Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

I know I have slacked lately and not posted anything. That's because nothing exciting has happened recently. I will try to come up with something fun to post by the end of this week. Hope everyone has a great thanksgiving and remembers everything they have to be thankful of. My list has defiantly changed since last year. Besides the obvious things to be thankful for I am thankful for things like a warm bed, running water, daily showers, and hot meals. What are you thankful for?

I Just Got Hit by a What?!!

I mentioned yesterday that my two friends and I decided to walk back from Seoul tower. Now I could lie to you all and say that it was a simple safe trip back to the post but then I would be lying to you and I would just feel terrible about that. Instead I am going to say we were lucky we made it back with our lives.

We began our walk down the road and everything was going fine. We had been walking along for about ten minutes minding our own business taking some pictures here and there, when we happened along a T intersection. There was one lane going up a hill, one going down the hill and one lane just going straight. There was no stop sign, the cars would just come around a corner and go up the hill or go straight. Simple if you ask me.

We came along this intersection and since there was no marked crosswalk or stop sign it would be much safer for us if we walked up the hill a little ways then crossed so the drivers wouldn't come speeding around the corner and hit us as we crossed. We got to what we thought was a safe point up the hill a little way and noticed they had a crosswalk marked out so we looked both ways and preceded to cross. It was at that moment that a car came around the corner.

Now when I was growing up and riding in the car we used to joke that if you hit a mailbox or pedestrian or bicyclist we would get "points." Well I believe this Korean driver was playing the same game only he got bonus points because we were Americans. We had just made it to the middle of the road when he came speeding around the corner, I can only assume he saw us since we were in the middle of the street, and sped up. I think it's safe to say that I have never moved as fast as that to get out of the street. We were all amazed at this very talented driver.

We continued our journey only to almost be struck by a man driving a moped down the sidewalk as we came around a different corner. Now I can understand almost being hit in the street. I mean that's were vehicles are supposed to be. But the sidewalk? Come on. That is the safe haven for pedestrians. I guess I will end by saying that South Korea really is the land of the worst drivers. Period.

My Trip to. . .

I was able to make it out to Seoul Tower on Monday. It is one of many tourist attractions in Seoul as it give a 360* view of the city and really shows how big Seoul really is. I have quite a few pictures to show so I will get right to it.

This was at the base of the mountain it is built on, Namsan Mt.

 

 

 

 

 

We saw this sign and thought "that's not very far lets just hike up the mountain instead of taking the cable car." Yeah sounded like a good idea until we saw nothing but this . . .

 

Nothing but stairs straight up. But we set our little hearts to it and preceded on.

 

 

 

 

 

"Are we there yet?"

"No, we are only halfway up."

 

 

 

Right near the top of the mountain were these smoke signal stations. These have been here since the 1300's.

 

 

  Here is a view of the base at the base of the tower.

 

 

 

 

 

We took an elevator up to the big round part of the tower and were greeted by this view.

 

 

 

See the little blue spot in the middle, that's where we started out hike up the mountain.

 

 

 

 

 

The fall colors in Korea aren't as beautiful as in the states. There is more brown then anything.

 

 

 

Around the whole observatory was different cities of the world and the distance to them from Seoul. Here's New York - 11,000 km and Washington D.C.  - 11,100 km.

 

 

 

 

I'm pointing to Chicago, the closest to home at 10,000 km.

 

 

 

 

 

  Here is the view towards Moscow - 6,000 km and Beijing - 955 km.

 

 

 

 

 

See that little stretch of road in the middle of the picture? That is the main road on the post at Yongsan. If you look just left and up of that you see a big brown building, that is Dragon Hill Lodge. I stayed here my first night in country.

Once we left the tower it was still early in the day so we decided to walk back down the mountain(which took half the time of going up, imagine that) and then walked back through Seoul to get back on post. That trip took more time as it was quite a good distance away. I think I will post a story about that trip tomorrow.

Here is the final picture. Seoul tower as viewed from the bus stop on post at Yongsan.

They Have Nothing Left!

I saw this video on another website and thought it was hilarious. If you don't know The Onion is a satire news source. This is truly a sad sad situation.

Another Week Done

There really hasn't been anything that has happened recently which means there is not much to post about. Still working in the supply room but things have been picking up a little bit so at least I'm not too bored.

I'm off for 4 days this weekend due to veterans day. Be sure to say thanks to all the veterans you know and think about all the soldiers and their families who gave the ultimate sacrifice for the freedoms we enjoy today.

I don't have any major plans for the weekend. My only real plan is to go here . . . Seoul Tower. It is supposed to be the best view of Seoul. I guess we'll see how that goes.

 

So I guess that's about all the news I have for today. I hope you all have a good day/weekend.

Korean War Memorial

As I mentioned last week I was planning to go to the Korean war memorial this weekend. Well, it wasn't as exciting as I thought it was going to be. We got in for free because we are military which was a good thing. It had some interesting exhibits but only a few times did they happen to mention the other countries that helped them out.

This was one hallway that listed what I am assuming to be the names of all the South Korean soldiers that died in the war.

 

 

In another hallway they had listed the names of all the soldiers form the other countries that participated in the war. These two boards had the names of all the soldiers from Michigan.

This was an exhibit called the drop. It was made up of over 1,300 dog tags that symbolize all the soldiers who gave their lives. The barbed wire wrapped around it symbolizes the horror, suppression, and danger of war.

 

 

 

For those of you that have seen  Full Metal Jacket, you should remember the part where Gunnery Sgt. Hartman tells one marine to "show me your war face!" Well here is my war face.

 

This is Wilson(right), the cool commander, me, and Mackin(left). We were goofing off and put Mackin's sunglasses on the mannequin. It makes him look just a little tougher.

 

Here is a short video of some more pictures that I took.

It wasn't really that bad of a trip. It is always god to get another prospective of something and we always have a good time when we do things like this.