The first two nights of sleep were fantastic...until we woke up at 5am and couldn't get back to sleep. Ahhh...the joys of jet lag. But that's okay, because Michael had in-processing to do and I had a breakfast date with a wife who gave me beaucoups of tips and information while we were still in the States. I was so excited to meet her finally! She brought along another wife and we went to breakfast in a restaurant at the Dragon Hill Lodge (our hotel). I can not stress how important it is to have friends when you're stationed overseas, because they're you're family away from family. I may have only been here for two weeks but it didn't take me long to figure out that the women here are amazing! As mentioned in my previous post, I had no makeup, no hair brushes, no shower stuff whatsoever. I couldn't run to the PX for a quick shopping trip because you need a ration card before you're allowed in the door.
What is a ration card? It's another form of ID that you present at the PX and Commissary when you're stationed overseas for purchases and it tracks how much you're spending per month on groceries and enforces that you don't purchase more than what one needs of certain 'black market' items (alcohol, perfume, designer purses, etc).  |
| The Hair Dryer |
I had women who I had never met Facebook me from the Spouse's Club and ask if I needed them to make a PX run for me. It was truly humbling how quickly these women were there to help. :) But back to my delicious pancake breakfast with the wives. They were so sweet to take me to breakfast-greasy hair, no makeup, and all. They listened to me gripe about the trip over and shared their similar experiences. It was great! Luckily, the lady with the beaucoups of information also knows beaucoups of people on base! And she knew just the right people to call and ask if I could shop at the PX if I presented my passport, military ID, and orders since my rations card wouldn't be available until later in the afternoon. So off we went to the PX where I purchased a hair brush to get by because as you ladies with thick hair know, you can't wash your hair and dry it unless you have a hair brush! Luckily, the hotel had a built in hair dryer that resembled a vacuum cleaner. Whatever, it got the job done!
Around Sunday, Michael and I were itching to get out of the hotel and explore! So, I went downstairs to the front desk and grabbed some brochures on places to visit. We decided on the Namdaemun Market since it was a quick walk to the subway followed by a quick subway ride that emptied you in the middle of the market. This was my first experience out and about in Korea; and what an experience it was. The Namdaemun has everything you could possibly want: purses, socks (not sure why, but everyone sells socks here), clothes, hair accessories, food vendors, etc.
The food vendors were the most interesting because you certainly see a wide variety of 'tasty snacks and treats' that we do not typically eat in the good ol' USA. Chicken feet, squid jerky, silkworm pupae, etc. But let's stop and focus on the silkworms....
Beondegi is what the Korean's call silkworm pupae. At first glance they look like pecans; but when you get a tad closer you realize that it is not pecans but rather a big ol' pan of roasted bugs. The smell is awful. It triggers your gag reflex. Even my adventurous husband, who will try almost everything at least once, refuses to eat the Beondegi. Yum....doesn't this look tasty?
We did, however, find something that looked quite scrumptious so we decided to try it. It's called hoddeok and it's basically a Korean pancake with delicious goodness inside. We tried two different varieties. One had sugar and brown sugar in the middle and the other had a mixture of vegetables and glass noodles.
After a few hours, we were ready to wrap it up and go 'home' to the Dragon Hill Lodge.
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