We've had a great week, which has again flown by! First, we want to give a shout out to baby Lana. We now have our first niece and we can't wait to meet her!! We just can't believe she'll be a year old once we finally get the first chance to hold her. Thank goodness for skype and being able to witness Tobin meeting his little sister for the first time.
Being away from home has been a bit harder lately, but 10 more months in the grand scheme of life is really not too long... at least that's what I have to constantly convince myself of.
We decided to put together a little list of some of the many observations that makes Korea unique. Hope you enjoy.
1. Kimchi heals all.
2. You can wait at a crosswalk for 5 minutes and no cars are in sight, yet still no one will even dare jay-walk.
3. Like Thailand, pedestrians here have absolutely no right of way.
4. The food tends to be ridiculously expensive. Case and point: one bottle of maple syrup costs $40!
5. Koreans think that unless they're standing with their nose to the elevator, subway, or any other door in a public place... that they will be trapped on it for life.
6. Kids go to school here 6 days of the week from 8:30am to sometimes 10pm. It can be a challenge to keep them awake during class.
7. We have people deemed the 'Trash Fairies'. Basically an early morning cleaning crew that consists of little old retired folk to hide the chaos from the night before.
8. Watch your step: you might step in puke. It's common to see extremely drunk business men walking the streets or swaying/belting out a nice tune on the subway.
9. Everywhere in Seoul we've been looks pretty much the same.
10. There are octopus tentacles on the pizza here.
11. In most Korean restaurants you are required to dine without your shoes on.
12. It's true that of all the asian foods Korea has the least amount of flavor, but the BBQ here is superb (Nathan would definitely attest).
13. When we go to Costco, we get a hotdog and salad, while the Koreans load up their plates with free onions, ketchup, and mustard... mix it up and gorge. They even use foil for onions to go. You'd think they were starving here by having to get free onions for an entire meal at Costco, but then you look at their cart, which is completely full, and realize they must just really like onions.
14. Kidney beans are used as a dessert.
15. Kids have no shame and will just come up to stare and point at the 'foreigner'.
16. Radiation rain is a big concern. If there's the slightest mist in the air all umbrella's and face masks are out... and that's for those that have the nerves to step outside of their homes.
17. If you ask for directions somewhere and they're not sure how to get you there, they will claim it simply does not exist.
18. Everyone and their MOM dresses ultra trendy.
19. Oh, and you know you're still in Korea when you go to an Indian restaurant to get curry, yet kimchi is still an important sidedish.
None of these are meant to be taken in a negative way. We've found the people here to generally be quite helpful; however, we do run into those that shoo us away (especially taxi drivers). Nathan is slowly learning to read the language and I'm a bit behind, but we're recognizing more things/phrases and just feeling more and more comfortable here. We often forget we're halfway across the world in a tiny country and surrounded by people who we have no way of communicating with... other than pointing and nodding.
Well, that sums it up on our end. Keep us in the loop back home!
Sincerely,
The Pogue's
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