Osan Air Base

I had heard through some blogs that the area around Osan Air Base was a great place to shop for American food.  It is south of Suwon in the city of Songtan and was eight long subway stops from Suwon Station.  When we arrived, we took a taxi to base which was only about a mile from the subway but we had no idea where we were.  The front entrance to the base is right across the street from the main shopping area.

We decided to start with a look at the front of the base.  See that ROK soldier at the bottom left of the photo above?  Rocketman had just shot this picture when he ran up to us telling us to NOT take any pictures.

There was a constant stream of cars and people in and out of the entrance to the base.  I saw this sign and told Rocketman that we better get out of there.

Here is the shopping that is right across the street from the base.

It was all Americans except for the shop vendors.  I was in shock at all the foreigners I saw.  I don't know what I was expecting but I wasn't expecting all that we saw.

               There were a lot of shops selling these slippers.  They must be the new must have item.

                                                        We found a couple of hanji shops.

                                                       And interesting sweatshirt shops.

All kinds of different things we saw for sale.

Hmmmm.....

                  Actually, I took this picture outside of Suwon Station as we made our way to the subway.

                             This ajumma was very comfortable as she waited for customers.

            Of course, Rocketman got hungry (I did too) and we decided on this Mexican restaurant.

 It was pretty empty except for a table of American serviceman who sat opposite our table and this picture.

                       We were excited to get some authentic Mexican food.  It's one of our favorites.

               I was so excited to get the food that I forgot to take a picture until the end of the meal.

                                            We saw a pretty good line at this kebab place.

         As we made our way out to try and hail a taxi, we noticed a man  taking these cages out of his car.

It just broke my heart.  I wanted to buy them all.

I did find a couple of stores selling American food but the prices were outrageous.  A bottle of Ranch dressing was 10,000 WON ($9USD).  I just wasn't going to pay those prices and in fact, I found prices in Itaewon to be cheaper.

We are still glad we went and we had a blast wandering all the side streets.  We did have to wait almost a half hour for the subway to come to take us back to Suwon.  But we passed the time talking to a young man who knew quite a bit of English.  He said he lived in Suwon but when the subway finally came, he said goodbye to us and didn't get onto the subway car.  The cars were really crowded so we ended up standing the whole way back.  It was great to get out and see a new part of Korea.