Special Correspondant: Dateline Korea

[FYI - this is THC's guest blog entry. I would never have misspelled "correspondent".]

The first thing you need to know about Korea is that virtually everyone there is a ninja. They may look like a nation of polite accountanting and engineering Spud Webbs, but make no mistake, skinny or fat, young or really old, short or...shorter, they are all capable of killing silently and ruthlessly. It is simultaneously awesome and discomforting to know that at any second, fully scale ninja war could break out. It keeps everyone honest. And now, these are MY people.

Ninjas in training.

The main reason for our trip to Korea, as far as I can tell, was to introduce me to some of my new relatives, mostly the ones that were not able to make the wedding, and to show me some of the local spots. Seoul is a great big city. 11 million people and I saw one bum in 4 days. By comparison, I pass 5 regulars on my 4 block walk from the parking lot to my office in Houston every morning. Everyone seems educated, industrious and on the same page. We saw lots of palaces of whatever ruler. Plus, more ninjas.

Nancy would not let me call this kid, one of my new cousins, ShortRound in public.

The countryside was more interesting. For example, there was the fishing ninja, who is damn good at what he does.

And lots of zen shit.

The northern coast- think Korea’s Maine- is also their Rivera. Despite the fact that it’s about 20 miles from the DMZ, the coast has been transformed from small squid fishing villages to some fairly major resort type deals that are almost not tacky.

Despite the lack of refinement, the amenities were sweet, assuming you could figure out the buttons on the electronic bidet, and the resort was only about 20 minutes from the S. Korean Yellowstone park- Saraksan. If you are in to zen walks and massive beer belly Buddhas, and who isn’t, then this is your place.

Not seen in these pictures, perhaps the coolest part of the trip- praying in this temple with some Buddist monks at dusk.

Those dudes can rip it up spiritually. Also, they are ninjas.

While we were there, tensions, at least as reported here in the States, were pretty high between Dear Leader and the rest of the world. The South Koreans didn’t seem to notice or care because they have listened to that gibberish for years. Plus, every single inch of the coast is roped off with floodlights, razor wire and battle fencing to keep the pesky N. Korean spies out. Note: these next few pictures violate your correspondant's personal policy of never taking pictures of military instalations in foreigh countries, but for a country still technically at war with a nuclear armed rouge state run by an effeminate lunatic, the South Koreans were pretty relaxed about the whole deal.

The gates shut at 6 pm, and at night, the only thing more powerful than the searchlights are the squid fishermen’s lights. And if you want to know why there were no North Korean attacks while we were there, see below.

That’s right. Dear Leader didn't want none of that.

Your special correspondant will be back for part 2 some time soon.