Only 5 days left with a full head of hair for Stef!

It's the start of the another week here in Korea now and it's also the last full week with all my hair! 

Nick, Christy and Stuart (two friends of ours here), are also going to be losing some hair, having volunteered to have their legs waxed for added banter!

We've got some great raffle prizes lined up for the night to so it's shaping up to be a fun-filled event! 

If you're in Korea please stick it in your diaries and bring as many friends as possible!! We hope to see as many of you there as possible but if not and you'd like to donate anyway here's the link: http://www.mycharity.ie/event/bikebackhome

Donations have been rolling in this week, so a big thank you to everyone who has already donated.  We have over €1400 now and we're starting to feel very optimistic about reaching our €30,000 target! Also, a big thank you to all those who are doing what they can to spend the word, of our cycle and chosen charity, either via word of mouth or by sharing our event and blog via Facebook etc.

We've had a couple of great things happen this week.  The first was a promise of a very generous donation from The Irish Association of Korea.  They are a non-profit voluntary organisation that promotes Irish culture in Korea and we contacted them initially just to get some help with organising our fundraiser.  As well as pledging to donate money they are also helping us on a couple of other fronts which should result in some more media coverage in the coming weeks and months.  All very exciting!  Once we have some more concrete details we'll be sure to get it all up here but keep your eyes and ears peeled for any word of us at home in the papers or on the radio, you just never know!  We could be famous yet!

For the moment though, its all systems go on the last bit of organising here.  Still some last little things to buy, routes to ponder, the apartment to pack up, vaccinations to get, money to exchange, visas to get....and a head to shave!

Stef's Charity Head Shave

In order to raise more awareness of what we are doing and to get the ball rolling on donations, I've (it's Stef here!) decided to shave my head!

We're having a fundraiser here in Korea before we leave (we're now aiming to leave from our apartment on the 24th of February) and we thought it might draw a bit more of a crowd if we raffled off the right to shave my head on the night, so that's what we're doing!  Nick, and two other poor unfortunate friends of ours, have also said they'll allow someone to wax their legs for a laugh (and hopefully more money)!

We're having the event here in Daejeon on Saturday the 30th of January which means in 15 days time I'm going to look something similar to the above picture! I can't wait!

To donate, just follow the link by clicking here and donate as little or as much as you can.  And, just to remind you all again, all money raised is going straight to Headstong and we won't be using a penny of it to pay for our trip home.

Snowy Cycle to Work! Harden up damn it!

A slightly frostier cycle to work. Hardening up for the - hopefully unfounded - similar weather conditions prediction for around the time we leave.

Cycle to Work

30 seconds of my 2 minute cycle through campus to work of a fresh autumnal mornin' wha?!?! (www.bike-back-home.blogspot.com -- Cycling from Korea to Ireland for mental health awareness - setting off March 2016) Headstrong - The National Centre for Youth Mental Health

An Incredibly Generous Donation

Waking up this morning to a notification from http://www.mycharity.ie/event/bikebackhome saying that we'd received a donation of €500 over night was incredible.  The momentum is really starting to pick up now and with only 18 weeks until we pedal off from Hongseong, the reality of what we are undertaking is really starting to hit home.  It's all very very exciting! 

Cleaning up the hot-wheels in the sunshine outside our apartment

Just a wee video of us cleaning up zeeee hot-wheels in the sunshine outside our apartment (28 minutes to 17 seconds sped up 10,000%)