The world is a book; and those who do not travel read only one page.

This is the first post on my new blog. I’m just getting this new blog going, so stay tuned for more. Subscribe below to get notified when I post new updates.

Hey y’all! Hello from Anjeong-ri, Paengseong-eup, Pyeongtaek-si, Gyeongii-do, South Korea.. and yes that all describes the area where I live. That all goes in the same address line and what I try to tell the taxi drivers but ultimately just show them on my phone. Pyeongtaek is the main city we are in, but all the other names are important too.

For those that do not know, my husband is military and we are living over here for the next two years. We live off base, but so do a majority of Americans over here, so it’s not as scary as one would think. In all actuality, everyone we have met is so nice. Except the taxi drivers when they don’t understand English and you have literally no idea where to tell them to go.

I have been here for only a couple of days so far, only half a week, yet it already seems like it has been weeks. I flew from Memphis to Minnesota and from Minnesota to Seoul. It was a weird feeling to leave Minnesota at 11:30am on Thursday to arrive in Seoul after a 13 hour flight (plus one hour delay due to a storm) at 4:30pm on Friday. I slept no more than thirty minutes on that long flight, and just so y’all know, fourteen hours on a plane IS A LONG TIME! Once I arrived, I was met by my husband, Buddy, who arrived in South Korea two months before I did. It was so good to see him. We then had an hour taxi ride to our apartment in the storm. Once we got to the apartment, I didn’t even stay awake for dinner before I crashed in bed and slept until 4am the next morning which is when Buddy was getting up to get ready for work.

Since he worked all day on my first day here, I spent a lot of the day just learning my new apartment (everything is in Korean). Good news, our floors are heated! And we live right behind a local coffee shop that plays Christian music which is neat because a majority of the country does not believe in God. That night, we went out with some of his work friends to what is called “The Ville” which is where all the shops and restaurants are. It reminds me of all the shops and such in Downtown Gatlinburg. Luckily, it is a 5-15 minute walk from our apartment depending on where we want to go.

Several of us ended up going to a South African restaurant called Braii Republic. So my first meal in South Korea ended up being South African that had BBQ that was as good as my Memphis BBQ. The place was packed and the food was even better than I thought it would be, I highly recommend the peri-peri chicken and prawns to everyone. Buddy had the BBQ ribs and the sauce was amazing.

Since Buddy is off on Sundays, we spent the day driving a friend’s van around town to do some grocery shopping and see some of the city. Seeing some of the city was not on the original schedule, but some missed turns due to not being able to read the Korean road signs made for some fun travels.

For this upcoming week, my plan is to clean the apartment as you can tell that a man lived here before I got here (although Buddy really did do his best to keep it clean). And the guy who lived here before us did not clean when he left. So I will be putting my womanly touch on it and making it feel more like home for the two of us. I even brought a little Christmas tree from Target that is on our dinner table to get ready for the holidays. I have a fully furnished kitchen, but no oven, so holiday baking will be harder to do this year, but I’ll find a way. I also plan to go get new eye glasses either on base at Camp Humphreys or somewhere in the ville.

With that said, my past three full days in my new home have been pretty good and eventful. I’m sure some weeks will be more exciting than others, but I do plan on updating this every week. If you’re interested, please come back and read my updates!

Thanks y’all!