A bum of our very own....

I don't know if this is humorous or sad. We've decided to take the lighthearted approach.


Andy found this gentleman "parked" right outside our garage door at 1:00am this morning. He looks quite comfortable and doesn't seem to mind that his wallet is out in the open for anyone to steal. He was "sawing some major logs" (snoring for my international friends) while Andy took these pictures.
Apparently this is not uncommon and not something to get overly concerned about in Korea. We were told that Koreans fall asleep anywhere.
He probably had a bit too much soju...maybe his wife locked him out...or perhaps he couldn't find where he needed to go when he saw the oh so inviting patch of concrete next to our "no parking" cone and bedded down. Bless him.

So let's talk about that "no parking" cone for a minute. It is there so that we can park in the garage thus freeing up a space for someone else to park on the street. In spite of the cone, TWICE now the same person has parked their car in front of the garage blocking us in. Not a big deal unless you need to use the car to go pick up hubby from work at 12:30 in the morning. Or hubby comes home and needs a place to park at said hour.
I won't go into details but the last time this happened, Andy was greatly inconvenienced, and not for the first time. After a 14 hour day at work....he came home to "no place to park" even though we are paying a lot of money for this parking spot...let's just say that the whole entire street was awakened, including a sleepy sick wife (me) until that car was removed.
Things have been pretty quiet since... until last night. It was my turn to have the car and I usually drive to pick hubby up. This time he wanted to walk home which is a good thing...because I would have gotten in the car in the wee hours...not expecting a human speed bump in the way and I probably would have run him over.

Note to self: Check perimeter of vehicle for human FOD before engaging the engine.

Take a trip with me.....

Close your eyes with me if you will...(after you read this of course).
Imagine that every person you ever knew and every person you ever saw everyday of your life had blond hair, blue eyes and pale skin. There is absolutely no variation on this. The blond hair is always the same shade from person to person...same with the eyes. Not even freckles on the skin...just milky white. You've never seen anyone with red, brown, black hair, etc. You could never imagine another eye color than blue.
......This is what it is like living in Korea. Everyday I am fascinated by the "sameness" around me, I mean I truly marvel at it.
Every man, woman and child has black hair and dark eyes....invariably. Millions and millions of them.

The Korean people are beautiful....just stunning, there is no doubt about that...there are just soooo many of them. I wonder how they differentiate themselves from one another? For ex: You don't really see, piercings, tattoos and the like.
For the most part, I get the feeling they are fairly content with conformity.

I've never quite stood out in a crowd like I do here in Korea....especially Andy with his height. I'm getting used to being stared at. A lot of people (mostly children) try to practice their English on us...which never ceases to amaze me, because I could very well be French, German, Italian...whatever. I get the strong feeling they think all white people are Americans.
I've gone all day without seeing another caucasion other than Andy. And oddly, when you are out and about and you do see another white person you kind of feel an automatic connection with them. Bizzare!
I truly know what it is like to be a minority. It's a reminder to me how diverse America really is.
I have to say that I really treasure diversity!
I can't imagine the world without red heads and I just love freckles. I love that different members of the same family can have different hair colors.
I guess my life has been all about trying to be different than everyone around me...I wonder if I would be happier if I were like everyone else? I wonder what it is like being Korean?

Car Elevators and Fun with gas masks

After lot's of prodding, I finally got Andy to post to this blog! Enjoy his post!...


The parking in Seoul is extremely limited but you can park on the roof of some buildings. All that's required is to drive your car into the car elevator and go up 5 or 10 stories. It's fun too, an intercity ride of sorts. I don't have a picture of the elevator but here's me walking down the stairs at Ttuksom Resort Station. It's the subway stop close to where we are learning to kiteboard. You can go to zootyclub.com to check out the location, instructors, and wind speeds both current and forecast.

When you have gasmasks, you should have fun with them. If you don't practice and enjoy it, when you have to wear them, you will be miserable!

Bikes for rent! We want to get a tandem and cruise the entire river walk.

Seoul: Part three - What bargains? and It's the 80's all over again

O.k. I am running a little behind schedule these days. I finally got in to see a doc and I literally came home with a grocery bag full of pharmaceuticals. I believe these meds are making me exhausted. I've been taking like 4 naps a day and still sleeping through the night. I'm just hope I get better soon, I've been sick for over one month now.

Anyway, enough about that. I'm just going to post a bunch of crazy pictures that are kinda self explanetory and maybe throw in my two cents here and there.

Oh and before I do that I just wanted to say that we were under the impression that we were going to leave Korea with all kinds of treasures and bargains. Well, from what we've seen so far items are comparable to U.S. prices and/or more expensive.

On to the pics:

This is one of many reasons that Koreans aren't fat. They put books in their vending machines instead of junk food.

They are rebuilding Nam Dae Mun. Some whacko burned it down just before we arrived. It is a national treasure.

There is a beautiful River Walk that runs through Seoul for miles and miles. This is the very beginning. When I started getting blisters after a few hours of walking Andy decided to put me on his shoulders. We were like this 9 foot American Monster and boy oh boy did we get lot's of attention. Hundreds of Koreans stopped to stare, comment and laugh. We felt like superstars.

I've been documenting Korean fashion which will end up being a post all it's own. There is no set fashion that I can see among all ages of Korean men and women. There is a mix of traditional and modern dress. They seem to have taken the extreme western fashions and ran with them. This picture for example reminds me of 80's valley girl fashion.

Lot's of people wear masks for one reason or another. I thought this one was cool.

Yummy! NOT.

Seoul: Part 2 Protests and Bathrooms

We inadvertantly got "caught up" in Anti-Amercian Beef protests.
This is City Hall in Seoul,



Andy and I were on foot when we happened upon this scene. We tried our best to avoid them and go around but it was impossible, so we had to go through them. Thank God Andy is a very tall man because he could see above everyone's head and just cruise through the crowd. I hung on to the back of his backpack for dear life and let him tow me through the crowd. I could not see a thing and was being bumped and pushed from all sides....so naturally I had a panic attack. The mantra in my head was.."don't puke, don't puke...if I puke it's going to get all over me and 14 other people." I would rather throw myself out of an airplane everyday for the rest of my life than go through that experience again. My name is Sherry and I have severe claustrophobia in crowds of people. My body goes through a physical reaction where my temperature rises to fever level, nausea, trouble breathing and dizziness. This event probably lasted for 10 minutes which seemed like an eternity. If it were any longer we would have had serious problems. Andy was very good about getting me out of there, and I was very good about not dying. I fight to not allow this to become debilitating but I don't know...this was just awfull!

After we got out of the crowd and I could catch some air and recover I went into survival mode. (Survival mode for me is clinging on to my sense of humor! I've been known to tell jokes while tears are streaming down my face.) I started swaying and singing "All we are saying....is give beef a chance."...I think this is why Andy stays married to me.

Public Bathrooms:
Hmmmm ...where do I start? Of course....with a picture..because that is worth a thousand words right?


There was no toilet paper in this stall or anywhere else in this bathroom. So I says to myself, "Hole in the floor + no toilet paper = I will hold it until the cows come home." ...which here is Korea is going to be a long time due to the protests.

Every restroom that Andy used had a cleaning lady in it. Yes, these ladies work in the middle of men peeing.
Let's see....Most bathrooms seem to have only 1 toilet paper roll which is located in the common area...so you must make sure to grab some before you go into the stall which is so small and cramped that you can barely close the door behind yourself.

I had to walk past a gentlemen peeing on his side of the room to get to the ladies stalls....AWKWARD!

In one bathroom there was no soap to wash your hands but there was a mouthwash dispenser...but no cups. Andy actually tried to wash his hand with the mouthwash.
I saw some little girls dispensing it into their mouths like they were drinking from an upside down water fountain. Messy.

I could go on...and probably will touch on this subject again as bathroom humor NEVER gets old.
And honestly, I have to say I have seen far worse conditions than this in France and Fiji.

My kitty is broken

A couple of weeks ago my clown cat jumped off the balcony and broke his leg whilst in the care of my dear bro and sis. Bummer yes...but stuff happens right? and we must learn to go with the flow.
So we have been doing our best to communicate from Korea to Seattle (16 hour time difference) to do what is best for kitty without breaking the bank.
Well this tough situation has gone from bad to "beyond nightmare"....but we are still trying to go with the flow.
The bank is officially broken and my kitty's leg needs to be amputated. Prior to this decision I had been having nightmares everynight about poor Raku and the strain of the situation has added to this chronic illness I have picked up in Korea.
The vet said Raku probably won't even miss the leg, that he will still have his mobility and spunk...and trust me this cat has extra spunk. So I feel reassured that he is going to live a long and healthy life.
Because of the steep financial burden we had the option of relinquishing ownership to the vet and they would adopt him out to another family.
After many many MANY hours of tears, I decided that I cannot leave a man down (even if he is a cat). There is no way I can let this healthy spoiled rottin character go to another family sans one leg. With hubby's blessing, I had a looong discussion with the vet at 4:00AM my time and we came up with a plan. We can finance his surgery and he'll get to stay in the family.

I mean ...look at this picture...how can I separate these two...they are the best of friends. And since Chicane raised Raku, Raku is just like a dog! It's great! In fact, we call him "little dog".




And here is a funny story about "little dog". My lovely mother-in-law was visiting us and we were sitting around having a conversation about Hobo spiders. There were lots of them around our property at the time. Raku is very adept and catching and killing these deadly spiders.
We were all pretty "creeped out" talking about them so we decided to get out of the house for a bite to eat. When my mom went to put her shoes on, she was very startled by something in the shoe. Thinking it could be a spider we had a tense moment. On closer inspection, we found a big chunk of potpourri in her shoe, placed there by none other than Raku. Potpourri in a shoe....now that is funny!

Writing certainly makes me feel better. Thanks for listening! Seoul: part 2 tomorrow!

Seoul: Part 1

We finally got a day off to travel to Seoul. Andy and I are still both sick and probably shouldn't have gone but we were getting super bored so we decided "what the hay"! We had so many amazing experiences that I am going to have to break this into several parts. So we will start with the train ride:
We live less than a 5 minute walk from the train station so it is really handy.

Mind you, this is a weekday so I shudder to think what the weekend crowd looks like.

Can you see how packed each train car is?

Here is a look on the inside. Some people might think this is really fun. Like Andy for instance who is taller than everybody in Korea, and no matter how crowded it gets, he is always a head above everyone and can still see and breathe. But for little ol' me who has developed severe claustrophobia in crowds this was TORTURE!!!
Koreans have no problem being packed in like sardines and bumping into one another and stepping on each other's toes. When we got off the train to transfer to a different line someone literally shoved me out of their way. Under normal circumstances I would have punched this person right in the nose. Fortunately for the Koreans I read that this behaviour is part of their culture and is not considered rude. With that in mind I was not offended and considered it a part of the experience.
I love how the Koreans use cartoons to depict concepts. Like these "be considerate" cartoons in the train cars;

They are pretty self explanetory. I like the big guy cartoon. I call this one the "no sumo wrestlers". And I think one of them is "don't spit coffee in other people's faces" which I am so glad they posted because spitting coffee in someone's face was on my list of "to do's" for the day.

More to come soon, but we wanted to break it down into bite size pieces.

Oh Happy Day! Our stuff is here...

Have you ever been in a situation where you are alone in a crowd of people? You don't know what's going on and you feel very uncomfortable...and then you see a familiar face in the crowd and a wave of relief washes over you? Even if that familiar face is just an aquaintance all the sudden everything just seems better.
Well, that is the way I felt today when our household goods arrived. I had no idea that I have been depressed until a few familiar and comforting items started trickling in. We didn't pack much so it only took the movers 40 minutes to unload our stuff. I haven't felt this happy since Shuttlebirds Tatting Conference. In fact, I am feeling a bit ashamed that I have apparently put so much value on material posessions...I have never thought of myself as a materialist.

Here are the gentlmen who brought cheer with them today.
We had one crate and a small container of stuff....750ish pounds.

Following are the reasons why I feel so happy to have my belongings today!

A.) I get to sleep in my own bed tonight! A real bed...with my own soft blankets. You haven't lived until you've slept in a Korean bed....I want to say that it is better than sleeping on the floor, but it's almost exactly like sleeping on the floor. After several back injuries, I just can't take that garbage anymore.
Andy and I are both sick with what they call the "Korean Crud"; a combination of new bacteria and severe pollution. So big sigh of relief for our own bed!

B.) Our bicycles are here! I just love my bike...it's one of my very favorite posessions. It is soooo fun to ride and I like to ring the little bell...o.k. enough of that.

C.) My art supplies are here so that I can get back to work creating. If I don't have the opportunity to be creative then my spirits start to decline very quickly. I am SOOOO happy that I can get back to work! Whoo hoo!
In the photo above are some of my tatting shuttles being carefully unpacked. The shuttles represent 6 months of blood sweat and tears on my part (literally). I took a risk in bringing them over, but I am happy that I did, so that I can continue to share them with the world.
I also brought my Dulcimer..because playing it calms me. I brought some canvas and paints, lots of art and tatting supplies, my vintage cameras and film to shoot with, and other than some clothing that is about it.
And everything seems to have arrived in good condition which is a FIRST let me tell you!

Hurray!

I've got work to do and a sick hubby to take care of!