Everyone needs some Kefir in their life!

If you’re not sure what I’m on about, kefir is a fermented milk drink made with kefir grains, which are a bacteria-yeast symbiosis that looks a little like slimey cauliflower! It digests the sugars in milk to form a sour tasting, thin, yogurt-like drink rich in probiotics.

Milk Kefir Grains

We’ve had kefir grains for a while now and they take some looking after, much like any living thing really! We call ours Kevin! Kevin the Kefir and ‘he’ is as much a pet as we’re ever going to have while living in South Korea.

Hokkaido by Bike

The last time I posted anything was at the end of June, just as we'd boxed up our touring bikes and we were about to head off to Hokkaido, Japan for 3 weeks.  It all seems like a distant memory at this stage, I suppose it is really!

It was hands down, one of the best trips I've ever been on.  It was exhausting and exhilarating but so enjoyable and I'm egging to do it all again.  We covered just over 1250km in 20 days, and according to my speedometer we offset 189kg of CO2 doing it.

Re-assembled, loaded up and ready to go!

It took us a bit longer than expected to leave the hostel the first morning, checking and double checking that we'd re-assembled the bikes properly and that we had everything, and were actually ready to get going on our Hokkaido adventure!  We finally hit the road a little before 1:30 but we'd only planned a short first day of about 40km to get to Atsuta campsite on the west coast so we weren't under any real pressure.  Once we left the city, we also left city conveniences behind us and had our eyes peeled for a petrol station to get fuel for our stove and hopefully something to cook for dinner.  The kilometres stretched on and we didn't actualy arrive to the campsite until almost 5:30 at which stage we'd done just under 60km and not the 40km expected.  That in itself wasn't too bad, but we hadnt managed to get fuel so we had a very hearty dinner, and breakfast the next morning, of bananas and bread!  As starts go, it could've gone better, but I'm not sure either of us noticed, or even cared.  We were delighted with ourselves! The campsite was free,  the toilets were spotlessly clean and had an ample supply of toilet paper, and best of all, we had it entirely to ourselves! We scoffed down our banana sandwiches, popped the tent up, and snuggeld up in our amazngly cosy new sleeping bags and got an early night!

We're all..

JAPAN HERE WE COME!!

There are a few last minute things to sort out still (like how we're going to carry the boxes to the airport bus!) but otherwise it's time for a celebratory glass of wine to get the holiday started!

Here's a rough outline of our planned route.  It's a total of about 1700km, starting and ending in Sapporo. The excitement is too much!

The 22nd of October was quite a while ago.  A very long time ago, especially in blogging terms.  I have no real excuse for the silence, a few reasons but no real excuse.  Sometimes it's hard to find the inspiration to write, especially when you think nothing all that noteworthy has happened.  Little things get in the way, and after a few weeks I seem to forget that I actually like writing and that updating my blog isn't a chore, it's something I enjoy doing.

Anyway since the last time I posted, here's what I've been up to in a nutshell:

On November 3rd Nick, four other friends and I, competed in a Spartan Race in Seoul.  An obstacle course not known for its ease, I was quite happy to complete the course, albeit with a penalty of 90 burpees due to three failed obstacles!  Apart from Nick who had to do none, we all had to do 90 which provided a nice amount of solidarity on the day!

Pre-race wanna be Spartans!

Coming of Age

The number of 'National Days' in Korea for this, that and the other never ceases to amuse me.  They seem to start with Valentine's Day, a 'holiday' we're all used to.  Although here, it's a day for the boys unlike at home where it's predominately a day for the girls.

Next, comes 'White Day' which is the same as Valentine's Day only it's one month later and it's a day for the boys to be spoilt by their other halves.  Same date, another month on, is 'Black Day' which is, from what I can gather, a bit of a depressing day for singletons when they are supposed to eat black noodles to highlight their single status!