Irene enjoys her new play area, complete with puzzle mat and a new toy!


The new purse and fan I picked out on our second day in Daegu.


The view to the right of our laundry room window.


The view to the left of the laundry room window. You can't see it well, but I really like the roof on the next building.

View of a high rise over the roofline of the next building.

A lot with kimchi pots for sale. We pass this when we walk to E-Mart.

The skyline as viewed from our neighborhood.

Irene explores our new apartment. The extra space is intriguing to her.

The mother cat who lives in the alley below our laundry room. She has one little kitten who hides in the foliage.

New job for John, new city for our family...

We have had a very eventful two weeks. First, John's school filed for bankruptcy and re-opened under a different format, so they let him go. That was last Friday. Then, he accepted a new job offer on Wednesday. They needed someone quickly, so we moved down to Daegu yesterday.We have a new apartment that is roughly twice as large as the apartment in Suwon. We have a full-sized top-loading washing machine and a built-in drying rack in their own little room. It's sort of like a sun porch. A mama cat hangs out on the roof line across from the window in there, so she often comes to "talk" to us. The bathroom is teeny, but it works, so I'm not complaining too much. The main event is the main room and the foyer. There is so much space. It's not even 400 square feet, but it is laid out so well that it seems humongous. We have enough room for a play area for Irene as well as a place for a crib and room for a book shelf. We have pretty redwood cabinets and a cooktop big enough for us to use both burners at once. The company provided us with a full set of pots and pans (no wok, though, oddly enough).

We live in an older building on a quiet side-street and are are mere 5 minute walk from E-Mart and one subway station away from Lotte Mart. We are 3 stations over from Kyobo Bookstore, which we plan on visiting tomorrow for a new cookbook.

I finally bought something for myself today: a new purse and a fan.

Yesterday evening, we walked to E-Mart and bought some things for Irene. She now has a foam puzzle mat to play on, a stacking ring toy that she loves, two new pacis, and a straw sippy cup. Today, we went back for a few more groceries and household items. I found some awesome produce (it is sooo much better here), including some that I will turn into baby food (peas, zucchini, and apricots).

So far, I am much happier here in Daegu. The overall atmosphere is much better and many of the stores are more convenient for us. If everything goes well for John at work on Monday, we'll be golden.

Oh, and BTW: almost as soon as we got here yesterday, Irene moved into sit by herself. :)

Pictures to follow in the next post.

Baskin Robins: the center of the Dossett Universe

We weren't here two weeks before our grocery store shut down. As much as we walked, we just could not find another. We tried going to E-Mart one Saturday and let me just say, it was an experience. There was a veritable wall of people, the carts move side-to-side as well as back-and-forth, and there are salespeople all over the place shouting out about different products. There are 3 floors of this accessible only via a contraption that is essentially an escalator combined with a moving sidewalk. I was a nervous wreck by the time we left. I already missed our little grocery store!

Today, John went out to the convenience store to buy some noodles. There, he encountered a clerk who apparently wanted to practice his English. So, John decided to take advantage of the situation and asked the clerk where he could find a grocery store. The clerk pointed him down a street where he found a very nice little grocery store, albeit in a less-than-nice neighborhood. He found some great stuff there. He finally found a little pot for us to make rice in, green tomatoes (we'll be having fried green tomatoes for our anniversary tomorrow), honey mustard, spaghetti, cheese, and PANCAKE MIX AND SYRUP. The latter is a very big deal to us. It's hard to find pancake syrup around here. The funny thing is the location of the store. You have to turn right at Baskin Robins, which is where John catches his bus in the morning and where we go to pick up a taxi. It also houses a Dunkin Donuts and is across the street from a book store. It's all very amusing. I am so relieved he found our new grocery store, though.

Settling in Korea...

We arrived in Suwon, Republic of Korea on Saturday, March 28, 2009 after a lengthy flight delay in Denver and nearly missing our plane out of San Francisco. We came expecting to find ourselves in the little town of Namyangju as per the address on John’s contract. Imagine our surprise upon finding ourselves in Suwon, instead. Imagine our even further surprise to find that instead of a 1 bedroom apartment, we were being provided with a studio. The owners said that they did not know John was bringing his family.

The apartment was a bit of a shock for me. All it contained when we first walked through the door was: a twin bed; appliances; a wok; a fork; a spoon; a pair of chopsticks; a spatula; a pair of tongs; two kitchen towels; two cans of baked beans; diswashing liquid; degreaser; bleach; a half-empty bottle of water; a mop for the bathroom; and a pair of rubber gloves. There was not a dish to be found. There was no table, no toilet paper, no can opener to go with the beans, no TV, and no means of cooking, as the gas was not on. It was finally turned on the Tuesday after we arrived. The washing machine has no accompanying dryer, so I have to hang our clothes to dry in the bathroom which, as you can imagine, takes forever. The cable, TV, and phone were finally installed on Thursday, so I finally got to talk to my parents for more than 1 minute. I hadn't even talked to my father in nearly 2 weeks! The owner’s son did take us shopping the first Monday night after our arrival to purchase many of the aforementioned missing items, though.

Now, I will tell you about our apartment. We have a view of a brick wall and, if you peer to the left, a gas station. I actually do rather like the neighborhood, as almost everything we need is within walking-distance and what isn’t is accessible via taxi (which isn’t too expensive in Korea) or subway, which is only a few blocks from our apartment. The apartment isn’t too bad for what it is, either. We have bamboo laminate flooring with ondol heating, a digital security lock, a video doorbell, a passcode protected front door, and a motion sensor light that comes on when someone comes through the door.We like it enough to try to make it work here.

Irene is doing very well. She's started rolling over on a regular basis, has sat up by herself for a few seconds, and almost said, "Daddy!" She charmed the customs agents at Incheon International Airport. She was smiling at them, attracting a crowd, and laughing at the stamp. They didn't even hassle us about having one-way tickets. She currently has a bit of a cold, but she's in good spirits. She's eating very well. We're thinking of letting her try rice cereal tomorrow. She'll be 5 months old then. I have experienced one disappointment: I can't cloth diaper here. There is no dryer and nowhere to hang CDs to dry. Even if I do a load a day, they don't dry quickly enough and end up being musty. I'm upset about that, but I will be saving them, as we're still considering having another child in a few years.

We're almost ready...

At this time tomorrow afternoon, we will be checking into our hotel room near Nashville International Airport. At 4 AM, Friday, March 27, a shuttle will deliver us and our luggage to the airport where we will check our luggage and board a plane headed for Denver, Colorado, followed by a flight to San Francisco where we will board one more plane for Incheon International Airport in South Korea.

So far, packing is at a stand-still at 60%. The baby is mostly packed aside from a few clothes, cloth diapers, and food items to be used in a month and a half. John started last night. I'm the slacker who hasn't started yet. I think part of me is sad to start the packing process. For me, that will finalize everything. Once I start packing, it means that I am actually leaving my family and friends and everything I know. I will be preparing to step into a new country with new customs, a language I do not know, and food I've never tasted. It's a daunting experience, yet I know it will add to my life rather than take away from it. It will be doing something new for once. I've always wanted to travel and now I'm doing it. Stay tuned for more thoughts on the process. Likely the next time I write I will be settling into our new apartment and life in South Korea.

Almost set to go...

John's new recruiters found a hagwon job for him. It is in Namyangju (but I refuse to make a new header for this blog until we are safely ensconced in our new apartment; call me superstitious) to the east of Seoul. We managed to get our tickets postponed in the nick of time and the school is going to reimburse us for the fees required to do so rather than pay for John's plane fare. We will be leaving on March 27.

Another One Bites the Dust...

After some questionable actions via John's (now ex) recruiter, we are no longer headed to Daejeon. In fact, we don't know where we're going now, which sucks since we had already bought plane tickets. He had already signed the contract, too, so something is screwy in the country of South Korea. We'll keep this particular saga updated.

Job is finalized!

After the setback of being turned down for the Chungnam job, John has gotten a job teaching in Daejeon, which is great as this is the city he wanted to move to, anyway. It is at the same pay rate as the first job, as well, so no loss there. The only sticky point is the apartment. It measures at 10 pyong, which equals 355 sq. ft. Ouch. John negotiated with the representative and she has agreed to try to find us a larger apartment before the lease is up so we won't have to be in such a tiny space for 3 months. They will also have our internet ready for us. All that's left is for John to send off the signed contract and purchase our plane tickets. We are still waiting for our passports. Hopefully they will be here before February 26, which is when we will be leaving. I still need to purchase Irene's cloth diapers and a Moby wrap (much easier than navigating my way through the throngs of people with a stroller). We also need to sell a lot of our stuff. Our furniture, the car, some of the baby gear... all of this must go. We have 3 short weeks to accomplish this. Wow.

Posted by Marla

Less than a month...

We have less than one month to go until we step onto a plane and fly off to South Korea. John will be teaching English and I will be a stay-at-home mom. I may attempt writing again, but we'll have to see how I feel about it.

We've already begun the often difficult process of paring down our worldly possessions to things we can live without, things that we want to put in storage, and things that we can in no way leave behind. So far, Irene is the only one of us with a suitcase fully packed, but then, she does have many clothes that she can't even wear yet. We're beginning to consider where we will sell what, as we have an apartment full of furniture that will not be going with us. Most can go into consignment, but things such as the washer and dryer will be a bit more of a challenge. We will likely need them right up to the end, but they're 5 years old, so they'll have to be sold somewhere like Craig's List. We'll see.

Since it looks like our little girl will be waking up very soon and my parents will be here in a matter of hours, I am going to cut this first entry a little short. There will be more to come.

Posted by: Marla