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