Happy (Lunar) New Year

So today is 설날 Seollal, or Lunar New Year and so I don't have to teach today or tomorrow! My friend Sam (from Kansas) and I had planned to go to a cave on Saturday, but this area was pretty much crippled by snow for the last few days. I was a little surprised at the amount of snow that we received since usually this area isn't know for getting much snow. There was probably about 6 inches that fell on Saturday. Sam was actually coming to my apartment to pick me up Saturday and he got stuck going up the hill close to my house, so we decided to go to the cave another day.
I don't have many plans for 설날, I think I'll pretty much just relax. It is considered the biggest holiday of the year for most Koreans, so typically people spend time with their families and so everything is closed down and people are at home. Koreans usually eat 떡국 Tteok Guk on New Year's Day and it is supposed to bring good luck for the year. It is a really delicious rice cake soup...people eat it on other occasions too, so I have had it before and it's good!
So Happy Lunar New Year everyone!
I took most of the pictures over at the middle school that I teach at. The other is some kimchi pots here close to my apartment.

Lotte World

Last Saturday I had the chance to go to Lotte World (pronounced Low-tay). When I first got to Korea I thought it was pronounced "law-tee." HAHA, there are a bunch of Lotte Marts, similar to like a Wal-Mart, so when I first got here I was calling them Law-tee Mart, and no one knew what I was talking about. Anyway...Lotte World is, according to their website , the world's largest indoor theme park. It was quite impressive, there are three floors shops, restaurants, etc. On the bottom floor there is also an ice skating rink, but my skating skills are pretty much non-existent, so I didn't venture out onto the ice. It is seperated into an indoor and outdoor park. I was a little surprised that the outdoor rides were open, it was maybe mid 20's and pretty windy. The sun was shining, so it appeared to be a nice day, but trust me it was COLD! I was shocked how many people were out riding the roller coasters and other rides with the weather as cold as it was, but they were. Trust me though...I ventured out to see the rides, and then went right back inside. I love roller coasters, etc. but not when it's 20 degrees. I was happy that inside they had a really fun roller coaster and some other really cool rides like a viking ship, a ride in a jeep through Pharoah's tomb, and then a balloon ride where you are in a balloon at the very top of the park. The pictures aren't the best...it was pretty dark inside when I finally started taking pics, so they didn't turn out great. It was a lot of fun and a really cool place to go visit!

New Zealand Trip!

Happy New Year! I hope 2009 will be an amazing year for everyone. As most of you know we had a week long winter break here and so I decided to take a trip to Auckland, New Zealand. I left Seoul (Incheon) on Christmas night around 7:30 PM. It was an 11 hour flight and adding the 4 hours for New Zealand time I arrived there at around 10:30 AM. I had contacted my hotel previously and asked if I could check in early. The lady was cool and said if they had a room ready they would be more than happy to. So...when I arrived I was sure hoping they had a room ready. It was just my luck that they did and she said they had also upgraded me to a studio room (which had a kitchen) for free. So...I figured it was going to be a good trip! HA! I thought of taking a short nap, but for those of you who know me and my major A.D.D. I thought "how can I be in N.Z. finally and now take a nap?" So, I changed into my shorts and grabbed my camera and a map and took off walking around town. I found a cool little park and took some pictures of the Sky Tower which was just right down the street from my hotel. The Sky Tower is 1,076 feet tall and the tallest free standing structure in the southern hemisphere. I also found a cool little park called Albert Park which had some really cool statues, a fountain, and some really beautiful flowers in bloom. It was pretty amazing to think I was in New Zealand, and I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt the day after Christmas! I also ventured over to the Auckland Domain which was a HUGE park that houses the Auckland War Memorial Museum. I thought about checking out the museum right then, but it was a gorgeous day and so I thought I'd save the museum for a rainy day, plus...I didn't want to do everything in one day! HA! I had walked around pretty much all day just exploring and checking everything out, and I must say I was pretty tired, so I figured I'd head back to the hotel and shower and get a little rest.

I woke up pretty early and headed over to Kelly Tarlton's Antarctic Encounter and Underwater World (pretty long name for a place, eh?) It was pretty cool, they had a snowcat that you can ride in and it takes you into an area that has some penguins. They have two different types of penguins: king penguins and gentoo penguins. I'm not a penguin expert, so I'm not sure in the pictures which are which. It was fun to be up close to them...I've always thought penguins are pretty cool animals. It was fun to see them swimming around...they are incredibly fast in the water. Kelly Tarlton's also has a huge fish tank that has some different types of fish and sharks. After spending a few hours there I was itching to do more, so I headed back to town and caught the ferry out to Devenport, which is a small community right across the harbour from Auckland. It was a really beautiful little town and had some really nice houses. There are also two volcano mountains on each end of the town, so I hiked from one volcano over to the other. There were a lot of different little shops and cafes back in town.

Day Three I took a 45 minute ferry ride over to Waiheke Island. It was a beautiful sunny day, which I was really happy about since I planned to be riding a bike all afternoon. The ferry ride was really nice and we saw tons of people out on the water in all different types of boats. Auckland's nickname is "City of Sails" so of course there were a lot of sailboats out in the harbour. I find it so funny that people who are on boats love to wave to other people who are boats...almost like there is some sort of connection between you just because you are using the same mode of transportation. There was an older lady sitting beside me and I swear, every boat she saw she would frantically wave at them. She received some waves back, but I think a lot of people just looked at her like she was crazy...she seemed so disappointed when she didn't get a wave back. Anyway...I just thought that was funny. So I got to Waiheke (I always like to ask locals the best way to pronounce a place, I asked two people and they both said it is pronounced WY-hick-ee, so that's what I went with) and rented a bicycle. They also had some places that rented scooters which I would have prefered, but all of them were rented out, so I opted for a bike. It wasn't bad really, the weather was amazing and the bike was a pretty nice bike. I ride mine daily here, so I figured I could make the ride around the island no problem. Right behind me in the line were two older women who didn't appear to be in amazing physical condition (in other words most people would say they were hefty, or fluffy, or fat...whichever you prefer) and I wondered how on earth these two women were going to make it around the island. I have no idea if they did...but I also didn't hear or see any ambulances, so I'll hope they made it! Here is a map of Waiheke so you can kind of see where I rode the bike http://www.waihekenz.com/images/map_large.gif I started at Matiatia and pretty much rode along the north shore following the roads that are closest to the beach. I rode to Onetangi and then headed back west on Onetangi Road and followed the road along the southern beaches. I'm not sure exactly how far of a ride it was...I'm guessing somewhere around 20-25 km which is around 12-15 miles probably. It took me about 4 hours to make the loop. There were some pretty steep roads, and then other times it wasn't bad. I saw some other people riding bikes and they all looked pretty tuckered out. I was glad I had brought some sunscreen as it was very sunny all day, and of course it is winter time here in Korea, so my white boy skin was getting a little red even with sunscreen. As I was riding I saw some different tour busses (of which I had the option to ride when I got to the island) and I was really glad I had taken the bike. I think it's either the Holyoak, or Langston in me (or maybe both) but I hate being on someone else's schedule, and having to go where they take me. I liked the fact that if I saw something I wanted to take a picture of...I could take a picture. If I wanted to sit there for 30 minutes and just relax...I could do that too. So, I was happy about the freedom that my bike enabled me to have. Waiheke is well known for all of their vineyards so I stopped at one of them and took a few pictures of some of the grape vines too. It was quite a ride, and I must admit I was pretty happy to get back to Matiatia and catch the ferry back to Auckland.

The next morning I woke up it was quite cloudy and rainy, and so I figured I'd take that chance to go check out the Auckland War Memorial Museum. It's cool sometimes how things just seem to fall into place...as I said before I figured maybe I'd check out the museum on a rainy day, and the one day it rained, that seemed to be just the place to go. It sits atop a dormant volcano in Auckland Domain, and the neo-classicist building is quite intimidating sitting up on the hill. The museum opened in 1929 and was later added on to in the 1950's. The name is a little misleading as it isn't just a war memorial, but also houses some collections of Maori and Pacific Island artifacts. They also had a T-Rex exhibit going on, but since I am cheap (yes, I admitted it, I'm cheap!) and it was $15 more dollars I decided to pass on that, since I'm not that enthralled by dinosaurs. They also had some cool exhibits about volcanoes, some New Zealand birds, fish, and animals, and then of course they had some war exhibits. It was a pretty cool museum...I'm not easily entertained at places like that, but I did my best to try and read some of the signs and such. Most people probably could have spent a day there easy, I could have done it in an hour, but stretched it into about 2.5 hours! I was pretty impressed with myself! HA! After, I went outside and the weather was some better...still not sunny, but the rain had stopped. I must say one of the pictures I got outside might be one of my favorite pictures I've taken. There was a large New Zealand flag high atop the museum, and I had taken about 10 pictures, hoping that the wind would unfurl the flag into a perfect picture...well, it was just my luck that on the BEST flag picture, there was also a bird that had flown right into the picture. I was so happy and when I got back and downloaded the picture, it was even better than I had initally thought. Pretty funny the little things that amuse me!

I woke up on the 30th and thought of my Mom and Dad and wanted to call and wish them a Happy Anniversary, but since I didn't have a phone that could make international calls...I didn't. So...I will take the time to say Happy Anniversary (a few days late) to my Mom and Dad. I believe if my shaky memory serves me right it was their 38th anniversary.

I had really wanted to make it over the western side of New Zealand and see the black sand beaches. I had flip flopped back and forth about renting a car...but as some of you might know in New Zealand they drive on the opposite side of the road. I don't usually fret over small stuff, but I really wondered how I would do if I got to driving and got into some heavy traffic or whatever and my instincts kicked in and I turned down the wrong way of a road, etc. So...I went against everything I believe in (as I stated earlier in the blog) and took a bus ride over the KitaKita Falls and Piha beach. I really hate being on any type of restriction as far as time and seeing what I want to see...but it wasn't quite as bad as I had thought it might be. KitaKita Falls was really cool...it's a three tiered waterfall that drops about 250 feet from the top pool. The area around the falls was initally settled by Europeans who were logging the "kauri" trees. The kauri is a huge tree with a trunk diameter that could reach up to around 16 feet. After checking out the falls we headed over to Piha beach and spent some time there. Lion Rock is a massive rock that lies in the middle of the beach and seperates the north and south beaches. It was a really nice climb up the rock, and there were some amazing views of both of the beaches. Apparently Piha is a great surfer's beach and has been the site of some national and international surfing contests.

The 31st was a day I had been looking forward to all week. I had planned a trip down to the Waitomo Caves to do some blackwater rafting. I had to leave Auckland really early, and it took about 3 hours to get to the caves. Waitomo is the region, and the trip I had planned we actually went rafting down the Ruakuri Cave. Ruakuri is a Maori word which translates to 'den of dogs' in English. I have to say...of all the fun things I have done in my life this might be one of the coolest things I have ever done. We got outfitted for our wetsuits and helmets and then of course had a little safety training course. After we got all dressed out we were taken to a staging area, where we had to jump off a little platform about 10 feet high with our tube. I guess they wanted to make sure people weren't too chicken to jump before we went into the cave (as there were several falls we jumped off of inside the cave). I had pictured the opening of these caves to be pretty big, like big enough to drive maybe an 18 wheeler into. We hiked up this little trail to the opening into the cave, the entry was no bigger than a doorway. It was amazing and I hiked down into there, and stepped into the freezing cold water! After getting inside we all gathered around the guide told us some of the history of the cave, and what to expect as we madeour journey. She told us to turn on the lights on the our helmet and we started into the cave. The water was pretty swift and I couldn't help but think of the first people into the caves the guts they must have had to venture into a place like that...totally dark and water moving swiftly. I don't think I would have been man enough to explore that thing 100s of years ago! There we floated along down the river and had a few waterfalls we had to jump off of with our tubes. We got to one area and she told us to turn our lights off and look up. As I floated on my tube it was one of the most amazing sights I have ever seen. The roof of the cave was filled with glow worms that let off a light lime green color...it was amazing! So as I floated along in the dark, it was just so cool to look up and see the top of the cave illuminated with these glow worms. Definitely an experience I couldn't have had anywhere else in the world (at least not that I know of). We floated along and just enjoyed being inside the cave...when I saw the light at the end, it was a little bitter sweet. It was so cool to see the light shining into the cave...but I was a little sad as I knew that the ride was over. After getting back to the raft company headquarters I took a shower and they had some soup and bagels. I had about 2 hours to kill before my shuttle ride back, so I took a hike down a trail close to the building. It was really cool and had some nice views. As most of you know, Lord of the Rings was filmed in New Zealand, and there was an area that kind of reminded me of the movie. I don't know if they filmed there or not, but there were some really cool rock formations and a tree that reminded me of the trees that carried the hobbits (I think that's what Froto and the others were, right?) on their journey through the forest.

After the ride back from Waitomo I took and shower and got ready for New Year's Eve. Auckland is the first major city in the world to celebrate New Year's Eve. It was pretty cool...downtown was packed and as the clock struck 12:00 they shot off fireworkds from atop the Sky Tower. It was really a nice night, and interesting to think that I celebrated New Year's about 18 hours ahead of East Coast time (or about 20 hours ahead of Mountain Time). I was pretty exhausted from a long day, so after the fireworks ended I headed back and fell asleep.

The last day I didn't really have anything planned...I just retraced some of the places around town I had been, got a few more pictures, and spent a few dollars on some small souvenirs. I was a little sad to realize that the week was already over and I had to leave and go back to the real world again.

I hope this blog wasn't too long...I guess it turned into a bit of a novel. I took over 500 pictures, so if you're interested in seeing any more, just e-mail me and I'd be more than happy to send some more. New Zealand was amazing, and if any of you have ever thought of going there, I would highly recommend it. I do wish I could have made it to the South Island too...but I did as much as I could in just one week!