This WON's for you, KEPCO

I wonder what we'll pay for utilities around here. I guess in living off-base, you have a little extra money for utilities and if you save it, you keep it. So we didn't run the A/C too much this summer and hopefully we won't have to run the heat too much when the winter months come around. Korea Electric Power Company is going to build a lot more nuke plants and there will be more power and hopefully the rates will drop- in 2025. I just didn't know the utilities would be so much around here. You don't hardly think about it in the US- we loved our pellet stove in Nebraska, because gas and electric went way up and we were able to heat the whole house for $300 for the whole season- and Julie kept the house at 77 degrees. That probably won't happen here. We may have to get a kerosene heater for the house as well.

Insadong Market

This was quite a fun trip to the market. We needed to shop for a baby-grand piano since we're settled and everything. I just don't know where we're going to put the thing. This apartment just got a lot smaller. But we saw the first one for 4,000 Won. So that's a little less than 4 grand. You almost feel guilty talking the guy down, so I'll get a native Korean to do that for me. Then I don't feel bad at all!

Violet drew a crowd, and here's a picture of them taking pictures of her. She's so cute and the people can't help but stop and talk to her and take her picture all the time.

And here's how I learn Korean. You read the signs and the Hangul on top matches the Romanization so you learn the sounds and letters by reading the signs out loud. YEOK means station and GIL means street. Ichon is the part of Seoul we live in. And you say Ichon-dong, dong meaning section/village/area/etc. And there's a pic of Tabitha playing in the fountain on the side street there.

I have to speak in Church tomorrow on kindness. I'll spare the details, but after having to threaten 3 of 4 kids with death and dismemberment on an hourly basis today, writing a talk on kindness is going to be tough to do.

The Tripps from Church took us down there and we went out to a restaurant for $36 worth of kim'chi, rice, dumplings and broth. When you consider that's what we spent and fed 12 people, that's pretty good. And it's good food around here too.

We're going back Tuesday to get a native Korean piano. We saw the Japanese Yamaha pianos, and the regular uprights were about 18 grand. Not even a baby grand!

I finally got a Korean flag, too. 9,000 Won and it came with a pole and little holder and 100 of whatever they use in North Korea for money. I'll copy it here one of these days and you all can print it out and use it for North Korean goods you see at the local market. I love Korea.

The 2 Koreas/ SCHOOL'S IN!!!

It took a few weeks to register with me, but this country is always prepared for war. There's things in the bridges and tunnels to slow down an invasion, surface to air missiles on some of the tall buildings, military members walking the streets and a huge Army post in the middle of Seoul.
I guess if you don't look for them you don't see them, but amazing how prepared this place is for a war that will probably never come. They have 18-month mandatory service for all Korean males, and it's no picnic, either. They have corporal punishment in their military so you can get physically hit for the slightest infraction. No wonder they're so good about saluting around here! The KATUSA (Korean Attached To US Army) Soldiers are the ones that speak the best English and it's seen as a good assignment to earn your $60 a month working as an admin clerk instead of drilling and marching up on the DMZ. And you don't see as many military people on the buses and subways in the US as you do around here. So they really are prepped for war here in a way the US really doesn't have to be. I need to get off the war thing, but it's why I'm here, really. I'll have to see the places north of here and what they look like- there's a lot of defensive lines cut into the terrain, so I'll have to take pics of them and post them on here.

On a plus note, the kids started school. Julie gets a break now and only has Violet around to worry about. It's nice, because she'll get all caught up on 5 years of scrapbooking that she's way behind on. Not to mention, she can just relax now. The school here seems to be really good and it's on base, so it's safe and secure. They have school buses that come off-post and pick the kids up so it's really easy to get them to school. I have been riding my bicycle to work the last few days, and it's been really nice to do so. No real traffic, either. In fact, what meakes it so easy is that I can skip most of the busy traffic by going under the roads in the subway tunnel at Ichon Station. People look at me a little funny, but it's OK- I'm not the one paying 1000 Won to get to work. Another thing that makes Korea so nice is the cheap transportation. Japan sure ain't that cheap! It's at least 8 bucks to get around Tokyo. Anyway, I carry my bike up and down the stairs, ride onto the base and I'm good. It's really nice. And then I don't have to worry about finding a parking place around the office, either. That's just annoying how crummy the parking is around here. At least with a bike, it's really easy to park next to the door.

Chusok is coming up

We get Labor Day off, so we'll go to the amusement park while the Koreans are all at work! Then we'll get locked in the house for Chusok (Korean Thanksgiving) because to even think about leaving Seoul or trying to get around Seoul would be impossible. Everyone's cheering around here again- some Korean must have won something.
In any case, today we moved from the Chapel by Jahamun Tunnel to Yeoundungpo Chapel. It's brand new and it's really, really nice. We took a historic picture today as we moved to the new chapel south of the Hangang River. It took a few hours and driving across Seoul is never a quick task. The thing about going to church with the Koreans is this- they want to have joint activities with the natives, and then after 1 or 2 times, there's no way to talk to them and they don't wait in line for food, so that turns off the Americans. They don't drive like that, why should they wait in line for anything? It's a cultural thing- if the US was completely flattened 2 generations ago, we'd still be in survival mode, too. And we don't have a lot of guns and artillery pointed at us, either. So it makes things prioritize differently. Still, I love these people and their quirky ways.
We have our household goods now, so we have all we need. I've put the bikes together and the only problem is Julie's tires- they're those weird valve stems and I can't seem to find the fitting to fill them up. I'll just get new tubes so we don't have to deal with this anymore. Those are too expensive anyway. The best part of all this is our mattresses are here. And I'm sleeping a lot better because of it. So is Julie. And now we have more clothes so we can wash clothes every 8-10 days instead of every 6. And there's TOYS in the house finally. Just in time for school to start. I guess we'll see how it all goes. We didn't go anywhere today since we're still getting organized and putting things away. It didn't rain, so we should have at least gone to Namsan Park and looked around, but it's better to get things done. When school starts, we'll be a lot busier.

2008 Beijing Olympics- Native Coverage

I have to say being here is kind of funny when the Olympics (ORIM-PEEKS!) are going on. Like we lost in Baseball to S Korea and the Koreans at work brought it up. Maybe next time we'll clear out our best players from all the Major Leagues (that aren't juicing it) and come out and see who wins. It's just a little hard when the season is on back home and they are paying out millions in contracts so these jerks can run to London in 2012 and beat the world in Baseball. We did it in Basketball and clobbered everyone. We didn't do it in 1980 and some rookie hockey players made history. I guess we'll have to stop that and go all pro and shatter the whole spirit of the thing. We live off-base so there's really no American TV on our 30 cable channels. We'll catch a short glimpse of who someone is in English and the Hangul Fairy will wave her wand and magically the whole thing goes Korean. So you have to be quick. It's really hard in team sports competitions, because someone will score a point and you have to look at the color of the jersey, watch the scoreboard with writing you don't recognize and try to figure out who is who. Or my favorite thing, where the American is about to do something and they either cut to a commercial or switch sports so you can watch some Korean not get a medal! I doubt it's intentional, and they're keeping up with their medal count, so I can't blame them, and we're all a little nationalistic over here, so it's fair play.
Julie got to watch her gymnastics and quite a bit was on the Armed Forces TV channel, so she got to watch Americans fall off the balance beam and the Chinese cheat in English. And you don't have to guess what the commentators are saying. But they do speed up in Korean when their guy is ahead. I don't see how their fellow Koreans can follow it! I did see the female weightlifter from S Korea get the gold medal. They must have cooked her up in a lab somewhere. Korean women couldn't look like that if they ate like Americans and watched TV all day.
And probably the best part of this whole thing is this- when a Korean does something, you can tell there's a few hundred people watching, because you hear yells from all 4 buildings and they echo. They all have their windows open and they cheer loudly so you can hear it. I wonder if it's like that in a place like New York during the Superbowl- except they probably wouldn't have their windows open- maybe in Miami.
Heaven help us if we ever beat these people in World Cup Soccer. I can see the rioters outside our door now. Lucky for us, we'll never be any good at Soccer or there would be a lot more dead Americans overseas.
I guess if we really wanted to, we could have the government subsidize all the Olympic sports and pay our athletes to get really good and then even more people would hate us, because we'd beat everyone at everything. But we take the rookies that have paid the price and do it for the love of the game. And the endorsements that follow at least a few silver medals. Would you buy anything from the guy that took the Bronze?

Hanguk-Mal

As I sit here next to the window in my recliner eating Swedish Fish and sweating, I think about my time here in Korea. I need to score a bag of their custard-filled pastries here, but I don't know what they're called, nor where else to get them besides Samgakji Station, it's 1 or 2 North of Ichon, and it's not worth 2000 Won to get them. They need to have them around here and I'm sure they do, I just don't know where to look right now. We went to Dunkin' Donuts tonight looking for the cheap t-shirts that rail against the Japanese and the islands they're fighting over. Things like that around here will ruin million dollar business deals. Westerners think that's silly, but here it's a big deal. You dishonor someone and you close the door forever if you don't apologize. I wouldn't have been a good missionary around here, luckily the Latinos in Miami were more understanding- and they were in the US, so they sort of had to accept certain things there. I'm not taking any chances here- I even got a Korean flag and put it on my door for tomorrow. It's Korean Liberation Day on 15 August. Like our 4th of July. So I don't mess with that.
I'm also trying to get my head around the Hangul writing. But it's a little tougher than I thought. The sounds aren't too bad, but the letters are sort of tough to keep straight with the sounds. Anyway, I actually deciphered a stop sign (chong chi) and I try to read the Hangul when it's printed near English, it's better than cheating, because it's legal and it helps you learn it.
So here's to the mighty South Koreans and hopes that the bombs/artillery/missiles/etc all stay silent and the people get together like Germany- without firing another shot. It'll crash this economy worse than the German one, but re-unification is worth it. You can spend a LOT less on defense and reinvest it in factories and stuff up North to keep the wolf from the door.
TAEGEUKI- The Korean Flag - all the symbols around the Yinyang represent the four elements.
Pizza, cheeseburgers, chicken and ice cream if you're ME!!!

North Korean Attack!!!

I could have sworn in the last two nights the North Koreans were coming down here- after they flattened Seoul. And I was in the Seoul-flattening part of the deal. There were these thunderstorms that rival a Nebraska gully-washer at 4AM, every night. Complete with the fireworks that help add to the effect. The first night, Julie jumped in bed but I was up a few seconds before it all hit and figured something was up. No sense being scared when the North Koreans are shelling you. Then last night's sound and light show scared me and I couldn't get back to sleep for an hour. We sleep with the windows open and fans on us here - so the jerk that starts up his Daelim (Harley wannabe) at 6:30 in the morning gets to wake up all of Ichon-dong when he does that.
So the big question for the 33,000 American Servicemembers is this- how does this all end? Seoul isn't exactly a bombed-out hole in the ground-it's a full up cosmopolitan city. Based on the stuff I've read about the North, they're all paying lip service to the "Great Leader". These idiots always have to create a cult of personality and a god-like appearance to the people who probably don't want to worship him, but would rather pay homage to the little freak than get shot or tortured. That's the true crime here- the lack of freedom to vote against him because in the US, he'd be on the O'Reilley Factor faster than John Edwards' sprint from the No-Tell Motel at 3AM.
There's a few things you should know about Kim Jong Il. He's a freak. And he's really a freak- he's into Western movies and mass-media. Like he's into the whole Cowboy thing. I'll bet he cried like a baby in "Brokeback Mountain". (SHUDDER) Who knows what else that guy is into. So you're not exactly dealing with a rational person here.