Pyeongtaek, South Korea - The commercial area adjacent to the main entrance of the United States' Camp Humphreys military base, is a slice of Americana in the Korean countryside.
Most of the signs are in English, the streets are lined with fast-food restaurants, and the street stalls sell french fries and chicken wings beside Korean staples such as blood sausage and rice cakes in red pepper sauce.
Park Kyung-chan remembers skipping through these streets as a child in the early 1970s, when, he says, there were fewer buildings and most of the roads were not paved.
Park, 47, credits the US presence with breathing economic life into his hometown of Pyeongtaek, a city of 470,000, the only place he has ever lived.
"More than 90 percent of the development in this area is because of the US base. We appreciate them being here, not just for that, but for their contribution to our national security."
Many of the signs in Pyeongtaek's commercial area are in English and American fast-food restaurants line the streets [Steven Borowiec
Pyeongtaek, located about an hour south of Seoul, the South Korean capital, is currently in the midst of a plan to relocate military personnel and their families there from elsewhere in South Korea.
When the relocation is complete, Camp Humphreys will occupy three times its current area and its population will swell from its existing size of about 11,000 troops to more than 40,000 service members, making it one of the US's largest overseas bases - an anchor for defending against North Korea and a focal point of the US military presence in Asia.