So Much To Blog, So Little Time...

I've fallen behind on my blog.  Yikes!  We've been so busy with moving into our new apartment and getting ready for Christmas, that I've missed writing about a few fun things here.  So here's my catch-up.

We're FINALLY all moved in to our apartment.  

I forgot to take pictures of the place after furniture, so I'll have to do that and get them up on the blog, but it's nice to finally have our things.  After being without them for over 5 months (3 months on the US side and 2 months on the Korea side), it's amazing how much you miss the simple things -- like your bed and pillows.  Since we only brought a small amount of our furniture and household goods (a majority of it is in the Air Force storage facility), we've gotten a good laugh at some of the things that made it to Korea, and some of the things that didn't.  Like our entertainment center for example.  It made it here.  The shelves that go inside, however, did not.  We also brought one lone sofa pillow.  We didn't bring the sofa, just a pillow.  Unpacking was quite comical.  With all the boxes empty now, though, I think we have everything we need.  It feels good.

With moving in, one thing that was incredibly different from the US and Korea was getting the furniture and boxes into the apartment.  We were a little curious how they would do this, since the elevator in our place is quite small.  Here's the answer:

I was absolutely amazed!  I'm sure people in NYC have seen this before, but for this suburban girl, this was a first.  They brought this lift up to our balcony and simply loaded it with boxes and furniture and brought it right in through our sliding glass door.  

How brilliant!  I love Korea.

A Korean Christmas Party

For Peter's work party we were treated to a traditional Korean band.  It was so interesting to see the different instruments and see how they were played.  

We loved listening to Canon in D.  Amazing.  

I even found another Korean friend from the band to trade language skills with.  We're going to start meeting in January.  

Using Korean

So I've been really trying to learn Korean.  Everywhere I go I try to put myself in situations where I'll have to use my Korean.  I really can't say much still, but I've had a few funny experiences.  The first is with my friend Kiho.  I was asking him some phrases to use in conversations  for example, after I say hi to someone in the elevator or on the street.  He started laughing out loud.  "You say hi to people on the street!?!"  "Yeah, why," I asked.  He continued to laugh.  "We don't do that here!  Maybe in the elevator in your apartment building, but definitely NOT on the street."  Oops!  Maybe that's why I kept getting strange looks.  :)

My other funny experience was with our water cooler in our apartment.  Koreans don't drink city water, so everyone has a water cooler, including us.  The first week we had it, it started to leak.  There's a phone number to call if you need anything, so I called it up.  Here's where the funny part starts.  They said, "안녕하세요 (Hello)."  I said, "안녕하세요" back and then asked if he spoke English.  His response was no.  I proceeded to tell him in Korean (via Google translate) that our water cooler was leaking.  Either the translation wasn't very good or my pronunciation (probably the later), because he could not understand me. He asked me, "One bottle or two."  In other words, do I want him to deliver more water to our house.  I told him, "아니요 (no)" and again tried with my pathetic Korean phrase.  He put his wife on the phone who I guess speaks better English. I tried to tell her my Goggle translate phrase.  Her response to me was, "I'll bring one bottle of water tomorrow," and she hung up.  I laughed!  The next day the man showed up with our one bottle of water and I showed him the leaking water cooler.  He nodded and laughed because he finally understood.  He quickly replaced it, but then asked me for "오천원 (5000 won) for the bottle of water he delivered.  I froze!  I had not expected to have to pay for the bottle of water I didn't want.  I didn't have any cash and I didn't know how to tell him this!  I asked him to hold on and started digging through my wallet and all the kids' change.  I finally found enough change to pour into his hands.  He smiled.  I know he left feeling sorry for the poor American girl!

Korean German Pizza

So we found a favorite pizza place just down the street from us.  They have "normal" pizza -- cheese and pepperoni -- but they also have these awesome pizzas I've never seen before.  We ordered the Deutsche Bite Pizza.  

It was awesome.  It had little hot dogs and spicy mustard.  I love that I came to Korea to get German pizza -- especially since I never saw this pizza in Germany!  :)

Home Sweet Korean Home

So, we've been in Korea for two months now.  We have loved everything about Korea so far, except our living situation.  We've been staying in the base hotel called the Dragon Hill Lodge.  It's a very nice hotel, but not for two months.  We've been crammed into two small rooms with twelve pieces of luggage.  Needless to say, we were ready to get out of there.  Unfortunately for us, we had to wait until a house came available on the military base.  So we waited.  And we waited.  And we waited some more.  Finally, the military decided there weren't any available houses so they said we could find something suitable in the city.  Yeah!  

We started calling realtors and looked at what felt like a million apartments.  We looked at high rises, villas (apartments buildings that are only up to about 5 stories high), places near the base, places far from the base.  We could not find anything we liked.  Finally, when I was beyond frustrated, we found our home.  It's perfect for our family.  It's a four bedroom villa right at the base of Seoul Tower.  Seoul Tower has been one of the highlights of living here for our family.  Every night before going to bed the kids run down the hall in the hotel to see what color the tower is that night.  So finding this apartment that sits right in the shadow of the tower was a fun find for us.  Not to mention the fact that the tower is on a mountain (Namsan Mountain) covered with running trails.  Score!  Living in the second largest city in the world, it's hard to find a square inch of grass.  We have an entire mountain within walking distance from our house.  

Here are a few pictures.  This is the view toward the mountain from our balcony. 

 This is the living room.

 This is the hallway connecting the living room to the rest of the house.

 Here is the kitchen and dining room.

 This is the master bedroom that also has a balcony.

 Here's the master bathroom.

 There will be a few things that take a while to get used to...mainly the Korean oven.  It's comically small.  Here's one of my smaller cookie sheets that won't even fit inside.  

We had to bake Christmas cookies the other day on a pizza pan!  Not to mention the fact that it's in Celsius.  Thank heavens for google so I could figure out how what 375 degrees Fahrenheit converts to in Celsius.  

But, that's all part of living in a different country.  It's so fun to have these experiences. 

I think my absolute favorite part of our house, though, is the rooftop.  It's awesome!  I can't wait until it warms up a bit so we can have picnics and parties up there.  I think we could even camp on it!  For now though, it was the perfect place to play in the snow.  

Ahhh, it's nice to be home.  

Best Craigslist Find Ever

This is Kiho.

I found him on Craigslist.  I know that sounds a little weird, but right after we moved here I wanted to find a Korean tutor.  I wasn't really sure how to go about this, so I started looking on Craigslist.  The very first post I found was looking for English grammar help in exchange for either Korean tutoring or photography lessons.  Perfect.  I replied immediately.  

I met Kiho for the first time at a local Burger King four days after we landed in Korea.  I was a little nervous about meeting a complete stranger in a country I had just arrived in, however, was quickly impressed by who he was.  I learned that Kiho is a very talented photographer.  He has worked for Time, Newsweek, & Forbes, having his photographs on the cover of each of these magazines.  As he showed me his work, I began to feel slightly inadequate about being his tutor.  He asked me about myself and I sheepishly replied that I'm a former teacher and now a stay-at-home mom.  Somehow my resume didn't quite have the same wow-factor as his.  :)  It was perfect for what he was looking for though.  While Kiho's English is amazing, he struggles with his writing, so he was looking for someone who could not only correct what he had written, but also tell him why it was wrong and what he could do to fix it in the future.  We've been meeting now for almost two months.  It's been such a fun experience for me.  I've loved learning the Korean language and culture.  While I am far from being able to hold a conversation, I can do some basic things like order a drink at a restaurant, ask for the check, tell people I'm American, etc.  I can also read anything in Hangul (the Korea language).  Now, while that may seem impressive, I can't understand what I'm reading.  I can only sound it out.  This is a big step for me though. It's fun to be able to read signs and bus stops.

So last month, our family headed down to Insa-dong.  Insa-dong is a shopping district in Seoul. 

It's a "must-do" for anyone visiting this area.  Here are the kids watching some traditional Korean candy being made.  

While we were shopping, Kiho called to see if I could look at a grant he had typed up in English.  When I mentioned we were in Insa-dong, he decided to come down and give us a tour.  What a fun day!  What I didn't know about this area is it was traditionally a center for the arts.  In fact, until recently, it was mostly art galleries, pottery stores, antiques, etc.  Since Kiho is fairly well known among these people, he was the perfect person to give us a tour.  He even gave us a private tour of one of the galleries that is owned by his friend.  We felt pretty special.  He would stop at different vendors and buy us different foods we had to try. 

The picture above has Ali holding some kind of rice snack.  I think it had honey in the middle and was rolled in sesame seeds.  The picture below shows Ryan eating a doughy type food filled with a sweet potato jam.  

We also had to stop and try some of the food we thought looked interesting too.  Here are the kids eating a rice stick.  It wasn't our favorite!

And here is an interesting version of an ice cream cone.  It's filled from both ends.  Very fun!

 

After we finished in Insa-dong, he took us over to a Korean bookstore where they have a large selection of books in English.  The kids were excited about this.  We browsed the store for a while and finished with Kiho buying us a Korean alphabet poster to hang up in our house.

For someone who has rarely used Craiglist, I must say, I'm pretty happy with the website!

Crappy Bread?

While Pete and I were out together last week we found a great little bread shop in one of the subway stations downtown.  It's called Dong Bang.  They sell these little doughy pastries that are delicious.  Each has a different filling.  Pete and I got five to share:  chocolate, vanilla, caramel peanut, strawberry, and the Korean specialty, red bean.  Yes, you read that right, red bean.  Here's a picture.

I have to admit, red bean paste in a pastry was a little odd for my taste buds, but the others were fabulous!  

So as we were waiting in line, I started to wonder about the icon they used to advertise.  It's a little swirl.  You can see it on the cartoon character's head on the bag above and also next to the store's name.  I thought it was a little odd.  Then I noticed the plush hats they were selling, much like the one's on the character's head.  You can see them here on top of the boxes.  So, what do you think they look like?

Well, if you said poop, you're right.  Dong Bang, we found out later, literally means "poop bread."  Wow.  I think this was one time when it was a good thing I didn't know what I was eating.  Here's Pete holding up one.  The dough is molded into the shape of poop.

I'm not sure how this would go over back in the States, but here in Korea, it was incredibly popular.  There was quite a line for these steaming hot treats.  Poop bread...Holy Crap! 

I Never Knew...

"I never knew."  This seems to be a recurring phrase for me since I moved to Korea.

I never knew the Korean people are so friendly and welcoming of foreigners.

I never knew the Korean alphabet was so easy to learn.

I never knew the Korean public transportation system is so amazing.

I never knew Seoul is so safe for being the second largest city in the world.

The list of things I never knew about Korea just keeps growing and growing.  And today I added a new one...I never knew the Korean alphabet was created by a king who wanted to give language to his people.  Today Pete had the day off work, and since the kids did NOT have the day off school, we had a great date day.  We headed downtown to the museum and statue of King Sejong.  Here's me pretending to be him.

King Sejong is one of Korea's most beloved rulers.  He was the 4th king of the Joseon Dynasty ruling in the early 1400s.  While he didn't live a long life, what he accomplished during his reign is astounding.  It makes me wonder how I went through 16 years of schooling and never heard this man's name.

King Sejong's most famous accomplishment is definitely the Korean alphabet.  As a young leader he realized the people had no control over their lives because they couldn't read or understand the legal documents they signed or the laws they were supposed to keep.  He wanted everyone, including peasants, to understand the laws.  He even went as far as wanting to give commoners equal freedoms.  He recognized that the people couldn't be a part of the upper class because they couldn't read or write.  At this time the Koreans were using Chinese as their written language.  King Sejong recognized that the spoken Korean language was very different from the written Chinese.  He wanted a language that, when written, looked and sounded like what was spoken.  He gathered scholars from around the world to help him create a language that would be easy for the common man to read.  That is how modern day Korean, known as Hangul  was created.  The characters were formed to look similar to the shape the tongue should make while saying the sound.  What a great idea.  What an amazing king.

We also visited the Gyeongbokgung Palace and enjoyed the changing of the guard.  

Here's a short video.

It was a fun day off in Seoul.  

Good Eats

We had the adult session of District Conference Saturday night.  After the session we were invited to eat Korean with some of the other couples.  Luckily for us one of the guys had served his mission in Korea, so he speaks fluent Korean.  Wow.  It was so much easier to get what we wanted.  We didn't have to use our pathetic sign language of pointing and smiling.  

Because the guys were dressed up, the waiter brought the men aprons.  

 I can't remember what the meal was called, but it was delicious! 

After we finished the meat and noodles in the pan, they added rice and fried it up in the sauce.  That was my favorite part.  I wish I'd gotten a picture.  

For dessert we got these tiny popsicles.  They were adorable.   

It is so hard to get Korean food with the kids.  It was nice to actually be able to eat the local food.  Yummy!

Day Off at A Palace

The kids had the day off from school so we invited some of the people we've met to the Changgyeonggung Palace.  Even though it was November, we had beautiful weather.  It was the perfect day to wander around the palace grounds.  

Jared, on the far left, was our tour guide.  

Being an "old-timer" here in Korea (he's lived here for about 4 months), he's taken this tour several times, so he shared his wisdom with us.  

Here are the kids on the steps of the King's Throne Hall.

And posing on another step.

 There were lots of fun places to explore...

 ...and learn about.

We kicked the kids out of the picture and got one of just the ladies.

This is a sundial developed during the time of King Sejong -- one of Korea's most beloved Kings.  Not only does it tell the time, but also the season. 

This is where the royal placentas were entombed.  Yes, you read that right.  :)

  Finally we headed to the pond behind the palace.  The leaves were changing; it was beautiful.

We had a great day with great new friends.  

After the palace we headed for a very traditional Korean lunch...crepes!  

I was hoping to eat something more Korean, but Emma was starving, and we had to find something she would eat.  This fun crepe stand served gelato on theirs.  That was a first.

Here are a few other random pictures from the day.