The process for me getting everything ready to move was quite frustrating, it seemed as though everything that could go wrong went wrong. I had a lot to do in very little time, and with things going wrong it just added to my load. I booked my flight for Friday, July 18th. The Saturday before I was to leave I had been getting things done and decided to check the status of my passport that was supposed to arrive by Tuesday. Of course just like everything else going wrong my passport wasn't going to arrive in time because it said I hadn't sent the right documents (so nice of them to contact me and tell me that.) I had to cancel my flight, order my birth certificate from California(I had sent the abstract instead of a long form b.c. since that's all we had) Once I had the correct documents I sent them in and a week later (July 22) received my passport. I booked my new flight for July 28th and boarded the plane bright and early (5:30AM)
Below: Danika, Rose and Me.
They told us to do the hear no, say no, see no evil. I was the only one that did it!
After a verrry looong 18 hours on a plane, I finally arrived to Seoul where Tim and his friend James greeted me. We took a bus to Uijeongbu(the city that I live it now) and then a taxi from the bus stop to our apartment. I got a pretty good look at our city while on the bus, then Tim showed me around the base the next day.
South Korea is about the size of Indiana with over 49 million people, so it is a very crowded country. Everything is so different from America, but easy to get used to. I've adapted pretty well so far. It's nice that we have a commissary on base though so that I can buy American food! I think I would get very tired of rice every day.
Below: Camp Casey Marketplace.
Over the first few weeks Tim showed me around Korea and took me to some marketplaces outside of other army bases. They have a ton of pawn shops and stores with clothes, shoes, and purses. You can find some good deals there but if your not careful some of the pawn shops will try to rip you off because they know you are from the u.s. My favorite marketplace we went to was Itaewon right outside of camp yongson. In our city there is a TON of shopping, we have a really cool underground mall over by the subway station. The area is about a mile long filled with just a bunch of clothing, shoe, and phone stores. Then above there behind the subway station is like the downtown area and they have several stores, restaurants and bars there.
I've met most of Tim's buddies here and some of their wives too, all the wives I met are Filipino (that's very common here that soldiers marry either Filipino or Korean girls.) The couples that we hang out with the most are Anthony and Danika,(they live in the same building as we do) Nick and Rose, Lloyd and Gina. We grill out at our apartment almost every weekend, it's a lot of fun!
Just last weekend all of us(minus Tony and Danika) went to a Korean restaurant where they have grills set up in the middle of all the tables and you order the same thing for your whole table. They bring out all these different sides of veggies and soups, and raw meat for you to cook on the grill to how you like it. The first kind of meat they brought out was fantastic, but the second was very bland and dry. I got a taste of kimchi for the first time, I don't think I will be having that again, a bit spicy for my taste! Tim tried the tofu/vegetable soup they brought out but once I saw his spoon full of whole fishies with the eyes and everything there was no way I was going to try that!! The boys were all complaining because we had to sit on pillows and they weren't flexible enough to cross their legs! It was a pretty good experience but everyone else told us not to base our opinion of Korean food on that restaurant because it wasn't as good as the rest of them I guess. Also, this restaurant was VERY pricey..
Below: the fishy
This weekend Tim had a four day weekend so we just relaxed, we were going to go to a circus on Monday that they were having at camp Casey but then he got put on duty from 8AM-8PM. That's how it usually works out for us though, whenever we make plans for his day off he gets put on duty, and he even had a pass approved so he's not supposed to be put on duty.
In our spare time we go to the CAC center(Community Activity Center) to play pool or board games, it's a good time of bonding for us. =) Even though we are both very competitive, we still have fun. There's also a movie theatre and bowling alley here on base, the theatre is free we just have to pay for the refreshments.
Below: Our special friend, Nick.
There's an FMWR(Family Morale, Welfare & Recreation) here at our base that organizes events and trips, just recently they took a trip to China, their next trip will be to Thailand. I'm not sure if Tim will have enough leave built up to take these trips any time soon though. There's a very pretty Island here by Korea called Jeju island that they have taken trips to, i hope to catch one of those because I've heard it's awesome!
Hope the pictures work because they're silly! =)
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