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...

I need to clone myself and stop time...

We got word yesterday that we are flying to S.Korea two days earlier than originally scheduled! AGHHHHH! On the outside I am the picture of tranquilty but on the inside I am having a nuclear meltdown.
oooookay!
We are taking Chicane with us and as of today she is certified to fly internationally by the USDA.
Our dear doggie is having a hard time with this move:

We still need to rent our house and sell our truck. Andy prayed last night that it would happen today! This morning, I've gotten two calls on the house and he's gotten one on the truck so far. We are keeping our fingers crossed.
There is really so much more to be done so I can't justify sitting at the computer any longer.

I was blessed to see my tulips bloom before departure so I thought I'd share them with you.


Stay tuned....

Caugh caugh splutter

Admittedly, it is a little dusty in this blog. But have no fear, it will soon be alive and energetic. We are exactly 45 days away from lift off. "Cinco de Mayo" is our departure date to S.Korea. Andy has been gone for nearly the last 6 weeks doing special training for his new mission, leaving the wife to do most of the detail work.
We still have yet to sell our vehicle, rent our house, do major construction on our property, pack stuff to take to Korea (our weight limit is 1,600 pounds....trust me, that is not much), pack our stuff to go into storage, catch up on all our doctor's and veterinary appointments, oh and we haven't even done the taxes yet..... ah....the list goes on. I am already tired just thinking about it.
We are very much looking forward to our new assignment and at the same time we are very sad to leave our home and friends/family. Everything we have heard from friends who have done this tour, is nothing but "good stuff".
So...um...yeah...come back and visit soon! I don't know what kind of adventures will fill this electronic diary but I assure you, it won't be boring!