Triscribe

Author: F C

  • In at Incheon

    Got in 20 minutes early into Incheon, South Korea, the first leg of this race around Southeast Asia.

    Going to a foreign country, especially where English is not the primary language, heightens awareness in the same way that perhaps blindness or deafness forces one to depend on the rest of their senses.

    Korean TV: They had broadcasts from the two major news outlets on screan, KBS and SBS. The KBS reporters all have email addresses where you can write to them at the end of the segment. However, they could have come up with better usernames than “ace” and “bird6777”.

    The news spent a lot of time about the John Hamm/Korean gymnist gold metal controversy. The news fully put the blame on the federation and actually put Hamm in a good light. The other news was the ping pong gold that they won over the Chinese, which they spent more than 20 minutes doing play by plays of the last volley. This was in context with the current diplomatic tension between Korea and China over historical boundaries of the ancient Korean empire, where China is now in the diplomatic doghouse as compared to America.

    The movie was “My Mother the Diver”, which was kind of wierd Korean soap opera having something to do with wild gingsing, and then the second half of the movie

    There was this Korean chick which was somewhat nationality confused — she was wearing a Roots Canada cap with a Roots United Kingdom pink track suit. Cute.

    Supper: miso soup, cured salmon bi bim bap, korean pickles, 210g of steamed white rice, Dole fruit gel cup, red wine, water, green tea.
    Dinner/Breakfast: cod fish stewed with corn and potato, smoked salmon and potato salad, coffee cake cupcake, roll with butter, water, green tea.
    This had to be the best meals I’ve ever had on a airline. Korean Air puts most of the money into the food, and not much into the drinks. I think that makes for a better compromise.

    The only thing that really is bad (or good depending on how you see it) is the connection times are so bad. The nonogenerian Philipine couple that was sitting next to me have to wait until 10 AM for their connection.

    OK, I have 5 minutes left on this kiosk, so here’s the route marker: go to Myong-dong, Seoul in downtown and find the oldest Western building.

  • Interminal Wait

    Waiting for the plane to leave at midnight. I’m charging my phone using one of the cleaner’s sockets. Had mickey d’s, but they had ran out of quarter pounders and Big and Tasties. Would you believe that?

  • The race is on!

    Route Marker: Leave New York and go to Incheon, South Korea. You have $150 for this leg of the race.

    See you on the other side!

  • Don’t Leave Home Without It

    American Express is filming an ad on the street outside my apartment. I don’t know what it’s about, and they were doing it at 5 in the morning, so I wasn’t awake for it, but they took the first five parking spaces in front of my door.

    So much work to be done at work before I go tomorrow (geez, tomorrow!) I haven’t packed or anything. At least I’ve bought everything though.

    Two Asian Americans political pundits made the news this weekend. Francis Fukuyama is a neoconservative that thinks that we shouldn’t have gone into Iraq. Michelle Malkin was on Tucker Carlson this past week talking about her book on how the Japanese Internment was justified. Both nominatively conservative commentators have been blasted by both sides of the aisle for going “the Third Way” (OK, that’s a Clintonism, but it fits). You know, I don’t agree with certain things they have to say, but at least it’s intellegent and well formed, not like the tired buzz word campaigning from Bush and Kerry. (Enough with the Swift Boats already! The damn bullets and grenades don’t care if you’re running towards or away from them. The American people generally prefer our troops to return alive.) I’m all for anything that makes the two party system three dimensional, and I’m all for APA’s actually participating. Wow, what a concept.

    Republicans invading the city on Friday. Oh, the traffic! The best thing that can happen is that nobody notices. Hey, if we can have a million Carribean people parade on Labor Day, and the rest of the city doesn’t even realize it’s the northernmost Carribean island, we can deal with this. On the other hand, I’m out of here tomorrow.

  • Writing wirelessly

    After three years with my trusty Nokia 4 TDMA phone, I’m trying out the 6820, the one with the
    built in qwerty keyboard. It takes a little getting used to – the keys are really tiny, so you have to use the middle of your thumbs to hit them, but I can get much more throughput than the tap three times SMS. Let’s see how this will work on the road. Seven days to my personal Amazing Race.

  • Culinary Schizophrenia

    Found this at Costco:



    Red and Blue state flavor sandwiched all in one.

  • Picnic photos

    AAN Picnic. This year it was at Forest Park in Woodhaven. SSW reported on the trek there. I have to say also that I probably would have never known about the park had the picnic not been held there. We miraculously avoided two tropical storm remnants; on the plus side, it was a lot cooler than at previous picnics. Because we were doing the cooking this year, I didn’t do as much socializing. In any case, it was a load of fun!

  • One – Two Punch

    I made two trips to the bank today, one to throw some money into my bank account so that I can pay off my zip car, and one to cash in my reimbursement for my Rhode Island trip. Boy did I ever need that money.

    In a second one – two punch, two hurricanes, Bonnie and Charley, are crashing in on Friday and Sunday. Miraculously, Saturday is all clear for our picnic. Yay! As I write this, the hailstones are starting to bounce off of the AC….

  • Amazing, Just Amazing

    Building down the block is asking for $250K for a studio, up to $750K for a two bedroom according to the NY Times. What’s really amazing is that you can see my apartment and several buildings that other writers on this blog will recognize out the window of the (QuickTime required) virtual tour of one of their units. Look at the last 30 seconds of the video as the camera flies through the patio.

    For the other amazing thing, The Amazing Race, they are traipsing through Egypt, with the pitstop at the Sphinx. Wow, what visuals! On the other hand, who knew that one team would be stuck because they didn’t know what the word “satchel” meant. If you missed the episodes, catch the hilarious recaps at Television Without Pity – The Amazing Race .

  • Paging YC

    YC: I tried sending email to you and it didn’t work. Maybe I should use your YC address. Anyway I need to give you a call about hotel in Ipoh and getting my butt through Singapore — want to try Skype? I won’t be home tomorrow because of the wedding.

    I just plunked down a wad of money to go to YC’s wedding. It’s not the world’s greatest itinerary and I couldn’t get the date I wanted going into KL, but it’s the cheap $895 flight compared against the $1300 alternatives:

    KE 84Q 25AUG 1155P JFK->ICH 27AUG 325A
    KE 641Q 27AUG 1:05P ICH->SIN 27 AUG 625P

    I was thinking that maybe I would hate a really long layover; at least that’s what the travel agent was saying.Going to Seoul is out of the question — it’s 2 hours by bus to get there. But then, it’s Korea, and the word is that they have a really good transit hotel that has 2 Korean restaurants. Can we say time to go crazy? At least it will give me an opportunity to shower before the next leg of the trip. The flight will be also on Korean Air. The word is that the seats are tight, and they don’t have personal entertainment screens. However, the service is supposed to be good, and the Korean food is supposed to be excellent.