Wednesday, April 3, 2013

New Adventures in the ROK


Hello friends and family who read our blog!

I got a few complaints about not posting on this blog enough - I apologize for that! I guess I need to work on my blogging skills ;) So my last post was after New Year's Eve (eek! that was a while ago), so quite a bit has happened since then; that is what this post and the next one will be about.

SNOWBOARDING
In January, Tim and I went on the Chapel ski and snowboard trip - it was so much fun and we got to hang out with some of our new friends: the Markowski family of 7, along with many other great people from the Chapel. Tim and I learned how to snowboard and, despite our numerous falls, we had sooo much fun!
Snowboarding for the first time!

Success!
All together now ;)

Such pretty colors worn on the slopes

With 2 of the 5 Markowski kids

Fun on the slopes

After all the snowboarding in some very wet snow, we were, of course, hungry. Thus, we got ourselves some odd but very Korean food. Tim being the more adventurous consumer of food ate an...interesting, to say the least, Korean dish. It looked a little like tar but Tim said it was tasty. I had what they called "chicken barbecue - it was rice and chicken and peas and corn. Not quite what I think of when I think of barbecue chicken but it was tasty nonetheless.

Yum!

Chicken barbecue
We were all a bit soaked from the warm weather and downpour of "wintry mix" so Tim had to take his soaked socks and dry them on the heater inside. 

Drying out those tootsies!
TRIGGER
On January 27th, our beloved kitty cat, Trigger, got out of my parents' house and disappeared. Tim and I were planning on bringing him here in March when I went back home, but we have yet to find him. Hopefully he will return to us somehow but until then we can just pray and wait. We miss our Trig Trig :(
Trigger Six

NEWEST SIX FAMILY MEMBER
God is providing, though, and we adopted a different kitty while here in Korea. A few weeks after Trigger went missing, Tim and I watched a little boy while his parents were in Seoul having their second child. One day, I took Callum to the park near his apartment on Base with some of the other 36th Fighter Squadron moms. As soon as we arrived, this little orange and white kitten came running up to us and rubbed against my leg. I wasn't sure if Callum should play with this stray cat and none of the other little kids were allowed so I told Callum "don't touch the kitty!" This in turn meant I shouldn't touch the kitty. As most of you may know, I like cats...and this cat was so cute and making it very difficult to not pet him. He was adorable and just followed us around the whole time we were at the park. Well, we were staying at Callum's house so I couldn't very well take him there. So I waited. The next evening Callum's parents came home, but it had rained all day so I didn't figure the cat would still be hanging out at the park. I made a deal with Tim that if we saw the kitty that night we could take him home and find his family - if he had one - or keep him if he had no family. We went to the park after dark. He wasn't at the park. We went home and I looked on the Osan AB Spouses page and there was a picture of the kitty! I was so excited. I figured it was a sign from God that we were supposed to have him ;) Anyway, he wasn't neutered and no microchip and no one claimed him so we figured he needed a home. So he's the newest member of our little family: Roki!

Roki Six!

He has some odd habits
Oh he's so cute! But he also plays A LOT



I think he took to us pretty well :)


We named him "Roki" because we were trying to think of something Korean to name him that we could remember and pronounce so he is named after the Republic Of Korea with an "ee" sound on the end since oftentimes Koreans add that sound to the end of words when they speak English.

DUTCH
So in addition to watching a two and a half year old little boy, we got to watch Dutch, a handsome chocolate lab. His "parents" were busy getting things arranged for their move to Nellis AFB in Las Vegas, NV. Tim got his "dog fix" since Chloe has yet to make the trip to S. Korea.
Dutch! Such a baby ;)
EXCITEMENT AT HOME ;)
Oh, and I just had to document that I beat Tim 3 games of Battleship in a row! :D He'll be so pleased that I shared that, haha!
First game...

That's 2!

And 3!!! :)
CHYEONG PYEONG
Our next adventure this winter was our trip to Chyeong Pyeong. Ms. Andrea Hunt planned this wonderful trip to go see this Christmas lights display in Chyeong Pyeong, and we - the Hunts, Brad and Andrea, and Tim and I - were all excited to spend a Saturday touring the display. The problem began on the bus ride there: it started snowing heavily. By the time we arrived at the Chyeong Pyeong bus station, a few inches of snow had fallen and settled on the ground and there was no sign of the snow stopping. We tried to take a cab to the lights display about 20 minutes away, but we did not make it very far. Between the poor road conditions, traffic, and the language barrier we ended up turning around and ending up exactly where we started. We had about 2 hours before the next bus arrived to take us home so we walked around the small town. About 30 minutes before the bus was supposed to arrive, Tim decided he was hungry. We decided to get a pizza, but that caused us to miss the bus by about 2 minutes because it was early. The next bus was the 8pm bus and it was the last one running for the night! We had an hour and a half so we waited a little closer to the station. The bus ended up being 30 minutes late but it did come much to our relief. It was an adventurous day and we missed the lights, but it was fun nonetheless!
Oh the snow
Tim trying to communicate with the cabby

In the cab driving...nowhere with the Hunts

Sure! I'll have hot dogs in my pizza crust ;)
Brad and Andrea
Waiting for our pizza
Cute little pizza place

It was tasty but...just not quite right compared to what we are used to with pizza

One of the pizzas had corn in it...just not quite right

Stay tuned for my next post! I will put the remaining adventures we've had between this post and the present time :)

Much love,
Nicki






1 comment:

  1. Funny post....and I love that you included the story of Callum and your cat Roki - it was meant to be! :)

    ReplyDelete