected before we got there. It was really small and the owners were really friendly.

Tim went spear fishing at night and caught 17 fish. We had fish for supper the next night and it was good.
A pic from the beach at bayside resort.

Karina loves bananas. They were fresh small ones of the trunk.
We went to see a rugby game while we were there and it was cool to see the different islands playing against each other. They play every week.
This was the dining room at Bayside resort.

Karina on the hike. It was a hot day.

Our last picture together before Karina headed home.
The boat ride back to the main island. It was a beautiful place to relax and it was really safe.
Us at the last resort before we set sail for the main island.
The traditional clothes the Fijians wore before the missionaries visited the islands.
Me and Gerry, he looked at look bigger in real life.

Fiji Pics 1

2007-06-05T20:33:00.000-04:00

Hello everyone,
We are now back in Canada after spending 18 days in Fiji. We had a great time onthe Yasawa islands. We camped while we were there. It wasn't too hot though during the day, it was at least 30C. It was amazing and we had a blast. We didnt do much but sleep, eat, run and work on our tan. The people were extremely friendly and the islands were beautiful. He ate some great food. We had a lovo(food cooked under a pile of soil with glowing red rocks) a few nights. The first pic is of the cooked digging out the food from the pit. We ate some lamb, chicken, potatoes, sweet potatoes and spinach. It was tasty.
This is a pic of us on my birthday celebrating with strangers. We had a great time and had a fun with everyone. It was a good 29th birthday.
A pic of Karina on the boat. Karina wasn't too impress with the storm that blew through on that night. It was a little bumby on the boat and were both trying to get over my birthday night.
Karina lounging on the boat feeling a lot better after another day of relaxation.
Us on the boat. The boat was alright but we all slept together in a dorm style room with 30 other people. The crew was really nice although it was really like just staying in an other resort. The best part of the day was our snorkeling trip with the Manta rays. The rays were enormous (4m wide) and such graceful creatures.

Me in the water. The water was really warm and we went snorkeling alot. We saw a lot of fish. They were beautiful.
This is a pic of our tent next to a bure. A bure is a traditional home in Fiji.

The beautiful beaches of Fiji.

One of the kids, we had fun with on one of the islands. The children are full of live and always smilling.

This was at the first resort. We enjoyed the pool although the resort didn't have the Fiji look we were expecting but the pool was nice since at low tide it was hard to get into the ocean since it was full of coral.
We spend a lot time in hammocks, reading and sleeping.
Another beautiful sunset in the islands.
Me on the beach.
This kid learned how to throw the disk in two seconds. He was really cute.

18 months and finally back in Canada

2007-06-05T03:28:00.000-04:00

Hello everyone,

We are now in Canada. We have had a great time in Fiji. It was a relaxing time and didn'tdo anything at all but chill out on the beach. We enjoyed it alot and if you ever want to go to Fiji, we will let you know when where to go. Karina is headed home and I will be visiting friends in Victoria and Vncouver then off to Saskatoon to visit our friends. We will put some pics up of Fiji tomorrow.

Later

Christian and Karina

One last time...onto our last country FIJI!!!

2007-05-15T22:24:00.000-04:00

It seems like just yesterday we said goodbye to our family and friends and set off on our journey!

After close to 18 months, we are finishing our Asia-Oceania voyage. It has been the most excellent adventure, and we have learned so much about ourselves, as well as this great, yet complicated world we live in.

Our year in Jeju, Korea was a learning experience. We learned how to teach! We'll always remember the joys we felt when seeing our students, young and old, grasp a difficult English concept, or just learn how to pronounce the letters L, P, B, and R! Our life in Jeju quickly felt comfortable and homey thanks to our Jeju and Yale academy friends and family. We loved every moments spent at the beach, learning to surf, playing volleyball and 3-man, ultimate and rugby practices and tournaments, hand-and-foot card competitions, bike rides and hikes on beautiful Hallasan, and weekly feeds under the bridge in Jungmun, at the Panchan restaurant in Seogwipo, or of the most delicious indian food in Jeju-shi. We'll always remember our one year in Korea and we hope to meet up with our Jeju family sometime in the future!

We left our home of Seogwipo after a beautiful morning on the beach, how fitting! For the next 5 and a half months we would travel and explore. Through China by train, waiting at the stations with thousands of Chinese staring blatantly at the tall travelers and accepting random dried fish and unidentifiable foods while in our sleeping berths, walking the Great Wall with a back drop of an azure sky, and simply watching the million bicycles whiz by.

Vietnam we encountered our fabulous traveling friends whom we shared great experiences with all down the country - in Sapa, walking with the Hamong tribe women, drinking Bia Hoi and rice wine, bringing in 2007 around a huge bonfire in Mui Ne with good friends and cheap rum, renting motorbikes and driving with local kids to the sand dunes, and taking little rickety wooden boats up the Mekong Delta to Cambodia.

In Cambodia we experienced the real dichotomy of what life is like there - extreme wealth and extreme poverty, side by side throughout the whole conflict ridden country. Days were spent wandering or biking through the magical Angkor Wat temples. We could actually imagine what life was like in the Angkor empire hundreds of years ago.

Continuing along from 140kms of pot-whole ridden dirt roads in Cambodia to Thailand. We'll always cherish the time we spent with our friends in Mae Sot, experiencing just a smidgen of what life is like for displaced Burmese refugees living on the border. We were so lucky to go to the refugee camp. It opened our eyes to a reality that none of us could even fathom. From the North where we road a tiny motorbike through the elephant camps and dense forests to the silken white beaches in the South, we enjoyed it all.

The next leg of the journey was New Zealand, a country we soon felt at home in, thanks to the hospitality of our friends in Wellington. NZ for us was all about exploring the outdoors, and we did that both in the North and South island with fabulous weather, minus the chilly southerly winds from the Antarctic!. Hiking the Southern crossing, Kepler track, Abel Tasman, Queen Charlotte track and Mueller hut all at "John speed" gave us an appreciation for the stunning mountains and coasts of this unique country. With only 2 months in NZ we didn't have enough time to do and see everything, or spend enough time with our dear friends.

It was off to Australia, where we apparently needed a visa. With everything sorted out in the nick-of-time, we arrived in Sydney to hot summer weather. We shared our Eastern road trip with our trusty Speedy ghetto van, crocs, monitor lizards, wild turkeys, roos, poisonous snakes, box jellies and reef sharks! An adrenalin inspiring journey! We swam with the brilliant array of sea life at the Great Barrier Reef, drove long stretches of barren road bordered only by sugar cane, played in the ever-salty ocean, ran on squeaky white sand beaches, and surfed in turbulent waves.

And, alas, we are now at present time, staying with friends in Sydney. Incredible how fast our time has flown by! We are getting ready for the last country, tropical Fiji, and we can't really believe that this journey is coming to an end! Tomorrow we catch a plane to Fiji, then its off island hopping for 18 days in the Yasawas.

We just want to thank everyone for supporting us on this stupendous adventure of ours. To our Jeju fam, new travel friends throughout Asia, old friends whom we visited throughout our journey who made us feel oh-so welcome, and everyone at home who have been wishing us well the whole time, as well as keeping us updated on the real-world!

This will most likely be the last email from our journey, so WE LOVE YOU ALL!!!

Karina and Christian "big beard"

Pics down the coast

2007-05-15T06:44:00.000-04:00

Hello everyone,

This is me with my beard and the new hat.

A mornning sunrise although we have been up for at least 2 hours and have already eaten and gone for run. Us on Straddie, we walked around the small island for the day and had a lot of fun.

We got many smiles from many drivers one they past us. I am pretty sure it's from we had on the backend of the van. They always seemed to be looking at me.

This day, we were in Coffs Harbour and we rented boards for the day. We had a lot of fun as the waves got bigger and bigger. We got up alot but the waves were crashing pretty hard and we tried our best. We still have alot to learn but as you see in the next picture. Karina is a natural.

We hope to a few more pics up before we leave.

Later

Christian and Karina

Last days in Aus

2007-05-15T01:58:00.000-04:00

Hello again and maybe the last till we get to Canada since we don't know how accessible the internet will be on the islands in Fiji. We are healthy and happy to have completed the journey down the coast. We have driven 4400 kms in about 25 days. We have camped in many different towns along the way. It has been a been incredible to see all the beaches and the different lanscapes in the North and the South. We have loved our van although at times it isn't the easiest since you never know if someone will wake you up in the middle of the night and tell you to move. It only happened once but it was a big shock when it happened in Byron Bay at 6h30 in the morning and they dtold us to move in 30 seconds or we would get a 150 $ fine each. We left in 10.

We have spent the last two days at Bondi beach in the east of Sydney. It is more of a glamorous beach but there was some amazing surf and plenty of people around. We parked on the streets at night and then would make our way back to the beach to relax and people watch.

Today, we brought the van back. We said our last goodbyes to our home. It didn't break down and we didn't get a ticket since we never really made over the speed limit. The whole trip was amazing and I can't wait to come back here to visit the west coast and the rest of the country. We have a blast and will be back one day.

Off to Fiji for 18 days and then back to Canada. We can't wait to see the islands and it all.

Bye
Christian and Karina

From North to South

2007-05-12T02:48:00.000-04:00

Hey everyone! We have covered the 4000 + kms and we are back in Sydney! What a journey it has been! We spent the last couple of days in some fun beach towns.

In Coffs Harbour we rented surf boards and played in the waves as they gradually got larger and larger! We were both able to catch a few good waves. Reminded us of Jeju. Miss all you jeju friends!

Continued onto Port Macquarie. We ran on Lighthouse beach for what seemed like hours! It just didn't end! The sand was brilliant white and it actually squeaked when we walked on it! Bizarre!

From Port we drove to Seal Rocks. It was one of the first drizzly days we've had, so we took some much needed time to just relax, and catch up on some reading and writing in our Speedy van. Loved the sign by the beach that announced "Please don't harass or follow the sharks. If you happen to catch a grey nurse shark or a great white, please release it with care. They are endangered species." I figured I'd have to release it with my arms or some other limb attached. SO we didn't swim here!

Onto Port Stevens and Nelson Bay, near Newcastle. Walked and ran all around these coastal towns, and took advantage of the beautiful beaches. Most of the little towns have parks right on the water with bbq, showers, and public toilets! These have been fabulous! We know where most of the public facilities are all the way down the coast! While most people will just use the showers to wash off the ocean water, then head for home, we have full out showers here, fully lathered, washing clothing! Its such a simple life! Love the looks we get from people!

Anyways, the ocean is getting cooler, as are the nights. Burr, the South! How strange! Winter here though is still pretty great!

Currently we're in beach town Bondi. Loads of people all around, tons of surfers out on the water! We'll stick around here for a day or 2, take in the market tomorrow, then its back off to central Syd to drop off good ol' Speedy, and prep for Fiji (aka do 1 month worth of laundry!)

Hope everyone is doing great. All our love.

To all the moms out there- YOU'RE THE BEST!!! Happy mothers day!

Pics

2007-05-04T05:51:00.000-04:00

Hey, it's a very tired lion.

Karina and I relaxing in a national park by the water.
A beautiful sunsut at Rainbow beach. The colours are so rich.
This a pic of the extremely long beach at surfer's paradise. It was amazing to see all the people out in the morning doing exercise.

The wicked camper crossing the river. No prob for a pro driver although I am going to be confused when I get home and have to drive on the right side of the road.
Us and the fam before we left for Australia. Eden is so cute.
Karina siting on the steps of the Opera house in Sydney.
Me with my two favorite things, operas and bridges.

Our home, the camper that is letting us travel the coast. It's a little slow up hill and we have aqlready put 3000 kms on it so we hope it keeps on going.

Later

Christian and Karina

The Sunshine and Gold Coast

2007-05-03T08:15:00.000-04:00

Hello everyone,

Everything is great and we are having a great time in our camper van. We have been driving a little and enjoy the weather alot. We are now in Surfer's Paradise on the Gold Coast and it's a very very develloped resort city. All of the Gold coast is the same so we are really happy that we spend 2 days on Rainbow beach on the Sunshine Coast. The beach was amazing and the village was really small and pretty. We spenr our time enjoying the weather and it was amazing.

Then we went to Brisbane but we didn't stay long since it was a big city like any other and we can see that at home. Today, we went to North Stadebroke Island near brisbane and it was a picturesque little island about a 45 minute boat ride from the coast. We saw a hugh pod of dolphins and some turtles. It was nice to visit the island that had beaches surrounding it. We spend the day on the beach again and then in the afternoon we left to visit the Gold Coast. It is a big tourist area that we will probable skip as much as possible.

We are going to a National Park tomorrow to get some hiking in and then to Byron Bay to surf if it's not too busy. It's a long weekend and we've heard it usually means everything is little busier. We'll see. We are still headind down the coast and we'll probably be in Sydney on the 13th of May to prepare for our next step of the journey.

Another thing, Happy birthday Matt. Hope you had a good 29th brithday. Can you believe we are almost 30?

Later

Christian and Karina

The long drive

2007-04-28T04:03:00.000-04:00

Hello everyone,

We are excited to be on the road again and rolling into different cities on almost everyday. We have had a few long driving days but as a Canadian, we are used to driving long distances. The countryside is beautiful and the vegetation is completly different from Canada and New Zealand. We were even lucky enogh to see a kangaroo on the side of the road. It was just sitting there waiting to cross. We have also seen some that haven't been as fortunate. We have driuven from Cairns down the coast and are now in Bundaberg. It's a small quiet city which allows us to camp pretty much anywhere on the street for the night. It's frowned upon but we have been trying to budget and don't feel like paying for a campervan park. We just use the showers by the beaches and try and get water from the local parks. I know we're cheap it gives us more money for when we get to Fiji.

Between Bunderberg and Cairns, we have stayed the cities of Townsville, Arlie Beach and St-Lawrence. The coolest place was St-Lawrence because of the stars we saw at night. The city is on the railway line and very small and nobody stops there but we where tired of driving and it was a free place to stay with toilets. It was nice. We are now able to swim at the beaches since there are no more jelly wish this far south. The water is nice and niot cold so we are going to the beach as much as we can.

Today, we went to a the Bundaberg Rum distillery and had a tour. It was very interesting. They make almost everythign from scratch. This rum is primarily made from a molasses base. We even had a little taste test at the end. We had a good time and now are going to find a place for the night.

We are probably going to head to another beach tomorrow and relax, go for a run and make some food. Life is simple for us right now and we know this is all going to change in the following months. See you all in about a month or so.

Love Christian and Karina

PS To all our Kiwi friends, we we're saddened to hear that you lost to Sri Lanko in the Cricket. We hope your Rugby team doeas better in the fall.

The Great Barrier Reef

2007-04-24T03:00:00.000-04:00

Hey all! Having a blast in oz!!! We started off in Sydney for a few stunning days!!! What hot and sunny days! We got ourlseves all organized for the big road trip and even managed to do some fun tourist things. WE popped by the zoo and checked out the bizarre Oz animals and did a walking tour of the harbour and the opera house...really pretty! We even met up with an old friend from Ottawa U days! It was so much fun! Sydney is a beautiful city and it doesn't stop moving! really active people. Lunch hour was jampacked with running groups and personal trainers all around! We also got attacked by local cockatus in the park trying to snatch our carrots and hummous...healthy little thieves!

We left the big city and flew to Cairns to start the JOURNEY!!! We picked up our ghetto van...really hilarious...but it works! It has great artwork/spray paint and nice sayings across it (the back of our van reads "A KINKY MIND IS A TERRIBLE THING TO WASTE!!!" Love it! But it stores all our crap, and we have now our little house oh wheels! Besides we'll never miss it in a parking lot! It's called the Speedracer but it has a hard time making it over 95km/h.

BUT a little dissapointment is that there has not been much beach swimming, namely a friendly swimmer called the BOXJELLYFISH! EEEKKK! so we've been sticking to the netted off areas that are safe and sound! BUT atleast its HOT here...winter and 30 degrees! YAA!ANYWAYS, highlight so far, we went snorkeling at the great barrier reef! IT WAS AMAZING!!! We saw rays (dn't worry mom, I made sure I was way above it and stayed my distance!!), small white tip reef sharks (3feet), Christian saw a 6 foot black tip reef shark, I missed it, I must have just turned around...good, I would have freaked out! We also saw tons of other tropical fish, beautiful colorful coral and a huge tuna! It was so fabulous, like a real life Finding Nemo world come to life silly how thats my only reference, but it was just like that, with little communities of coral, fish living amongts it, highways of fish swimming along, star fish as bright blue as the sky...It was so fantastic...you have go to do this once in your life! Christian and I went on a boat and we were in the water for about 4 hours. By the end I was blue and frozen, but I just didn't want to get out! We were smilling and trying to explain to the other under water what we saw but we would just laugh, get water into our snorkel, and keep going! We did this in Cape Tribulation, where the rainforest meets the reef. A world heritage location. It was a tiny little community, and we were really happy to have gone there.

The north, Cape Trib, was a rain forest, really lush and full of life. We stayed at a natl campground. That means cheap and all you have are loos and fences to protect againts the crocs. I was thrilled with the fence! On our first night there I was doing the dishes, all I heard was some Ozzie pull up and yell "OY, poisonous snake" I litterally jumped into the van and didn't come out till the morning. It was 7:00pm!!! So the dishes didn't get done till the morning!! FREAKY!!! Also saw a monitor, cousin of the komodo dragon...a HUGE lizard. It's been interesting! A real life zoo. I'm always looking around, sure that a croc will jump out and eat me. BUT we are now in a little city called Townsville, heading down the coast. We've been exploring the beaches and the small towns and the forests. We hope to get a few hikes in, but the mountains and hikes aren't anything like NZ, not nearly as organized or accessible. So we'll stay close to the beaches...we plan on doing some surfing (without the jellies!!!) a little further down south and some island exploring! Time is flying by! We'll put some pics up soon. LOTS OF LOVE!!! Hope everyone is great! Karina and Christian

Australia

2007-04-18T20:43:00.000-04:00

Hello everyone,

We are know in Sydney, Australia wainting for our flight up to Cairns. From Cairns, we will drive a camper down all the way back to Sydney. It should a cool drive down the coast, trying to find different beaches all the way. We hope to get some surfing in and go and visit the great barrier reef. From there it will be a day to day thing, trying to find different cool things to see and do. We can't wait to see it all.

We had a great last few days in NZ with Lou and Jay. It was nice to spend some time with our friends and just relax a bit before we headed off to another country. We have really well treated by them and had great homecooked meals. It was amazing to be around them and the little man. He's such a good kid. We hope we are natural parents like Lou and Jay. Eden is a cute kid. He's going to be a lady killer.

Sydney is great. We love all the parks that are all around the city. It's a hugh city and all we really saw was the downtown area, the Opera house, the Zoo and the harbour but it was really nice. We jogged around the different parks and had a great time at the zoo looking at the different australian animals. The platypus, kangaroos and koalas were really cool animals, very different then at home.

It's been cool but I can't wait to be near a beach and work on the tan. I know you guys are steal dealing with the beginning of Spring. We are at the end of Summer and it's around 25 degrees outside. It's nice to be back in summer weather.

Later

Christian and Karina

Some more

2007-04-13T18:18:00.000-04:00

Hello everyone,

The first pic is of us in Kaikora on the east coast of the South Island. It was a lot of fun and we got to see some seals. It's a lot different then on a lake but it was really exciting.
This pic is of Mount Cook. It was awesome to be camping at it's base.
The third pic of us at Meullor's hut.
The fourth pic is when we were on the boat heading towards the Ship's Cove in the Queen Charlotte Trail. There was a big pod of bottlenose dolphins. They were playing in the wake of the boat, jumping up and down.It was an excellant experience.
The last pic is from the ridge of the Queen Charlotte Trail. The trail was like a roller coaster, up and down and we had a great view all the time. We did the walk really quickly and enjoyed it.
We hope to put a few more pics up in the next two days.

Later

Christian and Karina

More pics

2007-04-13T03:10:00.000-04:00

Hello again,

The first pic is of us on the Franz Joseph Glasier on the west coast of the south island.
This is a pic of the sunrise when we stayed in the hut in the Kepler track. It was beautiful.
This is the ridge of the Kepler Track that we did. It was awesome.
This is a pick that we took on the north island in the Corrimandel. The beaches are real nice.

This is a pick on the Abel Tasman of one of the many beaches that we were able to relax on while we had a leisurely walk on the track.

A pic for everyone

2007-04-13T02:59:00.000-04:00

Hello everyone,

Here is a pic for everyone. We were just finishing the Kepler track and had a great day. It was an wonderful day. We should get a few more pics up soon.

Christian and Karina

Last days.....

2007-04-11T18:35:00.000-04:00

Hello everyone,

We are on our last day on the South Island. The last three days, we hike and bike the Queen Charlotte Trail in the Marlborough Sounds. The biking was a lot of fun on the first day although our butts were a little sore. Then we blitz through the last two days. It was realy beautiful and we enjoyed the ocean and everything. Today, we take the ferry back to Wellington and hang around with Lou, Jay and little Eden for the last few days in NZ. It will be nice to hook up with them and look after the cute little baby. We should have time to put some pics up from NZ in the next few days.

Hope everyone is doing well,

Christian and Karina

SAVE BURMA

Last week on the South Island

2007-04-07T21:13:00.000-04:00

Hello everyone,

Karina and I are great. We have been enjoying ourselves since Christchurch. Christchurch was cool. We went our for Korean food with John on our last night together and had some Galbi and it brought back some great memories. Then, we got a lift up from Christchurch to Kaikoura from John and said good-bye to him for who knows how long. We hope to see him soon. He has some great adventures coming up in Kenya and the Middle East. We wish him the best of luck and can't wait to hook up with him some time soon.

In Kaikoura, we planned the last few days on the south island. We have a bout 5 days left here and 8 days in NZ. We also went kayak on the ocean and saw some fur seals. They were beautiful animals. We were about two meters from them, watching them swim around and lounge around in the sun. There favorite past time by the way. It was cool to be in the ocean in a kayak although we weren't used to all the waves. It's not the same as on a lake.We walk around the small small city and saw some of the first whaling buildings. We enjoyed ourselves.

We are now on the last leg of our trip. We take the train up from Kaikoura to Picton. The train was fun and different. It beats the bus cause you walk around a little. The scenery was amazing along the east coast and now we are going to visit the Marlborough sounds for a few days. We are going to walk and bike the Queen Charlottes trail. This will be cool because we are going to take a boat ride up to Ships Cove and then bike back 1 day and then walk back the rest. It will be easier then Abel Tasman because we won't have to carry our big bags the whole way. The boat company transfers our bags to our next camping site. Then we leave for Wellington on the 12 and spend a few days with Lou and Jay. Then off to Ausltalia.

I hope everyone is enjoying the Easter holidays. It's a little tough on us because we miss our family and friends and would like to be with you all but we know you would rather be in our position.

Happy Easter everyone,

Karina and Christian

Mt Cook and Meuller's Hut

2007-04-02T01:26:00.000-04:00

Hello everyone,

After relaxing from our trip on the Kepler Track, we visited the south of of the island. Then we went to Dunedin to visit John's old stomping ground. We went out and had a blast.

Today, we went to visit Mont Cook and walk up to the Meullor Hut. It was amazing. The climb was a little hard but we had a beautiful day and could see the ice falls around the glaciers. They were amazing. Then we climb to the nearest mountain and had a great view of the surrounding areas. It was amazing.

Tommorow, we are off to Christchurch and will say good-bye to John. We will have a great time. Then we have a week by ourselves on the south island. We hope to see some daulphins and go kayaking. We may some mountain biking in the Marlborough Sounds. It depends on the weather and what we feel like doing. We are having a great time and appriciating our time here.

Later

Christian and Karina

Yes we are still alive

2007-03-29T02:05:00.000-04:00

Hello everyone,

We have been busy traveling around the North and South Islands. It has been beautiful and a lot of fun. We are very relaxed although we have been doing a lot of tramping. We have been on the Kepler, the Terurua Southern Crossing, some of the Heaphy and the Abel Tasman tracks. They have been amazing and have produced many beautiful pics but at the moment we can't put them on the site.

We are now on the south island and will be here for another 2 weeks. Then we have 5 days in Wellington with some friend and then off to Australia. We can't wait because we have rented a camper fun and will be travelling the East coast from beach to beach. We have been spoiled here in NZ with great weather and hopsitality. The people are friendly and we are having a great time woth John visiting the island. The tramps(hikes) are stunning. They remind me a lot of BC and some places in Ontario with the amazing forest. We are doing well and enjoing this once of lifetime trip.

It's has been GREAT. After Aus, we head to Fiji for a few more beaches then back home to the real world. Hope everyone is doing OK.

Later

Karina and Christian

KIA ORA!!!

2007-02-26T18:22:00.000-05:00

We've arrived in New Zealand! We are in Wellington staying with one of our friends here. Its such a luxury to have a homebase again! We've been able to relax and really enjoy Wellington. We caught the end of the summer here, along with the Fringe festival and the Cuba Street Carnival! People here are really friendly and we've had a lot of fun just walking around and exploring here. Our buddy John is also a huge tramper (Kiwi lingo for hiker) so he's taken us on a few great hikes. We are acytually heading out today to do 2 day hikes up near Tongariro and Taranaki. I promise we'll put up pics of our hikes and stories once we get back. Hope everyone is excellent! Miss you all! Karina and Christian

More pics and Koh Toa

2007-02-05T23:40:00.000-05:00

Hello everyone,
Here are a few picks of the last two weeks. We are now in Koh Toa (Turtle Island) enjoing the beach life and getting a nice tan. It's a lot of fun. Life travels at a slow pace but we are enjoying the rest before we head off to New Zealand. Here are a few more pics.
Us and some the students at the refugee camp. The student's ages range from 18 to 28. They are young adultes just looking to get out and have a real life. I wish them all the best of luck.
The sunset at the camp. It was really beautiful and quiet place.
This is the 2 couples going out for a special dinner before our night in the camp.

This is the beach we are staying at. The place is called New Heaven huts and is very secluded. There is only one way in on a dirty bumby road. We like that it is quiet and peaceful except for the longtail boats. Our hut is on the top of cliffs overlooking the beach. Everyday, we get our exercise by running into town. We are really enjoying our relaxing time here.
Karina at the beach.
This is a pic of the refugee camp. The bamboo huts rise up the valley slopes. The camp has many stores , restaurants and stores since the camp has existed for over 20 years. They have more then 10 schools.

Up to the Keran Refugee Camp

2007-01-30T21:27:00.000-05:00

Hello everyone,

We have a beautiful weekend in Mae Sot again. We met up with John and Nisha on Thursday and enjoyed the weekend together. Friday, we rented bicycles and rode around the small city of Mae Sot and explored. It was fun and we were able to see the border down.

We also had to do some work for our day in the Umpium Mai Refugee Camp. The people in the camp are mainly Karen refugees. This camp is about 2 hours south of Mae Sot and 4 km away from the Burmese border. The camp was established in the late eighties after the military dictatorship squashed a student revolution in 1987. Since that time many ethnic minorities have been forced to flee Burma due to the hardships they have endured under the dictatorship. The army takes what it wants when it wants and our fighting many of the ethnic minorities to control them. Many of the ethnic groups want to create there own state but the Bermese Dictatorship won't let them. The camp itself has a population has a population of 20,000 people. The people live in huts up this valley. It is indescribable. The people are not allowed to leave the camp. The camp is not any worse then some of the cities we have seen in Vietnam and Cambodia although all the house our temperary wooden huts.

Nisha works in this camp, teaching 16 bright young adults English. The kids are brilliant and camp from different place to improve their English and get a better life. We were invited to teach a small workshop on fitness for them. It was a lot of fun and they seemed to enjoy it. We taught them some easy plyometrics that I learned a while back. We went up on the Monday and taught the workshop and then Karina and Nisha made an Indian curry for us and the students. We ate with them and then were lucky enough to be treated to a small talent show. They were amazing.

That night, we slept in the camp in elevated huts. The moon was out and we didn't even need flashlights to get around. It was a beautiful place for us although after being there for so many years with little hope of getting out. I would think I would be in a prison. The next day, we walked around the camp with the students are were able to talk to them about their lives and their goals. It was hard but these students are full of life and they also had many questions for us. It was an amazing experience. We hope that that one day soon they can all go back home and use what they have learned in camp to help their families and friends. All the students live in dorms in the camp and thus are away from their families.

We said good-bye to Nisha and left on Tuesday around lunch time to go back to Mae Sot. The students have basic needs but they don't always have what the need. If anyone can help, we can give you Nisha's info and we could send them some stuff. The kids are great musicians and need some guitars strings.

On the way back to Mae Sot, we kept reminding ourselves how lucky we are to be able to travel, to even leave our cities and mostly that we don't live a country torn apart by war. We hope that Nisha's students will be able to leave the camp and have a more independant life. We know they will suceed. It was also Johns last day in the Camp and thus he travelled back with us to Mae Sot.

Last night, we took a bus down to Bangkok. Today, we hope to go South to Ko Tao island and relax a bit till we go to Kiwi land. We can't wait to meet up with John and some of the old crew from Jeju.

We'll keep in touch on the island if possible. If not, we will be but in Bangkok around the 11th.

Later,

Christian and Karina

PS We hope to post some pics up during the next week.

Chiang Mai

2007-01-26T05:10:00.000-05:00

Hello everyone,

We have just come back from the North of Thailand. We went to Chiang Mai after spending the weekend with our friends in Mae Sot. John and Nisha gave us a place to stay and we had a great weekend with them. We even went to the Burmese border and saw all the people swimming in the river that separates Myanmar from Thailand. We talked a lot about the last few months and all that we have experienced. It was very interesting

On Monday, we took another bus ride to get to Chiang Mai. We had a great time there and visited the old city which is full of tourists. We went to a market and even rented a motorbike for the last day. It was a fun adventure to drive on the opposite side of the road (England Style). We drove around a National Park and went to see an elephant park. The elephant park was interesting but we really didn't like it too much because it really just a big tourists trap and we didn't feel the elephants were treated well. They were chained up all the time and had to preform in a show. It was a little disappointing but it was cool to see these huge animals up close. We even saw some babies. We did some hiking that day too. We drove to the top of this mountain and then climbed the last two kms. Our little 125cc bike had a hard time on the hills but we made it up. It was long day but we really enjoyed it.

Chiang Mai was cool because you could find any food you wanted. We even found hummus something that we have been craving since we left Ottawa. We are know back in Chiang Mai for one more weekend and then we head to the island in the South of Thailand. Don't worry we are not going to anywhere where there is fighting. We are probably going to spend a week in Ko Tao or Ko Pha Ngan and then make it back to Bangkok for our flight to New Zealand. Bangkok is safe at the moment. Nothing has happened there since New Years.

To all my family and friends in Canada, we hope it's not too cold. We have been lucky and have had good weather for a while. It's been between 25 to 30 in Thailand. It's awesome but sometimes I do wish I good get out and play some hockey at the rink. Actually, I am really enjoying this weather.

Wish you were all here,

Christian and Karina

Thailand

2007-01-20T03:46:00.000-05:00

Hello everyone,

We are now in Thailand. We have made our way to Mae Sot to meet our friends John and Nisha. We got around in a 4:30 in the morning on Friday and visited the city and reminised about old times. It's great. We are going to visit the area and go up to Chang Mai during the week. The trip to Mae Sot was much better then the rest of our bus trips.

Bangkok was big and really different then the rest of our trip. We are well and will give you some more pics and stories real soon.

Later

Christian and Karina

More pics

2007-01-16T06:27:00.000-05:00

A pic of last night saying good bye to our travelling buddies. We are having a great time and we will miss them both.
The face of the king. It must have taken years to complete these temples with all the details. It's really incredible.
Happy together!!!!!!! We are enjoying this trip alot.
As you can see, we didn't get the new bikes. This is from our second day in the temples. We rode our bikes all day to get to the different temples. It was a lot of fun although the bikes are always to small for me in Asia. The temples are hugh and a few kms away from each other. It was a lot of fun and good execise for the day.
Karina being silly in one of the temples.

And finally a pic of the ring.

A few Pics

2007-01-16T05:49:00.000-05:00

This is a pic of the heads in the Bayon temple in Angkor Thom. In this place, you see the face on all the towers. It's really cool but I think the king was a little narcisitic.
This is us with our friend Julien. We have had a great time with him and Stephan and can't wait to meet up with him in the future. This pic was taken at a smaller temple so there are a lot less people.
A pic of Angkor Wat with the hoards of visitors. It is really busy at the main temples but when we went to some of the smaller ones, there where a lot less people. The buildings are impressive now. I can't imagine how they must of been during the peak of the Khmer Empire.
The sunset on the beach in Mui Ne, Vietnam.
THE beach in Mui Ne where Karina said yes.
This is the second day on the Mekong River on a boat.

Finally a Pic

2007-01-16T05:30:00.000-05:00

Hello everyone,

Here is a pic of us on the beach in Mui Ne. We are good and enjoying ourselves in Cambodia. We are now in Ankgor Wat and are enjoying the temples. Tomorrow we are off to Bangkok. We met up with our friend from New Years and have been visiting with them. Julien and Stephan are two great guys arnd we have enjoyed meeting up with them one last time before we go our seperate ways.

Tomorrow, we have a long bus ride to Bangkok. We hope that it's a smooth ride but as usual something will happen.

Later

Christian and Karina

Cambodia

2007-01-11T01:14:00.000-05:00

Hello everyone,

We are in Cambodia. The trip up the Mekong Delta was very interesting but touristy (too many stops at factories) but it's expected on a tour but we did go on a lot of boats. Some highlights were eating pineapple in the floating market and the sunbathing on the top of the boat from the border to Phnom Phen. We have been here for two days and have visited some of the sites. We will be leaving tomorrow. The city has many travellers and is safe. We have another bus ride to Siem Reap and we hope to visit Angkor Wat for a few days. It should be fun. We are meeting up with the same trouble makers that we enjoyed New Years with. Then off to Thailand.

We are good and will give you some more news and pics soon. We hope to put up a picture or two real soon. Phnom Phen is beautiful and we have blues skies and hot days. It's nice being in shorts in January. (Not to brag!!!)

Hope everything is going well at home and that you are all in good health.

Talk to you all soon,

Christian and Karina

We're getting married!!!

2007-01-06T04:11:00.000-05:00

SURPRISE!!!

Though most of you know we figured we'd put it up here too!!!

It was January 3rd, a quiet morning in Mui Ne Beach on the East coast of Vietnam. The weather was hot, humid and overcast. (Sounds like a mystery novel...too bad I gave away the ending!)

We had a great breakfast of strong Vietnamese coffee with condense milk and fresh fruit...local bananas, pears, pineapple, mangoes, dragon fruit... while overlooking the beach from our hammocks. It was definitely a good start to the day!

We rented a motorbike and drove along the coast, out of the tourist area, past the fishing village, through the sand dunes, arriving at a long stretch of beach. We pulled out our beach blanket/Korean air blanket care of our buddy John, and settled down on the beach, all alone.

I got up to look at the thousands of shells that had washed up with the tide. A few minutes later, Christian came up behind me and asked "What are you looking for?" In front of me he stretched out his hands in which he had a navy ring box. Surprised, happy, ecstatic...all these feelings were bouncing around in me. I couldn't stop laughing, crying and smiling! Inside the box was another small round box, a ring box that Christian had bought way back in Seoul. The ring box itself is beautiful, like a lacquered jewelry box with all different colors...I can't really describe it. Anyways, inside the box I found the most beautiful ring. It's not a big ring, but it's really beautiful and reminds me of my moms wedding band. We had talked about rings before and I hadn't wanted a big ring, I wanted something I could wear everyday, especially during our travels. I didn't want too much bling while traveling through Cambodia or Thailand. The ring is so nice and it fits perfectly too! Pics will come soon!

Through muffled laughter and tears I said YES, of course! We had been talking about marriage for a while, but the proposal was a surprise and so fantastic. We walked the beach and went swimming, and stayed in each others arms for the next few hours just enjoying our special moment together! That night we watched a stunning sunset together. It was really a perfectly romantic day!!!

We haven't decided on a date, or even a season yet. BUT we do know that it will be in CANADA, so don't worry, no secret weddings in Asia!

Once we arrive back in Canada in 5 months time then we'll start planning and preparing!

We wish we could have shared this with all of you, but we are glad to share our fabulous news with you all!

We send our love from Vietnam!

Karina and Christian

Saigon

2007-01-06T04:00:00.000-05:00

Hello everyone,

I hope you are all doing well and that you are all healthy. We are now in Saigon. It's a big city so we are only staying here for two days before we go to the Mekong Delta. We stayed in Mui Ne for an extra 2 days and enjoyed all of it. We had a great time on the beaches and enjoyed every minute of the quiet city.

Saigon is another big city like any other and we have walked around it and enjoyed the different types of food and the night life. Today, we went to the Cu CHi Tunnels and they were a lot of fun. We visited where they Viet Com lived during the Vietnam war. The tunnels were so small even after being enlarged for tourists. The tunnels remind me of an ant colony. The guerrillas lived, slept and fought in these tunnels. They are not straight and very dark. We were only able to crawl around 90 meters of the 250kms of tunnels. The work that went into the tunnel was crazy.

Tomorrow, we are off towards Cambodia up the Mekong Delta. We should be there for around 8 days. We will spent the most of our time in Angkor Wat.

Talk to you soon,

Christian and Karina

New Years in Mui Ne

2007-01-01T23:02:00.000-05:00

Hello everyone,

We are having a good time here in Mui Ne. It is a long beach with a lot of resorts but we our staying in this budget hotel for 8$ a night and having a great time. The place is clean and on the beach. We can't ask for anything more.

We arrived in Mui Ne on the 28th of December and met up with some friends we met in Sapa. We had a great time with Julien and Stefan. Julien is from France and Stefan is from Switzerland. They are two great guys that always had something to say and loved to have fun. We cruised around town with them, going to the sand dunes and other things. We have been soaking up the rays and enjoying the beach. We ate, drank and visited the beach for four days and did not sleep much. It was awesome

For New Years, the four of us went to eat some seafood on the main strip and enjoyed some drinks and the food. It was cool because we brought our own drinks with us and didn't have to buy any at the restaurant. Then, we went to a cool bar on the beach called Wax. The party was pumping. We listen to music and dances it up all night on the beach. There was even a fire on the beach. It was a really different New Years then at home. We missed being around our friends and family for the New Year but it was special to be able to spent it on the beach in shorts and even going for a swim.

To all those that gather at the Proulx household, we missed celebrating the New Year with you. Can't wait to do it next year. For everyone else, we hope to be celebrating our return to Canada when we get home. To the families, we misse you and can't wait to be with you again.

We had a great time in 2006 and had a lot of fun remembering it all in the past few days. We hope to have another year like the last.

As for the rest of our travels, we will be staying in Mui Ne for a few more days. We are enjoying the pace of life and the beach. We will go to Ho Chi Min City on Thursday and then up the Mekong into Cambodia. We hope to be in Ankor Wat by the 8 or 9th of January. We are going to Thailand around the 15th but want to make sure things are settling down there before we get there.

We wish everyone a great year. We are enjoyig ourselves.

Talk to you all soon,

Christian and Karina

PS We hope to put some pics up soon if we can get a god CPU.

2007-01-01T00:38:00.000-05:00

Hello family and friends,

How are you? We are now in Mui Ne, 5 hours south of Nha Trang. We are staying a hotel on the beach and enjoying ourselves. We will be staying here until after New Years. We will be taking it slowly up to Thailand because we can only get a 1 month Visa for Thailand and we leave the 14th of February. Life is good. We are working on our tan and meeting some good people. We hope to get some surfing in and thats it. We are off the Ho Chi Min City after and then up the Mekong River to Cambodia. It should be a lot of fun. We are good and relaxing. Life is good.
We have some long bus rides. On our bus ried between Hanoi and Hoi An, we got stop by the cops and I was told by the Vietnamese that it was extortion and that they would not let the bus move until they paid up. We stayed on the bus and watched until everything worked out. It was a long night because the buses are real hard to sleep on and they are made for people that are no more then 5'8" tall. The good thing is that it's really cheap. We usually are brain dead the next days but we just take it easy and go to the beach.

In Hoi An, we had a good X-mas and went shopping for ourselves. We bought a few things and sent them home. We had a quiet X-mas dinner in our room with room service, wine, chocolat and pastries. It was nice. The next day, we left for Nha Trang.

In Nha Trang, we were brain dead from another 12 hour night bus trip so went to find a hotel but then went straight to the beach. We were on the beach for a few hours and burned to a crisp. The sad part about the beach is that it's in the city and you have people trying to sell you things every 5 minutes. The great part is the beach is super long and wide. It was real nice. I spend most of the time body surfing in the waves. It was fun. We only stayed in Nha Trang for a day because we wanted to be staying on the beach.

In Mui Ne, it took us a while to find a place but it's cheap and clean. We also met up with a friend we met on our trip to Sapa. We are staying at the same hotel and will spend New Years together on the beach somewhere. Mui Ne is probably the kite surfing capital of the world. There are about 100 people kite surfing everywhere. We are going to take it easy here before going to the big city.

Talk to you soon,
Happy New Years,
Love
Christian and Karina

Sapa, Halong Bay and Others

2007-01-01T00:22:00.000-05:00

GOOD MORNING VIETNAM!!!

We are now near the center of Vietnam in a small town called Hoi An. This town is famous for its old French town and endless tailors and shoe makers!

We arrived here on the 22 of December and have spent our time just roaming and exploring.

But before I go into detail about our CRAZY Vietnam adventures we just want to say MERRY CHRISTMAS and HAPPY NEW YEARS!!! We are far from friends and family this year, and you are all in our thoughts! We will spent this Christmas nor in snow in Canada, nor on the beach in Jeju, but we will be thinking of all of you during these festive times! We miss you all, especially during the holiday time, but we are enjoying our travels together...so many adventures! We hope everyone has the most wonderful holidays with friends and family!

Now if you have the time to read some more about our adventures, and if you want a little laugh, please keep reading. If not, save the rest of this message for a lazy holiday morning while sitting infront of the Christmas tree. Lots of love! Karina and Christian

Ok, now where do I even begin?

Our travels through China was full of experiences- learning how to make yourself understood through sign language, trying to organize traval plans on buses (urgg) and trains (ohhhhh), adjusting to the bitter cold (I'm such a wimpy Canadian!), avoiding buses, cars, taxis, BIKES galore, and hiking the Great Wall!

And Vietnam has been just as eventful! Hanoi was busy and loud and bustling...no matter what time of the day. We woke up every morning at 5am to the constant honking of horns. Serioulsy, they honk ALL THE TIME to let everyone know I"M COMING THROUH!!! So driving into oncoming traffic is a daily occasion. I try not to look out the front window when in a bus now, I think it'll give me a heart attack! Most of the roads here are pretty narrow, so two buses on a road is a tight squeeze!

Anyways, from Hanoi we took a trip to Sapa in the Norhtern hills. Our tour started with an overnight ride. Now we have traveled in trains before, but this was live heaven! With our tour we got first class...I felt so pampered! really I was just excited that our cabin had only 2 bunks, and a nice lamp for ambience!!! Such simple things! Christian and I celebrated by having a glass of wine and some cheese. Sounds classy! However, you would all love our wine glasses...genuine fine plastic made from a sawed in half water bottle! Primo!!! Considering the bumpy ride, we slept ok.

We arrived in Sapa, the not-so traditional town to find ourselves surrounded by mist, and a whole ton on hotels, restaurants, and tourist shops! Not exactly hill-tribe, but that development for you! Everyone is trying to make money on tourism, so many ethnic people travel from their villages to sell their crafts in Sapa to the tourists. They can make more money doing that than farming their land. Tourism will bring money into the area, but will also destroy everything. I found it difficult to see. They used to be completely self-sufficient, but with the money they make they are buying modern clothes, tv's with satelite, motorcycles.. there is a real change. It was definitely interesting. The first day we visited Cat Cat village, a 10 minute walk from Sapa. They live on the hillside, surrounded by rice paddies. Steps ran all the way down the hill. Along the way we saw families soaking their tissues in wooden barrels of water and indigo plants to dye their hemp material. The women of this tribe, the Black Hmong, have blue hands because of the dye they use. Even the young girls had blue hands. We were all bundled up in warm clothing because it was cool and damp, but the children were running around with only a sweather and silver necklace to protect them. The necklace is given to them by a Shaman and it will protect them from disease and harm. So with their bamboo sticks in hand, their little sibing attached to their backs, the children just ran around and had fun. It was great to see that in each village primary and middle schools had been established by the government. Many of the younger kids went to school, but by the time they are 8 or 9 many will already have responsabilities, such as taking care of the water buffaloes or caring for the little kids. It was a whole different reality.

In our group there were 5 of us, all in our 20's from Holland and Switzerland. We all traveled the same way and got along really well. WE shared a couples of bottles of crap Vietnamese wine the first night and discused some heavy issues such as the effects of tourism on traditional communities and global warming. It was great!

With this tour we were able to do a homestay in a locla village called BanHo. We trekked for 8 hours along dirt roads, muddy paths following the rice paddies, through bamboo forests and dense brish, over rivers and waterfalls, and over grassy mountains. We really enjoyed just walking and seeing the countryside. From the top of the mountains we could see the plateaus of rice paddies glistening with the remaining water. The rice had alerady been cut, so all that remained were the stocks of rice and loads of mud. Were were lucky that for the trek the weather was stunning! Blue skies and sunny. The hike would have been REALLY slippery with all that mud, and I sure we would have all bailed into the rice paddies!

We arrived in BanHo and arrived at our homestay...we realized it wasn't a "stay and meet the family" but more like just a night in a village. But the house was really interesting with bamboo flooring that creaked with everystep. We ate with the mom and dad of the family, and triewd to communicate through our guide. our guide was a spunky 19year old Black Hmong girl named Yam who had lived in Sapa for the last 4 years. Most of the younger village people want to live in bigger cities...living traditionally isn't 'cool'. Our guide told us all her fun adventures of drinking and partying, of meeting foreigner, her Mexican boyfriend...Not so traditional, but that is how life changes.

Anwyays, at our home stay their were two groups, so at night after a fab homecooked meal we sat around and played drinking games initiated by the 2 guides! Out came the homebrewed rice wine (ewwwww), the shot glasses, a deck of cards...all you need for a funny evening! We played some really hilarious games, and just the interaction was fabulous! The best was watching the other guide, a 17year old girl called Mao, with a waterbuffabo horn on her forehead, play these games! She was crazy and loved to hit you for no reason! Anywas, traditional medicine says that a heated horn placed on the forehead will 'suck out your headache'. So pretty much she suctioned a horn onto her forehead...she looked like a rhino! It was awesome!

Sapa was really interesting as we were able to see life outside of the larger, more tourist areas, but we realized that their lives are changing quickly as well, and that traditional life is intertwined with modern living.

Anyways, our train ride back to Hanoi was hilarious. We managed to shift our tickets so that our group had one whole cabin to itself. We met a fun South African who joined us, and we partied on the train most of the night! Out came the water bottle wine glasses and a some better Vietnamese wine!

Ok, so this novel of mine is quite long, and I haven't even gotten to the part about almost missing our bus to Hoi An, scooting to the bus on motorcyles with full backpacks (so much fun, but a tad off balaced!!) or being stopped by the police on our bus ride...talk about heart attack!!!

So this is just the beginning! BUT we are happy, healthy, and safe! We plan on relaxing for a bit...my nerves were a bit shot by the whole police bit! We have a fantastic room here with a balcony and a huge bed, and tonight we will probably meet up with a friend from Sapa and have some Christmas drinks. We will head down to Mui Ne, a beach town, on the 26th on another night bus, and then relax some more!

The sun is popping out from behind the clouds, we are going to take some bikes to the beach now. More to come from Vietnam. We love you all! Karina and Christian

Hot in Hanoi

2006-12-15T10:18:00.001-05:00

Hello everyone! We are happy to announce that we are warm!

Yesterday and today were travel days as we made our way down from Yungshuo, China to Hanoi, Vietnam. It took us a few trains and a few buses, a little trek across the border, and we made it! The bus through the south of China into Vietnam was neautiful! The blue skies came out yesterday and have followed us into Hanoi! Our bus took us through dense crowds of motorcycles and scooters to finally land us somewhere near the old quarter of Hanoi. We arrive in the early afternoon, so we were able to find a cheap, but nice hotel, strip off the layers, and put on our flipflops!!! This is exciting!

We have been walking around the old part of the city and really enjoying it! There is a buzz in the air, and there are people, lights, sounds, smells everywhere! A particularly momentus event was our first street crossing...mom you were right, just walk right out into the sea of oncoming traffic, nice and steady, and they swerve around and manage to miss you!

We are going to take a few trips from here, first to the norhtern region of Sapa to do 4 days of trekking and exploring with the indigenous people, then to Halong Bay to see the towers karts mountains jutting out of the water. We are hoping to be in Hue or Hoi An for Christmas. It won't be the same as at home...sniff sniff!!! But we will celebrate with cold beverages on a beach!

We are happy, healthy and warm! The fist two weeks in China were an eye opener and a great experience. We're really excited about Vietnam! We'll keep you all posted! Lots of love, Karina and Christian.

Pics of the South of China

2006-12-12T05:58:00.000-05:00

Hello everyone,

We are doing great. We had a good 4 days in Yangshou and know we are making our way down to Vietnam. We will cross tommorrow and we hope to make it a simple journey. In Yangshou, we walk around the city and it was nice. There are these hugh mounds popping up everywhere and they are beautiful. We had a bunch of good cheap food and walked around a lot.

We also went for a bike ride in the rice fields and it was very quiet and relaxing. The place is geared for tourists but it was nice to get out into the country side and see the farmers at work.
We also the chance to see the bamboo rafts travelling down the river although it was a little too cold for us. It would have been a little nicer if the weather was a little warmer but the scenery was beautiful.

We are off to warmer places, we hope.

Later

Christian and Karina

Somewhere in China

2006-12-09T02:55:00.000-05:00

We are now at a train station in the middle of somewhere in China waiting for a 7pm sleeper train to Guilin in the south. We have had some...um...intersting times. Def an experience!

Beijing was great because it was clean(er) and people spoke a tad of English. We took a 18 hour trian to Changsha. It was supposed to be 15hrs, but whatever! We arrived in the crowded Beijing station and were overwhelmed. And then we got on the train...love the 3 layer high bunk sleepers! We lucked out and got the bottom sleepers. But it was hilarious. WE got comfy and it was no prob. People looked at us as we ate our cheese and crackers...they were probably saying "where are your instant noodles?" which is what everyone had there.

We then headed to the town where Mao Zedong lived. It was a whole in the ground - smelly and poluted, BUT a small Chinese town. The bus there was crap. We were cramped into a winstar size thing, AND we hit a dog. I was mortified. They just yelled something out the window, stopped the van for a minute and then kept going. I was not impressed. So the bus ride was an experience and so was the village. It was tiny. Last night we had a slightly bigger than single bed with a room with no heat and no hot water. I was freezing, and we know its cold when Christian is cold too! But thats life down here, people don't have hot water at home or heating. We just went to a noodle restaurant and in the back the workers were washing themselves because at home they have no hot water. I realize the luxuries we have at home.

But we are heading to the south and we can't wait to relax and have some warmer weather. We are happy and enjoying having each others company. It's been wonderful doing this together, even if its only been a week and some. We can't wait for the next couple of months!

I hope you are all well. Thank you for your well wishes. We love hearing from you! We miss you all. We'll be in touch soon! Love from China.

Pics of China

2006-12-06T06:43:00.000-05:00

Hello everyone,

We are travelling around the city and enjoying ourselves. We went to the Summer Palace yesterday and it was really picturesque. It would of been a beautiful place to escape the Summer heat. Today, we walked around the city. There is construction everywhere. It is unbelievable. They are getting ready for the summer Olympics. Here are a few pics from our travels. The first one is of the man-made lake at the summer palace. It is a cool place.
This is a pic of a door at the Lama temple. We have been visting some nice places at sunset so we are getting some nice pics.
As you can tell this is us on the Great Wall. It was an amazing walk, we had a great day.
A close up. The wall is so hugh.
This is Tianemen Squarwe at night. Not the best pic.

The Great Wall at Samaitai. It is a long walk to the top.
This is one of the buildings at the summer palace.
They say the wall ressembles a dragon because the wall climbs up and down the hills.
A pic of the Summer Palace Buddist Temples. The strucutre was grean and gold. A really beautiful contrast.

The summer palace has a pear shaped lake and the hill ressembles a bat. The builidings climb up the man made hill. It's a cool place.

Tommorrow, we are going to the South to where Comorade Mao was born. We are taking a 16 hour night train and arrive at 6Am. We hope it's a little warmer in the South. Then of to Guilin then maybe a Chinese beach and then Thailand.

Everything...and The Great Wall of China

2006-12-04T07:33:00.000-05:00

Hello everyone!
Christian and I have arrived in Beijing and we have taken in so many sights just in the past few days! We arrived the 1st and took a bus through heavy traffic of buses, cars and bikes to make our way to downtown Beijing. It is HUGE!!! Compared to little ol' Jeju I'm feeling so lost!!! And the language...I was so happy knowing a bit of Korean and being able to read it and get around...here it is back to square one. Though we still use our Korean vocab of ney, aino, Kam samnida and anyoung, people just look at us funny! So we now know the basics in Chinese - nee how (hi), sure (yes) boo sure (no) shey-shey (thanks), and thats it!

We found a great hostel that looks out over a busy main road...like all big roads here! We went to Tiananmen square and the forbidden city the first day. The weather was freezing, a shock from Jeju where we said our last goodbyes on the beach...ahhhh we miss those days already! Anyways, I'm bundled up in longjohns, thick ski socks, 3 sweaters (no joke), scarf, tuque, mitts and jacket. Absolutely bundled!!! I can't wait till sandals!!! Anyways, both the sights were really vast. The square was huge, with Gen. Mao mausoleum in the middle. There was also a long snaking line-up...we vettoed that little trip. From the norht end of the square we looked upon the Forbidden City. Still the unforgettable picture of Tao right above the entrance way. I had already lost feeling in my fingers and my nose was red, so I was a tad jaded, but the inside was also huge. Nothing here seems small. There were red and gold buildings lining the city. It was so vast, and it almost had a lonely and cold feeling. Very serious. But with a bright blue sky we loooked onto the golden rooves and tried to image how live was WAY back when...an impossible thought! My favorite place at the back was the garden, where the emperor would keep his concubins...sneeky emperor! It was beautiful with large stones that looked like coral, and mounds of volcanic rocks that created a holey mountain. Between the rocks were trees whithered and twisted by time. Definitely the garden was my fav place in the city.

We ventured later to a pack with a look out over the entire forbidden city. Though most of the main structures in the city are under construction ( as is most of beijing for the 2008 olympics) it was wonderful to see the grandeur and the glowing rooves among the high rises and neon lights!

For our second day we explored the silk street market. One word. CHAOS! So many venders, so many people, so much haggling! We really just couldn't deal! We got a few things like sunglasses and a much desired France soccer jersey, and I'm proud to say I finagled and weasled my way to good prices (I hope!) But really it was stressful, with too many people yelling "HEY lady, Hey MAN! Where you from? Canada? Ohhh, Canada most beautiful!" (Then we would start talking French) and they would say "Ohh no Franch more beautiful...JOLIE!" Madness. Another experience. We then dined on loads of food for about 8 bucks...I'm still trying to figure out the money. I'm converting from dollars to won to yuan...I'm so CONFUSED!!!

We then visited the Lama temple. Insense was burned by the fist full as people were offering to Buddha on Sunday. There was also the largest Budah statue 18m tall out of one peice of white sandal wood that was imported all the way from Nepal ( we snuck into a French tour and caught all this info...we are so sneaky!) Very serene and smokey, but relaxing compared to the hussle bussle of the city.

However, today was the best! With an early morning we hoped onto a tour bus and weaved up to the Great Wall.And what a great wall it is! Christian kept on sighing it was so amazing! A huge feat of engineering and a beautiful scene. We walked 10 km from Jinshanling to Simatai. We covered 2 sections of the wall, walking up and down the wall, through the watch towers, surrounded by breathtaking views or rolling mountians layered one upon the other in the distance. It was a stunning day of blue skies and we enjoyed the weather. Still bundled, but taking in fresh(er) air and clean surroundings. We were met every tower by locals trying to sell hot coco, coke, water, post cards, books... Just trying to make a buck in such a gigantic country. We wanded the wall and really enjoyed it! I would go back right now! We took so many pictures, it was incredible to see theis huge wall span as far as the eye could see, following the mountain ridge forever.Christian, along with a French man named Benoit who has biked from France and his visiting father, tried to figure out how it was built. Def a fab thing for Christian to see, since he loves architecture amd structures. We had lunch atop the Great Wall of China. What a wonderful life!

We still have many things to do here, throughout China, and this side of the world. Promise to keep you all posted! We miss you all and wish we could share this experience with you. We'll be back home June 207 so be ready to see a KABILLION photos!

All our love, Karina and Christian

It's cold

2006-12-02T18:37:00.000-05:00

Hello everyone,
We are having a good time even if it is really cold. It feels like a cold January month in Ottawa. It's around 0 but there is a strong wind that makes a lot chillier. We landed in Beijing on Friday. We found a nice place to stay and went to eat. We had some noodles and beef. It was good and real cheap. We both ate for around 4$.
Saturday, we were off to see the Forbidden City and Tianmen Square. The size of these two sites is amazing. The square was packed with people and we walk by Chariman's Mao Moseleum but I don't think we will go see him. The gates around the city are enormous. The building of these amazing walls is incredible. The man power that the Chinese must of used to build these wall everywhere 400 years ago must have been enormous. They are 100 meters high. We then went to the Forbidden City.
The Forbidden City must be at least 50 football fields in size. It was a Saturday so there were a lot of people. It was really interesting to see the different rooms and the history that goes with it. It must have been cool to be the emperor and have this hugh complexe to yourself plus your family although you wouldn't leave it. It had a hugh garden in the back. There is aslo this hugh moat around the City. It was really cool to see this place. We froze ourselves but it was worth it.

Today, we are off to the Silk market and hopefully to a Tibetan Temple. Beijing is pretty clean for the number of people. There is construction everywhere. The subway is really easy to use. I feel safe since we have only been in very touristic areas.

Tommorrow, we are going to hike a section of the Great Wall. We are going to walk between two points and have to walk across a suspension bridge. I can't wait. We are enjoying ourselves and having fun even if it is cold. We plan to go South a lot quicker to get back to real weather. I don't know how will do it when we get home, but it doesn't matter much since our next winter is in around a year.

I hope to keep you all updated every few days, talk to you soon.

Christian

The next part of the journey starts!

2006-11-30T05:24:00.000-05:00

Anyoung for the last time from Jeju island!

Our year as English teachers has come to an end, and we are off tomorrow on our 6 month adventure!

Jeju has become our home and we are sad to leave. We have made some really wonderful friends here, friends who we count on seeing in the future! We have also thoroughly enjoyed all that the island offered us...beautiful beaches, splendid mountains and oreums for hiking, coast roads to bike along, and wonderful Korean characters to get to know! Our school permitted us to really get to know our students, some classes were better than others, but I know Christian and I will miss some of the really special students! We had our fair share of work, but we always learned for it!

Today was our last full day here in Seogwipo. We managed to get so many things done. I had my last bowl of porridge ( thanks Judith!!!) and we set off to the sauna for one last steam! We are still feeling nice and mellow! Then after finishing all last minute details - packing, organizing, transfering and changing money, buying things for our last day at school aka party!!! - we had a fab lunch of sunduboo (spicy red peppers, soft tofu and mussel soup - it's really delicious!). We are heading into our last class now, the adults. We spent the day having ramen (instant noodle) parties, which was a real mess, but funny to see little kids slurp it back, cookie parties, or pizza parties!!! Now this isn't the norm, but since we are leaving may as well leave with a bang! We got some really nice cards and gifts from our students...I even got roses from a 4th grader!

One hour to go, then we head out with friends to grab some food and drinks! We hope to go to the beach one last time tomorrow am with Matt and Joy...see the sparkling ocean!

Ok the bell just rang...for the last time!!!!

We promise to keep you all posted from China and so on!
Love you all!!!

Mendos and diet Coke

2006-11-17T15:04:00.000-05:00

Check this out, its funny.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-274981837129821058&hl=en

The good, the bad and ugly

2006-11-07T04:55:00.000-05:00

Hard at work growing my hair. Over the last 11 months, I have been growing my hair and trying out different cuts on the beard. The hair has grown into a lush blond mullet. The facial hair gets trimmed every once in a while and I get to try new styles. I like the full beard but I don't think I will keep it travelling around Asia. It may give me a few more hassles then I need.
This beard cut is my favorite. I like the chin strap and I am thinking of doing again soon.
I have also tried different mustaches but they do not show off my best features.

Karina is not the greatest fan of my different cuts but she does like the beard. Now I won't have to shave ever again.
Yeah!!!!

We are starting our final preparations for our trip. It's coming so fast. We hope to put up a few picks before we leave.

It was amazing to have our parents here and we enjoyed having them here and showing them our little paradise. It's really beautiful and quiet here.

Later

Christian and Karina

Lou and Jay's good-bye party

2006-10-17T02:07:00.000-04:00

With our time in jeju speeding by, we have had to say good bye to some of our fantastic friends. Luana and Sanjay were esl vets before even arriving here on Jeju, and decided to make this place home for 3 years! To celebrate their send-off we pulled out the well used BBQ's, tents and fire making abilities! A wonderful night ensued and the fire was still burning the next morning! Certainly a fab night to remember! Anyoung Lu and Jay!

My Parents in Korea

2006-10-12T06:28:00.000-04:00

Finally!

2006-09-27T06:00:00.000-04:00

Hi everyone! Finally some pics!!!

This pic on the left is before we head out in Jeju. We are with John, Lu and Woody, our fav Kiwi friends!

The pic below is of a fab girls weekend I just had. We chatted, drank wine, applied green tea face masks and had a fun, fun time! Christian was in Seoul for a rubgy tournament so I fully enjoyed the girl time! Here I am with Lu, Melissa and Ang.

Here are Christian and I on our fun night out. Notice the full beard! He's so furry! I love it!

So here I am holding a very unhappy Emma, our friends new baby girl. She is about 2 months old. She has the most hair I've ever seen on such a tiny girl. I love this little girl, and after we leave Jeju I'll probably be that unknown aunt that she won't remember but who will send her cards and crochet her tuques!

More pics to come soon! Bisous. Karina

Some pics to come...

2006-09-25T03:01:00.000-04:00

Hi everyone! We've had some probs getting pics up, but Christian bought us a new camera while in Seoul so I'll put some ones up pronto! Chat soon. Anyoung!

A night out on the town

2006-09-18T06:04:00.000-04:00

Hello from the sleepy little island of Jeju! Well last weekend wasn't so sleepy for us. We made a tour to the big (big for the island!) city of Jeju, and we met up with a heap of friends to got out on the town. The guys here are preparing to go to Seoul for rugby tournament, so they got together to practise, and then there was a raffle with good ol' food from home! You should have seen the people fighting for the Twizzlers, Mac&Cheese, Reese PB cups and Lifestyles condoms! It was a sight! I did manage to get half a twizzlers which Christian snuck me...ummm!

As you can see Christian has become my fuzzy, lumberjack looking man! When ever he shaves his beard I always say I feel like I'm cheating on my bearded man!!! For those of you who know Christian, growing a beard is the ultimate sign of relaxation and rest. Sooo, we're not too stressed! At home it was more like grow some chin scrub for a week while on holidays, then go back to work all professional and clean shaven. Here, well, it's a tad different! Regular attire at work included flipflops, shorts, tank-top/t-shirt, and usually salty hair and skin from coming directly from the ocean!

We had probably mentioned that the summer quickly vanished about 2 weeks ago. That was thnaks to a little typhoon that showered us with gray skies and rain. I am happy to say that the blue skies are back! The ocean has chilled down just a bit, but it it BEAUTIFUL!!! We are lucky that both of our parents are coming soon. We can't wait to show them the summer life of Jeju! Remember we're still here for another 2 months if anyone wants to pop by! After that you can track us down somewhere in Asia!

I recounted my little haircutting experience to most of you, but I still haven't gotten any good pics. No worries, nothing dramatic, and certainly not the oh-so popular mullet. I was tempted by the mullet (for a second or so) but decided that even a rat-tail was cooler than that, and I wasn't going to chop it all off just to be cool! You'd be surprised by whole great some little 2nd and 3rd graders look with mullets! I'll get some pics of the kids up soon too!

It's off now for the last class of the day. I'm discussing environment issues with my adult class. I just love ruffling their feathers! I don't think they are used to talking about sensitive issues like the environment, politics, mandatory military service for men, divorce...it certainly gets them talking.

We are happy and we are healthy. We miss you all and we'll be home in a short 9 months!!! Until then!

August

2006-09-05T06:38:00.000-04:00

Anyoung! How is everyone? With the crazy summer months over, we are still keeping busy!

Life in Seogwipo this summer has FLOWN by! We have enjoyed our time, and we are both really happy. It feel slightly unreal that 9 months have already gone by! I feel like an old-pro in the classes, and I know almost all the students here! I love being so comfortable with this job. We come to school in casual wear, we prep for MAYBE 20 minutes, and we have fun in class. I have been lucky and have had some pretty advanced classes. We've done projects about Narnia, pollution, food and the 5 senses, traveling... and it's interesting for me and for the students! But I've also taught then how to play SPOONS, which is a classroom favorite, go Fish and Thumbs Up 7 Up! What a life!

Since we arrived here things have changed at the school. We have had teachers come and go, but the most fun for us (ok, for me) has been the arrival of little Emma Leman! Our friends from the US had a little baby girl about 5 weeks ago, and she is SOOO wonderful! I remember telling my friend Lara at home about this new little baby, and she rightfully warned me to keep hold of my motherly instincts! and she was right as usual! I just love this little baby. The first time we saw her she was only 2 days old, and since then she has gotten a lot bigger and more active. I was nervous to hold such a tiny baby, but now I've become the regularbabysitter! Last week while babysitting I learned how to make banana muffins with a baby on my hip while trying to bounce her to sleep. One hip on the bowl, one hand stirring! definitely a new adventure. But its great how things here are really baby-friendly, at leastit seems to be. I even changed a diaper on the balcony of our favorite bar/lounge while overlooking the ocean! Not to bad! But don't worry about me, I couldn't handle a baby now,I still want to travel and explore, and do so many things! It's just a whole new thing for us! And Christian is so cute with her!!!?

Ok, enough of the baby! We are looking forward to our 3 months left here, and then off we go on our 6 month adventure through 7 different countries!!! We have most of our flights booked, so thats exciting, but we are doing this trip pretty much spur of the moment. Exciting and scary!
But our time here in Seogwipo will be filled with many things, primarily the visits of both our our parents! I'm so thrilled to be able to share this place with them, there is just so much to see and do!

Anyways, we miss everyone at home, and we can't wait to see you all soon! Less than 1 year! Keep us posted with news from home and send us some pics! I would love to see pictures of all of you! We'll get some updated pics on the blog soon!

Love Karina and Christian

The Mainland

2006-08-18T00:56:00.000-04:00

Hello everyone,

Here are a few pics that we took on the mainland. It was amazing . The first three nights we wandered around looking at temples and trying to find camping spots. We camped on three different beaches during the first few days. We had rented a car which gave us the chance to visit the middle of the country. The peninsula is mostly valleys and mountains. The mountains rarely reach over 1500 meters but they are covered with many trees. The last two nights we stayed in Kyongju, on the east side of the peninsula, which was the capital city during the Shilla dynasty. The Shilla Kingdom united the korean peninsula and existed for the a thousand years. It crumbled around the end of the first millenium. Kyongju has many tombs and temples that have been rebuilt and the city is a walking museum. There are things everywhere. The city had a population of around 1 million people at one time. It was really nice. We stayed for two days in this guest house and biked around to all the different places.

This is a pic of the main entrance to one of the biggest temples in Kyongju.
This is a pic of a temple we went to on our second day on the mainland. It was fantastic and the location couldn't have been more remote...a nice little hike up this steep mountain with a spectacular view.
I think my father got his main features from this protector of the buddist temples.
This is a pagota we saw at this temple. We also hiked up to the top of the mountain and we were rewarded richly with the stunning view.
This is were we camped on the first night. It was a dry bed of a river. The mist was really beautiful in the morning.
A long walk up to get to your house but this house was in the region were the Kim family of Korea lived for centuries.

The mainland was cool because we were able to see what it really is like in Korea. The scenery was amazing. There were hills and valleys everywhere and we had the chance to visit the East coast. There were many beaches along the way.
It was cool and everybody was friendly even if sometimes you wonder if they have ever seen a foreigner before. Defintely an amazing trip.

Take care,
Christian and Karina

Our favorite mode of transportation

2006-08-17T05:45:00.000-04:00

Hello Everyone,
These are our bikes that we use to get around the island when we are not too lazy. The bikes are a little small for me but we have adjusted everything to make it work. We usually go out three times a week for an hour or two depending on the weather. It's alot of fun racing down the hills and speeding past the koreans on there mounain bikes. The bikes are korean-made but the frames are made of aluminium which makes them really light. We are hoping to bring them back home depending on the costs. Hope to be riding with you soon ETs.

Talk to you all soon,
Christian and Karina

2006-08-09T02:54:00.000-04:00

Random pics of our last few weeks

2006-08-03T00:59:00.000-04:00

This a pic of twenty of us playing paintball. We had a blast. All we had was some pretty old guns and we didn't have any coveralls. It was a very small place to play but we still had fun.
This is a pic of the south side from the top of Hallasan. It was cloudy that day but it was a lot a fun. It is about an 8 hour climb up and down.
This is the crater at the top of Hallasan. It was a little cloudy which was nice cause it was a thirty plus day. We had a lot of fun.
The last two pics are of a day at the beach were we caught the sunset. We were there all day playing in the water and on the sand. It was a lot of fun.

Travel plans

2006-08-02T07:54:00.000-04:00

Hello everyone,

We are still alive and well. Everything is great. We are just trying to finalise our travel plans. It will 6 months of travelling half around the world. If anyone is around these countries around these dates please let us know. We would love to see ya.

China - December 1- 14, 2006

Vietnam - December 15 - 27

Cambodia - December 28, 2006 - January 7, 2007

Thailand - January 7 - February 14

NZ - Feb 15 - April 16

Aus - April 17 - May 17

Fiji - May 17 to June 4, 2007

Then, I am going to Vancouver and crossing the country to be home in Ottawa on July 1st Canada Day and Karina is going home.

Later

Christian and Karina

Hello Typhoons!

2006-07-19T06:12:00.000-04:00

Hi everyone!

Life in Seogwipo has been pretty interesting this last month, particularly because of the bizarre weather. We had a nice little typhoon run right through Seogwipo about 2 weeks ago, but really we just had torrential winds and rains for a day. We were following the path of the typhoon as it made its way to our little town. The couple of days before it was beautiful and sunny and we all found ourselves down at the beach, but you could tell something was brewing...the waves weren't crashing like usual and the rip was really obvious. It was pretty great to be at the beach just knowing that in a few short hours the beach would be ravaged by huge waves! That night the sky was a kaleidoscope of all colors. It was really impressive to watch the clouds rushing threw a pink-blue-red-orange-purple sky. Nothing was damaged, and the only problem was that the wind was so strong we couldn't sleep because of the rickety window shutters!

Apart from that we have also been living through the monsoon season. The weather has drab and dull since the typhoon, and the humidity is pushing 100%! Seriously, walking home at night it is so humid you can see your own breath, and its 27 C outside! Our old apartment has taken a real beating because of the humidity. A nice layer of green mold grew all over our walls, shoes, clothing... We decided to abandon the our once cozy home to see nice weather this weekend! We had a three day weekend so we traveled a mere 45 minutes to the northern city of Jeju to enjoy the vastly different weather. It was scorching and beautiful. We spent the weekend with friends on the beach and at a great fresh water hole. Lots of fun was had while surfing, playing great made-up games consisting of a cricket bat, tennis ball and ultimate disc and just being with good friends. After a wonderful weekend we had to come home to the humid stink of mold and ugly sight of furry walls.

So last night Christian and I stocked up on hard-core chemicals, gloves and masks and went to work on the apartment! It was nice to know that the house would be more bearable and livable afterwards. It was a funny sight to see the both of us decked out in our gear, but with some good music and a good drink, the task was manageable! Ok, so it took us about 5 hours, but by 3am the place was looking a little less green! Anyways, we have convinced our directors to re-wallpaper our place, so we will soon be losing the pink and mold green flowery wallpaper for good! Assa!!! This morning we finished the last of the clean up and we treated ourselves to a couple of hours at the sauna!

Anyways, we are both still enjoying our time here. I can't believe it has been over 7 months!!! With fantastic weather just around the corner Christian and I are excited about exploring more of the island and the mainland. And then its off for 6 months of backpacking around Asia, Oz and NZ! Lots to look forward to in the next year!

Hope the summer back home has been hot and full of adventures! Can't wait to hear from you all!

I promise to put up some new pics soon!

Love Karina and Christian

Happy Canada Day

2006-06-30T11:00:00.000-04:00

Joyeuse Fete a notre beau pays. J'espere que vous allez avoir beaucoup de plaisir lors de votre longue fin de semaine. Nous allons prendre la fin de semaine tranquile et faire du surf a la plage.

Bonne Fete Canada

Pic of the day

2006-06-28T05:51:00.000-04:00

The flowers and vegetation are so beautiful in this rainy season since everything is so green.

Break throw and the famous Abbs poach (lazy)

2006-06-26T06:24:00.000-04:00

Hello everyone,

This weekend we went to Ulsan on the east coast of the peninsula to play in a Hat ultimate tournament. (To inform all you none ultimate players, a hat ultimate tournament is tourny were people come together and new teams are formed on site. You don't know who you will play with before hand and you there will be a lot of different caliber players on each teams. ) We had a great time and even made it to the finals. We left work a little early and made our way down to the North side of the island to Jeju City. We cut it a little close and arrived 15 minutes before the plane was set to leave. It's a good thing you don't need to be there 1 hour in advance. We took a flight to Busan and then had to talk another 1 hour bus ride to Ulsan. We were playing at the University of Ulsan campus. One of our buddies works there and he organised it all. The campus is really beautiful although we really don't know how nice the city is because we didn't venture downtown or to the port. It's a industrialized port city so I don't know if we missed much. We had a lot of fun running around on the lush green fields (They're hard to find in the mountain terrain of Korea).

A break throw (Throwing through the defender to were he doesn't want you to throw.)We arrived in Ulsan on Friday night. This was the night of the final Korea game against Swiss. Everyone was getting ready for the game at 4AM and a lot of people were enjoying themselves. We registered for the tourny on the campus and everyone was in red and ready to cheer on the national team. We had enough players to make six teams and I was chosen to lead a team. I think people like to think I want to control everything while I am playing a sport. The rest of the night, we mingled with the other players and met our teamates.

Campus students were getting ready for the big soccer game but we passed on it since we knew we had to play 5 games on Saturday. Everyone else partied and we went had to find a hotel. The only hotels around were the famous Korean MOTEL D'AMOUR and since there was a big game going on at 4 AM all the rooms were booked up and we ended up in a pretty dodgy place. The place was cheap (30$) and it had a round pink bed with gold trim. You walked out of the elevator and you found a hugh shelf of naughty videos. To say the least, we slept in our clothes and were out the next morning pretty early.

Saturday was amazing, the sun game out and we had a pretty good day for people who had never played together before and we also some three players that were playing in their first tournament so we had to explain the rules to them. We went 2 and 2 on the day. I was happy with the performance and we learned to play together.

We then had a fun, barefoot allstar game on this luscious green green grass. We had to play barefoot because we couldn't put divits in the grass. The game was fun and there were a lot of great players and plays. The game ended in a tie 13-13 called due to lack of light. People were going all out and enjoying themselves. It was really intense. It would awesome to get all these players together to play for one tournament in Asia but it's really and expensive to go to a tournament out side of Korea. Karina had an awesome catch in the endzone and I handled pretty well all around. There are some really good players here although it's hard to get them altogether for a tourny. It was a lot of fun and everyone enjoyed themselves.

After the allstar game, we went and showered and made off for the restaurant. We had a quick bite and then went to party at the local foreigner bar near the campus. We headed home not to late and passed out in a better looking love motel.

The next morning, we got up although we could of stayed in bed for another few hours and played three games in the rain. We ended up winning our first two games and making it to the finals. I played pretty much every point in the first two games so by the time the final game, I was out of gas. We got beat pretty bad (10-5) but we had fun and I hope we learned alot. It was great playing again after a two month layoff but our muscles are really sore now. We ended up staying Sunday night in Ulsan and watched the England game before passing out. We didn't get the greatest sleep on the floor of our buddies place. We left the next morning at 6 Am to catch the intercity bus back to Busan airport and to make it to the island.

We are dead tired and are going to sleep when we get home tonight. The weekend was fun and as any ulty tourney, we didn't get much sleep. We had fun and there are some pretty good fun people to play ultimate with hear even if we only get to do it once every two months. I can't for the next tournament to come up so I can run around some more.

Later

Christian and Karina

A poach is when you are really far away from your man as you can see in this picture. You are supposed to be right on the your man's heals and even a step in front but it didn't happen on this point or maybe as I like to think it's the camera angle or I have just thrown it down the field and we've just caught it in the endzone. Poaching is not good defense, it's lazy defense.

Surfing

2006-06-14T07:19:00.000-04:00

Hello,

We are enjoying the waves that we have on the island. I am having a lot of fun on the water and I am trying to catch the biggest waves. It even looks like I know what I am doing. Our buddy John has a broken wrist and is nice enough to lend us his board. We hope to gain a lot of experience during this summer.

It's a lot of fun and also frustrating but if everything goes well we can have an endless summer (Check out these awesome surfing movies: Endless Summer and Endless Summer 2 - lots of beautiful places to catch a wave)and surf everywhere on our way home.

Later

Christian and Karina

Watching Korea's 1st Game at the Stadium

2006-06-14T06:52:00.000-04:00

Hello,

We are enjoying the World Cup here in Korea. As already stated we are trying to watch some of the games but the time difference is a killer.

Last night, we went to the World Cup Stadium in Seogwipo to watch the game with some 10,000 cheering Korean soccer fans. It was cool to here everyone route for their country.
We went with a few of our friends and enjoy the atmosphere. Everyone was very excited until Togo scored in the first have. The crowd wasn't too happy but the Korean team scored the equalizer in the second half of a free kick. It was a sweet goal because the Togo captain was sent off with a red card on the free kick foul.
The togo team was now down to 10 players and the Koreans were pressing hard. The crowd was erupting whenever Korea had the ball. Korea scored a second goal and everyone was so excited. Korea won 2-0 and we enjoyed it all. It was amazing to have so many people excited about the win and to enjoy the World Cup fever. We don't have that at home for the World Cup.
After the game, we went to a restaurant in the harbor and watched the France and Swiss game. We stayed up pretty late and enjoy the game even though it was a 0-0 draw. We went to bed before the Brasil game started at 4 AM.

Korea plays next monday agaisnt France at 4 AM and hopefully I will wake up and watch the game. I am not sure if that will work. I know that Karina won't get up and will stay in her comfy bed.

Tae Ha Min Kuk (Korea)

We hope Korea does well because it will be fun to enjoy the atmoshpere of the World Cup.

Later

Christian and Karina

PS RAF If you read this, I am so sorry to here that Poland got there ass beat 2-0. Better luck in four years. Later buddy, I hope you enjoy Canada Day in Ottawa.

The short but sweet visit by Christopher

2006-06-14T06:46:00.000-04:00

Hello everyone,

We had our first visitor last week. Here are a few pics from the 5 short days. It was a lot of fun to have him around.
We went to our favorite bar to watch some games and brought him to a few Koreans restaurants.
We also went up Hallasan and had enjoyed the clean air at the top. It was a little cold and it started to rain at the top but we had fun. We were well treated by the some Koreans at the top. They gave us some Soju, Kimbap and Kimchi.

We also went to the beach a few times and visited the big temple on the island. Chris even got in on the surfing while Karina was hosting a baby shower for our friend Joy.

We watched the World Cup opener at our favorite hangout and showed him our life and friends. Chris even sat in on one of Karina's classes. The kids were a little hectic and had millions of questions for him.

We had a great time having Chris with us and showing him our life. He is off the Fiji for a bit. We can't wait for our next visitors. Friends and family are all welcomed. We have an extra bed.

Talk to you all soon.

Christian and Karina

The beaches, surfing and the World Cup

2006-06-12T06:18:00.000-04:00

Hello everyone,

We are still enjoyiong ourselves and are getting out to our favorite beaches three times a week. We have even started surfing. The waves don't get that big but it's a great place to learn. Our friend is lending us his board until he gets his cast off. The water is great and this past week, we had our first visitor from backhome. Karina's brother, Christopher came out for a short drop-in. He's off to Fiji to live on a boat for a bit.
We had a great time with him and took him up the mountain and to the beaches. We did them both on the same day. It was nice to have him around and show someone how we live and introduce him our friends. We watched a few World Cup games at our bar and then went to the beaches. The water is nice and we hope to be experienced surfers by the end of the year. The best part is we don't need wetsuits.
Karina and I are having fun and living the life. We are off to the beach in the morning, then teach for a few hours then relax and get ready for our next outing. The weather is beautiful and we always have something to do.

World Cup fever.

It's awesome being in a country that is actually playing in the World Cup. Korea plays tomorrow and we are going to watch the game at the Stadium on the island. I can't wait to experience of 20 thousands fans cheering on their team. For the past 2 weekes, everyone is wearing supporters shirts and everyone is going to watch the game. The only problem is that the games are pretty late for us, 10 PM, 1 AM and 4 AM.

Next week, we have volleyball on the beach and then we are off to Ulsan for an Ultimate Hat Tourney. We will visit Ulsan a bit and get to play some ulty. Everything is going so quickly here, we will be travelling before we even know it. We finalising our itinerary for when we are finished working here. China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, New Zealand, Austrailia and Fiji here we come.

Talk to yo all soon,

Christian and Karina

Five people in a Tico

2006-06-02T07:49:00.000-04:00

It's hard on the suspension.

Camping on the beach

2006-06-02T07:41:00.000-04:00

Hello everyone,
Here are a few pics from the last two weekends. We went camping on the beach two weekends agao and last weekend we caught the sunset at another beach.
This weekend we are off to the North side of the island to go camping again. We are having agreat time waking up to the waves.

Talk to you all soon,
Christian and Karina

Pic of the day

2006-05-30T00:59:00.000-04:00

Pic of the week

2006-05-29T07:56:00.000-04:00

Pics and Karina's B-day

2006-05-08T07:00:00.000-04:00

Hello everyone,
Here are a few picks from Karina's birthday. We had a great time and a great supper. The compagny and the bar was great. They game a bunch of food and we ate like pigs all night.
These are the women. They are all teachers on the island.
And on this side, we have the men.
They gave Karina this special drink that they lit on fire. It was cool and very fruity.
Our friend Lou made this cake for Karina. We got to eat a great chocloat cake. It was a good b-day in Korea.

PICS - You can see more picks of SEOUL, Karina's B-day and the Ulty Touney on the pics site. Check it out in the side bar.

Hope everything is going well at home.

Later

Christian and Karina

Tossers Ultimate - 3rd at the ultimate tournament

2006-05-04T06:22:00.000-04:00

Hey everyone,

This is the team we put together for the 2nd Jeju Ultimate Frisbee Tournament which was held last weekend, April 29-30. We were the Jeju Tossers! It was really amazing and we had a fabulous time! We played at the 1988 Olympics training feild and the 3 feilds we played on were awesome and really flat. The grass was flawless, something pretty uncommon here, we usually play on sand/dead grass feilds.

Our team was full of newbies from all around the world - Canada, US, NZ, OZ and Korea, but we did really well with the help of of the wind. Jeju is known as the wind capital of Korea. It was gusting both days non-stop...we thought that it was only tiny bit windy for the islands standard, but after every teams commented on the storm winds we realized really that the wind was quit torrential. Anyways, it was a brand new team, but as the underdogs we created some havoc on the feild. We won three games and we finished 3rd out of 8.

The whole tournament went off without any big hitches. Christian helped organise the tourney on the island. We had to find two places to party for Friday and Saturday night. We found two great restaurant/bar places - the food, drinks and atmosphere were really great and everyone was impressed!

Our first game was Saturday morning at 9 Am. We lost 11 to 1 against one of the teams in the final. This was our first game against another team. It was hard and there was no wind. Our second game was against the Seoul A team. We won beat them on the last point 7 to 6. The wind was blowing hard and we were playing a good zone. We lost our next game againt the Greater China team. The made three upwind points and we could not break there zone defence up wind. Our last game was against the Seoul B team. We beat them again on the last point and scored an upwind point to win. We finished in 5th for the first round of the tourney. On Saturday, we would play againt the 4th place team to see who would face the 1st place team. We had a great supper and party night at the Club Jeju, our local hangout. Karina made the locals proud by finishing in the finals on the "flippy-cups" games. There were 130 ultimate players seriously enjoying themselves on Saturday night. Anywas, the bar is amazing. Check out their website www.club-jeju.com .

Sunday morning, the team was a little rough from the Saturday night party. We were missing a few players who were in rough shape. We got up and had to play Daejeon, a team from the mainland. The wind was still blowing hard. This team was a lot of fun to play to against. They had a lot of spirit and gave us a run for the game. We did well and scored some up wind points that put us up for the game. We won and then had to play the 1st place team from Shanghai. This team was good and wanted to win the tourney. They were really strong players that could play against the wind. The beat us by 7 but we had a lot of fun. The team was finished and we decided to call it a tie with the Greater China Team. They were happy with 3rd and I think they could have beat us again. It was amazing to do so well in our first tourney.

Our team ended up winning the Spirit award for the tourney. The team learned a lot. It was so much fun. The captain (aka All star Christian!!!) was even on the all star team. It was so much fun. We will not be here next year but I hope Jeju keeps putting a team in. We enjoyed ourselves and passed out with fatigue and sunstroke on Sunday night. It was an amazing experience. This tourney rates in my top five. We hope to play a few more before the year is over.

Talk to you soon,

Christian and Karina

Odd pics

2006-04-20T08:00:00.000-04:00

Hey,

Check out a few of these pictures. These building was really different and cool. The top floor has an observatory to check the city.
This is another cool pic. This is the first time I ever seen a Ferris Wheel for parking. We saw many of these all around Seoul. I don't think we will ever see these in Ottawa.

We'll have a few more to show I hope.

Christian and Karina

Our littles one

2006-04-20T07:53:00.000-04:00

Hello,
These are a few of our kids. These are youngest ones. We really adour teaching them. They have so much energy so sometimes it is hard to keep them under control.

This is my class. I like them so much. They love to have fun and I enjoy being with them.

Talk to you all soon,

Christian and Karina

Pics of Seoul

2006-04-17T07:55:00.000-04:00

Hello everyone,
Here are a few picks from our visit to Seoul. As Karina stated we did a lot of walking and enjoyed the sites. It is an exciting city and relatively cheap if you can handle hostels and market food. The first pick is of us at the main palace.

This is walk I call a bomb on wheels. They converte these bikes into to tricylcles. They are everywhere in Seoul.
They are everywhere in Seoul.This a pic of the Han river that runs through the middle of the city. We went to visit it at night and where amazed by all the people going for walk, bike rides and roller blading. We even played ulty on Sunday right next to the river. It is about as wide as the Outaouais River.. This is one of the main gates around the old city. It was really cool. They are pretty big and now are surrounded by new buildings. As you can see I had to find out where the next Subway station was.
This is the same gate but from the front.
This is a manmade lake in the middle of the main palace. It was really cool. This is were the royalty with meet there foreign guest for supper.
Same place but from the other side. I needed a break from all the walking.
More pics around the palace.
This place is enormous. There are at least 100 buildings. This is were the king would meet people during ceremonies.
This is the main entrance into the main palace.
This is another gate at night. there were 4 gates in all for main directions. There used to meet a fortrous wall but this was demolished though wars and growth of the city.
The last picture is of a park in the middle of the city where the start of the Korean uprising against the Japanese during the 20th century. In the back ground you can see a 9 tier Pagoda. It was really cool but you can't get any good pics since it is sealed in the glass structure for protection.

Time flies when you are busy!!!

2006-04-13T05:58:00.000-04:00

Hello everyone,

I hope everyone is doing great. We are still enjoying ourselves although we are busier then ever since spring has arrived. It's been a long time since we have posted since we had to do grades and we went to Seoul for the weekend and then I got sick. My health has recovered and we are getting ready for an ultimate tournament at the end of the month of April.

Since March 20th we have done a ton of things! We went with our entire staff to a soccer game - Jeju United (the islands new soccer team) vs Suwon. A pretty fun game, too bad Jeju got smoked! But it was great to see crowds of people out to support Jeju's new team. We even had some of our students come to the game (theyare the children of some of the staff here) and they were really cute and excited. They kept on trying to explain the game of soccer to us in their broken English. One of our students Jack was so funny. When asked the question "How are you?" he would yell "I am soooo happy!!!"

Speaking of our students, we are both lucky to have some really great classes. The students love Chrsitian's funny facial hair (its now a weird moustache and soul patch) and they call him Hippo Teacher. And I have so really cuties who I adore. One of my little kids is 5years old and her name is Ruth. She is younger than most of the students, but her English is fantastic. When ever she sees me (I'm usually doing my last minute photocopies) she'll run up and hug my legs! Ahhh, so much fun! Here are two pics of both of our younger classes. They are in second grade here, but are still 5 and 6 years old.

Anyways, we had a great 4 day weekend and decided to really take advantage, so off to Seoul we flew for a whirlwind trip! Seoul was a lot of fun. We did a lot of walking during our four day weekend and did not stop from 8 AM till 12 PM.

We visited a beautiful palace that was right downtown. We wandered the beautiful grounds, surounded by decorated palaces, pagodas, and a ton of school groups! It was really interesting to see how old this palace was, and to learn about the history. We also explored an area called Insadong, a renouned traditional tea area! It was probably my favorite area - tons of unique little shops and art galleries! We also did some shopping in two huge outdoor markets - you could buy anything from pickled ginger to high priced shoes and handbags! But the markets had a traditional and modern feel, all mixed together! However a big thing on my list was oatmeal. We also got some couscous, a chocolate orange, and a funny t-shirt for me ( it's an English t-shirt, but the grammar on it is all wrong.) We ate great food and enjoyed the markets. It was really cool because of all the people that were there, it was packed! However, the shopping aspectwas pretty funny - we had a real big problem finding anything that fit us. It was a pain because any shirts they had was a Free size meant one size fits all - and that would be one size fits all Koreans...not us!!! And there are no changing rooms, so if you do want to try you are exposing your self to everyone around! Ahhh c'est la vie!!!

We even met up with one of our adult students who is from Seoul. Him and his girlfriend took us for a tour of their old university (Yonsei Uni, the 3rd biggest in Seoul) and then they us out to a great traditional restaurant. After we all went to this really interesting game room...literally and bar where you rent out blocks of time and play any kind of board game imaginable! Anyways, after that they escorted us to a cool hiphop club. It was an interesting place jam packed with people and the music was great. We don't really have any huge clubs here on the island so it was excellent!

We even managed to pick up a game of ultimate with their local league. It was so nice to play the game again! We actually are having an international ultimate tournament here in Seogwipo at the end of April, so we met many of our soon to be adversaries. It was a good group of people and we are excited to play against them soon.

So that is our whirlwind trip to Seoul in a nutshell! We had an absolute great time, but it was wonderful to get off the airplane Monday morning and smell the fresh ocean air. It felt like home!

This blog may have been slightly confusing because we both wrote it!
The next up date will be here soon! (And pictures will soon be up too!)

We love you and miss you all!
Anyoung!
Karina and Christian

12.5 km of inline fun

2006-03-20T05:28:00.000-05:00

Hello everyone,

I hope you all had a good weekend. We had a great time and were able to enjoy the beautiful day on Sunday. Saturday, it was a little of a downer since it rained all day on our ultimate field but we did go out for supper. Karina had a little girls night with some friends and the boys had some food. It was good.
Sunday, we got up really early for the weekend and headed to the east side of the island. We were participating in a inline race. The race was on an ocean road and had a great view of Udo island.

We had thought we would compete in the 5km race but at the last minute, we decided it was a nice day and that we should join our friend in the 12.5 km race. It was really windy but for most of the race, we were with the wind. It was really cool because the race was free for foreigners and they even lent you equipment.

We got there and had to find someone who could speak English. It took a bit of time but when we finally found him, we had to drive to someones house to pick up the equipment. They pick up the skates and dropped us of at the half-way mark of 12.5 kms. It was really funny because we were in our K2 rollerblades and almost everyone else had the pro inline skates with 5 wheels. The skates we had were really nice. We had our jackets on and I carried the bag for the race while they were all in there spandex. It was a great time and we got to inline on this beautiful shore road and look at the waves. It was really windy for the first 5 kms but at the end we mostly had the wind to our backs.
At times, we would try to use the wind to our advantage but against the wind we used the drafting system to help each other out. We did not get hurt and had a leasurely 12.5 km skate to the finish line. It was funny too because we were getting cheered on by everyone on the track. We finished the race in around 45 minutes then headed to the race tent for some free food and a prize. We even got medals for our effort. We had a great time and I bet there only around 10 foreigners in the 5th Jeju International Inline Skating Games. Then, we left and drove around the east side of the island to scope out some beaches.

We took the shore roads and found some nice beaches for the summer. It was really cool. We can't wait to go back in a few weeks when the weather is in the 20s.

We took this picture to show you guys a treat that the Koreans love to eat. It is sundried squid. I think it's like jerky. We haven't tried any yet.

By the time we got home it was 1 pm so we headed off to the beach for the afternoon and met up with some friends. The small little car lets us explore the island even more. Sunday night, we made Bimbimbap at home and relaxed for the night. We were really tired from the weekend. We are enjoying our time hear and hope to visit the other beaches on the island even more. It is really beautiful on the island. At the end of the month, we are off to the Seoul for the weekend. It will be fun.

Talk to you soon,

Karina and Christian

Tico - The Korean Mini

2006-03-15T05:13:00.000-05:00

Hello everyone,

We are now proud owners of a Tico. This is the smallest car you can get here. We will use this car to visit the island. We want to use it to go anywhere are bikes won't make it.

The car was pretty cheap and we will probably get a good resale. The car really doesn't go over ninety with more then two people in it but the max speed limit on the island is 80 anyways. This car is even smaller then my old Festiva. It sounds and feels like a go-cart.
I think it is really funny to see two tall people get out of the car. We are almost touching shoulders in the car. We are happy and will be safe on these streets. It's kind of like driving in Montreal.

Stay safe and we will see talk to you soon.

Later

Christian and Karina

Bonjour

2006-03-10T06:25:00.000-05:00

Hello everyone,

We are doing great. We have had a long week but are enjoying ourselves. We hope to play some ulty on the week-end in Jeju City. It should be fun. We are enjoying the weather. It has been around 10 degrees all week and we hope by next week to be in shorts. We are also completing the final details on our car.

I have been biking and visiting the south side of the island. If it does not rain this weekend I hope to go for a two hour bike ride along the shoreline. I love the new bikes we got and am enjoying the speed. It is a lot of fun except when you have to climb the hills. Down the hills, I am pretty much going at the speed limit which is a lot of fun. Karina had a nasty bruise on her finger so she was not able to join me the last few days but it is healing well and we should get out next week.

I hope the winter has not been to hard on everyone and if anyone wants to visit a beautiful island, you are all welcomed to come stay with us. We are thinking of everyone and hope you are not freezing to much.

Have fun and enjoy yourselves,

Later

Christian and Karina

Hello

2006-02-28T05:50:00.000-05:00

Hello everyone,

We are doing great. We're enjoying the weather and we hope spring arrives soon. We have been to the beach and enjoyed the sun. It was a beautiful day but a little cold. Everything is going well and we are going to play in the touch rugby tournament this week. It should be a lot of fun.

The big news is that we will probably be buying a car in the next month. The car will probably be smaller than my old FESTIVA. It will be funny to see us get out of the car. We'll send you some photos when we get the car. For the next month, we will be riding our new bikes. We bought ourselves some speedbikes. They are cool and we hope to travel around all the island on them. We will post pics in the future.

We are trying to stay in shape and enjoy the beautiful weather. Everyone tells us that spring is here. We hope that in the following weeks this comes true. Talk to you soon.

Later

Christian and Karina

Remember that you can leave us replies by hitting the comment button under each post! We hope to hear from you.

Celebrating at the Fire Festival

2006-02-14T06:01:00.000-05:00

Hi everyone!

Well it's Valentine's Day here and I just wanted to say have a wonderful day! It's pretty funny how the kids just say "Teacher, chocolate!!!" the moment you walk in! This whole holiday is celebrated the same as at home. And I must say I was truly spoiled when Christian came home this morning with the largest bouquet of flowers I've ever seen. It had roses, and snap dragons and these lily-type flowers! So we had a nice breakfast of crepes and head off to school in a balmy 8 degrees Celsius!

Christian and I have been hit by a bit of a cold, and I have lost my voice! My kids think it's hilarious that I sound like a man!!! Anyways, Christian is actually teaching my adult class now since my voice has been ravaged by the last 6 classes! So its been a lot of worksheets and games today! Anyways, we are both doing really well, minus the health bit, but we have already gone to the doctors and we are on some med. It's funny here how we can go to the medical clinic, each have a check-up, get meds and still pay less than $40! Its a pretty good deal!

But we just had a most unique weekend. On Saturday we went to a Fire Festival. It was to celebrate the new moon and to banish bad omens for the coming harvest. So what they did was actually light an entire small mountain on fire! There were crazy fireworks, a lazer show and it was all coordinated with random music (Braveheart theme song, traditional Korean music, then some dance music to spice it up!) And this went on for the entire night! It was pretty impressive to see this gigantic fire just blazing in front of you...from 50 feet away you could feel the heat! I was in heaven! Though the billowing clouds of smoke were a little nasty, it was all really spectacular. There were tents set up all around and it felt like a mini-market. You could buy your fruit and veg here or a pair of pants, and there were also tents set up like restaurants where people were eating all sorts of traditional foods and drinking soju, makali, and beer! Needless to say we had a great time!

Our entire adventure in South Korea has been amazing and we are both looking forward to what the future may hold!

We send you all our love,
Karina and Christian

Last weekend

2006-02-07T05:54:00.000-05:00

Hello everyone,

Hope everything is going well. We are having fun and enjoying the beautiful areas on the island. Last weekend, we went to the Halla mountain runoff river. It was really beautiful. Joe, it reminds me a lot of the Sooke Potholes. This is the best place to have a swim during the summer since the beaches can be crowded and very hot. This is our Kiwi friend playing with ice. They don't get a lot of it in New Zealand.

We walked down this river. It was very slipery. We will come swimming in these holes during the summer to refresh ourselves.

This is the biggest pool we saw. It is a beautiful place because of all the vegetation around the river. We liked it alot.

Sunday, we took it easy. It was not very nice out and we stayed in and watched movies. We are coming down with a little cold and we want to make sure we are ok to teach. Hope it's not too cold in Canada. We can't wait for the spring to come. It has been snowing a little today but it has all melted away. I hope to talk to you all soon.

One last note, I can't wait to se Canada at the Olympics. I hope I can see them on TV.

Best of luck,

Christian and Karina

Pics from Udo and Jeju City

2006-02-02T06:41:00.000-05:00

Hello everyone,
We are doing very well and had a great long weekend. We have two vacations during the year and this one was really fun. We will have a few more long weekends but not one of 5 days like the one that just past. It was really fun.

On Friday, we went to Jeju City to explore the biggest city on the ilsand. We had to pick up our alien registration cards form Korean immigration. We visited the city and did a little shopping. It was alot of fun. We took the bus there in the morning and walked around all day. It was fun.

In Jeju City, we walked up this hill on the edge of town. It was really cool. There were all these Koreans walking around and doing there exercise. I got a few reps in and enjoyed the sites. We had supper and I found some shoes although shopping is difficult at times since nothing fits me. That night we took the bus home and relaxed.

On Saturday, we went to play Rugby with all the expats. I also got to play cricket again. It was fun. That night, we all got together to eat and have a few drinks. It is always funny to have a bunch of us together. Everyone is nice and we enjoyed each others compagny late into the night.

On Sunday, we drove of to Udo island with a New Zealander couple. It is a beautiful island with a population of 1750. It is really small and we were able to bike around the whole island. We had a few of our friends join us that night and enjoyed our hotel room right in front of the coral beach.

Udo island is the one of the few islands to have three different types of beaches on it. The closest beach was at the door step of our hotel. It is a coral beach. The coral is really soft and white.

This is the other beach on the other side of island that has black sand. I will put other pics on the other site that show more of the beach. We biked past the other beach put we were going so fast we did not take any pics.

On Monday, we biked around the island and it took us around 2 hours. There is a hugh lighthouse on the east coast of the island that is on the tallest point of the island. We will take some picks of it when we go again.

The island was amazing. The best part is that after returning our bikes on the last night we saw a pod of dolphins playing in front of our hotel. They were swimming around for around 30 minutes up and down the coast. It was amazing to see them in the wild. We were told that it is a good omen to see them. We were all delighted to see them. That night, we relaxed and enjoyed the heated hotel room and TV. At home, we try to conserve on heating costs so it was nice to have the heat on full blast.

On Tuesday, we had a late breakfast and made our way home. We took the ferry home and drove back to Seogwipo. It was a gray day and so we drove on the back roads home and enjoyed the countryside.

It was a great week-end. We even went for a swim on the coral beach. We had a great time and enjoyed our long weekend.

Talk to you soon. This weekend we are going to take it easy but will do a little more exploring. The island has a lot to offer.

Bye

Christian and Karina

Check these out

2006-01-25T23:24:00.000-05:00

Hello everyone,

Here are a few picks that I took in the plane. The last ones are of the Rockies. The others are when we flew over the Pacific ocean. We fle directly over Alaska to get to Seoul. During our flight, we took a bunch if picks here and there. It was a long flight but we got to watch 3 movies. We did not sleep much put it wa all worth it. We are having so much fun know. Hope you guys are all well. I was a little happy that the Conservatives only got a minority gouvernment.

Talk to you soon.

Christian and Karina

Last week-end - More Pics are up on the other site

2006-01-23T02:40:00.000-05:00

Hello everyone,

We are doing great. We had a nice week-end. On Saturday, we played cricket and rugby with some of the expats. It was a lot of fun and we were exhausted by the end of the day. We played cricket for two hours and then rugby for another three. That night, we met up with our friend John and went to the harbour for a few drinks. We went to this really interesting restaurant in the harbour that had two fireplaces and a tepee outside. We talked all night and enjoyed the fireplace that was right in front of our table. They were serving sweet potato cooked in the fire. It was a place with a lot of spunk. I am sure we will visited more often.

On Sunday, we went to Pyonseon. It is about a 40 minutes bus ride to the east of Seogwipo. It was 2.30 $ each for the bus ride. We then walked down to the ocean and visited the Jeju Folk Village. The village is a museum to show the traditional farming communities and way of life on the island. We sand many beautiful house made of several buildings. The houses were really small compared to what we have now. We were always hitting our heads when trying to look in side. They lived in communal houses where all the members of the household lived in the same houses. You did not leave you community unless you were a woman married to another family then you lived with your husbands family. The eldest son was very important to the people of Jeju island. It was an amazing experience and we learned a lot about the way of life on the island 100 to 200 years ago. There were around 120 buildings in the village. It was really big and we had a lot of fun although we were getting cold by the end since the wind pick up during the afternoon.

Then we went to the beach but it was little to windy to throw the disk and we were cold so we took a few pictures and headed home. We will go back there I am sure because the beach is very flat and perfect to play some beach ulty. The beach is a big inlet and it was low tide so the beach was enormous so I can not wait to go back. The bus ride was good. We were able to heat up. At night, we watched movie and were able to do some practicing of my Korean reading. I do not understand what I am reading but I am getting better.

Wish you all the luck and I am not happy with the outlook of the upcoming elections. I hope we atleast have a minority government.

Talk to you soon,

Christian and Karina

A long week

2006-01-20T04:40:00.000-05:00

Hello everyone,

We are doing well. We have had a busy week due to two teachers quitting unexpectidely. We are now doing some overtime but he will be getting paid so it's not that bad. The kids are doing great and we are enjoying ourselves.

This weekend we are going to play some cricket with the Kiwis and then some rugby. We are going to go to a beach on Sunday and explore the east side of the island. Next weekend, we have 5 days off. We are going to go to Jeju city and look around then we will go to Udo Island for the last few days of the long week-end. It should be fun. We will explore the island, have a few hugh feasts and party it up. It should be fun, we will have a big BBQ.

Hope everything is going well. We will be doing a bit of visiting on the island. It will be nice.

Later

Christian and Karina

My cactus

2006-01-09T23:28:00.000-05:00

Hello everyone,

Everything is going well. We are having a good time and enjoying ourselves. It is around 10 degrees taday and the sun is shinning.

We went to the market a few weeks ago and got this really cool cactus. I have never had a cactus and would like to know how to take care of it. How many times a month should it be watered? If I transplant it, will it grow and get bigger? It should be pretty easy to keep it alive. It is a cactus.

Hope everyone is doing wll and that you are all having fun.

Bye,

Christian and Karina

I am a millionnaire

2006-01-06T00:18:00.000-05:00

Hello everyone,

We are doing very well. This week has been a little hard with the new schedule but everything is going well. It is snowing at the moment and I think it will be like this for the week-end. We will probably take it easy. The roads will be to bad to go upp to Mount Halla.

As I stated, we are millionaires. We got paid. It was nice. We get paid in millions of wons. The conversion rate is around 1000$ to 1000000 won. It was nice to get the first paycheck because know we can explore the island a little more and buy a car.

The big news in Seogwipo for the week is the opning of the Home Plus. It like a Walmart and everyone form Seogwipo and the surroundings most have been there yesterday because when we went to visit we could see people everywhere. There must have been 100 thousandspoeple who visited the store yesterday to get deals but there is only around 90 thousands in the city itself. We were told people would come from everywhere on the island to go to this place. They even have Brie cheese there. We don't really miss it but one hting we miss is pita bread or wraps. We can't find them anywhere.

Hope you had a great week in 2006. I sure did.

Talk to you soon.

Christian and Karina

New Years Eve

2006-01-03T05:35:00.000-05:00

Hello everyone,

I hope everyone has recovered from New Years. We had a great time. We went to Jeju city to meet up with some of the fellow teachers for the night. We hopped on a bus in Jungmun for 3.50$ and took a 50 minute bus ride to the city. To know how this felt, it was kind of like taking a taxi ride in New York City at night but you are in a 50 person bus. It was a little hectic at times but we made it.

We then met up with some friends and went to eat some chicken at this restaurant. We were about 12 people. We ate some vegies, a bunch of sweet potatoes and a bunch of Chinese lettuce. It was really good. We had a few conversations with this guy from Texas and his girlfriend. The night was going so well when I hit my head on the small doorway out of the washroom. It was even bleeding.

Then we left that place and went to a bar called Kansas. Everyone had a few beers and had long conversations about leaving in Korea and enjoying the sites. Since we were pretty much the newest people to join the group, we were trying to get the most info from everyone. After finishing a few pitchers of beer, we headed off to the foreigner bar called the Blue Agave. It was an interesting place but they're a few oddballs there. We celebrated New Years 14 hours ahead of everyone in Ottawa and had a great time until some drunk guy tried to pick a fight. The fight broke out and we left in a hurry. We picked up all our friends and headed to another bar at around 1:30 or 2 am.

We left the bar and went to this amazing dance bar. They played some amazing music until we left at 3:30 am. The bars don't really have a closing time. We hopped into a cab a few blocs away and drove back to Seogwipo. It came up to a 20$ ride for around 50 minutes of driving. It is really cheap to get around on a taxi. The taxi went over the mountain and at times it was a little slow because the Koreans where all driving up the mountain to catch the first sunrise of the year at the top of Halla Mountain. I did not see a thing of this because I was sleeping but Karina said it was pretty amazing to see all these people walking up the roads at 4:30 in the morning to get to the top of the mountain. Out of 4 of us in the cab, only 2 were awake when we got home. I should say, it took the 2 sleeping people about 5 minutes before the passed out in the cab. I don't think I made it out of the city awake. Luckily for me, Karina took care of me and we did not lose anything.

The next day, we woke up around 1 or 2 in the afternoon. I took a few pain killers and tried to go back to sleep. We stayed in bed all afternoon and watched movies. We got up for supper and then went right back into bed to watch another movie. We did not leave the house that day. It was nice to relax all day.

We had a great New Years. We do miss our friends and family but it was really nice to talk to some off them at 2:00 pm(New Years in Ottawa). It was a fun experience and who knows where we will be partying it up next year. Hopefully we will be in Australia or maybe China or Thailand. It is such a long way away.

Yesterday and today, we have been back at school. As stated in the past, we have a new schedule. Everything is going very well and we are still enjoying teaching.

I WISH EVERYONE A GREAT YEAR IN 2006. Hope you all succeed in everything you do. HAVE FUN and ENJOY LIFE.

Talk to you all soon,

Christian and Karina

We start at 10:30 for a month

2005-12-30T00:07:00.000-05:00

Hell0 everyone,

We are doing great. We will be going to Jeju-si for the week-end and will celebrate at the foreigner bar in Jeju-si. We hope to party all night and ketch the sunrise in the morning at the beach and have a fire. It should be interresting. Then we will go and sleep until 2pm and wake up to call are family and friends at home.

School is fun. They have changed the schedule for the month of January since our students do not have school at the moment . Instead of starting at 3 pm, we start at 10:30 am. It was nice this morning, we got to hear the birds this morning and the sun was shining off the ocean. A beautiful morning. It is really nice today, around 10 degres celsius. It will change our schedule a bit but it will be nice for a month. The other big change is that we will teach one other class 5 days a week. It will be nice to have the same students everyday. Last month, we saw our students every other day.

We are enjoying ourselves. It is really beautiful here. It's nice to be in a warmer country for the winter.

Have a good new years.

Miss you all

Christian and Karina

The Temples - X-mas eve

2005-12-28T01:16:00.000-05:00

Helle everyone,

On X-mas eve, we wanted to go up the mountain and try our snowshoes but the roads were closed off due to all the snow we got the week before. We tried them out in a field near by. I think they will work although I have a few adjustments to make on the stapping mechanisme.

So instead of going up to the mountain, Karina, John and I decided to go visit two buddist temples near Seogwipo. The first temple was under construction and they have completed a building. They are planning to build an open yard surrounded by some buildings. You can see in the pics a building that is not painted yet. This is new and you could smell the fresh would. In the other pics, you see the existing temple. They are about 300 meters away from each other. The court yard will be in between this two buildings. The colors on the temple are amazing. It was really beautiful. There were paintings on every wall and there was a big budda inside. It was really cool.

Then we decided to go to the other temple. This temple is the biggest in Asia. It must have six floors in it. The first floor is housing. You walk past this housing and then climb up to a terrase where there is an open courtyard. In this court yard, you have the top four floors of the temple. In this temple, you see a three story budda carved all out of wood. It was amazing, we were able to go to the third and seond floor. There were millions of little statues on each floor. It was really spectucular. THERE ARE MORE PICS ON THE OTHER SITE. So we walk around everywhere and enjoyed everything. There was a huge drum and bell on the site. They have a orange plantation and a pond in front of the the temple. It is an amazing site.

I want to go there on the buddas birthday and see all the monks and people praying to there god. It will be amazing to see it all. There was a monk playing music in the temple when we visited it. We will go back. It was amazing.

We are so lucky to be here.

Talk to you all soon.

Karina and Christian

Merry Christmas!!!

2005-12-26T02:34:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone!

Well Christmas has past, and we are back to school! Our first Christmas together was different without having our families around, but we still had a wonderful time.

On Christmas Eve we had some friends ove for a pork BBQ. We got this great little BBQ from one of our friends here, so we set it up in our laudry room/ sun room/ breakfast nook/ balcony area and Christian went to work! The meal was great! We played cards, listened to Christmas music, and feasted on cheesecake...a definite rarity here. The 25th was spent rather lazily. Christian and I exchanged gifts and munched on tangerines and chocolate all morning. I can tell you buying Christmas gifts, particularly clothing, for Christian here was near to impossible...but I managed to find a nice big wooly hoodie for him! And of course he spoiled me. I have the most gorgeous bouquet of roses, lilies and these huge white flowers in my kitchen.

Anyways, we ended up venturing to the Hyatt beach in the afternoon of the 25th. With the sun still high in the sky we threw the disk around, built a fire, and then Christian and Matt ventured into the ocean! Those crazy men! After 15 minutes in the water they came out ather blue, but with huge smiles! How many people can say they went swimming in the Pacific Ocean on Christmas Day?

Though we are back to the good ol' schedule at work we had a fantastic relaxing weekend! We hope you all had great holidays.

We love you and miss you!
Karina and Christian

Joyeux Noel

2005-12-25T05:28:00.000-05:00

Bonjour tout le monde,

Nous avons reparer le blog et maintenant vous pouvez faire des commentaires.

Aujourd'hui, nous sommes aller a la plage et avons faites un feu. De plus, nous avons lance le disc pour un bout de tant. De plus, je suis alle jouer dans l'eau.

Au revoir

Hello everyone,

We have fixed the blog and know you can make comments.

Merry Christmas.

As for Christmas, we went to the beach and had a fire. It was amazing. We even went for a swim. We will put a few pics up this week.

Later

Christian and Kartina

2005-12-22T01:31:00.000-05:00

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR

JOYEUX NOEL ET BONNE ANNEE

On vous manque tous. We miss you all.

The round-about

2005-12-22T01:26:00.000-05:00

Hello everyone,

This is a pic of the rotary in the middle of Seogwipo. The way people drive on this thing is incredible. It is pretty much the person with most guts that goes first. There are lights before the rotary but once your in it's everyone for themselved. Skooters fly around this place at incredible speeds. There is an incredible amount of cars that travel through this intersection in the day. The ocean is to the south of this place and we must cross the round-about if we want to go to the daily market.

Talk to you all soon.

Christian and Karina

The Snow Storm

2005-12-22T00:13:00.000-05:00

Hello everyone,

So last night, a snow storm hit all of Korea. I heard on the news that in some spots they got 50 cm of snow. It was so bad that our school decide to close early. So we finished at 6pm instead of 8:30 pm. Us and some of our fellow teachers were so happy that we decided to celebrate and went our to eat. There was an inch of snow on the streets and really windy. We went to a restaurant and shared a hugh plate of food and had drinks till 9pm. Then we went home and watch a movie. It was weird to get all this done in one day. Usually, we rush home and have dinner then maybe watch a movie. We had so much time. It was really nice.

Today, I walked around a bit and it was really wet. The cars still have there chains on. I put a picture up showing the chains. When I got to school, the kindergarden students where singing x-mas caroles to everyone. It was really cute.

Finally, I have completed the snowshoes. I hope they work. If the weather is nice, we are going to go up to Mount Halla and try them out on the week-end. I hope the PVC is stiff enough to hold up my weight. We hope to go with our friend John, the New Zealander.

Bye

Christian and Karina

This week

2005-12-21T00:07:00.000-05:00

Hello everyone,

We are having a great time here. We are having a snow storm today but I heard you guys were hit with a massive snow storm around Ottawa in the past few days. Here the snow melts in a day. Yesterday, it was so nice, the sun was shinning and it felt like the fall in Ottawa.

The snow is falling and we are getting ready for Christmas. We have Friday off and are hopefully if the weather is nice, we will go back up to Mount Halla. We have completed some snowshoes to go and explore the top of the mountain. The shoes are very similar to the originals made by the Native Indians. They are made of PVC plastic and rope. I hope they work. I will put some pics up of our little experiment. It should be fun.

As for Christmas, we hope to go to the beach and have a fire and maybe go for a swim. We are having friends over from Christmas Eve and hopefully have a few games and enjoy each others compagny. On x-mas, we will take it easy in the morning and await or make phone calls home. We will have breakfast and open some presents. We have a Christmas tree to put the presents under. It will be nice. Then in the afternoon, I want to go to the beach. I hope it will be nice.

These next two days, we will be celebrating x-mas with kids at school. It should be interresting. Korea celebrates x-mas since in the past 30 years, 35 % have converted to Christianity and of course capitalisme has had its toll. This is the first x-mas from our friends and family. We will miss you all.

JOYEUX NOEL MERRY CHRISTMAS

Talk to you all soon,

Christian and Karina

The week-end

2005-12-19T04:51:00.000-05:00

Hello everyone,

As stated in my last post, we went to Jeju city on Saturday. It was a little rough since we were out till 3 am the night before having drinks at this club called Havana. The club is pretty small and serves beer, some whisky and some tequila. We had a few rounds and made our way home early saturday morning. After a good eight hours sleep, we got in our friends car and drove to Jeju.

The drive to Jeju was a little scary a times because there were drift white outs on the road. We took it slow. The buses were flying in the snow. The cars would take it a little slower. There were cars stranded on the side of the main road. It was scary but at the same time really beautiful with all the snow. I wish I had my camera to take a few pics of the country side but we forgot it before leaving. We made it to Jeju without any problems and went shopping for a few things. We went to this big store that sold everything and were able to find a bunch of things that we needed for the house. I did a bunch of x-mas shopping and then we went to get a bite to eat. There was a McD's by the store but we skipped that and went for some chinese.

We were going to leave but on our way out, the roads were crazy busy. It had snowed and the roads were full of black ice everywhere. We had difficulty going up slight inclines. Car were spinning everywhere. They don't have winter tires here. They use chains. So there were cars sliding everywhere and the others where travelling slow due to their chains. After taking 40 minutes to try and get out of the city and looking at a hugh hill in front of us, we decided to turn back and head to a hotel. We had at least a 40 minute drive and the roads were full of black ice. Cars would try to stop on a hill and slide half way down. Plus the Koreans on Jeju don't know how to drive. There was this truck that was fishtaling everywhere. He was not going anywhere but his wheels were travelling at 50 km/h. %&$(* dangerous. He had the peddle to the metal. If he would have hit a dry patch, he could have killed someone. With all these crazy koreans on the road and the weather, we decided to stay in our rooms all night and have a few drinks and play cards. We got a really cheap room and it was a lot warmer then our own house. It was worth it.

Sunday, after taking a nice hot shower and watching a movie, we drove home. There were cars stuck everywhere on the highway. Some places had cars that were stuck in four feet high drifts. We were glad we decided to stay at a hotel. We heard that the whole island had got this freak storm but by the time we got to Seogwipo most of the snow was melting and the ice was almost gone.

Once we got home, we put up our Christmas tree and walked around the market for a bit. Then that night, we went to sing Christmas caroles with some friends. It was interresting to say the least. You must remember that I can't sing at all. The good thing is that there were Christmas treats after all the singing. It was fun and we had some friends in the band.

Now, we are back at school for four days. We have friday off so it is a for day week. Sweet

This week, we are going to try and build snow shoes to go and play on the mountain on friday. We want to get up the hill and build a quincy for the day. We are thinking of bringing plastic saucers and going sliding down a few parts of the mountain. It shold be interresting.

We will let you know how it goes.

Sunday is Christmas. We are going to take it easy and hopefully go to the beach for a bit and have a fire.

Talk to you soon.

Christian and Karina

Apartment - Teal and Pink

2005-12-16T01:13:00.000-05:00

Hello,

Here are a few pics of our apartment. The complexe where you find our building is called Minu Aparte and we are on the 5th floor of this building. There are no elevators but the steps are good exercise. As you can see, I have put up a picture of our kitchen, the bathroom and the doorway to the bedrooms. The coordination of colors is pretty horrible but the apartment is bigger then our apartment on Daly. We are lucky to have a bathtub, it's uncommon to have one. We love the teal trime with pink wallpaper and fake wood floors. It's linolium. The good thing is that there is a balcony and a washing machine. There is no stove but there are gas burners for cooking and a microwave. The apartment has windows on both side so it will be good during the summer but during the winter it is a little drafty. We do have a view of the ocean and we can see the mountain from the roof.

The apartment is heated with hot water under the floor. It does not work too well but there is a propane heater in the apartment to keep us warm. We are not using the radiant floor heating to keep the cost down during the winter so we are always dressed in layers.

We also have a TV with VCR and the fridge is in the living room. There is plenty of furniture. We have a second bedroom for our guests. That's really nice. So we will but up more pics of our apartment when we have put up all our pics around the apartment and it becomes more like home.

As for this week-end, we are going to Jeju-si on Saturday. Jeju-si is the biggest city on the island and the commercial hub on the island. We are going to get a few things for Christmas and visit the big city(350 000). Sunday, hopefully we will go up the mountain again. There is a 10 km hike up the other side of the mountain. It all depends on the weather. It has been cold all week and snowing too. There must be a bunch of snow on the mountain now.

Talk to you soon,

Christian and Karina

The Market

2005-12-14T01:20:00.000-05:00

Today, we went to the 5-day market. The market come through town on the 4,9,14,19,24,29 of every month. At this market, you can buy pretty much anything. We bought pillows for our apartment and our friends bought curtains. We also got a cool looking cactus. I
There are different sections all over the market. There are the fruit, vegetable, clothes, shoes, fish, pet, furniture and snack bar sections. These are pics mostly of the food section. There are old women selling all types of vegies like carrots, broc, onions, lettuce, etc. The fish section is very smelly and you can get all kind of fish and seafood. It was really busy today. It was a lot of fun. Some day, we will buy some fish and try it at home.

Can someone tell me what to do with dried beans. We can only get beans at the market and want to make a chili but don't know what to do with them when they are dried. Please send us an email.

Their is also a daily market in the center of town. We can also go there to get food if need be. It's cheaper to get food at the 5-day market. We love to go to this market and see everything.

Talk to you soon,

Christian and Karina