On the ground
Aug. 21st, 2004 06:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pecuniumThe skies are grey, and the traffic is loud; on the other side of the wall. Cp. Falling Water is in the middle of Uijongbu.
Along with the traffic the smell of food comes over the wall. The trees are green. A mimosa is still in bloom, the orange/pink tufts of it's flowers in counter-point to the dark green of a nearby pine, dark-barked and rough.
The buildings have probably been here since the before the armistice. I'm serious, the buildings are Quonset huts, which have been covered in spray-foam insulation.
It's an odd island, a small cluster of Americans, with the walls holding Korea at bay. Like a monastery we are in the country but not of it. We have no mess hall, but we have a kitchen. Food, however we have to get from outside. The easiest place is the commisary at Cp Red Cloud. It isn't that we won't eat the local cuisine, but we trust the raw food we can get there.
The nature of our work is such that I've no need for my uniforms, and in the most stereotypical of MI habits, rank is not mentioned (though not completely ignored, the Chief is the boss, but other than that, I have to do my own dishes; in a line unit that would be left to the enlisted troops, here it's rotated).
There are dragonflies, mating on the wing, and dipping their tails in puddles. No birds to be seen, but the chirps, rasps and buzzes of insects (the trilling rattle of cicadas comes and goes, in deafening clamor, enough to suppress the omnipresent sounds of traffic).
The air is moist, and warm. It isn't oppressive, rather it's lush, redolent of plants, pregnant with the promise of harvest.
Much better than the bitter cold of my last trip.
Along with the traffic the smell of food comes over the wall. The trees are green. A mimosa is still in bloom, the orange/pink tufts of it's flowers in counter-point to the dark green of a nearby pine, dark-barked and rough.
The buildings have probably been here since the before the armistice. I'm serious, the buildings are Quonset huts, which have been covered in spray-foam insulation.
It's an odd island, a small cluster of Americans, with the walls holding Korea at bay. Like a monastery we are in the country but not of it. We have no mess hall, but we have a kitchen. Food, however we have to get from outside. The easiest place is the commisary at Cp Red Cloud. It isn't that we won't eat the local cuisine, but we trust the raw food we can get there.
The nature of our work is such that I've no need for my uniforms, and in the most stereotypical of MI habits, rank is not mentioned (though not completely ignored, the Chief is the boss, but other than that, I have to do my own dishes; in a line unit that would be left to the enlisted troops, here it's rotated).
There are dragonflies, mating on the wing, and dipping their tails in puddles. No birds to be seen, but the chirps, rasps and buzzes of insects (the trilling rattle of cicadas comes and goes, in deafening clamor, enough to suppress the omnipresent sounds of traffic).
The air is moist, and warm. It isn't oppressive, rather it's lush, redolent of plants, pregnant with the promise of harvest.
Much better than the bitter cold of my last trip.
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Re: East Asian insect life
Date: 2004-08-24 12:49 am (UTC)Once something exists which can fill a niche, nothing can afford to start from scratch.
I look for interesting moths.
TK