Turning 50 Means...

Time for colonoscopy! Here's my prep material...

Turning lemons into lemonade...

The equipment... yep that's the one!

Chart notes, anyone?

Having spent the last few days on a restricted diet, time to treat myself.  I looked at all the menus for beef (1, 2, 3, 4) and decided to eat at home!  Here's my pan-seared, garlic-onion crusted, medium-rare ribeye steak...

Delicious and only $2.75!

Seoul Food...

Nothing like chicken shawarma on the streets of Itaewon.  Jack (from India) serves up amazing shawarma for 4,000 won...

Better than the ones I've had in Iraq and Kuwait... the mixture of yogurt, tomatoes, onions, curry, peppers, couscous, lettuce, and roasted chicken... simply mind boggling!  I dare you to eat only one!

aka - doner kebab (Turkish), gyro (Greek), shawarma (Arabic)

Only In Korea...

I spy evidence of Fosters on the streets of Seoul...

An Asian model

Cerec Demonstration...

Dropped in on a Cerec class taught by Dr. Jacob Park from UTSA School of Dentistry.  It was live-patient treatment day...

Cerec is a dental CAD-CAM machine used to make indirect restorations in one appointment. The data is collected and manipulated here...

And sent here... to the milling machine in the lab...

The restoration is milled in 10 minutes...

And ready for try-in and cementation...

Can you tell which one?

Oh Thank Heaven...

Family Mart is Korea's version of 7-Eleven and I have three within 200 meters of my building. One thing missing... a slurpee machine!

Iraq in Korea...

The tiny streets of Itaewon go upward...

On odd pathways to front doors...

Garages share stairs and balconies...

Eventually leading to a small Arabic community...

With a mosque, eastward toward Mecca...

Surrounded by shops and restaurants...

And bakeries that serve up yummy baklava...

Seoul Food...

Oregano, garlic powder, olive oil and parmesan converted picante to marinara...

Making a decent sauce for butter-garlic grilled chicken gnocchi...

With "Italian condiments" on hand, it was time to offload the soon-to-expire picante!

More Yongsan Hills...

Today's march was tough... on the heels of two days of land nav.  Eight miles of hills completed in 1:35 is not bad. But humping a 35 pound ruck, LBE with full canteen and pro mask with kevlar... ugh!  Something missing?

An M-16!

EFMB Train-up...

Spent the last 36 hours at Warrior Base on the EFMB land navigation course...

Given 8-digit grid coordinates, calculated azimuth (direction) and distance to find these...

Points/Markers

In the process, we slept in our ACU's on barrack bunks...

And took our meals outdoors between iterations...

Goal: Maximize course time! Had 3 sessions (2 day, 1 night). Hustled and did 6 day runs/2 night and found 30 out of 32 points in the process. Let's hope it translates into a "GO" during test week!

Eagles in Town...

Great concert... Joe Walsh played amazing sets and was a lot of fun! 3 hours long and 30 years to realize...

Congrats Huskies...

Passage to Korea...

Debbie makes an enormously LONG trip on the Patriot Express to Osan...

And still looks beautiful... !

Friday we had dinner in Gangnam with the Kims...

Saturday was a trip to the DMZ and Panmunjeom...

A foot in the North and one in the South...

The infamous Bridge of No Return...

A descent into Tunnel #3...

Rice from Daeseong, South Korea... Freedom Village...  

And a hazy view of Kijong... Propaganda Village in the North...

Dorasan Station... the last stop on the rail to North Korea and unification...

Plus a women's pro volleyball game that evening... Kixx versus LG...

The next day was a trip to the Seoul Temple...

Miso at Jeongdong Theater and dinner at Ipanema...

 Monday's trip to North Seoul and Jogyesa Temple...

Gyeongbuk Palace and the National Folklore Museum...

Also a drive to Cheong Wa Dae or The Blue House...

Ending with shopping at Lotte Mart by Seoul Station...

Finally Incheon Airport on Tuesday...