The Kindness of Strangers

I was talking to some friends last night about solo travel and the enormous benefits bestowed on people who are brave or adventurous enough to set off on their travels alone. I thought I could use my blog to share some positive experiences I have encountered with total strangers but mainly I wanted to use this post to hear your stories!

Have you ever experienced the kindness of strangers while on your travels??

Be it someone who helped fix your puncture in the Australian Outback or a young kid who helped you find your hotel through the winding streets of Venice??

On my way to Australia last November I had a great experience where I befriended a stranger on the plane from Cork, who turned out to be an extremely well off but more importantly very inspirational business man who employed over 800 people in a Tech company in China. He taught me many a thing that I still keep with me today, and also treated me to a delicious meal while waiting for my nest flight. An experience that can be read about here.

Almost a year later and as my trip to South Korea began, I found another stranger putting a smile on my face. After a short flight from Cork to London Heathrow, I had another dreaded 5 hour stopover. As all the restaurants were super busy I was asked to share a table with a few other travellers. No problem. I got talking to the guy opposite me, mainly because the cocktail he was drinking looked interesting so I decided to order the same(!), and he turned out to be a very good-looking and interesting Irish guy (if you are reading this…HELLO!).

We had a great conversation about work, travel and life, as he asked me why I had decided to jet off to Korea for a year. We chatted for a while and then he bid me farewell as he had to run to catch his flight. As he stood up to leave, he informed that he had been so intrigued listening to me talk and was so sad that he had to depart that he had paid for my meal and drink as a farewell gift. I was actually speechless but secretly delighted.

I’m sure we have all been that kind stranger too, at one stage or another. One memory I have, which while not entirely a ‘kind’ gesture, is certainly something that put a smile on the face of many strangers.

It was a day I will never forget…the day I got naked with a few thousand other brave souls in Dublin harbour as part of a Spencer Tunick Art Installation!

Standing knee-deep in the freezing, Irish sea or laying down on the hard, cold rocky pier back to back with naked strangers, as a ship sails in from England (no doubt full of puzzled passengers!) was a morning I’m not going to forget anytime soon! I can’t begin to imagine what was going through those passengers minds as they saw a few thousand naked Irish people welcoming them into Dublin Port at 5 o’clock in the morning! “Welcome to Ireland, the friendliest nation on Earth!”

Giving out FREE HUGS to bewildered students in a trendy shopping area in Seoul, South Korea was also a great way of spreading job to strangers! That, and the day I spent dressed as a clown and face painting kids for free in Dublin, Ireland.

Nothing can put a smile on your face like the kindness of strangers.

Please share your stories in the comments below! x

The Scariest Place on Earth

With all the recent talk about North and South Korea, I thought I would share this post with you. This time 2 years ago I was living and working in Munsan, a town of about 100,000 only a few KMs from the border with North Korea. Here’s what I had to say about it at the time….

Sometimes as I lie in my new bed, in my new room in a brand spanking new apartment block, it’s easy to forget where I am. From the minute You step outside the door of your 21 storey apartment complex you are gently reminded EXACTLY where in the world I am. I have become so used to seeing soldiers everywhere that I have simply forgotten to write about them in my blog.

I am living in Munsan, which is a city only 20 minutes from the boarder with North Korea. Munsan is the last stop on the train line. If you go any further, and as far as I know only freight trains do, you will find yourself in the depths of a ravaged nation. A country that has been totally cut off from the outside world, has a secretive government and a nation that has been struck down with famine. Today, due to the government’s secretive nature and its reluctance to allow in foreigners, North Korea is considered the world’s most isolated country.

ers on the Train line that operates from the North Korean city of Kaesong, to Munsan, in the South.

Soldiers are everywhere in Korea. At the moment I am sitting in a PC Bang, which is like an internet cafe except I’m the only person actually online, everyone else is playing computer games. I am also the only girl and the only perosn not in camoflage uniform! There are probably about 20 soldiers in here, as always.

When I walk down the street in Munsan, you see soldiers everywhere, just going about everyday life. As we are so near to North Korea, there are lots of high fences with barbed wire and look out posts, a lot of which it must be said are no longer in use. But the soldiers remain.

A South Korean Soldier checking the barrier, just north of Munsan.

Of the three tunnels between North and South that were discovered in the last 30 years, one of them, the third infiltration tunnel, ends only 12km North of Munsan. I’m hoping to do a tour of the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) next weekend, where you actually get to go down into the tunnels and experience it first hand. The tunnel is about 1,600 m long and about 150 m below ground. It is apparently designed for a surprise attack on Seoul from North Korea, and can easily accommodate 30,000 men per hour along with light weapons!! Eeeep.

Don’t ask me how or why exactly, but on Friday the other Munsan teachers and I ended up in a place Bill Clinton famously called, “The scariest place on Earth.” Anyone who knows me and knows my keen thirst for adventure will know I do not turn down offers to go to crazy places, in fact I LOOK for them.

Third infiltration tunnel, DMZ near Munsan, South Korea

We had befriended some US military soldiers who happened to live in the JSA (Joint Security Area) situated about 15 minutes north of Munsan and about 5 minutes south of North Korea!! The JSA is the only area in the country controlled by both North and South Korea. It is known to be one of the most isolated places on the planet, with stories of shootings and kidnappings rife. One of my friends said that she heard a story recently of someone’s grandmother who had been kidnapped for 5 days ‘just for fun’. This is no place to mess around in.

So off we went on our little adventure to what was once one of the most terrifying war zones on earth and a place still covered in secrecy and armed forces. The journey there was weird enough. We first had to cross the ‘Bridge of No Return’, a bridge lined with explosives so if any attacks or intrusions were to take place, the military could delay their progress by blowing up the only entrance into South Korea. We had to pass many checkpoints and often show our I.D cards.

We were given a mini tour of the army base, were bought a free breakfast and as the tour buses passed by (with each passenger paying 150 bucks each!) they waved at us as if we were animals in a Zoo or celebrities..it was very bizarre and we felt very out of place. We were been watched at all times, and that we weren’t allowed to take any pictures (Ooops!). It is a weird place, surrounded by mountains and green fields, and one of the first places I have witnessed birdsong and wildlife amoungst the army bunkers and look-out points.

Soldier in the JSA, North / South Korea

On exiting one building we heard gun shots and looked at each other with frightened glances. Thank-fully we were told it was just the shooting range/practice range, but it was still somewhat scary. The guys flicked laminated pieces of paper at us, their “licences to kill’. These were no joke, they were real life licences to kill. They also showed us their guns, unloaded of course. A serious reminder of where we were.

We got to observe the army first hand, the rank system, how ‘higher ranks’ could smoke the junior privates and how their was a huge amount of respect to be found. It was quite a culture shock to us carefree teachers I must say and I was happy to head back to Munsan and my life as a teacher!

11-11-11

The 11th day of the 11th month in 2011. No, not the end of the world. Nothing nasty like that. Quite the opposite actually, especially if you are a lover of chocolate!

I always though Arthur Guinness day was the master of all marketing campaigns, that was until I discovered the madness of Pepero Day in Korea!

 Arthurs Day, was introduced 2 years ago to celebrate the 250th Anniversary of the Guinness brewing company and of course the infamous founder, Arthur Guinness. Guinness drinkers were expected to raise a glass to the memory of Arthur Guinness and an 82c stamp of an Arthur Guinness portrait was also released by An Post to commemorate the anniversary.

Everyone thought it was a once off stunt by Guinness to sell an unprecedented amount of pints in one day! However, 2 years on and the “tradition” continues! Why…umm to celebrate the 252nd anniversary?!?! In an attempt to make it a National holiday? Everyone just laughed it off as a marketing coup!

Thanks to my awesome students in Korea I realised that maybe Arthurs day COULD become a national holiday. Why? Well when I was teaching them the months of the year and asking them what their favourite month was, “November”. was the answer they all shouted. “Why November?”, I asked. “Pepero day, Pepero Day!”

For those who don’t know what pepero day is, it’s a Korean National holiday where people buy their loved ones (children, boyfriends, parents, friends) boxes of Pepero (chocolate covered biscuit sticks).

I can remember getting box after box after box of Pepero chocolates from my students last year…in fact 6 months on and I STILL had them stock piled in my kitchen! They far from helped my attempt at a diet!

Pepero Day started as an elaborate marketing campaign by Korean owned Chocolatiers to sell more chocolates and is now a NATIONAL holiday. It is celebrated on the 11th of November(11/11), as on that day it looks like 4 little Pepero sticks are standing side by side. This year however, there are SIX little fingers standing in a row..The ULTIMATE Pepero Day…Chocolate sales must be through the roof in Korea this week!!

Want to read about more crazy Korean Holidays? CLICK HERE!

Missing my Kiddies

Having left Korea and all my adorable students over 3 months ago, I’m actually starting to miss the annoying,little critters!

Ah no, I loved them all, I really did and I often wonder how they are getting along and what funny things they are writing or talking about with their new teacher. My year teaching in Korea was one of the best years of my life, and the memories will stay with me forever.

Here are some photos of me with all my amazing students. I miss them, I really do.

Lives together,Worlds Apart

While watching a short clip today about the Two Koreas (North and South), it got me thinking about the huge differences that exist in the world. How life in one place, South Korea, can differ so greatly from it’s northern neighbors. They are quite simply worlds apart. 

In fact only today in college, we had a lecturer talking about Nutrition and Food security in Africa and the class really made us realize the huge inequalities that exist not only around the world, but within one country.

We talked about the disparities within different regions of one country, how the capital city may have plenty of food whilst people in the countryside may be suffering from hunger and severe malnutrition.How people in Nairobi, for example, may get a lot of attention while tribal nomads dealing with a drought up in the Turkana desert may get little to no help at all from their own government.

I still find it so hard to comprehend that two images that look worlds apart may in reality have a closer link than one could ever imagine. When people think of drought or famine they think of land that resembles a dry, arid desert. Take Ethiopia for example.

When you look at the two images below, which one do you think is from Ethiopia?

Believe it or not, both these images come from southern Ethiopia. One from the south East and one from the Bale Mountains in the South West. It’s mind boggling how these places appear worlds apart, yet are in fact only a few 100 km’s from each other. Often a famine doesn’t necessarily mean there is no available food in the country; it may simply mean that the “available food” is not accessible (economically or geographically) to much of the population, a clear example of inequality within a nation.

Another thing we learned in class today was the different types of malnutrition people can suffer from, especially children. Again I was fascinated. There are two main types of malnutrition;Kwashiorkor and Marasmus. Despite fear of over simplifying these two types, Kwashiorkor makes children look fat or swollen in places, especially legs and feet, while with Marasmus children develop thinness.

(L)Child suffering from Marasmus and (R)Kwashiorkor

These variations of acute malnutrition can appear to be look very different. You would be forgiven for thinking the child on the left looks much worse off and is in much greater need of immediate feeding. You would be forgiven, but you would be very, very wrong. In reality both these conditions mean the same; that these precious children are at an extremely high risk of dying if they are not immediately treated by sophisticated feeding programmes.

I guess I have a lot more to learn about the world.

Loving Travel, Loving Life

Fellow Blogger Travel with Papino recently blogged about travel bliss, a rare moment when the outside world seems distant and all you can do is bask in your surroundings. Be it someplace exotic, a moment with good friends, or a break from it all; when we capture these unforgettable moments on camera they make for truly captivating photos.

I have just browsed through album after album of old photos from life in Ireland to life on the road, from Ireland to Latvia, Ethiopia to Taiwan, and Australia to Korea looking for photos that really capture the moment, be it travel bliss or just a moment of extreme happiness.  

This collection might seem a bit random but all these photos hold a special place in my heart and memories come flooding back upon seeing each one of these pictures. If you want to know more about any of them feel free to ask, but I think the picture with the caption tells it all. Let your imagination or heart work out the rest.

Feel free to share yours be it a story or a photo.

Thanks to Papino for this awesome idea.

Boracay Island, The Philippines

Holidaying at home; Baltimore, West Cork

Isle of Tiree, Scotland

Masaii in Mombassa, Kenya

Life is full of joy, Kitale Kenya

Close to Paradise; Auckland, New Zealand

Spreading joy on Childrens Day in Dublin, Ireland

Pure couchsurfing heaven...on a river!

Setiing my eyes on Sydney Opera House for the 1st time...Amazing

At the summit of Mt Seoraksan in South Korea...Breathtaking!

Frolicking in the Cherry Blossoms, Gyeongju

Pure Travel Bliss

Pumba Pumba Pumba

When I first heard of the Pumba Festival I had no idea what to expect. Was it some crazy concoction by Disney to promote the Lion King or the Disney Brand in Korea? Was it some sort of mixture between punk and rumba, some sort of singing a and dancing festival?And if not then what in the world goes on at a Pumba festival?! The answer, dear readers, is pretty strange!

Pumba, in Korean, refers to itinerant street performers from the Joseon Dynasty, a sort of tramp or street entertainer. An old man who travels from village to village, sleeping rough and knocking on doors to beg for food and money. Pumba’s don’t really exist in that sense these days, but they do still perform at events and festivals through song and dance.

The Eumseong Pumba festival celebrates these street performers and also lets foreign visitors like yours truly a chance to dress in tramp-like clothes and face paint and pose for hundreds of photographers; It is one of the most photographed festivals in Korea! I went along with 40 other foreign teachers through Adventure Korea, and spent the day feeling like a superstar!

First we were given beautiful, traditional and brightly colored cloaks to wear and were then led to the make-up ladies who made us look something close to street entertainers but probably closer to clowns! We were then paraded around the festival grounds as photographers clicked their cameras, pushing cameras into our faces, making us jump or smile or frown or pose in whatever which way they pleased!

Next we had the chance to pound rice, the traditional way of making rice cake candies. (Turns out rice can be made into everything and anything in Korea!) We were given heavy mallets and had to bang them down in unison flatten the mixture!

We were given traditional bibimbap (mix or rice, vegetables and spicy chilli sauce in a bowl) for lunch and plenty of bottles of ice, cold water to cool us down from the hot sun. Finally we all took part in a korean singing and drumming session and a candy breaking competition for all us crazily dressed foreigners as the locals looked on in delight!

It really was one of the most fun things I’ve done in a long, long time. So very random, but well worth the trip!

Time for a career change

Lending a hand to those who need it

So as many of you know, and perhaps many of you DON’T know, I have recently been offered (and as of today, have ACCEPTED!) a place on the MSc in Humanitarian Action in University College Dublin starting in September!

This excites me A LOT and means 2 big changes will be happening over the next few months.

Number 1: This blog will probably get a make-over. Journalist on THE RUN, won’t  be doing too much running! “Journalist in the library” might become more accurate!

While I promise I will still post regularly it may change from travel orientated posts to my observations about everyday life; fun, upcoming events and maybe posts related to the course I will be studying! Stay with me beloved readers, I’m sure I will have just as many adventures back in Dublin as I have had travelling the world over the last few years!

Number 2: My career will be getting a make-over. Note I say “career” in the loosest meaning of the word! At the moment, it would appear I am a “teacher”. That is what I do for 5 days and 40 hours a week. Then again given that little scrap of paper I think we call a degree, I am officially a “Journalist”. If you are reading this right now (Oh, hello there..cuppa tea?) then you may see me as a “blogger”.

Well, as of september 2011, I will be working towards my next career change; to become a qualified Humanitarian Aid worker, something I have DREAMED about for years. It’s an amazing course that allows me to study something I have always been passionate about while still getting feeding my other passion, Travel! With an induction period in the University of Warsaw in Poland, semester 1 in Dublin then semester 2 in either Sweden, Germany or Holland and even a chance to go to one of 6 (mainly developing) countries for semester 3. It sounds pretty awesome, right?

WISH ME LUCK, THE REST OF MY LIFE STARTS HERE!

Cosmetic Surgery in Korea

Cosmetic Surgery is hugely popular in Korea. Get on any bus or subway and you will adverts like the one below describing how you can change the shape of your nose, your eyes, the shape of your face, your bum, your breasts…you name it, they have it. Take a walk down the well-to-do neighborhood of Apujeong or Gangnam in Seoul and you can guarantee most of those beautiful women are 90% plastic. Most of these adverts imply that you will be more beautiful, more confident and attract richer men after cosmetic surgery, with advertisements often displaying large diamond rings, beautiful models, handsome boyfriends and sexy bikinis!

Having lived in Korea for 10 months now I thought I had seen and heard it all. From my friend’s co-teachers getting nose jobs to fellow teachers getting freckles removed and eyelids permanently tattooed with eyeliner, people getting laser hair removal, liposuction, stories of calf reductions and the always popular breast enlargements.

However, today I was left speechless. Today I was left feeling puzzled, confused and most of all sad at Koreans need for altering their appearance. One of my star students didn’t show up for class today so I asked her best friends why she was missing.

Me: ” Where is X today?”

Student: “Oh she went to the hospital”

Me: Oh no, what happened?”

Student: “Oh she is short but wants to be tall.”

Me: “Ok..but why is she gone to the HOSPITAL?!”

Student, (puzzled at my obvious stupidity!) “To get tall!”

The way she said it was so surprising to me. As if that’s a total normal thing. Oh yeah, you know, just popped down to the Doc’s to get stretched…” WHAT THE HELL! I actually would not have believed what I was hearing had it not been coming out of the mouth of one of my star students who has near fluent English. It took several more minutes for her to explain exactly what was going on as I stood there ta the front of the classroom speechless.

An older women getting surgery is one thing. Even younger women trying to enhance their facial features or obese people looking for liposuction but what kind of parent allows and even perhaps ENCOURAGES their 14 year old, beautiful, extremely talented and intelligent daughter to start a months long, excruciatingly painful procedure in order to lengthen her legs??? I really, really, REALLY hope she doesn’t go through with it.

                                                  

The Seoul-Mazing Race

Shouts of “I”ve got a bottle of VODKA..whoop whoop!!”, despite having just signed a race waiver that forbade the possession or consumption of alcohol, was a pretty good indication of how the day ahead was about to pan out; full of rule breaking, alcohol consumption and endless high spirits!

Usually, spending my saturday dashing on and off trains, buses and cars and running all over Seoul as fast as my little legs can take me would be a SATURDAY FROM HELL.

However last Saturday was an exception. It was the date of the Seoul-Mazing Race, similar to “The Amazing Race” which I’m sure most of you are familiar with, but organized by NEH magazine in Seoul.

Our Geumchon crew

We started off in Yeoido park, bottle of vodka for one team, bottle of whiskey for the other…Rehydration is VERY important when running a 10 hour race around a jam-packed city on a scorching hot, summer’s day!

My team; Cindy, Jennifer and Myself lined up next to the other 34 teams, pumped and ready for a day packed full of challenges and surprises. CJ, the race organizer had given us our first clue (he told us, “your first clue is over there. You will find a bag of rice cakes which you MUST finish before we finding the next clue…)

BAM, suddenly he had lowered his arm and the teams were off. A stampede of Elephants racing across the park in search of a bag of dry, tasteless rice cakes. I too would have been with them if I hadn’t tripped over within the stampede and lost my shoes…! Great start, I know.

As one of the last teams to reach the rice cakes, it appeared there were no rice cakes to be found. What was first confusion and frustration quickly turned to delight when we were simply whispered the next clue and didn’t even have to eat any stinky rice cakes. Ka-Boom…we jumped in a taxi and were off to Noryangjin Fish Market for what which we knew would be a nasty eating challenge.

Me, Jennifer and Cindy "Geumchon Crew"

Eating fermented Skate fish..Bones and all GO JEN!

En route we landed ourselves with the coolest taxi driver ever, who proceded to sing a korean rendition of “Oh Danny Boy” once he heard I was from Ireland! Was such a hilarious journey I was sad to leave him as we leapt out of the taxi to be greeted with the smell of putrid seafood, raw fish and other awful smells one associates with an enormous fish market.

The challenge was to eat a full plate of Sambap; which is supposedly a “Korean Delicacy”, consisted of raw, fermented skate fish, fatty pork belly and spicy, fermented cabbage. As I don’t eat seafood and Cindy pulled her Vegetarian card, this challenge was left to Jen. As we saw her struggling and were anxious to get out of the rotten smelling market as soon as possible, we picked at the plate, flicking bits of foul smelling sambap over our shoulders whenever nobody was looking, until we eventually had an empty plate and were handed the next clue. SUCCESS! 

Next we had to jump on the nearest bus (after quickly deciphering the Korean hanguel and deciding it was going in the right direction!) to challenge number 3! We ended being guided (in reality in was more like chasing after!) by a beautifully dressed Korean Lady, who we ran after for 10 minutes straight through a high class department store and down into a place called “I heart Dalki”, a sort of creche/bakery inside the shopping centre. Here we had to pick a random child and get them to play charades with us guessing the words we were acting out…random was the name of the game here..seriously random.

On the subway..again!

One of our clues

1 subway ride and one crazy bus ride later and we reached our next challenge spot…the Kimbap challenge! (think of a large sushi roll or rice and veggies wrapped in seaweed)..where each team had to make two kimbap rolls and sell them to randomers on the street. This was pretty hilarious watching waygookins running around trying to push badly made Kimbap on innocent passers-by. Bit of a disaster for most teams who ended up just giving money from their own pocket to pay the Kimbap restaurant owner as nobody would pay for their crappy rolls!!

Fast forward through the “impossible to find” pit stop, a REAL pit stop in Burger King which could have cost us the race (no other teams stopped for lunch..! whoops!), a photo challenge in Gangnam, a tour of the Kimchi Museum and getting pelted by water balloons by my lovely team mate as part of a challenge in Jamsil Park, another quick rest stop and we were on the home straight!

Cindy rolling Kimbap for us to sell!

Back on the Bus!

Next up was a mad dash in yet another mental taxi to a TapHouse near Itaewon where we got some nice cold, home brewed beers to make the last stretch more bearable! There were 6 challenges left and 6 challenges that would very nearly make us crack. Very nearly make us quit, drop out, go home, scream, vomit, who knows what it nearly did to us!!

First off was “The writing is on the wall” challenge in Insadong were we spent close to an hour waking around a spiral, 4 storey, outdoor market, in which the walls were plastered in grafitti and we had no ide what exactly we were looking for. Definitely the hardest challenge of all.

Eventually, after calling some buddies for help, we found the blue scrawlings and were on root to challenge number 11...the story of King Sejong! Here we had to enter the underground Museum and write out names in Korean using a traditional method then we had to pay our respects to the long deceased King.

Next up was one of the worst challenges of the day. As a team we had to consume a full tin of SILK WORM LARVAE. Usually even the smell of these creepy crawlies makes me want to vomit, but this time it was even soaked in their juices which was no help to my gag reflexes. Jen to the rescue again, helped by me and Cindy periodically filling our pockets with the grotesque smelling and foul tasting bugs, in a lame attempt to empty the can without really having to eat any!! Another SUCCESS!

Yuck Yuck Yuck

And onwards to the last challenge of the day…the beer tasting challenge! “I’ll take this one girls!”, I told my team mates! 5 beers later and I easily identified the mystery beer I was given. We even opted to sit in the restaurant drinking more free beer instead of rushing off to the finish line…at this stage we weren’t bothered in what position we finished aslong as we made it to the finish line! The finish line, ended up being in AN IRISH BAR(!!!) way south of the river which meant another half hour trip on the subway and another mad taxi ride, only to arrive in 18th place out of 35 teams! Not bad, not bad for a team of dossers, eh? 

We may not have won, we may not have completed all the challenges perfectely but one thing we did do is have a FANTASTIC day! It was one of the most fun, crazy, random things I have ever done and I will jump at the chance to do similar AMAZING RACES in the future!