As our time at Osan Air Base comes to a close, I've been doing a little reflecting. Being our first real assignment after tech school, I didn't really know what I was in for, not including the fact that it is in a different country. What I experienced when I first got here and what I experience daily now are worlds apart from each other. From living off base, to moving on base, then back off base, then finally back on base again, it has been quite a ride.
When I first got here, we didn't have any children yet. It was just the two of us, free to do (almost) whatever we wanted. I quickly noticed that what the majority of people here did was party. Seriously, every night. Now as many of you guessed, these were mostly the single people, with no family to go home to.... or married people, here unaccompanied, pretending they were single. It all seemed a little chaotic to me. Aaron and I would refer to this base as the base of alcoholics.
When we had Lucas, I entered this entirely new atmosphere. Full of mommies, babies, playgroups, breastfeeding, morning coffee with friends, support, community, and for the first time since coming here, friends. I met people I could connect with. People that were going through or had recently been through the same things I was going through. For the first time since Aaron joined the military, I had people I felt that I could really talk to. It was, and has been, fabulous!
I learned what it was to be a military spouse while here too. What it means to really support your spouse. My wonderful husband is serving our country. Though he can't tell me what he does, I know for the most part he really enjoys it, and is good at it. Granted, we have it a lot easier than some because he has a steady Mon-Fri 7:30-4:30 job, but the women here have shown me how important it is to support our husbands and keep our families happy, healthy, and in line, so that they can do their job and come home to an inviting atmosphere.
I love that this is a "walking" base. You walk pretty much everywhere here, or at least we do. The downfall is that there isn't a ton to do, so for entertainment we usually end up walking to the BX, seeing if there is anything we can't live without, and then walking home. Fun huh? This base is such a small community. It is nice walking anywhere and running into at least two people you know. I've lived in a couple small towns before, but I've never felt the sense of community that I have felt here. This might be due to the fact that we are in a different country with a different language, so we cling to our own. We are the minority here, so we depend on each other.
It has been fun and interesting experiencing the culture here in Korea. It has been fun getting to see the old fortresses, palaces, shrines, folk villages, etc. My husband knew quite a bit about this country before we came here, so he already knew the culture, but I quickly caught on. The driving is one of the scariest I have ever seen. I have seen people drive on sidewalks, not stop at stoplights (which is very common), and not pay any attention to crosswalks. Oh and you know how in the states where there is an intersection with yellow flashing lights signaling you to yield and the other side has red flashing lights signaling you to stop? Most times Korea just has yellow flashing lights on both sides, so it is a free-for-all. It gets pretty interesting, and we have experienced some SERIOUS road rage. I have learned that Koreans have a different view of personal space than we do, their men are very feminine and "close" to one another, and most that we have met are very prideful. Aaron has had conversations with Korean teachers both here and in the states that would argue with him for days that their language is completely original, when it was actually based off the Chinese language. Same goes for their architecture. Korea has also apparently built the largest church.... I would have guessed the largest church would be near the Vatican or something. The funniest thing I think I have heard since being here is that the Korean culture believes in this concept called "fan death". Aaron has read published articles on this topic. They say DO NOT sleep with your fan blowing on you (which you totally want in the summer because they don't have central a/c), because it will kill you. Yup, you will die of "fan death" if your fan blows on you while you are sleeping. Uh huh.....riiight. There is also this terrible smell here, which we call the Korea smell. Before coming to Korea we couldn't place what our dogs absolutely disgusting breath smelled like. Well we figured it out, it smells like a Korean alley, yuck.
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