Monday, June 21, 2010

Oh, Korea

So, a lot has happened since I was able to blog last. I flew into Korea on June 14th (well, arrived here at 9pm on the 15th Korea time). My flight was a MESS! My flight out of Indianapolis was delayed nearly two hours meaning that I would miss my connecting flight in Detroit which was a straight shot to Incheon, South Korea. So, after waiting in this really long line for over an hour they finally got me going. I flew from Indianapolis to Detroit, from Detroit to Tokyo where my flight was delayed almost an hour. My phone wouldn't work to call Mike and tell him that my flight was delayed, so that was pretty awesome. Finally got on the plane to South Korea and boy was there some serious turbulence. Luckily I fell asleep. Apparently I like to sleep on planes because I slept most of the way from Detroit to Tokyo too. I fortunately didn't have any problems getting through immigration and customs so that was good. I walked out of the gate to see Mike, only for him to be hiding behind this sign thing. He's sweet. We were lucky enough to have Sgt. Kilby bring Mike to the airport and pick me up, otherwise we would have had to take the train and it's a decently long train ride.

Mike was able to take the week off to spend some time with me and get most of the things that had to be done accomplished. We went out one night and got Melon Pops which are soju and juice or something and they're pretty awesome. Mike swore I'd be drunk off of two but I was hanging in there alright. Not drunk at all. Haha.

Saturday we spent the ENTIRE day in Seoul trying to find a comforter and sheets to no avail. I'm not sure why but apparently Koreans think it's okay to spend 3 hundred or more dollars on a comforter set. I'm so not okay with that. We've done a TON of walking though. We pretty much walk everywhere. Sometimes we take a cab or train but mostly we walk which is fine by me! I need some excercise so walking works for me.

Today is the first FRG meeting for me. I was informed last night that I needed to make something. The commissary is closed on Mondays and doesn't open until 11 and the meeting is as 1. So I went to the Shoppette and got some brownie mix. We've got the Korean microwave/oven combo and it's all in Korean and uses celsius. I googled and got the right temp. Well the brownies were done on the outside and runny still on the inside. I put them back in at a lower temp and still the same results. The center two brownies got thrown out and the rest are going to the FRG meeting. Maybe the next batch that I'm going to try will be better. I used pudding as a subsititute for one egg so we'll see what happens!

Until next time......

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Finally....

After 3 weeks of fighting with the military and finding an apartment, we have a flight date! I'm leaving June 14th. Just 11 more days until I get to see my wonderful husband. The movers are set up for the 8th so I'll be staying with my friends until i leave. It'll be nice to stay with them so I can hang out with them and my other friends in Indy without having to drive an hour to get there. It will stink having to live out of a suitcase for a week but that's alright. I'm really excited to be with my husband and to get to finally start our lives together. It's a little difficult though because I'm really going to miss everyone back home. I'm really not excited about the 14 hour flight though! That's going to be rough. I've got my dramamine ready!

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

We're Approved!

So, we finally got our orders approved on Thursday! Mike told me at about 2 in the morning and I couldn't sleep after that! I was super excited. Then on Sunday night (Monday in Korea) he went and looked at an apartment with a realtor. It's strange over there. You can't just go and look at apartments. You have to have an appointment with a realtor. He liked the first one he found and was going to sign the lease on it. He talked to another realtor and looked at an apartment in the same complex in a different, nicer building. He said that this one is bigger, comes with more furniture and is in a nicer building and it's CHEAPER. SOLD! Next step is getting the apartment approved by the USAG (United States Army Garrison). Then he has to sign the lease and get a time set up for the movers to come get our stuff. Then he can book my flight! I've been packing and getting rid of stuff. The movers will pack up all our stuff but before I found that out i had bought a bunch of totes so I figure I should go ahead and use them. I'm so excited to be back with my husband! It's such a strange mix of emotions. Between leaving all of our friends and family and wanting to be with Mike it's all been a bit overwhelming. I do find it funny in a way though because so many people are saying that they want to see me and all these things but when I tell them that my schedule is pretty open right now they don't bother to tell me when they want to or what they'd like to do. This has definitely been an eye-opening experience and the saying "you find out who your friends are" couldn't be more true. I can't even count the number of people that I've parted ways with recently. It's a good thing though really. Those people clearly didn't value our friendship. It's nice to know that I do have a wonderful group of friends that I've known for a long time that I can count on. We all have our issues and we may not talk for a few months but we always are able to pick up where we left of and that's a great feeling.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Our Life...Until Now

I've never been much for blogs but I thought with our pending adventure that now would be a wonderful time to start one. I'll begin with a bit of background on us. (Have to be careful what I post in regards to OPSEC.)

Mike and I met in July of 2006. We were both at that point dating other people and had just began working at the Best Buy in Noblesville. We didn't really know anyone so we would go to lunch together pretty frequently. We worked in the same department. He sold the high end televisions and I told the guys how to not screw up the deliveries and installations. We both broke things off with the people we were dating. Mike asked me one day if I wanted to go out and get a few drinks. He didn't know I wasn't 21! I find that hilarious. I said that I wasn't 21 and that he could come over to my place and watch movies if he wanted. He did and we stayed up all night watching movies...well, he stayed up while I fell asleep. That happened a few times. 3 weeks or so after the first time we hung out outside of work we went on our first date. We went to Longhorn Steakhouse and played mini golf at Great Times. We had so much fun! I met his family that Thanksgiving and we've been together since.... Well, we broke up for a couple of months at the end of summer 2008 but realized that we couldn't be without eachother.

I told him that if we were going to do this, it was for the long haul and we were getting married. I think he may have thought I was kidding. We got engaged May of 2009 and had decided we wanted to get married in May of 2010. Mike had lost in job in February of 2009 and wasn't too sure what he wanted to do with his life. He has a college degree in telecommunications but there weren't a lot of jobs available that he qualified for and he didn't want to do something he wasn't going to enjoy. (Unhappy at work makes a person unhappy at home!) He said that he was thinking about going into the police academy to which my response was, "well, you may as well join the Army". It was always something that he had been thinking about so it wasn't something he was just going to toss to the side. We discussed what it would mean for him to join the military and we both agreed that it was something that we should do. It was a joint decision, not a decision that he made without me like so many families have gone through. I think it's a good thing that it was a joint decision. We decided that since he was going to be gone that it would be more beneficial for us to get married before he left. He was scheduled to ship out on November 2, 2009. Financially and emotionally it was better. We got married October 17, 2009 and it was the best decision we could have made!

Mike graduated from OSUT on March 12, 2010 and was shipped to South Korea the next day. He made it fine and is loving it there! We turned in paperwork for me to go there and will hopefully know in the next few weeks when I'll be able to join him. I'm very excited to go, I just wish that the time would go a litle quicker! :)