1 August 2009

Another week gone by. Things are fine. Our credentialing paperwork still hasn't been processed, so we can't start work until that happens. We've been busy running around doing our inprocessing, which is horribly painful. You have all these checklists with thousands of acronyms written on them that you can't understand and you have to go from place to place getting signatures and new ID cards, registering bikes (all four of them), etc., etc. The checklist for our own clinic was even worse. We were trying to track down various people who, when we finally found them, would tell us we needed to go back to the place we just came from and get some new piece of paper before they could sign us off. It was infuriating. What a waste of time. They could have had all the medical-related people we needed to see all come together one morning for an hour and get everything done right then and there. But that probably makes too much sense.

I bought a Kunsan car, which is just any old piece of crap car that you know you're only going to drive for one year and then pass on to someone else. It's a red 1997 Dodge Neon with only 60,000 miles, but also without a radio. At least the AC works. The guy selling it told me he bought it when he first got here, but then arranged a rental car, so it's been sitting around since then. You can have your personal car shipped here if you want, but most people don't. I went to get insurance for it from a place on base and they quoted me $500 for the year. When I called my old insurance company, they said it'd be around $10 a month, "or maybe $10.50." And you don't buy a new car or a nicer used car here, either. They play this game here called "Bumper Cars" which is exactly what it sounds like. There are very few cars without dents.

My Kunsan car

Settling in a little, which of course includes finding a place to mountain bike. Luckily, one of the flight docs here, Simon a.k.a. NoGo, was one of my interns at Travis and has gone biking some. There's a reservoir a few miles from base with some trails around it. Towards the end, the climbs were pretty relentless. But I think it'll be a good place to go. The trails are rather busy with hikers, which I hear is sort of national past-time (as is golf - there are always swarms of Koreans on the base golf course in long pants and long shirts despite the temperature and awful humidity). When you're struggling up a hill, some of them will yell encouragement, one little old lady clapped for me when I topped out on a particularly tough climb, and I occasionally give high fives to people if they're at the top.

Continuing on bikes, Jess and I rode ours into Kunsan this weekend to look around. She bought a new bike before she left the US, so this was her first time breaking it in, although to hear her complain about her backside hurting, sounds more like the bike broke her. "It's not fair! All my fat gets stored in my butt, so this shouldn't hurt." Kunsan is a port city, so you've got all the cranes and industrial zones, but the area is also very agricultural, so anywhere you drive or ride around here you go by huge rice paddies. We just kind of wandered around and stopped wherever/whenever. Went into the fish market, which was pretty cool, and just browsed the downtown area. I wanted to try on some running shoes for when I need some new ones, but the largest size the store carried was a 10.5. And you know what they say about a guy with big feet. Well, here they just call you an American. On the way back, we stopped at a place to eat, which was sort of a hot-pot style restaurant. They brought out all this seafood, and then the waitress went and also added in some fresh octopus. And by fresh, I mean that the thing started to wiggle around in the boiling water until it was cooked. She later told me that her friend waitress thinks I am a soldier. I told her no, I'm a doctor. She then smiles and gives the thumbs up, "Oh! This so better!" She seemed less impressed when I told her that Jess, too, is a doctor.

Riding around in all that traffic confirmed to me more than ever that Asians are the world's worst drivers. I don't think white people are better than Asians, but I do know that white people are better drivers than Asians. I was a little nervous at times and I'm a relatively experienced biking badass. If Jess was scared, she hid it pretty well.

Some of us went and saw the new Harry Potter movie. All I can say is that the sight of Ron Weasley holding his broomstick in his hand with a big grin on his face was probably the funniest part of the whole movie. None of us could stop from laughing at that.

Saturday night we went to the other pilot bar on base, Bruni's. The Delta belongs to the Pantons, and this place is where the Juvats hang out. It was much, much nicer, no smoke machine was necessary, and the floor was entirely intact. There was a new guy joining them and this was sort of the initiation ceremony. Before it started, though, they asked the new people to come up and introduce themselves. The MC then asked me where I'm from, and as soon as I started speaking, everyone in the place yelled, "Shut the f%@* up!" in unison. Wasn't ready for that one. Later, a couple of the guys told me that my reaction was the best they'd seen and they thought I might have crapped my pants. Rule number one of pilot bars is don't talk when they do introductions. Rule number two is there is heavy usage of the f%@*-word.

The rest of the initiation involved testing the new guy, asking him where he's from (Shut the f%@* up! Get the f$@* out of here! Send him the f$@* out!), and asking him Juvat history/trivia. If the new guy messed up, they sent him the f$@* out, then one guy yelled vulgar heckles at the new guy out the window of the bar, usually creative variations on the theme of his mother being a whore. Then we'd all go back to playing dice or beer pong for a couple of songs until the new guy would be invited back in. Most of the guys turned out to be all right. Anyway, it was an experience. And at least this place had a bathroom indoors. At the Delta, guys (and a gal or two) would just walk out the back door and find a tree.

Lance.

A few pictures from the exercise:

Full MOPP gear.

Fake patient.