Clearly the best work detail
Still on extended work schedule, but our Saturday was a volunteer event and I was able to get out Friday night to play basketball and Sunday to the horse races.
Basketball
I joined a team through a meetup group – first 8 to sign up show up to play a game. Good format, first 15 minutes is pickup to get warmed up and figure out your teammates and then two 20 minute halves with a running clock, a ref, and scoreboard. No limit on fouls and they call very closely – enabled me to get a triple-double if you count turnovers too. We lost a close game but they had uniforms, so it wasn’t too bad. In the game following ours, one team brought cheerleaders.
Farming Work Session in DMZ
Our Saturday work session was to help farmers in the civilian control zone (the most northern 1 KM of South Korea that boarders the DMZ) who have a hard time finding help because of restrictions getting into that zone. I was asked since I was from Oklahoma that I must be experienced in agricultural matters – I said it was limited to a week a summer at grandparents and I learned it was way too hard of work for me. Luckily we had a task where I could swing a sickle and hit something. At lunch, I sat next to several co-workers who were stationed near where we were working and they explained how the tank blockade worked.

We were separated into work details, everyone was excited about getting to ride in the back of a pickup. The Koreans said when they were kids, they rode in back of pickup trucks all the time – pretty similar to U.S. experience.




Horse Racing
Very nice track and a huge family event – the infield is filled with playgrounds, water fountains kids can play in, pony rides, and food stands (similar to the Preakness). All for $2. Went with mostly expats from the U.K. and there was probably 6 kids under 5 in our group. We figured how it was all funded – pretty much impossible to win at horse betting, we figured out a system and picked 3 winners in a row and won maybe $2-3 dollars for every $5 bet. And of course over the day we had more losers than winners.
Our group at the horse race View at finish line – another winner The betting form – felt like getting ready for Fortran lab Huge – first rate grandstand
Around the neighborhood




From Week 70 – Basketball, farming, and horse racing. Posted by JC Travels on 5/16/2015 (14 items)
Leave a Reply