Rick!

Sorry to interupt this DMZ tour. Some of you may know Rick from my stories of a penpal I started writing to in 2002 when he was stationed in Afghanistan. Some of you know him as the guy I bet shirts with for Wisconsin-Auburn bowl games (we're 1-1 right now). But however you might have heard about him, I finally got to meet Rick last evening. (now if you would have told me back in 2002 that I would meet my penpal in Korea 4 years later, I would not have believed you).

So once again - I was proved the world is indeed small. Rick was here to plan some training activites for the Wisconsin National Guard. He was down at Seoul for 5 days. So last night Harland and took the bus and subway down to Seoul to meet up with Rick and another Wisconsian, Mike. We had a good time, and Rick is even cooler in person than via letter.

First stop - Insa-dong.
Here we are after eating a lot. Sorry the picture is blurry. We had some Bulgogi, some Bipimbap, some seafood pancake, some kimchi, and some soup. Also Rick tried out some Korean beer - Cass (slogan, "the sound of vitality") and the rest of us had some Soju. Rick tried it, but some people just don't like the rubbing alchohal aftertaste... I don't know why...

There was a little tea shop outside of the resturaunt and so while we did not have any tea, we did take a picture of it - because it is so pretty and they have birdies.


Also there are a lot of red these days - in honor of the korean Soccer Team.


After that we headed to Namdaemun to do some shopping. It is one of the larger markets. I had negotiated 10 dollars off a bag, but I decided against buying it. I may go back there to get it another day. The guys were looking for items for their loved ones back home.

(hey Dad, don't those peppers look yummy?)

And then we wound back to the Dragon Hill Lodge for a beer and some more talk. Here is another blurry picture of us before I left. we need to get a camera that behaves better in low light situtations.