Kevers in Japan: Spring Break in Korea

For spring break this year Andrew and I decided to try our hand at Space A. Space A is a nice perk the U.S military gives its service members. If there is a military flight flying somewhere with room on it for passengers they will open up its seats and let you fly for free. The problem with this is its very unreliable for the most part. Flight schedules are only posted 72 hours in advance and flights are cancelled or postponed regularly. Since Japan is so close to Korea, flights go to Osan regularly, so we tried our luck, and caught a flight out without too much difficulty. It was wonderful to drive a mere 10 minutes to the airport terminal, and catch a flight!

Walking to our plane at Yokota. This was actually a very nice passenger plane with 156 seats available, and only about 20 were used.

Upon landing in Osan, about 1 hour outside of Seoul, we headed to the Yongsan Army Base in downtown Seoul. Probably the most startling thing about the drive into the city that night was the sheer number of neon crosses that we passed. Literally dozens. Christianity is huge in Korea, and with Japan being very godless this was a wonderful sight to see

Our first day in Seoul brought us to the Korean War Museum. I really knew very little about this war, and this museum was excellent. One of the best I have ever been to. We all really enjoyed it, especially Tommy who is my military historian.

Very new and modern museum

monument depicting 2 brothers who fought against each other in the war, reunited on the battle field

the military equipment was very hands on , and the kids LOVED it

Kim Jong Ils car which was captured in North Korea near the end of the war

The Bible. From a fallen Australian

The names of the fallen are inscribed in several corridors

The kids were more popular here than in Japan! People wanted pictures constantly, and were quite pushy about it

From the museum, we headed to the Changdeokgung Palace. The crazy names of these places had me all confused and we ended up going to the wrong palace. I had wanted to go to the Gyeongbokgung Palace, but frankly they all sounded the same and this is where we ended up. It was quite lovely, but I would have to say the Japanese definitely have a slight edge on the Koreans in attention to detail. The Japanese would never let dirt be the ground in a palace...there would be stone or moss to cover it...but maybe I am just prejudiced.