Richard's Travel Blog

First of all, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everybody.

I’ve been in many countries over the Christmas season, and never have I seen Christmas ignored like I have this year in Gyeongju. It really feels weird. I mean, there are places where there is very little Christian atmosphere, but generally Christmastime is an opportunity to sell stuff. I remember when I was in Cambodia as Christmas season approached in ’99. (I was back in Thailand on Christmas.) There were some Christmas stuff up for the Westerners and merchants were trying to sell whatever. It wasn’t in your face or anything , like in America, but there was a little Christmas spirit around. Here, nothin’. No decorations around town, even though Korea is not locked down. No Christmasy displays in any of the stores I’ve been in or in the display windows. No Christmas music overhead. I understand get-togethers are strongly discouraged and in some businesses and churches are illegal. But still. Forty-some percent of Koreans are Christians. We’re hunkered down here, but this is amazing.

It was at this point when I noticed I had never published the November “Fall Colors in Gyeongju” post. How ’bout a couple more leaves pictures? It really was beautiful, back then before winter set in.

In the park down the street

In the park down the street

I don’t have many photos since then worth looking at. Of some interest to kimchi lovers is that late fall is kimchi making season. In the pictures below, you will see a large group of people who got together in the park to all make kimchi together. It was a kimchi-palooza!

That’s me, bundled up in black. The workers are generating enough heat to dispense with the winter clothes

Set up and ready to go

If you immersed somebody in a tub of Korean red pepper paste, they might not survive.

Mostly, our life goes on uneventfully. We do activities of daily living, like shop and cook. Sadly, the nearby farmers market where Myung likes to get our fresh food is closed for the month because COVID is increasing. (COVID is almost nothing compared with the States, but everyone means to keep it that way.) Get-togethers are limited to five people, but we haven’t had to do without much socializing, as we don’t get together with more than five very often. I guess that might have something to do with the low Christmas energy. Anyway, there is no news worth blogging about, except my upcoming trip to the United States.

Finally, we have all our stuff together to turn in to the Korean consulate in San Francisco for my resident visa. We’ve actually had it together for a couple of weeks, but I’m going to stay here till the end of this 90 day tourist visa I currently have. I’m leaving January 21 and have a return ticket for February 22. I get one free ticket change, which I can use if it takes longer than a month to get the visa. The consular website says it should take 2-3 weeks, so a month should be enough time. I built in enough time to submit something more if I have to, but I’ve exchanged several emails with consular staff and I think everything is in order.

Normally, I would be excited to visit my favorite places and see friends and family, but COVID is really putting a damper on many of the things I would otherwise do. Oh well. I wish we could all get together, like in the picture below of a little going away party we had for our friend, Etan, who went home to Singapore. That’s him to my left.

With that, I’ll close. Again, Happy Holidays. Be well, all of you.

Omygod! I was going to come back to this post after looking for more leaves, and never did it. It’s Christmas Eve and I started a new post when I finally noticed. Well, the leaves are long gone, as we are in the dead of winter now, but here it is, as I wrote it on November 8th.

Hi y’all. I got to Seattle and back no problem. Then I quarantined at home for two weeks, as required by law. And I do mean “by law”. You have to download an app, so they can know where your phone is, and you can report your temperature and answer questions about if you have  any COVID symptoms. If you have any thought of leaving home without your phone, if you put it on the table and don’t move it, they can tell, and they make your phone make a shrill alarm sound, and you must tap it to verify you are actually there. I didn’t know till I got back that if you live with somebody, you are supposed to stay in one room except to use the bathroom. Myung wanted to obey that directive, so I do that, for the most part. I usually make coffee before she gets up, so in the morning I did go to the kitchen to do that. Other than that, I dutifully stayed in one bedroom the whole time.

I got out three days ago. The first thing I wanted to do was go look at the fall colors. I have been looking forward to the Korean autumn since we decided to move here. Turns out, I was freed right at the right time. This post is  to show pictures of  the fall colors. They speak for themselves.

These first two are of trees in the park down the street.

Trees in the park down the street from where we live

The rest of these are all taken at Bulguksa Temple, about 10 kilometers south of here.

Bulguksa is the most famous World Heritage site in Gyeongju. Construction started in 751, at the height of the Unified Silla kingdom, and completed in 774. Here is how it looked in 1914. I got this picture off Wikipedia. It was restored between 1966 and 1973.

Now it looks like this.

Bulguksa Temple

Another smaller temple right behind it. Note the Chinese script. Written Korean wasn’t invented until 1443.

Way up the mountain is a fine 9th century Buddha statue. I got this picture off Google Images, as you are no longer allowed to photograph it.

I’m going to put off posting this until tomorrow, after we go to Bomun Lake, a little south of town, between here and Bulguksa. It’s a touristy place, famous here as a honeymoon destination. It’s got some pretty places, so maybe there are good fall colors there.

That’s where I was when I forgot to finish and send it off. There was nothing to see at Bomun Lake, as the trees are mostly exposed there and the leaves were blown off. So, now I’m going to go back to the December post. Hopefully, I won’t forget to sent that one. Sheesh!

For more on Gyeongju from when we lived near here in Yangsan in 2008, go to: https://rschuckman.com/?m=200807, or click July 2008 on the list of dates on the right, or type “Gyeongju” in the search box

Full Moon Holiday is something like the American Thanksgiving. Here is the spread at Myung’s friend’s home.

Chusoek (CHO-sawk) is Korea’s biggest holiday. The big day was last Thursday, as Thursday night was the full moon. So it was basically a four-day holiday. It’s a combination autumn festival and a time for veneration of your ancestors. A big meal is prepared and displayed like in the picture above. Of course, then everybody chows down. Even though the old customs of prayerful remembrance of ancestors are not as rigorously followed as in the old days, it is still a time of remembering them. Families and friends get together, though during this time of COVID precautions, that has been mostly scaled back.

We have been getting together with Myung’s friends in small groups. We partook in the above feed at the home of Myung’s good friend, Kyungja. Her friends have all been so welcoming to us.

Besides that event, we’ve spent a lot of time with her friends. They all like coming to Gyeongju because it’s got many parks, Buddhist temples and historical sites. Actually, we’ve all been eating like horses, not just during Chosoek. My experience with Koreans is that they are like Chinese in that they use meals as the venue for interacting. That works for me. I’m really enjoying Korean food. Myung makes almost all our dinners these days. Here’s what we had tonight.

Myung usually arrays her table like other Koreans. The lettuce, sesame leaves and zucchini leaves are for making little burritos, called “ssam”.

Kimchi (of course), gochujang sauce and leftover pachingae and bulgogi from lunch

Monkfish and bean sprouts  

Lunch yesterday at the Duck restaurant next door. Whew! It’s spicy, hence the sweat band.

Gyeongju has a rich history. Some artifacts are over 2000 years old. If you’re interested, it’s best you just google “Gyeongju”. The blurb on Wikipedia is good. The structures are of course all less than 300 years old, as most structures were made of wood. Much of the area is World Heritage

Royal tombs from the 6th through the 10th century are all over town. All over southern South Korea, really.

Cheomseongdae is an astronomical observatory in Gyeongju, South Korea. Cheomseongdae means star-gazing tower in Korean. Cheomseongdae is the oldest surviving astronomical observatory in Asia, and possibly even the world. Wikipedia

8th century stone figures. I think they are Confucian.

Many little Buddhas behind the stone statues

The insides of the temples in Gyeongju aren’t very ornate, at least what I’ve seen so far.

Some sites are lit up at night.

 My saga about getting a residence visa continues. That’s a long story! Short story is it will eventually work out, but I do have to renew the tourist visa I’m on. I have to leave the country and come back for another 3 month tourist visa, and no country will take Americans without quarantining except America. So on Oct 21, I’m flying to Seattle and flying back three hours later. Then I get to quarantine here.

Our life here has settled down, and we have our routines. I’m entertained by the new experiences. I’m starting to get a grip on the language. Myung’s having a great time with her old friends.

Fall is just about here. Just a few days ago, it started to be autumn-like. Almost no rain. Brisk and breezy at night and in the early morning and late afternoon. The leaves have just started to change and the apples are great. I’ve spent so little time in places with seasons, I’ve practically forgotten about seasons.

Fall colors have just started to come this week. They will be beautiful in 3-4 weeks.

Some of you may be asking about COVID in Korea. Well, it’s mostly under control. A couple of weeks ago, there were a few days of 300 or so new cases per day. The government reinstituted stronger restrictions. Like, even outside everyone must wear a mask. Koreans aren’t generally science deniers and are cooperative citizens, so the numbers are back down. 65 new cases during the last 24 hours and no deaths.

I think that’s going to do it for now. There are so many good photo oportunities here, I’m sure to be blogging more frequently than recently.

Until then, be well all of you. Stay safe.

Oh, you may notice that bruise on my chin. I fell hard walking in that park in the picture a coule of weeks ago, and got a concussion. I was pretty much okay after two or three days, but I still get headaches when I bend over. Not to worry. I was a nuero-trauma nurse for years. I know the deal and I’ll be fine.

Photo taken before mask wearing at all times was reinstituted. We were still careful at that time and, as you can see, have masks in hand.

We’re finally in an apartment in Gyeongju. Myung has done everything, from finding the place to buying what was not already here, to setting up the utilities, to getting another phone. In short, she’s done it all. I’m pretty helpless here, in a system I’m not familiar with and in a language I’m just starting to learn. I’ve forgotten most of what little I learned when we lived here 12 years ago.

Turns out, this apartment is a great deal. The 95-year-old woman who lived here went to live with her family. The family didn’t want to deal with anything in the apartment. They were going to get rid of it all. So they just gave it all to us. There’s a fridge, a TV, almost all the furniture we need, an air conditioner that worked after a $52 repair, tables, a sofa, kitchen and dining stuff and more. I was planning/dreading buying it all. All we bought or will buy was one bed, a table-top oven (as there is no oven in this typical Korean apartment) and a stainless steel table to put it on, a better dining table and chairs, a microwave, a coffee maker, a toaster and some odds and ends. I’m probably forgetting something, but the point is we don’t have to spend too much to have what we need/want here. For what should come to about $600/mo including building fee, utilities and internet, it’s really better than we had hoped for. Myung pulled all this off in a couple of weeks.

The main thing to accomplish at this point is for me to get a permanent visa. There’s been a big glitch in that regard. The authorities need an original of our marriage certificate. This I have, but Myung didn’t put her father’s correct birth given name, so they won’t take my application at this time. I had to apply to the State of California for a certified amended copy with the given name as it appear on Myung’s birth certificate. There is a process for this, involving online notarization of a form (which I learned is possible), a translated copy of her birth certificate with her father’s correct name, and a couple other forms. We got all this, and I sent it by EMS to my friend Mary, who in turn has sent it on to the guy with the state vital records department. His name is David, and I now have something of a personal relationship with him. He should have it by today or maybe Monday. I emailed him, asking him to verify I did everything right.

Here’s the problem. It might take 6-8 weeks to get the certified amended copy. I’m here on a three-month tourist visa. So I don’t have time to get it back and apply for a permanent visa. Unless I can wangle an extension, I may have to leave the country and come back. When we lived here before, I just took a cheap, short ferry ride over to Fukuoka, Japan every three months and back the same day. Now, because of coronavirus, I can’t go anywhere around here. They won’t let Americans in, or almost anyone for that matter. The cheapest destination is going to the US and coming right back. I may have to do that. And of course, I’ll have to quarantine again when I arrive back in Korea.

Other than all that, things are going pretty good. Our place is nice. There’s a park a couple of blocks away that covers what seems to be many square kilometers, if it is contiguous with a little mountain we can see from the park interior. There are several other large parks in this historically significant former Silla dynasty capital. Gyeongju is a nice size, about 250,000 people. Public transportation is good. I think life will be good here.

I gotta get a grip n the language. I’m working on it.

So that’s about it for now. When more develops and/or we go do some photo worthy things, I’ll write again. For now, be well, all of you. And be safe.

Who’d a thunk it would be so hard?

Back in early June, I booked us a ticket on Turkish Airlines. That trip was supposed to be quick (by Ecuador to Korea standards). About 4 days later, Turkish Air ceased operations. Getting my money back was a hassle. I had to dispute the charges with the bank. That worked out, but it was a hassle after already hassling with the online booking company and Turkish Air which doesn’t even answer their phones anymore.

It get’s worse. I then booked a ticket which had two stops in Shengen countries, in Madrid and Amsterdam. I didn’t know nobody could make two stops till we weren’t let on the plane in Quito. I was denied right away, so I was able to call the booking company and at least get a partial refund. Myung was going to go on by herself while I stayed and figured out how to go. They even gave her a boarding pass. Then at the gate they told her she couldn’t get on. Why not till then? Who knows. By then it was too late to get a refund on her ticket. I had to eat it and part of my ticket.

We had been staying at an airbnb in Quito. After the incident I just described, we went to a hotel near the airport, owned by a guy I know, until I could make new arrangements. It was boring at both the airbnb and the hotel. The airbnb was in a neighborhood a long way from anywhere, so we did nothing and ate food from nearby tiendas and had pizza and KFC delivered. The hotel was in the middle of nowhere, so we just had the cheap Ecuadoran fare they offered.

The new arrangements were tickets with only one stop, in Amsterdam, then a second leg direct to Seoul. Of course, we were a little nervous. What could go wrong this time? Would they just not let us on, for whatever reason, even after I clarified all the details of our nationalities, how Americans still don’t need visas to enter Korea, and every other thing we could think of with the US embassy, the Korean embassy and the airline?

It still didn’t go smoothly.

We got to check-in and the woman there said I needed a visa. The following took an hour and a half to transpire. I called the embassy, which gave me the URL with the information that I didn’t need a visa. He stayed of the phone while I tried to get the woman, her supervisor, and that person’s supervisor above her to talk to him. They weren’t interested in anything except their own chain of command. They next up supervisor was interested in the email from the Korean embassy, and relented when he/she found out we had one. He/She didn’t even read it. We were given boarding passes.

At the gate, the guy said I needed a visa. We had to whip out our computers again, all the while berating him about how we just went through all this. Fortunately, he relented after only a few minutes. Then, getting on the plane in Amsterdam went normally.

I hate long flights with long layovers going west to east. We got here to our current airbnb about 18 hours ago, and I’m just feeling normal again. 10+ hours from Quito to Amsterdam. 14 hour layover. 10+ hours Amsterdam to Seoul. 9+ hours from deplaning to our place. Fortunately, I got about 4 hours of sleep from Amsterdam to Seoul. Myung slept well on both flights.

Oh, I didn’t tell you about getting our deposit back from the landlady. She didn’t want to give our deposit back. Myung hit the roof. The landlady said Myung was being agressive and made the mistake of calling the police. The cops came. She said Myung was yelling at her. I showed the cops our expired contact. The landlady admitted she didn’t want to return the deposit. The cops made her return the deposit. But it was quite a scene.

So, now we are just hanging out in quarantine. The health department had us download an app, so they can keep track of us, at least the phone. We have to report our temperatures twice a day. They did a PCR test yesterday, and we passed. They gave us a big box of food, and Myung had more food delivered. So we’re good.

That’s going to be it for now. When we get out, there will be lots to talk about.

Until then, be well. Be safe.

As many of you know, coronavirus has greatly affected Ecuador. We haven’t gotten it, nor has anyone we know, despite the fact the rate of morbidity and mortality has been quite high. We have had to comply with the distancing rules, but that hasn’t inconvenienced us much. We’ve been able to work with the curfew, which was from 2 PM to 5 AM but is now 11 PM to 5 AM. Many businesses, restaurants, government offices, schools etc were closed, but those is opening up, for now. The buses are running again. Masks are still required outdoors, but that’s no big deal. They may have to shut things down again, as the public hospitals as maxed out, but how that works out remains to be seen.

The big deal for us is that while life is easier with the easing of restrictions, the consequences are severe for many if not most people. We’re okay because my income stream remains steady. We don’t need jobs or customers. We don’t have kids in school. so the schools being closed doesn’t affect us. And so on. What does affect us is the near collapse of the health care system. So far, our province is still barely above water in taking care of covid patients but many clinics, public and private, aren’t even open. Specialists in the public system, which we are in, are no seeing patients. Elective services are not happening. If you can get into the system for something, the wait and cancellations make it practically much more difficult than before

A looming problem is the social and economic problems already showing themselves. Most Ecuadorans are financially strapped and the economy is running at a fraction of it’s former pace. Ecuador was already in dire straights. Now, things are worse. It’s going to start being ugly around here. Desparation is palpable and isn’t going to get better soon, especially if they have to shut things down again. We don’t want to witness  violent protests like the ones we saw a few months ago when the government tried to cut subsidies on gas and gasoline. When it has to cut expenses even more, it could be even worse.

Myung has some nagging heath issues she was having a hard time being addressed even before coronavirus. Plus, we aren’t getting any younger. So, we talked about moving a couple of months ago and decided to make a move. That move is to Korea.

During the worst of the outbreak, no one was even allowed to cross provincial borders. Our province, Azuay, borders Guayas where Guayaquil is. You probably saw how bad it got there. Fortunately, the restrictions on movement worked and that didn’t happen here. Now we can leave Azuay, which means we can go to Guayaquil or Quito for international flights.

It’s long story about all the problems we had getting a flight. I’ll spare you. In the end, we got one that so far hasn’t been cancelled. We leave from Quito on Tuesday, July 21, insha allah.

Obviously, it isn’t so easy as before. All international arrivals in Korea must be quarantined for 14 days. The governement will just put you in a place for $100/day per person, or you can go to a plac that will have you. Myung arranged the latter in Gyeongju, where we plan to live. Without her, I would have had to just throw myself at mercy of the government. But she’s got it all engineered. Korea is really making sure they keep the lid on coronavirus. We will be met when we get through immigration, taken to the high speed train to Gyeongju, put in a special quarantine car, met in Gyeongju and transported to our airbnb place that accepted us. There we sit, our cellphone location monitored and visited by health department personnel. Fortunately, delivery of groceries and really about everything else is common in Korea, so there is no reason for us to have to break quarantine.

It’s with mixed feelings we leave Ecuador. If this hadn’t happened, we may have never left. There are plusses and minuses to leaving and going to Korea. The weather is better here. The beauty is all around, much of it within walking distance. I speak enough Spanish to get by. Life’s inexpensive. Up till now, the health care system was adequate. We have friends we’ll miss. We’ll miss our dog, which we found a nice home for. Korean is very difficult for me. And we had hoped for stability.

On the other hand, Korea has much to offer. Obviously, Korean is Myung’s native language, so that’s good for her. I’ll manage, but it’s going to be like when we lived in China. It’s politically stable. The health care is very good, and cheap because I am married to a Korean. It’ll be fun to be in a modern place where stuff works. Though the weather isn’t s perfect as here and the air isn’t as clean, we’ll be where there are seasons again. Including winter, brrr. Korea has changed wince we were there before. Many of the products I’m used to, like cheese, you couldn’t find are available now. There’s even a Costco about 20 kilometers away. Maybe I’ll even buy a car and we’ll live like other people in developed countries. What a concept! It’s been so long. Finally, Korean people are really nice. I’m looking forward to when we won’t have to wear masks and be able to see people smiling when they pass.

Of course, there are so many details about all of this I could go into, but I don’t think they are too interesting. So I’m going to go ahead and post this. When (if?) we get there, I’ll have nothing much to do in our apartment for two weeks and will write about our plans for Gyeongju. After that, I can get out and take pictures, though we’ll be busy getting a place to live and getting settled. We’re back to having what we can carry. (Our stuff here is all sold or given away.)

So, as always and even more true now, be well all of you.

Hi again. Here’s that post about my little whale/boobie/sea lion watching trip to Machala.

The things the tour operator said would happen almost all happened. The only thing that didn’t happen was another boobie walk because it was low tide and the boat couldn’t get to the island. The poor operator had to improvise everything, though, and that is a long story almost worth telling. Suffice it to say, everything he arranged fell through and he had to arrange on the fly a different hotel, different places to eat, and a different boat.

I gotta show you the dopey boat we went two hours out to sea in.

The main reason I went was to whale watch. There were no great breachings, just a lot of backs and flukes. This is the only photo I got, such as it is.

The ride out to the islands where the whales and most of the sea lions and bobbies are was a couple of hours long. We were told that the littlest island, the one on the right above, is going to disappear in 10-15 years. The big island, below, will be there for quite a while.

No one lives on the island, but there is a shelter for researchers which doubles as habitat for multitudes of birds and sea lions.

Many of the sea lions came out to greet us.

So, it was a nice ride, anyway. On the way back, we stopped for lunch at a island right next to Machala for lunch. Nice, too, though the beach was not worth photographing.

The morning and early afternoon on the day we left, we went to an organic/sustainable finca (little farm) called Happy Fruit. This isn’t Southeast Asia, so it wasn’t a cannabis farm, despite the name. It was a very nice place, though, with the highest quality products.

And the lunch was scrumptious, in a nice setting.

Machala itself is an ordinary Ecuadorean city, even though it’s the fourth largest with 241,000 inhabitants. I saw nothing worth photographing. Here’s the central plaza and church.

With that, I’ll sign off for now. Hopefully, I won’t wait so many months before blogging again. Until then, be well, all of you.

Bill and me

Yes, it’s been forever since I last wrote a post. It’s been forever since Myung or I went anywhere, though, and our life is really pretty uneventful. We have our simple life. Routine works for us. I don’t regret in any way the effort it took to travel so many years, in so many ways. The rewards have been beyond what I could have hoped for. Indeed, 45 years ago when I took my first long backpacking journey, I had no idea what could be experienced. And, for sure, one thing I learned was the more you know, the more you don’t know, and that keeps my curiosity a bit intact. That said, neither of us is too inclined to do more than easy little trips now and then.

Something did happen. My brother, Bill, contacted me and said he wanted to come down. What a pleasant surprise! I’m, like, sure! Any time is good! Well, he came and visited us in Cuenca for a few days, then he and I went to San Cristobal Island, Galapagos for five days. We’ve had very different lives, to say the least, and this was the first time we’ve spent so much time together since he was a teenager and I was a kid.

I think the last time we spend some number of days together, just us, was when he was a counselor at a boys camp between Willits and Fort Bragg, California, back in the 60’s. I went up there (I don’t remember how) and I have some vague memories of the place and him showing me around. I forget what we did. Boy, have we changed since! He became a family man and, with his wife Rita, very successfully raised three daughters and was a successful lawyer. My life is long story which many of you know. Now we’re a couple of old guys, pretty much on cruise control at this point in our lives.

Our long histories, without being that close all these decades, made his visit all the better. I’m pretty familiar with Bill’s life, but he has little idea what the travel/living abroad part of my life has been like. I enjoyed the opportunity to give him a peek into it. Only so much is possible in the eight or nine days he was down here, but he got the overview. He saw where and how we live, got to be around Myung, and he and I went out to the Galapagos, just the two of us.

Enough text. Time for some pics.

We had a few days to take in some of the sites, though it rained for at least part of every day he was in Cuenca. We went on the free walking tour of El Centro. Bill took a lot of photos, and he sent many of them to me. Probably, he has photos of the cathedral, colonial buildings and all that, but I didn’t get those. You’ve seen all that stuff in my previous posts, anyway. (Can you believe we’ve been here one month short of five years?!) I did want to do with him the stuff that makes up our everyday life. So we walked along the Yanuncay River where Myung and I go all the time, often with Mandu….

… and at the brand newly renovated Mercado 12 de Abril. He took many photos there. There’s nothing like this in America, of course.

The guide on the walking tour took us to Mercado 10 de Agosto. Much of upstairs is a food court which, again, is a little different than you find in America. The carnitas are more in your face than in the States.

We went to the flower market.

So it went. I would have loved to have had him around for longer so that his stay wouldn’t have been like giving him a tour of the highlights, but he had things to do back in Stockton.

We decided to make a quick trip out to the Galapagos. So we picked one of the inhabited islands and did a few of the activities you can do in a few days. Basically, there are about a half dozen activities 95% of the tourists to San Cristobal do. Scuba diving is one. We didn’t do that. He isn’t licensed and I retired from diving after getting the bends in the Philippines that time.

The first thing we did, after getting off the plane and checking into a hotel, was take a guided walk to a place they call Frigate Bird Hill. The guide gave us a nature talk about animals, flora and fauna. It was a good place to start. 1) It only took a couple of hours and was informative, and 2) It’s the best view of the main town, Puerto Baquerizo Moreno, and of the sunset.

Puerto Baqueriza Moreno from Frigate Bird Hill

Trail to the top of Frigate Bird Hil

View along the west side of San Cristobal Island

Frigate bird

Sunset on San Cristobal Island

The first whole day we were there, we took a day trip to nearby (a couple hours away) Isla Espanola, That was a good place to get your blue-footed boobie/sea lion/swimming iguana fix. I always like to see something new, no mean feat for someone who has seen it all, so to speak. I hadn’t seen boobies up close, swimming iguanas at all, or swam with friendly sea lions. The trip to Isla Espanola had it all.

I don’t have a camera to take into the ocean and Bill only had his iPhone camera (He took most of the pictures) so there are no pictures of snorkeling with the sea lions. Let me tell you, that was great. These sea lions are little, not like in the North Pacific. And they aren’t dangerous, like in the North Pacific. We snorkeled around and they swirled all around us, brushing up against us and looking in our eyes as if to say come on, let’s play, can’t you swim any better than that? It was great. Up on land, we got a guided tour of different kinds of boobies (blue-footed, red-footed and Nazca) and their nests….

Cute nursing sea lion pic

We have no photos of the iguanas swimming. You’ll just have to take my word for it; they do swim.

There was another little half day island walk and snorkel trip. Then we just chilled out. We had fun eating seafood several times, bought t-shirts and all that. Then it was time for Bill to go home. Too bad. I hope he comes again.

Otherwise, I guess I’ll see him again the next time I get to Northern California. Who knows when that may be. I have no need to go, nor plans right now. Maybe in a year or so. I spent almost $40K on my rentals in the last year and am trying to recover.

So, that’s it for now. I took a little group tour to the coast last weekend. I’ll blog about that shortly.

Until then, be well all of you.

That is me being out of the sun on San Cristobal

When we moved, we left behind the old house owners’ dog, Luna. We got a new one, and a few people have asked me to post some pictures.

Mandu is Korean for dumpling, as in Wonton in Chinese, Potsticker in English, Momo in Tibetan, Ravioli in Italian, etc.. She’s six and a half months old now. She was about two months old when we got her at the public market.

It’s usually cool in Cuenca and inside our house. She used to love hanging out in my hoodie.

She’s very affectionate…

…and would chew us all the time if we let her, but we stopped that. Whew, her baby teeth were sharp!

Well, she’s still puppy-like and affectionate and likes to hang out with me, but she’s no little girl anymore. Climbing up on my neck is out. She weights 12+ kilos now. Oh, and she got spayed three days ago.

She’s going to be a good dog. Already she’s not totally rambunctious, though she is big ol’ tomboy for sure.

Hasta luego

Hi y’all. It’s been a while again, but again there hasn’t been too much to talk about. We did move to a new place, and I was going to blog about that whole story but I’m glad I didn’t That’s behind us.

In brief, what happened when we returned from California and why we moved is the owners completely remodeled our house while we were gone. They just went on in, moved walls and added a bathroom, as well as paint, which is what they asked if they could do and I said okay. Myung and I felt our space was invaded. In fact, if we had a written contract they would not have been allowed to do that. So, withing a few days we moved. We had packed up most of our stuff to give them room to paint, so moving was a breeze. Luckily, we found a place right away. It’s okay. We might get another when our one year lease is up. It’s definitely nicer than the last place, and bigger with two bedrooms and a good kitchen. It’s a hundred dollars a month more, but still cheap by US standards and fair by Cuenca standards.

It was sad to leave the owners’ dog we got attached to, but we got a new one and we like her. They couldn’t be more different, but we like our new one, too. I will post some photos in my next post which I’ll do after this one.

For a lot of people, moving to a new place is a big deal, but we’ve been so mobile over the years, this was like going to the next town and staying in the next hostel, so I’ll just move onto the trip we took to Florida for two weeks, just returning last Saturday.

Myung’s computer was dying, so that gave us a reason to go shop in Miami. Coincidentally, it died completely on the day before we left. As I’ve mentioned before, many things are so expensive in Ecuador that if you have enough things to buy it’s worth going to the States to buy it there. The computer I bought for Myung was $370 on Amazon (which doesn’t deliver to Ecuador) but would cost double here. Our round trip air tickets from Guayaquil, plus a couple of night’s stay in Guayaquil, plus $24 round trip on the van from Cuenca to Guayaquil was was about a thousand bucks. So if we stocked up on stuff and did some discretionary shopping, we could and did come out ahead. And we got to be tourists in South Florida.

Whew, Myung can shop! She searched bargains for days. It’s fun for her. I got a couple of t-shirts, not counting the free Miami Marlins jerseys we got when we went to a ballgame. We also stocked up on Korean foods which are even more than double price here, if you can find it at all. I don’t have pictures (which by the way were taken on Myung’s new camera, as hers also happened to die just before we left) because malls are malls, Whole Foods and Trader Joes are what they are, and the Asian markets ain’t near what they are in the Bay Area. But shopping was a lot of why we went and it’s what we did for several days, probably over half the time we were there.

This text is getting so long, it’s time for a photo to break up the action at least.  How about the first picture taken with the new camera?

In my opinion, the beaches in and around Miami are not that interesting. For us, it was worth one picture, and that’s not even worth posting. There is a beach in the keys, Bahia Hondo, which got billed in 1995 as best beach in America. Are you kidding? Here are pics. It’s not even in the top 500. What are they thinking? No features out in the water, so-so beach itself on one side. Sheesh.

We stayed in a cheap hotel with kitchenette on Marathon Key and did pretty much nothing. Sunset pictures? Blah. Here’s one.

Marathon and the rest of the keys were hit hard by Hurricane Irma last year. There used to be a lot of mangroves along the east side of the island. A lot of them were trashed. Here’s what it looks like at the end of the street we stayed on.

It’s not too bad in the other direction but, then again, the keys ain’t no Malaysia as far as beach and mangroves go.

The main thing to do out there, of course, is going to Key West. I was there once in 1966 when I was 14 years old. My memories are few and dim. I’m sure it wasn’t so touristy.

Hard Rock Cafe

If you want to party, get good food for a price or buy a t-shirt, Key West is fine.

One thing I remember pretty well from when I was there as a teenager was going deep sea fishing with my dad. I’m thinking we got a boat from what’s now called the Historic Charter Boat dock. Now going out is about $250, so we didn’t do that. We did go on a little reef fishing boat with about 10 other people. It was like going to the kiddie fishing pond. We dropped lines about 5 feet down and caught lots of little fishies, 37 of which were over 12 inches long and therefore keepers. I caught about 10 of them, I guess because I still have the knack from fishing my whole child and teen years. Myung got kinda seasick and mostly laid low. We took six of them back to the motel. We grilled three in foil on each of the next two nights.

We had about three days left in Miami before we left. Besides more shopping, we went to a couple of areas of the Everglades. It’s pretty nice out there. It reminded me of the Okavango Delta in Botswana, without the hippos, elephants and crocs. We did see one baby alligator in the area down by Homestead, south of Miami.

It’s totally pretty there.

Myung especially wanted to see a big alligator, so we went to the Miccosukee tribal cultural center and alligator show.

The cultural part was actually pretty interesting, especially how they avoided getting frog marched off to Oklahoma with the Cherokees by joining with the Seminoles for some to successfully be able to remain in Florida.

That’s about it. What else I got… How about this lizard in Marathon? Myung’s a good photographer.

That really is about it now. If it looks like I didn’t think much of my experience in South Florida, it’s because I didn’t. We went mostly for shopping. For that, it was great.

So, be well, all of you.