TGBKA: IT'S ELECTRIC (BOOGIE WOOGIE WOOGIE)

As I mentioned earlier in this blog, I spent the last 70 or so days preparing to get to Korea, and spent little to no time preparing to live in Korea. I got passports, shipped a car, endured three different pack outs, packed 15 bags to check on the airplane and 5 bags to carry on, and on and on and on. So when I got to Korea you would think I let out this great big sigh of relief that all of that work was over... right? Wrong.

The first thing I noticed when I got to our new apartment was that I couldn't plug anything in. My Apple Watch was dead (traveling around the world will do that)... I couldn't plug it in. My iPhone was dead... couldn't plug it in. I wanted to fire up the laptop so I could write a few things about my flight... nope. I knew that there was a big difference between the American outlets that I was used to and the Korean ones I was about to live with, but I hadn't done any SpunkyResearch to know what I was truly in for. And to be honest, I'm still kind of confused.

We have little plugs that Sweet Baboo calls "adapters". As far as I know, these little things are simply the middle man between my American plugs and our apartment's Korean outlets. I don't think there is any translation between the power the apartment sends to the device, and the amount of power the device needs. I need to research that.

Cute little guys, right? I remember getting a few of these in some product packages I opened back in the States. Wish I held onto them...

At around 500 won, they aren't terribly expensive... until you look around at how many things you need to plug in!

But then there are these "transformers". No, Optimus Prime isn't living in our apartment (but seriously, how awesome would that be?!). My powers of amazing deduction tell me that these devices do translate the differences in power. But I don't know how. Sweet Baboo keeps tossing around numbers like 220 and 110... he tells me that [this] thing doesn't need the transformer, but {that} thing does. He says that we'll need "a few more transformers" for the things that I have coming in our HHG shipment... but which ones will we need? There's the 1KVA Down Transformers (approximately $30 each), the 2KVA Down Transformers (around $45 each), or the big 3KVA Down Transformers (I think I saw it for $60). But what's the difference between these? I don't know... it's all in Korean! I need to do research on that.

These fellahs aren't terribly small. There is no such thing as decorating when these are involved. They remind me of old Army equipment!

Who wants to translate this for me?

Or this? I'd love to know what the knob means!

But I do know that the bigger the box, the more power they pull. And that costs more money. You see, electricity is billed differently here than in America. The bill literally gets exponentially more expensive based on the amount of electricity used. It's like this: There is a basic fee that you pay based on how much electricity you use. The basic fee goes up in increments of 100kWh of usage.

< 100 kWh            410 won
101 - 200 kWh     910 won
201 - 300 kWh     1,600 won
301 - 400 kWh     3,850 won
401 - 500 kWh     7,300 won
> 500 kWh          12,940 won

That's just the basic fee to use the electricity in that bracket. Everybody pays that basic fee. But the Koreans have devised a way to reward those who work diligently to conserve energy. They tax each bracket, and the taxes stack.

< 100 kWh              61 won
101 - 200 kWh      126 won
201 - 300 kWh      188 won
301 - 400 kWh      281 won
401 - 500 kWh      418 won
> 500 kWh            710 won

So if we had a month of 300kWh, here is how our bill should look (according to my understanding of this system):

  1,600 won: Basic Fee
  6,100 won: (first bracket tax: 100kWh x 61 won)
25,200 won: (second bracket tax: 200kWh x 126 won)
56,400 won: (third bracket tax: 300kWh x 188 won)
------------------------------------------------------------------
89,300 won: (sub total)

That's a subtotal because there are two other taxes that I still haven't figured out. One is a 10% VAT tax, and the other is the 3.7% Electricity Industrial Fund. So let's add those together:

89,300 won: (subtotal)
  8,930 won: (10% VAT)
  3,304 won: (3.7% Electricity Industrial Fund)
----------------------------------------------------------
101,534 won (still a subtotal)

We aren't done paying for electricity yet! That part of our bill will be the portion we have the most control over. I can turn off the lights in my apartment, I can unplug electronics that we don't use often. But there is another portion to our bill that I have no control over. There are two more sections to my bill that I am expected to pay. I will pay fees for the community electricity and the elevator electricity. These are split up equally among everybody in my apartment tower. I don't much mind paying these fees... I do use the elevators, and appreciate that the stairwells are relatively warm and comfortable when I come in from the cold.

I'm sure I'm missing a lot here, but this is what I have figured out. I'm sure my eyes will pop out of my head when I get our first bill. Everybody I have spoken with has agreed: electricity is expensive in Korea. And I should do everything I can to reduce our usage of it if I want to be able to spend our money on anything else. Like food. Which is another blog for another day. (Spoiler alert: Yum!)

TGBKA Day 60: THE SLOW PLANE RIDE TO KOREA (DALLAS FORT WORTH TOINCHEON)

Our flight was delayed by fifteen minutes when we got to the gate. Thank God! Otherwise, we would have had to reenact a scene from one of those romantic movies where the passenger arrives at the gate just moments after the airport employee closes the door to the plane. And we all know (from watching those cheesy romantic movies) that once the doors are shut, there is no reopening them. Can you imagine me running in slow motion to the gate, begging... PLEADING... that they make one exception? Federal laws be damned... I need to make that flight! We didn't need to beg... the flight was delayed.

Standing in line after we realized our flight was delayed. Looks like we're making it to Korea today after all!

I put up a status on Facebook asking my friends to bet on how many of my 15 checked bags would make it to Korea with my flight. The layover was too short, in my opinion, for my bags to get unloaded, transported, and loaded on the flight. Several of my friends agreed. Spoiler alert: ALL 15 BAGS MADE IT! At first, my narcissistic self thought the flight was delayed due to the bags that were still being loaded. But after the third delay notice (we ended up being delayed by a full hour) we were told that there was a chair of some sort that was blocking the aisle in Business Class. Thank God for random chairs in Business Class! The girls and I found a little corner at the gate and did some minor yoga. 

When we finally boarded the flight, we got to our seats and settled in for a long day. We were in a row of 5 seats between the aisles, and the girls and I were in the three center seats. There was a poor soul on either side of us that separated us from the aisle.

Ear plugs on, seat belts buckled, let's get this flight started!

If only she knew what she was so excited for: a whole lot of "no, you can't go run laps up and down the aisles".

I thought about asking the strangers if they wanted to sit in the middle (little bladders and short attention spans meant we would be bothering them a lot) but for whatever reason I didn't. I wish I had done so... I think the strangers slept the entire flight (except for when we woke them for emergency potty breaks), and we didn't really get to our carry on bags to get all of the entertainment and goodies I had thoughtfully packed. I was able to get our iPads the one time I was bold enough to ask the gentleman for help. Sometimes I'm just too polite for my own comfort.

The first thing the girls noticed about this plane was the personal televisions. They buckled their seat belts (safety first!) and started playing with the buttons to figure the thing out. The Elder saw that they offered Minions as one of the movies, and the Wee found Despicable Me 2. I sighed a breath of relief when we saw at least 2 movies that they would enjoy. The Wee's touch screen wasn't very sensitive, so she had to basically pound on it to get it to work. Poor fellah in the seat in front of her. He understood.

We bounced between watching movies and watching the plane's flight path. We talked about the rotation of the Earth, and that we would basically be "chasing the sun" during the whole flight even though we began our flight on Monday morning and would end our flight on Tuesday evening. The girls loved to watch the world move from darkness to light as our flight progressed.

We discussed the International Date Line, and celebrated when we made the jump from Monday to Tuesday without a sunset. We chatted about the different culture we were about to experience; the food would look and taste different, the city would smell different, the people would have different cultural norms. This last discussion was my "oh crap" idea because I was so focused on getting us to Korea that I forgot to prepare the girls for Korea. Every meal we were offered on the flight had an American option and a Korean option. We decided to get adventurous on the flight and try the Korean option every time. One of us had to order the Korean option, and if the other two didn't think it looked good they could go American. But
we all had to try the Korean option. Here's what we ended up with:

Snack. Looks like wine is an international treat. I was very happy to oblige. The girls got apple juice.

Meal #1: American Option. The girls chickened out and got the chicken and rice.

The American chicken and rice was quite tasty. I'll admit: I kind of wished I had ordered it. But I wanted to try the Korean option, and we did make a deal. So I grabbed it, watched the Korean gentleman sitting next to the Elder as he doctored it up for his taste, and followed suit.

I didn't want to share a bite with the girls. It was excellent!

They did try the kimchi, but weren't quite ready for the spice. I was happy to eat it for them!

Meal 2: Noodles and ice cream. Thank goodness for that ice cream! I neglected to read the "spicy" warning on label. We all ordered this, waving off the safe turkey and cheese sandwich. We all regretted that move. Eating this was like licking a campfire.

NAP TIME!

They'll punish me for this one day.

And I'm sure the punishment will be severe!

The iPads were a big success!

We were doing super well until about an hour before we hit the International Date Line. Suddenly, my legs were tingly from lack of movement, my hips ached, my back was tight... and the girls were ready to start bouncing off the walls from inactivity. We woke up our Seat Neighbors and walked to the back of the plane. The girls decided to ask every question known to man to the flight attendants, and I did some stretches. That got us settled down some, and we made our way back to the seats.

The eyes were getting heavy...

...and power naps were had.

We eventually landed. As our plane made it's way to the gate, I coached the girls on what we would do next. We had no layover, but the people around us did. Rather than rushing to get off the plane (and clogging up the system for those who had tight schedules like we had in Texas), we decided to intentionally be the last people off the plane. We took our time, and made sure we didn't leave anything behind. And we meandered our way to Sweet Baboo.

My biggest challenge was just ahead: picking up my 15 checked bags, and carrying it (along with our 5 carry-on bags) through customs with two kids.

ALL OF THE BAGS ARRIVED ON TIME! And my big helpers were amazing.

When we got to customs, one guy did help with one of the carts. That last 30 yards was a beast, and I was more than grateful for the help. But as soon as we went through the doors, the girls saw their daddy, and the customs agent needed to stay in customs, so I was left with three heavy carts and the chaos of greeting an old friend, a new one, and MY SWEET BABOO! Life was good.