I never really realised how lonely it can be eating on your own. I remember when Mum was first in the Nursing Home, Dad used to say, "Come round, but make sure you arrive at meal time. The food's not much, but it's great to be able to share it & have someone to talk to while you eat." Equally as true today as it was then.

Poor soldier type person over in Korea is desperately homesick. I think for the first time in her life, she REALLY misses her navigator. Yeah, you guessed it, she got lost.

Well. Other people have panic attacks, I have sadness attacks. Comes from nowhere. really tough to work through or let it flow. Solved by taking one's self out to dinner.

Latest photos are of a couple of Julie's work colleagues out on a ride. There's Maj Horne, her hubby Buzz & then Capt Rees (she's the cute one).

From Seattle:

Hi There:

My mother's day was wonderful. Sam, Dunkie and Mikey took me to the Waterfront in Seattle, and Pike's Place Market. (Sam's mom was out of state) They were having the Annual Cheese Festival there! It was great, I got to taste all kinds of cheese....hehehe!! EVEN GOUDA!!!! 

Dunkie was so awed by so many people there, his little head was spinning left and right I thought it was going to fall off! :-) We had lunch at The Crab Pot. We ended up having something called the Western Sea: it has King Crab legs, muscles, clams, sausage, baby red potatoes, and shrimp that you had to De-shell yourself. It was really good and expensive! 

We were there all day, and the sun was shining. We went into the YE Old Curiousity Shop. Did you know that they now have TWO (2) (yes I said 2) stores!!! Its was amazing!! And they are doing renovation to the Seattle Aquarium, so we did not do that. We were going to take the Argosy Cruise around the Harbor, but that was a little pricy, so we will do that another day. Dunkie and I rode on the Carosel! It was great! And got a picture of Duncan on the Ivar's Statue. And then on the way home we went and saw the Troll under the Fremont Bridge. I could not believe how big it was. What a masterpiece!!!!! YES PICTURES ARE ATTACHED

Monday 15th, May
Good Afternoon, I have to share!!

I went home for lunch today, and we were sitting in the front yard. (Grammy, me & Dunk) Well the Fexex guy came with Duncan's Ticket, and after he left I put it in the grass next to me. Well Dunkie was on his stomach in the grass, pushed himself up on his knees, and started to CRAWL. YES HE CRAWLED!!!!! GOOD BOY!!!!! Then he fell, and did not like it anymore, But I got so excited I just had to share!

I had an exceptional week at work last week. First, some background. The Kaz Group took over the area I work in about 6 months ago & since then I have been a Boeing bum in a Kaz seat (one of two). Kaz finally got approval from Boeing to approach us to see if we were open to an offer from them. We were & it went from there, resulting in me accepting their offer. Same money & similar conditions, just means I don't have to up tracks & move. I transfer after we get back from Korea. But that wasn't the exceptional stuff. I've been working through the database & re-drawing all of the Cisco devices to look like what they really do look like on the shelf. I had been refreshing the objects in each chassis at the next level down in the diagram, one by one. Then it occurred to me that with a bit of tweaking of the script I was using, I could key up all of the chassis objects & then refresh the next level down for all of them in one hit. That eventually worked & saved me a couple of hours each day. Then I decided to take it one more step & make up a file straight from the database & use that to do the keying at the upper level. So I lay out the chassis objects carefully according to the model number, let it rip & sit back & watch it happen. Saved another couple of hours each day. Needless to say, the boss is happy.

When Julie asked for the previous paragraph "in English", my reply was, "the boss is happy". Since then I've had my last day working for Boeing - I'm on leave now & start with Kaz on Monday week when I return. Now in-flight to Seoul & the plane is only about one third full, which means I have a whole 3 seats to myself. Yay! I left Canberra at 2:30 this morning & drove a hire car to Sydney, so I'm going to be tired later on. The plan is to get out of the airport & catch a local bus straight to the hotel - the one I plan to take has the Marriott as its first stop.

I'd never realised just how noisy these airliners are. I've been re-viewing episodes of "Lost" & the earphones I've been using, which are perfectly adequate at home, have been drowned out by the background noise.

This bit comes to you from Yongsan Army Base, while we wait for the queue to get my US Military ID renewed. Got into Seoul OK last night, found my way to the local bus, got off at the first stop & the Marriott was nowhere in sight. I knew I was in the right area, but .... Consulted the map in my PocketPC, but that didn't help because I couldn't read which street I was in. Finally hailed a taxi & had to point to the name on screen to tell him where I wanted to go. Turns out it was about half a mile further on.  When I saw the huge great hotel standing out among the lower buildings, as expected, I showed him. He explained that the "tt" on the end of the name is pronounced as a "che" sound, so Marriott becomes Marriche.

This morning we called for an AAFES taxi - that's the one that is authorised to get onto the base. It was going to take 20-30 minutes to even get to the hotel, so we took a local taxi, & proceeded to weave elegantly through the traffic. Julie was walking at her "normal" pace after that & was seriously outpacing me. She's put on some weight, but it gotta be muscle. We trekked around the base for most of the morning (it only took 2 hours of waiting to get my ID pass updated) & by mid afternoon, I was completely stuffed. Back at the hotel, from our room on the 20th floor, I watched a traffic jam just get worse. It was already backed up in the photos from right to left, & the Wallies turning left into it just kept blocking the traffic coming in from the top of the photo. Just amazing. Now I know why we don't enter a blocked intersection!!

Wow, what a day. I don't think I've ever been bowed to so many times in my lifetime. Apparently, the Koreans respect their elders & with my whitening beard these days ... 

Let's go back to last night. I found a major shopping centre just out the back of the hotel & a little further on down the tunnel, a local market. A pair of cotton pants for me for $10. Shirts for $5-15. Flowering cactuses. And then today, the Electronics Market was just hog heaven. And of course all of the bras were 2 sizes & 3 cup sizes too small! The price was right, but there's uplifting & then there's downright obscene.

We have decided to stay at the Marriott instead of moving back to the Dragon Hill Lodge (on the base) on Monday & today breakfast at the Dragon Hill just confirmed it. Being surrounded by dignified Koreans instead of brash Americans is a bit of a no-brainer. But being a 5-star hotel, we've learned that we need to watch the prices of drinks & incidentals! I heartily endorse any comments Julie has made about Korean drivers, especially taxi drivers. I think she prayed continuously for 10 minutes this morning. And remember her telling us about the world's oldest profession, where if the lady is visible, then she's available? We found some today & at first thought it was a row of hairdressing salons. In fact the young lady was still straightening her long skirt down over her undies as we walked past. The photo shows that it still wasn't straight while she adjusted her make-up. Then a guy just drove up in a black car, stopped at the adjacent shop to check the price (I guess) & then just hopped out of his car & went inside. Right then, Julie gets a phone call from her Major, asking us to dinner tomorrow night. The Major then asked where we were & Julie stumbled badly on her reply, as these establishments are off limits to military personnel. The second photo shows another young lady actively touting for business, much to the amusement of the young kids walking past.

The other highlight of the day was catching the subway back to the hotel, where I appear to be the most casually dressed male in the whole place. At one of the restaurants, there is a glass topped table at the entrance, with a series of  serviette (napkin) holders, each made from a cow bone & individually name plated. One of the staff explained to me that they are for the regulars - when they make a reservation, using their personal holders is part of the table preparation. And there are several cupboards with individually locked shelves, with expensive grog in each one. Likewise, when someone buys a bottle of 12 year old Chivas, for example, he doesn't really want to drink it all in one go, so they store it for him.

Today is Sunday. Those who aren't working or keeping shop, put on their Sunday best & go "out". After seeing several local women in their formal gear at a wedding at the hotel, we decided that Julie's next ball gown would be a han-bo, the traditional women's outfit, so today we went in search of one. The staff at the concierge desk do some online research, then write out the address & any other information on a card that you can hand to a taxi driver. We headed off to Kwangjang market, where he got out & checked with a local shopkeeper, then headed off again to Gwangjang market. All in all, quite a nice scenic tour! Julie is DEFINITELY going to a contender for Belle of the Ball next month at the Organ Donors Ball. And the place just happened to be right next to a river that I had read about earlier. This from a tourist website:

Continue walking south of Chongno and you'll stumble across Cheonggyecheon, a river running through the heart of downtown Seoul. Previously paved over to make way for busy Seoul traffic, Cheonggyecheon has since been dug up and transformed to a lovely green space. Flowers and trees line the river and quaint pathways follow along for a leisurely stroll. It's a wonderful place to take a break form the hustle and bustle. Cheonggyecheon runs all the way from City Hall to Dongdaemun market (running west to east), so the adventurous may want to walk the whole distance.Continue walking south of Chongno and you'll stumble across Cheonggyecheon, a river running through the heart of downtown Seoul. Previously paved over to make way for busy Seoul traffic, Cheonggyecheon has since been dug up and transformed to a lovely green space. Flowers and trees line the river and quaint pathways follow along for a leisurely stroll. It's a wonderful place to take a break form the hustle and bustle. Cheonggyecheon runs all the way from City Hall to Tongdaemun market (running west to east), so the adventurous may want to walk the whole distance.

Then it was more walking (!!!!) to find the nearest subway station & make our way back to the hotel. Tonight's activity is dinner at Maj Horne's place with her family. Which went over really well. Buzz spent many of his Air Force years in England, so he understood almost all of what I said immediately. We had a ball, fixing a small problem on Deb's laptop & copying all of our "Lost" episodes onto his home network. He has a T3 connection to the Internet, so it flies!

Monday was a utility day. Some shopping for presents in Itaewon, a very touristy area near the base, then on to the barracks to sort the presents for postage to various destinations in the US & then lug all the remaining "stuff" back to the hotel for processing - mostly to figure out whether we can get it all into our luggage weight allowance or have to post some to Australia.

Funny. I've developed a cross between a formal bow & a nod of the head, kinda like a long slow nod, which enables me to acknowledge all kinds of gestures of "respect" with a measure of dignity without going into the whole formal bow thing.

Today's activity was a USO bus tour to Kanghwa Island, including the Kwangsongbo Fortress, the Cheongdong Temple, & the ginseng & bamboo markets. Quite amazing to see the razor wire fortifications along much of the Han River, both sides apparently, to foil commando attacks from North Korea. Not to mention submarine barriers in the river itself. The fortress is one of many dotted along the coast of the island, kinda like a mini Great Wall, & has seen lots of battles over the centuries, notably against the French & Americans. Just below, there was a guy walking through his rice paddy, fertilising it - caught a picture of him later showing his thigh high boots on his scooter.

The bloody walk up to the temple was in places a 45 degree slope (or that's what it felt like). One of the group was a 5 months pregnant black American woman, who was doing much better than her US Army husband. Muggins & his missus were the last ones to make it up the hill! But it was worth it - got to sit in on a chant by a monk. The naturally flowing mineral water was pretty good too. On the way down, we wanted to go down the road instead of the steps & steep path, but were told in no uncertain terms that it was much further. Lunch back down at the bottom of the hill was traditional Korean - interesting watching some of the Yanks trying to get a handle on the food. In accordance with our own pact, made way back in Las Vegas, that we would try anything once, we did try the quail eggs, which turned to taste just like regular eggs.

Notes for Julie: Playing with Daniel, local elections, strawberries & tomatoes, Liberals about to be outed by the Democrats, female leader, cigarettes for women, Chex Mix, dinners.

After that, the ginseng & bamboo markets were a useful opportunity to shop for something different. Julie has always said that she has a champagne taste on a beer budget & the placemats she picked up were $100 each, only available in a set of 5. We also tried some of their ginseng juice, which tasted pretty feral, but kep me going for the rest of the day. The driver then took a detour (to avoid the traffic) through the northern most town in South Korea; at an ROK (Republic Of Korea) Marine base nearby, you can shout across the river to the North Koreans & they'll echo back to you.

Coming back into town, apparently I was showing so much interest in the scenery & where we were, that the driver decided to peel off into the the 63 Building, 63 floors high, that is actually built sloping inwards at the base, but when you're standing there, it looks like it's about to fall on you. Finally, we checked out Seoul Station (& bought bus tickets), for the trip to the airport on Friday, & once again caught the subway back to the hotel.

Today, Julie went back to work & I went out & got even more photos & finally caught up with processing yesterday's backlog. Reminds me of the Honiara Project!