The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

It’s the most wonderful time of the year, with the kids jingle belling, and everyone telling you be of good cheer. It’s the most wonderful time of the year!

Hey y’all! Merry Christmas a little early from South Korea! When this gets posted, it will already be Christmas Eve for us over here. Buddy has to work Christmas Eve, but his work gave everyone the option to take Christmas Day off, and I’m happy he’s going to be home. Not only is this our first Christmas away from home and family, but this is our first Christmas as a married couple! You’ll read in next week’s post what we’re doing for Christmas Day! Also, I would like for everyone who reads this blog to wish my parents a wonderful TWENTY-SIXTH wedding anniversary! They got married on Christmas Eve in 1993, just the two of them, the pastor, and his family. I can only hope with this being our first married “merry” Christmas, and with our one year anniversary coming up, that we’ll be able to have that many anniversaries and more.

I know in last week’s post, that I referenced we were waiting to hear of the birth of our little niece. Well on December 17th for us, December 16th in America, little Everleigh Ann was born! Y’all, she is the most precious little angel, and I cried when I saw her pictures. Buddy and I so wish we could be there to hold her as a newborn, but we have already sent many videos to her letting her know that we love her. We are so excited to be aunt and uncle to her!!!

Then sadly on Thursday, we had to say goodbye to our little pupper, Toni. I also cried saying bye to her as she left to go to the airport to her forever family. We had her for quite a little while, and she really left an impression on Buddy and I. We took her for a car ride the night before to see the area for one last time, and we gave her extra treats before bed time! I miss having the little one around in the apartment when Buddy is not here, but I know she is making someone else really happy.

On Friday morning, it snowed!!! Not a lot, but when I woke up, there was still a good amount on the rooftops around us. When I texted mom to let her know, she was disappointed and said that was not enough snow, but I quickly informed her it was more than she had. You see, my mother and I are big fans of snow. We would rather have snow than the beach, so the fact that I had snow and she didn’t was a big win in our book for me!

Friday was actually a busy day for me. After letting the majority of the snow melt off the roads, I decided to venture into the city of Pyeongtaek. While we technically are in Pyeongtaek, we are in a smaller area called Anjeong-ri. For my Memphis area folks, it’s basically like we live in Bartlett and then have to drive in to the actual city of Memphis. It was only about a fifteen minute drive to the store I was going to, which is called Daiso. Daiso is basically like a $5 Below store, as nothing is more than 5,000 won. There is a smaller Daiso right down the road from our apartment, but there is a big three-story one in Pyeongtaek. I was so proud of myself for figuring out how to get there, because there was a lot of construction going on near the store that blocked the main entrance into the parking lot. I passed it probably about 2 times before I figured out how to pull in. It does not help that all the signs were in Korean, so I was really just hoping and praying I was doing everything correctly. I ended up not buying anything, but it is definitely a store that I will go back to later. Once I made it back to our area, it was almost noon and I met Buddy for lunch at the PX food court. I had forgotten to make him a lunch that morning, so I got there slightly before I knew he would and bought our food and found a table, so he didn’t have to waste his lunch break doing those things.

Friday night is date night! We decided to go to a Korean BBQ restaurant called HWA HWA. It was something new to me, Buddy had already been there once, but had not ordered anything to grill himself. He ordered the Galbi (which is a type of short ribs) and I ordered the beef tenderloin. It also came with many typical Korean side dishes. This was very much out of my comfort zone, as I am one of the pickiest eaters I know, but I tried everything. With that being said, I was not a fan. Buddy loved it all though. It was really neat to grill everything yourself, and the fire felt nice on the cold night, but I probably will not be going there again anytime soon.

Now, for all of y’all who have been reading my blog posts, you’ll know that there is one thing I have wanted since my first week here.. cheese dip!!! Well, scrolling through facebook one day earlier last week, I realized something. Chili’s has a skillet queso dip (which is cheese dip). I love this skillet queso dip. Osan Air Base has a Chili’s that was just remodeled. Osan AB is only a thirty minute drive from us. So, Buddy and I went to Osan AB on Sunday just so I could finally get my cheese dip. Y’all he is such a good husband who puts up with my crazy antics. Driving there was crazier than driving to Pyeongtaek on Friday. We drove through so much construction and all the speed signs kept changing. Plus, a lot of Koreans see red lights as optional. If they think they have waited for too long, they will go through it. Even though there are CCTV cameras at almost every light. Once we got to Osan though, we had to find a gate that was open since it was a weekend. The gate that Waze took us to is closed during the weekends. Once we made it through a two lane road that was really just one lane because everyone was parked in both lanes at some parts, we finally found the main gate that was open. This gate y’all, there is no red light at it. It is in the middle of their Ville area which means it is crazy busy with people crossing the streets, plus there are cars coming from three different directions with no say in who has the right to go. CRAZINESS!

Once we got through that part though, finding the Chili’s was pretty easy and it was such a glorious sight to see. We were greeted by their huge Christmas tree inside, which is something I truly appreciate. And as soon as we were given menus, I immediately opened up to the appetizers to make sure they had my queso, and by golly, I ordered it first thing. Having that little skillet that’s filled with such goodness come to my table made me so happy. The menus were really cool as they were printed in both English and Korean. The Texas Roadhouse we have here at Humphreys is only in English. After we ate, we came across a sign on the side of a building. It literally said “We guard the freedom of 51 million people.” Like that’s not a big deal at all to realize or anything… (That is the South Korean population)

Driving back home, we went through some big cities although I’m really not sure what they were. I think it was more of the actual big city of Pyeongtaek, but we were surrounded by high rises. Plus we got to drive through a long tunnel!!! We also saw our first Korean McDonalds. We enjoyed our day out exploring, but we were so happy when we finally made it home to our less hectic area. I am thankful though that as long as you put your destination into Waze while you have internet, that when you leave internet, it keeps your GPS directions. I could not drive over here without it. I’m also super thankful that Koreans drive on the right side of the road. P.S. Buddy took all of these pictures for me while I was driving and trying not to kill us on Korean highways.

So we explored a lot this past week, and it was really fun and exciting. It still amazes us that we live in a place halfway around the world from where we’re from, and that this is our new normal. We walk around here like we’ve been doing it for ages, and we haven’t. Like we’ll be walking around the ville at night after our chiropractor appointment and we’ll be like “Isn’t it crazy that we’re here living life in South Korea?”. Because it is crazy and not something that I thought we would be doing. But we are doing it, and I think we’re doing pretty good with it too. We’re still missing home, especially right now with the holidays and our niece being born, but facetime is the best invention ever made. My Daddy Wayne (mom’s dad) keeps reminding me that when he was stationed in South Korea in the early 1960s right after he married my Nana, that they could only write letters to each other. Now, I can see him through a phone screen and talk to him. Actually, both of my grandfathers were stationed in South Korea in the early 1960s. So it was really neat to let them both know that their only granddaughter was going to go live where they once had served before.

Again, thank y’all for coming back another week and reading my new update! I truly wish that everyone has a Merry Christmas this year. Remember to subscribe to my blog if you would like, and to leave a comment letting me know what you thought!