This morning, kind of early, I went all the way to Dongducheon. It's about 2 hours by subway: you go southeast from here on line three to downtown, then north-northeast from there on line one.
Why did I do this? I was meeting a sort of "friend of a friend" – a former coworker of mine has a friend who's in the US Army, and that guy recently got posted to Camp Casey, which is HQ to the 2nd Infantry Division that I was attached to as a US Army mechanic while at the 296th Support Battalion at Camp Edwards in 1991.
Because Camp Casey is one of the largest and longest continuously operated US Army bases in Korea, the surrounding town has a distinctive "US Army town" feel, that is utterly unlike any other part of Korea. It's both nostalgic and depressing to see, on the one hand, but on the other, I think about how its being a little bit frozen in time serves to underscore the amazing changes in the rest of the country, by way of contrast.
I talked with this friend-of-friend for a few hours. He's only been in-country for a few weeks, so I took him to a Juk restaurant figuring he hadn't had that yet – he hadn't. He's not that familiar with Korea yet, but he's very open minded, having served long bits in Afghanistan, Alaska and Honduras among other places. He's already mastered hangeul, which is pretty rare even among non-GI Americans in Korea, much less soldiers. Apparently, he's really good in Pashto, too (from his time in Afghanistan). As point of fact, he blogged about his experiences in Afghanistan, and he's a damn good writer, too. Because of identity issues since he's still active service, I'll not talk about who he is in public forum such as this blog. But he's an interesting personality, and good for many hours of conversation.
You know you're in "the Ville" (the once and current slang nickname that US soldiers have for the Dongducheon outside the gates of Camp Casey) when the waitress at the Juk joint drops US quarters as change (they are near identical in heft and size as Korean 100 won coins). I only noticed when I got to work and emptied my pockets looking for some change to buy some lunch later in the day – see picture above right. This is the first time I've ever received US coin as change in Korea (except back when I was soldier myself, probably).
Here's a picture of my new friend and me at the Bosan train station a few minutes south of the Casey gate 1.