Patriots Point:

Yesterday we took a day trip to Charleston, and went a ton of places we have not gotten to go yet.
I have been talking Hochi's ear off about wanting to go to Patriots Point, and yesterday we decided to wake up early so we could!

Patriots point is home to the USS Yorktown which is an air craft carrier known as the Fighting Lady, the USS Laffey destroyer, the USS Clamgore submarine and various air craft.

Here you can see the Yorktown and Laffey, from the shore. I've never been on any kind of naval ship before, so I had no idea what to expect. 

I couldn't help myself with this, it is called Patriots Point, after all! It was a beautiful day, with a slight breeze, which was a welcome relief from how hot it has been lately. 

Hochi took on the roll of tour guide, reading and and explaining various things about the ships. 

They have a Tf-9J Cougar on display, and you can sit in the cockpit. It reminded me of how cramped the vipers cockpit is, but was set up a little differently. Hochi stood on the ladder to point different things out to me, and refresh my memory so I could compare the two.  

 If there is a Phantom (this one is an F-4J Phantom II) in the area, I'll find it. If you look closely you will see me in shadow there, touching the butt. For the uninitiated, I always hunt out specific air craft when we go somewhere that has a display. (See: our PIMA trip). If there is a BUFF, you can bet I'll make a bee line for it before anything else. The F-4 is one of the air craft my grandfather flew, and is usually around on display somewhere.

In standard household fashion, we spent more time getting excited about the air planes, than the boats. 

One of the most interesting points of the tour was coming down from the deck, they had a special escalator just for the pilots going under the deck for their debriefs. That was the butt of many jokes and endless teasing of Hochi for the remainder of the tour. 

The other interesting thing was seeing the difference between the enlisted living areas, and officer living areas.  

The Laffey had some newer exhibits that were very well done, meant to put you in the mindset of what was going on, complete with sound, visual, and feeling.

Going into the submarine was a little nerve wracking, its a tight fit, so if you have claustrophobia it is definitely not for you. It's mind blowing to me how many people lived (and still live) on these things and how tight of a fit they are! 

Have you been on a sub or ship? What did you think?

Fly Safe, 

Barb

TSP Korea Special:

As most of you know by now, Hochi has made it home from South Korea (and a brief moment in North Korea, as well). He brought back some super fun goodies for me, and some for himself!

As soon as I can get him to let me spend an afternoon taking pictures of him in clothing, I'll show you what he brought home for himself (so probably don't count on that in the next week or so).

First things first, I was perusing a list of highly recommended Korean snack foods for Hochi, and stumbled upon some Honey Butter chips. I asked H if he could find them, would he pretty please try to bring a bag back?

He searched all over, not knowing what I now know, they are incredibly popular, and most stores that have them don't even display them. 

He sent me a message saying "Hey, I didn't find Honey Butter, but I found something called Honey Tong Tong, and the bag looks exactly the same!" I'm all about trying new things, so I said "Close enough! I'm down!"

I opened them and tried them last night, and they are very good, interesting and strong flavor, but good. I certainly would not put away an entire bag of them on my own like I would BBQ chips... they are that ... sweet, almost. Hochi says they are kind of like the Lay's create a flavor, they are great and you like them, but you can't eat many at once and they don't really go with anything. 

I looked up what Tong Tong was for this post and came across some interesting information. These are actually sort of a "knockoff" of the actual honey butter chips, but by the same company. Tong Tong can translate to a hopping sound..or chubby, and since these are almost a fluffy chip, compared to the OG honey butter.... it makes sense that it would be chubby. 

10/10 recommend but share with a friend...or five. 

We kind of tasted a corn aftertaste, but that might just be because corn is on the bag. 

Up next we have Honey Butter Almonds (adorable packaging game is strong SK). 

10/10 recommend, don't bring friends, don't show them to friends, keep all the bags in the world as your own and fill your face with them. 

they taste like honey, butter, and almond. 

Up next we have the famous "REMOVE BEFORE FLIGHT" tag key chain, only this one has a sweet Thunderbirds embroidery on the other side. 

Y'all, I LOVE the Thunderbirds. 

This is pretty self explanatory, BARB is my "callsign" and this is a name tag!

This is a luggage tag, swamp fox on one end, Viper on the other (recognize that view?) and my name in the middle, can not wait to use this for traveling!!

I don't have a lot of info on this one yet, cause I have not tried it. I am told that the one on the left (you know... that says energy on it) is an energy drink, and on the right is Soju (like a vodka) and in Korea its popular to mix the two with some sprite in a kettle, and then shots for errrone. 

Trust me, as soon as I try this, apparently glorious and dangerous mixture, I will tell you all about it. 

Last, but certainly not least:

That South Korea Louis Vuitton special, super secret squirrel like, ya know?

He picked it out himself, and did a great job if you ask me. You'll have to ask him for that story though. 

Now, if you don't mind, I am going to get back to watching Harry Potter weekend, listening to the dulcet tones of Hermine (the storm, not Hermione) and trying to keep Hochi awake, just a little longer to held him adjust to the time difference. 

Fly Safe, 

Barb