Last week a couple of friends invited me to go shopping with them....in Korea! The plan was to take a military hop from our base to Osan AB in Korea. We would leave on a Monday morning and return to Misawa on Tuesday afternoon. The cost: free (with the exception of what we spent shopping, food, and lodging). The catch? Nothing, really, with the exception that because you are flying space-available (like standby), you run the risk of not getting a seat on the return trip. If this happens you either have to pay to fly commercial or you can decide to wait it out and try to get a ride home on the next week's flight. You would have to be crazy not to take someone up on an invitation like this one so, of course, I was all in.
Just as planned, we left Misawa on Monday morning. There was quite a bit of waiting around in the terminals before we left Misawa and once we arrived in Korea, but the flight itself only took about two hours. After getting through customs in Korea, we went to the hotel on the base to try to get a room, but all the rooms we booked. We hopped in a cab and drove from hotel to hotel until we found a place with room vacancies. I think we had success on about our third stop. The guy working the reservations desk at our second stop walked us over to a hotel that he knew had vacancies after he told us he could not accommodate us that night. Talk about customer service!
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| Our hotel on the horizon. |
We dropped off our bags and started shopping! Most of the store owners spoke English pretty well and it also seemed like they accepted either Dollars or Won. Bartering was a-okay and I tried my hand at it, but I think not speaking Korean ourselves put us at a disadvantage in that department. The shopping area reminded me of a combination between an outdoor mall and a bazaar or open-air market. I probably only saw about one square mile of Korea (maybe even less), but I had a great time! I got a couple of dresses, got to spend time with really fun people, had an excellent Thai dinner, and became familiar with the process of using military hops for travel. After a great little 24 hour getaway, we were back on base in Misawa and going on with our week!
I have to mention that while we were on our way to/in Korea, I couldn't help but be reminded of the
similar getaways I went on with my girlfriends in Altus. The times my friends and I traveled to Dallas (and spent the night) to be able to make it to Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, and Costco. Nothing like an overnight trip for groceries!
I am already looking forward to planning future trips to Korea. I would definitely be up for more short trips like the one we took, and I can't wait to do an extended stay and some traveling/sight-seeing with Eric...what an amazing opportunity!
