Because there are so many streets between my apartment and my place of work, I can walk to and from work in a number of ways. I can take the major roads and go west and then north or north and then west, or I can navigate any of the smaller streets that go between the major roads. In fact, I could probably manage to take a different way everyday for about two weeks. I like to take different ways as it keeps the walk more interesting and also deters any would be stalkers from predicting my route, hiding behind a parked car, and jumping out for a picture and an autograph.
My reason for telling you all this, though, is that, as you might know if you read yesterday's post, the Nuclear Security Summit will be going on here next week and it's happening about a five-minute walk from my apartment. There are quite a number of heads of state coming out for it including one Mr. Obama. Apparently he will be here for about three days during which he will also go up to the DMZ to take a look around. Most of us can go there on a tour conducted by the USO--I haven't been yet, but it's certainly on my "to do" list--but I would imagine that the President will be getting a private tour and seeing things we lesser beings aren't allowed to. But I digress.
This morning I decided to walk by the COEX complex, a large underground mall and attached hotels and conference rooms and I have no idea what else. This is where the summit will be held and, I imagine, where all the delegates will be staying, so I just wanted to check it out. Perhaps needless to say, security is being stepped up and today when I walked to work and then home again, I saw many police officers, some walking, some on motorcycles, and others in cars, all looking rather serious. On my way home I even saw a police escort for three cars which all had a paper sized sign in the front window that had the letters ALG and a small picture of the Algerian flag on it. I don't know if this was just a practice run or if someone from the country is here, but it all felt very official. I also saw three or four groups of about twenty people each--all wearing the same blue vests with the summit logo--walking around, cleaning up the area, and even scraping gum up off the sidewalks.
Meanwhile, North Korea is still planning to go ahead with the rocket launch. I did a little reading and they've announced that they will do the launch between the hours of 7am and noon between April 12th and 16th. The rocket will fly south over the waters between China and South Korea and will drop one part of the rocket there and another part down near the Philippines. They have said that the launch is merely to put a satellite in orbit and that they have to right to do this; of course, the rest of the world thinks otherwise. It's all quite interesting and strange in this part of the world these days.
Summit website--
http://www.thenuclearsecuritysummit.org/eng_main/main.jsp
Interesting read on North Korea--
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-mazarr-nkorea-nukes-20120321,0,6156972.story
Obama's Visit to the DMZ--
http://www.timesunion.com/news/article/Obama-to-visit-heavily-fortified-Korean-border-3421570.php
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