Off To Thailand

It's been a very busy couple of weeks. I recently returned from two conferences in San Diego. One was a gathering of all the Commanding Officers of the Military Sealift Command units stationed in the Pacific and Far East regions. The other event was a planning conference for JLOTS - Joint Logistics Over The Shore. JLOTS is a huge exercise that will occur in Korea in 2010. Yup, the Gaslamp District is still fun and the Mexican food is still good.

The family is off to Phuket, Thailand today for some rest and relaxation. Since I haven't blogged in a while, here are a few random pics before I'm off the net for a few days.

My office at Pier 8. Can't beat my window view. It looks out over the water into the Busan Harbor.

Not sure why he started doing this but one of Jake's favorite things to do lately is drop his drawers, smack his rump roast and sing, "Shake your booty, shake your booty!" Curse you, KC and the Sunshine Band!

Because the parking situation is so tight in Korea. Most folks place their cell phone number on the dashboard of their cars. When people are double and triple parked, folks will call each other to let them know they need to move their car. Pretty neat. Wonder if that would fly in the US?

CJ as MJ this past Halloween. He's become quite the Michael Jackson fan lately, even learning the moonwalk. Spoiler alert. We saw the MJ movie, "This Is It." Although we liked the movie, how can you make that movie without a single moonwalk? Very disappointed with that. I'll live.

That's all for now. Until next time -- C2

Happy Veteran's Day!

Happy Veteran's Day to all those patriots out there. Thank you for doing what you do. The Cruz men have definitely done their part in serving their country. Dad led the way.

Dad as a brand new sailor.

Dad serving in Danang, Vietnam.

My oldest brother Alan was the first of the siblings to join the military. He served 10 years in the Navy. I think this was on one of his deployments to the Mediterranean Sea.

Onboard the ship.

Bernabe bucked the trend and joined the Army. Nothing like an early morning shave in the field.

Bernabe was a field artillery guy and served in Desert Storm. He did time in Germany, Hawaii and New York also.

Me onboard the USS John F. Kennedy.

Nothing like a Navy homecoming!

My little brother Lee getting pumped on one of his multiple deployments to Afghanistan. Lee served as the Green Beret medic on his Special Forces team. Getting big - good. Growing stache - not so good.

Lee's team after a major fire fight in Afghanistan. That's Lee in the middle.

Our military folks can't properly do their jobs without the support of family and loved ones. Here's the Cruz clan waiting for Dad. That's Dad's ship in the background, the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Again, have a great Veteran's Day everyone. Off to San Diego now for two conferences. Until next time -- C2

Shinsegae

The Shinsegae is a block and a half from our apartment in Centum City. It is now the world's largest department store. I know this because of all the Guinness Book of World Record signs all over the Shinsegae stating that it's the world's largest department store. It's a pretty impressive facility. It has an ice skating rink, world food court, many restaurants, huge book store, high end stores that we can't afford to shop at, a golf driving range, grocery store, regular movie theater, Imax theater, a rooftop park overlooking the city and a massive spa with many naked people running around. Most importantly, they have a Burger King and Kentucky Fried Chicken.

The Shinsegae is right next door to the Lotte Department Store mall, which is pretty impressive too. In these tough economic times, you can't have enough luxury department stores.

To give you an idea of how huge the Shinsegae is, here is a picture of one of the bathrooms. Just kidding. This is a closet.

Carol likes to walk to the Shinsegae to grab a bagel and cream cheese at the Au Bon Pain bakery. They are so friendly in there. The manager usually gives the boys a free bread stick or snack during their visits. I think it's cause Carol shows him a little leg.

Lots of Greek statues in the Shinsegae lobby area. Great place for a toga party.

We interrupt this blog post for a quick toga party flashback.

Outside of the grocery store area is a long line of herbs, roots, mushrooms, tree trunks, twigs, powders and other natural things that are "good for health." This is a very popular Korean saying - "good for health."

The Shinsegae is so massive, you can have actual airplane dogfights inside the building. If you blow the picture up, you can see the Guinness Book of World Records signs hanging on the balcony.

I needed a little help to figure out the food court. At first, I went directly to the food place to order food. Wrong. You have to go to the main counter and tell them the number of the dish you'd like to order. I had a Sanford and Son flashback standing in front of the restaurant with no one helping me. "You Big Dummy!"

So after you order your food from the main counter, you look at this digital board and wait for your number to come up. Wow, that sounded kinda fatalistic.

They have a kiddie play area too. I imagine this is what the spa is like except everyone is naked.

Koreans take physical health very seriously. Notice the mouth covering thing these food handlers wear. I'm thinking of buying a couple of these contraptions as Christmas presents for those friends who have that "say it, don't spray it" problem.

Simple yet effective. These watermelon holders make lugging fruit home so much easier from the Shinsegae.

There's a very cool ice cream/gelato place at the Shinsegae that we like. You can get three flavors of ice cream in one cup for pretty cheap. The place is called Gusttimo. I would've taken a picture of all the colorful ice creams but I got shut down by the ice cream workers. Guess it's top secret kinda stuff. I felt like I just had my Soup Nazi experience from Seinfeld.

Anyway, there's our stroll through the Shinsegae. Until next time -- C2

More Random Pics

It's a beautiful fall day here in Busan. Got some fun family stuff lined up today. In the back of my mind, I'm thinking about all the work I've gotta get done this weekend - a couple of briefs, write a speech, prep some training, plan my next couple of trips and some other things. So what am I doing instead? Blogging. Oh well.

In honor of the recent Pusan International Film Festival (PIFF) that just finished up last week., here's the movie poster of the popular Korean movie, "Haeundae." It's a disaster movie set right here in Busan and Haeundae Beach. One weekend while driving across the Gwangan Bridge, we saw the movie film crew taping scenes for this movie. Cars were toppled all over the place, smoke was everywhere and bloody actors were writhing in pain all across the bridge. When I say bloody, I don't mean England type of bloody as in "not bloody likely" (insert bad accent here), but bloody as in there was fake blood on them to make this disaster movie scene even more dramatic.

Carol screening my blog posts before I hit the "publish" button. Usually a good idea although I do hold veto override powers.

A lazy Saturday morning.

That's Doctor Spooner, the Navy doctor at the Chinhae Navy Base. He does a great job taking care of all the military folks and the civilian merchant mariners that work for Military Sealift Command. He's not Jake's favorite person though when he has to get shots.

Because of the clothes dryer situation, this is how we dry sheets. Carol might take exception to my use of the word "we." I think the word "she" might be more accurate because of my lack of participation in the laundry department. Hey, I bring home the bacon though.

Jake being Jake

There are a couple of strategically placed vacuum hook-ups like this throughout the apartment. Very cool and very convenient. No need to lug around an entire vacuum. Just hook up the long hose and we are good to go. In that last sentence, I should probably substitute the word "we" with ... never mind.

Kimchi fried rice. Delicious. Jake gets first dibs at the egg though. His love of eggs is how I know that he is a true Cruz. The egg gene seems to have skipped a generation with CJ.

That's Jasmine and Marwa working on a school project with CJ. Lesson learned: when you dump water all over cardboard, the cardboard will get wet and soggy.

Sometimes the boys and I do sleepovers in the living room. Pseudo camping I guess. Lots of fun until Jake gets into that up too late, irrational zone. Then I'd rather drink a glass of elephant snot.

Jake getting a haircut at Pier 8 from Ms. Chung.

Hope you enjoyed the randomness of it all. Until next time -- C2

They're Naked!

Check out this short video we took at the beach the other day:

So this is what Jake was referring to:

Those guys must work out.

Not something you see everyday in Korea. Until next time -- C2

APEC Nurimaru & USNS Pomeroy Tour

More pics with Mom. I know some of these are redundant cause of the recent video I posted. I love redundancy though. BTW, you might've seen some of these on the recent video I posted.

This is at the APEC Nurimaru Park, a beautiful location in Dongbaek Park just a few minutes from our apartment. APEC stands for Asian Pacific Economic Conference. Nurimaru is a combination of two Korean words - nuri, meaning world and maru, meaning summit. In 2005, a huge world summit was held in the round building behind us and was attended by many Presidents and leaders of countries . This is also where Carol and her exercise group go to walk. It's one of my favorite places to run because of the air, scenery and soft track.

That's the Gwangan Bridge behind us.

Haeundae Beach in the background.

I don't remember any of my grandparents at all. I'm really glad that CJ and Jake know their grandparents well.

Mom got to see my workplace. Here we are outside my office.

In my office. Jake kept messing with my coins on the left.

Disregard the full in-box.

Carol was tempted to do a Jane Fonda type pose on top of the armored personnel carrier but opted against it.

On a separate visit, Mom joined some of the women of the Busan International Women's Association (BIWA) for a tour of the USNS Pomeroy at my workplace at Pier 8.

Lunch onboard the ship. Those were the best crabcakes I've ever eaten. I've got the recipe if you're interested. Seriously. The BIWA ladies are gonna print the recipe in their next magazine.

On the bridge of the Pomeroy with Captain Mike Finnigan. He's a great Captain with a fantastic crew. His father served with PFC Ralph Pomeroy during the Korean War, who the ship is named after. PFC Ralph Pomeroy was a medal of honor recipient.

Wish Mom could've stayed longer. She was probably worried that Dad was starving himself in the Philippines. I shouldn't talk. When Carol went to the US this summer, I ate nothing but vienna sausages and potato chips. Better go for now before I digress even further. Until next time -- C2

Video of Mom's Visit

Well Mom is back in the Philippines now. Deep sigh. Here's a nice reminder of her visit - minus the surgery and immigration complications. More on that stuff later. Might want to expand the video to a bigger size for easier viewing.

You'll see many of the good folks from the Filipino Community Group from our church in the video. I think Mom really enjoyed their company. We visited some nice parks, temples, the beach, ate some good food, did some shopping and got to tour my work place and the USNS Pomeroy. It was great having Mom here. Until next time -- C2

Follow on note: might be better to view the video straight from YouTube. Just click on the "YouTube" word near the bottom right of the video and it'll get you going. The video below seems to not work as well.