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News from across the water
Aug. 20th, 2004 03:42 pmI'm in Korea. Once again, much to my surprise, in Uijongbu. MOre to my surprise, there are still some things here which I rememeber, including the bakery in which I essayed my trivial (three words of practical use) Korean, and learned, though I still don't know why) that Koreans seem to prefer bills to coins.
The trip was pretty good, in a pointless, travelling kind of way. I can claim touchdown credit for Alaska now.
Alaska was amazing to look at. There was a thin sheen of ice on the water, as we approached Anchorage, painfully brilliant, with darker rivers of thicker ice in the midst of it.
The mountains were stark, hard to see in the mist, so the rough lines of the ridges were indistinct. On the way out one could see glaciers, wrinkled and obviously moving, a slow river of grinding ice, filling the culoirs, and broken by the peaks, which were scraped clean, axes of living rock, splitting the ice.
And then the flats, lazy meanders of water, thin little ones, and heavier ones, roping across the land, pooling in places, like the flecks in Goldwasser, or sequins spilled on velvet.
One of them was huge, maybe the size of Rhode Island. A smaller one had an oxbow with a sharp backed curve, it looked like a bone fishook.
Because this was a summer flight, travelling west, we had nothing but sunlight, so from 0600, when I woke up until we landed in Pusan, some twenty hours later. I took advantage of that to defeat any jet lag. Most of the troops slept (it was nicely populated, each of us had our own row, window or center aisle) but I read.
A Grisham novel, which made me want to be in DC again, and then a re-reading of Niven and Pournelle's inferno. I also watched "Paycheck". The idea was alright, but the excecution stank. There were a couple of places which just flat out were impossible (I'd declaim on them in detail, but I'd rather not spoil it, esp. as one is technical, and might be missed by some).
They fed us, the chicken was all right, the beef horrid, the sandwich acceptable.
Once we got here, lot of organised chaos, and I was assigned to where I am, which is one of the sattelite things that go with the exercise. Happily, it's a real mission, not a notional one, and so I get more free time, a chance to see the town again (maybe hit that bakery again) and do things like this.
It ought to be a good trip.
The trip was pretty good, in a pointless, travelling kind of way. I can claim touchdown credit for Alaska now.
Alaska was amazing to look at. There was a thin sheen of ice on the water, as we approached Anchorage, painfully brilliant, with darker rivers of thicker ice in the midst of it.
The mountains were stark, hard to see in the mist, so the rough lines of the ridges were indistinct. On the way out one could see glaciers, wrinkled and obviously moving, a slow river of grinding ice, filling the culoirs, and broken by the peaks, which were scraped clean, axes of living rock, splitting the ice.
And then the flats, lazy meanders of water, thin little ones, and heavier ones, roping across the land, pooling in places, like the flecks in Goldwasser, or sequins spilled on velvet.
One of them was huge, maybe the size of Rhode Island. A smaller one had an oxbow with a sharp backed curve, it looked like a bone fishook.
Because this was a summer flight, travelling west, we had nothing but sunlight, so from 0600, when I woke up until we landed in Pusan, some twenty hours later. I took advantage of that to defeat any jet lag. Most of the troops slept (it was nicely populated, each of us had our own row, window or center aisle) but I read.
A Grisham novel, which made me want to be in DC again, and then a re-reading of Niven and Pournelle's inferno. I also watched "Paycheck". The idea was alright, but the excecution stank. There were a couple of places which just flat out were impossible (I'd declaim on them in detail, but I'd rather not spoil it, esp. as one is technical, and might be missed by some).
They fed us, the chicken was all right, the beef horrid, the sandwich acceptable.
Once we got here, lot of organised chaos, and I was assigned to where I am, which is one of the sattelite things that go with the exercise. Happily, it's a real mission, not a notional one, and so I get more free time, a chance to see the town again (maybe hit that bakery again) and do things like this.
It ought to be a good trip.
