Seales in Seoul

Suwon

2011-06-10T17:32:00.000-07:00

So I begin this post with what should be the last picture but despite blogging for one year I still can not figure out how to get my photos where I want them. So here is the finished product and you can see the process below. Netta made this beautiful pot on our trip to Suwon.

We took the subway (about 1 hour ride) to Suwon to visit John's friend Mr. Park. He offered to show us around his city and we had heard that there were some cool things there so we finally made it out there.

Mr. Park is coming to Santa Cruz to visit us soon after we return to the US. He is actually bringing our cat for us - even though he hates cats. Luckily we found someone to foster her for the 2 weeks between when we leave and when he is traveling. So all he has to do is meet them and get Swallow in her kennel and deliver her and check her in. Then we will be there to pick him up when he arrives with Swallow. Hopefully it will all work as planned.

Anyway I digress, we had a lovely day in Suwon. We started with a great lunch of calbee which is meat barbequed at the table. Suwon is famous for its calbee and it lived up to its reputation- it was delicious and we all ate way too much. Then we went out to check out the palace that is in Suwon but before we went in there was a water fountain in front and the girls had to get a bit wet. It was a pretty hot day.

Olive near the fountain - this is her excited but kind of wary face.
Below is Netta in the fountain - you could run into this section where you wouldn't get wet if you timed it just right which of course she did.
I think we will all miss these fountains they are good fun on a hot day.

Here is Olive on the steps in the palace. She got new crocs and was pretty bugged by sand getting in them in this area. She kept stopping to clean them out.
So here is the pot making activity. There were a bunch of activities set up for kids inside the palace. Korea is so great that way - everywhere you go there are hands-on experiences for the kids. I have heard many people say that Korea is a great place to be a kid.
I love these photos and the way this woman helped Netta form the pot she made. Netta sometimes complains about people over controlling her artistic process in Korea. They want her to do her art a certain way and she of course resists. In this instance she said she really appreciated this teacher's gentle guidance.
Netta forming the opening.
Creating the lip edge.
I love this one where they are holding hands.
Then Netta had time to decorate the pot with her own design. She spent a long time doing a kind of comb design- it was crazy because then we went to the prehistoric park the week after (I know the blog posts are out of order - sorry) and discovered that the comb design is a very ancient pattern used in Korea. Netta said she had no idea about that- she must have been channeling ancient Koreans while she decorated her piece.

We left the pot with the kind lady and she then glazed it in the ancient celadon style and fired it and mailed it to us in Seoul. It arrived yesterday and looks so great.
This is the throne room of the palace.
Netta still concentrating on her work.
This is what Olive did while Netta was finishing her pot. She sat in the dirt and shoveled it with her croc, watching the sand fall through the holes of her shoe.
More shots of the palace and the trees behind it.
Cute Olive asking me to take a picture of her. These shots are hard to get with Olive always on the move.

Next we walked to the Fortress Museum in Suwon. This is outside the museum - it shows how they moved the stones to build the fortress.
The museum was interesting - I had to spend most of it in the lobby with Olive as she was not remotely interested in the contents of the museum. This was a reminder of how much she has grown in this year. When we arrived in Seoul we could go to museums all the time and she would just sit in her stroller while we puttered around through the displays. This time is no more.......but we had fun looking at the fish in the lobby.
Then we walked to the fortress wall along this stream. It was really beautiful - the flowers are amazing here.
This is a fountain near a gate of the fortress. Unfortunately all I can remember about this part of our walk is that Netta wanted to get a closer look at the water and found a dead, decomposing dog in the water. She was disturbed and talked about it for a long time.
Here is Mr. Park (next to John) and his brother on the bridge over the stream.
Kids in the stream, looking for critters.
Netta in the stream too.
Netta looking at some baby turtles that the kids had in bags. They were not from the stream but they sure were cute.
A flag on the fortress wall. The fortress wall is almost 6 kilometers long. We walked along some of it and it is amazing. There are holes for guns and lookout posts.

Here is Netta - she is actually angry here - I love how the little girl is looking up at her curiously.
John and Olive trotting up to one of the buildings on the wall.
A closer look at the building.
This is an amazing buddha that we saw from afar up on a hill nearby. I wanted to walk up closer but alas the day was not long enough......
Mad Netta. We all had a good laugh about this picture.
So this was a group practicing in the square where we ended up after our fortress walk. They were great!
The flying frisbee trick.

Musicians outside the palace. Can you see the shells they are playing?
After our day out we had pizza before heading home. I thought this bottle was funny. The brand is Bornitaly but it is 100% America and we found it in Korea. This is a good example of weird items/translations. I wish I had taken pictures of more of these- they are everywhere.

Ok I can tick Suwon blog entry off my long list of things to do. I am still not all caught up with the blog - maybe I will be finishing it in California.

John on TV

2011-06-09T18:03:00.001-07:00

So the film crew was here in our home last week. Pretty fun - except the screaming toddler while they were trying to film.

John is doing an interview for Arirang TV here in Seoul. They are an English language TV station sponsored by the government. John's advisor's wife Tanya works for them and arranged the interview. It is exciting for John to tell about his research and the publicity might help him find work here in Korea.

They filmed him working and talked to him for 30 minutes on camera and then he performed a song at the station for the show too.

It will be shown on the program Heart to Heart on June 21st - the day we leave Korea - at 9:30 pm here. We have watched some Arirang programming on our computer so it may be that people can watch it after that date on their website. They also told us that they will send a copy of the show to us after it airs.
John is also involved in a documentary about his gagok teacher that will be shown here in Korea on a major network. We are going to Massan so John can perform his piece and that will be filmed for the documentary as well. He has already done some filming and interviewing with that crew.

Exciting media attention for John!

Amsa Prehistoric Park

2011-06-09T17:32:00.001-07:00

Hi all - I am busily trying to organize and pack before we head home in just 10 days now. Trying to get rid of things we have collected and still trying to see things we don't want to miss before we go.

So I found this trip by the Seoul International Womens Association and decided to go. We went by subway to this site of a prehistoric village that was uncovered during some flooding in 1925. This was during the Japanese Occupation of Korea and so the Japanese basically took all the treasures they could easily find and shipped them back to Japan and then left the site.

Years later in 1967 a group of Korean archaeologists excavated the site and made the park that is there now. They covered the main site of the discovery with a building to protect what they found and then covered part of the site up to be excavated later when the tools for figuring out what is there become more advanced.

If you click on the photo of the sign above it will get larger and you can read the description on the sign about the site.

Here is Netta in the entrance area. I thought these animals made of wood were really cool.
A map of the area.
Wooden animals
These are re-creations of the dugout homes that were built during this time in this area.
Netta inside one of the homes that you could go in and check out.
This is the main site where they found evidence of the dugout houses. This is the ground that they found and they built the museum around it. Of course the fake people have been added....

There were huge groups of school kids there on that day. They dressed them all up in these tiger furs that we thought were funny and cute - little did we know.......
Netta doing a hand drill...just like the one she did at Ohlone Day at Henry Cowell.
Oh - yes - they dressed us up too.. Olive only kept this on long enough to take the photo. But all the SIWA ladies dressed up including me and that was a sight to behold.
Netta in character....
Nearly every place we go has one of these to stick your head in - so cheesy. At the indoor ice skating rink where we went last week they even had one with ice-skating star bodies with your head. Funny.
One of the reasons I joined this tour was that they had activities to do after the tour. We built a dugout house model and a bow and arrow. I knew Netta would love this - as did Olive and I as well.
Netta concentrating hard to make the walls secure from wild animals. They told us if the rice stalks were not placed closely enough snakes and critters would get inside. Netta took this very seriously and spent a long time arranging them perfectly.
All the ladies dressed up and doing crafts....
Olive sanding the bow for our bow and arrow.
Olive concentrating on building our house.
More models of the houses.
Our models of the houses - this one is the one Olive and I made. She really liked adding the little torches all around with the balls of clay as the fire.
Netta's house. I don't think we can bring these home - kind of sad as they came out so great but the photos will last.
Inside the model is the fire pit and holes to hold the cooking vessels that were discovered at the site.
Model village life.

We also built bows and arrows with suction cup tips that we shot at fake animals. It was fun - I enjoyed how they made the experience really hands-on for all of us.

Ok back to organizing things for the trip...........

See you all soon.........

Bundang

2011-06-02T06:34:00.000-07:00

Hi all you folks - so I am way behind on posts. These pictures are from well over a week ago when we traveled to Bundang to have dinner with our landlords. We told them our departure date and they invited us to come to their home area and have dinner with them. They are so sweet. We arrived and they took us to this amazing park - really beautiful and fun to walk together. They don't speak much English but their son was along who graduated from Harvard so his English is very good. But still mostly we walked and laughed at Olive while John and Netta stayed way ahead of the group. Olive was pushing her stroller in a crazy way and then just laughing her head off about it. Thankfully nobody was hurt in the process and we all had a good laugh.
This is the large lake that we walked by.
Olive stopping to smell the flowers.
Family photo with me holding onto Olive as she tries to escape.
I don't know what these are except maybe a way to lounge comfortably against a tree.
There were lots of beautiful irises.
Netta in the field of flowers.
John and Netta on the exercise equipment - you can see who is doing the exercising and who is doing the supervising/lounging.
Olive on the go. It is getting really hard to snap photos of this girl - she likes to run away the minute the camera emerges - it is a funny game to her.
Netta in a tree.
But if Netta does something Olive wants to do it too - so here she is standing still and posing with the tree.
Netta's hairstyle for the evening out.
Some burial mounds in the park.

After our walk we went to a really delicious meat restaurant and had bulgogi. I think it was the best bulgogi I have eaten during our year here. The girls ate very well too. Then we headed back to their apartment and had some fruit with them. Mr. Landlord works for the Korean currency mint and they gave us a very beautiful silver coin as a keepsake of our year. They really are unbelievably kind and generous people. We will miss them very much. We were so lucky to have such people in our lives here.

Gut

2011-05-30T06:39:00.000-07:00

Warning: this post is weird. There are graphic pictures of a dead pig in a mysterious ritual. (Mysterious to me anyway.)
We went to Incheon - a city that's part of the Seoul megalopolis, on the seaside to see a "gut" or shaman ritual. It was in a touristy area kind of like the Santa Cruz boardwalk.
Mostly, they only do things with dead pigs at a gut where they're trying to heal somebody. I don't think they were trying to heal anybody here; they just wanted to put on a rare show.
There's an altar with images of people, and stacks of food.
There was a clown character. There was a story, but... Sorry my Korean's not good enough to know what.

They were attacking the pig in a kind of ritual hunt-thing.
They stuck the pig on the pitchfork and carried it around. It was kind of disturbing.

These old guys were singing a folk song and playing percussion instruments. They were awesome.
Stabbing the dead pig...

Later on they cooked the head, but the rest of it was still raw. Then they put cut up pieces of the pig back on the pitchfork.
Then everyone started sticking man-won notes (about $10) in the pig's mouth, ears, and nostrils. I did too - one of the bills in the mouth is the one I put there. It's good luck. Also, they were giving out food and makgeolli, and putting on a great show, so I felt I owed them a man-won.
This is one of the singers. I like his face.

last Sunday

2011-05-28T07:02:00.000-07:00

So last Sunday we were invited by John's advisor and his wonderful family to go to the house of this famous Korean dancer. Her name is Lee Sun Ok and she created a style of dance called zen dance. She combined her training in traditional Korean dance with some zen buddhist styles. It was very innovative and toured all over the world. She also lived in New Jersey for awhile so she speaks perfect English. It was such an incredible place. It is in Seoul but really secluded in the mountains - we had to walk up quite a few steps to get there but it is on National Park Land. It's hard to believe that there's a place where you feel in the middle of the woods -- within the limits of one of the largest cities in the world.
there were lots of butterflies and moths flying around. One species was as big as a hummingbird, and very hairy. Olive spent a long time playing with caterpillars. In the above picture, a butterfly landed on Olive's head.
Here's the view off her enormous deck.
The grounds were left pretty wild. A few things were encouraged to grow, but it was basically an extension of the forest. That's the Korean aesthetic of gardening, Sun-Ok explained.
Ok- you could actually see some high-rise apartments from one spot in her yard. But still, it's nicely tucked away.
The house used to be owned by a shaman, but she left because there was too much chi. Something about a rock that hovered over the house. The shaman had headaches and couldn't sleep.
This tree is kind of like a Japanese maple, but the leaves are more thin and feathery.
Netta was catching tadpoles in the stream.

Netta stood on the rock that gave the Shaman headaches, until Sun-Ok got nervous she would fall and told her to get down.
There was a gorgeous chestnut tree. Total peace.

Raw stone steps near the stream.
Poor little tadpole! But she was released soon after.
John took a picture of his feet standing on a root of the beautiful chestnut.

Buddha's Birthday

2011-05-20T05:36:00.000-07:00

I have neglected the blog for a week now. So I will go back in time to tell you about our trip to Gangwon-do. John's research advisor and his family invited us to go with them on a road trip. Our first plan was to go to Jeollanam-do but those plans fell through and we decided to go to a scenic area east of Seoul. We actually visited this region with my parents when they were here and John had a field trip there with the Korea Foundation about 10 days before this trip.

Yong Shik and his wife Tanya and son Tae Sun borrowed a van and transported all of us on Buddha's birthday weekend. Yong Shik's parents have a membership at these condos at a resort in Gangwon-do so that is where we decided to go. It was really nice we had a big apartment with a kitchen and two nice rooms - one for each family.

Our first day there we went to a water park. I didn't take my camera what with it all being about water and cameras and water don't mix well. So I will try to describe it without pictures. It was a uniquely Korean experience. First of all most of the water park was indoors - a huge world of water all built in a big glass room. There was a wave pool and a shallow pool for little ones as well as a tube track where you rode an inner tube around a track of water and a hot pool with jacuzzi seats and shower heads. It was pretty impressive. Then there was an outdoor section with saunas and hot pools. There was even a pool with a snack bar where there were tables in the water and you could sit at the tables in the pool and eat junk food like pizza in a cone.

Besides all the attractions there was also a regular Korean style Sauna section like the ones I have written about before. The area is a ski resort and it was cool to imagine being there in the winter with all the indoor activities looking out on snow covered mountains and the outdoor pools warm in the snowy setting.

Netta also rode this crazy bungee jump thing that I wish I had gotten pictures of. They basically put her in a harness and she bounced insanely high on a trampoline.

We had a great evening with their family. We taught them Perpetual Commotion and they really caught on and we had a lot of fun playing.

The next day we headed out to a sheep farm - it was beautiful. The girls had a great time - they both loved feeding the sheep and petting them. They were very tame and sweet. They seem well taken care of and happy. It was a very beautiful place - a nice place to graze.

Netta and Olive on the swing at the sheep farm. Well it started to rain at the sheep farm and we weren't really prepared so we headed back to the condo and ended up hanging out playing cards and eating all day. It was fun - they are such a great family and there was lots of laughing and good conversation.

The next day was Buddha's Birthday and so on our way back to Seoul we went to Wongjusa temple and celebrated. It was still raining but we bought umbrellas and went for it.
This is the bridge on the way to the temple with beautiful lanterns in honor of Buddha's Birthday.
The River on the way.
This tree was so beautiful, it was still flowering and decorated with little colored paper on which people had written their wishes.
We bought a lantern and hung our wish on it. We hoped for a job for John, adventure, family and connection.

Another lantern in a different style. Kind of like the ones Netta and I made but bigger. Actually mine was destroyed by our cat Swallow while we were away - but I didn't know that when I took this picture.
It was rainy but the rain made for lovely misty views of the mountains and beautiful buildings.
So lovely...

Netta looking at the rock she placed on the statue. A little posed because there was a photo contest and our hosts felt they might win with pictures of the waygooks posing.
Olive in Tae Sun's raincoat after she placed a stone on the statue too.
People were in line to pay money and pour water (I think) on this statue. It was beautiful to watch.
We also got a lovely free meal of bibimbap at the temple. Most temples serve food and people can eat when they visit. Most of the time we don't know where or how to participate in this delicious part of visiting a temple but going with Korean people we were able to enjoy this meal. Most temples grow their own food and it is all vegetarian and fresh and yummy.
The lanterns - one of those is ours.....
After lunch we went up to the tea ceremony. This is how it was set up when we came. So lovely..
The chopsticks on the delicate leaf.
This monk came up and taught us about tea - our friends were able to translate and it was really great. Tanya told him that John would compose music about our experience and he said not to compose thinking of the lecture but of the feeling of the drinking of the tea.
Snacks that were served - also beautiful. I think these were deokk with chestnuts - delicious.

More beautiful snacks - lotus root covered in a light coating of sugar and jujubes.
I don't know what this was but it was yummy and precious.
This is Tanya and Yong Shik with their son Tae Sun at the tea ceremony.
I love the glow of this teapot.
The snacks......
Olive with a bracelet that the monk gave her - pink and sparkly fun.
Olive enjoying the tea ceremony.
Olive partaking in the warm tea. So soothing on a rainy afternoon.

The tea - what we were all there for. Harvested and roasted by hand by monks at another temple. We were told it needed to be roasted at a very high temperature in big iron woks and turned by hand with protective gloves sometimes more than one pair and people still get burned some times. I think they roast and turn it in 10 or so 10 minute sessions. I could taste the work - it was blissful.

Then we all piled in the van and headed home to Seoul. It was a long drive with quite a bit of traffic but our sweet friends couldn't leave us without one - or two or five more hands of perpetual commotion so they came up to our villa and we ordered chinese food to be delivered and played cards. It was hard to see it end- they are good friends and it was a great time. We are lucky!

Children's Day

2011-05-12T05:52:00.000-07:00

Hi so here is the post about Children's Day here in Seoul. It is a big holiday here - everyone is off school and work and most families go out and do something special with their kids. I like the idea - the crowds I didn't like so much. But being a guests here in Korea we couldn't really sit and home on this holiday.
John's teacher even told him he would be a bad dad if he didn't take his kids out for Children's Day so out we went.

Netta has been wanting to go to SeoulLand for a long time - maybe since the first time she came to Seoul when she was 6. It is a Disneyland kind of place and my students' parents invited us to join them going there on Children's Day. It is kind of expensive so we passed on taking Olive and John and just Netta and I went with them.
Seoul Land is in the same park as the zoo so John took Olive to the zoo and we met them there. Seoul Land is so busy for Children's Day that they open early to help people beat the crowds. We met our friends at the subway station at 6:50 am and were at the park by 7:30 when they opened.
The first ride we went on was the bumper cars - here is Sang Yoon my student in his yellow car. It was fun!
Next was this crazy contraption that I passed on, it went around and around on something that also went around and around - Netta went alone and loved it.

Then we went on a roller coaster - pretty fun - lots of screaming - I actually can't remember the last time I went on a roller coaster - it was good fun.
This was definitely the highlight of Netta's day. They put kids in these big balls then filled the ball with air and then sent them out on these little ponds of water. Netta had a lot of fun doing this - it had an extra charge but it was totally worth it once we figured out how to make it happen.
Netta in her bumper car. Sorry this one is out of order.

Netta in action - rolling the ball by crawling.
Standing up was hard and only lasted a few seconds - glad I caught this shot.
Another action shot!
So much fun!!
Then we met our friends again and the kids played in the ball pit. By this time the lines were becoming ridiculous and it was only about 10am. The play area did not have lines so the kids played there for awhile. This is Ji Hu my student. She is a lot of fun!
Netta chilling out in the ball pit.
So due to the crazy crowds we left Seoul Land after this and met John at the zoo.
A heron we saw walking from Seoul Land to the zoo.

John with his head in an alligator's mouth at the zoo!

The end..........

spring and lotus lanterns

2011-05-07T07:32:00.001-07:00

So spring has finally really arrived in Seoul. There are flowers everywhere. This image of azaleas blooming from rocks is very common in Seoul right now. It is really lovely and had already stuck in my mind as a typical look during the springtime.
More views.....
This is a nice little walk way near my students house. I had a few moments there the other day and it was beautiful and so green...

Well Buddha's Birthday is coming up here and it is a big holiday. I think I have posted pictures of the temples with all of the lanterns. When we climbed Gwanak-san I really wanted one of the lotus lanterns that they were selling but at 30,000 won they were a bit extravagant for us. Luckily for us our local Global Center had a workshop to teach us how to make our own.
Netta and I went together and John was with Olive. It was really nice to have some focused time with my big girl. Here she is working on her lantern. It was quite a process and they came out really beautiful I think. Actually I now realize that I haven't photographed the ones we made. I will do that soon.
Netta gluing...
This is one of the examples they had on the table. So pretty.
Here is a photo of the whole group. There was one brave mom there with 3 small children. I was impressed but also glad that I had only one and a big one at that. They were nice enough to give us extra supplies to take home and share with Olive. Since the workshop Netta has made 2 more lanterns with the extra stuff.
Netta ....... Gotta love that girl!

We also celebrated Children's Day but that is for a different post-- which I will not write until after we get back from our little trip. We are leaving tomorrow to go to Gangwon-do with John's research advisor and his family. It should be fun ---they are great.

I will post about Children's Day and our trip next week.

Tickets home are almost bought---see you all soon.

climbing the mountain

2011-04-26T06:07:00.000-07:00

So this is how we began our hike - with thousands of other hikers. Crazy that when you go out into nature you are joined by such a crowd. Life in a big city I suppose.
Here is Netta and her tongue at the pond we passed on our way in. It was lovely with flowers and fish.
Here is John with Olive at the pond. John carried Olive the whole way and it wasn't an easy hike - at one point a Korean woman voiced her awe at John being strong enough to carry her the whole way.

Our cute hikers!
John and Netta next to the stream that we followed up the mountain. It was amazing - Netta said it reminded her of Silver Lake. There were lots of waterfalls and beautiful rocks.
Here is more of the stream!
This place is so close to our house - just a five minute bus ride from our house. The bus was packed with hikers in their Korean hiking gear. Required equipment Makgeolli (Korean rice wine), walking sticks, sitting pads, snacks, hats and special hiking clothes. There is a Family Mart ( like a 7-eleven) at the base of the trail and it was packed - there was barely room to move around.

John putting Olive down so we could have lunch in this lovely spot. We had kimbap (Korean style sushi) and eggs - lots of eggs. We were able to color eggs here thanks to Dahl and Pauline as they sent us a coloring kit. I was worried that the brown eggs we get here would not color well but with Netta at the helm the eggs came out beautiful.
More shots of the falls.
While we were having lunch these guys stopped on the falls took off their shoes and gave their feet a cool soak. Seemed like a good idea - the water was pretty cold though. We didn't indulge.
Flowers and stacked rocks.
Netta at the waterfall.
Checking out the stacked rocks.
Here is a lantern. At some point on the trail we began to see these lanterns. We learned last week that they are hung around the time of Buddha's birthday which is coming up in early May. Some people pay some money (about $30 at this temple - some temples are more expensive) and have their wishes hung from the lanterns during this season. They are really lovely with the flowers.
The girls on a rock.
Blossoms with some amazing stacks of rocks.
I like the shadows here.
So here we are at the temple at the top. We were pretty excited to get there as the last bit of the climb was pretty steep. Netta and John raced up the steps at the end to make the final stretch more fun - I just trudged up. We were all happy and headed straight for the bathrooms - there is not a lot of opportunity to pee in the woods when you are accompanied by such a large crowd.
Close-ups of the lanterns. Olive was happy as she was finally able to get down and walk -she needed to lightly tap each lantern she passed and make it swing.
Here is a shrine with strings of lanterns hung above it.
Looking up into the lanterns.
The temple.
Baby buddhas - some showing their tushes, some their belly buttons - cute huh?
More temple.
View - the photo just doesn't do it justice - it was so cool to see places we have been from so high up.
Netta and the view.

The lanterns with the temple painting - nice.

The trooper Netta. This is on the way home - the hike dragged on a bit when we took a different route home. She had a hard time for awhile but then we gave her this miraculous Korean energy bar. I think it may be made of honey and red beans. It worked like a charm.
I liked this tree root on this rock.
It got pretty windy up there, especially on the way home.
This picture is out of order but a nice shot of all of us near the amazing hermitage on the cliff. It was built in 677. Around the corner from this spot there was a guy with a big poster of this backdrop selling photos of people with it. Kind of strange as the actual shot was just a few feet away...

There was also a lot of venders up on the mountain. Netta got an ice cream when we were near the top and it was so cold it stuck to her tongue. Amazing that people can carry so much weight on their back. All that just to sell maybe $30 worth of ice cream in a day - I guess the work environment is beautiful. They jack the price up a little but not too much really.

So we made it home. We trudged into civilization on the Seoul National University campus with one daughter wet with pee, one with aching feet and two drained parents. We quickly hailed a cab to get home. Our friend Mac helped us order chinese food and had it delivered, that was a good meal.

We were all a bit sore the next day (except Olive) and we're still feeling it today. But it was worth it.....

By the sea

2011-04-20T06:39:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday our friend Pauline and her friend Mr. Moon took us on a day trip to the seaside. Mr. Moon has a van so we all piled in along with our friend Mac and took a drive to the ocean. It was a bit cold because of the wind but we had a lovely walk out to the lighthouse.
This is the path that we walked on. We were surrounded by mud flats and it was amazing. They stretched far out into the harbor. There were people harvesting seaweed as we walked. Netta was enthralled by their work and wanted to don a pair of boots and join them.After our walk we went to a seafood restaurant. The restaurant was really the purpose of our trip. Downstairs there were loads of different stalls with tanks and fresh fish and other seafood. Pauline had a favorite stand so she showed it to us and then ordered some food. Then we went upstairs to eat. I was a bit nervous when I saw some of the strange items on display downstairs but I tried to stay open to the experience.
These are some of the more unusual items on offer. Some kind of worm that John really wanted to try. They look a lot like a penis when they are alive and eating them is believed to aid men in their stamina. I thought they seemed disgusting. They looked bloody inside when they were cut up on the plate. But John dove right in. He said they didn't have much of a taste just a really chewy texture.
OK, so I have not eaten much shellfish in my time. We never ate it when I was growing up and now it is kind of strange for me. I did try most of these dishes - I was trying hard not to insult our hostess. It was all kind of chewy and strange - thank goodness the sauce was amazing - spicy and yummy and kind of made up for the texture for me. The ones on the green plate were pretty tasty actually they were flavored with sesame oil and peppers and I liked them the best.
A stew of shellfish. There were two huge bowls like this one as well as a bunch of side dishes. After this two more courses arrived. One was sushi - just an enormous plate of raw fish and the next was a spicy seafood stew. There was also a hand made noodle soup - it was quite tasty.
So much food - too much really. We couldn't eat it all and felt really overfull afterwards. Everyone except the kids, me and the driver slept on the way home.
This is John eating raw octopus. It is famous in Korea as it is still wriggling when people eat it. John tried it - I did not. John said he has heard that people have died eating this because it attaches itself to the sides of your throat as you are eating it and makes it impossible to breathe. He made sure the pieces were cut up small before he tried some. Netta enjoyed putting her chopstick in the plate and watching the little legs try to grab it. That was about all that Netta liked about the meal. She wouldn't try anything and was pretty sad seeing all the critters in tanks waiting to be eaten. Thankfully I had anticipated such and brought some seaweed and rice for her to munch on. Olive usually tries anything but was woken up from a nap for this meal and wouldn't try anything so she ate with Netta.

Here is a shot of people harvesting sea weed on the mud flats. Later we saw some of this sea weed being prepared in the fish market.

Here we are on the walkway out to the lighthouse. The wind turbines were beautiful and it is nice to see alternative energy sources in use here. There certainly was a lot of wind to harvest out there.

This is the walkway we walked on before we went to lunch.
This is the ocean after we went to lunch. The tide came in while we ate. The walkway is under water now. Beautiful in a whole different way.

It was a fun day - adventurous and exciting to eat new foods and fun to be out of the city and walking around. Our friends were so generous to share this lovely day with us.

more cherry blossom photos

2011-04-20T06:35:00.000-07:00

Found these photos when I updated the ipod touch. Weirdly enough seems like the ipod takes better photos than our camera - so I added these.... enjoy.....

cherry blossoms

2011-04-20T06:07:00.001-07:00

Ahh the famous cherry blossoms. I was very excited to be in Asia during this special time of year so I decided that we should join the gazillion people that go to Youido every year to see the cherry blossoms in bloom on trees that are hundreds of years old.

Our acupuncturist told us that there was another famous place to see old beautiful trees in Seoul but the trees were chopped down during the Japanese occupation.

It was really incredible to look up in the tunnel and see the sunlight through all the blossoms. I think if the sky had been bright blue it would have been amazing - but it was a bit overcast and still amazing really.
John posing with a lovely old tree. You can see the crowds moving through - so many people - not exactly a poetic, serene scene but hopefully we will get some quiet moments in the trees this weekend near our house. We are planning to hike up Gwanak-san and I think there will be lots of cherry trees as well as other flowers.

So graceful.....
The white petals falling is like snow....
This shot really shows the tunnel effect. It was breathtaking - wish we had a better camera - these photos are kind of flat.

There was a huge street festival there in celebration of the trees blooming. Lots of street performers and food - many street artists too. It was fun.
This is a group that Netta, John and Olive watched for awhile while I went scouting for the row of trees.

At the end of the day we found a park and the girls played bubbles and ran around. Then we took the bus back home and had dinner. It was a nice day - nice to spend time together as a family and get out in the city again.

So 'ping (spring) is here as Olive calls it. Not very hot and kind of windy but lovely enough to get out of the house every day. The next couple of months promise to be busy as we plan our last few trips for while we are here and try to get the most out of our last 69 days in Korea. Not that we are counting!!!

Olive's birthday post

2011-04-13T06:35:00.001-07:00

Well it has taken a few days to post here about Olive's birthday festivities. And the pictures are in a wacky order that I can't seem to change but, oh well. I will try to piece it together in this crazy order. For Olive's birthday we decided to check out a kid's cafe in Seoul. They are restaurants with huge play structures and book rooms and block rooms for kids to play in while their parents eat or rest. They are no Chuckie Cheese let me tell you. They are really nice and they have staff on hand to help with the kids and cameras all around that show you the play areas while you are eating. I had a hard time getting good pictures but this link has some really nice ones of the same place we went to. This first photo is Netta playing on the little toy cars. Olive loved these and could make them go, but the steering was a bit beyond her. She really loved the bump when she hit the wall though.
Here is Olive in the eating area - she was quite tired by this time.

Olive working the car with Netta helping with steering.
Olive climbing up the marshmallow thing that was for bouncing. She has a name tag with the time she is done written on it.
Here she is getting to the top. It was kind of crazy and busy there as we went on Sunday and there were a lot of kids there. She had a hard time staying upright and was not sure that she liked feeling unstable up there.
Here Olive is in the ball pit. She loved this - wanted to keep going back there and hanging out in the ball area.
Here is one of the weird things in the cafe.........
Before the cafe we met John's research advisor (here in this photo) and his family to play in Olympic Park. They are really great and we had a nice time - Netta and their son played soccer and baseball for awhile.

Now we switch to pictures of the zoo. Olive, John and Netta went to the zoo on Saturday while I worked and John took these photos. I don't have much to say about them but I liked them and thought others might like to see them too.

So that was Olive's birthday weekend. The zoo on Sat and then Olympic Park and the kid cafe on Sunday. On Monday (her actual birthday) we had to work and we had pho for dinner - delivered as we couldn't face going out again and we are thinking Olive might be getting a bit of a cold. The weather is improving and it is exciting but it is quite windy all of the time and can be really chilly when the wind comes up.

We are hoping to check out the cherry blossoms this weekend and take lots of photos. Things are starting to bloom and it is beautiful already. I have been promised a wow of a spring as the pay off for putting up with the long..... winter.

Netta's new hanbok

2011-04-05T07:01:00.001-07:00

Here are some photos of Netta and her doll in their new hanbok.

Netta's party

2011-04-03T05:55:00.000-07:00

Special guest blogger - Netta Seales aka the birthday girl.
This is my birthday party - it is not quite starting at the beginning though. These are my friends eagerly awaiting me to cut the second cake. I think there is a picture of the first cake earlier on.
Here are my friends still awaiting their slices from the second cake. These two pictures were taken almost at the same time.
This is John shielding the match as I was about to light the candles on the first cake. Just so you know guys you are going to hear a lot of me's and my's in this blog post.
This one is really really cute - this is a picture of my mom's student Scott holding my friend Kendra and Tera's baby sister Aila. She had just fallen asleep in his lap- see I told you it was cute.
This is Olive climbing a ladder in the park where my party was held.
These are my two friends and Elana's students Scarlett and Angela rollerblading. They brought an extra pair for me to use.
This is Scarlett again. I like her clothes a lot - aren't they cute?
This is me opening up my arms so I can crash into my mom and hug her on rollerblades.
This is the first cake - yay I told you it would show up later. These are my friends again - this is when I was still wearing my helmet. The first cake got a little smooshed but it still tasted good.
This is me - I climbed the statue.
This is me again I climbed the statue without my shoes on.
This is me eating a Korean snack. I don't know what it is called but it is pretty good.
There is me eating again - I look like a baby birdie.
This is my friends Kendra and Tera's mom and dad Mei Ling and Jonathan with their baby Aila.
This is me and my friends' hole that we dug when we started to destroy it.
This is my friend Kendra and Irene on the swing together at the park where we held my birthday party.
This is them again - same story as before.
This is me scratching my head and smiling.
And there is them on the swing again.
These are my friends watching me open my presents, there will be a picture of said present later on.
That is Scarlett watching something or other I don't know what.
That is me smiling very sheepishly.
This is me eating cake. Cheese cake yummy - Korean cheese cake is different than American cheese cake - it is more cakey and less dense. And I believe more delicious.
This is the present that you saw me opening earlier. It is a barbie wearing hanbok (traditional Korean dress). I will post more pictures of her later.
Here I am cutting the cake.
This is my friend Irene eating cake and holding out her hand for a piece of chocolate from the top of the cake.
This is the cheese cake - yum, yum.
This is my friends Kendra and Tera's mom Mei Ling sitting on the grass.
This is Kendra and me - I don't know what we are doing.

It was a fun party it was great. I got some hanbok for my birthday and I will post pictures of me in it with my doll later on.

umyeonsan, daeseongsa

2011-03-27T04:10:00.000-07:00

Olive and I took a hike up Umyeonsan (san = mountain) on Saturday. The day was fairly cold, about 6 degrees C, and breezy. I had olive well bundled with an ear-flapped hat. It seemed ok to me.

But not to Pauline (the Korean Pauline) who tsk tsked extensively, and begged me to reconsider my mountain hiking plan. She wanted me to stay at her art studio with Netta. But I was not to be deterred.

The day was cold, as I mentioned, but with a predominance of sun along with the puffy clouds, and the warmer than freezing temperature, it counted as a nice day for Korea in the early spring. Also, a dreaded bugaboo of the Asian spring, the Yellow Dust (blowing off the contaminated deserts of central China) was not in effect. And I love the mountains!! So off we went.

Umyeogsan is uphill from the Seoul Arts center, on the campus of which is the National Gugak center, (Korean music center) where I see a lot of concerts and take some classes. I like the place.

Umyeonsan is about 300 meters tall - - hardly a mountain really, but reasonably strenuous with a toddler on your back. Getting to the top involves going up at least a thousand steps. Some are rough granite, others are wooden with inspirational Korean sayings on them.

Before too long, we got to the top, and I pointed out things in the view to Olive (I forgot I had the camera until a little later.. sorry!) It was pretty clear, so you could see Seoul Tower, the river, the mountains North of Seoul... magnificent.

There was snow on the ground from a late snow, and it was exceptionally muddy. There were parts of the trail that were outrageously muddy, and I was in danger of slipping with Olive on my back and turning us both into mud- covered waeguk beasts. (waeguk = foreigner) But thankfully I didn't.

On the way there was a bathroom, but it was a "port-a-squatty," a portable squat style toilet. Olive refuses to have anything to do with a squat toilet, wisely because they are often filthy. Oh well.

On the way down, we visited Daeseongsa. (sa = buddhist temple) There's a spring there, water coming out of the mountain into a beautiful carved granite fountain. I went there in the midwinter, and had to break the ice to scoop water to drink. Today, it was thawed, but very cold.

The water comes out of a granite turtle's mouth, then a dragon and another dragon – through a series of three progressively dirty pools. We drank out of the turtle's mouth, and I washed the mud off my neoprene Korean hiking pants with the lowest pool.

Around this point I remembered I had the camera. The rightmost turtle is where the drinking water comes out.

Olive next to the dirty pool trying to look like one of the dragons. You can just see a sitting Buddha there to the left of the frolicking turtles.

The carving looks kind of medieval-european. It's a spiritual character, but all the same he looks worried. Some of them are small, but you can see a bunch of little Buddha characters. Some of them look finely wrought and expensive, others like little toys. It looks like people just put their own there.

Unrelated picture!!! But it's too cute not to post.

volunteering

2011-03-25T07:53:00.001-07:00

Netta and I have been volunteering at a local hospital. There is a place called the Yeoksam Global Center which organizes classes and trips for foreigners here in our area. They organize this work at the hospital. It is really fun to play with the kids.
We go once a month and this was our second month. We did origami, played jenga and did 3-D puzzles with the kids. They are very happy to have something to do and really seem to enjoy our visits.
The hospital is nice and the atmosphere is upbeat. I really enjoy it and it is nice to be able to do something for Korean people as they are always doing so much for us.

catching up

2011-03-17T06:38:00.001-07:00

So I am trying to catch up on life here in Seoul. I can't remember if I posted this photo already so it may be a repeat. This is our sweet friend Mac and her niece with Netta and I - we all went to see a concert together. John stayed home with Olive. It was fun to have a girls' night out and I really enjoyed the music. Pretty standard classical fare but lovely and fun for Netta to hear.

Mac owns a small clothing shop close to our house. She stopped me one day and asked me about English lessons. She lived in Las Vegas for one year and her English is very good. I have been teaching some of her friends and customers as well as just recently her niece and nephew. She is a sweetheart - she helps us with everything from ordering a pizza to our internet service. Her sister cooks amazing meals for us - they are wonderful friends.
Speaking of wonderful friends here is Olive during our dinner out recently with our friend Phillipa. She just returned from a couple of months in Singapore and Malaysia. It was great to see her, she is fun! She took all the photos you see here.
Netta at dinner - I like this shot. She is wearing one of the 2 new pairs of glasses she got a couple of weeks ago. Glasses are really cheap here - she got 2 pairs for about $70 and they even fixed her broken pair for us too.
John and the girls - whenever the camera comes out Olive pulls a face.

I like how calm John looks here even with all these goofy girls.
This is a great one of Phillipa with the girls.
I decided to post more of Netta's projects as folks seem to like seeing them here. She has been working with clay quite a bit. I like these tiny intricate cakes she is creating.
Rainbows.....
Body art - Olive asks Netta to paint on her all the time. I actually need to get Netta more face paints, she is out of the ones I got her at the holidays.
Netta with another tiny cake.
It even has a little cake box.
Netta made this on a field trip that we went on with her art academy. There was a Picasso exhibit and then the kids made these out of food. I like it - we enjoyed eating it with Netta's friends that night when they came over for a sleep over at our house.
Sorry about the sideways pictures again. So the California girls decided today that they were going to the beach. Don't let that patch of sunshine fool you it is still about 0 degrees celsius here- even colder with the wind. The girls needed some summer energy so they dressed up in their summer clothes and spread out a beach towel in the living room. They even used an umbrella for shade. Then they filled the bath and went for a swim.
Here they are ready for their beach trip - I was the snack bar owner. I made food- not much different than my role as mom really.
Here they are enjoying their small but warm ocean.

As you can see we are all still looking forward to warmer days.........................

Close to Japan

2011-03-16T05:51:00.000-07:00

Hi - been getting a few e-mails lately checking in to see how we are because we are so close to Japan. We found out about the earthquake and tsunami while we were having dinner at a local restaurant. The TV was on and the images were terrifying. It is strange to be so close and have no major effects on our life. Really we didn't feel anything and although we are scared by the possible radiation exposures here, right now the wind is simply blowing the other way.

Watching video of the effects on Santa Cruz was also strange as it is so far away and yet seemed to be more impacted than we are here.

There is however the emotional impact - my heart hurts for all the people of Japan. It is so scary to see all the destruction - to wonder how it can possibly all be cleaned up. There is so much mystery and fear about the nuclear power plants. Are we being told all there is to tell? All I can really do is breathe, hope and be thankful for every day.

Sending love to all - may all beings be at peace.

몽게 ("mongke") a.k.a. sea squirts

2011-03-14T07:03:00.000-07:00

Here are 몽게 in the main market for our part of Seoul, next to some of their seafood friends. Clams of various sizes, octopuses, squid, other shellfish of some kind, and the red, bumpy 몽게 which are known in English by the unpromising "sea squirts." I've been seeing these alien creatures in the markets for a long time, but it took a while to get up the courage to buy some.

몽게 are high in iodine, which is useful information if you need to protect yourself from possible radiation leaks from astonishingly destructive natural disasters that you may be downwind of.
The skin is tough and leathery, encasing a squishy interior. Obviously, you can't push hard with a knife, or it will spray everywhere.
That's why you use scissors. Kitchen scissors are common knowledge in Korea. How many of you back home use them? The best kitchen scissors can easily be disassembled for cleaning.
Anyhow, you snip the skin, and peel it back like a lychee, revealing some orange flesh and quite a bit of strange looking liquid.
It's kind of like a raw oyster...
kind of.
Tapatio was a good guess, but sriracha would have been more on target. Or some sauce with fresh chiles and soy sauce and sesame oil ... something like that.
몽게 are ok raw. I would characterize it's flavor "tide-pooley." I will definitely try them again, but next time with a bottle of soju nearby, and a more asian-type hot sauce. I'm pretty sure you can find them in a Korean market. Maybe Staff will get them if you explain about the iodine?

Random notes and photos

2011-03-04T05:58:00.000-08:00

Netta's drawing of her emblem from the back of her Tae Kwon Do outfit. She arrived home today thrilled because she received her third belt (blue). She is hoping to get one or two more before we return home.

Olive's lovely art project. She was playing with this game and asked me to look at her arrangement. I love the sorting in this - it is beautiful.
We are all measuring time until we come home now. Trying to do all the things we want to do before we come home. For John that means eating things from the local market that he has not dared to try yet. These have included so far a squid, a fresh fish, and some red bumpy sea creatures that we cannot yet identify. For me it is planning a trip to Jeju Island well really earning and saving the money to make the trip and then planning it. For Netta it is a lot of planning and dreaming. She and I have both been having lots of dreams about home lately. Our family also spent one night going through the alphabet and naming one thing we are looking forward to when we get home that began with each letter. You know - A - avocado. Oh man I am looking forward to some avocados. It has been great here but we all miss home a lot. Maybe it is also the weather and being stuck inside for so long. It is March now but still really cold. Olive has a little cold and I don't want her out in the wind so we are stuck at home again. I am hoping that when it finally warms up and we can get out more we will be happier and not focusing so much on getting home. It is after all quite a few months before we come home.

Well I guess those are enough thoughts for tonight. I really need to go to sleep now.

Netta's art

2011-02-23T06:02:00.000-08:00

One thing about being a homeschooling family in Seoul is we do not have a very busy schedule. At home we were always out and about at class days or field trips or playdates but here our weekdays are pretty quiet. I am really seeing the advantages to kids having time to create. Netta is doing an amazing amount of art. She is not a big reader - yet - although her reading has grown so much while we have been here and in two languages to boot. But she loves to listen to books and while she is listening she has been doing loads of art.

I also have a student who owns an Art Academy which is basically an after school art program. In addition to taking lessons with me she has generously allowed Netta to participate in her art classes for free. She even picks her up and drives her there! She is very sweet and Netta loves the days she spends there. They are often long days as my friend has to stay during other classes and Netta waits for her to get a ride home. So she gets to work on many projects and my friend says she stays focused for long periods of work time.

So here are some of her works. This is a lovely tree she made - I love the details in the clay work.

A nest on the tree.

Some origami she did on a calendar that she made me.
Crayon and watercolor.
More origami - I like the animal print paper.
She made this one for Olive and we hung it over our bed. Olive likes to look at while we get ready for bed. Sorry I can't turn it....
Nice shadowing here.
Color study.

I hope I can post more soon. Today she made a birthday cake and muffins out of clay. The cake fit in a cute little box from John's Valentine cake.

I am so thankful that Netta has the time to practice art.

Long overdue

2011-02-21T19:06:00.000-08:00

Hi all - it has been awhile since I have posted. Sometimes it is hard to wrench the computer away from other members of the household. Also we were sick and all my energy was going to helping us all heal. We are mostly better now - Netta and I still have some gunk but we are mostly better. We haven't been doing much with the cold weather and the sicknesses but we did celebrate lunar new year before we all got sick.

We went to a folk village and saw an amazing shamanic ritual that is performed for the new year. This lovely old woman played the drum for the ritual.

This is the main shaman from the ritual. It was cool a lot of dancing and chanting with music. She did some amazing things with long ribbons and twisting while she was dancing. She also did a thing where she held out flags to audience members and the person would pick one and the color would tell her something about good or bad luck for the year ( or at least that is what it seemed like to us).

They also threw food out into the audience. It was really crazy - people went mad - it was like they were starving or something. Olive was in the stroller close to the stage but during the frenzy we had to get her out or she would have been crushed. It was madness !

Netta made this kite. She flew it quite a bit. It worked pretty well but has since sort of disintegrated because it is made of paper. She did get some good runs on our hill outside the house and at Nakseongdae Park.This is the pond at the village. It was frozen over and everybody was walking on it. Very cool - except in the places you could see bubbles from the water below - kind of nerve wracking.

So that was our lunar new year - on to the year of the rabbit!

I have some other posts about Netta's art and some trips we made with her friends but I will let them wait until next time.

Hope everyone is well - we are thinking about coming home. We are over halfway through our year here and have set a date to return home June 28 although we have not bought our tickets yet. We are all looking forward to home.

jim jil bang

2011-01-27T00:06:00.000-08:00

It is cold here. It has been cold for awhile and it won't be warming up anytime soon. Our family has been indulging in a very Korean way of keeping warm. We have discovered Korean saunas and we are in love. These pictures show how cold it has been as these are the inside of our windows. The moisture builds up from the condensation and freezes. The house is basically pretty warm as this is between the outer windows and the inner set. If we keep the inner set closed this cold area doesn't really affect our environment inside the apartment.
So on evenings like these we head out to our local jim jil bang. A jim jil bang is a sauna where part of the building is separated by gender and then there is a common area where everyone wears uniforms and it is co-ed. I will try to describe what it is like in the separated section first. You go in and when you pay you are issued towels and a key to a locker. This is where John and us girls part ways. We head into the ladies dressing room where we all get naked and put our clothes in our lockers. Then we go into the shower and hot tubs room. This is an amazing place. In one area women in underwear and bras are massaging and scrubbing women on tables for a fee. Other women are showering and scrubbing themselves and each other. It is really great - everyone is naked except the massage table ladies and once you have rinsed off you can go in the tubs. There are usually a few different ones that are different temperatures and there is usually one that has a big teabag of green tea floating in it. Usually there is a warm one, a hot one and a very hot one as well as one cold one. Netta spends most of her time in the freezing one or trying to get me to go in the freezing one with her. In one of our local ones there is a little pool for little ones. There are also saunas in this section for those who would rather go in them in the nude I guess. Usually after about an hour of soaking we have a time to meet John and we get dressed in our uniforms that they gave us when we paid and we go into the common area. For obvious reasons I don't have photos of the showering tubbing area but here are some from the jim jil bang area.
Here are some folks chilling in the common area. People lay around on mats and relax. There is usually a restaurant, snack area, sometimes a play room, and a few different saunas. They are usually different temperatures and there is generally a cold room. You can even sleep in these places for the night. We have a few friends who have slept in them - it is cheap and seems nice. We saw babies napping, kids playing, lovers cuddling and lots of people sleeping and drinking.
Here is Netta having ice cream - it is so warm in there that an ice cream is refreshing. We always feel warm inside and out after we go there. When we leave we feel like it is actually warmer outside because we are so thoroughly warmed.
In the background here you can see people relaxing - kind of hard to photograph it as it feels invasive to be snapping photos. The uniforms are usually different colors for men, women and children. We haven't seen any foreigners in these yet - well actually one woman from Vietnam talked to me once.
I can't stand most of the saunas themselves as they are so stifling and hot - but there is one that I loved. It is warm, about 80 degrees F I think, and the whole floor is made of small stones. There are wooden headrests placed all around the perimeter of the circular space and everyone lays in the warm stones with their feet in the center. Very comfortable for my body, soothing and nice.

The kids ask every day to go to the sauna- it is a good time for all.

I think Santa Cruz needs one - what do you think? Business opportunity? Investors?

Kidzania

2011-01-23T20:31:00.000-08:00

Ok I am catching up on old posts. This is from our second playdate with Grace. We went to this place called Kidzania. I had heard of it from some other kids in Seoul and we had been looking forward to checking it out. It lived up to its stories - Netta loved it and I must admit it is a fun place. It is like an amusement park but is set up like a small version of Seoul. A lot of the businesses in Seoul have mini versions of themselves set up here. So Seoul Milk and Paris Baguette as well as many others are here. The basic idea is that kids can do jobs and take classes. There is a TV studio where the kids do the news show. Netta was the cameraman because she doesn't speak Korean and it was so fun. She got to use a real camera. They then make a DVD of the performance for the parents. Kids get paid for doing jobs and they pay money for classes. Netta took a cooking class and spent some of her "money" there. Kids also get to open bank accounts, have ATM cards and credit cards. Nothing like creating consumers from an early age. But it was so fun for Netta to get to do grown up things. In the picture above you can see the kids ready to make donuts in their hair nets and all.

Here Netta is working in a hotel. They are cleaning the room and preparing it for visitors. They wore little blazers as uniforms and the room was kind of mini sized - so cute.
Here is Netta working at the fire department. They drove the kids in a small fire truck through the little streets with the siren on and all. Netta got to ride shotgun!
Here is Netta fighting the "fire" - it was in an old hotel and they got to shoot real water at the "flames".
The triumphant fire fighters.
Olive in the little fire truck. It was kind of a hard day for Olive as none of the activities were geared towards littler ones. She kept wanting to go where Netta was but couldn't. Also her leg was not quite working right yet so there was a lot of carrying for me.
Netta being a cheerleader. She didn't really want to do this but ended up having fun. They practiced and then performed on the soccer field - they did a routine to "Oh Mickey". Very cute...

Here is Netta with Grace and Irene. They are sweet girls who both speak English very well. Netta likes them - it was a fun day!!!
Here is Netta's list of things that were there:

recording studio
fire department
beauty shop
Mr. Pizza
Cheerleading squad
soccer team
dentist
bank
Paris Baguette
Italian food place
Dunkin Donuts
Baskin Robbins
Deok place
Korean Airlines
Lotte Hotel
Exterminator
Construction site
Archaelogical site
house painters
Hospital
pharmacy
E-Mart
Kyobo Book store
clock tower
police station
court house
movie theatre
acting theatre
jail
car wash
car making studio
car mechanic
gas station

It was a bit of a pricey day but fun!

And we never could have done it without Korean friends as they really helped us navigate the whole thing.

Bye for now!

Netta on Ice

2011-01-21T08:09:00.001-08:00

When Pauline was here we tried to go ice skating with Netta. We ended up in an enormous bookstore and we never actually found the skating rink that we had read about on the internet. But while we were looking at books we met a little girl named Grace. She took our phone number and called the next day to make play date with Netta. So we went back to the bookstore and met her after Pauline went home. We ended up going ice skating with her. She knew where the rink was and showed us the way. Netta had a great time and after hanging on to the side for a short time to get her balance she was off skating and having fun. Poor Olive wanted to skate but with her leg still healing it didn't seem like the best plan. So Olive and I waited for Netta and Grace and ate cookies. It was a lovely day and has led to more fun play dates with Grace and her friends. They are really sweet and she is quite a kid. Very brave to call us and spark up the friendship.

In fact the next post will be about our next day with them..... Something to look forward to......

Songwhangsa Temple

2011-01-19T17:53:00.001-08:00

Hi I am finally back weeks later to finish blogging about our trip with Pauline. On our last day in the village we tried to go to Songwhangsa Temple which is one of the three jewel temples in Korea. It was snowing and the mountainous road was closed so we turned back when the driving got treacherous and headed to the hot springs. We spent a lovely afternoon in the warm water and then tried the temple in the morning before we had to leave to go home. We made it and it was worth it - so beautiful.
We even got to hear the bell being rung. What a lovely sound - John recorded it and will be able to use it in his work.
Amazing icicles hanging from the temple walls.
Olive got kind of sad and cold but perked up when Netta carried her out. Netta was quite a trouper as the going was a bit icy and steep.
This is the river that we walked by on the way up to the temple. So amazingly beautiful.
This huge stone was remarkable. Netta is in for scale. (I wish I could figure out how to turn these photos - sorry)
Olive feeling better.
Lots of lovely, white, fresh snow.
Detail of paintings on the main temple hall. Inside were large golden statues of the buddha - lovely.
Netta and Olive "feeding" the statue.
It was hard to leave this beautiful, peaceful place but the rental car was due back so off we went.
Here are a few more images:

Here are some shots of tunnels from our drive home- Korea is so mountainous that there are lots of tunnels to drive through. They entertained the kids on the long drive - especially with Pauline counting when we went in and when we went out.

That is the end of our trip with Pauline - she left the next day - we still miss having her here. It was a great visit - thanks Pauline!

Nagan village

2011-01-05T05:19:00.001-08:00

So here are more photos from Nagan Village.

Here is when the snow fell.
The girls with their snowperson.
A swept path with footprints.
This is the iron worker in the village. We bought a knife from him and now every time I use it I think of watching him placing it in the fire and then hammering it. It is heavy and sharp.

Our Min bak

Blanketed in white - so amazing on the thatched roofs.
The snowy wall.

Netta's snow angel. Nice - huh?
The snow woman with the ginko leaf hat. There is a 600 year old ginko tree in the village - maybe this leaf came from that tree.
Icicles hanging from thatch.
Such a beautiful place.

Naganeupseong Village

2011-01-05T05:09:00.000-08:00

These pictures are from our first day at the village.
There is a wall surrounding the village as it was a fortress during the Joseon Era. We arrived after a night in Suncheon City. The first day of driving took longer than we thought it would and so we stayed in a love motel in Suncheon and set out for the village in the morning. It was a lovely when we arrived and we wandered for awhile and then found a Min Back ( a stay in someone's house).
Netta, John and Olive climbing the stairs to the wall.
Some of the carvings on the way into the village. Very silly.

A pond in the village.

Just a few more photos

2011-01-05T05:02:00.000-08:00

Olive with her new subway toy. Netta chose this great subway car for Olive. It makes some annoying sounds but it is very authentic and has already been played with a lot.
Olive building and Netta reading.
That's it - the vacation photos are up next.

quick christmas post

2010-12-25T08:05:00.001-08:00

Here they are the cutest, happiest Christmas girls in Korea. We had a great day and the girls enjoyed all the lovely things brought over from loved ones at home. These dresses from Nana Rene and Grandad were a big hit - so incredibly cute.
Christmas cake - this is what Koreans do for Christmas - eat cake. We had to get one to be a part of the experience here but just when we had finished ours our neighbor (at least we think it was our neighbor) showed up at the door with an extra one from their party - so now we have 2 - well actually only 1 1/2 now. John and Netta tried to find the neighbors and offer some of our baked goodies in return but ended up knocking on someone else's door and so they got the goodies.
Netta - very happy about the Christmas Cake.
Paper dolls with Pauline. fun fun
John with Dino the amazing knitted dinosaur that Pauline brought for Olive.

It was a wonderful day. Thanks to all at home and I will try to post more details of our last couple of days soon.

Pauline is here!

2010-12-20T07:47:00.001-08:00

Hi all - so as you can see here - Pauline arrived yesterday safe and sound. It is a joy to see her. I am up late posting and need to go to sleep so I will be brief. This is the girls on the subway as we headed out for a day at Seoul Tower. We have been wanting to go check out the view and figured Pauline's visit was a great chance. The weather didn't agree and it was overcast so the view was less than ideal. Oh well - we will have to go back - it was great anyway just being out and about and showing off Seoul.
Here is Olive pulling a face for the camera in Seoul Tower. She had part of her cast removed on Saturday - I have been meaning to post and let you all know. He took off the part that covered her knee so she can crawl and walk easier know. He also told us we can come back on Christmas eve and have the rest removed. Which is pretty thrilling as it is a bit earlier than we had thought and fun for Olive to have it off for the Christmas festivities with Pauline. She is wanting it off and wants to be walking and running again soon.
Sideways John and Olive.....
This is the cool elevator we took up to the cable car area. It was just an elevator on a hillside - neat huh?
This is a shot of the elevator track from the top.
Sideways Seoul Tower - I haven't figured out how to turn pictures here sorry.
John like to call these trees with coats. They put them on some trees here to keep them warm.
Happy folks.
Walking around in the observatory level of the tower.
A speed bump with a flower growing out of it...... not sure why. Ideas anyone?

That's it for now as it is 1 am and we are planning a big day out in downtown Seoul tomorrow. I'll try to blog again soon.

The Snowy Day

2010-12-17T03:36:00.000-08:00

So today we awoke to a blanket of snow. Netta was jubilant and had us all suited up and out in no time. I wasn't going to take Olive out with the cast and all but she really wanted to go so we just bagged it up and out we went. Olive even ended up on the swing as you see here. The bare hands did not last long - the mittens went back on pretty quickly. I think the chain was cold.
Here is Netta all suited up and enjoying the snow.
The pristine swing before the butts.

The snow was really puffy and light - so beautiful and fun to brush off of things. I wish this photo was more in focus.

We all thought these little ledges were mighty cute covered in snow.
This is the view we saw from the staircase of our building.

Unfortunately it didn't last long - the day warmed up and despite there being more snow later in the day by the time it came along it melted right away in the puddles. Oh well. It was a fun morning.

Tomorrow we are off to the doctor to check in about Olive's progress.

Then Sunday Pauline arrives - we are unbearably excited about her visit. So lots of cleaning and getting ready is the plan for our weekend.

Doctor visit

2010-12-09T06:26:00.000-08:00

So Olive went to see the doctor on Wed. and he checked her cast, did some more x-rays and said everything looks to be healing well and he wants to see her again in 10 days. I asked how long the cast might be on and he said around 4 weeks. He also said it is fine for Olive to try to walk on it with help or on her own. She has not really tried on her own but often asks for help and I am glad to know it is ok to go ahead and help her. She is mostly just dragging herself around on the floor and rolling to get around.

We also had our first real snow this week. It was fun for Netta she ran out to play in it. There was not much but some is still sticking around on rooftops.

So that is a brief check in and update. I will try to write more this weekend.

life goes on

2010-12-05T06:37:00.001-08:00

As easy as it is to stay at home and avoid the extra carrying and lugging it takes to go out with the casted Olive we have been venturing out. We live on the 4th floor so we have 5 flights of stairs to carry her up and down every time we go out. I think it is more fun for her to be in the stroller checking out interesting things than staying at home staring at youtube and reading books. So off we go (especially on the weekend when John is available to help) - today we went to The National Museum of Korea. We posed for this photo opp where Obama had stood just a few weeks ago.
Here is Olive with the camera strap levitation device that we created. If her leg is not supported than the cast digs into her thigh in the back. She is wearing my sock to keep her toes warm as she can't wear a shoe on that foot. We put her own sock on her other foot but halfway through our outing today discovered that she had taken it off and dropped it. We were very glad that we had her stroller blanket to keep her tootsies covered on the way home. Don't want to get yelled at by the Korean grandmas when they see her bare toes and don't want her feet to get cold.
Here is a good shot of Olive with her new scarf. It has been tough to get her to wear a scarf - it seems really important to protect her little neck from the cold. I found this at a thrift store and realized that cutesy things like this actually help small children wear the warm things necessary here in the winter. Brilliant - Olive loves her puppy!

First full day with the cast

2010-12-02T03:44:00.000-08:00

Hi so we made it through our first day of many to come with the casted leg. It was tricky figuring out how to set up her stroller so that it was comfortable for her. We ended up lifting it with an old camera strap. Pretty weird - but functional. It hurts her without support - it digs into her thigh where it ends.

I found out some clarification on the break - it is the tibia - so I suppose that means she broke her leg not her ankle. As John pointed out you can't really break an ankle as it is not a bone.

Olive spent the afternoon asking to walk with help - she is having a hard time sitting still so much. She tried dragging herself on the floor combat crawl style but that wasn't so fun. It worked better to walk while holding hands kind of like when she was learning to walk. She is very proud of herself when she can stand independently.

It is hard not to worry about her putting weight on it. I wonder if it will affect her healing. It is really hard to keep her off it though. Unless someone is sitting with her entertaining her which is hard when I am trying to cook, clean, do laundry -etc etc etc....

Maybe the lesson is to stop and just hang out with her - relax on the couch and read her books. If only life could stop for that....

Not a good day

2010-12-01T04:53:00.000-08:00

So here I am back as promised but for all the wrong reasons. I have news to tell and it is not good news. Olive broke her tiny little ankle. She has a cast. She went down the slide at our local park just a little too fast. The first night we did not take her to the hospital as it was late and we thought it might just be a bad sprain. Although I have to say it was just as others have told me about kids and broken bones - she kept on crying longer than usual. But we waited until today and then went first to the acupuncturist who needled her and then sent us to have it x-rayed. It was x-rayed and found to be broken - not all the way through the bone about 3/4 of the way through and then the doctor put a cast on it. A big cast - not sure how life will be with the cast on. I'm kind of nervous as it was impossible for Olive to sit in her high chair tonight and the top of the cast was hurting as it pressed on her leg. The doctor said 3-4 months although we are hoping this was wrong and a miscommunication/ language confusion. She will go back for a check-up in one week so hopefully it will be cleared up then.

We have a guest now and so I will sign off with that short post. Sorry for the crazy news.

We are all fine otherwise and Olive is a trooper - she did great laughing through it all and letting everyone prick her and wrap her.

I'll write more soon and post pictures now.

photos

2010-12-01T04:28:00.001-08:00

Olive getting acupuncture on her foot. We love our acupuncturist!
Olive getting her cast - isn't it enormous?

More shots of the casting process.

Returning

2010-11-28T07:31:00.000-08:00

I will go back to blogging - I will - I will.

Sorry to have been lagging so long. The trouble with photos has been getting me down and keeping me away from the blog.

But I will do it soon - not now as it is 12:30 am, but soon.

We had our first snow today - we looked up and saw sweet soft white flakes falling from the sky - beautiful - Netta was thrilled.

I will be back soon - I promise.

Address reshuffle

2010-11-22T03:34:00.001-08:00

When we first moved to Nakseongdae, I spent some time walking around and learning the street names. Not that there was much point; street names aren't used much in Korea. The traditional system of house addresses is to number all the houses in a neighborhood or "dong" according to the order they were built. Needless to say, it's often impossible to find things.

About a month after we moved here, the names of the bigger streets suddenly changed. (e.g. "Gwandong gil" became "Solbat ro.") They changed not just in our neighborhood, but all around Seoul. Later, I would find out that the street names were changing across the entire country. It took a few weeks for them to get around to changing all the street signs on the little streets, but eventually, our street changed from "Gwandong 5-gil" to "Haengun 4-gil," and our old number plate was switched out in favor of an updated one.

Yesterday, a lady came to our door to explain the new system. On Jan 1 2011, all the addresses in the country are changing from the old time-sequential dong system to the European style sequentially-numbered-along-a-street system.

So... address is no longer Seoul, Gwanak-gu, Bongcheon 6-dong 148-81, but rather Seoul, Gwanak-gu, Haengun 4-gil 55-18 (Bongcheon-dong.) Our address has changed, but we haven't moved...

photos finally

2010-11-17T03:34:00.001-08:00

I am so bugged by blogspot

I can't get my photos to load - here are the few that worked. I have tried three days at different times and they won't load. GRRRRR....

Sorry but I may need a few days off to find the inspiration to come back to the blog. Maybe I can just do writing without pictures until the site works better.
These photos are from the Seoul Latern Festival. The camera battery died so we only got a few shots. It was beautiful. I apologize for the picture orientation as well.

photos

2010-11-12T04:54:00.001-08:00

Can't post now - won't load - internet annoyance!

Later!

Foreign Food Market in Ansan

2010-11-12T04:32:00.000-08:00

Hi folks - well it has been another busy week for us here in Seoul and now I have time to write about last weekend.

We had been wanting to visit a market that we heard about awhile ago so, when the Craiglister selling the humidifier we need for the winter was located in Ansan, off we went.

The market is in a neighborhood where a lot of people from India, Vietnam, China, Uzbekistan, Thailand, Pakistan, and other countries live. I was excited to try to find some cilantro and other ingredients and spices that I have been missing here. Netta has really been loving Dal and we needed more so I was hoping to find some there. I found the last bag in Itaewon but thought it might be cheaper elsewhere. It was really quite fun to wander through the market as it has a lot of Korean style but is different in many ways. There was cilantro ---yay and cheap too. I wish they had it in my neighborhood. We also discovered some yummy fried bready doughnutty thing that was from China.

We decided to have Indian food there, although I was tempted by the recommendation from the humidifier guy for Uzbeki food as I have never had it before. He said it was the cheapest and best foreign food he had eaten in Seoul - oh well next time. Netta was set on Indian so we found a nice little spot and had some yummy food. Too spicy for Netta though so in the end we had to get her some Pho from the Vietnamese restaurant. She tried to fill up on Naan ---haha!!

Next to the Indian restaurant I found a small Indian grocery owned by a Korean lady and found my dal (not cheaper) and some spices like bay leaves, cumin and even some ghee. Yay!!

It was a fun outing. Many of the folks spoke English as I guess it is the language they have most in common. The restaurant menus were in English and it made things easy - for an afternoon.

I'll post photos next......

Pictures from Phillipa

2010-11-08T06:48:00.000-08:00

Here are pictures sent by our new friend Phillipa. They are better than our photos from the trip so I thought you might like to see them.
Netta and John above Hahoe - you can see the village below.
Netta and Phillipa in Hahoe.
All of us dressed up for the concert with a fun sculpture/bench of a cat outside the concert hall at the Andong Art and Culture Center.

That's all for now!

More photos

2010-11-06T19:32:00.000-07:00

A ginko tree - so yellow.
Netta and Phillipa
The river and bridge in Andong.
A statue in Andong.
View from the temple that has the oldest wooden structure in Korea. The colors are really beautiful - the cell phone photo didn't really capture them. Forgot the camera.....

An unclear photo of the strange performance with the traditional instruments being "played?"
A commoners home in Hahoe.
Sorry for the sideways picture. I can't figure out how to change the orientation once I have imported the picture..... View in Hahoe.
Door in Hahoe.
Some cool carvings on the way into the village of Hahoe.
That's all until next time.

Pictures and More Story

2010-11-06T17:30:00.001-07:00

This is in the garden at the traditional Korean house. There were lots of beautiful rocks in the garden. Some were shaped like animals, some were very large and others were patterned in amazing ways.
Here is one of the dogs and its little house.
The master of the house. His family has owned the house for many generations.
The inside of the roof on one of the buildings.
More of the garden. Netta took this picture - I really like it.

Some of the snacks they served. Presented in this lovely box - dried apples and figs, dried persimmons stuffed with walnuts, what we call ancestor donuts (which are used during Chuseok to honor the ancestors), and dashik (traditional tea sweets).
Drying persimmons.....
Shot of a window in the house from below.

So on with the story:

After the ancestor meal we went to a beautiful temple. I didn't actually hear any of the talk at the temple because Olive was enjoying playing in the leaves too much.

So much fun!

After this we went to another temple to eat dinner and watch some music. It was really cold and we hadn't been told to bundle up because we were going to eat outside. So John trekked back to the bus for warm things and while he was gone we were shown inside the building where the room was being warmed for us. They warmed it by making a fire under the floor. It was amazing almost too hot at times - I had to sit on my sweater to keep my bum from cooking.

Then there was a strange performance with 3 ladies "playing" traditional instruments in skimpy clothing (outside in the freezing night). John thought they were not really playing as their technique was not right. They played modern music and had a really showy presentation. There were also speeches by the mayor of the town and the woman whose organization sponsored the trip ( Korean Women's Forum).

Then dinner finally. Then we went back to the bus and some of the folks got off the bus - apparently they were staying at the temple to sleep. Netta was very upset as she wanted to sleep in a traditional Korean house. We went on to our lodgings and here again it gets weird.

So we stayed at the guesthouse of the local Andong Hospital. I thought it was a type o on the agenda that they meant hostel or something but no we pulled up to the hospital. Patients were outside smoking and sick people were wandering the halls. They checked us in and we went up to the 12th floor to our rooms. Our family actually had a traditional Korean set up with thin mattresses on the floor so that we could stay in one room together. It was strange - from our window we could see in patients' rooms. I kept thinking how in the US hospitals are the place where strong bacteria thrive and staying there seemed crazy. Oh well the room was very nice and we headed off early in the morning. Not before buying a few necessities in the many shops on the first floor of the hospital.

Off to breakfast in the morning. This was definitely Netta's favorite meal of the trip. All bready things and sweet tarts. While we were finishing up Olive and I went out and wandered the neighborhood a bit. We found a flower vendor and Olive oohed and aahed and smelled all the flowers. The man was so sweet and he gave Olive a beautiful rose. She was very pleased.

When we got back to the bakery Netta was jealous of Olive's flower so they headed over to the flower stall and she came back with her own free rose.

Next we went to the overlook cliff above Hahoe Village. John did this exact walk on his trip so it was fun to hear his info that he had found out on his trip. It was a nice little hike to a beautiful spot. Then before we went to the village they fed us again. We were all still full from the bready breakfast but we went to the same bulgogi restaurant that John had been to. It was amazing and there were hundreds of pots of duenjang in front of the restaurant which was cool.

Then we went to Hahoe Village and walked around. One interesting thing we learned was that when a traveler approached a village he or she would look for the highest gate and then go to that home knowing that was the largest home in the village and would provide lodging. Basically any traveler could stay for up to 3 months for free in exchange for information that they could provide from the outside world. Sometimes they would overstay their welcome and the food quality would go down until they "decided" to leave.

After Hahoe we saw the mask dance. This was the same dance we saw at the cultural festival in Bucheon only a better production. It was fun - hard to understand some of it though.

Next we went to another temple which was the oldest wooden structure in Korea. It was beautiful - the fall colors and the old buildings made a lovely setting. I will load some photos in the next post.

Netta made a friend on the bus, an English teacher from Trinidad. She was a lovely woman and we will see her this month when Netta and I go on a tour of the baker's market in Seoul.

Then lastly we went to the concert venue. There was a big reception there with lots of suits. This was another time when we thought "what the hell are we doing here?" But it was ok lots of places to play outside while the speeches happened.

Then food - Netta boycotted the food so John and Netta went out and found pizza while Olive and I played.

During the concert Olive and I played in the lobby. She played with a few other little ones and it was really sweet - jumping together and making each other laugh with spinning and such. She also befriended an usher who spent a lot of time entertaining her with her phone. It had music videos on it and games where you could pet a cat and make it purr and record your voice.

Then after the concert we headed back to the bus for the ride to Seoul. We all fell asleep on the bus and got home to Seoul and then took a taxi home.

It was a fun weekend - kind of strange but fun too.

I am behind on posting about our lives - it is hard to find time to post during the week as John is working all day and I am trying to be present with the kids. I will try to play catch up on the weekends as much as I can.

Diplomatic weekend in Andong

2010-11-01T02:25:00.000-07:00

So here begins another strange tale of our life in Korea. I read a Facebook page called Korea for Kids and awhile ago there was a post about a weekend trip to Andong for the mask dance ( cool Halloweeny trip I thought) it said to e-mail someone so I did. She e-mailed me back and let me know that we were welcome to join the trip but the return bus on Sunday would not get into Seoul until midnight. I figured we could pull that off - Olive would just sleep on the bus and it was all free. Food - lodging -busing and tours.

So we decided to go, it seemed great and the agenda heading told that it was a trip for Diplomatic and Foreign Families. Who would be along? We assumed there would be other kids and some diplomats. Well we were right about the diplomats but not about the kids.

We had to meet them at 8 am at a hotel in Itaewon which is pretty far from our house so we set off early around 7 am. Well we approached the hotel in a funky way and wound up being 30 minutes late anyways. We had walked up a huge hill (the back entrance of the hotel) and were all hot and tired. They were all waiting for us --oops. We boarded the bus and not another single kid was along. It was mostly older folks and a few youngsters mixed in.

Off we went for a 3 hour bus ride to Andong. Strangely enough Andong was one of the places that John had visited on his trip so we were anticipating a lovely time. Olive slept on the bus and I think Netta did a bit too. The first place we went was a traditional Korean home. It was really beautiful and old and they treated us to a lovely snack. We saw the women working in the kitchen and the garden where all the food is grown. There was a beautiful garden there and some dogs with little dog houses that Olive loved. I will post photos in the next post.

There was an old building there that was used for a shrine and it was really beautiful. It was a bit weird there because apparently women are not allowed in the shrine building. Also the women were so obviously working their asses off making all the food and more talk was made of thanking the host than the women who were working so hard. We, of course, thanked the cooks and complimented them on the amazing snacks. The snacks included some lovely rice drink with ginger, peanuts and cooked rice. It was spicy and yummy.

Then on to lunch - which was an ancestor meal. Basically the people in this area practiced honoring the ancestors with food so often that the food became a meal that is very popular in that area. John had eaten at the same restaurant with his tour so you have already seen the food if you read his post.

I can't seem to find the time this week to finish this post. So I am publishing it unfinished and to be continued. Hopefully there will be time to finish the tale this weekend.

Korea foundation fall field trip

2010-10-25T07:23:00.000-07:00

"Swallow" is the name of our new kitten. She is cute, but a bit of a wacko at times, biting your ankles in the middle of the night, stuff like that.

Hi everyone! John here. This week I went on a field trip with the Korea Foundation (who is supporting our time in Korea.) Most of the Korea Foundation fellows came along. It was great.

Here's me trying my hand at the whole close-up-of-a-weathered-object-that-others-might-overlook thing. It's from Hahoe, a village in Northern Gyeongsang province. Hahoe is surrounded by a dramatic bend in the river.

This tree is over 600 years old, and is considered a minor deity by the villagers. People come and write wishes on little slips of paper and tie them to the twine fence surrounding the tree, and to the tree branches and leaves within reach.

Here's the traditional Korean house, in Andong city, that we stayed in the first night.

Below is the room we stayed in. The floor was very hot. Too hot. I felt like I was being cooked.

it felt great to rub my hand on this buddha's belly. I'm at Jijiksa temple, in Gimcheon.
T0 the left is a traditional Korean breakfast. It looks suspiciously like Korean lunch and dinner: kimchi, rice, soup, and little plates of veggies and fish and whatnot. Below, is buddha followed by a thousand disciples. If you look closely, you can see that one of them is a standing baby.
the picture below was taken at Yeongju Sosuseowon, a private Confucian academy where they studied Chinese literature and Confucian philosophy. The inscription on the rock means "respect." It was written at a time of political intrigue and factionalism. But after they carved that in the character, everyone treated each other with... you guessed it.
To the left is one of our lunches. It's bulkogi, beef marinated in Doenjang (Korean miso.) Accompanying it on the table are little dishes of kimchi, raw garlic, hot peppers, and things like that.

This tree is also really old, about 550 years old, in Yangdong village. Yangdong was recently (two months ago) declared a world heritage site by UNESCO. It's quickly being overrun by tourists like me. We wandered in and out of yards taking pictures of everything while they made dinner and did homework. It was weird. But the village is amazing.

This is a set of steps made of rough stones. I see a lot of stairs like that in Korea. It's a cool aesthetic, but it must be hell on the old and limited of mobility.

The alien with the sunglasses and surfboard and the alien with the mark of the beast on her forehead just love Korea.

These statues guardians of the Buddha, typical residents of the second gate at a Buddhist temple in Korea.

Sorry about the pictures being in random order--- I put them on in order, but they came out all weird. No idea why. Hopefully it looks ok on your computer.

New nameless kitty

2010-10-17T05:03:00.001-07:00

Here is the new cutie with Netta. She was worn out after chasing everything in sight for hours when she first arrived. She does not seem afraid and explored the environment quite thoroughly.
Olive really wanted to hold her all night. Finally asleep she was still enough to be on Olive's wiggly lap. Happy, happy.
Just moments after she arrived. With a little carrier bag, shampoo and grooming tools, food, bowls, and treats. It was a huge bag of stuff - oh my.
These are from the National Museum of Korea. John, Netta and Olive went there today to give me some time to be sick.
Cool spoons.
Yet another view of Seoul Tower. Netta loves to find the tower when we are out and about. We haven't actually been there yet we will have to go soon.

That's all.

sick

2010-10-16T22:12:00.000-07:00

A paper tiger at the BICHE festival that I wrote about last time. At night these lit up from inside.
John and Netta kicking it on the couch.

I am sick - incredibly full of snot. Couldn't sleep last night at all as whenever I laid down I felt as if my head would explode. John has taken the kids to the History Museum so that I can sleep - but I still can't sleep. I just had a huge bloody nose and now am nervous when I lay down and my nose starts dripping (as it has been doing for 24 hours straight) that it is blood. Yuck!

Last night was Audrey's Memorial and we attended via Skype. I feel so grateful for all those who worked hard to make that happen. It meant a lot to me to hear the stories about Audrey and catch a glimpse of all those lovely folks joined together to celebrate her life. There was poetry, singing and dancing. It was really nice and allowed me some time to cry - to remember all that being in Audrey's life has taught me and my family and how lucky we all are for having been a part of her amazing life. I will miss her very much. I still wish I could hug some of those people - I guess that will never happen via Skype. Oh well I am grateful for what there is.

On another note I am starting a job this next week (if I am healthy enough). I answered an ad on Craigslist for childcare for a family at SNU. I met them last week and they seem really great - I am hoping the job will be fun - I will take Olive and Netta so that is convenient. Hopefully it won't be too crazy. Netta and the 5 year old little girl Nadya seem to play well so they will probably be pretty easy. The toddler (Olive) and the 1 year old little boy Thor - well we will see if I can pull it off. I am excited to try and it will help out financially around here. It will just be 2 days a week for about 4.5 hours each day. I'm sure I will have plenty of stories to share about how it is going. If I have enough energy to write after watching all of those little folks.

Other exciting news here is that Netta and John finally asked our landlady if we could have a kitten. We asked when we moved in and she first said yes and then we heard no. Netta has been really missing the cats at home (so have I) so she worked up her gumption to ask again and our sweet landlady said yes. So we have been looking and yesterday we met a little cutie who Netta and John will go pick up and bring home later today. The people who have her said their landlord won't let them keep her. She looks a lot like Dahlia's cat Roscoe. Very cute and Olive really wanted to hold her ---many times. I'm sure there will be pictures and many stories to follow. Any name ideas out there?

Well off I go to meet John and pick up Olive so that they can go get the kitten. I will write again soon.

Bucheon Intangible Culture and Heritage Expo (BICHE)

2010-10-15T22:46:00.001-07:00

This is the entrance to the expo. The grounds were covered with beautiful sculptures and art projects.

Netta in one of the sculptures.

This was a mask dance performance that we watched. Netta liked this drunk character. He was very silly.

We made necklaces with an intangible treasure. Olive was sad because she wasn't able to do one because we were using exacto knives so the wonderful artist just came over and helped her to make one. He was so kind and Olive really enjoyed being able to make one.

This man was an intangible treasure who was painting fans. He has two brushes in one hand and was switching between them. Netta noticed that only one had paint on it and the other one he was using to blend colors on the fan.
Netta in hanbok.
Netta being interviewed about hanbok. They asked her if she liked wearing hanbok. What it was called and what it's name means. She knew it all!
Netta playing with the spinning frisbee thingy.

John crossdressing again.

John and Netta doing some rock sculpture.
Netta making tashik with the intangible treasure of tashik.

Netta with a lit up sculpture.
This next section is about our tour of the DMZ. It was interesting but not the best tour we have been on. It was a lot of driving on a bus and only a few minutes in each place. Also we were interested in the wildlife that has developed in the DMZ now that fewer people live there but there was only a casual mention of that by our tour guide. We wanted to see some less touristy and more wild places. But with all of the security I think we need to find a tour more catered to that and try again.
This is in the DMZ. This was a sculpture that Netta really liked. Inside of the ball was a raised South Korea on one side and a raised North Korea on the other. The two sides were being pushed together by people from each country. Netta is helping of course.
The view of North Korea. Very barren and different from the tree covered mountains on the South Korean side. Our tour guide said that North Korea has burned most of their trees for fuel. It looked sad and bleak.
An old locomotive that was left in the DMZ.
There were also tunnels that have been discovered that were built by the North Koreans - we couldn't take pictures there. John and Olive went down in one but Netta didn't want to so I stayed with her.

After our tour we were dropped off by the COEX mall which houses the kimchi museum. We have been wanting to check it out so we went and took a look. A lot of plastic food and some free samples. Pretty fun.
Silly staged photos begin........

That's all for now. More to write later --Olive is up and I am back on duty.

Bucheon Intangible Culture and Heritage Expo (BICHE)

2010-10-15T22:38:00.000-07:00

Hi folks it has been awhile since I have posted. It has been a hard week. Last weekend John's grandmother died. We are all sad and are feeling the ache of being away from our family during this time. It was also during this week that the 2nd anniversary of the death of our dear Pippin passed. The pangs of pain during this time have been strong. What I wouldn't give for a hug from some of the folks who understand.

I am also sick and feeling crummy. My head is full of snot and hurts.

Instead of cleaning which means bending down and hurting my head more I thought I could catch up on the blog while Olive is asleep and John and Netta are out.

I have not yet written about the BICHE festival that we attended. So I will upload pictures and write about that next. If I try to put the photos in here I find that they go to the top of the post and then this intro is missing so I will end this post and start another with photos and stories of the festival and our trip to the DMZ.

Our trip to Gangwon-do

2010-10-11T00:14:00.000-07:00

So I posted the pictures - now to try to tell the stories that go along.

We rented a car for this adventure and John drove. He is such a brave soul - the drivers here scare the bejeezus out of me. But he did great. We even figured out how to use the GPS - not without a few blips but that is to be expected by now.
So we set off on Sunday morning. Loaded up the SUV we rented and headed out of Seoul. With all my parents luggage (we dropped them off with Joe at the end of the trip to stay the night with him and then get to the airport from there) it was kind of crowded in the car. But we managed to cram in and got out of the city pretty quickly.

The countryside was so beautiful - really amazing mountains green with trees. We made a goofy mistake at a toll booth when John went in the wrong lane and it was the FastPass lane so there was nowhere to pick up a ticket which proved to be a problem when we tried to get off the highway to pee and find some lunch. We had to go to the official building and communicate about our mistake and then they just had us pay the toll and go on. These kind of things seem almost normal to me now.

Because it was Sunday, no restaurants were open in the little town we stopped in so we ended up in a bakery with pre-made sandwiches and gross snacks. But we felt fed so on we went. We had the address of the hotel we wanted to stay in. I had seen a blog post about a trip to this area and the blogger had raved about this place so I e-mailed her and she sent me the information about it. John tried to call to make a reservation as she had suggested but didn't get anywhere over the phone so we decided to take a chance and show up there. We figured it was a Sunday night after a big holiday so we thought it would be easy to find a room. We put the address into the GPS and off we went.

We followed the GPS until we missed a turn - turned around and then it showed up that we were at our destination when we were in the middle of a tunnel. HHHMMMM didn't seem right. We decided to get off the highway and fish around. It was pretty hopeless but I was so determined that we got out and tried to ask a local where it was. It worked!!! He got us on the right road and there were signs from there up to the hotel. It was beautiful (I posted some photos in the earlier post).
Not that it was without trouble - we got registered and went to find our room. Netta and I jumped out of the car and went to check out the room. It was really nice 2 rooms and a bathroom shower and simple kitcheny area (really only a sink and fridge). I suddenly realized that it was completely empty - no beds or furniture. I looked in the closets and found some yos. Yos are thin mattresses that Koreans sleep on on the floor. I was worried about my parents having to sleep on the floor but they were game. It ended up being fine and with the heated floors it was kind of cozy. It was quite cold in the mountains.

Then we all went to the restaurant to get some food. It was very Korean food and Netta refused to eat any of it. Also my dad felt he couldn't eat there. There was a convenience store next door so they went to try to find food there. Not much luck. My dad ate funions and digestive biscuits for dinner. Netta was more involved. I had a box of mac n cheese but nowhere to cook it. She insisted and I found a microwave in the store. I used boiling water and put it in a bowl stuck it in the microwave then I added the cheese? sauce to the water with the noodles and ta da. The lady in the store I'm pretty sure thought we were crazy but she let me do it. Thank goodness. Netta ate the mac n cheese and we were finally all fed.
Then we pretty much turned in for the night.

The next day we awoke to rain - yuck - our "out in nature" vacation seemed a little hard to do with the rain. But Netta insisted we try to do the rail bikes that we had also read about on the same blog. So off we set. It was a crazy drive there - lots of curvy roads. We made it there and the weather was dreary but not raining. We ate some pasta and then waited for the rail cars.

People ride them down and then they ride back on the train pulling the rail cars behind the train. It is an old railroad that is no longer in use and they have set it up with these bikes. It is a nice steady downhill - a very fun trip through beautiful farms and canyons. There were some weird fake animals along the way. But all in all it was a great time. As usual I am glad that Netta convinced us to try and go. During the ride some guys snap a photo of you and then try to sell it to you at the end of the ride. Dad and Netta's was really funny but he didn't want to pay for it so he tried to take a picture of it - oh my the salesman was not pleased.

After the ride we decided to drive back via a short trip to see the ocean. Netta has really been missing the ocean and we were so close that we figured we would try to dig our toes in the Korean sand. John endured a lot more driving on curvy roads and we made it to the ocean after dark. We didn't mind except that there was a huge fence there topped with barbed wire. We figured out that because it was so close to North Korea there was a fence preventing you from going on the beach - or preventing North Koreans from coming over the ocean after dark. It was pretty sad but the girls found a patch of sand and dug their toes in anyway. They even found some shells and some folks were setting off fireworks which was fun to watch.

Then we drove home and collapsed exhausted.

The next day we had to head back to Seoul but decided to take a short hike before we went. As it turned out the place we stayed had an easy accessible trail up to the top of a mountain so up we went. It was great for my mom and Olive to be able to hike with us.
That's about it for that trip.

Since then we have attended the Bucheun World Intangible Heritage Exhibition and the DMZ but Olive is up from her nap and there is a huge mess of dishes that also need my attention. So those stories must wait for another day.

photos

2010-10-06T07:17:00.000-07:00

This is the Seoul model at Seoul History Museum. That is Seoul Tower.
This is Joe's family when we had dinner with them. His wife Ok Sup and his sons Daniel and Samuel.
Netta with her stone family.

The sky - Netta took this photo from our deck. Fall sky.
Our neighbor's persimmon tree with an almost ripe persimmon.
Olive at Lotte World making friends with a plastic ghost.
Netta at Lotte World.
Netta pushing Bobbe at Lotte World.
Ok needs no explanation......
Olive driving- this was before John let her sit on his lap and drive in traffic......
Netta and Olive on the merry-go-round.
The kids and the grandparents.
Netta's turtle ship model that she made in her multicultural art class at school.
Dragonflies .....
Mom and Dad in Nakseongdae Park.
Netta and John at Seoul National University. We had a picnic in the field there.
This is in Gangwon-do - fall colors.

This is the mating grasshopper restaurant at the beginning of the rail bike track that we rode on. We ate here - Italian food - Netta was very happy. Although she ended up eating pork cutlet and french fries because they wouldn't do just noodles and butter. Or rather we couldn't get the idea across.
Inside the grasshopper.
On the rail bikes ready to ride. So fun. I will write more about this soon...
Dad and Netta arguing on their rail bike.....
Olive and Bobbe on the rail bike.
The tunnel...
A bridge we saw while riding the bike.
The mosaic fish at the end of the rail bike track.
The ocean----behind a big fence..
More fall colors.
A shot of our cabin that we stayed in.
A cool plant that we saw on our hike up the mountain at the cabin.

John amusing Olive with the acorn hat guy.
She took the hat and laughed.
The view from the top of the mountain.
A weird fungus.
A caterpillar Netta found.
Olive and her fake smile.

That's all folks. I'll try to fill in the details later.

Missing home.............

Bye bye mom and dad

2010-10-06T06:32:00.000-07:00

Hi I'm back - Mom and Dad are on their way home right now and I finally have time to write. I'm not sure how much of the 2 weeks I can really get here on the blog but I'm willing to try.

Mom and Dad arrived on Chuseok and I wrote about that day already. Well the rest of that week was mostly mom and dad recovering from jetlag and settling in. We tried to show them around our neighborhood between naps and other distractions.

I got to unpack all the stuff they brought for us. I hadn't been able to find sheets here (they kind of have a different sleeping set up) so Mom and Dad brought me sheets all washed and ready to go on my beds --yay!! Also they hooked us up with lots of foods that we have been missing - polenta, maple syrup, peanut butter, spices, more tea. So exciting!! In addition they brought all of our winter clothes. I had thought that Pauline would ship them but that proved to be more expensive than the clothes themselves. So my parents brought extra suitcases with our warm clothes. Just in the nick of time too - I think we started wearing them the next day and have been needing sweaters and socks ever since. It was like Equinox arrived and it got chilly. I'm so thankful that they were able to bring all of that for us ----they are so sweet. It was like Christmas opening all the goodies and fitting them in our house.

Their first Saturday here John and I got to go out on a date. This was very exciting for us as we have had no time sans kids except late nights and early mornings. We went to see a concert by a composer that John knows. It was really great - so nice to sit and listen to music. I have been quite jealous of Netta getting to experience all of the Korean Music with John. After the concert we went and walked around Sadang. This is an area that is close to where we live, it was where we wanted to live but it was too expensive - we decided to go over the hill and get a place that was cheaper. Anyway we have been wanting to check it out for awhile. It was fun we saw a beat boxer who was really amazing - went to a huge bookstore - and ate at a meat restaurant. It was great - nice to talk without being exhausted or interrupted.

Sunday we went to the Seoul Museum to revisit the amazing model of Seoul. We have been wanting to go back and find our house on the map. We tried earlier in the week with my parents but ended up getting there too late (I didn't realize it was a holiday because of Chuseok weekend and so I got the closing time wrong). But when Joe invited us for dinner in the same neighborhood we decided to try again. It was a fun trip to the museum and then a nice dinner with Joe and his family at an Italian restaurant that my parents ate at when they lived here 15 years ago.

Monday we braved Costco. I have been wanting to get a few things there and knowing my parents love for Costco and that the crowds there would have been huge before Chuseok we decided to go together. Another bonus was that they had a credit card that Costco would accept. It is difficult to get the right amount of cash and it always is embarrassing and time consuming when you need to get money while you are checking out. As it turns out, of course, the Korean Costco takes only one credit card but it is not the one my parents have. So it ended the same way all our previous visits have - with us holding up the line and running to the cash machine. Oh well, I still am very stocked up on yummy comfort treats.

Tuesday we went to Lotte World - Netta was very excited because Bobbe and Grandpa had told her they would take her when they came. Lotte World is like Disneyland - pretty much a copy but mostly indoor. Actually inside this huge dome. It was fun - I hate these kind of places but when I see them through the eyes of my kids they are a blast. Netta loved the roller coasters and Olive had a great time on the little rides. She loved the merry-go-round so much. I will post photos in the next post. Although it is getting hard to get photos of Olive because she tends to be a blur of movement in all the photos now - she is a girl on the go.

Wed we had a home day - regular routine - I worked and Netta had classes. My parents went to Itaewon to visit their old neighborhood.

Thurs. we went to Nomdaemun Market which was fun but very crowded. It was a bit much for all of us - Netta was the most successful shopper. She found some good bargains.

Friday I took my parents to Nakseongdae Park - fun to show them our local spot. Pictures in the next post.

Saturday we all went to see a breakdancing show. We won tickets when John was on the radio on Chuseok. It was a really fun show - people doing amazing things with their bodies - defying gravity and such. I was nervous about taking Olive but she was mesmerized during most of the show. There was a part with black light that was a little scary and she asked to "go home" but I held her and she got through it. At least in a breakdancing show the music is so loud that a baby talking is no trouble. After the show we went out to get tacos at Dos Tacos. Yum - Yum!!!!

Sunday we left town. My parents rented us a car and brave John drove us to Gangwon-do. The province to the east of us. I had read a blog about a trip there and we decided to do a similar trip with my parents. It was quite an adventure. I think I will leave my story of this trip for another post.

I will post the photos now (in the next post) and then write about it later.

I have an early morning tomorrow I'm taking the girls to the Bucheon Cultural Heritage Festival. I'm sure I will have things to write about that too.

Also coming soon a post dedicated to Olive and her amazing command of the language - she is talking up a storm and it is so fun. No more Gaga - now Netta is Nekka.

So I'll leave you with those to look forward to.

parental visit

2010-09-27T22:30:00.000-07:00

Hi Folks I have been out of the blog for the past week due to my parent's arrival in Korea. I am going to go back to the day they arrived which was Chusok and post some photos from our day at the Namsan Folk Village where we spent the day with our new friends Mei Ling, Kendra, Tera, Ayla and Jonathan. It was a fun day - we even went live on the radio and did some interviews for an English radio station in Seoul. We supposedly won tickets but haven't heard from them since so who knows. Anyway here are the photos.

John and I took a walk up the mountain and found this lovely shrine. It was really a beautiful spot.
This is the marker for the shrine.

Netta painting a fan at the Chuseok festival.

John and Olive loving a tree on our walk.
The view of the city from our walking path.
A lovely waterfall.
Netta dressed as a courtesan......
Netta really wants a hanbok for her birthday this year.
Some performers - they were actually practicing their dance here.
Olive making friends - anyang.......
John on the radio.
Ayla - such a cutie...

The view of Seoul Tower from the folk village.
View through an arbor of the pond.
Most of the children at the festival were dressed in hanbok. It was unbelievably cute.
This is a teeter totter game where one person lands and sends the other jumping into the air. Netta and John tried but it was a lot harder than it looked. These ladies were amazing.

Local festival

2010-09-19T05:19:00.000-07:00

Netta, Olive and John observing a tea ceremony at our local park during a traditional Korean festival for Chuseok. Chuseok is this week and it is a harvest festival celebrated by returning to your family home, honoring your ancestors and eating food. At least that is what we have gathered about it so far.

This is the place setting for the tea service. Lovely....
These are traditional tea sweets. They are made from bean powders mixed with honey. Olive packed away so many that the ladies were worried she might get a tummy ache. Never happened. The mixture is pressed into a wooden form to make these beautiful designs. We are looking for one so that we can make our own at home but haven't found one yet.

This is lotus flower tea - beautiful and tasty.

Olive looking a little worried about where she might be going. Olive loves to look at this picture recreate the face and laugh.

John and Netta playing a game - trying to toss the arrows into the container. It took some practice but they both got quite good at it. Eye exercises for the day!
OK it only looks like she is tossing this at Olive......
Olive writing Os with her arrow in the sand.
Netta receiving some drum instruction.
Netta and John drumming. They spent a long time creating rhythms, combining them and then performing duets.
Olive looking up at the ducks on a stick. This is a very old craft in Korea. John said that in the folk museum one was featured in a display about the bronze age in Korea. Netta and Olive both received small hand crafted ones as gifts before we left the festival. Netta because the lady who taught her the wedding bowing ceremony was so impressed with Netta and Olive because once Netta had one she just went over and took one off the table. They graciously gave her one of her own.

All in all a lovely Saturday afternoon at our local park learning about traditional Korean culture.

As a side note I am beginning to feel like a member of our neighborhood - as I walked to the park I ran into 2 people I knew. Even in this big city - wow!

ketchup

2010-09-17T19:51:00.000-07:00

Hi checking in here to catch us up on life in Seoul.

I think I am due for a post from our zoo trip although with my memory acting like it is I may not have too many details at my fingertips almost a week later.

We went back to the zoo that we visited with Netta last time we were in Seoul. It was actually Olive's first visit to a zoo. Netta remembered so much about it from last time - I was amazed. It was a great day. The zoo is huge we have yet to see all of the animals there.

We did have some highlights this time. The elephants were very lovely - they were kind of swaying in a dancing kind of motion which was fun to watch. Also the hippos - last time we were there we saw a darling baby hippo - this time we got to see one hippo grooming(?) the other hippos mouth. The one stood in the water with his mouth open while the other one kind of rubbed and bit at his mouth - they were either grooming or kissing. Netta said "eeewww gross Mom" when I suggested kissing. Olive and I also got to see the monkeys (Netta and John were on the skyride). The monkeys were fun and Olive enjoyed watching the baby monkey jumping and playing.

There were lots of amazing birds (some in cages that I felt were too small). Last week Netta and I read an article about a girl who was going through gender reassignment to become male and Netta couldn't quite understand why she would want to go through all that. Netta said she would just dress and act like a boy and that was enough for her. But when we saw the birds Netta told me that if she could have a species reassignment she would want to be a bird --lovely. Oh to be a bird and get to fly.

We wore ourselves out at the zoo- spent too long and want to go back for more. We then grabbed some food out and went to check out hotels for my mom and dad. We found them a lovely love hotel and we hope we made reservations although I'm not sure we need them as these places survive by having rooms available at all times. Then we went home and collapsed into bed.

The rest of the week passed pretty uneventfully. John and Netta met with Netta's teacher from school and she gave us permission to attend the Korean classes at the school without Netta attending regular classes. I am very excited about this as it will help both of us and we were having trouble finding free classes that we could attend together.

We also had our first Skype meeting with Deb from Ocean Alternative and that was so great. Fun to see her and fun for Netta to get to share with her some of what we are learning here.

So here we are in the next weekend - John has the girls at the park and they are riding bikes. I am heading over there soon as John called to let me know there is some kind of cultural festival happening there. So I will pack lunch and go meet them. Apparently I need to bring band-aids as Netta fell of her bike - oh dear.

I'll take the camera and hopefully be able to post some photos of the festival later.

Our new camera

2010-09-16T07:42:00.001-07:00

This is an almost images only post - 1)I'm too tired to write 2) we just got a new camera and have been having fun playing around with it.

I still need to write about the zoo - sorry I just don't have it in me tonight. I will write more this weekend I hope.

comments

2010-09-14T07:28:00.000-07:00

OK so I just found where the comments are in my blogging "dashboard".

There are so many sweet comments on there. Sorry I haven't answered most of them.

I now know where they are and will enjoy connecting with all of you lovely readers.

It was fun to read them and feel the love,

Elana