So to all of our friends living in beautiful Aotearoa we should be thankful for what we have. The air is sweet, the water is clean and rubbish is generally responsibly disposed of.

Korea is a beautiful land as well. There are many rivers, woods, hills and mountains throughout with scattered urban areas breaking up nature. Because of the relatively small landmass and high population, villages on the same scale of Bulls, Foxton or Milton are full of a high rise apartment blocks. This allows areas for food production and forestry in the other areas. And also nicely squishes the masses of factory people, businessmen, petrochemical engineers and nuclear plant workers into a condensed area.

Where we are there are some very pretty places. There is a nice river just down the road…

With a picturesque bridge…

And borders of beautiful ride paddies.

We have hills around us full of forest and beautiful trees sucking in the carbon dioxide and producing life giving oxygen.

The beautiful blue ocean is a mere short car ride away.

There are fish a-plenty, swimming freely in the blue Korean sea.

With autumn around us, (or ‘fall’ for those that way inclined) the leaves falling from the deciduous trees are a sight to behold, spreading across the ground like a beautiful brown, red and green carpet.  Even the colour-blind members of this blog community can show reverence to the splendour that this season has to offer.

Even H-J can be found getting into the wondrous joy of nature.

But wait…

Let’s look a little closer.  What’s that lurking behind the lovely river?

Oh, a factory!  How lovely…

 Some days it is fine and you really wouldn’t notice it. But some days it is shocking. The air can become hazy, the air is thick and flem gets very apparent in your throat. Captain planet would not be happy!

It appears that lurking just over yonder from our lovely forested hills is the biggest industrial  and petrochemical area in Korea! Yay!

Anyone keen for a three eyed baby?! Looks like us starting a family might be put on hold for a while, (sorry Janie/ Mum).

The beautiful river just down the road doesn’t seem quite as appealing when you start notice the plumes of smoke rising up on the horizon.

But it can’t be that bad, right?  Well, thoughtfully someone has installed gigantic signs in our village so that we can at any time of day or night, know EXACTLY how much of each chemical we are breathing.  Phew.

The tax is Korea is very low (and we are not complaining about that in our pay packets) but maybe a little tax increase could help rubbish removal? Or maybe some rubbish bins?

So that’s the air we breathe and the streets we live on.  Oh well, at least we use protection…