Preparing for Korea

(Photo not by me)

Housing at the Hump
We will most likely be living off post. Which is fine with me. I think that will allow for us to experience Korea more. I have found a few places from the list that his command has sent us that I like. So hopefully they are located close to post & have a bus stop really close for the kids.
We will be placed on the housing list but it will probably be a year before we actually get offered a post house. I have been told they are about to open a bunch of new housing towers on post so who knows, we may get one. :)
I will prepare for living off post though. I think we could have the possibility of getting a place a little larger for our money. We shall see!


Command Sponsorship came Through!
06-21-12
We got the official today! Whoo hoo! Took us 17 days once Korea received our paperwork to get our approval. It pays to constantly call & check with those in the gaining unit to find out what is going on.

I am so excited! Now we can get this show on the road & start preparing for the BIG move! Gotta get the house packed & placed in storage. Need to buy some luggage. Need to prepare to ship the dog to Ohio to live with Hope. Need to donate lots of stuff to Goodwill. Need to sell lots of stuff to help pay for all these things we need! LOL! We are going to Camp Humphreys by the way!


Bumps in the Road
06-04-12
We have encountered our first real problems recently when it comes to the Army.
We submitted our paperwork on April 30, 2012 from hubby's Levy Briefing for command sponsorship. Well according to the passport office (since they are the ones who took care of the packets from the briefing here at Huachuca), its been sent to the wrong email for over a month. The day that hubby went in to check on it, it just miraculously happens to get sent out that day.
Well 3 email addresses & 11 phone numbers later, we FINALLY were able to talk to someone in Korea. Our packet was JUST received yesterday! (Hubby checked on it over a week ago) The person we talked to said that we will need to check back in a few weeks but she can say that we have a 99.9% chance of being approved! YAY!  That almost everyone is being approved for CS unless they have some major medical issues.
I think I can start packing! =)

Welcome to Korea Info
5-26-12
Found some useful info, thought I would pass it along.
http://www.slideshare.net/usaghumphreys/welcome-edition-pdf

http://8tharmy.korea.army.mil/SOCKOR/pdf/seoul_survivor_2010_2011_final.pdf


Korea Briefing
5-23-12
Attended the Korea Medicine briefing with my husband. It was mostly for him. It was to let him know about all the dangers medically in Korea. Like STD's, Malaria, Typhoid...They even tried to hand out condoms to everyone, which I don't think anyone took.
He has to get a whole list of shots to get. :/ Like 2x as many as me! But some of the info that the guy talked about at the briefing I feel is dated. The guy told us a lot about when he was there like 20 years ago. Well, news flash buddy, things have REALLY changed! While yes, some things are still the same I am sure, but things have greatly improved. Even within the past 5 years so much has changed from the people I have talked to who were recently stationed there.
Anyways, another briefing completed! Still waiting to here about Command Sponsorship!

Vaccinations
5-11-12
Our doctor recommended for us to go to the immunization clinic to check on any shots we would need to move to Korea. So they said we would need flu, typhoid, & any boosters that we may need. So it turns out the kids just got flu & typhoid shots. I on the other hand had to also get a Tetanus, MMR, Hep A & B, AND Japanese Encephalitis. The clinic sent me to the lab to draw my blood to find out what all I would need since I don't have a shot record. That's when it came back about the MMR, the Hep A& B. The Japanese one is only for those who are 17+ here in the USA. Once we get to Korea, the kids can get it as well. The clinic said they HIGHLY recommend the Japanese one if we plan to do any traveling outside of the major cities while living there. So I was like "lay it on me!" I plan to see as much as possible while we live there! I am all for immunizations! Anything to help keep us healthy & out of pain!

& then within 30 days of arriving in Korea, we all need to have a Tb test.
Soon hubby will have his medical screening & he will have to get all his shots as well.

Housing Obsession 
5-01-12
I have been a researching fool lately trying to find out as much as possible about moving to Korea! At first I was terrified! Then I was a little more interested...now I am full blown excited & ready to go. So much so that if CS doesn't go through, I think I might cry! 

Housing, oh I am totally obsessed about it! Of course we don't know yet if we will get post housing. But IF we do, it will be a high rise apartment! Which will be a new experience for us! We have always lived in a house, and a single home at that. None of these duplexes or quadplexes. I like the floor plans from what I can see of the post housing we would get for Hubby's rank. Not sure if we will get a 3 or 4 bedroom place yet since our oldest daughter will not be moving with us (as she is living back in our home state preparing for college). Either way, this place looks pretty cool! And we will have a balcony that is enclosed! (I know it seems silly to get excited about a balcony but to me that is just more space to enjoy!) 

However, if we don't get post housing, we will have to find a place to live out in the economy, which is a bit freaky for me! Housing will give us a list of landlords that we can rent from & we can check out some places. We were also told that most families find a home within the first 10 days of being in Korea. Which is nice to hear that I may not have to live in lodging for any major length of time!  I definitely would like an "Americanized" home though. Living with out the comforts of home will be a bit hard on us all. I will stick to having to venture out of my home to experience anything Korean! :)

Then we come to our household goods (HHG). We are allowed 4000 pounds total weight to be shipped. This does not include his work gear (called pro-gear according to transportation).  2000 pounds of our HHG is considered unaccompanied baggage. This means stuff we will need right after we arrive such as bedding, pots and pans, towels etc... but NO furniture! This all has to fit within a 4 foot by 4 foot box! & It will arrive in Korea approximately 30 days after we do. The other 2000 pounds of HHG will arrive later, approximately 2 months after our arrival. It will contain any furniture & the rest of what ever we decide to take. 

Now those who know us personal, know we own quite a bit of stuff. I mean come on, we had an entire life before hubby decided to join the Army at the old age of 32! We have 3 kids, each with a complete room of stuff! An entire garage full of yard toys, tools & equipment! A barn full of more stuff! Plus lots of our furniture is solid wood & its not light! When we moved to Arizona we had a total of 17,000 pounds of HHG! I know, I know...you can pick you jaw up off the floor now! I was a bit stunned that we had that much as well. 

Anyhow, I have tried my best to sell stuff & donate what we could since we have been in Arizona. Since the Army will only move about 25% of our house to Korea, the rest has to go into storage. Which we have to pay for out of our pocket. Fine & dandy. I accept that. I don't want to get rid of our entire house just to move & then have to buy everything all over again when we move back to the states.  The great news is that we are only taking our mattresses, the kids toys, stuff from the kitchen, bedding, clothes, & some of my scrap booking stuff. Pretty much EVERYTHING else is being stored. 
While we are living in Korea, housing will provide us with furniture. So there is no need for us to take any! & the only reason we are taking our mattresses is because I was told the Korean beds are rock hard. No thank you :) 

Heres a sample of a floor plan that may be a possibility for us: 

(Photos not by me)

Levy Briefing

4-30-12

I accompanied Hubby to the Levy Briefing today. If you have a Hubby like mine who forgets to tell you every possible detail, I highly recommend you go to the briefing as well. I was told I was allowed to go to all the briefings if I want. So if your schedule allows for it, do it! 

It felt good to know we were ahead of the game. We already had our EFMP screenings completed by the time we went to the briefing. One step ahead! We have already had our first set of shots taken care of. The children & I all needed a flu shot, typhoid shot & I also had to get a Tetanus booster. There is a Japanese encephalitis shot we need to get but the clinic was out at the time. We also will need to have a Tb test done within 30 days of arriving to Korea.  

Next is our No-Fee passport appointments, which is by the end of this week! Our papers for that are already filled out & we had our photos taken. Now its just a matter of signing all the paper work & getting it processed. It should take approximately 6-8 weeks for us to receive our passports. So our paperwork is rolling! 

Hubby has a "Korea briefing" to attend. I plan to go to that one as well if I can.  He has to have a medical & dental screening done as well. Now we just wait to find out if Command Sponsorship (CS) gets approved. Praying hard that it does! Our relocation guy at ACS (Army Community Services) said as long as there was no medical issue to kick back the EFMP paper work, then we should be able to get CS in about 14 days!