If you truly believe, then you will not be tempted by the coercions of satan.

Scary title eh!
The actual topic isn't very scary though. This weekend, Karly and I had the opportunity, along with 2 students from our Korean American Friendship Circle and my boss and his wife, to to a "temple stay" at Haeinsa. Interestingly enough we have gotten a little flack from some of our friends over here but I have to wonder why they are so animate against visiting a temple and learning about their customs. I'm not going to go into philosophical or religious discussion because those of you who are reading this likely already know how I stand, which is firm Lutheran no questions.
So on to the show. I can't even begin to relate the whole experience. It truly surrounded you for about 20 hours. First, we showed up for the stay, and they had us register and pay the fee. Many temples are like a hotel, you can spend the night anytime for about 20,000 won. The cost was a little higher for us because they were running a program so it was 30K (huge difference ;) ). We were then shuffled off to our respective bunkhouses, women in a nice big room with a refrigerator, a water cooler (with hot and cold water), and their own bathroom. The men were taken down a construction ramp, past a heating oil tank, over a bunch of pipes, and down a narrow corridor (on one side was a construction barricade) where we went all the way to the end of the building and into a 10 foot wide by 40 foot long corridor with lockers on one wall. This was to be our home. The restroom was the common pit latrine with an ice cold outdoor spring for the only water.
The weather was very chilly so left layers on and put our temple stay clothes (traditional Korean clothes). We then headed up to learn a little about what we were going to do, have an opening ceremony and then dinner.

The opening ceremony was the usual chanting with a couple of bows. We were asked to participate but not required. We all did learn how to bow though, I didn't think there was that much to it but indeed to do it right was difficult. I remember during the opening ceremony doing a glorious version of the Lords prayer in my head (as the stay went on I went through Kumbaya, The Nicene creed, some Haydn, and even a little Monty Python to name a few). After the opening, we were instructed to get some neatly wrapped bowls that were lined up on shelves to the rear of the hall. We sat in a semi-circle and learned how the most formal and traditional monks eat their meals. It's called four bowls (I can't remember the Han-gul). The package was entirely wrapped tightly with a gray cloth tied in a bow over the bowls and covered with a hand towel. Under the knot of the cloth were the chopsticks and spoon in a little pouch. The hard stainless of the utensils kept the outer wrapping tight. Under the four bowls was a tabel cloth. The process was simple, undo the package, lay out the cloth, put the four concentric bowls out (one in each corner) and place the utensils in the upper right bowl. Of course the catch was that this had to be done in silence. After the setting is out, then he meal is served.

So we practiced with our bowls a couple of times, and then it was time to go get the food. We went out with good order and dicipline in a straight line and headed to the kitchen. We carried all of our food back to the hall and set it out as directed. We sat down, heard the 3 claps of the bamboo stick, and started unfolding. After that, 3 servers started passing out the water to clean the bowls, then the rice, followed by the soup, and lastly we picked up our own sides and placed them into the upper left bowl. We were required to have at least one of the yellow radishes to clean the bowls with when complete. We were given about 5 minutes to stuff our faces, and then the three claps indicated we were to be finished (some didn't make the cut). Then came the rice water. This was the best part, after all the food was consumed, you had hot rice water poured into your rice bowl. You swirl it around to clean the leftovers out, and pour it into the side dish bowl and do the same, followed by the soup bowl. Once you've sufficiently cleaned the three bowls you drink the water (tastes interesting). Then you use some of the original water to clean out the bowls again, this time with the radish, followed by eating the radish and pouring out the waste water from the original cleaning. then you dry the dishes with your towel, and restack to return to the shelves. I didn't find this too sanitary so I'm not planning on becomming a monk for this as my first of many reasons.

As we were finishing, we heard the loud sound of the evening drum ceremony. We finished up and watched the end and were scurried off to the evening prayer ceremony. At this one I made found the Monty Python monk chant worked perfect. We then headed to the head followed by tea time in the ladies room. We sat and introduced ourselves and had a wonderful question and answer session with the monk who was our guide for the tour. I'm not going to try and offend anyone here but the answers basically showed me that the religion is all about me. It's very self-centered. We posed the question based on Biblical scriptures of giving love as Jesus loved us as well as faith and works, and we got the answer "through meditation we have a great influence on the world". HUH??? I just can't take the leap to a bunch of people sitting in a circle staring at the floor in front of them while having their feet go to sleep because of the position their sitting in and keeping completely silent for hours on end, can cause major change in the world.

Anyway, after a nice refreshing fruit plate (I was still hungry), we headed off to bed for lights out at 9. Of course we didn't get to leave until 10 till so there was barely enough time to brush teeth and hit the jon prior to lights out. Then in our bunkhouse which was a heated floor (hard), where we were stacked in like sardines, there were three 10year old boys. That was not fun as we were trying to get to sleep for a 3AM wakeup and had three boys snickering and making fake snoring sounds. Of course dad wasn't saying anything and I can't chew out some Korean kids cause they's look at me like a deer in headlights. So I just prayed and attempted to sleep. Emphasis on attempt.

3AM
Good morning neverland!! Reason 2 not to become a Buddhist monk!
315 start the moring drums (really cool show).
330 moring ceremony. We got there a little early so we'd have seats right behind the monks. Unfortunately they seem to like uncomfortable sitting positions and my ankles were killing me before the thing even started. The head monk started chanting and everyone was bowing here and there, and then the wave of halitosis hit. Apparently brushing teeth before the morning service doesn't happen for monks. It was terrible, I wanted to breath into the mat but i'm not sure that would have been better as people step on the mats all the time, so I was stuck.

We were shuffled off yet again to the same room we ate dinner in the night before. We were going to do the baek-pal (108) bow's ceremony. 108 is symbolic of the number of afflictions we will have in our lifetime. Again, I'm not sure how they came up with that number. In anycase, I spent most of this PT session thinking about how stupid it was to wear zip off pants under my temple garb. My knees were killing me. I also made the bowing into more like push ups. So it was kind of a hit your knees, do a push up, rock back up and stand while of course keeping your balance and making it smooth. All in the name of learning right? So sore and tired, we headed to the ladies giant crib again for a little meditation.

This is where I learned about the meditation position and its propensity to shut off blood supply to your left leg. I meditated hard on praying that Mom would go to church more and live a healthier lifestyle, that the grandmas were healthy, that our little peanut was growing a good little brain and heart, among other things. Apparently, we're supposed to think about some "secret code" or ha-du. But since I was never told the secret code I had a hard time thinking about it. A half hour later I was in serious pain and praying that my tendons would bounce back to normal.

Finally, breakfast. We actually ate at the table (in complete silence of course). Korean breakfast is the same as lunch and by this time I wanted meat but the temple food didn't seem to have any (imagine that). Then it was time for showers and shave. I of course had only one blade left and it was dull so I nicked myself a coupl of times and had some nasty razor burn on my chin. To the fortune of Koreans, they don't grow a lot of facial hair so shaving every day isn't a necessity, but for my hairy chin I needed a better blade.

Then the tour of the temple. This is what I had been really waiting for. A guided tour of Haeinsa where I could finally get to see the Tripitaka Koreana one of the first (if not the) sets of woodblock printing blocks in the world. It is also the most complete collection of Buddhist sutra and considered to be a world treasure. The blocks are over 900 years old and still kept in the same building as they were originally placed in. There are over 80,000 wood blocks about 1ft x 2.5 ft each. The blocks and their preservation are truly a marvel especially for us bibliophiles.

After the tour, we were pretty much done for the day. We went back to our rooms changed back into normal clothes, and cleaned up a bit then did an evaluation and headed off for a group picture. I almost forgot Karly intentionally killed a bee somewhere in there too (ooooh). We had a small but good lunch checked out the souvenir shop and headed for the Haeinsa museum and then home to shower and catch up on sleep.

A funny problem

Last week I was called into our Personnel section in order to work on the paperwork for my Permanent Change of Station. En Route I should be heading to a course in Texas. The course starts one day before I am supposed to leave Korea leaving me in a pickle. But fortunately we have a fix for that called a curtailment but I was told I needed my Request for orders amended to include the course in order to process the curtailment. I sent a message to my human resources manager and he replied in short order that he needed my curtailment to process the RFO. Does anyone else see the problem here?!!!!

Just thought I'd share that funny story.

Oh by the way happy Columbus Day! To celebrate the day anyone with the name beginning in Chris get's to eat free at the Mustang Club on Osan! Wooo!

I'm baaaack! Not really

I like my extended abscences, they mean I have my wife with me and we're doing stuff. Life is going extremely well (knock on wood) so far with all the challenges that I encounter on a regular basis we seem to be working through them rather quickly. I think I have a very good team both at home and at work which makes life pretty easy. There are many times when long hours occur but it's more a matter of hurry up and wait than anything. Then there are days like today.

I've had a number of ongoing projects and one extremely big project which I have taken on. It's a pain when you work really hard to get a product out before vacation and then upon return you find out that it was stopped dead in it's tracks during the staffing phase. I have been working on a huge program which is brand new to Korea and we've been authorized to take it penninsula wide. The project is a Quarterly Leadership Health Fitness Forum, you could shorten it to health breakfast but that wouldn't sound as good. In any case it's a program designed for community leaders in each area to get together over breakfast and have a topic based discussion and hopefully get some good ideas out of it. This seems like a good idea but the execution is always a challenge. It takes writing a rock solid document which will hopefully stand the test of time leading to an ongoing program for years to come and perhaps even be the template for other commands to adopt a similar program if it is successful. That's why it got bogged down in staffing because although I'm a pretty good military writer, I lack many years of experience on those who are not only senior ranking but work in the orders area all the time. So I sent the document which I thought was pretty good up but alas it wasn't good enough. It came back and I made corrections. I did this three times before vacation and then submitted it to be published. Fortunately, the publisher read through it and found even more things which would make it better, unfortunately I was on leave while that happened. With an already short timetable, a two week break in the development process is enormous, it brought the issue from an ok timetable to a holy crap we've got to get this done quick. But the good news is that after working with the publisher, we have a very easy, almost paint by numbers document so execution should not be a problem. Finally, after almost 3 months of work on this project since it's inception until now, I have gotten the document published and now all we have to do is execute. Some would say I bit off more than we could chew but I think we're just doing the right thing. It's big but it's right.

So far the uptake on it has been extremely positive. As a matter of fact I spoke with an individual today while I was planning one of the events who was dreaming as big as I am about it. She also happens to be a Garrison commander's wife so my push seems to have hit the right ears. During our discussion, she was wondering (as I have in the past) why this hasn't been done before now. The answer is probably that no one had bothered to put in the effort.

In three weeks we get to test the waters. I'm prediciting a great turnout and a great event.

Oh back to continuing my earlier thought. Days like today. I had about 5 missions going at once for the last couple of weeks. I was somehow able to complete all 5 at about the same time this morning. I looked up at my screen and I said to myself, ok what now. I had practically run out. So I called Karly to tell her the good news and of course she reminded me of another mission and then I remembered another short deadline which had been pushed off due to the 5 more important issues.

Eaten Alive!!!

Today in a strange twist of fate, Karly and I had an opportunity to go to Spa Valley for free. Its good to be in a large command which gets great opportunities handed to it. Anyway, this is a resort waterpark which is fed by a hot spring from Apsan. It normally would be a little pricey but the price was perfect. So we spent the day relaxing in hot springs and having fun on waterslides. At least I had fun on most of the waterslides whereas Karly experienced her first waterslide in the kid park. She seemed to love it but wasn't willing to step up to the big kid slides. In anycase she did enjoy me going down the speed slide which was about a 200 foot drop.

We spent a considerable amount of time in the indoor hot spring spas which had the ultrasonic bath, the liquor (something) bath, the stretching bath, the massage bath... On one end of the hot spring section was an elevated bath which had people in it but had a closed sign on the outside. So we inquired about it's condition and I thus made a reservation for Karly and I to sit in that warm bath for a half hour. Now, you're probably wondering why we had to make a reservation and pay for a particular bath when all the others were free and open. Well this particular bath was a special exfoliating bath which, when one sits still in it, a large amount of dead skin on the most outer layer of epidermis is removed forcibly. Now this is kind of a ticklish sensation and at times like little pin pricks but overall it seems to be good for the skin.

Anyway, Karly and I sat in the bath and were exfoliated and we were happy though Karly had problems sitting still long enough for the exfoliation to happen very much.

Great news!!

I've got some God news or some good news but I think the prior is more inspired. I'm the proud new owner of an HPLRP. All I have to do now is tell them how many years(3) and get some paperwork finished and wait for the happy date.

Yaaaaaayy!!!

I love the Army:)

I just noticed that Karly has over 400 total posts and I have only just over 200 so I better get going so I can catch up.

Oh by the way, Karly is baaaack!!!! I'm happy now:)

She's working right now so I'm typing away. This week has been a little bit lazy for me. I've accomplished some good stuff at work but by my usual standard, this has been a little bit of a break. It's probably just a result of Karly's return and my being distracted for the moment. Next week will be back to normal, whatever normal is.

Tomorrow we have our first swim meet and I'm a little nervous. I've never coached a team before so this is all new to me. I'm hoping the kids do well. We've been working hard to make them better swimmers. I don't know if any of them are competitive yet but I think some may be getting there.

La Epique de Alternatorio

I'm not sure that title means anything but it was fun to write.

It was a cold and rainy June. The monsoon or chang-ma had just begun in South Korea. In a little village in the midst of a the large city named Daegu, there lived a group of Americans who had been invited by the Koreans to help them maintain their Armistice with North Korea. The village is called Walker and nearby Henry and George. Odd names for villages they thought but it was those whom treaded here years ago who did the naming. Undoubtedly they were named after hero's of some sort. Many such villages are named after those who received the Medal of Honor, others by someone who died around the time when they were looking for a name and still others are named for the Presidents. In any case this group seems a bit odd but I'll drive on.

The sun was setting on the Choi quarters when the family was nearing supper time. They were heading out for a bite but would only discover that their car would not start. They got a jump but after running for a while the car again ran dead. It was then that Dr. Choi took the BMW to the shop and discovered that his alternator had gone bad. An easy fix I told him, but alas it was not. For BMW decided that all other vehicles which have easily fixable alternators were not for them, so they decided to place theirs at the bottom of the engine in close proximity to the fan and instead of air cooling they would place a sleeve of antifreeze around the core. This all together makes it a very very expensive fix. But it needs to be replaced so an order from the manufacturer was placed and the part shipped overseas. When it arrived the mechanic who had never repaired a BMW alternator did not understand the cooling mechanism and immediately assumed that it would not fit because it looked to be the wrong size. We advised him otherwise. This epic continues to this day as the alternator to my knowledge is still not replaced.

Over the course of a month my little excel has grown loud and whines when I start it up. It eventually stops and I can drive on. I checked it out and beleived it to be the alternator but it was running fine. So I just assumed it was making some noise and would eventually go out. This morning I drove to chapel and had a wonderful service. Afterward, Chaplain Billy Grahm (yes that's his name) invited me to lunch. So I hopped into the car and heard a terrible screetch. I knew that this was it but prayed that it might last till tomorrow. On the way around the bend and over to the hilltop, the car began to smell and I knew I was in trouble. I got to a stop and opened the hood but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. We contamplated and checked all the fluids but all for naught. Then we set off for a meal and on my return I said, I shall take the silver bullet to the car care center and have it fixed tomorrow. I started it up and had a terrible whine again. I got it up the hill and to the stop on the way back down when it began smoking terribly. I shut the engine off and coasted downhill to the car care center.

When I opened the door and looked up I noticed the hours. It was closed and wouldn't open again until Tuesday. I thought, oh, I'll just wait till then but then as fast as I thought that, I again realized that Karly would soon be returning. I needed a car to await her arrival. So I called my insurance. They agreed that it was a problem, found a mechanic open on Sunday, and sent a wrecker to gate 4.

I headed to the PX to get an air mattress and some cash to pay for the services (Koreans like to be paid immediately and a lot don't take cards). Lo, the ATM was broken and it said to go to the lodge (on the other side of post). I knew this was too far away and so got cash back in the maximum I could. I greeted the driver with enthusiasm at the gate and he was then told that he needed to go to the back gate for trucks. So I ran to the money exchanger but though they had an open sign on the door, they were very closed. So I headed to the truck and drove around to the other side. Whence I discovered that my driver didn't have up to date insurance card in his truck. 10 minutes later the problem was solved by faxsimile and we were finally off to my car. We picked it up and he agreed that the alternator had frozen up and thus burnt out the belt and caused the smoke. We drove to his garage and about an hour and a half later I had a repaired alternator and of course a business card was given to me in hopes that I might bring some other Americans. I was happy and very satisfied with the price of $80 for the repairs and tow.

I am now back at home typing this and hoping that Karly's trip is much less eventful than my last few hours.

Thus the epic ends and my fingers hurt from typing and playing the blues.

Karly's Coming Home Soon. YAY!!!

It's been a while since I've done a photo entry because Karly is supposed to be in charge of those. However, since she isn't here right now, I'm going to upload some pictures which I have.

To tell the story. As you all know Karly and I love hiking. It also happens to be good for our physique but that's just a perk. We love it soo much that when looking for an apartment over here we ultimately chose based on the place we're in being so close to Apsan or a true English translation is mount Ap. It's just literally a hop skip and a jump to get to the park with the trail which leads up the mountain. We are trying to go up frequently as time permits. Most of these photos are from our last excursion. We took the opportunity to find a geocache on the mountainside and then took a look at the radio house and helipad and on the way down we kept hearing Cukoo, cukoo, cukoo. Surprisingly it was not a clock nearby, nor someones phone chirping. It was truly Cukoo birds. As we were hiking down the concrete trail, Karly notices an unusual bird, not the usual magpies and so I attempted to take a picture of it. I missed that one as it flew off when I zoomed in. But a little down the road there was a cherry tree with some fruit which was enticing many birds to quite literally go crazy for the fruit. That provided a good opportunity to catch a shot.

The frog was a surprise on the way down. It just sort of jumped out at me.

This morning I had a wonderful opportunity to attend what has been explained to me as quite possibly the first Joint Army, Navy Change of Command in history. That may be unsubstantiated but in any case it was extremely unusual and very exciting. We took off early this morning to head to Busan where we exited the bus and headed up to the USS Pomeroy, a US Navy cargo vessel. The change of command was on board. Afterwards we enjoyed a good lunch and an almost private tour of the ship. I had the fortune of touring with 3 very senior ranking logistics officers who were very willing to teach me a lot about the logistics function of the ship as well as some other neat log stuff. I considered it my privilege to accompany those individuals. So now the pictures.

Lonely again :(

This morning bright and early I had to give a last hug and kiss to Karly before she took off for the US. She's got a busy schedule back there trying to get everything done will be a challenge. The most important of course is getting the house taken care of. So far we aren't very happy with our realtor mostly because it seems they aren't putting in the effort to make sure the carpet gets in and to get the virtual tour up. This has left us hanging as to our knowledge there hasn't even been a nibble.
Wow!!! The weather just said light thunderstorms. I was typing and all of a sudden there was a really loud BANG!! subsequent to a gust of wind. Karly's office door had slammed shut, and then the soap above the sink was blown over. Now that's some serious wind. I battened down the western hatches and I'm back to typing. Hopefully there won't be any outages because we don't have any candles yet.
Back to the house. We're hoping that Karly's appearance will inspire a change of attitude or a change of realtor.
In the mean time. On the new furniture. It is beautiful and I've just learned the process of making it look right. The table top was quite dull as it gets the most wear of all the pieces. So I did some research and bought some furniture wax. A little wax and some sweat and elbow grease and now it's bright and shiny again. I think it needs a couple more coats though and I'll get to that later but for now it looks a lot better.
Now that Karly's gone for a while I'll be free to write a little more often again.

Karly posted so I now feel left out. We really should spend the time to consolidate our blogs for simplicities sake.
Today is my birthday. I had a lovely morning with a phone call to and from home. I was excited to actually receive and talk to family on a telephone rather than the computer. I hear Dad spent a little while up on the roof at home attempting to fix the internet there, however, apparently there's a tree in the way so some trimming will need to take place. After attempting to hook up our new wireless router which speaks only Korean, we discovered a need for consultation so the next door neighbor will be dropping in sometime this evening to help out. I then headed off to work. I know it's a shame working on your birthday but alas I have a job and some important business. I spent an hour looking at numbers for an update to present to the Command and Staff at 10 which ran long and made Karly and myself fashionably late to a farewell lunch for one of my colleagues. I took the opportunity to thank her for hosting such a nice birthday party for me because I knew that had I invited people then no one would have showed up (wink wink). At about that time I received a phone call and we will be receiving our Korean furniture this afternoon. I'm thrilled and excited to see the pieces yet again. The price was unbeatable. I'm sure our picture poster will have some shots up in a couple of months. That brings me to now where I'm sitting on the couch contemplating the hugeness of the information I just received about the Health Professions Loan Repayment Program being reinstated. I will be applying and hopefully in July I will find that I the proud recipient of three years more commitment to the Army in exchange for a large chunk of my student loans being payed off.

Tonight we plan to have a nice quiet romantic dinner and spend some time relaxing before I head off to a busy day tomorrow.

I am still alive!!!
I survived the assault of some sort of bacteria or virus or perhaps it was my body thoroughly rejecting the cheese on the pizza. In any case I was severely dehydrated a couple of days ago and couldn't seem to move far from the bulk head but I got an IV and some very nauseating medication and now I'm good to go again.
I don't have a lot of news to post. I know there are some good pictures which you would love to see but you must keep on Karly about those as she is in control of their 1s and 0s.

An interesting anecdote. Korean cable isn't so bad for English speaking people. They have at least four channels which are always playing American movies, and many which play American shows. CSI and House are very popular over here. Along the TV lines they also have at least 4 channels playing baseball and in the evening 5 or 6 playing Korean soaps. There are a number of Korean sitcoms but they aren't like what we have. They place people in an unusual situation and comedy just happens so they record it.

See this is what happens when I get sick, there's actually time to watch the evil time waster and mind blower. But that will not continue as we have the weekend fully booked and the following week is again fully booked.

We're trying to decide whether to send Karly home for a couple of weeks to finish up on the house and help Mom and Dad get ready to come over for a visit. Input is welcomed.

God speed.

I have no pictures, Sorry. That’s currently Karlys department since she’s at home with the camera. Speaking of which what has that woman been up to? I’ve been a little irritated for no good reason, and my expectations have been that of superwoman while she did a good job of setting me straight yesterday. The time since my lovely wife’s arrival has been hectic to say the least.

First we were in Yongsan for 5 days followed by a mad rush back to Daegu for three hectic days of catch up and then departure for Pyongtaek and Camp Humphreys for a week and a half. It was good to explore and Karly started working while I was learning. I’ve unfortunately been like the anticipatory employer with the new hire. I’m inpatient waiting for her to settle in to an efficient highly productive new member of the workforce. She’s been doing a great job and has developed a liking for medical legal reports. Her days have been full of typing and our nights have been full of moving.

On that note, there is a great story to tell. Just before going to Humphreys, I took the leap of faith and prayer and went to housing. I had all my guns loaded and was ready to get settled in a negotiated good deal for me and the government. At first there was reluctance followed by a good bit of negotiation and perseverance and finally a legal moral ethical and beneficial victory. Then with the weight off my shoulders the real fun began. FINDING A HOME!!

We contacted the realtor (that’s how they do it here) and set up an appointment. That evening we visited a whole bunch of places. We settled on a highrise for economic reasons. There were some benefits to the villas but the highrises offered a better utility package in that many floors of heat below and a couple from above should yield a lower heating bill, and a good location with a higher altitude should allow a nicer breeze for the summer months yielding the same lower energy bill, and low and behold the building we settled for has Rennai waterheaters as well which is also beneficial. But the joy was all the paperwork, and then translation…But alas we have a new address, and have cleared the BOQ for literally higher ground as we are still on the hillside of Apsan, but now are a whole lot higher up.

The woes of 220. Not long after moving in I plugged our small flat screen TV into one of the 110 converters since we now have cable as part of the rent. There was some buzzing and some smoke and now neither the TV nor the converter works.

An ode to the TV of old:

It was a good ol’ panel of color true
Except for the spots which were so new
The power button failed but onward we trod
And then to the 220 the TV explode
So 4 years of good that TV did reach
And many a movie with rarely a screetch
To appliance heaven it heads with a smell
Making way for the next TV O well.
That’s all for now, this weekend should be fun. I’ll try to call some family but don’t be afraid to initiate.

Don't worry we're still alive and taking lots of pictures

Karly started working this week and seems to be doing very well. She's currently working up some good speed and I think will soon be at par or above with the MT world.

This month has been training month for me. I've been to three courses. Unfortunately, I feel very out of the loop back at HQ but I have been doing my best to keep up. It will be good to get back though.

As I said we will have lots of pictures as we started up geocacheing again. We've seen some cool stuff but were planning on going out tonight except driving is kinda painful right now because I sprained my toe diving yesterday (not good feeling on the clutch).

Till later,

Buddha, Buddha, Buddha

Today marked my third mountain climb since arriving in South Korea. This one was by far the most stressful I think. It consisted of a little coordination with my boss who agreed to make a trip of it. The Surgeon Cell and an invited guest went giving a total of four.
We got away a little late but all was well as our timing was perfect to climb the mountain and return to eat lunch at the bottom before 1300.
Now for the good stuff. Here's a little excerpt about where we went. Along the route up. The bridge/entrance to a temple half way up the mountain.
Gatbawi Buddha, Daegu is famous for granting wishes. There is a belief that Gatbawi grants only one wish of each of the pilgrims to come true. The original name of Gatbawi Buddha, Daegu is Gwanbong Buddha as it is located at the summit of the Gwanbong peak (850 meters) on Mt. Palgongsan. The fame of Gatbawi Buddha has surpassed that of Gwanbong Buddha all over South Korea as the Buddha wears a gat, which is a Korean hat
Gatbawi Buddha, Daegu is a 4 meter tall sitting stone Buddha, and its official name is Gwanbong Seokjoyeoraejwasang (Gwanbong sitting stone Buddha). The expression on his face and his stout body demonstrate the feeling of impressive mercy. Gatbawi Buddha, Daegu is a representative work of art from the Unified Silla Kingdom, and this statue is designated as the National Treasure Number 431.
Excerpt from travel.mapsofworld.com

It's an impressive 1400 uneven stone stairs to reach the Buddha. An amazing undertaking and very hard on the knees. At the top you see the pinnacle of idol worship (sorry for the pun) as a large number of people can be seen almost 24 hours per day praying to the statue. To me this was an eerie feeling and I spent the whole time saying my own prayer for the redemption of those people. I think next time I will wear a really big cross on my chest.

Anyway, as usual the trip up was tiring and rough but the trip down is what really hurts. At the bottom we were beckoned unrelentlessly by no less than 4 restauranteers who wanted to fill our bellies with their Korean vittles. As usual my boss ordered as he tends to do better linguistically than the rest of us (he's Korean). We had a wonderful meal consisting of the usual sides, a buckwheat and vegetable pancake, some tofu and greens, kimchee, and a very big bowl of mushroom and vegetable soup which we all shared.
Now I shall post some pictures to augment this post. A buddhist priest performing a ritual. People praying to the Buddha. The intricacies of the lower temple. This is all hand painted. The style they use requires each color to dry before painting the next. It can take years to complete a temple.
Lunch

Wonderful News

This has been a long time in coming but we're hoping it has been well worth the wait.
Karly's got some great news but she's working soo hard on the house and trying to get things ready to come over here that she doesn't feel like she's got the time to tell you all her wonderful news.

As of last night Karly was given a job offer. It's a medical transcription company based out of Australia. She will be working as an independent contractor with the company starting in April.

In other news, my clock is officially messed up as I am currently on night shift. I got a good night sleep today so I will be good for tonight but I'm looking forward to getting back to a normal schedule.


Tonight may be my last night on but that's still to be determined.

Hwang-wa

A most interesting phenonmenon. This is also known as yellow sand or asia dust. It's basically a dust storm which originates in the deserts of Mongolia, cross China and hit Korea, Japan, and occasionally even Hawaii and the west coast.

Tonight is my first experience with these storms, and it couldn't have come at a better time. It's a real world scenerio to add into our training, so I get to break into everyones discussions and get their undivided attention while they get their hourly Yellow Sand update. Woooooo!!

In other news Karly got a plane ticket to leave the States on the 1st of April and arrive here on the 2nd. I'm verry excited.

News From Afar!

Hello, my name is Afar and I have some news for you. Today we pickled pears and persimmons for the purpose of plainly partaking of practical petunia peddeling. People purport that our primary picks were preponerantly pink and purple. So plainly practical petunia peddleing is positively preposterous.

In other news from Paul,
I have a new cell p hone number and I'm not afraid to post it because it seems as though most Americans are scared to call international or just don't know how. But alas here it is.
011-82-10-4040-0775 You dial all the numbers there from the US. If you were in Korea, the number would be shorter but you aren't so there.
Karlys number is
011-82-10-8671-9752
When she gets here that is, until then, that number can still reach me.

Till later

A Matter of Perspective

In life as we look at everything we can flip a coin and be happy or sad. It truly does not matter what the circumstance, there is always a happy side and a sad side, it is only a matter of perspective that distinguishes the two.

The last week has been extremely interesting to put it lightly. The week basically began with my climbing the mountain south of my room here at the BOQ. You've already heard about that.
Tuesday was a lazy day, I didn't do much but try to recover from Monday. Then Wed. it was time to head out for PT again. We ran 3.5 miles under a Yellow Sand amber alert (we shouldn't have been running that much). I survived but was in pain as Monday was still taking its toll on my muscles. When I returned home after the run I weighed in at a miniscule 170 lbs. which is the lightest I've weighed since high school. No I am not starving myself to death, actually quite the contrary as I feel like I have been eating as much if not more than before, I'm just practicing what I preach and doing a lot more exercise.
Then for lunch on Wed. we had a lenten soup lunch, in which I ate way too much and then headed back to work. The rest of the day on Wed. was fairly mundane except for my invitation to participate in the good neighbors program and to do a briefing next Monday and Tuesday.
I arrived home and found that the sewer had backed up into my bathroom. I took the proper percautions and called the proper people but their system was messed up so the problem didn't get totally fixed until 24 hours later.

Thursday, I'll spare you the details on the sewer issue as they were rather gruesome. But I managed to turn around the slides for the briefing in record time and was off to take care of housing and the mail room. I was satisfied by my experience with the housing manager, but the person whom he referred me to for completion of my visit was totally unhelpful and undid all of my perception of housing which had been built up in the previous half hour. So when I went to do the customer evaluations for the sewer, I decided to do housing as well.

That afternoon, I arrived at home to a bigger mess than the night before. It had backed up even more but still hadn't overflowed into the living space fortunately. I was supposed to be at the good neighbor program at 1330 but the sewer guys didn't show until 1330 so I ended up a little late as I then had to get a translator to help me ask if I could leave and they could shut the door behind themselves.
All was well and they seem to have fixed the problem.

The Good Neighbor Program is a cooperation between the Korean people and the American Soldiers on the penninsula. We try to send some soldiers to almost every major event or festival over here to strengthen the bond between our people. Thursday was celebrating the first full moon of the lunar new year. There were games and singing and dancing, and lots of food, and many many fun things to do. I do have some good video which I will eventually splice into a quick snapshot of the event and post it.

Yesterday, I went on my first MWR Community Activities Center trip. We headed to mount Hwa-wang where we summited the peak and celebrated our achievement and then headed back to camp. It was a beautiful (though windy and cold) day and the scenery was breathtaking. Upon Karly's arrival and a few weeks of physical training (for her) I might feel comfortable bringing her to that place. I really want to get her up there but it is truly a matter of physical conditioning, if you can not be steady on your feet with 3-5 hours of constant exertion, then you do not need to be on a 10 inch wide path with a 40 foot drop to one side. It just is not intelligent.

I maintain that some of the most beautiful views and scenery can only be seen by those who are prepared and willing to take the risk to get there. The key is preparation.

I end with some photos. There was a castle at the top of the mountain. We didn't spend much time to visit it but I will be back.

Today I Discovered!

I knew that this country would offer some good experiences, and some fun times. I also knew that this country fits about 20 million inhabitants in the space of Indiana (that's South Korea alone). So the assumption was made that the country would be literally full of people.

What I discovered yesterday is that there is a lot of open space in this country. Yesterday I went hiking into the mountain range south of Daegu where I discovered a vast amount of hiking trails and open space. What was different was the development of mountain climbing. It was not just a series of small trails that were small and dirt or gravel, rather they were well developed trails with stairs and occasionally a small outdoor gym for working out while you're working out.

All in all I hiked about 7 miles on a 20% grade. Thus making my knees hurt. But I got some good pictures so here they are.

Good words

The summary of the day in only a few. Good words, fun drive, missed turns, found endpoint, good stuff, change in return point, found return point, dropped off auditor, wrong turn at albequerkie, long loop, toll bridge, back where I came from (oops), bigger loop, aah that's actually on my map, now which way, I wager right, ha I was right, now I'm on track, back at post.

Great day