Zofona > Zofona Seoul > Stories: English and Dutch > Our Korea stories > January: 2004

January: 2004

Happy New Year and more news!
Before we start our new story, happy New Year, may all your wishes come true!

Today we arrived after a long holiday in the Netherlands, although it was rather busy because we searched a lot and finally bought a nice appartment. We received the keys on December 29 so the last two days of the year we were painting. It’s located in Zwolle, close to the centre of the city and it was build in 2001 so we don’t have to do much else but painting. The most important goal during this holiday was to buy a house so we are satisfied. It is a nice feeling to have our own house in the Netherlands. We still have to decorate it but this can wait.

Although we wanted to paint more there we did not had enough time, we also have to work here in Seoul. Friends in Zwolle offered to finish the painting so that’s not a problem. The flight back to Seoul did not seem to take long, unfortunately Yde did not sleep for a second and he was crying the last two hours. Therefore we could not sleep as well and this was exhausting. Almost without traffic jams we arrived back home, the gate was open and Lily was waiting for us, especially for Yde because she did not see him for more than 2 months. Because Yde played with other children in the Netherlands and because he watched television he already learned a lot of new Dutch words and he is talking more and more. Unfortunately for Lily it is all just Dutch, but he will pick up English again quickly.

But the best news is not our new appartment, Christina is pregnant! Estimation is that she will deliver half June. We already heard the hart beat and the “echo” scan looked good, exciting times for us! If everything is going as planned Christina our baby will be born here in Seoul, this will be a nice topic for new stories about hospitals, doctors and nurses. Maybe it’s time to learn some Korean now!

After our return we discovered that the landlady hired a gardener to do some work in the garden to make it “winter ready”. But she was not happy, she payed a lot of money but the packing of the trees was not as nice as she wanted. May be wrong ying or yang? Or may be too much won for something which did not look like a Van Gogh? In the house a handy man changed light bulbs, fixed the washing machine because some noise, fixed the dishwasher because some small thing was broken and painted the metal wheel which is used to turn cars automatically. ??? Nothing but questions marks for Jitze because he did not have any problem with these things; everything was more or less working when we left. She just seems not to trust his technical skill, and of course she’s right :)

The next months we will search for some furniture to decorate the new baby room, so finally we are going to use this room. Furthermore Jitze seems to be frustrated, in January he doesn’t drink alcohol and just now our order of imported beer arrived. And this year we will try to write more, but with all New Year wishes it is not certain we will keep up with our promise.

Jitze, Christina and Yde