New Land for Living

Well, we have moved! We now live on a wee island south of Korea called Jeju, which you might recall from such events as our summer vacation last year.

We have a car, and the tiniest apartment known to man, which we will be moving out of and hopefully closer to the beach you see above at the end of March.

If you look close in the first two photos you can see some divers, these are women, called Haen-yo in Korean. They are pretty old, you often see the hunched over shucking their days catch. Back in the day only men were charged tax, so the women were sent out to dive for food. They continue to do so, though the tradition is dying out, which is a shame. It's a cool thing to see, they normally dive in pairs or groups and when they surface they whistle to each other. Anyway, it's cool.

The beach below is about a half hour drive from our house, and as you can see it's covered in plastic right now. Pretty freaking odd. But it was really windy so I guess it was nice not to have the stinging sand in your face.

Can't wait for the weather to warm up so we can go swimming! Though it is definitely warmer here then on the main land!

From a hike around the little island. So amazingly warm that day. It felt like spring.

Spot the sea dog!

We spent a long weekend out on a REALLY remote island. It was so lovely to be somewhere quiet and not surrounded by people.

The weather was spectacular on one of the days. So warm.

Not to mention the man who helped us out with the house was so awesome. He came and brought us some traditional Korean Luna New Year food and then later tried to get us to drink soju with him and his pals down by the water.

All in all a sweet adventure.

Well, days like these are certainly gone. 

Views from the ferry to Seoul.

The sunset was so amazing. The views coming into Seoul were futuristic. I felt like I was on another planet. 

Aside from the horrible snoring Korean in our dorm (which resulted in us seeing amazing meteors, getting our own room and me having the most epic dream ever) the trip was spectacular. 

Our plans are up in the air for next year. Home? Turkey? Japan? Jeju island? A mix of all of the above? Live is hard, exciting things are happening back home, which it would be nice to be involved in. But are we ready? Going home seems serious, seems like, getting a good job and looking into buying some land. Exciting, but are we ready? Is it financial viable? Should we stay where we have good paying work?

Fuck. Life.

Man, look at that ocean. 

The cafe GRI:M (which means picture in Korean I think) was awesome, owned by a girl who lived in NZ for a year! And awesome coffee and grapefruit-ade.

It looks like I'm pashing that dog, and maybe I was, it's none of your business.

So, the first half of our trip, along with a separate trip to Jeju that we made with my parents, go undocumented because A) the film wasn't loaded properly in the film camera B) I left out digital camera in a taxi (along with all our keys, a jumper and many other things) so film is the only thing we have. This means your just getting the tail end of our trip, which is sad and makes me wonder what had been captured before! When I saw these photos I was blown away at how well they came out. It really just looks like it did at the time.

The there's a wee photo of me in my sun protection get up, with out tent and bikes in the back ground.

Sunrise peak

Popcorn 'sand' on Udo island

Squid boat lights coming out on Udo island

Sunset Udo Island

Peanut plants as far as the eye can see (or as far as the island spans) on Udo

Pyoseon Beach, Jeju Island.

During the summer we biked around Jeju Island. It was awesome, and the island being rather small (200km) our daily biking was never too much. Though, regardless of that, some days were almost unbearably hot, and on the odd occasion smothered in the most overwhelming of stenches.

This was one of my favourite spots, nestled into some trees at a beach where the tide went out farther than I have ever seen. We stayed under that tree an awful long time before realising we would just have to make the trek to the waters edge. (of course it was worth it)

The evening bought some live music. Specifically the most untainted Reggae musicians I had ever seen. 

They were a little to highly strung, if you know what I mean.

(the next day we saw a wild dog with her pup! She dug it a wee hole to sleep in before going for a fossick around)

These photos display the general murky feeling of the whole film well. But, there's a certain appeal to it here. I particularly like the smudge over Jacob's crotch. Perfect!

This is in Pohang, are two giant hands, and when we went there was some sort of octopus festival on. We didn't eat any, the whole thing distresses me a little, but we did have a coconut. Which actually wasn't that good.