Finding and Making History

At this house we made a new friend... this cute little three year old came out and started playing with us; we had a snowball fight with her. We saw her again this morning and she remembered us. Her grandmother took us out on a trail (which you will see later) and she wanted to go to.








From what I can gather, they have an abundance of wilderness homicides investigations. Its very sad to see.








This is another night at "The One"; Greg convinced the owners to let him behind the bar and mix up some shots remembered from his bar tending days.... they were awesome!








This was when we climbed the steepest slope Ive ever been on. It was very fun but we probably should have had some ropes and mountaineering equipment with us. I actually had a couple of slips to include one I would call a "very close call", ended up hurting my leg on that one in particular.








I took this picture to give you an idea of some of the rock faces we encountered, luckily most of them you could walk sideways along and kind of work your way up rather then attack the 90 degree angle face you see here. I was the only one who climbed all the way up, man what a sight it was, to look down at the steep mountain you just climbed.... very cool stuff.








We went up the mountain searching for a reported skull and boots but found neither... I was the first to find anything on the mountain and this was it... an unexploded 105mm artillery shell... everything still intact... live explosives... I was very excited. Not bones, but still something very cool... this thing was fired with the purpose of destruction over 55 years ago, it was a dud and here it is... I found it. Amazing.

This is a dog tag that was found in a man's yard when he was putting up a foundation for a house. Completely intact and legible.

This helmet was shown to us by another man, it appears to be a US helmet with an exit wound to the back of it. Unfortunately the helmet was given to him by a friend long ago and he had no idea where it came from.

Apparently there is a fan nearby that will completely blow you away... pun intended.

Another night at "The One", the soju was flowing and so were the beers, it was a long week and we deserved a Saturday night of being 3 sheets. From left to right is Alex, Larry and Greg.

After many soju bottles were empty and on the table, the inevitable happened... Jared missed his chair as he went to sit down and proceeds to laugh hysterically.... so we joined him.

There are no Waffle Houses or Denny's to try to burn off the drunkenness, so what do we do? We go eat spicy kimchee and mandu. mmmmm mmmm.

Somehow, only one of my eyes is bloodshot... must have been only half drunk.

This was Sunday, our day away from hiking and talking to folks... a report writing day for the boss... some of us went to Chunchon to get away from the our little town of Yonggu for a while. We ate at McDonald's for lunch and Outback for dinner... A little hit of American food amidst the eating of Korean for the last two weeks straight. It was a nice little break in things.

This morning we got up and picked up Grandma from the little girl's house in the early picture... as you can see here, Grandma led the way up a rather steep mountain to the spot she found a skull two years ago.

Greg and Dustin use the medal detector to try to find buckles, boot eyelets or anything else pointing to the fact that someone may have given thier life here.

Through-out the day of searching and digging, we found numerous fired and unfired bullets, a backpack buckle and two of these... pineapple style hand grenades, without the spoons or pins, which again means they were duds but yet still considered live explosives. Have I mentioned that I LOVE THIS JOB? What a great duty to be able to have as my responsibility.... We never found a skull but we did find what appears to be a bone... we will dig further at this site on Wednesday.

After a long day of hiking, digging and not being blown up by live explosives, I decide to lay down on a nice soft spot and rest.... ahhhh... comfy....

Well, that's it for now, Ill post more when I can!

Kamera Krazy in Korea

OK... Ive been snapping away like crazy, and I just got a chance to put some of these on the blog. Each one has a caption below the picture, so if you want to know what the picture is about... see the caption.



This is us crossing a street in Seoul



We stopped here, at the Electronics Market, where you can get all kinds of cool things made of wood... OK, maybe not wood, more like wire and metal... we bought DVD movies here.



This was some random road in Seoul, I just took this to show the look of a typical store front.



This is the Han River with Seoul surrounding it on both sides, Namsan tower, which was in my Hilton Hotel window picture in the earlier post is at the top of the mountain in the pic.

This is Korea... the country... very pretty... we were on our way to an old village by the river, just 8 miles south of the DMZ.

The road down to the village proved to be a challenge for the small SUVs, the minivan and our in-experienced (off-roading) Korean drivers. We even ended up getting the van stuck in a mud pit. We finally got it out 25 mins later.

This is a traditional Korean War era home... not too many of these still exist today but this one was here and is currently lived in. Pretty cool huh? It was about 15 foot long.

These are my friends Jared and Larry just before we break for lunch. They are both fluent Korean speaking linguists, which is very nice to have with you as you are strolling around Korea.

Stan (on the left) is also a Korean Linguist (Korean born). Here he and Jared are cooking our ramen lunch.

This bar is called "The One" we have essentially claimed this bar as our team bar here in Yanggu. Jared is on my right and that's Greg, our anthropologist on my left.

This is another night at "The One", as you can see Larry and I are enjoying a pitcher of Cass (Korean Beer). Notice the extreme large size of the pitcher and then the almost shot glass size mugs... makes you feel like your throwing back a bazillion and a half beers when its really only been like 3 or so.

This is yet another night at "The One". This guy works in the hotel we are staying in and wanted to go out with us. His name is Huang Sol Lee. We call him Han Solo since it sounds very close to his name. He likes that since he likes the Star Wars movies. He's a pretty funny guy, he keeps paying me lots of respect though.... says, I'm like an older brother to him so he must pay me respect as such.

The Crew waiting for a boat captain that we need to interview... from left to right is DJ (Team Leader), Greg (Anthropologist) and Alex (Medic)

Here's more of the crew being pyros... from left to right is Stan (Linguist), Larry (Linguist) and Dustin (Explosives Ordinance Disposal).

I think what this is trying to say is if you lean against the wall you might fall out a small hamper or doggy door and land on your head. Not really sure though.

These two signs are obvious... the top one is their way of regulating the population by trying to get dumb drivers to drive off the edge into the water right here... the bottom one is just telling you that they sell raccoon tails up ahead.

OK... here is my favorite Korean food... Kimbap (pronounced keem bop). Very tasty!

Here we are as a team one night in Yanggu eating pizza... cant eat Korean food all the time... it was good but you have to tell them not to put corn on it... they love corn on their pizza.

This was today, we went up north just 3-4 miles south of the DMZ to interview villagers again, I took this picture to show you the One-Eyed Buffalo. NO, NOT THAT!!!!... shame on you... this machine is what is called a One-Eyed Buffalo, its basically an engine on wheels that they hitch different trailers to... a very versatile tractor type farm work thingamajig.

Right before we finished for the day, it started snowing quite heavily, as you can see here. The sign is a weight limit sign for the bridge just out of view of the picture, it shows truck weight and tank weight. Yup, tanks.

Well, that's all the pics I'm going to put up for now. Be on the look out for more... I will probably try to post more again this Sunday night if I can. Hope you enjoyed the pictures!

Oh yeah... By the way...

I forgot to mention in that last post, I can still access our pecosbills email account and I am also on Yahoo Instant Messenger, email us and either Barb or I will give you my Yahoo ID if you want it. Annyong-hi kashipshio! (goodbye!)

Living it up in Korea

Hello everyone... Ive made it safely to Korea. I had a very long flight with a stop in Japan, but overall it really wasnt too bad. I finally made it to bed last night at about 1am which my body was feeling like it was about 6am. I slept really well in my fancy hotel room. The whole team is staying at the Millenium Hilton... they were out of the normal rooms at the lower level floors so they automatically upgraded us so now we are all on the 20th floor... marble tiled bathroom.. king size bed, its very nice. I havent taken a whole lot of pics yet but here are a few from the hotel... my favorites are the views from my big window... The tower in the pictures is Namsan Tower. Well, today is kind of a light day, we basically got our equipment and coordinated some of the logistics of the whole mission, we will probably go out to the market for dinner. Of course, Ive already had some bulgolgi and kimchi for lunch, but hey, when in Rome... do as the Koreans do... or something like that. Ill try to post more throughout my trip but I cant promise to, since Im not sure how busy we are going to get. Enjoy the pics!

New Hobby

Family's newest hobby: 4x4 off-roading in my Jeep Rubicon. We have gone out twice now, and have had sooooo much fun. Yesterday I climbed a hill that looked impossible, then on the other side I came down through huge ditches and stepped down pieces of land... The pictures really dont do it justice... One of the pics with my friends Jeep gives you a little better look at the terrain. Pretty fun stuff though. Funny thing about it all is Ive never been one who liked the look of a "lifted" vehicle, but now that we love to off-road, and the only limitation we really have is ground clearance... Im going to put a small lift on the Jeep. 2.5 inches.. should give me enough room climb just about anything out here.... Hi, my name is Bill... and Im addicted to off-roading.

These first two are just out on the trail, note the view of the ocean on the top pic... second pic, check out the mud bath Im about to give the Jeep

Ok, these two are of me driving up the impossible hill... I promise, the hill was much steeper then it appears in the pics... Barb was slip sliding trying to climb up to the top to get these pics.

The top pic here is of me starting down the other side into the ditches... the bottom pic is of my other friends coming down, notice the steps on the terrain we came down. VERY FUN!

As I said before, Hello, my name is Bill... and Im addicted to off-roading!!!