Korea Trip, Impressions, notes &c

The town where Noreen's base is is spelled "Jinhae", but the spelling was recently changed from Chinhae. It's Jinhae on train tickets, but Chinhae on the manhole covers in town. The base is called "CFA Chinhae."

The chow hall on the base wasn't very good; one morning, I tried to eat one of their pancakes and was shocked at how bad it was; either they cooked it on the grill without cleaning it first or they used too much flour or something. The chow hall at Guantanamo was way better, which is surprising considering the logistical differences.

Noreen's base is on the side of a hill and it's terraced, so it seems like everywhere you walk is uphill! It's not directly connected to the habor, but it does get a fair amount of "business" from the crew of ships/subs that pull in to Jinhae to refuel, resupply, etc. The base is pretty small. For her barracks, she shares a "common area" that has a kitchen & bathroom with a roommate and she has her own bedroom.

Jinhae is a decent-sized city (about 200K people), not too bad of a city. It's primary reason to exist is the tiny harbor and the military bases (the ROK Navy's officer academy is in Jinhae).

The Koreans are generally friendlier and more outgoing than the Japanese. They're also not xenophobic/racist (compared to the Japanese), I suspect that's because Americans (and other foreigners) are everywhere.

I also started to start figuring out Hangul (Korean) writing. It's really not that difficult!