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

Negative on the FireWire - (Korea) Day 351

A picture we took yesterday with some folks from our office and
our old KATUSA before he left.

Work call this morning was 0800. We had to setup for a meeting in the secret conference room. This process took forever because we had to actually stay until the meeting started and it was pushed back. Finally got out of there around 0945 and I left to get some things checked off my list before out-processing. I headed to the company and dropped off my new leave form that only has 30 days for my COT and no additional leave. I then headed to battalion and picked up my out-processing papers. These papers contain a checklist of places I need to go and have them sign off on it. I will also need to go tomorrow to 1RC and pick up my installation clearing papers so I can have another checklist of even more places to go and have folks sign off on it.

The next stop was the travel office. I had to have my plane tickets changed to an earlier arrival date in Germany because of my shortened leave. That turned out to be a very easy in and out process which I was thankful for. Once back at the office I found out my NCOIC bought a thunderbolt cable which she unfortunately thought was a FireWire 800 cable. I took it and returned it at the PX for her and then grabbed a quick bite to eat before getting back to work to setup for another meeting. I then had to run another errand for our female army captain in the office. She needed me to pick up a coin from the G4 office which nobody actually knew where it was…they just pointed me in the general direction and said somewhere over there. After going into a building "over there" and asking I was finally given some good directions and I obtained the coin she was after.

Now there are some more things to get done. I went with PV2 Charlie to our battalion NBC (nuclear, biological, chemical) room so he could pick up the protective equipment he needed and I took the chance to out-process from there and turned in all my crap that they gave me when I in-processed. All of the equipment except for the gas mask has just been sitting under my bed for the entire year. One actual step closer to leaving! We split up and I took the office car and was able to cross a few more things off my list. I went to CIF and made an appointment to turn in all my other issued items. Next was transportation to make an appointment. This will be for them to pick up everything I need transported from Korea to Germany as well as from my hometown to Germany. Finally I headed to The Dragon Hill Lodge to change my reservations for when my wife comes to visit next week.

Back at the office we cleaned up the conference room and the office and then had a meeting with our NCOIC. After everyone except Special K and I failed the diagnostic PT test we had been getting out early for the most part which gave us time to go to the gym. Now SPC Mick took a real PT test and failed. I'm pretty sure he ran an extra lap, but anyway he failed a portion of the test. Now they are going to have to start attending company PT which will suck for them. I say for them, because I'm not included now that I'm out-processing. I hate getting up so early and exercising. I think I get so much more out of a workout when it's in the afternoon or after work. I'm sure I'll be back to the normal morning army PT when I get to Germany though.

Still on our quest to find a FireWire 800 cable PV2 Charlie and I headed to Myeong-dong where there is the closest thing to an Apple Store in Seoul. Even they did not have the cable. It's so hard to believe that I'm having so much trouble finding a stupid cable. On the way back we thought we would get out two stops early looking for another place to get the cable and eat. We were both thinking the IPark Mall was close to that subway stop, but ended up almost getting lost in the process. We must have walked miles and wasted a couple hours wandering around. I was getting frustrated and hungry, so we gave up and headed back to Yongsan and ate at the food court…cable-less.