Oh, my Seoul

Our six weeks of travel have finally ended.  We left Jacksonville, NC June 4, 2010, and finally landed in Seoul South Korea on July 13.  Tristan was probably the best traveler of the children.

Kyler leaves his mark wherever he goes.  The Grand Canyon bus was no exception.

An ever-delightful child, that one.

Note his simultaneous ear touching and thumb sucking.  Hunter ear touched and bottle sucked until he was three.  Alas, we can't take that thumb away and Kyler's nearly five.  He actually stopped for several months in the last year when I suggested that such behavior wouldn't allow him to attend school.  Now he doesn't care about going to school.  It still soothes him, as it did on that Grand Canyon bus.

The Grand Canyon was spectacular, as expected.

We said our final goodbyes to Grandma Merrill.

And to the Hernandez cousins.

Grandma Dee stayed up most of the night with us, and along with David took us to the airport early in the morning, along with our 12 checked luggage items.  The children slept a little on the plane.  Note the ear touching again.

It must have been nice.  I didn't get to sleep much.  That made it all the easier to sleep once we got to our new home.

The flight was two hours to San Francisco, where we milled about for several hours, then 11 more hours to Incheon.  Tristan is sleeping here.  Don't ask me how.

We were happy to see Daddy waiting for us at the airport in Seoul.  The bus people weren't so happy to see all our luggage. I wouldn't have brought nearly as much if I had known it would only be a few weeks before we were able to come.  Welcome to the Army.

The next morning the boys and I went with a bunch of ladies from church to the Seoul zoo.  These are "lady" parking spots, apparently?

It was an awesome zoo.  Being monsoon season, we did find ourselves in a bit of a downpour at one point.

The people are enthralled with babies, especially when they are as cute as Tristan.  The people often stop to have a look or touch his feet.

There is quite a bit of English on signs and such.

Forgive me,

I just couldn't resist.

These were some eats available at the zoo.  On the right appear to be some squid waffles?  I'm not that adventurous.  We had some double-breaded corn dogs.

Dean found himself a hooptie.  Since the Army will only pay to ship one vehicle over (or none at all, depending on one's rank), it is a common practice to buy an inexpensive vehicle here, then sell it upon leaving.  There's a brisk market in hoopties.  He did pretty well, apparently, as there was some hooptie envy at a recent meeting of all the Army veterinarians in Korea.  Some people paid what he did, and got lesser hoopties.  It is a Daewoo, and seems to be pretty nice, especially for the price.  It is a '97 Leganza.

The boys and I are still adjusting to the sixteen-hour time difference.  Here is some of our loaner furniture.  It's actually pretty nice, and this coffee table is nearly identical to the one we just got rid of, only the legs are all firmly attached to this one.

This was right outside our "low rise" today.  I'm not sure what was going on, but I hadn't seen a firetruck emblazoned with U.S.Army before so I snapped a picture.  Our "express shipment" of stuff is here, which is nice.  It will be more than a month before the rest of our stuff comes, but at least we have plenty of furniture for now.  Our housing area is at a satellite location, so off the main post.  It is for E1-E8, WO, and O1-O3.  We have a two-story apartment in a "low-rise" building.  We are on the first floor.  I think the building is two units high (so four stories).  There are tall towers as well.  There is a swimming pool, playground, small commissary and PX practically right outside our door.  I went shopping at the commissary today, and had it delivered to my counter top.  I'm not complaining!  

Dean is enjoying his job so far.  He is in "operations" now, so it is totally different from what he's ever done.  He says he likes not being in charge any more, like he was the second year at Camp Lejeune.  The city is comparable, we're told, to New York City, based on it's size, and probably the weather as well.  It is hot and humid in the summer (right now, ugh) and cold in the winter.  I thought it was overcast at first, but no, it's smog.  We're getting settled in, slowly.  I'm still jetlagged enough that I'm slow in unpacking all that luggage.