Trying new things

Andy and I set a goal to try something new (in the way of food) at least once a week.
We will purchase something (contents of which we have not tried) from a Korean market and guinea pig it.
Here are some of our experiences so far...some good...some terrible but all very educational.

I blogged about this on my other blog but it certainly deserves a mention here.
We went to this really neat buffet style restraunt which was filled with undescribably weird food.
There was a big bowl of these spiny things at the desert buffet and some Korean ladies in line in front of me piled them on their plates...so I figured wow these must be really good! So I put about 4 of them on my own plate and contemplated how to eat them. You have to cut through the spiney leathery skin to get to a white juicy squishy fruit inside. After the fact I have learned that these are called rambutans/lychees and are very common (like an apple to americans) here in Asia.
They are superbly delicious like a grapey/mandarin flavor and texture. Quite yummy!

Now these on the other hand...not quite such a delightful experience. These are ginseng caramels...sounds kinda good right? How can you mess up a caramel? These are very popular among Koreans and I was excited to try them. Popped one in my mouth and started chewing what tasted like a pile of dirt. Yes, I call them "dirt caramels" and I couldn't even finish the one I started. Andy tried one and had the same reaction. A few days later I threw a few in his lunch as a joke and he came home and told me he ate them all. He claims that after you eat three or four you don't taste the dirt flavor as much. I have not got around to testing this myelf.
One of Andy's Korean counterparts at his work couldn't believe he was eating and enjoying them, he said it was very rare to see a westerner eating them. Now we know why!

Two thumbs up for these juices! I found a new favorite in Aloe Vera juice and the prune juice is unlike any I've ever tasted....they are both FABULOUS! Yummy!


One thing I absolutley LOVE about Korea so far is the level of spice factor in the food. Oh yes! I love me some hot stuff and they do it right here! Not only is the food a 10 on the heat scale but it is so flavorful too! I'm in heaven. I thought I might try to duplicate some of this fare at home so I bought this chili sauce stuff.
Two thumbs down! Not only is it not very hot, but it is super salty. GROSS!
You win some, you lose some!

And finally this was an interesting experiment; We have a tiny market at the end of our street and Andy went to get some goodies from it. He came home with this and we still don't know what it is but I'll try my best to describe it.
It's smooshy and jellylike, sort of like a thick jam/fruit leather. It kind of tastes like honey. I didn't hate it, but neither of us could finish it. It has a gagging effect.
Can't wait to see what else we find!

Our Korean House: Part 3

Are you ready for the rest of the tour?
O.k, we'll start with the guest room. If you were to come visit, this is where you would stay. It is better than our guest room back in the States. Anyhow, we were fortunate enough to have our Korean home come mostly furnished.

Let's move on to the living room shall we?

Here is the inside view of "Chicane's Window"...and now you know precisely why we call it that. Apparently her walk today was not long enough. She is longing for all the disgusting and putrific (like someone died in a pile of dung) pockets of stinky smells that Korea has to offer.
Let's just turn around and see the rest.



Isn't it lovely? I especially like the chandelier and the fireplace. Neither of us have ever lived in such a nice place before. Oh...you noticed the big screen TV huh? Yes, that is very ironic.
Those who know us, know that we do not watch television. So it was very surprising to see this house furnished with not just one huge flat screen TV but a small one in the guest room too. The TV is also hooked up to cable programing. So we are fortunate enough to get about 80 channels of Korean programming. HA! It sucks just as bad as American programming; but is a little more humorous because we can't understand it.
For some reason Koreans seem to love the melodramatic style of "acting" and they revel in dressing in pastel colored uniforms. It's like Pee Wee's playhouse on every channel.

As a side note, this is a funny story about the TV. When we agreed to rent the house we were told that it came with everything we saw and to let them know if we wanted anything removed. Andy, very sarcastically said, "Oh the Big TV has got to go...there's NO WAY we can watch THAT!" Then he laughed and our landlord and realty agent sort of half heartedly laughed too.
Later that night I recalled something I had read in a Korean culture book my sister gave us for Christmas. The book said that Koreans do not practice nor understand sarcasm. I relayed this information to Andy and told him that if he wanted the tv he would have to call and let them know he was only kidding. So he did, and it was a good thing because they were getting ready to remove the TV. They must have been so confused. Stupid Americans!


We have a total of 5 of these beautiful glass room dividers. They are lovely and now it's easy to keep Chicane out of the kitchen.

This kitchen has beautiful furnishings and high ceilings which almost make up for the fact that it has NO oven and no diswasher. I am used to living without a diswasher...but no oven?!? This will be a challenge. Also, we have the fanciest pink refridgerator you could ever imagine.

And for the rest of the home you will have to rely on my description. There is very dark wood thoughout the home which has made photographing almost impossible. We have a beautiful hallway with a giant mirror and grandfather clock and stairs that lead to the basement. We have a master bedroom, which is unfurnished because we are still waiting for our household goods to arrive. Yes, you guessed it, we are staying in the guest room for now. We have another hallway off the master bedroom which has wall to wall, ceiling to floor closets in beautiful carved wood. And finally we have the office which is where I spend a lot of time on the computer.

Hopefully we didn't bore your socks off! Lot's of blogging to come...I can't keep up with all the things I want to share.

Our Korean House: Part 2

So you need to use the bathroom you say? O.k. I'll show you them first. The bathroom is usually the first thing people want to see/use when they visit a new home. I don't know why this seems to be true. Ours are extra fascinating though so come take a look.

We have heated toilet seats and many other features for your entertainment. Our lovely realty agent is also our year long Korean advocate/translator/helper. The first day we moved in, she walked me through the house to help me write little cheat sheets for all the appliances. The text in the photo is what she had to say about our toilets....almost verbatum. There was some giggling involved.


This is our master bathroom. We have found this set up to be a common theme in Korean homes. Basically, you shower out in the open and everything in the bathroom gets wet. There are special covers for the toilet paper and electrical outlets. You wouldn't want to store your towels, or anything you didn't want getting wet, in these bathrooms. The entire room is tiled; floor, walls and ceiling.
Andy seems to really enjoy this setup. He can shave in front of the mirror while showering. But I don't think I would ever build this into a home of my own because clean-up is a lot more labor intensive.
I'll leave you to your privacy and we'll finish the tour when you are ready.

Our Korean House: Part 1

We kept calling this an apartment but it is actually a very large home divided into two living spaces. We occupy the first two stories.

The street is actually pretty empty in this photo; usually there are cars lined up on each side. In fact, that is our garage in the picture....but we can never use it because there are always cars blocking the entry. We either cannot get in or cannot get out. So there you have it. Lets walk up to the gate.

We'll press the doorbell/video screen and maybe Chicane will buzz us in.

Hey! Wait for me.....I know your excited!

Thanks for coming back. I wanted to show you the inside of our security gate. This place has a very nice security system which we cannot seem to figure out. So needless to say we spent the first 3 days listening to all kinds of alarms going off. It wasn't very good for my heart.

This is our front door and a beautiful window for chicane to look out into her yard.

And here is Chicane's yard. If it wasn't for her we wouldn't have this fabulous home. I am currently trying to grow some grass here. It took me a year and a half to fix our yard in Boise so I am hoping that with experience I can cut this time in half.

Do you want to come inside? O.k. Let's go.

Please take off your shoes. This is our shoe room. You can put your shoes in the cupboard on the right and lets open the second door and pop on in.

O.k. We are inside now looking back at the shoe entry. Thank you for taking off your shoes and now I'll take you on a tour of the house....tomorrow.

Hit the WALL

You know how when you were in school cramming for final exams or at work you had a big project deadline? Remember when it was finally over and you went on break or vacation and got sick the very first day?
Well, my body has been on high alert for months now...all kinds of pulls and stresses that I won't bother you with. The very day after we moved into our new Korean home my body shut down and I have basically slept the last 3 days.
I realized that I finally let my defenses down. The place we are staying in is just that "homey" where I feel comfortable enough to finally relax. I know that I have been under a lot of stress (more than I ever have in my life) but I didn't realize how bad it was. My body is kind of re-booting...so Yay for sleep!
Pictures of the home will be posted soon!
For now I will cheer you up with KOREA VS. SHERRY'S HAIR

It's a losing battle.
It seems that day after day my hair gets just a little bit bigger; it doesn't matter how much hair product I use to try and tame it. Lord have mercy on me.
My hair hasn't been this bad since I lived in Mississippi.
To put it very mildly, I don't like humidity!!!

Andy offically started his new job today (his training is done and he is on his own) He works directly under a 3-star general doing some super top secret stuff that I don't even ask about, I am sure it is absolutely thrilling...maybe he'll tell me in 50 years when everything becomes declassified.
He is starting out pretty busy here which I am a little dissapointed about. We sort of understood that he would be working regular/predictable 8 hour days. This would enable us to be like a normal family and have dinner together and stuff. I mean that is why I uprooted my whole life to come with him....so that we could finally spend some time together. He's working 12 hour shifts now which is still less work than what he's been doing the last 5 years. So we'll see!

The good news is, is that last night we did get to eat dinner together! Whoo hoo! Our second homemade, sit down meal this year! These are the little things that you take for granted when you have them in your life. But these little things have become very important to us because they have been taken away for so long - a simple meal together at home.
I have been loaned some dishes from the base and we went shopping at the commissary (which is a blog all of it's own) and we made a spicy pasta dish. We laughed and had a great time!
Life truly is about the small things....don't forget to enjoy them!

Interesting Observations

We found our dream apartment (and by dream apartment, my only request was a patch of grass for the dog to do her business on)....YAY! And Oh! we got so much more than just a patch of grass. I will post pictures within the next couple of days. God is good!
We drove around a bit (or should I say "rallied") and I snapped pictures of things that I thought were amusing.

VS

Hmmmmmm??

Are you in need of a tire? Not only is it a tire store...it's a store made out of tires....how handy is that?


You can tell by some of these pictures that the air is hazy. That is because this is an extremely polluted country. When the Koreans are not polluting their own country they have China to thank for exporting their "yellow dust". The stuff is everywhere and I keep thinking that this year of service is taking about a decade off of our lives. So we might as well have fun while we can.
Here is one of many reasons why the air quality is so poor here; I took this picture out of our temp apt window.

There is a lot of burning going on everywhere you look and they are burning everything from plastic to carpets to whatever they want to dispose of. My eyes have been burning/itching since I got off the plane. Last night it rained and I woke up to "almost" fresh air today, it was a blessed relief.
I also wake up to a headache every day...in fact I got a headache about an hour after we de-planed and it pretty much has stayed constant these last 10 days. And my headache isn't due to mischief from the night before, that would at least be a good reason; it's either the pollution here or the humid climate.... Yet to be determined. I suffered from severe migraines when we lived in the Southern States so at first I thought it might be humidity related allergies.
Anyhow I don't mean to sound harsh and critical. South Korea has a booming economy and they are growing and changing by leaps and bounds. It is a time of great prosperity for the S.Korean people. The United States went through the same growing pains.
Finally I wanted to share another picture from Buddha's Birthday. This is also taken from our temp apt window.

I so wanted to walk over and join the festivities and learn what they were doing, but not knowing the customs or the language I did not want to offend.

Washer/Dryer combo??? What???

We have been in Korea one whole week now. A friend of a friend has generously let us stay in his uninhabited apartment so that we can keep Chicane with us instead of kennel her. Anyhow, the time came to do some well overdue laundry. This apartment only has a washer and we don't have any way to hang clothes out to dry. To make a long story short I just learned from another friend that this is actually a washer/dryer combo. Yeah...don't ask...
Anyway, it's all in Hangul as you can see so you can imagine the challenge that lay ahead. I pulled a chair up and sat right in front of this machine and studied it until I thought I could make sense of it. After a couple of trial and error loads I finally got it to work. It doesn't dry very well as there is no vent so the clothes end up damp and wrinkled (probably why this hasn't caught on in the States). But we now have clean clothing to wear....wrinkled though it is.

Watch for these blogs to appear soon:

1)Now you've seen it; Driving in Korea
2)My dog is a ROCKSTAR!
3)Korea VS Sherry's Hair: Korea 1 Sherry 0

The "Potentia"

Booyah! With just 800,000 won, you too can own this classic Korean limo with green leather interior! 1994 Kia Potentia...Oh yes, this baby is all ours! It looks much nicer in the photo than it does in real life. It handles like a small aircraft carrier and does 0-60 in only fifteen minutes!
We love our new Potentia!
We talked about not getting a car so that we would be forced to walk everywhere and therefore add to our Korean experience. However, after experiencing the heat and the crazy narrow roads with no sidewalks and insane drivers, we caved.
Now the crazy driving will be part of our experience. We are going to video the driving because you have to see it to believe how crazy it is.

4th day

Today is our fourth morning in "The Land of the Morning Calm". We have been in a daze since we landed. From the time we got off the plane we have been running around, sleep deprived trying to get settled in. We haven't had a moment's rest yet, but we have sure accomplished a lot in a short amount of time. We feel like we've been here for weeks already.
They say that people who are overly tired are equivelent to a drunken person. This I believe to be true.
On Tuesday we bought an old junker car to get around in (which I will blog about soon). 10 minutes after we bought the car we drove a block and parked in someone's reserved parking spot. Parking is extremely limited on base and Andy left me to tend the car in case it needed to be moved. So I am sitting in the car when a GOV pulls up behind me. I get out of the car to ask if I should move it. He says that I am fine. So I get back in the car. At first I am a little puzzled because there was something on the floor that I hadn't seen before. Then I noticed that the rear view mirror was on the floor as well. I didn't remember the rearview mirror being broken, but we did buy a junker after all, so I spent a minute or two trying to fix it. Then I looked in the back seat and saw a stack of luggage that wasn't there before. OOOOOPS! I had climbed into someone else's car. Confused I hopped out and looked around and realized that our car was parked next to this one. They looked almost identical and being so exhausted, it took awhile to catch on.
Exhaustion is serious business! I am happy to report that today we are both feeling much better!
We have been amused by the many cartoonish safety signs that are posted all over base. This one is my favorite:

I believe this is meant to be read right to left.
This is how I interpret this sign.
1) Prepare yourself with safety while on the job.
2) Because you prepared well, now everything is "A" O.K!
3) No matter how much you prepare you will still get crushed by an on-coming truck if you don't pay attention!

This is the front door of the temporary place we are staying in. We have found that Korean doors are generally very highly ornamental. This picture seems to be a common theme among doors.

Our goal today is to find a place to live, and try to get our bodies adjusted to Korea time. Our internet service is very sporadic just now so forgive us if we owe you an email. We will be sure to respond to all emails as soon as we can.
Please leave a comment to let us know you stopped by!

Safe Landing...

Oh my goodness I have so much to share. This is the first chance I have had to get on the internet and I am in a very public and distracting place right now. But we should get our own internet hooked up soon and then I can share lot's of funny stuff with you.
Andy and I got to sit together on the flight which was wonderful! The 777 we took was completely packed with people so the flight was a bit uncomfortable. Chicane traveled wonderfully! She was crated for almost 17 hours and never had a single accident. She seems to really love it here and she is very popular with the Koreans...not because she looks delicious but because she is a large and unusual looking animal (at least that is what I like to think).
We have a squadron mate here who has gone out of his way to help us get temporary lodgings and has driven us around and really helped us to feel welcome. He has been a huge blessing to us. We are staying in a little apartment kind of out in the country until we can find a place of our own. There are cows one block from us followed by this farm. It's a bit smelly.

Our first morning in Korea was a holiday, Buddha's birthday, and we awoke to drums and bellringing. It was kinda cool!
I tracked some of the early morning symphony to this house:

We are terribly jet-lagged, but that is to be expected. We love Korea so far. We still have a lot of inprocessing to do, an apartment to rent, a cheap junker car to buy (Andy has insisted) even though the driving here is absolutely CRAZY!!!!
We are both so happy that we brought "The Dog", she really seems to be enjoying herself. She is such a happy spirited creature. Here she is enjoying the view.

Lot's more to come...