So tomorrow will be exactly three weeks since we arrived in the Land of the Morning Calm. With everything that has happened since we got here, it seems like a lot more than 3 weeks. We are starting to settle in now - we've moved into our house and have started to get to know the area a bit - so I figured I'd share some more random thoughts and such on our new life and surroundings...
* South Korea is expensive. I probably shouldn't be surprised, considering the fact that the country is completely cut off from the rest of mainland Asia by the evil empire to our north which means that pretty much everything here is imported via sea or air. The quality of life here is very high and that does come at a cost and I'd been warned prior to arriving that everything here is expensive. However, there are some things that just seem disproportionately expensive. For example, we ate at a Chinese restaurant on my birthday and the kids wanted their Coca Cola so I let them order a can each. Halfway through the meal I was looking at the drink menu to see what kind of beer they had and I was shocked to notice the price of a can of Coke - $9.50! And it wasn't even a regular 12 oz can! I wish I'd looked before I let all three kids order one, that's for DAMNED sure. On the other hand, some things that I thought would be pricey are actually cheaper than expected. Taxis are cheaper than I expected. Train tickets are cheap - all 5 of us took the train to Seoul last weekend for roughly 20 bucks. And soju, which I have already developed a love/hate relationship with, is surprisingly cheap (about a buck and a half for a bottle at the convenient stores). The worst part so far is probably the produce at the commissary, which is usually cheap. The selection here is horribly anemic and grossly overpriced, even prohibitively so. Fortunately we have already discovered the cheaper "3/8 market" (so called because it is held on days ending in either a 3 or an 8) downtown that usually yields better and cheaper produce. Unfortunately, restaurants also fall into the pricy category. A good dinner at a Korean BBQ place for all 5 of us could easily approach the $100 mark and could just as easily go way over if you're not careful. Speaking of Korean restaurants...
Produce at the commissary: over $7 for a small carton of strawberries and over $6 for a small carton of blueberries. No thanks.
* I'm sure I will be proven wrong on this as we spend more time here but for now, Korean cuisine doesn't seem very diverse. It's most famous for the Korean BBQ where they bring all kinds of vegetables and you cook the meat at your table - affectionately called "Beef and Leaf" by Americans - but outside of that I haven't been able to find any other identifiably authentic "Korean" food. I don't even know what else there is, to be honest. There is something called "bibimbap" that we have been dying to try, it's basically a huge bowl of rice with sautèed vegetables, chili paste and either a fried egg or sliced meat on top...but we haven't found a place that serves the real thing yet (full disclosure, we haven't really looked that hard). And it seems like everything ...and I mean EVERYTHING - here is spicy. This is causing problems for Luca and Max as they can't order anything anywhere we go. Chicken nugget kids meal? Chicken is too spicy. Hot dog? Too spicy. I'm getting used to it but it'd be nice to have some normal food that is not spicy. Of course we are at a huge American base so there is also no shortage of American type places selling burgers, wings, Mexican food, etc. but I'm in South Korea, I don't want that crap. Luckily there are plenty of ethnic Asian places such as Indian, Thai, Filipino and such. I'm a huge fan of Asian food so that suits me just fine.
Spicy noodles with dumplings for lunch today; so spicy it burned my insides for a good hour after I ate it.
* South Korea is hot. Like, wicked hot. And the humidity is absolutely unbelievable. People told me it was bad but I had no idea it would be this bad. The heat and humidity here, I would put it on par with the Philippines believe it or not. It really is that bad. I am sweating constantly, it's very uncomfortable. Italy is hot and humid but nothing like this place. I try putting on sunscreen but I sweat it off within minutes of being outside and being in the sun makes me feel like a frigging vampire it burns so much. From what I've gathered, June through August is like this. Hopefully it will get better after because my God, this weather is absolutely oppressive.
* Remember when I wrote about how easy everything was here compared to Italy? Well...things got a little more difficult the last week or so. The biggest problem here is the absolute massive size of the base. I honestly can't understate how huge this place is (for my friends in Vicenza, you could probably put at least 10-15 Caserma Ederles inside the base here and that is a very conservative estimate). It's basically a city. Taking a taxi from one end of the base to the other can take at least 15 minutes or more. Taking the free shuttle bus from the PX to the front gate can take more than half and hour. Almost all of the in-processing stuff is done in the "One Stop" building as I mentioned earlier and it's so convenient but anything else you have to do quickly becomes a nightmare. An expensive nightmare. They have three different free shuttle bus lines (red, green and blue) that do different routes but sometimes marrying up the different changes and transfers is often akin to doing a 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzle. If you need to go to the big places - PX, walk in gate, etc., no problem. But anything even slightly off the beaten path, well...you're screwed. Now, the saving grace SHOULD be the taxis. And for us, they were the first week or two. They have a very 'convenient' AAFES Taxi app for your phone where no matter where you are on base you can order a taxi simply by putting in your location and where you are going and they will send a taxi out to get you. The first week or so it worked great but suddenly the last week or so, probably 75% of the time I order a taxi, I get a response back saying "Sorry, no taxis available at the time, please try again later". And let me tell you, when you are standing outside with NO cover or shade in this heat and burning, searing sunlight with no hope of a taxi or bus coming anytime soon...it will make you question your entire existence. Which leads me to my next topic...
* I bought a car today. Given what I just wrote in the above paragraph, I honestly wish I'd done so last week. I shipped my car before we left Italy but I checked the status earlier today and after almost an entire month, it says my car is STILL AT THE PORT IN GERMANY. Which means it could be another couple months until it gets here. When we got to Italy last year I made the mistake of doing a long term rental car while I waited for my car to arrive and it ended up costing me almost $2,000. The smart thing to do would have been to buy a cheap 'hooptie' (used car) to drive until my car arrived, then just sell it. Well now I'm a year older and a year smarter and so that's what I did. You simply cannot survive here without a set of wheels unless you are a single soldier living on base and even then it's damned near impossible. I met a soldier this past weekend who told me that the policy here is that single soldiers below the rank of E7 are not allowed to own a car. That shocked me. I can't fathom living here without a car. He described in great length how much he hates it here simply because he can't have a car and it takes him forever to get anywhere using the slow and confusing bus system. He said this is the worst duty station he's ever had and he'll never come back (perhaps he'll change his mind once he makes E7 and can have a car?). Anyway, we've spent way too much time being stranded on base in the blazing sun for me to even consider not buying a car. Plus we live off base now which means I have to go next door to the 24 hour convenient store and ask them to call me a taxi to the base, then take another taxi once I get to the base. And then depending on what I have to do, when and where I have to do it, I could end up taking 2 or 3 more taxi rides while I'm on base. There is virtually nothing on base that is walkable distance. It's absolutely insane.
* There is wonderful news on the vino front (or bad news if you're my loving but nagging wife); the shoppettes here carry an outstanding selection of the same Italian, French and Australian wines I used to buy in Vicenza. There will no doubt be many things I will have to learn to live without here but thankfully, world class vino will not one of them (Sorry honey!).
The finest Italian vino right here in South Korea. Who could ask for more?
* I absolutely LOVE our house. Location aside, it's possibly the nicest house we've ever lived in. It's completely new - we are the very first people to ever live in it - and so clean and modern, it's like a luxury house. I think my favorite part might be the showers. They're completely open with tons of room and feature two different shower heads to choose from. As much as I loved our apartment in Vicenza, the shower was basically the size of a phone booth and had barely enough room to get in and out of. One of the coolest things is the couch that came with the place. It has a bluetooth hookup with speakers on each side - I connect my computer to it when I watch Netflix and put the sound through the couch which is amazing. Sometimes I connect my computer or phone to it and play YouTube videos as the sound is so loud and clear, it's like having a complete surround sound system.
Our couch with built in bluetooth speakers. Futuristic!
* Language has probably been the toughest challenge for me so far. I've traveled all over the world and for the most part I've been able to get by with some basic phrases or simply by learning how to ask "Do you speak English?" in the local language. Not so here. I've been completely astonished by how few people here speak no English at all, not even one or two words. In my experience, countries that host American bases usually have at least a a slightly higher than average amount of locals who can speak a bit of the language. And Korea has been one of the the biggest homes of overseas American bases since the 1950's so I really thought I'd have no problem here but I was completely wrong. When I lived in Germany it seemed everybody spoke English. In Italy, less so but still a large enough amount that I had no problem getting by using English and my rudimentary French (which is very similar to Italian) until I started learning the local language. Most other countries I've visited - France, Portugal, Holland, Hong Kong, Thailand, you name it...never had a problem. But I'm really struggling here in South Korea. I will learn some Hangul (Korean) in time but for now it's making things very difficult. One of the hardest things is that they don't use the western alphabet in most things, such as trains, buses, etc. So for example, I'm looking for a bus stop with the name "Gaek sa ri", I can't find it because they only use the Korean name: 가에 사 리. It makes things really difficult...
Anyway, there's the most up to date...umm...update. I'm sure I will have much more to add as the days and weeks roll by. But three weeks in, we are still loving it here, having a blast exploring, learning and experiencing all that this wonderful land has to offer. Until next time - 땅에 발을 들여 놓고 별을 향해 계속 ...
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