A little bit of Friluftsliv of a Monday!

After watching ‘Wild’ last night, a movie that shows Reece Witherspoon as Cheryl Strayed, walking 1600miles solo along the Pacific Crest Trail, and a really great run this morning, I am reminded of an article I read on an in-flight magazine a little over three weeks ago.

I was flying from Ireland to South Korea, after an amazing nine weeks at home with family and friends, during which time I got married.  It was a very teary goodbye on my behalf.  I can be a bit of an emotional eejit at times and this was the longest time I’d spent with my family since I graduated college almost 6 years ago.  When I said goodbye I was facing into the longest stint away yet without a visit home - it will be close to 21 months before I’m home again.  But with each passing day, home is one day closer and I’ve a whole lot of adventuring to do in the mean time.  The goodbyes were hard, they always are, but with them said and behind me, I am firmly looking to the future.

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!

Inner Mongolia...in China!

Yup! Inner Mongolia is in China!  This had us somewhat confused as we walked along the Great Wall (which granted was just over three months ago now) only three hours outside Beijing and were told "China's on this side of the wall, and Mongolia's on the other".  How far had the bus just taken us? Were we really at the China-Mongolia border?  And if so, why the hell were we going back to Beijing after the wall-walk to get a bus from there to the Mongolian border??  Seeing the looks of confusion on our faces, the next sentence was "Not real Mongolian, China Mongolia".....Ah right, that clarifies it alright!  So there you have it, Inner Mongolia is in China!

Back to work, back to reality!

Or a reality of sorts anyway!  My timetable has changed slightly this semester, same number of hours but now I have Mondays off instead of Fridays and I've taken on a few extra hours on Saturday mornings as well to help with the savings.  Still though, a fairly nice reality to come back to after what was a great nine weeks off!

Summer time and the livin's easy..

...Or so the song goes anyway.  One of the first things I promised myself when I started this new job, teaching English to college students, last March was that I wouldn't fall into the trap that so many others seem to.  I would not complain.  I work a mere 14 hours a week and I have three day weekends every week.  I also get 20 weeks holidays a year.  The job is not stressful and complaining about it to other foreigners living in Korea who are not as fortunate job-wise as me, and who work much longer hours both daily and weekly,

A Few Days in Osaka

Japan, or at least the small part of it that I was in, was very different to what I was expecting.  I'd been told from a friend that used to live there that it'd all seem very similar to Korea, and maybe because of that, I was astonished at the differences, which to me seemed infinite and everywhere.

DMZ: Demilitarized Zone or Domestic Money (Making) Zoo

Hyejeon College turned 30 on the 30th April, a while ago now I admit, and we all got a day off to celebrate.  The college held a ceremony, the students drank soju and Nick and I went to the DMZ!

We'd been meaning to go for ages.  It's one of those places you feel you need to see while you're in Korea and an unexpected mid-week day off seemed as good an opportunity as any to go and check it out.

A Week Off to Procrastinate?

Last week at work was review week. A nice handy week, spent going back over things I'd already covered, answering questions from panicked students about the content and difficulty of the impending mid-term exam and then breezing out the door at lunch time on Thursday, not having to be back in until next Thursday, when they'll be sitting my exam.  I was expecting to be bribed with a tonne of presents from my students, in exchange for the promise of a good grade, but presents were disappointingly lacking.  All I got was an orange!

It's been a while!

August 12th, 2012??!  I knew it'd been a while since I last posted anything, but I didn't think it had been that long!

I suppose a brief synopsis of what's been going on since then is what's called for....

I did get Laser Eye Surgery. LASEK to be exact.  It was massively painful at the time but I can see perfectly now, and have been able to for months and I'm told my eyes are in excellent health.  Success.  Money very well spent.  Delighted.

The last shot of me wearing glasses! T minus 30mins to surgery!

Post surgery! Trying to put on a brave face and pretend it didn't hurt too much!

Next, winter came to Daejeon but not before Nick entered a Chinese Dragon Boat race on the local stretch of river and won, I went to Seoul for a Hen Party, and we both went to Busan for a wedding.  When it did come though, winter came in a suit, ready for business.  Temperatures plummeted and the lovely warm weather of Autumn quickly became a thing of the past BUT I can't say we minded too much because at this stage we, Nick and I, were on the count down to Christmas at home!

Nick, the rest of the team, and 1,000,000 won prize money!

Snowy walk to work

Outside our old apartment in Wolpyeong

Finished work on Friday evening and came outside to this!

The local park of an afternoon!

We headed off from Daejeon on the 22nd of December, clad in matching Christmas outfits (which blended in nicely in Korea, not so nicely in London or Dublin!), leaving our apartment and our jobs to two of our friends to take over.  This made the packing process somewhat easier, knowing that anything we wanted to leave behind would be safe in our now old, apartment, awaiting our return!  After something awful like 36hrs on the move, we landed in Dublin, where it was 30degrees warmer than it had been in Seoul!  From -15 to +15 just like that!

Incheon Airport wearing matching Christmas couple outfits, and under Steff Hotdog to boot!

There really is nowhere like home, and no more so than at Christmas time.  It absolutely flew by and now seems like a distant memory, dominated by oodles of rich food and washed down with plenty of festive gargle.  Great fun altogether but it really highlighted the badness of our diets back home.  Food that was too rich, too processed or too sugary when I first got home soon became normal again, not that it stopped me from wolfing it all down and having a grand ol time for myself!

The over-eating induced lull after Christmas Dinner!

 
I spent a total of 9 weeks at home, and nick was there for 10.  In that time, we went to a friend's wedding in Roscommon, we visited relations and friends in the west of Ireland, we acted as beaters on a woodcock shoot, we ate a very fancy dinner post-shoot in Markree Castle, and we caught up with as many friends and family as possible.  At the same time, I was on the look out for a job back in Korea, starting about the 1st of March, and Nick was furiously studying for the Oral Defence of his Ph.D.

Kathy & Kev's Wedding on New Years Eve in Roscommon

Family Fun in Kilmuckridge. All ten adults and 5 children worth of us!

Stunning, bleak, Connemara scenery

The woodcock shoot we were beaters on.  Gas day out! Unfortunately there wasn't enough tweed to go around!

 

Very fancy post-shoot dinner at Markree Castle

After much job hunting, and much study, we were both successful!  I got a job and Nick got his Ph.D! Delighted, the pair of us were!


Week three in my new job is almost drawing to a close now.  I'm teaching conversational English to college students in Hyejeon College, just outside of Hongseong in Chungcheongnam.  It's a small enough college about an hour outside of Daejeon, tucked away in a quiet little mountain town.  The college has provided me with a nice apartment just off the campus, as well as a huge office on campus, next to my classroom.  They did however mis-spell my name as 'Step' on the door of my office which means I'm probably going to be Step from here on in!  However, I only work a trying 14hours a week, and I have every Friday off.  Each of the two terms in the college year are 16 weeks long,  and the rest is holidays, paid holidays at that. 

Hard to make out but this is my office door and it says 'Step Ruth Russell'!

'Knock knock, open wide, let's see what's on the other side'!

The view over campus from my office window!

The last few weeks I've been wandering around, pinching myself, wondering how in god's name I ended up here, with this ridiculous job, where I have tonnes of free time, loads of holidays and all the while earning a salary decent enough that I can put some money away for a rainy day!

And that folks, in a nutshell, is it. The past 7 months, crammed into one little blog post!

Around Jeju with a Bike

When our alarm went off at 7 on Monday morning, it signaled the start of a week of early morning wake up calls, but I didn't know that then, and I happily got out bed to get to the port in time for our 9am ferry to Jeju-do.  Our ferry tickets had a room number on them.  Surely a €20 ticket doesn't entitle you to a room, does it?  It did, just not a private room.  All passengers are allocated a room.  One half of both decks was divided up into square rooms about 5mx5m.  There was nothing in these rooms, you just kick your shoes off at the entrance, and claim your space. Much better than the rush for the 'good seats' on an Irish Ferries crossing to Holyhead!  There was a real holiday vibe to the ferry, everyone cracking into cans of cass and bottles of soju, and it only half nine in the morning.  The Koreans really are a pack of loopers!

Our Itinery

About to cycle off the back of the ferry with all the cars, having just arrived on Jeju-do.

When we got to Jeju-si, we didn't walk off with the rest of the foot passengers, oh no...we got to cycle off the back of the ferry with all the cars, brilliant!  We pulled in around the corner from the port to check our tyres and lather ourselves in sun-cream before heading off on our clockwise circumvention of Korea's much talked about 'Hawaii of Asia'.

The heat that first day, Monday, was stifling.  The ferry had docked at 1:30 so granted it was the hottest part of the day to be moving about in, but it was that or stay in the port town for the night and we were both pretty keen to get on the road.

We had decided to switch off our phones altogether for the duration of the holiday.  No email, no texts, no facebook, no googling, nothing except the necessary GPS!  It was lovely to feel so free and uncontactable for a change.

The first 10 kilometers that day was on a main road but we soon found the coast road, thank you google maps, and thats when it all really began. After a fair few hours in the saddle we came to a beach called Woljeong Beach.  A bar out the front of what seemed like a hippie commune (is that even possible in Korea?) lured us in.  After a couple of ice cold beers it was fairly clear we were going nowhere, and there we stayed.

Woljeong Beach

A Hippie Commune, Korean Style!

Day 2 and we were on the road by 7:30 to try and avoid the heat.  The first hour or so took us through some pretty Irish looking landscapes.  We were heading for Ilchulbong, an extinct volcano, right out on the far eastern coast, from which the views were meant to be spectactular.   A little local shop provided us with all the necessities...water, Pocari Sweat ( an isotonic drink with a great name!), stronger suncream, nuts, oranges...and some old chap, after hearing we were Irish, did a Robbie Keane impression for us, what more could you want! 

Irish Style Landscapes

The shop where we stocked up before climbing the volcano, and got free Jeju Mandarins for our troubles!

The crater peaking out over the cloud in the distance

The view from the top of Ilchulbong

The view from the volcano was every bit as good as expected, once I'd wiped the sweat out of my eyes and could actually see it!  However, in true Korean style, the attraction has been fully expolited.  There must have been over a dozen coaches and god knows how many cars in the car park.  In front of the ticket office was a Dunkin' Donuts, an Angel-in-Us (one of the many coffee shop chains abundant in Korea), a 7-11, and 4 or 5 other shops selling general tourist tat!  Still though, I shouldn't complain, we took full advantage of Dunkin' Donuts and their Arctic air conditioning when we got back down!

Do I really have to get back on my bike??!

Back onto the bikes once more, with the aim of getting to a beach about 6km (Sinyang Beach) away and resting there, in the shade, until the day started to cool down somewhat.  The beach was not the nicest, and the thought of spending 4 or 5 hours on it did't really appeal...so on we went.  But the coastline changed from sandy to rocky as we cycled on and on through the mid day heat, again.  At about 3 o clock, I couldn't go any further.  I needed food and rest and shade.  We found a family mart (a convenience store a lot like our Spar's, an 'all you need, when you need it' type of shop!), downed nearly 2litres of Pocari Sweat each and devoured a bunch of bananas.  I knew we couldnt stay there though, there was nothing there, so after consulting Google's satellite image of the area, we got back on our bikes and slowly cycled another 10k to a beach town called Pyoseon.  It was gorgoeous.  And it was only half four, but we were most definitely done cycling for the day.

Cycling through the mid day heat, for the second day running, might not have been our brightest move but we did get to see a sinking tanker!  It'd run aground just off the coast, at a lighthouse ironically.  A definite highlight of the day!

Mayday Mayday!!

When the alarm went off the next morning at a bright and early 6am, I was not feeling too spritely but after a quick breakfast of banana, yogurt and Pocari I was ready to go again.  If nothing else, the smell of our cycling kit was enough to knock the sleep right out of us! Our aim for the morning was to get to Seogwipo, the second city of the island, on the south coast, almost exactly half way around Jeju.  We passed a sign that said it was 31km and we were ticking along at a great pace so we thought we'd be there about half ten, but then we passed a signpost that siad we had 41km to go.  It was getting hotter and I was getting tired but we continued on, sticking to the coast road as much as we could.  Arguably too much though because at one stage we ended up in a forest.  We went through it for a while, but after passing some of the biggest spider webs I've ever seen, I couldn't hack it anymore, and we turned around.  It was after 12 when we did get to Seogwipo, exhausted.

We collapsed on a bench, in the shade, outside a toilet block, in the carpark of  a Korean style commercialised waterfall!  I fell asleep within minutes.  Then we went to Dunkin Donuts, their air conditioning really is second to none, before hitting up some local restaurant for a much need fill of real food in the form of a bimimbap (rice with vegetables and an egg).  It was our first proper meal since Saturday and it was amazing!  I stupidly thought that if we paid into the waterfall, we'd find a patch of shady grass where we could lie down and rest until it was time to get going again.  But of course, as is the way here, the way to the waterfall was paved and there was no detouring from it, no bit of grass, so back to a coffee shop with us for more a/c!

We camped that night, not because we wanted to, but because after a particularly hilly afternoon cycle we arrived to a beach called Jungmum, where the only accomodation was in the form of a big swanky looking hotel.  In with the pair of us to the sea for a swim straight away and my god, was it nice.  I don't know how well I slept that night 'cause the next day I was feeling pretty ropey. It was probably a combination of exhaustion and slight dehydration, combined with the heat. Whatever it was, it had me knocked for six, and we spent most of the afternoon lying down in a Buddist Temple!

The Campsite at Dawn

Jungmum Beach

Passed Out in the Temple

Friday Morning we got to a beach called Hyeopjae, a gorgeous white sandy beach with crystal clear waters.  We also found a gazebo type thing on the grass just off the back of the beach where I promptly fell asleep.  Until that was, some chap with a bit of clout, told us it was 'premium place' and that if we wanted to stay there we'd have to pay him 50,000won (€35) so we left, totally disgruntled!  However, just around the corner was an equally nice beach, where we sought the comfort of yet another air conditioned cafe.  At 6, once it had started to noticeable cool down, we saddled up again to get to Gwakji Beach, about 10k further around the coast.  This was to be our last stop before getting the ferry back to the mainland, and what a stop it was too!

The 'Premium Place' Grass at Hyeopjae Beach

A Very Welcome Beach Bar on Gwakji Beach

Sunset at Gwakji Beach

The beach was long, with pure white sand, and crystal clear water but nowhere near as crowded as the beach we'd just left behind.  There was such a holiday buzz to the place.  There was even a beach bar, the likes of which you'd expect to find in Thailand (and wouldn't dare to dream of finding in Korea!), and it served real drinks, none of this cass beer and soju rubbish!!  Originally we'd thought we'd stay in Jeju-si, the capital city, the night before our ferry but once we got to Gwakji we weren't going anywhere.  An early morning dash of the last 30k to the ferry it would have to be!  Plus that means we were about to have a day with absolutely no cycling, the excitement of it was almost too much!!  A whole day to read, nap, swim, eat, play....holidays are the business!

We erred on the side of caution when planning how long we'd need to get to the ferry.  We were on our bikes by 7am and at the ferry for 9.  It wasn't sailing til 12.  Tonnes of time for a bibimbap and a dose of olypmics!

Boarding the Ferry to Wan-do

From Wan-do, the ferry port on the mainland, we got a bus to Boseong to check out the Green Tea Plantations we'd heard so much about.  On the cycle up to the fields though Nick's bike broke. The spiky thing at the back that the chain runs over decided to implode on itself, sending little ball bearings scattering all over the place!  We walked the rest of the way there and I towed him most of the way back to the motel afterwards.  The plantations were pretty impressive, if somewhat ruined by the big museum plonked in the middle of them, but it is Korea after all, and what else would you expect?  Anyway, green fields are nice to look at but after you've taken the mandatory photo or two there's not much else to do so we went back to the motel and watched the olympics for the rest of the day.

The Green Tea Plantations of Boseong

And that was that.  The next day we got a bus back to Daejeon and our holidays were over!  As I said in my previous post, I've never cycled any kind of distances like that before, but I have to say it was really great, once I got over the initial saddle soreness!  I can only imagine it might not be too long 'til we go on another cycle tour somewhere, but this time with padded shorts! 

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.

Hatred at Hatari Lodge

I was talking to a friend of mine last week.  He’s Tanzanian.  I met him in October 2009 when I left Ireland to go and work in Shu’mata Camp in Northern Tanzania, tracking and monitoring the elephants that live in the Maasai Steppe.  I never got to Shu’mata.  When I arrived in Tanzania, the camp was still under construction.  I had been made aware of this prior to departure but I was told by the owners, Jörg and Marlies Gabriel, that it would only be a matter of weeks before it was up and running, and in the mean-time I could settle into life in Tanzania, in their more salubrious Hatari Lodge.

I landed at Kilimanjaro International Airport on the 1st of October, my birthday, and was met by a guy called Clinton, a local who was one of the driver guides working at Hatari Lodge at the time.  He was a really friendly guy and we chatted away on the hour or so drive back to Hatari.  The sun was shinning and I was delighted to be so far away from home about to embark on a new adventure.  When we got to the lodge there was a herd of giraffe scattered around it, chomping down on the acacia trees, and a little family of warthogs running about the place, totally unbothered by the human presence.  I could get used to this, was what I thought to myself.  Clinton pushed me in the direction of the office to announce my arrival and I remember thinking it strange that he didn’t come in himself.  Looking back though, I fully understand why.  I was greeted very quickly by both Jörg and Marlies, before they dove back to their desks and buried their heads once more.  It was about 3:30 pm and I was more or less left to my own devices.  I wasn’t shown to where I’d be staying so I couldn’t unpack or even just off-load my bags.  It was quite a strange welcome. Had it not been for the stunning setting, I would’ve been a bit put out, but given the spectacular scenery, I was quite content to just sit down and take it all in.

It was after 9pm when I was finally brought to my new home.  It was a small house, known as the yellow house, in the neighbouring village of Momella, and it was where I would be living with the other European members of staff:  A German girl called Nicci, who was acting as the stand in manager at the time; an English girl, Kate, who was teaching in a school that had recently been opened by the Gabriel family and another German girl, Marianne, who’s parents had some connection to the Gabriels and was there for a six month volunteering stint.  At 24, I was the eldest in the house.  When I asked where the rest of the staff lived I was given woolly answers.  The rest of the staff were all local Tanzanian men and women, and it later transpired that they all lived in what was known as the ‘staff quarters’.  It was very cramped and the facilities were poor.  The yellow house was streets ahead.  Nobody could, or would, tell me why we were segregated like that.

I was told to have a lie-in the next day and walk into work when I woke up.  I arrived about 10:30 and went to the office to present myself for duty!  I met Jörg as he was coming out of the office and greeted him with a cherpy ‘Good Morning’.  I can still recall the reply I got as if it was yesterday.  Seriously, and without a hint of irony or joviality, he snarled ‘You can’t be serious! The day is half over at this stage’.  I was totally taken aback, mumbled something in reply and tried to forget it.  What a lovely friendly start!

Things only got worse.  Most mornings my alarm went off 6am, earlier if guests were arriving or departing before then, and I was at the lodge from 6:30 'til between 11 and 12 at night.  I had no designated breaks or down time.  Neither did anyone else. Everyone worked these crazy hours with no days off.  I was told I'd have a week off after my three month trial if all went well, until then there'd be nothing in the way of free time.  My job seemed to be to shout orders at the Tanzanians.  Marlies told me to copy her tone of voice when talking to ‘them’.  They were not to be trusted to do a good job and needed to be watched carefully. I’d say there were about 30 local people working there between the kitchen staff, the chambermaids and the waiters.  From the get go they were always very friendly and I used to love chatting to them, getting to know them and learning about their culture and traditions.  I didn’t know what I was supposed to be doing half the time, I was given no instruction except the odd barked order from Nicci, so I always sought the opinion of the waiters.  This was a ‘no-no’ in Marlies book.  All interaction was discouraged.  Chatting?  Absolutely not.  Having a beer together after work? Only if you want to be out on your ear.  

Lunch for ‘us’, the owners and the European staff, was served by ‘them’, the local staff, in the dining room. ‘They’ ate in a separate building altogether, out the back of the kitchen.  Often Marlies would bellow from her seat at the chef, telling him that the food was horrible and that he should have known that she wouldn’t want to eat this ‘rubbish’.  All the meals served to us and to the guests at dinner time, were German.  Jörg was German, Marlies German-Namibian.  The cookbooks that the Tanzanian, Swahili-speaking chef was meant to use were written in German!

Amongst other things, one of my main duties was to guard the key to the dry store.  This was the room that all the food was kept in.  Johnny, the chef, needed frequent access to it but he had to call on me when he did.  He was required to sign out the ingredients he wanted, and then show how he’d used them in the kitchen.  This was to stop stealing.  As a European, who had just arrived to Tanzania, never mind Hatari, this was a job that I loathed.  I would often ‘forget’ and leave the key with him, trusting and knowing that he wouldn’t abuse it.  Another job was to follow the chambermaids about, checking up on their work.  If there was anything amiss, I was not to fix it myself, but to stand at the doorway and bellow until one of them appeared and fixed the problem.  Problems ranged from a rug being 2cm off centre to a drip of water in a handbasin that hadn’t been wiped dry!

Hatari Lodge is an example of what good marketing can do for you.  Marlies, the driving force behind its marketing, knew (and I suppose still knows) exactly what her potential guests were looking for.  Hatari attracts mainly German tourists, and wealthy, well educated Germans at that.  The majority of the guests I encountered during my time there, were well aware that the money they were spending on a three week safari holiday, taking in all that Tanzania has to offer, with private cars and plenty of game drives, is more than a local will earn in a year.  Because of this awareness, they all seemed to have put a great deal of effort into choosing their tour operators and accommodations, knowing that their choices would have an impact on the local communities.  

In order to be considered by this type of holiday-maker,  Marlies and Jörg appear to have set up the Momella Foundation, which encompasses eight community projects aimed at giving something back to the local community.  One of these, Mama Momella, is an initiative set up to help generate income for the local women through seam-stressing.  They are provided with sewing machines and the clothes they make are sold in the Lodge.  This all sounds great, except of the forty odd dollars that a skirt is sold for, only just over one dollar goes to the woman who made it.  This was not information that I was meant to have access too.  The Shu’mata Elephant Patrol, another of these eight projects, and the one that I was there to work on, didn’t exist.  Watoto Momella, was however in operation, and that was where Kate worked as a teacher. More than that, I do not know.  Gathering information on any of the other projects was difficult. However, having these projects advertised on the Hatari website, as well as displayed in each room, makes for good marketing and helps to generate business, especially in today’s world where people are becoming that bit more aware and conscious that their choices and actions have effects and repercussions far beyond the obvious.

I left on the 20th of October, 20 days after I arrived.  Even that was fraught with problems. Leaving was not just a case of picking up my belongings and walking away.  We were miles away from Arusha, the nearest big town.  We were miles away from the nearest main road.  There was a bus from Momella that went every morning, but it went through Arusha National Park and as a non-national, you needed a permit to be allowed though.  These permits had to be pre-arranged.  In order to get one, you had to get to the park gate.  That was also miles away.  Therefore, not only did I need Jörg and Marlies to let me leave, I needed them to help me to leave.  

I spoke to Jörg, the slightly lesser of two evils.  I first enquired about the opening of the Shu’mata Camp. Jörg and Marlies were off to Germany for a holiday in a few weeks and wouldn’t be back until nearly Christmas.  I was told it would be opened after that.  So, not weeks after my arrival, months after.  I could nearly have put up with the place a bit longer, especially if Jörg and Marlies were going to be away, if there had been any elephants that I could observe and learn about, but there are none in the region near Hatari.  I told Jörg that I found the atmosphere in the lodge to be stifling and unacceptably racist.  I told him I had wanted to come to Tanzania to see elephants, not to work for a German Neo-Colonialist, eat German food and listen to stories of how great the German’s who’d lived in the area had been.  He said he appreciated my honesty and would arrange a permit for me so that I could leave.  I was pleasantly surprised with how it had all gone.  Walking away from him that afternoon, I was delighted.  I was smiling for the first time in days. Until then, I hadn’t realised quite how much the place was getting in on me.  I had made the right decision.

I was due to leave on a Tuesday morning with the truck that went into Arusha for supplies each week.  Jörg said he'd arrange my permit.  However, on Monday night back at the yellow house, Nicci asked if I had my permit.  When I told her Jörg was sorting it out she shouted at me not to be so stupid and that of course he wasn't going to arrange it for me and least of all, pay for it.  Then she said I'd better not delay the truck in the morning and stormed off to her room.  I was left frantically trying to pack and wondering if I'd ever be out of this hell hole.  Luckily, and by total coincidence, Kate’s mum was coming to visit the next day and I was able to grab a lift to Arusha with her.

After I left, I heard that as soon as I told Jörg I wanted to leave, Marlies told all the other staff not to let me use the phone or the computers to help me plan my onward journey.  She told the staff that I had been fired because I was trying to instigate an affair with her husband. Nothing could have been further from the truth!

I have now heard of over 30 others, some I know from my time there and some that I don’t, both locals and Europeans, who have fled the place in a similar fashion to me, all reporting mistreatment and severe racism as their reasons for leaving.  The friend I mentioned at the beginning, is one of the lucky ones.  He is a trained wildlife guide and mountaineer.  He is brimming with enthusiasm and refused to let these nasty people bring him down.  He left Hatari some time ago and is now in the final stages of starting his own company. His website is due to go live any day now.  However, there are many others still there. They are still suffering under the oppressive command of Marlies and Jörg Gabriel, but with virtually no other employment in the area, they stick it out in order to be close to their families.

Skiing in Pyeongchang

The Ski Season in Phoenix Park officially ended last weekend.  As a result, there were some pretty good deals to be hand.  A company called Adventure Korea was offering transport to and from Seoul, accommodation just off piste, lift pass and equipment rental all for 70,000won (about50euro).  Although it hasn't snowed all that much this winter, Pyeongchang, the area where Phoenix Park is, is due to host the Winter Olympics in 2018 so we figured the snow'd have to be half decent!  We booked the KTX, or fast train, for Friday night at 10, thinking we'd be up to Seoul by 11, find somewhere to stay and then meet up with the group the next morning.

Pyeongchang as seen from a cable car

We'd had a bit of a rough day in work, Fridays in general are never that nice, so when the train came and there was someone in one of our seats we weren't too shy about waking him up and telling him to clear off.  We caused a bit of a commotion, and the man didn't budge.  A ticket inspecter came along though so we thought he'd sort the eejit out for us.  Turns out, we were the eejits.  We were on the wrong train!  It was still going to Seoul though, just going there a bit slower, so it was almost midnight when we arrived, without a notion of where we might stay.  We had planned to stay in a jjimjilbang, but neither of us having been to one yet, we decided that we'd try and find a cheap love motel instead.  We found one without too much hassle and just as I sat down on the bed I realised that I hadn't a notion as to where we were meant to be meeting the group the next morning!  I had to ring a friend in Daejeon to get her to look it up.  With panic number two over I was out like a light.

I'd set the alarm before going to sleep but got woken by a text message.  Who the hell is texting me before half six in the morning I wondered.  The answer was nobody.  It wasn't half six.  It was ten past eight.  Forty mins AFTER the meeting time.  I had somehow managed to set the alarm for 8:45.  Brilliant!  Panic number three!  I've never seen either of us get up and dressed and out the door so quickly!  We jumped a taxi to the bus station and bought a ticket to Pyeongchang, then belted across the road to a PC Bang (internet cafe) to look up the phone number of the guy we were meant to meet and tell him we were chasing them!  Got it, legged it back to the bus station with about 5 minutes to spare and finally let out a massive sigh of relief!

After a particularly wobbly start, everything else went as smoothly as you'd hope for.  We arrived, met the guy, dumped our stuff in our room, got our pass and gear and jumped into a cable car.  The day had been pretty overcast up to that point, it even tried to snow a few times but as we got to the top of the mountain the sun came out.  It was so nice to be back in the mountains on a pair of skis.  I really want to do another ski season, being there just gave me the thirst for blood!

The view from the top

Acting the eejit

Nick stylin' it

The lift passes are structured in a slightly odd way.  There are morning ones, afternoon ones, and two night time ones.  Ours went from 12:30pm to 4:30pm and from 6:00pm to 11:00pm but there was another one you could get from 11:00pm to 02:00am.  I couldn't believe the number of headbangers out on the slopes 'til that time.  I suppose if you do work like a lunatic and that's the only chance you get to hit the slopes you would, still seems a bit crazy to me though.

Night Skiing

This should read 'Play Hard, Drink Hard, Smoke Hard, but only after you've worked hard too'!

The slopes were dominated by boarders.  There were very few skiers to be seen.  And the get up on the lot of them was crazy.  Ski slopes can be fashion shows at the best of times but this was something else.  Everything was brand new and all designer.  They seemed to treat their boards quite carelessly, and it seems on purpose.  There's an overwhelming sense of being 'too cool for school' about the place.  Although I suppose if you work like a lunatic, splashing out on new snowboarding kit probably seems like a very worthwhile expense.

Nick desperating searching through his phrase book to chat up one such boarder!

Anyway...got on the slopes and got back into the swing of things fairly quickly.  Had a brilliant day despite my boots being the smallest, most uncomfortable pair in the world and my ski's never having been edged or waxed!  Filled up on a load of sundubu jigae, hit the sauna to ease the aches, had a few beers and fell asleep feeling pretty content with the world!!

Smallest Ski Boots in the World...barely came past my ankle!