Thoughts from working and travelling outside the USA
Just arrived back in the states and basically squeezing the traditional summer activities into a couple weeks, but with Fourth of July and summer swim team festivities it will be a good time. Our 14th and last season – lot of great memories and great families with which we shared them. Busan Still working Saturdays... Continue Reading →
Still on extended work schedule – so Saturday evenings and Sundays only free time so using meetup to find last minute things to do as most of my co-workers are on business trips. I already posted on my two exciting meetups of the Noryangin Fish Market and batshit crazy basketball guy. Noryangin Fish Market To... Continue Reading →
Was able to start the week on a good note, a couple of hours at the BMW driving experience on Sunday. Modelled after the program in South Carolina, except instead of week commitment (and serious money) had about an hour on the test track in an M5 for $65 (after 30 minutes of instruction). No... Continue Reading →
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... Continue Reading →
Paul McCartney concert Very amazing that Sir Paul is able to carry on at 73 with this show – similar to the show we saw in DC with some interesting aspects of it being in Korea: • It was 95% Korean and a young crowd – and they knew the words to the songs. So... Continue Reading →
After returning from Hong Kong, I had an unexpected surprise last Friday afternoon – no weekly 7pm Friday call (to another time zone), the Saturday work schedule had been cancelled, and it was 70 degrees and clear skies. So we got a small group and headed out to an American BBQ place in Itaewon –... Continue Reading →
Was able to spend some time at home in March, then back to Mexico City and back to Seoul a couple of weeks ago. Still on an extended work schedule – so not much to report when I am in Korea....as spring comes around hopefully that will change. We are all able to meet up... Continue Reading →
Been awhile since my last non-plagiarized updated in early February and I have had a change in work schedule – scheduled Saturday work and no work travel – so pretty fixed into a routine of an off day Sunday to go skiing or hiking so far in 2015. Been to 5 South Korean ski resorts... Continue Reading →
In a dinner a couple of weeks ago in Japan, I was explaining where Oklahoma was (generally, no one knows – so I say just above Texas) and one of the Japanese guys jumped in and said it was the “Mongolia of the U.S.”. Land-locked, harsh weather extremes, energy focused, and people like to ride... Continue Reading →
A week late with this update - pacing myself. Not much happening locally – did have an interesting conversation with a co-worker that resulted in the statement – “Stella McCartney’s parents are famous too?” - generational/cultural, who knows? We missed Alexandra –she would have liked all the rules and structure. But she is pretty much... Continue Reading →
Sharon and Annelise came over for a quick week around some school holidays – ended up being a busy week as I was working and also had a quick trip to Tokyo, met up with an old friend, and finished the weekend in Beijing. Since I have 3 – 80 hour weeks ahead of me... Continue Reading →
Week 52 – For those gifted at calendar math that is one year. So life is starting to repeat itself and the year started off with a New Year mountain hike and the issuance of Spam – just like last year. Same agenda for the hike, wish for “Safety for our workers and good finances”,... Continue Reading →
Busiest intersection in world at Shibuya Good week home for the holidays and headed back to Seoul. Did another “long layover”, this time 26 hours in Tokyo. The other 2 worked out great in Beijing and Panama and I actually did the most advanced planning on this one – the plan was to drive to... Continue Reading →
Back in Korea and a “restart” to my original position. Arriving in early-December provided a chance to see how a majority non-Christian country (about 40% of Koreans are Christian) celebrated. Much less politically correct than the US- it is either Merry Christmas or Happy Merry Christmas. I was given a budget for “Christmas Presents” for... Continue Reading →
Leaving Mexico today and heading back to Korea – most likely my last trip to Mexico for awhile as we finished one project, hit some key milestones on another, and were able to consolidate the teams on the third project so that I could return to my real job. Mixed feelings leaving as I really... Continue Reading →
Been in Mexico the last three weeks and since late-October been working or traveling about every day….but the two days off, Saturday night out with some friends, and afternoon checking out a local site was awesome. The two days off were great, Sharon came down and we spent most of the time in San Miguel and when... Continue Reading →
Can't have an update without an Annelise action shot. Great seeing her play some games while home. Except for a great week of vacation in the Kentlands, it has been awhile since I was actually doing anything other than working in either Mexico or Korea. Korean BBQ - had to share the experience with some... Continue Reading →
Pretty mundane week – so have an older translation story that happened a while back. We were at a corporate event which had an opening safety/health topic with a German MC. Imagine a heavy German accent – “Today – we want to talk about your heath and getting vaccinated against the herpes. Herpes is something... Continue Reading →
We had a celebration dinner this week, a couple people leaving to go assignments in Saudi and a young lady in our department announced her engagement this week. It was Korean BBQ, but pig neck was the specialty of this restaurant. A little fatty but crisp it up enough on the BBQ, drown in salt... Continue Reading →
This is my first update from the new page – I changed on the recommendation of a couple people that I should figure out a way to organize the update better and I can be a little more politically incorrect now (but my mom is on here so it won't be too bad) with a... Continue Reading →
The highlight of the week was getting an email from Sharon that Annelise had been named one of the “Girls to Watch” for the area for the forthcoming volleyball season. I am happy that she got the recognition as she has worked hard over the last couple of years. This week I had a trip... Continue Reading →
Spent last most of the last three weeks in San Luis de Paz/San Miguel with a trip home to move in between. The move went exceedingly well (facebook code for “it was hell”) but we are now downsized. Main cultural issue this time was a continuation of the “Mexican-Korean Food Vortex” – I rarely had... Continue Reading →
Good week with Alexandra and Annelise visiting – I am proud that they were able to learn quickly the metro and get around town with little problem and visited the various tourist sites and they help around the apartment dealing with Korean maintenance workers fixing stuff. Additionally, we were able to do a couple of... Continue Reading →
I really didn’t realize it when I booked the trip – Phuket and Phi Phi Island are really two separate destinations (it takes longer to get from Phuket to Phi Phi than back to Bangkok) and this really compressed the trip. We had 4 major transitions in 8 days with cash issues, language, multiple Type... Continue Reading →
Sharon, Alexandra, and Annelise arrived after scoring an upgrade on the way over from DC. It was Alexandra’s first visit to Korea and we got her immediately acclimated with cheap Korean BBQ. The three girls took a trip to the DMZ (the real tour – I did the DMZ light tour) and actually went into... Continue Reading →
Arrived back in Seoul after my two week trip that turned into 2 months….but got more time home than planned so it was worth it. Best of all, when I got back to the airport I was able to find my car and it started….trying to call “AAA” in Korea would have been a challenge.... Continue Reading →
After I left Mexico, I headed off to a wonderful vacation spot – home. Great week in the neighborhood with various events topped off with the Fourth of July celebrations. For this last week, I was re-routed to Germany for a couple of days before coming back to Mexico. So – I was there for... Continue Reading →
For the last 4 weeks I on business trips in the US and Mexico and home weekends – not much different that my prior job. A couple of travel stats – 1 lost company credit card, 1 point for England in the World Cup, several lost receipts (no mercy on reimbursement), 1 lost fitbit charger, 2... Continue Reading →
Late change in travel plans – so I was off to the U.S. quicker than expected so this weeks update is on baseball in Korea. I was suppose to see Paul McCartney this week but he was ill and has to cancel – that would have created some conflict having to miss that at the last... Continue Reading →
Starting to make arrangements now that we have a plan in place. Now that that Sharon and Annelise won’t be moving over in the near term, decided on a permanent apartment in the same neighborhood and bought a better TV – it won’t be a bachelor pad, more of an offsite man cave. With the... Continue Reading →
Started off at home with a lot of events as spring rolled into the Kentlands – it was great catching up with friends and Annelise and I laid the groundwork to dominate a local contest. The time back in the Kentlands cemented our decision to buy a condo there to be our home base regardless of... Continue Reading →
Last week I posted pictures of a protest for lack of government action on the ferry sinking at a festival – situation very sad and ultimately the prime minister resigned and maybe the president next. Very different than the situation in America – no one talked about it at work (except Expats) and all social... Continue Reading →
As I said in my update, big week with Sharon and Annelise visiting. First rule of sales is be on time - I violated that rule as I was an hour late to pick Sharon and Annelise up at the airport (I allotted 2 hrs for 50 miles and it took 3 hours and 90... Continue Reading →
Last two weeks been pretty much work, eat, sleep (OK - eat was a couple of times a day). Got out twice -once to see a long-time friend and her family that I knew from my old company and once to the DMZ. There are 2 DMZ tours -we took the DMZ lite tour as the... Continue Reading →
At home most of the week – Alexandra and I coming back at the same time was a little disruptive to the calm that Sharon and Annelise were getting used to. But it was a good week and we got some stuff accomplished which will make things smoother in the future. Proud of both girls... Continue Reading →
Just arrived back in DC...Annelise helping me with the commentary on the food pictures...Most Korean food is pretty good, but the best pictures I really couldn't take as not to offend someone to take a picture of something they were eating I couldn't believe. I pretty much eat out every meal and there are more... Continue Reading →
Last weekend didn’t have much planned and it was a bit cold for the bike, so I just worked, caught up on administrative stuff, watched OSU give away the Iowa State game because of the coach, and hopped on the subway and headed around town. I posted a lot of pictures, some of which go... Continue Reading →
This is the first week that I have been here and settled in – nice to be in one spot for a week. Next two weeks are pretty low key too, so I’ll be able to get into a routine. The update this week is focused on translation and transportation. And I received a nice gift... Continue Reading →
Spent a couple days in Tokyo for some meetings and did get a little free time and included some pictures. I was very interested in how the Koreans would interact with the Japanese as they are very competitive with them. But it was all positive and no negative comments – except for the Koreans remarking that... Continue Reading →
My goal is to remain positive and upbeat – but this approach may have left some people with the impression that I don’t have all of chores and drudgery of everyday life that we all hate - not true for me either, I am just not sharing it. So now that we have that straight,... Continue Reading →
"Week Three Update – Most of this week was travelling in Mexico and back through DC and it was good to get home for a bit. I have another week on the east coast as I have some stuff to wrap up here so probably won't have an update next week. Mexico was a bit... Continue Reading →
A lot happened the first week, more than I could include in an update so I will pace myself. So this week focus is on a teambuilding hike for the management team to celebrate the new year (Chinese New Year is coming up next week) and wish for “Safety for our workers and good finances”.... Continue Reading →
As many of you know, I recently changed jobs and relocated to Seoul, South Korea. Sharon and Annelise may follow in the summer before the new school year. Someone suggested a blog, but that is above my skill set so instead of a blog, I am going to post an update about once a week.... Continue Reading →
Back in 2012, before moving to Korea, we had a family trip to Machu Picchu and Cusco. Very impressive but not an easy place to get to (maybe that is why no one knew about it from the Western world until mid-1800's). The trip in 2012 entailed a flight to Lima, transfer and second flight to... Continue Reading →
First family vacation overseas in seven years, I'd been to Italy a couple of times for work but generally we had been very US centric in our travels. We flew into Milan and immediately drove to Florence. When renting a car I got distracted in getting a sports car versus room - so we had... Continue Reading →
We went to visit our friends from London who had moved to the country in southwest France - it was definitely off the grid but near a lot of great places to visit. We were able to see a lot of different places while we were there over a couple of weeks and it was... Continue Reading →
Sharon came back over to London for her birthday - we had a party in Barnes then flew to Nice for the weekend. I was much colder than we were expecting for March - definitely wan't beach weather. We drove along the French Rivera to Monaco - was cloudy when we were there. I was... Continue Reading →
I took a quick trip on my own to Budapest on a cold weekend (I think the airfare was less than $100) and on a recommendation stayed at the Hotel Gellert. The hotel was designed in an Art Nouveau style and connected to a spa. So first thing Saturday morning I headed to the spa...it... Continue Reading →
After we decided to return to the USA in October 2001, we had a pretty tight schedule of buying a house and getting relocated back by January and the start of school. So we squeezed in one more weekend trip and choose Stockholm since we hadn't been to a Scandinavian county yet. November wasn't the... Continue Reading →
We landed in Istanbul at 7am New York time on September 11th. We had a short-layover before our next flight to Izmir and went through immigration and security to catch our flight which was scheduled at about 8:45am New York time. The young Muslim lady wearing a head scarf working the immigration window was very... Continue Reading →
Our first and only trip to Russia (at least through 2020). Alexandra and Annelise stayed with friends so this trip was just Sharon and I. Unlike other trips where I usually seek the most inexpensive option, because I had concerns on security and there was no middle option, we stayed at the Grand Hotel Europa... Continue Reading →
The English discovered Costa Del Sol in the late 1950's when linguists were able to translate Costa Del Sol into "Coast of Sun" and realized that long sunny days are great break from short gray days. We went for a week during Easter Half-Term and stayed for a couple of days in a holiday resort... Continue Reading →
After I moved to London in 1999, one of the projects in our business unit was near Alexandria with the design office in Cairo and over 2 years I had 9 trips. First trip, right as the project started, entailed having a driver pick me up at the airport with a sign, stay in a... Continue Reading →
For the February bank holiday, we took the short flight from London to Amsterdam - about the same flight duration as from Washington DC to Columbus Ohio. We stayed in the old city and the lack of GPS navigation lead to some stress points: We accidentally drove our rental car onto a bike path and... Continue Reading →
I had a side-trip to New Delhi on one of my normal trips to our jobsite south of Mumbai. We have a large office there and it is my only trip ever - which is pretty unusual in my company. Had the standard stay in the guest house and they cooked dinner there for whoever... Continue Reading →
After I moved to London in 1999, one of the projects in our business unit was near Alexandria with the design office in Cairo and I had 9 trips over 2 years. First trip, right as the project started, entailed having a driver pick me up at the airport with a sign, stay in a... Continue Reading →
My first trip to Antwerp was with Alexandra in 1999 to buy an upgraded wedding ring for Sharon (as a bribe for moving to London). Alexandra was very excited for the trip and was excellent at keeping the secret - her bribe was a trip to the zoo. It was pouring rain and I had... Continue Reading →
My parents came to visit us in London so we were able to get away for a couple of quick weekends, first weekend to Vienna and the second weekend to Belgium. We had glorious couple of days of sunshine and visiting palaces in and out of the city. Schloss Schönbrunn Schönbrunn Palace was the main... Continue Reading →
Had four trips to Saudi in 2000 and 2001 to our two jobsites. Both were remote and on the coast and generally I spent most of my time in the camps. One site was on the Red Sea coast near Mecca (spelled Makkah on the map) and the other was on the Arabian Gulf near... Continue Reading →
We had purchased a old car with the intent of only using on the weekends to go to the store, but we decided to take the chance on a 6 hour drive each way from London to Edinburgh. We stayed in a spare room in a house which was short bus ride to the city... Continue Reading →
My wife's sister and her family came over for spring break and we went to Paris for a couple of days then returned back to London for a couple of days. They had a 7 year old son who was as "active" as Alexandra and they made quite a team. On the way over to... Continue Reading →
Our first trip from London was for the first bank holiday in February 2000 for a long weekend. Short winter gray days start to run into each other and it was nice to see the sun. Don't remember much about the hotel and we focused on visiting the main tourist sites. Sagrada Família Gaudi's work... Continue Reading →
I got the notice that I received an assignment in London in early August 1999 - I went over a week later and came back in mid-October to finish the move and on Annelise’s second birthday on October 20, we loaded our 27 carry on pieces on to a plane to London. We needed 27... Continue Reading →
First trip to Eastern Europe - a work friend highly recommended Prague and I was able to use some of my frequent flyer miles on British Airways from all of my India trips. We connected through London and a couple days before my trip I found that there was an executive meeting in London to... Continue Reading →
Most of my time in India was on the Dabhol Power Plant construction site which was a multi-level joint venture between Enron, GE and my company. Enron was the lead in the owner/operator (and local relations) and our focus was on building the plant and supporting the financing requirements of the largest project financing of... Continue Reading →
Made my initial trip to Egypt in 1994 - the 3rd leg of my first frequent flyer "score'". I had miles on American and somehow I got a buy-one-get-one-free promotion on TWA. I don't remember the specifics but we flew from Washington - Rome on American, took a ferry to Greece, flew a local airline... Continue Reading →
This was the 2nd leg of my first frequent flyer “score'”. I had some miles on American and somehow I got a buy-one-get-one-free promotion on TWA. I don’t remember the specifics but we flew from Washington – Rome on American, took a ferry to Greece, and then flew a local airline from Athens to Cairo... Continue Reading →
This was the 1st leg of my first frequent flyer “score'”. I had some miles on American and somehow I got a buy-one-get-one-free promotion on TWA. I don’t remember the specifics but we flew from Washington – Rome on American, took a ferry to Greece, and then flew a local airline from Athens to Cairo... Continue Reading →
Sharon and I went to St. Martin for our honeymoon in 1993 - still our only time in the Caribbean a and one of only two times we did have done the resort vacation where we stayed in one place for a week. Pretty relaxing week, did the standard parasailing, jet ski, and hanging out... Continue Reading →
After taking the overnight train from Paris to Zurich where we rented a car to drive to tour Northern Italy with stops in Genoa, Portofino, Pisa, Bologna, Florence, Venice and ultimately and back to Zurich where we flew home. We drove right by Cinque Terre (hills towns) as we took the Autostrada and not the... Continue Reading →
The first of our first international trips for Sharon and I, back in 1992. The original concept was to fly into Paris and out of Rome 17 days later and not worry about any arrangements in between. Sharon had high school French, which was a little helpful. I was between assignments and had already spent... Continue Reading →