DWS
Dai-Won Suh Joined: May 28th 2008
Logged in: October 12th 2011
Logged in: October 12th 2011
Beginning of this year things at Conergy, the company I was working for, started getting bad really quickly. It went from one of the fastest growing and biggest renwable energy companies to a near bankruptcy case within a few months. This forced me to look for alternatives and being blessed with a good professional background I started getting in job offers pretty quickly. I had always focused on advancing my career but this time for some reason just couldn't make up my mind what to do next. It would have been only logical to join either one of the companies but did I really wanted to continue running the treadmill of working life as I always had? Well, as I am writing a travel blog you can guess the answer. I decided to quit my job, make a round the world trip and find a purpose for my life both spiritually (I am Christian) and professionally . Most of the time on this trip will be spend wwoofing (work part time on organic farms in return for room and board, s.a. wwoof.org). Being on farms would serve two primary purposes. 1) I would use my body to work instead of my brain, which is what I normally do in the office and 2) I would get away from city life with all its distractions, rest my mind and simply have time to think in a quiet setting. Wwoofing of course is also a low cost way of travelling and kind of let's you touch base with yourself again by reducing the amount of money you need to spend on yourself ( reduce to the max ;-)) Writing this blog gives me a chance to keep in touch with you back home and archives my travels for myself. I hope that you enjoy sharing my travel impressions and thoughts along the way.
Cheers DW
P.S.1: My travel route as of June 4th. Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii, Vancouver, Seattle-San Diego by car, Denver, home
P.S.2: Ach so, ich werde auch mal einige Zeilen deutsch schreiben, wenn ich mehr Luft habe. Ihr koennt aber natuerlich Nachrichten und Messages auf deutsch schreiben. Freu mich.
Travel Blog Posts
Lava Entering the Ocean I
Everything has to end, I guess. I am back in Germany now. Let me quickly recap what has happened in the last three months. There haven't been any posts since the end of August. At that time I was in Hawaii and I actually stayed there until the end of September. Except for a quick trip to the northern most island of the Hawaiian archipelago, Kauai, I stayed put on my organic farm in Hawi. Life was good and mellow while I was thoroughly enjoying the Hawaiian sun. Maybe I could have stayed longer - I don't know - but then again if you don't know you are probably ready to leave. I took off for San Francisco, where I had a few nice days at a small backyard farm in the Napa Valley (Wendy, the ... read more
Flying into Kona
Aloha from the Big Island. I finally feel to have arrived somewhere. Imagine eating papayas, passion fruits and star fruits straight from the tree. To drink coconut juice, swim with sea turtles and tropical fish a la Nemo in the warm ocean, be blessed with abundant sun shine every day and you know where I have landed. The Hawaiian Islands consist of 7 islands of which the most southern and least densly populated is the Big Island. It's basically a big volcanoe which is still active by the way (the island is growing daily through the outpour of lava into the ocean. After spending the first week in Kailua Kona on the west coast exploring the island I am now in Hawi a small town on the north tip of the island. I found a super ... read more
Franz Josef Glacier
After 10 horrible days I am actually starting to enjoy New Zealand, now being on the South Island and having been virtually spared from rain so far. But just when it starts to get good I am about to leave. Tomorrow I am heading to Christchurch where I will board the plane to Hawaii on Sunday afternoon. Considering my next travel stop I am not too sad though. Anyways since coming to the South Island on Saturday my travels have been taking me west towards Abel Tasman National Park and then going southwest towards Franz Josef and Fox Glacier just about midway through the island on the west coast. Originally my travel would have been taking me further south to Queenstown but since the weather was decent and facing the prospect of having to drive 2 ... read more
Plane Ride
I jumped out of a plane today at 12000 feet. Was great experience. Check out the pics.... read more
Queen Victoria Sound
That pretty much sums up what i have seen the first 10 days in New Zealand. When I touched down on Friday last week the weather was great and I was happy to have left Sydney where it had gotten colder and gloomier the last days. But colder and gloomier it was supposed to get in Kiwiland also. In the evening light rain started coming down developing over night to a full blown storm, so bad that it would be known as the worst of its kind in 10 years. Well, I had the privilege to witness it and what would follow where 10 days of wet misery. Life is a bitch and then you die... On top of that I developed a cold the first night which left me with a sore throat and fever. ... read more
Pelican
I spent the last days in Sydney going up north towards Newcastle, about an hour away from Sydney. There is a woman at my Hamburg church who happens to be from Sydney. She got married to a German guy and now lives in Hamburg. As it happens her family runs tomato greenhouse farms up north. An opportunity for me to go see that and spend some time with her brother Yeong Gi, who is about my age but already has 3 children. Way to go. In the end I also got to see Eun Hae, the woman from church, as she cam over with her family to spend the summer vacation in Australia. It's funny how you meet people from the other side of the world. On a more serious note about 10 weeks have passed ... read more
Little Surfer Girl
I decided to stay a couple of days at the Christian Community House in Bundeena. I don't know if I had mentioned them but this is basically a group of Christians who have a big house in which they hold service but also have rooms for singles and groups to stay in. The mission of this church is to provide hospitality to other Christians, churches, youth groups but also to people with a troubled history, i.e. people with drug and alcohol problems. I was all alone while I was there though. Anyways, I do think it's a pretty neat concept to a offer a place to rest and recover. It is right next to the beach and when you eat breakfast in the morning sitting on the front porch it really is like heaven. Among the ... read more
Paintball
So I lost the keys to Nils' apartment. If that was not bad enough I also lost a letter which was addressed to his apartment. So any not so dumb individual with enough criminal intent would be delighted to find Adam's (a room mate) giant Plasma TV in the living room. So I decide to search the streets of Bondi at night, of course in vain... At the end it's way past 8 pm and I decide to make one last effort and go to the local police station to check out the lost and found ... or so I thought. I step into little building to find two officers behind there desks. One of them looks up to something (a watch as I found out later) and does not look very amused. He comes up ... read more
Bondi Beach
After an uneventful 10h night flight with Asiana Airlines I arrived at the Sydney airport on Wednesday morning. Australian immigration is very strict on food items and other potential carriers of bugs which could bring unwanted visitors to this remote continent. I was quizzed on what kind of food I was carrying (I only had snickers and a korean cake) and custom officials inspected the dirt on my trecking shoes and sticks. Apparently everything was o.k. as I was able to pass customs without any further delay. I was greeted by Nils, my friend from Hamburg who had moved to Australia 2 years ago and a blue, sunny sky with a pleasant 20 degrees. After a short stop at Nils' apartment in Bondi Beach, a suburb of Sydney, we immediately walked down to the beach to ... read more
Kurye Farm Staff
Long time, no talk. Before I start with my current location Bondi Beach, Australia, let me give you a short wrap up of what happened the last few days in Korea. After leaving Gurye in the southwest of Korea, I took a bus to Busan, Korea's second largest city. Busan is a major port city in the southeast with a population of about 3.6 mil. This being my first visit to Busan, I was pleasantly surprised by the relaxed vibe of this city, a positive change from the hustling and bustling of megapolis Seoul. If you would ask me, I would actually prefer to live in Busan vs. Seoul. I only stayed for a day to head back to Seoul the next day with the high speed train (a TGV derivative) covering the 400KM in less ... read more
