Aussie In Seoul

Well here is the deal. I am Australian and just moved to Seoul with my wife to work in a 5 star hotel. I hope to share some of my thoughts and comments over the Years I am here!

Sunday, August 28, 2005

Our Wedding Photos

Ok, so the more you look at our blog the more you see I am moving away from the "Korea Blog" to everything and everything about us, our lives, both past and present. But the main reason for this is, is that Clariza and I have been living overseas for so long so many of our friends are a great distance away. Since our wedding last year we have the endless request for photos, so I have decided to do a posting with several photos of our wedding. We hope that you enjoy.

Our wedding rings on the wedding invitations.


Taken just after exchanging vows in the church


Nice photo of us with our Parents!


Clariza and I with the Morley family


Clariza and I with the entire Endaya family, except Junior who was too shy to be in the shot!


Clariza and I with all of our sponsors.


One of our favourite photos taken near the pool at the Taal Vista Hotel where our reception was.


This is our favourite shot. It is taken in the gardens of the Taal Vist Hotel overlooking the Taal Lake and volcano below us. It is such an amazing view from the gardens of the hotel.


Of course there has to be the cake cutting ceremony. Tasted great!


Left to right; Dad Morley, Leslie Murray, Mum Morley, Brian Murray, Clariza and I in the back.


Great photo of us with Inay & Tatay Endaya on the left, kuya Boyet to Clariza left and other family and friends.


Clariza with some of the sibgle girls for the bouqet throw. And the winner was...... Arah!


The boys surrounded by the garter! And the winner was..... Dave, my brother!

Well everyone out of hundreds of photos at least you have a few of the ones we really like. I hope you like the photos.

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Sunday, August 14, 2005

Australia Dedication

I thought to myself that this site has to represent more than just our time in Korea. It is a great way to even set up blogs about the countries we are from, the places we have traveled to and lived etc..

So the first dedication is to Australia. Like most people, I am very patriotic about my country and very proud to be Australian. As I have been very fortunate to travel a lot in my life, I know one of the greatest assets I have in my life is having been born in Australia and carrying our wonderful passport. See, until I went to the Middle East for work, little did I realize the traumas so many people have in traveling the world. Even more so, I had several friends who were Palestinian, and they live with no passport. They often had taken up citizenship in other countries like Jordan and Egypt so they could live with more freedom.

Getting back to Australia, I have decided to make this more of a pictorial rather than my verbal rambling. In time I can expand the amount of photos I put on here and I guess information. I hope that those non-Australians who do visit our site do take the opportunity to visit Australia. It is a magnificent country, with so much to offer, from every corner of the continent. We may only have a population of 20 million, but we sure do kick ass in sports. Enjoy.

Sydney Harbour and the famous Sydney Harbour Bridge that links the north of Sydney and the city.

Sydney Opera House on the foreshore of Sydney Harbour.

Manly Beach. Take a Ferry over from Circular Quay and walk the esplanade to the beach.

The twelve apostle's on the South coast of Victoria. Actually one just fell into the ocean a month ago! About 2 hours drive from Melbourne.

The great Ayers Rock. Located near Alice Springs in the centre of Australia. A historical landmark in Australia, which is sacred grounds for the aboriginals of Australia. Should never be walked on as a sign of respect for the ancestors of this country.

Koala! Beautiful to look at, hard to spot in the wild, and if you get a chance to hold one, do so.

Kangaroo. Are tame in the sanctuary of a zoo, but don't corner one in the wild!

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Shopping at Wal-Mart

Funny enough US giant Wal-Mart has several stores here in Seoul and even Costco is here. Reminds me of my days in Hawaii. So anyway we were shopping yesterday doing our grocery shopping and still buying odds and ends for our new apartment and I have to tell you the funniest thing.

In Wal-Mart and most large grocery shops here in Seoul, they have heaps of display people cooking small amounts of food for people to try, and then push them to buy the product they are displaying. Now in Wal-Mart on a Saturday afternoon there must be at least 50 displays in the store. Can you see where I am going with this....

Well Clariza went to go buy some extra stuff we had forgot, so I planted myself in one place and was just looking around the place. At first I did not think it was strange that these two older Korean ladies were munching away at some sample cake, but after they had gone past their 10th piece each I started to find this pretty funny. I watched these ladies for almost 10 minutes. After about 5 minutes they casually walked over to a lady giving samples of fruit juice, chugged down a few mouthfuls and then headed back to the cake table. Again they stuffed their mouths with a few more pieces, and then obviously decided it was time to move on. Of course they passed the drinks lady for a few more mouthfuls and moved on. As I do I watched them a bit more as Clariza had not returned and sure enough they parked themselves over at the SPAM table. By the time I had counted their 5th piece Clariza returned and we left. Now this all may sound dull to you, but really it was highly entertaining. I guess these ladies were really getting their money worth in Wal-Mart today!

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Saturday, August 06, 2005

Finally a new Home

It has taken over two months but finally this week we were able to move out of our hotel room and into our Villa apartment. Can you imagine it was May 18th when we had the freight people come to our apartment in Melbourne and take all our stuff away to be shipped to Korea. Since then we have lived out of three suitcases until finally this past Monday, the 1st of August we received our 1100kg of freight in our new apartment and could finally sleep in our own bed!

So this past week we have slowly turned our apartment into a home. But I should mention most of the work has been done by Clariza and also have to say the guys from the hotel helping us have been outstanding at getting everything set up for us. We are very lucky in the hotel as most people speak English, but in the day to day life everything is done in Korean obviously and I would have not know where to begin. Turning the Gas on, electricity, A/c installation, telephone line, Satellite TV, broadband, water supplier, locksmith etc.. So all week we have had a host of people marching in and out of the apartment helping to turn it into life.

The team at the hotel are keen for a house warming party so I promised them it will happen soon. Last night we had a big night out with the boss and my front office and guest relations team. We went to a great Korean BBQ place and continued to drink ourselves into a drunken stupor! As most of my friends know I rarely drink, and if I do I just drink beer and sometimes when, but last night I drank countless shots of Soju! Man did I drink too much. By 9.30pm I was finished, so I dragged myself into a taxi and went home. When I got home I think Clariza quiet enjoyed my drunken state and seemed to find it quiet comical! Oh well, I sure was not laughing this morning with a piercing headache, and that typical hangover attitude that everything is too much. So I lay on the sofa all morning and finally this afternoon I have dragged myself out of the apartment and down to the hotel to drop of our dirty laundry and charge the mobile phone. We don't have a washing machine until the 15th so until then we have the wonderful laundry department of the Grand InterContinental to clean our clothes. Oh how lucky are we!

Nothing else to report on this week except we discovered a shopping place called KIM's Club. This place has everything and is huge. I recommend it for sure.

until next time....

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