The Smogga Blogga

The Towering Cathedral of Zagreb

Peter Stewart — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 12:44:06 +0200

I came around the corner of this grey looking Zagreb city block and the next minute these two huge towering ...

Hunting for the Nightingale in Berkeley Square

Peter Stewart — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 19:27:43 +0200

This is my first attempt at moblogging so this is a bit of a wee test. Main reason is to speed up posting because I am such a lazy blogger. Me wife on a few occasions in our close on 30 years of marital bliss has often accused me of being so lazy if it wasn't for me mum I would never have been born. Now behind her back I tend to disagree with her but never to her face otherwise she would despatch me back into said womb.

In the mean time a number of things have happened though. I finished in Korea in the middle of August and spent the last two weeks of the month at home in South Africa taking a break and preparing for the next job in England, getting visas, etc. We arrived in London in the beginning of September and I started work at Oracle, the huge database company. We found an apartment in Barking and I sort of settled into work. Leaving home again was really tough, perhaps traveling has lost it's novelty status a bit or it was just hard to part with kids, hounds and house again but I really just steeled myself and tried to focus on getting to London and getting things going and did not really get the kick of being in London, England in an English environment and culture as I had dreamt of so much while I sweated away in Korea. Since then though we have tried to get around and explore and every now and then I have gotten this rush and thought 'Wow, I'm working in London!'.

There are so many things to arrange when moving to a new country even though we still have the house in Gordons Bay. New job, apartment, council tax, telephones, broadband Internet, power, national insurance, bank account, etc. The worst must have been trying to get through to BT for the home phone, took ages. We had a phone line in the flat but it still took weeks to get the line switched on. Most things are nicely automated on the Internet or there are pretty efficient call centres to arrange stuff. Getting the apartment was a bit of a mission. We stayed in a few Holiday Inn Express hotels for two weeks while we hunted for a place. We were keen on Docklands at first but it's very pricey and saw some pretty nasty places for too much money. We then found a newish 2 bed place near Barking which we just took at first sight as it was newish and nicely equipped. Now Barking is known as one of the poorest areas in London and also the thirteenth most unpopular place to stay in the UK but to be frank we have settled in ok. We are about 800m from a good station with convenient 15 minute trains into the city every 10 minutes or so. It is a quaint unpretensive area with convenient shops and a pretty quiet safe area so far. There is a huge Tesco very close by as well as a bit of a retail park too. Then the obligatory pubs abound as well and we have taken to one of them a bit. There is a nice Nandos too, South African based Portuguese Mozambiquean grilled chicken chain that are in the UK too, we go and chomp on a chicken bone whenever we need a bit of consolation.

The job has been good though. The company is very global and huge. They have a massive head office complex in Reading and a nice modern London office near Liverpool Street station. I know a few of the people I work for and this has made settling in easier. I'm based at GAP in London at the moment. It is in Berkeley Square where the nightingale sang. "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square" is the title of a well-known romantic British popular song. Berkeley Square (pronounced "BARK-lee") is a large leafy square in Mayfair, an expensive part of London. The Ritz Hotel referred to is also in Mayfair. This is where I work et al Wikipedia.

When two lovers meet in Mayfair, so the legends tell,

Songbirds sing; winter turns to spring.

Every winding street in Mayfair falls beneath the spell.

I know such enchantment can be, 'cos it happened one evening to me:

That certain night, the night we met,

There was magic abroad in the air,

There were angels dining at the Ritz,

And a nightingale sang in Berkeley Square.

I may be right, I may be wrong,

But I'm perfectly willing to swear

That when you turned and smiled at me

A nightingale sang in Berkeley Square.

The moon that lingered over London town,

Poor puzzled moon, he wore a frown.

How could he know we two were so in love?

The whole darn world seemed upside down.

The streets of town were paved with stars;

It was such a romantic affair.

And, as we kissed and said 'goodnight',

A nightingale sang in Berkeley Square.

So let me go and find this nightingale...........

The Docks knocked me socks off!

Peter Stewart — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 06:22:43 +0200

My Asian hourglass seems to be slowly running out, more perhaps my Soju shotglass:-! I'm scheduled to finish the current ...

Clammy Chowder in Africa

Peter Stewart — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 12:12:38 +0200

Traversing the expat world tends to lull one into a sense of isolation, being away from home and family on ...

The World is Dawning

Peter Stewart — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 11:04:34 +0200

Ski season has just about departed us already. Winter has not been as cold as anticipated although we had a ...

Snow-di-la-di-da

Peter Stewart — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 10:08:31 +0200

So into 2007 we are charging at a mean rate. And down or rather up to the ski slopes too. ...

Etcetera Etcetera Etcetera...

Peter Stewart — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 04:39:29 +0200

This is a bit of a catch-up post. The year has flown by at such a mean rate, nearly done ...

My Dad

Peter Stewart — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 06:47:38 +0200

My dad passed away recently. He had a light stroke a short while ago and his condition deteriorated after that. ...

Hong Kongalong

Peter Stewart — Fri, 30 Jun 2006 08:44:19 +0200

We had to do the obligatory visa run to Hong Kong for a long weekend. I don't mind, quite fond ...

World-u Cup!!

Peter Stewart — Wed, 21 Jun 2006 09:57:47 +0200

Well, the Soccer World Cup has arrived and what are Koreans crazy about, soccer, feverishly, fervently, furiously, fanatically, all the ...

Chasing Asian Foods

Peter Stewart — Mon, 05 Jun 2006 03:41:33 +0200

Jeepers, been in Seoul for more than a month already. We have settled in nicely at work. Getting into all ...

Man, that Bibimpap stuff looks familiar!!

Peter Stewart — Tue, 16 May 2006 03:19:02 +0200

Yeah, I'm back in Korea again, have been back for two weeks now, working on an interesting new project. Its ...

Bravado in Manado

Peter Stewart — Wed, 26 Apr 2006 14:00:48 +0200

Wasn't really any bravado, just was a nice sounding rhyme. Scuba is not about being brave but being careful and ...

Home Again

Peter Stewart — Sun, 12 Mar 2006 21:23:40 +0200

I'm back home in South Africa for a while, returned at the beginning of February. The weekend before I left ...

Oh My Seoul

Peter Stewart — Mon, 23 Jan 2006 11:06:46 +0200

I was back in Seoul last weekend, had to fly up on Thursday night, worked through the weekend and back again on Sunday night. Not much time to exploring again, work, work, work, and in Korea where normal work entails work, work, work having to do special 'work, work work' is one step beyond the pain one suffers in purgatory for all one's wrongdoings. I have never been keen to go back because of the corporate culture so was a bit apprehensive, particularly after getting onto the Korean Air plane which was about 99% filled with Koreans and getting the kimch wiff in the air, but I was pleasantly surprised. It was a bit like going home, knowing the place and the people and what to expect, nothing foreign and new. Everything works too, and there's the temperature control on the shower in the hotel, what a marvelous device. And whoever complained about the Seoul traffic, extremely mellow by Jakarta standards, emergency lanes are exactly that, to be used for emergencies only, or everyone in Jakarta is always in an emergency but knowing the laid back nature of Jakartans I have my doubts about that. The guys at the office worked on the previous project with me and were chatty and friendly, bleary eyed though they were from weeks of working till midnight seven days a week for a while. Pity I did not have enough time to get around but there is a possibility that I might go back for another project, who knows.

I leave Jakarta at the end of the month but before that am spending the Lunar New Year weekend scuba diving in Manado. Manado is classified as better than Bali so as my last hoorah should be in paradise, am looking forward to that.

Bali Banter

Peter Stewart — Mon, 09 Jan 2006 13:35:45 +0200

Here comes a non-diving entry, realized all my entries have related to it and there is other stuff in Indonesia that’s cool too, come to think of it, actually not much, what else matters!! I need to talk about the time I was forced to disown my manly roots and don a sarong to get into a Bali temple, I need to address the deep psychological scars I bear from this traumatic experience. So I will babble a bit about the non-diving side, although talking about Bali without thinking of diving is unthinkable, the bumphead parrotfish, the sweetlips, the angelfish…….

We went on a one day tour of North East Bali, me and Done` alone in a bus with the driver/tour guide. His English was a bit limited and I tried to get him to modify the schedule a bit as we could not get to the main Bali temple Besakih as there was something going on there. Every time I thought we were heading for some other location we ended up at the next location on the schedule. I wanted to get to the Batur volcano at Kentamani instead of being dragged through all the temples and other destinations on the route. We did eventually get there though and it was well worth it. Before that we went through a few temples, at one there was the most insistent, arrogant, aggressive little vendor I have ever come across, at the temple with the bat cave. She was quite young and we had to literally tear ourselves away from her to get away, even to the point of buying some of the junk she was trying to sell at a ridiculous price just for sanity sake, no good Bali representative, this one. I must say though that there were the most charming guides at all these sites and the very gracefully asked for only one or two dollars at the end as they were not earning any money. The best was the most charming old gentleman at one of the museum sites who explained the ancient pictures on the roofs of an old building in very eloquent English, I gladly parted with a few dollars for his most elegant and professional service. The Monkey Forest was a bit creepy but interesting with these sacred monkeys all over the place, regal in there majesty and ownership of the place. Bali is a very mystical, spiritual place with all it’s Hindu temples and little shrines at every building. It is a place where the gods are really acknowledged and it does make one introspect a bit and think about one’s own spiritual roots.

Poor Done` was starved of a bit of shopping as Tulamben does not have much and Chandi Dasa is only slightly better. After we had seen the Monkey Forest she charged off to some shops nearby and disappeared for a while and nothing I did could tempt her out. She eventually emerged with bags of stuff. There were lot’s of little shops all over the place.

After Bali we just spent time recovering and then Done` left at the end of November. I went for another weekend of D-I-V-I-N-G at Kotok, as always great. The island was very quiet with only six guests staying over and it was sublimely peaceful. My island weekends have really been the mainstay of my sanity. A gang from work also took a day trip to Bandung nearby for some shopping at some of the many factory clothes shops there. I went home for Christmas and New Year on 22 December and returned on 6 January, damm!

Home was excellent though, both my lovely daughters were there. Also had my mother and sister in law with us for Christmas and then my sister, Jean, for New Years. She lives in Auckland, New Zeeland. Our home is in a bit of a holiday village and we are about 2 kilometres from the beach so a holiday atmosphere did prevail. We just did, ahem, nothing, lots of it, and some swimming and exploring, and braaing on a new gas braai we got for an area of our veranda we enclosed – braai being Afrikaans for barbeque, but done South African style, more hot coals than flames.

At this stage I am leaving Indonesia at the end of January so have to squeeze in some D-I-V-I-N-G. Going to Kotok on the 10^th for a day’s diving and then scheming on joining a trip to Manado at the end of the month, hmm, can’t wait.

Black Bali Beaches

Peter Stewart — Thu, 17 Nov 2005 13:26:48 +0200

A scuba diving book on Indonesia I picked up at the Jakarta airport on my way out last year, long before I had even contemplated the idea of taking it up, had this paragraph on diving at Tulamben in Bali, something about knowing you had done the right thing after dumping the air from your BCD (buoyancy control device, the thing wot makes you float when you jump in the water with tons of lead and other junk strapped to you and after you come up from a dive – that’s diving, strap lead to you and a floating tube, why not just leave it all off!!!) and getting to the bottom. And so it was, as we slowly sank down suddenly all these brilliantly coloured twelve inch plus size fish were swirling around us within touching distance, smooth silky bodies floating by, obviously looking for food but I saw them as a welcoming committee, and welcome is how I felt. They looked translucent, as if someone had carved them out of some bright plastic type material, what an amazing place. The coup de grace though was the troop of huge bumphead parrotfish floating around just above the bottom, in slow motion cruise control, regal, they were the emperors of the bottom. They slowly turned away from you, nothing was going to rush them. That, and the welcoming committee, is what is burned into my mind when I think about Tulamben, and the black volcano rock and sandy bottom, and the amazing wreck with its huge columns you can float through, and the huge brooding volcano that watches over all this, and, and……just too very special.

Tulamben is Bali to me, not mazes of lush green little rice paddies nor the rush of sometimes aggressive vendors that can bug you constantly in the more populated areas nor lines and lines of little shops and narrow streets and shrine upon shrine upon temple all over the place. It’s totally impossible to escape the spiritual world in Bali as every house has a little shrine dedicated to the spirits. Perhaps this is what puts people into Bali mode, that laxidasical laid back I’ve-fallen-off-the-edge-of-the-planet type feeling. We flew into the main town, Denpasar, were collected by the dive company, Aquamarine, who did a superb job throughout the trip of arranging all our accommodation, travel and dives, and then drove up to Tulamben, about two and a half hours away. As we drove through Denpasar I though ‘Huh, nice civilization’, comforting, as it’s a nice town. Then as we edged farther away it grew more and more rural. When we crossed a green ridge abeam Mount Agung and dropped down into a valley it was as if someone had switched the scenery prop on a movie set, suddenly it was dry and grey and looking very ‘volcanic’. This is Tulamben, on the dry side of the mountain, very dry, bleached white vegetation, the type we have in winter on the South African highveld after a month’s worth of cold morning frosts. Tulamben is small, all of not even a kilometer’s worth of little shops and houses and accommodation places on both sides of the main road in this desolate place. The reason for all of this is only apparent after you have pulled on your rubber gear, stumbled a few hundred yards across fist sized black volcanic rock, collected your tank and BCD from the game little local porters (who balance the whole lot on their heads), gotten yourself over the rocks waddling like a drunken duck into the sea and sunk beneath the surface.

The Liberty wreck comes with the complements of the Japanese and Americans and Word War II, something good can come out of these catastrophes, it seems. The ship was torpedoed by the Japanese and the Americans towed it up onto the beach and Mount Agung then obliged and blew it into the see when it blew it’s top in 1963 and destroyed the whole area, including taking thousands of lives. There seem to be thousands of huge rocks lying all over the place from this eruption and the coral wall that’s also a lovely dive is courteousy of a lava flow. This other-wordly violent nature of the Indonesian countryside is quite scary, flying back we cruised past a number of volcanoes, some belching angry looking smoke. We visited Mount Batur which also blew up catastrophically 40,000 years ago and left this huge crater that’s kilometres across with a large lake on the one side. The fact that the edge of the crater is festooned with little shops and restaurants and vendors crawling around in it like fleas on a camel bugging and biting everything that resembles a tourist does not distract from it’s beauty, or does it? The drive along the crater and then down the mountain was spectacular.

We stayed in a very charming little hotel, Mimpi, right on the beach at Tulamben. The restaurant is open air under a roof facing over their pool and the small bay, very very beautiful sight. The main activity here is pulling on your diving/snorkeling gear and heading for the sea. The wreck can be seen from the surface as well and is a great snorkel. We spent three nights here and then moved to Candi Dasa further south and much more in the civilization. Our first walk up the main road made me miss the isolation of Tulamben. Again the hotel, The Watergarden, was really nice and cosy. We dived from Padangbai, a short drive away. Padangbai is a quaint little harbour town and owes much of it’s existence, like a lot of business on Bali, to the scuba dive trade, little bustling dive operators and boats everywhere, very charming and disarming g place. We geared up in one of the restaurants and they were so ever friendly. The dives entailed going out on the boat, Done` included with her snorkeling gear and doing two or three dives with about an hour’s break in between, so each time nearly a day on the water. It was extremely charming, lovely scenery, just great being so close to the ocean for a long period of time, bobbing up and down just offshore. We saw huge amounts of cuttlefish, a turtle, lot’s of white tipped sharks, some swimming around in an underwater cave as we watched warily from the mouth and others sleeping on the sandy bottom. My guide, Made, was particularly adept at picking out microscopic sized creatures that I missed as I was sans my spectacles, ghost pipe fish, various small shrimps, nudibranches, etc.

We are back in Jakarta. Stuff we have been getting up to includes going for a braai, South African barbeque, at this huge house of a South African friend I met on a dive trip to watch a game rugby on his satellite TV from South Africa. We had a lovely massage at the new Ritz Carlton Spa for $25 US last Saturday. Culinary wise we had huge steamed crab Singapore style at the Mulia hotel with some Indo friends, had buffet style meals at the Mulia and Gran Melia Hotels, had Pad Thai at a place across the road, lots of Nasi Goreng (fried rice) at various places, lovely Thai food at a stunning place in the city, Korean Galbi at another place across the road (including some Kimchi which is unusual for me, time to get out of Asia, I’m starting to like the stuff), etc. We also have made our own Sop Buntut, Indo oxtail soup, with steamed rice. The Indonesian buffet places at the fancy hotels are something to behold, average price around $15 US with huge ranges of suchi, sachimi, salads, various forms of food including Indonesian, Thai, Chinese with the obligatory Peking Duck, various Western dishes and divine range of desserts.

Indonesia is so huge with so much variety, a world in one country. There are so many islands and different areas, so many amazing natural varieties. So much hardship and suffering too, as if it’s fiery volcanic earthly origins have scorched it’s peoples too.

But I already miss some diving, time to head for the water again. Done` goes home next Wednesday so perhaps the weekend after that I will head for the islands again. Having said that I miss the Korean winter too, the cold and above all the skiing.

Nudis sitting on Branches

Peter Stewart — Wed, 26 Oct 2005 06:51:10 +0200

The visibility was not too good, about 3 metres or so and we glided past a piece of the stern and then along a dark wall and then it struck me that it was the main part of the wreck and I looked up and this thing towered above me for quite a few metres, very imposing, sitting on its bottom on the sea floor. This was Papa Theo, the wreck that hit a reef off an island in the Pulau Seribu or Thousand Islands near Jakarta in 1982, a 60 foot cargo boat. I have been wanting to dive it for some time and Angela, the Aquasport dive instructor, promised to take me there about four weeks ago when we were at Matahari. We couldn’t then as we had boat problems and were delayed while we waited on another island near Jakarta for a replacement and then had a very long, uncomfortable ride with the replacement boat out to Matahari, ‘I joined the navy to see the world, what did I see, I saw the sea’ stuff, but still better than a good day at the office. She promised to take me next time. ‘Next time’ was last weekend but we stayed at Putri instead of Matahari as their boat was still in for repairs, went out with the fairly comfortable island ferry boat.

Papa Theo did not disappoint, impressive wreck. Nearby a moray eal stuck his head out of a hole as if to warn us that we were just visitors. They have just mischievous expressions. Putri has huge fish tanks with lots of fish on display. My only disappointment is the round, not so big moray eel tank they have with about eight large eels in. I was deliberating how we would sneak up at night and move them into the large tank and more space, perhaps on a next visit after copious Bintang beers. Putri has a lot of monitor lizards too and at night they like to plunge into some of these fish tanks and chase the fish.

Our other dives had much better visibility, the last dive on Sunday being on a reef with lovely soft and hard corals and millions of little fish and quite a few nudibranches, a slug-like creature that all divers must see, it’s the sign of a good diver, ‘Did you see the nudis??’. They are cute though, look like something manufactured out of bright coloured plastics.

The previous week I had spotted an Olympus C5000 digital camera on sale with a free dive enclosure thrown in at a good price in Mall Kelapa Gading in Jakarta. Being the un-impulsive shopper I am (not) I went home to think about it and then two nights later back in the taxi to buy it. Now Mall Kelapa Gading is supposed to be the biggest mall in Jakarta and so it is, huge, and very nice too, and therefore we battled to find the camera shop again. Perseverance and tired feet did the trick. The camera is an older style digital camera but is 5 megapixels with the ability to set everything manually etc so a good prie/performance buy, me thinks. It was obviously tried out at Putri and did not do too badly, needs a bit of practice, did survive the 34 metres at Papa Theo. Will add a few pics here. Night diving is a bit of a challenge, torch and camera in one hand and one free hand to use for fine tuning propulsion and to fend off stuff and signal.

Done`, my wife, went with. She came back with me to Indonesia after my last visit home in the beginning of October. It has been extremely cool to have her here to keep me company, heaven knows, I am not a good bachelor. She has a bit of a bout of asma so no scuba diving for her for now, was disappointed as I was looking forward to exploring with her. She likes snorkeling though and went out with the dive boat a few times while we dived. The Thousand Islands are the ideal weekend getaway if one likes water and being stuck out in a Jakarta suburb a bit without good transport I need to get away from it every now or then.

For the Lebaran long weekend in early November we are going to Bali for six nights, three nights in Tulamben to dive on the Liberty Wreck and three nights in Padangbai.

My visit home was quite nice too. We took a drive up the Garden Route from Cape Town to Knysna, a tourist town on a lovely lagoon. The route winds through lagoon-lakes and beautiful mountain scenery. As ever Gordons Bay is the nicest place to live in and have as a home base, holiday everyday as a retired Korean gent once said in Korea to me.

Cool turtles in cool islands

Peter Stewart — Sun, 25 Sep 2005 16:26:53 +0200

Gonna just sneak in here and pretend I have always been around. The Kotok diving was superb. The island is set up so well for divers, huge diving platform in the sea with place to wash, hang stuff, kit up, get on boats or just jump off the jetty to explore the coral around the island. There are always groups of divers doing something too. The island vegetation is lush tropical stuff and they have a few large bird cages with some small raptor species they rescue and rehabilitate. The rooms are also nice, chunky wooden floors with semi-open bathrooms and working aircon when the generator is running. Had a sad scene on coming back from our first dive on my first weekend there, the boat was commandeered for a medical emergency as we came back. A guy in mid thirties or so had died in the water while snorkeling, seemed like a heart attack or stroke. Did not respond to emergency treatment some divers administered. It left a sad cloud over the rest of the weekend, reminds one how mortal we are and that we all one day depart this world for another. I was back there two weeks ago and had an excellent weekend. The gang of divers is normally a great bunch, a mix of Indo and Westerners. Kotok faces the open sea so has good fish life, although mostly quite small but have seen turtles on three occasions, always an absolute highlight. One was on a night dive, was right above it, it was sleeping on the bottom, then lazily swam away. We followed another for a long while as it lazily swam away. It is like discovering a whole new world, like the bottom half of the earth, perhaps the better half.

I have just come back from a weekend at Matahari island, diving again, and yup, saw another turtle. They are so graceful although they can turn on the gas if frightened. Saw some lion fish, cuttle fish, eel as well as a small sea serpent. It is the most utmost relaxing sport, just gliding in Microsoft screen saver, exploring the reefs. The island environment is so cool too, water, deep blue and then light blue over the reefs, islands scattered around, just laxidazical atmosphere, away from Jakarta’s mad traffic and smog.

Went home for two weeks in August, always ultimate cool to get home, relax, be with the family, visit some friends, eat good ol Western food again, South African braaivleis and boerewors, travel on sane roads too. Brought back some biltong and droe wors - dried meat, nearly jerky style. Gave some to one of the loal Indo project managers, she nearly started wretching, and they eat such weird stuff! Got my own back after all the weird meals I have endured. As a matter of fact am headed home on Tuesday night again for a two week break, taking it a bit early as we have a slight break in the project. My wife is coming back with me, tired of the pseudo bachelor life, hate living alone. In November there is a long weekend holiday and we are off to Bali for some exploring and diving. There’s a wreck at Tulamben that’s famous for it’s large numbers of fish that I want to go and have a look at, want to see some beeg feesh for a change.

So perhaps a cool turtle will cruise past me again...

Diving in Custard Soup

Peter Stewart — Tue, 19 Jul 2005 10:27:46 +0200

I do miss my blog a bit, someone to talk to, like an invisible partner. Problem is life is a bit busy but mainly I am a lazy bugger too. Anyway, here is another update.

Finished off the scuba course, am now officially a PADI Open water Diver, as a matter of fact I am just about an Advanced Open Water Diver, just need to finish the homework, did the dives. Does remind me that it's just a licence to learn, a start of a journey, not an arrival. Advanced means that if a shark chases me I have a thicker manual that I can whack him on the nose with and tell him to go and mess with someone else.

The dive course entailed two weekends of classroom and pool diving to 4m and a weekend of four dives at Matahari island in the 1000 Islands off Jakarta. The weekend was great. The whole dive environment of boats, dive equipment, sea, etc is amazing, just kitting up, jumping into the sea, floating behind the boat as the group assembles in the current and then descending and after ascending grouping together, being picked up by the dive boat, etc is just too cool. The Indonesian weather is also so ideal for diving, you can spend the whole weekend wet and never feel cold. Now I am a particularly carefull guy, most probably a bit yeller, so I approached this diving thing with lots of caution and some apprehension. For one we are not really designed to survive under water, for that matter in the sky either, and I am prone to sensations of claustrophobia in very confined spaces, like crawling through tight mountain caves. The first dives were in the 4m dive pool and after getting acquainted with the dive equipment – BCD, regulator, mask, snorkel, fins, etc in we went. The underwater breathing I found to be surprisingly easy, perhaps cos there’s a wea bit o’ pressure in that thar tank on your back and the breathing stuff is sort of trying to get out. A lot of time is spent doing emergency type drills, sharing air with your buddy, clearing mask of water, emergency ascents, etc. The worst for me was taking off your mask for a minute as the visibility without your mask is nearly zero as your eyes can’t focus in water, it had me longing for the clear air 4m up. It reminded me of when I was doing pilot training (with me fear of heights) and how I feared stall training and how the instructors grilled me into the ground doing it. Our first sea dive was in pea soup, the visibility could not be worse, so it was concentrate on the dive technicalities and go down and stay together and was great fun. After that it got better, we dived some nice reefs. Just being on the sea bottom was great, and drifting semi-weightless is awesome too.

The weekend before last I joined a group on a live-aboard dive boat out of Merak. Merak is a harbour town about 100kms to the west of Jakarta on the Sunda Straits. It was astronomically great. I have never lived on a boat, love anything related to sailing and water, so it was the perfect combination of elements for me, with the added diving interest too. We were doing an advanced diving course too which entailed five different types of dives, deep to 30m, navigation, drift dive, night dive and wreck dive. The boat is a wooden 60 foot motor-sailer schooner built in Indonesia, with the emphasis on the motor. Website http://www.javaseacharters.com/ We were about 12 guests on board and left from Marina Anyer at about 11pm for Krakatau, the site of the volcano that erupted in the 1800s with disastrous effects. Check http://www.josc.org/krakatau_stories.htm and http://volcano.und.nodak.edu/vwdocs/volc_images/southeast_asia/indonesia/krakatau.html I was so hyped up I could not sleep at all. We motored through the night and at about four anchored near one of the islands that make up the remnants of Krakatau. I went up on deck and the atmosphere of the islands and smouldering Anak Krakatua was just something unique. Anak Krakatau – Son of Krakatau – is a growing volcano, grows about 4 m a year and looks like an angry piece of ground. It’s mainly dark volcanic rock with some trees around the base. There are huge areas of lava flow into the sea as well. It’s not safe to climb to the top. The beaches are black volcanic sand too, bit like a moonscape. We did three dives up against Anak Krakatau. The underwater scenery is mainly big chunks of volcanic with some new coral growth. The visibility was not that great but again it was diving and in the sea. The night dive with underwater torches was interesting. The next day we did a wreck dive up against another island. The wreck is a World War Two navy ship that was struck by torpedos and driven up onto the reef around an island, lots of big pieces of boat lying around. What’s interesting about diving is the surroundings where you dive, not just any old place out in the open sea cause the water’s too deep, but normally up against a nice reef or island or some feature that makes it interesting .

Last weekend I spent in Jakarta, trolling through some of the pubs and restaurants in Jakarta to kill time. Jakarta has some really nice buffet restaurants in some of the good hotels. Some of them are Satoo at the Shangrila, Café Gran Melia at the Melia Hotel, one at the Mulia and JW Marriot hotels too. Prices are very reasonable, something like about $15 for a huge meal with sachimi, suchi, Chinese, Indonesian, Japanese, Western foods, etc. The best desserts are at Satoo, they have a huge honey comb one can break pieces off as well as a chocolate fountain and the most divine custard, yeah, I am a custard freak. We had an African woman called Mapaballa who worked in our kitchen on the farm and she had perfected the art of making very thin custard.

Next weekend I’m planning to go out to an island called Kotok in the Thousand Islands, Pulau Seribu, where the diving is supposed to be great. The area we live in is quite nice, comfortable apartments, etc but it is suburban and difficult to get around because of the bad traffic so by weekend time we are normally chomping to get away and any place in the city is good enough, although it usually takes at least an hour by taxi to get anywhere.

Am going home or a week in August and really looking forward to that too.

Ketchup Catchup

Peter Stewart — Tue, 21 Jun 2005 14:04:52 +0200

If I tiptoe in and drop some stuff here will any one notice that I have not updated this for a while. Strange thing is I tried to get in over the weekend and the site was down for maintenance, murphy’s law. Our Internet connection was upgraded recently to better than snail mail pace so that is an excuse to get back into the bloggin thang.

In the mean time Done` came out to visit for a month and we got up to some interesting stuff. We went to Pantara Island for a weekend. It is the nicest of the 1000 islands, nice hotel style place with excellent food and lovely rooms, nearly too grand, I felt, nearly missed Sepa’s rustic-ness an in particular Man, the boat man. We had a very grand ball arranged in aid of charity in the Club down the road, lots of smart dignitaries and great food and entertainment. I made a new friend, Rudy, American guy a few years older than myself for once on a project but extremely young in spirit and full of go, we had a lot of fun, played some golf together too. Unfortunately he has left already, and so have my South African colleagues, Richard and Michelle. I had some awkward moments on the job too, was eyeing the exit for a while, perhaps another reason I was quiet on dis blog ting, was a bit upset about some stuff. Done`, myself, Rudy and Patrick spent a weekend on Putri island too, was good fun. We did a lot of snorkeling, so much that I am just about through a scuba diving course, the bug got hold of me.

Then I was home for ten days or so, most enjoyable. Home is home, even my toughest youngest wanted to know when I was coming home for good cos she missed her dad. Gordons Bay and our little pad is the nicest base one an wish for. Over all too soon.

The scuba course is at a place called Aquasport in Kemang, Jakarta. Kemang is quite a quaint place, every one said it was so nice cos all the expats live there but I found it a bit crummy and primitive at first, then started discovering all these little places all over it and it has grown on me, full of character. The diving has sort of replaced the snow skiing in Korea, or at least I hope it will, has all the signs of being able to, unless I freeze up when we get down to 18 meters or so. The reefs around the islands are so nice, inviting, fish sneaking around and are not really too deep either. This coming weekend we go out to Matahari island to do four qualifying dives. Would be nice to change the clinical dive pool for the organic ocean. The dive pool has been fun though, water is water too and it’s a nice escape from the Jakarta heat. We have spent about an hour at a time underwater doing various drills, loose your regulator, run out of air, loose your mask, emergency ascents, kitting up, check your air, procedures, control your buoyancy, etc. The breathing is easy and without strain. We had to do a 200 meter test swim, boy, that was death. Made some nice friends too, apart from the two instructresses. My dive buddy is the smallest girl you have seen, so me and my 1.97 meters and her are an interesting combination, and she is a newly qualified attorney who’s running a family business so she is into analysing stuff bigtime.

That’s more or less the catchup, will try to get aroundto posting some pickchurs.

Fruity Indonesia

Peter Stewart — Tue, 12 Apr 2005 17:56:34 +0200

Oo, neglecting me blog a bit here. I’m a lazy so and so, most of my chores are done very minimalistically, ironing is done when I get up, grab shirt on the run, dab with luke warm iron, throw on my back, run. Tend to do the same with the blog. Sorry blog, oops blog, as Chi Ho, my good Korean friend would say.

Another week has tumbled by, actually a week and a half. Last Friday night Patrick and I headed for the Sportsmans Café in downtown Jakarta for a meal and a beer, had a really excellent Aussie steak, tenderloin wrapped in bacon, medium rare, was scrumdidlyumptuous. Its in quite a seedy area called Block M, more or less the Hill in Seoul’s equivalent although much more run down, but the bar does not allow single ladies in so quite safe and with a real old English pub feel to it and great food. It shows South African satellite Supersport TV so great for rugby. It’s a cool place to escape to on a Friday night, just get out of the Lippo Karawaci area. We are trying to get a girl friend for Patrick who is about 42 and a bachelor from Hong Kong. Last time at Sportsmans he got a girl’s phone number but never phoned and lost the number, this time he got it again but whether he actually calls remains to be seen. To his credit he wants a long term relationship. After that we headed for a quick drink at the Hardrock Café in Plaza Indonesia and then discovered a very nice bar nearby, Fashion Bar, a Fashion TV theme bar, and had some cocktails there, also in Plaza Indonesia. Plaza Indonesia is a very nice mall with a Hyatt Hotel on top. There’s a nice Sogo department store, Japanese owned but they also sell Marks and Spencer clothes and some other nice brands. The Woolworths in South Africa I worked for was based on Marks and Spencer, no relationship to the Woolworths’ in the UK and Australia. They have some nice English bookstores too so I caught a taxi there on Saturday afternoon and just malled around, went on my own, did not want to have to follow others around, just wanted to go where I wanted. It has been a long time since I have browsed through an English bookstore, there aren’t really any in Seoul, so I just cruised around lazily, some lovely books on Indonesian wild life and scenery. It’s such a huge group of islands covering such diverse environments, pretty volatile too what with it’s earth quakes and volcanoes. I read somewhere that one of the volcanoes near Jakarta had erupted quite a while ago and covered the city with dust, wonder if it’s one of the hills I have been staring at from the apartment, there’s danger there in them there hills! Read tonight the a volcano on Sumatra had started erupting near a town called Padang.

On Saturday morning two of the girls from the office, actually one resigned a while ago, took me for a sandwich and some of the amazing fresh juices they make here. Indonesia really has some weird looking fruits I have never seen before and we do have tropical areas in South Africa and Mocambique. One is star fruit which I liked but the other, durian, is a very much aquired taste, like hold your mouth open as a baby and force feed you for your first five years and then it starts sticking! It’s very strong, I just tasted the juice. Seems to be the equivalent of Korean kimchi, something you need to grow up on. There’s even a place in Singapore, I think, where the roof is shaped like durian. It has a very strong smell, even in the supermarkets and I believe some hotels will not allow you to bring it into you room to eat.

We have also had some interesting meals. There’s a traditional food place across the road called Taman Sari and we had lovely grilled fish there and the most amazing fresh coconut milk in freshly cut coconuts. It’s a bit outdoorsy with huge verandas that you eat on.

On Sunday I loafed in, did some washing, then played nine holes of golf at the Imperial Club across the road. It’s a lovely palm lined course and was great just to stroll around the course, a good walk spoilt as it has been called. My boss in Korea battled to understand that expression. How could a good walk be spoilt? My happy average is a double bogie and I bogied the first three holes and then promptly dispatched the ball into the ample water that surrounds the course.

Done` is coming on Thursday from Cape Town and I’m really looking forward to that, tired of this single life again, need some company, miss her, someone to iron my blasted shirts too!! I moved into an apartment of my own, was sharing with Patrick before, it's great, tired of this sharing thing allthough Patrick is cool, but I am 48 already, hello, used to living alone! This coming weekend we are heading for one of the islands in the Thousand Islands chain, Pantara.

Sepa Isand Escape

Peter Stewart — Sat, 02 Apr 2005 08:20:04 +0200

The island trip was great. Caught a taxi to Ancol Marina. Now some of my scariest moments in life have been spent in a taxi en-route to Ancol, the experience defying description, so this time I waved down a Blue Bird (Blue Bird only, we have been told) and got in. ‘Slowly slowly!’ I said to the very friendly driver who spoke very basic, broken English in a very charming way. So he motored along gingerly, slowly slowly, peering at me in the not so busy traffic on the motor way. Eventually he could not resist anymore and asked ‘Slowly slowly?’ very carefully. ‘Ok, go’ I said and he took off like a horse who had just bolted from the starting gate a few seconds behind the others and had to catch up, actually nope, he drove very well. The Marina is a collection of piers where boats launch for many of the Thousand Islands just north of Jakarta, about and hour to two hours away by mostly very fast boats. It’s a little mini economy of it’s own. Jakarta has a lot of sadness in it, very poor areas that we flashed by, it’s a mix of poverty and wealth, lie a lot of the developing countries in Africa.

The island accommodation was rustic but nice in a bit of a back to nature way. There was aircon, but not very good shower water, but this is about getting away and that it sure is. Just loafing and idling around the small island, then floating in the crystal clear water with lovely coral reefs all around, burning to smithereens which I did. Being in the tropics the water is perfect. Cape Town’s water is freezing polar stuff so I loved this stuff. There was a group of three sub-thirty English school teachers and we hired a boat to go exploring, the boatman being the most charming local I have met called Man who spoke good English. His old grand father seemed to be the marketing man and collected us, extremely sweet. The boat ride was lovely, cruising slowly past little islets, drifting around some of them snorkeling over the coral, doing a bit of fishing and just exploring, ultimate relaxation stuff. Two of the girls had taught in Korea too, small world.

Back at the office things were busy, we have been working quite late, by Western standards, 8, 9, 10 o’ clockish and then from our apartments too as we are in the same building with network connections to the office, how convenient. We socialise together after work and during lunch, some nice eating places being in the vicinity. After the company drought in Korea that’s the part I enjoy the most. We are spoilt for choice of places.

On the evening of the big earth quake in Indonesia this week I was sleeping and got this 1 am worried phone call from my wife to check if I was ok. We never felt it as it was too far away. As it happened before I had gone to bed I was reading a little booklet on our building and it stated that the building was designed for a 5 to 6 scale earth quake and the quake in Sumatra, another large island quite far away, was 8.7, makes one think, keep in mind our office is on the 21^st floor and apartment on the 35^th! I don’t think anyone who has not experienced a quake like this has an idea of the terror involved. I have heard some of the stories and they are bone chilling.

Now we are going off to do some shopping. We have a driver for the group called Tigor, cool guy, and we are going off to some shopping centre in Jakarta where there’s a Carrefour among others. I miss my skiing and skiing buddies and walking in Seoul, need to get more exercise here, perhaps play some golf tomorrow, I have said that every weekend I have been here, lazy, lazshy as Chi Ho would have said it.

Busy Jakarta

Peter Stewart — Fri, 25 Mar 2005 01:27:59 +0200

This is a bit of a quick entry. I’m waiting for a taxi to take me to Ancol Marina where I’m going to catch a boat to an island in the Thousand Islands group just north of Jakarta for the weekend. It’s Easter and time for a relax and reflection and some swimming, snorkeling and sunning, after minus whatever is Seoul. I actually miss the Seoul winter, it was great, the cold, wrap around scarves and jackets, walking to and from the subway, the ski slopes, of course. It made the loneliness easier.

Here we have been busy. We have had a big public project launch in a big fancy hall made up like a big fancy computer show in a big fancy school nearby. It was hectic and busy but good fun. It’s quite weird to have a bunch of English people around me, two Texans, two other South Africans and a bunch of Indonesians who speak very good English along with a person from vanilla Manilla in the Philipines.

I must run, just an update, will try to post some pics and a better update when back again.

Pokumpap to Nasi Goreng

Peter Stewart — Tue, 15 Mar 2005 13:37:27 +0200

So now I am an Indonesian. My Korean life feels like a dream. Strange how one packs up your life and you walk through a curtain into another life. The trip was uneventful, got on the very comfortable Incheon airport bus at most probably -2C, went through all the airport motions and got off at Jakarta in 30C temperatures, beautiful lush green tropical landscape. Korea is all a bit stark clinical efficiency versus Indonesian friendly chaos, it might take you a bit longer to get there but it’s done with lot of smiling and laughter and friendly babble. Tigor, the driver, was there to pick me up in a brand new Toyota van, wow, not a Hyundai or Kia, and driving on the ‘right’ side of the road, left, we bustled through the Jakarta traffic, more like organised chaos, millions of vehicles and motor bikes all milling in more or less the same direction, quite often not, eeek, stomp on the brakes. Seeing shacks always has a comforting, welcoming influence on me. ‘This reminds me of Maputo’ I said to Tigor, he’s a nice friendly guy who speaks quite good English, wanted to know if I played basket ball, Richard, a South African friend on the project had said I looked like one. Our apartments are in the same building as the office, offices up to 23^rd floor and apartments on the 35^th, nice brief commute. The block has a Bollywood ring about it, very flashy and colourful entrance, the apartments quite nice roomy 2 bedroom stuff.

I found my object of desire too, and no, it’s not a local Indonesian beauty although you could call it that. On previous visits it’s been very smoggy (that’s where the smogga comes from) and all you see is flat Jakarta landscape. Being the rainy season with more wind perhaps it was partly cloudy but very clear when I arrived and there, poking through the low clouds at me from my 35^th floor lounge window was the peak of a volcano, extinct I hope as he’s a bit too damn close for comfort if not, most probably fifty to a seventy kilometers away, sweet. So the place is not all flat, wonder if any of them are high enough to be above the snow line?

Differences between countries always fascinate me. In Korea the floors are heated wood or soft plastic style for walking on in socks and sleeping on, here ceramic or carpeted. The hotwater geysers are minute, like not five minutes of showering capacity, no hot water tap in the kitchen, no toaster, electric kettle or microwave either, otherwise quite functional. But there is a water cooler/heater type goodie you find in offices. Indonesians don’t use table knives either but forks, spoons and/or chopsticks, moi being a subject expert on chop sticks by now, but from my previous visit I know it’s impossible to buy table knives, like I could not find a milk jug in Korea. The food is pleasantly South East Asian and with my kimchi purgatory experience I seem to manage most foods here and enjoy them a lot, today was Pad Thai, a nice spicy stirfry with some meat. Yesterday was a nice satay kebab style meal with fine noodles and a nearly bulgogi type meat. One thing I know is that their fried rice does not stack up to the Korean stuff with its overdose of delicious blackbean sauce, it’s called nasi goring here, nasi is rice, me thinks. Give me the good old pokumpap any day. TV is a mix of local Indonesian Bahasi language and the range of Western news, movie and documetry channels, lots of soccer and some good rugby because of the proximity to Australia/New Zeeland.

The 15th was my birthday too, 50 is starting to call me, damn, that’s bloomin old! Richard is on the 16th and we had a celebrately meal last night and a party at work, nice. A year ago exactly I left Cape Town for Korea, what a year, interesting, foreign, weird, traumatic, educational, etc, and another birthday on my own….

Bye Bye Seoul

Peter Stewart — Sat, 12 Mar 2005 03:38:26 +0200

Today is bye-bye Seoul day, yesterday was bye-bye company-project day. Done` left last night amidst a flurry of packing and juggling weight as she had too much stuff, little bits and pieces, what are little girls made of? I said good bye to the office, a bit of an anti-climax, some last checks on the system, quick good byes and before I knew it I was out on the street heading back to Yeouido and then to get Done` to the airport. It was weird being alone again, was so great to have her around, I am endlessly restless on my own, always rummaging around. Headed or my last Outback meal in Itaewon. We had packed through the week so most stuff was done, just last minute goodies. Two girls from the office are coming just now to collect our left over furnishings and appliances, one year’s worth of it.

It’s freezing cold again, as if Seoul is taunting me one last time, ‘let’s go skiing!’. There was so much I enjoyed here and so many nice people I met but I’m in a bit in shock over the way the corporates drive their staff, I’m not sure at the moment if I want to come back, to see friends, yes, to work, I’m not sure. In the spirit of bali-bali everything is under planned and under-timed but a deadline is just that, you will die but you will get it in on time. I don’t feel like observing that again but I have learnt from the experience. I also think the forty plus generation of corporate managers needs to retire or something, there is a new breed of younger guys, more open, less neurotic about their image but stifled by the old. I observed what was for me the most touching moment of my year in Korea. The boss was raging and screaming at Han Yeol because we had to bring the system down for an emergency and he just stood there in shock gazing back and when the boss eventually walked off, snorting and burping, Han Yeol sat down in a daze and the people who stood around came over and comforted him, like a child being abused by a parent is comforted by it’s brothers and sisters, they cluster together for comfort. I am ashamed of my age group in Korea. My immediate emotion was to tell him to ‘fcuk off!, the boss.

So that’s how I remember Seoul a bit, sad, but I will gaze fondly at my photographs of the snow slopes, the islands, the Han, Namsan and try to erase that memory.

Last week in Seoul

Peter Stewart — Tue, 08 Mar 2005 18:25:54 +0200

I’m sitting at the office waiting for a big job to finish. I came in at 2300 as it was supposed to be quiet then, to my dismay it looked like a normal day with many people still working. Every one is in a state of exhaustion, except me, I don’t speak the lingo, cannot understand what’s going on most of the times, just make sure the stuff I look after works. JM, one of the guys, asked me about something yesterday and while I was explaining he just fell asleep on me for a while, I waited, then continued when he woke up, flee asleep again, dozing in and out, I nearly cried, it just broke my heart. The last time I saw that was when we were on holiday in Mocambique, Southern Africa, and a little black guy about 13 or so was guiding us to the mouth of the Limpopo river and was forever falling asleep against my arm because he had sleeping sickness which I think you get from testse fly.

I have never seen anything like it and I find it difficult to handle, on the projects I have worked on in the West we work late when we go live but there are limits, bosses chase you off to sleep when they see you have hit the stops. There are no stops here, only stop is when your job is done, hard as rocks. Chi Ho and his wife were going for a meal with me and Done` tonight but he cancelled because he was too exhausted and wanted to leave ‘early’ at 2100 to go and sleep, he was still here when I came in, looking like a ghost. JM was sitting in a meeting with his boss and some other people, fast asleep.

I feel guilty that I went off and skied this weekend. It was a great finale to the ski season and one I will fondly remember. We did some great skiing, pushing the limits just a little every time. I had two memorable collisions with snow boarders, both times hit by a totally out of control bullet that sent me flying with legs, arms skis and poles departing to all four corners of the earth. The second time I decided to use the snow boarder as a shock absorber and just grabbed hold of him and fell on top of him, he just groaned as we slid along the snow. Tom and I migrated to the advanced slopes, they are just steeper so once you have an idea how to stop they can be traversed. I had silly falls, stopping to have a look at the scenery and falling over my own feet or a noteworthy tumble off the ski lift at dismount right in front of all my compadres. There were five of us, Canadian David, Irish Tom, English Richard, Katherine from South Africa and meself. When we said good bye David said ‘This is good bye!’ like it had really struck him that he would not see me again, a poignant moment, I will miss you Dave, wish I could take you along and make you marry my oldest!

On Friday night David and Richard and myself met up and proceeded to the Outsider for a last drink there. They will take over the Western representation from me, I think, as they liked the place. Many of the bar tenders I knew have left and there were lots of new faces, even Sung Hui who spoke English is gone.

On Thursday night Done` and I caught the subway to Dongdaemun and explored a bit. There are a number of department stores with sound stages outside where they have musicians playing which are quite often recorded for TV, very flashy and noisy. Korea is the mecca of the electronic world, every fancy flashing object imaginable is found here. Taxi dashboards are adorned with these devices, as if the more electronic you appear to be the better the taxi service. We had a really good sandwich and coffee in one of the food courts on the top floor of one of the stores. Goods are not that cheap but it’s interesting to wander from floor to floor to see what’s in the stores. There was some lovely traditional Korean dresses in one store, for the one year old birthday parties, me thinks, that being more important here than the actual wedding of the sibling’s parents.

This week we have started packing and preparing to leave. I have mixed feelings about that now. It’s strange to think I have been here for a year, in that time I have learnt so much, seen so many new places and faces, made many new friends, Asian and Western, inflicted unimaginable shock on my taste buds, survived the kimchi onslaught, tasted foods I would not have believed could possibly be classified as cuisine and yet grown to like some of them, been targeted by snow boards as if I was the American Air Force One plane taking off from Baghdad with George Bush on board and every single Iraqi insurgent was lying behind a bush with a Stinger missile rocket waiting for me, etc, etc. One expats because it’s a job but also because you have this crazy urge to see what lies behind the next hill, to see if that yonder horizon holds something of interest, boy oh boy, it sometimes does. I know I will get to Indonesia and miss a lot of stuff in Korea, specially people and also the easy transport, safety, cooler weather, interesting places, totally different atmosphere this place has, etc. My apartment has also been nice and comfortable and modern although not really located in an expat-friendly area. And the Han, without it Seoul would be soulless, Seoul-less, it’s like a life-carrying aorta that winds through this crazy, busy, full city and brings fresh blood to it’s inhabitants, many of whom are rearing to line its banks when Spring sets in as its threatening to do now, resplendent in their fresh mountain climbing gear, the winter gear having been safely stashed away for next winter, if it’s still in fashion. I’m joking but the Korean passion for the outdoors is amazing, they love it and soak it up, I’ve seen little old people walking around the walking paths in the gardens of apartment blocks at all times of the night, swinging their arms, wriggling their backsides on the exercise machines you find everywhere, doing exercises all the time.

This is chronologically back to front but this is the last week, a bit hectic and nostalgic.

The Jumble in the Concrete Jungle

Peter Stewart — Wed, 02 Mar 2005 05:05:33 +0200

Seoul had a snow white blanket this morning, and quite thick already for Korea as it does not snow much here, about four to six inches already. It fell overnight and kept on falling this morning. Last night Done` and I headed up to Seoul Station by bus to do some shopping at the good LotteMart discount store there, then had some Mexican food at the Bennigans at the station and caught the bus back, no sign of snow, the Mexican food was good. The snow is a good omen for this weekend, it’s our last here and we are going for a good bye ski with the expat gang, using our free accommodation vouchers from the crazy ski competition. We never saw the program on TV, it was on in the morning instead of evening, how can KBS deny the Korean public of the shenanigans of the expats and not show it in prime time?

I was slipping and sliding all the way to work as buying shoes for snow never entered my mind when I bought my current pair of shoes in 30 degree C Cape Town summer last year, they are smooth rubber without a single tread. I could have caught a taxi but I reckoned that I would not have too many more opportunities to walk to work in snow seeing as we are departing Korea for tropical Indonesia next weekend. I did notice from the Internet that Indonesia has a snow dome on an island near Singapore, its track is closed at the moment though, a 50 metre track would most probably be more of an irritant to me now anyway seeing as I have become accustomed to zooming down kilometers of Korean snow slope at great speed and wrapping meself around all types of objects in so doing, typical examples being snowboarders and skiers and pine trees. They have a temperature lock on these snow dome things in the tropics where you acclimatize to the medium cold before they let you into the good cold. One of them somewhere even just freezes water and scrapes the ice of for snow, oh peleaze! I see a huge one is planned for Cape Town too, resplendent with a hundred or so metres of track too. One does come to understand the demographics of population density and it’s economical value. The ski slopes here are very busy but so well developed because of the high visitor numbers. They run 24 hours a day, for all of those 24 hours a day there are about ten dozen road attendants blowing full blast on little whistles and loud music blares out from speakers mounted on every single pole of every single ski lift, the hills are alive with the sound of J pop, not the sound of pigeons. Cape Town battles to keep an amusement park going, it’s actually going to close, with our 40 people per square kilometer versus the 400 of Korea. The only time the low population density benefit really kicks in is when you go mountain climbing.

Habits die hard and some of them are quite funny, I am left handed and used to ripping money out of my purse and handing it over with the left. In Korea that’s rude and the right must be used, try as I might I always catch myself having handed it over already, then sheepishly switch my purse to the left and accept the change with the right. It’s starting to click in my mind and I might actually do it right when I pay for the bus ticket to the airport. It’s good I’m not going home as the purse shuffle would amuse some of the coloured till attendants we have in Cape Town, they are known for razor like humour and will discuss a funny situation in great colour and with load peals of laughter long after you have left. Another irritant is getting up from the seat in the subway and hitting my head on the handles. I’m about 6 foot 5 inches and my head is a constant war zone so ducking is akin to the way a US Marine ducks in Baghdad when he sees an Iraqi with an AK47, so I duck violently when these things smack me as I have bumped, even cut my head many times on low objects. I’m now starting to get up between the handles a week before I leave. I also wage contstant war with the subway ticketing machines as they have low little doors that close in a flash when your ticket is not accepted, for me they are knee high and my old knees that have suffered the ravages of rugby, army, farm life and skiing object particularly at being smacked by these evil devices. Some times you swipe your card and they close halfway and then flash open as if to just check your vigilance, they have taught me to swear under my breath.

Our project is now live, somewhere with great labour this baby was born. The process was watched by many people who spent nights following it’s progress. On Monday night everyone was instructed to stay for the night at the office, I could go home but was in for the day yesterday which was a public holiday. Last night many worked through the night too. Koreans are great at assembling a huge team and throwing themselves with abandon at a huge project, how they co-ordinate all these limbs beats me but it’s done, the system is live and running ok bar some teething problems. They have cut corners, yes, but they have done a mountain of work in a short time and hung it all together, bali bali. I have contributed as it’s all running on systems I strung together. The corporate juggernaut has no individuals, just many limbs that move in unison. The way teams pop out of the woodwork amazes me, for every function there is a little team ready to do the work, like a huge well-oiled army of ants, loudly discussing the issues at hand. My lack of Korean skills has been particularly frustrating and I am not keen to repeat the exercise, I need to work with people I can talk to. It feels as if one has had a stroke, after 46 or so years of being able to read and talk suddenly getting money out of a bank machine, paper from a printer, a key for a locker, washing into a washing machine, warming milk in a microwave, reading a road sign or menu, listening to a conversation, apologizing for writing off a snowboarder, etc is impossible, the letters all jumbled and out of sequence. I will miss many friends I have made though, the people I have gotten to know are very sweat.

So this is just a mumble blog entry, perhaps I will report more clearly on our ski weekend. Will try to add some snow pics Done` took tomorrow.

Palace by the Bookstore

Peter Stewart — Sun, 27 Feb 2005 15:48:21 +0200

The week has been quite busy at the office, our system is going live on the first so heavy preparations are under way. Projects in Korea always seem to be under-budgeted for time, by about 50%, and every one is pushing heavy overtime. In the year I have been here overtime has been the norm, in this time one girl’s boy turned one, wonder if he still recognizes her. Another guy also had a baby, how much do they have of that first precious year? I’m leaving in two weeks time for Indonesia and am starting to go into reminisce mode about my year in Korea. There’s so much nice I have experienced but the hardness of the work environment is what I remember formostly. I might come back again but most probably for shorter periods, come in, do my piece and move on again. It’s been difficult to be around all the time as language is a huge barrier and it’s limited the value of my contribution. I have learnt so much though, had some real low times but also some very exiting stuff, top of the list most probably the skiing, way up there some of the island exploring we did in the summer and a visit to Busan and Hong Kong.

The week was a mix of galbi-tang, fried rice, pizza and KFC lunches. Have a look at Click Asia for some nice info on Korean foods and dress. On Friday night we worked late and went for a quick dinner across the road for sumgaytang, chicken soup with rice filling and ginseng root. The place was a restaurant I know they serve the unmentionable at, d-o-g, there was a sweat stew smell in the air and when I asked what a particular menu on the wall was they smiled and confirmed my thoughts. I understand that it’s a cultural delicacy and is done very orderly, the same way we eat mutton, but in a million years will I have it, it will be a cold day in hell, when it freezes over, its just not on for me, was a very weird experience. A few months ago the boss told a group of us Westerners they serve it there and the girl in the group would not believe him and kept asking ‘Are you sure?’ unbelievingly, eventually the boss said ‘Yes, d-o-g!’ It was funny, the way he said it. Once we were climbing mountain in our early days here and a guy came around the corner with a small dog on a leash and I quipped ‘He’s got his lunch with him!’, joking, and the boss went to great pains to explain that they do not eat it, I’m sorry to say though, its still done. Again, its part of the culture and most cultures have components other cultures find a bit strange, this happens to be the local one, so I grinned and climbed into my soup, made sure it was chicken though, this one had four legs, wonder why, must have grown up in a nuclear waste field! I did think of my little dachshund at home, Dominic, who has these eyes that stare right through you, follow you around, and when I call him for a walk he jumps up and holds his body up for me to put his harness on.

On Saturday Done` and I took the train to Gwangwamun station near Kyobo book store. It’s the biggest bookstore I have ever seen, huge and filled to the brim, very busy. It has a nice international section and we browsed around. In London we went through the National Gallery and I got hooked by the impressionists and we bought a few prints there and this time we found a few too for our GordonsBay cottage. After that we strolled up to the GyeongbokgungPalace about 600 metres away, a cold clear day but nice for walking. The Palace grounds are huge and the outdoors was lovely, not too busy because of the cold. The old cultural side of Korea is fascinating and lovely. I like the huge ondol underfloor heating urns they have outside. We headed back after that, a bit weary from all the walking.

Today we headed for a station near Jamsil that was supposed to have some factory shops with cheap clothes. We caught the bus to Jamsil station, nice long ride past the Express Bus Terminal and Coex mall through wealthy southern Seoul, then switched to the subway but it was a dud, no shops in sight so we headed back to Jamsil and Lotte World. They were having a sale on in the subway and Done` waded in and bought a few handbags and ear rings for kids and family. We had a bite to eat and wandered through the place, they have a nice grocery section. We then had some dessert next to the ice rink. By the time we got back we were quite foot sore again but Done` was very chuffed with her shopping.

So tomorrow is the beginning of my second last week here, starting to go through the apartment and getting rid of stuff I can’t take with, will be packing soon.