HALF-WAY RETURN TO SEOUL

11March2011 was a pivotal day for Japan. It is probable that the country won't completely recover for many decades yet to come. The Great Tohoku earthquake, tsunami and nuclear cataclysm might have forever changed the destiny of the nation. While the tsunami killed most of those who died, the subsequent Fukushima nuclear catastrophe will cost a TRILLION DOLLARS and take perhaps a half century to clean-up.

This is my third nostalgic Tuesday on this subject, and I'm not sure when this series will end, for I arrived in Tokyo from Bangkok the day after the event, then soon thereafter felt it was too dangerous to stay, so I escaped to Beijing, which was my posting of last week. After a couple of days, I thought the radiation problem was not as serious as earlier thought, so I thought I would carefully return by first staying a few days in Seoul.

It occurred to me then, and it weighs heavier today, that, while the entire populace of Japan was suffering, my style of reporting on this disaster seemed to focus on my good life. Cuisine, tours and shopping. On Day 10 the confirmed deaths passed 8,500, with 12,000 still missing. I showed a photo.

On 19March2011 I had my best Korean brunch ever, at my hotel, the W on Waker Hill, which I enjoyed with Professor Kiryun Choi, the co-founder with me of Project Green Enertopia. The feast lasts for 2.5 hours and includes free champagne and wines. My first course was a salad, kim chee and hot and cold noodles, with a Pascual Todo Cab from Argentina. You walk around to various stations to fashion your entrés, while appetizers and soups come around for your picking pleasure.

The prime choices are at the special cooled cabinet holding a variety of meats and seafood. In small sealed packets are a variety of beef, lamb, chicken pork, fish, shellfish, etc., and the average person chooses three to six for the kitchen to prepare according to your wishes. I picked a tenderloin, kalbi and red snapper to be grilled to accompany two eggs over easy on rice.

The dessert bar was a fantasy, with a chocolate fountain, so I had a chocolate fantasy.

Next week, still in Seoul, awaiting my return to Japan.

Our flight to Bangkok is less than two weeks away. Here is one way I won't ever consider to board a plane:

Don't believe this? Here is how it was made.

Comments

A NEXT COVID SUBVARIANT?

By now most know that the Omicron BA.5 subvariant has become the dominant infectious agent, now accounting for more than 80% of all COVID-19 cases. Very few are aware that a new one, BA.4.6, is sneaking in and steadily rising, now accounting for 13% of sequenced samples . However, as BA.4.6 has emerged from BA.4, while there is uncertainty, the scientific sense is that the latest bivalent booster targeting BA.4 and BA.5 should also be effective for this next threat. One concern is that Evusheld--the only monoclonal antibody authorized for COVID prevention in immunocompromised individuals--is not effective against BA.4.6. Here is a reference as to what this means. A series of two injections is involved. Evusheld was developed by British-Swedish company AstraZeneca, and is a t ixagevimab co-packaged with cilgavimab . More recently, Los Angeles County reported on subvariant BA.2.75.2 . which Tony Fauci termed suspicious and troublesome. This strain has also been spreading in

Part 3: OUR NEXT AROUND THE WORLD ODYSSEY

Before I get into my third, and final, part of this cruise series, let me start with some more newsworthy topics. Thursday was my pandemic day for years. Thus, every so often I return to bring you up to date on the latest developments. All these subvariants derived from that Omicron variant, and each quickly became dominant, with slightly different symptoms. One of these will shock you. There has been a significant decline in the lost of taste and smell. From two-thirds of early patients to now only 10-20% show these symptoms. JN.1, now the dominant subvariant, results in mostly mild symptoms. However, once JN.1 infects some, there seem to be longer-lasting symptoms. Clearly, the latest booster helps prevent contracting Covid. A competing subvariant, BA.2.86, also known as Pirola , a month ago made a run, but JN.1 prevailed. No variant in particular, but research has shown that some of you will begin to lose hair for several months. This is caused by stress more than anythi

HONOLULU TO SEATTLE

The story of the day is Hurricane Milton, now a Category 4 at 145 MPH, with a track that has moved further south and the eye projected to make landfall just south of Sarasota. Good news for Tampa, which is 73 miles north. Milton will crash into Florida as a Category 4, and is huge, so a lot of problems can still be expected in Tampa Bay with storm surge. If the eye had crossed into the state just north of Tampa, the damage would have been catastrophic. Milton is a fast-moving storm, currently at 17 MPH, so as bad as the rainfall will be over Florida, again, a blessing. The eye will make landfall around 10PM EDT today, and will move into the Atlantic Ocean north of Palm Bay Thursday morning. My first trip to Seattle was in June of 1962 just after I graduated from Stanford University. Caught a bus. Was called the Century 21 Exposition . Also the Seattle World's Fair. 10 million joined me on a six-month run. My first. These are held every five years, and there have only been

Search This Blog