Soldier's Tour in Korea 

June 6, 2005

I don't know if I just woke up on the wrong side of the bed or if I didn't get much sleep, but I just wasn't in a good mood when I woke up this morning. I just didn't feel like talking or hanging out with anyone today. just wanted to be by myself. I didn't have any plans for today, so I decided to just go somewhere. I had been wanting to see what the Korean walmart was like for a long time now, so I decided to take a subway ride there and check it out. I know that may not mean much to you peopke back in the states, but it was nice to see something that reminded me of home a little bit. You get burned out on the Korean culture sometimes and just want to see something familiar once in a while.

Well I started off about 11:30. Here I am locking my room before heading out. Jung was staying at his parents house for the weekend and wasn't home. He's never home on the weekends unless he has weekend duties at the chapel, so I have the apartment to myself from Friday night to Sunday night.

It took me forever to get here by subway. Normally it would have taken me about 30-40 minutes to get here, but the subway car had some problems and everyone had to get off and wait for another train car to come. It wound up taking an hour and a half. Oh well, at least I made it.

Here is the sign to the entrance. Even Walmart in Korea has two stories. It seems like every store has two stories. I guess their isn't much ground area, so they have to build everything taller.

For the most part it looked just like any other Walmart, but with a few asian twists. For instance you wouldn't find this frozen octopus at your local wally world.

Or if you prefer they have freshly caught octupus. Mmmmm, doesn't that just look so tasty? Yuck!

After browsing around, I walked around the shopping center and some of the other stores. They had some interesting statues there. This was one of the ones that I took a picture of.

And here is another. Well after I got bored with that I got back on the subway and came home. Scott asked me if I wanted to go to the gym with him, so I did. i ran 8 miles today and did a bunch of sit-ups and crunches. Afterwards I came home, showered, ate some dinner, and we watched Tombstone. I hadn't seen that movie in a long time. Now I'm getting ready for bed. GHave to go back to work tomorrow. That's always the worst part of the weekend; the end of it.

June 5, 2005

I had to go get some groceries today. Fernillios was on her way there too so she invited Scott, and guy named Balanon, and myself to go with her. We decided to grille out when we got back, so I bought some meat to throw on the grille.

yeah, it's hard to make grocery shopping look this cool.

When we got back, Scott started up the grille and Fernillios brought some really good ribs that she had marinated.

For some reason this taxi driver was there. He asked if he could get some ribs and pork chops too. He sat down and ate with us. You just never know what is going to happen here in Korea, or who will show up.



After the cook-out Max, Scott, Lee and I decided to go to the batting cages off post.

Here is Max swinging at the ball.

Scott swinging away. Him and Max went to the batting cages yesterday and they were both still sore from it. After Scott finished batting tonight he showed me his forearm, and he had broken some blood vessels in it. It was really swollen and black and blue.

There was a game there that was called right hook power. The object was to hit the pad as hard as you could. The harder you hit it, the more points you got. Here I am winding up to take a punch.

Scott knocked the hell out of it. I couldn't hit as hard as he could, so I started cheating and kicked the pad instead. He still beat me.

Lee is a left handed batter and the only cages that had left handed batting boxes were the fastest machines. Afterwards we walked home and stopped by music store to look around and get a few CD's. Noiw I'm getting ready to email my wife, watch a movie, and fall asleep. Tomorrow is Korean Independance day, so we are off work. Yeah!

June 4, 2005

Fun in Itaewon
Well today I just did a little shopping in the morning. Scott came with me and I bought a new running shirt at the Nike store. Then we caught a cab to Electronic Market and I got some rocks and plants for my new fish aquarium. Chaplain Wead gave me his fish tank that he had, because he didn't want it since he was leaving to go back to the states. I told him I'd take it and his fish. I have it in my office now, but I ahd to get some plants for the tank.
After shopping I had to get back to post because I had to work at the chapel tonight for the Catholic service. I was there from 3-7 P.M. When I got home Scott and Maxwell invited me to go hang with them in Itaewon. We started off by going to some bar called 3 Pub Alley or something like that.

While we were there We saw two dudes wearing dresses. I guess they had lost some bet or something.

After we left that place we went to another bar and we saw these two ladies on the dance floor. I guess they were really desperate and could find a guy, so they started dancing with this coat rack.

When we left that place we started heading for another bar called Polly's. On the way there was this Korean guy dressed up like Spider-Man. He was playing his guitar outside for everybody. Needless to say, we say quite a few interesting things tonight.

Here is Ben and I inside of Polly's. We saw Marillo and Porter while we were there. They had a crappy band called Faded that was playing tonight. They were doing a bunch of horrible cover songs from Creed and Chevelle, but the lead singer was horrible.

And here is the lst photo of the night. And for good reason too, As you can see Ben was a wee bit intoxicated by this point in the night. I don't know how much he had to drink, but I know it was a lot. Max, Ben and I all got back to post before curfew. We spent the rest of the night watching a move before falling asleep. It was a fun night.

June 3, 2005

Well, alot more happened today that yesterday. Today was actually pretty good. We started off the morning with a BN run.

This is the field we started at. This photo was taken before anyone really arrived. Every month we have a BN run that is about 4 miles long. There are somewhere around 300 soldiers who run in it. I love going on the runs and seeing all these out of shape guys crying because they can't breathe and keep up with everyone. The run is mandatory, so you get a lot of people who are half dead at the end of the 4 miles ecause they don't run the entire rest of the month. I like t take the company flag and run a couple of laps around them just for fun.

here are a couple of the road guards from my unit coming in from the run. That is Klopp (left) and Dorsey (right).

Here are the first soldiers coming in from the run. Everyone runs in a formation together rather than at their own pace, so that everyone finishes at the same time. At least that's the idea, but there are a lot of them who don't run at all and can't keep up and faqll out of the group. We leave those guys behind and keep on running.

There is Chaplain Wead coming in from the run. My roommate Jung never runs any of these runs. He always saves his comp days (day off for working the weekend) so that he can take it on the day we have the run. Jung hates running.

After the Battallion run, we went to an awards ceremony. Chaplain Wead was getting an award today for all the work he has done for the unit since he has been here. LTC Foster (left) and CSM Houston (Middle) presented the award to Chaplain Wead (right).

Later on that day, we had a promotion ceremony for one of the KATUSA's. PFC Choi got promoted to CPL. Choi is a really nice guy. He works in our S-4 shop.

Here is Choi receiving his promotion from the Commander, CPT Bowers.

After work Chaplain Wead, his family, Jung, and myself all got in cabs and drove to the train station. Jung had invited us all to come meet his family and have dinner with them in Suwon, where Jung's parents live.
Here we are in the taxi on the way to the train station.

Here is Jung telling the taxi driver where to go.

Just a picture of me tagging along with Jung in the back of the cab.

When we got to the station we only had 5 minutes before the train left so we had to run to make it on the train in time. Here we are running to get on the train.

These two kids are Chaplain Wead's kids. His son is named Colton, and his daughter is Taylor.

Jung's mother must have worked all day to make dinner, because when we arrived there was soooo much food. She cooked all traditional Korean dishes for us. I like the Kalbi best (Kalbi is Korean style BBQ ribs). Afterwards we talked to his family. Jung translated for us.

I took this picture while I was there. It is a picture of Jung when he first came in the Army. He is what we call a "baby KATUSA." I told him that I was going to use the picture to blackmail him.

And here we all are in one last picture. This is Chaplain Weads family and Jungs folks together with myself. Jung was taking the picture, so he wasn't in it.

June 2, 2005

Well it was a pretty uneventful day. Sorry I don't have anything exciting or interesting to write about today, but sometimes you just can't have fun every day. About the most exciting thing that happened today was dinner. I went over to Scott's room and he was on his way to my room. I asked him if he wanted to go get something to eat and he was just about to ask em the same thing. Anyway, we ran into Max on the way and asked him if he wanted to tag along with us. Then on the way to the restaurant we saw Kim and he decided to come too.


We decided we didn't care for Korean food tonight, so we went to Outback Steakhouse.

Scott saw a cute little Korean boy and was playing with him. I guess the mother saw and decided to let Scott say hi, so she brought the kid over.

The kid was fine and laughing until I took his picture. I guess he got scared by the flash and started to cry. The whole rest of the night that poor kid started screaming every time Scott tried to wave at him.

Yeah, I was there too. OK.......moving on.

They had a sign there that looked like a Kangaroo was taking a crap, so Kim decided to improvise and fix it. As soon as he did it, a group of kids came walking in and saw him. It was pretty funny.

We were pretty bored while we were waiting for our food, so we had to find something to do. I always have the best table manners.

Kim came with us. It's good we brought him too, because our waitress couldn't speak any english and we definetely don't speak much Hongul.

Well, our food finally came and we all had a good time. The food is always good here. I don't think I've ever had a bad steak or ribs though.

June 1, 2005

Well today is my 4th Anniversary. I celebrated it by doing what else....running! I ran 5.5 miles this morning before work and then at lunch I went to run again.


I couldn't run at lunch though, because in the morning I got a blister on my toe and it hurt, so I went to the gym and did 7 miles on the cross trainer. That's me in the gym at lunch by myself working out.


Here is a picture of me half way through my workout. I did a good job today. I really pushed myself hard. I was trying to get at least 8 miles today.


Well I felt good, so I kept on going. I got 7 miles in an hour. here is a picture of the cross trainer when I was almost done. I burned 1150 calories in an hour! I got a total of 12.5 miles today (well there still is some day time left, so I might be able to get a few more in before bedtime).


I got an Anniversary card from momtoday with a few pictures in it. Here is one she sent me of my grandma Christa's 67th birtday.


This is another pic she sent me. It is of Gabe's 1st birthday party.


And this is the Anniversary card that she gave me. I assume she mailed one to Sherry too since this one is addressed only to me. I guess I'll have to ask my wife about that. Thank you mom!


This is a picture outside of Yongsan. Jung and I were on our way to a church near Namdemun to teach English to some Mongolian students tonight.


I meant to take a picture of the class but I forgot to. This is me heading home after the class. It started to rain on the way home. It's not Monsoon season yet, but it's getting close. It is supposed to rain until Saturday according to the weather reports, and they are usually pretty accurate over here.

May 31, 2005

Today we had Mopp training. Mopp is the name of the chemical suits that we use. Today was hot as hell and these suits made it 10 times hotter! You can feel the sweat rolling down your body inside, it is so bad. Well I did it last week when it was cool out, so I got to laugh at Jung and take these funny pictures of him suffering. Here he is trying to work on our vehicle with that bug suit on. It's not that easy, especialy with two rubber gloves on your hand.


They have a special adapter connected to the top of the canteen so that you can drink with the mask on. There is a small straw inside the mask that you can suck on and get water from the canteen.


And here I am doing it the easy way. I told Jung I didn't have an adapter for his Pepsi, so I'd just have to drink it before it got warm.

May 30, 2005

Well I woke up this morning with no plans at all. I walked over to Scott's room and he was heading to Electronics market to get something to eat. On the way we met Lee adn we decided to get some pizza for lunch so we went to Pizza Hut.


We ate lunch at pizza Hut. here is the menu.


Lee and Scott eating lunch at Pizza Hut.


After lunch we caught a taxi to e. market and bought a few movies adn walked around Space 9 (a really big mall). Then we caught another taxi to Itaewon to do a litle more shopping and look around.

Here is a picture of some of the steps at space 9. It's hard to see in this picture, but that is water running down the steps. It runs down all the way down to the bottom floor of the mall and dissapears in the cracks at the bottom.


Heading on our way back to post I snapped a picture of this idiot. Yes that is a picture of a car driving down the sidewalk. I told you Koreans are the worst drivers in the world. They are crazy here. Koreans hate to wait for anything and they are very rude drivers.


We made it back to post safely at least. Scott wanted to Barbeque a little, so I brought down some chicken breast and he threw them on the grille for me.


While we were waiting, Castro, Lee, Kim, and I threw the baseball around a little and played some catch.


Around 8:30 I headed upstairs to my place and watched Kingdom of Heaven before heading off to bed. have a good night you all! ZzZzZzzzzz............

My CRAZY wife

My wife sent me this email today. She just got back from a wrestling show. While she was there they invited her to practice with them a little before the show. Well I guess she wrestled for about 90 mnutes she said. I thought I'd share a part of her email with you all:

"Hey Baby,

I went to Bardstown last night for BBW. I had the best time. Around 3, a couple of wrestlers were there, doing stuff in the ring. Jason a.k.a. Maxx Mizery asked me if I'd like to try a couple of bumps. I said,"Sure." Well, it started with a simple body slam. Then he's like,"Wanna try some back bumps?" You basically just bump on your back. Again, I said,"Sure." Well, about 90 minutes, countless back bumps, flip bumps, swantons, leg drops, elbow drops, clotheslines, forearms shots, a few chops, some suplexes, and a couple of Mexican headscissors (they're kind of like hurricaranas, but you run the ropes first) later, I guess I pretty much had my first training session, sort of.

It wasn't planned. We were just bored and I thought I'd try it on for size. It was so fun! My whole body is sore this morning, but I want to do it again! And you know what? My ankles didn't hurt at all while I was training and my back is fine. I just feel like I hit the weights really hard the day before, that's all. The bumps don't really hurt. You just get the wind knocked out of you a bit the first few times. Chops, well, they sting. At first, it's mostly pressure, but a few seconds afterward, you feel the sting. But they didn't just chop me out of nowhere. I wanted to try them. Vic the Bruiser said my clotheslines and suplexes were "beautiful". Billy Black kept saying I was a natural. He freaked out when I did the Mexican headscissors. Brandon Blayze was impressed too. Maxx liked the fact that I wasn't afraid to take hits and shots. I felt really good after I left for the night. Everything felt so comfortable.

I wasn't expecting to do any of this so soon. I figured I would just valet for a while and then maybe try a bump or two. But I'm very glad it happened. If I do wrestle, I want to be great at it. I have some high hopes for myself, so I hope I don't let myself down.

I do need to work on my some of my strength and endurance. I'm alright right now, I guess. Nobody told me that though. I was just critiquing myself."


Isn't she crazy? But that's my wife. It won't be long now before she's wrestling a match in a ring somewhere and somebody is video taping HER for a change.

May 29, 2005

Gyeonggi Half Marathon


I got up this morning at 5:30 and threw my stuff together for the race today. SSG Adams gave us a ride to the gate and we got on a bus and drove up to the stadium. They had three races today: a 5k, 10k, and half marathon. I picked the half of course. It was so hot too. The race didn't start until 8:00 A.M., but by then it was already 75 degrees.


SSG Woody came with us on this race today. He never runs far distances, but he decided to run the half with us today. He actually did better than I did. He's a naturally gifted runner though anyway.


This was also Maxwell's first half marathon. He was strugglign a little with the 7 miles we did last week, so I knew this run was going to hurt him pretty good. He did well though too. He covered his nipples with band-aids at the beggining of the race, but they fell of at the beginning and by the the time the race was over his shirt was covered in blood because his nipples had been rubbed raw and had started to bleed.


The race was up near the South/ North Korean border. I took this picture from the bus. There are Korean soldiers in the hut and barb wire fenceline runs the entire length of the river. You know your close to North Korea when you start seeing that.


Near the start/ finish line at the stadium was this church with an enormous stemple. I just had to take a picture of it.


Well 13.1 miles and 1 hour: 39 minutes: 39 seconds later I crossed the finish line and got my medal. It was a fun run, even though it was sooooo hot. They handed out sponges soaked it water along the route to squeeze and help keep us cool as well as water tables every few miles. Afterwards they had massage tables set up for the runnrs to go get a massage. I never go to them though becaus ethe Koreans are rough. They like to squeeze hard and the massages always hurt. One guy was giving out what looked like milk to everyone. That was the last thing I wanted to drink after running, but he insisted. I took a sip of it and it was actually fermented rice. I don't know why the guy thought that liquer would make me feel bertter after running, but it was horrible.


After I got back I showered and Scott invited Maxwell and I over for dinner. He cooked up some pot roast and mashed potatoes, and we all sat around and played baseball on his playstation. Sherry sent me a message too but I didn't get it until after I got back. Sorry I missed you babe!