It's been 1 year, 9 months, and 1 day since July 25th, 2011, when I left America.
Here's a list of things about going back.
1. Haven't seen our families or pets since then and am super excited to see everyone
2. Haven't driven a car since then and am super excited to see my car again
3. I'm tired, I've been awake for over 24 hours because I never went to sleep last night, and my flight doesn't even leave for another 3 hours and 45 minutes. I'm sitting on the floor in the airport with my back against the wall and my computer plugged into an adapter plugged into the wall. I had to buy the adapter because Korean plugs are different and I didn't bring any adapters from our apartment sadface. It would be fantastic if I could just lay on the floor right here and take a nap. Then when I woke up my stuff might still be there. I'm bored.
4. Having Wal-Mart and a lot of superstores will be convenient, but I'll also spend a lot more money on stuff just because it's there, while here our PX was tiny and only had...not much. We had to order a lot of stuff online. Sometimes I just wouldn't get around to it, and I'd know the thing must not have been worth it. Wal-Mart = no waiting period = kinda bad
5. All the stuff we own that we've purchased over the course of our marriage that's in a storage unit probably getting eaten by mice right now? We get to see that stuff again! And probably throw away a lot of it because being over here with minimal stuff has taught us what we really need!
6. A new exciting thing is that we're going to be looking at houses to buy when we get back. Then I'll get to PAINT. In 5.5 years, Joe and I have only ever painted 1 room together. The rest of the time we were in rentals where we couldn't do that.
7. On North America the continent, the United States takes up a lot of room. In South Korea, it only takes up little tiny patches of room, and you have to walk to those little tiny patches for it to even kind of seem like you're in America, and even then, the America is diluted by Korean signs and employees. When we go home, everywhere we walk and drive and go will ALL be America. There will be English everywhere, and people who look like us, and I'll have to stop talking about things that you can't talk about in public, because the people around me will definitely be able to understand me instead of just maybe.
8. I'm worried about going back, because what if it's not that great in the USA, or too normal and boring? But that's a stupid thing to worry about because life can get normal and boring over here, too. I'm sad that our adventure is over, but really it's more "accomplished" than "over" because we got to see the things that were important to us. I just don't want to get home and be like "Wow, is this all there is?" But I'll probably like it.
I'm so tired. I think I have movies. I'll go do that now.
Showing posts with label South Korea. Show all posts
Showing posts with label South Korea. Show all posts
Friday, April 26, 2013
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Leaving
When Joe told me he was going to be stationed in South Korea on a hardship tour - alone, without me, for a year - I was devastated. Then I looked up South Korea on a map, because I had no idea where it was. I'm not even sure I knew there was a South Korea. Everyone knew about North Korea, of course, because of the movie Team America: World Police, but I don't think I ever made the logical connection that having a North meant there was also a South and probably a war.
Four months later, after a lot of stress and uncertainty and paperwork and a little bit of crying and a good-bye in an airport and a move into my first ever single-girl apartment, I was on a plane to that little country at the end of an Asian peninsula.
We had heard that families usually weren't allowed to accompany their soldiers to Korea, that people just did their one year and went home. It turned out, though, that after a bunch of paperwork, Joe was approved to bring me over...he just wasn't approved to bring our stuff.
So I pawned off our pets on our parents and carefully packed two thrift store suitcases with what I estimated to be my 70-pounds-each weight limit. (I turned out to be pretty wrong, and that was expensive.) I felt like I was setting out on an Oregon Trail adventure: I was taking into the Great Unknown only my two suitcases with only my most precious and necessary belongings. I had clothes, pots and pans, silverware - sadly, I lost most of my wedding-silverware butter knives to airport security in Atlanta - our blender, our crockpot, our DVD collection, and - wow, did I really fit all this stuff into those suitcases? - a keyboard and a mouse and a set of computer speakers for when we'd order a new computer for me. (Fun fact: The clothes I brought got worn to shreds while I was over here, because it's super hard to find American sized clothing in Korea. One of my friends and I pretty much had each other's wardrobes memorized and noticed whenever the other got something new. It was funny.)
I was so incredibly happy to be on that plane over here. SO HAPPY. Almost every day, I've been consciously thankful to have had this great chance to be with Joe in Asia when so many other families weren't coming over.
Unless you count a cruise to the Bahamas, Korea was the first time I'd ever left America. I remember the layover in Japan, where for the first time I saw signage where the primary language wasn't English, and the long bus ride from the airport, the first time I saw rice fields outside the windows. I remember having no idea what to expect from this country.
I've fallen in love with South Korea. I never would have guessed that I would feel such fondness for a country not my home, that I would find another city as vital, fast, fragile, stunning as New York City. But South Korea is optimistic and hardy and hopeful and strong, and Seoul at sunrise is breathtaking.
This is where I lived, what I saw every day. I'll leave in the morning. And then, the day after that, when I'm gone, the sun will rise and everything will look like this again. Where I am, it'll be night. The rainy season will come again, and the rice will be sown, and another field will be sold for more apartment buildings, and in ten years, you won't even be able to recognize Waegwan.
Four months later, after a lot of stress and uncertainty and paperwork and a little bit of crying and a good-bye in an airport and a move into my first ever single-girl apartment, I was on a plane to that little country at the end of an Asian peninsula.
We had heard that families usually weren't allowed to accompany their soldiers to Korea, that people just did their one year and went home. It turned out, though, that after a bunch of paperwork, Joe was approved to bring me over...he just wasn't approved to bring our stuff.
So I pawned off our pets on our parents and carefully packed two thrift store suitcases with what I estimated to be my 70-pounds-each weight limit. (I turned out to be pretty wrong, and that was expensive.) I felt like I was setting out on an Oregon Trail adventure: I was taking into the Great Unknown only my two suitcases with only my most precious and necessary belongings. I had clothes, pots and pans, silverware - sadly, I lost most of my wedding-silverware butter knives to airport security in Atlanta - our blender, our crockpot, our DVD collection, and - wow, did I really fit all this stuff into those suitcases? - a keyboard and a mouse and a set of computer speakers for when we'd order a new computer for me. (Fun fact: The clothes I brought got worn to shreds while I was over here, because it's super hard to find American sized clothing in Korea. One of my friends and I pretty much had each other's wardrobes memorized and noticed whenever the other got something new. It was funny.)
I was so incredibly happy to be on that plane over here. SO HAPPY. Almost every day, I've been consciously thankful to have had this great chance to be with Joe in Asia when so many other families weren't coming over.
Unless you count a cruise to the Bahamas, Korea was the first time I'd ever left America. I remember the layover in Japan, where for the first time I saw signage where the primary language wasn't English, and the long bus ride from the airport, the first time I saw rice fields outside the windows. I remember having no idea what to expect from this country.
I've fallen in love with South Korea. I never would have guessed that I would feel such fondness for a country not my home, that I would find another city as vital, fast, fragile, stunning as New York City. But South Korea is optimistic and hardy and hopeful and strong, and Seoul at sunrise is breathtaking.
This is where I lived, what I saw every day. I'll leave in the morning. And then, the day after that, when I'm gone, the sun will rise and everything will look like this again. Where I am, it'll be night. The rainy season will come again, and the rice will be sown, and another field will be sold for more apartment buildings, and in ten years, you won't even be able to recognize Waegwan.
Monday, March 18, 2013
The View From the Top
I've mentioned that I'm doing the Beachbody workout program Insanity, that it's boring and repetitive and I hate it, and that I'm going to finish it. To keep myself from burning out on it even more than I already have, sometimes I'll replace an Insanity workout with something that's equally challenging but less stupid. So yesterday, when I saw "MAX INTERVAL CIRCUIT" on the schedule, I thought of my I-don't-have-to-work-out-today-because excuses for like five minutes (as I do almost every day) and just went running, instead. Up a mountain.
Well, not exactly a mountain. There doesn't seem to be an official size definition of what makes a mountain, but it used to be 1,000 feet, or 304.8 meters. The land mass half a mile from our apartment building, "Hill 303," is 303 meters. So...almost.
So I jogged over there, set my timer, and started going as fast as I could. I saw one American couple, and quite a few older Koreans. The Koreans were mostly dressed in long pants and winter coats and, along with the normal encouraging thumbs-ups and words that I had no idea what they meant, I was asked a few times if I was cold in my shorts and tank top. It was about 60 degrees out there, and I was being super active, so I wasn't. But the only time I don't get asked that is when it's like 100 degrees.
It took me 19 minutes and 50 seconds to get to the war memorial at the top of 303. I felt like I was asphyxiating. I hung out up there until I could breathe again, took a couple phone pics, and started back down.
20 minutes plus the short, easy jog from our apartment to the hill-mountain wasn't much of a workout compared to the 55 minutes of stupidity I would otherwise have had to endure, so I decided to run up to the helipad, too. Then do pushups (even though there were people up there so it was awkward.) I did three sets of 20. I was really impressed with myself; four months ago, I ended a two-minute pushup challenge with a score of 14 pushups.
See? You can see the H on the helipad from space.
THE END!
Well, not exactly a mountain. There doesn't seem to be an official size definition of what makes a mountain, but it used to be 1,000 feet, or 304.8 meters. The land mass half a mile from our apartment building, "Hill 303," is 303 meters. So...almost.
So I jogged over there, set my timer, and started going as fast as I could. I saw one American couple, and quite a few older Koreans. The Koreans were mostly dressed in long pants and winter coats and, along with the normal encouraging thumbs-ups and words that I had no idea what they meant, I was asked a few times if I was cold in my shorts and tank top. It was about 60 degrees out there, and I was being super active, so I wasn't. But the only time I don't get asked that is when it's like 100 degrees.
It took me 19 minutes and 50 seconds to get to the war memorial at the top of 303. I felt like I was asphyxiating. I hung out up there until I could breathe again, took a couple phone pics, and started back down.
20 minutes plus the short, easy jog from our apartment to the hill-mountain wasn't much of a workout compared to the 55 minutes of stupidity I would otherwise have had to endure, so I decided to run up to the helipad, too. Then do pushups (even though there were people up there so it was awkward.) I did three sets of 20. I was really impressed with myself; four months ago, I ended a two-minute pushup challenge with a score of 14 pushups.
See? You can see the H on the helipad from space.
THE END!
Monday, February 4, 2013
The Grossest Thing I've Eaten
Joe and I went to a Korean restaurant for dinner tonight. The menu was of the point-at-the-picture-to-order type with no English. We ordered two plates of food: One that we'd had before and liked, and one that looked like a new item on the menu.
We were having a nice time together. The food got to our table. I was curious about the new dish. On the menu, it had looked like some kind of beef and green pepper kinda thing. I chopsticked a piece of the meat into my mouth. It had a nice teriyaki flavor, although it was a little spicy. And gristly. And there was something hard in it. I got the little hard pieces out of my mouth and put them on my plate. Joe looked closer at the meat, wondering what part of an animal it was, since it was so gristly, and shaped weird, with, like, jiggly meat tubes coming off a central piece.
It was chicken feet. A whole plate full of teriyaki chicken feet. That was a chicken toenail in my mouth.
It took me a few seconds to decide whether I was going to vomit. I didn't.
We just told our waitress that the dish was too spicy. She took it away. We were eating off the good food plate just waiting in absolute dread that she was going to come back to our table with a plate of fixed, less-spicy chicken feet. She did come back with the chicken feet, ours, but they were wrapped in a to-go box.
And that's the grossest thing I've (knowingly) consumed in Korea.
We were having a nice time together. The food got to our table. I was curious about the new dish. On the menu, it had looked like some kind of beef and green pepper kinda thing. I chopsticked a piece of the meat into my mouth. It had a nice teriyaki flavor, although it was a little spicy. And gristly. And there was something hard in it. I got the little hard pieces out of my mouth and put them on my plate. Joe looked closer at the meat, wondering what part of an animal it was, since it was so gristly, and shaped weird, with, like, jiggly meat tubes coming off a central piece.
It was chicken feet. A whole plate full of teriyaki chicken feet. That was a chicken toenail in my mouth.
It took me a few seconds to decide whether I was going to vomit. I didn't.
We just told our waitress that the dish was too spicy. She took it away. We were eating off the good food plate just waiting in absolute dread that she was going to come back to our table with a plate of fixed, less-spicy chicken feet. She did come back with the chicken feet, ours, but they were wrapped in a to-go box.
And that's the grossest thing I've (knowingly) consumed in Korea.
Thursday, January 10, 2013
Jeju Island: People Go There For Honeymoons
The yellow splotch in the picture is on Jeju Island. It's an island made out of a volcano. People go there for honeymoons.
Waegwan is the red splotch in the picture. That's where we live, 40 minutes from Daegu, the fourth largest city in South Korea. We walked to Waegwan's train station - actually, we ran to the train station, and the train was arriving as we were buying our tickets, and THAT WAS REALLY CLOSE. But we made it! And rode to Seoul for like 4 hours. Then caught a plane. And then we were on Jeju! We got to be on the 16th floor of our hotel! Which was 2 floors below the breakfast buffet! Perfect spot.
Near the hotel, there was a Dunkin Donuts and a Baskin Robbins (neither uncommon here.) We also found a Krispy Kreme!
After dinner and ice cream and then donuts, we went back to the hotel and watched a boring show where they weren't speaking English while playing a mysterious board game. We couldn't figure out how the game was played. I found it on the internet, though, and we bought our own Go game set at E-Mart the next morning.
I got terrible sleep that night. I spent like 10 minutes trying to turn on the air conditioner when it was time to get ready for bed, because it was stifling in our room and the windows only opened like two inches. But guest access to their air conditioners was turned off because it's winter. So I got way too hot and woke up 97834543 times. Also, Joe and I were sharing one of the two small beds, but that wasn't working, so we slept in different beds that night. In the morning I had a miniature temper tantrum and tried to convince Joe that we needed to find a different hotel. He didn't agree. So I adapted. The next night, we pushed the beds together to make a big one and moved them over to the only source of cool air in the room. AND THEN IT WAS LOUD FROM TRAFFIC. But I had earplugs!
There was a funny sign in the room warning people about putting fish or noodles into the electric teapot.
Also here's a picture of the McDonald's where we had lunch every day. We've only had McDonald's a few times in Korea.
I don't have any pictures of how cold and rainy and windy it was when we caught a taxi to take us halfway around the island to see a LAVA TUBE. The LAVA TUBE was a cave where lava had once flowed. There was old, dry lava everywhere we looked! It was incredible.
Then, there was the leaky bus stop where we waited for 45 minutes for a bus that never came. It was getting darker and windier and even colder. Finally...a taxi appeared! Just when we were trying to find a way to find one! I ran through the rain waving my arms at the taxi. It worked! Soon we were warm and comfy and on our way toward dinner. I'd checked my phone-internet for notable restaurants in the area of our hotel, and found one. "Bagdad Cafe GO!" I said to the taxi driver, in Korean, and IT WORKED! Kind of. He had to call for directions. But we got there! And we were so hungry that we pretty much ordered one of everything! It was Indian food. It was delicious. I'm sad that I was too busy eating and trying to be warm to take any pictures. (It was really cold in there.)
After dinner, we went back to the hotel. We played part of a game of Go. I lost, and moped until we went to bed. The next morning, we had breakfast at the hotel and saw that it was finally starting to be sunny outside.
We planned to hike up the volcano in the middle of the island and got a taxi to take us to the mountain trails after lunch. But! The trails were closed! It was about 1:00 in the afternoon, and they didn't want anyone else to go up the mountain, because it can take a very long time to get to the top and climb back down and they didn't want anyone stuck up there in the dark. So that was kinda sad. I'm sure it would have been amazing. And also an exhausting 8+ hours. Instead we got to see the first waterfall we've ever seen together!
Nearby was a bunch of rocks we went exploring on. I wanted to see what was around the curve of the cliff.
I pretended I was the Little Mermaid.
I did it wrong.
We bought some snacks at the nearby gift shops: Tiny fresh seasonal Jeju mandarin oranges, and some orange-flavored chocolates. Also I sampled a mass-produced Jeju chocolate with a cactus-flavored filling. It was okay. After that, we took another taxi to the Jeju Ripley's Believe It Or Not! Museum.
I was particularly impressed with the museum's cardboard James Bond car.
 |
| The guy on the left is made of wax. |
After the museum was dinner in the attached "Kraze Burger" (I think it's a Korean chain.) It smelled like frying in there. Then we took a bus to the area of the hotel, and got Krispy Kreme! While we were there, I needed to use the restroom. The restaurant had a spiral staircase. The restroom was up the staircase...and outside of a door opening onto the restaurant's roof. Cold again, but I was too amazed that I was in a bathroom in a shed on a roof to be upset. We went back to the hotel and watched the Abraham Lincoln Killing Vampires movie. It was a very nice last evening on the island.
The next morning, decent hotel breakfast again, packed our bags, left them with the front desk in the lobby. Then we took a bus...
...to see a rock in the water, and ate some weird kiwi fruit sold there, and saw a couple of people fishing on a precarious perch, and marveled some more over how the rocks we stood upon had obviously once been lava.
Joe's foot fell in a puddle and his shoe and sock got soaked. It was time to leave, anyway. We ate at McDonald's one more time and picked up our stuff from the hotel and went to the airport. I took one last picture of the volcano-mountain.
It was cold, it rained for the first couple of days and I apparently picked the wrong hotel, but in spite of all that, I think this was the most romantic vacation we've had. We got to see old lava and a waterfall and a cardboard car and the ocean and rocks! For once, I didn't have every second of every day planned, so we got to just relax and eat donuts a lot. It was so great.
Monday, December 24, 2012
Now We Can Have Christmas.
I cleaned the house yesterday. Now we can have Christmas.
My living room and kitchen were 'kay. They get tidied up almost every day (except on the weekends when I'm too busy sitting in front of my PC for 12 hours, eating out of Tupperware and cans.) However, every other room in our house looks like the inside of a closet. I throw stuff in and shut the doors and say "Look how nice and perfect it is in the living room, Joe!" and just try not to think about it.
But the more unperfect it gets, the more it bothers me. I start to feel...sort of stretched...like butter scraped over too much bread. (LOL that was from Lord of the Rings. I made myself laugh.)
Constantly in the back of my mind as I went about my daily business was the massive cascading pile of a year's worth of cardboard boxes on one of our enclosed porches that I've been avoiding. You can't have Christmas with the haunting presence of a pile of empty boxes hiding, waiting. So, finally, Joe and I flattened them all and took them downstairs.
I put like three of those giant trashbags there. And the cardboard pile, it doesn't look so big now that it's flat. That white spiral is the base of the fan I put out to keep the cardboard from flying away, at least until someone takes the fan not knowing that it got fried months ago when I plugged it straight into a 220 outlet.
That's the porch last year, when we first moved in. Before the boxes and the frying.
It's amazing how you can re-home anything instantly here. Just put it downstairs, and someone will take it within a few hours. Bag full of rancid recyclable milk bottles? Gone. Dead microwave with sign on it saying "broken" in English and Korean? Gone. $20 bill? Gone. That pile of cardboard (and the fan, of course) was already gone this morning, and the trash guys don't even work today.
So. I got the unperfect room organized. Thank goodness for that giant cabinet I found outside. (See? put anything downstairs, and someone will come along and get their very kind friends to help them stuff it into the elevator and drag it into their apartment.)
Also, I cleaned out our four "stuff drawers," and the fridge, and the freezer, and a few weeks ago I cleaned up the other porch. All that's left now is NOTHING. Christmas morning, whenever that is - I think this year it will probably be on the afternoon of the 26th, but some years it's at night on the 27th or 28th after we drive back home from visiting our families - will be peaceful and beautiful and lovely and I won't have to feel like butter at all.
In other news, on the 15th, I had a party. There were red ribbons hanging from the windows of my apartment so people could find it more easily. So many people came over with delicious food and spent time together. It was nice to be with almost all the ladies I like here in Korea (though there were a few missing - sad.)
Advent calendars. I love them. These were the only ones they had at the PX. I bought them, we ate some of the days, then we forgot about them. Joe had maybe nine advent chocolates to eat yesterday, the lucky duck.
We made a business trip to Seoul. On the way, we stopped at Osan Air Base's Chili's restaurant. This is the only place we've been in Korea where we get American food with American service. I mean, just LOOK at this, guys!
Yes, those are both mine! One of them has been dranken (hehe, "dranken") out of until it's almost gone. AND THEN OUR WAITRESS BROUGHT ME ANOTHER ONE EVEN THOUGH MY FIRST ONE WASN'T EMPTY YET.
If you're like, "Yeah................cool........?", then you OBVIOUSLY haven't eaten at a restaurant in Korea. Think of the second-worst service you've ever gotten at a restaurant, and you're pretty much thinking of what it's like here all the time. Maybe it's because servers don't get tipped in Korea. You get a drink after you arrive, like normal, and you'd better make it last until your food comes so you can ask the server for another one, and then you'd better make that one last through your meal because you can pretty much expect to never get another drop unless you go wandering around with your cup until you find out where the Coke comes from.
Then, there's this.
Some nights, moving the furniture in the living room and dragging our mattress out of the bedroom, watching Christmas movies (It's A Wonderful Life and Die Hard,) the Christmas tree the last light to go off before we sleep. Retreating so deep into home that time stops. Love. Love.
It's Christmas Eve now. We'll play video games and go to the grocery store and check the mail. Dinner will be crockpot BBQ ribs with cornbread and sweet tea, and Christmas morning will be in a couple of days. It'll be perfect.
My living room and kitchen were 'kay. They get tidied up almost every day (except on the weekends when I'm too busy sitting in front of my PC for 12 hours, eating out of Tupperware and cans.) However, every other room in our house looks like the inside of a closet. I throw stuff in and shut the doors and say "Look how nice and perfect it is in the living room, Joe!" and just try not to think about it.
But the more unperfect it gets, the more it bothers me. I start to feel...sort of stretched...like butter scraped over too much bread. (LOL that was from Lord of the Rings. I made myself laugh.)
 |
| In April. note the Christmas tree. |
Constantly in the back of my mind as I went about my daily business was the massive cascading pile of a year's worth of cardboard boxes on one of our enclosed porches that I've been avoiding. You can't have Christmas with the haunting presence of a pile of empty boxes hiding, waiting. So, finally, Joe and I flattened them all and took them downstairs.
 |
| Someone didn't want to have Christmas with those couches. |
I put like three of those giant trashbags there. And the cardboard pile, it doesn't look so big now that it's flat. That white spiral is the base of the fan I put out to keep the cardboard from flying away, at least until someone takes the fan not knowing that it got fried months ago when I plugged it straight into a 220 outlet.
That's the porch last year, when we first moved in. Before the boxes and the frying.
It's amazing how you can re-home anything instantly here. Just put it downstairs, and someone will take it within a few hours. Bag full of rancid recyclable milk bottles? Gone. Dead microwave with sign on it saying "broken" in English and Korean? Gone. $20 bill? Gone. That pile of cardboard (and the fan, of course) was already gone this morning, and the trash guys don't even work today.
So. I got the unperfect room organized. Thank goodness for that giant cabinet I found outside. (See? put anything downstairs, and someone will come along and get their very kind friends to help them stuff it into the elevator and drag it into their apartment.)
Also, I cleaned out our four "stuff drawers," and the fridge, and the freezer, and a few weeks ago I cleaned up the other porch. All that's left now is NOTHING. Christmas morning, whenever that is - I think this year it will probably be on the afternoon of the 26th, but some years it's at night on the 27th or 28th after we drive back home from visiting our families - will be peaceful and beautiful and lovely and I won't have to feel like butter at all.
In other news, on the 15th, I had a party. There were red ribbons hanging from the windows of my apartment so people could find it more easily. So many people came over with delicious food and spent time together. It was nice to be with almost all the ladies I like here in Korea (though there were a few missing - sad.)
Advent calendars. I love them. These were the only ones they had at the PX. I bought them, we ate some of the days, then we forgot about them. Joe had maybe nine advent chocolates to eat yesterday, the lucky duck.
We made a business trip to Seoul. On the way, we stopped at Osan Air Base's Chili's restaurant. This is the only place we've been in Korea where we get American food with American service. I mean, just LOOK at this, guys!
Yes, those are both mine! One of them has been dranken (hehe, "dranken") out of until it's almost gone. AND THEN OUR WAITRESS BROUGHT ME ANOTHER ONE EVEN THOUGH MY FIRST ONE WASN'T EMPTY YET.
If you're like, "Yeah................cool........?", then you OBVIOUSLY haven't eaten at a restaurant in Korea. Think of the second-worst service you've ever gotten at a restaurant, and you're pretty much thinking of what it's like here all the time. Maybe it's because servers don't get tipped in Korea. You get a drink after you arrive, like normal, and you'd better make it last until your food comes so you can ask the server for another one, and then you'd better make that one last through your meal because you can pretty much expect to never get another drop unless you go wandering around with your cup until you find out where the Coke comes from.
Then, there's this.
Some nights, moving the furniture in the living room and dragging our mattress out of the bedroom, watching Christmas movies (It's A Wonderful Life and Die Hard,) the Christmas tree the last light to go off before we sleep. Retreating so deep into home that time stops. Love. Love.
It's Christmas Eve now. We'll play video games and go to the grocery store and check the mail. Dinner will be crockpot BBQ ribs with cornbread and sweet tea, and Christmas morning will be in a couple of days. It'll be perfect.
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
What's Different About Korea
I've now been in South Korea for one year (and one week.) I want to be like, "Oh wow guys this is so different," but living here feels so normal now.
Once in a while, though, I'll see an advertisement for a common product which I'd forgotten existed. Our Commissary is the size of a large 7-11 and has a relatively small selection of goods, so a lot of products just slip from my memory. Or I'll look at the pictures I took of our storage unit, where almost everything we own is stored right now, and see stuff I'd forgotten we had. I think there are a lot of things like that: Forgotten products, forgotten belongings, forgotten what it's like in the States.
Like, when I think about it, I'll remember that I own a KitchenAid mixer. And a round cookie sheet for pizza. And we have a fan for our bedroom with a remote control. And we have way too many little junky things that will probably be getting thrown away when I rediscover them. In a plastic container, we have two pounds of quinoa. We have a red cooler and our own refrigerator. We have a whole bunch of lamps. We don't have desks anymore because they didn't survive the move into the storage unit. I have houseplants waiting at my grandparents' house, and a dog at Joe's parents' house, and my birds at someone else's house. We have plastic mats for our computer chairs to roll around on. We have...a car. With a CD player in it, and a SUNROOF, and a huge trunk. In the car are my CDs, hopefully not melted.
I think the biggest difference with our life in Korea is travel. Without a car, going anywhere new requires extra planning and other people's timetables. Also, when you don't have a little pod of climate control on wheels, almost every form of weather just feels oppressive, smushing against your apartment door, keeping you from going anywhere. And you definitely can't wear painful shoes whenever you feel like it.
Without a vehicle, multi-errand trips have to be strategically planned. Whatever you buy, you have to carry around, since you can't just dump it in the trunk. One bright and sunny 90-degree day last week, the plan was: Go to the bank first, it's nearest; then go next door to check the mail; then walk across the big gravel lot past the Commissary and go to the library to check some stuff out; backtrack, go to the Commissary and buy only what will fit in half of my backpack; carry groceries and books allllll the way over to the military clothing store near the pool; then, carrying groceries and books and a couple of new uniforms, walk alllllllllllllll the way over to the ACS building, the farthest walkable point from home; then, backtrack allllll the way back to the library and PX area, buy a microwave; then, thank goodness I've collected enough stuff to justify taking a taxi home. I was proud of myself for saving at least $12 in taxi money. I really needed a shower.
See how much I've gotten used to it here? I'm in a different culture, and all I talk about when I think of what's different about living in Korea is not having a car. It's not the rice fields or the mountains (I don't even see them anymore) or the Buddhist temples or beautiful Seoul, but having a remote-controlled bedroom fan. I'm pretty sure I need to do some more exploring.
Once in a while, though, I'll see an advertisement for a common product which I'd forgotten existed. Our Commissary is the size of a large 7-11 and has a relatively small selection of goods, so a lot of products just slip from my memory. Or I'll look at the pictures I took of our storage unit, where almost everything we own is stored right now, and see stuff I'd forgotten we had. I think there are a lot of things like that: Forgotten products, forgotten belongings, forgotten what it's like in the States.
Like, when I think about it, I'll remember that I own a KitchenAid mixer. And a round cookie sheet for pizza. And we have a fan for our bedroom with a remote control. And we have way too many little junky things that will probably be getting thrown away when I rediscover them. In a plastic container, we have two pounds of quinoa. We have a red cooler and our own refrigerator. We have a whole bunch of lamps. We don't have desks anymore because they didn't survive the move into the storage unit. I have houseplants waiting at my grandparents' house, and a dog at Joe's parents' house, and my birds at someone else's house. We have plastic mats for our computer chairs to roll around on. We have...a car. With a CD player in it, and a SUNROOF, and a huge trunk. In the car are my CDs, hopefully not melted.
I think the biggest difference with our life in Korea is travel. Without a car, going anywhere new requires extra planning and other people's timetables. Also, when you don't have a little pod of climate control on wheels, almost every form of weather just feels oppressive, smushing against your apartment door, keeping you from going anywhere. And you definitely can't wear painful shoes whenever you feel like it.
Without a vehicle, multi-errand trips have to be strategically planned. Whatever you buy, you have to carry around, since you can't just dump it in the trunk. One bright and sunny 90-degree day last week, the plan was: Go to the bank first, it's nearest; then go next door to check the mail; then walk across the big gravel lot past the Commissary and go to the library to check some stuff out; backtrack, go to the Commissary and buy only what will fit in half of my backpack; carry groceries and books allllll the way over to the military clothing store near the pool; then, carrying groceries and books and a couple of new uniforms, walk alllllllllllllll the way over to the ACS building, the farthest walkable point from home; then, backtrack allllll the way back to the library and PX area, buy a microwave; then, thank goodness I've collected enough stuff to justify taking a taxi home. I was proud of myself for saving at least $12 in taxi money. I really needed a shower.
See how much I've gotten used to it here? I'm in a different culture, and all I talk about when I think of what's different about living in Korea is not having a car. It's not the rice fields or the mountains (I don't even see them anymore) or the Buddhist temples or beautiful Seoul, but having a remote-controlled bedroom fan. I'm pretty sure I need to do some more exploring.
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
Best Spot in the House
Modern Korean culture surrounds us here. Our carpetless, dishwasher-less, central-AC-less Korean apartment has a floorplan like no apartment I've seen back home. At lunchtime, when our windows are open, the scents of cooking fish and foods I can't recognize drift in from other people's open windows. When we go out, I stare at the clothes the Korean women wear, because I've never seen so many people get so dressed up for just another average day; in the States, at least 80% of the people you see are wearing jeans, and here, 80% of the people you see aren't.
So, despite my actually very small experiences of Korea, I feel like I have some idea of their modern culture. I have no concept, however, of their more traditional culture. I guess it's available, in the temples and the museums and stuff, but I've only been to a few temples and only one museum. That's why the Korean culture show at our Army post was so interesting.
A couple of friends and I were sitting maybe 15 rows back from the stage 'cause the front rows were reserved. I couldn't get good pictures from there, so during the pause between a drum show and the first dance, I ran up to the front row and asked a lady who was 3 feet from the stage if I could sit on the floor in front of her. She said I could. I think I almost sat on her feet a couple of times, and I had to hold on to the stage to stabilize myself, which means I had THE BEST SPOT IN THE HOUSE.
We saw traditional instruments being played, traditional dances, and traditional clothing. We also saw Tae Kwon Do guys kicking boards in half, but I don't have any pictures of that because I went back to my seat so I wouldn't get splinters in my forehead.
After the show, we had the opportunity to try special sweet rice cakes filled with bean paste which originally were only served to royalty. Mine had a faint grape flavor. It was disgusting.
I don't know how hot pink became an anciently classic color here. I think they do that in India, too. I learned that my camera takes really grainy pictures when set to a high ISO. It's time for me to leave now, and I don't have time to figure out how to nicely wrap up this post.
So, despite my actually very small experiences of Korea, I feel like I have some idea of their modern culture. I have no concept, however, of their more traditional culture. I guess it's available, in the temples and the museums and stuff, but I've only been to a few temples and only one museum. That's why the Korean culture show at our Army post was so interesting.
A couple of friends and I were sitting maybe 15 rows back from the stage 'cause the front rows were reserved. I couldn't get good pictures from there, so during the pause between a drum show and the first dance, I ran up to the front row and asked a lady who was 3 feet from the stage if I could sit on the floor in front of her. She said I could. I think I almost sat on her feet a couple of times, and I had to hold on to the stage to stabilize myself, which means I had THE BEST SPOT IN THE HOUSE.
We saw traditional instruments being played, traditional dances, and traditional clothing. We also saw Tae Kwon Do guys kicking boards in half, but I don't have any pictures of that because I went back to my seat so I wouldn't get splinters in my forehead.
After the show, we had the opportunity to try special sweet rice cakes filled with bean paste which originally were only served to royalty. Mine had a faint grape flavor. It was disgusting.
I don't know how hot pink became an anciently classic color here. I think they do that in India, too. I learned that my camera takes really grainy pictures when set to a high ISO. It's time for me to leave now, and I don't have time to figure out how to nicely wrap up this post.
THE END
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