Things I Took for Granted

I realized that there would be things that I would not be able to buy or that would be really expensive in Korea. There were some changes, however, that I did not prepare for. Here is a list of things that I/we miss.

1. Normal-sized towels - The ones here are the size of a hand towel or two hand towels sewn together if you put out the big bucks.

2. Milk - The equivalent of a half-gallon is almost $4 here.

3. Meat - 6-7 Chicken breasts were about $16. Pork seems to be the cheapest but it still costs a pretty penny.

4. Normal-height brooms -  I think those at the store were made for midgets. They only come to, at most, my hip.

5. Peanut butter - $6 a jar here

6. Spices - I can only find a few spices: rosemary, thyme, sage, bay leaves, cinnamon, and oregano. We practically lived on chili powder, paprika and lemon pepper before we left.

We were eventually able to find decent sized towels and a broom though we have yet to purchase them (Costco apparently doesn't take VISA cards when even the corner market does!). I know that there are more things that should be on this list. Maybe I am having trouble remembering the rest of the list since it is late. Oh well.

The Unknown...Food, That Is.

Last night we went out to eat by ourselves for the first time since arriving here. It was an adventure (As if this whole trip isn't an adventure). We already knew that our only chances of understanding what we were ordering was to find a place with English on the menu or, less ideally, a menu with pictures. The times that one or both of us have gone to eat out with people from Soren's work, the menus have had English on them. We had no such luck last night.

After wandering around for 30 or so minutes, we finally found a couple places with pictures on the menus. Not knowing which was better we just chose one. We took off our shoes and sat at a table while the waiter pointed to the wall and said "menu." I can only imagine how I looked as I wandered up to the wall stared at the menu, looked around the room, and went back to stare at the menu. The pictures didn't really help. In the end, I just chose something that looked like it wouldn't eat me before I could eat it and went back to my mat. 

In the end, the food was delicious! Both Soren and I were thoroughly impressed with how good the food was and how well we survived our first restaurant alone. It was a little more than we expected, about the price of dinner for two at Denny's, but it was well worth the price. We've added it to our list of places to visit again!

Where's the trash can!

Most of the cultural differences that we have run into so far in Korea are not too tough for us as far as feeling normal while doing them. For instance bowing instead of shaking hands. One, though, has been particularly challenging for us. It involves our trash.

In the U.S., when you take out your trash, you put it in either a trash can or a dumpster. Not so in Korea. Everyone, households and businesses alike, put their trash on the street. Anytime. Just put it out there. You can buy the "approved bags" or not (the people in our neighborhood don't for the most part). It is so hard to get used to. I guess they come buy everyday/night and pick up all of the trash.

It's a small thing but to us it just seems weird.

The closest neighborhood appointed trash spot.

Good Times!

So we got getting lost out of the way pretty much right off the bat. We arrived late on the 13th and went with Soren's boss the next day, Saturday, to get cell phones. One of the other employees came along as well, to translate. As she showed us around our neighbor hood, she pointed out the subway station to us. She told us that when we rode the subway we needed to know "Wolchon" and exit number 3. When we got to the shcool that afternoon, she pointed out the station nearest it and told us to remember exit number 12. I'm not sure what Soren was thinking about this whole subway thing; I thought that it was pretty easy. "I'll just get on the subway at exit three and get off at exit 12. How hard could it be!" As it turns out, it was harder that I thought.

His boss told us to come back to the school on Monday so that we could take care of a few more things. That meant riding the subway. So we go down to the subway to buy tickets. Luckily that was in English. Upon purchasing our tickets we looked up at the map above the counter and realize that the stops are not numbered. They have names! That's fine and all except we didn't have a name for the stop we needed we just knew exit 12 (which is apparently the exit to the surface after you exit the train.). That was problem number one. Problem number two was that we then decided to GUESS which stop we should get off at. Problem number three was that all we knew was that we needed to go downtown and that the map didn't have "get off here to go to downtown" written anywhere on it. I know, I checked twice!

I'm sure that this will surprise you; we got off at the wrong stop. Twice. We ended up having to use payphones that let you talk for 15 seconds before shutting off to call the school. After two attempts, we had no change left. We ended up with only one word form the entire conversation, "Banwoldang." We guessed that that was the name of the station and figured that if it was the wrong one we wouldn't really be any worse off. Luckily, it was the right one. We did eventually find exit twelve and made it to his school without further incident. We have ridden the subway many times since then and have had no other problems. Hopefully that same thing won't happen when we ride the bus for the first time!

We made it!

To begin, I apologize for the length of this post. I just know that there will be a ton of questions about life here. Let me know if you have any more!!

After what seemed like an eternity on a plane with a baby, we finally made it to Korea. Boy has it been crazy. Truth be told, Hyrum actually did pretty well on the flight. We only got a total of 3 dirty looks, two from the same person, in a total of 13 hours on planes. Well, as far as we saw. ;) I am pretty proud of how well he did. He was so exhausted though by the time that we arrived at the apartment. We had tried to keep him up except for a naps on the plane so that he would sleep once we landed. It worked though we still ended up awake by 2 am. He has slowly adjusted to the new time zone though.

I never thought that I would say this, but I miss the weather in the desert. Yeah, I know, it's 107 degrees outside there and you are all shaking your heads at me. I think I hear someone saying "It's only in the 80's there." and while that's true, this humidity is killing me. Also I think that I have yet to see one Korean sweat. After walking from the subway to Soren's work, I look like I just walked out of a shower. If I look over at one of his coworkers they look like it's a pleasant day at the park! It actually makes me pretty jealous. Also the humidity and heat does nothing to mess up their hair! What woman would not be jealous of that! 

Our washing room

You can definitely tell that it is the monsoon season here. Since arriving last Friday it has rained a little everyday except Saturday, Monday and today (Friday). It never rains all day, except last Sunday, and is usually in the morning or late evening. Also since we don't have a dryer, this makes it exceedingly difficult to dry our clothes!

The front of our building

One of the biggest changes for us, besides moving to a foreign country where we don't speak or read the language, is the massive downsizing. We moved into a one bedroom apartment. It is actually pretty nice and bigger than we thought it would be (we were not very optimistic). The building was just built and is still pretty empty.

Our bedroom

Our bathroom. Yes, that is the shower above the sink.

More of our bedroom (As you can tell, it's not very big.)

We have to use the top of the fridge for storage.

We are lucky about at least one thing in our apartment and that is our air conditioning. As I have looked at the other buildings around us, I haven't noticed a single air conditioning unit. We are so  blessed to have one. I don't think that I would be able to survive the humidity without it.

This is our new kitchen table.

Well, that's it for now I guess. We hope that every one is well! More posts to follow!

And then this happened...

It seems like we have been waiting for something to happen with a new job for so long and then all of a sudden one jumped out at us. Soren was offered a job teaching adults in Daegu, South Korea for a year. We are both so excited! This is something that neither of us have done. Seriously, how many people get to have adventures like this?!

So the first part of our adventure starts next week. We move out of our house on Monday and hop on a flight (17.5 hours!) on Thursday afternoon. We are not quite sure how Hyrum will do with such a long flight but it has to be better than how well our cat did with a 1.5 hour long car ride and I survived that okay so I'm slightly optimistic (not overly though). 

It was a little scary when we were at the Korean Consulate in LA on Thursday. We got a taste of what the next year was going to be like. We were the only non-Koreans there for the majority of the time we were there and I had no idea of what was going on around me for an even greater amount of time. At least they flashed our number on a screen so that we knew it was our turn since no one was speaking English.

All fears aside, I am so grateful to have this opportunity to go and experience a new place with my family. I know that it will be good for us and that we will enjoy if we make the most of it. Don't worry though. We will be back soon!