We arrived with the twins a week ago.
1. Never take four planes from the US and a bus from Seoul to Osan (totally 36 hours with no sleep). Break up your trip. Stay overnight somewhere, anywhere. The kids were miserable, and tag teamed keeping us awake the entire trip. Carrying two car seats thru that many airports, etc was not fun.

2. Koreans do not honk all the time....hardly at all.
Right on red is okay but don’t stop to look. Green light for left turn is no good, you must wait for green arrow.

3. Apartments are a little more expensive. we got a 1600 sq foot for $1,200 a month and $100 a month management fee. Ours is older but the location is in the middle of everything which is what we wanted. (Can walk to stores etc). Not used to laundry room and bathrooms not being heated. Speeds up things in the morning. The rest of the house is very toasty with the heated floors. The TV monitor of who is ringing your doorbell is cool too. Took a few days for my lungs to get acclimated to the pollution. Now I hardly notice it unless I can't see the sun (sometimes it looks fuzzy) or I see a thin layer of soot on everything. The won is 1000 to our American dollar. Our lunch yesterday cost 18,000 won or $18 dollars. It was high for what we got. My wife, twins, and myself split a lunch for one for that price. On base is much cheaper. I bought a car for $1,700. It runs and the heater works. Everyone has been nice. The car dealer drove in from Seoul to change out the broken power antenna and had the car washed. He gave me $20 for gas. It's warranteed for one month or 1,000 kilometers (engine only). My landlord visited us from Seoul and wanted to know if the things we requested met our approval. We got every item we asked for. Satellite system for the TV, American queen sized bed with two mattress stacked on top of each other. (they don’t know what box springs are and they think its a waste to have two...they called it a sandwich bed) I didn’t tell then that the two mattresses are still way too hard. We also got two single beds for the twins (two year old). We did this because they couldn’t seem to find two cribs (not sure what Korean toddlers sleep on). We also go a new TV, apartment rewired for 110, which cause an interesting dilemma. We got a HUGE refrigerator, a TV, and a water cooler all using Korean 220, but our place was rewired for us on 110. We now have transformers for the three Korean items. We were given a used American wash and dryer. Korean washer and dryer is one unit and the dryer only spins the clothes. Then they hang their clothes on drying lines on their patios. Every apartment has many patios. We have three. They are glassed in and use screens in the summer. We got two cell phones. Two things the Korean have over us. Speed of Internet and cell phones!! The phones are 1/2 the size of a deck of cards and must be recharged daily, but other than that they do things we've never heard of. You can buy calling cards over here to call back to the states as low as 3 or 4 cents per min.

4. You will get OHA and Utility pay if you are approved to live off base. We are.

5. A rift between command and non-command sponsored wives. I poo- pooed this when I heard it before we left the states. After being here, its not good. Day care on base is space available only for non command sponsored wives, if a command sponsored wife brought her kid in and there we no more slots, the non command sponsored wives had to go get their kid. This is fixed in favor of the cs wives. NCS are no longer allowed daycare...ouch. At a bases spouses meeting a cs wife stood up and told the ncs wives that they were here on a one yr vacation. CS wives are here for two years and must live on base (900 sq feet apartment without OHA) and are jealous of not receiving extra pay and not having a large apartment (I saw a nice 2,400 sq ft apartment for $1,200 a month). Many restaurants on base. A steak house, Captain D’s, pizza hut, Charleys, taco bell, a brand new Chili's, Baskin Robbins, A Thai restuarant, burger king, popeyes, bodacious bib, rickenbacker's coffee house, etc etc.

It was very tough going getting here. It sucked living with two two year olds in a hotel room (even the fabulous Turumi Inn). Things are better now. Our household goods will arrive 15 April...ouch. I've been keeping the credit card hot at the BX and commissary. I am supposed to be rationed at the Comm but not sure how that works. I've already racked up almost $400 in bills (food/cleaning supplies etc). No one seems to know the rules for non-command sponsored on rationing. The reg states accompanied or unaccompanied not command sponsored. Some say I am accompanied but not command sponsored, others say accompanied means command sponsored. We will see.

Hope this helps,

Cheers,
Chuck

No toes stepped on, everyone has there own little tricks. The more knowledge we get out there to help the fellow soldiers to get a little bit "more" is always welcome.

__________________
CH-47 SI

They must find it difficult...

Those who have taken authority as the truth, rather than truth as the authority. --Gerald Massey

Chuck,

When I was at Osan 15 months ago--I had my wife with me unaccompanied--we were afforded the same rations as accompanied personnel. Hope this helps.

Exactally, most all of our officers have brought their wifes over non-command sponsored and they have the same rations as a cs.

One thing on rations Chuck, watch out for the little things. You can only buy 3 packs of hot dogs a day. Watch the rice you can only buy so many pounds per month. If you drink you are allowed unlimited beer (8 cases a day) and 5 bottles of liquer.

Also for the first 3 months, E-7 and above have a rise in their rations at the commissary to $750 per month then it comes back down to $400 per month

__________________
CH-47 SI

They must find it difficult...

Those who have taken authority as the truth, rather than truth as the authority. --Gerald Massey

Thanks everyone, for continuing the flow of info, this thread, I think, is helping everyone.

Kidlet and I put in our passport paperwork today, so that's one thing underway.Still getting a bit of a runaround from everyone in trying to find out exactly what to do to apply for the command sponsored slot. Hubby emailed the 1st Sgt. at his squadron last week to basically a) tell him that we're coming over, and b) find out what paperwork he has to put in for permission to live off base, and the response we received, though it garnered no promises, did state that there were "exceptions to every rule"..so we're taking that as a hopeful sign. The 1st Sgt. also confirmed the OHA with dependent reg thing, so maybe we'll have that in our corner. The only problem is that right now we're so far out from arrival , we can't really do much...and the guy we're talking to likely won't be there by the time we arrive.

I had heard something along the lines of resentment toward NCS wives, by CS spouses, but was hoping it wasn't true as well. I think maybe some of that conflict comes not only from the resentment about NCS wives getting oha, etc, but also from perhaps the difference in attitudes between "Old school" wives, and the spouses of the so-called "new Expeditionary" AF -women in general of this day and age. I've seen that come into play *many* times on AF specific bulletin boards...there's sometimes a less than compassionate attitude shown to newer spouses from *some* old-timers who are less inclined to be accepting of newer ways of thinking, and use "suck it up" as a mantra. It's a shame really, because we're all in the same boat, and if we could all band together,and channel our energies, think of all the positive influence we could have, the way we could offer support and help to those on base, be they cs or ncs. For me, child care isn't such an issue, there's just going to be me and the one 8 year old, so I won't really need base assistance in securing child care. As for the spouse's meetings.. as I've mentioned before , if it appears that ncs spouses need an additional "support" group, with a focus on the special issues, difficulties and challenges that we may face in our situation, I'll be happy to host something once I'm there.

Anyway, again, thanks again to everyone -how great it is to have a sounding board, and a way to share info like this!

And Mike...thank you -so- much for the offer to help with links, forum space,etc.. I'll definitely be getting in touch with you as soon as the dust begins to settle here at home, and maybe we can get the ball rolling. :)

Thanks for the rations info. How do they calculate how much you have purchased? I don't have my rations card yet, but I keep on buying.

I ate one of the best steaks ever tonight at the Flying M steakhouse on base. Great atmosphere with the stuffed grizzly bear, longhorn bull, etc. The number of restaurants here is amazing.

I bought a satellite system and paid to have it installed. WHOOPS...I bought the Korean one and not the AFN one from the BX. Now I only have two or three English speaking channels. I have to fix that blunder.

At the same time I couldn’t stand the Korean mattress even though our landlord gave us two and they are double stacked. I purchased a new mattress from the BX and paid for delivery to our 6-story apartment only to find out it was a full and not a queen...WHOOPS. I have to pay the shipping guy again after I bought the right size today. I am glad I put satellite and bed purchase on my new Star card (applied today) which gives you 10% off the entire day the 1st time you use your card.

Korean cell phones are very cool, but the batteries only last one day. My wife’s phone has an external light that never goes out so her battery life is 4 hours. That's what happens when you buy used (which is much more popular than buying new over here). We will take the phone back tomorrow to see what they will do.

I will save the car blunder for later. Let's just say the headlights are getting dimmer and dimmer.

Cheers,
Chuck

PS. For those of you, who have toddlers/babies, don't forget about the "give parents a break program paid for by the family support center. We got our twins into daycare tonight to eat at the steakhouse and run around town. Base daycare watched them from 1830-2230 for free. It only happens once a month and you need a referral. At Tinker we got our referrals from our nurse friend. Here we got a referral from our First Sgt.

Chuck, there are "ICE" Interactive Customer Evulations computers at places on bases or you can go here http://ice.disa.mil/ You should beable to check what you have spent on rations there.

Also that is a GREAT place to if you have a continueing problem on post or even offpost to a certian point. I had a problemm here and had to write the Post Commander and he personnel responded to me and so did the Post CSM. The "ICE" comment is a great thing and it works.

You are getting screwd on the cell phones, come to Camp Humphreys and we can get you a brand new phone for you and your wife for right around $100. Did you get a contract phone or a card phone? Contract phone is where you pay the phone store and a card phone is where you put a calling card pin# in when you run out of money. I have a card phone it was brand new and cost me $50 with 10,000 won on it and it is awsome. The battery last 4-5 days came with the charger and an extra battery.

Let me know Chuck, I'll take care of you from the Camp Humphreys area!!

*EDIT*
I was all over that ICE site and i was told that you can check your ration there, but i could not find it? You may have to go find an "ICE" machine they may have different software on them.

__________________
CH-47 SI

They must find it difficult...

Those who have taken authority as the truth, rather than truth as the authority. --Gerald Massey

I am confident in my information that says I can get OHA for my family after they are present in Songtan for 90 days, despite not getting permission to live off base. The utility payment is probably not going to be paid, although I have no information on it other than it is a great deal.

In the end, who cares. Women, or men, who base there attitude on someone's personal living arrangment decisions would not be good friends anywhere else. They should blame there sponsors for not opting for the 1-yr route. If there wasn't an option, then they are paying the price for the good pay. So they should just suck it up.

One more question Valhalla... did you look at any smaller apartments and what were there prices. I am thinking more of a 1000 sq ft.

__________________
JIMMY JOE

Yes if you live off post and you have been given permission then you will get the utility payment also. For me it will be $660 a month and i'm an E-6

__________________
CH-47 SI

They must find it difficult...

Those who have taken authority as the truth, rather than truth as the authority. --Gerald Massey

I will look for the ICE computers. I was also told you can swing by Mil Pay and ask them to print out all of your entitlements.

We did get screwed. We did get my wife’s phone replace since the outside light would never go off making the battery only last 4 hours. Now both our phones last one a day. We pay the store when the minutes run out and they re-up the minutes with a card. We bought both phones so I think they are ours for good.

Apartment for 1000 sq feet? I have seen some as low as $400 per month. I think newer is better and I live in a 12-year-old apartment that looks 50 years old. Location and new is tough. It's all in what you want. Go to many real estate agents. They do not have multiple listings. Each agent knows about 10 apartments available. A building with 144 apartments may have 100 landlords each using a different agent. It's the craziest thing I've seen. Much of how things are done here is by word of mouth.

Good luck,
Chuck


PS May send the kid to Korean daycare. Worried about no English speakers. Our kids are two and only say 15 words or so (they are behind). Not hearing English will not help. 0800-1400 @ 5 days a week costs $250 per kid per month. While 5 days from 0800-1800 costs $330 per kid. Daycar sits 100 yards from our apt building and they put on plays and have an indoor plastic playground (Little Tikes slides and stuff) for the younger kids, so it looks nice.