after freezing snow and wind in korea and copious weeks of desk warming, we couldn’t wait to climb on the plane to head home for two weeks to see our friends and family. we flew from incheon, via hong kong and landed in joburg at 7am on december 24th. we then had to wait for 7 more hours before getting a flight to east london, where we were met by my parents and taneale (my sister) and robbie (her boyfriend), and then had another hour drive to our home. about 35 hours in total from door to door…
we spent a week at kleinemonde, at my parent’s holiday house. playing golf, braaiing, relaxing and catching up. the weather wasn’t too great for the beach, so we only ventured down once. we had a great christmas day lunch, and attended the traditional kleinemonde ‘bush church’, which is always interesting. the worship was led by an old lady playing a portable organ which must have come to south africa on the ships in the 1800’s. that was amazing. we gorged ourselves on good food and drink with my family and family friends.
we also took some kimchi for my family to try, being the staple and most famous food in korea, which my co-teacher’s mother-in-law made. we placed it in a ziplock bag. we then put that ziplock bag into lock-tight sealed container. we then wrapped that lock-tight sealed container with packaging tape. we then put that packaging tape-embalmed container into a plastic bag and tied it shut. when we opened our bag in south africa, all our clothes smelled like kimchi. such is its power. fear it. respect it.
opening presents on christmas morning - robbie, taneale and gabi
the family at bush church on christmas morning
the old lady rocking out on the older portable organ
the boys
the braaivleis
big ol' tortoise on the golf course
from there we flew to cape town on the 31st of december, took a taxi to my uncle’s warehouse, got my car and drove 3 hours to struisbaai to see gabi’s family. it is unreasonable for me to attempt to describe the feeling of driving my own car and listening to thrice at volumes that cause mild thoracic vibration after a 10 month absence therefrom.
breathtaking.
we then had new year’s eve in struisbaai, which included watching the kids (the youth of today…) shooting fireworks and distress flares from the beach all night. or alternatively, walking around with a distress flare in their one hand and a beer in the other. nice work. new year’s day with gabi’s family always includes a lunch of magnanimous proportions. and this year did not disappoint. after a good few helpings of cremora tart, we took the traditional ‘let’s-work-off-that-lunch’ stroll (after the afternoon nap of course) and watched the sunset.
flares on the beach for new years in struisbaai
the first african sunset of 2011
the southern most tip of africa - cape agulhas
the next day we were up at 5am, and left around 6:30 for cape town. we went to canal walk to buy all the clothing and shoes that we couldn’t find korea (coz either they’re freakishly small or we’re freakishly big). we had set aside that sunday to see our friends in cape town, and attend the evening service of our church there too. but the weather wasn’t playing along with the picnic idea which we had, so we had to make a plan. we decided to split the crowds and have lunch with about 20 people, followed by coffee with 20 more, then went to church, then had dinner with a few more after church. THEN drove about 2 hours to ceres, arriving shortly after midnight. i still don’t know how we made it home. apart from the thrice-induced thoracic vibrations of course.
ceres is great. pine trees, mountains, crystal clear pools and gabi’s mom’s cooking. however, in january, it’s HOT. one day i looked at the thermometer around 5pm, and it was sweating and telling me that it was currently 47 degrees celcius. whew.
despite the heat we had a great time with gabi’s family, played a lot of golf (which i lost), watched a lot of TV, ate a lot of biltong and rusks and braavleis, sweated, played farkle and went on an epic zipline tour through the mountains. we then headed back to the airport for another 35 hour trip back to korea.
screams of braai delight with robert
ziplining in the ceres mountains
i guess it was kind of strange going home. we’ve never been away from south africa for more than a month. after living abroad for almost a year, you build up such an expectation of going back and seeing how things and people are different. but when we saw everyone, it was as if we’d seen them the previous weekend. kind of weird how that whole thing works. don’t get me wrong, the first i did when we arrived at the joburg airport was have a boerewors roll with chutney on it. it was good, but i think i’d built up a magical expectation that it would be beyond my wildest dreams. anyhow. we were sad to leave, knowing that we’d probably only be back home again in about 15 months, but at least we had some friends to welcome us once we got back to korea.
photo links:
greg and gabi 
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