Weekend Wrap-Up (4-Day) - (Korea) Days 360-363

I'm finally together with my wife once again!!

Thursday: we woke up about 0800, but didn't get out of bed until 0830. Headed to get some coffee at Starbucks and then started getting ready for the day. It's so nice having my wife here with me. I'm loving every minute of it. We met up with SPC Mick, PV2 Charlie, and our new KATUSA. The army major in our office invited everyone over to his house on post for a nice Thanksgiving day meal. Our NCOIC showed up as well as the other officers in our office...and even our old KATUSA. It was an awesome meal and the generosity of of the army major was much appreciated. Everyone enjoyed themselves and everyone left extremely full.

We took the post shuttle back to The Dragon Hill and ended up just relaxing for the rest of the day in the room.

Friday: We woke up and headed downstairs and had the breakfast buffet. We then headed off to catch the bus for the "Black Friday" tour I signed us up for. We headed out to Osan for a day of shopping right outside of Osan Air Force Base. The shopping there is amazing with a number of small shops and businesses selling everything you can imagine. My wife had a great time looking through all the shops. We ate lunch at a Brazilian grill, which was just great. It was an all you can eat meat fest! The servers kept coming to our table with various barbecued meat and kept piling it on our plates. We left extremely full!

The tour was scheduled from 1000 to 1700, but we ended up getting back at around 1800. We ended up just relaxing in our room after that.

Saturday: We ate breakfast in the buffet at the hotel, then went to The Point and worked out. If that wasn't enough we then hiked up to Seoul Tower. Seoul Tower is a tourist attraction for lovers, so I came prepared with a padlock complete with our names and date written on it to lock on the fence at the top. The fence is loaded with a ton of "locks of love" which we attached ours to and then threw the keys over the edge to symbolize how we will always be in love. Kind of corny, but it was sweet and I think I scored some points with my wife :)

We hiked back down and met up with the young hawaiian for dinner at a local Korean restaurant he liked. The food was delicious and we sat for what seemed like hours just chatting about everything. I'm going to miss him and a lot of others here that have kept me sane during all this time away from my friends and family.

We took the stairs up to Seoul Tower...that's a lot of stairs!!

Sunday: We had the breakfast buffet once again in the hotel, then we walked to my barracks so I could show my wife where I used to live. We visited PV2 Charlie so she could see an actual room. Even though it was well after noon, we still woke him up when knocking on his door…lol. Ooops! We then took the subway to Myeong-dong which is yet another shopping area in Korea. I wanted to make sure my wife experienced riding on the subway in Korea. I also wanted her to experience Myeong-dong which is a little overwhelming. It's basically an outdoor mall with just a ton of stores and street vendors. There are characters dressed up walking around and the streets are full of people. The trip was a success and my wife also has a new wardrobe!

We then headed back to The Dragon Hill and headed to the hot tub. Our muscles were sore and we were tired from all the walking and hiking we've been doing. We've walked all over since first arriving on post, so the hot tub felt great! We then ate dinner at Bentley's which is a little pub in The Dragon Hill Lodge and always has some sort of special going on each night. Tonight's special was 3 pulled pork sliders (mini-sandwiches) for only 99 cents. You just can't beat that! I would recommend anyone that has to stay in Yongsan to check out the nightly specials there, I found out about them a little too late or else I think I would have been there every night for the last year!

Looking down at one of the intersections in Myeong-dong

Eating a big ice cream cone from a vendor in Myeong-dong