2011.06.22 - Bye for now

Spring Festival, Delivery and Exodus

So I have been a little irregular with my web site updates.... not because I have been lazy but because i have been busy. Busy with delivery of our last vessel from Busan, office wrap-up, apartment wrap-up and Korea-life wrap-up.

It was hard work and we had to delay our flight ticket no less than 5 times, but we were finally able to board the plane home to Malmö on June 19th. It was a little hard to leave Korea this time as we had had a great year (Paula better than I as I had been excessively busy), but we were also looking forward to spending some time with our friends and family.

With all the driving I had to do the last few months in Korea, I wasn't much inclined to go and say my goodbyes to all of Korea, but we still managed to get around to a few familiar and a few new sites. Korea is changing all the time so we have to be on our toes to keep up. Spring is a very nice time in Korea and we were lucky that it still had not gotten too hot and sticky before we left.

This last month Paula has been very busy. She had a good group of friends around her and they all kept busy with gallery visits, coffee breaks, painting classes etc. I hardly ever saw her ....

On May 21st we joined the HHI Spring Festival even though we no longer worked at HHI (our project had finished on April 28th and I was now only working in Busan). We were so lucky with the weather as the only 5 hours with sunshine the whole spring happened to coincide with the festival! Due to my poor ankle and the month on crutches, half of HHI now knows me and we were invited to spend half an hour with the VIP at the main stage!

I have not been able to do much sports since I sprained my ankle. The ankle is still swollen, but at least now I can walk without a limp. I managed to go for two short bike rides in Ulsan before leaving, but nothing too wild - one time purely on the road and the last time with a short trip to the mountain just to say goodbye ! Other than this I have done a bit of swimming to train the ankle. Both at the compound pool, the hotel and at the Dong-office with Serhiy. A week before leaving Paula finally managed to drag me to the hospital for a medical check-up. It will be the last time I do something like that !!! They pushed a video camera down my throat, for God's sake !! My throat has been sore ever since....

The last time in Busan was difficult. Both because we were having some problems with the project and because I had to drive up to 4 hours every day - it wore me out and when I finally got home in the evening I was wasted! We did not get many chances to say a proper goodbye to our friends, but at least we were able to see some of them the day before we left, at a little gathering at the club house.

The situation at the Busan yard got increasingly more tense. But at least now the power balance was to the Yard's advantage with only a few striker's left. The problem is on the weekends when Union workers from all Busan (and sometimes from Seoul) flock outside the Yard. The weekend before we left this resulted in tear gas and isolated fights between the many security guards/riot police and the strikers.

I have just spent a bit of time making panoramas from the photos we took in Korea. I needed a special program which I only had on the home (Sweden) computer. I think this is a proper place to post some of them ! As a goodbye to Korea...

Below please see a slide show with all the photos from our last time in Korea.