My son spent a year or so over near Seoul when he was in the ARMY about six years ago. At the time it was pretty much open for exploring, hiking, etc and he says all the older Koreans are friendly to GIs. Just before he left there was some protests and demonstrations and things got more restricted as to where they could go. The younger generation doesn't particularly take kindly to Americans it seems. Don't know what the clime is right now. A great many of the parks etc. are religious shrines and I don't imagine they would allow much digging, but there should be opportunities in rural areas. However, there are still some undetected mine fields that blows someone up every now and then and lots of unexploded ordnance. I would recommend you do some reading up on the history of the area to which you are being assigned and get a good Korean/English dictionary. There is always a military information office somewhere and they may have some suggestions. Ditto USO. I don't know how current my info is so don't rely too heavily on it. Monty