Blog 40 - 17th April

The past few weeks has witnessed an amazing and speedy transformation from winter snow to spring time and cherry blossom. These first photos were taken 2 weeks ago when we climbed Taewhasan, with the Faculty Alpine Walking Club. This land and mountain are owned by the College of Agriculture and Life Science at Seoul National University. It was remote and wild and we spent 5 hours tramping through ice and beautiful snow.



Damien was so intent on not slipping he hit his head. It was literally two steps forward and one step back as we slipped and slid down hillsides with no paths in many places. Felt like King Wenceslaus as we followed in each other's footsteps. Luckily one of our party was a doctor and even though he has a 3 month waiting list, Damien got to see him immediately and was declared fit with no brain damage!

Hooray! At least the women made it to the summit!

Our friends Seungh Hee and Seun Bin, seen here eating lunch at the top, invited us to accompany them on this casual country stroll!

No Korean climb is without obligatory feast including soju and a full bottle of whiskey that was quickly consumed. In this case it was Ballantyne 21.

And now spring is here! We drove 2 hours to see a beautiful botanic gardens today a gorgeous mild and sunny day. Here is the link.

http://eng.gg.go.kr/entry/Come-and-See-Wild-Flowers-Hantaek-Botanical-Garden

The Australian garden displayed a boab tree and grass trees.


Here we are with our dear friends Esther and Mark having the obligatory coffee - in real cups too!

This post is subtitled to announce that I have just had the worst week of my time in Korea as computer, visa and assorted ailments have aligned with the stars, the moon and sun to conspire to challenge my life. Hopefully Skpye, email and English will soon be restored to my computer. So far four different technical people have visited to no avail. Fingers crossed that this week will be better! At least the weather is wonderful and warm.

Blog 39 - 27th March

On 8th March women around the world celebrated the centenary of International Women's Day. Here in Seoul I was involved in helping with a first time event organised by the International Women's Day Korea committee which came together to commemorate this occasion. Ten wonderful women from Canada, Korea, Australian, America, France and the US worked to raise over AU$1,000 for immigrant women and families who do not attract government funding.

Traditional music was played by three students from Ewha Women's University. Gourmet food and wine were served by Jocelyn Park of RSVP catering in the foyer of the Seoul Women's Plaza www.rsvppartydeco.com Thanks to the musicians and to Jocelyn for your generous support.

Our cocktail party was supported by many local people, in particular the Seoul Foundation of Women and Family and the Inter-city Intangible Cultural Cooperation Network. Thank you to Dr Hee-kyung Choi, Secretary General of Inter-city Intangible Cultural Cooperation Network and Park HyunKyung , President of Seoul Foundation of Women and Family

My friends from my work came to support us - Eli, Juyeon and Emilie. Eli is chatting with an African woman who came to celebrate her birthday with us.

Guests were invited into the theatre for the inaugural performance of highlights from Face, a one woman play by Haerry Kim. This play, about Korean sex slaves during World War 2, had been performed in both Edinburgh at the Fringe Festival in 2010 and in New York, but never before in Korea. Here is the link to Haerry's play which was extremely moving, powerful and captivating. We are very grateful to Haerry for her inspirational contribution. Here is the link http://facetheplay.com/team.html

Six young women from the Koyang Hanmye Kuk-ak Nuri traditional Korean drummer group were so energetic and talented, a true testament to young women everywhere.

Here we are cutting the centenary cakes - actually three of them - 100. Co-Chair Pilar, Sophie, the event coordinator, on our committee and Park Hyun Kyung, the President of the Foundation for Women and Family.

Pilar, our Co-Chair and Mrs Park, Haerry Kim with and our committee cutting more cake!

The International Women's Day organizing committee, plus our supporters, pose in front of the display of Korean women artists that was donated for the evening. Please feel free to check out our website if you are interested in more details about our event. www.internationalwomensdaykorea.com

Here are Damien and I - he's saying, 'OK Susan, Let's go home now! 'and I'm saying, 'Just let me speak to .......!' Some things don't change all across the world.

Blog 38 - 6th March

Seoul National University http://www.useoul.edu/ has 30,000 students and a wonderful campus. On my morning walks it has been zero degrees - actually I have been very slack lately! I took these photos as I was wondering through the campus. These below are wooden sculptures outside the school of ceramics.

This plastic woman was lying abandoned in a pile outside the Art School. She was so busy texting she did not notice that it was too cold to be naked!

These fiberglass lizards are trying to sneak out of uni! They actually keep moving around the campus looking gorgeous in the sunlight.

This old professor is keeping watch on the frozen pond at SNU.

My friend Maria and I found these cute little men on the way to have a yummy affogato at her favourite place. She is Italian and knows where to find the best coffee of course!

Can you see the old Persian table top? The teaspoon was so carefully wrapped in the serviette in front - great attention to detail and service here!

These guards were carefully watching us having our coffee and also keeping an eye on this old Christan missionary from the nineteenth century making sure he did not get up to any mischief!

Here we are living it up at the Seoul Grand Hyatt, near Maria's home. when we delivered her home. The trees are wrapped to keep them warm and the night lights are beautiful. If you'd like to stay here is the link: www.seoul.grand.hyatt.com/

We have been checking out other 5 star places to take our visitors. Here is the view across the Han River from the W at Walkerhill where we had brunch today. Yum!
http://www.starwoodhotels.com/whotels/property/overview/index.html?propertyID=1451

Blog 37 - 20th February

There have been no blogs for a while as I have been busy with family matters. My Dad, Peter Raphael, died on 6th February, aged 83 years. He went from home to hospital and passed away within a few days. During this time Dad managed to say goodbye to his 16 grandchildren, 6 children, Mum and his four remaining siblings, before going peacefully. He was truly ready and slipped away so gently. While it is very sad to lose Dad, the way of his dying was a gift to us all and could not have been better if he had scripted it himself. Here is a photo of Dad taken on Christmas Day.

Moving backwards in time, just before this, Damien and I had a wonderful weekend staying with Damien and Dianne, catching up with Damian, Judy and Michael, our dear friends. Thank you all for caring for us and welcoming us to Melbourne yet again.

Dianne and I went to visit Dad's family, including his 93 year old sister, Norma, mother of 15 and grandmother of 88 children. Dianne and Norma had a wonderful time sharing stories of nurse training at St Vincent's hospital.

Those who know me well will be familiar with my regular bush-walking trip to Tasmania. From Melbourne I flew to Hobart where I spent less than 24 hours before I was called back for Dad. Luckily I was not in the wilderness yet as contact would have been very tricky. I did manage a coffee at Jackman and McRoss with Biddy. Here's me with my backpack all ready on our way to the airport.

Thank you once again to my friend Marie-Ann for your hospitality. Check out those wonderful white roses taken care of by Paddy! Those who visited us when we lived in Hobart will recognize our Battery Point home in the background.

Thanks to my son, Dominic, for taking such good care of us. Here we are on our front veranda on our way to the airport - yet again!

Where's Wally (Susan?) Can you see me? We planned to meet our son Jacob in Kuala Lumper airport as he was transiting to Cambodia from Indonesia as we were passing by on our way from Australia to Korea. By coincidence, we had a 25 minute overlap, however our plane was late and he had already boarded when we arrived at the Old Town White Coffee house, a traditional Malaysian cafe. We ate a laksa and had a tradtional coffee (see the photo above) in his honour anyway!
So here we are back again happy to be home. Here is the view from our window taken this morning. It was minus three when we returned on Monday night, however today (Sunday) is a balmy 6 degrees so the snow is melting.