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How to Travel to Cheju Island 101

So as most of you know by now, my family got a chance to take a long vacation together. This time, I had saved up enough vacation to go to Korea for a month. I could’ve stayed longer but there were no return flights left for me (without increasing the price signficantly) in July.

It was fun and crazy month, let me tell ya… but it was also our tenth (yes, 10th!) anniversary! We had taken lots of sacrifices to get to where we are today and we hadn’t spent many of our anniversaries together, let alone do stuff together. So I was more than determined to do something special… something memorable.

I had never been to the Cheju Island in the south… the Korean Hawaii, if you will, as it is also a dead volcano. We had sufficient Korean Air miles saved to buy two tickets, two nights of stay at KAL Hotel, and 3 days of car rental. That was awesome and it was Soojin that made all the stuff happen. By the way, renting cars in Korea is friggin’ expensive!! It’s not like here where it’s more reasonable at $30/day or so… In Korea, it was more like $100/day! Yikes!

Anyhow, we get to Cheju Island and take the shuttle ride to the Hanjin Car Rental only to find out that… you need an International Driver’s license to rent or drive a car! After much panic and trying to think our way through it, Soojin asked if we could hire a “driver” (기사). By God’s grace, we were sent a man who seemed to be in his late 40’s to early 50’s. His name was 김두환. No I am not kidding! Just take a look at him!

Let me just say, do NOT judge a man by his cover! While he may seem like a hybrid between a thug and 70’s pop singer, he was definitely a worthy tour guide. Get this. His rate was $50. Per day! No kidding! He was not only kind but was very thorough and made a plan for us but was flexible to what we had wanted to do (and not do)! And of course, he knew some of the best places to eat! One of the best dishes ever was ê¿© 수제비 (pheasant dumpling soup)!

If you are ever in Cheju Island and need a great tour guide (but you’d need to be able to at least understand Korean as he doesn’t speak any English!), give him a call! He’s my man! 김두환 기사 010-7709-0823 and tell him that the couple from Texas sent you! 😛

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Exposure on Radiation – Pun Intended


*Source: xkcd.com

With the Japanese nuclear power plant leaking radiation, many are concerned how that would affect us.  We ourselves and many families will be traveling to Japan and are concerned how that would be.  Rest assured that it’s not nearly as bad as most of us tend to think.

As Popular Science explains, we are exposed to far more amounts at other unsuspecting sources like using old CRT monitors and the insane amount on a flight from NYC to LA!!  Yikes.  So unless you walk into a nuclear plant, we have not that much to worry about.  Oh and there’s a rather great note at the bottom of the blue chart that states that cell phones generate ZERO radiation!!!

 

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Discovery Crew Wakes up to Capt. Kirk’s Voice

 

Discovery crew woke up to their last morning with Captain Kirk’s dedication.  This is sheer awesomeness to the last mission for Discovery and its crew.

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STS-133 Final Discovery Launch in Person!

I didn’t get to see STS-133 launch at the end of October last year.  I was rather disappointed.  I have been working in the aerospace industry for 13 years now and all in the Shuttle side even.  In that time, I had never gone to see a live Shuttle launch in person!  So when I won the Space Flight Awareness Honoree Award, I was sooo excited!

Then the launch got delayed.  And it got delayed big!  It was December, then January.  And then it had moved to February.  It was on my son’s birthday even!  No matter… I was so determined to see it in person especially since the award involved seeing it as close as one can get!  (Unless you are the president or something!)

So two of my co-workers wanted to see it as well and we drove out to see it.  16 hours of driving.  Each way.  It was long but totally worth it.

It will be sad to see them all retire… I sure hope NASA and humanity doesn’t let go of the dreams…