爱aiKina

After a pretty tough summer filled with pondering and replanning, we ended up in Korea. The plans to move to the USA was chrushed after a to me weird migration-system, where the ones who will and will not get the work visa is decided by lottery. We weren't lucky enough, Issac didn't get the visa he needed to stay there. But getting a visa to move to one's partner in Sweden takes 11 months according to the Swedish migration boards webpage. Eleven months!! We are only hoping it might be faster for us. The problem is the military service in Korea which Issac hasn't done yet, and does not want to do. He can only stay in Korea for two months before they will call him in, so by end of September/beginning of October we will move on to next country.

 

Well, that was just an introduction to our current situation. Now, to my experience of Korea so far. I arrived last Friday in the afternoon in Incheon - the international airport of Korea. It is actually an artificial island made for the single purpose of being used as the one big airport in and out of Korea. There Issac and his parents met me, and the parents sure are sweet and nice! They gave me a warm welcome and have been treating me very kindly. I feel blessed having them as my (soon to be) parents-in-law. Although they don't know much English, and my Korean is very limited, we are able to communicate. Mostly with the help of Issac as an translator of course.

 

 

On the first night we ate dinner in Incheon, and as it is famous for sea food, we ate shrimp and fish. The restaurant we ate in was a typical Korean out-door restaurant. A big tent and under the tent plastic tables and stools are placed, and each table has one or two grills on it. So the idea is to buy the seafood fresh directly at the spot and then grill it yourself on the table. And fresh it was, in fact it couldn't get any fresher because the shrimps came in a pot with salt on it and placed on the grill - when the shrimps was STILL ALIVE. The salt already must have been hurtful, and being grilled alive, popping around in the pot like pop-corn. It could have made almost anyone go vegetarian (at least for the night) right on the spot if it wasn't the very first dinner with the parents-in-law. Once cooked however, if one ignored the fact how they just was tortured to death, they did taste good. Shrimps was also ordered in to be eaten raw, but when they too came in a bucket ALIVE, and we were supposed to picked them up and well....eat them as they moved, my fiance said stop and sent it back. That was just too much, even for a Korean like himself. He ordered grilled fish instead, that this time came already dead and grilled, so we only needed to warm it up on our own grill.

 

After a two hour drive we came to the small town Chungju, which is where the parents live in. It's located almost in the middle of Korea, further south than the main capital Seoul. Here is some pictures of the house they live in and the surrounding area.

They live on the upper floor, on the first floor the land lord lives.