Recap

Ok so I decided to create this blog as an easy way to keep everyone in my life up to date as to the latest happenings on this year long adventure. I will begin with a quick recap of what has happened so far:

 Leaving was extremely hard. Having to say goodbye to my family was probably the single most difficult thing that I will experience during this little trip. The wife and in-laws threw me a wonderful goodbye lunch that I appreciated so much. This may sound selfish but it felt good knowing that when I leave there will be people that miss me. I am truly blessed with an amazing family. Sitting at the Atlanta airport was rough but the mood was shortly lightened by a chance run in with the father and son team from Gold Rush Alaska who were kind enough to grab a photo with me and Eden. They were pretty solid guys. After a gut wrenching goodbye I boarded the plan to Seattle Washington. Pretty uneventful. Upon arrival in Seattle I sat and waited and waited and waited some more. Finally after about 15 hours we boarded a plane to Korea. The flight there, while also pretty uneventful, was what seemed to be the longest flight of my life. Anyone that has done a trip to Iraq has experienced this mind numbingly long flight time also. So after multiple time changes and crossing the international dateline I arrived in Korea.
There are not many times in my career that the Army has put me up somewhere and I thought to myself, "Wow, this place is really nice," but fortunately this time, after the 2 day journey, I did. I was in a 5 star hotel on post. It gave me a few days to relax and unwind which was greatly appreciated. Then came four days of briefings. Uggh. I am not sure why the Army does non-stop briefings like this because everyone tunes out and doesn’t listen to about half of what is said. Then I was given my orders. I had originally thought I would be staying in southern South Korea and living like the Jefferson’s: in a deluxe apartment in the sky. Who was I fooling? Nope, I got sent to a tiny little place called Camp Stanley in Northern South Korea. The perimeter of this place is about 1.29 miles around. Nice. This also meant I would be living on post in what is a glorified college dorm room. So instead of caviar and Champaign wishes, I have a shower with the water pressure of a stream of urine coming from a 90 year old man. With that being said, I can't change it so I determined to make the best of it.
This brings me to my first day out. Talk about feeling out of place. I could not read a single sign and I stood out like a sore thumb. I was unsure how to use the bus system so I decided to walk to the subway station; after all I was told it was only a couple miles away. Approximately 7 miles later I arrived. Couple miles my ass. I hoped the subway and rode it for about 45 minutes to YongSan, got out, looked around and got right back on. The reason: I just wanted to make sure I could get back from where I was going. After I got back to my original starting point, Uijengbu, I was starving. I had not yet interacted with anyone on the local economy so I knew this was going to be interesting. I stopped at a place to eat and picked the first thing on the wall in my line of sight. The old Korean lady muttered a few words and held up 2 fingers. I just nodded my head and said yes. Apparently I ordered a meal for two. I didn’t want to seem rude so I ate the entire thing. I also didn’t realize that what I ordered was meat parts covered in lava hot barbecue sauce. If you like spicy food this is the place to be. After I finished stuffing myself I took a cab back and slept like a baby.
 I ventured out again the second day with a little more courage to explore. I took a bus to the subway station this time. Much quicker than walking. I rode the subway to a few different places such a Seoul and about three other places that I can’t spell. All very nice places. What I thought Korea to be and what it is are very different. Very metropolitan and very densely populated. At night all the streets are lit up with wonderfully colored flashing signs and kind of looks like Vegas. I am certain there are parts of Korea that are more rural but I haven’t seen it yet. I noticed a trend on my second day out. When I spent the day before exploring downtown Uijengbu, it seemed really seedy and small. That was because I went out the wrong set of doors in the metro station. Turns out that every metro station is like that. Go out one side and it’s seedy. Go out the other side, beautiful. So I explored the nicer part of Uijenbu and wow it was nice. Markets square and shopping as far as your eyes could see. I only got to see a fraction of it but I am looking forward to seeing some more.
So that catches me up to now. There are a lot of little details I skipped because this initial entry would have been entirely too long. I am going to keep this updated so they are a little shorter from now on but with more details. As soon as I figure out how to include photos I will do that also. If you make it this far thanks for reading and until next time...