Tuesday, January 29, 2008

The Printer in Seoul

My boss Dan and I spent the day at our printer. We were suppose to start press checking--or more accurately, color checking--our print project, a nurse book for a hospital, at 10 am. Due to some mix ups, we didn't get started until 3 pm.

The place was amazingly similar to any other American printer. They had some old equipment and they had some new equipment. They seemed professional and dedicated. Their printing plants were older buildings, but very clean. The only thing that seemed less than perfect was the guest quarters.



The press check ran until about 4 am, so it was a long day. But after 18 hours, our project was done. We took a cab back to the hotel to sleep a few hours...

Monday, January 28, 2008

The Seoul Subway

After our Sunday morning meeting with Jake, our customer service rep from the printing plant, Dan and I decided to see some sights. We had done the thirteen hour flight with little or no sleep and hoped to extend that throughout the rest of the day so we could better adjust to Korean time, waiting for night before sleeping again.


We survived the first day without getting arrested, but it wasn’t for a lack of trying. We discovered the Seoul subway system and decided to find the city’s key tourist sight, the Gyeongbokgung Palace. The subway system here is very extensive and for a tourist, a cheap way to get around and see how the average person lives and commutes.

There are over twenty-one million people in and around Seoul, making it the second largest metropolitan area in the world. Imagine a city seven times larger than the entire Phoenix metropolitan area. Dan said that when he gets home, he will never complain about traffic again (or for that matter, two and a half hour flights back and forth to the Midwest). Getting around Seoul isn’t that bad, as long as you don’t have a problem with crowds. And since I was born and raised in a town of 747 people, it is hard for me to be around this many people without being extremely aware of it. The subway was standing room only on a Sunday afternoon. We couldn’t imagine what it would be like during the work week.

I am pretty fluent in speaking Chinese, well, as long as the conversation doesn’t go beyond, “Hello”, “Goodbye”, or “I am an American and I don’t speak Chinese.” And Dan can give an incredibly convincing “Hello” in Japanese, but, unfortunately for us, people in Seoul speak Korean. So we were forced to navigate our way around by pointing at a map, handing over 10,000 won, and then hoping that was enough for the subway tickets and that the guy was pointing us in the right direction.

Generally, it is not that difficult to find someone who speaks English. (In fact, I recently read that South Korea plans to teach all children’s educational courses in English by 2010.) It is just that you can never seem to find an English-speaking Korean when you want to ask if what you are about to do is illegal or not.


We purchased our subway tickets, found the right subway going the right direction, made a transfer to another subway without too much difficulty, then arrived to the Gyeongbokgung Palace. I slipped my ticket into the out-going door, the gate opened and I exited. Dan put his ticket in the slot, his door buzzed and the gate remained locked. We looked around, not quite sure what to do. Dan tried again. It failed again. I told him to jump over the gate like they do in the movies. Dan pointed out that there were security cameras and that me bailing him out of jail would not be the best way to start this trip. (It would have made for a great blog entry though.) Finally, Dan was saved when an attractive young lady pointed out an emergency exit several gates down.

Having been to the Forbidden City in Beijing, China a couple of times, I looked forward to seeing the Gyeongbokgung Palace. They are incredibly similar in design and layout, except that, unlike the Forbidden City, this one doesn’t have a Starbucks in the center of it. We enjoyed an hour long tour and a quick stop into the National Palace Museum next door.

We took a different way back on the subway, getting off once to wonder through some neighborhoods just to get a feel for the city. Then, after arriving to the stop by our hotel, we ran into the same problem trying to exit, only this time it was both of us and there was no emergency exit to bail us out. Finally, with some coaxing from an older gentleman signaling for us to crawl under the gate, we made our escape, scrambling up the subway stairs. Then, like fugitives not looking back, we quickly blended into the mill of the crowd on the sidewalks above.

I guess if we want to stay out of jail, we will have to figure out what we are doing wrong with those subway tickets.

-dane

Friday, January 25, 2008

South Korea

I am off to Seoul for a week. I will be traveling with my boss to check out a printing plant. Although we don't expect we will be doing a lot of work there, we are doing a project big enough to justify a fact-finding mission to see what other opportunities may exist.


Seoul is the second largest metropolitan area in the world, so we figure it shouldn't be too hard to find something to do and see when we are not working. With over 21 million people, it is roughly seven times bigger than Phoenix and all it's suburbs.

Our 12 hour flight leaves LA at midnight tonight. Should be fun. I will chat about it more once we get there...

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Interaction

I don’t write much. That is one of the fun things about having a blog. There is no obligation, but I can do it whenever I feel like it. There is something strange about writing and knowing all of about six people are reading it. At the same time, there is this confession-like feeling. It is hard for me to write without making it personal, yet knowing it is open for the whole world to read.

I guess in the larger sense, the lure of the internet--the ability for people to be somewhat anonymous and face-less, but at the same time incredibly exposed and public--is changing our society forever. It is a strange dichotomy. On one hand, people are becoming more anti-social, giving up some of their daily personal contact, only to bury their faces into computer screens. On the other hand, people are creating networks and interacting with people all over the world. In that sense, people are more social than ever. It is pretty schizophrenic, really.

Social interaction is my favorite part about doing a blog. The comments people add to my entries are usually better thought out than my initial blog. (For instance, see Budsy Jean's comment to my last blog.) In fact, I think it is a shame the comment section is so hidden.


That has given me an idea. What if I have “guest” bloggers? I wonder if those commenting (like Budsy Jean, Marna, and Ming) would have any interest in doing an occasional entry? It would make this a bit more interactive and allow people to hear about something other than my favorite subject, myself.

Any interest?

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

The Hawaiian Tour Guide (Part II)

After revealing the plane crash tragedy that had defined his life, our Hawaiian tour guide turned the van around and we headed back toward our ship. Since we were taking the same road back that we had just been on, there wasn’t much left for him to tell us about Kauai, so to make conversation, he posed us a question. “Are you religious people?”

Although I confessed that my beliefs somewhat deviated from the norm, for the most part, we all confirmed that, at the very least, we all had Christian upbringings. After further inquiry, he determined that our friend Ocamie seemed the most open to his next question, so he directed it to her. “Do you believe in the Book of Revelations and the coming of the Anti-Christ?”

We were all familiar with various interpretations of this, so he was comfortable going on. “I know who the Anti-Christ is,” he confirmed confidently.

“He is alive now?”, Ocamie asked. Our ears perked up for the answer, kind of like my dog when you ask him if he wants a treat.

“Yes.” He explained that Revelations says the Anti-Christ will come from the “east”. Well now, I deduct that “east” is a relative term and can be applied to anything: Asia, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, the east coast, heck, even east LA for that matter. He needed to narrow it down a bit.

He then explained that we would also be deceived by this Anti-Christ. Made sense. After all, many people would deduct that it would have to be a foreign dictator, someone like a Saddam Hussein or that crazy guy from Iran. God is too cool to be that obvious. Besides, in order to have power over the entire world, he would need the support of the strongest nation, which obviously means he would need the people of the US to support him.

Now, as the conversation progressed, I was not too convinced, but I was oddly aware of how I was hanging on every word coming out of Eduardo’s mouth. I am a sucker for a good conspiracy theory, especially when the person presenting it is thoroughly convinced of it’s reality. I was also very conscious of the fact that I tend to like people, even crazy ones. Like my fellow tourists, I was also very aware that we were paying way more attention to the road than the guy driving.

Then he just blurted it out, “Arnold Schwarzenegger is the Anti-Christ.”

Now this was all very logical, at least to Eduardo. After all, Arnold’s roots are Eastern European. He has even had to defend his family’s past ties to the Nazi Party. Eduardo also explained that Arnold is well loved by both Democrats and Republicans (well, evidently not so much the religious wing of the Republican Party), and even has ties to American Royalty, the Kennedys. When we pointed out that in order to become President, you have to be born in the US, he replied that there was already a bill in the works to overturn this. When I pointed out that I was pretty sure that would take an Amendment to the Constitution, these facts were just arbitrary annoyances to Eduardo.

Arnold would prevail. Now, in hindsight and after spending some time on the internet researching Arnold the Anti-Christ, I found this was not an original prediction Eduardo was making. But Eduardo was persistent and he had an in. Eduardo had premonitions and gave some interesting predictions to share because of them. Eduardo had already seen it all unfold in his own mind.

Eduardo claimed that in April of this year, Barack Obama will be assassinated. (I couldn’t help but wonder if we would see Eduardo on TV that day, holding the gun.) Hillary will be swept into office due to over-whelming sympathy for the Democratic candidate. During her single term of office, Eduardo’s premonitions told him that there would be four or five major terrorist attacks on US soil. Then, riding the tide of Americans’ desire for a “tough guy”, Arnold would be swept into the White House. (Eduardo was quick to point out that Americans are too dumb to tell the difference between Arnold the person and Arnold the actor.)

Armageddon would start the day after the elections in 2012.

Interesting guy, this Eduardo. And when the van finally pulled up to the ship and we piled out, he assured us that, even though we were filled with doubt, we were more than welcome to come stay with him in Kauai when his premonitions started to prove true. We thanked him for the entertaining tour, tipped him well, and said good-bye.

I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I was already forming my own plans. I wonder if I should follow through on making those reservations for that hut in St. Johns.

Sunday, January 13, 2008

The Hawaiian Tour Guide (Part I)

As I got on the plane to Hawaii, I realized I was suffering from the Gunnar Syndrome. The syndrome was made famous by my college roommate, who, after a hard night of partying, woke up the next day and had this over-whelming desire to apologize to everyone for anything and everything he may have said or done the night before. My night before had involved a large holiday gathering and I was still trying to work out the details. The good thing is that the guilt associated with the Gunnar Syndrome is most often imaginary and just the residue created by the fog of too many drinks. Regardless, this was not the best way to start a week’s vacation in Hawaii, and I was already promising myself that I would skip next year’s event. (Of course, I also realized I had twelve months to recover and that the symptoms of The Gunnar Syndrome would be long forgotten by then.) The good thing about the Gunnar Syndrome is that it distracts you from any of the other effects that may occur from having too many drinks, so generally speaking, the flight went well.

The first couple of days in Hawaii were pretty good. We saw many beautiful places (Honolulu, Hilo, Maui) and did many fun things (snorkel, eat, drink, go on tours), but I was a bit disappointed that we had traveled this far only to meet people who were no more exotic than myself. My primary love of travel is the opportunity to meet people from other cultures, and in that respect, going to Hawaii wasn’t all that different than going to say, California or Florida. These people were pretty American. In fact, there were more people speaking English here than in my home state of Arizona. It was, in this respect, rather boring.

Then half way through our trip, I received a phone call from my sister that our mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer and the trip really took a turn for the worse. I couldn’t wait to get off the ship so I could make my way to Montana to see her, but here I was stuck in the middle of the Pacific.

I stood at the front of the ship, staring off into the endless Pacific. Maybe when the stress of my new situation was over I could disappear for a month or two. I could rent a hut on St. Johns, bring my laptop along so I could work from there. I thought how, from time to time, we all wish we could get away from it all. I wondered if St. Johns had high speed internet access. Then I decided it was time to get back to reality and try make the best of my situation.

The next day, we stopped in Kauai. That is were we met him, the tour guide.



We had been taking tours sponsored by the cruise ship and we were getting a bit bored with that, so we decided to wonder off on our own and find someone interesting to show us around. Kauai is an incredibly beautiful place, but very isolated compared to the other islands. People come here to get away. Whereas people may go to Waikiki for the beautifully packed beaches, clubs and restaurants, Kauai was more for the nature lover. I had already seen quite a bit of nature on this trip and my expectations of meeting anyone interesting had pretty much dissipated by this point, so my expectations were low.

We wondered into a back parking lot and stumbled upon Eduardo. He approached us with an offer to show us the island much in the same way a back-alley vendor approaches someone to sell contraband, very discreetly. We were apprehensive, but desired to do something different, so we agreed.

Eduardo told us to sit tight. He had to drive his economy class car home and pick up his van and his wife, muttering something about his wife being better at describing the island’s plant life. Meanwhile, we were left wondering why he hadn’t had his van and wife along in the first place. When he returned, he introduced us to his wife and we piled into the van.

I am not going to recall all the details of the tour, but the two biggest impressions left on me were his pride in how Kauai was a “family morals” kind of place, and the fact that his wife never brought up anything about the island’s plant life.

As we made our way north, up the east coast, Eduardo pointed out that the road didn’t circle the island, but came to a dead-end at the northern most point. From there, we would have to turn around and make our way back the same way we had come.

When there was a break in his presentation, I tried to fill the dead air by asking an innocent question, “What brought you to the island?”

He glanced over at his wife like he had a big secret and wanted a signal from her that it was okay to share. Instead, he responded, “Well, it’s not like I was running from the law or anything, but it was something like that. I will tell you when we get to the end of this road.”

Oh, my god! We just got into a van with an axe murderer! He is going to take us to the end of the trail, chop us up into little pieces, and scatter our remains through out the dense rainforest. Eduardo changed the subject, describing the island’s rural, slow-paced appeal and how people move here to get away from it all.

We came to the end of the road. It was really more of a small parking lot than a dead-end. At the end of the parking lot, multiple trails meandered up a large hill, disappearing into the green, wet forest that extended for as far as the eyes could see. Eduardo began to tell the story of his life. (And I am not quite sure how I mean that: the story about his life, or just the most outlandish story he ever told.)



In the late 70’s, Eduardo had been a flight attendant for Western Airlines. While making preparations to land in Mexico City during a flight in 1979, Eduardo strapped himself into his seat at the back of the plane. Apparently, there had been some miscommunication with the tower and the pilot attempted to do a touch and go. Unfortunately, he was unaware of the dump trucks parked at the end of the runway. The plane clipped them just as the pilot went to full speed and the plane disintegrated into a Mexico City neighborhood. Those not killed instantly, were at the very least, in critical condition. Eduardo had nary a scratch. He pointed out that in a crash like this, you really want to be in the back of the plane, facing backwards. Most people in the regular seating are instantly decapitated. Physically he was in pretty good shape, but obviously, living through such a thing was an emotional nightmare and it was about to get worse for him.

According to Eduardo, the Mexican Federales interrogation of him turned to torture as they tried to coax him into admitting the pilots had been at fault. They beat him in the back of the head with a phone book when he didn’t answer their questions “correctly”. When the authorities finally gave up on him, deciding he knew nothing, they let him go. Eduardo now realized that this was going to turn into a quarter of a billion dollar lawsuit and people have been killed for a lot less. It was time for him to disappear.

Eduardo left everything behind, his family, his fiance, his life, and escaped to this little isolated island as far away from civilization as one could possibly get. He made his way to this parking lot and disappeared up these trails for several months, living on the kindness of strangers, mostly hippies, or as he preferred to call them, granolas. This is how he had come to live on Kauai, some thirty years before.

I glanced over at my wife, then to our travel partners, Ocamie and Peter. They all sat in stunned silence. I couldn’t help but ponder what a great story this was. True or not, it was definitely going to earn him a great tip. Then I remembered his wife. Obviously, if he was making all this up, he would not have taken her along on our tour. She was there to collaborate his story.

Eduardo went on with his life, making Kauai home, finally marrying and having children. Likewise, the fiance he had left behind after the crash, did the same. Several years ago, through contact of mutual friends, they made a re-connection and realizing they were both now divorced, hooked back up. Our silent passenger was the fiance he had left behind.

Western Airlines was acquired by Delta and through them, Eduardo had received some kind of compensation, but he did not let on what that involved. He said real peace with his past came about when ABC’s 20/20 did an expose’ on his story sometime in the early 90’s. He also said he had written a book but it had not been published. There had also been meetings with people to do a movie. He claimed his lawyers had even met with Ron Howard’s people at one point.

As Eduardo turned the van around and began retracing our route back to the tour ship, I pondered what parts of this story were true or not. Regardless, one thing was for sure, this was the interesting person I was hoping to meet. Little did I know, Eduardo was about to get a lot more interesting.

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

Juno

Jan and I saw Juno (the movie, not the place) last weekend. It was a small comedy worth seeing. The sound track was kind of interesting, too. It included some big names like The Kinks, Sonic Youth, The Velvet Underground, Belle and Sebastian and Mott The Hoople. But the real gem was discovering Kimya Dawson and The Moldy Peaches. I know nothing about them, but I will be looking them up on www.allmusic.com, a site my friend Kip told me about.

I also picked up a couple of albums, Echo & The Bunneymen's self-titled cd from 1985, the one with "The Game" and "Lips Like Sugar." I got it because it had some additional stuff, including a remake of The Door's "Soul Kitchen."

I also picked up The Waterboys Book of Lightning from 2006. Only listened to it twice, but I really like it. The band has been around forever, but I was only familiar with the song "We Will Not Be Lovers" from 1988. Good stuff.

Song of the day: "She Tried To Hold Me" from The Waterboys cd Book of Lightning

Sunday, January 6, 2008

Thank You

A week in New York, six days at home, a week in Hawaii, three hours at home, ten days in Montana, three days at home, four days in Minnesota, and finally, I have returned home. It is nice to be here.

My mother’s passing in December was definitely the end of an era for me. Like my sister said, we are now “orphans”. I am only forty three, but I no longer have any parents or grandparents. It is a scary thought, but now I am the “older” generation.

On the other hand, I also have this incredible feeling of rebirth, probably, in part, because of the timing. I now return home to a New Year and something of a fresh start. I still feel grief, but, as I mentioned in an earlier blog, I have an even greater sense of gratefulness, appreciation for family, friends and times together. Mom’s funeral was very sad, but every other moment surrounding it was wonderful, dare I say, even fun. And things that seemed difficult before December, now seem trivial. I now look forward to what the New Year brings regardless of their consequences. I will enjoy it all, big or small, good or bad.



Finally, since I tend to be bad at proper thank yous, let me make sure I don’t overlook my appreciation for all of you. Thank you for the kind words, thoughts, prayers, emails, phone calls, cards, and flowers. My mom was a great lady. We will forever miss her.

Now, there is a whole new year out there waiting for us. Let’s get going.

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