Jangma!

You know what's fun now? Everytime I come to blogger to log-in, everything is in Korean. It's a good thing I know just what to click to get where I need to go, otherwise I'd never be able to update this blog. And for some reason, even though my computer is set to Korea's time zone and my profile has been updated, I have to post my blog entries on American time because it doesn't recognize the fact that I'm a day ahead of everyone else. So if it looks like I posted this entry on Monday, it was, in fact, actually Tuesday. For the record. (And because it bugs me.)

July is monsoon season here in Asia. In Korea, it's called jangma. What it really means is that it rains. A lot. And it's not just a steady drizzle or even moderate rain. It's gushing buckets to blustery rain that comes at you from all sides and soaks you to the bone. The fortunate thing is that it's not a constant rain....it will let up for some time (maybe 20-30 minutes) before pounding down again and it often stops at night. It rained like this on Sunday, was clear yesterday, and today it poured. Luckily for me, I can often avoid the rains altogether by staying indoors, but today I had to go to base.

Every month, an official from Korean immigration comes to the base here to issue visas to military/DOD dependents. You have 90 days to get it your visa. I made my appointment as soon as I arrived in Korea, but it wasn't until today. Yesterday, I went to a pre-screening, where they check all my documentation to make sure it's all in order and of course (because this is the military) there was one little thing missing from one piece of paper, so I had to wake David up (he was sleeping because it had to work the night watch that night) so that he could put on his uniform, come to base, to have his command fix this one problem. Annoying!

So I had to go back to base this morning to pick up this aforementioned piece of paper and got gloriously soaked in the process. In this kind of rain, an umbrella is really only a showpiece. It really doesn't prevent the rain from coming at you from all sides. I got some lunch and met up with a friend to lament our employment woes (as in, there are very few jobs here) and then headed to the building to get my visa. But of course, because nothing is easy around here, trees had knocked out the power and an entire section of base had lost electricity and I could not get my visa. But hopefully--if it doesn't rain later this week--I'll go to the immigration office in Seoul and get my visa issues worked out without having to wait another month. I hate not having a visa, just in case something were to happen.

However, the day was not a total bust. I managed to take a taxi back to our apartment by myself having finally successfully learned how to say "hello", "thank you", "left", "right" and "I don't speak Korean" in Korean. And yes, it did take me 3 weeks to learn just that. Korean is hard ya'll and my tongue does not want to make some of the sounds that it's supposed to make. The other fantastic news is that our household goods have arrived in Korea (I hope it's all here! and in one piece!) and will be delivered on Thursday. I'm so excited to be reunited with my things. At least it will give me something to do for the next little while. And take my mind off the painful process of job hunting. I think I'd rather get another root canal than write another cover letter.

The Rain Continues....and other unrelated useless bits of interest

The rain abated by late afternoon on Thursday [the day of the flash floods and heavy downpour] so David got up at his usual time on Friday morning to head to work. I declined to get up and drive him to work myself since I had a terrible headache and no need for the car that day. This turned out to be a very good thing since David was sent home from work at 11a.m. Though it wasn't raining, the sewers were backed up with all the water from the day before and they had to shut off the water in David's building, meaning that there were no functioning bathrooms. And when there are no functioning bathrooms to be had, you get to come home. Thank you heavy rains! I've enjoyed having my husband around.

By dusk of last night, however, dark clouds had rolled in over Oahu and we had a good-sized thunder and lightning storm, accompanied by even more rain. I love watching lightning light up the sky, especially at night. The best lightning I ever saw was in Arizona. You could actually see each individual lightning bolt streak across the sky over the vast and empty desert. Here I could only see bursts of light, but it was the first good storm I've seen on this island so I took what I could get. It's like the first snowfall of the year. You love the sight and sounds and smell of the snow and bask in its beauty....and then you slowly start to despise it as the winter progresses and you feel like you'll never be warm again. I'm starting to wonder if this island will ever be dry again.

The rain had stopped by nine o'clock last night and, having been cooped up in the house for quite some time, David and I headed out to see a movie. To see Twilight.

I had avoided seeing the movie for so long because I expected it to be three parts lame, awkward, and poorly acted. After hearing the reviews from friends who opinions and interests I generally share, I determined that my expectations for the movie were sufficiently low that I could probably enjoy some of the movie, if not just laugh through the whole thing from sheer lameness. Plus, I figured the 12 year screaming girls would be gone by now. I had also finally convinced David to come with me and so we set out for the 9:55 showing.

I was quite pleasantly surprised to find that I enjoyed the movie. So did David. Sure, there were a few things I did not like but I think the series has the potential to vastly improve. Especially under a different director with a bigger budget. I think it really did help that I expected the movie to suck, that I was prepared to laugh at all the awkward moments.

What I Didn't Like
1.) The special effects could have used some help. I especially hated the shots of the vampires running and jumping, etc. Since when did their feet not need to touch the ground?
2.) Was it just me or was every scene with Eric extremely awkward? Maybe it was the hair.
3.) Same for Jaspar. He seemed so pained. I swear....in some parts, he was the spitting image of Johnny Depp in Edward Scissorhands. I wish there had been less of the Forks High students and more of the Cullens.
4.) The direction. I felt like there were some weird shots and direction in the movie, especially in the scene where Bella and Edward are revealing his vampire status in the woods. [It also didn't help that the emergency alarm started going off during this scene.] Why all the close-ups of trees and not the actors while they are in the middle of talking? Why did Edward look like he had body glitter all over him in the sun? I always thought he would sparkle much more, and have a greater amount of light radiating off him. There were just some weird shots and I'm glad that Catherine Hardwick will not be back to direct the sequel.
5.) Robert Pattinson. I actually think Robert is very physically close to how I pictured Edward Cullen. And I didn't think he did a horrible job with the entire role, just certain parts. I always knew Edward was very intense, but Robert gave Edward a creepy intense vibe and came across as rather wooden at times. It was the scenes in which he loosened up and smiled that I actually believed him as Edward and enjoyed him in the part.
6.) Of course, it's not all Robert Pattinson's fault. The script was rather clunky in a lot of places and there was some bad dialogue.

What I Did Like
1.) Kristen Stewart. I'd never seen her in any movies and just from the trailers, I didn't think she was the right choice for Bella, nor did I think she was a good actress. Her performance as Bella was actually my favorite part of the whole movie. I thought she did a terrific job and really conveyed Bella's character perfectly.
2.) Victoria. Sure, she didn't say much and sure, I thought she'd have redder hair, but her presence was exactly as I imagined her.
3.) The chemistry between Bella and Edward. They worked together.

So yes, Twilight was not the most fantastic movie, but I at least enjoyed it, which was far more than I was expecting. I only wish that they had pushed the new Harry Potter movie back six months! Oh well.

Now, I suppose it's time to clean the house a bit. Tonight we're going to the Navy holiday party at a hotel in Honolulu. It's a bit of a fancier affair and I'm looking forward to it. Hopefully it will be exciting enough to warrant a post and some pictures.

Let it Rain!

I woke this morning to the sounds of torrential rain beating down on the roof of our condo and the distant flashes of blue lightning. Now, in a place where there is no prospect of snow and little climate change between summer and winter, rain signifies something resembling what winter should be, which puts me in the mood for Christmas....which until we put up our tree last night, I wasn't really prepared for.

I also woke to the image of my poor husband, bleary-eyed and wet [from a shower, not the rain] putting on his uniform. (Not one of the good ones, either.) My car has been out of commission for the last two weeks because of a leak in the power steering line which means I can't turn the blasted wheel. In any case, I've been waking up early (by my standards) to drive David to work at 6:30 in the morning so that I can have use of his car during the day.

So I stumbled out of bed in time to put on a baggy sweatshirt and slide into my slippers to take the 15 minute drive to David's work. We ran to the car but not before getting soaking wet and set off.

Our first indication that nothing good was going to come of this endeavor should have been the fact that our windshield wipers could not wipe fast enough to let us see out of them. It only went downhill from there.

We got onto Kamehameha Highway [Kam](which isn't so much a highway as a two-lane street that wraps its way around the whole island) and, as we headed down the hill, we were met with a police blockade which forced us to turn down a side street. We had no idea how to get where we needed to go from there, but all the other side streets we went down were fully flooded and we were spraying water all over the place. Cars were backed up and unable to decide where to go and rivers of water were gushing past our car.

We eventually got turned in the right direction and came to an intersection where we could get back onto Kam, this being the only way to get to work other than the actual highway which would require a lot of back-tracking through roads we didn't know to reach. Once we finally inched our way to the intersection, all the cars in front of us started to turn around. We finally realized that they were doing this because the entire intersection was completely flooded and there was a Jeep stuck in the water in the middle of the road. So David and I sat there, trying to decide if our little Pontiac Sunfire could make the right hand turn onto Kam of if we would get stuck like the other car.

By this time, we'd been battling the floods for 20 minutes and we were only a mile from home. The radio was full of people calling in, updating Perry and Price of new road closures, more flooding, bad traffic, blackouts (whenever there's bad weather, half the island is subject to electrical outages) and school closures.

David wasn't ready to admit defeat yet and so he gunned the engine and we made it though! As we drove back up the hill, we had to dodge fallen tree branches and brackish mud. As we reached the ascent of the hill, where it levels off before hitting Wheeler Air Field (still a ways from where David works), we noticed that the lights up ahead had just gone out. Just then, three minutes before David should have been at work, David got a call from his boss saying that the whole area around their building was flooded and that he should stay home. I was quite relieved because the whole time we were attempting to get David to work, I was thinking how much I didn't want to have to drive in such heavy rain or inch my way through flooded roadways.

Luckily, we were close to an on-ramp to get on the highway, so we zipped on home, shed our soaking wet clothes and hopped back into bed to sleep for another two hours (three in David's case).

Also lucky for us, we live in Mililani, which is in the center of the island, on a hill and has much better drainage and less flooding. We also still have electricity, which others do not have right now, and we're safely ensconced in our home, still wearing our pajamas at 11:00am on a Thursday morning.

It's still pouring rain outside but after our adventures this morning, I think I'd rather just stay right where I am. At least I have several good books to read and a husband to annoy. :-)