Very Rainy Fourth

So our 4th of July was sort of drenched.  We left for Seoul around mid day to see the fireworks at the much larger post Yongju, which takes about an hour on the train.  It was cloudy and the rainy season had started, but like an idiot I didn't bring an umbrella.

I would later greatly regret this lazy decision.

I had an image of finding a nice spot in a grassy field where I could spread the sheet I had brought.  We could get some super-healthy hot dogs with sauerkraut and enjoy some beers on our little picnic spot and just lay around and people watch, aka make fun of people and dazzle one another with our witty observations of Korean and Army folk fashion.  (Just kidding; we would never do that...)

Walter, however, had an image of exploring a palace in the middle of the city before we got to Yonju.  This was a surprise to me, but fine.

We really need to work on our communication.  Sometimes we totally have different plans in mind and never think to share our grand ideas.  This causes problems, and spats.

It was raining at a nice, steady pace once we got to the right stop and I of course slightly freaked out when we got to the exit.  But we trudged on, into the huge palace and courtyard, and silver lining: the rain ran most of the other people out.

It was quiet mostly, except for the rain spattering in some places from crazy-painted corners of different palace buildings and our footsteps on the saturated gravel underfoot.

Not a ton to see, but interesting nonetheless.

This group of school kids had a pastel rainbow of umbrellas

I loved the doors...would make great backdrops for portraits

                                                                     

I found Testudo!  Vicious.  

Posing during the sub-par fireworks with our cheap-o but awesome umbrella.

And for dinner we got literally the last hotdogs, bits of mac and cheese and baked beans.  All the vendors were closing down because of the rain and lack of crowd, but we got lucky and scored an awesome feast and plenty of Budheavies.  Woo!  (I'm not being sarcastic, btw - )

The fireworks were better than nothing, and I really did have a good (though slightly damp) time with the husband.  It was all went so badly weather-wise that it was just hilarious.  =D 

Happy Fourth of July in October - haha

Oh and p.s. there was an old man on the train back that was so completely hammered that his pants were down around his ankles, Walter had to literally catch/help him up more than once, and twice someone used the emergency phone on the train to call the station manager.

People tried to help him but he returned the favor by swatting at them and grunting.

We assume he rode the train all the way to end of the line, and hopefully somehow made it home eventually.

Blogging Consistency...and...Laundry Woes

If you're surprised at my lag in blog posts, you don't know me very well.  And I know you're all (all 3 of you) dying to know what we've been up to.  So upon recent review of my previous posts, I think I'll approach future entries as I approach most things in my life: randomly, with gusto, annoying excitement, sometimes misdirected passion, and tons of photos.

The other entries got a little wordy, a little long, and I know no one likes homework.  I will try harder from now on to provide a photo and short story extravaganza as opposed to my essays on one topic.

Our fourth anniversary was October 3rd, and poor Waltah was out in the field on an exercise that required him to sleep in a tent and work the 12am-12pm.  So that meant making the best of it, and Walter trying not to fall asleep face first into our celebratory dinner at a Brazilian restaurant.


He surprised me with flowers, from the PX, saying, "Welp, this was the best I could do!  I've walked by them at the PX all week - haha".  And he had some "fruit" candy for us, saying proudly, "I bet you didn't know this, but the traditional gift for the fourth anniversary is fruit.  So, boom!"  He also told me some disclaimer about the card he gave me, blaming the PX again.  It was cute anyway.

The dinner was interesting....  Good, but interesting.  Brazilian with a sorta Korean twist.

Afterward on our way back to post, I made Walter keep one of his wedding vows and took some photos to commemorate our four crazy years as a married couple.  This is the best one -------------------------->

The others in the series make Walter look very grumpy, which he was, so I'll spare you.  He left immediately to go crash in his tent.  And for the record, I woulda been waaayyyy grumpier than he was.  <3



I am working for myself right now, still plugging away at getting my website up.  My talented, awesome friend Ashley S (aka Brown Ashley <3) built the framework and almost all the design for it and now I just need to basically get my galleries of images up.  (You would know her as the dark haired, beautiful bridesmaid who mentioned cat youtube videos in her speech at our reception....hahaha...oh those kitties.)  Focus -

The new goal is to be ready to roll once things come together home-wise in Colorado, allowing me time to finish the website and resolve my poor little Canon's issues, who has come down with a very bad cold.  (Fingers crossed it's a cold...it may be more of a heart attack.)  =*(

Typing this goal out will hold me accountable...  And I am regretting that decision now, a little...

Anyway, I try to work up to 3-4 hours a day on this stuff, watching tutorials, editing photos, re-doing and re-doing my logo and marketing designs.  I have the regular housework to do, and for the most part that's all normal.  (What's not normal is the DAMN LAUNDRY, which I sorta hate now...)

The laundry being a hindrance sounds super interesting so I will gladly enlighten you!

Since we are not "command sponsored" here, meaning, in short, that we don't have access to all the available benefits for Army spouses because they can't tell me what to do! we don't have to stay for two years.  It's very confusing, but if we were "command sponsored" we would have a few more benefits but Walter would be required to serve two years here as opposed to one.

One of these benefits is a clothes dryer.

At first I wasn't disappointed very much.  Our realtor is pretty awesome and hooked us up with one of those combo washer-dryer-front-loaders that we rent each month, but if you've ever used one of them you know it takes AGES to dry and then everything is hard and....crunchy.  And electricity here is really expensive, too.

Our apartment has a "drying room," and when I saw the big windows and lowering rack to hang things on I had memories of playing in the sunshine between fresh smelling, flapping sheets in my mom or aunt's backyard when I was little.  I thought about the fact that the amount of work that goes into line drying hadn't occurred to me then, of course, when I was a scrawny, big-haired 6 year old not required to help hang or fold but decided that it would be good for me.  In the very least I'd really appreciate my dryer when we got back to the states.

The latter is true, and perhaps the being "good for me part," but the memories of clean linen forts and hiding spots in warm sunshine have no place in my stupid drying room.

First of all, it STINKS to high heaven most of the time.  STINKS!  I am not exaggerating when I say that if it doesn't smell like kimchi (essentially spicy cabbage...think about that one for a 'sec) it smells....literally...like pee.  Like PEE!  Like a dark, dodgy bathroom in a hole-in-the-wall bar where you avoid touching anything and only grace the dirty, disgusting, tiny room with your presence because there is absolutely no other alternative.

I hate it.

It makes me physically angry, but thankfully most of my outbursts and rants at it are observed by only my unsuspecting houseplants.

Apparently their sewage system here is different in ways beyond my desired comprehension, and there is a drain in this room that I thought went along with the shower head hose in there.  (My first thought when I saw this hose was, "Oh wow!  How convenient, and smart.  If we had Audrey here we could give her a bath here and not have much clean-up."  Well, since Audrey wasn't here, I now hate that room and all things in it, including the "smart" hose.)

Anyway, the urine smell seems to be coming out of that drain, so I covered it.  Unsuccessfully.  It still reeks and it's the number one source of my screams of, "I can't wait to get OUTTA here!"

It's also TERRIBLE that this powerful, nose-schrunching smell is in the place where our clean friggin' laundry hangs for hours.....

So.  This is the best example of how some household chores take quite a while for me.  We are lucky to have a big apartment, with three bedrooms, but it's all wood floors and adds a bit more cleaning time than I'd like.  (We did get a dishwasher, though, which is a MIRACLE.  Miracle!  I am so thankful...I don't know anyone else here with one.  =p  )

When I'm not complaining & crying about laundry, steam cleaning floors, or loading/unloading (or "packing" as my favorite South African would say!) or plugging away at my website & Photoshop skills, I volunteer at a shelter for unwed, pregnant girls here.  We try to teach them English, and I love going.  (Much more on that later.)  I also have a bible study once a week, and as expected with a group of women, it always goes longer than expected.  I've made some friends, too, of course, and have lots of playdates and activities with them.

All this said, it seems like I shouldn't be all that busy and unable to blog, but I AM!  With preparing for the above activities, sometimes spending an entire day editing/getting lost in youtube nerd tutorials, and all errands being a complete MISSION, I always have things on my to-do list that are incomplete.

What's gonna happen when we finally have kids and the housework load triples?!  Ha!

I feel like I should end here, even though there's not much really IN this post, but I really am going to  try to not make these too long.

I leave you with this video of neighbor boys on our playground playing Korean rock-paper-scissors.  They did not seem to mind that a blonde creeper sat on a pink bike videoing them.  I apologize for missing the argument between the Beiber kid and the slightly chubby one on the right.  They screamed in delight/hilarious rage at one another and demanded a re-do, upon which the striped-shirt, chubby one and little dude in the hat were made to stand up back-to-back and fire their mo-chi-pa, unseen to one another, and come to some resolution that I didn't understand.  You can see all the other children running amuck in the background, and hear how loud they are.  See the little girls on the swings in the back, standing?  They're ALways swinging like that!  The playgrounds are swarming with kids every afternoon at this time, and they're mostly unsupervised.  I love that about here: it really is safe enough for children to run around outside alone, and I think when I get back to the states I'll be like, "where are all the children??"

UPDATE, 45 MINUTES LATER.  Something is wrong with this stupid website and it will not upload the video.  I'm over it.  So.  Annoying.  Just imagine what I described above.

Dumb.

Tah-tah for now...  enjoy your CLEAN smelling laundry room in America!  =p