Snow Geese Hunt

By looking at the picture below, it looks like after picking up Steve in Montreal, we all got to see le Parc de la Jacques Cartier in full bloom. The 1200km from Waterloo to Lac St-Jean was done with a little stop over in Montreal. We can't really disclose the exact location of the hunt as this would be against house rules.

When we arrived at our secret location, it was clear that there were no snow geese and that the weather was shite.



Hunting is an early man's game. Here is Steve after we've set-up our decoy layout at 6am.
Below is a mock picture of Darin in the shooting position out of his lay-down blind. I would not risk missing a shot at some birds for a picture.


Peter (Pierre) wasn't super impressed after our poor start on Friday, but we did manage to get some birds.

Evidence of our harvest is pictured below with Steve's first bird of the weekend. Proud you ask?
We did our best to use as much straw as possible available around us to improve our lay-down blinds.

Here is a team picture after our Saturday morning shoot. After getting up at 4am, setting up close to 200 decoys among which were some remote control robot geese, and you can't help but mention the CD playing geese calling machine complete with 2 speakers aka Willie Lamotte.


Below is our fearless companion Nola. She spent the weekend retrieving, but most importantly you could here her come upstairs and wake us up in the middle of our deep sleeps.





What else can be said about a perfect hunting weekend with my father, great friends and most of all my uncle Claude who pours his heart and soul into making his experiences in hunting an experience for others. Thanks.

Our trip to Europe

Avant de partir pour l'Europe, on a passé quelque jours a Seoul. Voici des photos pour pouvoir apprécier la différence.








On a vraiment fait un beau voyage en Europe. Je vais vous montrer quelque photo de nôtre voyage. L'itinéraire était: Pays Bas, Belgique, et la France. Car les habilités culinaires de la Corée ne sont pas trop diverse, on était super content de pouvoir déguster de la bonne cuisine et évidement de voir des beau paysages et de profiter de pouvoir parler dans nos langues maternelles. Alors, nous voici (dans très peu de photo) en Europe.

Nous avons commencé nôtre voyage a Amsterdam (via Paris). Nous avons resté a une hotel entre l'aéroport et le centre ville. Une hotel qu' on a réservé sur l'internet avec un super rabais. Super propre et on prenait l'autobus de ville qui avait un stop a côté de l'hotel. En 20 minutes on y était.
On savait que le bicycle était la mode de transport préféré des Hollandais, mais quand même surprenant. Il y a des bicycles partout!! Alors, nous aussi on a fait pareil, et on c'est promené et visité en bike.


Nous voice posé super naturelle (haha...je me suis acheté un trépied pour $15 a Seoul)






On a passé 2 soir a Amsterdam, ensuite on est allé a Utrecht. 30 minutes en train. On a couché a un Bed and Breakfast. La femme était super fine et chaleureuse. Après avoir pris la photo suivante, on est descendu a la même place pour notre lunch. Ouais, assez gâté quand même, mais faut le faire.



Perspective assez biz, mais oui, le bateau passe dans le tunnel!



Les Hollandais sont très...au lieu de l'expliqué quoi de mieux qu'une photo. Il y avait un parc a Utrecht que nous avons visité. Des enfants et des famille partout. Il y avait aussi une exposition par un artiste. Un peu biz:



Nous nous sommes ensuite rendu a Antwerp en Belgique.






Le grand-père a Ellen parle souvent d'avoir passé du temps a Mechelen. Un poste de provision important durant la guerre.



Bruxelles.


L'heure d'une pose. Petite bière Belge, pourquoi pas. Ellen dit que ses lunettee la fait pensé a Nana Midge dans les années 70!



Quiz time! Ou sommes nous!



L'Orangerie. Exposition de 8 tableaux pas Monet dans deux salles.

Too funny and way too much time on my hands.

Seeing as how we have too much time on our hands and have time to do silly things, well we do. A new group of teachers came in and we are getting to know them. Our new friend Brendan showed us about this site www.yearbookyourself.com. As the title says, you upload a current picture and you can make an old yearbook picture. I chose 1950, 1962 and 1976. This one had to be shared. Try to figure out who I look like.




Hope you are having a good laugh at my expense. Talk to you later. Man eh?

June/July and August summary

It's been since early May since I've posted, and well things have been great since. Ellen and I were on vacation from the 2nd week of July until the end of August. Here what we've been up to.

This pictures shows what it is like to go to a Korean bbq. Our favourite spot is 1,800 Won ($1.50) per serving of meat. It's called sam gib sal (frozen pork belly bacon) and it's great. In Korean tradition all the sides are "service" and included. You have to pay an extra 1,000 won for the rice. The beer is also extra. You get Kimchi of course (which is nice on the grill), lettuce, green onions, white onions, red bean sauce (has a little spice to it). Three of us can eat with some beers and be full for $16.

These are good buddies of mine, Matt and Barry. They have both returned to Canada, but we will see each other as Barry is grom Guelph and Matt hangs out in Southern Ontario as well.




The next few shots are some bad lucks. The first was a sad day for me. My favourite Christmas gift from the Walpole's was my dish mop. I wore it out as it seems. Emma is sending me a new one as a gift. Nice.

The second pic is the repair we had done for bad water flow. Since our pipes were clogged, we could hardly get any pressure which would also not allow the hot water heater to kick in. We called in the technicians. They did a great job of running the floor pipes from the room next door into our shower. The old pipes left there (the corks was our touch). It's not pretty, but man do we have good pressure. Koreans are all about gettin' 'er done and not so much craftsmanship.


We managed to get away and see Andy and Jane a few times as well. Here is the boat we ride on to get there. It pulls up straight into the paved ramp and the cars roll straight off and we walk right on/off. Super simple. Not the prettiest thing, but she's safe. It takes 2 hours and guessing the speed of the boat, we are likely travelling no further than 35 km's.

Picture of Ellen on our way back home. We often sit outside on the ride back, as it is nice. There is also an inside with a floor and little pillows. We can go in there, take off our shoes and lay down. The mornings, we spend inside either napping, or reading with the locals.


On this day, Jane and Andy actually had to work. So, we sat at the beach and waited for them. Andy was nice enough to lend us his home made beach umbrella. Ah yes. Bamboo, ducktape and a cheap umbrella does the trick.



Here we have the truck on their island that fummigates for mosquitoes. Not the safest stuff to be breathing, but not exactly sure on the details. Here we are about to get a mouthful.




Did we mention they have a rainy season? Here is Ellen taking a cab to work. The guy was gonna drop her off before this and make her walk like the locals. No way!! Yeah, when it rains, it pours.




When school finished, Ellen and I worked one week teaching at an English camp. We spent the week there, sleeping on the floor and showering with no hot water, but in the heat they had mid July it wasn't that bad.


Here are the middle school kids and Ellen checking out the eclipse we were lucky enough to see mid day.




One morning, Ellen and I went for a walk and checked out a Dorim temple near by. Also made time to go for a little dip in the stream. The are 9 rocks engraved with sayings from the old scholars. The water was very fresh as it is run-off from the surrounding mountains from the recent rains.

Green Tea Fields

First for the news. Ellen and I are going to stay in Korea longer than expected. We have renewed our contracts and will stay. Not sure how much longer, but the contract is for a year. We do have vacation in August, but still unsure of how long and what we will do with it. May only be a week.
We are truly enjoying being here and our health both mental and physical is great and we love the time we get to spend together. Speaking of which...here is another great day at a local festival.

This flag flying in the sky sums it up pretty good.



We toured the grounds and enjoy some green tea treats. Ellen picked up some really nice green tea mugs with built in filters and of course some green tea. I'm not a big tea drinker, but I do enjoy the green tea. I had some gifted to me when in Japan, and found it very soothing.









It was a beautiful spring day. The temperature in the low 20's and no humidity. We are enjoying the long spring here and I am in no rush for the hot humid months of July and August.







We are already in mid May and man time flies. This weekend is our May 24 weekend, but we don't have any holidays (of course). We are heading to Docho island to visit with our friends Andy and Jane. We will hit the beach, play some tennis and hang around their trailer park (we call it that, but it's really small concrete buildings). Can't wait. We miss home, and will be happy to get there when we are ready. The bonus is the extra time here will give us a down payment and some on our first home!! Goodbye for now everyone. Talk to you again soon.