Oddly Enough In Korea – Mr. Toilet House In Suwon

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Oddly Enough In Korea – Mr. Toilet House In Suwon

  I have fond memories of writing this blog in 2018.  It was after visiting “Penis Park” with Mi Jung that I wanted to follow it up with another “Oddly Enough In Korea” themed blog.   Enter Mr. Toilet House (No Pun Intended. 

Built in 2007 By Former Suwon mayor Sim Jae Duck “Mr. Toilet” to commemorate the founding of the World Toilet Association, it was donated following his death to the City of Suwan which opened it to the public as a museum.

 

    The museum comprises of 2 exhibits, one inside which houses several artistic and technical exhibits explaining the engineering and science behind the function of toilets as well as waste transport and treatment. 

The other outside illustrates the history of toilet facilities in Korea.

Here are some Korean chamber pots.

  I found the exhibits outside more interesting, so that is where I spent the majority of my time. 

Here are animal shaped urinals from the Baekje Kingdom.

  Here is a woman’s toilet from the same time period.

  Being that these are made out of what looks like copper or bronze, and there is ice in the bottoms, I could not imagine sitting on one of these in the winter.

It’s nice to be King, or Queen.  While traveling around they had their portable facilities carried for them.  Here is the Maehwateul, and the bowl that is put under the seat. I thought padded toilet seats were just a gaudy 70’s bathroom accessory!

  Now that we have taken at some of restroom implements in Korea’s distance past, let’s take a look at some of the systems for privacy, because who likes a nosey photographer when you are out there in our village trying to do your business!

  This is considered to be one of Korea’s first public toilet, in Wanggung-ri. 

  Straw style ‘Outhouses’ used on Ulleungdo Island.

  The stone outhouses of Jeju Island are interesting, not just for their sturdy structures made out of volcanic rock, but for their innovative waste disposal system.  The pigs you see in the right-hand side of the photo eat the human waste for food.  The meat of the Jeju-do black pigs is supposed to be the most tender and flavorful in Korea.

   Let’s also take a look at waste transport systems.  Yes, it is hard to believe there are actually uses and a market for our excrement.

Feces is containing a lot of nutrients, and other nitrates and makes a great fertilizer.  So, the feces in the village were collected in either buckets like, or large barrels carried in a backpack like contraption away to be composted.  Urine by itself also has many ‘industrial’ uses.  It being acidic can be used in tanning, and its high nitrate content means that it can be used to make gun powder. 

Here is the bucket style of waste carrying.

Here is the backpack, with large barrel method.

 

Time to get back to work.

 

Also covered was Korean folklore surrounding poop, for instance the practice of feeding your baby’s poop to a dog to ward off evil spirits.

A common cure for childhood bed wetting called ‘winnowing’ meant sending the child around to the neighbors to collect salt in a winnowing basket.  The salt of course causes the retention of fluids and would stave off urination until morning, at the cost of a bit of hypertension.

I enjoyed my visit to the Toilet Museum!  If not for the content, then for the opportunity to get out and take photographs by myself, without being pulled here and there at a museum, feeling rushed because the other members of the group may be bored. Taking pictures of yourself is always a challenge, because you have to guess composition, and focus.  Next time I am going to make more use of the Canon app on my iPad or iPhone and the 5d MK IV’s remote-control features.  The museum is a fun place to take children, as much for the educational value, but the humor and excitement of going someplace where the main topic is usually something taboo in our society.

So, the next time you sit down on your ‘throne’ or use a public toilet in Korea, take a little time to think what you might have been using a thousand years ago.

  Mr. Toilet House (Haewoojae)

Address:

9 Jangan-ro, 458-beon-gil, Jangan-gu, Suwon-si, Gyeonggi-do
경기도 수원시 장안구 장안로458번길 9 (이목동)

GPS Coordinates:

37°19’9″ N 126°58’41” E

Operating Hours:
March-October 10:00-18:00
November-February 10:00-17:00

How to get there:

SUBWAY:

Subway line #1 – Sungkyungkwan Univ. Station.
Way Out Number 2 (Exit number 1 in the web directions was closed due to construction)
Cross the street to the corner of the catholic church and take bus number 64.
Get off at the Hongwon High school stop.
As you get off the bus, go to the right, and cross the street when you get to the GS-25 gas station.

Once you cross the street, make a left and walk up the street toward the toilet house.

I hope you enjoyed this this look back at Korea, and use the information posted here to get out and explore!  Fall and spring were my favorite times in the Land Of The Morning Calm, don’t let the few months where is is actually comfortable to go outside go to waste!

Japanese Film Review – The Girl In My Room

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Japanese Film Review – The Girl In My Room

Isn’t it funny how things seem to change at the last minute? I had planned to write a review of the new release Coyote vs. ACME, and even had it written and waiting the final draft once over. Instead I was finally able to sit down and watch an older Japanese film A Girl In My Room which was released in 2022. With Halloween right around the corned I thought a good ghost story might be more appropriate (Even though Coyote vs. ACME is an upcoming release). Oh well, I am sure you understand!

 

 

 

So, let’s get into it!

A Girl In My Room is a 2022 film by Natsuki Takehasi staring Riku Hagiwara as Youhei “Hanzuwa” and Shiori Kubo as (Aisuke). It is a slow burning romance comedy with a supernatural twist. When Youhei breaks up with his girlfriend and kicks her out of his house. Aisuke, a ghost of one of the previous tenants begins appearing to Youhei. It turns out Aisuke died young and had never been able to experience love, not even being able to go on a date.

We get to watch not only Aisuke not only discover love and fulfill her one desire of being able to go on a date, but that she loves to give Youhei useless advice on life. Concerned for Youhei’s safety after discovering that his rental apartment is haunted but that he is getting more an more attached to a ghost illicits the assistance of her aunt who is somewhat of an amateur medium.

At the conclusion of the film Aisuke gets to go on a date, but Aisuke is disappointed to discover the movie theater that she used to dream of seeing a film with her date is closed due to it being a family owned business and it is their family day. Aisuke resolves her spirit conflict and decides to leave Youhei in peace as she believes Misaki’s aunt that the more he gets attached to a her the more his life force will be taken and he too will die. So she decides to leave the apartment now that she has learned how to step beyond its boundries.

What did I feel about the film? I thought it was well done, though it does become slow and plodding in some places. As usual now when watching foreign films I tend to compare the depicted life with what I experienced in Korea and as usual there were quite a bit of similarities between the two cultures. Especially the realtors office and the hinting towards strict privacy laws.

While you may be expecting more of fast moving CGI daziling film, or a traditional ghost story with “gotcha” jump scnese A Girl In My Room is more subtle. You would hardly know it was a ghost story except being reminded by the characters.

I do recommend it though, it is an easy to follow story, and leaves out a lot of confusing cultural nuances that might be missed by foreign audiences.

To avoid spoilers, please do not discuss the movie in the comments section, but go to our forums at: A Girl In My Room – Brent’s World Forums

It is available for purchase or rental from Amazon Prime Video

Watch A Girl in My Room | Prime Video

or

Watch for free (With ads) on Tubi

Riku Hagiwara – IMDb

  We hope you enjoyed this week’s post and that you will come back next week for new content!

On The Road Again – Lubee Photo Day – 2026

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On The Road Again – Lubee Photo Day 2026

  Well, what can I say? It’s been a minute since I have been able to sit down and post anything on the blog. Oh, who am I kidding? I’ve been too fat and lazy to take the time to write anything. That needs to change!  The two main purposes of having the blog in Korea was to give me an outlet to share my photography, work on my writing and editing skills, to have an excuse to get out of the house, and in some way to promote Korea). Over the past several years, while I have gotten out, it isn’t often enough! So let’s change that in the waning months of 2026 and into 2027!

  What could possibly be a better place to start than with BATS?! It was once again off to the Lubee Bat Conservancy. Unlike my previous trip, while I had everything ready to go I did not start loading the car until 0800 the morning of the trip. This did not cause any issues though and I was on the road exactly when I had planned. The only drawback was that I forgot several important items that made my modify my menu. The drive to Gainesville is always a slog, and this time proved no exception! 5 hours is a long time to drive continuously! I did stop halfway through at one of Florida’s great rest areas for a quick bite! It has been raining almost continuously for the past month and about 90 minutes out of Gainesville the sky just decided to open up! Visibility went to zero! If it wasn’t for the adaptive cruise control, I would have been panicking a little bit! I had a chance to pull off to a rest area but weighing the odds, I decided it was safer to stay on the interstate!

  This year I stayed in a 1-bedroom cabin at Mike Roess Gold Head Branch State Park in Clay County. I chose the cabin for several reasons. First, it was still too hot and humid to sleep in a tent, and lastly. Remember all that rain I had been telling you about? I am glad I did! It was a well-maintained historic wood cabin built by the Civilian Conservation Corps. In the 1930s and included this stone fireplace! While it was still raining Friday night, I thought about starting a fire here, but running the AC with a fire going seemed a bit daft!

  I know I know, you thought you were here to talk about bats, photography, or both?! So, I guess we should pivot and get into it! The previous year we mostly played with the Canon 70 – 200mm f4L and my trust Holga lens. This year I decided to utilize a piece of gear that rarely has a chance to come out of my camera bag! The 150 – 600mm Tameron super telephoto!

The last time I got a chance to use this lens was at a Blue Angels training performance. I not only forgot how heavy this beast really is to hand hold, how easy it is to lose your subject at 600mm, but that all in all. It actually is a very versatile lens!

Kermit, Chiang Kai Bat, Clara, Rescue and I have arrived and are checking in!

Everyone takes completely accidental throw away shots now and again, here is mine. I was walking to put the bats back in the car to go check in, and managed to bump the shutter button. The camera was still in timer capture mode, so I just kept walking thinking I’ll put whatever it gets on the blog. So here you go!

Besides being a relative beast to hand hold, at 600mm the focus can be a bit tricky to lock in. It definitely is not as fast as the more expensive Canon glass, and with the darker subjects the black auto focus point is bit hard to see. Here are a couple of photo’s where the focus is completely off!

Just when I was questioning if the Tamron was the wrong lens for the job and should go swap out for the venerable 70 – 200mm F4L, Tammy decided to start behaving and the shot’s started turning out great! Here is one of Lubee’s Malayan Flying Foxes. Two things amaze me with this lens, one os the color reproduction, the reds and oranges just pop with this lens, and there appears to be little or no color fringing, something that is always a worry cheaper lenses (Like the Rhokinon/Samyang 85mm). The other thing this lens is very good at is bokeh rendering, which again surprises me! At 600mm your depth of focus is RAZOR thin. Even with a narrow aperture of 6.3 (It’s widest at 600mm), you have a relatively narrow focal plane, though instead of falling off into a glaring jumbled mess. It renders the out of focus portion of the picture in a beautiful subtle cream.

Here is another Malayan Flying fox, this time going after a fruit Kabob.

 

Learning to crop will definitely be in your future, as at 600mm it is very easy to end up with things in your photo’s that you were not intending. You can do this in post-production, or take the shot again with a little bit of reframing.  Here I chose to just slightly crop out the left side of the photo to remove what I thought was distracting in the background.

I don’t know what this lil guy is plotting, but it doesn’t look good…

I mentioned in last years blog, that bats do not actually eat the fruit, they use their tounges to mash the pulp against the roof of their mouths to extract the juic and then spit the remaining pulp and seeds out and that their noses a specially shaped to funnel the the remains away from their forehead. You can clearly see the ridge in this picture.

This was a pretty cool moment caught with the super telephoto, the only problem is the glaring distraction of the branches between me and the bats…  If you chimp you probably would have caught it in the field and stepped to the left to move it out of frame.  I don’t as it is a habit I broke myself of while doing street photography, so I just cropped it out.

Here is a Golden mantel flying Fox. So here is your photo debate of the blog. Which photo would you use? Would you crop out the “naughty bits”? Or keep them? I will leave both versions up and you can vote in the comments. I am not a prude, but for would you go for natural or lean for a less potentially distracting photo, or again lean completely into the shock / education value?

One of the difficulties I had with this lens, since it has such a long reach, and using only a single auto exposure and focus point, is that you are reaching into areas you are not used to (I normally shoot with wider angel primes), were you are close enough to your subject were there are no exposure surprises, what you see is what you get. Where you really find yourself here with some deep area of shadows that you can not do anything about. The only thing I could think to mitigate this is using small reflectors, you would just need to bring an assistant because you are not going to be able to shoot with the Tamron one handed.


However, when you get the lightening right, the photos on this lens just pop!

Again the depth of focus with this lens is mind bending. I am shooting wide open at 6.4 and the subject isolation is incredible! If this had been one of my prime lenses, both subjects would have been in focus, but at 400mm you are starting to see that focal plane become razor thin. I should have stopped down to 8.0 (Or higher if I had a tripod, because higher than f8 and the auto focus becomes hit and miss.).

The other draw back of the Tamron, is it’s auto focus distnace, it is quite out there but then again with a super tele objects are not supposed to be that close to you, which left me scrambling a bit here and the focus hunting.


Here is one where the framing works, the auto exposure just can’t pull it, maybe something to play around more in post processing, or make is a Black and White? How might you salvage it? Feel free to leave comments.

Wanting to try something different, but not just falling back to the 70-200 f4.0l, I put the 85mm f1.4L/IS on. Here is a bat giving us a blep. One thing right away, after an entire morning of being able to zoom right in. The whole right side of our photo is useless, and would need to be cropped away. We want the person looking at our photos to focus on the subject, and the subject here are the bats, anything else is a distraction and disctractions turn photos into snapshots!

The other thing to note, is that even wide open at 1.4, the super tele was able to do a much better job of isolating the background, and the 85mm, or a wider aperture would have been to do that, if we could have gotten closer to the subjects.

Here I was able to get closer to one of the bats, and you can see when using the lens properly you do get a nice washed out background, and you can se the finer more expensive optics coming through here.

It was soon time to head back to the car and wrap things up. I of course had to get some photos with the plush bat gang! Here is Chiang (Clara hiding in the background), Rescue, and Kermit (Wanting to go back and grab a fruit kabob?) and of course your author! Look I cut off my ear!

The two love bats found this cool display in front of Loch Lubee and talked me in to a couple of quick photos.

Clara was expecting Rescue to propose to her, but he just mentioned something about the moss being green.
Clara and Rescue invited me into the picture for the last photo of the day!

I would like to give a shout out to the wonderful staff at the Lubee Bat conservancy, not only for putting on these events, but for sharing all of your wonderful knowledge about bats! Here is Anna dropping some bat trivia after putting out some more goodies.

I really enjoyed this year’s photo day! It was great being able to use a lens that so rarely even gets put in my bag, let alone used! I am now thinking of things to work on for next year.  I may ask for permission up front to focus more on photographing the staff interaction with guest to round out my Lubee and Photoday blogs.  We shall see what I come up with!

Thank you for coming back to Brent’s World, I hope you enjoyed this weeks entry. Please come back next weekend for more great content!

If you would like information on the Lubee Bat Conservancy and their events, please go to www.lubee.org

On The Road Again – Photo Day at The Lubee Bat Conservancy!

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On The Road Again – Photo Day at The Lubee Bat Conservancy!

 

  I had been looking forward to Photo Day at the Lubee Bat Conservancy all year.  Not only was it a chance to get out of the house, return to the Lubbe Bat Conservancy to hang out with some delightfully batty bats but also to get back into my photography hobby which has been put on the back burner for way too long!

  I purchased tickets almost as soon as they were available, and began making plans to return to Gainesville.  I enjoyed camping so much on our Orlando adventure, I made reservations at Ruth B. Kirby Gilchrist Blue Springs State Park.  Then it was just down to repairing some of my camping equipment and checking days off the calendar until it was time to hit the road!

  Due to some personal issues that came up, it was a toss up of whether or not I was actually going to go through with the trip!  Though Thursday afternoon I decided to kick the blues and get my butt in gear!  I made the meal preparations, went to the store and for once in a very long time actually had the car loaded by about 10pm!  Now it was down to a sleep and a wakeup!

  7am came early, and I was able to make it out the door and get on the road on time!  Man! This drive turned in to a slog!  For some reason even with a full night sleep, I had to fight myself to remain awake.  I was stopping at almost every rest area to keep from dozing off!  I was beginning to wonder if I was ever going to reach the destination!  Fortunately I was able to reach a fellow traveling radio amateur on the 2 meter National Simplex Calling Frequency (146.520), and I was able to talk to him for the next hour, and the rest of the trip FLEW BY!  Reaching the campground, I checked in, had the site setup and napped a couple of hours until dinner.  Which consisted of a Texas Roadhouse copycat grilled Salmon Recipe then it was off to bed!  The bats await!

  Saturday dawned bright and early and we stayed on the cot until about 8, made coffee and we were off to the Lubee Bat Conservancy!  For those that have not had a chance to read the blog on our VIP tour when I first arrived in Florida, you can read it here.  From their website, “Lubee Bat Conservancy is a non-profit organization dedicated to saving bats and their habitats through conservation, education, and awareness, with a focus on children and community engagement.”  I was fortunate enough to attend a private VIP tour and also attend the Florida Bat Festival which they host annually.  Their annual photo day allows a limited number of guests to go into the bat enclosures for an opportunity to take close up photos without having to shoot through the wire mesh of those enclosures.  Which I found at the bat festival was almost impossible to get any good photos, unless you are REALLY good at manual focusing.

  I had joked in my original blog that the big gate and bigger red sign telling me to STOP!  Reminded me of the entrance to Jurassic Park!   I was able to a picture of this sigh this time.

  Here is Fang, Mao, Baxter, and Steroid Bob pulling up to the gate!  (A good photographer always has stand in props!

  We arrived about an hour early, and were given permission to walk around, just not to enter any of the buildings..   So out came the bats for some B roll photos!  Besides the ubiquitous Bat Barn which we saw in the previous blog, they really do have some quaintly designed buildings.  They said I couldn’t go in the buildings, they did not say I could not go in front of the buildings!  So I set up for a good picture in front of “The Office”, I was always being sent to the office! 

  I had seen this tree on my last 2 previous visits, and thought it would make a great backdrop for a Bat Portrait!  Here is Baxter looking stoic! 

  It really does show that I have put my photography aside, as this would have been a GREAT! opportunity to show a comparison between 35mm with the 16-35mm f2.8L and the 35mm f1.4 L IS prime. Or the different look in using a 50mm focal length and 35mm.  Oh well, looks like I just found an excuse to go back to the conservancy!

  Wow!  2 pages just for the plushies!  That isn’t what you are here for, you want to see the real bats! 

  We were allowed in to the enclosure, and it was time to get the 70-200 f4.0L IS on the camera.  Here are a couple of Flying Foxes playing.

And 2 adorable bats hanging by their own favorite plushie!  The staff call them Stink Bears and the bats use them to leave their scent on.  Sometimes the Stink Bears are taken to the other enclosures so the other bats can smell them and leave their own scent.  As a way of providing stimuli.

I was a bit frustrated with the 70-200 lens, I had more misses than hits, which I should not have with this lense.  It might be time to have it checked for focusing issues.

Here is a miss

And a hit!

The bats were excited to be fed a little early!  Two bats are squaring off, while another is taking advantage of the distraction to get the fruit kabob to himself “You guys just keep fighting…).  This photo was a good idea, but framed wrong.  Instead of trying to make sure I had the entire kabob in the picture, I should have gotten all of the bats.  It not only creates an awkward dead space below the bats heads, but cut off part of the main subjects.

  This would be a better picture frame wise, but the motion blur on the bats wing is now a bit distracting (This is where the 70-200 f2.8 IS would have come in handy.  The third bat is still chomping away!

  There we go!  Perfect photo!

As you can see, meal time is very important, even for bats.

Interesting fact, bats do not eat the pulp, or meat of the fruit, they smash against the roof of their mouths with their lounge, drinking the juice and spitting the pulp and seeds out, which the staff call “Bat Spat”.  Their noses are actually specially shaped so the juice runs between their nostrils, while hanging upside down.  My one question, is what is the purpose of the corn?  Since corn kernels contain very little juice. 

This photo was almost clear enough, where you can see the shape of the bat’s snout and nostrils and the natural channel where the fruit juices can run down, preventing it from getting in the bat’s eyes and fur.

I did manage to get one funny expression out of this guy!

I did not seem to get any good pictures of the bats swings stretches completely wide open.  Here is a good picture though showing a pats wing structure.  Bat’s are the only mammal capable of powered flight! Their wing structure differs quite a bit from birds in that instead of having just a singular wing bone, their wings are shaped similar to our hands, with 5 distict “finger bones”.  This allows for incredible flexibility in the shape of their wings, making them very agile aviators!

  Here is Steroid Bob getting in on the photo day action!

No! No! Really…. I was just making sure none of these humans were stealing their food!

I know it is getting time to wrap this up!  I did want to share one last thing, and that in addition to the Canon 5D MKIV and my collection of L glass. I also brought the venerable 7D and the $30 Holga lens, as I have mentioned in my other photography blogs.  Sometimes you also have to just have fun with the hobby, and the Holga has been a great way to do that!  In a way, I think I actually had a better hit / miss ration with this setup than I did with the more expensive lens.

I would like to send a special thanks to the staff at The Lubee Bat Conservancy, without whom not only would the bats no receive the world class care that they do, but I would not be able to share this great content with you.  They do an exceptional job of putting on events like this and the annual Florida Bat Festival and provide countless hours of education to our future generations.  One phrase that always stuck out at me when I worked at a marine park in High School, “You are always on stage!”, which has always been my motto when dealing with a customer, and Lubee exemplifies this in excellent public and customer service! 

Here is Hannah the Education Director making sure the bats have plenty of fruit and juice!

(Yeah – that is totally the radio amateur in me making sure the handy talkie did not get cropped out of the photo!)

It is well past time to wrap this up!  Please check out the Lubee Bat Conservancy Website for information regarding bats and the conservation of their habitats, VIP tours (Which I highly recommend if you will be in the Gainesville area.), special events like Photo Day, and of course the annual Florida Bat Festival! http://www.lubee.org

Please be sure to come back for more great content!  

CQ Contest CQ Contest! – The Trials, Tribulation, and Triumph of Amateur Radio Contesting.

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CQ Contest CQ Contest! – The Trials, Tribulation, and Triumph of Amateur Radio Contesting.

  I has been over a year since I have become active again in HAM radio, one of the activities that I really enjoyed when I had an HF station was contesting.  One of the first contests I worked was the ARRL Field Day for the San Diego Yacht Club Station W6IM.  Field Day is an informal contest with the intent to get radio operators out of the shack and in the field, setting up and operating a station in abnormal conditions to simulate operating in an emergency or natural disaster.

 

 

Here I am hard at work making contacts for the San Diego Yacht Club operating their station W6IM!

  Now that I once again have an HF station, it was time to once again try my hand at some contests!  The first contest I had planned to work was Winter Field Day, which is similar to the ARRL Field Day but put on by the ubiquitous Winter Field Day Association.  Which operates under the same premise, but with less emphasis on it being a contest (They actually are quite adamant that it is NOT a contest, I disagree but… Yeah….).  To make sure my rig, and contesting software was ready to go, I also entered the National Contest Journals’ North American QSO Party – Phone contest.   Where for a 24-hour period you try to make as many contacts in North America as you can, with your contacts multiplies by each state, Canadian province, or DXCC entity per band.).  Single operators are allowed to work only 20 hours of the contest (Something I was not aware of until after the contest was over, but was saved because I took an hour to participate in my weekly trivia net!).  Remember: Read and understand the rules before participating!

  I did not feel I did that well, the signals were fading all over the place and I just did not feel my antenna system was performing all that well. On paper I made 202 contacts, and was able to get 92 multipliers for a total submitted score of 18,584 points.  Corrected for error penalties in the preliminary results I made 143 contacts with 84 multipliers for a total of 12,012 points.  Putting us in 114 place out of 552 competitors.  Breaking that down for just the entrants in Florida.  We came in 6th place out of 25 Florida stations.

  With that in mind, we did not do too bad for my first contest in over 20 years!

  Our next contest was Winter Field Day, but on by you guessed it!  The Winter Field Day Association.  We worked about 19 hours of the 24 hour contest, making 367 Contacts and receiving 5 multipliers for completing objectives such as receiving the WFD bulletin (which we did both via phone and a digital mode called Olivia.) Which you can see us receiving below.

Here is the audio from the 2025 Winter Field Day Bulletin Phone.  This was really neat because before the bulletin was transmitted, the operator sending the bulletin was making contacts, and I learned she grew up in Pacific Beach!  Here I am getting the bulliten station in the log as a contact.  

We received an additional multiplier for sending and receiving an email using Winlink2000.  This score put us in 59th place out of 1227 operators! Further breaking that down in our class and section (North Florida – NFL) we came in 2nd!  Which is something I am very very proud of!  Who with the same number of multipliers, beat us by 166 contacts!  So, I feel we could have come in 1st had I either stayed up all night trying to work contacts on 40 meters, or found one more objective to complete!

This is a video of receiving email using VaraHF on 30 meters.  We are using the mailbox at the Escambia Co. Emergency Operations Center W4UC.  Winlink2000 has been instrumental in providing not passing critical emergency communications, requests for logistical support, but also health and welfare traffic in and out of areas affected by natural disasters such as hurricanes and wild fires.  When NO OTHER means of communications were available.  Imagine the relief of families finally getting word their loved ones are safe, only possible with ham radio.  This is why we prepare!

   Here is the email received  from  the  Santa  Cruz  Emergency  Operations  Center  (EOC)..  The next contest I worked was the National Contest Journal’s North American QSO Party – RTTY.  I was looking forward to this to this contest as I have not participated in an RTTY since 2003, where I worked the BARTG RTTY HF contest on from the 34 foot boat I was living on at the time!  Where I made 84 contacts, with 4 multipliers for a score of 15,552.  I was using a PK232 MBX at the time and my initial plan was to use my Kantronics KAM Plus as my modem this time.  That did not work out, and I ended up using the FLDigi and the built in sound card in the FT-DX10 instead.  I was very glad I did as I will point out in a bit.

  Setup was a pain in the ass!  After pouring through posts and YouTube video for the setup, I just could not get it working.  It was looking like I would have to sit this one out!  I finally found the necessary instructions in my logging software I was I using (N3FJP), and I was good to go!

  Working with the FLDigi software was a night and day difference from using just the modem!  With a modem if you do not just sit calling CQ you spend your time hunting the band, tuning in a single signal with the display on the front of the modem, with FL Digi you can see all the signals in your passband (In my case 3 Khz), and just click on the signal in the software’s waterfall display.  So much less time consuming and really helps with your hit rate.  It is no wonder soundcards/software have caused hardware data controller sales to tumble!

An RTTY exchange using FLdigi during the North American QSO Party – RTTY

  How did we do?  We got 202 contacts in the log, with 92 multipliers.  Corrected after errors in the final scores to 162 contacts, with 91 multipliers!  Each error removes not only the contact logged in errata, but a valid QSO as well, so watch that error rate!  This placed us 76th over all, and narrowing that down to Florida entrants, 4th out of 11 state entrants!

  The final contest that I will place in this blog, the CQ Magazine’s Worked All Prefixes contest was my favorite out of the 4!  The goal of this contest is to work as many PREFIXES as possible within the contest period.  Which gives thousands of possibilities for multipliers!  Take my callsign for instance, my PREFIX is KF6, Each iteration of KFx is a multiplier.  So, 10 possibilities!  I made some memorable contacts, such as HC8M from the Galapagos Islands on 3 Bands!  

  Another contact that stood out was working Indonesia on 20 Meters late at night.  I was getting bored on 40 and decided to go back up to 20 Meters to make a sweep.  You can listen to me make the contact here!

   How did we score on this one?  We made 333 contacts (Not counting error penalties), claimed 231 multipliers, for a submitted score of 165,858 points.  Corrected after errors, we scored 163,990 points.  That put us in 569th place worldwide out of 3402 entrants! In North America, we scored 190 out of 1091, and in region 159 out of 943!

  Contesting is a great way to test your stations capabilities, hone your operating skills, and try new modes!  It is also a LOT of fun!  I learned that while working more local stations with my antenna is often frustrating the setup does work, and works well!  I encourage all amateurs to try participating in at least one contest, you might find you have more fun than you previously thought!  To find out what contests are coming up, the WA7BNM contest calendar is a great resource!  https://www.contestcalendar.com/index.php.

  I hope you enjoyed this week’s blog on Brent’s World!  Please come back next weekend for more great content.  If you wish to be notified by email when new content posts you can register by clicking HERE!

On The Grill – Sea Pak Moreys – Grilled Steakhouse Salmon

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On The Grill – Sea Pak Moreys – Grilled Steakhouse Salmon

 

  Maxim’s….  I love Maxim’s…. “Of all the plans of mice and men…. Are wont to go astray…”. I had planned on reproducing the recipe of the Grilled Mahi Mahi that I made while camping on the Orlando trip.   Life intervened and I ended up not only with 2 lbs. of Mahi Mahi filets I needed to discard but without a blog!  Then I got to thinking…. I normally plan the first night of a camping trip to be one of the easiest meals to prepare!  Why not cook and review a meal using frozen pre-marinaded fish?   I used to by Sea Pak Morey’s frozen fish from the Commissary at Kunsan AB and always liked it.  So why not?

  Tonight, we are using the Wild Salmon filets with Steakhouse marinade.  The box comes with 2 5 oz frozen salmon filets with marinade in individually sealed bags.  You can prepare them frozen, or thawed (I am grilling so I thawed them by placing them in the fridge for 2 days.).   Choses sides was Wild Mushroom & Herb Rice Pilaf by Near East and Green Giant Simply Steam Southwestern Style street corn.

  Preparation could not be easier!  I removed the filets from the packaging and placed them in a baking dish.  Meanwhile preparing the charcoal grill.  I allowed 10 minutes for the coals to be ready, then began cooking the rice on the stove top.  I think arranged the lit coals properly in the grill and covered to preheat for an additional 10 minutes.   These sides would be very easily prepared on a camp stove!

  Once the grill was properly preheated, I cleaned and oiled the grill and placed the filets skin side down on the heated grill, allowing them to cook for 5 minutes before flipping over.

At this time, I began microwaving the corn for 6 minutes.

Once the corn was done, I plated the fish, rice, and corn.

Bon appetit!

The fish came out excellent!  Very moist and flavorful, and went well with the chosen side dishes.  I highly recommend this for an easily prepared meal camping, or at home.  The fish can also be baked.

I hope you enjoyed this week’s blog, please be sure to come back next weekend for more great content.  If you wish to be notified when new content is posted, consider registering by clicking HERE!

Blast From The Past – Jinhae Cherry Blossom Festival

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Blast From The Past – Jinhae Gunhangje (Cherry Blossom) Festival.

  The Japanese Cherry Blossom Tree of Prunus semulata is a harbinger of spring in many countries in Asia, after the bitterly cold winters in Korea, many cities in Korea celebrate week long festivals to celebrate the blossoming of the Cherry Tree’s and the first sign of spring.   The festivals include parades, souvenir booths, Korean traditional and pop performances. While there are spring festivals all over Korea Chinhae hosts the largest and most popular.  I had wanted to check out the festival since my arrival but until this year never had the opportunity.

  We booked tickets from Yongsan Station direct to Masan on the KTX, Korea’s high speed rail service.  We then took a city bus (# 162) to downtown Chinhae.  We got off the bus after about a 45 minute ride and went straight to our Hotel.  The Hotel French Code.  The room was spacious and had a large bathroom with a Jacuzzi bath.  

  After a short nap it was time to go exploring!  It was not hard to locate the festivities, I just had to let my ears be my guides and follow the sounds of drums!   

Here are marching bands from various districts of Chinhae opening the festivities.  It was really fun to watch, and the bands encouraged the bystanders to participate, I was even pulled into one of the processions to dance with entourage,  I cannot dance on a good day, trying it with 20 lbs of camera gear on my back made it even less of a coordinated spectacle.

  The Canon EF 16-35mm f2.8 is one of my favorite lens, and it’s versatility really shown here.  It was a lot of fun being able to walk unhindered through the parade.  You almost got the sense you were in the middle of a protest.  I am not exactly sure what this guy was supposed to be representing, but It certainly made me take notice!

and here is a bystander dishing out some Jinhae justice.

  Though we are here for the Cherry Blossoms, and here is a picture of the “Romance Bridge” with the cherry blossom trees in full bloom.

    After Sundown around 7pm we were presented with a fireworks display, marking the opening of the 2017 Jinhae Gunhangje.  I attempted to get some creative photo’s of the fireworks through the cherry trees but was only partially successful.  Providing a quick photography hint.

 

  • Try and be aware of EVERYTHING in the view finder. If it does not ADD to the photograph, then it is a distraction.  The light post in the middle of the photo here is a total distraction.  You need to move and get it out of the picture.
  • Move around, even if you think you got the perfect photo, try the photo with a different perspective, angel, and location.

  Here is a photo that I shot of the fireworks.  That may be the same light post, but it is covered up partially by the cherry tree’s,  the cherry tree’s are not much of a distraction in this case, because after all we are at the Cherry Blossom Festival!. The big distraction here is the powerlines.  The only way to have gotten the perfect picture in this case would have been to find out ahead of time where the fireworks were going to be shot from and scouted it out ahead of time, which was not possible for us.

  Mi Jung got some pretty good portraits,even though for the most part she was shooting without a flash.  I have cropped this to a 1:1 aspect ratio.  Mi Jung does have a good eye for composition, If she was not impeded by not having a Speedlight for a just a tiny bit of backfill, very little in the way of exposure correction would have been needed, and it would have removed the motion blur.  The other option here would have been to crank up the ISO, or use a higher speed lens (Mi Jung was shooting with the Canon 24-105 f4L). 

Here is Mi Jung and I near the entrance to the “Bridge Of Romance”.

The event did allow me to get some portrait practice, which I desperately need more of!  This is a great portrait, I like the good separation of the subject from the background, but I should have asked the couple to take just a couple of paces to the left as the two street lights behind the man’s head complete ruin the picture!  Though I will try and remove them later in Photoshop.  This was taken with the Canon EF-50mm F1.2L lens.

This picture is a little better, but again not paying attention to the background lighting, introduced a ton of lens flare on the man’s chin and the side of the face.  The lens flare would have been hard to pick up on the LCD at night, but I should have seen the big globes of light in the first picture.

The next day we took the festivals free shuttle bus to the closed Gyeonghwa station, as they have a famous static railroad display setup that I have always wanted to get pictures at.  They had another live cultural perform that Mi Jung took pictures of while I photographed the train.  Sometimes it can be difficult to get a good portrait with all the crows, but if you and your subjet are both patient you will finally get one that works out.

 That afternoon there was a scheduled performance and fireworks show down by the harbor that we went to.  Here are some photo’s of the afternoon practice session.  The performance turned out to be a disappointment due to poor planning and lack of security at the event.  There was no elevated stage setup, and security did not keep the late comers who did not heave seats from standing in the isles, completely blocking everyone’s view.  We gave up as we could not see anything.   So we walked around, took some pictures of the harbor, then went back to the hotel.

Here is a reflection portrait of Mi Jung taken from  a puddle of water.

It was time to wrap things up Sunday, take in the last couple of attractions and then head back to Seoul.  Our first stop was the Chinhae Post office which had a really interesting Korea Postal system museum.  One of the exhibits allowed you to press print historical Korean postage stamps.  This was a lot of fun! 

Our final stop was Jehwangsan Park located on stop of the mountain of the same name.  To get there we had to take this bizarre looking mono-rail.  It would almost be considered a funicular, but there is no second tram to offer a counter weight.

The view from the park was amazing.  Here is Downtown Chinhae, with all of the festival tents setup.  Here is the main downtime parade ground with the protected harbor in the background.

The park and observatory where peaceful (When I was not being pressed into being a mobile phone photographer..) 

Then it was our turn.

There was some really nice topiary characters that I had a great time taking photos of.

Our final stop for the afternoon was the Korean dancing display.  I thought it was a good performance, but Mi Jung was quite bored.   Though to be fair, she has seen more Korean dancing then I have.

I also cannot claim I was paying attention to the performance the whole time either, was I began to talk around, taking random pictures of other things going on in the background, like the police officers directing traffic.

Or these officers having a chat.

I would like to say that the Chinhae Cherry Blossom festival was all that I expected it to be.  I did have a good time, it was great to get away from Seoul for 3 days.  Our hotel was nice, and within walking distance of the festival.  Maybe because I have been in Korea so long that I am festivaled out.   They all seem to offer the same things!  

Chinhae looks like a great place to visit even outside the big cherry blossom festival, so if you are looking for a weekend getaway I would recommend checking Chinhae out!  Though the window of the Cherry Blossom festival is over, there is always next year.  The festival usually takes place the first or second weekend of April.

How to get there.

KTX from either Seoul, or Yongsan Station – Masan.
Then take bus # 163 from Masan Station (This is an additional 48 Minutes)

From Gunsan
Traveling from Gunsan involves a bit more transfers, but easily ticketable on the KoRail website www.letskorail.com!  I was unable to find routing (even as a transfer) from Gunsan Station, but if you search from Iksan Station to Masan being sure to select the transfer option (Not direct!)  you will be able to book tickets to Chinhae!   You can either book separate tickets from Gunsan to Iksan, or take the free shuttle from Gunsan station!  Once you arrive in Masan take the #163 bus to Jinhae.

 

Where To Stay

I recommend checking out Hotel French Code. 

It does have quite love motel in appearance, but they have large bathrooms with Jacuzzi baths and is centrally located to downtown.  As the name has recently changed, you will not be able to locate the hotel address on the internet.  I had to search for Chinhae Pasta Hotel which is right next door.   Another word of caution.  The GPS signals seem not be accurate, when I pined the hotel before leaving it put me almost a half a mile off course!  So, use with caution.

Mappable Phone # 055-547-9812

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On The Road Again – HamCation 2025

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On The Road Again – Hamcation 2025

  I think it is about time to wrap this up!  So I will concatenate Day 1 and 2 into a single blog instead of breaking down day 1 and day 2 of Hamcation.  I had not been to an amateur radio convention for about 25 years, so I was excited to be going to one again.  Which is interesting since I really did not get a lot of photos ( only 44 )!  I guess I just do not do very well wondering around trade shows.. 

  I repeated the theme of not being able to get out of the cot at my self appointed time, but still managed to get to the fair grounds and pick up my ticket at Will Call before the gates opened.  I was able to meet Gary Wise W4EEY who is primarily responsible for me being able to pass my Amateur Extra upgrade test!  Which was very exciting.  If you are studying for your first amateur radio license or an upgrade please stop by his web page https://w4eey.com/index.html and YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@W4EEY you will not be sorry you did!  His online classes hosted by himself and Dave Ivey KE4EA are informative, easy to follow, and entertaining and will walk you through everything you need to get or upgrade your amateur radio license!

  Once inside the convention grounds I headed off to my first forum (These forums were hit and miss, mostly because 1) Bad time management as you will read about in a second, 2) I assumed the forums I selected would be something they were not.  As evidenced by the first two forums I attended 1) AUXCOMM in Florida, and 2) Things have changed, choosing a new radio. 

  I thought the AUXCOM would give me guidance about how to join and participate in the various emergency communication grounds in Florida.  What I discovered was that the landscape of volunteer emergency or EMCOM operators has changed since I dropped out of the hobby in 2010.  Instead of just the Radio Amateur Emergency Services R.A.C.E.S (Which was run by the County in San Diego and the US Civil Defense.). and the Amateur Radio Emergency Services, which worked with both City, County, and Federal agencies and was sponsored by the American Radio Relay League (ARRL).  Which was largely Amateurs working with their professional counterparts.  AUXCOM seemed to be more professionals working in law enforcement, EMT, Fire Fighter roles, who also happened to be amateur radio operators.  I was just as at a loss on how to get involved in one of the local groups leaving the forum as when I entered.

  The second forum of the day “Receiver and Transmitter performance, what has changed in 10 years?” almost led to quite a bit of embarrassment  as I had to do everything, I could think of not to fall asleep.  I thought the forum would describe continuing advances in Software Defined Radio or SDR and what innovations our VHF and HF radios might have in the future.. Instead, it was mostly a 45 minute talk on comparing the features on current lineup of HF radios, and how to use their features.  As I just bought 2 new radios in the last year, I was NOT in the market for a new rig, so I tuned most of it out.

  Needing to take a break from the forums, I headed over to the East Coast Reflectors booth,  I had promised Dick the Godfather or W2JPQ that I would stop in, check out their portable repeater and go to dinner with them later in the evening. 

  Here is the W2JPQ East Coast Reflector portable 70cm repeater. 

I had to joke with Dick if he has ever tried carrying that on to an airplane.  I then confirmed directions on where we were all supposed to meat for dinner that evening and headed off to take a break until the next forum at 1300 “ ARISS Future of Amateur Radio In Space.  “, 

  Which talked about an upcoming capsule mission that will involve Slow Scan Television “SSTV”, amateur radio, and school kids around the world called Fram2Ham.  I am always interested in spaceflight, amateur radio, and introducing students to ham radio.

 

I walked around the vendor booth, checking out the new offerings from the main 3 ham radio vendors, Yaesu, ICOM, and Kenwood.  Checking out their latest products.

Here is Baxter at the ICOM booth.

We stopped by the Boy Scouts Of America display, which had a bunch an interactive Morse code display, which Baxter had to check out!  Baxter being a No Code General has often heard of my tales of struggling to pass the 13WPM code test to get my General License in the late 1990’s.

 Baxter was also really hopeful that we would win one of the many Hamcation prizes, but alas.  We came away empty winged.

 I then stopped by the ARRL Special Event Station W1AW / 4 to sign up for an operators slot the following day!

  I finished thing up around 5pm and headed over to Miller’s Ale House to meet the East Coast Reflector Gang.  I got there early and waited at the bar to rehydrate with a couple of Cokes and lots of water.  The dinner was great!  I had the Prime Burger and fries.  I really enjoyed the burger, which was flavorful and cooked a perfect medium rare!  The camaraderie and conversation of the fellow users of the ECR was the reason I went to the convention.  After dinner it was back to the camp site for a shower and good night’s sleep.

   Once again!  I was slow getting out of the sleeping bag and to the event.  Which made me think I missed the forum I really wanted to go to, “ARMY and Air Force MARS: Joint Mission to Support the Troops.”  Had I taken time to read the forum schedule I would have realized it did not start until 1030, and I had plenty of time to attend!  I did make it to a really good forum on emergency communications called, “Calm Voice in the Storm, Amateur Radio Relevance in Disasters” with N4RFI David Craig, KK3S Ribert Carrol, KQ4PZC Christopher D’ Hedouville, Kj4SFM Howard Bennet, and K2DMG Dan Gitro.  Which covered the importance of amateur radio during Hurricane Helene and Milton and how amateur radio was responsible for the rescue of 17 people in North Carolina from a single radio call on a hand held VHF/UHF transceiver.

   I did make it to the discussion about the Statewide 70cm repeater network called SARNET, and then it was time to head to ARRL Special Event Station to make our 2:30pm slot!

  I had fun operating W1AW/4 and would really love to go to the actual W1AW station in Newington, CT! I made several DX, and a few stateside contacts and it was time to let the next operator have their turn.  There was one awkward moment where another ham, monitoring a Parks On The Air operation from their station in North Carolina said I was calling CQ right on top of them.   Which I had no idea was on the same freq. because I could NOT see them on my scope, and more surprisingly I did not hear not see any stations replying to them before I started using the Frequency.. 

  I also found it awkward using someone else’s callsign.  You become so accustomed to various precures using your our callsign, you find it is just second nature and  say something like, “QRZ KILO FOXTROT SIX HOTEL DELTA.. Ohh Ohh Sorry..  Whiskey One Alpha Whiskey Portable Four!”

  Wrapping up our time at the convention and stopping by to say goodbye to the folks at the ECR booth, it was time to head back to the campsite for an early dinner and campfire. 

  Sunday morning it was time to tear down the campsite and get on the road!  Had a great time at Disney, camping, and the ham radio convention. I have mixed feelings about not having an RV and being able to stay at the event site, as I feel I missed out on being able to camp, play, and talk radio but the experience and peace at Moss Park was so positive I think I want to stay there when attending next year! 

  Thanks for stopping by Brent’s World to follow this series of blogs!  It has been a few years since I have published an event or travel series!   Please come back next week for more great content.  If you wish to be notified when new content is posted consider registering by clicking HERE!

On The Road Again – Day 3 – Disney’s Hollywood Studios

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On The Road Again – Day 3 – Disney’s Hollywood Studios

 

   We made it through days 1 and 2, and are headed into our final day of Disney!  Once again waking up fighting with the snooze button!  Out to the camp stove for the required morning cup of coffee and on the road to Disney’s Hollywood Studios.  Hollywood Studios opened in 1989 and is an idealized representation of the Golden Days of Hollywood.  When choosing my 3 parks, the 3rd park was a toss up between going here or Animal Kingdom.  Since I will be going back to see the bats at the Lubee Bat Conservancy in April I decided on Hollywood Studios.  I cannot compare the two to validate or regret my decision as I have never been to Animal Kingdom.  The bats were tired for the last 2 days, so they stayed to rest at the campsite. 

 

  My first stop was Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, were we dodged the presence of the storm troopers to get in line for Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run.

Just my luck that even at a theme park I have to ride OBS.

 I then headed over to Star Wars: Ride of the Resistance, were we were captured, scheduled for interrogation by the First Order, then rescued by the resistance at the last minute.  This is a very fast paced ride, and the animatronics and special effects are second to none!   I really enjoyed this ride and definitely recommend it to guests.

I then took a break at Mama Melroe’s Ristorante Italiano for a pizza and pasta lunch.  I was not expecting much for a theme park lunch, but was very pleased with the Mushroom Pizza!  I have said several times that I am not a big fan of thin crust pizza but this culinary delight reminded me a lot of one of my favorite restaurants in Seoul 8 Piece Pizza And Beer,

The entree of Braised Wagyu Beef on Orecchiette was disappointing and I would not order it again.  I did not find it very flavorful and the dried Cherries I found flavorfully out of place and I confused them with raspberries. 

 To be fair, I think I just picked something that I did not find appealing, as the pizza was good I would not count it against the restaurant.  I would go back and try another entrée on the menu.

  After lunch it was time to head off to the haunted Hollywood Hotel for the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror ride. 

This is the tallest ride in the park and easily one of my favorites!  The ride is almost a duplicate of ride of the same name at Disney’s California Adventure park in Anaheim (removed).

I ended up going on this ride a couple of times in a row and on one of the rides I was seated with a group of young women from a local high school (Picture below is from an earlier ride.).

The person sitting next to me was very scared of the ride and she asked me if I had been on it before.  After answering the question in the affirmative, she proceeded to ask me if the ride was very scary. I answered “No”, and the look of relief on her face was palpable.  “Though I also bungee jumped off a 722ft tower in Macau.. So I might not be the best person to ask..”..  The look of dread promptly returned.  ZING 1….   She then let me know she would be using my arm rest.  “That’s okay, I won’t be holding on..”  ZING 2!  

  It was then over to the Indian Jones Stunt Show.

  I decided to make this en early day and head back to the campsite for a nice fire!

3 days of walking around Disney Parks I totaled 28,872 steps!  This is more then I get in most months.  I was definitely looking forward to my planned off day at the campsite!

 I enjoyed my time at the Disney parks, ranked in order of my personal enjoyment.  EPCOT (Which I would like to go back and spend more time, as I know there was a lot I did not get a chance to experience.)  Disney’s Magic Kingdom, and finally Hollywood Studios.  A 3 day Florida Resident package at $60 a day is a steal, but the parking for an additional $30 is a bit much.  Though again, still $10 cheaper than a VIP tour at the Kennedy Space Center!

 The next and final blog in this series will be about the ARRL South East Amateur Radio Convention known as “Hamcation”!  I hope you have enjoyed the series so far.  Please come back often to check for new content and if you would like to receive an email notification when new content is posted please consider registering by clicking HERE!

On The Road Again – Week In Orlando – Day 2 Disney’s EPCOT

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On The Road Again – Week in Orlando
Day 2 – Disney’s EPCOT

 

  Day 2 arrived a lot faster than I was either expecting or wanting it to.  With all the standing and walking around the day before, it would have been nice to have been able to sleep in!  No rest for the weary however, and it was up once again to put coffee on the stove!   Remembering the lesson that I learned the day before, I searched for and programmed EPCOT Toll Plaza into the GPS!  38 minutes and $30 later Julius and I were parked and headed for the gate! 

  I was looking forward to today’s trip, While Disney has sister parks on the west coast for Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios, EPCOT stands on its own.  Opened in the 1980’s EPCOT, or the Experimental Planned Community of Tomorrow came out of Walt Disney’s desire to build a futuristic community on the Orange County, Florida Property.  The park was a hybrid of a vision of what our world may look like in the future, and a World’s Fair.

 

  Our first stop was Spaceship Earth, which takes you through a timeline of the earliest forms of written communication ending with the introduction of the home computer.

  Spaceship Earth was a good ride, and I felt it covered the subject really well.  I would recommend it to anyone visiting EPCOT.

  Our Next stop was Journey of Water: Inspired by Moana, where Julius and I setup for a photo Op!  (This also kicked off an awkward encounter with a misinformed employee, who interpreted the selfie stick ban in the park to also extend to tripods..), which is  NOT the case.  The park currently allows tripods IF they can fit in a standard backpack and do not extend over 6 feet.  A quick walk to Guest Relations to get the rule clarified and we were back in action!  I did take the time to let the employee know that tripods are OK, to avoid escalating the situation once he saw I was once again using my tripod.  All the staff involved were very polite and it was just a simple misunderstanding!

  This was pretty cool.  These ‘caves’ had curtains of water made up of separate water streams, sensors would shut off individual streams in the shape of your body.  You had to “Trust The Water!”,  I did with over $3000 worth of gear on my back!

  There is a really nice statue of Te Fiti.

  Julius and I then headed over to the Finding Nemo ride.

  While we enjoyed the ride, I really enjoyed the aquarium exhibit afterwards!  Great place for photo opportunities….  Here is Julius and I posing with Chum!

 

  We then headed over to Living With The Land, which was a very nice and relaxing ride looking at the history of farming around the world, and what Disney is doing to not only find innovative framing methods for a future sustainable food supply, but how they also use these methods to produce the fruits and vegetables, in their parks and resorts. 

  If you are interested you can sign up for a behind the scenes VIP tour ( seen here!).

  I think these are the best two photo’s of the entire trip!  The first one was shot with the iPhone HIpstamatic App, which I think turned out so well I had to duplicate it with the DSLR.  Vote in the comments which you think is the better picture!

 

  It was then time to head back to the campsite, fix dinner, and get ready for tomorrow adventure at Hollywood Studios!  

  I enjoyed EPCOT, it was a nice laid back transition between the Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios.  I know I BARELY scratched the surface of what the park has to offer.  One of these days I will do more research and have a plan of attack, so I can see more of its attractions!

  I hope you are enjoying this multipart blog, be sure to come back to read about our day at Disney’s Hollywood Studios!  If you would like to be notified by email when new content is posted, please register by clicking HERE!