after glen helen...coolangatta

after working at glen helen for our six weeks, we immediately left for adelaide and new adventures. but after being together for almost 3 months carrie and i decided to split ways for a brief duration. i stayed in adelaide and went to kangaroo island, while carrie took the train to sydney and later flew to cairns to visit the reef and some old friends. after a few weeks we met once again on the east coast boarder in a city called brisbane. our time in brisbane wasn't really that great to be honest as accommodations weren't the best, and even the crappiest hostels were packed tighter than a pair of pre-subway jared speedos. so without much convincing we both decided to leave brisbane and head down the east coast to visit some small beach towns. our first stop was in coolangatta.

working in the outback...

for the next six weeks carrie and i both committed to working at glen helen resort. glen helen resort is 133km west of alice springs (a tiny city in the center of australia), which means that literally you are in the middle of the desert. people usually try not to drive at night because it is so isolated and if you crashed your car the probability of you getting discovered that day was very slim. a few things that we quickly learned at the resort were: the term "resort" used in the outback, is kinda of like calling a hotdog gourmet. although, the name might earn it a few respective points, it's still made of lips and asses. coincidentally, glen helen resort was about as luxurious as eating a few mashed lips and asses. keeping things bug free was also something that wasn't mandatory at our resort. australian flies and ants are like no other in the world. the flies should be considered the friendliest in the world, as you wave them away, they not only come back but will bring several of their friends to either try to drink out of your eye, or ride on your back (being the yardie, i got to know these guys very well). outback ants are also special. we learned that these ants after 24 hours of more of rainfall will sprout wings. i guess God didn't feel as if the flies were charming enough. regardless of our opinions we had committed to six weeks of working, living, eating and breathing glen helen. carrie would be a waitress and i would be the yardie. carrie's responsibilities did not just involve waitressing, as she would also take reservations, iron table clothes, seat the guests, serve the guests, clear tables, wash dishes, and reset the tables each night she worked. my responsibilities basically involved any matters that dealt with human or animal fecal matter, yard work, rubbish, plus a few other things like driving a backwards ute (truck).

living in the middle of nowhere (without access to internet, tv or cell phones) our days were filled with the same basic activities each day. they usually consisited of staying out of +100 degree weather, going swimming (in the pool i had to clean), going to glen helen gorge, or going to the mount sonder lookout. although we typically did do the same things each day we did also get to go on a helicopter ride over the gorges and rivers, and were lucky enough to enjoy, as the aussies would say a "big night" out in alice.

although, our bosses colin and shelagh (pronounced she-log by carrie and i) were money hungry idiots, with no concept of staff or customer appreciation. the overall experience was one that neither carrie or i would trade, the people we met and the money we were allowed to save only spending $75 a week on our accommodations (which was a tin box with a/c, but we did have our own bathroom) and food, and the occasional drink. it was a good means to an end of having to scrape by, finally having some money to travel and not worry about finding work in the immediate weeks to come.

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.

the rock tour...

if you look closely you can see people climbing, and the japanese lady.

on the way back to alice springs i was baffled and splattered by what most be the most difficult ketchup (or tomato sauce as it's said here) packet ever to be created. the picture shows the two small receptacles with a small crack on the opposite side that is to be opened by bending the the ends squishing the small compartments. as you can see by the photo, you really should aim the crack toward, whatever form of sustenance you plan on complementing with the condiment, in this case the infamous aussie meat pie. the ketchup came out with such force that it saturated my hat, shirt, pants and small asian eyes.

the rock tour was something that carrie and i had both heard a tremendous amount about living in the northern territory. uluru or ayers rock is a huge rock amist the blank desert, it's a good 4 to 5 kilometers around the base, and about 2 to 3 kilometers tall. the rock is spectacular especially at sunrise and sunset as it changes color from a gray to a rust red. the rock used to be an ancient religious aboriginal place as holes and areas in the rock were used for certain practices. there is also a climb that is done to the top (with handrails only on the bottom half), that was also used to signify that a young boy became a man. we were told on tour that a boy about ten years of age would be dropped off miles away from the village and would be expected to survive on his own for two years, with only a few visits from some of the village elders as guidance. if this journey were successful they would then climb uluru. because the rock was used for such a significant purpose the aboriginal people ask tourists not to climb the rock, but tourism and capitalism being what it is, it is still optional to climb (and many still do it). although i chose not to climb the rock, many were, but were impeded by a japanese lady who was backing down the rock slower than a barry white love song, and half way down decided that it was too hard and stopped and sat. funny as the scene was, every year people decide to climb the rock and fall harder and faster than an overweight mary poppins.

kings canyon was a huge canyon that we spent a good 4 to 5 hours hiking around it had great views and scenary from very desert areas to very lush areas like the garden of eden. kings canyon also lacks the gravitational pull that the earth provides, which allows you to jump several kilometers and of course, makes you a serious candidate for toyota's television campaign, as you can see by carrie's picture. kata tjuta was a series of very large round red rocks that we also spent a day hiking around. they seemed extremely imposing and impressive amongst the flat landscape.

at night we cooked using a campfire or large camp stove. our meals were pretty simple but decent. on our last night we ate kangaroo tail, which you can see by the pic is absolutely delicious. the lusciousness of the tendons which i got a mouthful of, can only be compared to the brother and sister trading turkish delight that the ice queen of narnia possessed. we also slept in swags (a heavy bag for your sleeping bag) and sleeping bags, i also learned it's not smart to go to sleep in shorts and a t-shirt, because the box wine you drank the night before doesn't keep you warm when it's less than 20 degrees around 3 or 4 in the morning.