Golf was great, mum was here & had a massage

As I expected, golf last week was fantastic. I actually had one of my best games in a very long time. The caddy was also sensational making sure that I did make those impossible putts. I hope to play again soon!

After golf, we went to the annual German Chamber of Commerce Dinner and sadly it was a little boring. They did translation in German and Korean only, so as I speak neither of those languages, we just chatted amongst ourselves. Was surprised that the meal was not nice at all, as have had some good dinners at the Grand Hyatt. In any case we got home by 11pm, just as mum was being collected by driver & car at the airport. She got to our place around midnight.

So the weekend was spent all hanging out together, eating a lot, and shopping. It was very nice to have mum around. Also gave mum my log in and password for this site as my spelling and grammar is driving her crazy. (Thanks mum!)

Sadly mum left yesterday lunch time after 5 days. She has been out of Australia for almost a month, so looking forward to getting home.

If I never mentioned before, I happened to also be in charge of the Fitness Centre in the hotel, so yesterday around 1pm my Fitness Centre Manager came to me and told me that the current massage company has pulled their contract and we have to sign a new one. He has a very good candidate, and needs me to test his skills. "What, I have to find an hour to spare to take a massage!" Oh, let me think about it! "okay, 5pm! So at 5 I head up to the gym, take a shower and then let this new masseur unleash his skills for 90 minutes. Yes, a bonus 30 minutes! By 630pm I walked out of the gym on cloud nine, but am sure I am going to hurt a little tomorrow as I had him really deep tissue massage some of the sore spots! Oh, the things I have to do at work!

Today is Wednesday, it's election day in Seoul, so I have a holiday! Just relaxing. Two more days and we are off to the Philippines for a holiday!!!

There is a Golf God!

So as mentioned yesterday, today was going to be a huge day as is most of the week, and it was. Started in the office around 7am and finally got out around 7.15pm this evening. But as the title says - There is a golf god!

After doing a bit of work early, plus going to one meeting at 830am, I raced over to the COEX for the start of our training at 9am. Three days of training! Anyway, greeted all, including the trainer who is based in our Singapore office, and is someone I had met in Melbourne about 18 months ago. As we got into the training he put up a slide that summarized the actual training. It said "course will finish on tomorrow at 4pm"! What the f...!!!

At the next break a few minutes later I told him that I thought the training finished Thursday afternoon. Actually it finishes tomorrow at 4pm, but will then do 8 one hour sessions on the eight projects the hotel is undertaking over the remainder of the year. Two one hour sessions tomorrow, and the other six on Thursday. And you only need to attend the sessions that you are involved in the project! Ok ok, now if you can picture this, my mind is now racing. I am working out if I can get a few things shuffled around so I can play golf on Thursday! So honesty is the best policy and I explained that we have this big golf tournament, and two of us in the group of 20 were supposed to participate but declined because of the training. But is there a way we could put on the two projects that he and I are involved in tomorrow, as we do not need to be there for the other 6 projects, therefore Thursday is open! By now everyone was back, this was discussed, and thankfully as the two of us who wanted to play golf were the two most senior in the group, nobody complained, and all were happy for us to go first with our project sessions tomorrow afternoon!

So I raced out of the meeting room, called the Director of Sales & Marketing who I gave a hard time to yesterday, and said I can play on Thursday. Actually he was very happy, and has put me on a tee time! I am a very excited man!

The next few days is going to be crazy now; tomorrow training all day to 4pm, then 4.30pm to 7pm working on our project, have a dinner to attend at 7.30pm in our hotel, Thursday golf all day, back to the hotel for a meeting at 5.30pm, then a formal dinner at the Grand Hyatt with my lovely wife, and several other people from the hotel and their wives. This is the Annual German Society Ball which is at 8pm. Mum is arriving from Japan at 11.20pm and have a car and driver to pick her up and hopefully she should be at the house by 1am! Will be awesome to have her here again. Its only for 5 days, but so nice to have her around.

Wish me luck!

Another Game of Golf? Not!

I knew that I was stepping into a huge week this week, with a big report completed today, several meetings this afternoon, and then the tease phone call of the year -

"Simon, so you know there is the company yearly golf tournament on Thursday"

me - "what are you talking about?"

"you know the yearly tournament where we invite our major clients. Its all day Thursday"

long pause......... " You didn't get any emails before now?"

me - " XX you know that I would do almost anything to get on the golf course here in Korea, but you know I have that TQM training Tuesday to Thursday inclusive!"

"oh, sorry, a shame, its going to be a lot of fun!" "Are you shore you cant get out of the training?"

me - " You think the trainer who's come all the way from head office in Singapore will appreciate my excuse that I have to miss the last day of training as I have to play golf?"

"Well, I am sure there will be another chance to play golf"

me - "yeah, thanks XX, you really know how to p.ss me off!"

I was pissed! I could not believe it. After such a great game last week, I could just picture another full day out of the office on the golf course, having a caddy at my beck and call! Anyway, I have to put that past me. Got three days of training from tomorrow, and had to bring home the pre-work tonight!

Have a great week!

First Korean Wedding

We have had a lot of firsts lately, and yesterday was no exception. A colleague of mine who I do business with has, over the past months, also become a good friend. He is Korean, and is the one we went on a day trip to Incheon area about a month ago. Well, he and his fiance got married yesterday and we attended the wedding.

It was held in a Catholic Church near Yoeido area. We were a little late thanks to crazy traffic Saturday (nothing new), but enjoyed their ceremony in Korean. After the ceremony we took a couple of photos with the bride and groom, then had an early dinner with some of the others attending the wedding. Thankfully I knew a few others who attended as they all work in other hotels in Seoul, so we all sat down and ate together, and chatted away (they were all ladies, so lots of talking).

As we left the church we could not say goodbye to the bride and groom as they were taking part in a traditional Korean wedding ceremony in traditional outfits. We watched for a while, then left the church as a group and caught the subway home.

Will try to add photos later.

Golf Korea

Look, its been a long week at work, but then again it did start on Monday with a great game of golf! I am going to go into detail, but I have to let you feel this amazing experience.

After being in Korea for almost a year, I was finally invited to play a game of golf. I'm sounding like a snob, saying I am finally invited, but that's not what I meant .. I promise. Anyway I was picked up by my host at 5.45am, passed by the hotel to pick up one of my guys and we headed to the golf course.

Now let me explain something to all those who do not know much about golf or about playing golf in a country like Korea. The first and most important thing is you either have to be rich, or second, work for a company that uses golf in business, or third, have a job where potentially people need to invite you to play golf. Well I do not fall into the first category, so in this case it is the third, where I am invited to play.

Golf in Korea is all about business, so when you prepare for a game, you need to look the part as well as act the part, or if you're really good, play the part. Unfortunately my golf skills are limited to the occasional lucky shot! So of course I act the part! Sorry, I keep moving off on a different tangent!

So after a nice drive for about an hour into the mountainous countryside we arrived at the Jung Bu Country Club. Met on the driveway by a valet, who pulled our clubs out of the car, and drove the car away. We then headed into the splendid club house, where we are greeted by a hostess who signs us in, assigns us lockers and we head into the locker room / sauna / shower room! I change into the outfit, put on a heap of sunscreen that is there complimentary, and meet up with the others in the clubs large restaurant. I have the American breakfast, the others all Korean breakfast, and we all sit around for 20 minutes admiring the beautiful mountain view.

Right on time we head out of the club house to the 1st hole where our clubs are already attached to a buggy that I have never seen before. We are greeted by a lovely caddy, who lines us up and introduces herself. Of course I have no idea what she is saying, but enjoy the formality! She didn't have to ask but already knew who's clubs belong to who, had all the clubs placed perfectly for easy access, including a separate section on the cart where all of our putters were kept. On the cart she gave us each a section to put our mobile phones, keys etc. Also on the cart was a bucket of water for what I later found out was used to clean every club after you hit. (Yes she cleaned every club with water, brush, and a towel before returning it to the bag) Around the caddy's neck was a control box which she used to control the buggy. Yes, the buggy was run by remote control!!

So we jump up on the 1st tee, she hands everyone their driving clubs which she knew without asking, and off we went. I will move along fast here now, but just need to say that the course was amazing. It was one of the best kept courses I have ever been on. The greens were perfect, ready for any professional championship, and the view around the course was what every golfer dreams about; no noise except the whistling of the wind between the trees, the sounds of birds singing in the sky, and the occasional water fall from the natural springs around the course. We had nobody in front of us, and no-one behind us. A golfer's perfect day. And to top it off it was about 22 degrees, and not a single cloud in the sky.

Highlights -
Never having to take a single golf club out of my bag as the caddy always did.
Caddy ,after two holes, had already worked out my club distances so chose my clubs and always brought them to me even if I was 100 metres away.
I never stopped enjoying watching the golf buggy just move automatically along the cart path (the way it worked was that under the cart path there were sensors, so it stayed on track and either stopped if the caddy manually stopped it or it would stop at sensors placed where the cart should stop)
On two occasions on the course we used electric walk ways like you find at airports. Both occasions were up steep hills. You jump on and up you go! Unbelievable!
The last highlight was not having to pay the US$1000 bill for the four of us!

Now you understand why golf in Korea is so unique! And the latest news to report is I was invited today to play a game of golf in the coming weeks with another client! Got to love Korea!! and no, I'm not telling you my score!!!

Fight Day

So today we decided to get up early and dig into the hotel breakfast buffet which suprisingly we have never done together. By 9.30am when we arrived it was a little busy, but who cared about the crowds when you have such an awesome buffet in front of you. The problem is when you have a great buffet in front of you what do you eat? The body is not used to a lot of food in the morning. Anyway we ate our share and enjoyed it very much.

Next we jumped on the subway and headed for Itaewon. Our objective was to pick up a pair of golf shoes as mine were in Australia and I needed a pair anyway as I was playing golf on Monday. (Finally my first time to play in Korea) As some people would know, when you play golf in Korea you have to look the part as much as play the part! So once in Itaewon we checked out a few stores and finally found one that had my size. 150,000 Won later I had a lovely Italian pair of golf shoes! What to do!!!

We then decided to walk around a bit more and try to pick up a phone card. This is where the fun begins... so we walk into this store and these two ladies are talking away, looked like sisters, and suddenly the one on our side of the counter walks across the lane to a LG phone shop and starts arguing with the lady in that shop. Now if you can picture this the shop entrances are only 5 metres apart across this single lane so we could hear everything. All in Korean of course and lots of shouting. The lady in the shop we were in just ignored us and watched her sister argue with this lady. After a minute the sister walked out of the other shop but just as she was about to cross the lane the lady in the LG shop shouted something at here like f..k y**! I am sure. So the sister went back in and started screaming again, then the LG lady picked up some papers and threw them at the sister, then it was on!!! Wow I was loving it! Then sister in the shop we were in jumped from behind the counter, ran past us straight into the LG shop, around the counter and started swinging! Yes .. Throwing punches! It was on two sisters vs. LG lady! Clariza was a bit freaked out, but I was loving it. I even had time to flag an American guy on the side who didn't see what was going on to check out the fight! He was very thankful. After a few minutes the three each had each others' hair in their hands, a stalemate, two Korean guys jumped in, and finally it was broken up. We then left! Now that was interesting! Sorry for the long story, but I was just amazed to see it!

Anyway we headed back to Samseong, and decided by some miracle we could just walk up and buy a ticket to a movie. Sure enough Mission Impossible was available and we watched it. I won't say much, but it was pretty good. Not the best. I have history with Mission Impossible as the cast and directors lived in the hotel I worked at in Sydney back in 1999, and I got to meet them all and actually talked several times with Tom Cruise. I even got to drive Ving Rhames around Sydney! And Dougray Scott had a little too much fun in Sydney!!

So we headed home after quiet an adventurous day. Fights on the streets and fights in the movie!

Seoul Korea

Often people ask me what I think of Korea. What are the good things and what are the bad? Why do people always want to know the negatives? When a person visits Australia I never ask them what are the bad things? But it happens a lot here. Are people here just enthusiastic to find out what is wrong so they can fix it, or are they just baiting me?? In any case there is good and bad, but now is not the time to point them out.

What I can say is there are a lot of people in the business world trying to make Korea an easier place to do business, and make it easier for foreigners to be here. I participate in a group called CICI who are trying to bridge the cultural differences. Lets see how it goes.

Well, got to sleep as have to finish a presentation in the morning. Also not really sure why I am doing a post, maybe because I know I am neglecting my blog!

Incheon Day Trip

A few weeks ago Clariza and I joined a good friend of mine ,Francis, and his fiance on a day trip around Incheon. We all know Incheon as the place with the airport, but actually it is a large city on the coast, and also has a very significant port terminal.

So below are a few photos of the trip. As you can see it was a beautiful day and we really had a wonderful time. We walked across some beaches, took a ferry trip across to Incheon city, had a seafood lunch, and a nice walk around Incheon Chinatown.

Bloggers Blank

have not been writing much these days, which does not mean we're doing nothing, rather we are just living day to day and also going through several issues. Together we are stronger, so we will get through them.

Other than the stresses we both have, the weather has really warmed up, and can wear short sleeved shirts outside now. Its about time. A few more weeks and we have been here a year! One more year to go! We're not on a countdown, but are very happy we have almost completed the first year.

Last night we went to the large Buddha Temple behind the COEX for the Buddha's Birthday festival. It was extremely nice with all the hundreds of lanterns. Not long after we got there it started to rain, and has not stopped for a good 12 hours.

Ok, will try to post more soon, but no promises.