Military Friends

Military life isn't easy.  The moving every three or so years, the constant change of schools, doctors, dentists, hairdressers, etc, the uncertainty of deployment and the emotions that go along with it are all very difficult for families to deal with.  Military life will often make or break a family. 

But for all the down sides to military life there are A LOT of positive parts to it as well.  The chance to explore a new part of the country (or world), the opportunity to get involved in different ministries and activities and one of the best parts is getting to meet a whole new group of friends while still keeping your old ones.  My Christmas card list is crazy long and every time we move it gets a little bit longer.  I learned early on to never write a military families address in my address book in pen.  It will for sure change a bunch of times and after a while the white out gets so caked up you can chip it off.  About a third of my Christmas cards go to other countries besides America.  And before I address my envelopes every year I have to send out a bunch of e-mails to figure out new addresses.  I love to address our Christmas cards and see what parts of the world our friends are living in. 

Whenever we get orders to a new place one of the first things we do is figure out who we know that already lives in that area.  The Marine Corps is very small compared to all the other services so no matter what base we go to (as long as it is a Marine Corps base-right now we are on an Army base-not the same) we always know someone. 

Because we (military families) are all in pretty much the same situation we make friends very quickly.  This is probably one of the hardest things for people outside the military life to understand.  My sister will often comment to me about how fast I have made friends after arriving at a new base.  She jokes that I have more friends in the first month of living at a new place then she does after living in the same area for all her life.  Military families all have one major thing in common-the military.  We may have different religious backgrounds, different moral standards, different child rearing methods, different interests and hobbies but even with all those differences the one major common factor instantly brings us together as friends.  The idea of knowing you have experienced the same situations causes you to bond with other people very quickly.

We may not always be lifelong friends with every family we meet but for the time we are stationed there together we are friends.  But there are always a few special families that you instantly bond with and you know they are going to be forever friends.  We may not see them for years at a time, but when you do get back together it is like you never were apart.

Because of all of this when you have a chance to visit with one of your military friends that you haven't seen in a while you do everything you can to make it happen because you don't know when the next chance to visit with them will come.  Some of our very good friends from Camp Lejeune, NC are currently stationed in China.  He is taking masters degree classes (yes, they are all in Chinese-it boggles my mind) and working towards earning a masters degree.  Part of his job is to travel to other countries in the area.  When they found out we were going to be stationed in Korea they quickly began to make plans to visit us.

They came for a week at the end of January and we had a wonderful time together.  It was like having a small piece of America visiting me.  They have an adorable 2 year old son.  I was able to baby sit him a few times for them while they were here.  It was fun to have him here for a while and it was fun to send him home :).  He is a great kid, but I am getting too old to chase a 2 year old around all day.  I was exhausted when he went back to his parents. 

I didn't take many picture of the activities we did because most of them I had done before, but we did take a few pictures together.  

The only group shot we got and the baby was not happy about it.

Watching TV with the girls.

I couldn't ever get him to sit still long enough for the picture to not be blurry.

I'm not a hugger - she is.  She got me to give her a big hug in front of the big flag.

Like I said, military life is not easy.  But in the long run, the opportunities and relationships far outweigh any negatives.  (Remind me of this blog post the next time Russ is deployed and I am hating military life :) )

Fish Market

While we were in Seattle we visited the fish market.  I was totally taken with the size of the fish and seafood and wished we could have bought some for dinner.  But since we were just passing through we had to pass.

When we first arrived in Seoul some of our new friends took us to the Korean fish market.  It was an impressive and completely overwhelming experience.  It made the Seattle fish market look like a local supermarket seafood case.  Since we had just arrived in Korea I was still jet-lagged and wide eyed when we went the first time so I didn't take any pictures.  But we decided to go back to celebrate Russ' birthday and since I am now an "experienced" Korean tourist I took a bunch of pictures to share with you all.

This is one place that is fairly easy to drive to, but since we went on a holiday weekend we decided to take the subway.  It is a short 2 stop ride from the base.  As soon as you exit the subway you immediately begin to smell the fish smell.  As you walk over the bridge it continues to get stronger and you know for sure you are walking in the correct direction.  All of the sudden you come to a short wall you can look over and this is what you see:

The market is in a huge open warehouse and it is massive.

The market is very loosely divided up.  Most of the vendors that are near each other sell the same things.  So if you are looking for shrimp you can go to one section, salmon another section, squid another and so on. It is completely overwhelming to try to pick out seafood there.  Everything is done in the metric system so you have to not only convert American Dollars to Korean Won in your head to figure out if you are getting a good deal (you have to pay in Won), the vendors don't speak any English so you have to speak Korean to them (or use a lot of pointy-talky), everything is in Kilograms instead of Pounds and you are expected to bargain.  Thankfully, this is all right up my alley (learning the Korean numbers so I could shop was one of the first things I did upon arriving here and I have used that skill many times over the past few months), Russ let me pretty much take care of the purchases. 

We decided we wanted some salmon and shrimp so that is what we went on a hunt for, but there are so many different types of seafood there to choose from.
The scallops are huge-

Some of them are about the size of my fist

 Tons of crabs-

Octopus-

They were massive.

In the bucket are live octopus that you can purchase. 

Fish of all kinds-

There are some areas where they have live fish and you can pick the exact live fish you want to eat for dinner. 

 And there are many things we have no idea what they are- (and I kindof think it is better that way)

 For the most part the seafood is very cheap and since you are expected to bargain you can even get a  better deal.  We found some good looking shrimp.

For the salmon you can tell them how you want to eat it and they will cut it up for you.  Part of it we wanted sashimi (raw-sushi style) and the other part we wanted to cook.
Here the lady is cutting our salmon.

After you have purchased your seafood you can take it upstairs to one of the many small restaurants and you can pay them to cook it for you. 

waiting for their salmon

Russ and I prefer the fish raw.

Your meal comes with the free sides of kimchi and other vegetables.

 We purchased 1 Kilo of shrimp (about 2.2 lbs) and it was less then $12.00 and they were huge.  The only drawback...they still had the heads (including the eyeballs) on them.

Acting a bit immature with our shrimp.  Because we are American and speak English, we draw attention to ourselves everywhere we go.  But when we are fooling around with our shrimp we really draw attention to ourselves as displayed by the people behind us. 

 The girls enjoyed their salmon.

The raw seafood is fairly cheap to purchase, but the cooking it is more expensive.  Overall though for a big seafood meal it is very inexpensive.  Much less money and much more fresh then you would ever pay in the states.   A very good "Korean" experience for our family. 

Basketball in Seoul

Funny Korean Signs-Part 4:

I can't read much on this sign but what I can read in the lower right corner made me laugh.  Korea has a Toilet Association.  Do you think it would be a resume builder if I joined?  I wonder where they hold their monthly meetings?  For that matter what do they discuss at their meetings?  I saw this sign while Russ and I were on a hike.  We made jokes about it for the next 20 minutes. 
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Koreans are not known for their basketball skills.  It could be because they are not, on average, very tall people or it could be because they are much more interested in playing baseball or soccer.  But for whatever reason basketball is not a huge sport in Korea.  So we were really surprised to find out they had an entire professional league of basketball teams here in Korea.  I did a little internet searching and found out that there are a few teams that play locally here in Seoul.  One very cold weekend we decided to check out a game.  Just like the baseball game that we went to we bought our tickets at the door and they were very cheap.  Less then $8.00 each and we had pretty good seats.  It took us a little bit longer then we had thought it would to get there so we missed part of the first quarter.

After we got settled it didn't take long for Lucy to get right into the excitement of the game.

If you are looking for NBA level basketball, this is not the place to be.  If you are looking for NCAA level basketball again you will be disappointed.  But if you are looking for a good, above average street ball game then you are at the right place.  A few of the players were playing in running sneakers and they all traveled pretty much every time they had the ball.  It looked to Russ and I that there were a few players that most likely didn't make it on an American NBA team that were playing for the Korean teams. 

 One of the great things about Korean sporting events is the cheap snacks.  In fact, they don't even care if you bring your own snacks into the stadium.  We bought 3 drinks and 2 big buckets of caramel popcorn and our total was about $12.00.

Again just like at the baseball game, watching the entertainment was actually much more fun then watching the game.  They had cheerleaders, mascots and random guys running around starting chants and cheers.

The only sign that we could read when they held it up.

After the halftime the cheerleaders changed into different outfits for the second half.

They even had a kiss cam that they played during timeouts and half time and they had a half time competition between family members.

Sorry my pictures aren't great.  That is what you get when you use a cell phone camera.

The final score for the game was 78-59.  Our team lost.
I can't say that this was the most exciting thing we have done since arriving in Korea, but it was a fun family adventure and it kept us out of the cold.

When we left the stadium it had started to snow.

Our on the way home pictures.

My adventure for next week will be more exciting and much more "Korean".