Meg's visit to Korea

I recently went to Korea for a conference. I left on Sunday morning, October 19th and flew through Norita, Japan to Incheon, Korea. Upon arriving in Incheon, we boarded a bus to Osan Air Force Base. We missed the shuttle that would have taken us directly to the lodging on base, so we decided to take a city bus. We took that to the bus terminal just outside of Osan then took a taxi (it was a walkable distance, but at night and with all of our luggage the $2 cab trip was worth it.

We arrived at the front gate, went through the security and then had to take another taxi to the lodging.

The next morning we started out with a tour of Medical Group at Osan AFB and then one of the Sgt's took us on a drive around tour of the base. After that, we wanted to try to get to Kunson AFB, but the timing would only allow a 2 hour tour. (the last bus out of Kunson was at 1800 and it was a 2.5 hour round trip bus ride. So instead we headed out the gate at Osan and went shopping. This is one of the places that you can barter for "stuff". I got some good deals and got to figure out the conversion rate between $$ and won. If you are curious, it was 1350 won to $1. I bought Malissa a pretty scarf and the price as $30 and I got if for $5. That was the best deal of the trip.

The next day we decided to take the bus back up to Seoul where we would be staying for the conference. We were hoping to take a tour to the DMZ, but the tour needed a minimum of 3 and we were only 2. So instead we took a tour of Seoul. We visited Changdeokgung Palace (see below).

Changdeokgung Palace was built in 1405. It burned down during the Imjin Invasion by the Japanese (1592-1598), but the palace was rebuilt around 1615. It was in good repair and the colors painted on the palace were vibrant and beautiful. The palace was built on the base of a mountain so we got a good workout walking around the entire compound. It has a "secret garden" that at the time was beautiful, because it was early fall so the leaves were changing colors.

After the palace we went to an Amethyst Factory--just a fancy jewelry store that had beautiful selections that were made of what else but amethyst stones. Then we went shopping. We headed to Insadong Alley which translates I was told by our tour guide "Kathy", to antique alley. It had a lot of shops that you could buy Korean good, souvenirs, and such.

Then we headed to Namdaemun Market. This was a big open air market where they were selling lots of different foods. Got to sample some sea weed ( didn't care for it so much--tasted just like you think it might). The one thing we noticed was that on all this food (fresh fish, sea food, fruits and vegetables) there were no flies. Kathy told us they have lots of flies, but if that was Guam, the food would have been covered in flies, they love a party. We didn't get to spend much time here. I would like to return with Curt and the kids so that we could explore more of the city. So the conference started on Wednesday and it kept us pretty busy until Friday. On Friday afternoon we headed out to the War Memorial of Korea. It was pretty cool. Outside there were tanks and airplanes that you could walk through and in. But the neatest thing was the fact that the Korean kids would come up to us and "practice" their English on us. They all said hello and "where are you from" as we were going through the place, the kids would say "Hi Guam" since that is where we said we were from. Even the younger children were trying to talk to us, I really had a great time with them--it was better than the museum itself.

Then we headed home on Friday night--it was a great time!!