We’ve been in the country now for a little over three weeks, and we are fairly well settled in to the new place. The apartment is mostly furnished, the refrigerator was delivered a few days ago, and we ordered curtains today. Connery started his new school last week. Aaron is working. I’m slowly figuring out what I can buy to cook food my children will eat. Many tasks are left to be done, such as teaching the kids not to thump when they walk and disturb the downstairs neighbor (we’re hoping to mitigate said disturbances by purchasing curtains from said neighbor), learning to say, well, anything in Korean (we’ve got ‘Hello,’ ‘Goodbye,’ ‘Thank You,’ and ‘Can We Get This To Go, Please’ covered so far), and buying a car, among other things.
A quick recap… We spent a few days in Seoul to visit Immigration and have a look around. We spent one hellish Saturday doing the following: packing 4 suitcases, 3 carry ons, 4 backpacks, and 4 humans into a little Hyundai Santa Fe; trying to find a gas station and driving through Seoul to IKEA with a really crappy GPS; shopping at IKEA for 7 hours (I even had a list and it took that long); packing all our small, undeliverable items into a little Hyundai Santa Fe (only possible because super-amazing new coworker Mike drove to Seoul and took all our luggage in his minivan); and driving 4 hours with purpose and 1 hour saying “is this right??” across the country with a really crappy GPS.
Random note: If you accidentally blow through a toll booth in Osan, it’s okay. You can just ignore all those sirens and lights and cut across four lanes to the on-ramp, because when you get to the next toll booth several hours away, the toll booth worker will simply give you a sad look and say, “Osan?” and your husband can say “Yes, I’m sorry,” in broken Spanish and pay the toll he didn’t pay in Osan.
Another random note: Korea is a country full of mountains. In fact, I’d say it’s almost all mountains. So the roads twist and turn and go up and down and there are lots and lots and lots of tunnels. (For those who heard about our little barf-fest in Belize, I’m happy to report that the kids slept the whole drive and there were no unpleasantries.) In the longer tunnels, some government administrator decided that it would be a good idea to play loud noises. To keep people awake? I’m not really sure. Sometimes, it was siren-type noises. Other times, it was the national anthem. But because these noises were playing in a tunnel, they became… distorted I guess would be the best description. (Aaron’s note: Doppler effect is cray cray in a tunnel.) I should also note that Korean roads have a lot of flashy lights along them. Red and blue police lights flashing in the middle of the road, yellow lights flashing along the side of the road, these little man-shaped cutouts with a line of red lights that raise and lower to make it look like a dude with one of those “park over here Mr Airplane” type mini-lightsabers. Why? Why not, I suppose. So imagine, if you will, that you, still jet-lagged from travelling to the opposite side of the planet, have just spent an entire day maneuvering through weekend crowds at the only IKEA in a densely populated country… and now it’s nighttime, dark and foggy, colorful flashing lights refracting through the fog, and you’re driving through tunnel after tunnel full of the creepiest ice-cream-truck-from-hell music you can imagine. Remember that boat tunnel scene from the original Willy Wonka? Yeah, it was kinda like that.
Anyway, we finally made it to our new home-away-from-home. We had to stay at the local hot springs hotel for about a week until our apartment lease began and our furniture arrived from IKEA. We never made it into the hot springs, but our room had the largest tub I’ve ever seen in my life. I felt a bit like an eco-terrorist filling it up with water, so decided to go family style. Shower first, then we can all use the tub! Made the mistake of putting the kids in first. By the time they were in bed and Aaron started singing Marvin Gaye, the water was lukewarm, inexplicably bubbly, and full of strange black blobs and the hairs of hotel patrons past. Were the kids cleaning the bathroom with this water? Ew. Family tub and romance tub are not the same.
I really like our little neighborhood. It’s a foreign investment zone, so there are several foreigners and we’re nothing special. As soon as we venture into the main town, the cameras come out, but down here nobody cares. Our apartment has a fabulous view over the rice fields, the school is immediately across the street (I can watch the boy play at recess time from our office), there’s a grocery store, three quik-e-marts, two coffee shops, and several good restaurants all within walking distance. There are lots of other places we’ve yet to visit, including, I’m led to believe, some kind of Lego playzone and a bouncy playzone. Far too often, Lena tempts me with pleading eyes saying, “Mommy, can we walk to the bakery and buy a chocolate donut?” She’s not the only one who wants a fresh chocolate donut on a cold December morning. I thought I was supposed to lose weight moving to Asia? It seems impossible, what with all the amazing food here (more on that later).
Pro tip: ‘Donut,’ ‘Cafe Mocha,’ and ‘Fried Chicken’ in Korean are ‘Donut,’ ‘Cafe Mocha,’ and ‘Fried Chicken.’ Just add a Korean accent.
