I'm starting to think about how I will write about things on the blog as I am experiencing them here. That is strange for me. I am also feeling like I should be writing more often and it feels like a term paper I need to write or reading that I am supposed to be doing. So here I am - lots to tell.

I think the last entry was about last weekend and a whole week has now passed. So I'm thinking just the highlights not a day by day account.

John has been working so the kids and I are trying to stay out of his hair.

This week Netta had a playdate with Abigail. They went swimming on the military post so Olive and I couldn't go without me getting a full id check. I instead sent Netta off with these folks I had just met once while Olive and I walked around Itaewon. Itaewon is where most foreigners live in Seoul. In fact it is where my parents lived when they were here. It was really strange to go there. A lot of things are in English and there are loads of foreigners on the streets. Olive pretty much slept through the whole 2 1/2 hours that I walked.

There was a part of me that felt comforted by the familiarity of English but mostly it was too expensive and geared towards foreigners for me. I was happy to get back to our neighborhood where I can't read anything. It seems more like Korea - more like I am living in a foreign country.

Friday was a home day and then with John on Saturday we went to the art museum on the Seoul National University campus. We took the bus up to campus and then walked down to the entrance gate where the museum was. It was beautiful - big open meadows, lots of trees - it reminds John and I of UCSC. It was so great to find out it is so close.

One thing I read about the SNU on the web is that it was moved out here to get the protests and politically active students out of the center of Seoul. I'm glad it is out here. The art museum was great. The exhibit was in Italian and Korean- Primavero del Bianco. So all the pieces I think were based around white and this lead to some cool stuff with shadows and texture. We all enjoyed it very much (well Olive enjoyed her nap there actually).

Then we headed for a mexican restaurant that I had read about on other expats blogs. There happened to be one on the campus that John had seen earlier in the week. It was good - ingredients were fresh and the girls enjoyed their nachos and John and I shared a veggie burrito. We have all been missing mexican food so it was a nice treat to find some decent food close to home.

One cool thing about our trek at the university was that Netta took the camera and went nuts. So I will post some of her photos in the next posting. She really got into taking pictures and got some really great ones.

On our bus ride to the University we saw this place with water and kids and it was called Seoul Science Park so on Sunday we set out to find out what it was all about. On the way we came to the fountain that the girls had played with in the other night. It was on and the girls had a little time to play there - I will post photos in the next post.

Then we walked past Nakseongdae Park to the Seoul Science Park. The outside part that we had seen the day before was open and free! Which was exciting. It was really fun all of the things were hands on examples of scientific ideas. The kids had fun - I will post pictures of that next too. Then the Korean announcement happened and everyone started to leave and so we did too.

There was some other outside areas to explore there so we walked up the hill to the gardens and greenhouse. It was so great - really beautiful but unfortunately really hot. It was like it was ready to rain and relieve the heat but the rain never came just the stifling heat.

Netta was bummed because although there was plenty of water in the science park none of it was really for getting into. It was more used to show scientific principles. Netta did manage to find a fountain and stick her head in a few times to cool down.

The greenhouse had some critters in it too - which was cool. There is also an observatory there that we will try to check out some evening. Outside the observatory there were these little domes that you could stand in and your head was in darkness with the stars lit up by the sunlight from outside. I took some pictures but I'm not sure you will be able to tell just how cool they were from the photos. John also discovered that they had a really cool sound thing going on. It was all in all a very cool find - right here in our lovely neighborhood.

Although we could not read any of the signs there so we have no idea if it is always free or when it is open but oh well we can figure it out as we go along.

So that's about it - events wise. The rest of the time is mostly just being at home - playing - writing letters - napping - reading.

I will post photos in the next post or else they will go to the top of this post.