Wait a Minute, Kim, You Want Me to Do What in 500 meters? How Long is 500 meters???

I am getting to know the metric system. Kim will say "In 500 meters, to the right." What? What is to the right in 500 meters? Do I turn right, exit right, stay right? When is 500 meters? When is 200 meters? Kim, you are failing me. Kim, what exit am I taking? Can you say it? That's all I get, 'to the right in so many meters'?????? Help! Damn, I missed the turn. Time to recalculate, Kim.

That pretty much says it all, except who the heck is Kim? Kim is our Korean GPS. Yes, I named her Kim with the help of my friend, Sam. What can I say? Adam and I named our Garmin GPS in the States, Sheila, because we use the voice with the Australian accent. Ugh. Sheila. I have been known to talk to Sheila and on occasion even use a cuss word or two. OK. That is a big understatement right there. I talk to Sheila constantly, like she is sitting in the car, and I talk to her like I don't like her. I like to use Sheila to see where I am in relation to upcoming exits and if I need to search for a gas station, Starbucks, etc. However, I really prefer to use my own GPS system in my head that is called my brain. That can generally work in the States. I can read directions online, make a mental note and off I go with Sheila as my back up. That is not true here.

I think I said before that I feel disoriented here because addresses are written so differently. And THEN every brochure, website, map or tour book will give an address just a little bit differently. I think some things are lost in translation. So, you may think you have a correct address, try to program it into Kim and she may or not have that street, city or county spelled exactly the same way the website has spelled it. So, then you have to guess is it Jinwi-ro, Jinwi-ri, Jinwi-gi, Jinwi-go??? I just made those up as examples, but that is how it is. That example could easily be used for a street or city name. So, you could guess on the city and then look for the street and it is wrong. Go back and pick a different city section and then find you have 3 choices for streets. See what I mean? It is frustrating, confusing, irritating, the list could go on. One thing Kim does have in her many options is to search for a business or landmark name. She probably has millions programmed. So, that is how I start my search, with a name and then go from there.

Kim is quite the system. She is a Korean brand, Woori, which is in English. She can take and save notes, play music, pick up a TV signal, play movies, (she came with her own SD card for media), and I think she even has Bluetooth capabilities. I am sure there are more things she can do. Oh, if you attach a camera to the back of your car, she can help you see behind you when backing up etc. We picked Kim because she has lots of places preprogrammed and she comes with free updates. You can buy a Garmin here, but you have to have it updated with Korean maps, but then it doesn't always have as many places programmed and you can pay big bucks for updates, if you choose. It was a tough call. We liked the familiarity of the Garmin. However, the convenience of all the preprogrammed places in the Woori and the man that sold it to us has a booth on base offers technical support; we thought that was a better choice for us. We did try to buy a used GPS, any kind, but they sell fast and we weren't fast enough!

She has a fairly large screen and then she splits it with her guidance. So, a split side screen will show you the exit lanes and the larger part of the split screen will show you the main map. It is hard because, you need to watch the road, not Kim's fancy screens. And then where she shows how long until the next exit, turn or ' to the right' is confusing. It is all a matter of getting familiar with it and getting the settings just right. I guess I could take her in for some support, but I am stubborn and want to figure Kim out. A quick side note on being Kim's 'master'…. Sigh. My cell phone. I feel like such an idiot because I have a pay by the minute kind of phone and I can't add the minutes. You buy a calling card with 30 minutes to add to your phone and they are good for 30 days. Seems simple enough, right? Wrong! You have to have the Korean employees at the kiosk add the minutes of your card to your phone for you because the directions are all in Korean. If you want to know how many minutes you have left, you have to stop by and they call in for you to tell you when they expire and how much is left. I hate that dependence. I want to do it myself. Hence, why I want to figure out Kim and not have to take her in for help for easy stuff. Crazy? Yes. Stubborn? Absolutely. Controlling? You got it!!! At least I can admit it.

The bottom line is this: I am learning to trust Kim, but it is difficult. What I have decided to do is turn Kim on wherever I am going off base so I can get to know her better and just get used to her screens and prompts. I suppose I really do need to get on board with this whole metric system and figure out my meters too. That may be easier said than done.

Exercise, Exercise, Exercise

If you live in the States, you'll think this is a post about exercising. Wrong! This is about the Giant Voice on base. Are you totally confused? Let me tell you a story about a boy, a beanstalk and a giant. Just kidding! On base we have a Giant Voice and that is literally what it is called. You can't make that up. I want to meet the genius that said, what the hell, let's just call it the Giant Voice because that's what it is. The Giant Voice, or GV from this point, is like the loud speaker on base. You can hear it anywhere on base and a lot of times off base. On normal days it will tell you the road conditions on base. We have three in case you were wondering: green, amber and red. We can have 'amber' road conditions, not yellow (like that is too common?), but we have a Giant Voice. The GV also plays the Korean National Anthem and the American National Anthem at 5:30pm every day and Taps at 10:00pm. On non-normal days the GV is on and loud at any time 24/7. I should also note that the GV is an actual person talking with the exception of the songs played or sirens blared. Yes, I said sirens, more on that in a minute.

Right now we are in the middle of an exercise on base. A non-normal week. The base is prepping for an inspection and other things and exercises are part of the process. Each one is different, apparently. I am on my second exercise. The GV is really something during the week. Typically everything it says starts with "Exercise. (pause for the echo) Exercise. (pause) Exercise." Then it will state some kind of message that has some importance to the Exercise. The GV will announce at all hours of the day and night. It will blast siren warnings at all hours of the day AND night. During our first exercise, Rachel looked at me on the last day and asked "Why is that man always telling us to exercise?"

The people involved in the Exercise work all kinds of hours. Adam could work for a good 12-16 hours on any given day. They aren't sitting at their desks working; I won't bore you with what they do. They have to wear all kinds of gear while working depending on what the GV has instructed. That gear can be very heavy and I am glad I don't have to wear it. After work, Adam has to stay in the apartment. He can't go to the gym, the commissary, the post office, or even walk the kids to school. He is at work or at home and so is everyone else participating in the exercise. Think of some of the single folks here that live in dorms and can't go to the chow hall to get meals. They stock up on what they can b/c they are stuck in the dorm or at work with no kitchen. It is a crazy, weird week. Everyone's exhausted whether you are active duty or not.

When the first exercise ended, the GV played the song "God Bless the USA" by Lee Greenwood. It literally just blared out the song, not from the beginning, so you really only got the loud chorus parts. I was hanging pictures up in the living room thinking am I really listening to Lee Greenwood on the GV? That is so bizarre. I had to run across the hall and ask Leslie if she was hearing it too. When she first heard it, she thought maybe her phone was ringing and it had changed its own ringtone. (That, btw, would not be a surprise with Korean cell phones. You think you are doing one thing and it does another) I am wondering what the GV will play at the end of this exercise. Will it be Lee Greenwood? Could it be some other 4^th of July standard? I know you are all on the edge of your seat waiting to know. Until then I leave you with exercise, exercise, exercise……. Crazy loud annoying sirens ….. Exercise, exercise, exercise…… Why IS that man telling us to exercise???

It’s Good, for Korea

My friend Beth said this to me the other day when we were talking about a restaurant. I spent a moment thinking about that comment. I came to the realization that you can use that phrase to describe anything here. In a lot of ways that statement can be a state of mind. If you don't get into this particular state of mind, your time here could be torture because you'd always be expecting better, more or different. I have embraced this 'state of mind' because there is no use in living abroad and expecting life to be like it was at home.

A couple of examples…

We were talking about a Thai food restaurant that we went to for Russ's birthday. It was decent, but our Thai food restaurant that we loved in Vegas was incredible in comparison. And it isn't that the food was bad at the restaurant here, it was good, for Korea. When you ask people about certain restaurants around here, very rarely do they say it was the best food they ever ate. The attitude is, you guessed it, good, well, you know…

Oh my Gosh… roads. You could really use that expression for describing roads or traffic. Roads here are narrow, there is typically quite a bit of traffic and a lot of Korean drivers don't choose to follow traffic laws. And boy, do they love their horns. Another quick thing, there are theses dummies on the side of the roads that look like people, Korean people of course. And the arm will move with a flag attached to it to draw attention to something that is written in Korean. The first time I saw one, it looked real to me, but random because we were on a country road with not a lot of traffic!!! Anyway, so when describing a route or a drive here, you could easily say………..

The smell on the trains. Sometimes it is bad and other times it is really bad. And really the smell is just because they eat different foods than we do. I will say on a long train ride you are hoping that the smell or the crowds will be good, for Korea.

Rowan has started a preschool at a church off base. It is an American school/church. Is it the greatest preschool any of my children have attended? Probably not. And don't get me wrong, I think it is a fine preschool and they do the best with the facilities that they have, but it could easily be described as good, for Korea. I think the location is its biggest and only problem. There is no outdoor play area. Picking up can be a nightmare due to the narrow streets and Koreans not following the no parking laws. Picture, if you will, a line of mainly American cars – minivans and smaller SUVs driving in a line up a narrow street where there is no parking designated on the street but Koreans park any way. Then more Koreans driving down the narrow street, maneuvering in between the illegally parked cars and the brigade of minivans lined up to pull up to the preschool for pick up. Or there are Koreans in cars behind the minivan pickup brigade and they are ticked to be waiting in line for preschool pick up at a school where their children do not attend!!! And then when they can't drive between the parked cars and the minivans, they honk, they get out of their cars and yell at you, or try to force their way through. It's crazy, but good, for Korea….

I don't think I have lived here long enough to really experience the full impact of "it's good, for Korea", but I am glad I have figured it out already. It is almost like the saying "take it with a grain of salt" in a lot of ways. Just knowing that things are a little 'off' and embracing it are all part of the experience. Of course, now I am thinking what something will be like if it is "bad, for Korea". Cringe. Let's hope we don't have to figure that one out!