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!

We are now officially cycle tourists!

We’ve recently bought ourselves brand new touring bikes and we’re absolutely delighted with ourselves!  Why did we need new bikes when we already have two each I hear you say? Well, strictly speaking, we probably didn’t but I suppose it could be traced back to the summer of 2012.  We were living in Daejeon (South Korea) and we only had one week to take for our summer holidays.  Not wanting to lose too much of that time spent in airports etc. we decided we’d stay in Korea and that we’d go to Jeju Island with our bikes.

The bikes we had at the time were far from touring bikes.  We got them free when we signed up to a smart phone contract when we first arrived in Korea,  but we weren’t put off! We didn’t have panniers or anything like that and to be honest, I’m not sure if they even crossed our minds.  We just put what we thought we’d need into our rucksacks and off we went!

Our free bikes, plus 5kg of rice and 30 toilet rolls! What else would you expect when signing a new phone contract!!

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!

Where We Are Now

I used to read The Irish Times ‘Generation Emigration’  (http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/generationemigration/) online each day when it first started up a few months back.  Recently, for lots of reasons, I haven’t been checking it as often.  However, I spent a few hours the other day catching up on what I had missed.  An article written by a guy called Jonathan Drennan on the 5th of May, entitled ‘Remembering Where We Came From But Embracing Where We Are Now’ (http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/generationemigration/2012/05/05/remembering-where-we-came-from-but-embracing-where-we-are-now/) got my attention.

He states that his article is addressed at young people (like me!).  People ‘who find themselves in what should be the most exciting times of their lives abroad’.  He says ‘we should be embracing the opportunities that emigration offers us rather than wistfully yearning for the past in Ireland.’  He continues to say, in his experience as an emigrant, that he finds Irish people are ‘incapable of living in the present’ and that by seeking out home comforts while abroad we are ‘languishing in the past’.  He says we 'let ourselves down' and that we often 'neglect the positives of...new surroundings' and this, he claims, is preventing us from living in the present. However, I think he’s somewhat missing the point.  

Firstly, why should being abroad be so exciting?  Surely everyone’s experience is individual and personal.  Being abroad certainly can be some of the most exciting times of your life, but I don’t think it’s right to say it should be.  

Secondly, and of his own admission, Jonathan was lucky. He got a job, and therefore he is not ‘languishing in the past’.  He has a present to be concerned with, and a worry free (foreseeable) future too.  How lucky.  He is happy. He is being kept busy and he is not being held back by a lack of opportunity.  Others however, are not as lucky as he admits to being.  Others do not have a secure job.  Or even a job at all, many are still searching for employment.  More emigrants still, do not have the luxury, as Jonathan does, of being an hour away from home.  

I am also one of the lucky ones.  I am living and working in South Korea and have been, happily so, for the last seven months.  However, I am one of the people Jonathan talks about who seek out home comforts while away and I get tea bags sent over by my mother.  They are a small and treasured slice of home while away.  They are relished.  They are used sparingly.  They are only offered to the closest of friends, ones who will appreciate them, because when they run out I cannot simply buy more, or travel home at the nearest convenient date and get more.  They have to be sent and this can take several weeks.  Several weeks without teabags can be a difficult time for all involved!  

As far as suggesting that this has me ‘languishing in the past’ is a bit of a joke.  I very much live in the present.  Korean’s aren’t great at understanding other cultures, so here, more than many other countries, you really have to get involved, it’s up to you to understand them.  That requires effort and integration, which in turn requires living in the now.  

Maybe the people who pine for home, the ones Jonathon cannot understand, the ones he feels are ‘hopelessly reminiscing about times that never were’ at home, have not been as lucky as he and I.  Maybe they are in London without a good job, without any security.  Maybe they have young sisters or brothers, nieces or nephews at home who they are missing greatly.  Maybe they have a sick grandparent or parent at home.  Or perhaps, they have been as lucky as Jonathan, but the guilt they feel for leaving loved ones behind, loved ones who perhaps have not been as lucky, is too much to bear sometimes.  It is possible also, that the people who Jonathon meets on a daily basis in London, are not ‘yearning for the past in Ireland’ but simply the present.  A present that is unattainable for many.

Maybe the hopeless ‘reminiscing about times that never were’ is a desire to one day have these times, at home.  Jonathan says he is used to moving about.  His childhood was spent between Belfast and Dublin.  Lots of children don’t move about with their families which may result in their home roots running deeper.  They may experience a greater sense of discomfort somewhere else.  They may take longer to settle into a new place.  Or they may simply not like change, especially change that is forced upon them.

As I said earlier, I have been living in South Korea for seven months now.  I miss my family, particularly my nieces and nephews, hugely.  I will be very excited when I get a chance to go home and visit.  However, I am also very excited to be here.  I frequently hear myself say how lucky I am to be here, to have a job, to be able to save some money, to be living in such a new and challenging society.  I get tea bags sent to me and I savour them.  I do not think of Ireland with rose tinted glasses, I do not wish I was there all year round.  However, I try to understand those who do, and I try to sympathise with them.  Being away from home gives you the opportunity to meet lots of new people, from all walks of life.  You learn that there are many different ways to think about things.  Maybe Jonathon should show more empathy and understanding to the people he criticises for wishing they were at home.