From Our Own Correspondent, 2013

[Salbertina]

If I may? Loads of us seem keen. Idea is to post a little about your daily life overseas or a particular trip, event etc of interest, modelled on the R4 programme.

Got the school run but shall think of something to post later.

Nothing new over here appart from the penis beaker threaded being posted on our local expat facebook group!
That was a bit odd!
Dont understand why it went so viral, there have been much funnier mumsnet classics before....

Well I am newly arrived in HK and had a trip to the post office to send a card and a small package overseas. Got lots of lovely stamps and a green customs thingy for the package which I duly filled out but how do you attach to said package....tried sticking it on, asked someone else who tried same to no avail so resorted to Sellotape! Popped it in the post box in hope DD will receive it !

Back home in LA after a month in UK; it makes me sad that every time I go "home" it is easier to leave, anyone feel similar? I still miss everything and everyone but look more forward to coming back here again.

It is a lovely balmy 26degrees, after arriving in the middle of a freak rain cloud, and true to LA autumn form we spent a hot afternoon in a mid city pumpkin patch; surrounded by dusty busy streets, obligatory small petting zoo and bouncy castle and thousands upon thousands of pumpkins.

Pumpkins have also hit the shops - every single food item an now be found containing pumpkin: waffles, soup, cheese, pies, nuts (!!), pasta sauces, chocolates....you name it, there is a pumpkin flavored alternative.

Tomorrow we're decorating for Halloween then touring the neighborhood to Oooh and aaaah at our neighbours' decorated homes

Auckland, NZ
It is Labour Weekend, a public holiday that commemorates the struggle for an 8-hour working day, but for most people means the beginning of summer. Traditionally from Friday lunchtime onwards (although the holiday period does not officially start until 4pm on the Friday) cars, cars with trailers, boats, campervans and every other type of vehicle you can imagine start to head out of the major cities as people head to the beach. The police implement a 4km over the speed limit penalty (it's usually 10) and road blocks are set up for drink drivers and to check car registration, driving licenses etc...

We, like alot of other Aucklanders, have a bach (kiwi beach house). For the most part bach's lie dormant over the winter months. Our bach is on the West Coast, wild, known for it's fantastic surf beach, rugged landscape and with a population of under 300 beautifully quiet except for about a month over Christmas/January when the population probably doubles. Labour Weekend though feels like somebody has dusted off a cobweb and a sleepy town comes to life. The local clubs all hold musters, registrations for the summer months: sailing and yacht club, surf club, yoga, the fishing club and more.. The first festival takes place - Art at the Port - where local artists who have been creating through the winter months show and sell their work. Clubs hold sausage sizzles to fundraise for the coming season. Old friends are reacquainted. Shouts of 'hi how you doing', 'hi good to see you' 'hi hope the surf, fish, weather is good this year' etc.... Kids excitedly knock on friends houses, meet at the park, plan their summer adventures, excitedly go to checek whether last year's hut survived winter......Lawns are mown, hedges strimmed, bach's aired, boats are given an airing, quads a run. Bach's would have sold over winter and some would have been placed on the market, adults chat about the families who are no longer part of their summer lives and speculate about who the new occupants will be. On the Monday the cars join the queue and snake their way back to town, for one weekend a year the traffic doesn't seem to matter as families look forward to the next 6 months of summer.

Hey Sibble, sounds lovely! have been in Asia for a few years now and can't believe we have not yet made it to NZ yet!
The children are old enough now to traipse around for a couple of weeks so hopefully next winter!

We just spent 5 days in Seoul and its just shocking hearing, everywhere you go in Asia about what the Japanese did.
Thought I'd heard/read all about it but no. In Korea, the first rape of Seoul goes back to 1592! And it has been periodical and relentless until the capitulation after the 2nd world war. The war memorial is the best I've seen in the world.
The old palaces are made on the same blueprint as the imperial city in Beijing and the surrounding area is a bit like the old Kyoto. So well preserved and peaceful although surrounded by a futuristic landscape.
A great mix between China and Japan. And of course the Autumn leaves. All shades of yellow and red.

How delicate they are and such depth and beauty in Japan, its hard to understand the cruelty, the systematic brutality, the detachment and sense of superiority.
Which brings me to our ethnocentric approach as europeans. Why Is nazism still the ultimate standard of all evil when we refer to that period and subsequent genocides?

My 9 year old, who is learning about Sumer and Mesopotamia and the "invention" of cuneiform script stood still in front of a display at the museum.
It depicted on a timeline the advent of the first Korean settlements of people along a river, pictograms found in caves and the development of trade along the rivers and the start of irrigation, agriculture and cuneiform tablets as trade receipts.
The same things, on another continent and actually prior to mesopotamia.

Why aren't our children in the western world learning about relative values and ethnocentricity? In this age of globalization, isn't it about time?