Matthew & Cathryn

We’re back on home soil (well, home for me anyway) and breathing sweet, unpolluted air!!

Our packing was almost finished at 3:30am on Friday morning, and we woke up at about 9 to begin our day. We left for the airport around midday, and hopped onto our first flight at 3. The Korea to Hong Kong leg was uneventful and we had just enough time to walk from our arrival gate to our departure gate and board at the Hong Kong airport.

We then sat in the plane on the runway for an hour waiting for the engineers to fix a “technical problem”, but finally got underway.

Sleeping on overnight flights is usually impossible for me, so I didn’t even attempt it. Choosing instead to watch movies and read a book all night. We arrived in Sydney around 640am this morning. Managing to recover about 20 mins of our delay somehow during the trip.

We got our bags, and joined the line for customs, which was HUGE! Thankfully someone came and asked to see our declaration forms and gave us a ’skip the line’ pass, so we headed out and met Mum and Dad.

Our first stop in Australia was Tim and Katrie’s for breakfast. The car ride there was peppered with ‘ooohs’ and ‘aaahs’ from Cathryn as she had her first experience of Australia. We arrived, met my sister and her husband ate a great breakfast of museli/bacon, eggs and mushrooms, then headed off for Nan and Grandads.

We took the scenic route down the coast, but it was pretty much wasted, because both Cathryn and I fell asleep almost straight away, having been awake for the past 26odd hours.

At Nan and Grandads we had a great roast-lamb lunch, where Cathryn discovered that not all lamb has a strong smell that that she actually enjoys it.

After lunch we got back in the car and headed back to Canberra. Again, falling asleep very quickly, and missing out on the trip.

Since arriving, we’ve been unpacking and settling in. Expect some photos sometime. In the meantime, here are a few pics from our recent trip to Taiwan (by request)

Although this blog has been rather silent of late, the reason has been because of a flurry of activity on our end.

Last Friday I finished work. I’m finally free.

Tomorrow we head to China for a while. Then to Taiwan.

We’ll be backand contactable around the 10th or 11th of May.

We’re still waiting for Cathryn’s spouse visa to come through. All hoops have been jumped through, and we’ve been waiting for a while. Hopefully it’ll get resolved soon enough and we’ll be breathing clean air again!

We got some bad news on the visa front yesterday.

Firstly, the guy who was handling our case has disappeared. In the 2 and a half weeks since I emailed him last, he’s gone from Seoul and from the government department as well. So that’s not a good sign.

Secondly, the information I received on the phone yesterday conflicts with what I’d been told previously in emails with the office, so I’m not 100% sure of what is going on, but I think it’s like this:

They received Cathryn’s medical forms.
They sent Cathryn’s medical forms to Australia on April 11 (I was told in an email they sent them on March 25)
They have received the police check.
They’re still waiting to receive the judgement on the medical forms from Australia.
When they do receive it, they’ll look at the application and make a decision.
Current estimates are mid-to-late May.

So that sucks. It’s thrown all our plans out and left us in a difficult situation (no place to live).

On the bright side, Cathryn found out yesterday that she needs some extensive dental work, so now we’ve got time to get it done.

Continuing in the vein of medical related posts, I’m filling you in on some surgery I had last Friday.I’ve had some kind of lump in my left arm for a long time (7+years). It used to be small, about the size of my little fingernail. But in the last 6 months or so it grew rapidly - too rapidly - so that my mum commented that she could see it from Australia*.

So taking advantage of the cheap healthcare in Korea, I decided to get it checked out. It was the opinion of several doctors I consulted that it was a ‘benign tumor’. But the fact that it had grown so quickly was a bit strange, so I should probably have a biopsy to look at it.

Last Friday we ventured out and visited the hospital of a doctor from our church. Unfortunately he wasn’t there that day, but we didn’t let that stop us. We saw the doctor, and within 30 minutes, I was upstairs in an operating theatre, wearing a gown while the nurses ‘prepped’ for surgery.

Within another 20 minutes, the lump had been removed from my arm, and I was informed that it was some kind of fatty growth that can grow anywhere on the body.

My wife watched on, and took some great photos of the surgery, and the lump after it was removed.

I’ve now got a ~2.5cm scar on my arm and stitches that are due to be removed later this week.

Total cost: ~$40au

Total time: ~2 hours

*through the webcam

I went to the dentist this morning for a checkup before heading home. He told me that I’ve got several wisdom teeth poking their heads up in my mouth. I haven’t experienced any pain at all, and I may never do so, but I’m still considering getting them removed.

In Korea, with my medical insurance it will cost me ~$11 to get a wisdom tooth removed.

$11.

I can’t even imagine how much it would cost me if I had to get it done in Australia.

So I may be taking another trip to the dentist in the next week or two.

One of my friends at church got a gift the other day. His dad is an important man in a large construction company in Korea. When an international development team came to Korea to present a proposal for an upcoming development program, they gave all members an iPod touch that contained photos and information on the project. Quite a nice bribe really.

My friend’s dad didn’t really know what to do with it, so he gave it to his son.

Those of you who read my blog in the days of past glory might remember the times I ranted about the internet here and Korean people’s intolerance and anything non-windows. This hasn’t changed yet.

So my friend got a beautiful iPod touch and doesn’t have a clue how to use it. Last Wednesday I gave him a few tips and pointed him in the direction of some software to help him do what he wanted. By Sunday his attitude had turned into disgust and hatred.

He hates his iTouch. He doesn’t want to use it. He doesn’t want to have anything to do with it. He also can’t really sell it because it was a gift from his dad.

Like I said, makes me want to cry.

My wife finished her job last friday. Today was her first true day of freedom. She used it quite wisely, having a good sleep-in, visiting family, and cooking a delicious dinner for her husband.

I’ve got 19 teaching days to go.

As an update on my troubles, 2 teachers finished their contracts last friday and headed for their respective home shores. Due to recent changes in Korean law, it’s now much harder for foreigners to get teaching visas. This means that a lot of teachers have been arriving ‘late’. Such is the case with our school, and the 2 replacement teachers have yet to show. What that means for me, is that 10+ hours of ‘marking time’ just flew offshore. The school has found temporary teachers to teach the classes, but of course, the don’t want to pay anyone by the hour to mark journals, comprehension and vocabulary. Not when the already overworked teachers could potentially do it.

The job just got harder

At least the crazy mum hasn’t called much lately. Or of she has, the head teacher hasn’t bothered telling me.

Ok, I know it’s been a while since there’s been any sort of update on here, and I’m sorry for that. I’m also sorry that the first update in a while is going to be used for a rant. But I need to let off steam.

Short version:

*sigh* work sucks. 21 teaching days to go.

Long version is after the break:

(more…)

Wow! Where to begin? So much has happened since last time I posted that I’m not sure I can get everything in. So I’ll try to hit the high points from recent memory and anything else that pops up along the way.

Last Friday night we went “Night-Skiing”. The slopes in Korea are PACKED on any given day, so basically the only time where there’s space is the 0000-0400 slot. My wife and I, along with Yohan and his brother in law headed out of Seoul after the leaders meeting wrapped up (around midnight), and after renting our gear, we were actually on the hill ready to go around 0130, with 2.5 hours of skiing and boarding ahead of us.

Previously I’d been skiing once in Australia. I went with Sandra, Justin and Toby. It was my first time, and without any formal training, just some pointers from the others, I managed to hold my own and not break any bones during the day.

Friday night I decided to try snowboarding. So I watched a few videos on the internet before we went and Woojin gave me a few tips when we got there. My idea of learning is basically to go to the top and figure it out on the way down. This worked quite well and I managed to conquer the beginners and the first two intermediate slopes by the time 0400 rolled around.

It was Cathryn’s first time skiing, and she did a good job too! I’ll let her fill you in on the details when she gets home. She’s working late tonight.

Saturday we had Jin-wook’s first birthday party. Jin-wook is our nephew and was born around the same time as Amy I’anson. He’s a bit chubby, but pretty cute, and loves his Uncle and Aunty. The party was held at outback steakhouse and it was another typical Korean affair. While I generally don’t enjoy the feeling of these events, I can see why they have them the way they do. One of the main reasons is because they don’t have houses capable of holding family and friends for such a gathering.

Sunday we went to the Vincent Van Gough exhibition here in Seoul. This was very special to Cathryn as she studied art at University and has been greatly inspired by Van Gough’s work. To me, it was just a bunch of paintings and pictures. I could see the development of his style and appreciate his talent and the uniqueness of his work and I was touched by the tragedy of his life, but personally, seeing an Ansell Adams exhibition would be more meaningful.

This week saw a graduation of previous students and orientation for new students at Cathryn’s kindergarten. That meant I tagged along on Monday morning wearing suit and tie for the graduation, and I picked her up from work around 0130 on Tuesday night as she’d been preparing for the orientation on Wednesday. Needless to say, we’re pretty worn out this week.

Our plans for returning to Australia are constantly changing. It was originally set for April. Now it’s looking like May, but nothing is set it concrete yet. Whenever we get back there, I think there may be some ground-kissing going on. I like Korea, but I’m really ready to go home for a while. Having said that, I’m sure I’ll miss aspects of this place once I get back.

A few weeks ago was Korean (Chinese/Lunar) New Year. That was a much bigger celebration than the solar new year (Jan 1). We had 3 days off work and went South to Dae-gu to visit Cathryn’s family (even though the majority of them live in Seoul, we ALL went South to their hometown). While we were there we participated in some traditional Korean style celebrations such as cooking and eating. We also went to the local sauna, played lots of board games (that we took with us) and ate. Did I mention there was eating? Bugger me! This is a family photo of almost all who attended. Despite all the eating, it was fun

Yesterday was the final day of this years Winter conference. This year was the first time since 2005 that I didn’t attend, which is kind of sad really. It’s always been a really good time and God has done awesome things in my life. Last year, the conference was probably what brought Cathryn and I to the point of starting our relationship.

We did make it out there for 1 day. Last week on Saturday we took a day trip out to the place it was held this year, and joined everyone for lunch, and a quick climb up a mountain. The lunch was good, but the climb was disappointing. We only got about 200m up, then everyone played in the snow, and we came back down. I was really looking forward to getting up high and taking some nice photos!

In recent times, my wife and I have been thinking a lot about our future and planning what we will be doing. There are vague plans at the moment, which include a year back in Australia, but still nothing definite (like a date).

Last year, around the time we were married, we were asked to be leaders of a youth group at church. At the time there were a total of 0 members. Well, we now have a regular attendance of 1.5 student, which is a start. Hopefully it will pick up a bit before we leave and we can go out on a high note.

Here’s a photo from our outing last week. Cathryn, myself, our student and another youth group leader.