Week One: Indroduction to Seoul

Hello to my happy readers!
     I have decided to create this blog for our family and friends interested in our time here in Korea. I will do my best to update as often as I can but this whole "Blog" thing is all very new to me...

Well David and I arrived here Tuesday afternoon after a 16 hour journey from Houston. Bear made the trip quite well, I however had seen better days. Since then, the motion sickness has subsided, thank God, and we are now settling in to our new lives here in Seoul. For those of you that know little of Korea, Seoul is a major city that holds over a quarter of the South Korean population. It is also the second largest city in the entire world (If I remember properly). Needless to say the city is HUGE and there are people everywhere, pretty much all the time. For a young married couple such as David an myself, this is all very exciting! Our main itinerary at this point has just been to unpack and conquor the basic necessities such as making it to the grocery store and finding a good gym etc etc. Well since David is at work all day, that leaves me to take care of the puppy and handle all of the exciting domestic chores. Thankfully we have a wonderful maid that comes every morning to clean for us. While she doesnt speak any English, she loves Bear and is a fabulous worker. She does the dishes, makes the bed, dusts, vacuums and even picks up the dry cleaning. It is Fabulous! That just leaves the laundry, cooking and walking the dog up to me. The cooking has been the biggest challenge so far since we are still awaiting our food shippment from the US.  I went to the grocery store yesterday but it isnt as easy as one may presume. Since we do not have a vehicle here in the city, I walk everwhere. Well for those of you that know me Im not exactly bursting with muscles. I ended up having to go to two seperate grocery stores and drag my groceries back home. The closest store is located underneath the sub station and is about a ten minute walk. While it is a nice little store they are lacking in a LOT of the foods I require such as noodles and recognizable teas and snacks. They did however carry the most essential paper towels, chicken and bread. While on my way to this particular store I happened to walk past an allyway that just so happened to EXPLODE right as I walked by. Thankfully I was far enough removed from the explotion that I was unscathed, however my korean friends were standing just a little close to the electrical box when it blew up. I think they came out ok but there was smoke and chaos everywhere. Anyhow, after my first trip I realized I still had a great deal of things to buy so I headed out for a fifteen minute walk to the train station where the Lotte Mart is located. This is a MUCH larger grocery store, pretty comprable to a giant walmart. I was even able to locate some peanut butter, classico spaghetti sauce and some special K cereal.

On the flip side I have found the Korean people here to be very helpful. While at the store an elderly woman gave me her cart in the attempt to save me 100 won...which is approximately 10 cents. Another woman wanted to help me save money on the tea that I was purchasing. It also seems that they are very fascinated with Bear. Whenever I walk him outside, all of the Korean smile at us and want to show their kids. This is big because the majority of Koreans will not smile at you on the street, it just simply is not normal to say hi to a stranger.

Well that is about it for the day. This afternoon I will be doing some more exploring outside since the sun has finally come out! Until tomorrow...

Annyong