The flight and first few days

I won't go into detail on our experience at the Seattle airport because it was less than pleasant.  There was some miscommunication about the weight requirement for the dog and that caused a bit of anxiety at the check in counter.  But we all (including Bear) made it on the plane and safely to Korea.  What can I say about the flight?  Well, it's long.  The flight was about 12 hours.  We were fed twice, one Western meal and one Korean meal.  All of the food was good but I certainly wasn't prepared for the pepper paste!  The flight attendants are the absolute nicest.  And impeccably dressed.  We all watched a ton of movies.  Lucas even told us when he needed to use the potty!  I'd say that makes for a very successful flight.

A word of caution: Korea is not a large-dog friendly country.  Poor, poor Bear had to ride in the cargo area of a bus to the hotel on post.  It was about an hour long drive.  By the end of that he had a huge gash on his nose from getting thrown around under the bus.  When we got to the hotel we found out it's a No Dogs Allowed hotel.  So they kept Bear in the loading area.  This is the bitter part of our trip.  Had we known how traumatizing this initial experience was going to be we would have sent him over after we had a house.

Adam did some of his initial in-processing at Yongsan and after two days there, we got on another bus (well, Bear got under it) for a four hour ride down to Camp Carroll, where, you guessed it!  The hotel isn't exactly dog friendly.  They had two pet rooms and we could only have one for five days.  Luckily we were able to get a house on post right away and were able to check out just in time.

BIG.

First impressions: Everything is BIG.  The apartment buildings are huge.  The stores are huge, not spread out like in the States but up.  Over 70% of Korea is mountainous so space is at a premium.  The country is beautiful.  There are a lot of trees and greenery.

Green!  The view from the Dragon Hill Hotel

Big and green.

On the ride to the first hotel from the airport, just when I thought I'd reached my limit for emotional exhaustion, Lucas reminded me to slow down.  He said, "Oh, no!  It's getting dark.  How will I see how cool Korea is when it's dark?"  Slow down.  Enjoy this experience.  Bless his heart.