Will Someone Please Tell Me What I'm EATING???

This pic is at the Yongsan Station- they made this car ad on the stairs so it looks like you're on a big car, but it was dark, so it's blurry. Spencer is in yellow and Tab and Mandy have the black and blue umbrellas.
We went to a place that we thought would be cheap, but oh well. $53 later, we walked out pretty full, but who knows what we ate. I recognized the meat - they cook it right in front of you on your own table-grill, but with an 18 month old, it's quite a feat. We have to keep her away from it and getting burned, and the waitress was really cool and cooked it for us. It was really good. The salads were kind of spicy and the kim'chi wasn't too hot, but what are you supposed to do with the red paste? I dipped the meat in it and they gave us a ton of this two-onion salad. It had white and green onions in it. Hard to eat with chopsticks, but whatever. There was some kind of crab with the red bean paste (didn't eat that) and they brought out watermelon. I had to ask for rice because the kids only ate the meat and a little salad. It was all really good and ordering it was a pain in the rear, because we wanted two entrees and they tried to tell it wasn't enough food, but I thought they were out of everything. So we got two of the ribs and it had a lot of the aforementioned sides. After dinner, we went for a walk in the Sinyongsan area. We were just a stone's throw from E-mart and the Yongsan Station- and ironically, about 1/2 mile from home. On bicycle, it would have been really fast to get home from there. But we perused the shops in the neighborhood and looked at a toystore. The prices on toys I thought would be cheaper, but that wasn't the case. They're about the same as the US.
Walking in the 'back-alley' shops, I had Violet on my shoulders, and these two ladies at the sidewalk restaurant (they worked there) came and grabbed her off my shoulders and took her inside. The other kids freaked out because they thought that she was gone. So they followed the ladies and yelled at them. We told them it was OK, she was just showing off the baby. And whenever we're out, a lot of people stop and take pictures of the baby because redheads are so rare. I try to teach Violet to wave at them and be friendly.
Today I did something mean to the Korean guy I work with. I made flashcards of Hangul characters and threw one in there that was a scribble. So he was telling me the sounds of the characters and then got to the scribbled one and started laughing. I told him that's what Hangul looks like to me sometimes. But it's pretty logical. I already know a few of them. S is a stick figure guy with no arms doing the splits. It all makes sense once you get familiar with it. Then it's just grammar and vocabulary after that. It's just hard because only a few bus stops have English names on the route map, so you have to memorize the Hangul to get it. Or take the subway, because it's in both.
The post swimming pool is sure nice. Even nicer is the fact that it didn't RAIN today! We'll go to the Post Theater when it's raining next time and see a free movie. Kung Fu Panda is playing every night this week there and all the movies are free here.

Seoul Korea LDS Temple

http://www.ldschurchtemples.com/seoul/

Here's a pagoda on a sidewalk rail and it's moving day for these people.
We did another 'dry run' tonight because we're going to the Temple here in Seoul on Saturday. (Now WE get to be the people wearing headphones in the Temple) But it was tough to find the place. It's well hidden and it doesn't help that the area is spelled both Sinchon and Shinchon. But we got off the subway and walked right past the street it was on because it was a hill and we weren't paying attention to the sign that was right over the sidewalk- it said Seoul LDS Temple 70M with an arrow. There's a lesson in there somewhere about paying attention to the still small voice and not wasting your life on the wrong path. But it's quite the shopping district, that's for sure. It was dark by the time we got there and we were tired and thirsty, but it was comforting to see the Temple, complete with the Korean flag out front. When you're used to seeing the Stars and Stripes by your Church buildings, it's different. Then again, someday the flags we salute won't really matter because none of that will matter.
There's something spiritual to me about being here defending S Korea from the aggression of the North. I'm not OK with the oppression from there and all the threats and rhetoric. I'm sure the poor N Koreans don't appreciate the starvation and oppression and having to be louder than the next guy at praising Kim Jong (Menta-Lee) Ill. Thanks to Mike Lostra for that wisecrack. So these people have pulled themselves up by their bootstraps, because this place was levelled in 1953 when the North came down and shredded everything. They work really hard here and they've made something of themselves. It's impressive- because they had nothing and now they're the most-connected people in the world. I just hope it doesn't ruin their society and culture- like they don't all become addicted to stuff and lose their way. In Japan, you don't dare talk to people on the subway, even if you're lost, but here, if you even look lost, they'll stop and help you. They're very friendly. Not that Japan is a bad place or the people are bad, it's just different. They have many generations of tradition here in Asia and we really don't. But they still emphasize family and hard work, as do we, but they really appreciate things in a way I don't think the US does.
I'm starting to work on Hangul to read the stuff on the signs. At the bus stops, only a few stops are in English, so it's hard to get around. You have to sit there and use your imagination. "OK- the little stick figure on the circle and then the house that looks like it's on fire next to the sideways L" then you look up and forget what you're looking for when you try to find your bus stop. At least the lines are numbered and laid out by color, so it's not too hard. If all else fails, you go to Seoul Station and catch the 149 bus from there. Their language is so logical. No wonder English is so hard to learn, it must drive the poor Koreans nuts. I before E except on the 4th Thursday of the month and these words use these letters and sound like this, but here's the 23 exceptions to the rule. Poor people. I'd like to know if they make fun of our silly Gringo accent as bad as do to them! I guess it's Mi-guk to mean Americans. It's not a derogatory term to say that, but there's a derivative that they used to mean the people here.
We got back at about 10PM and the kids went right to sleep. But as usual, the people on the bus and subway loved the kids. Violet has this thing where she cries until we let her hang from the straps on the subway and the people love it. She can almost hang on it herself, too. It's free entertainment and the people here offer their seats to us and the kids all the time and I try to say it nicely that we don't need it. They're good people here. Always on the go.
Mothers with babies like to point to Violet and show their babies to her. It's a lot of fun. I think the kids will enjoy it here as we go out and look around at stuff. Once they get more accustomed to being out and BEHAVING, we'll have more fun. And then I'll take them to the Palaces around here. There's quite a few, so stay tuned, you've only seen the trips we take for fun.
I ate lunch at the KATUSA (Koreans Attached to the US Army) Snack Bar. I got bipinbap (vegetables and rice)- for 3500 Won. And 2000 Won for Mandoo. Yummy. I love Korean food. Good for you and cheap. My favorite is Beef Bulgogi with rice and they serve 3 kinds of kim'chi with it. Radish, cucumber and cabbage. It gets progressively hotter- radish is the tamest. It's still good stuff. This 2 year hitch will go too fast in some ways.
KATUSA Soldiers make sure they salute EVERYONE. I guess they have corporal punishment in their military ( I guess we don't know what it's like to have a LOT of guns pointed at you for 50 years ) so they don't want to get slapped or whatever. They salute indoors and run up to the officers in the Korean military that might be leaning against a wall smoking and salute, just to make sure they do it. Everyone smokes here. That's a tragic part of the deal. Smokes are cheap, and it's a common thing to smoke. Yuck. If there was a national campaign to stamp out smoking and run marathons, they'd probably do it and live longer. Their birth rate has declined as a result of their modernization and their divorce rate is similar to the US, so thank goodness they've joined the 21st Century....... NOT. But they're not in nearly the trouble Japan is. In 50 years, Japan won't be what they are today if they're around at all. I can contrast the 2 countries because I've been to both. I'll have to see what China is like when I get there.
We love Korea- it's not what any of us thought, but that's normal, because it's only a little similar to Japan on the surface, otherwise she's her own place.

The $600 Wonder Car

I don't have any bikini-clad models on my car. Sorry, this is one of those cars you'd be ashamed to drive in high school. And the inside matches the outside. So much so, when it rains it's like the car on "Seinfeld" that Elaine said smelled like B.O. And smell like B.O. it does. People here understand that 'hoopties' as they call the hand-me-down cars tend to look, drive and smell like the pieces of junk they are. On the bright side, you total that car and you're out $600 and if your gas tank is full, it's a tragedy. My insurance runs $12 a month on it, so it's not like there's a huge liability over here on cars. They drive crazy here anyway, so you don't want something that's going to get banged up and make you mad. It's just transportation, that's it. Parts and labor are cheap on the native cars, so it just makes sense to have a Daewoo/Kia/Hyundai because this is where they were born. By the way, they drive on the right side of the road here, so that's a huge plus. I drove in Japan once and the whole time everyone honked and swerved at me and they were all in my lane. At the end of my tour here, I'll sell it for $500 and pass it down the food chain. How I miss my Saturn SL2. If I can't get an exception to policy we'll have to just have one car, otherwise I can get a mini-van for Julie so she doesn't have to walk to post or share the car with me when the weather gets cold. We'll have to see what happens.

Paying the rent

I had to get a local bank account here on Post (it's VERY hard for an Air Force guy not to say BASE) so I could pay the rent. Here's the deal with rent payments. We have to pay the rent in cash here and the biggest denomination is equal to ten bucks. Apparently it's to fight corruption, because you can't slip someone 2 million Won without the whole world noticing. We have to pay in Won, so we transfer the first month's rent and security deposit into the local bank and get it in US currency - it's going to be about $7,000. So we take that to a 'money changer' because banks charge to change money, then you take that suitcase of money to the landlord. Luckily you're in Asia where personal crimes are very, very rare. So we can walk around 7 million Won and be OK. I'll have to take a picture of that much money because that's an insane amount of money. Ironic that the most internet connected country in the world doesn't do electronic transfer for rent. Most companies in the US don't do business with people unless it's electronic funds transfer.
The next project is I have to show the car we have. It's a $600 Daewoo Prince. It should be a Daewoo Pauper because it's so hammered up.

(WAL) E-MART

We went to Yongsan Station (1 stop away from our station, Ichon) and it has their version of Wal-Mart in it. It's called E-Mart. It's not super-big, but nothing around here is. The garbage trucks are so small, they'd be full after 2 streets in Nebraska. Everything is smaller here, because they have to save room. Anyway, it wasn't laid out like Wal-mart, either, but the place was interesting. They actually sold Coleman camping gear and it was twice the price of the stuff you'd get a Cabelas. Some of the clothes were a cheaper, and then we went downstairs in the grocery portion. WOW. Everything was really expensive. No wonder they don't want you to buy stuff at the Commissary and resell it in the Black Market. Orange juice by the gallon $7. Produce was really high too. Watermelons were $10-13. Maybe it was because everything is in Won that it seemed like more, because it's 1,000 Won to the Dollar. But it still seemed high to me. Everything smelled like fish down there anyway.
And pushing a stroller with a red-headed baby in it gets you all kinds of looks. Everyone thinks that Violet is so cute. They wave and she's starting to wave back and some get their cel phones and take pictures of her. It's really funny. She's going to hate leaving here.
We only need the rest of our stuff because the kids are bored sitting at home with no toys or bicycles and we're still looking for a routine. And it rains every other day since it's monsoon season. Still, it's different and good for the kids to see. We get on the train and hear people speaking Korean and I wonder if I'll ever pick up the language here. It's not like Spanish, which is Latin-based and you have to learn 4 more letters. Hangul has 24 characters and they don't look like anything you'd recognize, and they're consistent at least, but once you learn the words, you have to learn what they mean, so that's 2 steps. But we'll work on it as a family.

Public Transportation and us.....

So I don't know what the fares are for the kids. We want to pay honestly, but the bus drivers don't really want us to stand there and ask how much, and I felt kind of bad just walking by them, because then they'll think the arrogant Americans are just taking everything for free. So on the way home from Church a member that served his mission here asked the bus driver for me. So it's half price for elementary school kids and babies are free. So from now on, I'll give each kid 450 Won to throw in the hole as we get on. I might as well give them a T-money card so we can just save money by swiping on and off the bus. One poor lady didn't get off the bus and the driver closed the door and she had to get off at the next stop. So she swiped her card- then had to get off at the next stop and ride back. She had a very unhappy look on her face. That would probably bother me too. At least she didn't pay to go beyond her stop. That's the funny thing about this place. You could just about cheat and scam your way through life here and be OK at it. They all just obey the rules because they're supposed to. It makes this a really safe city, but honestly some Americans wouldn't do that well here because no one is looking. Amanda sat down on the ride home near a Korean gentleman and she was talking to him a little and after awhile turns to me and asks "How did he know I'm an American?" Children are so colorblind- and that's a good thing, but the question made me laugh. I had to tell her to look around at the other people on the bus and see how many of them had blond hair and green eyes. He had a really cool little TV phone he let her watch and was teaching her Korean words. I hope these kids can pick up the language really fast. It would be good for them.
So we've figured out the bus situation, we ride the 149 to Seoul Station and the 1711 to the Chapel, but then they told us they've built a new one south of the Han River, so we'll see what we have to do to get there in the end of August when we move in. Maybe it'll be faster and cheaper to take the Subway, since I'm sure a bus going over the river on the bridges will take forever.
Our place is about 1/2 a click to the Ichon Station and it's a major station so you can get anywhere you want from here.
Saturday was spent getting the apartment set up. And telling the kids to stop stomping around. They're going to struggle with that one- we just don't want to get in trouble here for being loud. We do hear the neighbors upstairs a little, but we don't want to be bad neighbors here- we're the only Americans in the whole building as far as we know!
I went out in the junky car to get some food on base and got cut off in traffic (that's a whole other post!) and ended up going all over Seoul trying to find my way back. 1 1/2 hours later, I found the base and all the stores were closed, so I got a pizza and carefully made my way back. It's even hard to find the street we live on if you're not paying attention, it gets right by you. Then you have to carefully pull down 2 levels to the parking garage. They cram a lot of people into a small area around here. It's sure different than Papillion, Nebraska.
Here's a pic of Spencer and Tabitha at the Korean War Museum. It covered all the military history from the current ops in Operation: ENDURING FREEDOM back to the wars fought against China and Japan thousands of years ago. Pretty cool. This culture has been shaped by that for many generations.

Getting settled

It's almost been a week here, and it's been interesting. The kids are getting stir-crazy in the hotel all day and it's a little hot to be outside around here and the humidity is pretty killer here anyway. And it's going to rain a lot when monsoon season kicks off, so we want to get settled in our place before that happens.
Saturday we did our dry run to Church and took the subway out there, but the bus was easier to take back, so we did that.
Then we stopped by the Korean War Museum and looked around. It's a fascinating look into the history of the peninsula from the beginning but it has a lot of coverage of the Korean Conflict from 1950.
Here's another picture we took on the street, but you can't see the hundreds of cops in the background. There have been a few riots and demonstrations here of late against US beef because of the mad cow disease scare, so you see the riot police here with sticks. There's a few around the base gates, but there's a lot more further from the base.
Having a redhead here gets you a lot of attention as well. First of all, Korean families around here have 1 or 2 kids at the most, so when they see a family with 4 kids, they think you're rich, since we just got our apartment going and the rent is nearly $3000 a month. That would go a long way in Omaha. But this is the second most expensive city in the world for real estate, so getting a 4 bedroom place in Seoul is going to be pricey.
Moving day is fast approaching, and that's good, because we need to get these kids settled!!!

It's been a few days here.....

We've been here a few days and ironically, it's been pretty smooth sailing. They lost one piece of luggage at the airport- we think someone else grabbed it because when we cleared customs, there was 8 of our 9 pieces and one left on the carousel that looked like one of ours. By the way, the one missing was the one that had all my military paperwork in it and a bunch of other electronic stuff. Of course! So I couldn't check in. I got the worst of it when I told the AF Element guys that. "You're supposed to hand-carry that stuff" I get. I had a baby, an antique violin, a laptop, and another bag of paperwork that probably wasn't as important as that paperwork. It doesn't matter now, I have it all. Thank goodness.
We have a cel phone. 010-5846-1532- that's the number for what it's worth. But we'll get a Skype number for people to call from the US. That's a good thing. We have 1 of 3 things we need. A car, a house and a phone. The cars here range from $35,000 used SUVs from the US to $500 pieces of junk. We're looking to spend 2-4 grand on a 6-passenger mini-van. They're cheap here, but they're just transportation anyway.
We need a car. We have to walk all over the place to get food and go places. But there's nothing better for jet-lagged kids than walking 3-5 miles a day. They don't argue about going to bed when they're that tired.
We ventured off-base for the first time since we got here the day before. We were looking for the 'for sale' signs in all the cars- but it's tough to find a car that holds 6 people. Saturday, we'll look around Seoul and try to find where Church is. It's going to be interesting to get there.
There was a Chinese restaurant we found just looking around, and once the kids got hungry enough for the sweet and sour pork and fried rice, they dug right in. They need work on the chopsticks and we need to work on the language.
Violet attracts a lot of attention. Everyone sees her and smiles, because a redhead is really rare here. The very elderly people really like to touch the kids. We don't mind and Violet is so indifferent to all the attention, it's just funny. I hope she doesn't get vain from all the attention.
This is such an interesting country. It's hard to believe it's in a stalemate war with the "Democratic People's Republic of Korea" just up the way. Sad to think that the division was something they just had to deal with.
We went on another walk just off base again. Tomorrow we do a trip around on the subways and we'll look around Seoul. What a cool place!

It was pretty interesting flying to San Francisco from Seattle. We spent more time waiting for the flight (which was of course delayed) than the 1+45 hour flight! And we wanted to go to the USO, but it was outside the secure area and we were NOT going to do that again! Hopefully the San Francisco airport has a USO so we can put our feet up and enjoy ourselves since we have to be early.
With the rest of the day, we went to San Francisco and toured around with Pat Philips- she knows her way around and we got to see the City by the Bay. It was fun to see the Golden Gate Bridge, and we rode the Cable Cars around the city as well. What a blast! And it really cooled off. When we got to SF, it was 80 degrees, and by sundown, it was a breezy 60 degrees. Fun to see the other tourists freeze, but we really needed jackets ourselves.

Twas 2 nights before leaving....

Hello all. We've promised a good Blog for you to read and enjoy as we share our Korean experience with you. This ought to be interesting to say the least. We plan on doing a lot of traveling and the kids have done pretty good so far. They've all spent some quality 'time-out' time, but they quickly realize the rules apply even outside of Nebraska, where they may never live again.
It's been an interesting few weeks anyway. We drove all night to Utah and dragged our tired bodies around Lagoon for fun, then drove up to Boise and looked over the retirement land in beautiful Idaho City. Here we are at the Pioneer Village Photo Studio in our natural poses.
Then it was up to Donnelly for some family reunion time at the cabin. After that, we drove to Seattle where we're about to leave to San Francisco for a day and then to Incheon International Airport. Hey, it's 12 1/2 hours in a plane with 4 kids, what could go wrong?
We'll be sure to post pictures of what we've been up to along the way.