Korean cake and a small victory

On long bike rides I usually enjoy the conversation
that takes my mind off the tedium. But 10 miles still
passed almost unnoticed last Sunday as I rode among a
pack of Korea bikers, even though I couldn’t
understand a word they said. We rode along the inlet
north of Kunsan to a ridge that climbed 1.5 miles then
became rolling hills for the next 5. At the top of
the first climb, we stopped for some Pokari Sweat and
Korean cake. The Pokari is like sweet Gatoraide, and
was far better than the opaque carbonated rice drink
later on in the journey. As for Korean “cake” – it
was a flat, dark green slab of indescribable flavor
whose the gummy-bear texture was almost too much for
me. However, in effort to be polite, I finished it
while considering how my stomach would respond as I
continued the ride. We stopped at a roadside
convenience shack where the Koreans fed me tomatoes
and monkey bananas. I pondered that life has sure
taken me to some unusual situations, then split off
early from the group to make it to church in a packed
upstairs meeting room where I felt slightly out of
place in my sweaty bike clothes among the well dressed
Koreans and Americans. I smile that Pastor Bill had
the grace to call it “a good testimony” that I’d bike
for 3 hours then show up all sweaty at church… I
sometimes wonder what it’s like to live a “normal”
life, if there is such a thing.

Yesterday they gave me 4 F-117s and 3 other folks to
fly them and kicked us out the squadron door to go
fly. We meandered around the skies near Korea,
peering at various towns and islands through our
infrared sensors. But the greatest victory of the day
was making it back to the field with all 4 of us still
together and not rapidly running out of gas. Normally
this would be standard operations, but with quiet
hours (times when take-offs and landings are
prohibited for noise reasons) and more F-16s than
normal flying from our host airbase, there was usually
a crowd milling around, stacked at different altitudes
and holding a different points in space, waiting their
turn to land while anxiously comparing their amount of
fuel remaining with the sound of the situation on the
radios. We came back early to get a place in the
front of the line and still were lower than ideal on
gas, but unlike the other 5 four-ships that had tried,
we made it over the field with all 4 together. That
still brings a smile to my face. The little things.

Hope you’re enjoying some little things along life’s
way.
Donna

Seoul goals

Early Saturday morning I hefted my pack and strolled
to the front gate of the base. 4 hours, a cab ride, a
train trip, and several subway rides later, I emerged
from the Seoul’s underground world into the bright
sunlit crowds of Itaewon. Just off the US Army base
Yongsan, Itaewon is the foreigners’ shopping district,
lined with shops selling luggage, lingerie, suits,
jewelry, junk, and anything else you could
imagine…except climbing gear. For that, one of my
traveling companions requested a Korean friend of his
to act as a guide. She led us through more of the
maze of subways, then up into Dongdaemun shopping
district. Unlike the America-crowded Itaewon area,
Dongdaemun was Asia-crowded – as in wall-to-wall
bodies. We pushed our way to the sports store, bought
what we needed, marveled at the plethora of
roller-blading gear, then jostled our way back into
the subway system, passing an infinite number of
shoes, t-shirts, handbags, and unidentifiable
odd-smelling snacks along the way. Seoul goal #1
accomplished.

Seoul goal #2 was meeting more English-speaking rock
climbers at a Canadian tavern that evening. There we
sat, 3 Americans living in Kunsan, beside Rhett from
Saskatchewan; Caitlin and Logan from near Vancouver
now living near Seoul; Eric the American and Jake the
Aussie, living in Daejon; Jenny and Jill stationed at
the US Army post at Yongsan just down the road; Russel
and Joey stationed at Uijongbu; Heidi from Canada,
living in Seoul; Collin the Aussie, living and
studying just south of Seoul; Sonia from the US,
living near Cheonju; and several others I met only
briefly. As with any gathering of climbers, we were a
very varied group of personalities and interests.
Oddly, however, we were of only 3 professions: one
student, several English teachers, and us, US
military.

We climbed Sunday in the shadow of an overhanging
man-made wall amidst the concrete maze of Seoul. I
was loving the challenge of it, even if it made me
sore for days afterward. Waiting for the train back
to Kunsan that evening, we explored one of the 9-story
world of electronics at Yongsan Station. Display
cases containing only digital cameras, MP3 players,
tiny computers, and electronic accessories stretched
from wall to wall on the vast brightly-lit floor. I
was the only one of our group to escape without a new
digital camera.

After living in a town with only a post office, gas
station, and convenience store to its name, I have to
admit it was a bit overwhelming, despite being a great
weekend. And now back to flying over the land of the
“not quite right”, where you can see the runway just
fine from 4000 feet, but between 3000 feet and 700
feet, you can barely see the ground below you, and
struggle to see the runway before you reach 1 mile
from it and have to go “missed approach”. The joys of
flying in Korea!

Have a good week.
Donna

another edition for Runners' World

New Mexico. Looking forward to a long day in a cramped cockpit and looking around at my mostly completed preparations for a third of a year away from my house and beloved deck, I stepped out the door in running shoes. The cool morning air filled my lungs. It was a short run – just up to the national park sign warning of the dangers of camp fires. But as always, the view over the valley and crispness of the air calmed me for the long flight to Hawaii.

Hawaii. It’s always tough to stay active on the road. But running shoes and a pair of shorts fit almost anywhere. And facing an even longer flight from Hawaii to Korea in that same cramped cockpit, I woke up early (okay, partly due to jet lag) and donned my running shoes. I also needed to return the jeep, the perfect Hawaii car I borrowed from a friend. What better way to return that car and prepare for the day than a run through to tropical housing area of Hickam AFB? The sun rose, outlining the puffies it hid behind, as I padded down still-damp streets beneath heavy tree limbs among the birds scavenging for breakfast. A few other joggers trotted along on this early Saturday morning that would turn to Sunday a few hours later as I crossed the International Date Line toward Korea.

Korea. My first morning back in this little country of rice fields, rugged hills, and open sewers, I again ran the perimeter of Kunsan Airbase. Across the taxiway and between the runway approach lights. Like I did 5 years ago, I feel as if I’m breaking some rule or other to just run out across an active taxiway. And like back then, there’s no rule against it. How many times had I crossed that taxiway to run the dirt road along the “beach” when I was here 5 years ago? A crab and a snake narrowly miss my footfalls. I find it more difficult now to ignore the wire fence hampering my view of where the land meets the sea. No one plays on this beach, as mud dominates the first mile of sea at low tide, and rumor dictates that it’s mined. I’m tired so I cut the route short, jogging through the main part of base on my way back to my dorm room, refreshing my memory on the locations of the Post Office, the Officers’ Club, the chapel. The old food court is a vacant lot now, the building torn down and a new food court built where the BX used to be. A shiny new BX, food court, and commissary stand where I think the gym used to be. One run, and I’ve relearned where all the key agencies on base are. And gotten a good workout in. Now for a nap.

Assaulting color and tangible whiteness

We took off over the white sands of the national monument west of Holloman. As we turned north, hardened black lava flows split the desert floor. Surrounding both were only the tans shades of desert. The colors of the Tularosa Basin. We met a gray tanker, a converted 3-engine DC-10 airliner, a “KC-10”, in the skies above Socorro, NM, south of Albuquerque. As we flew west over Arizona and California, the reds, golds, and greens of Sedona, the Grand Canyon, Red Rocks, and California mountains were muted from high above. Lake Mead and the Hoover Dam passed under our wings just before Las Vegas’s bland daytime hues. A few more snow-capped peaks, then nothing but endless water – rolling in ocean waves and suspended in silent clouds – for the next 4 hours until the coastline of Hawaii snuck into view. Snorkelers in Hanauma Bay, sightsee-ers on Diamond Head, and surfers off Waikiki passed in quick succession as we were sequenced into the endless stream of airliners for landing at Honolulu International beside the green-blue surf.

Color assaulted our desert-accustomed eyes as we drove from Hickam AFB to Waikiki for the traditional dinner at Duke’s on the beach. The immense variety of landscapes, flora, and birds in the USA never ceases to amaze me. Vibrant clusters of reds, yellows, white, and greens leap forth almost anywhere you look on Oahu Island. A grey bird sporting a bright red head strutted around the beach as we prepared to launch into the surf the next morning. Lying on a long board, feeling the rise and fall of warm water, I relaxed and marveled at the wonder of creation and Diamond Head on the eastern horizon. Then I turned and paddled for all I was worth to catch the next swell and glide toward land.

We took off shortly before noon the next day from the “reef runway” and out over more beautiful water, slightly disappointed we couldn’t spend more long lazy days in the tropical paradise. For me, time with the Flakes and Sanders made the one day there fly by far too fast. And now I was again soaring west, chasing the sun. Thankfully, few clouds barred our path and a helpful tanker crew avoided as many of them as possible. Thankfully, too, the “mating of the whales”, the refueling of a KC-10 by another of the same, was uneventful, though it’s still disconcerting to see two aircraft of such size airborne in such proximity.

We split from the tanker under the edge of the towering thunderstorms over the Japanese islands and continued over to the rugged peninsula of South Korea. The weather phenomenon of clear skies and good visibility up high and terrible haze down low was in full effect, and the approach controller subtly challenged me to find the airfield. I accepted his challenge and not flawlessly followed my instruments until, almost directly over it, I finally picked out the airfield through the tangible whiteness. We landed uneventfully and I began my second introduction to this “land of the not-quite-right”. AKA: the Republic of Korea.

My address here for the next couple months is
Capt Donna Kohout
Attn: Holloman AFB Deployment
PSC 2 Box 5000
APO AP 96264-5000

Hope you’re enjoying your summer so far.
Donna