Asia Update #38 - Land Mines

Got out for another ride last weekend, but to a different area than the last set of photos. This was Namhan-sanseong, which means Namhan Mountain Fortress. There is a wall, with gates at various intervals, on the mountain ridge surrounding (protecting) a valley. This is much like the Pukansan (see update #35 for a photo of the wall and gate there) and Seoul itself (all the gates in Seoul that I've mentioned before were part of the wall which ringed Seoul).

Finally got a photo of myself riding. Team Wrong Way will be happy to see that I still wear the uniform, even though I don't race much with them any more.

While on the ride, I also got some pictures of the mine zone signs. Definitely smart to stay on the marked trails. This area is roughly the same as a national park in the States - hard to imagine anyone allowing the military to bury mines in Yosemite. Of course, Yosemite is a bit further away from its nearest enemy…

The full set of photos from my mountain bike adventures are on the web. More gory details than most would want to see, so I didn't put them directly into these updates. I do have a couple of animated GIF files (kind of like choppy video) of various people riding (the picture of me above is from one). If you do want to see them, they are athttp://www.singlespeed.org/koreamtb/koreaMTBphotos.htm. I'll probably remove the less looked-at ones in a few months to save disk space, but for now they are all there.

One question I get often is when I am returning to the States permanently. Good question. The answer could be 'now', 'August', or 'who knows', depending on your definition of returning permanently.

It could be 'Now', because from this point on I plan to be in the Bay Area about 2 weeks out of every month. I guess that means I am living there.

It could be 'August', because that is when my apartment lease expires in Korea. Whenever I am in Korea after then, I will be staying in hotels. So I guess that means that I won't be living in Korea then (not that I am really living here now, given that I travel so much and never got a resident visa).

It could be 'Who Knows', because I will be traveling a lot to Asia for the foreseeable future, until I change jobs to something with less travel. No plans to change jobs right now, and with all the international-related marketable skills I've gained, chances are a change (whether inside or outside of my company) would still involve travel.

So if the question is when I return to that hardcore mountain biker you all loved (or hated), then the answer continues to be who knows. Maybe never?

Asia Update #37 - Bangkok

Bangkok was awesome. Has so many amazing temples and the intricately decorated Grand Palace.

Amazing stuff. Everything is so intricate. Each figure or wall is made up of small gems, jewels, gold leaf, or pieces of metal. Huge buildings appear to be assembled one small fragment at a time. And there are so many buildings. Seemed to be temples on every corner. Lots of Buddhas all over the place. The Emerald Buddha was definitely cool, but I think the reclining Buddha at Wat Po was the most impressive (given that the Emerald Buddha was only a few feet tall, but the reclining Buddha was larger than two buses may have had something to do with it…).

One of the forms of transport in Thailand is the Tuk Tuk. They are basically 3 wheeled motorcycles. They got there name from the sound of the two cycle engines they often use. Kind of fun to ride in, but we did have some trouble when we rode in them when the driver would try to renegotiate the fare (it is negotiated up front) or to take us to some friend's store where we would be offered overpriced stuff (and the driver would undoubtedly get a kickback). Below is a picture with a couple of them, along with some standard cabs (which interestingly enough, are sometimes cheaper than the Tuk Tuks).

The locals generally used motorcycles for everything. Family car, taxi, pickup truck, etc. - all were jobs which we saw motorcycles used for in Thailand. Probably the most interesting to see was the family of 4 riding on a standard motorcycle (no sidecar or anything like that). We never did quite get the guts up to take a motorcycle taxi.

Just like the other areas of Thailand, prices here were very cheap. Food and souvenirs were very cheap, such that an American can eat like a king and still pay less than you would for cheap food in the States. And bargaining is normal, so you often find yourself bargaining for the last penny until you realize that it really doesn't make a difference. And we had a fun time trying to pack all the souvenirs and such which we bought.

I had heard that Bangkok night scene was the sleaziest of them all, but didn't get the opportunity to check it out (probably thankfully). We instead decided to go to the local Irish Pub/SCUBA center (interesting mix, eh?). We heard about the place on our dive trip in Pattaya - they also had some divers on the boat we were on.

Vacation's over. Time to go back to work. Bummer, eh? Definitely was a great time.

Asia Update #36 - Pattaya

After a few days in Korea, we headed south to Thailand. The plan is to spend a few days on the beach at Pattaya and then a few more days checking out the culture of Bangkok.

On the first full day, we did some souvenir shopping and headed to a crocodile farm. On the way, there was a field with some elephants in it. Quite neat to see them wandering about and eating (though they were probably part of the crocodile farm, but it sure seemed like they were in the wild).

Along with lots of crocodiles and crocodile shows, the croc farm also had lots of other animals. Various beautiful birds, elephants you could feed, crocodiles you could feed, and even the chance to be photographed with a few animals…

Next day was my day to complete my SCUBA open water certifications (which I started last fall at Phuket). Conditions (especially visibility) were not quite as good as at Phuket, but it was still fun. An added benefit was that along with my certification dives, I also got to do an extra dive to a wreck of a US warship from the 1920's. Quite cool.

Last day was sailing day. We rented a 31 foot catamaran (just the two of us, along with a skipper and hostess) to take us around for the whole day. Sailed for a few hours to 'monkey' island, where we stopped and hiked a while and got to see many monkeys. Then headed to a remote beach for some walking on the beach and snorkeling. Below is a picture of the sailboat we had, along with the dingy we used to get to shore.

Obviously, this was from monkey island and that guy was checking out our dingy for any food we may have left behind (as soon as we landed, one came and tried to steal our backpack from us).

Pattaya has a sleezy night scene, much like what I saw in Phuket. Bars, bar girls, Thai boxing shows, snake shows, cheap souvenirs, etc. were all available. And the strengthening of the dollar has also made things even cheaper than when I was last in Thailand. We hit the souvenir shops and have loaded up with just a few goodies (enough to require that we use one more bag to leave here than we came with, and we likely will do more shopping in Bangkok).

Asia Update #35 - A visitor from the States

Here is the first of three which I will be uploading at about the same time. Sorry about the delay in publishing updates. My ladyfriend is visiting, and we both took a two week vacation. Split the time between Korea and Thailand. Well needed vacation for both of us - we had a great time.

The day after she arrived, we entered what we were told was a half marathon. She's a runner and has done a couple of full marathons, so we figured that she could handle this half-marathon, even with jet lag. Well, it wasn't quite what we expected.

To start with, the English words on the sign said nothing about marathon. Or even about a running race. They called it a 'climbathon', which turned out to be quite appropriate. It was on hiking trails that were quite steep. Not quite rock climbing, but it seemed close. There were many areas where you had to use your hands to help you climb up. The descents were no better. Very steep. We took it relatively easy on them, but the Koreans didn't. They seem to have this no fear attitude about descending. Saw a few knee injuries. To add to this, the race was pretty much unsupported. No food or drink given out on the course, even though most took 3 or more hours to finish. And the course wasn't closed to outsiders, so we were often running around groups of hikers. The picture below was from Pukansan (where the race was) and is an example of some of the less severe areas of the course.

Spent the next few days sightseeing and shopping. We must have looked pretty sad as we were constantly limping and had trouble climbing stairs due to having strained our quads and calves in the race.

Tuesday (May 1) was the celebration of Buddha's birthday. May Day is also considered labor day in many countries, including Korea. Daewoo Motor workers took this is an opportunity to protest recent layoffs and the potential sale to General Motors. Our first indication that this was going on was when we exited out from the subway at my local train station to find scores of riot police waiting all lined up on the sides.

Returned to the area later to meet some friends for dinner, and found the police were out in even greater force. We crossed the street using the subway underpass, and when returning to our side, had the police move from being lined up at the side to blocking the entire entrance. They did let us through, but did stop a group of what looked like college students. In the end, they did let these folks through and nothing happened, but it was still surprising. Below is a picture of the underpass we came through and the police blocking the passage.

The papers the next day reported that there were some 25,000 protesters and some 15,000 police. The protests were still close to a half mile away, so I can't confirm their numbers. But based on the hundreds (maybe more than a thousand) of police officers I saw where we were at, I think the police head count is quite likely to be true.

With so many police around, there were plenty of opportunities to take pictures of the police. After a little hesitancy because of all the signs in other areas of the country saying that you can't take pictures, I finally figured out that there wouldn't be any problems taking pictures of the police, or even with the police…

Didn't quite get up the guts to ask one to let me wear his helmet and hold his shield…

Ok, you've heard me mention about my 'lady friend' a few times, yet I've never shown a picture. Well, here is the first one for you… She is reading the sign at one of the gates to the Pukansan Mountain Fortress. The race took us through a few of these gates, but their significance and history was lost on us as we were just trying to survive the event.

I know - the photo is not the best in regards to seeing what she looks like. Maybe I'll show you more of her in a later update…