Dongdaemun

The other day I wrote a little about Namdaemun, the Great South Gate. Today I got the opportunity to go into Seoul and see Dongdaemun, the Great East Gate. In fact, since the fire at Namdaemun, Dongdaemun is the only great gate that survives fully.Dongdaemun is also known by the more proper name Heunginjimun, The Gate of Rising Benevolance. It was built by King Taejo in 1396. Not only is it a great historical landmark, but it is also an amazing physical structure. I've seen pictures of it before, but being there in person you can see how massive and imposing this building is.Of course, since the fire at Namdaemun, the authorities are being cautious as can be seen in this photo. Ironically the Great East Gate has been gated off, with police stationed outside of it. But regardless it was still beautiful and amazing to see... and the police standing in front give a good scale of the large size of this structure.

Scooters are used everywhere in Korea to get around, deliver food or goods, or pretty much any other reason you can think of. I had seen them a lot around Osan, but never had I seen so many at one time. I just had to take a picture of it to show how prevalent they are.

Photo Tour of Osan

Ok, I promised you all a tour of Osan AB and that's what you're gonna get. I spent a couple of hours walking around the base yesterday and now here are the photos for you all to enjoy.

I started my tour the way I start every day... stepping out of my dorm building. This is it, building #475. I live on the first floor and... yep, that's about it.

Next up is the Pacific House Dining Facility. The folks working there get upset when you call it a "chow hall" but that's what I call it. It is also the oldest dining facility in the Air Force, which explains some of the work going on there right now.

Here is a picture of one of the new family apartment towers that they are building on base. One they have already completed and have people living there. This one, and one other, are almost completed and ready for people to move in. There is a movement currently to try and get Osan recognized as a regular overseas assignment and not a remote tour. This new housing seems to be part of that vision.

Next to the base chapel is this bell and plaque. They are here in remembrance of the first American casualties of the Korean War.

This is the BX mall. It was opened in late 2004 and houses not only the BX, but also a shopette, military clothing store, food court, post office, barber shop, beauty shop, ceramics store, furniture shop, alterations shop, and many more vendors all in one building. It is massive.

Here is the base theatre. It is located right across from the BX and was upgraded in 2004 as well. The seating is extremely comfortable and they have movies playing nearly every day, unlike some bases back in the States.

The Osan Fitness Center is one of the top fitness centers in the Air Force's Pacific Command. It has state of the art cardio and weight materials, 2 basketball courts, racquetball courts, and a 1/9 mile long indoor track. It is also open 24 hours a day which makes it easy to get in and exercise at anytime.

On static display across the street from the gym is this A-10. It is one of the toughest planes in the US arsenal, and a great looking plane to boot!

I started up the hill from the gym following Millett Rd. and came across this memorial. The plaque is all in Korean and is a memorial to the Korean Air Force's airmen from the AF Chief of General Staff General Chon Yun-Soo.

Following Millett Rd. farther I came to my main destination on this tour... the top of Hill 180. I think the memorial plaque says it better than I can, and since it is kind of hard to read on the picture I will recreate it for you:

Hill 180
Bayonet Hill

On this site, 7 Feb 1951, Company E of 27th Infantry Regiment was pinned down and surrounded by 300 enemy soldiers. Out of ammunition, Captain Lewis L. Millett led the remainder of Company E on a bayonet charge, killing 47 and wounding 61 enemy soldiers -- regaining control of the hill. Captain Millett received the Medal of Honor for heroism. It was one of the fiercest battles of the Korean War.

Back on my walk through the base I started toward the gate and saw the ever present line of taxis waiting for passengers. Taxis are one of the most popular ways to get around base, but at a minimum of $2.30 per trip I prefer to walk and save my money.

Speaking of money, this is where a lot of the money from Osan is spent. It is the Shinjang Shopping District, although most people on base call it "Downtown". It is about a 5 block web of shops, bars and clubs aimed specifically at the airmen and soldiers from Osan. It is also a place I steer clear of most of the time. Too many folks get stuck in a rut of going out there every night and they don't see anything else in Korea. But it is good for getting cheap souveniers.And now as I finish my photo tour, here is a picture of the main gate at Osan. As you can see it is built with a Korean architectural style and is a welcome sight on the way back from downtown.

Well, thank you all for going with me on this little tour. I hope it gave you some idea of where I'm at and the things I see everyday.

Memorial to Namdaemun

In the above picture is one of the great gates around the city of Seoul known as Namdaemun, translated as "the Great South Gate". It is a beautiful structure and one of Korea's wonderful national treasures. It is also a place I have been looking forward to seeing while on my tour here. That will not be happening though since Namdaemun became the victim of arson on February 10th and the upper portion of the gate burned down.

It is quite a sad time for the Koreans. I've watched news footage of the fire and you can see the despair on the faces of the people as they watched this precious landmark that had stood as an entrance to their city for 600 years burn.

As you can see the damage was quite extensive. It is sickening to think that someone would intentionally destroy something like this, and yet it happened. If you would like to see more pictures from before and after the fire, and to read more about the history of Namdaemun go to:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namdaemun

Well, it's been a while...

Yes, I have been slacking and haven't updated as much as I said I would lately. Work has kept me pretty busy and even though that isn't a good excuse it's still a fact of life. But over the past few weeks I have done some things and have some pictures and words to pass along so let's get to it shall we?

First I will start with the beginning of a new month. I couldn't think of a better way to start February than to spend it at the Seoul Temple with a bunch of friends from the Military Branch here at Osan. And not only that but I got to spend the night there... in the Temple annex. The reason for that was that the Military District held a 12 hour initiatory session. So from 6pm on February 1st through 6am February 2nd we were all doing temple work. It was great. We each were able to take 2 hour slots and when we weren't doing work we could rest up in the annex.

It was amazing to sleep in a building that had been dedicated to the Lord. It was extremely peaceful and relaxing, and knowing that I had been doing such an important work for some of my ancestors (I took along Family File cards to use in the session) made it so much more special. And being able to be there with such good friends from my Branch was great. Speaking of which, the names of the folks in the picture above are (from left to right):

Branch President Tyler Niebuhr, Jihyun Knudsen, Wes Hales, Your's Truly, David Dennis, Daniela Krengel, Ben Krengel, Erin Dennis, Jennifer Brunet, Rhett Brunet, and Derek Neill.

Not only did we have the whole 12 hour session, but we also stayed for the monthly English temple endowment session later on in the morning. It was such a unique experience to spend such a great amount of time in the temple and do work almost continually. I could have stayed all day long, it felt so good. But alas, I had to get back to my normal life and the other more mundane things such as work.

But the next week allowed me another opportunity to get away from Songtan and the base.

Thursday, February 7th, was Solnal, the Lunar New Year here in Korea. It is one of the two biggest holidays of the year and everyone travels to see their families. Of course I stayed around base that day... no use trying to go out or do anything as the whole country pretty much shuts down.

So I decided to go out and about on Friday. I figured that it was the next day and things would be back to normal. Boy was I wrong. It was still quiet and nearly deserted where ever I went, from the roads (which are normally FULL of traffic), to the subways (this picture is right before the trains showed up at a busy transfer station).

With no one else around I thought I would do a little strolling around; not too much as it was very cold outside and I've turned into quite the weather wimp after living in California for so long. Anyway, as I walked around I saw a few things that I found interesting and wanted to take pictures of for you to see.

As you can see, American influence is alive an well in Korea. Even here, far away from Kentucky, you can find a KFC. It was on the bottom floor of a corner building with the ORI dentist's office right above it. In fact if you weren't watching for it you could easily pass by it without seeing it.

Ok, look closely at this picture, focusing on the building in the center.

Now don't worry... yes, it is a swastika, but not as you would at first think. A lot of western people are shocked when they see a building with this symbol on it since it is quite prevalent. It is, in fact a Buddhist building and the swastika is an ancient symbol, and one that has been used by Buddhists and others well before World War II made it infamous.

Anyway, I hope you have enjoyed these few pictures. I promise there will be more to come. In fact, during my off time this week I plan to do a photo tour of Osan AB, Korea, and give you a sense of where I am living right now. So look for that coming soon.

Fun on the Slopes

Although the weather right now is in the balmy 30's with wind chill factor's getting into the single digits at night there isn't much snow to speak of. Oh we've had a few days with some snowfall but it melts away fairly quickly. And yet today our church group went out sledding at the Mubongsan snow park located outside Jinui and Osan City. We guessed that they must have an artificial snow machine, because it was the only place around with the white stuff on the ground and it was probably a good foot thick... and hard. There was also a Buddhist temple that was up on the hill opposite of the park (you can see it a little bit in the background of picture number 6). Maybe one of these days I can make a trip out to see that as well.

When we first arrived there were not a whole lot of people there, but that changed pretty quickly. You can see that in picture number 4 with the crowd on top the hill waiting to go down. It seemed that everyone in the area came out for a day of fun in the snow. The hill was a little small, but was mostly set up for kids, so a bunch of crazy American adults flying down the slope was a funny sight for the Koreans to behold I'm sure.

We spent a few hours there and had a blast! We all got a little snowy from crashing down the hill and had a lot of laughs. It was a fun weekend activity. So now enjoy the few pictures I was able to take before the camera froze up on me (I tried to take a video of one of my runs, but that didn't work out, but I had fun trying).

Ghost of Exercises Past

So, just my luck... I got here to Osan just before an Operational Readiness Exercise. That's right, this week was one of the many exciting military exercises we get to endure, I mean take part in, during our tour here. Since I was still going through my base inprocessing that meant I didn't have to participate in the exercise. What a shame. Good news there is that I didn't have to don all my chem warfare equipment, wear the gas mask, or any of that "fun" stuff. Bad news... I had to wear my blues (service dress) all week instead of my BDUs. Let's just say that the number of times I've worn my blues during my career is not a very large number. And considering that I haven't had to replace any parts of my blues since Basic Training they tend to be "slightly" tight and a little on the uncomfortable side.

The exercise is also the reason I didn't update anything the last week. Nothing happened. I was either inprocessing or I was sitting in my dorm room. Woohoo! What an exciting time. But the exercise ended yesterday so everyone was jumping for joy. I had to laugh a little bit though. The base commander had issued General Order (GO) 1 during the exercise. That means no drinking alcohol during the exercise. None, Nada, Zip, Zilch. Of course this makes no difference to me since I don't partake, but others of my workmates were disappointed. Following the end of the exercise GO1 was amended to GO1A... meaning no drinking of alcohol off base until 1200 (noon) Saturday. This had some folks miffed, but I'm sure the on base clubs were loving it.

I made the most of the exercise's end and headed off this morning for Seoul to go to the temple again. Peaceful and serene as always. I don't know what more I can say than that. I am certainly glad I made the committment to Veronica, and myself, to attend the temple once a week while I'm here. And to take part in sessions there in Korean is really interesting. I'm certain that regular participation will help out my own language skills. The Lord blesses us when we put forth effort and when we keep our eyes single to His glory.

I wish I would have had my camera again this week though because in exactly the same spot as I saw the bus last weekend there were about 5 cars parked on the sidewalk. Thankfully Jake reminded me in his response to last post of something I had forgotten... this is the Land of the Not Quite Right. Still it made me laugh as I saw that.

Hopefully this next week I will have more to say and update. I have some time off during the MLK Day holiday so I'll have to see what I can get out and do.

I'm off... base that is

So I finally got the chance to take my first outing off base. Today I travelled up to Seoul to go to the LDS Temple there, as shown in the picture above.

It was quite the exciting adventure for me since I was going up there on the subway and this was my first time using it by myself. I had been on the subway here during my previous tour, but never alone. So, armed with my newly acquired T-Card (a Seoul public transportation discout card) I headed out. Luckily for me the subway system here is really good. I rode Line 1 from Songtan station (about a 20 minute walk from the base) to Sindorim station. After getting off the train there I followed the signs down the stairs to transfer to Line 2 and rode that all the way to my final destination at Shinchon station in Seoul. This was where my big concern came into play... where did I go out to walk the last little bit to the temple? Thankfully there was a big map of the area with a "You are Here" spot, so I easily found the exit I needed. The whole subway process was dummy proof (thank goodness!) which makes me excited to use the system again.

Anyway, I followed the directions I had gotten from the Church temple website and my memories from travelling there during my last tour. 10 minutes later I was at the temple having met with no complications. It was also quite a nice way to spend my first time off base this time. It was peaceful and relaxing as always in the temple.

Once I was done at the temple I headed back out for the return trip to Songtan. That's when I saw this:















Now, I can understand those little motorized scooters and the food carts that Koreans ride up and down the sidewalks... but a bus? Why in the world would anyone in their right mind park a bus on the sidewalk? Yet there it was. I couldn't pass up a picture like that.

So all in all my first expedition off base was a huge success. I am looking forward to my planned weekly trips up to Seoul as well as many more outings.