Monday Memories: Arriving in Korea

It was June 1999. Darly was 13 1/2 months old and we were being sent to Korea. The movers came and packed up our house. We had two sets of movers come. One came to pack up the stuff we could take with us to Korea, the other set packed up the stuff we had to leave behind in storage (and hoped like crazy that we would actually get to see again!)
The packers who did our going with us stuff broke one of my pyrax mixing bowls. The packers who did our staying behind stuff tried to pack a decorated brick (a wedding gift from my maid of honor) on top of my china!!! She tried to claim that she thought the brick (that she was holding) was ceramic. What an idiot!!! BTW: I still don't know where that stupid brick is and we've been back more than 4 years!

So after packing up all we owned we drove our Ford Explorer from Cheyenne WY to Seattle WA. As we were driving through WY it snowed in June! I figure it was just trying to show us one last time what we were leaving. We arrived outside of Salt Lake City Utah sometime during the night and got a hotel room. It is a totally odd feeling to spend your entire life East of the Rocky Mountains and wake up one morning with the Mountains on the WRONG side of you!

The rest of the trip to Seattle was pretty non-eventful as it is totally flat from Salt Lake to Washington. We stopped in Roslyn WA to see the city where they filmed one of DH's & my favorite TV shows NORTHERN EXPOSURE. Very cool there! I would love to go back once Darly is old enough to be throughly bored with it. ;o)

We get to Seattle and have to locate the Korean counselate because Darly & I still needed Visas. That was fun but we made it about 15minutes before they were to close. Thank goodness for our military clearance as what would have normally taken all day to get took just minutes...stamp, stamp! No charge. You're done. My passport says Fee: Gratis

Then we drive to Tacoma to stay at the AF base there for the night. Because we have a child now, we have to stay in the Temporary Lodging Facility (previous to dd we could stay in Visiting Quarters which are much nicer!) and the building they put us in was condemned/ scheduled to be torn down the following week...but the new TLF wasn't quite ready yet. I was able to wash our clothes and DH got his hair cut...unfortunately the gal gave him a Marine cut and he looked totally goofy...so much for a good impression with his new boss in a few days!

I think at this point you should be pulling out a map of Washington. (I keep an atalas by my computer for just such occasions...but any map finder will work) You'll notice that Tacoma & Seattle are about an hour or so apart.

We then had to figure out how to drop our Explorer off at the port in Tacoma and get ourselves to the airport in Seattle. We figured (rightly) that it would be cheaper to rent a car at the Seattle airport, drive to the port and then drive ourselves to back to the airport. That meant that we had to get up at 6am, drive the Explorer to Seattle. Rent the car from the airport and drive both vehicles to the port back in Tacoma. Drop off the Explorer and then drive back to the airport in Seattle. You should have seen us trying to explain our plan to the car rental agent...ha ha. You would have thought we were trying to take his car to Korea with us!

So we get the Explorer all taken care of and drive back to the airport and return the rental car (which was a subcompact and we had our knees in our face for the drive back to the airport because we had a ton of luggage! We were going to be at least a month without our stuff from home.)

Check in at the airport went fairly smoothly and then we go to our gate to wait for our flight to LA. DH decides to call his mom because we had over an hour to wait. I decided to nurse Darly. The gate agent sees us sitting there when the flight was cancelled and calls me over. She puts us on another flight, but we had to leave NOW to get to the gate about 10 over because they were boarding NOW. DH is still on the phone and I'm in a stress induced panic! He won't get off the phone!

Finally we are running to our gate and DH is asking "Why didn't you tell me?" I did but he was busying listening to his mom and not me! GRRR! They held the plane for us and we got on. We got to see the top of Mt Rainier from the plane...so cool!

We arrive at LAX very late in the evening. Our flight for Korea was scheduled to leave at around 1am... but we were not given clear instructions on how to find our connecting flight. We had landed at the domestic terminal and had to find our way to the international terminal and then find out that our flight wasn't on Alaskan Air like our tickets said but after going to around 4 different check in desks at 3 different terminals, it's on a Korean carrier that is subbed out by Alaskan Air! GRRR! We spent most of our time outside in the heat dragging all of our bags trying to find our connecting flight. Can we say over stressed!!!

Finally we get checked in and go to our gate with still lots of time until boarding. I tried to nap...ha! They announce early boarding for business travelers and those traveling with small children. We learned our first lesson about Koreans. They do not understand waiting their turn! We did not get to board early.

Our flight to Seoul was 14 hours. I don't sleep on airplanes...just can't. At some point in the flight they announce that they are serving food. Our choices were fish or beef, both were korean style. When they get to us all that's left is fish. We were hungry and had the fish against our better judgement. We would regret that later!

We arrived in Seoul sometime in the early morning. And then had the fun task of figuring out where we were supposed to go. Some of the signs were in english, but they were one word. We just followed the crowd and luckily were not told to go somewhere else. I think that all the customs clearance stuff took us about 2 hours...it's so hard to remember with no sleep.

So our next task is to get from the airport in Seoul to the air base in Osan. We were told to look for an AAFES taxi. We find one and ask if he can take us to Osan. He says he can. We load up. Our stuff does not all fit in the trunk of the cab, so we have no leg room again. The drive to Osan is a blur. I remember lots of waiting in non-moving traffic (it was morning rushour in Seoul...avoid it at all costs!) and finally long stretches of rice fields. I think the total drive might have taken 2 & 1/2 hours...totally normal for Seoul in rushhour (I found out later).

We get to the Osan gate and the guard comes to check our IDs. DH & I are fine...the taxi however does not have clearance to drive on the base. The guard gives our driver a dirty look and instructs him to take us to the taxi stand near the gate to drop us off with another taxi because he is going to have to leave the base ASAP. So we load all of our stuff into a smaller taxi and drive to the lodging building. The driver unloads all of our stuff right beside the road and leaves us as he wants his next fare. DH goes in to get our lodging and finds that we are too early to check into our room! So we had to wait an hour or so for check in. Then take another taxi to our room.

Finally we get to our room and it was before 10am. I tried to call to get us something to eat but they weren't open yet. But the guy was really nice and took our order and promised to deliver it as soon as he was up and going. It came about 1/2 an hour later.

DH, Darly & I slept the rest of the day.

The next day DH goes to check in and finds out that we were expected to check in with housing the previous day to get our furniture. Ahhh we were "dead to the world" yesterday. Oh well. Perturbed, she gets all of our stuff ready for us. And we go to our apartment for the next 20 months. It took us a few minutes to figure out where our apartment was. But we found it and met our downstairs neighbor too.

We moved in the following day with borrowed furniture and borrowed dishes (the AF has these items at all their bases to check out for transerferring families.) DH got a TV from one of his co-workers because they make you rent TV's. We had to wait for our stuff to come for 3 months and our apartment had no drapes or carpet...so we bought those...only to find that the AF had finally decided to provide carpet and vertical blinds but it would take another 3 months to get them.

and this is on my radio now...
Aaron Shust - My Savior My God
From the album Anything Worth Saying

I am not skilled to understand
What God has willed, what God has planned
I only know at His right hand
Stands one who is my Savior

I take Him at His word and deed
Christ died to save me; this I read
And in my heart I find a need
Of Him to be my savior

That He would leave His place on high
And come for sinful man to die
You count it strange, so once did I
Before I knew my Savior

Chorus (2x’s)
My Savior loves, My Savior lives
My Savior’s always there for me
My God: He was, my God; He is
My God is always gonna be

Yes, living, dying, let me bring
My strength, my solace from this spring;
That He who lives to be my King
Once died to be my Savior

That He would leave His place on high
And come for sinful man to die
You count it strange, so once did I
Before I knew my Savior

Chorus (2x’s)

(Instrumental)

Chorus: (2x’s)

My Savior loves, My Savior lives
My Savior loves, My Savior lives

Label: Brash Music

Other Monday Memories friends:
Lazy Daisy
Kimmy
Ladybugcrossing
Libragirl
Rowan
Barbara