11138 Steps (4.84 miles)
Wednesday, October 2nd, was Change of Command Day! It was a nice late start for us followed by the SGM lining us all up and inspecting our uniforms with a ruler and a fine toothed comb. We rolled out for the ceremony... which was incredibly long! There were 5 speeches - some Korean guy, the Secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dempsey, the outgoing Commander, General Thurman, and the incoming, General (I'm not even going to try to spell his name at this point). It almost turned into 10 speeches, but someone got wise and did simultaneous translations (thank goodness!!!) That was a long freaking time to be standing out in the sun unable to move. Luckily, no one passed out on the field.d After work, I dragged Carter (who is newly promoted to SSG!) out to Craftworks to have a beer and a burger to celebrate his promotion and tease him that his promotion was the reason the government got shut down... it follows, right?
7396 Steps (3.21 miles)
Thursday, October 3rd, was our big makeup concert day with the Korean Special Warfare Command Band. Because of the government shutdown technically all concerts should have been cancelled... our first instinct was to just not answer our phones and check our emails... but we did go get permission from the 8A chief of staff in order to still do our concert. However, we were waiting anxiously for the phone call last minute saying get back on the bus and come back...It was a late start for us, though I rolled in early so that I could get some counselings and other paperwork done. We loaded up the bus and rolled out to Garden5 in Songpa which is this huge shopping center with an open plaza in the middle (where we were going to play). We then had a joint sound check/rehearsal/basically a first practice concert for a couple hours. Then we got fed Bulgogi, were allowed to wander around for a bit (I've decided I'm going to go back... fun shopping experience place!), then we changed in these tents they set up in the basement of one of the buildings and then we performed our concert! We had an MC for the concert who spoke all in Korean and apparently she was a very famous Korean comedian. I didn't understand anything that was going on except I think she was trying to auction off some of the Korean saxaphonists to some of the women in the audience. She also called our commander "Chef Deeeeeeelaney!" The bari sax player who was sitting next to me translated a bit of what she was saying... mostly that she asked our Katusa (who had sang one of the songs for the concert) to come back on stage and show us his dance moves. After he did this, she said "you are obviously a virgin." Then he ran off the stage... it was an odd concert.
10538 Steps (4.58 miles)
13296 Steps (5.78 miles)
Saturday, October 5th, I met up with a group of friends to go hiking in Bukhansan National Park where we climbed Baekundae Peak (about 830 meters). It was a cool climb with a bunch of parts where you were scrambling hand and foot up rocks. I was amazed how busy it was... you really are never alone in Korea! Apparently, when you get old in Korea, you hike up and down Korean mountains with as much fancy hiking gear as you can carry. I just had on my running shoes and if I'm going to be scrambling over rocks like that, I will need to invest in some shoes that can grip because I slipped a bunch and landed on my butt only a few times! The view from the top was absolutely amazing though! After we climbed back down, we went out for Chicken and Beer since some of the guys we were with had never been to our Chicken and Beer place in Hongdae (which is the best Chicken and Beer place that I've been to!) I called it an early night because I was exhausted after such a long day!
22833 Steps (9.93 miles)
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