OCT 22, 18 .. WHAT IS .. IS

**SEE TRAVEL ABOVE FOR LATEST UPDATE . . .

Today as I write here (no matter the official publication date of this Post), here in Seoul, South Korea, it is Tuesday morning, the 23rd of October. And I am literally only a scant few minutes from leaving for the airport to fly to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Well let’s say I am only a scant few hours. This instant it is (local time) 4:52am and I’ll walk out of Terry and Kathy’s flat (with Terry handling my bags) at about (local time) 8:30am. Terry will then drive me to the Hamilton Hotel where Tandy and Peter and I will meet-up. Our airport bus stops at the Hamilton.

I wanted to leave at 7:30am. Tandy said she wants us to leave at 9am. Our flight is at 2:40pm (14:20 hours). Korean Air said be at Seoul Terminal Number 1 at least 3-hours early. That translates to our being there at 11:30am. Terry said that leaving at 9am would still be very conservative. I said, “I still want to leave at 7:30am so we’ll go separately Tandy.” Tandy said (with some emphasis ) “Cap. Peter and I want you to be with us. We want to help you.” I said, “OK. 9am it will be.”

Once an AA friend said to me that so-and-so was praying for me. I said we’re not friends. He said, “Cap. Take all the help you can get!”

I may be a bit numb, but I am not stupid.

What is .. IS !

I now have had (count them) three bothersome incidents occur on this trip to this date.

And Oh-Please, don’t even to begin to lay-upon-me some idiotic concept that I am bringing these on myself, as in, they are becoming self-fulfilling prophecies.

1. In the Seattle airport, my feet got somehow entangled with the foot pedals on my wheel chair and I was going down. Luckily my wheel chair attendant ‘caught me’ at some risk to herself I must add.
2. Here, this afternoon, in the bedroom, as I was packing my things, my feet got tangled up with each other and (extremely gently, in almost super-slow-motion) down onto the bed yours truly went (I just sort of glided down).
3. Then later after soaring down onto the bed, I was sitting here, cool and calm, doing a Post. Then I moved ever so slightly  to my left and ‘something’ in my left knee ‘popped’. The knee that the Mayo Clinic ‘shot up’ with a corticosteroid injection way back in December 2016. I rubbed it, I had a little-chat with it, and it settled down. I checked and yes, I have some prescription celebrex with me.

I won’t even mention a fourth one (as I now am going to do just that) the fact that, in handling all of this heavy luggage, I have kind-of-sort-of strained my left wrist.

This is why I am not letting my ‘be super careful’ guard down.

I am NOT yet where I am going, (for me the elusive) Irkutsk, Russian Siberia.

In August of 2017, I was three days from boarding a train to Irkutsk with a Mongolian friend and my left-kidney-issue arose.

IF I get to Irkutsk and fall-down-dead (on the way down) I will think .. “Thank You God for getting me here.”

You want an obsession? You have got an obsession.

I’ll buy, it no objection.

Am I like the salmon going upstream to where I was born to die? That I’ll never know now will I?

Well as our friend Simon oft said ..

Here I am wandering the streets of my mind.

What a ride. I can hardly believe that I am here, that I now have-done a little bit of Seoul, South Korea, and now am out-and-off for Mongolia.

We (Tandy and her son Peter and yours truly) will catch an airport bus at the Hamilton Hotel.

Oh YES ! I am Smiling from ear-to-ear.

Wish me luck.

Cap

And?

Right now my Bose headphones are working perfectly. As I wrote the above, I have been humming along to my own music.

Press Publish Captain. We’re finished with this. We’re now going back-to-bed. 5:15am local time in Seoul.

• ← OCT 21, 18 .. JUST A BRIEF CHECK-IN ..
• OCT 24, 18 .. ULAANBAATAR, MONGOLIA (Part 2 of 2) .. CHIT CHAT →