Today is the third class in your current four class set. We will begin class with a casual conversation. Our reading this week is about tourism. Our listening is two NPR stories with transcripts. Please listen and follow the transcript. Please write your grammar sentence on a separate piece of paper. This is one of the best ways to study at home. We will review the grammar exercises in class.

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MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

Some cold summer treats are just too good to be enjoyed only when it is sweltering hot outside. Speaking personally, I am happy to eat ice cream year-round, especially if we're talking cookies and cream. And as NPR's Anthony Kuhn reports from Seoul, there is one cold summertime dish that is also far too delicious to be enjoyed on just one side of an international border, the one separating the two Koreas.

ANTHONY KUHN, BYLINE: We're talking, of course, about naengmyeon, or Korean cold noodles.

All right. The naengmyeon is here, and it is beautiful. The buckwheat noodles are arranged in a tidy little sort of bun or round shape. I can see some pine seeds floating in the broth, all beautifully prepared in a brass bowl.

We're at Sulnoon, a restaurant in an upscale Seoul neighborhood. Autographs of celebrities who've died here hang on the walls. The name Sulnoon actually means snow on Lunar New Year's Day, a nod to the fact that North Koreans relish cold noodles in winter as much or even more than in the dog days of summer.

The restaurant's owner, Moon Yeon-hee was born and raised in the North Korean capital, Pyongyang. She defected to the South six years ago before opening Sulnoon. She believes her restaurant is truly unique.

MOON YEON-HEE: (Through interpreter) There's lots of Pyongyang naengmyeon restaurants in South Korea, but we're the only place that's following the original North Korea recipe.

KUHN: Moon explains what makes Pyongyang cold noodles distinctive. First, there's the broth.

MOON: (Through interpreter) Most places in South Korea only use beef for broth. We use three kinds of meat - chicken, pork and beef - that create the complex aroma of meat.

KUHN: Whole buckwheat flour gives the noodles an earthy brown color. Toppings include beef, pork, pickled radish, cucumbers, sliced egg and a slice of pear. Three generations of Moon's family have made cold noodles, including at Pyongyang's Koryo Hotel, North Korea's second largest. She says that in Pyongyang, cold noodle restaurants have to be state-run because it's considered the capital's signature dish.

MOON: (Through interpreter) Pyongyang naengmyeon is the pride of Pyongyang. And when foreign dignitaries visit North Korea, that's where we bring them to show how huge our Pyongyang naengmyeon restaurants are.

KUHN: Moon says that at some state-run restaurants, you can't get a table no matter how much money you have.

MOON: (Through interpreter) There's a quota of 5,000 bowls of naengmyeon they must serve every day. So they distribute tickets for 500 or 100 bowls of noodles to factories and organizations, and they go eat in large groups.

KUHN: In recent years, private cafes and fast-food restaurants have cropped up in the capital, serving burgers, sushi and pizza to the donju, North Korea's wealthy entrepreneurs. But when it comes to cold noodles, Moon says, they choose the Koryo Hotel.

MOON: (Through interpreter) The main customers are party officials and their children and people who do business under the protection of the party, people who import things from Russia and China sell them in North Korea.

KUHN: With their new restaurant firmly established in Seoul, Moon and her family are now hoping to serve up their cold noodles in new lands. They're considering opening a new eatery in Los Angeles next year.

Anthony Kuhn, NPR News, Seoul.

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MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

President Trump spoke about the mass shooting in Texas during a press conference with Japan's prime minister. The next stop on the president's 12-day Asia tour is South Korea, where he'll visit Camp Humphreys. That's the largest American military base outside the U.S.

Under pressure from South Korea's government, U.S. forces are consolidating there, moving away not only from the border with North Korea but away from the capital, Seoul, as well. NPR's David Welna has the story from Seoul.

DAVID WELNA, BYLINE: Here at the Yongsan U.S. Army garrison in Seoul, this entire sprawling base is to become a huge park comparable to New York City's Central Park. But many of the buildings will remain reminders of the military forces that have been here. More than a third of Yongsan's 600 buildings were built by Japan. Its army occupied this base in the heart of Seoul for decades until the Americans took it over at the end of World War II.

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UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Katchi Kapshida.

UNIDENTIFIED MILITARY PERSONNEL: We go together.

WELNA: Katchi Kapshida - Korean for we go together - salutes the close collaboration between U.S. and South Korean forces. This welcome by troops at Yongsan was for Defense Secretary Jim Mattis when he stopped here in advance of President Trump's visit. Mattis reminded them of the threat from North Korea's artillery.

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JAMES MATTIS: Right now, as you know, we're within the range of their fire.

WELNA: Mattis said nothing, though, about the American exodus now underway at Yongsan. That departure was actually agreed to under another Republican president.

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VICTOR BERLUS: ...Commander in chief, the Present United States of America George W. Bush.

(CHEERING)

WELNA: At a town hall meeting here near the end of his presidency, Bush hailed his administration's agreement with South Korea to scale back the ubiquitous presence of U.S. forces and to vacate the Yongsan Garrison.

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GEORGE W. BUSH: We're closing unneeded installations, and we're going return this valuable land right here to the Korean people. See, this is a nice piece of real estate, as I'm sure you know.

(LAUGHTER)

WELNA: Even though it's been headquarters for U.S. forces, South Korea wanted Yongsan back. Bruce Bennett is a senior defense analyst at the RAND Corporation. He's been following the gradual American decampment from Yongsan.

BRUCE BENNETT: The South Koreans were anxious to reclaim that property. It had been a Japanese military base during World War II, and they were also anxious to get rid of the sense that that ought to be a place for military forces in the very middle of their capital.

WELNA: Seoul could still be hit by North Korea's massive artillery arrayed along the border, which is why Bennett says former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld agreed to relocating U.S. troops south of Seoul.

BENNETT: His objective was to move the forces outside the range of North Korean artillery. In fact, he argued that he would be irresponsible if he didn't do that.

WELNA: That was long ago. Army Sergeant Mark Kaufmann was posted to Yongsan in September. He knows about a move to Camp Humphreys, 55 miles to the south.

MARK KAUFMANN: And it's taking a lot longer than people expect. But eventually - are all going transform down to Humphreys.

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UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Welcome to Camp Humphreys. We think you'll enjoy living and working on the Army's newest installation.

WELNA: This U.S. Army video showcases the $11 billion expansion of Camp Humphreys, most of it paid for by South Korea. When the Eighth Army, the backbone of U.S. forces in Korea, moved from Yongsan to Camp Humphreys last summer, its commander, Lieutenant General Thomas Vandal, hailed the concentration of U.S. forces there.

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THOMAS VANDAL: What has changed for us is, we no longer have to defend potentially 173 camps and installations. We now have it consolidated, so it allows us to maximize our force protection.

WELNA: And it's not just North Korea's nuclear weapons threatening troops there. In the 13 years since this move was first agreed to, North Korea has tripled its artillery range, and Camp Humphreys is now well within striking distance. David Welna, NPR News, at the Yongsan Garrison in Seoul.

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