Korea - The Land of Extremes

With a title like that I could probably go off on a couple of tangents but let me stick to weather for now.

Here's a great example of how in a couple of days you can go from weather that's almost good enough to wear a t-shirt in to long johns, scarves and gloves.

As I'm sure you can make out that the image above is a summary of this months weather so far. If you take a look at Friday the 13th, the temperature shot up to 17 degrees Celsius. Quite unusual for February but weather is an unusual thing. At the bottom you can also see the lowest temperature for this month was this morning at -5.7 degrees, just a couple of days after.

Surely enough, this will be topped tomorrow morning when the mercury is supposed to drop to -11 degrees as you can see on the forecast below. (On the right) The high for the day is 0 degrees.
What frustrates me is when people say "Why is it so cold?". Uh Hello? Is it not winter? Did it not used to get even colder a long time ago at this time of year? Maybe I'm just being anal about something people say just for the hell of it but it just seems a funny thing to say.

Anyhow, maybe I'll be putting my long johns on tomorrow for the last time this winter. I look forward to the crisp, icy air and the ol' jack frost stinging my face, because before we know it, it'll be 36 degrees and 99% humidity again.

Time

After being back here for one week I am reminded that a really don't have time for anything extra. All week I was thinking to myself, "Gotta make a new post on my blog sometime" but to no avail. Because even if I have a short space of time, I know that in a few minutes I'll have to go somewhere, or do something. Being married, having a full-time job which includes working every second Saturday and trying stick to a regimented fiteness routine is not something that everyone seems to understand. So to anyone who ever thinks I'm ignoring them, I'm not. I'm busy, that's the lifestyle overhere and I'm quite enjoying it. And now I have to get up and go and do something again.

A sign?

While shamelessly trying to promote my blog on facebook, the security checks which appear when you attempt to post a link bring up some interesting combination of words sometimes.

Jellyfish

During our visit to Hong Kong we went to Ocean Park, a giant theme park with animals, your usual theme park rides and a bunch of sea life. They had a jellyfish viewing exhibition which was quite interesting. I'd never taken photos of glowing jellyfish in the dark before so it was a nice challenge and good chance to muck around with the settings on my camera.

Scary stuff

I took this photo while standing on the steps going to a spa pool at the Harbour Plaza Hotel in Hong Kong. The spa pool is on the roof (obviously) on the 21st floor. How long do you think it would take a little kid walk across that tiny garden? *Shudder* Pretty irresponsible for a 5 star hotel if you ask me. Just standing there made your heart race.

And so start the rants

After having a mini honeymoon in Hong Kong (proper long one will be coming later), my wife and I arrived in Korea at 4.30 in the a.m. and lined up at immigration. My life being a Korean citizen, was through in the blink of an eye, since it was a foreign airline there weren't too many Koreans anyway. I on the other hand being a "foreigner", had to wait for what seemed like half an hour in a line full of couples who could have gone up together but each one of them insisted on being served one by one. Frustration.

While in Hong Kong I noticed a special "e-channel" service for foreigners (non-residents) who frequently travel to Hong Kong so the can just place their passport into a machine enter the country as easy as catching the subway. What I wonder is why there isn't a similar service here. Not even a separate booth or queue. With so many thousands of teachers and soldiers working and living in Korea, why not have a booth set aside for foreigners who hold a current Korean visa? Even at least for residents?

Another frustrating point was after arriving at 4.30 with 1 hour of sleep behind us, having to make our way down the hall of gates, catch the subway to the other terminal and walk some more just to get to immigration. Would it be so hard to park the plane at the main terminal> I'm sure the runways can't be too busy at that time of the morning.

On the topic of airports, We were not sure if we were heading to the right place when we went to check in for flight CX118 on Friday morning at Auckland International.

The birth

And so another blog is born. Will it last? Who knows? But here goes... (Gees I wonder how many other blogs start off with that exact same paragraph)

As a New Zealander living in Korea who is married to a beautiful Korean woman and having been in contact with the Korean language and culture for more than a quarter of my life, the title of this blog seemed appropriate.

For those unfamiliar with some of the terms:

Kiwi = A New Zealander.

Kiwiana = Everything and anything NZ. According to the Oxford dictionary, Kiwiana means: any of the many 'collectable', items redolent of New Zealand life and culture. (According to a New Zealand Holiday Park site)

Kowi = A word which describes those of us who identify ourselves closely with both New Zealand and Korea.

Mash them together and you get Kowiana.

So, what will I discuss in this virtual diary of sorts? Politics and international law? Pfft, doubt it. Most probably things that I see, think of, or discover that I would like to share with anyone who cares while we live here.

There were actually alot of things that I wanted to write about for a long time but are probably long forgotten so we'll start from now. Thanks for reading!