Our new "Whip"

Hello everyone :)  Hope you all are having a GrEaT weekend so far!  Things on this side of the world are..still wet.  I think out of the past 20 days (literally) we have had about 18 days of rain & by rain I mean no sunshine and non-stop rain.  UCK, it is getting old.  Actually, right now the sun is shining and it so bright to my eyes.  When this season ends, which is should be in about a few weeks (if we don't get any typhoons) then comes to HOT season.  Like 95 hot with 99% humidity hot.  Then comes the beautiful followed by the bitter winter. I never thought I'd say this but I am so, so ready for the winter.  YES, it is very cold but at least the skies are clear blue, you can have the fresh air, crack the windows, and what not.  Right now, our house is so humid, has this odd musky smell, and I am having to bleach everything almost daily to keep it from molding since that is very common in Korean houses.  SO this Florida gal is ready for the winter :o).  

A new E-Mart opened up, kind of like a huge version of a Korean "Walmart/Publix".  I've seen this drink since I've moved here but it just sounds horrible to me.  Who would want to seriously drink a drink that said SWEAT on it?  Yuck.  It's a sports drink here, kind of like a gatorade.  Mike says it isn't bad but I will pass.  It even LOOKS like sweat.  Ew!

One of the newer places we've been to is called Jeongja.  Jeongja I think is the second richest area in the specific region we live in.  It's about 8 subways stops away so it's pretty close.  They try very, very hard to be westernized so that makes it even more appealing to us :o)  Anyways, they have this restaurant called "Butterfinger Pancakes" & everything in it is imported, butter and all.  So it has a replica of a state-side breakfast which is AWESOME.  One funny thing is though is that we both didn't eat more than half of our breakfast because I think our stomachs have adjusted to not eating that type of "heavy" food anymore.  WHAT IS HAPPENING TO US :)

So this is a really popular snack-type food in Korea.  Rice cakes (go figure, right?)  A rice cake in Korean is "dok".  So they literally call this "Rainbow dok".  It is pretty much tasteless but a hint of sweetness to it.   I don't mind them, they bring them to work ALL the time so I have grown to like/tolerate them.

This is another version of type of "dok" here.  It's much softer/chewier than the rainbow dok but on the inside (if you are wondering) is a crushed bean paste.  Sounds awful but I like these better than the rainbow dok.  The texture is just WRONG but I can stomach a few :)

Every Wednesday's and Thursday's on base the Food Court makes an optional Korean lunch you can buy which is Bulgogi (beef), steamed white rice, and kimchi.  You KNOW you've been in Korea for too long when this is what you order 2 days a week over Subway or Pizza Hut :)  But it is so, so good.

SOO, I'm sure you all were wondering about the title "Our new Whip"...welllll we bought a car.  And let me just tell you before you laugh too hard, that everyone here that is military drives little 'hoopties' as we call them.  We picked it up for $600 from a PCSing couple.  It comes fully equipped with a Louis Vuitton steering wheel cover that has melted to it (unable to be removed) and a 'Hello Kitty' driver seat cover to cover the rips in the leather.  And get this, Mike says he isn't taking it out.  HAHA But you know, it is a ride, a very cheap one.  It runs great (for a 1997) and is only temporary before we ship our new SUV out here.  It is a 1997 Kia Credos.  Ok, ok..now you can laugh :)

Ok, one last thing.  Mike's grandmother sent a toy helicopter that you can fly.  It's actually pretty difficult but Mr. Yu and Mrs. Pak got an absolute kick out of it (for whatever reason) so they INSISTED we take a picture with it for his grandmother.  They are so funny and Koreans have the most interesting sense of humor..so I just went with it.  This is inside the bank where we work as well.  You'll see our little currency board to the left and that's where customers see what the daily Won rate is per US dollar.

Hope you guys are doing great.  We miss and love you all!  Have a great rest of your weekend!

Happy Wednesday!!

Woo wee, SO many things to talk about!  How is everybody doing?  Hopefully WoNdErFuL!  Things here in Korea are...wet.  It has been raining for about 2 weeks now and is projected to continue through the weekend.  It is full-force Monsoon season here :)  I will be ordering my Target rain boots tonight.  So, where to begin.  I am learning Korean (or trying to) at least, read and write.  It is so, so difficult but I am really getting the hang of it.  The picture below has me learning the phrase:

Jo-neoun Me-gook sa-ram im-ni-da

"I am from America"

or

"I am American"

I have almost the whole alphabet down and the sounds associated with each.  I kind of don't know why I'm putting in the effort because after I read them..and I can't understand them still haha.  OH WELL.

One of my absolute favorite things to eat in Korea..we call it "Beef & Leaf".  Basically, what you're looking it is pork (dweji-gogi) which is on the very right, just on the tip.  It is basted in this chili-type sauce.  Really good!  Then around the cooker is tofu-kimchi soup.  Mike doesn't like it but I think it is amazing.  It is spicy though, so have your Mul (water) ready!  Then, kind of what makes the meal is the red bean/chili paste (what my friend is reaching for).  It is so, so good..I would put it on anything.  It is full of flavor and has quite the kick so you don't need much.  Basically, you put a bit of that on the meat, wrap the meat in a lettuce cup, and then you put the other little dishes on it as you want.  There are whole cloves of garlic (apparently men here eat 3 a day to help their prostate....ooook) and then onions, radishes, that type of thing.  Anyways, I love, love, love it.

My 2 female coworkers and I went out to dinner a few weeks ago to this awesome, authentic Italian place up the street.  It was really good and had no Korean spins on it (which is really rare).  It was set up like an old fashioned Queens Castle or something.  Here is a picture of the back garden, just wanted to show you how pretty Korea is the spring.

And finally, B.M.K.  She is a famous Korean singer.  She has her own TV show and everything every night.  Well, she is a friend of my coworkers from the bank and we got invited to her wedding!  She married a retired Army pilot, kind of how they knew her.  Her wedding was fancy, to say the least.  The Korean news and press were there.  Really fun!  Mr. Yu (my bank manager) insisted on taking this picture.  He is crazy, lol.

Out front of the CAC where the bank is located.  Needless to say it was raining men.

Have a great week everyone!!!  

Love you all!

Heeeeello

Asha-mika!  (How are you?)  Hope everyone is doing grand.  Sorry it has been a little while, things have been a little crazy on this side of the globe.  Mike has been in and out for training and I have been busy working, and dealing with SHEP

Long story short, I was walking him and Danny.  There is this one really protective Jindo-k dog (remember those cute puppies I posted a while back, that same breed) that lives down the street.  She stays behind her fence but I guess Shep's foot got too close for her liking and she bit underneath and almost ripped off his entire toe.  So to the Korean Emergency Vet we went.  How STRESSFUL to try and find a vet..period in Korea.  Kind of like navigating in a supersized version of Manhattan where things are just on top of each other, making it completely confusing and not logical.  So anyways, he received surgery to stitch his toe back on and so on.  THEN, he decided it would be a great idea to rip out the stitches a couple days later so back we went and now he has staples.  SO it has been quite the 2 weeks, especially doing all of it with Mike gone.  That was definitely one of the hardest moments I've had living in Korea so far.  It isn't a good feeling having no car, no where to ask for directions because no one speaks English, and so on.  Definitely teaches you to appreciate the little things.  But all is well and he is healing slowly :o)

Nothing too different or new has happened here.  Just staying busy and following right along in our weekly routine.  Last week a friend of mine needed to renew her SOFA stamp (yearly stamp that permits you access into Korea) and you have to travel to hours South to Osan in order to do that.  Osan has an Airforce base so we headed down there for a day.  Did I mention they have a Chili's on base :o)  Funny thing is I don't like Chili's too much in the states but I LOVE it here!  A little taste of heaven.  Oh, and Osan has extremely good knock off purses so can't leave there without one of those either!

If you are wondering what the green net is in the apartment buildings..ohhh you know that is just a DRIVING RANGE for golfing.  They fit those dag em things everywhere they can!

The neat thing about Osan is that it is a world different from Seoul.  It is quiet, a lot more personal and friendly.  The drivers aren't trying to run you off the road..you know all the luxuries in life :)

And last but absolutely not least, I recorded one of 300 million commercials it seems like we have here in Korea.  They are soo obnoxious but you can't help but to laugh and be absolutely interested.  To me, it seems like the creators of these commercials have severe ADD but I will let you be the judge of that :o)

Make sure your volume is way up!

Have a great day everyone!  Love you all :)

Mike & Britt

Some interesting Korean news...

Hello everyone!  SO sorry it has been a while since I have done a blog post, things have been kind of busy around here.  Mike finally came home yesterday from his Warrior Leader Course.  He spent about 3 weeks up North, actually really close to North Korea, training how to fulfill an E5 position (since he is an E4).  We are hoping he will promote to 5 by Christmas (which would make him a Sargent)! 

The weather is finally warm WOO, thought I would never see the day.  Everyone raved about how great spring was and how cool it felt but it almost seems as if we went from the hypothermic winter, to a few days of cool, to what is not very humid..and at the moment raining.  Yuck.  But during that smither of spring, the Cherry Blossoms did bloom.  They were the prettiest things I had probably ever seen (and I thought everyone kind of over-rated them).  There was a festival we could have gone to down south which has fields of them...but there was an estimated 60 million people going, sooo we thought we'd pass and just go see the few on base.

So, now for the interesting news (Bad or good, however you want to perceive it).  In Korea, or actually I think anywhere you live overseas in the military, you have this thing called Command Sponsorship (I'm sure you've heard me talk about it in the past).  Command Sponsorship is an approval-based thing that gives family the privileges of having a car, going to the on-base schools, things of that sort.  Last July, Mike and I were put on the Command Sponsorship and thought were to be approved.  We packed up or "take with us" things and Fort Bragg put it in a short-term storage unit, our stuff to leave got put into long-term storage.  WELL, then 2 days before Mike left, the Command Sponsorship became "unapproved" I guess you could say because Korean was to full with families.  So, then we were put on the waiting list.  When we flew me out here, we applied for AIP (to staying an additional year, making it 2 total) because Command Sponsorship was said to have been put on hold for the next 3 years.  A couple days ago, Mike's Sargent came into the bank just to let me know the list started moving again, and it might add another year here.  If you don't want to stay, you might need to pull it out.  So, I called Mike that night (because he was at training) and told him the situation and he said Oh, no problem.  I will pull it out Tuesday when I get back to work.  Something tempted him to check his DEROS (date to leave the current duty station) and it had already been changed to October 2013.  SO, in a nutshell, we thought he had only another year and a half here in Korea..but turns out we have 2 and a half more years.  That was difficult news to hear, there are a lot of positives (like it is good for Mike's career to gain rank & for leadership positions, and I am very thankful for my job) but being away from family and just the states in general is going to be tough.  GOOD NEWS is, we get to ship our stuff we never were allowed to, get to ship our car for free, the whole nine.  And, we get to fly Space A free to the states so now we are starting to plan our visit back.  It looks like we are shooting for December/Christmas of next year..so of 2012.  We will see though.  I might be taking a trip sooner if I can get the vacation time!  Woo, sorry for all that rambling.  And sorry to bring that news.  We are truly always at the mercy of the Army.  We were very caught off guard by that too, so this week has kind of been a tough one.


Now for something funny...


There is this really cool place around 5 miles from here called Yatap.  It has a ton of really good restaurants, neat shopping places, things like that.  We went into this store called Home Plus..kind of like a Korean Walmart.  As we were just browsing through, I came across this MATCHING husband and wife..undergarments.  

Another neat place in Yatap is a really nice grocery store called Kim's Club.  Kind of like a Publix...well a Korean version that is.  It makes me laugh because in the "Imported Section" that have pasta noodles and Heinz ketchup. HA!  Well, they also definitely have some interesting options of things to eat, being Korea.  So yes, right under this..you are staring at dehydrated Anchovies.  EW

And then in this picture, those big black stacks..is actually SEAWEED.  Now doesn't that sound just absolutely appetizing.  How am I going to make it 3 years, haha.

But we love you guys and miss you.  Sorry again it has been so long.  Hope you all have a GREAT weekend and we will chat with you soon. SU-GWA-SE-YO (Bye!)


Love, 


Mike and Britt

Spring time in Seoul

Hello everyone :o)  Hope you all are doing great!  Things in Korea are finally starting to warm up & the trees, flowers are actually blooming.  Korea has one of the prettiest springs.  It is amazing moving from Florida and having no seasons..to North Carolina with beautiful seasons..to Seoul, South Korea with even more exaggerated seasons!  I definitely feel fortunate (even on my bad days) to have had the opportunity to see so much so far (and hopefully there is a lot more to come!)  Below are some pictures of some of the trees around here that are blooming and are so awesome..the pictures don't do it justice at all.

There are Cherry Blossom festivals this weekend..so Mike and I are going to try and go to those.  There are a few blooming at the other base in Yongsan that are probably the prettiest things I have ever seen.  Can't wait for the festival.

Speaking of cherry blossoms, as you guys know, we scheduled to get pictures by a military wife photographer here.  She is awesome and comes very highly recommended.  WELL, we initially scheduled during the time of the cherry blossoms..because they were supposed to be bloomed by now.  Since we had a colder winter this year, they are blooming a lot later.  So we didn't actually get any pictures of the blossoms in but it's no big deal.  She took over 350 pictures so don't freak out..there are PLENTY of just Mike and all that because many of you seem to think it was all about me.  She has only sent me a total of 2 pictures so I could put on my Facebook.  Hopefully she'll be done editing by this weekend so I can send a few out.

Another thing I forgot to post about was before I went to Okinawa, a woman who works for the bank down south got married.  She is Korean and he is in the Army, I think.  They had a "traditional" westernized wedding as well as a traditional-style Korean wedding.  We were all invited!  It was the coolest experience.  I guess nowadays, it is really rare to carry on the traditional Korean wedding.  This was the first wedding all of the women I went with had ever been to (so I got pretty lucky).  Here are a few pictures...

Despite not knowing a thing of what anyone was saying (either did the groom) it was still really neat!  The reception food consisted of German-style food (for his taste), but mostly Korean style with Kimchi, Chop-chae (kind of a noodle mix), Kimbap (sushi..without the sushi) and so on.

Hope you all have a great rest of the week & weekend.  Love you all!

Britt & Mike

It's Spring time!

Good morning/afternoon/evening !

Well, it is definitely spring time here in Seoul.  The Cherry Blossoms are finally starting to bud (some blooming) along with all of the other little flowers and plants.  It has been nice seeing everything turn from brown to green!  I hear Korea is prettiest in the Spring & Fall, so this year I will be able to compare the 2.  My first official "work week" back was good.  It was really nice to see my coworkers again, they are always so sweet.  Nothing too terribly exciting happened this week.  I don't know if I mentioned this but Mike and I are getting professional pictures taken by a military wife, who is actually an amazing photographer, tomorrow early evening.  I was hoping the blossoms would be in full bloom by then but since we had a really cold winter they were a little late this year.  But, I'm just excited we are getting pictures.  We are doing it in the Seoul Tower park (remember the tower post I made).  I will post them after  she sends me the final edited CD.

So, I know I didn't dive too much into Okinawa..mainly because I have so much to say about it!  I still miss it a lot and would love to go back and visit sometime before we leave Korea.  

Here is the first (of many) official plate of REAL Japanese sushi we ate, along with our "Happy" coke can.  I drank like 5 cans of coke/day because the Coke in Korea is disgusting but in Japan..it was normal...delicious 

Flying into Okinawa was really neat because it is such a small island..I had to snap a picture!

During the work week, we didn't do a whole lot since we wouldn't get back to the hotel till around 6 PM.  We did find a restaurant though that was absolutely amazing, great drinks, food, and such awesome people that made us feel at home in Okinawa!  The funny thing about this place (called Transit cafe) is on our very first night in Okinawa we were starving..so we walked down the street looking for a place to eat.  The only people we saw on the Sea wall was upstairs.  So we thought, hey lets just go up there.  WELL, the next morning, our trainer asked where we went to eat.  We told her, "Umm, I think the place was called Transit".  And she like freaked out saying that was the HIT place in Okinawa.  What are the odds!

Ugh, I could go on & on :o)  I hope everyone is doing great and has a great weekend ahead.  We love you and miss you always!

My time in OKI-nawa

HELLO everyone!!  Sorry it has been so long since I have done a blog post, I forgot my camera charger when I left for Japan so I didn't have any way to post pictures of the amazing Okinawa.  I did learn that Okinawa is properly pronounced OKEE-NAWA.  They call it the "Oki lifestyle".  Let me just start off by saying this place is amazing!  It would be how I would picture Hawaii would be.  Everyone is so laid back, friendly, and overall just happy.  Needless to say, I definitely want to go back and visit.  My trainer was AMAZING.  She was so sarcastic and we had so many laughs together.  In fact, my stomach is still sore from laughing so hard over the 2 weeks I was there.  She took us to all these different restaurants, stores, you name it.  I did try the "real" sushi and LOVED it.  It is so much more fresh and good here than back in the states (but that won't keep me from eating it there :o) ).  I actually traveled with another Army wife, they live up North.  The other 2 women took a different flight.  We both love sushi and couldn't wait so we had it in the airport in our layover at Osaka-Kansai Airport.  

We trained at Kadena Air Force Base located about 3 miles from our hotel (but always costed as around $15.00 each way, sometimes more).  Kadena is a beautiful base, really spread out, which is practically the complete opposite of Korea.  The training was primarily based upon anti-money laundering, things of that sort.  I learned a ton.  I think one of the most appealing parts of the trip was being about to be surrounded by Americans, or even just English-speaking coworkers.  Japan doesn't hire local-nationals, so it is all Americans in the banks (which was so refreshing).  It was almost like a women's retreat, hanging out and making overall life-long friendships with these women!  There is SO much to talk about in my trip but I'll just keep it simple for now.  

I'm sure a lot of you are wondering about the radiation and things of that sort.  What's funny is that Okinawa is like its' own separate entity.  No one talks about any of that, mainly because they had no effect.  However, they were doing a lot of money raising for the victims and restructure from the Tsunami and Earthquake.  Because of everything that was going on, the Yen (their currency), was very strong compared to the dollar.  We lost about .15 to .20 on average per $1.  That was killer!  

Here are a few pictures of Okinawa..I will do plenty more posts with more!  Love you guys!