Moving In

Monday night was our last night at the Lodge. We were really looking forward to getting out of there. It was pretty small for one. I was sleeping on the couch bed, mostly with Jonah, whose sleeping habits reverted back to that of a newborn. Marc was sleeping with Toby who hogs the bed. And Marc had to tip-toe around in the dark in the morning to get ready for work so he wouldn't wake us all up, which usually failed. They provided breakfast downstairs but it was pretty much just coffee, bagels, fruit cups and oatmeal. This actually sounds ideal to me but we do need some protein in the a.m. so it got kind of boring. And we were looking forward to spreading out in our own place.

A lift to move furniture into the second floor. 

The moving men

Tuesday morning I scrambled to get the boys ready and pack all of our stuff. It's amazing how well we made ourselves at home in the hotel with 8 pieces of luggage. We had stuff in every drawer, closet, nook and cranny.  We loaded Linda, the car, and drove to the house to meet Linda-is-that-your-real-name, the realtor, to let us in and show us around. She took me on a tour around the house to show me how everything works since its all in Korean. I drew pictures with arrows pointing to each button and a description of what it does. The house was really cold so we started up the heat. All the heat comes through the floor from warm water flowing in pipes underneath, but it takes forever to get going. ( I'm not sure why they didn't start it up for us the day before we moved in.) We kept our coats on for hours waiting for it to warm up in there...about one degree Celsius every 3 hours. But now, two days later, I can report that warm floors are reeeeeeally nice. My feet are usually cold, so its extra cozy stepping on the hot spots. And there is no dry, blowing air to give us sore throats!
It's taken a few days to get everything ready like the gas hook-up, washer/dryer installation and fixing a heating problem, but I think everything is good to go now.

Unpacking

 It's great to have all this space, but yesterday I kind of missed the hotel! There's something nice about feeling taken care of and having everything within arm's reach, especially with kids and the stuff we have to gather together before going anywhere. Forgot the socks. Up the stairs. Forgot the stuffed rhino. Back up the stairs. Forgot my scarf. Up the stairs again. Oh yeah, the stairs. It will be nice when Jonah can manage them easily by himself. His legs aren't quite long enough yet. And he sobs if I'm not on the same floor as him, so I have to take him with me everywhere I go. We have beautiful bathrooms but now I have four times the toilets to clean. That's the trade-off. There is definitely something to be said for small house. At least I'll get a lot of walking in going up and down the stairs several times a day.

We're borrowing all of our utensils, appliances and furniture from the government so it feels a little bit like we're staying in a vacation rental. I can't wait to get our own things and make this place feel more like our own home. If you're reading this, and you probably are, please consider this an invitation to stay with us. Korea is supposedly the doorway to Asia, so come check us out!

Things I love about the house: it's open, bright, on a corner, neutral colors, very clean because its new, easy to keep clean, (fake) wood floors, lots of storage, nice bathrooms and kitchen, a separate laundry room, plenty of space for boys to play, plenty of space for guests. They also threw in a hot/cold water filter and a big screen TV. We haven't had a real TV almost 5 years. It's nice to have but I do have to be careful I don't get sucked into it.

The manager built these baby gates himself!

My shower head. Oohhh Aahhh

The tube. Looking at this picture I guess this is small for most people now. But compared to a computer screen, its huge!

Fridge got ice

The door opens with a code from the outside. It plays a little tune when it locks and unlocks.

Things that are weird about the house: the kitchen cabinets are very high, even for us tall folk. I need a step-stool to reach the second shelf! The oven is teeny tiny. I will only be able to use one or two of my baking pans because nothing else will fit. Cooking a holiday dinner should be interesting. Instead of a turkey we'll have a Cornish game hen! (Korean homes don't usually have ovens, so I've been told, so we're lucky to have one at all.) All the light switches are on the outside of the room, so all of us keep going into the bathroom searching for the light switch and then remember its on the outer wall. And everything is in Korean! The oven, the thermostats, the dishwasher...I realize we're in Korea but these homes were built primarily for Americans.

The sippy cup is in there to show size. I can't use my pizza pan, a 9x13 dish or any other normal size baking things.

The "coat closet" has tons of room for shoes, but 6 inches for hanging coats.

You tell me how to operate this.

The last thing I really don't like about the house is that the farming family that lives behind us has a dog chained to his dog house. Actually every dog I've seen around here is chained to something. I look out my window and see this poor animal walking in circles all day long even through the super cold nights. I'm assuming someone is feeding him because he's still alive, but I never see a single person out there. A gal that I met said it like this - "unless the dog fits on their lap, they don't really care about it." So what is the point of having a larger dog? He's just out in the yard, chained up. I would think a farming family would want a dog to be free to chase birds and small animals away. I guess this is one of those cultural things I have to get used to, but it really bothers me.

Our backyard and the farming house.

But I don't want to end on a sad note. Because our stuff won't come for several more weeks, we got the boys this awesome train table. They absolutely love it and play with it for hours and hours.

Happy to play with it alone while Brother sleeps.

So that's that. Here we are, livin' the American Dream...in Korea. Would that we could live like this somewhere on the west coast of the USA!

Linda guards the kitchen window.

A Place to Call Home

Starting last Tuesday, our rental realtor, Linda (is that your real name?) drove us all around town to look at different homes and apartments. One of the perks and reasons for taking this job in SoKo is that our housing is paid for. We are allotted a certain amount each year and we either use it or lose it, so we might as well get the best place we can for the money we have. Linda very kindly showed us about 9 or 10 different places.
Before arriving here, we assumed we would want to live in an apartment tower. That's what we had in Alexandria and it was great. We had a front desk person 24/7, a pool, a gym and a media room. We figured it would be nice to have some extra amenities like that and be able to talk with someone in the lobby if we had questions. And also proximity to stuff we could walk to. It quickly became evident, however, that that's not how apartment towers are here, or at least the ones we saw. There are no lobbies for one thing. Just an elevator up to  your floor shared with one other unit. One thing we noticed is that common areas are not heated. This is something I took for granted in the States - as soon as you walk into a building, its warm. But here, the entries and elevators are just as cold as outside. Its understandably a waste of energy to heat a space that no one lives in, but it did make the buildings feel a bit more austere. Bbbbbut...as soon as we walked inside we were amazed! The apartments we saw were HUGE. We're used to a little two-bedroom apartment and being able to see everything while standing in one place. But when we walked in, one huge space would open into another huge space and it just kept going! There were so many rooms and the kitchens were enormous! I'm used to about 3-square feet of counter space so my jaw was mostly on the floor. Everything was super high-tech, too. The front doors were like vault doors in a bank and opened with a code instead of a key. The lights and temperature are controlled by a computer screen on the wall. At one point Toby had to go to the bathroom and I had to guess how to flush the toilet! There was a remote control (wish I took a picture) with several buttons, all in Korean. I later found out that it also has a built-in bidet. The tubs, showers, closets, floors, and super modern kitchens - everything - was very nice. 

We also noticed some characteristics that we're not used to. In Korean homes everyone immediately takes their shoes off upon entering, which is a great habit. So the entry way is a little lower than the rest of the floor, presumably to keep dirt by the door. There is about a 2 inch step up to the main floor. Then it goes down again into a bedroom. The threshold into the laundry room goes up 4 inches and back down. Basically there were tripping hazards (and vacuuming nightmares) all over the place. One apartment had a raised platform where families can sit around a low table for tea or dinner. It was a great jumping-off platform for the boys, but otherwise I'm not sure how we would use it. In a couple of the apartments, there was a second stove in an enclosed patio for cooking "stinky things". Linda, who told us that Jonah means "phone" in Korean, also told us that Koreans like a home to be pre-decorated because its considered more deluxe. When I say pre-decorated, I mean pre-deck-o-ray-ted. Think Mr. Miyagi's Dojo meets Marie Antoinette meets The Jetsons. Once we got over the excitement about the size of these places, we started to picture ourselves actually living in them. I'm no interior designer, but I'm pretty sure our Ikea furniture and colorful abstract paintings would look horrific against burgundy and gold floral wallpaper. Am I right? These places were over the top (again, really wish I took more pictures) with huge, billowing draperies over every window, ornate chandeliers, gold stenciling and busy floral wallpaper. Its wallpaper, wallpaper, wallpaper on every single wall and flowers, flowers, flowers all over the place. 
Just a little side note -- I was changing Jonah's diaper in a restroom and noticed a little trashcan with a, guess what, floral design. It said, When you are in love, you love the flower. Hmm. If you say so.

AnyWHO, all the wallpaper means we wouldn't be able to hang our paintings without paying a fee to re-wallpaper the whole place. If they would just use paint it would be so much easier! My style can be summed up like this: plain, simple and neutral with a few pops of color. I don't like busy. I don't like patterns (usually). And I really don't like thick, heavy drapes. As much a we liked the apartments we just couldn't see ourselves feeling at home in them. They felt too much like hotel rooms.

Slippers provided for walking around the home.

Blue lights down a hallway of sliding rice paper doors.

I'm sure these are very nice drapes, but they're just not me. And these are some of the more subdued that we saw.

Painted wavy bricks. What's not to love?

Like I said, we assumed we'd want to live in a tower in town and be able to walk places. But the other thing is that after driving around the town I'm not sure where I'd want to walk to. It's mostly restaurants, all the same except for the meat, convenience stores, tailors and some unidentifiable shops (unless you read Korean.) I cannot tell by looking at them what on earth they sell. It looks like a bunch of junk piled in the windows. So its really not the kind of town I was expecting, like with cafes, boutiques, and a restaurant here and there. Marc says Seoul is a lot nicer. Gee, I hope so 'cuz Pyeongtaek sure doesn't have much curb appeal.
This is a very long way of saying that we finally saw a single-family home that we REALLY liked. When we walked in the first thing I thought was...Hallelujah! NO WALLPAPER. Well, actually I was wrong. Its covered in wallpaper but it was all nicely neutral. No big drapes, no busy patterns, no blue lights and no mini-multi-level flooring. Its plain and simple and modern. The only downfall (and that's a horrible pun) is that there are two flights of stairs. Wood stairs. Stairs give me nightmares. At any moment, one of us could take a dive down a set of very hard, slippery stairs. BUT, I said to myself, lots of people have stairs and somehow survive them. After thinking about it for a few days, we decided that this is the place we could see ourselves feeling the most comfortable in for the three years we're here. Its totally not what I would have thought we'd pick. It looks like a regular Western suburban home, which, back in the US, we're not at all interested in. But, somehow, being in Korea, it feels the most "comforting". The other places we saw were just too traditionally Korean. We're already living in rural Korea for Pete's sake, so I don't feel like everything about our life, including our home, has to be all up-in-our-grills Korean, you know? A little piece of America won't hurt the overall experience! It's definitely an anomaly compared to everything else in this area. Here it is...

It ends where the car is. That's another house on the right.

The kitchen. And Phone.

Master bath. Wowie.

It has 4 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, 3 floors and a pristine kitchen. I realize this also means more I have to clean. The best part is that its brand new. I don't think I've ever lived anywhere that was brand new. But I have lived in my share of converted garages and shabby apartments with seriously gross kitchens. So this place feels like a palace! It does seem rather a cruel joke, though, that now that we have this big house with lots of space for get-togethers, holidays and friends and family, we're a million miles away from all of them! Honestly, I would rather live in a tiny apartment and be closer to people I love, but since we're here, I will accept this house as a consolation prize for moving to the other side of the world. 
I couldn't completely get away with no floral designs. Here's the fridge...

Its bedazzled! Those little dots are rhinestones. I'm serious!

We sign the lease next week and will hopefully move in on Thursday with temporary furniture until our household goods come in March. It will be so nice for the boys to have room to run around and a kitchen that actually opens up to the family room. Every other kitchen I've had is enclosed and I can never see what the boys are up to while I'm cooking. Yippee! The first rule in the house: No Socks on the Stairs!

The other big thing this week is that we bought a hooptie. She's Korean, she's terrific and she drives us all over the place. We decided to call her Linda.

Marc made me.

Back to the Future, Part 2

The last several days have been mostly about figuring things out, filling things out, waiting in lines and trying to adjust to the time. In order to get into the system and have access to things, we have to fill out tons of paper work and provide documentation of various things. Its only today, our fourth day here, that I've been able to buy groceries at the commissary. We needed a "ration" card which, in order to get, required another card, which takes a long time to process, etc, etc. So we've been eating fast food or out at a restaurant for every meal! Bleh.
I think winter is probably the worst time to come here. Its so BLEAK. And it's way colder than DC, which, for me, was pretty darn cold. The hotel is quite nice, but it only has one room. So Toby goes down for a nap on the bed, then I do the nap time routine with Jonah and put him in the portacrib in the living room area, then, lest he see me, I hide out in the bathroom until I'm sure he's asleep. Thankfully, we got new phones, so I've been spending a lot of quality time sitting on the pot (pants on, thank you - mostly) reading emails and scrolling through Facebook. It feels great to have a 21st-century phone again after losing my iPhone several weeks ago. Still sad about that. Where is that phone??? And, thanks to the boys, we're still not quite used to the time change. The boys get up around 4am, which means we all have to and then they're ready for a nap by 10am, right when stuff to do starts. And then because they nap so early, they are ready to crash by 5pm. And the cycle continues...When a kid is desperate for sleep, there ain't much you can do to stop it. It seems like every time we go out, one or both is crying and hanging all over me. Just another loud, obnoxious American family!!
Anyway, this Army Garrison that we're temporarily living on was built by the Japanese 60 or so years ago. The buildings are nondescript and really ugly. I have zero sense of direction so its going to take me a long while to figure out where everything is when each building looks exactly the same! There's just a lot of uniformed Army folks walking around, trucks, tanks, helicopters and taxis, which we've been relying on for transportation. The taxis, that is. Thank goodness they're super cheap. Its too cold and far to walk, especially with kids, so its been a lot of piling in, buckling belts/car seat, ride for 3 minutes, unbuckle, and heave ourselves out over and over. Of course with boots, coats, gloves, hats, snacks and stroller.

The Army Lodge

Thank goo-niz there is a Starbucks in this place!

Speaking of this Army Garrison, it's probably obvious to most people, but I found it pretty amazing that the SOLE purpose of this enormous place, the 1000s of people/families who relocate here, all the Koreans who work here and the entire complicated infrastructure is here JUST IN CASE North Korea breaks the 60-year armistice with the South. And this is just one of dozens of military bases in SoKo. The troops here are trained to "respond" within 24 hours if all hell breaks loose. And then we could go home? Yea! Ehh, just kiddin' again. That would be bad.
Since we couldn't buy any groceries until today we've eaten out a few times. The first night we went to a Chinese place. We ordered noodle soup for ourselves and some dumplings for the boys. Marc got some super spicy soup and I ordered vegetable beef noodle soup. It had vegetables and beef in it, but it also contained the entire (dead) cast of Finding Nemo. I specifically did not order one of the seafood soups for this very reason. This is the second time of ordering non-seafood food only to find tentacles sticking out and slimy other-things bobbing around. I like lobster and fish but not all that other stuff. I was so turned off, I couldn't touch it. 

Eating an unidentified pickled vegetable

 Then the next night we went to a Korean place for traditional Korean BBQ. Everything was lovely and delicious...and then I got to the meat. We ordered bulgogi, which is thinly sliced beef and really, really good, however, there was so much fat and other unpleasantries marbled through it that I could barely eat a bite. Of course there are no knives to cut it off, only chopsticks. Do other people eat that stuff? Skin, fat, etc? I find this kind of thing all the time. I can understand it if you're out in the wilderness subsisting on meat and berries alone, but in the city?? It's so gross! I honestly can't understand why I'm still not vegetarian. The rare times I ever cook meat I meticulously cut off every single offending bit. But meat is everywhere here. Every restaurant, of which there are tons, have huge pictures glued to their windows of stacks of raw meat or cartoony images of the animal, as though the cute, smiling pig is super happy we decided to eat there. Apparently the sight of that lures people in. What I've discovered is that every restaurant is basically the same except for the kind of meat they specialize in. This one does pork, that one does octopus, etc. I will have to find some places that specialize in tofu.

The one second that Jonah wasn't crying during this meal

Garlicky spinach, marinated onions, kimchi, tofu, potato salad and bulgogi.

The other thing we've been doing is riding around with our rental realtor looking at potential homes. That has been really interesting. I think we found a place, too! But that's for another post.

A nice break

Back to the Future, Part 1

4 Days before departure: Not so interesting. It was the day the movers came to pack up our Unaccompanied Baggage which should arrive in SoKo in a few weeks (hopefully). I thought that having movers doing all the work meant we could just sit back and relax but the days preceding were a frenzy of separating piles of luggage from the unaccompanied baggage and the rest of the household goods that will come in several weeks. We were so disorganized and confused remembering what was what. And it didn't help that Jonah would take things from one pile and put it somewhere else. We also made one last run to Trader Joe's to stock up on non-perishables. Of course, that required a photo.

3 Days before departure: The next set of movers came to pack up our household goods, like couch, tables, beds, which should arrive in 8-10 weeks. I got my haircut. Then we moved into a hotel.

2 Days before departure: This morning we drove to the Dulles Airport to pick up a rental car, then drove that and our car to Baltimore and dropped our car off at a port. There was a lot of driving that day.

Bye, Car. See you in March.

1 Day before departure: We took the boys to a brand new museum at National Harbor. We were super excited but it was rather underwhelming. Although it was nice and new, it was only one level and a lot of the stuff was trying to be a little too "educational" instead of "what kids are really interested in". But we did have fun with a lot of other stuff...

Then we drove to a different hotel closer to the airport.

After that we met our friends at the Air & Space museum which was *AWESOME*. Ugh, there are so many fabulous museums in DC!

Discovery

Tobin and Levi= BFF

 After an exhausting day, we were eager to hit the sack before...another exhausting day.

Day of departure: Our flight left at the very reasonable hour of 11:50, so we had plenty of time to get ready that morning. Since breakfast at the hotel was so ridiculously expensive, we ended up at a Bob Evan's for what we're going to call our "Last American Hurrah". We returned the rental car and checked in at the airport.

On the shuttle. Weee! No seat belts!

Nice man pushing our luggage

 

Here goes nuthin'!

Korean Air is known for being a really nice airline and they definitely lived up to their reputation. The flight attendants were so adorable in their lady-like matching uniforms and tight slicked-back buns. I wanted to get a picture of Toby with them but he was too shy. They were SO refined, sweet, kind and professional the whole time. None of that hokey-Southwest Airlines-gal-next-door-goofiness. They also lived up to what I've heard about Koreans loving children. They cooed, squeezed and doted over the boys dozens of times as well the other kids on the plane. They passed out these little bags for all the kids, who they call "babies" no matter how old they are.

Oh, the novelty of it all!

Lunch is a bibimbap rice bowl, some kind crunchy pickled root vegetable, & seaweed soup with a cute little tube of red chili paste.

Things were going swimmingly for the first-third of the 14 hour trip. Toby was happily engrossed in one of the many movies available at each seat. I even got Jonah to take his nap on time. This quiet bliss lasted one hour, max. 

I patted myself on the back for this.

The other two-thirds of the trip consisted of Jonah jumping up and down in his seat, trying to climb over his seat to flirt with (and annoy) the people behind us, pulling my hair, plugging in and unplugging my headphones over and over while I'm trying to watch a movie, shrieking, snacking, visiting with Daddy then back to me then back to Daddy, flirting with flight attendants and not sleeping even though it was way past his usual bedtime and well into the middle of the night.

Jonah, the Anti-Sleepite

Plugging and unplugging

A neighbor's doll which Jonah confiscated and immediately de-pantsed

Here's the back to the future part - We flew west, back in time, over the North Pole and then -WOOSH!- crossed the International Dateline into tomorrowland. I thought that was pretty cool. By now its around 1:00am east coast time and I'm exhausted but Jonah is ready to run a marathon. I would sleep if I could but this boy is all over me. After hours of vain attempts at getting him to sleep he FINALLY konks out an hour and a half before landing. I get to sleep a few minutes here and there in between Jonah shrieking, squirming and trying to change position on me. It was not enjoyable.
At 4:00pm Korea time we landed and met our "sponsor" who drove us a very bumpy two hours from the Incheon airport to Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek. Even though we were in a big van, we had so much luggage that at one point I almost hyperventilated from claustrophobia. The seats were completely vertical with no where to lay my deliriously tired head. I couldn't even look out the window because my eyeballs were crusted shut.

Can't think straight, can't speak a coherent sentence, can't move

We're there

By now, running on the faded shadow of a hint of a whisper of day-old, weak, putrid fumes, we finally arrive at the hotel on the base. The room is way smaller than I thought it would be. Oh joy. There's one bed in a room and the other bed is a couch in the living area. At least there's a kitchenette and a little table. It was only 7:30pm in Korea but we were stumbling around, both kids crying, trying to find pajamas and tooth brushes and setting up the portacrib. At long last we were all horizontal and sawing logs. Until...DING! It's 1:00 in the morning and boys are wide awake and ready to play. GUHHHHH. What else could we do but start unpacking all of our stuff!

At 3am I announced second bedtime, which worked, fortunately, and we slept until 6am. This concludes Part 1. More to follow of our first real day in SoKo...