Last year I sent out Christmas cards to family and friends. I baked dozens of cookies and other holiday goodies. I climbed a very big mountain and lived to tell the tale. But this year, I did none of those things. Well, I still baked my Christmas goodies but I only finished delivering them this afternoon. And I never did send out those Christmas cards like I meant to. Since I never got to send my yearly update, here's a look back at what David and I did in 2009.
January - We became better friends with a couple in our ward. We explored more of Oahu by hiking, driving around the island, and went on a whale watching tour.
February - David got his official orders to Korea, we celebrated our birthdays (David's on the 6th, mine on the 8th) by eating at our favorite restaurant Roy's on the 7th. We adopted our crazy cat Suyom from our friends the Bartlett's and David made his first blog appearance in honor of my birthday (and my incessant nagging).
March - My sister Cassy and her adorable family came to visit us in Hawaii. I met my niece Anna for the first time and fell quickly under her spell. She flirted with my husband. We visited the Polynesian Cultural Center and went to the beach. I made several trips to the dentist. Two thousand dollars, two months, three cavities and one root canal later, I'm cavity-free.
April - I'm nearly eaten by a centipede in my sleep. David and I take a short trip to Kauai where we hike the Kalalau Trail, kayak down the Waimea River, and eat a mangosteen.
May - I get so stressed out that I literally break out into hives. I have outpatient surgery and my last day of work at the Hawaii Department of Education. We inventory and pack up all our belongings to have them shipped around the world, paint our condo, refinance our mortgage, sell our cars, and say our good-byes. Three days before we're supposed to leave Hawaii, the Navy finally sends us our tickets saving me from having a mental breakdown and David thoughts of divorce.
June - Visit our families in San Diego and Atlanta. We had a wonderful time with siblings and nieces and nephews. We miss our families! We celebrate our one year wedding anniversay. David finishes another semester of school (more A's, of course) and we move to Seoul! Within a few days, we've moved into our beautiful apartment in Huam-dong.
July - We make it through the monsoon season and take some time to explore Korea. We visit Changdeokgung Palace and become obsessed with eating Korean food. Our household goods arrive and it finally starts to feel real that we live in Korea.
August - David and I are called to be the Activities Chairpeople in our Branch. I'm also called to teach the Sunbeams (4 year olds) in Primary. We hike Seoul Tower and try to survive the heat and humidity of Korean summers.
September - David starts school again and I join a knitting group where I make some wonderful friends and also learn how to knit in the process.
October - David and I organize our first big ward activity, a picnic/BBQ that required a lot of work and planning. We visit Gyeongbokgung Palace (my favorite spot in Seoul so far) and attend the Navy Day Ball at the Hyatt. We attend another awesome Halloween party at the Bartlett's and David makes his second blog appearance.
November - We hold our second ward activity, celebrate Thanksgiving with our wonderful friends here and finally buy a car!
December - Our church congregation (the Yongsan Military Branch) and the Seoul English Branch combine to form the biggest branch in the world. David somehow manages to finish his two classes despite his ridiculous work schedule and miraculously (though not surprisingly) pulls out two more A's. I start taking a Korean class but I still can't say more than 5 words in Korean.
2009 has definitely had its ups and its downs, but it has also been an exciting year for David and I. But I can't help but think that 2010 will be even better. We're looking forward to a full year of living in Korea and possibly having some family members come to visit us. We're taking a trip to Taiwan during the first week of January (which we super excited about) and have other fun things in the works.
Yep, I definitely think 2010 is going to be a good year.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Sunday, December 13, 2009
How to Drive Like a Korean
We've been the proud owners of a Kia Sephia for about 3 weeks now. In that time, I have learned how to dodge pedestrians like a pro, cut off people without feeling guilty, run red lights with little hesitation, whip around tight corners and barrel down tiny little streets barely wide enough for two cars. I can back into deceptively small parking spots, read the overly confusing street signs (in two languages!), and somehow arrive in one piece to my desired destination.
Unfortunately for my excellent and typically law-abiding driving skills (speed limits, of course, being guidelines rather than hard and fast rules), you have to learn how to drive like a Korean in order to survive on the streets here. Which basically means you have to drive like maniac with no clear sense of direction, purpose or understanding of a turn signal. Thankfully, in the short time I've been driving here I have started to learn that Koreans are often predictable in their unpredictability and I've learned how to anticipate what they will do. It has made the number of heart attacks I suffer drop drastically and has made driving in Korea much more enjoyable. (Well perhaps enjoyable is too pleasant a word.....survivable may be more correct.)
All told, I love the chance I get to drive in Korea. It makes me feel brave. Sure, there are lots of foreigners who drive all over the world and do so without compunction. But it can still be a scary proposition and I know several women who will not drive here (being content to let their husbands do all the driving). I, however, was determined to drive and I'm proud of myself each time I get behind the wheel of our car and drive in Korea. [Driving on base doesn't count.] Just don't get me started on Korea's convoluted roads. (David thinks whoever designed them should be shot.)
While sitting at a very long light at a busy intersection the other day, I decided to take some photos with my phone's camera to illustrate driving in Korea. Granted, these are all from a busy road, and is not indicative of the tiny streets are the norm around here.
A couple things to point out: road signs are thankfully in Korean and English but are not exactly instructive or helpful in understanding where or when to turn or what road to follow. And lanes just suddenly disappear or appear or the time. Second, the number of cars on the road is typical. The only time there are not a million cars on the road is either late at night, early in the morning or on Chusok weekend. And third, just beside the Christmas tree is a huge TV. There are massive televisions all over downtown Seoul playing all sorts of commercials or news shows (with subtitles) which are an annoying distraction when you're trying to pay attention to the road and not die.
More televisions. I think I counted that at this particular intersection there are 5 visible bigscreens. Also, note the number of pedestrians and how the cars like to block the intersection. What fun!
In addition to blue trucks, taxis and buses, the most elusive and annoying vehicle are the countless number delivery men who use motorcycles and scooters. Apparently, if your vehicle has 2 wheels instead of 4, you don't have to follow any traffic laws at all. The motorcycles scare me the most because they whip around cars on either side of you, squeeze in between the small space between two cars, are hard to see, and are the most unpredictable drivers. I'm just waiting for one of those motorcycles to knock our side-view mirrors off.
Here you can a see several Korean buses blocking several lanes of traffic. Buses are the most deadly vehicles in Korea because they throw all their weight around as often as possible. They are the worst in terms of running lights, cutting people off, and stopping traffic.
Another bigscreen. They're everywhere.
Unfortunately for my excellent and typically law-abiding driving skills (speed limits, of course, being guidelines rather than hard and fast rules), you have to learn how to drive like a Korean in order to survive on the streets here. Which basically means you have to drive like maniac with no clear sense of direction, purpose or understanding of a turn signal. Thankfully, in the short time I've been driving here I have started to learn that Koreans are often predictable in their unpredictability and I've learned how to anticipate what they will do. It has made the number of heart attacks I suffer drop drastically and has made driving in Korea much more enjoyable. (Well perhaps enjoyable is too pleasant a word.....survivable may be more correct.)
All told, I love the chance I get to drive in Korea. It makes me feel brave. Sure, there are lots of foreigners who drive all over the world and do so without compunction. But it can still be a scary proposition and I know several women who will not drive here (being content to let their husbands do all the driving). I, however, was determined to drive and I'm proud of myself each time I get behind the wheel of our car and drive in Korea. [Driving on base doesn't count.] Just don't get me started on Korea's convoluted roads. (David thinks whoever designed them should be shot.)
While sitting at a very long light at a busy intersection the other day, I decided to take some photos with my phone's camera to illustrate driving in Korea. Granted, these are all from a busy road, and is not indicative of the tiny streets are the norm around here.
On the left of this picture is the Sejong Performing Arts Center. The mountain in the distance are close to Gyeongbokgung Palace and that statue is of Ye Sun-sin, a Korean military hero who designed Korea's famous "turtle ships." In front of me is a blue Hyundai truck. (They are always blue!) These are all over the place and are Korea's version of a pick-up truck. You can often buy a lot of good produce from the back of these trucks but they're also used for hauling, moving, and transporting things. Like taxis and buses, drivers of blue trucks believe they own the roads and ignore all other vehicles on the road with them.
A couple things to point out: road signs are thankfully in Korean and English but are not exactly instructive or helpful in understanding where or when to turn or what road to follow. And lanes just suddenly disappear or appear or the time. Second, the number of cars on the road is typical. The only time there are not a million cars on the road is either late at night, early in the morning or on Chusok weekend. And third, just beside the Christmas tree is a huge TV. There are massive televisions all over downtown Seoul playing all sorts of commercials or news shows (with subtitles) which are an annoying distraction when you're trying to pay attention to the road and not die.
More televisions. I think I counted that at this particular intersection there are 5 visible bigscreens. Also, note the number of pedestrians and how the cars like to block the intersection. What fun!
In addition to blue trucks, taxis and buses, the most elusive and annoying vehicle are the countless number delivery men who use motorcycles and scooters. Apparently, if your vehicle has 2 wheels instead of 4, you don't have to follow any traffic laws at all. The motorcycles scare me the most because they whip around cars on either side of you, squeeze in between the small space between two cars, are hard to see, and are the most unpredictable drivers. I'm just waiting for one of those motorcycles to knock our side-view mirrors off.
Here you can a see several Korean buses blocking several lanes of traffic. Buses are the most deadly vehicles in Korea because they throw all their weight around as often as possible. They are the worst in terms of running lights, cutting people off, and stopping traffic.
Another bigscreen. They're everywhere. Next time I'm driving home, I should stop and take some pictures of the tiny alley-ways and back roads we typically drive. And someday soon, when we actually leave Seoul, I'll get to see what Korea is really like. Who knows, those roads may be worse.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Thanksgiving
I've fallen behind in the updates lately. (And I was doing so well there for awhile.) The lack of new posts can be contributed in part to the fact that I've been keeping myself mildly more busy lately and that we haven't really done anything extremely exciting recently. Work and school have been sucking most of the life out of David while I've been rejoicing in our newest purchase: a car! It's so lovely to have a car again. It makes running errands and visiting friends so much easier and I'm starting to suffer fewer heart attacks everytime I drive the streets of Seoul. I'm starting to learn how to drive like an Asian.....which isn't really a good thing but it's necessary if I'm to stay alive here.
The most newsworthy thing to happen this past week was Thanksgiving. And what a day of thanksgiving it was!
I made several pies, of course, but my proudest accomplishment was this absolutely delicious maple pumpkin cheesecake.
Cheesecakes still freak me out just a little because you can't stick a fork in one and declare that it is done. They are supposed to still be runny and jiggly and it's a cheesecake's wriggles that make me nervous. Is it wriggling too much? Or not enough? In any case, this cheesecake set up very nicely. (I'll post the recipe if anyone is interested.)
We celebrated our Thanksgiving feast with our friends from church (the Bartletts and Cottrells) and four missionaries. There were two Korean missionaries and two American missionaries. Needless to say, the American missionaries were very happy to eat turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and pie again. I am very grateful that I get to live in a foreign country but still have access to all the familiar foods from home.
I'm also very grateful for David. He works extremely hard and I really appreciate all that he does for us. (And aren't we cute?)
Here's the majority of us (minus the children) digging into our feast. And what a feast it was, too. We had two turkeys, two pot roasts, mashed potatoes, stuffing, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, corn, green beans, two types of bread, jello, salad, and numerous types of pie.
After dinner, Superman and Spiderman here decided to cause some mayhem and destruction.
Mostly by attacking David. One thing that I've always loved about David is that children love to play with him and that he, in turn, has the patience to play with them. See, I find playing with children to be mind-numbingly boring. I can only handle about 5 minutes of it before I'm desperate to get away but David always spends at least half an hour playing with the kids and they love him for it.
There's always a lot of swordfighting going on. And most of the time, it was four against one.
As we were finishing our meal, we went around the table and said what we were thankful for. It might be trite and cliche, but it really is very touching. This year, I have two things that I am most grateful for. One is that we've made some wonderful friends already in our time here in Korea. It's hard to be so far away from home, but now I have a support system and network of friends from our ward that rivals even my family. In some ways, being so far removed from home and family has made us all turn to each other in ways you wouldn't normally do. But since we all are in the same boat, we all help each other. And I'm so grateful for those relationships. It makes the thought of being away from home for so long or having a baby in a foreign country not seem so scary after all. I feel truly blessed to have made these friends so quickly, especially since I've always had a difficult time befriending new people.
The second thing I'm grateful for this year is being a woman. I've always been particularly drawn to women's history and I spent a great deal of time researching the home and women's role within the home during graduate school. And I've come to the perhaps unpopular opinion that the so-called "liberation" of women and the feminist movement have done more to debase and destroy the notion of womanhood and femininity than it has to uphold it. Women are sacred; the work we do to bear and raise children and to keep our homes warm and safe is the most important work on earth. And yet, to be seen as the "equal" of men has required women to give up their place in the home, become things to objectify and sexualize, and has reduced women to say that they're "just a wife and a mother" as if that's somehow not good enough. I love being a woman. I love my femininity, and I love that my husband worships me all the more because I want to be a mother, I want to stay home to raise our children, and I want to vacuum our carpet wearing high heels and pearls. (Just kidding about the last part.....we don't even have carpet!) I certainly don't mean to say that women who have high-powered careers or choose not to have children are any less of a woman than I am, but rather, I'm grateful that I've finally learned to embrace my womanhood and be content to not have the career that I had always envisioned for myself and to finally have found a purpose for myself outside of the world's expectations for me.
So, Thanksgiving was wonderful this year. And on Friday, David and I put up the Christmas decorations because I just couldn't wait to bring some Christmas cheer into the house. And of course, Suyom just had to help us set up the tree in the way she knows best: taking a nap in the box.
Happy holidays!
The most newsworthy thing to happen this past week was Thanksgiving. And what a day of thanksgiving it was!
I made several pies, of course, but my proudest accomplishment was this absolutely delicious maple pumpkin cheesecake.
Cheesecakes still freak me out just a little because you can't stick a fork in one and declare that it is done. They are supposed to still be runny and jiggly and it's a cheesecake's wriggles that make me nervous. Is it wriggling too much? Or not enough? In any case, this cheesecake set up very nicely. (I'll post the recipe if anyone is interested.)
We celebrated our Thanksgiving feast with our friends from church (the Bartletts and Cottrells) and four missionaries. There were two Korean missionaries and two American missionaries. Needless to say, the American missionaries were very happy to eat turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and pie again. I am very grateful that I get to live in a foreign country but still have access to all the familiar foods from home.
I'm also very grateful for David. He works extremely hard and I really appreciate all that he does for us. (And aren't we cute?)
Here's the majority of us (minus the children) digging into our feast. And what a feast it was, too. We had two turkeys, two pot roasts, mashed potatoes, stuffing, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, corn, green beans, two types of bread, jello, salad, and numerous types of pie.
After dinner, Superman and Spiderman here decided to cause some mayhem and destruction.
Mostly by attacking David. One thing that I've always loved about David is that children love to play with him and that he, in turn, has the patience to play with them. See, I find playing with children to be mind-numbingly boring. I can only handle about 5 minutes of it before I'm desperate to get away but David always spends at least half an hour playing with the kids and they love him for it.
There's always a lot of swordfighting going on. And most of the time, it was four against one.As we were finishing our meal, we went around the table and said what we were thankful for. It might be trite and cliche, but it really is very touching. This year, I have two things that I am most grateful for. One is that we've made some wonderful friends already in our time here in Korea. It's hard to be so far away from home, but now I have a support system and network of friends from our ward that rivals even my family. In some ways, being so far removed from home and family has made us all turn to each other in ways you wouldn't normally do. But since we all are in the same boat, we all help each other. And I'm so grateful for those relationships. It makes the thought of being away from home for so long or having a baby in a foreign country not seem so scary after all. I feel truly blessed to have made these friends so quickly, especially since I've always had a difficult time befriending new people.
The second thing I'm grateful for this year is being a woman. I've always been particularly drawn to women's history and I spent a great deal of time researching the home and women's role within the home during graduate school. And I've come to the perhaps unpopular opinion that the so-called "liberation" of women and the feminist movement have done more to debase and destroy the notion of womanhood and femininity than it has to uphold it. Women are sacred; the work we do to bear and raise children and to keep our homes warm and safe is the most important work on earth. And yet, to be seen as the "equal" of men has required women to give up their place in the home, become things to objectify and sexualize, and has reduced women to say that they're "just a wife and a mother" as if that's somehow not good enough. I love being a woman. I love my femininity, and I love that my husband worships me all the more because I want to be a mother, I want to stay home to raise our children, and I want to vacuum our carpet wearing high heels and pearls. (Just kidding about the last part.....we don't even have carpet!) I certainly don't mean to say that women who have high-powered careers or choose not to have children are any less of a woman than I am, but rather, I'm grateful that I've finally learned to embrace my womanhood and be content to not have the career that I had always envisioned for myself and to finally have found a purpose for myself outside of the world's expectations for me.
So, Thanksgiving was wonderful this year. And on Friday, David and I put up the Christmas decorations because I just couldn't wait to bring some Christmas cheer into the house. And of course, Suyom just had to help us set up the tree in the way she knows best: taking a nap in the box.
Happy holidays!
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