Annyeonghaseyo/Hello!

View of Yongsan from our hotel room

We made it!  I'm so tired. Jetlaaaaaaaaaag. The flight was uneventful. I watched five movies on the way to Japan. "The Adjustment Bureau" was a total let down.  Whatevs. I felt irritated not being able to understand anything the woman was announcing over the airport intercom.  Then I remembered a) I'd better get used to it and b) I need to learn her language.  Ha!

We're staying in an enormous Army hotel called the Dragon Hill Lodge.  This place is like a small city. There are at least three restaurants, several fast food joints--Pizza Hut, Subway, two huge playgrounds, a bank, a couple of pools, and a small grocery store. The rooms aren't bad, just typical hotel rooms.  Cable TV and bedspreads that give me the heebee-jeebees.  We'll be here anywhere from 10-60 days while we wait for permanent housing to open up.

It's the middle of "Monsoon Season" and it's gray and rainy out but the weather's nice and warm.  My hair is getting bigger by the minute.  Frankie's curls are awesome.  People exaggerated Seoul's "lack of nature."  There are trees everywhere.  From what I've seen, which is very little I know, it's quite pretty and looks a lot like Taiwan.

Nate started briefings and in-processing stuff this morning. He'll be done in about an hour and then we are going to get on the bus that runs on post and explore a bit. I guess there is a black-market here for American goods sold at the commissary (I think mostly things like cigarettes and vodka) so we can't go grocery shopping without ration cards and new IDs. Ration cards are first on the agenda so we can stock up on gluten-free stuff. Until then the kids will have to live on ice-cream and French fries.  I'm sure they're really upset about it.

It's so weird that we live here!