Thursday, March 15, 2012

one year later

i can't believe that it has already been a year since we arrived in korea. the time seems to go so much faster here compared to back home. the other day jeremy and i were talking about how different life is now compared to when we first arrived.

some things that we had to face when we first arrived:

-eating ramen everyday because we couldn't read any of the menus. we still can't read half of it but now we can recognize what we like

-jetlag! getting up at 6am every morning. we figured we could walk around and see the city only to find out that koreans are not morning people. the streets are deserted till at least 9, if not later.

-staying in a love motel for the first two weeks. exactly what it sounds like. rooms can be rented by the hour or the night and mood lighting is always provided ; )

-sticking to the same two restaurants because they had pictures on their menus

-taking hours at the grocery store staring at labels i couldn't read and trying to find any food slightly resembling something i knew

-spending the meal avoiding the free kimchee on the table (i still do this)

-getting yelled at for crossing the street without a walk signal (they're really strict!)

- figuring out that there are no preservatives in a lot of the food. we have to race to eat certain foods before they go bad. especially fruit and bread.

-since there are no dryers we try to put all the fans on our clothes to get them to dry faster before the mildew smell sets in.

-waking up to the smell of kimchee, fish or whatever else the apartment above us decided to cook for breakfast that morning.

-buying a car for around $200 but having to push start it anytime it rained. (we got it fixed eventually)

-going to the bathroom outside at work. in the summer it was a race to see how fast you could pee before you were attacked by mosquitos

even though we don't have to deal with most of these things anymore, it just adds to the experience of living in a different country.