Day Off in Busan

So, I unexpectedly got Labor Day Weekend off since the ASW Exercise was postponed (thank you Tropical Storm 10W). I decided to get out of Chinhae and tour around Busan. I spent the morning at the UN Memorial Park. It reminded me of Punchbowl in Hawaii. It was a very peaceful set up in South Korea's second largest city. Pictures of some of the monuments are below. I also went to the Busan Aquarium. I saw some sea life that I have never seen before (rock fish, nurse sharks, a bunch of different types of eels, etc..). No pictures from the aquarium since 1. flash photography is not allowed and 2. I've never seen amateur photos of fish at an aquarium turn out all that well. After the aquarium, I walked around Haeundae Beach for a bit but then it started to rain some so I decided to call it a day (I'll be honest, it was also a bit muggy out and since the temperature is not below 75 degrees, it's too hot for me). I'll save the International Market for another day.

UN Forces Monument

Unknown Soldier's Pathway

France Monument with the Great Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africe momument in the background.

Wall of Remembrance

Thai-Korea Friendship Bridge

Memorial Chapel

Today, I clean my room and will try to stay out of the rain.

Nate

Finally some pictures!

So it has been awhile since I last wrote and I finally took a few pictures to share with folks. So much has gone on in the last few weeks I have lots to share.


Luau Fun

A few weeks ago the base had a “Luau Weekend.” Really, weekend should be in quotes since we really just get Saturday morning and Sundays off but good enough. It started with a 5K run on Saturday morning. A bit of humor—they called it the Sun Downer 5K but we ran it at sunrise because it is too hot to run it at sunset. However, they had already made up the t-shirts and posters so they continued to call it the Sun Downer. Also as part of the Luau Weekend the base put on a big event Saturday evening at the rec center. They had bingo and a bunch of random games (e.g. watermelon carving, putt-putt, giant tricycle races). I have not played bingo since grade school and boy have things changed since then! We played 10 rounds and each round you had to form a letter (e.g. instead of just a straight line, you had to from the letter “W”). It was actually a lot of fun. There were probably about 300 people playing and people really got into it. Here is a picture of us inside the rec center and one of me with my bingo cards and blotter. In case you were wondering about the beer/wine. We are allowed up to three cans/bottles per day. They keep tack of your servings with your coveted Beer Card.

Inside the Rec Center (aptly named 11 Degrees North)

Me with my bingo cards and blotter (and mini bottle of wine)

Bowling

Last week we went bowling. Yes, Djibouti has a bowling alley. I think they got the equipment from Germany. That is based solely on the computer equipment that is in the alley. This bowling alley is not as high speed as you might be used to in the states. The pins are actually tied to strings and when you knock them over the computer senses the tension in the string and you get credit for the pin getting knocked over. Sometimes, you will knock down a pin but it dangles a bit and then stands back up so you don’t get credit. Kind of funny. Also, the lanes are pretty warped so throwing the ball straight is a challenge. And, there are no bowling shoes. We played in our socks.

Bowling "dashboard."  It did not work but I thought it looked cool.  When was the last time you had to keep score manually in bowling?

Me, the epitome of grace, bowling in socks.

Moving Day

After six weeks of sharing a room and having to go outside to walk to the bathroom, I got my own room! My new home is about 10 minutes closer to the center of camp which is great. More importantly, I don’t have to share it with anyone and I have a bathroom. I share the bathroom with the girl on the other side. My new room is much homier than the previous one, simply because I can spread out a little bit more. I have a desk and some real storage. Here are some pics of my new digs.

My new home (it is the one on the left). 

The view from my front door.  Nothing says location like a power plant and fuel tanks :)

Standing in my door.  Bed is to the left, bathroom is through the doors past the lockers.

Standing at the back of the room looking towards the front door.   Isn't it homey.

My sink.  It is so nice not to have to put on shoes to go brush my teeth before bed.  Ahh, the little things.

Even in Africa a girl needs her shoes.  I thought I did some creative "decorating" with the shoe bag placement.

Lake Assal

For Labor Day, we got Sunday and Monday off. What to do with TWO whole days off?!? Saturday night I finished setting up my new home. Sunday morning started with a Labor Day 5k. Yes, we do a lot of 5k runs around here. Added bonus, each one gets you a new t-shirt. At 8:00, 7 of us from our office took off on an adventure. We left with a very rough map to Lake Assal. Check out this link to Wikipedia which actually provides a good synopsis of where the lake is and all:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Assal_(Djibouti). It is the most saline body of water in the world (yes, even deader than the Dead Sea). It was about a 2 hour drive out to the lake. We drove through some interesting “countryside.” Along the way we passed many camels and goats along with a lot of small villages that seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. The kids asking for water always gets to me. We stopped at the lookout to the Grand Canyon of Djibouti which was very pretty. As we drove to the lake we were not really sure where we were going. We kept driving and eventually found the salt flats. It looked like snow in the middle of the desert. As you walked on the salt it stuck to your shoes and began to melt. We piled back into the cars and drove back to a spot we had passed earlier where we could actually get in the water. A quick change and we were all in. The water was very warm and VERY salty. The salt made you so buoyant it was hard not to float. We only stayed in the water for about 15 minutes because it really was hot out there. When we got out we all had salt crystals on us. Thankfully, we thought ahead and brought several cases of water to rinse off with. We stopped and had our picnic lunch on the way back. The last bit of adventure was when we saw baboons on our drive back! Yes, I love wild animals. One of the girls with us had been told we might see baboons so she had brought a can of nuts to feed them (we stayed in the car and just threw the nuts at them). They were so cool to see, except when they started attacking each other when we dumped the last of the can on the ground. Here are some pictures from my adventures. I just spent 20 minutes trying to get these pictures in order and for some reason blogger is not liking me today so, my apologies these pictures are not really in chronological order, but I think you will get the point.

The sign on this place reads "Disney Land."  I have never seen anyone there.

Goats along the road.  Not quite sure who they belong to or where they are going.

Typical scenery along the road

Me standing on the salt flats (I would say it was like snow, but it was about 115 degrees out there)

I thought these were cool.  They look like Lilly pads but they are really salt.  This is where we eventually got in for a swim.

Mama Baboon and her baby

Mama eating an apple.  Yes, they do have red butts!

A little hazy, but we were on top of a cliff looking down into a lake.

Camel foaming at the mouth.  Not sure what his deal was, but he was very close to my window.

The salt literally melted to our shoes. 

More typical scenery along the route

The other side of "Disney Land"

Traffic Jam.

Refugee Camp just outside of town

Well, that’s all for now. This week should be a pretty routine week as far as work goes. Hopefully it is productive. Next weekend some of the other junior officers and I are going on a trip to Moucha Island. Check back next week for a new post!


Cheers,
Liz