Osan, South Korea

Osan, South Korea

Here I am, in Osan which is located about 45km South of Seoul in South Korea. My job for the last 12 years, since I arrived on Koh Samui, being a dive instructor and for the last 8 years a PADI Course Director is getting me around since I parted ways last year with my at the time employer and became a free lance Course Director.

Not having traveled much, besides a relative small amount of domestic Thai travel and a trip to the Netherlands about 8 years back and a day trip to Vientiane in Laos, my travelling life was rather subdued.

Until last year! Since last year I've had a first visit to the United Arab Emirates and the Philippines and return trips to Indonesia. Now I can add a first trip to South Korea to this list!

Working as a PADI Course Director has been good ever since that change. The beginning was tough but it seems to be bearing fruit since the start of this year.

Osan's skyline has a lot of high rise buildings, seemingly all over South Korea

Osan is a different cookie compared to my usual destination, this is a serious urban background to which I'm hardly used to, except for trips to Bangkok.

Some shops on a very busy street

The skyline here is in sharp contrast to Gili Air in Indonesia or Malapascua in the Philippines, let alone the destinations I work at in Thailand, like Koh Phangan, Koh Lanta and Khao Lak.

South Korea is also a very advanced country when it comes down to technology, apartments in lats don't have keys anymore but number lock combinations, a screen on the wall at various strategic positions around the house is a screen to see who rings the bell but also serves as a phone among others. The Jetsons could slice off a piece of this cake!

Looking down the street, the buildings in the background is where I stay at

It's also very convenient and clean! The high rise apartment buildings I stay at have a play ground in front of the building with various children play options, a jogging track with soft and hard covering and fitness machines are lined up.

At the local supermarket you don't get plastic bags but you can use the empty carton boxes from the supermarket to stow your shopping list goodies away in. The recycle containers seem to be unlimited in what they can or rather may take.

It's interesting to see and my first impressions are very positive, although I haven't seen that much yet, besides some walking within a 3 km radius and a trip to the nearby US Air Force base, which put Osan on the map! That's where tomorrow the PADI IDC will kick off and that is like walking into a small town in the USA.

Strange road crossings, on which you can cross diagonal, never seen that before in real life!

I hope that I will have enough time to see some more of the city and the country and I'll make sure to give some updates.

My travelling got nothing to do with Koh Samui and when I started this blog I had no idea that I would be travelling around so much, but here I am and I hope you like it. The daily weather updates will still be there as much as possible, thanks to Skype!

Camille