Back to the future

We are back. We'll we've been back since Wednesday. It's now Sunday. I don't know if it's Jet lag or laziness or just the strangeness of being home but I feel a bit odd. Tired and a bit directionless. Well we've decided to work the coffee caravan for all it's worth and earn some income. So far we have had a funny time of it. Because we knew we were going away and we were finding our feet we didn't push it too hard. But now it's our source of food, clothing etc.

I've been a bit slack coming back, have let myself go to bed late and get up late which doesn't help with the Jet lag. The trick is to be really tired and go about the normal day and just force yourself to be in the new time. But it has been nice taking it easy for a few days anyway. We've caught up with a few friends and have been to the beach. I just did a search for Jetlag pictures on Google, the below picture was one of the top ones! Maybe I had Jetlag before we left?



Days are strange, we got used to it being dark before 5pm but now it gets dark at 9pm. I guess we just have to give ourselves a break and take time to be back and resettle.

We just moved back in today after a couple of days at W's brother's house. It was a nice interlude although their cat has fleas, so now my legs have bites. Bugs like my flesh but don't touch W! Sometimes I wish I had hard crusty scaly skin that they can't get though too...Kidding, jokes just jokes.

Bye Bye Busan

We've just arrived in Japan from Busan city, South Korea. Can't find wireless apart from monthly plans so we'l just do this offline and upload later when we are home. Narita airport is very impressive, well organised with little metro like buses to transport between lounges. It was easy and the very nice lady from JAL checked us on seated together, Yay!!! We said thank you, thank you, thank you. It's so much easier all together, Wendy and I can support each other and take turns and we don't need to keep disturbing people to go to the loo!

We've left behind Anunghasayo and now it's Konichiwa (don't know about spelling). In Korea Bernard picked us up with Su-Jin, Mum and Dad. We were understandably a bit knackered after leaving Rome in the afternoon, flying to Franfurt, running between planes then changing timezones for Shanghai for a day then onto Korea. We slept in the back of the car while Bernard drove us to the home of the Shilla empire. A clan or part of Korea that conquered the others and took control of Korea 1500 years ago. We visited temples, a palace and burial mounds for the emperors. Falling asleep between sites of interest!

Bernard was a bit dissapointed by our lack of attention when he'd been planning out a unique tour of the history of Korea. We we're interested B but just a bit stuffed up waking up at 4am the first day in Korea and staring out the window watching the streets for any sign of life. The streets look dramatically different from Western cities, to us similar to Shanghai as there were loads of signs and run down shop fronts. There is a different focus in Korea, more about personal interaction rather than looks I think.

Henry and I went to a hot springs pool area in the hotel the last morning in Geongju. We had an interesting experience! We'd been told the night before that the pool opened at 9am so we turned up just after ready for action. We were then told that it opened at 10am so tried to kill time. I thought we'd go in and get ready so we went down into the complex and got changed and had our showers, slowly. My Korean is very limited as you can imagine. We can all now say Hello, Good bye, Thank you and order various food but nothing more. It's hard to remember when it sounds like nothing you've ever heard. Thank you is (Come sum knee da). Anyway, in the Korean style baths everyone is naked (sexes are seperate). Henry said "I was a bit astonished by that" after seeing teenagers washing each other all huddled around. But it's just the way it's done there.

The pools were great with a circular river for children which Hen loved. Many spa pools with high pressure massage pumps, Outside hot baths then one bit with pools with special little fish that nibble on you as you sit there (fishexfolitation I guess). Thankfully that was closed as we would have had to try it.

After 3 days there we all dressed up to go and meet Su-Jin's parents and brother and sister for the first time. We'd been invited to lunch in a traditional Korean restaurant. We were all a little nervous as we didn't know the customs so we were on our best behaviour. It all went very well, we all had presents for the family being a New Zealand tradition. Su-Jin had warned them we were bringing presents as it's not the Korean way and they would be embarrassed if they didn't know. I was a bit embarrassed myself there were so many presents. We'd got some whiskey, there was a sheepskin from Mum, Trinkets from Dad and some other things I can't remember. The food was great, the rice wine was great, and everyone got on very well. We were all as nervous as each other. I could see from Mr Cha and Mrs Chaen's expressions and ways of being that they are very nice caring people. Also they have great kids.

The next day was the wedding and it was a huge cultural experience. The Western ceremony was what I imagine an American wedding is like but even more over the top. Not in a bad way but an interesting way. There were 5 weddings that day at the venue which is a special wedding venue. The dresses are amazing but what made it was the warmth and kindheartness of the people there. Bernard and Su-Jin's wedding was the last so we didn't need to rush. A lot of the ceremonies were over in 15 minutes so no time for anything special.

I was really moved with my little brother getting married. I loved how Mr Cha moved us around by the elbow to stand in line to be presented to the guests formally. I loved how Mr Cha gave Bernard a hug after they were married, (this is a big deal in Korea where showing emotion is not done). I was moved and impressed by Bernard's speech to the guests, in Korean. He showed he has embraced the culture, language and the people, especially Su-Jin!.

It wasn't always easy having 6 adults and 2 children in the appartment but we managed. Thank you for generously putting us all up especially through the wedding time.

Lastly, Busan's thriving fish market. Where you can buy live fish, squid, octopus, eels etc. Henry loved it. He also loved the rats outside picking through the rubbish, that was Bella's favourite part of the day!

Confusion

Well I'm back.

We're in Roma, Rome. I'm sitting in an internet cafe and have been trying to log in for 15 minutes. Blog spot has changed log in details and it's confused me.

We are also a bit confused by the changes and complications to our flights caused by misunderstandings by various people, including us. Almost sorted...more details to come. Henry needs to wee...urgently. Bye

China

has made us very
recently. (I don't know whose baby this is by the way, sorry if it's yours). If you have a read of Wendy's posts you'll see why. She is now in London having been told residents can only get Chinese visas. The rest of us are in Fuerth still in Germany. I've been trying to confirm our travel and that we can travel to China using the visa waiver for 48 hours. No one tells us the same story so we may have to stay in Germany! Well some parts of Lufthansa don't seem to know about the 48 hours visa waiver so they may not let us on the plane to leave. Hmm Dilemma. So we are now trying to confirm that we will be able to leave.

It also turns out that due to some changes and help that Lufthansa was giving us here we have lost our flights to Auckland on the 22nd. Somehow there was a double booking made and when our travel agent in NZ went to rebook us on they deleted all flights. Hmm.

China's embassies have been generally very unhelpful and Wendy got shouted at yesterday by a Customer service rep in London yesterday. It seems in the end that she didn't need to go to London afterall as we could have got the visa waiver all along. But how to make a big corporation like Lufthansa follow the Chinese rules? The problem is that if they let us on and we are not allowed to enter China they are liable to bring us back here! Hmm.

Henry and Bella are missing their Mum, mostly at night as she always tuckles them in. And in the morning when they wake up to an absence of W power. To top it all off we are all feeling sick. Bella and I had a big sleep yesterday after going out for Weisswurst at Ushi's (Andreas' Mum).
So we are looking a bit...Anyway, today is a new day. Wendy can go visit the Tate Modern rather than mope. Bella, Henry and I are going to Munich for a wee trip. We have borrowed a Tomtom from a friend.
So we can't get lost anymore. We played with it and changed the voice to Ken from Aussie which made Henry laugh and laugh. There is also German of course and lots of other languages. In English for the journey home we might use Lori, the Southern USA woman. Very funny. There are some cool museums to visit in Munich for kids and I'm feeling we need to go see something. Even though we are tired and snotty we have come around the world. We can't just sit here.

We'll update you with more adventures. Must write something about the last 10 days too which have been really fun.

Cavemen

Left, inside a rock house at Haut Castlefranc showing Henry how they built the roofs without any support. (The wood is over the doorway only). Very clever.
Centre, Henry outside the same house.
Right, looking back towards Frayssinet le Gelat, we're feeding the chickens and rabbits.

We're on our last day at Mary Moody's. (Below, it's the three storey one with blue/grey shutters). So we're trying to se up our dwindling supplies of French delicacies. Well I am, Wendy just went shopping, again. Did Cave women shop? How far back does this innate obsession go back?

We didn't find the answer at the Museum of Pre-history 2 days ago. We drove up to Les Eyzies to see the caves and thought we'd see the museum first. Unfortunately once we got going up there and visited a little hill top village on the way we only had time to see the museum. Oh well. It was well done, needed English and other language translations or at least a handheld guide. How spoilt we are! Tomorrow we go back to the area to see a couple of caves.

Some of them are as old as 50,000 years. There are animal paintings all over the area in many caves. One famous one is Lascaux which was being destroyed by the breaths of people visiting so they created another cave which is a copy. Sounds really tacky but it's meant to be good so we might get there tomorrow. Lots of the caves seem to have been damaged when people discovered them, with graffiti, restoration work gone wrong and cave ins once rubble was removed.

It is amazing enough to try and picture the people's lives in the little town and what the town has seen. But seeing the pre-historic caves is mind blowing. Driving along in our airconditioned car we can see caves up in the rock cliff faces and imagine the Cro-magnon people up there.

From Wikipedia: Cro-Magnon (IPA: [kʀomaɲõ] or anglicised IPA: /krəʊˈmægnən/) is one of the main types of Homo sapiens of the European Upper Paleolithic. It is named after the cave of Crô-Magnon in southwest France, where the first specimen was found.

The term falls outside the usual naming conventions for early humans and is used in a general sense to describe the oldest modern people in Europe, though also a specific (but very frequent) subtype among their fossil remains.

(Just so you know!)

We are going to stay 10Kms from Rocamadour, in Gramat. Rocamadour looks amazing from the pictures. We stay one night there then drive back to Montpellier. We might see a bit of Montpellier but we'll see as it might take a while to drive there. We leave the day after flying back to Franfurt Hahn. We're getting a car and are going to try to get visas sorted in Frankfurt for China. After that we're back to Fuerth for Christmas and New Year's.

Here's a cheesy grin for you. I was leaving my face fallow for a while but I've only got a goatee now. It felt a waste to shave off the whole thing. I'm so photogenic don't you think? Wendy can't stand that I always have my eyes closed for photos. I think maybe I have some Chinese ancestry and the camera senses that.

Children

We're starting to think about the future. We've got a month and a half left approximately of this trip. It's gone fast and we've started to think about what we're doing when we go home. We've also started to think about the highlights so far.

I'm reading a book I found on the shelf today. Can't put it down for long as it's getting the brainwaves firing. It's called "The Alchemist" by Paulo Coelho. The bit I'm reading is talking about being in the present. Meaning living life now rather than worrying about tomorrow or yesterday. It made me think these were the best bits of this trip.

Tonight as Bella and Henry were resisting bedtime they started playing a game. They are so inventive, well without the TV on. I love watching TV but I always notice how it dulls their playfullness, sometimes that's a good thing but mostly it just shuts us all down and makes nice little zombies out of us!

They got the basket from the bathroom which is used to hold the spare toilet paper and brought it into the lounge. Once emptied it was big enough for Bella to get into and have the lid close. Henry was very gentle and she didn't mind being his pet for a while. Hiding from people or being carried onto boats or planes and put into the overhead luggage was very funny. Then they decided they'd go on holiday so they packed all their belongings (cushions, cent coins, soft toys, newspaper) in and said goodbye. I asked them where they were off to and they said "the South of France", good choice. They arrived (in the kitchen, very appropriate) and unpacked. Soon they were back from their adventure and telling us about it. Then they packed up to take the train to Rarotonga under the sea for 118 days.

Henry said "I've got my credit card and another one so we can go to any machine" (they've heard us talking about how one machine will work for our cards and another will not. Next we sent them off to do their boring tasks of teeth brushing and getting changed for bed. They came back out nude and crazy. They are such funny monsters I think we'll keep them for a bit longer.

Another moment I remember is the amazing Undie fish. We were staying at a converted farmhouse outside Siena. It had a beautiful infinity swimming pool. They all thought we were mad as it was only 25 degrees or something like that. Henry and Bella were paddling away splashing around then Henry came up with a game. He took off his undies and started throwing them into the deeper water. They bacame...the Undie Fish...duh da duh da. There was a leaf scoop which they used chasing the undie fish around. Very very funny

Earlier today we went to the local restaurant which has been going for over 100 years. Mary Moodie's husband made a doco about it which is here. The food is good hearty food like your grandmother made. Today we had

1. Entree of rustic bread and alphabet soup,
2. Followed by sauteed cabbage with salami, pate and gherkins,
3. Next the main of mique? pork, potatoes, carrots, cabbage all boiled with a big dumpling on top, served with a slice of dumpling,
4. Next a selection of delicious cheeses: goat; camembert, and two other local cheeses
5. Then a choice of desserts: for the kids ice cream for Wendy cheesecake and for me Creme brulee
6. This was topped off by coffee and of course wine was included! You are given a bottle which must be at least a litre and for a table of two that's a good amount to get through (we didn't finish it!)
   

Phew. It wasn't the most gourmand food and it wasn't all tartily presented but it was good honest local fare which would keep you coming back. It was E12.50 each which is a great bargain. We felt like outsiders initially but once all the busyness was over the lovely staff came and chatted to us and complemented Wendy on her excellent French. I stood quietly in the background pretending I was mute. I didn't want to let the family down after that comment. I can understand quite a bit but not if people talk too quickly. Happily I've found I can speak enough to make myself understood, even if I do get some odd looks until I discover I've ordered a train to Marseille instead of beef.

After, we met a very friendly big dog down the road who just wanted to jump. I nicknamed him Tigger he was so jumpy. Wendy went into fits of laughter when he started racing round chasing Henry and bouncing. Tigger was very friendly and wasn't going to hurt Hen but I was a bit concerned that Hen might get knocked over. Once we'd shaken off Tigger Henry and I continued on our plan to walk back through the pooky woods back to the village. (Hen once said pooky instead of spooky and we thought it sounded funny so it's stuck)

We walked past rabbits, sheep, ducks, geese, chickens and really loud dogs. Into the woods where we practiced our Indian tracking skills. Hen loved following the fresh tracks of a dog and a man. We looked for broken twigs when they had to go off track, leaves turned over and scratch marks. Hen said tonight it was his favourite part of the day. Nice

Christmas

This am we got to bed at 3am, in fact we've done that for the last 4 nights. I don't know why but we've been just slow to go to bed. So our days have been starting late too. I guess we haven't been doing that much as the weather is extreme English . Grey, rainy, overcast with downpours and the occasional blast of cold wind, oh actually just like Wellington in the winter! Oh well at least we have consumed a few bottles of wine and shopped for more while cooking up our soupe du jour consisting of chicken, red wine, leeks etc.

The Alimentation owners told us about a local Christmas fair that was on today so that was our plan for today. It was just a short drive away which was easy. The weather wasn't too bad having briefly stopped raining. We got there and they had some yourts (spelling?) and cut out Christmas characters, decorations and a father Christmas. We were slightly confused though as he was dressed in blue? Hmm. Not sure what that's about.

Of course we wandered around sampling the wares. Wendy had a crepe with some spirit on it, I think. We got helium balloons and everyone was writing their name on a card and tying it to it, so we did that too. There was a market with some really nice local stuff. Saw a car with an NZ sticker. There was an guy giving rides to kids on his very funny train. It had about 10 carriages all getting smaller and smaller towards the back with dollies and bears and Barbar the king (elephant) on the back. Very funny.

He had also set up a stall with potato guns, elastic band guns and a crossbow. The crossbow was wooden with metal pipes to hold the potato and inner tubes to provide the power. It was so powerful that kids had to use two hands for each rubber band to prime it. No one seemed nervous about anyone losing an eye.

In NZ we'd have a perimeter of 10m, a full safety back up system in case of systemic failure, an OSH inspector on hand to write a complete report to be presented to the PM the next day and a guy in a hard hat to go and pick up the bits of potato to ensure no one slips on them. Here people casually watched as kids chased each other around with them, fired them at passers by and stood gormlessly in the way of the firing range (I must admit that was Henry actually). It was all good rural fun. The best bit for me was the funny walking bike thing that had a propeller on the top. Henry and Bella both loved going for a ride with me while people watched.

We then came back and had an entree of smoked trout on toast with lemon and a delicious soup made by myself. It is such a nice place to relax, now all we need is some good weather so we can go for a bit more of a wander. Below is a picture of the church which I can hear the bell of right now, must be 9pm. It's just across the intersection from us, we are right in the centre of town. This picture is off the web cos I just didn't want to go outside.

By the way here's a sign from trip to Cahors yesterday. There's a prize for anyone who knows what the abbreviation stands for.
What the?!?