Above is an aerial artist’s rendition of our neighborhood. We are in the tall white buildings- the one with the arrow pointed to it is ours.  There are shorter bright colored buildings around us.  The main shopping street is marked with blue- notice how close we are to that section!

The next picture shows the shopping street as viewed from the pingtai (balcony) off of the girls’ room & kitchen.  The white strip on the side is the buildng next to us which has several restaurants, a screen golf (simulated golf?) place, and other stuff.  The shopping street is where there is a dry cleaner, several fruit/vegetable markets, Korean grocery stores, meat market, Chinese grocery store, home goods store (nails, hammer, etc…), and other stuff.

The view the other direction from their room shows what we call “trash mountain”.  The city built a mound of trash, had it landscaped and now they have sledding on one side of it and a park on the other side.    This view doesn’t show it as tall as it actuallly is, but it is a small “mountain” by any standards. 

The next view shows the view from our living room/bedroom pingtai.  This is looking into the main part of the apartment complex.  You can walk between about 10 buildings and there are courtyards like this between each one with playgrounds.  NO cars are allowed in these courtyards or between those buildings, so it is a really safe area for the kids to bike and play.  We LOVE this part of the complex.  I’m also thinking this will be a prime firework viewing place…

The next shot shows looking the other direction- the closest yellow part is the end of the red building above.  I love the curves on these buildings, very unique.

So yeah, that’s a quick overview of where we are living.  I have scouted out some good things that must be photographed in our neighborhood.  I’ll hopefully do that sooner rather than later.

A couple pics of the kids, cause why not?

A very static-headed Kate.  Yes, she cut her own bangs.  I did NOT do that to her!

I love the soft light from the window in the office…

Guacamole is adjusting nicely to the new place.  He loves the heated floors and the open spaces to run.  He’s gotten so much bigger than when we first got him 2 weeks ago!  I know that sounds silly but he’s gone from about 430 grams to 600 grams, so it is a big jump in size.  Now, granted, he’s just over a pound now, so he’s not a big boy or anything… but he seems bigger to us!

Our communication with our new Korean neighbor is coming along slowly.

We sent over some coffee, tea, baby clothes, and homemade brownies the day after we first met them- 2 days after they’d moved in.

We starting camping here on Thursday, and they sent over kimbap, kimchi, and ddukbokki on Friday.  We reciprocated with some Japanese furikake (stuff you sprinkle on rice- highly popular here) packets when we returned the dish.

But our communication is limited by both circumstance (we have no couch or table or chairs- it is hard to invite someone over to sit on your floor, you know?) and language issues- the husband speaks limited Chinese and isn’t home very often and the wife speaks Korean and a tiny amount of English.  My Korean is weak, very very weak.

So when the gas went out at our apartment on Saturday (the first day I planned to cook at the new place), and I had to go over there to see if it was just us or the whole building, it was a little awkward.  She opened the door.  “Gas isseoyo?” I said (isseoyo means to have, so it can be either a statement (I have ___.) or a question (do you have ___?) depending on tone of voice).    She nodded.  “Oori upseoyo” I said (we don’t have)   I wanted to look at her gas pipes to see if I had the valves turned wrong.   I floundered.  “Na (me) poyayo (see) gas pipes(oops, English!) kwenchanayo (okay)?”  She stared at me, as if to say “What the heck??”  I smiled, took my boots off, ran into her kitchen and peeked under her stovetop at the gas pipes.  She still stared at me.  I gave her a thumbs up and said “kamsahamnida” (thank you) as I tiptoed back to my own apartment.   Yes, I need to study my Korean more!!

Today, we were running dangerously low on electricity and we noticed they were as well.  The electric meter is in the hallway and it blinks red and counts down how much you have left.  Their number was even lower than ours. I wasn’t sure if they knew how to buy electricity yet, as it can be complicated.  Thankfully, one of the Korean markets here has a service where you drop off your electric card and give them money to put on the card.  You can return later in the day and they will give it back to you.  It costs about 80 cents US to do this- and is completely worth it to avoid going to the electricity store to stand in line and deal with all of that. 

Ahh, but how do you communicate all of this when you don’t have a common language?  I wrote a note and taped it to their door… it was a mix of Korean and English explaining that their electricity was low and how to buy more.  I also left her my name and number.   Later in the day, the doorbell rang and she was there with a bag of fruit.   Inside it said “thank you help me.  my name kyeong hee, baby name chang hee” and had her phone number. 

Tonight, I wanted to take dinner over.  But again, the whole lack of table thing was a challenge.  I knocked on their door.  “Oori (we) table upseoyo (don’t have).   But today, I bring dinner.”  I pantomimed my intentions.   It worked.  We brought over fettucine alfredo with pork cutlets, salad, garlic bread, and fruit. 

Baby steps toward friendship, I suppose.  Next on my agenda… well, other than getting a table and couch over here on Wednesday so we can actually invite them INTO our home… is planning to have a Korean friend who speaks English or Chinese over so I can use her translation skills! 

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