For now I can say, we are all moved & getting used to the new hood...
We have been here for a week and a half now & I must admit, I miss my old hood...
Don't get me wrong, I really like it here, but, there's always things a melancholic, dramatic & hopelessly romantic person like myself will miss about things left behind...
I never posted anything of where I was living at the time, just because I thought it was weird... Truth is, my life is all out there & I don't know who reads these posts... But now that I moved, I will tell you all about it. : )
We were, until recently, living in Seorae Maeul, Bangbae-dong, Seocho-gu. (easy-peasy huuu...lol) You don't want to know how long it took me to memorize all this and get the accent and pronunciation to be understandable!!!
The first couple of weeks (if not months) I didn't even know how to tell the cab drivers to take me home. I only said "Seorae Maeul". Yes, they would take me to the Village, but, how do I explain to him where my house was...
I did not know "up, down, straight ahead, down the hill, left or right". I know you will think; "why not have a phrase book with you"... I did! In theory, it should have helped, but truth is, it did not, at least me.
If you don't know how to say words the right way, they won't understand. I also had another situation... The phase book I have tells me how say the words in English, so it would be like (If you are from PR you will know) "Hablando Inglés, leyendo en Español", But this would be, Speaking Korean, Reading in English...
In my head, I read everything in Spanish. My mind & myself are complicated like this... I think in English, I read in Spanish, I write in English, I speak Spanglish, I live in Konglish... you might have noticed. ; )
Some cab drivers would be like; "huuuu... sorry-so sorry".. But most... would be like... AISHHHHHH... aahhhghh... Aigoooo... and yelled what for sure sounded like cursing. I was wasting my time flipping through the book in a hurry (while my 3 year old son's demanding to know what's going on in the background). I'm pregnant, about to throw up on the guy's face, (cabs smell, pre-tty bad) sweating, anxious, about the desperate driver and my loud son... at this point, I'll never find the right thing to say. Even when I did, he did not understand me. I dropped the phrase book first week!
Sometimes S. would rescue me, but at times he was busy and could not pick up my calls. I also wanted to try and figure it out by myself. The only thing I could do is get as close enough as I could and tell them; here is fine... From there I had to walk... Up hill.... Preggers... In the Summer... with like 40 extra pounds... and a boy in a stroller.... & groceries... I will tell you something... I'll start with a picture of THE one thing I won't miss... those ***** Hills....
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| Pregnant expat in Korea, having a baby in Seoul, expat life, Boricuas en Seúl, boricuas en Corea de Sur |
Once I figured it out, it was all good from there....
well...... that until I had to cross the street.
If they left me in the wrong side, I ran the risk of getting run over. Koreans are NOT polite drivers. At times I've even already been in the middle of the road crossing, with the stroller & a huuuge belly and they would still go around me (almost hitting me) to keep going... even if they had to go over the sidewalk, to no let me go by. To this date, I don't even know how many cars I've kicked and halmony's I've cursed, in some proper Spanish... They are reckless and if YOU don't back up, you WILL get run over!
*This is not a Seorae thing, this is in all of Seoul... bad drivers, all over... : /
Now the cute stuff... : )
I will miss the amount of playgrounds I had around me. I had 5 playgrounds near by. All super clean and nice. Some had better things than others, but they were all great & the kids always had a good time!
Seorae Maeul is also known as "The French Village". Most of the French expat community live here. There's also a French School and a bakery, with an actual French Baker. I will miss those baguettes!
There's also a really, really nice park at the top of the hill, and right next to our house, called The Montmartre Park. They did a lot of public events and concerts for foreigners.
We could also go hiking, and I went for a couple of runs on the mountain trails. It was nice having it right there... : )
I will miss the fact that I JUST found there a hairstylist that I liked & speaks English. She left my hair beauuuuutiful!!!... ; ) I forgot to take a pic. of the actual hair stylist, but next time I go, I'll get it... : )
& just walking around the pretty hood & not getting a whiff of the sweet sewer smells... uhuuummmm.... Fancy hood = clean hood....
& the memories we collected while living there... : )
& the bugs we didn't... : P
& the family we became...
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Seorae Maeul...
I'll tell you all about the new area in a future post, perhaps when we leave it behind too...
Now seeing these moving pictures, gives me a nostalgic feeling, as if our adventures in "Kimchiland" are close to end...
*I'm telling you, "drama" should've been my middle name... hahaha...
Let's see what happens next... : )
xoxo
T.
