It's All Foreign To Me

Even though we are on the 7th floor, that doesn't stop Chuey from looking down and barking at...stuff?

This is the microwave, and basically what all of our applicances look like. Soo gave us 3 manuals of appliances/gadgets with pictures and their English translations. So whenever we need to use something we have to pull it out and see which buttons we need to push.

This is a typical Korean BBQ restaurant. There is some type of hot coals or a cooker of some sort at the table so you cook the food yourself. That copper thing is a ventilator that sucks up the smoke. You can see how excited Zeke was to try something new. That little white thing in the middle of the grill is compressed rice. We call them rice logs. When eating restaurant food and there is nothing you like, you can always go with a rice log.

Within the first 3 months we had 4 'typoons' (they do not have the /f/ sound in the Korean language, so anything we say with an F they change it to a P sound). Two were really just rain and 2 had rain and high winds. During the first one we were stuck inside and needed milk, so Lijee and I walked to the store to get some. I asked him, "Did you ever think you would be walking in a typhoon to buy milk?" He dryly responded, "No. But here we are."

This is how we grocery shop at the big stores (not the little corner market that we walk to). There are always 2 or 3 floors and you use the escalator to get the buggy up and down.

Here are some ads. I ignore them. A rough translation is 1,000 Korean wons to 1 US$.  So the top ad for watermelon is almost $14 for a watermelon! (In hindsight, that was a good price.) The 1+1 at the bottom left means 2-for-1, and by golly if it is a 1+1 they expect you to have 2 of the items in your cart.

One evening we went to dinner with the Tighes. (Art is the only other American in the lab with Abe. Daisy and their youngest Susie are good friends and Linda and I are good friends. Super sweet family.) The Andersens were there to teach us the ropes; they have been here several years. 

Most restaurants I have been to do not make you take off your shoes, but a few like this one, do. It feels super weird to walk around a restaurant barefoot.

This Korean BBQ happened to be duck. Most restaurants offer pork and some beef and seafood. This was the pile of food they brought out that we cooked on the grill at the table ourselves.

This is a receipt from buying our dining table and chairs. When Soo took us shopping of course she translated, but after she was gone we had to do some shopping and purchasing on our own. With this particular one, the guy wanted cash. Somehow we communicated that we didn't have cash on us but would pay on delivery. We forgot that you can only pulse so much money at once overseas, so when the delivery came I didn't have quite enough. I tried to explain that my husband would get the remaining cash that day at work and I would bring the remaining amount to his store later that night. The delivery guys didn't care; I'm not sure how the owner felt about it, but he got his money that evening before close.

Frito Pie never got on our bed at home. However, we have only bought a mattress so far, and she thinks we purchased her the biggest dog bed ever!

Apartment life--riding the elevator.

This is from a rest stop along the highway. You know, normally there might be a McDonald's or some type of fast food and a convenience store in the US. Here you can get freshly grilled squid if it tickles your fancy. Believe it or not, I have tried the tiny little leg pieces, and they don't taste totally bad. I wouldn't say they taste good, but not bad.

This photo was taken from my bedroom window. That is a pirate ship playground. Right in the middle the kids hung up their hammocks.

At home we had a large enough yard that I didn't have to take the dogs on walks. With apartment life they obviously need to be walked a few times a day. There are a lot of feral cats here to keep down the rodent population, which wouldn't be a problem for most dogs. But my dog likes to kill cats; no, I'm not proud of that and it makes me super sad when she does. But it is what it is. So every walk is like an Easter egg hunt for Frito. {insert head shake and eye roll}

Like every outing, dinner is an adventure; you're never quite sure what you're cooking. I thought this meal was chicken, but it could have gone either way.

One time I ventured into little pieces of pork. Once it was in the pan and I got a better look at it, I was sure that the children were not going to like it. To my surprise it was liked by all. Success!

Since everyone enjoyed it I got the wrapper out of the trash to read exactly what it was that I had cooked so I could buy it again. Um, no luck. I have no idea what that says, other than it's pork.

So that sums up our first few observations of life in South Korea.
[mid July]