The Bus

Each modning in Korea we would leave the hotel by 8:30 and go to the Korean Service Center for the church.  We always road the same bus. It was just the right size to all of us.  I had to take pictures of it.  

Now that is what I call "class".  

A View Out Our WIndow

When we went to Singapore on our way to Korea we chatted with a girl who worked at the hotel and she told us she was Korean. We told her we were going there the next day. She asked where we were staying. She told us that if we were on the correct side of the hotal we would have a beautiful view out our window.  I guess we were on the correct side as this is what we saw.

Whales and Dolphins and Birds! On My!

We went one a whale and dolphin cruise a few weeks ago.  Those of you that know me pretty well are aware that being on a boat that is moving fast through the water is not usually my cup of tea.  I made sure I had taken a sea sick pill before we started. I admit, it was an amazing afternoon.  I have learned that being in the front of the boat in the breeze is the best way for me to enjoy such an activity so we went right to the front and sat on a step and watched the land go by as we left the harbor.

We were told that we needed to look for large flocks of circling birds.  Finally we saw some.  Many of the birds were gannets.  You can read about them back many months on this blog.  They fly here to NZ to mate and lay their eggs and then when the chicks are big enough they fly back to Australia...just 1400 km.  On this excursion I figured out how they would do that.  They are like ducks in that they can float on the water and they drive into the waters to spear fish with their beaks.

Here is the first flock of birds that we found.  They were so awesome to watch.

This photo is of a gannet dive-bombing into the ocean.  They hit the water going up to 100 km per hour. I guess it is a good thing that they do not have nostrils on the outside of their beaks or they would drowned from the impact. 

Not too long after we saw these birds doing their tricks than the captain came on the air and said that he had been told there were dolphins about 10 minutes away from us. We took off like lightening.  Then he came on again and told us that we were in store for a real treat as we were approaching a super-pod of dolphins!  That meant between 1000 and 2000 of them.

Can you see them jumping?

Here two, up close and personal, are right under the front of the boat.  The captain said that they like to swim by or near or under the boat...it is like a racer drafting behind the others. 

Here is another one.  I probably took 200 photos of them and these are the best I got.  They gave us a CD with all sorts of photos that they had taken but I wanted to use only mine. 

This last one is of more fish but if you look to the left side of the photo you and see the water spout of a whale. 

These next two photos are ones that they gave us. My camera, as good as it is, could not capture them.  They knew what they were looking for and what was happening so they got really good shots.

These were not even taken when we were there but they are from the waters here about!  Top one is an orca and the bottom a humpback.

Good Morning Sunshine!

We sleep with our window open and the shades up about 6 inches so the air can get in.  The other morning, as I awoke, I saw the most beautiful sky.  It was so pretty, in fact, that although it was only 5:05 am I had to get up and take a photo.  I hope you enjoy the beauty of it.

Now that is a sand bag!

Waihi Beach is a little different than the ones that we usually one on in our neck of the woods. Our beaches just kind of begin at the end of the land.  Just a gentle slope and you are there. Waihi probably was that way also with homes built on the bluffs above the beach. Then slowly the beach began to be washed away during big storms. To prevent damage to the homes etc and further erosion of the beach the city brought in sand bags.  I thought these were pretty fun but I really wanted to show how big they are.

So I asked Michael to stand next to them. 

These areas where the sand is a bit unstable they post these signs so everyone knows what is up. Looks to me that they need some more vegetation here.

After get do all that they can with the sandbags then they bring in large boulders.

According to the local folks this house has been moved back on the bluff twice!  Now it just kind of sits right on the edge of these big boulders!  It looks like a nice home and certainly would be a sweet place to live!

How Old Are They?

The morning we were at Waihi it was cool and wet. It had rained for three days. In our walk we came upon two men and their children. They were brothers so the kids were cousins. They were the second people that we had stopped to chat with and both of the people were from Hamilton. It is about 90 minutes from Hamilton but they always come over to Waihi Beach on the weekends. Obviously they were not members of the church with Sunday responsibilities. We stopped to chat with them just as their three kids ran out into the surf with their boards. They all had on wetsuits.

It looks to me though that the water is chilly and they are not sure if they really want to be there. The little gal on the left in pink is six, the boy in the middle is eight and the girl in purple is seven. They were having so much fun.  Notice that the water is not very deep here and that is the way the beach is for a long ways out.

He rode this wave in for a long time. This is the only picture where you can see his face and it was too good to pass on.

This is a pretty nice ride by the six-year old. We were amazed and wondered if our Grands would want to even try this is they were here. We decided that they would.  It is nothing like that amazing 100-foot wave that that man rode earlier this week but we thought this was AWESOME!

A Picture Worth A Thousand Words

When we went to Waihi Beach a few weeks ago it was all because of a painting we had purchased from a gallery for local artists. We took it home and saw on the back the notation that it was Waihi Beach. We decided that it was only appropriate to go and check it out and take a photo from the same vantage point. And that is what we did.

This is the photo that I took.

And this is the painting.  She took a little artistic license and added a closer pathway and the over-head tree.  They were there but just not in the location on the painting. The island out in the water was there. The day we were there the sky was not as blue but that could be because when we were there all it did was rain!  The birds were there as well but I could not get them to cooperate and sit on the posts like that.

Maybe I need a different lens for the camera or something.