What's YOUR Favorite Color?

I'm a person of very few favorites, probably because I am an all or nothing kind of person.  I can definitely say that my favorite food is anything with Chocolate in it, but really that isn't a favorite because while I love Chocolate, I am happy with a wide variety of foods that have chocolate in them.  Food is also hard for me because it very much depends on what I am in the mood for.  Sure lobster is awesome but I don't know if I would want it all the time.  I do however have a favorite movie. Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken.  Hands down, without a doubt, my favorite. 

Friends on the other hand are a whole different ball game.  I have a few friends that I am very close to and that I am very comfortable with but putting the "best friends" tag on our relationship is difficult for me.  Probably mostly because I pretty much consider Clint my one and only best friend!  To say that some one else is a best friend to me kind of means that Clint no longer carries that title.  Here is where the all or nothing comes in.  So my all is that Clint holds that Best Friend spot while my other friends are just slightly below him. I do think I may have hurt some friends' feelings when they mentioned I was their best friend but I didn't reciprocate the title to them, and my all or nothing persona is to blame.  Plus how can I have a "best friend" in Kansas then move to California and get a new "best friend"?  I can't.  So I just never gave anyone that title, I definitely had friends in both places that hold the spot at the top of my friend's chart or what ever you want to call it, but even still they are tied for the top spot. 

My point to all my friend and favorite discussion is that I have come to realize that I believe I have a favorite color without knowing it until we moved here.

Our house hold goods arrived on Thursday!  So exciting.  I had the movers unpack all the boxes and I could not believe how much time that saved me! 

You can see why I didn't get to this room on Thursday.

They left around 11 and I had everything except what was in the office put away by 4pm.  AMAZING!  Not only just the fact that it took about 4.5 hours to do this by myself, but that Clark let me!  He was very busy playing with his toys he hadn't seen in 2 months.

A lot of people made comments on my post on Facebook about our HHG being here that it would be Christmas for us.  Not really, it was more just like the final piece of the puzzle was put into place.  Instead of feeling like we are just wandering around the maze of Army life, at least I feel more grounded now and more at home.  Clark seems to be much happier now that we have our stuff too. 

I think what made it not so much like Christmas was that at least in our family, we give presents to each other that the other person doesn't have.  So unpacking didn't seem like Christmas only because it was all our familiar belongings, which we have discovered we are VERY attached to!

I took some pictures to show you what our house looks like furnished.  This is where I am really going to get to the point of favorite colors. 

Master Bathroom

Our beloved bed that we missed oh so terribly.  Koreans have absolutely no idea what a good bed is suppose to be!

Wash area outside of Clark's bathroom.  See, Gus, this is where someone would wash their hands if the bathroom was being used by someone showering. :p

Bike Room/Spare Room/Guest Room/(insert name of room here) room...

Clark's room. It shrunk after all his toys and books got here.  It's amazing how much stuff this little person has acquired in a short time.  I never realized it because we had some toys downstairs, some at grandparents' houses and some hidden in his closet.  Now I have to figure out some creative way to better organize it.

Kitchen with my Family sign that only the F came with our express shipment. 

Dinning room.

Rest of the kitchen

Our beautiful, soft, comfortable, lovely couch. 

 

 

Office.  Still needs lots of organization but it sure beats how horrible it was before. 

So has anyone noticed a theme going in our house?  As I was taking pictures I realized that we have accumulated a lot of the color red. Even in Clark's room!  Usually when someone asks me what my favorite color is I reply with Blue.  Maybe it is actually red!  I do like the color a lot, but it isn't a color that sticks out to me as much as the color blue.  Probably because I am not a big fan of some of the different shades of Red.  Like the more orange/red or faded red.  Not cool.  But I am pretty much a big fan of any shade of blue.  This leaves me with the dilemma of favorites.  How can someone like both colors equally but have a favorite?  Either way, we have lots of red in our house and I don't think I had ever realized how much until I hadn't seen it for 2 solid months!

Yesterday I did go to a cool restaurant supply store called Kitchen Top.  They had a nice selection of red cooking utensils.  I am going to have to go back next weekend with Clint and get some!  Maybe I buy some blue ones too because I can't seem to make up my mind on which color I like most!

Oh and as for the office, I probably wouldn't have put things away yesterday, but I really wanted to find one of the two webcams we own.  Well, I went through every bag, drawer, hiding place I could think of and it seems we have stored our two web cams!  So webcams and our living room rug are two items that are in storage that I really wish I had here!  When we do come back to the states we will have clothing hangers and webcams coming out our ears!

Now I am going to go shop online for bedding for the extra bed that has some red and blue in it! 

Clint's VTF

I'm sure many of you have been wondering what the facility looks like that Clint works in.  I should have taken pictures of the outside, but for fear of being arrested by the MP, I decided all you needed to see was the inside.  The building is really just a bunch of connexes, (shipping containers) welded together to make up the Veterinarian Training Facility. It is MUCH MUCH bigger then the clinic he worked in at Camp Pendleton.  For one, he has his vary own office!  Which is about the same size as the "office space" he shared with everyone else at Pendleton.

Inside of Clint's office

The other side of his desk. 

Exam room.

Center Exam area.

Other side of the exam area.

Bathroom with a very Treky shower.

Surgery room

Clark pushing Clint around.

Lab

An Actual Conference Room!!!! AMAZING...

Just showing you how big this place is...

Yeah, it was his idea and he LOVED it!

Again, it was HIS IDEA, and he LOVED IT!

Second Exam room

Front lobby area.  The door in the middle of the left wall is the front door.

Clint messing around while Anna works!

More playing while Anna is hard at work.

Outside of Clint's office.

This is the Romeo and Tengo's office.  This is the size of office Clint had to share at Pendleton .

Meow!  Clark is obsessed with being a kitty.  He misses Wesley very much and can't wait for him to get here.

Hi Anna! Anna is one of the other Captain that works with Clint.

Clark on the Big Slide

One of our friends had told me that the workers of Splish and Splash don't care how tall the kids are as long as someone is at the bottom to catch them.  So I tried it out with Clark and he loved it.  Little Dare Devil.  So the next day we went with Clint, and I was able to get pictures of Clark going down the big slides.

The big slide

Waiting in line

Almost our turn!

Areal view of the park

Clark's favorite part

Clint going down first.

Clark was determined to go down on his stomach.

Mid Slide

Like Father, Like Son.  So cute!

Another view from up high.

Getting ready to go down the other tube slide.

Coming out the bottom of the tube.

 

 

 

 

I am so proud of him for going down the slides.  Of course since this day, he won't go near them!  Funny little kid! 

Speaking of Clark, I think he is just as "out of sorts" as Clint and I are with not having our belongings.  Today he was crying and fussing and me thinking I was being smart to get him to stop I asked him if he wanted to go take a nap. To which he replied Yes, and went into our bed and laid down.  I realized that it wasn't that he was tired, it was that he was sick of the hard floors and not having some place comfortable to hang out on.

Our House Hold Goods (HHG) were suppose to arrive on the 16th. So instead of waiting around for them to email me and obsessing with checking Clint's email, I just called them. I found out that at least our stuff if in the country, but is still in a container awaiting customs checks before it can be sent here to Humphreys.  :(  I cried when I got off the phone.  Starting Monday, I am going to call every day and see if they have arrived.  Hopefully by the time Clint get's back from his field exercises he will have a home to come back to instead of 4 wall, a roof and a floor!

Adjusting

As I sit here on my uncomfortable camping chair night after night awaiting the arrival of my beloved couch I have been thinking a lot of all the things we are having to acclimate to. I decided to make a list.  Sorry, no pictures.  :(

1. Driving- I think I could make an entire blog post on the things that happen behind the wheel here!  And we don't even have the driving on the "wrong" side of the road to contend with!  But here are a few...or what I can think of right now.
- Running red lights.  Kind of cool actually!  Who wants to be stuck at a stupid red light when clearly no one is coming.  Koreans sure as heck don't, so they just run the red lights, unless there are cameras.
- Passing people. If the guy in front of you is going too slow, just pass them.  Doesn't matter if you have to drive on the wrong side of the road, or if you are diving a GIANT BUS, pass the slow poke! 
-Crazy delivery scooters.  These guys are NUTS!  They drive down the middle of the road between the two lanes of traffic, drive down the wrong side of the road, up and down sidewalks, and will turn in front of you, just assuming you will slow down.
-Right of way.  Don't think that is in their vocabulary.  I've found who ever either drives the biggest vehicle or has the most cajones wins!
-Police and other emergency vehicles always drive with their lights flashing.  I thought I was getting pulled over a few weeks ago for speeding and almost side swipping the poor police officer, (didn't see him until I was merging into his lane, then gunned old Handy Hooptie to get around police car and the guy in front of him) but it turned out they just always drive with their lights flashing.
-It is illegal for non-emergency vehicles to drive with their headlights ON during the day time.
(Side not about emergency vehicles.  There are NO fire hydrants!  Today I saw why. We drove pass a fire tanker truck!)
- Construction workers just assume you will watch out for them.  I've almost hit a few when they just stepped out from around a big truck.
- Kids are taught that if they hold their hand up above their head while crossing the street, cars will stop.  Apparently, adults forgo the hand above their head, and just cross expecting traffic to stop.
-Elderly people will be pulling carts full of food or cardboard boxes and just expect you to go around them no matter how busy and dangerous the street is. 
2.  Climate. Complete and utterly opposite of CA! I remember reading in Clint's Uncle Scott's book where he described the dryness of the desert and that if you leave a piece of bread out it will turn into toast because the moisture is sucked out of it. Well, opposite here.  I gave Clark a small bag of crackers and 20 minutes later they tasted like they had been left out all night.  I have to put the Oreos into a Ziplock bag otherwise they get all mushy and no longer keep their yummy flavor. It isn't uncommon for it to be 100% humidity especially in the morning and not have it raining.
3. Crowd Control. He who pushes the hardest or is the quickest wins!  When we took Clark to the Aquarium at the COEX mall, I would patiently be waiting for a spot to park the stroller next to a tank of fish.  Just as the person I was waiting for was leaving another person would step into the spot I wanted.  No regard to me or the stroller.  One man for himself!
Koreans also don't hold doors open for each other.  So while trying to navigate the stroller through doors by myself and through crowds I became very frustrated and glad we live in a more rural area with a very small population! It has to do with customs and etiquette. Two good sites to visit and read about.
4. Plumbing. TMI ALERT!!!  Seriously the toilets that wash you and dry you are totally awesome!!!  I feel like we have been living in the dark ages.  I might just have to buy one and then take it with us from house to house when ever we move because they are that cool.  Even Clark likes to use it!  Plus Korean plumbing is very 3rd world.  It isn't uncommon to have the waste basket next to the toilet for the toilet paper to go in. (DISGUSTING) Also there are many times while out that we find the squatting "toilets", you know, the sunken down bowl that you squat over.  Clark thinks these are really fun to pee into.  He hasn't had the opportunity to squat over one yet...
Maybe in an effort to be more eco-friendly, it also isn't uncommon to find places that don't have anything to dry your hands with, or a towel hanging.
Lastly, no one uses toilet seat covers. So depending on how you feel about that, you can either be just fine with it or not.  I know that much of even the US doesn't have covers for the public toilets.
Oh I almost forgot!  It stinks here!  Literally, it smells bad and worse in some areas!  They have an open sewage system, so you will often see open vents along the side of the street.  Not a big deal in town, but about once every week or so our house will completely transform into this sewage treatment plant smell and I can't figure out what triggers it.  Seems like it has happened when I have ran either the dishwasher or the washing machine.  Might have something to do with the fact that there are two more apartments above us.  Who knows.  Usually isn't a problem and not that it smells great here, it doesn't always stink, either that, or I have gotten used to it.
Oh and Paper factories smell like vomit!  Don't live next to one.  We don't but there is one in between here and Osan Airbase.  Just smells wrong on so many levels.
5. Kids. The Koreans LOVE kids. This has been great because even when Clark is being crazy, making a giant mess in a restaurant, or having a melt down, I don't get nasty looks from people.  He always gets a lot of attention.  Something that took a little getting used to, but now all of us are ok with some stranger coming up and touching his hair or the side of his face.  Clark was even picked up by some man, I think because he wanted to see how much Clark weighed. His hair color and curls attract a lot of attention.  At least going out to eat has been more fun because not only do the people working at the restaurants treat us nicely, but many times we can sit at one of the tables that are low to the ground and more Clark friendly.  We don't have to worry so much about him falling out of a chair and all of us seem to be more relaxed.
The bad part about Koreans' view on kids is their lack of car safety.  They don't have any concept of safe ways for kids to travel in cars.  It's very common to see kids just jumping around in the car with no seat belts.  I have seen kids in carsets, but in the front seat of a 4 door vehicle!  Lastly, NONE of their cars have any of the safety regulations that the cars in the U.S. do to accommodate car seats.
Now cars are often made with the LATCH system.  At the very least cars in the U.S. are made with some kind of locking device for their seat belts.  NOTHING like that here.  Our realtor had a fairly new car and there were no safety equipment for Clark's car seat.  My '99 truck had more then her maybe 2 year old car had!  Thankfully our car seat comes with locking devices that you can run the seat belt through.  I haven't checked the car seats here to see if the same system in in place, but I doubt it.

For the most part I feel like usually we are getting along just fine.  The difficulty mainly is not having our stuff!  I think all three of us are feeling "dis   place   ment"  HAHA.  It is an amazing thing how much your personal belongings make you happy.  When we first got here, Clint was reading a blog about someone living with the least amount of items as he could.  Clint and I though, yeah, we could do that!  But here we are 2 months into our minimalist lifestyle and we HATE it!  Even Clark is grumpy about it!  Well I think he just wants his cat!  Hopefully the crowds and Korean cultural differences will be easier to accept when we have our belongings and can feel more like we have a home instead of 4 walls we are camping in.  We did buy a PS3 and a BBQ this weekend and are feeling a little more normal.  Like right now Clint is playing video games while I get to blog. Our usual.  The BBQ did some transformation that enabled our cooking skills to return to us.  Seriously, the night we got the BBQ I went down to the local Korean market and bough some Mackerel.  It was the BEST meal we've had here.  Then tonight we made homemade tacos.  DELICIOUS!  It seemed like we were culinary retards until the BBQ was purchased.  We even bought a charcoal one because we have no idea where we would fill up propane tanks.  Hopefully the PX doesn't tell us we can't BBQ in winter the charcoal is "out of season."  HA!  There is no such thing as out of season BBQing. 

Say prayers or keep fingers cross or what ever in hopes that our household good arrive this week!

Weekend in Seoul

Clint had to go up to Seoul for work on Monday and Tuesday so we decided to go up as a family on Saturday and hang out.  We stayed at the Dragon Hill Lodge on base.  We learned one good lesson this weekend about being wise travelers.  There is a bus that goes from the base in Seoul to the base here.  It cost about $12 bucks for the three of us to travel.  So we thought, well that will be convenient and it will drop us off relatively close to the hotel on post. What we didn't factor in was that it was 2 hours on the lurching bus! We later discovered that for a few more Won, the train was a much better ride.
Then after we got all check in we took a taxi down to the subway so we could go to the COEX mall.  It is one of the largest malls in the world.  It's so big that it even had an aquarium, but more about that in a minute.
Clint downloaded a subway ap on his phone and you can plan your trip.  Well, as we are discovering many of the "navigation" systems don't always take you the fastest way.  The GPS took Clint and his soldiers through rice paddy roads doubling his travel time.  The subway ap, has us on the subway for 45 minutes when it really should have taken 20 minutes.  So by the time we got to the COEX we had been traveling for almost 4 hours.  :(  On Monday I discovered that the train took 55 minutes from Seoul Station to Pyeontaek.  So much better then 2 hours on a bus.
Once we arrived at the COEX we were starving.  There was a KFC right out front so we decided that would be good.  The major difference between where we live and Seoul is the crowds.  The line to get food took about a half hour to get through.  Then this woman was behind me and kept pushing against my back.  I wanted to turn around and tell her it was too stinken hot to be that close.  But figured she probably wouldn't understand me.  Then something brushed against my ponytail and she made a kissing type sound.  I was sure she had kissed my ponytail.  Thankfully when I did turn around, she was wearing a hat.  Finally we got our food and sat down to eat, 3 people and our regular big stroller at a table that was meant for 2 people.  I looked over at Clark and he kept opening his moth after each bite and sucking down his orange juice.  Clint took a bite of his chicken and realized just how spicy it was.  All of us were so hungry we didn't really care, but poor Clark was the only one who had really spicy food.  Poor kid.
As for the Aquarium it was much cooler then we expected.  It looked like a small display of small fish from the front and Clint and I were a little worried as to why they charged us $15 each to get in.  Then the displays started getting larger and larger.  They had everything from small fish to an 8 ft crocodile, 12ft sharks, giant snapping turtles and even the little moving sidewalk that went under the overhead tank.  It ended with manatee and a seal.  Very impressive!

Waiting for the really long subway trip.

EEEK!!!

Ok Dad, I trust you!

This pic is for Malaka! He mentioned not seeing enough Koreans in my pics. 

Moo

Yeah, I'm that person who pretends to take a picture of something to really take the picture I want. Most Koreans especially in Seoul have beautiful tastes in clothes, but thus is just eccentric...

The Aquarium had a section of every day items that they made into fishtanks.

Funky fish

Clark totally didn't freak out when the fish came up to him.  He thought it was really cool and took time to observe what was happening.  They were "Doctor Fish"

Piranha

Electric Eel

Almost all their tanks were open on the top and you could EASILY stick your hands in!

Albino fish

Sea turtle

Beaver

The Aquarium was great, but like most indoor areas of Korea, they don't really air condition it.  Yes, it wasn't as hot and muggie as outside, but it was still warm.  So by the time we got back we were literally swimming in our clothes.  ICK!

Sunday we thought we'd go down to the Korean War Museum because were were hopping to find some shelter from the sweltering heat.  For the last week it has been in the mid to high 90s with heat indexes that make it feel well above 100.  It is the kind of heat that you instantly start to sweat the minute you walk outside or your glasses fog up.  Yeah, not much fun!

Anyways, while walking toward to museum we ran into the other Captain Clint works with, so Anna joined us.  It was a very short walk from post to the museum.  They had tons of planes, tanks, boats, and other military vehicles outside to either walk up to or even go inside.  Inside the planes was sweltering so we didn't stay inside too long. 

Inside the museum they had a bodies exhibit.  We decided that since the museum wasn't as cool as we would have liked, surely they would have the bodies exhibit cooler to preserve the work.  WRONG.  We took Clark we us being prepared to take him out if he freaked out.  The opposite happened.  He was very interested.  At this point he is still convinced that poop is stored in his leg!  So I kind of was able to show him thebv path our food takes.  After the bodies exhibit we started to go through the rest of the museum but we all got too hungry and headed back into Itaewon to get lunch.  Thankfully we found a Sushi restaurant with a great desire to keep their customers cool. 
We ended our little vacation that night out at a Russian restaurant with the other Vets Clint works with and one other spouse.  Well worth the time traveling, sitting is sweat soaked clothes and enduring the heat.  Can't wait for Fall!!!

You could actually turn the wheels.

Inside one of the planes.

The inside of this one was set up so people could see how it was used.

These were their memorial walls with names of the dead on them.

I guess some people made it on the list and later removed.

Clark's first Tempura.  Too bad it cost more then our sushi!

This is a kind of mint leaf.

Just messing around after a long sweaty day.