What Have We Gotten Ourselves Into?: First Day in South Korea

First day in South Korea was a little boring to be honest, but that was to be expected. We woke up around 7:30 on Sunday morning and felt ok for the first 4 or 5 hrs. Slowly we started to feel the effect of not sleeping for 24 hrs the day before. The girls didn't do as well as Andrew and I. They were still sick, so we decided that a nice hot bath might help their sinuses out. After they got out we put them in their pjs and threw them in our bed for a much needed nap. Mackey keeps complaining about her ear, I believe she might have an ear infection..(crossing fingers) here's hoping we can find a doctor soon. While they napped I unpacked us and put everything away, while Andrew was finding out that we won't be able to stream Hula Plus or Amazon Prime ...boo :(

I also started writing this blog and spent a good while to get it the way I wanted it. Andrew left the hotel in hopes to find us some food. He came back with some Taco Bell, which taste the same as home..YAY! The girls took a really long nap, and Mackey woke up feeling much better. After I got them some food I told Andrew I needed to take nap. Around 5pm Andrew woke me up and I started cleaning up the hotel room from our lunch. Andrew and Story fell asleep watching a movie and I went downstairs to the lobby to find out how to get something delivered (food) here.

Here's where I experienced my first frustration here in Korea!

I went to the lobby where a Korean man is working the front desk. He was super nice and gave me (2) numbers ( I assumed from 2 different places) of pizzas places. I didn't know if they were on base or not..but was hoping for the best as I dialed the number. A man picked up on the other line and said hello..that is it. I said "Hello, I would like to order a pizza". He started asking me something which I didn't understand considering he doesn't speak good English. It sounded like "what room are you in" and I told him 314 and he confirms what I just said. Then the next question you could plainly here "What room number are you in". Gurrrrrrr...I said "314!". I thought in my head...he doesn't know where I am! He went on and asked me "What is you phone number?". I told him " I don't have one yet". He continued to ask me about my phone number and I could hear him and someone else on the line laughing their heads off. This is where I almost started to tear up and was so embarrassed, thank goodness no one was around. They just keep on laughing, trying to ask me the same question. Finally they forgot about the phone number and asked me what I wanted to order. After I told him my order, he finally hang up the phone and I took the elevator back upstairs to our room. While I was waiting for the delivery to come I looked up how to tip delivery guys in Korea. All the sites I went to said If you do tip, do not tip much.

I finally got a phone call from front desk that the delivery man was here and before I could ask if I were to meet him in the lobby he hung up. I got dress and was ready to go downstairs when I opened the door there was the young man with my food. I ask him how much and he said 17. I knew I had 18,000 won and quickly gave him the money thinking that a dollar tip would be good. As he handed the pizza he said, one more please. I gave him an American dollar in hopes he could take it and he did. As he left, I was a little confused about what just happened, but I was hungry and didn't mind tipping him a extra dollar.

That pretty much rapped up our day. Andrew went to sleep early (7:30) and I stayed up watching YouTube videos about Korean culture.

Side note: Koreans bow when they say hello or goodbye and thank you. It was surprising to me at first when the maid came to our room and bowed. It kinda caught me off guard, that I didn't even think to do it back. The next time someone bowed to me I got excited that I remembered to bow back.

Also I took some pictures of our hotel room we are staying...hope you enjoy!