A Realization

I recently got a package with a nice reminder from my amazing (and super inspiring) friend, Samora:

That's right, I jumped out of a plane last summer!  That (plus my superpower ring) is enough to remind me that despite some of the daily frustrations here, I got this.

As if on cue, everything is starting to fall into place here on the home front:

• Monday: Our black-out blinds get installed
• Tuesday: Our bed and mattress both get delivered 
• Wednesday: Our couch gets delivered

Bam!!  Virtual high-five to everyone who has been patiently listening to our home furnishing saga (absolutely riveting, I know).  

When I flew to Seoul via Narita in September, I was seated behind a boy who must have been about 5 years old.  About half-way into the 13.5 hour flight, I hear him ask his dad: "Are we there yet?"  His dad would say, no, we're not, and to his credit, tell him in an adult-like fashion how many hours were left (the little boy clearly didn't believe his dad, because he would ask the flight stewardess how far we were every time she would pass).  Any annoyance I had at the situation was completely erased when we touched down in Narita and I hear the boy yell with triumph: "WE!! DID!! IT!!"  As soon as his father unbuckled his seat belt, he turned around to give us all high fives, repeating: "We did it! We did it!"  Given that it's taken us more than a month to get our basic furnishings, I thought of that boy as soon as the couch delivery men left: we did it!!

It's funny because as long as this whole process took on the macro level, service in Seoul on the micro level is the absolutely best I've seen around the world.  Delivery men text or call saying what time they'll be there, and they show up anywhere between five minutes before the stated time or five minutes after -- but never later than that.  They are so nice and efficient, and do not expect any tip (in fact, we've been told that it's insulting to tip them -- which is so weird to us because it's the best service we've ever experienced!)

With the major physical elements of home in place, I think something has clicked psychologically as well.  I was over at a neighbor's house down the street (I have somehow managed to become friends with four 60-something year old women, who love to have me over and drink and laugh and speak English with me!).  Conversation tends to be a round-robin of them asking me random things that have clearly been on their minds, often with no transition points: "When do you use the word, "jerk"?"; "How do you feel about kissing in public?"; "I hear that Christmas is very important to Americans; what are you doing for Christmas?"  So anyway, we get to talking about Christmas and our plans to meet my parents in the Philippines.  

I say, "So we'll all be together for Christmas, but then Tyler is coming home early, while I'm staying in the Manila with my parents."  They get excited hearing about these plans, but I sit there a bit stunned.  I realize it's literally the first time I've called Seoul "home".

I had tea yesterday afternoon with a friend, another GSG wife who moved here in late summer.  She says: "I'd be happy living here forever!"  It's the second friend I've heard say that.  I'm not quite sure I'd go that far (in fact, I'm quite certain that's very far from how I feel!).  But I get it.  South Korea is actually quite a comfortable life.  The quality of life here is amazing.  Within a ten minute walk from our house, there's a lake, a river, and a giant park (which I hear is the largest in Seoul).  There are 37 mountains in the Seoul area, many of which are accessible by subway.  It's likely the prettiest city I've ever lived in and easily the most gorgeous fall I've experienced, with trees all over the city and colors galore.

And then there's the technology.  Juxtaposed with nature is the most high-tech city I've seen (except for maybe Tokyo).  I still owe you guys a proper tour of our apartment, complete with all the technology and remote controls.  Our apartment building is only a year old, so perhaps this all is to be expected.  But a friend of mine lives in a neighboring building that was built ten years ago, where every apartment unit comes with a projector for the TV and Bose surround sound -- can you imagine that being standard in every apartment ten years ago?!  It's insane.

While New York will always be where I consider home, I'm realizing each day that Seoul is a nice stopping off point along the way.

Plus, whoever said you should limit yourself to just one home anyway.

Happiness at Home

It's sunny and clear in Seoul today -- a brisk 44 degrees, but with all the sunlight streaming into our apartment, I'm wearing a tank top and yoga pants.  I'm drinking a fig smoothie with freshly made almond milk (the making of which has become my Sunday ritual... along with Facetiming with my parents over dinner and Tyler's parents over breakfast).  The figs are huge and plump and juicy -- a spur-of-the-moment purchase from an old Korean grandmother selling them on the subway. (Every 2nd and 4th Sunday, all giant food retailers in Korea are closed, in order to encourage Koreans to buy from individual mom and pop vendors... a practice Tyler and I were highly skeptical of, seeing as stores are instead packed on Saturdays and stay open until midnight -- until I found that it worked on me!)

As I continually discover here, happiness at home is a mix of the big things (we bought a washing machine!!) and small joys like this relaxing Monday morning (and lest you think I've transformed into some sort of domestic goddess, as I've been writing this, I have also completely burned my lentils for lunch... it literally took me about 30 seconds to realize after the thought, Hmm, what is that smell? -- don't worry, everything's all okay now).  With Seoul now 14 hours ahead of Eastern Time, my Mondays have become my favorite day of the week: no calls, meetings, or expectations... just uninterrupted time to write and work (and text with my best friend at home).  A sanctuary!!

If this morning is all about the small stuff, then this weekend was all about the big stuff (and partying with Rich, who's in town from NYC!)  For those keeping up with our bed saga, our hopes were dashed by Addie, who sheepishly told me last week that making our bed "was no longer possible" because of the large size (I would have been upset, except that Addie seemed even more upset and ended each text message with an emoticon bawling with sadness -- see exhibit below.)

We spend our Saturday in Nonhyeon, which the locals call "Furniture Street."  Tyler does not like to go there with me because the first time we went, we spotted a couch we liked from the store window and went inside, only to find out that the couch was $26,000 US dollars!! (We should have realized by how low the salesman bowed to us when we walked in... we now walk out of stores immediately when the salespeople bow too low to us...)  Since that was literally the first store we walked into when we started furniture shopping last month, my anchor verges on the ridiculous and everything seems like a steal.

On the advice of another friend scouring Seoul for an American king size bed frame, we head to Ashley Furniture.  We see a couch... but more importantly, we see a bed.  In fact, we see the bed, in my humble opinion.  It's big and high and looks like it came straight from a Southeast Asian island like Bali... In short, it's nothing like what we wanted before (which was low and minimalist and Japan-like).

It reminds me of a Columbia University speed dating behavioral economics study by Ray Fisman, Sheena Iyengar, and Itamar Simonson, which found that people (particularly women) say they want something, but then when they meet someone and have chemistry, all that goes out the window (more about that study here; main takeaway is that both men and women make decisions primarily based on attractiveness... men are just more honest about it).  The trees in the showroom background make me think of leisurely island days (it didn't help that I recently wrote out my "ideal day" and it essentially involves us living in Bali).  While I was ready to buy on the spot after some negotiations on price, Tyler is the voice of wisdom and pragmatism, saying we should walk further.

Down the street, we walk into Hanssem (which until I saw it spelled this weekend, thought was called "Handsome").  There, we see the couch (I realize Tyler's fallen in love when he lounges...)

We take a breather to assess finances, and in the meantime, find the bed that Tyler likes -- we talk to the factory head and he says he can finish this a dark brown and extend the sides of the bed to look more like the "Japanese" bed photo we fell in love with last week.  We really like the store and the bed is almost exactly what we were looking for last week.

We spend lunch (pork belly barbeque at one of our favorite small joints in Seoul) discussing the merits of each bed: Tyler talking about the logical reasons for his "Japanese" bed ("there are three main reasons this bed makes the most sense: quality, cost, and fit with our apartment") and me expressing my emotions about my "Bali" bed ("it's just SO nice and we can get lots of green lush plants and feel like we're living in Bali!").

I gotta say, of all the things I'm proud of our marriage and relationship about, our ability to navigate decisions and compromise has risen to the top.  We've even learned to express our arguments in the "language" of the other person -- which essentially consists of me developing a logical framework into which to insert my emotional preferences, and Tyler saying, "I feel..." before his logical arguments.

When I was working at Katzenbach, we each took the Myers-Briggs test; our manager lightened the mood further by showing a slide called: "How many of your type does it take to change a light bulb?"  In my "professional" life, the answer (which shouldn't shock anyone) was: "Only one, me.  As long as that's okay with everyone else"; and in my "personal" life, the answer was: "But that was my favorite light bulb!!"  While I've never seen Tyler's MBTI type, I think his would be a unique combination of: "The cost/benefit ratio would dictate only one" and "Who cares - the important thing is that it would be fun!"

We talk and talk, and leave the lunch feeling good about our decision, heading back to buy the bed and the couch.

So which bed did we ultimately decide to go with?  You'll just have to plan your trip to Korea and find out :)

Adventures at Home

Sometimes living in a foreign country is like living in an Alanis Morissette song. "It's like ten thousand spoons, when all you need is a knife."  Nowhere has this been more clear than setting up our house.

In India, there are no fitted sheets.  Just top sheets.  So this means needing to use a top sheet to cover the mattress, which you can imagine does not necessarily work that well for large mattresses that are essentially the same size as the top sheet itself.  With no extra fabric to tuck under the mattress, it means finding yourself waking up on the bare mattress itself, with sheets all around you in disarray.

In Korea, however, there are no top sheets (isn't it ironic, don't cha think?).  People sleep with the fitted sheet over the mattress, and then the duvet comforter above you.  Our solution to this?  Sleep with a fitted sheet as our top sheet.  For the first week, we shared one fitted sheet.  As you can imagine, this did not go very well.  Then we upgraded and for the last month or so, have been sleeping with one fitted sheet each, which felt a bit like going camping every night.

The flip side of a sub-par situation, however, is the joy of the resolution!  And so it was when we received a package from my parents last Friday, with (drumroll...) two top sheets! -- and American king size for our Korean (smaller) king size bed, which means we can each be as selfish as we'd like with the sheets!

Feeling on a roll with our bedroom situation, we decide to venture out and get a bed frame.  Last week, we discovered one of the few places to buy an American king mattress (across the street from us, no less) and ordered one on the spot (hooray sales!)  Of course, since American king mattresses are nearly impossible to find in Seoul, so are bed frames.

So this past weekend, we head an hour northwest to Hongik University, which we later learn is dubbed the "SoHo" of Seoul -- a bit avant-garde... and home to many small furniture makers in Seoul.  We find Lee, who a friend had recommended to us.  We realize we probably should have brought a photo of what we envisioned (and, um, probably should have spoken to each other about what we each envisioned!), but Tyler finds a photo on the spot by googling "Japanese beds" (and thankfully we agree on design).  This is what we show him:

We look at what he currently has and together draw up a design of what we're looking for.  It's pricey, but we're not sure what else to do.  He says he'll draw it up and we use this extra time to think about it some more.

On the way back, we stumble upon a smaller furniture maker.  No showroom this time, just one guy working on a bench, whose name is Addie.  We talk to him about what we're looking for.  His English is amazing and it's really fun to chat with him about the design.  We start talking prices, and to our delight, it's half as expensive as the first shop, and half the time to produce!  I think we've found our guy!

Of course, as we learn, often living in a foreign country is two steps forward and one step back (or in the case of India, oftentimes felt like two steps forward and two steps back).  Riding our productive weekend high, I wake up to find a package from Amazon, which I was super excited to receive... Alas, the incredible duvet they sent turned out to be a full/queen size, instead of a king... And I'm not even sure how to send it back as a return from here...

Alas, at this point, all I can do is laugh.  Laugh when things don't go our way, and be grateful and celebrate when they do.  My "twin", Giselle, sent me this quote over WhatsApp last week.  There's nothing like living in a foreign country to practice living this each day:

PS: After all that, I just got a text from Addie to say that they actually can't make that bed frame for us... It's too big and they can't design what we want.  I'd be frustrated as heck right now... except that he ends his text with an emoticon of big tears... All I can do is laugh (again).

Ode to Fall

I love the fall.  The cool crispness of the air.  The feeling of a new chapter.  The sense of possibility, of transformation, growth, and change.  Here in Korea, we are reveling in the magic of autumn.  The weather over the last few weeks has been a fairly consistent clear cool crispness, about mid-60s to low-70s.  Today in particular is the quintessential fall day: clear day, sun shining, crisp temperature, and brisk wind that makes the autumn leaves blow all around us as we walk around.

The simple act of walking to the subway station from our apartment has been a joy: giant leaves larger than my head lying around the sidewalk in a panoply of colors (see Exhibit A, below) -- which are super fun to jump on and hear them crinkle under my feet (while Tyler first wondered what the heck I was doing the first time, now he's on the constant lookout for good ones for me to jump on).

I'm still learning all the various trees here.  We're thinking these big leaves come from maple trees.  My new favorites are the ginkgo trees, which have been painting the sidewalk with striking golden yellow hues.  Walking home from church today, I had the most amazing time shuffling my feet through the leaves (when I turned around, I saw that I had started a trend, with cute little kids following gleefully in suit).

Yesterday, we decided to go on a fall foliage safari.  Our original plan was to head a couple hours from Seoul to Seoraksan Mountain, which we heard was gorgeous during autumn.  However, some friends in town from DC said that many of the leaves on the mountain had already fallen by last weekend.  We considered going anyway, but between my precarious back and Tyler's innate desire to climb to the top of all tall things, we decided to stay local instead.

So we headed up north to Samcheong-dong instead (pronounced: Sahm - chong - dong).  I had read a blog about it being a nice area to soak up the autumn atmosphere, and it did not disappoint.  Trees with leaves in various shades of yellow, orange, red, burnt sienna and green lined up the pedestrian path, along with a beautiful stone wall road that passed through the palace and side streets dotted with small galleries, restaurants, and cute shops.  An a capella group singing for peace and other street musicians made our walk feel like we were in our own music video.

We stop for tea along the way, and take everything in.  While we love living in the south, which to us represents modern Asia in our tall skyscraper building, the north has incredible charm.  Samcheong-dong in particular is a really unique mix of both old architecture and modern galleries existing side by side.

We have dinner at a branch of our favorite noodle joint, this time breaking out of our norm and trying Mongolian noodles (Tyler is in heaven -- they are ultra spicy; I'm pleasantly surprised my taste buds have not been permanently burned off in India).  We head home, still marveling at the trees along the way against the midnight blue sky.