In January of 1999, I traveled to Asia with the Augustana College Symphonic Band. This was the most eye-opening, exciting excursion I have been on to this point in my life. I am quite thankful I was able to complete this tour to a place I never would have dreamed of visiting with a group of friends and peers. We, the students, voted on our destination, and I thank the college for encouraging us to try Asia. I especially wish to thank my parents for loaning me much of the money I needed to make this trip a reality. The experience was priceless.
At the time of this trip, digital cameras were still the tools of only the most fortunate. All of my photographic memories are stored on these interesting 4x6 pieces of paper. Appropriately I placed them in a book, called an album, and they are available for any visitor to see.
In the interest of preservation I wish to archive the photographs in another manner. Using a scanner donated to me by my parents, I will slowly digitize these pictures. My scanner bed holds three pictures at once… sounds like a good number to me. In the process, I figured it would be nice to make a retrospective journal of the events. This process will also help me to write some captions in the physical album. With any luck I will start figuring out the best technique for scanning and creating high quality duplications. If anyone out there has advice, please let me know.
The journey beginsThe tour starts on a cold morning in January. I awake to the realization that in under 20 hours I would be in a foreign country for the first time in my life. The country would be a very foreign country: The Republic of Korea. The flight path would take our group from Sioux Falls, to Minneapolis, to Tokyo, to Seoul. For someone who just took his first flight in memory, a jaunt to Phoenix, just two years earlier, this was going to be a battle against atrophy. Like an astronaut returning to Earth, would I have trouble walking when I arrived? And honestly, what would I eat when I made it to the East? I had never even tasted an Asian dish of any type before.
None of this was difficult compared to leaving The Future Wife at the bus doors. The Future Wife was also a member of the Augustana Band, but due to the requirements of her nursing program she was unable to make the trip overseas. (Incidentally, the Augustana Band made a return trip a couple years ago. Talking to a nursing student in the same situation as she was in 1999, The Future Wife found the nursing faculty had become much more flexible. She should not have asked.) Anyway, I will leave the scene to your imagination.
What can I really say about flying for a seemingly endless amount of hours? There are a couple stories that fit in nicely here. I was 21-years-old for this flight and as part of the student band board I was involved in a decision to allow all 18-year-olds on the tour to have approved access to alcohol. From my recollection, everyone involved was over 18 years of age. The reasoning was the drinking age in our host countries would be such that all in the group could legally drink in these countries. Rather than dealing with sneaky drinking we would keep it out in the open and assume students would adhere to the trust factor more willingly.
Boarding the international flight in Minneapolis, we were under the assumption international rules regarding alcohol would now apply, thus opening up the tap for all. Untrue, or at least that is what we were told by our flight attendants. Keep in mind, our flight attendants from America to Asia were all by-in-large middle-aged women who had children in college. They were not letting any under-agers near the Bacardi.
Well, they tried their best, anyway. My good friend, Derrick, was due for 21 in April, I believe. He still wanted that drink to take the edge off on the 12-hour flight, so he gave it a shot. The flight attendant did ask for identification. After inspecting his passport, she approved of the drink order. Seems her policy was subtracting the birth year from the current year (1999-1978=21). This probably wasn’t the most appropriate policy in January of the calendar year.
My tall friend, Tom, practices towering over people
A shorter story. Percussionist and harmonica player, Noah Hoehn, slept the whole flight. I’m not kidding. I would guess he slept for about 11 hours on the 12+ hour flight from Minneapolis to Tokyo. It was uncanny. Incidentally, his harmonica playing was not featured with the band this time around, but his harmonica did make an appearance on the tour. More on that later.
Changing planes in Tokyo, reality hit. Sure there were two sets of foreign subtitles to Rush Hour, one of our in-flight movies, but that did not really throw me. Towering over nearly everyone in an airport with speakers spouting something completely unintelligible. Reality check.
Corporal Kim (left) greets us in Seoul
A relatively short flight finds us in Seoul, South Korea. On this leg of the trip we were under the watchful eye of the United States military. We were met by two Sergeants, a Corporal, and a Private. Corporal Kim (sorry, I do not have complete names of many in this journal) was actually a member of the Republic of Korea Army. He acted as a sort of liaison between the American soldiers and the locals. I stayed in e-mail contact with Corporal Kim for about six months after returning from Asia.
We also learned that the Republic of Korea Army is commonly identified as the ROK (as in “rock”) Army. That is pretty cool. ROK Army.
And so we hop on a bus to transport us to the Lutheran Theological University in Shingal. Through our sleepy eyes, we stared out the window in awe at all the new sights.
It's going to be difficult to play our instruments here