Aloha Living

Hawaiians are a very laid back bunch.  I have struggled to find a word for this attitude.  For now, we'll call it Aloha.

We are starting to settle in and find a little Aloha.  Xander has recovered from a nasty bacteria that kept him out of day care for a week.  He is enjoying his new space, which is a little spartan with no furniture.  Of course, he hasn't noticed, since most of his toys are here.  We are getting used to waking up early.  There are these wild chickens all over the island, you see, and they all crow early in the morning.  Xander has decided that this is his wakeup call.

I've stopped being astounded at how much everything costs here.  We really can't help ourselves at the grocery store.  We are not used to having so many options, and we always walk out with more than what we had planned to buy.  I'm not too hard on myself for spending money on food.

I haven't gotten tired of my picturesque surroundings.  Just this morning, we walked to the local playground, which has a view of the ocean.

X and his dada make a sand hole at Kailua Beach Park

At the Mokapuu Tide Pools.  He insisted on wearing the hat over his towel.

You can see the ocean from the playground.

Our other neighbor, the Koolau Mountains

Our furniture-less apartment

Chickens at the post office

Settling In

We've fallen into a sort of routine: I work, Bobby drives me back and forth and takes Xander to the playground, and on weekends we go to the beach.  We're still spending a little more than I'm used to.  Hawaii is expensive.  Like, very expensive.  We try to eat out of the Safeway, and I'm still trying to figure out how to get our grocery bill under control.

We found a nice daycare for Xander, and Bobby starts his new job on Monday.  We sign the lease papers on our not-perfect-but-adequate apartment today.  Bobby's scrambling to get a car today so that he can get to work.  Hopefully he'll come home with one.

We have learned to appreciate my hatchback car.  It's loaded with our beach chairs, some buckets and shovels, and the cooler.  When unloaded, the hatchback is perfect for changing Xander or tailgating.

We found a farmer's market that plays live music and is playground-adjacent.  While we are in Kailua (and possibly later), this will be our Sunday morning routine.  I know I've said it before, but it's great to be back.  There's a lot of live music here and a lot of picnics.

Hawaiians are so nice.  When I'm driving, I never have to wait too long to merge.  Someone always lets me in.  Someone stopped to help Bobby change a tire.  I think the sunshine makes everyone laid back, despite the high prices!  I'm going to have to absorb some of that cool-headedness.

The playground at our future apartment complex

The kids room at the base library

Some kind of sacred rock thingy.  The water was beautiful that day.

Renting a House in Hawaii 101

We're here!  It was not the smooth transition we wished for--poor X has the flu and my dad is under the weather.  Nonetheless, we are enjoying our first few days on the island.  I bought a Prius, which has been my dream car for awhile.  We switched our Korean cell phones over to a US carrier.  We visited the Walmart.

One thing I was not prepared for was the vicious rental housing market.  We have looked at six places so far.  We've found three that were acceptable.  The first time we liked a house, we said, "we like it, but...we'd better look at some more places."  It was rented out from under us the following day.  Having learned our lesson, we put in an application for the next place we liked.  The next day, we found out that someone else had been selected.  We just found another one that was acceptable--a far cry from the palatial apartment we left, but definitely livable--this morning.  Hopefully we'll have better luck with it.

I'm used to selecting a house, calling the landlord, and signing a lease.  We are babes in the woods in Hawaii.  Every house showing we go to has other potential renters prowling around, snapping photographs.  We're really hoping to buy next year.  I wonder if the housing market is as competitive.

On the plus side, we live here now

Sour Grapes

I remember my last day of middle school.  Middle school was without a doubt the most miserable period of my life.  Nonetheless, there I was on my last day, crying because I could never be in middle school again.  I can't tell you how many times I have wished that I was one of those teenage kids with adult wisdom who narrate books.

I tend to make things look rosy right before they were over.  I thought about how much I loved Charlotte--which I did--before we left.  We have had a wonderful time here, and every time I go onto Craigslist to look at rental shoeboxes in our price range, I am afraid that we are making a mistake.  So I am glad that my mind is not doing its whitewashing thing right now.

It's actually quite the opposite.  I had an outing with my staff in which I was the only foreigner, and I was glad it would be the last time I was part of some Korean social ritual with its nerve-wracking mile long list of rules (several of which I am already breaking by being the boss, yet female and relatively young).  My staff and most Koreans are very polite, and will not tell me when I commit some faux pas, but nonetheless I feel like I always have to be on my guard.  Look what happened to Bill Gates. Today we were at the park, and yet another Korean grandmother tried to explain to me why it was bad for me to let my son play in the dirt, and I almost unloaded on her.  Daegu has very little free entertainment to offer parents of young children, and there certainly aren't parks with playground equipment.  Xander has to make do with exercise equipment, a stone ampitheater, a gazebo, and a basketball court, and I think he does so rather nicely.

We have really enjoyed our time here, and I'm sure we'll look back upon it fondly.  However, I'm not ready to start thinking about how easy things are here when we're making this leap of faith to Hawaii.  I'll take the sour grapes.

In other news, we saw a lantern festival last weekend.  X grooved to the Korean drums and generally had a blast.  A dear friend who loved Hawaii assures me that there are lantern festivals there, too.

X makes dirt piles on the basketball hoop

Downtown on Children's Day

Lanterns with Jin!

Lanterns floating into the air

Grooving to Korean drums while holding his own lantern

What Your Librarian (or Library Staffer) Wishes You Knew

1. Everyone has overdues.  Overdue items are not a huge deal.  Most library staff member have them, and we visit the library every day.  We do not write the "nasty emails" that remind you of your overdue items, and trust me, we are not looking down on you.  If you owe overdue fees, think of them as a nominal fee for an excellent service. (If you have more than a few overdues, you can usually talk someone into bringing them down to a reasonable level as long as you don't act like a jerk.)

2. Library items undergo normal wear and tear.  It's a sad fact of their library lives.  If you return a book with the spine tearing away from the pages or a DVD that won't play any more, we will not hold you liable.  Please don't refuse to return it and lose your library privileges because you think we are that unreasonable.

3. Circulation has a margin of error.  If you use the library regularly, eventually you will return an item that does not get checked in.  Don't panic.  Tell us, and we will search the shelves for it.  If you are not a jerk, we will give you credit for returning it even if we can't find it.

4. We do not judge your reading habits.  Don't mistake us for English teachers.  We do not think that you should only read wholesome literature.  We enjoy a good bodice ripper, young adult novel, culinary mystery, or horror story, or we at least have several beloved patrons who do.  I promise I'm not smirking at your bag of Nora Roberts novels.  As a caveat, if you say something like, "I don't read young adult novels, I'm not twelve," I am judging you for the book snob that you are.

5. We are a nonprofit institution.  No one is buying a Mercedes with your overdue fines.

6. It's pronounced "library".  It is not a berry.

I guess you can shelve most of these under "don't be a jerk, and don't assume that we're jerks."  Speaking of, I just had a delightful conversation with someone that started with, "Why are you working here?  Couldn't you find something else?"  Happy Friday, everyone.

Thailand

Our frenetic traveling days are over.  Nonetheless, I had planned to do a few cultural things during the week we spent in Phuket.  Alas, it wasn't in the cards.  We spent the entire time in Bangtao, with the exception of one day when we hired a private guide and went to Phang Nga Bay, Kho Panyee fishing village, and a temple whose name I can't remember.

And boy, was it fun.  We are really psyched to be moving to Hawaii now.  Xander loves the beach.  He loves playing in the sand, running into the water, and splashing at the shoreline.  He likes the little treasures that wash up on the sand (sadly, often trash!) and, when the water was calm, floating past where the waves broke.

Phuket is a cheap resort town that was overrun with Europeans, particularly Russians.  Everyone spoke English.  We ate many good meals, most of which were in sight of the ocean.  Xander impressed some people with his mature palate--normally the person ordering a burger and fries was his daddy.  Xander loves rice and most vegetables.  We did most of our shopping on the beach: there were little market stalls everywhere, and people wandered up and down the beach selling things.  We even rode a crazy Thai "taxi"--a motor scooter hooked up to a cart with some seats on it.

Our tour was hectic, but fun.  Phang Nga bay is beautiful.  James Bond island is not as cool as it looks in the pictures and was overrun with tourists.  Kho Panyee, a Muslim fishing village, was interesting to see.  The entire village, which includes a school, mosque, and hospital, floats on the water.  We bought banana pancakes from a stall there--Xander was a fan.  He also liked all of the cats.  Muslims are definitely cat people.  We had lunch at a fantastic floating restaurant with several pet birds, and afterwards Xander snoozed while Bobby and I checked out a temple that was in a huge cave.  I have almost no pictures of it because, as we know by now, you are not permitted to take pictures of the Buddha.

Saturday was Songkran, and we got to see a parade in the morning.  Shortly afterwards, our beach chair lady (who we visited every day) showed up with a little girl, who played in the sand with Xander.  They painted his face with some cream and shot him with a water gun.  He was not thrilled about the water gun, but he was curious enough to wander back into the line of fire a few times.  He ate several little buns with sausages  in them that our beach chair lady proffered.  Later, we went out for lunch and were all shot with water guns.  Xander, popular as he is, took most of the fire.  He was okay with it as long as the water wasn't too cold and didn't hit his face.  Apparently it's a cleansing ritual.

It was a relaxing trip, and we were sorry to leave, particularly since it meant plunging back into the hectic process of moving to another country.

A restaurant next to our hotel

Eating sand

Our breakfast area.  Most of the restaurants didn't have walls.

A shrine.  Every building had one in the hopes that spirits will chose to live here instead of in the house.

Our ride on the scooter thing

At a beach restaurant

On a longtail boat

James Bond rock

the temple

Sander

Woohoo! I'm in my clothes!

Songkran cream on his face

Stuffs a bun into his mouth while his Thai girlfriend plays with his toy.

On a swing at a viewpoint.

At another restaurant.  There was no indoor seating anywhere!

Bangtao beach

From James Bond island

Lunch at a floating restaurant

The beach chair lady gave me a cake!

He's packing for Songkran

Kho Panyee

Another shot of Bangtao Beach

The Next Chapter

Hello, poor neglected blog.  It's been a busy April.  The big news is that we're leaving Korea.  I accepted a position at Marine Corps Base Hawaii.  Our time here has been memorable, to say the least, and I'm sad to go, but oh, so excited to move to Hawaii.

In other news, we just got back from Thailand!  Pictures and summary to follow.

Baby beach bum prepares for life in Hawaii