Making Do - With Thumbtacks!

Our PX has a really small selection of Christmas decorations. I don't think they even carry tree toppers. We needed one, so I made one. Cardboard, aluminum foil, a glue stick...and thumbtacks. See, doesn't it look like it's made out of tin with nails in it, like the outside of an antique chest? Now that I look up pictures of antique chests, it really doesn't, but oh well.

Maybe it looks like what it is, a quick craft made out of a shoebox and some foil, but I'm pretty happy with it.

Just don't touch the back.

After Yesterday...

Orders

Once Joe got here to South Korea, he learned that he could submit paperwork to extend his tour here. That would mean a bigger paycheck and, if he could get me here with him, it would mean a longer time we were guaranteed to be together. He got me here and then submitted the paperwork. It didn't go through. He tried again, and it didn't work that time, either.

We were waiting to hear news on the fourth submission of the paperwork when we instead got the news of his projected next station: Maryland. Just hours from our families and our hometowns.

Our options were to try to cancel the extension paperwork or to keep waiting for it. The choice was clear. I hated cutting short our adventure in another country, especially when I didn't know when we'd ever be able to have another, but we decided to try for home.

Five days later, today, Joe came home early to tell me he couldn't cancel the extension paperwork. It had already gone through.

In those five days, I'd thought up a list of what we HAD to do before we left Korea, and what we had to see, and thought of when we could fit everything in. Then I'd started to think about having my car again. And sitting on our couch again. Buying a house. Having my own walls to paint. Wondering if we'd ever see another foreign country. In the dark, falling asleep, asking, "We're going home?" to get it cemented, to hear his tone so I'd know if this was good.

Then the news. Now, we have time. Now, we can still explore and experience. Just today, I noticed how close to Russia we are. And China, and Japan, and even India. (Kinda.)

Now, I have months before I get to see the amazing sister I don't talk to enough, or attend a family gathering. Now, we have months before we see our dog or my birds or Passat again. Months before another Wal-Mart or Ruby Tuesday or Lowe's.

Now, instead of choosing the house we want, we'll be renting for at least another year. Forming the walls of all my days, all around me, surrounding me everywhere I look will be wallpaper I didn't choose in an apartment like a hotel.

Now: Permanence. Safety. Stability. Eighteen months? Seventeen? Two years, total?

I finally started settling in tonight. Started thinking about what needs to change to make this home and not temporary. Of course "DISHWASHER" immediately came to mind, but first things first: We'll need a Christmas tree. It won't be the one we've used every Christmas - we'll probably be without our things as long as we're here - but I guarantee as long as I have that tree to look at, I won't even notice the wallpaper.

"GO HOME U.S.!" And Other Signs

To get anywhere here, we walk. Our car's back in the States, and we don't have bikes. I'm glad, actually, most of the time, except when I have groceries, but then I just take a taxi.

Walking around all the time has let me see and photograph so many details I would've missed while driving. A couple of weeks ago I told you guys about the agriculture culture here and showed you, like, 15 pictures of plants. Today I have more pictures, but not of plants.

Okay, this first one. We've been taught that, mostly, the Koreans are glad we're in their country. We've been taught that we're protecting them from North Korea, and that we're helping them preserve their culture and their way of life and helping them not get invaded. Generally, the people here have been friendly and smiley to us. But there's been some minor discomfort lately between the U.S. and South Korea caused by the allegation that we buried chemicals here, including Agent Orange, in the '70's.

One Saturday, there was a group of college-aged kids holding posterboard signs outside one of Camp Carroll's gates. The signs said things like, "GO HOME U.S.!"

There are more signs outside of the gate, hanging by strings tied to lampposts. We can't read them. The only one with an English translation says: "'US ARMY' COME CLEAN ABOUT THE ILLEGAL RECLAMATION ABOUT THE DEFOLIANT!!"

I have this deep need to be liked by everyone, so those people holding up the "GO HOME" signs made me super sad for like five minutes.

The sign in the above picture is happy, though. At least, I think it is. If it has something to do with Tae Kwon Do lessons, then I'm right.

That one's self-explanatory.

No idea what this last one says, but the swastika has something to do with Buddhism.

 

I just thought the red lantern thing was cool.

Bathroom Box

That's me in the bathroom of the library on Camp Carroll in South Korea. And that is my second package from home. (The first one was paperwork, and while I send 3 million thanks to my lovely sister for mailing it to me so quickly, the second one didn't have bills in it so is happier.)

When the Post Office guy gave me my box, I had to ask to borrow a pair of scissors. He couldn't find any but instead of saying "Oh, it's okay, nevermind," I just stood there quietly until he went in another room and found some. That was pretty nice of him. I spent like 2 minutes cutting the tape on the box, then whisked it away to the bathroom because I saw packing peanuts in there and you can't just open a box full of packing peanuts in the Post Office parking lot.

Inside the package was a card with my mom's handwriting in it. My mom's handwriting is one of the best things in the world, so familiar and good. Like the smell of coffee brewing in the morning when I'm still tucked in my comfy twin bed in the bedroom in the back of the house (even though that was a long time ago and coffee is gross.) I told her she at least had to stick a Post-It "I love you" in the box. No matter what was in the box, it would've been empty without her handwriting inside.

Also inside the package were MY COOKIES!: Colonial Williamsburg gingerbread cookies. Not three or six, but THIRTEEN HUMONGOUS COOKIES. I've been studying these things for like six years, trying to figure out the secret so I can make them.

You can only buy them at Colonial Williamsburg, but they're so good (and I'm so inconsiderate) that I asked my mom if she and my dad could make the 45-minute trip out there and buy some for me. And they did, they very next weekend.

But there wasn't just cookies and a card and love in there. There were those packing peanuts. I hate packing peanuts because styrofoam makes the earth cry. BUT. These are speeeeeciallllll packing peanuts.

They're made of corn starch or potato starch and they dissolve in water and they're such a wonderful idea and they really should be used in every situation where you need packing peanuts.

I'm eating one of the cookies right now. Dinner is cooking. This blog post made me ruin my dinner.

I have the best family in the world.

The Yelling Bongos

I'd only been in Korea for a couple of weeks. We had just moved into our apartment. Joe was at work. All of the windows were open and I was hot and sticky; it was August and I didn't want to turn on the air conditioning unit, because I didn't know yet that it's actually pretty cheap to run.

So I was just sitting there, probably on my computer, I don't even remember, when I heard a Korean voice coming over a loudspeaker outside. I panicked a little bit, even though it didn't really sound like an angry voice, and hopped up to look out the window. It was one of these guys.

(The blue truck, not the man on the roof.) This truck is a Bongo. They're the pickup trucks over here. You don't usually see American-made trucks, and when you do, they're driven by Americans.

Anyway, the Bongo was yelling in Korean. I think it was a recording. In the bed of the Bongo were fruits and vegetables for sale. It was like an ice cream truck except with watermelons and red peppers instead of ice cream.

I was pretty happy, because the loud Korean voice was just selling stuff and not trying to incite a riot against Americans or warning of an impending attack by North Korea. There's another Bongo that drives around talking loudly, and that one sells fish. You can hear them from blocks away. They usually come around once a day, and sometimes twice, in the morning and in the afternoon.

Then, we started seeing/hearing a different kind of driving-around-yelling truck. These seemed to be campaign trucks. Makes sense 'cause their presidential election is next month. These trucks have the usual loud Korean voice, but they also have music, and sometimes they also have guys riding on them, standing at a podium in the back of the truck under an awning, waving. See if you recognize the music being played by this one.

Yep, the Korean election truck is playing the Pirates of the Caribbean theme song.

Isn't that amazing?

And a little confusing?