Wallpaper on the Ceilings

Our four-star on-post hotel, the Dragon Hill Lodge, ran out of room on what was to be our second-to-last day in Seoul, and we had to find a new place off-post. They gave me a list of nearby hotels with contact information, and I called around until I found a place with vacancies. At $120 per night, it was the fourth-cheapest place on the list.

Joe was at work, so I packed our two suitcases, two Army duffel bags, two backpacks, and two laptop cases and then packed a taxi with all of it. I couldn't communicate with the Korean taxi driver very well, but I told him I needed to go to the Crown Hotel. He pulled away from the Dragon Hill Lodge (in the rain, because it's rained every day since my arrival) and off we went. And then we drove out of the gates of the Army post.

I was alone in a country where I didn't know the language or customs or anything. I was nervous. As we passed Korean road signs, I was wondering if we were going the right direction, and wondering how long we should drive before I should just jump out of the moving vehicle and escape from this guy who was probably kidnapping me so he could sell me on the black market.

But we pulled up to the Crown Hotel and I got out and dragged all my stuff out and paid the guy and was not kidnapped.

A Korean bellhop whose cheeks were puffed out like he was holding his breath helped me get my stuff to the room after I paid for the night. He had to unlock the room's door after I struggled with the antiquated plastic punched-hole keycard for a few seconds.

It wasn't a name-brand place - not a Sheraton, a Marriott, not even a Best Western or Ramada - but the Crown Hotel looked nice from the outside. The lobby looked nice, too. But the rest of it...

Oh, sure, the picture makes it look cute and quaint. But it wasn't. The hallways, carpeted in dirty uneven holey carpet, were dark enough to make you look at the ceiling to figure out why all the light bulbs were burnt out. It was hot in the room, hot enough to wake me up twice, because there wasn't an AC/heating unit in there, just a vent on the wall. The ceiling had been wallpapered and was lumpy. The room smelled like it had been smoked in every day for the past 400 years. The hallways smelled like acetone fingernail polish remover.

The pictures don't show the weird inch-high change in elevation between the room and the bathroom, or the weird six-inch-high change in elevation between the room and the closet, or the crack in the thigh-high bathtub with the showerhead that had been added long after the hotel had been built with just a bathtub, or the disturbing garish shades of pastel green and peach paint detailing the furniture.

Also not pictured: on the wall over the bed was a dial which read SPEED: HI MED LO OFF. I turned the dial and nothing happened. I'm pretty sure the bed used to vibrate.

The bed felt like it was made out of cardboard, but I didn't really care because the sheets, at least, were clean. There was that. The sheets were clean.

The elevator was probably the smallest I'd ever been in. It advertised massage services.

Apparently, leaning on the elevator's door could result in you falling down the elevator shaft. (Probably not, but that's what the picture looks like, isn't it? And that's creepy.)

The hotel had Korean power outlets and zero American power outlets. Oh, and there were only two power outlets in the tiny room, probably because there weren't as many electrical appliances 400 years ago when the hotel was built.

Maybe I'm being horrible. There were no bugs, and I guess except for the carpets and the smell, the place was clean. It was just another case (as with the day I first walked into my apartment) of not-what-I-was-expecting.

But if there's one thing I'm picky about (and there are actually a lot more things that I'm picky about,) it's hotel rooms.

Anyway, the next night, we had to stay in a hotel again. I was more careful when making the reservation. This one was a Best Western.

I learned that the thigh-high bathtub thing is normal. Also, tiny elevators are normal. And it's normal for there to be an elevation between the bathroom and the room.

But there's really nothing normal about having a speed dial installed on the wall over the bed.

My First 1.5 Days As a Foreigner

My flight out of Seattle left on Sunday morning. About ten and a half hours later, I saw Japan for the first time. For hours and hours and hours there'd been nothing to see but clouds and some in-flight movie about trains that I'm pretty sure they played twice (I think it was "Unstoppable,") and sometimes you could pretend you were seeing the ocean down there, but really there wasn't much to look at. Actually, at first, Japan looked like more clouds.

Can you spot the continent?

 Then it didn't.

Just that morning, I'd been in the US. Now, I was over another continent, another country - and not just another country, but one with a culture so different it was fascinating. The US borrows so much from, is based on, European culture, but Asian culture seems so far removed from everything I know. I was in awe. That was Japan down there.

We landed. It was just a two-hour layover, and I was crammed into a tiny room with like 100 other people. I didn't really care because I had entertainment and because I was prepared to be relatively uncomfortable for the duration of my travel.

This airport was where I first saw other languages dominating English words.

Eventually, we got back on the plane. By the time we landed in South Korea, I'd been traveling for over 65 hours with 4 hours of sleep and had gone close to 70 hours without a shower. I was exhausted and gross.

I dragged my heavy carry-ons through a long line and filled out customs forms and then I had to figure out how to move my 2 heavy carry-ons and 2 heavy suitcases without a luggage cart...but then I finally saw Joe. He really did look different in real life than he does on my laptop's screen.

With two people, moving the luggage was a little easier. We dragged it maybe a quarter of a mile to a bus stop and waited a couple of hours for the bus. The bus stop smelled like rotting onions. It was furnished with stained seats that I wasn't going to sit on, so I sat on top of my suitcase. There were people at the bus stop who had been on the plane with me all day. Joe bought me some Skittles. Then I laid down on top of my suitcase. At my head, Joe was sitting in one of the gross chairs. He closed my eyes and told me to rest and petted my face. I fell asleep. Then the bus came and we stuffed my luggage underneath it and got on it.

The bus was an hour-long trip to take us from the airport to Yongsan. The sky was overcast and gray. I looked out the window as the bus drove past fields, and gardens by the side of the road, and billboards with Korean writing on them. Then I fell asleep. When I woke up, we were somewhere else (though I've completely forgotten where,) and we took a taxi to our hotel.

"NO FORGET THEM! Your Personal Belongings!"

I think it was about 7:30 PM by the time we got checked in and got the suitcases upstairs. I took a shower and cared way more about going to sleep than eating, but Joe coaxed me into putting on something other than pajamas so we could go downstairs and eat. Dinner was at the Mexican restaurant he'd been "saving for us" so had never visited.

We were so happy to be together. It seemed unreal. We shared a seat in a booth and ate each other's dinners while the Korean waitresses cleaned the tables around us and prepared the restaurant to close for the night. In a tank top, I was freezing. I was also pretty glad we'd eaten instead of slept.

But then we did sleep, and that was nice, too.

The view from our room, with a playground, and a mountain that you can't really see 'cause the clouds

The next day started around 7:00 AM when Joe had to wake for work. He got ready for work while I stayed in bed, then I put on jeans and a turtleneck because I was tired of being cold in air-conditioned buildings, and I had no jacket. We walked to breakfast at an American restaurant at the PX food court, probably half a mile away. There was a Taco Bell, a Subway, a Burger King, a Baskin Robbins, a Popeyes, all run by Korean employees. 

We had bacon, egg & cheese biscuits with home fries. Then Joe and I kissed good-bye - but just a peck because he was in uniform - and he went to work. I went to the PX to buy a jacket but they were still closed. So I walked back to the hotel. My jeans were sticking to my legs from the heat and humidity and half-mile walk, and the turtleneck also had been a bad idea. I took a shower and went back to sleep. (Being in an actual bed after sleeping on the floor of my apartment for three months is pretty darn nice, but not as much of a change as I thought it would be. Apparently, as long as I have blankets and a pillow, I'm happy.)

I woke up when Joe came back to the hotel room so we could have lunch together. We went downstairs and ordered Pizza Hut. While we were waiting for our food, I watched a TV hanging on a wall. The channel was turned to a Korean cooking show. All the writing on the screen was in Korean. I watched two men and a woman putting together some food. Then it was time for the unveiling of the dish. And VOILA! Steam billowed out of the pot when the lid was removed, revealing a bed of some green vegetable which was cradling...four whole fish. Mmmm. Their eyes stared out of the steam.

We took our pizza outside and ate at a picnic table. The sky was overcast and gray. We went on a short walk. The grounds of the hotel are very nicely manicured.

I kinda expected there to be at least a few buildings in the style of this gazebo - you know, Asian-looking buildings - in Korea. So far, this is the only Asian-looking building I've seen in this country...and it's in an American area.

After lunch, I still needed a jacket, so we walked to the PX again. I didn't have a ration card, so I couldn't even go in there. Bummer. So we left. We were right next to Joe's temporary workplace, so that's where we walked to next.

One fascinating thing about Korea is that there are gardens everywhere. (Well, I guess I can't say "everywhere" because I haven't been everywhere, but before I fell asleep on the bus, I saw quite a few roadside gardens out the window.) There was one right next to Joe's work building, on a curbed corner of a parking lot.

"Do not eat Tomatoes. One should not do what troubles one's conscience. - Tomatoes Farmers"

I went back to the hotel, did some ration card paperwork, probably fell asleep again, I don't remember.

Joe was released from work a bit early. He took me to a war museum he'd been to. I think it was about 3/4ths of a mile away. I began to realize why Joe thought nothing of dragging the suitcases a quarter of a mile the day I got here; here, he walks everywhere.

"Pedestian Prohibited"

My camera couldn't capture the size of the museum building.

In the top picture, in the background on the mountain, you can see Seoul Tower.

One eye-catching exhibit was the teardrop made from the dog tags of men who died fighting in the Korean War.

Also at the museum:

Some kind of Tropicana sparkling apple-flavored drink I would've tried had I had Won to put into the vending machine.

After the museum, we walked to the PX for dinner. It was raining. Joe had bought an umbrella for me before I arrived in Korea, and we spent most of the walk both trying to fit under it. (Well, that's what I was trying for, but he didn't really care and ended up soaked.) Dinner was Americanized Chinese food served by Koreans. We walked back to the hotel in the rain and bought dessert from the hotel's small bakery, then watched TV and went to sleep.

The end.

I'm Still Awake?

I've slept two and a half hours in the past two days. It was a lovely night's sleep.

It's now 2:00 AM on the day that shall be Friday when the sun comes up but is still Thursday night because it's dark outside. So, since it's technically Friday, that means that...tomorrow I get on the plane to my new life. But since it feels like Thursday, the day after tomorrow = airplane day.

I've been busy. I won't bore you with extensive details, but I will say that most of my office work is done and most of my apartment is now clean enough for me to walk away from. I moved everything from all the other rooms into the living room, cleaned the other rooms, and am avoiding the living room so I don't have to see everything I still have to do.

Bird poo scraped out of the carpet: check! Dog hair vacuumed out from around the baseboards: check! Curdled milk poured down the drain and three trashbags full of refrigerator stuff taken to the dumpster: check! Pack all my stuff: empty checkbox looks like a cage.

It's been a productive and long couple of days and I think I'm not coherent. Today I ate a piece of pizza and an antibiotic and no lunch and a Subway sandwich and a brownie with milk. I'm hungry now but what's left in the fridge is breakfast. It's pizza.

Tomorrow I take apart my computer desk and disconnect my internet umbilical cord. And then I go to Joe's parents' house and I sleep there so they can take me to the airport the day after tomorrow. And I think Joe's mom is going to make lasagna!

You know...I've told you guys how I quickly I got used to not having Joe around, and how getting used to it is a necessity. I learned that you gotta look forward to what you have and never wish for what you can't have. Enjoy the 5:00 AM wakeup calls and never think about what it would be like to spend a lazy weekend together. Make the video chatting the best part of your day and don't think too hard about the fact that the face you're talking to is attached to a body that can stand up and take a few paces back from the screen and look a lot like an actual person who used to live in your house, except a lot smaller and blurrier.

I guess what it comes down to is that I don't cry when I'm not in his arms 'cause I don't remember what it feels like to have his arms around me.

I know, I've already talked about that. I'm just in awe that in just a few days I get to experience reality again. There's a husband in my computer, and now I get to go find him in the real world. And go on an adventure. In a foreign country. And be the luckiest girl ever.

The luckiest girl ever has been fueled by pure excitement rather than sleep for the past 48 hours and could probably go for another 6 or so, but is now going to treat herself to a nap.

Thirteen's Not Such A Bad Number

One day shortly after I moved into my apartment, I was going up the stairs to my door and saw a folded white piece of paper hanging by a rubber band from someone's doorknob. The paper had the apartment number written on it. I had to know what was written in it. So, even though I was probably being watched through one of the peepholes on the four front doors on that level, I pulled aside the corner of the paper and read what I could see, then ran away. The paper said that the lease on the apartment was about to expire and invited the owner(s) to renew the lease.

Last week, I was going up the stairs to my door and saw a folded white piece of paper hanging by a rubber band from my doorknob. (Actually, there were two, because one of them was a notification that I was late on my rent and they'd need me to report to the main office as soon as possible to have one of my fingers removed, but that's irrelevant.) I took the paper inside and read it. It noted that my lease was about to expire and invited me to renew the lease.

Once I was done laughing this weird screamy hysterical laugh at the concept of living in this apartment any longer than I had to - once I got the horror out of my system - joy was able to move in. That paper was another proof that I'd be leaving soon for Korea.

More proof are the calendars telling me there are only two weeks left. Just two weeks to get all my work done, which would take a full two weeks, but on top of that: get things moved into the storage unit, go through fourteen feet of clothes and decide what we need, take 5 boxes of clothes to the post office and spend $5,698,475 to mail them to Korea, figure out why Comcast is still charging me for internet in the house I moved out of two months ago, see if the passport people have any idea what happened to my marriage certificate they never sent back after processing my passport, go to two more doctors' appointments and one more vet appointment, go to my last sewing class, go to a family reunion, dig through thrift stores for another suitcase, coordinate desk and computer packing so that I'll have the longest amount of time possible with computer access, and scrape bird poo out of the carpets. Just off the top of my head.

But, like I've been telling everyone, I'll find a way to get it all done. I kinda have to. Especially the computer part.

Sometimes, once in a while, I'll remember what all this is for. I'll stop thinking about the millions of things on my to-do lists and imagine the day when finally (after three plane switches, a camp-out in an airport waiting room, and not having a shower in over 24 hours) I'll see Joe again. I picture the moment I'll stop forgetting how tall he is, when I'll remember what he looks like when he's not two-dimensional on a computer screen. I'll imagine the sweet relief I'll feel when I know that we are finally in the same country again and that, if a zombie apocalypse were to occur, he'd only have to travel a mile to get to me rather than across an ocean and a continent. Because if a zombie apocalypse were to occur right this very second, I know I'd never see him again, and that's really sad.

Thirteen days to go. Thirteen thousand things to do. I got this.

Drown or Doggie-Paddle

I'm taking a two-session sewing class starting tomorrow night. Here's the pattern they picked out (Simplicity 2307) and the fabric I picked out.

The fabric's a stretch knit, which will be incredibly difficult to work with. The dress itself will most likely turn out unwearable, but I think I'll learn a lot, and that's what counts.

It took me two hours to pick out the fabric. I really hate fabric shopping. It overwhelms me and stresses me out super bad, probably because I have a pretty low IQ when it comes to color coordination.

First, I had to decide which type of fabric to use. I go for comfy easy-care clothes, and I wanted to keep the dress from turning out to be too dressy, so I chose cotton knit (like something a stretchy t-shirt would be made of.) Second, I had to choose a color. You'd think that would be easy. Nope. I just paced back and forth in front of their bolts of cotton knit fabric, staring, occasionally pulling out some of the fabric, draping it across my arm to see how the color looked with my skin tone, then putting it back. And to make matters worse, I was supposed to pick out a second, coordinating color for the band around the bottom of the skirt. In the picture on the pattern, the coordinating band is a darker color made of a semi-glossy fabric. In JoAnn, they had no colors of semi-glossy fabric that even remotely coordinated with any of my four knit color choices. So I'll be improvising (or at least checking another store.)

This is one of the most advanced classes they offer at JoAnn. It's probably out of my skill range. My options are less "sink or swim" and more "drown or doggie-paddle." I'm really looking forward to it.