The Adventures of T&C: 2009 Begins

Opening sequence: Zoom in on planet Earth, whizzing through clouds until the Korean peninsula comes into focus. The zoom slows down, and pauses while the audience takes in the desolation of the landscape - mountains and fields are brown and dead, with occasional sprinklings of snow. The view tilts to show a block of apartments on a hillside. Again a zoom, past identical apartment blocks and nondescript cars in muted colours, all huddled and braced against the cold. One specific apartment comes into focus, and the view pauses at the front door.

The view goes through the door as if it is not there. A lounge. An orange couch dominates the room. It faces a TV on a cardboard box. Packing boxes line one wall. A beautiful young woman sits on the couch typing furiously on her laptop. The view pans around to show the rest of the apartment. A cramped open plan kitchen, with a small gas stove, sink and fridge. A door to a study, one to a bathroom, and another to a bedroom. There's movement in the study. A man sits there, clearly edgy. He is trying to ignore the possessed camera that has just appeared in his apartment, even though all the windows and doors are closed.)

Narrator: At the beginning of 2009 two young South Africans were finishing the last few weeks of their contract in South Korea. It had been a long year of hard work, but it was finally paying off. They'd just returned from a trip to Japan, and were now making plans to visit Southeast Asia, South Africa and South America. Generally anywhere South. That is, until an unexpected visitor arrives...

Thomas: Carin, there's a possessed camera in the apartment.

Carin: Oh, just give it a kick. Maybe it will go away.

Thomas gets up and gives the camera a kick.

Thomas: It's not working. Wait...Oh no! It's...it's...

He rears back, and lifts his arm as if to protect his face. He screams and runs out the study door.

Thomas: Carin! Carin! We've got to get out of here!

Carin: What's happening? Why are you...? Oh no!!!

The view takes a red tinge. Thomas and Carin start coughing and gagging, and the viewpoint lifts to tower over them. They collapse on the floor. A gurgling roar sounds, and the apartment shakes.

Who's going to save Thomas and Carin? Who can battle the might of... KIMCHZILLA!!!!


Hi everyone

I hope you enjoyed the sneak preview of "The Adventures of T&C". Exciting stuff! We've just returned from Japan, and I've been watching quite a bit of anime, so this opening gambit may have been influenced by this. You'll let me know, right?

Well, we've had an eventful new year so far. In the last email I sent around, all we'd been doing was working, working, working, and we were dreading a long session of school with few breaks. But that's all been done now. Since Christmas it's been pretty lazy around here. At the moment we're on the last few days of our holiday (or, as we have to call it here, "vacation"), and from Wednesday we'll be back at our schools, even though the students are still on holiday. I'll have about a week of lessons to do with some students, and Carin has about a week and a half of English classes with some teachers at her school. Then there's a week of "school" (actually, just a whole bunch of ceremonies and graduations, as far as we know), and there's another two weeks of holiday (Spring Break). So from now until we leave Korea there's only about three weeks of work. Or so we think.

Enough about work. We're doing much more exciting stuff! We went skiing for a first time on 2 January, and it was amazing! There's a ski resort close to our town, and we were lucky enough to have another English teacher, Alistair, take us and show is the ropes. He's British, but he grew up in Italy and has been skiing since he was two years old. It shows. We were fumbling and falling all over the place, while he was gliding along like it was second nature. But he is a really good teacher, and within 30 minutes he had both of us skiing on our own, without any help. I won't say we didn't fall occasionally, though.

It was really, really fun. I miss having some active sport to do, and this was one big workout, especially for some muscles that I never knew I had. Towards the end of the evening Alistair took me to a more difficult slope. I didn't know how difficult until I started hurtling down at warp speed with tears streaming down my face. Of course he looked like he was having a Sunday stroll, a fact I could appreciate when he came to help me after I'd cartwheeled halfway down the slope and was lying on my back with my head pointing downhill.

It was great to get all geared up and hit the slopes. Another one of those things we wanted to do before we're thirty. Check!

More recently we made a trip to Tokyo. It was legen-(wait for it!)-dary! It's definitely close to the top of my list of favourite cities. We were only there for six days, and we definitely couldn't do the place any justice. We did some of the more touristy things, like visiting temples in Asakusa, seeing museums in Ueno and visiting the Imperial Gardens, but we actually ended up spending more time exploring Japanese popular culture (with a bit of a South African link). So we went to a Moomin cafe near Tokyo Dome, one of the many anime museums, an excellent toy store with tons of goodies from movies and TV shows (I now have a Yoda and a Robotech model), and - the best of them all - a visit to the Ghibli museum.

Ghibli, for those who haven't come across them before, is the company that made "Spirited Away". They've also made some other wonderful movies that have now become some of my all time favourites. The best is definitely "My Neighbour Totoro". It's a wonderful story, and highly recommended for everyone to watch. We bought a whole bunch of souvenirs from the museum store, and found out why Japan is known for being expensive (R50 fridge magnets, anyone?). We went there on my birthday, so it's going to be difficult to top next year.

Speaking of my birthday, on the Saturday before we met up with some Japanese friends and another South African who we know from Cape Town. They took us to a restaurant/bar ("izikaya") near Shibuya Station, called "The Lockup". Carin and I couldn't quite work out exactly what the theme was meant to be (prison or mental institution or a monster house), but the whole place was done up to look like some dungeon. You got lead to your private dining room (which looks like a prison cell) by a scantily clad hostess who cuffs one of your group. In this case it was me. The waiters are dressed up like prisoners, and at some point in the evening a "monster" escapes and scares the patrons until it is chased down by the staff. Entertaining stuff! They found out that it was my birthday, so I was worried they'd come kidnap me or something, but instead they got the "monster" to bring me cake. Hahahaha

The rest of the time we spent just exploring the city, seeing the sights and enjoying Japanese food. We had a wonderful time in Tokyo. It was expensive, but definitely worth it. If we get a chance, we'll go back.

Check out some of our photos here: http://picasaweb.google.com/carin.bevan/JapanJanuarie2009?authkey=J2_C3H5V1Xw&feat=email#

That's pretty much all the exciting stuff we've done so far this year, but we think it's a good start considering that January isn't over yet. At the moment we're busy packing up and sorting out our lives before we leave here.

Just so everyone knows, here's our plans for the next few months (based on confirmed flights and trips):

1 March: Leave Korea, arrive in Singapore

3 March: Fly from Singapore to Siem Reap, Cambodia

4 March to 30 March: Travel from Cambodia to Singapore, overland via Thailand and Malaysia

30 March to 1 April: Singapore

2 April: Fly from Singapore to Johannesburg

2 April to 15 April: In South Africa (specific dates in Pretoria/Potch/Cape Town still to be confirmed)

15 April: Fly from Cape Town to Buenos Aires

27 May: Do Inca Trail to Machu Picchu in Peru

22 July: Fly from Buenos Aires to Cape Town

We're really looking forward to seeing everyone again. We have some good stories to share, and we're dying for a decent meal and some interesting company!

Hope to see everyone soon!

T&C
Travelling