Pyeongtaek

Well, I need new work pants. There are a ton of places to buy clothing in Daegu, but many of them have no fitting rooms and I am often too tall and thick for Korean clothes. We decided to skip the hassle and go to Osan Air Base, which has the closest thing to an American shopping mall on the peninsula, or so we hear. There's a free bus that goes from Camp Walker to Osan every day.

It was a four hour bus ride, but once we got to Osan we encountered a store resembling a Target. I have to say, I have missed my big box stores (sorry, small businesses). They had everything, including a large Misses clothing section. I found my pants, and we decided to explore Pyeongtaek while we waited for our bus out.

There is a nice shopping area outside of Osan, though it's very similar to what we have in Daegu. I was able to buy some super cheap socks, mittens, and a pillow. Pyeongtaek has a much higher concentration of Americans, which is no surprise given their proximity to Osan Air Base and Camp Humphries, both of which are larger than USAG Daegu. The stores had American sizes, and everyone gave prices in dollars.

The highlight of our day was when we decided to try a Brazilian steakhouse. It was an experience. I'm not a big meat person, but Bobby is, and he found a lunch right up his alley. We paid a flat fee for “weekend lunch,” and received a couple of plates for the salad bar. When we finished our plates, the waiter brought us steaks. Then veal. Then some kind of flank steak on a stick, chicken and beef bits wrapped in bacon, more flank steak, chicken, sausage, garlic encrusted beef ribs, and more flank steak. I am inclined to believe that there was more meat in our dinner (and the chain's website says something about 15 meats), but I started refusing courses after four and Bobby had to stop after this. The waiter then brought us a pineapple on a stick encrusted with cinnamon, and cut a sliver for each of us. We spend the rest of the afternoon joking about our meat on meat lunch with meat on the side. I don't think I need to try that again, though I suspect that Bobby will want to.

Fortified with meat, we took another four hour bus ride back. A year ago, I would never have imagined myself traveling four hours to visit a more expensive version of Target. I would travel twice that for a good Mexican restaurant!