Honeymoon: An Australian Farewell

Throughout our stay in Australia, we were constantly operating on a lack of sleep. To catch up adequately would have required a good day's rest, but time was precious. I'm really looking forward to one day having a holiday where we can just wind down and relax and do absolutely nothing for a few days. But I would probably end up spoiling it by working out a way to do something constructive.


Hong's mum prepared a feast for us one night. She's an excellent home cook and makes really good Chinese soups. Cooking in a restaurant and at home are two very different things. In a restaurant, everything is prepared and at your fingertips, but at home you've gotta do it all yourself.

And with a comparably less-exciting wok flame.


I never thought much of cheese when I was in Australia, but I do like a bit of gorgonzola from time to time. Koreans are starting to open up a little more to cheese these days, but they put some shocking stuff on their pizzas. Pizza cheese in Korea is a white rubbery synthetic polymer with cheese-like qualities.

Forensic scientists would have a difficult time identifying it.


This is Hong. He and I go way back to 'lunchtime chess games in the school library' days. Hong is a top bloke, and is the kind of guy who would remain calm if you rang him to tell him you crashed his car. Recently he's been getting into photography and bought himself an Olympus faux-vintage camera. It looks like an old school film camera, but it has a digital soul.


Here's Hong showing his brother and Vu all of the different aspects of an Olympus with a 14-42mm kit lens.


We ate dinner with some old friends at the Nu Thai restaurant in Adelaide Chinatown one night. It's a pretty small place and I don't think it really qualifies as a 'town' per se. More like a ChinaAlleyWay.

From left to right in the photo above is Cherry, Vu, Yeung, Hong, Me, Heather and three quarters of Mai*.

*Depending on which browser you are using. Firefox chops off the photo to make it fit, while Google Chrome extends it into the sidebar.


After we had some pretty good Thai tucker*, we went back to Hong's house to drink some wine. Australian wine is cheap and generally of a good quality. We used to drink it a lot when we were younger because it's classy and doesn't make you feel bloated like beer does. Back in the day, I used to walk to Hong's place and we'd down a few bottles and talk until the early morning hours. Then I'd stumble back home and wake up around midday.

And hey look everyone, Yeung's holding a teapot.

*Tucker (noun): colloquial Australian slang for 'food'.



Here are some photos of us from the 90's, when we were teenagers. All of our ex-girlfriends are there too. It's funny to think back to those times and remember how much we thought we knew about the world.


Once upon a time I used to be a raver. Techno always struck a chord with me and I enjoyed a self-awakening during the raving years. Although you'd never tell from looking at my clammy skin and lab-weary figure nowadays.

If you've never been to a rave party, it's something you need to do at least once. I guess it's not everyone's cup of tea though.


And it's good to see that at least some of us haven't lost our groove. Hong once invented his own personal version of Tae-Bo, known locally as Hong-Bo. It had a small following of around seven guys, at its peak.


Hong's dog, Pow-Pow, is a finicky creature. He doesn't get along with strangers and will often take a bite at most people. I used to pat him a lot, back in the day, but he still took a while to recognise me. He didn't like Heather so much though. One night, Heather came back a little tipsy and wanted to hug his face. Pow responded with a loud bark and an open-mouth charge, leaving a scratch on her temple. Heather passed out for a good 10 seconds.

He has a habit of staring at you with an eye-of-the-tiger look.


Korean barbecues and Australian barbecues are similar and different to each other. Both involve socialising with friends, an unhealthy amount of meat and an association with alcohol. But Australian barbecues have sausages. And that fact alone is what makes them superior.

Especially when Yeung is cooking.



And this is Hong's mum. As an adolescent boy growing up, I often ate her cooking and benefited greatly from her kindness. She's a pretty popular figure in our social circles back home and has a very loud but friendly nature.

"LEE! You EAT? My cooking, you EAT - VERY NICE!"


On our last night in Australia, we had a few friends over at Hong's place and had some catching up to do. We used to be a little naughty in our younger years, so it's good to see everyone grown up and getting it all together.


Heather decided to get an Australian haircut for the occasion.


Overwhelmed by the courageous trend-setting by Heather, Hong was inspired to do the same.


And even old Pows got in on the act.


Yeung and Damien found it easy to entertain Mai. They were demonstrating how to pose for photos in a natural way.



It wasn't long before the first casualties of the night appeared. Hong soon performed his trademarked Sleep-in-the-Chair manoeuvre, possibly due to the fact that Mai overspiked his drink with a cocktail of rocket fuel.


This is Damien. He normally goes by the name of Damo, or D-Mac, or according to him, Polish Legend or Polish Hero. He's a very funny guy and a good friend. In this photo he's allowing an exclusive viewing of his underwear for the LKB readers. He only does this on very special occasions.

If you look closely, you can see the authentic D & G sign.


Here's the aftermath of the night. In Australia you can recycle bottles for money. Back when I was young, it used to be 5 cents per bottle, but I think it's gone up to ten cents now. Korea has a very comprehensive recycling program that is embraced by a large percentage of the population.



And then all of a sudden it was time to say goodbye. With only 6 nights in Australia, it did feel as if we were leaving a little early, but that's life. The two little kiddies in the photo above are Mary's daughter's offspring. I forgot their names.


Here's Dad and his partner, Mary, with the two little kiddies. Dad babysits them a lot these days.


And my buddies came to see us off too. We had a good time in Australia, due in no small part to the warm hospitality of the Ho family.


The trip home was fairly relaxing. In between bouts of being woken for meals, I watched quite a few interesting documentaries. The on-board entertainment systems these days have a lot to choose from.


And near the equator we saw this sunset out of the plane window. I guess that the effect is due to a higher altitude.


During our quick stop-over at Hong Kong airport, we decided to spend our last foreign money on a 3am laksa. It'll be a long time before we get to eat one of these again.


And I have to admit, I was looking forward to getting back home a little, and to a predictable routine again. Travelling is exciting, but on a tight schedule it's also draining to the point where you look forward to sleeping in your own bed again. We arrived back as newly weds in Seoul around 8am in the morning. But the honeymoon was still great and it was a long overdue holiday for the both of us. Catching up with old friends reminded me why I need to return home one day. It was also a good beginning to married life, which is going well.

Since then we've settled in nicely. Our honeymoon was nearly two months ago now, but it's taken me this long to catch up on all the blogging. From the next post onwards, we're back in Korea again. See you soon!

Honeymoon: Off to Hong Kong

Our wedding finished on the Saturday and we left Busan for the honeymoon on the following Monday. Having not had a holiday since Beijing in February last year, we were both looking forward to getting out and about again. Heather and I have a tendency to overload our schedules during working life, but traveling for us isn't very relaxing either. We try to make the most of it when we are lucky enough to leave the country, so traveling isn't good for relaxation, it's good for the change of scenery.

Here's Heather, still visibly bathing in the remnants of the wedding afterglow we both were feeling at this point. In the background is the departure terminal of Gimhae International Airport, which is the main airport that serves the city of Busan.

One of the things I had in the back of my mind for a while was an idea to buy a new camera. My old Sony DSC is fine, but is a little large and getting a bit long in the tooth. What I've realised with keeping a photo blog is that the quality of the camera is not as important as its carriability: which means (to me) 'the ease at which it can be carried around'. If the camera is too big, I'm not likely to put it in my pocket when I leave in the mornings, thereby missing out on a whole truckload of mediocre photo opportunities that I could have eagerly shared with you all.
The camera that I've always wanted since 2005, when I first started reading about cameras, is the one I bought in the photo above, from duty free at the airport. Albeit a much newer update to the original model. It's a Canon IXUS 100, and the original model used to be called the SD500 in Australia. It's a 12 megapixel; although I've since learned it's not the megapixelage that make the man, it's what he does with them. Other things it has include HDMI video, a battery that lasts longer than a week on honeymoon, and a nifty green square on the display that can detect when someone is blinking. It cost US$320 and it's really good.


This is the first video test I took with the camera, panning around the departure terminal. Heather is pulling a face, which she likes to do from time to time when I take photos of her.

Our original agreement was for Heather to organise the wedding and for me to do the honeymoon. It was a pretty good deal if you ask me. So I went off and emailed a few travel agents. The best deal I could find had us going on a return trip to Hong Kong, Macau and Australia for around US$2000 each. When I told Heather about it, she just rang her travel agent friend and got us the same thing for half the price. That's why I prefer to leave Heather in charge of important things.
We flew on DragonAir to Hong Kong at around 8pm. It's a very cheap airline, but seemed nice enough.

We arrived in Hong Kong around midnight and my old friend, Tommy, picked us up at the airport. We were a little tired and Tommy had to work the next day, so we went straight to the hotel to have an early night. The first thing I noticed about Hong Kong is that it's very warm at night. It's like a warm day without any sun.

The second thing I noticed was that they have funny water bottles. This bottle of water said it had a use-by date on the cap, but the cap was blank.
When I think about it, things should only have a use-by date if they have something in them that can go bad. But I read the label and it only said 'Ingredents (sic): Water'.

I drank it and I still feel fine.

The best thing about traveling is seeing new things. The second best thing is eating different foods. I was feeling a little peckish at that point, so Heather and I ventured out onto the streets to find some food. A little noodle place sold us a little tub of noodles for $2, and I was impressed by the custom carry bag.

This is what it looked like back in the hotel room. Pretty decent for a snack and an enjoyable change from the usual samgak-kimbap that I eat in Korea.

The next day we opened the curtains of the hotel room to this view. There are a lot of similarities to Seoul, but there's something different that I can't quite put my finger on. The buildings seem a little older, and there's a different colour of sky, perhaps.

Right near our hotel they had this construction work going on. Our Hong Kong Island tour guide later told us that they use bamboo because it's strong, cheap and light. And unlike metal, in tropical regions it maintains a cool temperature when you climb on it with bare feet.

Then it was off to find some food again. I snapped this photo of the menu in the first restaurant, that we went to.

Mainly because I like the sound of 'Mud Cat Congee'.

Food in Hong Kong is slightly cheaper than Korea. This means that you can get pretty good food for around HK$25 per dish. You divide the Hong Kong dollar by 7 to get American dollars.

I'd seen the streets of Hong Kong in many a Kung Fu action movie in the past. The city has a very distinctive lived-in atmosphere to it, but doesn't feel as crowded as you might think.

I'm a big fan of the Chinese shop signs.

The scenery changes rapidly if you walk around for a bit. Closer to the subway station there were some larger chain stores and it felt like Sydney all of a sudden.

There's something grotesquely intriguing about the way meat-on-a-hook-in-a-shop-window looks. To me, at least.

My favourite? That would be the duck.

Around midday is when they start setting up the market streets in Kowloon. From little plastic hessian wrapped bundles unfold tent-like enclaves. Mainly selling things like souvenirs.

We'll come back here in a later post.

The first day we spent walking up and down the streets of Kowloon. Heather's done a lot more traveling than me, and is one of those people who prefer to let others take the photos.

At this point, we were liking Hong Kong a lot, but the heat was quite noticeable.

The best thing about going into department stores in Hong Kong is that they have industrial strength air-conditioning. It's like walking into the South Pole from the Sahara Desert. And they sell matching hats so that honeymooning couples can identify themselves to others.

We found a foot-massage place and paid around US$12 each for a 45 minute massage. In this photo, Heather's feet are being massaged by a lady, while she watches TV. First they wash your feet in aromatic warm water, and then they massage away. I didn't know there were so many ways to rub a foot.

Heather loved it and fell asleep. I'm ticklish, so I found it to be an excruciating test of mental willpower.

Then we went to find a place on our little tourist map called Aquarium Street. I've always liked aquariums since I was young. Back home in Australia I had a nice 3 foot long one and kept a happy family of comet goldfish for a number of years.

Aquarium Street is a one kilometre-long alleyway selling every conceivable biological entity that can live in aerated water. I think what I like about aquariums is that they look like miniature worlds. And I always like to wonder what goldfish are thinking.

Hey. You there. Monkey face. Stop tapping. The glass.

I hadn't seen this breed of goldfish before. They have billowing skin bags puffing out under their eyes. That's what happens when you sneeze with your mouth closed.

Oh, and guinea pigs. One of my favourite kinds of pet.

Shrimps, snails and sea urchins were all for sale. I think the shrimps are actually food for exotic molluscs that people like to keep.

And these are Siamese Fighting Fish. In Australia, one of these will set you back around $45, but in Hong Kong they are HK$10, which is around one dollar something.
These fish live in small rainpools in tropical areas and the males defend their diminishing territory viciously. Placing two males into the same pond will result in a fight to the death.

Much to the bemusement of the betting men who placed them there.

We made a large circle around Kowloon by foot and ended up back at the markets. We'll continue on from here in the next post.

I'm going to divide up the posts into chunks around this size and post when I can. Life back in the lab is busy, and not nearly as exciting as these photos. But it's fun looking back on our trip and I'm looking forward to sharing the rest with you.

All in good time. See you soon!