We woke to hear my alarm sounding. I was hoping for a relaxing morning in bed, but then his phone rang and he had to go to work. I checked e-mail while drinking salt water. I did some tapping with an article in the e-mail. I swished and took vit C. I ran the dishwasher and emptied it. Shi-Uk sent me Youtube links for the songs on Sunday. So I listened to them, but was unable to sing them because … I could not pick out the melody and it was men singing. Why can't we have regular hymns? One of them I had the sheet music for so I played it on my tablet and that helped. Incidentally, I had to turn off the wi-fi because Korean ads were showing up on the keyboard app and slowing the program down to unusable levels. Chris came back to take a shower and have breakfast. I made and ate breakfast, too. We talked about how hard the music was to sing. Then he went back to work. I made a shower mitt from a Korean scrub towel that I bought. I put elastic around the wrist. When I took my shower, it was like scrubbing my skin with a wire brush! These Korean women are true stoics if they can do this everyday. I discovered a brush burn on my ankle. I had no memory of how it happened. But I avoided it with the mitt. Then I called Sook to tell her the backpack was ready. She said she'd pick it up Monday. I ironed the top I wanted to wear tonight. I got dressed. I worked on a fish block for a quilt for the school. It is (was) supposed to be for a fundraiser for the PTO, but it sounds like the PTO may be disbanded for lack of participation. Chris came home to have a bite to eat. I finished my block and had a bite, too. Then we got in the car and went to meet the van. But it turned out that we were taking a bus because so many people were going. And when the bus got outside the gate, it stopped and picked up more passengers. Then it was a long slow ride to Busan to the dock. We got off the bus and proceeded to climb tall metal stairs to the inside deck of the USS Bonhomme Richard, an amphibious assault ship. Chris was excited to tour it. There were lots of people there for the reception. A buffet was set out. I had to used the head, as they say in the Navy. This was not easily done since it took a number of people to come up with the answer to 'where is it'?
Finally someone took us through a maze of oblong door-sized ports into narrow hallways, kind of like you see in submarines in movies. When we arrived, I hoped the man would wait for me because I would never find my way back. And he did, but the way back was through the mess, and much faster and easier. Was it 'stump the civilians' day? We stood in line to fill our plates. We ate at a standing table. Chris spoke to anyone and everyone, frequently leaving me by myself. There was a ceremony where the CO spoke in paragraphs and someone interpreted. I found it difficult to concentrate, so I imagined it was a warm summer day with a breeze and flowers all around. In fact, it was dark and would have been chilly (but not cold) if not for heaters placed around. Then we walked out to a piece of deck hanging over the water. It rose into the air, taking us all up to the top deck. We were allowed to see a Seahawk and an Osprey. We went in the Osprey. I walked down the deck until a young man in a uniform addressed me as Ma'am and indicated that I wasn't supposed to be there. Then we gathered on the piece of deck and descended to the previous place. I spoke with the Admiral's wife and the CO's wife and met some new people. Soon it was time to meet our bus. On the way down the tall metal steps, I nearly fell because one step was much larger than the others, and I kind of twisted my ankle. When we got to the bottom, we walked out of the pier. There were port-a-poties which were a welcom sight. Then we got on the bus, but had to wait for the CO and Senior Chief. Then we headed back to Chinhae. It was a shorter trip. I rested my ankle on Chris' knees to keep it elevated. The bus stopped just short of the base to let the Korean men off. Then we pulled onto the base where our ID's were checked. When the bus got to where it started, we got off and stood talking for a bit, then drove home. I checked e-mail and refilled my humidifier flower. I wrote to my blog, drank salt water, and went to bed.
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