Bullets about Korea <---(ironic since guns aren't legal here)

This post idea came from the lovely Rachel, who is a blogging machine. Seriously, if you're not following her, you're missing out on a lot of hilarious sarcasm, honest pictures about life with little people, and her exciting military life in Nebraska (soon-to-be Alabama, and then soon-to-be Colorado). (She's a busy lady.)

So Rachel suggested writing about my favorite things about Korea, my least favorite things about Korea, what I miss most about America, and what I miss least about America. To keep things clean around here, this will be bulleted. Which apparently isn't a word according to my spell-checker. Anywho.

My favorite things about Korea

• the food (my main squeezes being beef and leafs (or beefs and leaves? Spell-checker is conspicuously quiet right now) and fried chicken places)

• how genuinely nice the people are
• the ultra-low crime rate (most cops don't even carry guns here...)
• the seasons
• elevators (because I can't imagine carrying my groceries up 13 flights of stairs)
• all of the fresh, local, non-GMO produce

Those are big ol' honkin' dirt-covered fresh carrots.

• the plentiful forms of public transportation
• all of the places to see and explore

• heated floors
• the call buttons in restaurants. Instead of flagging down your server at a restaurant, you just push a button on your table and it dings, your table number lights up on a sign at the top of the room, and a server comes over and gives you whatever you need. America needs to get on this. Also,
• no tips. No one in Korea expects a tip. In fact, I am told, they actually find tips insulting. So between the table button and the no tipping, you really can't get a better restaurant experience than in Korea.
• the open-to-interpretation traffic laws. It seems that red lights and speed limits are merely suggestions of how one should drive here. Now typically, I follow the rules of the road, but if there is a screaming child in the backseat that just. won't. quit. I will sometimes blow through a red light (after slowing down and checking for other cars and people and blah blah PSA is ending now) and I most definitely speed. But that is due to the fact that I can barely see the km/hr numbers on my dashboard during the daytime. And I don't go out at night, soooo...
• the funny signs. I love that they clearly don't consult an English-is-my-first-language person when making signs. 

• food delivery. You are only a phone call and one scary scooterbike drive away from having hot yummy food delivered right to your door. No extra charges for delivery, no tip expected or taken.
• kids cafes. The Koreans love kids, and it really shows. You can walk into a kids cafe, let your kids run free, while you sip your iced coffee (or your beer! This is A Thing!). The workers will play with and supervise your children and they also have video monitors set up so that you can peek at them too. This is a great way to talk to other adults while also accomplishing a play date with small people. Win win win win win.

• the experience of living overseas. While it now seems "normal" to bow to people I see on the elevator and throw my dryer vent out the window and avoid cake in a Korean setting and mutter the few Korean words I know, at one point, it was not. It was all shiny and new and exciting and an experience that some people will never get to have. I have to remind myself of this when dealing with the items listed below, because this really is a unique experience, and we are only here for a short little blip of time. I don't want to take this for granted. 

With all of that said....

My least favorite things about Korea

• the smells. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph there are so many smells here. You can walk down the street and smell the most amazing food cooking (aka garlic smells) and then 5 steps later you are slapped in the face with the most repugnant odor you've ever smelled in your entire life. You will literally gag. God bless anyone who is pregnant in Korea. The smells are significantly worse in the summer, when the they're all heated up and trapped in humidity like a thick, stinky fog. Luckily, you can usually walk another 5 feet and escape the stench, but it still doesn't erase the fact that you originally smelled it.
• the lack of central air conditioning. This actually ranks numero uno for me. I can't understand how this country is so technologically advanced in some areas, and yet when they're building these brand new high-rise condos, they don't bother to install some central air. Between this and squatty potties, I feel like Korea is holding themselves back from joining the civilized world.
• the itsy bitsy teeny weeny parking spots. It is currently the only incentive I have to gain zero pounds here. Because not only must I contort my body to escape my own seat, I must also wedge myself between the doors in the backseat to get both children in and out of their carseats. When someone parks a leeeeetle too close to the line next to me, I sometimes have to wrangle a child from the other side of the car, if that makes any sense. Usually Sam is standing beside the car while my rear end is high in the sky attempting to shove Molly in her carseat (from the opposite side) and buckle her in, all the while saying unpleasant American things. I also sometimes forget how much our parking garage echoes. Oops. I look forward to one day, pulling STRAIGHT into a parking spot (you have to back into all of the spots here- I suck at this. HARD.), throwing open the door with reckless abandon and both inhaling and exhaling while exiting the vehicle. I have a dream, folks.
• the lack of insulation between bathrooms in our apartment. I can literally hear everything that the people in the bathroom above me are doing. The man hocks up a big loogie every morning at 5:45 on the dot. I'm sure the people below me are thankful that I only belt out "Let It Go" every morning (peppered with "get OFF of your sister! Let it gooooooooo let it GOOOOOO- THAT IS NOT NICE, GET MY UNDIES OFF HIS HEAD RIGHT. NOW.")

Oh why yes I am that creepy neighbor standing on a chair in my kitchen trying to "catch the moon" but it might look like I have voyeuristic tendencies if you didn't notice the moon. My apologies.

What I miss most about America

• my family and friends
• having a backyard and a grill 
• sweet tea
  
• drive-thrus
• Chick-fil-A
• Chick-fil-A drive-thrus where I can order a sweet tea
• Target
• walking into a store and finding clothes I can wear right then instead of browsing online and then wondering if the tugboat will bring it before the seasons change
• being able to read signs
• being able to read menus
• being able to read anything
• bakeries that use sugar in their sweets

What I miss least about America

• the political correctness. I love that Koreans just really don't give two shits. When they tell you you are too "large-y" to wear their clothes, they aren't trying to make fun of you or insult you. They are just informing you that you will not fit into their clothes (and you will not), and by the way, here is a pair of elastic-waisted pants, watch me stretch them for you so you can see them in action. (Side story: A friend and I were browsing these shirts in an underground market, and finally the shop owner came over and said something to us in Korean. After us not understanding, she made a round shape over her belly with her hands and we realized these were maternity clothes. Yikes. (But that explains the cut-outs for the boobs.) We actually just pretended we were pregnant. I could pass for 16 weeks easy.)
• the crime. I understand that there is some crime everywhere, but I feel perfectly comfortable walking around town at night by myself (which, let me assure you, is SO RARE, but has happened before and here I am, living to talk about it and all). I am comfortable letting most any Korean give my kids a hug without worrying that they're going to book it down the street with them. (Secretly I know they would be returned in a very timely manner, once the whining for chicken nuggets and macaroni and cheese started up.) I just haven't met any truly weirdo, manic, psycho Koreans. They all seem pretty happy and free of loud, obnoxious, in-your-face American opinions. It is a breath of fresh air, and I'm not really looking forward to returning to all of that in the future.

ARM ROLLS ZOMG.

• listening to everyone's conversations. When I'm out at a restaurant, I can easily tune out all the jibber jabber from the other tables, because frankly, I have no clue what they're saying. When I hear playground noise through my window (in the warmer months), it doesn't irritate me, because again, it just sounds like background noise. If I hear the American kids out there screaming and yelling and saying ugly words to each other, it bugs me. But the Korean kids? Curse each other out for all I care, I don't understand it. At all. 

OVERALL, we like it here. We recommend overseas living! Especially if you have kids! Because if not now, when?

And really, how can you go wrong in a place with this sort of ice cream to cone ratio?