Our Time At Home and Plans Gone Awry

 We arrived in Vancouver, British Columbia on the Azamara Pursuit at the end of our “epic slow travel trip” (as we called it in our TripIt app that keeps all of our trip information organized) on June 1.  This ended our first slow-travel trip and it WAS epic.

I am not sure how interesting any of the non-traveling time really is but I can’t not be thorough and not write about it.  But this is how we live.  This covers our time at home and planning for the beginning of our next adventure.

Texas or Oklahoma?

By the time we reached this point, I was ready to get back to Texas, even though we no longer had a home there.  Blaise likes to tell people we are homeless.  We still have the home in Oklahoma which is still inhabitable as far as I’m concerned. It took a bit to convince Blaise of the in-habitability level of the home.  No electricity, water, septic, plumbing or air conditioning.  He kept saying we were going to squat there as we worked on it.  I kept saying “Ami is not squatting until the aforementioned issues are addressed.”

Our original intent was to work on the Oklahoma home deficiencies while back in the states (since it is still not finished and livable), but yeah, that never happened. It was nice to just hang out for a while doing a bit of nothing.

Getting Back to Our Neck of the Woods (wherever that is now)

We did not spend any time  in Vancouver since we have been there several times before so we immediately flew to Fargo, North Dakota, by way of Denver, to visit friends for a week.  It was a lovely week with great weather and even better company. We then headed back to Texas on June 8.  We stayed for several days in a hotel in the HEB area before heading to a cabin in Oklahoma near our home there with the intent of hiring some folks to do some work on it.

Having No House

Our first order of business once in Texas was to get our car from our old house in Southlake.  We sold our house to family members. The agreement before we left on the trip in September of last year was that they would buy our house once they sold their house.  We gave our son, Brandon, the Power of Attorney to sell the house to them once they sold their house if we were not around.  They were finally able to sell their house the first part of May so as of May, we are no longer Southlake or Tarrant County residents.

This last part is sad for me.  I have been a Tarrant County resident since 1989, making my home in Fort Worth, then Euless, then landing in Southlake in 1997 when Blaise and I built our house while engaged. I love Tarrant County, its people, and working in Fort Worth was absolutely the best!

I think what is special about selling to family is that it stays in the family.  It was our home for nearly 29 years.  It is where we built our family and lived our lives together.  It was our happy place. It is where our love for each other grew to titanium level.  Life isn’t filled with all rainbows and sunshine.  This is where we lived through some dark times as well as the happy times and those happy times far outweigh the bad things life threw at us.  But what makes it special is we did all of it together, supporting each other in this house that I love.

By agreement and their graciousness, our car stayed at the house until we could retrieve it when we got back. So we rented a car and the day after our return, we headed to not-our-house-anymore to pick up our car which wasn’t as easy as just driving off with it.  After 8 months, it needed a new battery.  Unfortunately, we also had our ‘68 Camaro still there because the garage that was to do some work on it kept giving our son the runaround. So we had to take care of that too.

We spent 4-5 days taking care of those things and a few other logistics as well as visiting with friends.

I was a bit concerned that I would get very emotional going to the house for the first time and seeing other people’s things at “my” home.  Surprisingly, I was not.  But I also did not go inside.  We still have not been in the house - we could just not make things work to visit before we left again.

Off to Oklahoma

After that, we headed to a cabin in Oklahoma near our house there so we could work on it.  We did a lot of talking about it and getting names of people to do the work, but the effort did not come to fruition.  We just flat didn’t do it.

Off to Josephine, Texas

After being there for a few weeks, we were invited to our son’s new home in Josephine, Texas.  Some people have asked me why we didn’t just stay there from the get go.  It’s that fine line you walk when you have adult children. We did not want to presume we were just going to come home to Texas and stay at his house without an invitation from him.  And even then, we didn’t want him to think we were taking advantage of his hospitality and free digs.  I am sure we could have asked him to stay there and he would have willingly and happily said “yes.”  But neither of us wanted him to feel obligated to say yes.

It actually worked out well for all three of us.  Brandon is an insurance adjuster who is deployed at all kinds of locations across the country for 10 days at a time.  His schedule is 10 days out and 4 days home.  We stayed at his home from late June until we left on our cruise on August 21.  The great part of this was when he was gone, we got to dogsit his dog.  We are huge dog lovers and always welcome the opportunity to care for dogs and give them some love since our lifestyle doesn’t lend itself to having a dog of our own.

Brandon’s dog’s name is Zena.  She is a Staffordshire bull terrier (pit bull family) approximately 20 months old.  She is the sweetest and funniest dog!  We have not had much interaction with these types of dogs but if Zena is any indication, they are amazingly loving and gentle dogs.  We fell in love.

Zena, Warrior Canine!

We were also able to help Brandon get some things done at his house since he only has 4 days every 2 weeks to work on things.  He moved into the house in May and there were some things that needed to be done that he just couldn’t do with the little bit of time he is there every month.  

Blaise even had a little house project.  About a week after Brandon moved into his newly built house, Zena decided separation anxiety was too much for her during a trial free range and no kennel time while Brandon ran an errand.  She chewed off about a third of the trim around the door leading into the garage.  Oops! Blaise only thought he was done with house projects when we sold our house!

Puebla, Mexico is a No Go

By the first part of our time back in the U.S., we had already booked a trip to Mexico.  The original plan was to spend a month in Puebla, Mexico and then head to Playa del Carmen for a month. We had a lovely AirBnB booked in Puebla and had just booked our flight there for the end of July when we got notice from the AirBnB host that they were renovating the place we were renting and the renovations would not be complete by the time we were to arrive.  They then requested we cancel our stay in their AirBnB.

The big problem with this is that they did this within a month of the start of our stay.  Now we can’t cancel the reservation without losing 100% of the cost of the stay.  That is the AirBnB policy.  You can cancel and get a 100% refund so long as it is canceled a month or more before your stay.  We told them this and went back and forth with them and told them they had to cancel us or we would not get our money back.  They tried to get us to stay at a different apartment they had in a different location but it was not an area we wanted to be in. After several days of their not canceling and ignoring our message, we had to get AirBnB involved who eventually canceled our reservation and refunded our money.

This still left us in a bit of a pickle.  Now what?  We had just purchased our flight to Puebla and now we didn’t have a place to stay.  And I was so excited about Puebla!  Home of mole’ sauce.  Such a disappointment. We looked at AirBnBs and in booking.com (and elsewhere) but simply could not find anything that worked.  It was either way more than what we wanted to spend or not located in the area we wanted.

We knew we had to be in Playa del Carmen at the end of September and possibly for the month of October.

Why Go to Mexico?

Before I move on to what our solution ended up being, I should mention why we need to be in Playa del Carmen during that period.  It is not something we have told many people about.  Several years ago, when things in Mexico were much more appealing to us, we decided we would pursue residency in Mexico.  Were we going to live in Mexico?  Maybe?  The thought process was, it is always good to have options.  Things in the U.S. have been wonky for a while and we wanted to have options.  Right now, we are not as interested in spending time in Mexico as we once were but we are in the middle of a process in which we have invested a great deal of time and money so we need to see it through.

Several years ago, when we decided to do this, we gathered many documents, got our marriage license and birth certificates apostilled (translated to Spanish and certified by our government).  We headed to a Mexico consulate in Detroit (it is the place we were able to get an appointment) to gain approval for permanent residency in Mexico.  I have distilled this process into a couple of sentences, but it was months-worth of work. Once we got to the consulate in Detroit, they looked at our financial documents and agreed to give us the opportunity to travel to Mexico to finalize residency.

The glitch was because Blaise was already retired, they gave him the opportunity for permanent residency but because I was still working, I could only get temporary residency with the option to change it to permanent residency after 4 years.

That is why we have to be in Playa del Carmen - so I can gain my permanent residency card.  My temporary residency expires October 25 and I have 30 days prior to that expiration to change it to permanent.  We are doing it in Playa del Carmen because that is where we gained Blaise’s permanent and my temporary years ago using a facilitator.  We are using the same facilitator since she has all of the historical information on our process.

Now What?

Back to how we solved our no-place-to-stay-in-Puebla problem.  Blaise’s original solution was to not go to Puebla at all, change our flight to go to Cancun and stay in Playa del Carmen for three months. Not really the solution that appealed to me.  First because Playa del Carmen is not my favorite place in the world these days.  They have that whole sargassum (an algae that washes up on the shore - in huge amounts right now) problem rendering the beaches not as appealing.  They have taken measures to make it better but it is still not the greatest.  Add to that, you are walking on the surface of the sun so ugh.

So we started looking at other options.  What could we do that doesn’t mean we are in Playa del Carmen for three months.  First we could have stayed at Brandon’s for a couple more months but we talked about it and didn’t want Brandon to feel as though we were taking advantage of him.  We could have gone back to Oklahoma and worked on the house up there but it was hard to find a decent place to stay and we were unsure how much we could get done in 2 months.

Then we started to look at our go-to fallback - Is there a cruise we could go on?  I found a 2-week Princess cruise out of Port Canaveral.  It was really two back-to-back 7-night cruises but they were sold as one 14-night cruise with a trip back to Port Canaveral in the middle.  After finding that, it all just fell into place.  We would stay at Brandon’s for one more month, hop on the cruise, and then head to Playa del Carmen for two months.

In Conclusion

We really enjoyed our stay at Brandon’s house.  He has done a wonderful job of decorating and making his house a home.  It is the most at-home I have felt since we left last September, with our friends’ home in North Dakota being a close second.

I will talk about the cruise in the next blog.  See you then!

End of One Adventure, Beginning of a New Adventure

We were back in the states for nearly three months and then last week, headed out for another long journey. I took a few-months break from blogging but now I am back at it.

Before I get to the current trip, let me wrap up the last bit of our last trip.

Cruise Tokyo to Whittier, Alaska

We took the Azamara Pursuit from Tokyo to Whittier Alaska and then stayed on for their next cruise through Alaska to Vancouver.  We left Tokyo, May 9th. It was an amazing leg of the trip. We had one stop in Japan - Aomori - before hitting the high seas for about a week of sea days and setting foot on land again in Kodiak, Alaska.

Aomori is a beautiful town in Japan known for its apples.  The ship picked up a bunch of apples and we had the most delicious apple pie for dessert that evening.

We spent our time in Kodiak looking for some cooler-weather clothing since we had none coming from southeast Asia. I spent more than I ever had on a coat/jacket - some expensive brand I had never heard of whose name escapes me right now.  I chose it because it was warm enough for below-zero weather but light enough to easily pack, even better than a puffer coat.  I have it with me now for when we hit colder weather later this year on this trip.  I did, however, balance that pricey purchase with some jeans from the local Wal-Mart.  Until that day, I had never purchased jeans from Wal-Mart but they fit well and it really was the only place in town to get jeans long enough to work for me.

Us in Kodiak after a day of walking and shopping.  Wal-Mart was a long walk.

Adding the Follow-On Cruise

About a month before we were to set sail from Tokyo to Whittier, Alaska, we decided to purchase the follow-on cruise that went from Whittier, Alaska to Vancouver, Canada.  I was finally going to get my Alaska cruise!

And so we went from Kodiak to Whittier where some passengers disembarked while others embarked and where we had to change cabins.  We went from an inside cabin to a balcony. I swore I would never do another inside cabin since the very first cruise we took with the kids where we had inside cabins and I hated it.  We chose the inside cable for several reasons and I was willing to try again since for most of the journey, there was little to see but sea.  I did learn that I still hate the light deprivation but didn’t mind it so much that under the right circumstances I wouldn’t do it again. But it will not be the default.

Taking Immunity Levels Seriously

This cruise is the time in our travels where we decided that daily immunity boosting while traveling is a must.  The last two or three months before we hopped on that cruise, we had started to do so on and off.  “On” mostly before, during, and after plane travel.   “Off” once we had been in a place for a while.  I did like the little immunity shots (think shots in a bar, not shots at the hospital) they sell in convenience stores in Japan.  They sell them like 5-hour energy is sold in the U.S.  They were tasty and seemed to work. This method worked for us - we didn’t get sick for the last three months of that 8-month trip whereas the first five months we were plagued with various maladies, including the flu for me.

On the way from Japan to Whittier for those many days at sea, we noticed people hacking all over the place, including a person in the cabin next to us.  We think it was the wife.  She coughed the whole time we were in that cabin. We later met them at dinner one night.  We called her husband disheveled Santa, for reasons obvious if you had seen him. They were from Australia as were the majority of the 600+ people on the ship.  U.S. folks were in the minority on this one.

People were coughing all over the place.  We overheard one man tell someone his wife was feeling so bad, they were administering IV fluids to her in their cabin because she was too weak to go to the infirmary.

Sooo, one of the things we made sure to purchase at Wal-Mart in Kodiak was a big bottle of Airbourne, which we have been taking ever since and not getting sick.  We have found that every country has their version of immunity boosts and we will avail ourselves of them at each location from now on.

Twenty-Nine Years of Marriage

We celebrated our 29th wedding anniversary somewhere in the middle of the Pacific Ocean on May 17.  They have a couple of specialty restaurants on the ship and we choose the steakhouse for the celebration dinner.  It was a fantastic meal!  I had the best lobster bisque I have ever tasted at that meal.  The steak, the sides, the dessert - all of it perfect.  It was so good, we returned to it on the Alaska leg of the back-to-back cruises.

Santas Abound

One last thing to mention before I talk about the Alaska part of the cruise is the number of “Santas” on the ship. After dubbing the cabin neighbor disheveled Santa, we noticed there were many men who fit the Santa description.  Lots of jolly white-bearded men of varying sizes.  Not sure why.  It was an older crowd, as is expected on Azamara cruises, but why so many white beards?

Alaska Leg of Cruise

Cabin Change

Changing cabins in Whittier on May 21 was an interesting but easy process.  We had to pack up all of our loose things from the drawers and around the cabin, but they moved all of our hanging clothes along with the packed sundries for us. We left the old cabin and a couple hours later, our stuff was waiting for us in our new balcony cabin with our clothes neatly hanging in the closet.  It was a very smooth process. I noticed that I had forgotten to pack a phone charger so I called the new cabin steward and she said she was right outside our door with the charger in hand. How’s that for service!

Where Did We Go in Alaska?

Lots of great stops on the Alaska cruise: Valdiz, Haines, Icy Strait Point, Sitka, Ketchikan, Nanaimo, and Victoria, before stopping in Vancouver on June 1.  Nanaimo and Victoria are both on Vancouver Island, Canada.  We also had a day cruising near the Hubbard glacier which if you have never had the opportunity to do, you should absolutely do so if you get the chance. What an amazing cruise!  I did post pictures of each place as we took the trip but will post a couple here as a reminder of the beauty.

Hubbard Glacier

The scenery surrounding Hubbard Glacier is just as stunning!

I know I have said it before but Alaska is the Rome of natural beauty.  In Rome you can walk and everywhere you turn is either some magnificent structure or some kind of reminder of all its incredible history.  With Alaska, everywhere you turn is a breathtaking view.  You can never forget as you walk along that there is a view behind you just as stunning as the one in front of you, if not more.

I am not sure I could select a favorite Alaska stop.  Each was special for a different reason.  I think Icy Strait Point was our least favorite though. The whole place was clearly built for cruise ships.  It was still beautiful but extremely commercialized.  Great for kids however.  I would actually skip that stop next time. 

Fish and Chips Tour

Before we got to Alaska, we decided to do a fish and chips tour where we ordered fish and chips at every stop to see who had the best.  We limited this to the Alaska stops only but ended up getting fish and chips in Victoria and they turned out to be the best we had on the trip.  When we took a Spain intensive cruise, I did a sangria tour trying to figure out who had the best Sangria. (Blaise doesn’t really drink so that one was just me).

We tried to get a picture of the outside of each fish and chips location, but I forgot to take the picture in Ketchikan. Maybe I forgot because it was our least favorite.  Then as we were making our stops, we realized it was harder to rank them than we thought it would be because the tastiness of the fish and the tastiness of the chips were not always equivalent at each location.  They were all good.  I think Ketchikan is the only place we probably would not order them again.

The rankings are as follows:

1. Haines - The Bamboo Room

   

2. Sitka - Sitka Burger and Crab Shack

   

3. Icy Strait Point  - The Cookhouse Restaurant (but these fries were the best of all five)

   

4. Valdez - The Fat Mermaid

   

5. Ketchikan - Timber and Tide (dry fish but the fries were up there with Icy Strait Point)

Our History with Azamara

This was the first time since the pandemic that we took a cruise on Azamara. I think that was in 2019 from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to Lisbon Portugal.

We took it then not just because we wanted to try Azamara and because we loved the itinerary but also because they were part of the Royal Caribbean group along with Celebrity.  At the time, they were offering to give us Celebrity loyalty points for Azamara cruises so we took it.  We were concerned that Azamara ships are so much smaller than what we are used to (2,000+ verses about 700 on Azamara) that we wouldn’t enjoy it.  Turns out we did.  So much so, we booked one for April 2020 from Dubai to Athens, hitting one of our bucket list places - Petra.  Well, we all know what happened in March of 2020.  Thus our cruise was canceled.  We were so disappointed.

Then Royal Caribbean sold Azamara during the pandemic and that was that.  But we enjoyed the product so much, we decided to try it again this time. We were not disappointed.  We had heard the quality of everything had diminished since leaving Royal Caribbean.  We did not experience that.

What is Azamara Like?

First, there is no casino.  So if you cruise to gamble this is not the cruise for you.

The guests are older and well-traveled, many having gone all-in on Azamara, cruising them exclusively for many years.  Some of the guests even knew crew members from past cruises and were greeted with hugs and inquiries about family from both sides.  I am OK not having that degree of familiarity with the crew but it was nice to see.

The cost of the cruise is inclusive of alcoholic beverages including wine, specialty coffee, and gratuities so you don’t have people always asking you for your card every time you turn around.  It was an upcharge if you wanted premium alcohol.

While the service is top-notch, even better than Celebrity, it is a casual environment.  Daytime is just like any other cruise ship we have been on. They have no formal nights or varying levels of dress for the evenings.  You just have to wear pants and a collared shirt for men and a dress/skirt/pants with a nice top for women to the main dining room and specialty restaurants.  This level of dress works very well for the way we are currently traveling - months at a time with just a carry-on and a personal item.  They do have a white night event one night on each cruise, but if you don’t wear white, nobody says anything.

Also included in the price of the cruise, if it’s not a transoceanic cruise, is what they call an Azamazing Evening.  This is an event off the cruise ship where they transport every guest to the event location and provide drinks, heavy snacks, and entertainment.  Ours was a campy log sport event.  They even brought blankets for people when the sun went down and the chill set in. Since our last cruise with them was a transatlantic, we did not experience the Azamazing Evening.  It was a lovely night.

I did discover that on the Azamara cruise that stops in Ephesus Turkey, their Azamazing Evening is a symphony concert in the ancient amphitheater in Ephesus.  I now have to do that cruise just for that experience!

The Azamara cruises are more expensive than others but if you hunt, you can find some good deals on them if price is an issue.  We always hunt for deals.

Now I am to the point to say why I told you the history with Azamara.  Apparently, when Azamara was sold by Royal Caribbean, Azamara copied ALL of our Celebrity loyalty points.  We are on the second to the highest tier for Celebrity and get lots of perks for that and that is why it is usually our go-to cruise line.

We did not know Azamara copied our loyalty points until we booked the Alaska part of the last cruise.  This is important because the Alaska cruise took us to their second to the highest loyalty tier and that gave us 6 FREE nights on a cruise so long as we book that cruise within a year of reaching that tier.  What a great bonus!  We have already booked that cruise.  It goes from Fort Lauderdale to London leaving June 10 next year with several stops up the east coast of the U.S. and Canada along with a couple stops in Ireland.   As my mother-in-law would say if she were still with us - What a treat!

Wrapping it Up

As always, I remain so thankful to be able to live this life, see all the sites, experience all the things, and visit all the places.  I’ve been thinking about that a great deal lately as we have just passed the tenth anniversary of my sister’s death.  She said at one point while she was sick that she knew she would never get to travel so she would have to visit places through my eyes.  I’ve never forgotten that and maybe that is a small part of why I blog and post so many pictures. Maybe someone else gets to see things they can’t see in person for whatever reason. Her death is also a major reason we retired early and are traveling like we are. You hear it all the time - we are not guaranteed tomorrow. We are also not guaranteed good health tomorrow. We can do everything we can to stay healthy and mobile but you have no idea what the future brings.

Until next time…

Being Tourists in Seoul

We  were only in Seoul, South Korea for two weeks.  Not enough time, we decided.  South Korea is one of the places on this trip that we hope to return to.

Among some other things, we hit the highlights in Seoul and a bit outside of Seoul:  the palace, a tour of the DMZ, and the Seoul Tower.  And I don’t want to forget Blaise’s bucket-list location - the Kukkiwon.  Sure, there were many other things we could have seen there, but we only had two weeks and our slow travel style of mixing general living in a place like locals (to the extent foreigners can) and doing the touristy things, (a way of travel which is now firmly entrenched) did not lend itself to running around and seeing everything.  I get this is not a way of travel everyone would want to embrace, but it is really working for us.  I do not like to feel exhausted from rushing around and seeing everything in just a few days.  Does this mean we will miss seeing things from time to time traveling this way? Yes.  But I will trade that every time for the experience of spending time immersed in the culture.

The highlight of our time in Seoul for me was the visit to the DMZ.  For Blaise, it was the Kukkiwon, although he admits the DMZ was really interesting.  Thank God I can finally spell Kukkiwon without looking it up every time!

The DMZ

This was particularly interesting to me because last year (I think it was last year, maybe the year before), I read the book, Star of the North, by D.B. John.  I highly recommend this book.  It is one of the best books I have read in a really long time.  A big thank you to Jeff for the recommendation.  It involved someone from North Korea, South Korea, and the CIA.  This book sparked my interest in what life in North Korea must be like, so very isolated from the rest of the world and controlled by the government.

Overview

The DMZ (demilitarized zone) is the buffer zone between South and North Korea.  It has been in place since the Korean Armistice Agreement of 1953.  What I did not really understand until I went on the tour is that South and North Korea are technically still at war to this day.  I never thought about it that way, but I am sure I have known that.

The DMZ is 2 ½ miles (4 kilometers) wide and 155 miles (250 kilometers) long and intersects the 38th parallel.  It is a de facto border and is one of, if not the, most heavily fortified areas in the world.

This is a map our tour guide provided us showing the structure of the DMZ. The Military Demarcation Line is the actual border between the two countries.  The Civil Controlled Line is not quite the DMZ but still controlled heavily by the South Korean military. (Map credit to our tour guide, K)

Overall, the area has an eerie silence to it, even with a bunch of tourists there.

We were on a bus and the soldiers had to come onto the bus and check every single passport before we entered the area and when we exited at the end of the visit.

Unfortunately, we could not take pictures of North Korea and nearly everything we saw in the DMZ.  We were told at each place where we could take pictures.  Some of the pictures posted here were provided by our tour guide, K.

We almost did not take this tour because we can no longer go to the Joint Security Area (JSA) which allows you to step in the room and across the desk so you can actually stand in North Korea.  You have not been able to do that since 2023 when relations between North and South became even more strained than they were or when someone from South Korea went on a tour and actually defected to North Korea.  I can’t remember which one that was but after each of those situations, things got buttoned down in the DMZ.  Blaise did not want to go once he heard we could not stand in North Korea, but I really wanted to go so I am glad I convinced him to go.

Recent Tensions

In 2023, tensions between South and North Korea intensified when South Korea elected a president who took a harder stance with respect to North Korea.  In retaliation, North Korea increased their missile testing and launched a new spy satellite.  South Korea responded to that by holding the largest joint military drills in years with the U.S.

North Korea would also send over trash balloons which were quite literally balloons that would float across the DMZ into South Korea carrying trash.  In response to that, South Korea would play KPop, on extremely loud loudspeakers, across the DMZ into North Korea.

As a result, even though South Korea allows tourist visits to the DMZ, they greatly reduced what these tourists can and cannot do.

Two highlights of this trip were the Dora Observatory and the walking in the third infiltration tunnel all the way to the demarcation line (the border between the two countries).

Dora Observatory

The Dora Observatory is a place within the DMZ on the top of a hill where they have high-powered telescopes to look into North Korea. Again, absolutely NO pictures.  Our tour guide, K, sent us (via WhatsApp) many pictures from that location from many years ago when taking pictures were allowed.  Those are what you see here; not anything Blaise or I took.  Unfortunately for us, rain was on the way so our ability to see any details in North Korea, even with the telescopes, was very limited and eventually non-existent within a matter of minutes of our time there.

This is a picture of a post in North Korea using one of the telescopes from years ago from the Observatory.  (Photo credit to our tour guide, K)

This is the Kaesong Industrial Complex located in North Korea just north of the DMZ.  This was a symbol of economic cooperation between the two countries where both South and North Koreans worked. It was operational from 2004, until 2026 when tensions between the two countries became too much to continue the venture.  (This is another photo from years ago provided by our tour guide K.) 

Another photo from the Observatory taken years ago and provided by our tour guide, K.

The second, and probably most interesting, highlight of this visit was walking through the third infiltration tunnel.

Before I get into what that was like, here’s a little background, which I find fascinating. Remember, the Armistice creating the DMZ was signed back in 1953.

There were three “Tunnels of Aggression” found in the 1970’s: 1st Tunnel in 1974, 2nd Tunnel in 1975, and 3rd Tunnel in 1978.  It is the third tunnel that we walked and is the closest of the four to Seoul (about 27 miles from Seoul).  The 4th Tunnel was discovered in 1990!

These tunnels were dug by North Korea from North Korea, under the DMZ, and into South Korea intended for troops to travel through for an attack on Seoul.

It is interesting how they found the tunnels.  According to our tour guide, there was a North Korean defector who was an engineer who worked on the tunnels.  He told South Korea of their existence but couldn’t tell them exactly where they were. To find them, South Korean and U.S. engineering teams drilled narrow vertical holes and filled them with water.  When North Korea used the dynamite to dig the tunnels, it would cause sudden jets of water to shoot up in the air.

Map of the four North Korean infiltration tunnels. (Photo credit to our tour guide, K)

At first, North Korea denied what they were doing and went so far as to paint black on some of the places on the walls of the tunnels to support their lie that they were digging for coal.

Once discovered, they were concreted up so North Korea could not get through.

Again, the 3rd Tunnel is one that we visited.  South Korea built a steep long tunnel to intercept the North Korean tunnel, which allows tourists today to go down into the tunnel dug by North Korea.  Thus, there is a North Korean and South Korean part of the tunnel we visited.  Before we went down the tunnel, we had a brilliant woman on our tour ask why it was called the North Korean tunnel if we were in South Korea. Really? She couldn’t figure that one out?

Before going down the tunnel, we were warned of the steepness of the South Korean part of the tunnel leading to what North Korea had dug out as well as the claustrophobic nature of the tunnel and how low it was at points.  The tour guide also mentioned that someone the week before we were there had a heart attack in the tunnel as a means to assure we understood the steepness of South Korean portion of the tunnel.

We were given hard hats and headed down, despite my asthma and Blaise’s claustrophobia.  If you get to the DMZ don’t you have to experience that tunnel?

It was a long trek but we did it!  The South Korea part of the tunnel was deceptively steep.  It didn’t look particularly steep but when you were going back up, you sure felt it.  And that part of the tunnel was long.  So was the flat North Korean part.  The North Korean part had its own problem.  That height in that half of the tunnel was extremely low. So I had to walk hunched over for nearly all of it, which was almost 435 meters since that is how far the North Koreans had dug into South Korea.  The hardhat saved me.  I hit my head too many times to count on the top of the tunnel.  I thought I was ducking low enough but at times the tunnel was way lower than I thought.  I have to say I was momentarily jealous of the many people short enough to walk through standing straight as a board.

You could see the spots where the dynamite was situated when the North Koreans were building the tunnel and painted black areas to try to dupe people into thinking they were digging for coal.

At the end of the tunnel, at the demarcation line (the literal North Korean border) were three massive concrete barriers to permanently seal the tunnel.  The barrier closest to us had a window so we could see to the next barrier.  There was a light in the space between the barriers and plants were actually growing between the barriers.  I guess because of the light in there?

It took me longer than most to get back up the incline, but I did it.

It was a rough trip but so very much worth the effort!  If you make it to Seoul, I would put this on your “must do” list.

Picture of the 3rd Infiltration Tunnel we walked.  Again, we could not take a picture so this is one provided by our tour guide, K.

We also visited an area just outside the DMZ on the South Korea side (obviously) called the Civil Controlled area. This is called the Freedom Bridge.  This is the bridge South Korean POWs walked across to go home after the Armistice was signed in 1953.  The top of the bridge is fairly newly replaced but the bottom is original.  (I took this picture as this was one of the few areas we were authorized to do so.)

Also in the Civil Controlled area was this relic.  It is a train car that was blown up and shot up with over 1,000 bullet holes. (I took this picture as this was one of the few areas we were authorized to do so.)

The Kukkiwon

This is a place, as a child, Blaise never thought he would get a chance to visit.  Blaise is a second degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do, gaining his first black belt at age 14.  (This is part me bragging about him and part informational, to understand why Blaise wanted to go.) That is why visiting The Kukkiwon was important to Blaise.

The Kukkiwon is the world headquarters for Tae Kwon Don.  It is also the only place in South Korea where black belt tests are performed.

What I learned about the Kukkiwon and Tae Kwon Do with this visit:

In South Korea, they just call it Kukkiwon, not The Kukkiwon.  We still call it The Kukkiwon because that is how Blaise has always said it and because I like it better that way.

Every child in South Korea must learn Tae Kwon Do. It is part of their school curriculum.  They don’t have to get a black belt or anything but it is akin to our gym class.

The Kukkiwon is in the Gangnam district - of the Gangnam Style song by Psy fame.

The actual dojo in The Kukkiwon is smaller than in the pictures that Blaise had seen.  I, personally, thought it was huge.

The Kukkiwon is situated at the top of a hill within a lovely wooded garden area right in the middle of the Gangnam district of Seoul. Being there, you would think it is miles from civilization.

Even after the fascinating trip to the DMZ, Blaise still says this is the highlight of our trip to Seoul for him.  I am thrilled he had the opportunity to see it.

I won’t really talk about the other two big tourist places we visited, the big palace and the Seoul Tower, since I posted about them on Facebook and other than what I said there, there is not much more to say.

Brief Cruise Overview

I will try to post another blog in the next week to talk about the first of our back-to-back cruises, which ends tomorrow.  This is our first back-to-back cruise ever.

The first cruise was 13 nights (with the night of May 14 happening twice due to the International Dateline), from Tokyo to Whittier, Alaska.

The second cruise starts tomorrow and is 11 nights going from Whittier, Alaska to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

More about those in my next blog, focusing on the first cruise.  I will probably write a separate blog for the second cruise.

Seoul, South Korea

As I write this, we are sailing through the Bering Sea.  It’s a rough one!  The roughest waters we have been in on any cruise, which I think is over 20 at this point.  Sometimes we hit a wave that takes the front of the ship up in the air and down with a bang that rattles the whole ship. This is the first time I’ve gotten a little queasy on a cruise ship.

At at a park by the Seoul Tower

Getting to Seoul, South Korea

On April 24, we took the train to the airport in Osaka to head for Seoul, South Korea.

Everything went smoothly until we got to Seoul. For some reason, even if the train system in a place is easy to navigate, the trains leaving an airport can prove tricky.  We had problems in Osaka and Seoul with the outbound trains from the airport.  Rome was no problem, but these two, we had problems with.  The difference between Osaka and Seoul, is that Osaka was confusing from the get go and the people working at the train station at the airport were quick to look at the tickets we got from the machine and tell us they were wrong and direct us to a human that got us the right tickets to the right place.

Before I get into the trip to our hotel that took around three hours, I have to mention that we were also using a new navigation app - Naver (pronounced NAAver like in naval not naver like in navigate - which seems silly to me because it’s a navigation tool).  Every place we have ever traveled to, we have used Google Maps to get around and it works great. In most places it will tell you what train or bus to get on, when it will arrive, its terminus, how many stops you have before you get off, and what time that will be.  Same for buses.  If you are taking a bus to a train or vice versa, it will show you the walk between the two and what time the next one leaves so you can catch it.  Traveling would be SO much more difficult without Google or some form of GPS.

Naver is necessary, we found out, because of the laws regarding maps in South Korea.  Google is not accurate in the least in South Korea.  If you want help getting around, you must use Naver.  That is what everyone in Seoul uses.  In many ways, Naver is superior to Google Maps, giving you multiple times of arrival for buses and trains and will dynamically change your options if you miss a train or bus. Naver will tell you how many stops away your bus or train is as well as how many minutes until it arrives.  It is also great at notifying you when you are on the train or bus when your stop is coming up, letting you know one stop ahead of time to prepare for exit.  We think Google Maps could learn a thing or two from Naver. That is once you have learned the app.  It took a few minutes of effort and a YouTube video.  Once we knew, it was easy peasy.

The other day, Blaise googled if you can use Naver in other countries since it is superior to Google Maps.  The answer was yes, but it will not be accurate because it only provides information for South Korea.  So really the answer is “no,” right Google?  What a dumb answer.  

I digress.

In Seoul, we thought we knew what we were doing when we got to the airport.  It was supposed to be a train and then a bus that dropped us off right in front of our hotel.  Unfortunately we were still learning Naver which we learned later on doesn’t tell you what platform (like Google Maps in Osaka) or give you the terminus (like Google Maps in Rome), it gives you the next stop on that line which isn’t always readily available on signage. It is important to know what direction to go since you can easily get on the right train line or bus number going in the opposite direction from which you need to go.  What was difficult for us other than learning Naver was that all trains at the Seoul airport go out.  They aren’t going two directions.  The airport is the starting point for all the trains, you just need to find the one that is going the direction you need to go with the stop you need without knowing the right platform.

After much discussion and confusion, we got on a train.  Turns out, we were wrong and it didn’t have any stop we needed.  It was a long train ride out of the airport so we had some time to learn Naver and figure out where we needed to get off the train.  We opted for riding it out and getting off the train at Seoul Station, the biggest train station with the most options for trains and buses.  After getting off the train, we had Naver figured out and had a plan to get to our hotel.

After a couple more trains and a bus, we arrived at the bus station right next to our hotel around three hours later. Quite the learning experience!

Our Hotel

Our Hotel was the 3S Doksan Boutique Hotel, in the Doksan area of Seoul which is totally NOT near anything touristy.  This is something we don’t mind at all.  We like staying in areas that are not tourist focused so we can get a true picture on life in the area and interact with regular people who are simply living their lives.  We like getting that true picture of regular life in a place.  We certainly got that but at the expense of time since the touristy things we wanted to do were 55 minutes or more away, requiring at least one bus and one train, often more.  Nothing was a “hop on one of the many buses that stop right in front of the hotel and go straight there.”  You had to hop on one of those many buses and go to a train station or hop on yet another bus. If there is one thing I hate more than standing on a train, it is standing on a bus for a prolonged period of time.  

We learned a lesson on this one regarding how to find a good location for a hotel.  It is fine to be in a non-touristy area so long as you have an easy way to get to the tourist sites, like being near a train station where you can catch one train there, not five trains. It’s all a balance.

Cool building in our neighborhood - It is a daycare.

The hotel was interesting.  We stayed there for two weeks which is fine but they had absolutely no place to put your clothes - no drawers (not a single drawer anywhere), no closet, no wardrobe.  Nothing. So we literally lived out of our suitcases the whole time.

It was one of the most unusual hotels we have been to with a fancy remote control that turned everything in the room on and off, including the lights.  The guy at the reception desk says “we are known for our remote controls.”  I don’t know if “we” meant the hotel, or Seoul, or North Korea in general.  But he was quite proud of their remotes.

 

The room had interesting things like a flat iron for your hair, an air purifier, and a very expensive and very large massage chair.

Getting Around

Even with a very comprehensive train and bus system, you can potentially walk a lot in Seoul.

There are just as many buses in Seoul as there are in Rome.  They are relied upon just as much as trains and if you catch either during rush hour, you are standing shoulder to shoulder like sardines.  But there is no noise.  Everyone is quiet, like they are in Japan.  If you talk on a train or a bus, you better do it in hushed tones! And the cardinal sin is talking on your phone.

Speaking of how quiet the public transport is and phones, I have to mention this.  No one is standing around looking, reveling in the quietness on the trains, they have their earbuds in and are listening to and watching something on their phones.  And they don’t stop when they get off the train or bus.  I cannot tell you how many times we saw people walking down the street watching videos on their phones not paying any attention to their surroundings.  This was so common it got annoying. Maybe this is one of the reasons the birth rate in Korea is so low.

In South Korea and Japan, you always stand off to the side IN A QUEUE waiting for the train.  The people exiting the train get off in the middle and once they are off the train, then you can get on in order; never rush the train entrance.

The Culture

The culture in Korea is not hugely dissimilar to Japan.  Koreans may be appalled by this comparison, but this is just how I see it. It is clean but not as clean as Japan.  It is quiet but not as quiet as Japan.  It’s automated, but not as automated as Japan.  There are several of those types of comparisons.

South Korea absolutely does this better than Japan: retractable sun umbrellas at intersections so you don't burn in the sun waiting to cross the street.

We saw the biggest cabbage ever in Seoul!

Beauty Products

One of the things Korea certainly does better than Japan is beauty products.  They are top notch in South Korea and you will find many of those products in Japan so I think Japan may know South Korea is superior in this area.  I picked up some anti-aging eye and face cream, concealer, and shampoo and conditioner.  They are definitely superior to what we have in the U.S. and cheaper!

Their big beauty store is Olive Young and they are everywhere.  There are more of these than convenience stores, which is saying something in Asia since convenience stores are king in Asia!  There were places where there was an Olive Young right across the street from another Olive Young.  Beauty really is the business to be in in South Korea.

Kimchi

They like their kimchi in South Korea.  So much so that there is a specific rule that you cannot carry kimchi with you on an airplane because of the smell.

 

Dogs

They love their dogs in Seoul.  The dogs are just as clean in South Korea as Japan but what we saw much more than Japan is that people in Seoul would put their dogs in baby strollers.  This was more common than the dogs being walked on a leash.  We even saw a couple of dogs that were walking with shoes on.  And they must wear them often because the dogs weren’t trying to fling them off which is what our dogs would have tried to do.

Cost

South Korea was the most expensive country we have visited on this trip but still about 20-30% less than the U.S. I suspect we will have culture shock with prices once we get back to the U.S.

The People

The people in South Korea were so kind and were quick to volunteer to help you if you looked confused.  And most of the time when they helped you, they didn’t speak English.  Most were speaking Korean with hand gestures.

We had a younger Korean woman who spoke English at a train station where all the signs were in Korean, stop and ask us where we were trying to go.  I am sure we looked so confused as we tried to match the Korean words on Naver with the ones on the signs.  Not an easy feat when they all look like intricate pictures.  We told her where we were trying to go and she directed us to the right platform.  Would you have done that for a foreigner in the U.S.?  I am not sure I would have before this trip, merely as a result of shyness. But I certainly will now!

One day, we were stopped in a park sitting on a park bench near some elderly women and when they left, they attempted rather diligently to speak to us in Korean, even after we told them in English we didn’t understand. They just kept on going - all smiles.  They seem excited to talk to us. It was sweet.  I pulled out my phone and brought up Google Translate and tried to explain the live translate so we could speak to these lovely ladies.  They didn’t understand and finally walked off.  I am sure they laughed at us.  We tried but if a conversation in Korean involves more than hello or thank you, we are out.

We had a rather sweet encounter with a man in a laundromat.  We were trying to figure out the washers and dryers since everything was in Korean.  An older man was there washing his clothes and pantomimed how to navigate everything for me.  He just walked up and started helping.  I didn’t ask.  Later while our clothes were washing and he had already folded his dry clothes, I saw him get some dryer sheets out of the machine.  I thought that was odd. And then when he was leaving he handed those dryer sheets to us as a kind gesture.

On the opposite side of things, we got a lot of stares. This happened more so in South Korea than any other place we have visited.  So often that we both noticed.  I don’t know if it was because we were both tall to them, if it is because I am taller than Blaise, or if it is because I am so tall.  Or perhaps it is our stunning good looks. Perhaps not the latter.  Or maybe staring is more culturally acceptable in South Korea than other countries.  At times it was unnerving.

Thoughts on South Korea

Overall, we loved Korea!  I think we would have enjoyed Seoul much more if our location were more central to all the sites we wanted to see.  It became a bit annoying traveling over an hour to see any we wanted to visit.

South Korea is one we want to return to and spend time in the southern parts and Busan.

I’ll spend my next blog talking about the places we visited in Seoul, just to break this up into smaller pieces.

If any of this writing sounds odd, it was because I was extremely distracted by the trivia going on while writing it.