wohnzimmer sofa mitten im raum

hey guys welcome to our new home in korea, we've been here for exactly one week now and we finally got internet. i'm sorry for the break in videos, it took a little bit longer than i expected to get internet they were pretty backed up, and we couldn't get an appointment until this morning. but now that we're back i'm making this video to update you guys on what's been going on in the past week of our lives. so exactly one week ago today we left japan! we brought all of our stuff with us. we had so much luggage; it was quite the struggle to carry it all. luckily i had my husband with me so we split it between the two of us. but besides all of our luggage we also had our two cats maro and luna.

they came with us on the plane. they were up in the seats with us, which was really nice. they hate cars. they hate going outside in general, so being on a plane was pretty terrifying for them. they, uhm, they stayed in their cage the whole time underneath the seats in front of us and they were meowing quite a bit at some parts especially like the takeoff and the landing because they were kind of loud and shaky and scary. but other than that they did very well. they were too scared to eat any snacks or anything while we were flying. they didn't pee in their cage or anything so that was great. overall, i think it went a little better than i was expecting, so that's good. when we arrived in korea, uhm, my husband and i split up because he has a korean passport so he goes through immigration

on the korean side and i have to go over to the foreigner side. and the line was so long and i had the cats with me. and i was standing there in line waiting to go through immigration with the cats for probably, like, i want to say at least an hour and a half. that was probably worse than the flight itself. it was just so painful the cats were getting— the cats were getting so pissed off about being in the cage for so long at that point it had been, i guess... god it must have been almost 12 hours that they had been in their cage at that point so they were starting to get pretty angry. and they were scratching and trying to bite their way through the cage.

uh, getting through immigration was easy that once i got up to the desk. it was a breeze and we went to get our luggage and we took a taxi to our new home! but the next three nights were a little tough. so, we used an international shipping company to ship all our our big things from japan to here. so the stuff we wanted to keep that was too big or too heavy for us to carry on the plane with us: so, like, our mattress. my koala mattress that i can't live without now! uhm, what other kind of things did we ship? like my makeup fridge...

some, like, exercise equipment... dishes. stuff like that. some heavy food stuff like grains and stuff like that. my plushies. i brought a couple of my plushies. i sent most of them back to canada for my parents to keep in their attic. uhm, but i did bring my giant pokã©mon plushies because it would just be sad without them. but when we got here our stuff hadn't arrived yet. what i didn't realize is that it has to go through a whole customs process once it arrives in korea. and they won't start that process until you are in the country and you can fill out a form and fax it to them and say you've arrived and you can prove that you're at the address that you said you would be at.

and, like, it was way more complicated than i had expected. so we arrived, and we sent in those forms, and we had to wait four days to get our stuff. so that meant four days without any blankets or mattress or anything. luckily we had this one cat pillow in our luggage that i used to sleep on. my husband used a scarf, i think, as a pillow. and all we did was sleep on like a towel on the floor. i'll put a picture here, but this was my bed for three nights. it was hell. it was so uncomfortable. i've never been so happy to sleep on a mattress the night this arrived was just like the best sleep of my life. that's how our first four days went.

he got a cell phone set up really quickly which was great, but because i'm a foreigner i need to have my foreigner id card before i can do anything. like get a cell phone or sign up for a bank account or any of that important stuff. and, unfortunately, immigration is so crowded that you need to make an appointment there and the quickest appointment i could get was like the middle of march. so i can't get my foreigner id until the middle of march so until then i'm stuck without a cell phone. but i did order like a travel sim card so that i can use my phone a bit for now so that's okay. but he did get a phone set up quite quickly, so we used his phone to order some other things like blankets. we've got a fridge. we got an air purifier.

one of the crappy things about korea is that the air is quite polluted. not always, but it's on and off and some days are so bad that you like shouldn't even go outside because it's really unhealthy to breathe it. so we got an air purifier so that the air inside our house at least will be very nice all the time, and that's where i spend most of my time anyway. so i think i'll be okay. the washing machine that we have in our house is the drum kind like the ones where you open the door, like, sideways and you put the clothes in. and then you can see it spinning. and the cats had never seen one of those before. so as soon as we turned it on they were just enthralled by the washing machine. and maro sat in front of it for

exactly an hour and a half, because that's how long the cycle was... staring at it and just watching it wash the clothes. it was so funny. i've never seen him stay in one place and watch something for so long. so the cats are enjoying the little differences of the new house. they're kind of scared because you can hear lots of voices like outside and you can kind of hear the neighbors' voices as well. they're not super loud, but even, like, the quietest little voice kind of freaks out the cats. because our previous house, you couldn't hear anything. like we were out in the middle of nowhere. we had one set of neighbors, but you could never hear them, and there was no one outside. so that's kind of new for them, and i think they're scared that those voices are people that are gonna come into the house.

and they're quite nervous around other people, but they've slowly been getting used to that over the week. so, i think they'll—they'll settle in soon. probably a little quicker once we get the furniture all set up and like our house organised 'cause it's kind of like... there's stuff everywhere. they ordered a computer desk that we're still waiting for. a sofa, a tv stand, stuff like that. and we're still waiting for a couple pieces of the furniture to arrive. most of it has arrived now and our house is starting to take shape. it's starting to look like what i had imagined. i'm really happy with it. i can't wait to give you guys a tour. i think it'll be done, probably, this week. i want to say everything will be set up, so i should have a video up for you relatively soon giving you a little tour of the place. i really like it. at first

i was really worried because this place is quite a bit smaller than our place in japan. most of you guys know that we lived out in the countryside in japan and that means really cheap rent. so we had quite a spacious house for the two of us in japan and our place now i want to say is about half the size of that, because we're living right in downtown seoul. we pay about the same price that we did in japan. but, yeah, countryside versus downtown city... the price is quite different, so we have about half the size of a place now. and i was kind of worried that it was gonna be a little too cramped. but i actually am liking it better now that i'm getting the furniture set up and everything's coming together. i kind of feel that it's a lot easier to decorate.

and my house in japan like we'd put in a few pieces of furniture and then it would just feel like it was missing something, because there was so much space left over. but because the space is so limited here there's really just enough space like in the living room for a sofa, a table, and a tv. so it's not too much to think about, it's pretty straightforward. and, yeah. i think it looks really good and i feel comfortable here. i feel like there's enough space for all of us. so what else has been going on really? that's all we've been doing is trying to get the house prepared, because he's gonna start work soon and once he goes to work

i'll be stuck on my own without any knowledge of how to order things in korea. or, like, talk to the delivery guys or anything like that. so i'm trying to get all that kind of stuff done while my husband's here, uhm, before he starts work. we've also been like exploring around our neighborhood trying to see what kind of things are around here. i found a couple things that i'm super excited about, well, one thing i knew was here as a gym. there's a gym like a couple—like a block away from us. there's actually two; i found another one up the road the other day. i'm really excited about that because back in japan we couldn't join the gym because we have tattoos. and all the gyms around our house wouldn't allow anyone with tattoos in them.

so i've never been able to join a gym in japan. i really really missed going to the gym, so, super excited about that. we also have an organic supermarket near our house, which i wasn't expecting. because those were really, like, nonexistent in japan. and to have one just like two minutes walk from our house is really cool. so we've got that...we've got like this little street market where people are selling local veggies, street foods, clothing— lots of really really cheap stuff.

so my first impressions of living in korea is that it's gonna be a lot more affordable than it was back in japan. so that's cool! i'm excited about that. as for language i really have no idea what's going on here. when people talk to me i can kind of pick up words here and there and understand what they're saying, but as for responding back... not so much. so once things quiet down here i'm going to break out the books that megan gave me—she gave me this really nice set of korean study books—and i'm gonna study a little bit every day. and then i'm gonna try and apply that practically when i go outside and try and do some shopping in korean. and

ordering food. and my korean friends are super sweet and said they would help me with my korean as well. so i'm really hoping that i can pick up the language quickly this year. i'm usually pretty good at languages, so i think once i put some real effort into it i'll be able to handle korean, so. pray for me. also, i need to add that the people here have been so nice and so understanding that i don't speak korean. and whenever i try to say something, like i'm ordering food at a restaurant or something, and i know i'm saying it wrong because my pronunciation is horrible, they always smile they think it's so cute that i'm trying. and i love that, it's so encouraging. but like for example our,

uhm, real-estate agent. we go to her quite a bit when we have any problems with the house or like something we need help with we'll go to her office just down the road. and every time i go in there she offers me like, bread, and she goes to the bakery and she brings me back some bread or some tea that she bought at the store. or some fresh fruit that she picked up and every time i go in there she has a present for me, and i just think it's so cute. she's always asking me like, "oh, what are you guys doing today? where are you going?" "are you liking korea?". and she's just so friendly i just get like a really, like, genuine friendly vibe from everyone and i really like that. i feel like businesses in japan are very

business-like. that's not a bad thing, it's just different. i'm kind of used to the culture in canada where people are very casual. like when you go into a store they'll start chatting you up. like, "oh, what's going on?" "what are you up to today?" and it seems to kind of be like that in korea, too. and i really like that 'cause i kind of miss just, like, chatting with strangers. so, that's one thing that's new for me that i'm really enjoying. the food has been amazing. i'm pretty sure i've eaten my weight in japchae already, and i will probably do the same next week. it's one of my favorite korean foods. i think that is gonna be the first food that i learn how to cook here. so would you guys be interested in, like,

korean cooking adventure videos with me? i definitely want to learn how to cook stuff here because the ingredients are so easy to get now. i can get korean food anywhere. and i'm really, really excited to learn how to cook it because i love korean food. so let me know if you would be interested in korean cooking videos. i can't promise that i will do well, but if you like watching that kind of thing let me know. the plans for next week are to go out and visit my friends now that our house is almost ready. once i've got it all set up i can finally leave the house and start doing things and seeing people and vlogging. and i'm really, really excited to share all of that with you guys. almost everything is brand new to me here.

i've been to korea several times, but it's never been for a very long period of time so we kind of just did like the standard. shopping in myeongdong, or, like, visiting insa-dong or like those really like popular touristy places. but now that we're settled down here i can't wait to explore more of like the countryside outside of seoul and, uhm, just go to places that i've never been before. and, ahhh, i can't wait to show you guys. i'm so excited about it. for those of you that are sad and you're gonna miss my japan videos, i've got some good news. i've got a couple japan videos that are gonna be up very soon over on my japan channel. so make sure you stay subbed over there, so you'll get notifications for those. and also i'm going to be

coming to japan quite often, i think. at least several times a year, so i will still definitely have japan videos. they won't be as common as they were before 'cause i'm not going to be living there. but i will still definitely have some videos about japan for you. and i really hope that you'll enjoy the korea videos just as much, even if you're someone whose really interested in japanese culture, and you don't have much interest in korean culture. hopefully i can spark some interest in you and hopefully you really enjoy watching the content here as well. that's what i'm hoping for. alright, guys. i guess that is it for the update. i will see you soon with regular vlogs like always. i can't wait to be back. ooh, i have a, uhm,

mail opening video coming soon that i filmed, uh, the day before i left japan. so if you sent me something it's most likely in that video which will be up soon. so keep an eye out for that, and i guess that's it. i'll see you guys soon. thanks for watching! bye!

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