The Adseros: January 2010

Sunday, January 31, 2010

The Hood

Here are some photos/videos of our neighborhood and other miscellaneous fun that we've had recently.

Our apartment is just a few blocks from a huge river that cuts through the middle of Ulsan. There are some great walking/biking paths on both sides of the river. This is a scene from one of our walks there:

There aren't really any dog parks or open fields here where Lucy can run wild so we have resorted to having Lucy pull Matt on his roller blades like a sled dog on the river walk. It's kind of embarrassing, but we make a scene to matter where we go so what's the difference? Maybe people think that's normal in America.

On our walk back from the river, I took a few shots of our neighborhood. Here's a shot of our apartment building. There are actually two towers. We live in the tower behind this one:

Here's Matt (who looks like a thug from Brooklyn) and Lucy post walk:

We went on a little trip to the beach this weekend. Lincoln loves to hear his echo when we're waiting for the elevator. As we're putting our shoes and coats on in our front entry way, he begins making noise in anticipation of being able to hear his echo when we step out the door. So cute! Here's a video of him as we are leaving for the beach:

On the way to the beach, we took a little drive down the river to the coast. We saw AMAZING things. I wouldn't say that they are the most scenic, but it was really incredible to see the industry there. There are smoke stacks and ship yards everywhere . We also saw a huge Hyundai Motors export facility. There was a sea of new cars on the bank of the river waiting to but put on a ship and exported elsewhere. I didn't get my camera out in time to get a picture of that, but I did get a picture of one of the huge ships being built. These ships are like skyscrapers laid sideways on the water. It really is an amazing site to see these things up close and personal. You see Hyundai's and Kia's and all other foreign cars on our streets (in the States) and you don't give a single thought as to where they came from and how they got there, but this is how!:

As we got closer to the beach we saw more fishermen and crazy seafood markets. Here is a picture of some old ladies sifting through the rocks for some clams or muscles. You can see some huge ships out in the distance.

This isn't a great shot but here is a picture of a lady walking around in her diving suit with her catch on her back. Very funny!

We drove forever and ever up the coast, but there were only rocky beaches that I didn't find appealing. It was cold so I didn't really want to get out of the car, but we decided to anyway. It was around 8 degrees C (46 F) which isn't too bad but the wind was blowing like crazy so we spent a total of 3 minutes on the rocky beach. Here's a picture of Lincoln and Matt trying to stay warm.

Here's a wonderful family pic at the beach:

This is kinda random but whatever. With our open floor plan and no carpet it has been very difficult to try to baby proof our house. We looked everywhere here in Ulsan for some kind of play pen, but to no avail. I finally found one online. Matt thought we should buy two so Lincoln wouldn't feel like a caged animal. We're going to buy some more foam tiles to pad the inside. It takes up a lot of space and doesn't look so classy but it'll make our lives so much better!!! At least he'll have a good view huh?

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

FRUSTRATED!!!

Don't be fooled by this sweet little picture. Lincoln's got a bad side. Lately, he has been making this weird face when he's frustrated. It usually happens when he is strapped down or confined in some way, like when he's in his car seat or high chair. He has learned to pull up on things recently, but he's not quite sure yet how to safely get back down. He'll make "the face", and then I know it's time to come to his rescue. The first time he did it, I thought he was trying to pass the mother of all "number 2's", if you will. So funny! Just moments after the cute little picture (show above) was taken, he got tired of being in his high chair and made "the face":

Sunday, January 24, 2010

Big Buddha

So I know you are all sick of my red sweater prego pictures, but I happened to be wearing it today and thought to take a picture. My mother-in-law while speaking on the web cam yesterday had me show her my profile because I was complaining about how big my belly was. She lied to me and said "That's not big at all!!!!". Very diplomatic, Laila, thank you. Honestly, though, my belly is big. Last time at 16 weeks, no one knew I was pregnant. Oh well, my hot bod is shot, but I'm sure glad to have Lincoln in my life and I sure hope #2 will be as pleasant.

ps. Just for the record, I am wearing a shirt underneath the V-neck. It just happens to be olive green... the same as my skin. I'm not as scandalous as you maybe thought.

Thursday, January 21, 2010

9 Months

So I missed 8 months cause it was over the holidays and we just moved out of our house and were getting ready to go to Korea. Needless to say, I had a hard time mustering up the energy and to be honest, I kinda forgot. Anyway, here he is at nearly 9 months (above). He has been all about his tongue lately. He clicks it, smacks his lips, and sticks it out a lot. He especially enjoys doing it while he's go his binky in. Matt thinks he looks like an anteater. I think he's a lot cuter than an anteater, don't you?:

Anyway, our int'l health insurance hasn't transferred over so there has yet to be a 9 month appointment made, so his stats are unknown. I'm wondering if they even do 9 month appointments here in Korea. Hmmm ...

Besides the tongue thing here are some other things he likes to do:

He pulls up on EVERYTHING. He hasn't mastered getting down so right now, he just lets go and does the "Trust Fall" right onto the marble/wood floor. I sure hope he learns how to sit down before he gives himself brain damage.

He cries for 5 minutes every time I put him to bed but then he's off to sleep. He'll sleep 10 hours at night. Hallelujah!! I better enjoy that for the next few months before baby # 2 comes along.

He gets very offended if I take away something he shouldn't be playing with or if I shut a door to where he wants to go. He'll just throw his head back and wail.

He likes to play hide and go seek. I'll go around a corner and call his name. I can hear the slap of his hands getting closer and closer. When I finally see his face peak around the corner, I scare him and he laughs hysterically. He'll play this game for 10 minutes straight.

His favorite thing to play with are the cords to the computer, printer etc. I've gotta figure out what to do with the cords so he can't get them.

His favorite thing to play with previously was Lucy's food and water. I finally resorted to moving her food into the guest bedroom where we never go.

He also loves to pull Matt's new Wii off the shelf and onto the marble tile. I'm surprised it's not broken yet.

You really gotta watch this kid like a hawk. He is everywhere and into everything. He is a very big danger to himself. I really wish our apartment was carpeted, but that's just not how they roll here in Korea. Anyway, if and when I get the stats, I'll post 'em. Don't you worry!

Sunday, January 17, 2010

House Tour and Thoughts on Korea

So I tried to give you a house tour last time, but it didn't work out for cause it was too long and too big of a file to load on the blog. Here is a less detailed speed tour. Lincoln is supposed to be napping so aside from my Darth Vader breathing into the microphone, this is a silent film with little commentary (except of course when I busted Lucy getting into the garbage). Enjoy.

So my thoughts on Korea so far are as follows:

It is much like Taiwan and pretty much everything I expected. For those of you have not spent as much time in Asia as I have, it might blow your mind, but nothing has really come as a shock to me.

I have discovered many things that I loved about Taiwan exist here as well including

Stationery with silly little English sayings on them that are either ultra sappy or make no sense at all
Asian Pears.... YUM!!!

Frozen dumplings that are great boiled, steamed or fried and are great for a quick lunch

Street vendors with great treats
7-11's
Little yogurt drinks that many people in my mission referred to as "Buddha Milk"

Observations about Korea:

People are ultra stylish (at least the people that are 35 and younger although many older women look quite classy). I've heard that many fashion trends emanate from Korea. I'll try to keep you posted on the latest trends here so you can be the trend setter in the States. As far as winter fashion goes, these items are super hip:

North Face coats or the like with a sheen to them in black, blue and red

Fur-lined coats of all sorts. No fake fur allowed! This is the real deal. This fashion goes for both men and women.

Three Musketeer ankle boots in black (a little more wrinkly and lower to the ankle than these) warn with black leggings and a short black skirt or long coat

Fashion tip: Just remember that this season, black is the new black. EVERYONE here seems to love black.

(Observations continued)

People here seem larger than in China and Taiwan. Maybe they have more beef and milk here or something. I know everyone loves Korean BBQ. Matt can't stop talking about it, but I have yet to try it. In Taiwan, I always felt like a Jolly Green Giant, but when we were at Costco among the swarms of Saturday shoppers, I was towered over by many (both male and female). Don't get me wrong, the average Korean woman is probably still a Size 2 and there are definitely some shorties out there.
They love their Kimchi. It is eaten with every meal. I had my first go at it at a Lingerlonger after church yesterday. I generally have a very open mind and palate, but I have to admit that Kimchi will have to be an acquired taste for me. For those of you who don't know, Kimchi is defined as follows: The staple pickle of Korean cuisine is fiery pickled cabbage, heavily seasoned with garlic and chilies and, in some cases, radish juice. While it is most often made with cabbage, it can include (or be made exclusively of) cucumber or daikon.
People most often back into their parking spots in parking garages. I find that very difficult and will likely not follow suit.
Most cars here are diesel, or so I've been told. To my surprise, despite many of the narrow streets, everyone drives a car and scooters are few and far between unlike Taiwan.
Also unlike Taiwan, many if not most of the major roads are tree lined. I like that.
Apparently red lights are more of a suggestion than a law.

I'm actually quite impressed with the number of people we've run into that have quite good English or at least know enough to help us on our way. Very nice.
Last but not least, Korean women LOVE little white babies. We seriously feel like celebrities here cause of Lincoln. Everyone oohs and awes when we go shopping. We kinda have to plan an extra half hour for every shopping trip in order for Lincoln to say hello to all his fans. The first day we were here, Matt and I went grocery shopping at a little local market. After we had bought our groceries, I was sitting at a table waiting for Matt to buy some stuff at this food court type place in the grocery store and several people gathered around Lincoln and me and one lady actually took him out of my arms so she could play with him and make him smile (which is not hard as many of you know). Little did I know then that this would be a common occurrence. Several days later at Costco, people were whipping out their cell phones to take his picture and would say in their best English "So Cute-ah!". For whatever reason, 'cute' is always a two syllable word. I guess "E's" are not silent here. Anyway, I can't blame 'em. Who wouldn't wanna just love and squeeze this little guy?

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Our Korean Abode

Our accommodations here in Korea are quite nice... well, really nice. More than I had hoped for by far. This building is BRAND new. We are the first to live here. All the appliances still have their stickers on them. I guess that's good and bad. Good, cause it's nice to have new things, bad because when we leave, they'll know that all dings and scratches were our doing. Oh well. I may have mentioned this before, but we are on the 17th floor. Our building is maybe about a quarter full. I don't think we have anyone else living on our floor yet. I have to admit, I haven't tried to bring cookies over. I'm a little gun shy about my Korean language skills (or lack thereof). The apartment is very modern, all stone and wood... kinda sterile feeling and echoey. It's going to be a rough deal for Lincoln to learn to walk in this place. He's already hit his head a face twenty million times on the stone coffee table and floors. I'm surprised he hasn't given himself a concussion yet. I'm also surprised that someone hasn't called us in to the Korean Child Protection Services. I hope I can figure out how to baby proof this place. I just don't know where to buy stuff like baby gates etc. We did find some foam tiles for his bedroom so it is fairly safe in there.

They are many neat features in our apartment. Some of the lights are motion activated, you can open the front door by pushing a button in the family room, you can call the elevator as you are putting your coat and shoes on, the floors are heated (which is my favorite feature cause the clothes I leave on the floor are warm when I put them on), there is a huge built in freezer in addition to the side by side, and the toilet in our bathroom has heated seats and is also a bidet although I have yet to try it out (but of course Matt has).

So, my house tour video was gonna be posted here but it won't load for whatever reason. I'll try again later. Anyway, the apartment has some quirky details I forgot to mention. First, the dining room table has flowers made of glitter inlaid into the stone.

And, the dining room chairs are covered in a soft pink crocodile skin. SO SWEET!

If you ever come to visit, you'll have to be very careful about pushing buttons around here (not mine... the ones on the walls). The first day I was at home by myself with Lincoln, I noticed there was a little TV in the kitchen. Lincoln was napping, and I didn't have much to do so I thought, "Cool, let's see what Korean TV is like." I can't really read Korean yet so I had to guess which one was the power button. Which one would you guess?:

WRONG!!! It is NOT the one outlined in red. That would be an emergency button. The alarms sounded, my heart was racing, imaging that everyone was going to have to evacuate the building and I'd have to try and explain myself in my best sign language (I've gotten really good at charades since we've been here). I ran over to the security system screen in the family room. I think it probably said something like "Is this really an emergency?" and then there were two touchscreen options. I said a little prayer and picked the one on the right... SAVED!!!! The alarms stopped. To my surprise and delight, Lincoln slept through the whole thing.

Tuesday evening as we were getting into bed, Matt and I were reflecting on how funny it was that I set the alarm off as well as all the other funny things that have happened (which I will list in a future post) as a result of us not being able to speak/read Korean. Matt told me that one of his co-workers wives did the exact same thing. I didn't feel so dumb after hearing that. As we were talking, I mentioned to Matt that we sure had a lot of controllers on our bedroom wall. Matt agreed and walked over to the wall to see what they were all for. There was one with just a single button. Matt pushed it and the alarms blared once again. He ran to the screen in the family room. I said, "THE ONE ON THE RIGHT! HIT THE ONE ON THE RIGHT!!". He hit the one on the right and... silence. We laughed ourselves silly. Is EVERY button in this house an emergency button???

Anyway, long story short, (cause I already said the long story long) we like our new place. Come visit us!!! You saw your bed and bathroom. Looks great, eh?

Sunday, January 10, 2010

We Made It!!! (barely)

Matt with all our junk

Well we made it to Korea, but not without a few obstacles. Matt and I had a lot of luggage when we flew from Houston to SLC for Christmas, but then after making a haul for Christmas, we had even more luggage to deal with. Lucky for us Matt's parents bought us larger luggage for Christmas and Matt's company had us fly First Class (including Lincoln....YES!), so between all of us we were allowed nine 70 lb bags. We almost met our quota. Add on top of that our dog in a huge kennel. It was ridiculous, although after checking in and having our load reduced to only Lincoln and a couple of carry-ons it wasn't so bad.

I imagined that we wouldn't see that pile of luggage again until we arrived at our new homeland, but it wasn't meant to be. Our flight from SLC to Seattle was great. We boarded our next flight which went to Japan quite easily, but then we had to wait an hour for some people that had a delayed connecting flight (I guess they do that for international flights). After waiting forever and then finally pulling away from the gate, the captain realized that there was something wrong with the starter, so we pulled back into the gate. They swapped out the starter which took another hour but after swapping it, they realized it was not the starter but something with the gears below so they had to remove the starter and fix the real problem which they said would take another hour and a half. With a 3.5 hour delay, we were definitely going to miss our connection in Tokyo for Korea. What was going to happen to Lucy??? We couldn't let her out of her kennel in Japan cause they require different immunizations. They finally decided to have everyone swap planes and have all the baggage moved. Matt decided that we better try and stay in Seattle which was a little more dog-friendly. Delta was quite accommodating. They got us a hotel where Lucy could stay as well, and switched our flight to the next day, free of charge. So we got all our millions of pieces of baggage, plus Lucy and managed somehow between the two of us to get on a shuttle that took us to our hotel. We were a total freak show. I pushed a cart of luggage and had Lincoln sitting on top. Matt pushed a cart and then pulled some luggage behind him. The huge mishap wasn't all bad. It was good to get Lucy out for a little rest from the kennel, and we were able to see Matt's childhood buddy, James, who now lives in Seattle.

The family at the hotel. Lucy is sporting her little doggy jacket to keep her warm on the plane.

By some miracle we made it back to the airport the next day with all our junk and made it onto our flight to Tokyo. Other than me filling a barf bag nearly full with everything I had eaten all day just an hour before we landed in Tokyo, the rest of the trip went smoothly. I thought we were a freak show in Seattle, but when we landed in Korea with all our junk, our dog and a cute white baby with big blue eyes, we really were a freak show. A semi-circle formed around us and people just gawked as we waited for Lucy to clear customs. So funny! Definitely a memory- making experience.

We are now in our lovely apartment. I have lots more to say about Korea, and church in our little branch here, and an apartment tour, but you'll have to wait till later. I'll give you a little preview of the view from the window in our family room: