adelaide...

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finally leaving darwin we decided that adelaide would be a good place to work and play for a month or two. although, adelaide is small enough that you can literally walk from the northern terrace (a road that basically marks the top of the city), to the southern terrace in about 30 minutes, and likewise from east to west, but it really feels and looks like a big city. our first few days we looked into finding work in the classifieds, talking to other travelers and even applying at a temp agency. after jumping through several hoops, and even being tested to see our proficiency around a computer, the temp agency proved to be about as much help as a pooper scoopers on a cowfarm. as the days passed, and we continued to find work, we tried to fill our days with activities, and enjoy what adelaide had to offer. adelaide had a beautiful botanical park, that we walked to almost daily. a nice river that had footpathes along the edges, and a store that you could rent bikes from for free. we definitely took advantage of these things, but also tried to remain productive each day. within a few weeks we weren't able to find work in adelaide, but we had met a lot of great people and done a lot of great things.

for me personally, there was a lot of unexpected self discovery in adelaide. as a first generation korean, i've learned to understand that few people can truly understand my experiences. growing up in a suburb on the outskirts of st. louis city, there were very few asian minorities, and even fewer koreans. the few that were there, were not born in the states, but had just immigrated (like my parents). i learned quickly, that although our appearances may have been similar, our customs, traditions and upbringing were vastly different, and trying to identify with these people was even harder than identifying with people who looked nothing like me. it's not that in adelaide i met a lot of other first generations koreans, but in fact, i met many foreigners. having these people ask me where i was from in their broken english, and expecting me to answer in a certain way, but hearing another, it was clear that i didn't fit like they did with each other, and couldn't interact together with them. it wasn't something that i pitied myself about, because it was something i was used too. as a child i never walked into a classroom and expected everyone to look like me, or expected the few that did look like me, to be like me. i've just had this understanding growing up in the midwest of america that i was different. but in adelaide, i started to hang out with these new korean friends and associate myself with them. likewise, they included me in their activities and invited me to come along on thier day adventures. it probably wasn't until close to the time that i left adelaide that i realized that all my life, i had assumed that i was so different from everyone around me. so different from even the few koreans that i might pass in my day to day life, and that my race was literally the only thing that i had in common with these people. but visiting and living with these people, i was shown that even though i have so many differences with them, that sole commonality of race was so colossal it made those differences minimal. i won't go into all the details of how i came to this conclusion, but the easiest way i can explain it, is that people who share the same race are similar to people within a family. each person in the family has differences, some greater than others, but even so, there is an overwhelming understanding of sameness that creates this harmony.

with our new found friends we also decided to have a korea night, which would involve a big korean meal, korean spirits and games, and what else karaoke. our meal for starters was amazing. nari, jennifer, makoto and john all did a great job preparing our food, and we all ate so much. we also drank soju (20% alc beverage with no burn!) and beers and played traditional korean drinking games. one of the games involved a soju cap where the bottom ring is pulled off at one end. the other end is twisted several times and is flicked and passed around. whoever is able to flick the part of the cap completely off wins by making the two people on either side of him/her drink a cup full of soju. the next game included the same soju cap. whomever was able to flick the twisted part off the cap peeked at the number inside the cap (we covered the number with tissue). the number was always between one and a hundred. in a clockwise fashion people would guess a number followed with a higher or lower response, narrowing the range each time. the person who finally guesses the number (or gets stuck with it) has to drink. another game was called titanic. it involved a cap that was floating on top of some beer. the idea of this game was to slowly pour soju in the lid, and whomever made the lid sink had to drink the entire drink in one shot. this provided one of the most entertaining points in the evening when nari tried to purposely pour in a lot of soju to make it sink for the next person, but made it sink herself. after gulping down the mixed cocktail, she immediately ran to the bathroom. when she came back she told us (with sound effects) that she had felt a bit queasy from the shot, but the girl in the stall next to her was showing number two who was boss in the loudest possible manner, and that of course made her spew. after our meal and drinks we finished the night humilating ourselves at the karaoke bar.

in adelaide we were also fortunate enough to visit glenelg beach, which is only a 30 minute tram ride away from the city. i can't say it was the most spectacular beach (i know i'm getting spoiled here), but was a good way to waste an afternoon. we also visited mount lofty, which is the highest point in adelaide and has a spectacular view overlooking the city and surrounding wineries. mount lofty also has several hikes through the woods with interesting stopping points like the wildlife sanctuary. the wildlife sanctuary was stocked full of native aussie wildlife from wallabies to tazmanian devils and everything in between. from the pictures above i know your surprised to not be reading the "how we got kicked out of the wildlife santuary park" paragraph. the reality was that the animals were really well behaved and well fed. the kangaroos were much like old fat men laying around waiting for people to bring them food. the koalas too had a nice life of sleeping about 20 hours of the day and eating the rest of the time and occassionally having to take a picture with a few people in between.

our trip to adelaide turned out to be fruitless in finding work, but we met some great people like melanie from holland, who would find clothes on the street and keep them. she was quick to explain that it wasn't dirty clothes that people mistakenly dropped or left, but clothes that people who were probably running left behind to pick up later. of course. we also met danny from switzerland again. i originally had met danny in darwin and coincidentally met him again a couple weeks later in adelaide. i don't know if it is swiss custom but that kid could of qualified for the switzerland olympic speedwalking team. once the conversation was over (or at least when he thought it should be over) that guys hips and feet moved so fast, it would put shakira to shame. we also met victoria who was a melbournite traveling around. we went out to a few of adelaide's finest pubs and definately gave the dancefloor a workout even though at times it was hard. the dj was probably only about 20 (drinking age is 18), but pumping out crazy tunes like technotronic's pump up the jam, and the latest c&c music factory. i was upset i didn't wear my parachute pants, but none the less my hammer dance rocked it. even though we didn't have work in southern australia we didn't leave adelaide without a plan. earlier while we were in darwin another friend of ours paula, found work at a "resort" in the middle of the outback. this resort was 133km from the nearest town (i've seen superwalmarts bigger than this town) alice springs, and although they did not have work for carrie and i while we coming back through alice. they had called us to come back and work for a minimum of six weeks. we debated the pros and cons but decided to go and experience the outback and glen helen resort, which you can see here http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=LFe0oe-537Q.