Honey Lattes and Osan Air Base

It's been a good day today! I got up at 9:30am and lazed away the morning sipping tea and playing on the computer. Around noon Mara, Justin and I walked to the air base, about a mile and a half away. It was fun to walk, because on the one hand it feels a lot like the US, with traffic lights and stores and pedestrians. On the other hand, the traffic lights are largely ignored in more congested areas, store names are all in Korean (of course) and pedestrians include school children of all ages in their uniforms. In front of Osan Air Base there's this whole area everyone calls the mall, and it's pretty appropriate: it's a complete maze of shops of all kinds, including nail places, restaurants, blanket shops, shoe shops, hat shops, and on and on and on.

We explored around the mall and then met Carolyn, who'd left early to get her hair cut, for lunch. We had sushi, which was delicious, and then went on base to get me registered, which was a pretty quick process. Next stop was the base community center, where I finished up some paperwork, and then we headed off base for ice cream. We sat in the main alleyway of the mall, peoplewatching and eating our ice cream. It was about this point, around 4pm or so, that I hit my first wall. Rather, the wall hit me, and it was time for a serious nap. We met up with Carolyn again and hitched a ride home with her friend Ashlie.
At that point I took a good forty-five minute light nap, which helped refresh me. Once I  was up, I took another Day-Quil and then chatted with Carolyn for awhile as she cooked up a lovely chicken soup, peas and some pasta and tomato sauce. It was a quick dinner, because we had to head back out to the mall to meet Carolyn's knitting club at a coffee shop there. The "Coffee Mall" is a cute little coffee shop where the proprietor serves a wonderful honey latte, in which the cream part is formed into a pretty picture. Mara's was a feather and mine was a heart. Mara is newly into knitting and is working hard on doing a three-band necklace. The knitting club grew and grew as the night wore on, until there were about ten people happily knitting and chatting away. At one point, Smitty, an airman from the base who does some knitting (!), decided to get some food. Still a little hungry and needing to move around a bit, I went with him. He's been here for over a year and took me to a Peruvian place he likes. I'm not sure of the name of the dish I got, but it was noodles and beef and vegetables, and it was delicious! It came with two sauces: ketchup and a green chile sauce which made my tongue tingle and which was an awesome addition. We carried out and brought the food back to the Coffee Mall to eat. Ashlie, whom I’d met earlier in the day, was one of the knitting group members.
The proprietor obviously enjoyed having the knitting club there, because when Mara ordered a lemonade, he brought over two extras, on the house. These were delicious, hand squeezed lemonades with something fizzy added. It was perfectly with my spicy noodles and beef. Somewhere around 8pm, the second wall hit me and I found it harder and harder to stay focused. The jetlag was really getting to me. Shortly after, we headed out. Mara and I rode with Carolyn, who also gave Ashlie a ride home. It was a fun drive to be in the car because we experienced Korean drivers and got to drive a bit out of the area I’d seen during the day. Unfortunately, the jetlag wall had taken over my brain and I was in and out of being able to pay attention to anything. So, we headed back to the Neiman apartment and here I am!
And with that, I have to say: good-night!

 Justin, Stewart, me, Carolyn and Mara