With great freedom comes great responsibility.
Reminders of home. Every now and then we stumble upon something like this, often in random places that we would never have thought to look.
I actually thought of our friend Ken Lilley when i saw them, and whilst i ate it. Pictured Kaiteri, the golden sands and the boats on the water…….that was as far as i got before it was finished. If only the shop wasn’t 2 hours from my house….or luckily, i am not sure.
No Salt & Vinegar chips in sight.
South and North Korea put a hold on the war in 1953 with an agreement that established the demilitarized zone, known as the DMZ. Essentially it is a boarder that stretches across the nation, dividing it roughly in half, providing a 2km buffer on each side.
It is said to be the most heavily guarded and patrolled boarder in the world, with an estimated 2 million soliders all up, including South, North and American Soliders.
Truth is the nation is still at war, they never signed a peace treaty or anything like that and North Korea has on numerous occasions since 1953 proved they are not to be trusted to keep the peace.
Before we came here we knew that this was the case, as the months grew closer there were moments where the tensions grew a lot between North and South. Now we are here and things have gone to a whole new level.
Recently China has come out and said they are ‘friends’ with North Korea, North Korea has said to South Korea that they are going to strike the city of Seoul in the near future, when they said this i believe they actually said within the next 8 days. Well 8 days has passed and it would not be the first time that they would say something and not follow through. However South Korea has also come out and said, against the advice from other nations, that if North Korea strike South Korean soil again that they will retaliate. Basically it will be all on.
The other day Jimmy and I were driving through town and heard the warning sirens start, what we didn’t know was that they were doing a full military exercise, which they do every 3 months or when tensions are high, so we looked at each other and asked the question…..is this it?
A few minutes later we found out what was actually going on and spent a few minutes soaking up the relief. But it did spark the first serious conversation about agreeing on a plan for what we will do if it does happen.
I think about the chaos of Christchurch after the earthquake, a city of 400,000 people, with no power, no phones, no public transport & ongoing after shocks = chaos.You then put that equation into a city of 22 million people with military action unfolding, well that would equal even more chaos.
New Zealand is so far away from this reality, sure there is a way New Zealand may be involved but the chances of war raging in the streets of Auckland are pretty slim.
Well perhaps Christchurch’s earthquake taught me that if there is a chance it might happen, then it might actually happen and you should be prepared.
The chances of military action happening between North and South is not something most people dismiss as a possibility but admit it is more likely a probability and the time is the only thing people are unsure off.
Right now we live in a nation that whilst it is currently peaceful, it is still at war and the sirens that day reminded us how serious that actually is.
Rach.
A spoken word/poem i wrote on Easter’s Good Friday this year. It is better when it is performed aloud i think but here it is none the less.
How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before beginning to improve the world.
— Anne Frank
We have now been here in South Korea for 3 months and because we are currently on a visitors visa it means that we have to leave the country before that time is up.
So for us it meant spending a few days in Osaka, Japan. It was great actually. I think learning the public transport system here in Seoul helped us alot because we managed to find ourselves around the city on the subway system fairly easily.
We crashed at Jesus Family church, in a wee room upstairs, it was great to see the church that we have heard so much about over the years. We didn’t spend alot of time there however as we decided to get out and about to see the city.
Japan has a reputation for being expensive, it didn’t disappoint us unfortunately. What made matters worse was trying to convert from NZ currency to Korean Won and Japanese Yen. It got a bit confusing at times, because Korea’s currency is in thousands as well, for example 1,000W would equal about a $1.10 in NZ, but 1,000Y would equal about $14 in NZ.
What we liked about Osaka was the people overall seemed friendly, the air smelt good and people seemed to follow the rules a bit more. What i mean by that is, when the light is red the cars stop. In Seoul, just because the light is red doesn’t mean the cars will stop.
But at the same time we found that we have quickly become used to the beauty of South Korea’s technology, it has fast internet and free wifi is not hard to find, it has atm’s that you can use to withdraw money from and most places take visa. Japan, however was a bit frustrating when we had to walk for ages to find an atm that would accept international cards to withdraw money because most places wouldn’t take visa, main shops, restaurants for example had no eftpos facilities. Same with wifi, in the three days we were there we found wifi twice i think, once at a bakery of all places and at the departure gate, not in the main terminal but just before boarding.
We managed to see alot in three days, we caught up with Lucy Fawcett and had lunch with her, then we went out and found a big mall of sorts and looked around before having what turned out to be the kids, and possibly mine as well, favorite meal. Basically as you will see from the photos above, you pay a set amount then you choose whatever you want from the cabinets and then fry it yourself. Chicken, pork, hash brown potato things, broccoli and so much more. You can crumb it and fry it and they have a bunch of different sauces as well.
You have 90 minutes and can eat as much as you like. Including dessert, which they had this big chocolate fondu fountain with fruit and cream puffs. Max lost something in the fountain at one stage. It was pretty cool.
We caught up with Mika, a dancer that used to live in Christchurch, found a mall that has a massive floor of Photo Booths on it, it was quite surreal, kids were everywhere taking photos, some had special features, like making your eyes look like bunny eyes! Or you could hire costumes to wear. Crazy place.
We went to the ‘Worlds Largest Aquarium’, it was petty cool, although i am not convinced it was actually the largest. Perhaps it had the largest tank in the world…..but not the largest overall.
When we came out of that we got caught in a short storm, it poured down and we got soaked!
Whilst there we tried heaps of different food, & went to heaps of different parts of Osaka to have a look. One area was called America Mura or something like that, it had heaps of american shops and people, a cool vibe as well.
We enjoyed Japan a lot. Will look forward to heading back one day. Perhaps Tokyo!
Lucifer VI Lens, Ina’s 1969 Film, No Flash, Taken with Hipstamatic
