This post is for family that doesn't have facebook. This is part of Mallory's Korean Adventure. She came home for Christmas and had a great time. Mallory met several other kids home for Christmas break. One was Jimmy Degen a boy home from West Point to visit his parents. They really hit it off and he invited her to a big dance at the end of January. She flew up from South Carolina and had a very fun weekend at West Point with Jimmy and his friends. Now they are officially dating. Life is always interesting for military kids who meet in the strangest places.

Ride in the U-2 Chase Car

Take off two

Take off one

Landing

The suits are super heavy.

Picture after the fun, in front of the U-2 tail.

They have their suits made just for them. Each pilot gets two.

Eating Chocolate Pudding from a straw. The pilots eat this way when in the plane for extended times. The suit they wear has a hole in the helmet to slide the straw into their mouths. They had pudding, soup anything you can think to suck through a straw.

know that this post was all over the place. I need to get on more to get the hang of it. I keep forgetting that the first thing I put on is not the first to be seen. I will try to get better and to make more time to add pictures.

Tour to Pottery Shop and Wawoojongsa Temple

This was a fun day out seeing the colors of fall and having a lunch like local Korean's have every day. More on being in the country away from the city next. Lets talk about "Squatty Potties".

You can see the ceiling above the Buddha is covered with small paper prayer requests attached to the pink lanterns.

Smaller Buddhas around the lake below the head.

Wawoojongsa Temple in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province, South Korea. Our guide told us that this is the youngest temple in Korea, around 40 years old. It was built with the purpose of prayers for a future happy reunification of Korea. Everywhere in this beautiful area were candles, papers and tiles to purchase and leave behind a personal prayer.

More greens cooked in many way.

The bowl in to front of this picture contains sweet potato and some kind of fish. Behind is is plain tofu bean curd, behind that crab parts, boiled and chopped up. Next to the crab is lettuce leaves to put the fatty bacon on and spread chili paste on that and eat it. The gentleman in the picture brought his own food having been on tours around the area. Notice the american hotdog in his hand

MMMM Kimchi! At least I know what that is. I will get better with the chop sticks!

After the pot shop we went to a local roadside restaurant for a "yummy" authentic Korean lunch. You can see how happy Mike looks to partake in the many unknown foods put before us. Our tour guide was not much help with identification. To the left in front of Mike is bowl with some kind of turnip. The next bowl looks like Kimchi. Hot red pepper is the key to overcoming the fishy undertones.

Mike shopping for our first Kimchi pot. He really does enjoy Kimchi, we may have to use the pot when we return stateside.

Happy Quilts!

The ladies at Happy Quilts! The most popular store in the area of Osan. Even those of us that are not big quilters can't resist this store. It's a big warehouse of every quilt fabric you can ever imagine. It was only open on Wednesdays and Saturdays, but recently changed to being open 6 days a week. The owner knows a good thing when he has all the ladies from base purchasing yards and yards of fabric. Right now with the won exchange rate the fabric goes for between $2.5o to $3 per yard.

Evening out the back gate

Korean Puppy wants Popeyes! We see him working the strip whenever we go off base. This street also has a 24 hour McDonalds. I hear they deliver too. Well, not on base, but to you house.

On Saturday night we went out the back gate to do some night shopping. Now we know that's when the area really wakes up. The shops are still open. Then street vendors come to line the walk ways, waiting for all the people who are in the bars upstairs. It's a pretty fun atmosphere.

Let me comment on Yaki Mandu. It's my new favorite Korean food. Here is a link to a Korean lady making Yaki Mandu. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zECZXmDmHR0

The vendors bring them out and cook them right in front of you. Mike found out the hard way, how much heat they retain. Burned his mouth when he bit into one right out of the hot oil.

Most of the bars here in Korea have what are called Juicy Girls. In some clubs they just sit with you or play pool with you; in others, they dance, put on various types of shows, but all are doing the job for a disgustingly low salary. They are contracted from Russia, Philippines, Malaysia, Nepal, and various places in Korea just to name a few. Some actually enjoy doing it, some are paying off debts that were incurred by themselves or their family. We see some of them getting their dinner before going to work when going out to do night shopping. There are even groups of volunteers that come out from base, to check up on the young Airmen and make sure they don't over do it when out drinking with the Juicy Girls. No pictures of Juicy Girls for this blog.

Trip to the EMart

We went with our friends Rich and Mary to the local EMart. Like a Super Walmart. One picture is of Rich trying some kind of meat. The other is of the Spam girl. I've mentioned that they like spam. She is selling several kinds of Spam gift sets. When they have the Christmas Spam Gift sets out I'll get a picture of those. I hear they run about $40. I know that they were all laughing at me, taking their picture in the local grocery store. Crazy American.

Korean Pears

Sorry it's been so long since I put up a new post. We have lots of trips in the near future, so promise not to take so long again.

First, I have to post a pic of a Korean Pear. I took this in my kitchen, next to a coffee cup so you can see the size of these things. They are like oversize softballs. Koreans love them and have them everyplace. They are big on giving them as gifts. I find them to be a little too sweet for my taste. Their grapes are like that too. Had some of them and it was like the taste of a full sugar grape soda.