In an effort to not rub this in everyone’s face (send all hate mail and negative comments to someone who deserves it, maybe the class suck up..I even have some in my online classes), I’ll keep the details of our vacation brief and uneventful.  But, be assured that our trip was neither uneventful or dull.  I’m not even sure how we pulled this one off, but we did, and we ended up spending 5 awesome days in Thailand, specifically Phuket and Ao Nang. We didn’t even book our flight to Thailand until we arrived in Kuala Lumpur…got the ticket for an early departure the next day, then we headed to our hotel in KL to try and book hotel rooms for the next 5 days.  I think I’m getting pretty good at this last minute holiday booking stuff, it’s frustrating as hell trying to get it done but once you arrive it’s well worth the hassle. This trip was the make-up for the 5 months we toiled out in Jiao Kou River Town, although if it was a true make-up then we’d spend at least a month in Thailand, but I’m not complaining one bit! I’ll post a few pics of the trip in the blog and I’ll move onto more regular banterand let the face rubbing cease with the pics.

So, right now we’re sitting in Melaka, Malaysia (half way between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore) getting ready for about a 6 week job, but I hope it’s longer!  I’d like to enjoy another winter in 90 degree weather and miss out on the blistering cold of Chicago which I’ve, up to now, have missed three in a row.  There seems to be some nice things to do around here, but I’ve yet to make it out into the city and roam around like a stray dog. Perhaps I’ll make it out in a few hours and see what’s up around here, maybe see if I can make it out towards the sea (most refineries are on the coast so we’re usually near the water). There is a chance, that if I can find some binoculars, that I can see the island if Sumatra, Indonesia from the roof of our hotel. Melaka is located on a fairly narrow straight that divides Indonesia from the Malaysian penisula.

I have to start getting ready for my Advanced Seminar class which is the final GIANT project needed to graduate with your MPA so even though most people are off for a few weeks, I’ll have to start thinking about and preparing for this project. I guess the semester has ended and this might be our last blog for the year.  I’m sure everyone will miss the random stories I present, well, maybe my mom will.  You can always count on moms to give awesome feedback; however, I did receive some funny, random comments throughout the semester.  Anyways, congrats to everyone on finishing up the semester, now you’re one step closer to graduation and that job with the CIA you always wanted!

So a lot has happened over the past week or so.  Thanksgiving came and went and I just officially finished my last paper five minutes ago. (cracking open a Miller High Life as we speak) The only thing I have left to do is to read and comment on fellow student’s paper next week and I’m done.  My other class finished early so I don’t have to worry about that anymore.  It’s a good way to wind down the semester which is usually not the norm.  Usually I finish up with both of my classes on a big paper or final exam on the final week.  I think I like this method a little better.

As far as my location goes, a timely explosion has rewarded us with a release from that hellish compound we were living in.  Sometime last Friday the refinery was lighting a heater, a really big one, and it exploded.  Since it would take about one month to fix they told my wife to leave, so here we are…relaxing in Taipei.  My wife just found out this morning that we are now heading ……BACK TO CHINA!!!   After her boss even told her that “since I’m sure you’re tired of China by now we’ll see what else is open” right before we left for Taiwan so I was a bit shocked, especially since there was another job in Malaysia starting at exactly the same time.  OH well, what can you do? I think we’re flying to Hong Kong tomorrow to get our Chinese Visa before we either take a few days of vacation or head to Beijing to prep for the next job. The only good news about the new assignment is that it’s right outside Shanghai, so it’s not remote and it makes getting out of there a lot easier.  I guess we’ll be spending another Christmas in China, but hopefully the job won’t take that long.

As far as the past few days have been it’s been nice getting to relax in Taipei.  We even took the opportunity to watch a movie in a theater, which we haven’t done in over a year.  We played some arcade games and won a few prizes, none of which are worth mentioning, and we’ve visited some unique restaurants which finally served me a piece of sushi that I enjoyed.  Perhaps it was just the wasabi that masked the flavor of raw fish that made it enjoyable.

I guess everyone has seen the Tiger Woods debacle on TV and ESPN all week.  It’s almost as bad as those two media whores that crashed the White House dinner last week.  I hate when the media picks up on a story that doesn’t have anything to do with useful news and they play it constantly, over and over and over again until I can memorize the quotes used by one of Tiger’s skanky tramps who are trying to get their 15 minutes of fame as well.

OK,time for me to sign off, just had to rant a little on CNN (because that’s what i’m watching now) and their portrayal of “news” and the redundancy that goes along with it.  Hope everyone wraps up the semester on a good note and good luck with any tests or projects that have to be finished up in the final week!

With that being said, I have to mention that this week is technically “Fall Break” for the University of Co, but as it just so happens, taking online classes really doesn’t provide you with any breaks.  Sure, I could take the week off and not do anything, but that doesn’t help out the deadline of my paper, which I’m struggling to find the motivation to do. I guess since taking online classes allows me ample opportunity to explore a lot of different locations while traveling, it also forces you to be self motivated in order to get everything accomplished on time.  Fortunately I’ve never had a problem with getting my school work done, but since this is my last semester of classes before my capstone class, I seem to be running on fumes.  I need to recharge my batteries before my final hurdle to graduation…If I could fine some turkey for Thanksgiving, that might just be the ticket for finishing off the semester.

I’m guessing this Thanksgiving, compared to last years, will be a little disappointing.  Last year we were in India and, granted they don’t celebrate Thanksgiving, they did provide a turkey meal out by the pool which satisfied my craving for a “traditional” Thanksgiving meal.  Nope, this year I’m expecting my wife to be working away at the refinery and I’m going to enjoy a nice can of tuna fish and maybe some prawn flavored potato chips.  Oh well, not much we can do about it except for trying to get out of here ASAP.

So, the only thing even relatively interesting to happen this past week was our trip into town where we mistakingly thought that we’d find some good food.  Apparently, the Taiwanese think that all American’s like Fried Chicken.  While I don’t dislike it, I just think it’s funny that they stereotype all of us based on one food; however, it’s not like we don’t think that all Asians enjoy rice at every meal. Like Dave Chappelle has said before, “We have stereotypes for a reason” (and if he didn’t say it, then I did)…I mean come on, what would Rick James think about this?  We walked into a typical “Taiwanese” hot pot restaurant and the first thing the young lady said, who spoke pretty good English, was “They serve fried chicken across the street”.  I couldn’t help but laugh and make a rude comment that’s not acceptable to post on here.  Believe it or not, as determined as I was to find something decent to eat, we ended up across the street, eating fried chicken, all the while I stared across the street at this young lady thinking to myself “it’s a good thing you know martial arts, because I wouldn’t normally stand for this.”

Other than another encounter with stereotypes, I haven’t had too much fun around here.  I’ve been doing some workouts on the 1980’s style home gym and trying to not flip out when the fire alarm starts going off, it’s gone off twice today already.  Hopefully everyone has a nice Thanksgiving and a good encounter with a Turkey and some Triptophan, maybe take back a few beers and watch the Lions loose another game.

Click Here Now…Just to Get Ready For Thanksgiving!!!

So far it’s pretty boring in this compound, but that just gives me more time to focus on my research paper right? And, since the refinery doesn’t want to pay a lot of money for my wife to be here they’re already pressing her to work overtime in order to get out of here faster, including a suggestion of her pulling a 24hr shift.  Fortunately, that’s against her company’s policies and, against the assumption that these refinery managers have any common sense.  As you might recall from my last blog, if anyone actually read it, we  got a hurried wake up call in Chicago because the refinery wanted us in Taiwan ASAP, but wouldn’t you know it, we get here and they weren’t even ready for my wife to begin work. She came home from work two days in a row around 1pm because they weren’t ready, and then they gave her the weekend off so they could fix things.

A free weekend, what shall we do (good thing I’m not in Tiajuana orAmsterdam)!  She came home and we instantly decided to go to Taipei, about 3.5hrs away by bus.  The funny thing is that by this point in our travels we’re completely comfortable with pulling off unscripted weekend trips at a moments notice and not even be able to communicate one word to anyone until we arrive at our destination.  We hailed a taxi who knew, via our front desk staff, to take us to a bus stop, a very small bust stop, and drop us off.  We bought a ticket by only being able to say “Taipei” and 4hrs later we got dropped off somewhere in Taipei.  We hail another cab, point to the hotel address, just in case they can read English, but usually they can’t, then they just call the hotel phone number who gives them directions.  Bam…next thing you know we’re checking into the hotel and looking up directions to the Outback Steakhouse.  (Still waiting on that endorsement check Outback!)

Believe it or not Taipei is a very nice city.  Our hotel had great rooms, extremely helpful and competent staff, (unlike China) and a great breakfast, which is usually not the norm.     But, there is not that much to do or see inside the city, except for Taipei 101, the world’s tallest building. (From this picture it appears as though someone is over-compensating for something) It’s the tallest until this new building in Dubai is commissioned in the next year or so.  We found a few temples and night markets to hit up but nothing was really unique.  Apparently there are a lot of things to do, (outdoor, adventure, sightseeing) outside of the city but we didn’t feel like taking a cab out into the middle of nowhere with no real plan on how to get back.  I’m sure that would have provided for an interesting trip

Other than the nice weekend in Taipei, nothing new is going on here.  I’m working away on school work and trying to get this semester wound down.  I registered for my final class, our Advanced Seminar class and my last hurdle to graduation so I’m excited to get that underway.  Also, since next week is Thanksgiving I’m wondering what we’re going to do for the holiday.  If it’s anything like other holidays we’ve spent overseas it’ll just be another day that resembles all the rest; however, I think we might be able to find some duck to substitute for the Turkey and play the Adam Sandler Turkey song.

Now that you’ve read the article I guess I’ll explain the title.  When we got off on one of the main stops in the Taipei Metro I saw a sign that said “Brest Feeding Room” and it was off to the left.  I guess people have the need to breast feed in a subway so they made a room for it.  I’d rather ladies hang a left into the room instead of pulling out a mammary and providing lunch on the train, it doesn’t take much to burn an image into my mind that has the potential to haunt me for years to come.

We flew back into Chicago on Sunday and I tried to get some rest, but as things should have it, our rest was short lived.  Originally we were supposed to leave for Taiwan once the agreement was signed, but the agreement was never signed and our tickets had yet to be issued.  Well, we got a phone call early Tuesday morning, around 7:00am, telling us that the customer wanted us in Taiwan ASAP, and asked if we could be on a plane the same day at noon.  That phone call set a spark under our tails because we had to finish packing, go get a Typhoid shot, return the rental car and head to the international terminal.  We finally made it and here I am, again, 35,000ft above the pacific ocean heading to Tokyo for a connecting flight to Taipei.

I could spend this time ranting on how much I hate flying economy on long flights, but that would just make me sound like a pompous ass.  But, the truth is, once you fly in business or first class on an international flight of 8hrs or more, then flying coach on a 12.5hr flight is enough to drive you nuts.  I tried to upgrade using my miles, but the airline makes it so bloody difficult that I question the reason I even accumulate them.  Now, I’m sitting next to some Talky McTalkerson (remember who coined this phrase!) who keeps putting his feet up on the bulkhead in front of us.  If any of you find the need to do that on a long flight, or any flight, make sure you’re socks match.  Oh well, can’t do anything about it now, guess I need to suck it up and fight the urge to give someone the Roadhouse (see this past weeks episode of Family Guy) while sitting in my tiny seat not being able to sleep.

Apparently we’re heading to a small town in Taiwan that might resemble the small rural town we were stuck in in China; however, we are within driving distance of Taipei, the capital, so we can make an escape if needed.  I am also a little scared because we’ll be staying in a refinery compound, which means, there is not sh!t to do there.  Consequently my wife e-mailed some colleagues that have been to this location before and found out that it’s not nearly as bad as good ol’ Jiou Kou River Town in BFE China…we all know how much I enjoyed that place.  I think there may be some food to eat and a small grocery store to hit up for extra supplied if needed.  At least this assignment is only scheduled for three weeks, but I know how that goes.  If you’r in a crappy location, the assignments last forever, but if you get sent somewhere nice, they go by faster.  Kharma is a bitch.  I should have fed those sacred cows a little more when I was in India.

I’ll have to apologize for the lack of pictures; although, I’m going to post one pic from last week at the Goat Bar that best represents my mood right now (see below).  I’m going to post this while I’m sitting in the Tokyo airport waiting for our connection.  Since my camera cords are in my checked luggage I couldn’t get any recent pictures onto my computer to upload, but that may be good for you.  Just imagine the person sitting immediately to the left of you, regardless of the sex of the person, and pretend they have messed up hair, blood shot eyes, and a pissed off snarl of a look on their face; it may very well resemble some of your co-workers, but that’s what I look like now.  Poor Sancho doesn’t feel any better himself and he actually started barking at the Japanese security screener when we went through security a few minutes ago.  DOWN BOY!!

AHHHHHH Another Loud Talker is Standing RIGHT BESIDE ME….it’s 3:15am in Chicago and my last nerve was severed when I figured out the air conditioning is non existent in this airport.

I noticed on the news that Colorado was getting pounded with snow last week and I thought it was great, but then again, I didn’t have to drive in it.  I did notice that the university was closed on Thursday and I thought how great it must be to have a snow day.  Since I’m doing my classes online the poor weather doesn’t provide a good enough excuse to have a day off.  Although, I’ve been getting my work done, I do have to say I have a class this semester that is being administered very poorly by the professor. For the third time this semester he has not published the work for us to do.  The readings are published but he fails to open the classwork links and the entire class sends e-mails wondering when we’ll be able to access it.  Of course, as uninvolved as he is, he doesn’t respond until Friday where he tells us that he’ll give us another week to complete the work, while he reduces the amount of work for future weeks.  Sure that’s all great and all, but I still don’t want to have to do more work than usual on any given week, especially since I’m traveling and have a research paper to do. But, enough about my slack professor and on to my Texas trip.

All in all, Texas, from what I got to see, was really cool.  I got to visit the place in Dallas where President Kennedy was assassinated and I got to visit the historic stockyards in Fort Worth, where I got to ride a longhorn.  We took the nephew trick-or-treating and watched the Texas OSU game on TV.  My brother-in-law is an alum of Texas so we were decked out in the burnt orange while our nephew yelled “hook-em.”   As you know, everything in Texas is big, including the BBQ ribs we had…awesome, but apparently there are an astounding number of loud-talkers here, and I know you guys know what a loud-talker is.  They’re those people who get on a cell phone, or start a conversation with their neighbor, and you can hear their entire conversation from across a large room.  Apparently in Texas, you find loud talkers that are so loud you can hear them from across the new Dallas Cowboys arena.  I heard an entire conversation from some guy, more than 25ft away with a football game on TV, about his ailing parents and how to trick them into taking walks; it involved a “boom-box” (FYI, the 1980’s called and they want their lingo back), and some inappropriate information on geriatric digestion.  WOW…I don’t know why people talk this loud, maybe they think people give a sh!t, but trust me…I don’t, and when it comes to the digestion patterns of someone else’s parents, I don’t think many other people care as well.  Be warned Loud-Talkers, and you know who you are…just STOP IT, NOBODY CARES!

So, here I am, again, about 35,000ft above Mississippi, heading to NC to visit some friends and family.  Before we head to VA we plan on stopping in Raleigh, NC, our old home, and visiting some friends at our old favorite bar, The Goat Bar.  It’s by far the coolest bar in NC and on Sunday evening’s they have “mystery beer” night, where they reach in a huge tub and pull out several leftover and mix-n-matched beers for only a buck.  It sure beats the $5 bottles in Chicago.  Rest-assured, I’ll have to post this on Mon, so I can place a pic or two of us at “The Goat” and I’ll definitely have a mystery beer…or five, for you guys….Cheers!

The highlight of this assignment was seeing the beautiful beaches of Sardinia, but we only got to see that because my wife got most of one day off in two weeks, so we made it count and found some remote beaches that were truly amazing.  Since the project went faster than expected, we flew to Rome to await our next assignment.  Now, I’m not going to use any names, but one of my wife’s managers doesn’t seem to enjoy checking their e-mail and responding in a timely manner.  Well, his lackluster job of responding to e-mails only gave us a reason to hang out in Rome for three days, with most of it paid for by somebody else…no complaints here. Anyways, as you might imagine, Rome is awesome, minus the fact that it’s more expensive than a weekend binder in Vegas, excluding that side trip to the Bunny Ranch of course.  And yes, you say it’s Europe and everything is expensive, which is true, but compared to Athens, Greece, Rome is at least twice as expensive, if not more.  Rome has turned into a giant tourist trap, but a really nice tourist trap, unlike Cairo.  If you have the opportunity to go, then by all means, do so.  Seeing the Colosseum and Vatican City were awesome and well worth the hassle, but just be wary of restaurant owners tacking on hidden fees, we ended up with a $75 lunch near St. Peter’s Basilica, and people trying to get you to buy all sorts of cheap tourist souvenirs.

Other than that, I thoroughly enjoyed the trip, except for the getting lost part, which happens all too often with me.  Usually getting lost provides an opportunity to find and experience some unique things off the beaten tourist path; however, in my case it usually ends up in a back alley or dead end street in the worst of neighborhoods late at night where sketchy guys in a van offer you a ride to your hotel…(key the ice cream music).  Apart from that, I’m ready to get home to enjoy some true Mexican food.  We found a Mexican restaurant in Rome that we thought would be nice to stop in have a beer and some nachos.  How in the world can anyone screw up nachos?  It almost seems impossible and it should be punishable by public floggings, but that restaurant sure did a fantastic job of messing up one of the easiest things to make. So, I’m about 3 ½ hrs from landing in Chicago, I haven’t been able to sleep at all on our flights home (Rome-Frankfurt-Chicago), and since we forgot about daylight savings time and woke up at 3:15am instead of 4:15, I’m going to be running on fumes and looking like a zombie; just another reason to justify an immigration inspection.  

Other than that, I could provide some funny stories of things and people we saw the past two weeks, but I don’t have the time and I’m sure you don’t have the sanity to read much more.  School has been progressing, and to be quite honest, I think I have a bit of senioritis kicking in.  I’m ready to finish off these classes and be done, but I have to get focused and plow through it, it doesn’t help that my adult ADD makes it more difficult, and I don’t think trying to get out of a paper using the Jedi mind trick on my professor will work…this time. 

As an update to my previous post about the sneaky ninja spider, I killed the thing, with my shoe, and with me wearing all the necessary safety instruments.  The only thing left was a shoe print on the ceiling, and a grand feeling of satisfaction, until the next one showed up an hour later…Round 2.

The bonus part is that we’re not in China or India, so the food is basically awesome. My wife has been here before, but to the mainland and traveled all throughout northern Italy.  Her comparison of the food thus far has our circumstance rating below her previous encounters; but my take on it is that whatever we eat here, it sure beats pigs’ feet and beef lungs covered in traditional “Chinese Herbs.” 

Regardless of our TINY hotel room, the even smaller gym, and my inability to head into the city except via taxi (€15), we’ve had a decent week so far.  My wife gets home, and unlike the Chinese, the Italians eat late, much like the Indians, so our “feeding time” has changed a bit.  We now just stroll around the city for a bout 30min before we start looking for a restaurant, which usually opens at 7:30pm, at the earliest.  Now once dinner is over, its time for one of my favorite things in life…Ice Cream!  My wife has exposed me to “Gelato” before, when we we’re in Greece, and it was amazing.  Fortunately for us, they have “Gelaterias” on every single corner. Gelato is basically whole milk/fat/cream etc. that makes ice cream so awesome, and a slight (rather HUGE) difference from the “non-fat, non-sugar” stuff we’re used to in the states.

I know that since I put one of my favorite “things in life” parts in this blog, I must reveal my most devilish fears.  I HATE, and am SCARED SH!$less of Spiders…long childhood story which can’t be detailed, or exposed, without the fear of certain humiliation.  The point is, you can’t trust them, and as a matter of fact there is one on the ceiling just above me, probably trying to look into my soul and read my mind, (thankfully I have my aluminum foil helmet on). I’d normally try to kill the thing, but when they’re positioned on the ceiling within 3-4 inches of the ceiling/wall corner then when you go for the hit, they only fall on you, which instinctively triggers my fight or flight response…I faint!!  So, I know this guy’s game…I’ll wait him out, just like he’s doing me right now.  Once he moves out of the “no shoe zone” I have a size 15 Nike with his name ALL OVER IT.  Granted, my size 15 may be the reason there is a 3-4 inch “no strike” zone but that’s not the issue here; the issue is that the dirty little prick will try too attack me before I can find an alternative solution (yeah, I’ve read the “Art of War”) and I know what he’s trying to do, therefore I anticipate…….with a hairspray can.

 My apologies for the random verbal vomit on my spider issue.  I do need to mention my unexpected trip up the coast today to Villasimus and Costa Rei.  My wife had to go in this morning for her 7^th day in a row (pulling that 70hr work week again), but the other managers didn’t show, but instead decided to sleep in, AND  NOT call my wife.  She shows up, nobody’s around and finds out that there had been a problem the night before.  A phone call would have been nice!  Regardless, this gave us the opportunity to take a day trip and see some of the amazing beaches that Sardinia has to offer.  We found about 5 beaches, hiked down a cliff to one, and drove up to others.  It was an amazing day, minus the fact they called my wife into work at 4pm.  We saw some great sights, had some more great food and thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity we had to see the scenery and countryside of Sardinia.

Now, I’m trying to get NFL highlights on the computer, and having our slingbox located in Greensboro, NC only gives us the 2 WORST games in the NFL, Carolina vs. Tampa and Kansas City vs. Washington…wow, why not watch figure skating, it’s has just as much talent.

I’ll keep you guys posted on the “Mussolini Spider” situation; chances are I have to revert to some sort of chemical warfare!

            So after we got the go ahead to come home I began to plan on how to surprise my parents; they still thought we were in China.  Another phone call came in with some even better news.  We we’re NOT heading back to China for the next assignment, but heading to Italy, specifically Cagliari on the island of Sardinia.  Of course, that just made up for the 5 months I spent wishing myself out of China and into a hallucinogenic dream world so I could forget the daily irritations and potential aneurisms I knew were coming (I can feel the BP and stress dropping).  So not only are we going to a good location but I get to sneak into NC and visit my family.  Unfortunately my wife had to stay in Chicago for the week to prepare for the next job, but her mom flew up and spent the week with her.  I flew into Raleigh, had my good friend pick me up and we headed to Carolina beach where my dad and brother were fishing.  I knocked on their door and the surprised look they had was priceless, especially considering I just talked to them two days ago from the other side of the planet.  We did some fishing, had some Miller High Life, and wished I had my surf board there b/c the water temp and waves were awesome.  I then proceeded to head home to give my mom the same surprise; she looked like she just saw a ghost.  I had actually called her that morning just to say hi and told her I was still in China, so it was a big shock, probably not one you should give your _9yr old mother. (Yeah I left the first number blank b/c I don’t want to get a phone call from mom tomorrow) Anyways, I spent the week relaxing, catching up on sleep, and doing school work in between kicking the soccer ball around with my niece and nephew.  I don’t know what age you transition from soccer to rugby…but I hope it’s soon.

            I flew back to Chicago Saturday, grabbed some more great American food and then started packing.  We left Chicago on Sunday evening for Italy.  It took forever considering we had two layovers in Munich and Rome, and then when we arrived they had lost two of our four bags.  Fortunately, we got them back late last night and now it’s back to the routine of school work, exercise, and some hopeful sightseeing in between, granted I minimize my uncanny ability to get lost using the simplest of directions. (I’ll keep you posted on that)  So far, this place looks promising and exciting.  Even though this assignment is only 2-3 weeks, I’ll try to take in as much sights and food as possible, because there’s always that very promising option of heading back to China.  I’m just glad I’m doing my MPA online b/c there is no way I’d be able to do it any other way considering we always make travel plans at the last minute and having never been to Colorado, I’m sure I’d get lost there as well.

            Since this was supposed to be an “in and out” trip (we were supposed to arrive Sunday around 1:20pm then fly back Monday morning at 9:20am), we didn’t pack anything except my book bag, with laptop, change of clothes, and my wife’s purse.  We leave Jiao Kou River town Sat. evening on a 3hr trip to Xi’an (closest airport).  We arrive, walk to get some McDonald’s—it’s amazing how good a McDonalds burger is after so much time out in the middle of nowhere,  then get some bootleg DVD’s (got to love these things).   We wake up the next morning at 5:30am, get ready, check-out of the hotel, actually found a taxi (sometimes difficult in Xi’an), and made it to the airport with plenty of time,….everything is going great.

            Here’s where the trip starts going wrong.  We board the plane, and we sit on the tarmac for one hour because of “air traffic”…isn’t that what air traffic controllers are for?   (Hence the name.)  Controllers….control the air traffic, it’s your job! The problem is really China’s market for airlines—it’s constantly growing, and I couldn’t even count the number of airlines they have and routes they fly.  Xi’an is a fairly big city, but the airport only has one runway and waaaay too many flights coming into and out of it.  So, that fun little delay got us to our connection exactly 5 minutes before departure.  Needless to say we missed our connecting flight, for more reasons that I care to explain right now.  We had to call our emergency travel services—of course, after a long argument with Korean Air staff—and schedule the next flight out, obviously tacking on lots of fees .  Fortunately, there was another flight to Seoul from Yantai (located on the coast and only 45 minutes from Seoul) 3 hrs later.  We booked the flight, had a few beers, waited, then got on our way to Seoul.

            We arrive in Seoul, very tired and a little pissed off, then we have to take a 1-hr bus ride to our hotel. We decide to get some Domino’s Pizza…tastes like you were eating the wings of an angel it was so good. We decide that since it’s already 8pm to just hit up some bars, and see what’s going on in the night life of Seoul.  We hit up the second bar, called the Beer Garden.  We figure it can’t be a bad place with a name like that.  Once we arrived, we ordered the 3L pitcher of beer to share and sat back to chat.  10 minutes into our relaxation, we noticed a drunk guy stumbling around trying to say something to us. Needless to say he was tossed out, and the picture is the result of the toss.  This guy was out like the Cubs in the playoffs. Eventually the cops and paramedics came to take him away…hate know what his hangover feels like the next day.

            So, in an effort to liven our spirits, I decide to take my wife to Itaewon, a district near the U.S. military base in Seoul, which is actually pretty close to downtown.  I’ve been to Seoul before and knew that if any place would be lively on a Sunday night, it would be this place.  We arrive, hit up the first bar a GI recommends, and it’s only got about 10-12 people hanging out.  We sit in, have a beer and see two guys having a blast, just “actin a fool” (as my friend G. Paige would say).  Somehow one of them comes to talk to us, then both, and we find out they’re Marines stationed at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul; one of them serves on a “special” detail and has diplomatic credentials (a.k.a. diplomatic immunity).  Believe it or not, I check out his ID and sure enough it’s legit—he travels with the Ambassador and has actually served on some important U.S. government personnel’s security detail (our previous and current Secretary of State).  Both are young, served a tour in Iraq, and are obviously out for a good night. Since both my wife and I have family members that were in the military, we bought them a round and made friends for the night.  We left to see what else was happening nearby.  We arrive at our new location, we have some drinks, shoot some pool, talk for a long time and then the night starts heading south.

            I’ll skip the long details but it involved some pool, a few rounds of beer, and the son of the Irish Ambassador to Korea and his two body guards.  Yadda, Yadda, Yadda, you can see where this goes, so I excuse myself from anything and everyone within 50ft of those shenanigans. I know finding yourself in a situation where two people are in some way involved with a foreign diplomatic embassy sounds like BS…but its ALL real, just ask Sancho, he was there). 

            We leave the bar and find a street vendor outside selling what appears to be souvlaki, maybe Chicken, who knows. (FYI, eating street food that you can’t identify is NOT a good idea)  I grab one and we hail a cab.  We make it back to the hotel, get into our room and I make a call for a 5:30am wake-up call.  And, as you would guess, the wake-up call never comes and we oversleep. So, again, we have to call the emergency travel services, book the same flight for Tuesday, take on the same fees and charges, and then my wife has to call the refinery and tell them what happened.  In the end, I guess it was a blessing since I believe the street vendor food we got made my wife sick.  She spent the entire day in the bed and the bathroom regurgitating anything that she tried to eat or drink.  How bad would that have been on a plane?

            We spend the entire day inside and we rest up, minus my excursion to Outback Steakhouse, making sure to set three alarms for the next morning.  We get up, do the bus thing, check in, and head back to Xi’an.  When we arrive of course we have to sit on the plane because the Chinese gov’t has to check us for swine flu, and that takes another 30 minutes.  We hop off, go through customs, meet our driver…and then we find an English note on the back of his sign that states “please wait, picking up another passenger”. We had to wait another hour and a half for this German engineer to get there.  Finally we loaded up and headed off for another 3hrs trip with another crazy driver. And, here we are, back in Jiao Kou River Town for more fun and excitement!!