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| June 18th (po-mo entry; bite on that) |
| 06.18.04 (4:11 am) [edit] |
June 18th
Coral Bay
25-28C Sunny, no clouds, just lots of sky.
Okay, so I'm now in Coral Bay. The bus ride was uneventful and went smoothly, as I slept pretty much for the entire ride. We (Caroline is the sidekick on this trip--one of the EP people) made it to the bus station in Perth(Wednesday June 16th)just five minutes before the bus left the station. We had been prepared as much as possible, running our luggage from Murdoch in Patsy's red sedan to Mary's house in Subiaco.
On the way through Perth, we ran into a general dragnet, where the police officers were pulling over two lanes of traffic into a side road parking lot, then administering the breatalizer to all the drivers. Not very unusual, unless you consider that this was on a wednesday at 11am.
In any case, through much little other than eating lunch, buying some more snorkel gear at the fish n' bait shop in Freo, and then taking the train to Mary's, we somehow ended up running through the damn bus station with our packs to meet the bus on time, some eight hours later.
My pack, sans big butt 'Australia' book and Watership Down, weighed in at 25kg. Caroline's a svelt 14kg.
Thursday, June 17th
CB
25C+ sunny, blue sky.
Coral Bay is a small town with a two caravan parks, a backpackers lodge, a resort hotel not unlike a Muskokan resort, with night time singer/entertainer on duty in the later evening. There is a bakery, two supermarkets, a Fids Cafe with two internet machines, a few shops for beach related jewellery, clothes, sports gear. A dive shop rounds out the list.
We arrived in town at 140pm; the landscape from Perth up to Coral was pretty much flat, with occasional very rounded hills, lots of brush, bush, grass, red sand, dried river beds, the occasional road house, and trucks of varied kinds, big wheels and gas cannisters strung to their tops, boats hitched behind.
CB is treeless, right on the coast, and exists entirely in conjunction with the Ningaloo reef.
That first day we took a spot in one of the caravan parks: $23 for a bare, unpowered, spot set under the sun, with the stump of a dead tree standing guard to one side. Everyone else there had a car, a tent or two, massive amounts of lights, grills, bottles of olive oil and balsamic vinegar, cans of food, glittering stainless steel pot sets, tables, chairs, eskies (coolers), table clothes... jesus. They had it all; we had the tent P+P lent me, a trangia stove I'd borrowed from Mary (and never cooked with), and two sleeping mats to kick back on.
Something right next to our site was the 'Adventure' site of Bayview Coral Bay Caravan Park had to offer for large groups. In today's case, a bus load of 9 year old school kids doing their thing.
The rest of the day, after pitching our tent and assessing the damage, was spent at the beach, swimming, and soaking in the rays.
Dinner was some sort of powedered curry, freeze dried peas, some chopped tomatoes picked up in a Carnarvon road house, two eggs, and a quarter advocado, with some toated brown bread.
We went to bed early, snacking on dried mango slices.
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| June 11th-16th (in progress!) |
| 06.15.04 (6:17 pm) [edit] |
June 11th-16th
Thursday the 10th of June, 2004
Good Camp-Murdoch-Hamilton Hill
17C Sunny, then overcast, then very rainy. Lots of wind.
Sorry kids, but this will be brief—I’ve been fairly incommunicado and also very busy so I’ll have to do a sketch of my last few days… perhaps, in the future, I’ll make the time to review what I’ve written and expand upon it. The weekend was a good one, so it’ll be worth the effort.
Okay, today I went to school with Patsy and Peter—they were going up north to Kilbarri for a long weekend with Peter’s son’s family. This is about a seven hour drive due north along the Northern Highway (Number 1).
I did my email and journal then went off and hung out at Kat’s place—the Pinakarrey community co-op. A hippy place, kids running in through the house, neighbours running through the house, and three roommates all doing their thing. The co-op is in Hamilton Hill, just outside of South Freo, which makes it easier for me to catch the ferry to Rottnest tomorrow morning.
A note on kangaroo meat: very lean, very tender—so tender, that when you stir-fry it, Chinese style, it turns out very well indeed. I gave this a go tonite and it worked beautifully—something to note for the future.
We also baked a cake (well Kat did that, and I just at half of it) and then we baked some cookies while the storm blew and blew and rained and rained. They were ok—just very rich: so much butter, so much sugar…
I also met Pete Stone—a musician from the WAMI show—at his house on Solomon St. that night, picking up some organic vegetables with Kat. Nice guy.
Friday the 11th of June,
Freo-Rottnest
Blustery—sunny, getting ready for a big storm.
Went to Express Ferry Shed ‘C’ to catch the 1130am to ‘Rotto’—Australians love their abbreviations—and met Caroline, a Canadian exchange student in Patsy’s EP class, who was also doing the Rotto tree plant. The ride over was exciting—3.5m swells—and the ferry crashed over the waves with lots of energy during the 35 min ride.
This ride left me a bit nauseous but I recovered after a couple hours on the island; we were settled at the Kingstown Barracks, in the officer’s quarters, and then went for a long walk of the southern side of the island. Caroline and I had met Selena (www.fotki.com look under her name, ‘Selena’ for her online photos of the trip) an American on exchange at Murdoch, and we all walked together. Unfortunately, we were caught by showers three times during the 8.8km walk; twice we avoided the showers by hiding under trees (which later turned out to be from tree plants done in years gone by) but the views were beautiful—but not the typical sunny sunny Rotto that is the norm, 8-10 months of the year. I swam in Little Salmon Bay, albeit very briefly.
That evening we had a scalloped potato made with campbell’s pumpkin soup, milk, salt, pepper, and ‘Tasty’ cheese… we had paid 45$ for the trip, and usually the ferry ride alone is that much. With out tree planting, though, we had received a discount—24$ return—leaving 13$ for groceries per head and $8 for a dinner at the barrack cafeteria on Saturday night. To say the least, I had been suspicious of the ‘all food and accommodations paid for’ bit of this tree plant. Our accommodations were very nice—two bunk beds per room, a kitchen, a dining room, living room, backyard, clothes line, the standard flat grill ‘bar-b’ and a bathroom. Ten of us in the house.
In any case, we had bbq sausages, grilled onions, and some vegetables that one of the ladies from the Friends of Rottnest Society had brought for herself—I basically stole the vegetables and cooked them and she joined us for dinner. My attitude was that I was happier to cook the food and prevent a crappy meal.
The bartender, whose name was ‘Cliff,’ was die-hard Kiss fan, including his hair style. We had a few jugs, then hit the road for the 1.2km walk back to the barracks.
Saturday the 12th of June
Rottnest
Overcast with sunny breaks—17C, with brieft intermittent showers.
We were supposed to start work at 930am today, but things were delayed twice because the ferries were unable to leave Freo: apparently the storm last night had blown out the windows of the ferry. Very worrisome, because a ship’s windows are usually the most sturdy things onboard… and we had rode on the ferry the day before.
This meant that the trees were still in Freo; as it also turns out the trees are grown from seeds taken from the only native trees on Rotto—the Rottnest Tea Tree and the Rottnest Pine—and grown at the Bulberri (?) prison by the prisoners. Much better than stamping license plates, right?
So the morning was a bit of a write off, as we spent a whole lot of time waiting around only to learn about delays… eventually, around noon, we all got on a bus (the Murdoch volunteers, 10 of us, and the 45 adults, kids, and retirees who were part of the Friends of Rottnest Society) and drove into the centre of the island and did some work.
We worked in teams of three—one digging, using a two-handed extractor (you love that, Etienne?), the other two following, planting the trees. Slightly taller and with bigger root pods than the trees I’ve planted back home, the work was pretty casual –and the spacing horrendous: every four feet, officially, but when you throw 55 adults and kids into a 3 or 4 acre fenced-in plot, spacing drops to about two feet between trees. Oh well—the trees grow up to look like “mushrooms” (as Peter says) and aren’t more than 15-20 feet tall, at best.
We quit work at 3pm; we had finished the first plot and moved to a second, called “Thompson farm” a few hundred meters away. This second plot overlooked a beautiful lake and was quite picturesque, although we did get some heavy rain for a few minutes. Overall, a pretty laid back kind of plant.
The reason that the plots are fenced off is because of Rotto’s local inhabitants, the quokkas. These little creatures are like little kangaroos, pouches and hind legs, but with an armadillo’s tail, not to mention that they are about the size of a mid-sized cat. Friendly, tame, and totally vegetarian, if they come across the saplings, they’ll much away all the green leaves…
Back at home, we rested up and then went to the barracks for an absolutely wretched meal—the highlight of the meal was the liquid candy dispenser that you used to decorate your ice cream: it was covered with the most awesome display of fungi you could ever imagine. Most people went back to our quarters and made themselves more to eat—the rest of us went off to the Quokka Arms in Thompson bay for a drink.
Nothing going there, so we went to the Grosvenor—the alternate bar—and did some karaoke and good drinking. I sang Young MC’s ‘Bust a Move’—and was lauded by the MC for doing a very good job on a ‘mediocre song.’ Not a mediocre song at all, by the way.
Sunday the 13th of June
Rotto-Freo-South Freo
Sunny day, 22C at the height of the day. A light breeze. Idyllic.
I got up this morning with the resolve to go for a good swim—which I did, and it was cold. Caroline braved the water as well, but the sun wasn’t yet shining—did I mention that it was cold?
We went planting from 930 to 1200 and finished the Thompson farm.
Most of us returned to the barracks afterwards and hit the beach (which was right next to the house) and really went for a swim. Rottnest must be really beautiful during the summer—because thesunshine made all the world of difference.
I caught the 230pm ferry back to Freo and slept the whole way, thanks to some Gravol.
Met Seth at his new pad in South Freo after having some coffee in Freo—then went and saw Epicure at the Newport, supported by Four Floor Collapse. I wasn’t feeling too well and went to bed immediately after the show.
Monday the 14th of June
South Freo—South Yunderup
Woke up with
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| June 9th |
| 06.09.04 (7:27 pm) [edit] |
Tuesday June 9th, 2004. Sunny day, some passing clouds, rain in the morning. 18C.
Good Camp.
Nice to be back at Good Camp--breakfast with P+P, fried tomato halves, bacon, toast. I then spent a few hours ensconced in front of the computer, doing my journal: phew.
The rest of the day was spent planning my trip up north--what kind of food I'd need, transportation, clothing, and camping gear. P+P are wealthy with information about this sort of thing, so I've profited greatly from their expertise: let's just hope that I can turn this theory in practical practice...
I borrowed a nice tent from them (thanks!) and spent some time pitching it and breaking it down... it looks fine.
P+P spent their day doing massive organization for their weekend trip up north--Patsy went into Mandurah to buy provisions while Peter organized their camping gear, the truck, and brought all the little tidbits of stuff they need together.
Lunch was sandwiches of cold roast pork and then I took a nap. I read in the evening and then we had a massive dinner of kangaroo sausages and steaks with mash and brussel sprouts and corn on the cob.
It was a relaxed day, overall, but the future promises much in the way of fun and sunshine...
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| June 2-8! Another late one, but a doozy of days has past... |
| 06.08.04 (6:38 pm) [edit] |
Wednesday June 2nd, 2004 Nice day, 18C; cold night, 4C.
Another set of days come and go and, lo and behold, nothing has been reported… Back onto this horse, once again.
Today I went to school, did the requisite amount of email and journal entry writing (a genuinely massive amount of work. I also attended the ecophilosophy class, which was very informal and didn’t really consist of much except for a slide show of the hiking trips. Not many students showed up for this second-to-last class, which is understandable, seeing that it’s now pre-exam, mad-assignment-due , time of the year.
From school, I returned to my palatial surroundings in Subiaco and made myself some sort of grilled and roasted lamp loin strips in a soya sauce and onion marinade… a very good meal, except that lamb is pretty damn fatty so you end up with about a litre or so of grease from cooking a dozen strips. Some mash potato sides and chinese greens accompanied the lamb down my throat… I read a bit more of the military biography “Rommel” written by a British Major… whathisname… and followed his campaign across North Africa in Mary’s giant atlas.
It was a good thing, too, that I ate a solid meal, because I soon afterwards managed to lock myself out of my palace. What follows is a tale of complete idiocy: I left the house with wallet, mobile, change, and videos (I was going to the video store to rent that night’s entertainment) neglecting, as it turned out, to take the house keys with me. That was at about 730pm. After calling Patsy to find out Mary’s boyfriend’s phone number, I walked to the video store and rented the first five bubblegum crisis videos (for five bucks!).
Mobiles are handy to have around; after a few phone calls, I was assured by Antony, Mary’s beau, that Mary had buried a set of spare keys “directly behind the fountain, about six inches to a foot underground, in a little jam jar.” Thus, from 820pm to 1140pm, I dug behind the fountain, awkwardly hunched over the fountain’s edge, straddling the fountain, squished between it and the fence. I used my hands, tearing and ripping at plants, vines, and small ceramic pot fragments. When this began to hurt my hands, I upgraded to a small trowel that I found in the garage, but to no avail. I still couldn’t find the damn keys!
At this point, it was pretty damn cold out, my hands were caked with soil, I was lighting my way with the face of my mobile, and I had managed to break one brick off of the fountain’s edge … it now lay in the fountain itself, swimming with the gold fishes.
I called it quits; I was certain that the key was somewhere in the back yard, just not where I was looking. Of course, it was too dark out to find the right spot, so I decided to just tough it out and camp out in the backyard for the night. I was wearing a sweater and tuque, so I figured myself alright for this minor ordeal. However, as the night went on, it got a bit cold… I at first was sleeping on a bench cushion that I had drapped over a lawn chair, wrapped in a towel that was drying on the laundry line.
At 3am, it was too cold to bear any more ridiculous digging, so I retreated to the confines of the garage… there I spread my cushion on the concrete floor and discovered, belatedly, the store of long underwear belonging to Mary’s son’s. Now that I had some long johns on, it was just a matter of curling up into a ball and shivering it out until dawn…
Thursday, June 3rd. Beautiful sunrise, a very nice day, 18C.
So I woke up, shivering, somewhat stiff, and ready to look for those damn keys. Back in the garden, I surveyed the previous night’s debacle and noted that I had done a very good job of preparing the soil for planting bulbs. Indeed, the soil was free of all weeds, debris, and stones… soil was caked under my nails and I was pretty confident that there was no key-in-a-jar anywhere near where I had been digging.
Looking further abroad, then, I noticed a clear spot under a shrubbery tree located in the far corner of the garden. Beneath the tree were some leaves; underneath the leaves was the lid of jar, exposed to the sun, sky, and my bleeding fingers.
Who buries keys “six inches to a foot underground?”
I took a hot bath and then watched a few videos to start off my day… I napped a bit and then made some more of those lamb strips for the ecophilosophy class.
Today was the last EP class of the semester, so it was more of a party… However, I showed up a bit late, thanks to my slow cooking and some bad timing with public transport.
As things turned out, everyone had already eaten by the time I arrived, so my food was all for naught---and all the students had already been made aware of my travails by Patsy.
Things picked up as some of the students went to the Tav ern for some drinks…
I then made my way home, exhausted, and slept like the dead.
Friday, June 4th, 2004. Intermittent showers and 15-18C.
I started today by reading a chapter of Stephen Hawkin’s “A brief history of time” and some more of “Rommel”---things are going poorly for the Afrika Korps, but they’re putting up a great fight.
Some groceries were made and then I watched some Bubblegum crisis videos and took it easy—for this was the night of Murdoch’s Triple Crown, the end of year drinking fest held on campus. A friend came by for some pre-party dinner action—some cream veg. soup, beef shnitzel baguette sandwiches , and Florentines for desert.
That night, I drank a fair amount of gin and beer at this event, and was only menaced twice during the night by people whom were later identified to me as the undercover security. Once, early in the night, a man walked by me in the field outside the Tav and darkly muttered “Watch out, you’re not meant to be here.” Later, as I investigated the situation in the men’s bathroom and decided that it wasn’t worth the wait, a man standing in the lineup muttered at me with menace “Next time don’t come back in here with your beer.”
Saturday, June 5th, 2004 Sunny, intermittent showers. 18C or so. I know that it’s always 18C here—but that’s the weather: super consistent.
Super hung over, I made my way out of the Murdoch campus and into Perth—I had slept over at Caroline’s residence (another EP student, this one a Canadian on exchange from Waterloo) and was rudely awoken by the fire alarm at 750am. It turned out that someone had decided to cook some rice and some food on the stove early in the morning and had forgotten to take their dinner off of the burners… It stank and the fire trucks came… in short, residence hasn’t changed much since I was last there.
The alarms were a signal to go; so I went into Perth and bought some tickets to the WAMi concert that evening. Western Australian Music Industry throughs an eight day event which features nothing but WA musicians: that night was a big event with something like twelve acts for 15 bucks, held at two venues that interact with one another—the Amplifier and Monkey Bar. Seth came by to my palace and we were picked up by Lauren—these are both EP students. Lauren’s boyfriend plays bass in one of the bands that were on that evening. Their name is Tragic Delicate and they have a Tea Party kind of sound, except that they have a cellist thrown in the mix. Highlights of the evening were The Fuzz, a crazy heavy rock band with a female lead singer who sounds like Janis Joplin. There was a Australian pop band, Spencer Tracy that was super fun to watch: three members in the band, a skinny guy on drums, a chick guitarists, and a chubby bass player with hair in his eyes. Also, all three of them sing, and the musicianship is pretty shaky, but they had a high entertainment value. The last highlight was Fourth Floor Collapse…a loud band with two very strong guitarists and a unique sound.
A very good, all in all, and Seth and I got a ride home from Lauren! Bonus!
Sunday, the 6th of June, 2004. A nice day, but again, wettish, with intermittent showers. Winter, indeed.
I rented more of the Bubblegum crisis today, and swore that I would spend the day in: no more drinking!
I read more of “Rommel,” (things are very bad in Normandy), some more Hawkins (go Galileo!) and then took a long nap. I then made myself some pasta (defrosted some sauce from Mary’s freezer), and felt a bit lonely…luckily, I was contacted and induced to join up with some EP students who were in mid-progress through a pub crawl in Freo. I made my way there and joined up for the last part of the revelry and that was the night.
Monday, June 7th, 2004. A very nice day. 19C. And a public holiday: Foundation day (WA only).
I cleaned my palace, packed a bit, returned my videos (videos 1-9 of the Bubblegum Crisis down! Plus a cool anime, “Spriggan,” that had a really terrible, incomplete, incomprehensible, plot but absolutely amazing animation and art) then went for a long walk in King’s park. This park is something else, and I hope to walk in it regularly. A really nice park, with lots of mature trees, different sorts of areas (bush land, Victorian park land, large gardens, raised walkways, tended foot paths, roads, picnic areas, escarpments, statues, amphitheaters…) and did I already mention that it’s pretty large?
I tried to read the rest of “Rommel” before Mary got back, but alas, it was a fight between the nap and the book… so I left Rommel in Germany, bitterly embroiled in a plot with General Stolin and Dr. Steider to depose an increasingly unstable, unresponsive, Hitler…
Mary returned, brought back from the airport with Antony. She looked relaxed and lightly tanned. She had spent some time in Singapore, on a island off the coast of Singapore, in Indonesia (although they accepted Singaporean currency) , and then further north in Kuala Lampur (‘KL’ as her and Antony say).
After unpacking her luggage I helped Mary with some groceries for dinner and then helped her out with dinner itself. She made an excellent sort of lemon custard that was simple but very tasty. Earlier in the day, four little girls came up to my palace door and offered to sell me some of the largest lemons I had ever seen in my life. Although lemons grow everywhere in Subiaco, namely in Mary’s back yard and in her neighbour’s yards, I couldn’t say no to the 10cents a lemon. So I bought of them and Mary made use of them…
Dinner was good, but I was pooped after my weekend extravaganza…
Tuesday, June 8th, 2004. A rainy day, super intermittent showers. “Mid-winter weather!” as Peter says.
I woke up and packed my bags—and saw Mary and Antony off. They rise very early here—it must be because they have jobs, or something! Mary though, found the time to make a very nice breakfast of paw-paw fruit with sliced bananas in the centre and some other south-east asian fruit—dark red and very soft with small black pits.
Soon afterwards, I left for the bus station in Perth. Onto the train at Daglish station, then a ten minute ride into the city, followed by a ten minute march to the bus terminal. An hour on the bus and I was once again back in Mandurah, where Peter picked me up and we ran some errands together.
Back in South Yunderup! Good to see Patsy and Peter again, and the rest of the day was spent catching up, doing odds and ends, and then eating a great salmon dinner.
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| May 31st to June 1st |
| 06.01.04 (10:26 pm) [edit] |
Monday, May 31st. Terribly grey, overcast, and cold day. The worst weather experienced here yet. Felt like it was 10C.
Today, I commuted to Murdoch from Subi, did a monstrous amount of email and journal writing in the morning and then slipped away from the Uni in the early afternoon. I needed to get to the diving school so as to pick up my refund. Despite the dire warnings I had received from the slightly bitter course instructor, the refund was given without any problems.
From the academy, I walked through Claremont and into Subi, a fair walk with a lot of houses, parks, houses, small green spaces, houses, dogs, houses, parks... The rest of the day I spent in a great state of vegetation, contemplating the great mysteries of life, such as how long it would take my new bank to process the diving school check I had just deposited.
Tuesday, June 1st. A beautiful, sunny, sunny, day--a day that makes you smile when you're outside. 19C.
I countered yesterday's loss of ambition, movement, and potency by getting up at a fairly respectable hour--825am--calling long distance to Toronto on my second cuz's phone and then going for a great tramp around in King's Park. Now King's park is a pretty damn big swath of bush preserved right adjacent to Perth's city centre--and the western edge just happens to be a few blocks away from where I'm staying.
First, though, I needed some sustenance, so I went to Chez Claude, Patisseur, the swiss bakery down the street from the house, and got myself a croissant. Yeah! Now I was ready--off I went, tramp tramping along.
From first appearance, the western edge of the park looks like bushland--there's the four lanes of traffic, and damn, there's a wall of bushes, brush, and trees. You enter the park, and walk foot paths that diverge and criss cross over one another, not encountering a single person. This last fact may have to do with the majority of people being at work, it being mid-week and mid-day and all, but I think it also has to do with the sheer size of the park.
Occasionally, you exit the bush to find yourself in a planted clearing with an asphalt road crossing the middle--these are the roads that intersect the park. Along the sides of the road are planted eucalyptus that each bear a commemorative plaque at its base, marking in eulogy the name of australian combatants of various wars.
I eventually came out of the bush-paths to a substantial manicured and rolling green--the botanical gardens. These are situated right next to the escarpment that runs along the southern side of the park, overlooking the Swan river. Here, there is a view worth watching and there is a short tree-top walk that allows you to both appreciate the upper canopy of the forest in this area as well as the view of Perth.
So I tramped around, did my thing, and returned home--not before stopping, again, at the pattiserie for a freshly baked baguette. It turns out that they bake a whole bunch (really, a massive pile that stacks about five feet high) in the afternoon to sell to the working masses, returning from their day of labour. I pity the fools, because my baguette was still steaming inside--damn, it was some good baguette! Some water or orangina and I would have been in heaven; as it was, I made it home with most of the baguette intact, and made myself a massive green onion scrambled egg sandwich with tomato slices, some oh-so cheap plasticky cheddar, and a solid band of dijon.
I think that in my journey through the park, I only managed to see and cover a section of the western perimeter--which is pretty impressive, considering I didn't drag my feet. Roughly, I probably covered three or four km.
After recovering from lunch--during which I endured a long, tortuous, and disgusting radio broadcast of a house of commons debate in the Australian federal legislature--I went off to Swanbourne, suburb south west of Subiaco.
In Swanbourne was a tkd club that I was going to check out; however, from the train station where I got off, I managed to get completely lost and it took me over an hour to reach my final destination. ALong the way, I walked down residential streets, across parts of two seperate golf courses, hopped one eight foot fence, travelled alongside a highway, and finally managed to arrive at the train station that came immediately after the one I originally got off at.
Finally I arrived at the tkd club and watched the end of the kids' class and the whole of the adult class. The kids class was run by one black belt, who had four other adult black belts helping out, holding pads or teaching individual groups. A sixth black belt, a second dan, wandered the gym's perimeter, doing paperwork. This last one was the actual head teacher of the school, although by the end of the evening, he had done very little in the way of actual instruction, allowing his second-in-command to do the actual nitty gritty.
As it turns out, Rhee International Tae Kwon Do has a fairly bureaucratic structure--each student has a 'passport' that includes details like attendance and testing results. This bureaucracy probably stems from the fact that they are a massive nation wide school--Master Rhee comes to WA five times a year from his base in the Eastern States--and that the testing results are overseen by Master Rhee himself (so I was told), and thus the passports.
As for the adult class, it was well organized and efficiently run. Classes are an hour long, with two breaks at the twenty and fourty minute marks; there is a warmup (a light run back and forth across the gym, pushups, some punches in stance), a very quick stretch done in a circle, then a bunch of drills. The drills consist of punching targets with a partner, self-defense with a partner, then a great deal of non-contact sparring. The non-contact sparring was very brief--20 seconds--and worked its way up from punching only, to snap kicks only, to free sparring (all techniques). While some contact is made, through blocking and deflection, there really is no contact made, whatsoever. Class ended with some push ups and administrative business (passports returned).
The deal with Rhee International TKD is that it purports to be 'traditional tkd' and is not affiliated with either the WTF or ITF. This organization was only started in the seventies but carries itself as the only 'reputable' form of tkd in Australia and New Zealand; I can see why the organization has done well--the non-contact type of fighting is useful because no one is intimidated or discouraged by physical contact. The school practices heavily in patterns, self-defense, and one steps, so the training is complete in that sense. As for them being the school of Australia, it is something that leaves me unenthused.
However, as to the quality of their tkd, it was variable; the person who had introduced me to the club was probably the best student in the class. Her peers, five other black belts, were not nearly so good and their overall technique looked somewhat shoddy. The other issue was that the training was not very physically demanding--very little kicking training was done, the emphasis being more on hand techniques--and the students looked rarely, if at all, challenged by the exercise.
One thing that bothered me was the variable standard of kicks made in the club. Some kicked very well while others, black belts included, did not kick so well--and not because of flexibilty or fitness--as if their technique had never really been properly taught. The ones who kicked well looked like the naturals and the hard workers, those who in other words were capable of teaching themselves.
I think that the reason behind this is that they do not fight with contact, something that shows you as a student what you need to do to develop your kicks to a standard: a standard that necessitates speed, accuracy, and strength in a practical setting.
In any case, I returned to my enclave and called it a day...
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