In general, my trip last week to Korea was mediocre.   On top of the 14 hour flights, we spent hours upon hours in cars, buses, and trains navigating our way to various corners of the country for meetings.  Those few hours that we had to ourselves were often spent hunting food or resting.  That is… until Friday.

Shaun and I got back to Seoul on Thursday evening.  Being that our flight on Friday wasn’t until 7:30pm, we had all morning to explore the city.   Seoul is huge.  But centered within its maze of busy modern streets are a few small palaces that once housed royal figures and ceremonial grounds.

Deoksugung

We first walked to Deoksugung.   This is a small little palace nestled right in the center of the city.  The pagodas were beautiful, though the grounds were mostly just sand with limited landscaping.   Cost of entry: 1,000 won (one USD)

Deoksugung honored King Sejong, a king who is said to have invented the Sun Dial and the water clock, amongst other clutch old school gizmos.

King Sejong, in all his seated glory.

Finally, we took a long walk towards more statues only to stumble upon Gyeongbok Palace.  This place was massive and had beautiful structures and grounds.

Awesome.

Sadly, we didn’t get more time to explore the city.  It would have been fun to go up to the DMZ on a tour, but I was happy to be able to get any time for ourselves at all.   Our local representative was hoping that I might be able to return to South Korea in mid-August to talk to some more people.  Maybe next time I can follow through on my DMZ hopes.

We’ll see I suppose.

We’re about to board a plane back to the states!  See you next week!!

After dinner tonight, we strolled along the shore to take in the beautiful weather passing through before the next rain.    Along the shore is a huge industrial area, home to one of the world’s largest steel foundries.

As we were walking along, a huge fountain burst up out of the water – lit by spot lights.  With the industrial bakcdrop, it was truly a magnificent view.

Sadly, it’s probably safe to say that those are not rain clouds, but clouds of steam and pollution from the steel making process.

There really isn’t much going on here in South Korea.  We’ve done a lot of driving around, first to Daejeon then south I think to somewhere around Yeosu.  At the moment I write to you from Busan where we’ll be hanging out through tomorrow.

Our Trip So Far

Sadly, our Busan meeting was delayed a day, so I don’t think Shaun and I will get any real time in Seoul to explore.  So far the only time we’ve had where we haven’t been working, sleeping, or traveling was in Daejeon where we strolled along this river and found a very strange walking bridge that was fairly sketch.

Mike D. on the weird bridge.

Oh, and it’s monsoon season – so most of the days here have been cloudy and/or rainy.

Weak.

My food experienced during this South Korea trip has been a bit mixed.  I’ve really enjoyed the meat.  The beef and pork, cooked in broth, or atop a bbq, has all been delicious.  The vegetables… a little bit less delicious as they are a lot bit pickled.  It seems that with every meal we get a small dish of kimchi and a small dish of pickled radishes.  The pickled radishes are served cold and covered in a strange red powder which is both spicy and salty.

Pickled radishes aren’t a delicacy that I’ll be bringing back to the House of Rock.

Our business meetings start today (Tuesday – it’s 2:50am here).  Hopefully they will be a wild success and Shaun and I will get Thursday and Friday to tour around South Korea.  It turns out that you can actually go on guided tours to the DMZ.  We might check it out.

We have arrived safely!

Upon exiting security, Shaun L. immediately booked it over to the Dunkin Donuts for a taste of home.   Right now we’re waiting at the airport for our bus which will be taking us to our next destination.  Hopefully we’ll reach a hotel fairly soon.

Provided we have internet at the hotel, further updates will appear shortly.

Tonight (actually tomorrow morning at 12:50am) I’ll be headed to the Korean peninsula for work.  I haven’t been to Korea before and I’m not quite sure what to expect.

Friends inform me that the food is amazing and that the society is very modernized, though I’m not sure how true this is outside of the cities.  I’ll be flying with Shaun L. into Seoul and then we’ll be taking a drive from there to various smaller towns for meetings with a few customers.

I’m excited in part because last Friday, at the urging of my bosses and under the fashion guidance of Vivienne,  I purchased a new suit.  I’m really pleased with the fit and the quality.  With these new suits, I also purchase some French cuff shirts and some cuff links from Etsy.  These were my cufflink choices:

Rockstar

Scrabble (mine are the letters M and D)

Dinosaurs

Links to the cuff link sellers.  Rockstar, Scrabble, Raptors.

Sadly, the raptors didn’t arrive in time for this trip.  But I’ll have plenty of future opportunities to rock all of my irreverent cuff links.

In other news, I’m not sure if I’ll have consistent internet access in South Korea – so updates may or may not be plentiful.  I am bringing my camera, so at a minimum we’ll have an update-fest upon my return.

Talk to you soon!

There have been talks in house about sending me to Korea next week or the week after.

Yikes.

The sun finally came out here in Villaferry. Yesterday after breakfast and a customer meeting that tumbled into the early afternoon, our group came back to the hotel in Villaferry and worked on additional proposals until dinner.

The view from the hotel restaurant

Dinner tonight was pretty great. We started with a pleasant shrimp mushroom salad, served with a balsamic vinegar.

Served with a side of beautiful.

The main course was a hen served with roasted tomatoes, a rice-like-thing, and delicious peaches.

mmm. Peaches.

Next up we had local cheese served with bread. The first taste of cheese tended to knock you off your feet a little bit with its potency. But once the initial shock wore off all that was left was delicious.

Finally, we concluded with what I can only best describe as a rhubarb torte. It was served over a raspberry sauce and tasted like happiness.

Dessert!

I’m sad that we’re leaving Villaferry today, but I’m told our next destination will not disappoint. We’re headed to a beautifully modern chateau closer to Paris for our last night in France. I believe this afternoon we’ll get some tourist time in Paris. I’ll be bringing my camera to be sure.

Firstly, it turns out I’m not in Paris. This is a complete surprise to me, as I really thought we’d be in Paris. Instead, upon landing in Paris we were picked up by a colleague and driven for three hours south east of Paris. Ours is a tiny town called Villaferry.

Quaint

The little place we’re staying at is called Le Vergersous Les Vignes. Anyone care to translate (Jill?)?

Adorable

The town is situated deep within a maze of narrow paved roads and beautiful landscapes of farmland. Here’s a picture of the landscape.

Bonus points for the white and black mares

We ate dinner rather late so additional pictures in the dark were not possible. But I’ll try and wake up early tomorrow to take a few pictures before the day of work begins.

For the foodies amongst us, dinner included: salad with a side of fried calamari, roasted duck breast, local cheese and bread, and ice cream and tart.

Ice Cream and Tart

France is delicious.

This next month is going to be rife with travel for the D. While some of the details are still up in the air, the general impression is schedule oppression. Let’s take a gander.

Our adventure starts in lovely Detroit. Coworker Pete and I will be arriving Wednesday evening and then driving west to Grand Rapids – a city on the shoreline of the Grand River which frankly doesn’t seem very rapid. We’ll be staying there for three or four days returning late Friday or Saturday night: hopefully in time for CT Karaoke. After a relaxing day at home, I’m off to Paris for the first week of June where I’ve been given the assignment to seek out and enjoy Laduree and Angelina’s.

I arrive home from Paris on June 4th. Jet lagged and weary, I should be ready for my black belt test on June 6th. Then, either on June 8th or June 18th I’ll be headed out to Venezuela. With four days of terrestrial paradise under my belt, I will either zip back to CT or hop over to Colombia for a week. If the travel schedule works out, I might stop by South Dakota on the way home to CT.

Whew.

During all this talk of travel, Jill recommended that perhaps I get a travel forum together on MikeDiDonato.com

The idea being that if you were traveling somewhere fun you could post it in the forum and if other users are headed in the same direction or live nearby we can have an awesome get together. On Jon Abad’s recommendation, I downloaded a plugin called BuddyPress. It’ll still take quite a bit of work to get together, but hopefully we’ll see said forum appear soon.

I’m not sure how it’ll all come together. But here’s hopin’ it’ll be easy.

When Shaun L. was down in Brazil, he tried to learn some Portuguese to make it easier to get around. One extremely convenient phrase to learn was “Obrigado” which means “Thank you.”

While Shaun was getting around just fine, some of our other coworkers weren’t too interested in learning. With this mindset, it’s not surprising that they were having trouble remembering words. Perhaps this was most apparent when our coworker Dave thanked his bartender for a drink

Dave (to bartender): “Avocado”

Brilliant.

I have arrived back in the States! Overall, I would rate the trip positively, though like an olive in a cupcake there were moments of unexpected misery amidst this otherwise frosty cakey treat. Stay tuned for those salty posts.

The highlights of any business trips are always been those moments when I can escape the overcast skies of meetings and engineering reviews to hang out with friends. In Beijing, the friends of choice are Charlotte and Josh.

Josh and Charlotte in Beijing

Charlotte and Josh both grew up in China so they speak great Mandarin and dig the Chinese culture. More importantly than all that, they are both truly wonderful people. I was first introduced to them through Mika who, incidentally, is moving back to Beijing this summer and will certainly find herself on my list of favorite people to visit while overseas.

The night before my flight to the states I met up with Charlotte and Josh and we made dumplings!

Oh the glory!

Charlotte taught me how to fold the dumplings her way (above), and Josh showed me his way (below), which he described as a much simpler technique used as a desperate means of trying to keep up with Charlotte’s expert speed.

The Josh Style Dumpling

Here’s my MSPaint representation of how to fold a dumpling.

How to fold a Dumpling

Special thanks to Charlotte and Josh for welcoming me during my trip.

Here’s an Animated Gif of Charlotte, Josh, as once again I setup my camera wrong with its delay setting.

Oh the joys of laughter!

The weather finally cleared a bit here in Wuhan so my coworker Bill and I ventured out to act as tourists while we wait patiently for our company meeting that has been delayed until Saturday.

On Thursday, we went to the Yellow Crane Tower.

The Yellow Crane Tower

The Yellow Crane Tower stands on the Yangtze river and is one of the ‘four great towers of China.’ Interestingly, the tower has burned down a bunch of times so the current version is a modern day construction in honor of the one that once was.

Kinda strange that a recent build that only stands as a representation (not a replica) of a once famous building could get so much tourist attraction no? I’m thinking we should build a pagoda tower in CT to boost tourism and call it one of the great towers of Connecticut. Genius.

Behind the tower there’s a bell.

Philadelphia, shame on you

For a mere 10 RMB ($1.67), I was allowed to ring that massive bell three times.

For the first ring, I was given peace for the rest of my life.
For the second ring, I was given luck for the rest of my life.
and for the third ring, I was given wealth for the rest of my life.

WHAT. A. DEAL.
Best one dollar and sixty seven cents I’ve ever invested.

My internal clock is so phenomenally screwed up right now. The sun and I have been in a really awkward middle school dance since my arrival in China two days ago.

This morning I woke up around 2:30am and decided it’d be a good idea to get up. It wasn’t.

Dizzily, I went back to bed from 7 – 8am as the sun rose and then I collapsed into a weird half-nap from 3 to 6pm waking every nine minutes for just long enough to silence the angsty bleat of my alarm clock. Now it’s 11pm, the sun is hiding somewhere over Delaware, and darned if I’m not ready to start my day.

Jet Lag? why are you such a downer?

There’s a fair chance that I’ve talked about Hot Pot on this website before. Apparently I have a poor memory when it comes to hot pots. All that aside, check this out:

China FTW

Oh the glory. We’ve got two broths in the middle: one spicy, one normal. Going clockwise from the top left, we have greens, cabbage, tasty spheres of deliciousness, tofu, potatoes, dumplings, beef, pork, cauliflower, carrots, noodles, mushrooms, tofu things, and more beef.

I am strongly considering buying a hot plate for the House of Rock so that we can make this meal happen in Connecticut.

Friends! It turns out I have to go to China – today.

The executive staff of my company is stuck in Germany after an exhibition show. As such, they can’t make it to their meetings in China scheduled for mid week. So I’m headed down to JFK and then I’ll be on a 4:30 flight out to Beijing and then on a second flight to Wuhan. 18+ hours of travel! woo!

I’ll be returning Friday.

I suspect that i’ll have internet access in Wuhan. So, as soon as I can, I’ll post about this past weekend’s roller derby recap and the Deviled egg food extravaganza.

Until then!

I came to Orlando for work this morning and BANG. Just like that I’m on the doorsteps of Disney.

I must admit, I didn’t really want to spend the $80 to get into the park, so my coworker and I went to ‘Downtown Disney’ which is a fun place to walk around and get some food. We ate at Wolfgang Puck and took some pictures.

Me in front of a Robot made of LEGOS - WHOA

It wouldn't be a Mike D picture without a 10 degree slant.

We’re planning on leaving on a 1:30pm flight tomorrow (Friday), though there’s a slight possibility that we won’t be able to get a seat and we’ll be stuck here (gasp! no!) until 7pm. If that’s the case, I might drop the dough to enter the Disney park proper. We’ll see!

Sarah and my first destination in central Oregon was Smith Rock State Park.

Smith Rock State Park

After crossing the Cascades, the environment gets very desert. The lush forests of evergreens are replaced with tumbleweeds, brush, and rocks aplenty.

It's not a desert without the obligatory spine

Smith Rock is located just north of Redmond, OR. Sarah and I hiked one particularly beautiful path that circled around to a well known rock known as Monkey Face, so named because it looks like a monkey’s face.

Monkey Face

There were a few climbers who were working on the Monkey Face column while we were there. A brief look through the rockclimbing.com route listing didn’t immediately reveal the difficulty of this particular route. Most of the place is bolted, so these climbers were going sport style.

Climbers ascending Monkey Face

Overall, the vistas were beautiful. Again and again we stopped to take pictures, most of which were leaning to the left by about 10 degrees.

Beautiful Rocks, not leaning

Sarah and I hiked sauntered for about two and a half hours around the route.

Sarah T. at Smith Rock

These Rocks are Big

Afterwards, we continued onward to Bend where I ordered my favorite west coast root beer, Henry Weinhard. It’s a shame we can’t get it on the East Coast.

Best West Coast Root Beer: Henry Weinhard (also some Ginger beer in the background)

My recent trip to China has changed my impressions of intercontinental travel. My first journey to China a few years ago was a maddening battle with time. For those without the experience, 13-16 hours of plane travel is truly stifling. Trying to sleep in the confines of a coach seat is fruitless as you constantly adjust your blanket to compensate for the dramatic sinusoidal temperature shifts. During that first trip I checked my watch with neurotic frequency and watched with baited breath as the plane icon on the screen moved pixel by pixel across the virtual globe.

Jump ahead to my recent return flight, which despite being packed with every toddler in China*, really wasn’t so bad. I think much of the stresses associated with travel are related to tackling the unknown foreign soil. While customs, language barriers, and local transportation are intimidating, if you can set aside all your concerns with the unknown the travel gets a heck of a lot easier. In fact, I dare say it was enjoyable to have 13 hours to myself for reading and resting.

Ear plugs are a must though. An absolute must.

*How many toddlers are in china? How loud would it be if you could fit all of them on a plane?
Read more in today’s feature.

If this morning’s trip from Changping into Beijing could be summed up by the plots of no more than three movies, those movies would be:

Death race 2000
Home Alone
and
Rambo IV

Actually, not really that last one. But the other two fit quite appropriately.

The drive itself was typical Chinese driving. The Chinese are to driving laws what names are to My Little Ponies, pretty much anything goes (example: Musical wish rainbow celebration tink-a-tink-a-too pony*). The most audacious moment might have been that time we barreled down the wrong direction of a divided road swerving maniacally around the oncoming traffic.

When we (miraculously) arrived in Beijing we zipped by the airport to drop off a few colleagues. Our drivers got confused and at one point forgot which car I was in. Having no idea what was going on at the time, I remained patiently quiet. So it’s no doubt I was surprised when our driver looked over at me with sudden shock and horror and declared “I forgot you were in this car!”

After navigating the labyrinth that is on and off ramps in Beijing, we finally got things settled and I arrived at my new hotel in downtown Beijing. At this point I gave Josh a call. Josh lives with Charlotte in Beijing and they are both totally awesome. Josh and I found each other in the busy city and Josh gave me a bit of a walking tour of some of the lesser Beijing spotlights. Including, but not limited to, our visit of the world’s largest screen which hovers above a walking street in Beijing shedding a powerful glow from its 6000 square meters of screen space. Josh took a picture, I’ll see if I can snag it to post.

After 4-5 hours of strolling we’d had enough and we stopped by one of Charlotte’s and Josh’s favorite Chinese food restaurants where we met up with Charlotte. It was great sharing a meal with these two and the food was much more tame and much much more delicious than some of the banquet food that I mention in previous posts.

Charlotte’s a TV personality here in Beijing who just scored a gig on an international education show and Josh just finished his role in a movie being put out in Taiwan. When both of these become available to the public, you can be certain that we’ll have links to it here.

Special thanks to Charlotte and Josh for the great day.

*I wasn’t kidding about Tink-a-tink-a-too.

1. Saying I’m in Beijing is a bit of a stretch. I’m actually in Changping which is a dramatically less populous area on the northern outskirts of the city. In fact, breakfast at my hotel reminds me a lot of those ending scenes of 2001 a space Odyssey. Breakfast is held in a huge room. It has tall ceilings, ornate decorations, plates of food, and pristine table cloths. Yet despite this glitz and glamor, there’s no one else to share it. I sit at a huge round dinner table with the buffet table spread out in front of me and there’s isn’t a soul in sight. It’d dead quiet except for the occasional moment when my fork scrapes against the plate.

2. China really has a unique spot on the global culinary scene. It’s got all-stars like dumplings and delicious rices, but I have a hard time diving in when there’s a duck head* on my plate staring back at me. In somewhat related news, I haven’t thrown up yet on this trip. Keep your fingers crossed that I’ll make it through Thursday without digestive upheaval.

*It tasted like awkward.

Firstly, here’s the fasting article that I mentioned a few days ago. ta-da!

And I must admit, so far so good. I definitely struggled a bit during my flight as I tried to set my body up for the new time zone, but when I laid down to fall asleep at the hotel I had no problem nodding off. More impressive was that I was able to sleep from 11pm until 7am only waking up once. Now, I’m still not convinced that the technique is flawless because last time I flew to China I think I arrived in the morning and had to tough it out through a full day. This time I arrived at night and all I had to do was make it to the hotel.

But if tonight’s sleep is as painless as last night’s and my return trip proceeds just as smoothly then I think it’s safe to say that fasting is going to become a standard part of my international travel routine.