Nath's Blog

Ahh… it’s so good to sit down and rest my weary legs.  I’ve just eaten a delicious rib-eye steak, salad and chips, washed down with an LLB at the Landing Bar here at Franz Josef.  Before that, I spent around 5.5 hours walking, climbing, clambering and sliding over Franz Josef glacier.  It was certainly worth the pain though.  A gorgeous sunny day, almost too warm, as you’ll read about shortly.

We caught a bus from the town out closer to the glacier.  The bus was almost full, and later we’d split into three groups.  Our guide was a tall skinny guy called Zack.  From the carpark there was a short trip of around 1km through the rainforest, until we reached the valley left by the glacier.  Flooding occasionally, we would need to walk 2.5km along a massive river of rocks, all different shapes and sizes, to reach the start of the glacier itself.

This is where it started to get tough.  We fitted our crampons before scaling some enormous piles of loose rubble, to reach the ice itself.  Up and down steps carved into the ice we climbed, occasionally with a rope to hold onto.  The sun is blinding, reflected off the ice, so I was glad I’d bought a $20 pair of sunnies.

Zack told us he’d be taking us on a new trail that had been carved into the ice just three days ago, with exciting scenery, and even a trip through a short blue cave.  Unfortunately with the newness of the trail came a number of downfalls.  The steps were incredibly steep – some of the shorter in the group needed a hand to get up.  Oh yeah, and the guide got a bit lost.  We had to do a bit of backtracking, going backwards down some more incredibly steep steps, inching backwards along a crevice only just wide enough to walk through.

Eventually we reached the high point, catching up with another of the groups from our bus.  Clearly they didn’t go the same way as us – Zack had to do a fair bit of work on some of the ice steps to make them usable.  After a much needed break, another opportunity to take some photos, and a drink of some glacier water, it was time to head back.  We seemed to be going ok for a while, until we had some bad news.

Parts of the trail consist of deep crevices that have been packed with ice to form pathways through the ice.  One such crevice had clearly been affected by the warm weather, and the ice that formed the floor had dropped away, leaving a huge 6 metre crevice.  It was impassable.  We had to do some more backtracking to reach the route usually taken by the people on the full day hike, and begin our long and tiring descent into the valley.

The good news is that we made it all out safely.  It was such a fantastic experience, I’m really glad I took the chance and did this hike rather than just a scenic pass-by in a helicopter.  There were some truly awesome things to see on the way!

The day began, in contrast to the rain of the night before, with a smattering of cloud partially obscuring the bright blue sky.  A breeze caressed the tree tops in a gentle embrace.  The temperature was cool, but not cold.  A perfect day, as far as Melbourne weather this time of year is concerned.

The morning’s activities were calm and unhurried, yet underlined by a subtle intensity.  Today was the day that had been coming for so long; the day to say goodbye.  The end of suffering.  The culmination of mourning.

The grass fields stretch far into the distance, broken by an occasional tree, and twisting ribbons of road.  These fields have seen many people arrive over the years.  Some rest here still, neatly arranged into rows; but most have left, perhaps returning infrequently, or perhaps never at all.  Today some return will after long absences.

Sometime in the recent past, a deep, rectangular hole has been created.  It is visible now, gaping wide open, bordered by green felt.  A metal frame rests above it all, waiting, ready to perform it’s macabre task.

People arrive now.  A blue-topped collapsible marque is erected nearby.  Chairs, dull and unremarkable, are unfolded beneath the marque, overlooking the scene.  A long car, somewhere between blue and silver in colour, parks a short distance away.  The wind increases now, leaves fluttering noisily, birds make their presence known with their chirping.  More cars traverse the ribbon of road, disgorging people onto the grass.  There are smiles of recognition, handshakes between old acquaintences, shared rememberences in muted conversations.

A microphone stand is unfolded, topped with a microphone.  A wireless speaker sits a short distance away.  Peaceful, calm music begins to emanate from it.  The long, silvery blue car opens, and four grey-haired men wearing dark suits waiting nearby silently bear its cargo towards the waiting crowd.  A long, darkly stained wooden vessel, strangely angled, adorned with flowers and decorated with polished chrome handles.  Later, a silvery plaque engraved with a name would be noticed, attached to the top, centered in one dimension, yet offset in the other.  Another grey-haired man steps close to the microphone, and begins to talk.

The smiles are gone now, replaced with thoughtful expressions.  Many pairs of eyes glisten with emerging tears as the grey-haired man recounts his tale.  Prayers are offered, a life summarised.  Appeals made to follow the example of the one who is a silent, unknowing spectator, recumbent, hidden from view.  The tears released, seen clearly now.  With a subtle nod to those who arrived in the silvery blue car, flowers are moved, a lever is turned, and the wooden vessel descends into the gaping, rectangular maw of the earth, re-uniting husband and wife.

The man in front of the microphone ceases from talking, and steps away.  White, long-stemmed roses, released from remembering hands, rain down into the deep, accompanied by tight embraces and streaming tears.

Goodbye, Grandma.

Your pain and suffering has ended.  Now you rest peacefully beside your husband, united again after so many years.  For those who view your resting place in the earth, you exist now as but a memory, fading slowly into the mists of time.

Well, I’m sitting in a Starbucks coffee shop in Busan, in South Korea.  Its been rather an epic journey getting here from the ski camp in Yong Pyong, involving numerous hours packed in a 12 seater bus travelling along windy roads through the countryside.

I’m recovering from my stomach bug I caught a couple of days ago.  I still can’t handle much in the way of Korean food, but I’m really hanging out for a nice steak or a burger.

Last night we stayed at Cheong Seong.  In what we have decided is typical Korean fashion, we slept in a large relatively featureless room, on top of thin slightly padded mattresses.  With no milk for breakfast, and no shops open, we settled for museli bars and vegemite or jam on bread for breakfast, before adventuring out on a hike at a Korean national park.  The term hike is used pretty loosely, since it was more like a walk.

The scenery was pretty spectacular, despite the greyness and dreariness that winter brings.  There was a frozen river running along the track, which we crossed several times using ornate stone bridges.  Naturally, the chance to fool around on a frozen river proved irresistable for some.  We saw some frozen waterfalls, interestingly shaped rocks, and vending machines out in the middle of nowhere.  There were a number of interesting looking buildings right at the start of the hike too.

It was interesting to notice several Korean women arriving at the hiking trail wearing high heels – not the most practical choice of footware, given that the track was in patches icy and quite slippery.  They proved to be a stark contrast to the majority of Koreans, who had with them some quaint collapsible walking canes.

After our hike our bus driver guy took us back to where we were staying, where we had lunch.  We also took the opportunity to explore the building we’d stayed in – I have a photo of it.  It was quite an unusual building, 4 stories high, with a golf practising range of sorts set up outside the top story – a flat space with a net hanging out into the nothingness.

After lunch we caught the now familar yellow 12 seater bus for the several hour trip to Busan, where I am now.  We passed multitudes of intricately terraced rice fields, as well as the occasional cabbage field and vineyard.  The biggest clue of our proximity to Busan (apart from the street signs, pfft, who reads them) was the re-appearance of massive clusters of condominiums, interspersed with myriads of tiny shops, selling everything you could imagine.

Placeholder… I’ll write up something more detailed here when I have the chance.

Suffice to say, the camp was quite spectacular, up until I got a stomach bug and the flu at the same time.  The skiing was pretty good, although some fresh snow would’ve been good.  The food was an interesting experience – the cafeteria offered a choice of western food or more traditional Korean food.

It was quite cold, the coldest temperature I noticed was -22 degrees, at 8:30 in the morning!

I promised you a longer, more detailed post on my Korea trip, and here it is…

We arrived at the airport early Monday morning, ready to catch our Asiana flight to Korea.  It was a 10.5 hour flight, which quickly got old.  I passed most of the time snoozing and listening to my iPod.  I did spend a bit of time wondering what to do my upcoming meditation on, but I wasn’t sure what to expect so I didn’t do too much work.

We arrived at Incheon airport in Seoul uneventfully.  The temperature was -4 degrees outside, which seemed extraordinarly cold compared to what we had been experiencing (30 to 35 degree days).  Still, it was pleasantly warm inside the airport.  Customs was a breeze too, they didn’t seem to check anything really, apart from the obvious passport stamping and collecting our customs declarations forms.

The only odd thing that happened at customs was that the snowboard bags had to be scanned in a large xray machine, before James and Stephen were allowed to exit customs.  The bags were brought out by a couple of Korean guys wielding forms, not on the luggage carousel like everything else.

Having got through customs, our next task was to work out how to catch a limousine (taxi) to the train station near Somang’s place.  We were pleasantly surprised to discover Somang grinning widely just after we walked through the door.  With Somang’s help, we caught a bus from the airport to the train station where her father and uncle (?) would pick us up in their car, and take us to the apartment where Somang lived.

The bus trip lasted about an hour, and revealed the enormous difference between Seoul and Sydney.  So many shops – shops everywhere.  Big shops, little shops.  There was one nearly universal commonality though – animated signs.  From neon to enormous full colour led screens, nearly all the shops had something designed to attract attention.

Not only were there multitudes of shops, there were loads of apartment buildings.  Groups of enormous apartment buildings occurred frequently.  Some bus stops were even specifically for an apartment complex.  The announcements on the bus were first in Korean, then repeated in English – quite useful really.

It was fortunate both Somang’s father and uncle had their cars – we filled up one car with luggage and piled in the other car.  After arrived at Somang’s apartment, she told us it was actually her birthday that day.  She’d bought a delicious birthday cake, which we decorated with candles and devoured (removing said candles, of course).  It was about this point that we discovered Korean beds consist of a thin mattress on the floor.  It’s been an interesting experience sleeping like this.  We went to bed pretty early, since we had to leave at 6:30am the next morning.

Travelling to the ski camp was another fascinating experience.  It was still dark outside when we walked to the train station.  We caught three different trains to get to the bus stop, with frantic changes between the trains.  The first change, we were a bit slow getting off the train.  Somang had to prevent the doors from closing with her bag, so we could get on.  The next change was onto a packed train, so we had to squeeze on.  But finally we made it to the bus stop.  From this point we caught two busses to get to the ski resort, Yong Pyong.

I think I’ll leave the events at the ski camp for another post.

Well, here I am on the third day of my Korean trip, having arrived two nights ago.  We got to the ski resort yesterday, today we will be hitting the slopes for the first time.  Not much time to write now, hopefully I’ll write up a more detailed post a little later.

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Well, I tried to think of an alliterative word for snow, but failed.  So the title of this post is only nearly an alliteration.

Back to the subject of this post – my trip to the snow.  Given that I’d never been skiing before, and some friends had invited me to go to the snow this upcoming weekend, I figured I should get some practice in.  To that end, I booked a snow express package with Murrays coaches for yesterday, to go to perisher blue.  The bus left Civic (in Canberra) at 5:30am, and returned at 7pm.

This immediately presented some challenges:

• I had no ski gear
• I had no idea where I could park all day in the middle of Canberra
• I’d never been skiing before, so I had no idea what to expect

After chatting with some more knowledgeable people, I overcame these challenges.  I bought some Over The Glasses ski goggles, a pair of gloves, some ski pants and a ski helmet.  I think I got a bit carried away there, since I didn’t end up using the ski helmet, and I didn’t try the ski pants on with some trackpants underneath (result: they were *very* tight around the waist).  I found a place that I could park in Civic all day for $8, and I got a bit of an idea of what to expect from a guy at work who’d been on a snow express package recently.

So the night before I packed my gear plus various forms of sugar, and set my alarm for 3:45.  I figured I’d need to leave by 4:30, since a) the car park was a fair distance away from the bus terminal; b) when I booked the trip I was told to be at the bus terminal by 5:15am; and c) I really didn’t want to miss the bus.  As it turned out, I got to the bus terminal at 5am, leaving me with 20 minutes of sitting around staring blankly at the other passengers trickling into the terminal.

The bus trip down was fairly uneventful, brief periods of light sleep interspersed with moments of almost-consciousness.  I was glad I’d decided to wear my beanie on the bus – it was pretty cold.  It really didn’t get any warmer throughout the day though.  We arrived at the skitube that would take us up to Perisher mountain, and the bus driver handed us our lift passes, and pointed out where to go to get our included skis, stocks and boots.

I took the opportunity to visit the bathroom and put on my ski pants before getting my ski gear.  I ended up trying on three increasingly larger sets of ski boots before I got a pair that would fit my feet.  Picked up the skis and stocks and went to discover how to get a lesson.  I didn’t realise before this point how heavy skis were when they were being carried.  The lesson would cost me $51 (since I already had my chair lift pass), and teach me the absolute basics on how to ski, culminating in instruction on the use of chair lifts.  I had a choice of two locations for the lesson, one at Blue Cow, the other somewhere else.  The person selling the lessons recommended Blue Cow, and since I had no clue either way, I accepted the recommendation.

The skitube left shortly after this, and I would have to change skitube trains at Perisher to get to Blue Cow.  My first task on arriving at Blue Cow was to work out where I had to go to join my group lesson, followed closely by the need to find a locker.  Having stashed my bag in the locker ($19, with a $10 deposit that was refundable if I returned the key before 5pm) and putting on my ski goggles and gloves, I went outside.

My first step on the snow went badly – I kind of slid back down onto the concrete, but I didn’t fall or drop my skis.  Taking a more careful step, I negotiated the gentle slope up to where my lesson would be.  I was late, the group had already moved off from the starting position, but they were still learning how to put on their skis, so I hadn’t missed anything important.

We started by putting on just one ski, and moving around with it on.  We learnt about the ‘snow plow‘ position and other basic skiing techniques.  Then we started off at the bottom of an extremely gentle slope (it was practically flat), using the ski tow to take us up a little way, then skiing back to the bottom.  After a few goes of this, we moved onto a larger slope, although it was still quite gentle.  We spent most of the lesson here, catching the ski tow up to the top, and skiing down, practising turning and stopping.

Up to this point, I hadn’t fallen over, but I did manage to do a couple of embarrassing things, relating to my inability to stop in a controlled manner.  Having descended the slight incline, I needed to make a 180 degree turn and step sideways to line up to the ski tow.  The first 90 degrees of the turn meant I was now facing a slight slope towards the ski tow.  On two separate occasions my snow plow failed to stop me, and I ran sideways into another beginner skier.  The second was the worst incident, ending with the end of my ski in between another skier’s boot and her ski.  She had to unclip her boot so I could get my ski out!

Towards the end of the lesson, the instructor took us to a much more pronounced incline.  The object of this lesson was to do tight turns in order to descend the slope in a gradual manner, and then catch the chair lift up.  Unfortunately my execution of this plan left a lot to be desired.  This part of the lesson involved my first (and second and third) fall.

I’d start off going across the slope, then start the 180 degree turn to head back the other direction across the slope.  The first 90 degrees were easy enough, but at that point I was now heading straight down a much steeper slope than I’d experienced.  Try as I might, I couldn’t do the second 90 degrees – I’d end up going faster and faster down the slope, panic, lean backwards, then over I went.  After the instructor helped me up the third time, he suggested I should probably just walk down the hill to the start of the chair lift.

The chair lift was another fun story.  Getting on the lift went off without a hitch, and I thought I’d be able to get off at the top fairly easily.  I was wrong.  In getting off the lift, I inadvertently leant backwards, and over I went.  I managed to move over to the side out of the way of the lift, so I didn’t suffer the additional embarrassment of having the chair lift stopped on my behalf.  I also managed to unclip a ski myself, and get back up.  At this point it was just after 12, and I was feeling a bit light-headed and very thirsty.

I imagine the thirst and the light headedness related to my rush earlier in the day.  I hadn’t had anything to drink for several hours, and hadn’t eaten anything all day.  I drank a whole heap of water, and went and sat down.  In retrospect, I should’ve drunk the water a bit slower, since I felt pretty sick for the next 10 minutes.  Eventually I felt better, and I bought some lunch – some fruit salad and some deliciously unhealthy potato wedges.  I sat around for a while, occasionally sipping on a bottle of Coke Zero, just watching people walk past, and ski/board down the slope visible through the windows.

I got bored eventually, and given that I was feeling better, I decided to go for another ski.  There didn’t seem anything else to do.  The skiing part went fine this time – I was on the same gentle slope as before.  The ski tow was my undoing in the afternoon.  In the morning I was letting the rope slide through my fingers a bit before gripping hard enough that the rope started pulling me along.   Now that I was more confident, I just grabbed hold of the ski tow.  This was a mistake – the sudden lurch caused me to compensate by leaning backwards.  By now we all know what happens when you lean backwards on skis – you fall flat on your back.  I did this twice, and twice the ski tow operator had to help me up.

This time, one of the people from my morning lesson noticed what was happening (incidentally, the same person who had to unclip her ski boot to free my ski), and offered some helpful advice about leaning forward and letting the rope slide through my fingers until I was ready to go.  These tips helped greatly, and with a few more runs down the slope I was done for the day.

The bus trip back to Canberra was uneventful, as was the drive back home.  All in all, I had a great day, and now I can nearly ski.  Bring on the weekend!

Well, I had to turn the title into an alliteration, but my day today has been truly sensational up until this point.

I got home from my Sensational Saturday to find a birthday party for a 16-year-old in full force over the back fence, with music so loud I can feel the floor shake in my bedroom. Rather than attempting to sleep, which would clearly be impossible in such a circumstance, I have decided to write about my Sensational Saturday.

First up today, I had a much-needed sleep in. I woke up around 7am, fell asleep again, before waking to discover it was 9am! Sensational.

Then it was time to do some quick study. Today was our monthly CYC activity, and this time it was the “Grandparents and Friends” day – a lunch and some lawn bowls, with a Bible reading and a few thoughts about the reading in between. I had unfortunately been nominated to offer said thoughts, which meant I had to actually come up with something to say.

One of the daily readings for today is Mark 11, so after searching for something truly profound to say and failing, I decided to fall back to talking about the fig tree, and the temple. In the preparation for my thoughts I did consider Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem, and pondered about why he decided to make such an entrance, but chose not to include this pondering in the thoughts I delivered.

We had a barbecue lunch at Riverwood hall, the usual sausages-on-a-roll, with some salad and desert. A selection of grandparents et al. showed up, and seemed appreciative of the day, although as usual we were all running late so I didn’t say much at all about the reading – maybe only 5 minutes worth. Still, I had a good bit of discussion afterwards in more depth about Mark 11.

Next we proceeded to Peakhurst bowling club, where I duly discovered just how hard lawn bowling was. Getting a combination of angle, spin, and power proved quite challenging. We got into groups of six – three vs three per ‘lane’. Seeing as how our group was comprised of equal numbers of girls and guys, the natural grouping was girls vs guys. The final result was as it should be – guys won on 9 vs girls on 4. Still, it was a great deal of fun, definitely something I’d be interested in doing again.

Towards the end of bowling, Phil mentioned we might want to go to the A league soccer game between Sydney and Melbourne that was on tonight at Sydney Football Stadium. That sounded pretty interesting to me, so I agreed to come along. I’d never been to a soccer game before, nor the football stadium. While the experience was refreshing, it was ultimately disappointing, given that the game finished with a nil-all tie. In fact, the several confrontations between the Melbourne supporters and the copious quantities of police could have been considered more exciting than the actual game.

I didn’t want to have too late a night, so I didn’t dawdle around at Phil’s place before coming home. In retrospect, I needn’t have hurried. I won’t be getting much sleep any time soon. As soon as I got out of the car, I noticed the loud pulsating music emanating from a neighbour over the back fence. It turns out I get to enjoy the floor shake to the poor choice of music that 16 year olds apparently appreciate until midnight. It might be time to go looking for some earplugs. That, or their fuse box…

Well on Saturday of the weekend just gone I decided to buy an iPhone. The day before I checked the train timetable and set my alarm appropriately. I knew there had been long queues at the apple store, and that it opened at 8am. So I planned to get there in plenty of time.

In actual fact I arrived at 7:30, only to discover there were around 10-15 people in the queue already. At this stage I didn’t realise how long it would take before I would get my iPhone, so I queued up…

While i waited for the store to open, I amused myself by watching the security guard strut around inside the store, bolstered by his ability to walk around freely inside while we stood outside in the cold. By the time the apple store opened at 8:00, there were quite a number of people queued behind me. At least 10 or so.

The apple store employee let some of us inside, only to queue again on the other side of the glass we’d been gazing through for the last 30 minutes. Eventually we were led upstairs, to queue up once more, this time divided by our phone carrier of choice.

TBC…
(this post written entirely from my iPhone)