S and I have been in Seoul, South Korea for about a month now. We are 14 hours ahead of our friends and family at home who are in the Central Standard Time zone. We like to think we are “living in the future.” Somehow, we have managed to be able to keep in touch with family and friends either when we wake up or before we go to bed.

With the time difference being said, our plane arrived around 4am Korean time so around 3 in the afternoon at home. S and I were wide-awake and ready to go. The international scout who recruited S, picked us up and took us to eat the best pancakes ever. Afterwards, S had a busy day so I started to unpack. The next thing I knew I literally couldn’t keep my head up any longer and passed out. Which was weird since I had just slept pretty much the entire flight. S comes back home and we eat lunch then he has to leave again. Once again, I couldn’t hold my head up anymore and went back to sleep. For the first week, we found ourselves going to bed at 8pm and waking up at 6am. It took us about a week and a half to adjust to the time change. Also, I got a stomach bug the first week that made me very tired. S caught the bug from me. Searching for medicine here is not fun. For obvious reasons, I cannot read anything, and I started to get frustrated. We have a man at the bottom of our apartment that speaks English and offered to walk me to pharmacy and translate. I was so thankful for his kindness.

I finally got to feeling better and my stomach adjusted to the time change and foods here. I was so excited to find that Smoothie King is right beside our apartment so needless to say I live off of smoothies; it reminds me of home.

I went to S’s first start here in Korea and the stadium was so nice. It was actually a dome.

 

When we ate lunch the next day after his start, I ordered a seafood pasta. I found that it’s not the New Orleans/Mississippi seafood pasta, it had many different surprises in it for me. There were baby octopus’ and at the bottom a full on crab.

So, the song “Gangnam Style” is about the area in Seoul we are living in which is called Gangnam. I will tell you one thing, if I walk out of my apartment in sweats and no makeup I feel very out of place. These people know their style and love their brands. A typical day of brands in Gangnam are Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Prada, Saint Laurent, Tory Burch and Christian Louboutin. The cars driven in this area are high end too; Samsung has a car in Korea (fun fact).

The malls are here are so nice and huge. We went to the Lotte Mall, and it felt like Christmas when you walked in.

S and I found a neat little park not far from our apartment with greenery. I just wanted to go somewhere that had green plants and grass.

 

I have made a Korean friend here that is a fan of the LG Twins, and she speaks Korean, English and Spanish. It has been great to have a friend who can translate things for me and helps me in this new adventure. She has been so kind to making sure my time here in the Korean culture is an eventful one. I also found an English speaking church by our apartment which has been awesome. The pastor is Korean but moved to the states when he was 2 so he doesn’t even speak Korean. Being at church, I was fighting back tears as I realized that people from all over the world (different nationalities and ethnicities) were all in one place praising the one thing that remains the same and that is Jesus. During the service, the pastor asked us to get in groups of 3 or 4 and share a prayer request with the group and pray silently for each other. I found this so moving because it makes you open up and be vulnerable. It allows you to open up your shell and knock down that barrier wall that keeps you from being open to others. Yes, I believe in privacy, but I also believe that God created family and friends for us to tell our burdens too.

We are continuously adjusting to this new culture and adjusting to the baseball side from the states has definitely been a challenge. The fans continuously cheer when their team is batting and they have “cheerleaders.” When S was pitching, it drove me crazy because I was like he needs it to be quiet; it is very entertaining though. Strike zone is smaller here too! Also, this league is more of a hitters league and the games last longer than in the states. In my opinion, MLB is more of a pitchers league with more strikeouts and games don’t last as long. However, we are getting there with prayers and an open mind to new things.

Thanks for reading,

XOXO,

HC