Day 5.361: The long non-night of the Seoul

We had a pretty good day in Seoul. We arrived in the city after the transfer from the airport around dawn. It was cold even by our standards and there was snow on the ground.

And so began our self-assigned mission to fill the day with enough stuff to allow us to stay awake until it was actually time to go to bed some 30 hours after we missed our last night in bed and 10 hours or so after we started missing the next one.

We had a full day. Here's one small episode. I went with one of the two colleagues who is here with me at the moment to a tiny cafe offering @"Coffee Wine Beer" with a handwritten sign with a mixture of English and Japanese- the English words were: "English" "Wi-fi" and "O.K."

We were really only swayed by "Coffee" and "O.K."

We had coffee and, for a body-clock-demanded snack, these dumplings. Then the lady single-handed serving, cooking and making drinks came over and talked to us, eventually pulling up a chair to chat. She is learning English (two years old at it) and was happy to have the chance to get some practice. She is learning from TV and email pen pals as far as we could gather and it's going rather well.

A very non business-travel encounter - hopefully there wi be more!

We managed to stay out until 6pm. I dozed while attempting to stay awake between then and 8pm then went to bed and slept until 6am. Mission accomplished!

Day 5.360: The IDL strikes

With some help from the International Date Line, I pretty much skipped Friday. I caught a plane at JFK just after midnight Thursday night and arrived in South Korea on Saturday morning. Only 14 hours had passed - quite long enough.

I did enjoy the Korean Air Bibimbap as ever!

Day 5.359: Cool and cold

E5N1 wanted to wear his shades this morning. Sun glare was the least of our issues as the temperature was below zero - actually something like -17 degC when we went out to wait for the bus.

This evening I am at the airport for a business trip. Expect the unexpected over the next few days. I am.

Day 5.358: Play your cards right!

We played quite a few games during our eleven day break.  Some of them even avoided any kind of electronic device.

This is from one of our new games: Man Bites Dog - in which the challenge is to make headlines from the cards you are dealt.  There's a scoring element, but mostly it's about making each other laugh.  This one:

did just that with images of Michelle Obama on a trapeze and a plummeting guy in a suit.

Over the last couple of days, we introduced the girls to one of the 'grown-up card games' of my youth, whist - we played a variation including a hand of no trumps - special preparation for the bridge playing days in their future.  They both did extremely well - grasping the principals and even a little card counting perhaps.  As ever, Exile #4 was fiercely competitive, winning both games, first partnered by me and then by Exile #2.

Day 5.357: Running (in the snow) into 2013

I went running yesterday morning - my last run of 2012.  It was cold, the snow was blowing, the snow banks were high and road surfaces and sidewalks were both only partially clear.

I decided to use the sidewalks to get to the park and run on the roadways in there.  At least I knew that there would be little traffic to bother me.  I wore my Yaktrax for traction and made some great footprints as a result:

Here is my running log totals week-by-week for 2012:

It misses out my January 1st half-marathon because of the way the weeks fell.  After that, I just kept running as well as I could through the winter.  The first big dip was a series of minor injuries.  After that I got back on track, ran a 5 mile race and then decided to start training for a marathon.  My first ramp up of miles was a dry-run.  It led up to our big road-trip to North Carolina which was the basically-no-mile week in the middle of the year.  The next two 'bumps' are the main cycle of marathon training followed by taper weeks and then the race.  Since then, I've been trying to get back to a steady 20 miles a week or so - weather permitting.  Last week was a bit slack - but hey it was Christmas!

So there it is, my first full calendar year of running.  I don't have specific plans for 2013, but I definitely plan to be running - holding onto my fitness gains and weight-loss achievements and probably challenging myself to go a bit faster along the way.