The market and a makeover (sort of)

I am so sorry that I haven't posted in almost 2 weeks. There is so much to catch up on.

The day after our adventure to Seoul Land I hand an adventure of a different kind with my friend Laurie. Since that weekend was a four day which included Tuesday we were able to leave the kids with the men and venture to Dongdaemun Market. This was a very interesting place. The very best way to describe it is a huge multi-floor, multi-building complex flea market, meets Jo-ann fabrics, Micheal's, and AC Moore on steroids.

Here are two YouTube videos of the place, just to give you an idea. 

Now to share my experience...

Laurie and I took the bus to get to this market. This was my first time on the Korean Bus and I was very greatful she knew where to go. Adventuring around by yourself is not a real good idea mostly because if you get lost you may never find your way back! It was certinally interesting to be on a bus where maybe if you are  lucky one  person speaks a few words of english. The bus system runs on a program called T Money (or you can use cash). Mike got both of us T Money cards which I had the opportunity to use. I am not even sure I used it right, the think kept making weird beeping noises at me. Anyway we got off the bus and walked about 3 blocks. These were very busy blocks. They were mobbed with vendors selling everything from sunglasses to clothes and food. One of the clothing vendors had sweatpants for sale that said "Niagara Ealls" (no that is not a typo), with the Canadian Maple leaf on them. So now you know where the mistakes of production go, to countries that don't know they are typos! I think that just reinforces that getting a tattoo written in a foreign language is a bad idea unless you are absolutely certain it means what it says. The area we were walking in contained multiple malls as well. I think I counted 3.

We knew we wanted to get lunch while we were out there before entering the actual market. So we grabbed some street food. I love street food! We both had what can only be described as a hotdog on a stick covered in a batter with french fries stuck to it and then deep fried. Then they drizzle on some ketchup! YUM YUM!!! Us being fat pig like Americans each ate one, supposedly Koreans usually share one.

Laurie likes street food too!

After we ate my dear pregnant friend of course had to pee. So we found a potty. Not just any potty, a pay potty! Oh course I took a picture of it! Laurie said it was quite an experience. I did not get the pleasure but I will gladly relay the message here. So you put in your money and it opens the door and locks it behind you of course. There were various flush settings on the toilet and a video monitor that asks you to input more money if you need more time. And it supposedly auto cleans after each use. The instructions were on the door in 4 languages.

Then we headed to the market. The Dongdeamun market is also known as the fabric market. That is totally misleading, they have fabric and lots of it, but they have stuff to make pretty much anything imaginable. The basement floor is where all the yarn is! The area around the market is really cool, there is a man made river, other shopping buildings (I would like to check out sometime), and a pagoda thing. We don't know exactly what it is for but maybe some day I will get to find out. Here are the pictures.

The building to the left is a huge shopping mall, its like 5 blocks long. The building on the right is the Dongdaemun Market, also very long and several floors high.

An other Shopping Mall

The front of the building seen above to the left of the picture.

Smack dab in the middle of the city, I think we need to check it out in the future.

 Now a few from inside the market.

 There were people every where. I would never be able to take the kids here. In most of the booths were people sitting around making stuff too. Communication was interesting, Thankfully Laurie knows enough Korean to get by and the Korean's know some english. I bought a few things, safety eyes for making stuffed animals and some huge lots of yarn. I will have to wind them into balls at some point. Laurie got some fabric for a quilt she is planning to make her new baby. Its was a good day.

The rest of that week was a short one. Wednesday, after much begging and pleading Giulianna got her hair cut. She had a few inches trimmed and it looks really cute, but I am sad because all the baby curls on the ends are gone and it falls out a little depending on how I put it up.

 On Thursday I had an appointment to get the kids registered with CYS finally.  That went great for Giulianna but Rhyon didn't have his PPD done so they wont register him. There are two reasons I would be interested in registering the kids in this program, one for the use of hourly care and two for being able to sign up for extra cirricular activities. While at the building for the CYS registration I stopped into the transportation office to find out about our stuff coming in. Well they basically said they had no idea what I was talking about.

Friday I had to go back to post again to give the paper work to Giulianna's school so she could be registered. Once I knew she got into the morning class at preschool, I went over and registered her at CYS for dance class (the other thing she has been bugging me about!). But before I did any of that I went back to transportation this time with my paper work that showed my stuff arriving on September 9th. The poor girl at the desk was very confused and asked me to come back in 1 hour and talk to her supervisor. So I did, this time Mike came along too. Long story short, we were told that it hadn't even left the states yet, it was scheduled to leave on the 12th. It would be in counrty by October 3rd and to us no later than the 11th. I am not a happy camper! Oh and they only have 4 of our 5 crates accounted for. So this week I will be spending some time sending disgruntled emails and figuring out what is next. This is why moving over seas SUCKS!

That weekend was also a long one. It was a 3 day because of the Korean Holiday Chuseok. It is like the Korean Thanksgiving. "In modern South Korea, on Chuseok there is a mass exodus of Koreans as they return to their hometowns to pay respects to the spirits of their ancestors. People perform ancestral worship rituals early in the morning. They often visit the tombs of their immediate ancestors to trim plants and clean the area around the tomb, and offer food, drink, and crops to their ancestors. Harvest crops are attributed to the blessing of ancestors.One of the major foods prepared and eaten during the Chuseok holiday is songpyeon (송편), a crescent-shaped rice cake which is steamed upon pine needles. Other foods commonly prepared are japchae, bulgogi and fruits." Wikipedia. On Monday, since a lot of things around were closed, and we had ample room not having any stuff, I got out the kids play tent and borrowed 2 more from Laurie and made a huge tent house for the kids to play in. Gavin and Grace, Avery and Ellie and Giulianna and Rhyon all checked it out. Unfortunately I only have a picture of the tent! It was fun for all anyway!!!!

The first day of the work week also happened to be Giulianna's first day of school. She is attending the Mustard Seed program which is a christian based preschool program. Its twice a week for 3 hours. She already knew a few kids in her class and our neighbor Avery is in the other class at the same school. I am looking forward to getting our schedules together so we can take turns driving the girls to school. At school this week they learned about the letter B, the number 1 and family. She even had homework! She loves it! She is my clone to the core though, she has no interest focusing on getting that home work done in a timely manner! I will be in big trouble.

This is a picture Giulianna took of us for part of her homework project.

 On Thursday after noons the girls attend dance class together, which also happened for the first time last week. This class is a little more technical than the class Giulianna was in in Massachusetts. The teacher has them trying to do first position and use the bar. Its very cute. I will take pics this week. Friday I spent with Rhyon on post between the ER and doctors. He started having a rash midweek and when I called for an appointment, which you can never get, I decided he needed to be seen anyway so we went to the ER. Turns out I saw the pediatrician and a dermatologist, which both concluded it was a virus. Rhyon had no fever, no loss of appetite nothing, but red dots everywhere. Thank God it is clearing up. I didn't even have to use the prescription steroid cream the dermatologist gave us. He looks much better and really is a happy little guy.

Saturday was pretty low key. We didn't even go anywhere. I spent some of the day finishing up my lesson plan for my CCD class. Sunday morning we got up early and went to 8am mass, followed by Religious Education Class. My group of 6th graders are pretty cool. They all seem like nice kids. I think we will have a good year together. We played a game I made up and they all earned tootsie roll pops! Giulianna had her class too, but wouldn't tell me much about it. She made a bracelet with her name on it so she was happy. After class we went to the Navy Club and had brunch. Oh how I love going out for breakfast! It was good. Giulianna ate a huge plate of silver dollar chocolate chip pancakes, there were at least 10, not a bite was left! The rest of the day was low key, Avery and Giulianna played together, we took a walk to the library and the repair man came to look at our AC. The AC has been broken for a week and after calling 3 times last week with no results the guy just showed up on a Sunday! Hopefully they will be able to fix it soon now that they know the termastat is broken. That is all for now, have a good day everyone!

Seoul Land

It has been a really busy week. I really thought I would have been able to write this post by now, I am sorry for making you all wait. I promise it will be worth it, lots of pictures and videos! I took 503, but don't worry I won't post them all!

Seoul Land was a lot of fun! We made it a big group excursion which was great! We went with Mike's friend Doug, The Hirsch Family and the Rauhala Family. There was no one in the park but us which was really great. It turned out that it was a good thing we went in a group because otherwise there would have been no one to play with! We went on Labor Day which was a US Holiday but not a Korean one so that made it even better!!!!

The drive to Seoul Land took us down the highway about 20 to 30 mins with mountain views!

The bottom right shows agriculture domes. Not an inch of space is wasted in this country, and check out those mountains!

Seoul Land is one of many attractions in Seoul Grand Park. Here is Ellie, Giulianna and Avery waiting to figure out where we had to go get our tickets.

Seoul Land had a giant ball right in the middle which was quite reminiscent of Disney's Epcot but much smaller. And the main entrance walkway was all little building store fronts kind of like Main Street USA. The rest of the park was more like an amusement park like Six Flags. It had your standard rides, merry go round, bumper cars, roller coasters and kiddie rides. Seoul Land is broken up into several small sections which even includes a wild west town.

The entrance...

Giulianna's Ticket

The Hirsch's and The Raulaha's

Yay! The Hirsch Family in Seoul Land!

Copyright infringement?

Family pic at Seoul Land, Seoul Grand Park, Korea

All the kids (except Rhyon) in the carriage.

Giulianna and Ellie riding the horses.

Doug and Mike in trouble already!!!

The kids got to do most of the rides, and the 3 big kids even got to hit some big people rides. Turns our Giulianna loves the big rides and is very adventurous. However just like her Mommy and Grandma Linda, she hates the dropping feeling rides. She got away with some of the big rides but depending on the ride and the person running it she was sometimes a centimeter too short. It was horrible telling her they wouldn't let her ride, but she was really cool with it most of the time.

Mike riding the merry go round.

Giulianna having so much fun!

Rhyon rode this too. I think it was his only ride!

Cool horse with Korean Flags.

Kiddie Bumper cars, Giulianna and Gavin.

Avery and Gavin.

The kiddie bumper cars was hilarious! Check out the video. Our kids definitely drive like Koreans! LOL There were big bumper cars too, but we aren't as fun to watch or look at, we did have fun riding them though!! It was nice actually being allowed to crash into the terrible Korean Drivers!

Above the kiddie bumper cars was something they called the Sky Cycle. It was a fun low speed ride. It gave an interesting little view of the park.

Doug cruising on the Sky Cycle.

LOVE LOVE LOVE!!! Avery and Giulianna

Little Ellie, she is so cute!

Mike and I on the Sky Cycle.

Gavin and Kristjan on the Sky Cycle

We also took some time to check out the archery range and haunted house. We learned that haunted houses are much scarier in ones own language. We totally missed out on the scary story because we had no idea what they were saying! Ben and I were the only brave ones to ride the crazy twisty ride of DOOM! (I don't remember what it was really called.) It flipped you over and barrel rolled you at the same time. It was fun, but one thrill was enough!!!

Leaning Tower of Pisa? Not sure why but we will go with it...

Kristjan, Mike and Doug testing their Archery skills.

Not sure why we had a Dutch Windmill either...

Or a phone booth?!

Everyone loves a sleeping baby.

One of the coolest things in the park were these huge stuffed animals that you could ride for 1,000 won. The kids got a kick out of this.

There was a kiddie land that everyone seemed to enjoy. There were two huge ball pits, a trampoline, the biggest bouncy house ever and this huge jungle gym ropes course.

This is the drop ride I was referring to. Giulianna wasn't a fan. Avery loved it!

I made this one huge so you could see Rhyon, look just beyond my back! He was not happy!!!!

Avery, Gavin and Giulianna diving in!

Rhyon was much happier spectating.

Gavin, probably up to no good!

Grace loved the ball pit too!

This ball pit had huge balls! Giulianna was all about it!

 

"It's a grown up, ATTACK!!!"

Mike and Doug thought the sign said that No Clowns or Soccer Playing Robots were allowed in the bouncy house!

One of the only rides Laurie got to participate in.

This is my favorite picture of Gavin for the day, just look at his face!

Christina and I both love angel wings!

They told me to look angelic, I think I failed!

Doug, he is certainly no angel!!!

We needed more pictures of Rhyon, not sure he appreciated this though.

And that concludes our day at Seoul Land! It was a great day of fun with some great people. We are really enjoying spending time together as a family and with our new friends! We can't wait for more adventures!