Traveling Overseas with FurBabies

OCONUS with Pets

Well, the easiest thing to do is...not bring your pets to Korea

But if you're like me, this is unimaginable! Our puppies are part of our family and we couldn't imagine not having them with us for 2 years! My husband's first question about volunteering for Korea...can I take my wife? Question number 2...can I take my dogs?

At least his priorities are in order ;)

First - pets coming to Korea need to have extra tests and vaccinations done before they can enter the country. These include a rabies check called FAVN. It is a little pricey, but will verify that your pet does not have rabies. Korea is a rabies-free country, so they are very careful not to let any pets in without the proper documentation. Always check with your closest military veterinarian to ensure you have all the correct documentation. Get started on this as soon as you find out you're going as the tests take a little while to get the results back! Oh and I suggest getting your dogs the Bordetella shot because they will most likely be kenneled at some point in transition and this protects them from kennel cough.

Pets are required to have a health check done and receive a health certificate from your vet within 10 days of flying into Korea - and remember Korea is actually a day ahead of the States so don't cut this too close!

We did everything as early as possible: got their checks done, got all their shots done, and set their health check appointments...then the Army threw me a curve ball. They scheduled training for the veterinarian staff the week before we flew out (Tuesday-Thursday), Friday was a DONSA (closed), Monday was Martin Luther King, Jr. Day (closed) and we flew out Tuesday. So I literally had one day available. I get there and I needed to have a copy of our military orders to get the health certificate processed. Ahhh!! 

The Army's policy is that they will reschedule your appointment if you are more than 10 minutes late. Well, I was there a little early, but not early enough to drive all the way home and back before that 10-minutes-late mark. You might think...well your husband could just run it up there...but no, the packers were do to show up any minute to pack up our unaccompanied baggage.

Oh and did I mention, his car had a flat tire!

Thankfully, we had an amazing neighbor Jen, who brought the orders up to the clinic for me.

Ok, crisis averted.

Delta airlines has told us the dogs must be checked in at the airport in Nashville at 4:30 am (central time). We were coming from the Lexington area in Kentucky where we stayed with my family over the weekend, so 3 hour drive....yeah it was an early morning.

Everyone warns you about heat restrictions on flying dogs in the summer months, but no one warns you about restrictions on cold weather. It must be at least 10 degrees Fahrenheit at each stop in the route for the dogs to be able to fly.  Our flight route went from Nashville, TN to Detroit, MI and then on to Incheon International Airport in South Korea. Well, Detroit's temperatures were hovering around 6-8 degrees. It was supposed to get warm enough by the time we arrive, but according to airline policy, the temperature must already be at least 10 degrees before they will check them in and fly them from the first location.

All this to say, I am freaking out at the airport at 7am, thinking they are not going to fly my puppies today. And this is a big deal, because it would cost around $1600 to fly our two dogs unaccompanied. That is some serious coin. 

We spent a lot of time waiting to find out what the airlines would decide.

 The dogs were very uneasy about the whole thing. Gizmo started barking and grumbling at anyone who got too close. He caught several people by surprise being up higher...he would remain super quiet until they got right next to his kennel.  He especially didn't like anyone messing with Ellie's kennel. They did not like being in separate kennels. They have stayed in the same kennel with very few exceptions since they were puppies.

Praise the Lord! The temperature rose enough at the last minute and they took the dogs.
My parent's planned to take the dogs back home with them if the temperatures didn't rise. Then I could fly round trip and bring the dogs in a month or so since the price of a ticket was about the cost of them flying separate. 

We clearly labeled everything on the dogs' crates, but apparently they misunderstood. The dogs arrived at Incheon International Airport and had not received any food for about 24 hours. They had received plenty of water, so they seemed tolerably well.

Thankfully, there is no quarantine time! So we fed the dogs a light meal - didn't want to give them too much since they'd barely had anything. We walked them and waited for our bus to USAG Yongsan (the Army post located in the midst of Seoul, Korea).

Neither dog messed in their kennel, so we were saved a lot of headache cleaning their kennels. We kept the 2 free blankets and picked up 2 extras from our flight to use in case their bedding needed changing. Thankfully, the extra blankets were not needed.

So, the bus arrives, we have to load out stuff.
And then the driver tells us the dogs have to ride under the bus.
It is a greyhound-like bus with closed storage underneath that is not climate controlled of course.
I was not happy about it, but what was I supposed to do?
We were required to ride this bus to post and it was already 9pm, so we really didn't have time to be picky.

One hour later we arrive at Dragon Hill Lodge and are taken down to the basement where our dogs will be kept until they can be moved to the kennel on post.

This is the security room in the basement where employees sign in for work each day...lots of traffic. Through those doors is where the puppies were held.

This is a loading bay that is sometime open and sometimes closed. We had to cover the crates with blankets to keep the dogs warm. Not an ideal situation. But it sufficed until we figured out whether we'd be staying at Yongsan or heading on to Camp Humphreys after a night or two. 

Here's the little doorway (that is always open) that leads to the door where the dogs are kept. We went in and out freely to take the dogs out for a walk and to feed them. Of course the hotel claimed no liability if something happened to the dogs while staying there. That made me super nervous. I prayed and realized that God is way bigger than anything that might happen to my dogs and He already knows what's going to happen.
I really gotta work on not worrying so much...

Anyway, the security staff was nice enough to share their water with us for the dogs and overall the situation worked out fine. The dogs started to get a little anxious after about 36 hours staying here. Thankfully, we found out how long we were staying at Yongsan and were able to move them to the kennel on post - which was a decent walk from the Dragon Hill Lodge, but the day was very pleasant.

I just hope they forgive us for all this trauma once we get settled!

First Trip off post to Itaewon

Itaewon in Seoul, Korea

We are staying at the Dragon Hill Lodge (DHL) at U.S. Army Garrison Yongsan. 

We've been here in Seoul for a few days, getting settled in and my husband attending meetings most of the day. 

Today we decided was the day to venture off post for the first time!

Friends suggested we try out Itaewon for our first excursion, as it caters to Americans a lot and is an easy way to get your feet wet in Korea. It took us about 15 minutes to walk from the DHL to Itaewon shopping district. We left the hotel and turned right on 8th Army Drive. (There is a sidewalk that veers off to the right where pedestrians are designated to walk instead of in the road.) Following this sidewalk, we walked out through gate 1, which has a pedestrian check-in.

Apparently, we're still working on spell-check on post! Haha We passed this sign heading out.

Once out the gate, we walked down to the corner and turned right. We'd gotten a little flyer from DHL that told us which way to go ;) We walked until we saw the blue arch at the entrance to Itaewon.

Great sidewalks, walking down to Itaewon was so easy!

Bike racks

Blue arch that marks the beginning of Itaewon shopping district.

There are definitely a lot of American shops here as well, including Nike, The North Face, Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts, Subway, McDonalds, and 7eleven. My husband's favorite place we saw was Skin Food! It seemed to be a skincare products store. There were so many alleys and underground shopping areas, you could easily get lost.  Since we weren't really planning to buy anything on our first trip out, we made sure we could always make it back to the main street. 

There were tons of little shop stalls all in the same building...lots of different shop owners. As you can see, there's hardly anyone there since it's still before 11 am and most people aren't out that "early."

 

The streets here wind around all over the place. It would be so easy to get lost. We just kept going back to the main street before we could get too turned around. I'm sure there are a lot of hidden treasures around here!

This little old lady had such an amazingly large umbrella, I couldn't help but take her picture!

Finally, we started to get pretty hungry. Of course we wanted Korean food for our first trip out.

We couldn't seem to find any Korean restaurants that were open yet! We definitely found the Turkish district! There were at least 20 Turkish places! There was also Egyptian, Lebanese, Indian, Japanese, Mexican, Brazilian, Thai, and Vietnamese. There was one place labeled "Korean Muslim Restaurant" and a lot of places with "Halal" signs meaning they were Turkish places.

Well, we were really getting hungry once we finally made it out of the Turkish district.

We wandered further down the main street in Itaewon and I noticed the sign below off in an alley to the left. We just read Korean Restaurant and decided to investigate. We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into.

 

Yeah this is the alley we walked down...no idea what any of this says.

 

Well, we see the shoes on the floor of the entry and know we'll have to take our shoes off if we go there. Thankfully, we'd been warned about this custom in the Culture Brief the Army provided a couple days before.  There are several reasons Koreans take off their shoes when entering the house, or in this case the restaurant. First, because it's easier to keep things clean. Second, because it's a tradition. Third, they have heated floors a lot, so it's warmer to take your shoes off.  Electricity is very expensive here and warm air rises, so heated floors are a very economical way to keep rooms warm.

 

 Haha we just opened the door and asked if they spoke any English...they said "open" and "chicken soup"! We said ok! We were pretty hungry by then and this sounded like a grand idea.

The proprietress is a middle-aged woman and her husband (we guessed) was also there. They smiled a lot and we smiled a lot and they took us to a room with a Western style table (normal height) instead of the short tables they also had. We were in a tiny little room with a heater in it, which was great since it was rainy and chilly today!

The menu was posted on the wall...we can't read ANY Korean yet. You see that picture of a whole chicken in a pot?   Yeah after some tea (ginger...maybe), that's what we ate for lunch along with kimchi sides in little dishes. 

The tea was warm at least! Not much flavor...no idea what's in it. It seemed like maybe grated ginger and a few other spices.

Lunch was served with a little towelette before eating and metal chopsticks and spoons for silverware. Husband really wanted a fork!

Whole chicken...in bowls of bubbling boiling water.

Chickens were stuffed with rice, corn, seeds, green onions and bean sprouts. There were also dates and other unknown items in the soup.

No idea what this was, but it was hot!

All in all, it was great!! The chicken was very tender. The people were very nice. We heard other Koreans come in and eat while we were there, so it seemed to be a good place. It cost us 20,000 won or about $20. The experience was great!

On our way out, we noticed they had little porches you could eat on when the weather is nicer!

 

Not too long after this, we stopped at a coffee shop to have a little something sweet. Husband wasn't too full from lunch ;) We ate a lot and tried everything, but there's only so much chicken on the tiny bird we got.  We avoided Starbucks, but still got a coffee shop with someone who let us order in English ;)

Behind husband is a great little glassed-in porch where you could sit (and some people smoked). We were cold already :)

They had free Wifi there! Korea has the best internet in the world! We are quickly coming to believe that! Most places we've gone have a ton of wireless networks available. Everyone in the coffee shop was using some kind of electronic device. I believe Korea will be a great place to get electronics!

Well, a friend suggested we try Paris Baguette Cafe so we went there next.

The pastries were so beautiful and yummy! I had a blueberry bagel twist with honey almond cream cheese inside. Husband had a donut twist. The labels were in English too so that helped a lot!

Last thing we noticed was all the inlays in the sidewalk for each country with the word for "hello" in each language. We stumbled across this one for the U.S.A. as we walked back.

All in all, it was a wonderful first experience!!

(And I bought a 4,000 won ($4) clear umbrella along the way!)

What to do with all our Stuff!

What to do with all our stuff!

We had 3 different shipments - non-temporary storage (NTS), household goods (HHG) and unaccompanied baggage (UB). 

Storage will be held near Fort Campbell for the next two years. The Army will ship these things to our next PCS location when returning to the States from Korea. UB will be packed on a pallet and flown to Korea. It should arrive in about 2-3 weeks, but it could take up to 8 weeks. HHG can take up to 8 weeks. It will be packed and shipped across the Pacific by boat. 

 Things like my antique china cabinet and our movie cases we put in storage. Storage and space are always in short supply in Korea because of the huge population compared to the size of the country. The country is about the size of Indiana.

We decided not to ship a vehicle to Korea since it takes about 6 weeks for your vehicle to arrive, 6 weeks to return to the States and the public transportation is great in Korea....once you figure it out of course ;)  One other thought - driving in Korea is an adventure in itself and vehicles will often come back to the States with more dings than they went with. All in all, we decided it wasn't worth it for use and we sold both of our vehicles. A word to the wise...keep in mind you'll probably want to buy vehicles again when returning to the States so save those dollars!

Hoopties - older, well-used vehicles.

This is our planned mode of transport when we can't use public transportation. We will buy an inexpensive vehicle to use while in Korea and sell it before we leave. Maybe I'll even get a moped! They seem pretty popular here. But I'm not sure I'll venture off post much to drive myself. At least at first, I'll use public transportation instead of driving myself until I learn my way a little more.

Background - moving to Korea

Well, I've been threatened within an inch of my life by my mother to post more often so she can keep up with me now that my husband and I have moved to South Korea.

Let me give you a little background first.

My husband called me back in October and asked me what I thought about being stationed in Korea. It was too bizarre a thought for me to process right then...so I said we'd talk about it when he got home in the evening. Well...he came home randomly in the afternoon and started talking up Korea. It was then I asked him if he only came home early to talk me into saying yes to being stationed in Korea. He's wanted to be stationed in Korea for some time and now he finally could make it happen.

I was skeptical and terrified and totally unsure about volunteering to move somewhere so foreign to anything I've experienced. I've always loved Latin American countries. I've always wanted to go to Europe. But Korea?! Wow, that was a strange thought. I had no trouble with adjusting if the Army assigned us to Korea, but VOLUNTEERING! I didn't know what to think about that...

After praying a lot about it and listening to my husband's enthusiasm and hearing his heart crying out to pursue this adventure...I realized that supporting my husband's dreams and listening to his heart matters so much more to me than staying in my comfort zone. That doesn't mean I could adjust to the idea of going to Korea in one day though! So God showed me that I'd get there eventually with accepting it in my heart, so I told my husband..."If you believe this is the right thing for us to do, make the decision and I'll support it...I'll get there eventually." 

And within 3 months...we're in Korea!!