today i pee'd in a hole in the ground

today one of rick's coworkers offered to take us around the island to show us some spots we may want to visit in the future. kinda a rainy day today, not so great for sight seeing but good for this. interesting points of this trip for me were as follows:

many of the parks that have playgrounds also have work out equipment on them so adults can work out while the kids play. why this has not caught on in other areas, i dont know. i think its fantastic.

there is a difference between a hotel and a motel here which is similiar to home but not exactly. motels are rented by the hour, but according to rick's friend, its not seedy. because in korean culture so many members of the extended family live together in close quarters, the husband and wife rarely have a chance at privacy in their own home. so, they rent these rooms by the hour, and by the decor apparently, to spend a little quality time.

some of the best beaches are the rock beaches which are as it sounds but it is considered reflexology to walk or lay on these smaller rocks. suppose to be fantastic.

many gas stations, and apparently other places, dont have toilets but this sideways, laying down urinal in the ground that you can actually flush to go to the bathroom in. this is the woman's room. easier than you would think ladies , especially when wearing a skirt.

even koreans know the detroit tigers rock....

All and all this has been a good week as far as settling in goes. on ethan's second day of school i had the good fortune to meet a group of moms who get together regularly to socialize. all of them have school aged children at okpo international school and a couple have babies. one of the girls has twin boys that are a month younger than addison. after meeting them, they invited me to their weekly coffee get together that they were having at one of the girls apts. i had already planned to go to a weekly coffee group at the foreigner's club and had told another woman, who i havent met yet but have emailed with, that i would attend. so, i passed but hoped there would be another invite. as it turned out, the next day we had a monsoon. not rain, a monsoon. to back up alittle, we have one car (a kia minivan) which we share. rick has been biking to work so usually i have the car. sometimes i walk ethan to school, sometimes i drive. its such a short walk but due to the traffic and ethan being a 4 year old boy who is easily distracted by everything, it can be a job just getting him and the stroller safely down the street. i dont know how long rick will want to bike to work so i try to at least walk one way with ethan to get him used to it. the morning of the monsoon, rick's bike got a flat tire. so rick had the car. when i walked out of the apt bldg, i had no idea what to do. i had known it was raining but i thought, we have umbrellas, addison's stroller has a sun shade, this should work. standing there, i knew this would not work. in the meantime, all of the Indian woman who live in the apt complex were standing by the door saying"no take baby in rain" over and over. as if i would. so the indian woman kept saying "bus, bus". i folded up the stroller, strapped addison to me with the baby bjorn and basically got pushed onto a bus with my kids. i had no idea where the bus was going, or what it even looked like. all i know is the driver was korean and wearing a mask (like so many people in korea due to the swine flu). helpful, huh, that should surely get me home. i kept thinking, this probably was not a very safe move on my part. for all i knew, i would end up in Seoul cleaning someones house. oh well, ethan is a good cleaner.
so, of course, we ended up at school and this became known as "how we found out about the bus stop for school' day. we now ride it daily to school, both kids love it, and i avoid the worry about ethan's dawdling getting him hit by a car on the way there. usually addison and i walk back afterward and start our day.
on the day of the monsoon, i accepted a ride back with one of the mom's (lynn)i had met before and she offered to take me to the coffee group at her friends house. i had already decided i was not going to the foreigner's club because of the rain and decided to take her up on the offer. ( i ended up getting the car back from rick and just drove there myself.) her apt was down the rode across from the shipyard that rick works at. nothing to look at from the outside but beautiful on the inside. stacy lives on the top floor, has raised ceilings with a chandelier and a modern decor. my apt immediately looked not so good but the difference is these families live here for a couple of years. rick and i being here for a year is by far the shortest of anyone i have me. she has twins, a 10 year old and a live in nanny to help her. her husband is korean but grew up in america. she is from new jersey and the other women are from north carolina, maine and one from new zealand. each woman is very cool in her own way, very friendly and willing to answer any questions. they remind me of the women in my neighborhood at home, which makes me miss them.
there are babies everywhere and they just enjoyed playing with the bouncy seats, swings and baby toys. we just drank coffee and i was able to ask all the questions i wanted about everything. it was perfect for me. i felt reconnected with people and it was exactly what i needed. what a nice day. they have all been in south korea for a couple of years and seem to be enjoying it. seeing stacy with her twins makes me realize its not so hard having a little one and being here. even though she has a nanny, she still seems to do most things herself. later in the week i met with this group again for indian food for lunch, despite the numerous times i drove the wrong way down a one way street trying to find the place. its nice to have people to talk to and they drive the wrong way all the time.

ethan is doing well his first week of school and talks about it alot at night. he gets pretty tired out going daily but seems to like it. when touring the school i noticed that they have a corner called "the corner of virtue" which essentially is a time out corner where the children can sit and write an apology note or draw an "i'm sorry"picture if they've done something wrong. so of course, i mentally have been counting the days until ethan has his first visit with the corner of virtue. the answer is 4. on thursday, ethan took his first, and i'm sure not last, visit to "the corner". according to ethan, he wasnt "recognizing that my foot was kicking the kid in front of me". like his foot is possessed and has a mind of its own. ethan has no control over it right? well, he visited the corner, stated he was unable to write an "i'm sorry" letter because he cant write and opted to sit and enjoy himself. did he learn his lesson, probably not but all and all, nothing life shattering. according to the other moms, its impressive that he has adjusted so well. i agree and am very proud of him and still amazed by his enthusiasm for everything. even if his foot is suddenly possessed.
korea is a funny place as far as woman go and in many ways is very backward from what i am used to. one thing i have found, which is probably pretty universal throughout the world, is the helpfulness and bond with the women regarding my children. i am no longer so bothered by the women looking at my children and they always just love to smile at them. addison's eyes always amaze the women and sometimes even the men. most koreans i have encountered can speak some very basic american, like really basic with just a word or two, but most can say the word baby and blue, like addison's eyes.

ethan, addison and i had our first encounter with some different ladies in our elevator this week. our apt is on the 8th floor, which is one of two apts on that floor. we were about to get into the elevator when two women came to ride with us. they were attractive, wearing make-up(which you dont see very often), wearing dressy clothes and longer coats in the 80 degree weather. the bond that normally holds true with the women in korea was missing with these two which is actually why i noticed them. there is never a time that a korean woman does not smile or look at my children when were out. these women were totally avoiding eye contact with all three of us. so of course, ethan is trying very hard to talk to them in the elevator. ethan's small talk is always amusing" so we live on the 8th floor, too, where are you going". "i'm ethan, this is addison, here's my mommy".... one glance at me was all they got and i made sure it was clear that they were not to look at my children. they did not, they disappeared into the apt across from us and i did not explain to ethan, although he did ask where they were going, why they werent smiling, ect... i have seen the man who lives in the apt. he has a family but they are not here with him now. according to rick, he has heard stories about how many of the men get out here by themselves away from there families and just go wild. it would be easy to do, i think prostitutes are pretty easy to come by. they stick cards on your windshield with half naked pictures and phone numbers like you get pizza flyers. i found one on the ground on my way home from school, saved it and gave it to rick for our anniversary. isnt korean prostitution the proper 6th anniversary gift? anyway, we have tried to attach some pictures of our adventure so far, no korean prostitution pics though, this is a family blog... check out the remainder of the squid ethan was eating, he looks freaked when he saw it...

Pork neck, anyone?

Lynn and I got a night out without the kids last night, one of my coworkers babysat, so we wanted authentic Korean BBQ, sit on the floor and take your shoes off authentic. The resident expert on Okpo (he has been here over 3 years) directed us to this place they refer to as snorkleicous. It was rumored to have the best pork neck in town. Well, I can say if it doesn't have the best pork neck, it has gotta be in the top three. The pork neck was fantastic as advertised. After dinner we headed over to this German style beer haus for a drink or two before heading back. Lynn decided she wanted Pinot Grigio, which is only sold by the bottle ($45). We decided to order it. After 10 minues of searching, the guy treturned to inform us they were out. The only other wine she liked on the list was Beringer white zin, but at $50 a bottle we couldn't live with ourselves for doing that. So she preceded to try and order a beer. The first four beers she tried (Heineken, Corona, two other good beers) they were out of. The only bottled import they had was Budweiser. So we ended up splitting a pitcher of Cass (Crisp and Fizzy!). All in all a good night on the town, and if you ever are looking for a good pork neck resteraunt, I have just the place for you...

Update from Rick

Just so everyone knows I am still alive and well here, up to until recently just alive, I figured I would chime in a little bit. Lynn has covered most of the basics so far, as she gets to spend most of the time with kids and in town. I spend most of my day at the shipyard so i don't do much except on the weekends, part of which I spend watching football (some things never change). Life at the shipyard is very interesting. First off, the shipyard is gigantic. It builds 60 ships a year and employs 25,000 people. All the DSME employees are Korean and where grey coveralls to work every day. The ex-pats all work for different companies and are from different countries (mostly american and european, with some brazilian) and where different colored coveralls (ours are red) so we all stick out fairly easily in the sea of grey. Most of the Koreans do not speak english at all, making conversing with the average laborer difficult, but through a little searching you can usually find someone to get your point across. The engineers for DSME all speak english so that is not a problem. The people in my office have all been very friendly and willing to help in both work related matters and Korean adjustment issues at home. Lynn has met a few other moms and had coffe the other day, I am sure she will fill you in later. Ethan has begun school as well, and is really enjoying it. Addison is still Addison, happy and growing. AS far as work goes, it is coming along nicely. I am riding my bike in every day (along with 10,000 Koreans) so Lynn can have the car, so I am getting my share of exercise. I am also getting to know the bike repair guy well, as it has broken down three times already since I have been here. In a couple more weeks I will have a Korean bike as he will have replaced every component on mine. It is like buying anew bike on an installment plan. I am also spending lots of time on the drillship which is 1000 feet long and at the top of the derrick about 500 feet off the water. It is a massive structure with stairs, stairs, and more stairs. By the time I get to the drill floor I need a rest from walking up all the stairs (55 just to get on the ship, another 95 to get to the drill floor). There is a masive amount of heavy machinery being installed and welding work going on constantly. It is very impressive to see in person. The other day they set a 3500 ton module on one of our ships. It was essentially a 6 story steel building filled with heavy equipment and pumps that they picked up with a floating crane and moved across the yard and set sown on our ship. It is really interesting to watch a crane move 7000000 pounds across the shipyard on the water. They also have a free cafeteria for lunch here (actually many of them) that serves Korean food. Very few non-koreans eat there, most go out. I have been there a few times and thought it was good, however I am still not sure what I ate. Other than that, work is going well and I am getting settled in nicely at home. Lynn and I are going out to dinner for our anniversary tonight and one of my co-workers will watch the kids for a few hours while we are out so we are looking forward to that. Everything else is good and I hope all is well with y'all back home...

Guess which car is ours...

out on the town

Today was the first day i really went out exploring since we have all had terrible colds and our shipment from home arrived, keeping me very busy inside. Rick was off so we grabbed the stroller, the baby bjorn and the kids and went walking in okpo. it was a nice day, about 80 degrees with a light breeze. we found some interesting little areas where it is almost like an outdoor market area with the selling of mostly fish and vegetables. everyone sits on the ground and has little stands with their meat and fish sitting out on top of some ice. there were a couple of stands that had bowls filled with chicken legs and thighs with alittle ice underneath. i kept thinking" that cant be good" but hey, i dont know. we went to lunch at a nice little restaurant called kim's garden. it had an outside area to sit and great landscaping. food was really good and afterwards i needed to take addison to the bathroom to change her. something i've noticed alot about the bathrooms is they are very often unisex with a urinal and two stalls, one marked for men and one for women. ethan thinks its great because he gets to use the urinal all the time. unfortunately, they dont always have baby changing areas in these bathrooms. addison was smelling pretty bad so i knew i could not wait. i decided to go inside the restaurant and see if maybe there was another bathroom in there. one of the waitresses spoke some english so she understood what i was looking for when i asked. the inside of the restaurant was nice, people ate there and that is where you pay. to accommodate me with the baby, the waitress simply cleared off the top of one of the tables you eat at, handed me a towel, and i changed the stinky diaper on the table in the middle of the restaurant while people just looked on and smiled.
no one seemed to have any problem with this whatsoever, so hey, neither did i.

That night, rick's friend al came in from houston on business and we all went out to dinner where i had my first taste of korean bbq. we went to a restaurant very like mongolian bbq at home where you choose your food and its all you can eat but they do not cook it for you, you have a little cooking area at your table and you do it yourself. this was a great way to try alot of different options. i was surprised at how eager ethan was and he did great trying all the different food. at one point i watched him eat fried squid with no problem. towards the end he started to reject everything after encountering few things he deemed "too spicy". i tried a pretty big variety of dishes and have to say i would rate it a 6.5 out of 10. i didnt dislike it, i just didnt find anything i really liked. neither ethan or i enjoyed the desserts which were these little balls of goo like substance rolled in chocolate, roasted almonds or sugar. al said he had had these before and you eat them like donuts. apparently they have ground bean curd in them. the texture just tasted all wrong, cant really explain it.

ethan starts school on monday and on thursday of this week we went for a school tour and to meet his teacher Linda. we went during the time that school was letting out so i could see the other moms and the kids and get an idea of the routine. we walked there so i could get a feel for what that would be like. i had addison in the small stroller and i brought the baby bjorn carrier. the road to ethan's school from our apt is a main traffic area with 2 lanes going in both directions. it is very loud with a speed limit of i think about 45 miles per hour which no really drives. driving here is very interesting and there are many accidents. we almost got hit by cars pulling in and out of stores on the way there 3 times. i was pretty frazzled by the time we got there.

the other mom's i saw were of various nationalities speaking a variety of languages most of them not english. most of the women were blonde, blue eyed scandanavian looking women. no one seemed overly friendly but not unfriendly either. everyone was just doing there own thing. there is a playground at the drop off/pick up area so ethan played and i just observed for a while. i was still having alot of problems with my cold so i was doing my best to look enthused. i liked ethan's teacher and she gave us a tour of the school. ethan was not on his best behaviour and she did not seem to notice at all. she has taught at various areas around the world and owned her own preschool in florida. she is american. she was very excited that i wanted to come in and volunteer and said there was no problem bringing addison. she told me that no other mothers had expressed an interest and she liked to have the involvement. she said the class is truly international with children from a variety of countries including germany, australia, and england just to name a few. only 3 children in the class speak english fluently (with ethan being one of them). there are 11 students total. they are the panda class which is in the british system of education a foundation 2 class. mrs linda said that it is equivalent to kindergarten in the united states. ethan will go daily from 830-245 and have a pretty big variety of classes including math, music, pe and yes, korean language. should be a good experience.
talking to the teacher about my experience walking to school, she was pretty adamant that i drive ethan to school if at all possible due to traffic on the main road and the amt of accidents. after the walk there, and the walk home, i agreed. most areas we have been have been fine for walking, shopping areas where the traffic and speed limits are slow but this walk, unfortunately is not one of them. alot of mom's live in an area where there are small houses called the row houses. these seem to be the optimal place to live as far as walking for school. there are no main roads to cross from these houses so it is equivalent to walking thru a neighborhood except it is a bit steeper with hills. i have not met anyone yet that lives in the row houses to talk to about the pros and cons of the two living places. it should be interesting when i do.
tomorrow we are having breakfast with the site manager of ricks project. they live in the row houses and although i dont think they have small children, they might be able to give me some information about the area.

so we have completed our first week in Korea and my head is still spinning. we left Detroit and flew to japan very comfortably in business class (thanks Transocean). we were suppose to have 3 seats and a bassinet, however, last minute that was changed due to seating problems and we ended up with the whole front row of seats which essentially meant 5 seats plus the bassinet. ethan, of course, took full advantage of this and transferred back and forth thruout the flight. the flight attendants didn't seem too bothered by this except and meal times when we were all in different seats when the food came. addison, true to her easy going nature, fell asleep for nap right before we got on the plane and woke and played and ate for a small amount of time before retiring to her bassinet on the wall where she of course slept the rest of the way. i hope she always stays so mellow and cooperative. ethan slept next to me, leaving rick with the 3 seat stretch but oddly enough did not sleep much. i know this because i do not sleep on planes and i tend to look around at everyone. every time i looked at rick he was looking at me and would signal i love you by pointing at his eye, his heart and me.

landing in japan i looked around and thought the scenery was beautiful. we had to go thru security again (which we thought we did not initially) and just made it to our plane. they were waiting for us and were helpful getting things moving. addison and ethan were very tired now because we had to wake them up and it was about 3am Detroit time for them. addison was crying now because she needed to be changed, i could barely concentrate and the flight attendant said here, go ahead and change her in here. He took me to a bathroom and said the takeoff could wait a minute but there was no changing table in the bathroom. i had 2 wipes left, a very tired and stinky baby and i had to balance her on the back of a toilet seat, get her clean and not drop her. the whole time i did this i just kept saying"look at mommy addison, its OK, its a great adventure" she just stared at me and i realized that this is how its gonna be now. as long as it seems like every things OK to me, it will be OK for them. no pressure.

we collected all of our luggage when we reached busan but still had a 2 1/2 hour car drive to our apt in okpo. as soon as we got to the airport in korea, the touching started. two young korean girls took ethan by the hands and told him "welcome to korea" and gave him a little donut shaped like an animal. addison was strapped to me in the baby bjorn and everyone tried to touch her. i was trying to be polite but protective of her too. i was really tired and not used to this kind of attention. i held her close and held ethans hand with my other and we headed outside where the drivers were ready to take us. addison cried almost the whole way there because she was so over tired. ethan talked non stop because he was so over tired. our korean driver rarely spoke so it was a long ride. i went to my happy place for awhile to avoid the crying and excessive talking. i think rick knew that this would not be a good time to give me the i love you signal so we just drove on in silence.

our apt is a highrise, 16 floors i believe and is called mijn palace tower. we are on the 8th floor and have underground parking. we did not know the names of the people who took us to the apt. a few of them spoke alittle english but not much. i had seen pics of the apt before coming here but really at this point had no idea what to expect. when you walk into our apt there is a foyer. it is lined with closets and has a motion sensored light. ethan went running into the apt and tripped and fell down on the marble floor due to a step up he did not see (he was fine). this would not be the only incidence of this happening. next there is a long hallway which leads into our living room. very big, at night a very nice view of the ocean and the lights. during the day you see the shipyard and alot of construction along the water front. very noisy, not so pretty. our dining room is nice as is the kitchen. we have a seperate laundry room which also has a refrigerator, a kimchi refrigerator and a washer dryer combo which is consistently running and makes me hate doing laundry even more than i did before. in total we have 3 refrigerators, since we also have a small one built in in the kitchen. we have a ton of appliances, we even have a cutting board sterilizer, rice cooker and other appliances that i do not know what to do with yet. the storage is impressive throut the apt. i am surprised that when they sent pics of the apt that they did not include the finer points and more decorative areas. one of these finer points for me is that i have a built in vanity with mirror and little stool like i have grown accustom to at home. ah and then there is the forskin. the forskin is the name of the shower (honestly, written right on it). it has 3 seperate settings, one reg spray, one removable, and one that is like being at a water park and shooting water at just your body from the side. the forskin is great, only problem is you have a difficult time regulating the water temp properly so you need to move quick if someone say flushes a toilet or something. forskin will either freeze you or burn you, neither one is good.

ethan loves his room. he has an enclosed patio off of his which sounds worse than it is because the windows lock, then there is a screen and built in decorative metal bars. i do not allow the window to open and i have put the toy box in front of it so it took care of the problem. he has 2 doors into the room due to the patio which of course causes all kinds of door slamming with constant "sorry mom" s heard. addisons room is in the front. we had the bed removed so its pretty large but definitely needs some pretty- ing up.

with our apt came a ten page laminated instruction manual for how to use everything in the house from the washing machine to the bidet in the bathroom since everything is written in korean. we struggle still and ethan loves to remember the sequences for turning everything on. he has become my trusted assistant for all chores and turns everything on for me daily. we have a cleaning lady who comes once a week but i'm not sure if she actually disinfects anything as i was there when she cleaned this week and i'm pretty sure she did not. when she cleaned the bathroom she went in, took everything out, turned on the removable shower head and sprayed the whole room down from top to bottom. i was amazed but disturbed. she spoke no english, kept trying to touch and hold addison and eventually called two other men to come over where they all talked very loudly in korean about something i think i was doing wrong. turns out they have this whole recycling system in okpo which basically consists of using these red bags (which we didnt really know about) and we were doing it incorrectly (per one of the men who translated for me). she was at the apt for almost 3 hours and i decided that i would find somewhere else to be next time because it makes me uncomfortable not to be able to communicate.

well ethan starts school next week so maybe i will take addison somewhere during that time.

we have walked around alittle outside of apt but it is very hard with the baby. it is so not a stroller friendly area with the streets very rocky and hilly. we actually live on what is nicknamed ski slope drive because it looks just like a ski slope. it is very frightening. i walked with ethan and addison 1/2 way down one day to explore and was blown away with how steep it really is. once you pass that though there is a little town area with shopping and a quiznos and other restaurants. i am trying to figure our how to bring a stroller for shopping but how to maneuver safely up and down this hill. rick told me that one of his new buddies at work said they used to tie a rope to their stroller to make the descent easier. i thought that sounded like the most unsafe thing in the world and would not even think about trying it. rick and i frequently differ on issues of safety like the time he tried to clean the gutters of our 2 story house balanced on a ledge with a power washer.