Lughnasa and the Korea Moon
Tuesday gratefuls: My son’s 88 on the Osan golf course. Seoah. Their golf. Murdoch. Rodeo. The money funnel of Korean businesses right across the street from Osan Air Base. The Plaque Shop. That Philly cheese-steak spot. The Blue Opera. The sim card guy. Lifting the bollards. The Galbi place where my son, Seoah, Kate, and I ate in 2016. A general air of sleaziness. One spot with a sign: No Koreans.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: lunch with my son
One brief shining: Songtan streets (ro) filled with small businesses, no chain stores that I’ve seen, a mechanics place with car lifts and old tires out front next to a grilled fish joint, the occasional shiny store selling phones, a coffee shop, a plant store, taxis and delivery guys, folks coming home from work on the streets, us slower folks walking the sidewalks where they exist, otherwise dodging in and out of traffic along with the vehicles.
The military takes good-byes seriously. There are going away dinners. Plaques get made. Even an entire photograph and position title sign taken down and framed. My son also had a banner made with his senior enlisted, Master Sergeant Rocket’s seven call signs. It fits on a stanchion. A challenge coin, too.
The Plaque store in the Rodeo has a plaque for every occasion. And specializes in personalization. There are window boxes with swords, models of various planes, maps of Korea, clocks, animals like tigers and cobras. A whole counter full of patches made into metal. A thriving business. The proprietoress found my son’s order, gave him a well used receipt book to sign, flipping through pages and pages of orders, finding his.
We stopped into the sim card store where my son paid his monthly bill for South Korea telecom. He went on to another store while I took photographs. One door read Welcome Thirsty People. Another place, the Blue Opera had gargoyles and other strange animals as part of an elaborate sign. Seemed to be an open air coffee shop. Couldn’t make out why the name or the sign made sense.
When my son came back, we went down a narrow street to a hole in the wall joint with booths and walls made of plywood varnished and polyurethaned, very basic. A short Korean man with a white paper fry cook’s hat took our orders, One with jalapenos no onions, one with onions no jalapenos? Yes. A bit later a hot Philly cheese steak and some fries. It was so nice to have lunch with my boy.
He and Seoah later went to the golf course on base to play 18 holes. I stayed home this time, fed Murdoch, read. Watched some TV. Resting my sore hip. Gonna see a doc today if Seoah can get me an appointment. The hip has begun to get in the way of sight seeing. Some temporary solution, I hope. See Kristin when I get home if it’s still a problem.
Want to find some way to deal with it since I go to Israel less than a month after I get back from Korea.
