Fabric Market

Yesterday one of the ladies here took me to a fabric market. OMG it was amazing. We are talking three story warehouse filled with 10x10 stalls of vendors. Each vendor had fabric stacked everywhere. It was awesome! The fabric was amazing quality and I swear I literally did a happy dance every time someone told me a price. I got 4 yards of fabric, 4 pillow forms, and paid a lady to make the pillows (zipper and all) all for about 20 dollars. Last time I recovered my couch it cost me about $500 (that was doing it myself), this time I bet I can do it for under $100. Oh when my embroidery and sewing machine get here Jason is going to be in trouble.

Burnt Hair

We finally are in our new house and have internet again! The houses at Camp George are set up in 5 story buildings with 4 condos on each floor. We are on the 2nd floor and were lucky enough to get a 4 bedroom 1 1/2 bath style home. I think it is around 1650 sq ft of space (bigger than our house in Killeen). Each condo has a glassed in porch with sliding glass doors that open to the outside for fresh air. The condos are definitely older, but pretty standard as far as military housing is concerned. The kids are pretty happy with their new rooms and I love that I have a craft room for all my stuff. I am working on pictures of the house, but I have to declutter first.

Wednesday was our first day in the new place and we were all pretty excited. Since there was already furniture (and we borrowed kitchen stuff) I decided that the children and I would head to the PX (military walmart without the groceries) to get some things that we would need. We get home and I light the candle that I have just purchased so that the house will smell nice when Jason gets home. Now that I finally have a moment to myself I head to the bathroom. The kids are playing so this should be safe right?? Wrong! As soon as I sit down I hear Marley calling for me. I ignore her. She continues to get louder and louder and finally starts yelling, "hot mommy, too hot mommy." I run down the hall with my pants around my ankles only to be smacked in the face by the smell of burnt hair. I look over in the corner and there is my daughter with ashes all in her hair. I immediately check for any burns on her body and she is fine. I was able to piece together that she had crawled up on top of my dining room table and decided she was going to blow out the candle and instead caught a small portion of her hair on fire. Lovely. Off comes her clothing and I throw her into the bath. After washing her hair I am finally able to assess the damage. From what I can see she must have only singed the little fine hairs that stick out of the side of her head, so no real damage. My whole point in lighting the candle was to have a nice fragrance in the air when Jason came home, instead he came home to the smell of burnt hair. Gotta love toddlers, turn your back for a minute and they are tearing something up.

Final Destination

I cannot tell you how happy we all were to be checking out of the Dragon Hill Lodge yesterday. I also have to give Jason his props for buying those luggage dollies, they were worth their weight in gold yesterday. We were able to get two huge duffel bags onto each of them which made all the difference in the world. After we checked out of the hotel and drug all our luggage up a huge hill, the Army put us on a bus with a few other soldiers and we headed out for the Seoul train station to catch the bullet train. Once we get to the train station we see that we have to take an escalator up to get to the actual station. Normally this would not have been a problem, but leave it to me and my family to find one. Let me give you a mental picture here: Jason has a HUGE military duffel bag on his back, a large military backpack on his front, a very large golf bag (with all kinds of crap in it) on his shoulder, and he is dragging a luggage dolly with two duffel bags. I have a very heavy backpack on my back, my purse (anyone who knows me knows this is heavy), a bag with all the crap for the children, and Marley (who I swear is the laziest child) on my hip. Jackson has a light backpack and is dragging the other luggage dolly. After about 20 feet Jackson has flipped the luggage dolly 5 times and I have decided that he is an idiot and can in no way maneuver this thing up an escalator. I then add this to my list of crap to drag and we head to get on. Mind you I have completely forgotten about the laws of gravity at this point. Just as the escalator starts to go from flat to steps I realize I do not have the luggage dolly tilted toward me. The dolly proceeds to start falling down the escalator and the baby and I are following suit. Gotta love solders, cause one of them caught me mid fall and I was able to right myself and the luggage. Finally off the escalator and we are able to relax and wait for our train. Poor Marley spent the better part of that hour fending off Koreans who wanted to touch her. Some of the other soldiers with us were teasing that we should start charging admission. The bullet train was pretty cool. We made it from the middle of the country to very close to the coast in 1 hour. Yeah and Marley slept the whole way!! Our escort took us straight to the housing office and we found out that our place would be ready this morning. As soon as the children get up we will be headed over to pick up our keys and see our new place. I will send post pics tomorrow.

Observations

My family and I have not done much in the last few days other than play on the playground (during intermittent dry spells) and swim at the pool because of all the rain here in Korea. While I was talking to my mother this morning I told her that I was at a loss for something interesting to say on my blog. She pointed out that she was interested in my interactions with the Korean people, and thought that others would be interested too. Though we have only been here a week, I have come to believe that the Korean people are the most polite, good natured people on the planet. Everyone smiles and seems to genuinely care that you are having a nice day. The women are fascinated with Marley and her hair. They want to touch her and I hate that she gives them all the stink-eye.

I have noticed that the Korean people dress differently than Americans. In Korea it is common practice for people to dress up for everything, including a hike in the parks. The majority of the women wear high heals and men wear slacks and a tie. When we were at the Korean Folk Museum there were women in cocktail dresses and heals taking in the sights. If I could have found a way to take their picture without offending them I would have.

While we were shopping in Itaewon the other day we were stopped by a Korean woman and a group of children. Each of the children were carrying paper and pencils and seemed to be on a type of scavenger hunt. The lady asked me if the children could as me a few questions and I said yes. The littlest of the girls looks at me and asks me where I am from, what Korean food I like to eat, and do I speak any Korean. I answered her and her teacher told her what I said. As they walked off Jason and I both looked at each other and commented on what a great way for those kids to practice their English.

Last night the kids and I were outside the hotel and a Korean man and his family past us on their way to their car. He stopped and came back to talk to me. I could tell as he started to talk that he knew very little English, but his question was important enough to him to try to ask anyway. The man pointed to the flag and said, "why down?" He wanted to know why the American flag was at half mast. In as basic English as I could I told him that soldiers had died in Afghanistan. He thanked me and went to explain to his family what I had told him. I was so moved to know that they are as interested in learning about us as we are about them.

Korean Folk Village

Saturday we decided to take the kids on the Seoul City Bus Tour. This is a 2 hour bus ride that stops at 30 of the popular sites to see in Seoul, South Korea. We knew going into this that there was no way in hell the children would behave for all 30 stops, so we played it safe and chose the 2 stops we wanted to see the most. First we stopped at the Itaewon Market. This is a series of narrow streets with shops everywhere. There are 2nd floor shops and street shops and even basement shops. Each shop is extremely small and overflowing with merchandise. I was on the hunt for a well-made knockoff purse, while Jason sniffed out athletic jerseys and golf clubs. Neither of us found what we were after, but there was no way Jason was leaving empty handed. After about an hour Jason stumbled across a shop owner with luggage dollies he has to have. In Korea nothing on the economy has a set price. All shop owners expect you to haggle for deals and they always offer you the best deal as you are walking out the door. Ok, so Jason and I have haggled this guy down from 70,000 won for 2 dollies to 55,000 won. Right here, right here is where we completely messed up. Jason looks at me and says, "Lets save our won and use American money." (Koreans love American money because the exchange rate is pretty good right now.) I agree, and without thinking Jason hands the guy 50 dollars. The man smiles and hands us our new luggage dollies (which are probably crap, but they are now our crap). It takes us all of 3 steps out the door before we realize we have just given the shop owner way too much money. 55,000 won is roughly 40 dollars. We ended up paying the man 10 dollars to teach us a lesson we will never forget. Kicking ourselves, we make our way back to the bus stop to continue our tour.

Next stop, The National Folk Museum of Korea on the grounds of the Gyeongbok Palace. I have to say, this was such an amazing experience for all of us. The museum chronicles how noble and common families lived and worked through out their history. The intricate details and elaborate colors in everything astounded us all. We spent the better part of the day marveling at all the exhibits and taking pictures of the buildings. This is definitely a stop that I would recommend to anyone visiting the Seoul area.

More Pics From Our Hotel

Dinner Theater

Friday evenings in July the Dragon Hill Lodge offers a free traditional Korean performance in the lobby. We were lucky enough to get to sit 5 feet from one of Korea's most famous opera singer and to hear her perform 2 beautiful songs. I was so impressed with how both Jackson and Marley sat and listened the entire time, Jackson held his ears for the crescendo, but I will pretend I did not see that part.