Here we are for our second edition of When in Seoul. See the first edition here. Living in Korea never leaves us lacking for cultural differences. They sometimes make us laugh and other times are frustrating. The greatest testimony of God’s grace that we have experienced since moving to Seoul is our sense of humor. When it comes to things that could really upsetting (remember the epidural?!) our instinct has often been to laugh. We know that this can only be God’s hand, especially since even small things can ruin your day when say…maybe you aren’t getting enough sleep (looking at you, Asher), but we continue to find things hilarious.

Speaking of hilarious…

Now back to the post…

I fully believe that attitude and Jesus, duh, is the key to success when it comes to living overseas. If you don’t learn to laugh about things, you will inevitably go crazy. Like say maybe if you were getting in a taxi quickly because you guys were running late and accidentally hit Judah’s head on the door frame, so you decided to give him your brand new Vivofit band to calm him down because it was the only thing you could reach, and then in the hustle of getting out of the taxi in traffic, you left it in the taxi and realized it only after watching the taxi drive away. And for the greatest irony, after Isaac got out and shut the door you said, “babe, don’t forget to always check behind you to make sure you’re not leaving anything”.

Yup. That would be a good time to laugh.

So anyways, on to things we have noticed lately:

Elevators (or lack there of)

This is something I still can’t get over. In the States you know that basically anywhere you go that has more than one story will have an elevator, because let’s be real, in this day in age, if you don’t, you are probably asking for a lawsuit. Here in Korea, there are elevators in high-rise buildings like apartments and business towers, but places like restaurants and small shops that are in the second or third story generally only have stairs. This severely limits our options with our stroller in tow, so before we leave the apartment we always have to plan if we want to take the stroller or not. Also, at our school we have an amazing soccer field on the roof of our athletic facility, but again, no elevator. Maybe this is only shocking to me. While I do have a very real concern the people with limited mobility, I mayyy just be over here like…

Food packaging

Everything here comes in a box with individually wrapped portions inside. There goes “accidentally” eating a whole package of Oreos. Maybe this is why Koreans are thinner… It may even prevent someoneee in our house from eating a whole sleeve of crackers (Isaac).

  

English use

We have seen two phenomenons here; what we call the “arbitrary use of English” and “non-English English”.

Exhibit A. The Arbitrary Use of English

1. Mission  2. Vision  3. ????

Oh, great! An information sign! Wait…

Another favorite was the directions to assemble Asher’s crib, where the only English word is “tip”. Why yes, that tip is extremely helpful IN KOREAN.

Exhibit B. Non-English English

Sometimes it’s amusing but still makes sense…

And sometimes you have no idea what they mean, like the list they gave me (in English) of stuff to bring to the hospital which included: wet tissue, gauze handkerchief, and 2-3 pieces of Panties (I feel the need to capitalize it as they did). Also, see here on of the varieties of face masks at a local cosmetics store. Because if there is one thing I want to rub on my face…

Pets

While I would say they are largely afraid of most dogs larger than a Shitzu, Koreans seem to have quite the affection for small dogs. Excuse the terrible photo quality, it is a little awkward to whip out my camera and ask them to pose. Behold! I give you, the dog stroller and the dog backpack.

   

Für Elise

You know…this song.

The good people of Korea apparently really have a thing for Mr. Beethoven. When our door bell rings at our apartment, it’s Für Elise. When we go to 7 Eleven, the noise when we open the door is Für Elise.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVQ4Wi5KOn4

So here we are the other night, volunteering at Awana on the military base when the fire alarm went off. We all evacuated assuming it was just a false alarm (it was). We were standing in the parking lot when the firetruck pulled in and the backed up to the building and that’s when we heard it. The Für Elise. FROM THE FIRETRUCK. Why have the standard beeeep beeeep beeeeep when you could have a fancy song to warn people you are backing up??

Korea. Always is keeping things interesting…stay tuned.