Walking Storm

Storm and I have been going for a run a couple of times lately. But because Storm is always at home, she is really unfit, less fit than me, so after about 1km, she starts to slow down really quickly and then starts to walk. Actually when she gets to walking, it is the best I have even seen her walk because she is no longer pulling on the rope, but just walking next to me (I think just trying to keep up, anything else is too much effort.)

Today we went to the Han riverside park and went for long walk. It is also really hot at the moment, about 30c and with very high humidity, so Storm starts to take some strain in her black coat, and being unfit.

Anyway, we walked to a small island in the middle of the river and then crossed back on the other side. Storm was dead tired, so I stopped a couple of times for her, but she seemed to be really struggling. We walked past the Trump Towers, and there was a nice fountain with a small ledge, so as no one was around, I thought this would be good for Storm to cool down. Storm jumped straight in and walked around cooling off, and then lay down in the water to really cool down. Thanks Donald!

After that Storm was all refreshed and ready to go again. I think she will sleep well tonight.

South Africa

Well on Friday (11th July) I will be flying back to SA for two weeks. Carla flew back on the 2nd so she can spend a few extra days with her parents and catch up with some friends.

I am dying for the bush ( Kuger National Park), so I arrive on the Saturday, and on Sunday we drive up to the Kruger. For me it is a place where I can really get away and rejuvinate.

Of course we will post some pictures when we get back.

This is what I am looing for:

Medical Check-up

I went for my first Korean Medical Check-up of Friday. You are supposed to have one every year according to the labour law, but I haven't really bee interested, so the last 2 years I ignored them, this year however I decided to go and do it and see what it was all about.

It is really efficient, and there are a whole lot of rooms for different examinations. The place is full of people, as it is dedicated to given an overall medical and everyone needs to do it.

I had a sonogram, eye test, bone-density test, blood and urine sample, lymph nodes check, teeth, blood pressure, lung capacity, hight and weight.

The last test was an endoscope, where they stick a light and camera down your throat to check your stomach. It was not the most pleasant thing having a huge cable stuck down your throat, and your natural reflex is to get rid of this thing. But at least it showed that my stomach was fine.

The results of the other tests should be back in a couple of weeks.

Heidelberg

Sorry we haven't updated for a while, but June was quite a hectic month.

I had to fly to Germany twice for business, with only a few days between the meetings. It wasn't too bad, and the second meeting was in Heidelberg, a small town approximately 100km South of Frankfurt.

It really is a beautiful place, and is one of only a few places that was left untouched by the war. So all the old houses and castle are still intact.

It really was nice to get away from the hustle and bustle of Seoul, and into the beautiful greenery of Heidelberg. We had a cruise along the river Neckar, which was great to see the scenery. I believe if you continued along the river, you would get to the BLack Forest and not much further on you would get to France.

The castle was really interesting, with all the history that goes with it.

Jaylen Mattis Martin

We've been meaning to post some pictures of our nephew, Jaylen Mattis Martin. Isn't he adorable!

Baseball in Korea

We've been trying to go to a baseball game for a while. So a group of us decided to attend a 2 o'clock game one Sunday afternoon. We arrived at 1:30 to book tickets but the queue was exceptionally long. Anyway, we stood in the queue but after a while we realised that the ticket booth wasn't even open yet which seemed unusual since the game was due to start in half an hour. We eventually learned that the game only started at 5:00 and since there were 6 kids with us we decided we'd go for lunch and then come back later. Our friends assured us that we'd get tickets later. So off we went for lunch. The restuarant we were heading to seemed much further away than we expected and after a looong walk and subway ride we arrived at the restuarant only to learn that it had closed down. So we went to TGIF which was nearby. Our orders got totally messed up and lunch landed up taking a lot longer than expected. We thought we'd head back to the baseball park in a taxi. Four of us got into the one taxi and the 6 kids and 2 dads squashed into the next one. The poor taxi driver! They got into the taxi so fast, I don't think the taxi driver had a chance to say 'no'. Someone joked that we'd probably get stuck in traffic and, guess what, we did. Someone joked that the game would proabably be sold out and when we finally arrived back a the park, we discovered that it was indeed sold out. So we headed home - exhausted!

The next weekend we tried again. This time we knew the game started at 5. So we got there at 4:30 booked tickets and in we went. In Korea, they divide the crowd into two sides and you have to sit on the side of the team you support. It creates a really good vibe because each side has their own set of coordinated cheers and there's a guy who leads the crowd and tells everyone when to cheer and what to do. It's lots of fun! We supported the Doosan Bears! They won! It was a good game! We're going to try and go again some time soon.

The Vatican City

The Vatican City

While Brad and I were in Italy one of our favourite places to visit was the Vatican City. St Peter's Basilica is amazing and,of course, we loved the Sistine Chapel. It truely is amazing to think that Michaelangelo painted that fantasitc ceiling. One can just stand there and stare at the ceiling for hours. Brad was able to attend confession in St Peter's Basilica since they have priests available who speak various languages. Once I left Italy, Brad went back to the Vatican City to see if he could attend a church service on Sunday, he managed to watch some priests being ordained on a big screen outside the Basilica but he said that the queues were so long that he wasn't able to go inside again. I think we were lucky because we walked straight in without queueing and we only stood in a queue for the Vatican Museum but that was only for about half and hour.Spiral staircase in the Vatican Museum

St Peter's Basilica