@Voy Kay#1006 I like to use black electrical tape, which is light-proof. I should have brought a roll with me. I stick it over all the chargers and such in our bedroom, and even took apart the smoke detector to cover the light in there, too. I couldn't believe the amount of light that li'l sucker puts off. The room was awash in a green glow that even cast shadows. Me, if I could sleep in a sensory deprivation tank, I would.
Greetings from the Land of Morning Calm
Ian_Adkins
How a forum article is slowly becoming a chapter in an Orient based thriller!
Way to go Ian!!! 
- Edited
That's funny, because this evening for the first time I saw people in the boat yard, two men working in a glass enclosure. I have birdwatching binoculars so I had a peek, and as I was eyeing their work, I thought, Gee, I hope one of them doesn't murder the other one with me for a witness. Wouldn't that be a plot? American tourist tries to convince Korean police a murder happened but there's no body and no evidence. Also, I just saw a flashlight by one of the boats and I imagined the owner saw me looking and shut it off. Probably because he just murdered his colleague in the boathouse, haha.
Ian_Adkins
Amazing, that must be the same boat yard where the Kkangpae is shipping and handling their snow inspired 'stairway to heaven' powders!
Quick Ian, gather your most valuables in your backpack and go to the balcony. Drop one floor to the other balcony with jade green curtains. The sliding doors are open, rush towards the door and enter the hallway. Seek for room 327. Special agent Koo-Bah from the 'The National Intelligence Service' will await you there.
Follow her guidelines to escape and please, make certain to wear a Phtalo blue mouthmask at all times!
Get in touch with home base as soon as you feel safe again and in the comfort of a warm hot tub!
Your scenario makes me smile. I had to look up Kkangpae, like a Korean Yakuza or Tong. Sadly no balcony, just a ledge, though in this weather I doubt a balcony would be of any comfort. I do know the rooms on the other wing have balconies. And are larger. And have an actual view. Luckier bastards lodge there. I shudder to think of what the staff would do to me. The literature suggests a 100K won fine, imprisonment up to a year, and summary deportation. Not sure in what order.
Ian_Adkins
By Jove, turn those into your favour Ian!
Suggest a 100K annual reward for you, Ross supplies for a whole year and a summer deportation to Bali, Tahiti, Hawaï and Aruba. Not sure in what order.
@Voy Kay#1012 So at the company my wife works for, it's pretty common after a long stay in Asia to come back via Hawaii or Tahiti. Except of course pandemic, blah blah blah. Of course, the irony is that intercontinental travel is the reason there's a pandemic on at all. This is probably my last long stay in Asia, without having taken the Polynesian route back. I wanted to drink out of coconuts...
Ian_Adkins
If you have painting equipment with you, would it help softening the mental pain, to paint some palm trees?? 
https://www.twoinchbrush.com/originals/Voy%20Kay/taiwan-by-hado-hagen
@Voy Kay#1026 Alas, no, everything is at home, apart from a couple mechanical pencils and my research notebook. It's interesting how I might pack differently today. But I did have a little breakthrough. I peeled apart my luggage tag and cut it up to cover all the LEDs, so maybe I will sleep better tonight. 
It's weird how quickly the prison ingenuity develops. I now save everything for some unknown future use. I have a chopstick I'm planning to make into a shiv.
- Edited
Ian_Adkins Oh my, don't get caught with that shiv! One South Korean guard could be a deflected North Korean dubbelspy that searches and checks your accomodation in your absence or at night!
Be aware of too carefully folded bed sheets and/or foreign thumbmarks on glasses and silverware!
....
....
Are we really the only ones having fun here in this spy thriller??
Ah, see, they've only given me disposable utensils and Dixie cups, you'd need a fingerprint dusting kit to turn up any unusual prints. And believe me, the exact arrangement of my bedding is induplicable by rational mind, and only by a diseas'd wit. Speaking of North Koreans, I went to Panmunjom in 2014, and saw a few for myself. A very surreal experience.
Yes, odd that no one else has joined the thread, but perhaps they're loath to break in upon our revelries and flights of fancy.
Ian_Adkins
Darn, they are smarter then we thought!
The smell of 'fear' can't be far out! The loneliness can play tricks as well. Panmunjom is only a few whiskars away .... never visited it while I was in Seoul in 2010.
Gosh, why is the late Charles Bronson's quote playing in my head now?
'I have fear for the fear'
nothing we could say would be as entertaining as your conversations!
Panmunjom is well worth a visit! Especially since they have an ATM at the gift store that doesn't charge fees for international cards 
Felix I remember that shop, I came away with carved wooden marriage ducks, DPRK bank notes, and North Korean plum soju. Inexplicably there were also Transnistrian bank notes, and I now regret not buying any.
Ian_Adkins
Just out of bed, had a tough time reading about the bank notes.
First I read 'trans' ... but that's was too close related to 'Katoy'. Then I read 'train' .... but with one eye opened only, I must've read that dislectic. Then I noticed 'Istria' .... but that region in Croatia could not fit with 'Transnistria' very well.
So eventually, felt unhappy that I've been to Ukrania so many times, and to Rumania as well, yet never visited Moldavia nor Transnistria.
Anyway, in my land of morning calm (although the name of Belgium alone raises my neckhairs as well as my stomach acid!) .... coffee never dissapointed me and is my golden remedy and adage for 'happiness in a mug'!
Cheers to the world!
First things first upon waking: never let your Internet addiction get in the way of your caffeine addiction.
I gather Transnistria is a bit of seedy place, but since the 1990s, I've been following this plucky little holdout of the Soviet Union that nevertheless wouldn't exist but for Russian "peacekeeping." I'm amazed it survived the Yeltsin years, but that was probably due entirely to General Lebed's active interest.
- Edited
Ian_Adkins
Well normaly I am up between 3 and 5 am, but the rest of the house is still asleep then so I try to make as few noise as poosible, thus extending my need for coffee till around 7am, also the hour where the cats can enter the house after their nightly splurges.
Most cities of importance in my little 'no good' country have nicknames for their citizens. That can vary from 'Chickeneaters', to 'Onions', to 'Cobblestampers', 'Donkeys', 'Sleepers' or .... in my case either 'Fools' or Coffeesippers'. My birth city has hus two and although I am a healthy crazy person as well, I tend more to the second nickname for we are known to be the bigger coffeedrinkers in the country.
As I often state, my mother even gave me coffee while breastfeeding!
Name of my birthcity .... 'Bruges', the medieval city of Belgium. Great city for the million of tourists, shit city for the 150.000 inhabitants. I'm VERY pleased I don't live there anymore although I stil reside in Western Flanders, the richer province of my country.
Momentarely ... I live in 'Waregem', 'city of horses'. Although the only horses I tame are my 120 American thoroughbreds in my Ford! No coffee can beat those!
@Voy Kay#1085 ah Bruges... Great city to take out your hitman partner!
@Voy Kay The very terms Flamand and Walloon strike the English ear as funny. I like it when serious things have somewhat silly names, it's fun and punctures our pomposity. England is full of odd place names, we have many here in the U.S., with goofy demonyms to match (Hoosiers?). And for odd place names, Australia takes the prize (Humpybong? Dismal Peak? Mount Bugger? Eggs-and-bacon Bay? a Google search will provide hours of entertainment).
Speaking of Belgium, many years ago in college we had an exchange student, Orlane, from Liège. I was smitten, and did my very 18-year-old best to catch her eye, to no avail. Probably worked out for the best, but my, was she pretty. We had German 101 together, and she grew irritated with it because she claimed it was messing up her Flemish pronunciation terribly. I say irritated, but she was nothing ever but unfailingly polite and cheerful.
Ian_Adkins It is a fact that our f..ked up country has three comunities, a Flemish one (the biggest), a French one (the Walloons) and a german one. Hence we also have three governments (Not a single logical person in the world who wants to believe that at first!!) and three official languages.
As the largest community, the Flemish mostly pay up unrightfully for the two smaller ones and that's a big issue for over 50 years already in Flanders. Liège is in the French part yet close to the Flemish and german borders, so that would explain why the girl knew some languages (Dutch included which is not very common for Walloons). I know six but I studied languages in highschool, and lived for a while in Peru where I went to Spanish dayschool.
The cheerfulness of the girl, I can only explain that most probably with the fact that she was out of Belgium for a while. Brings a smile to everybody's face!! Especially mine!
Had to smile with the Auzzie names ... LOVE that country! Been there in 2003 for 9 days and made the biggest mistake of my life there .... by using my return ticket!