The following is transcribed from the journal I kept while in Mongolia on my first-ever solo vacation. This trip was the genesis for Briga’s story.

The adventure begins.  I’m on my way to Mongolia for my first ever solo vacation.  Random destination, I know, but go big or go home, right?  I’m about 10 hours into the flight from Atlanta to Seoul.  Korean Airlines runs a pretty nice operation, but I had forgotten about Korean food.  I’ve been to a lot of places and eaten some strange things, but Korea takes the cake.  In other places, the weird stuff is normal in that culture, but only seems to be one or two dishes.  In Korea, everything (okay… almost everything) is weird to me.  They ran out of chicken so I opted for the Korean meal choice – bibimbop.  I think I’ve had it before, but I don’t remember tripe in it last time.  Maybe I just ate around it that time too.  The side dish was seaweed soup.  I’ve had seaweed, and while it’s not my favorite, I’ll eat it.  I was expecting a miso or onion broth though.  Nope.  Water.  Water that has leeched some of the saltiness (but oddly not enough) from the seaweed, which left it tasting exactly like warm sea water.  Not exactly appetizing.  Oh well.  I still ate it.  Not sure how the food will be in Mongolia, I have no idea what to expect, and I didn’t want to start the trip hungry.