Day 5.366: Didn't we do well?

I had another run in the morning - less uncertainty about the route and surprise about the music, so I was able to focus on the running, which felt good. At breakfast I commented that at some point in the last few hours I'd relaxed - stopped worrying about the foreignness of everything and was just getting on with things.

After work today, we told our host that we would find some dinner on our own near the hotel. And so we did.

We ended up at a place with burners in the table and managed with the help of a Google translation of "beef" and some hand gestures, to get some meat to cook and a variety of other dishes (as ever!)

I also managed to put one of my few words of Korean to good use to get some beer!

Later, I used one of my other words to get some bowls of rice (along with some different side dishes and a bowl of crab soup) to finish the meal. We left full, well watered (after I got some more practice with that beer word) and feeling quite pleased with ourselves for having conquered a very Korean experience without adult supervision!

Day 5.365: Nice bag, but I gave it up...

I went for a run this morning. Well, it was part run, part investigation of routes, part discovery of the iciness of the pathways.

I eventually found myself on a nice walk/run/cycle path along the river. It was before dawn, so I appreciated the lights closely spaced along the path. More surprising was the piped music. The most surreal moment had me running along a river in a small city in South Korea in the dark with Free Electric Band playing out in all its early 70's glory!

As the sun came up, it looked like this (one of those black dots at the bottom is a large mammal - probably a coypu):

Later in the day we ended up with this:

Would you like to guess where we were and what we were doing?!

Day 5.364: Happy Birthday to me!

I'm not 103.

It was one of the strangest birthdays ever. I received the first greeting on Facebook just after it turned midnight here (I was sleeping) but many came though while I was sleeping again 24 hours later as the US woke to January 8th and UK folks were home from work.

The best greeting was the rendition of Happy Birthday delivered by the rest of the Exiles over Skype video call when I woke up (it was still dinner time on the previous night there). This I my only physical birthday gift received so far: a burger. As you can see the trend towards bigger and bigger servings hasn't occurred here like in the western world!

Day 5.363: Back to work

We got down to the business of the trip. Here I am in my business suit!

Day 5.362: Meanwhile back on Earth...

OK I am still on earth, in the second new city in two days and leaving this one very soon but it feels like at least a world away from home where things took a turn for the awesome during the weekend I missed!

Faced with the fact that they couldn't watch any Doctor Who (this is strictly a whole family activity by popular - or in this case unpopular - consensus), Exile #2 and our three elementary school aged kids created this out of the cardboard boxes left over from Christmas deliveries. One of the girls pointed out that it needs handles and Exile #2 is considering the thornier problem that it is smaller rather than larger on the inside but I can't get over what a resourceful family I have!