Monday, October 16, 2006

Air Raid! (just kidding)

They tested the air-raid sirens nation-wide today. It was early in the afternoon and Gwen and I were sitting in the teachers' office at work, planning lessons when the first siren sounded. It rang for what seemed like forever, leaving in its wake an eerie silence when it shut off. They do test the things periodically, so we figured it would be best to simply assume it was a test. Then a couple of F-15s (F-16s? Hard to know.) flew past. That in itself is nothing new; we're located fairly close to a Korean Air Force base, and we get buzzed by these things all the time. But in addition to coming right on the heels of the air-raid siren, they were much lower (and thus much louder) than usual. I decided to get on the work computer and check the news sites... just to make sure we weren't actually under attack. While I was looking (and coming across nothing) there was a second (and much shorter) siren, which we deduced signalled the end of the air raid drill. Apparently we weren't the only ones a little freaked out by the air raid sirens.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Hi,

I saw your profile on myspace and thought I'd drop a message . . .

I also wondered what the heck was going on with the air raid drills. I spent some time in the Canadian Armed Forces, and I noticed the sound of the sirens right away--and none of the Koreans in my teachers office even blinked, let alone wondered what was going on . . . . sigh, are we the only ones that read the news sites, and seem to be concerned???

Jason
http://www.myspace.com/jasonryaninkorea