Busan, South Korea

Throughout the planning for our trip into Busan it was clear that it was going to be a challenging few days before port.  All of the previous carriers who have come into the port have called the mooring process the worst ever!  So our plan coming between Japan and Korea while trying to conduct flight ops was subject to questions...

The night before we pulled into Busan, we wanted to fly so that the pilots could stay within their 7 day currency window for night landings.  We failed to account for the fact that at night...the fishing fleets are out in force-- for squid.  With today's technology, squid fishermen have the ability to produce a light to draw the squids to the surface which is as bright as the sun!!!!  At least that's the way it seemed on the bridge picking our way through HUNDREDS of contacts at night...while we were trying to fly airplanes!  Crazy!!!!  To make matters even more difficult, we were working in an area where the Japanese Air Defense Zone, Korean Air Defense Zone, and Air Traffic Control Centers airspaces all overlap.  Very complex!

The next morning setting up for the port entry, things calmed down a lot and the sunrise produced an amazing day--albeit a little cold!  The high temps for our visit were in the mid-30deg F.  Brr...

USS CARL VINSON pulling in to Busan, South Korea at sunrise

The first day in port, there was a meeting with the ROK Navy about the exercise we were doing with them when we left.  It was a long meeting, and we didn't accomplish, too much...just the basics about what we would do during the exercise.

Our first night out was marked by a dinner I organized at a raw fish restaurant that I found on the interweb...Named Gobukesan...which is supposedly a word for Turtle Ship.

Anywho, we met at our hotel and I gave the driver the address.  Fortunately, he found it because the building didn't even look like a restaurant.
The 7 of us went in, were greeted by a lady and shown to a small room with table and chairs on the second floor, overlooking some similar rooms on the first floor.  Shoes off.  Floor is warm.  Ahh...
She brings a menu in Korean.  Some small nondescript pictures. And no words in English were being uttered from her mouth.  Pointing seemed to work.  1 Here... ok.   1 here... ok.  and a small one of these, too...no.  Well, I guess she doesn't think we're that hungry!
So the food started coming out:  So octopus, some oysters, and some orange mushy fish come out on little plates.  Mmm...  Then she came through the door with a big platter.  Set it on the table...as everyone looks at the fish head, still gasping for water...  The fish was all laid out for us on the platter with the fish from whence it came underneath the bed of radish-strips.  Wow!  Talk about fresh!!!  mmm...
But wait, that's not all!  The next few small plates were filled with eel and squid.  Just like their fishy friend: STILL MOVING!!!  The squid was especially challenging to eat since you had to pull the pieces towards the edge of the plate, then pry them off.  Once in your mouth, they continued to stick themselves to whatever they touched-- like the roof of your mouth!  Weird!

Soup with all the parts of fish in it closed out the meal.

The rest of the visit was really neat.  South Korea was very clean, the people were all courteous.  In true Asian fashion, everything was very efficient.  Even when the apparently homeless man was on the subway train and smelled awful, the other Koreans (while holding their hands over their nose and mouth) did not make any other comments to the man.  Very polite.  The largest mall in the world (or maybe just Korea) was there...lots of karaoke, Korean BBQ dinners, and warm coffee kept me going.

Next stop-- Kuala Lumpur!

The airplan cartoon...

I mentioned in my last post about the airplan cartoon...I will post some of my favorite cartoons here and give an explanation for you to enjoy.
Let's start with the basics...for those who don't know carrier ops or naval aviation, the airplan is the tool the ship uses to schedule the airplanes.  The airwing staff and I work together to produce the airplan...it takes a lot of information and people working together every day to produce, and a lot of attention to details to make it work. 

Here's how it works:
On the front of the airplan are the "lines".  Each squadron has a row for their events, and the columns generally denote periods for the flying.  Here is a sample airplan that we used for training.  As you can see...there is a lot going on...


Each line has symbols and notations on it to describe a variety of things that an aircraft can do. Circles denote that they are tankers.  Diamonds tell the flight deck when the airplanes are getting more fuel or swapping out crews, a V says that an aircraft is landing on another ship (or coming here).

Obviously, we can put a LOT of info into a small space...


On the back of the airplan is more information-- stuff like: Briefing times or area assignments, or general notes.  But the most important part of the back page is the cartoon.  The first things people look when they get the airplan every night is the cartoon...I have to come up with the cartoon every night.  Fortunately, there are lots of people around to provide suggestions...and most of the time there is plenty of material to use for comedy...but oftentimes, coming up with a cartoon is the hardest part of my job!

Here is the first cartoon from our current deployment.  I made this the day before we left-- as I was on duty...I got to see a LOT of people bringing WAY too much stuff onboard, so I used a picture of the XO, cut him out and put him with an image from the inter-web and added the caption...

Maybe not the funniest cartoon ever, but each cartoon is sometimes funny in the context of the day...
I'll post some more of our cartoons on here as we go along...some will be good, some will not make sense, some are just plain dumb.