Do You Hear What I Hear?

I tried posting this last week...and lost it. hence my facebook status last week. ok, let's try again.

Since moving into a new apartment in a new city, we have observed many sounds - some new and some old and most just amplified! We were talking with Brian and Charla Cox not long ago and as we sat around our computers laughing they told us to write the sounds down so we wouldn't forget. so why not share them with the blogging world?!

Some sounds you will here from our Hans Vill (no, i didn't make a spelling mistake!) aparment building (which is so small we refer to it as our 'hotel room'):

1. We live right next to a recycling plant. and it's not for nice, quiet, soft things to recyle. it's for metal - chairs, tables, rods, whatever is big and loud and metal. most days when i'm walking home, there is absolutely no action happening at the plant. but as soon as i open the window to let in some fresh air, the plant starts up. someone must be standing outside our window just waiting for me to open the window and they give the signal to start up again. they use some kinda heavy machinery to move all the metal objects from one pile to another - for hours. ahhhhh! if we die of lack of fresh oxygen, you will know why.

2. the way our building is designed is we have the car lot under our apartment which is not closed in and people can walk through it instead of on the street. and i promise there must be some sign that says 'hork as LOUD as you can right under this window' - which happens to be ours. so every morning when i open the windows (all 2 of them in our aparment), pour some cereal and milk, and sit down to enjoy it - HOOOOOOOORK!!! as loud as you could possibly think. and it's not just from one person or like a little spit. we seriously think that Koreans have some major sinus issues in this country because these people need to clear out their nasal passages starting from their toes. or else they let it build up until they are right under our window and just let it fly. yeah, it really is more gross than it sounds!

3. from a natural point of view, we have a cuckoo bird in our forest. it actually sounds exactly like your grandmother's old cuckoo clock - and it cuckoos every hour on the hour. ok, not really but it sure seems like it! it was a cool sound to discover, but gets to you after an hour straight of cuckooing.

4. there is a little farm behind our 'hotel room' at the foot of the moutain and they have a rooster. fine. so we thought we'd have to get used to it cock-a-doodle-dooing at dawn. but not our rooster! craig is convinced it's been shipped here form another continent and has it's time zones mixed up. cause it cock-a-doodle-doos at 6am, 3pm, 11pm, and 2am. just kinda whenever it wants to...and it wants to ALOT! maybe it's super busy and it has lost of different animals to wake up at different times on the farm. guess he's just doing his job.

5. Mamy are back! i wrote about them last year. the loudest noise i've ever heard from one small bug. i'm trying to get it recorded to take back home. last year we thought our power box for our apartment was having some serious problems and was going to explode. we found out it's just the mamy. ahhhh, korean bugs!

6. there is a Buddist temple very close to our house since we live at the base of the mountain. and the Buddist monks have a gong. and they like to bang it - often, and a lot. especially back in May when it was Buddha's bday. it usually started around 6pm while we were making supper with the windows open, the men horking, the rooster and cuckoo bird going at it, and the recyling plant in full force. and over top all of that noise we could hear the gong. i counted once and they banged it 47 times. now that's a lot of gong-ing!

7. someone installed a car alarm and apparently didn't read the instruction manual. it must have been set on ultra-sensitive mode which really doesn't work in a neighbourhood full of people. it would go off when someone walked by the car or when the wind was too strong. and it was seriously the loudest alarm i have ever heard. and they would shut it off, but like press the sleep button or something, cause it would always go off 3 times in a row. craig tried to get a korean to write on a piece of paper 'change your car alarm settings cause yours is too sensitive!' and wanted to put it on the windshield, but no one would help him. seems to be under control now though.

8. when you look out our windows, there is a lovely view of another building 8 feet away. yeah, we're not happy with that and feel like we're living in a dungeon most days, but we sure do get to know our neighbours in the next building! because when our windows are open - in comes the sounds of the next apartment. i can listen to lots of different kinds of music all at once, and even decide which korean tv station i want to watch just by listening to the neighbour's choices coming in my window. we have space in canada. we've never lived in such close proximity to another building, but people all over the world do it, and don't go crazy somehow!

9. speaking of neighbors, we have some that i'm not even going to write about because i'm sure it is something we will never forget. i will say that our walls are thin and your private life isn't so private. after a few phone calls to our landlord complaining about the noise, we are happy to report that our neighbours have moved out this week. must have been a few other phone calls as well!

that's all i can think of right now. wanna come for a nice, relaxing visit in our hotel room?! we are happy to say that one friend from canada is - Renny. he was the mc at our wedding. he's coming aug.7-24th, so he can experience our symphony of korean sounds!

...now to press 'publish' before this gets erased again...