A Work in Progress

This has obviously been kind of a busy week. With everybody home on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, I didn't have much time for blogging. And then Thursday and Friday I was busy running errands, among other things.

We spent much of our Chuseok holiday relaxing, but we did manage to get a little accomplished, as well. The nursery is a work in progress.

On Saturday, Eric took the kids on a hike up to Seoul Tower again (I stayed home). On Sunday, Eric took the kids to Seoul Station to pass out food to the homeless there (I stayed home). On Monday, Eric took Kennedy on a pretty challenging hike on Bukhansan (Cade and I stayed home). Notice a pattern here? I'm not feeling too energetic these days!

On Tuesday and Wednesday, we worked on cleaning out the office to turn it into a nursery. We finally cleared off the desk and turned in the requisition to have the school come pick it up. And, Eric and I switched closets, so that he won't have to wake up the baby in the morning to get dressed. I've condensed my clothes down to one closet and now the baby and I each have one in the "nursery."

I also finally managed to sort through most of the hand-me-downs we've received and started washing some teeny tiny baby clothes now that we have a place to put them! We still don't have a crib or a name for this baby, but the big stuff always comes together in the end, right?!

I promised earlier that I wouldn't share the boring pictures I've been taking for my class, but I broke down and did it, because the alternative is no pictures. The first week, we just worked on exposure. Then, it was nailing exposure while focusing on aperture. And the hardest has been nailing exposure while focusing on either freezing or showing motion. We're not allowed to edit, so you get what you get with these images straight out of the camera!

While we're on the topic of food...

Oh wait...were we talking about food? Maybe it's just because I'm always thinking about food...

I feel that I must tell you about our first overseas Thanksgiving. What's that? You haven't celebrated Thanksgiving yet? Well, that's okay. We've celebrated it 3 times now, and American Thanksgiving hasn't even happened yet. The first 2 didn't really count. One was the Korean Thanksgiving, Chuseok, and the other was Canadian Thanksgiving and we didn't really celebrate either one. But we did have Thanksgiving on Sunday.

Our church decided that they would celebrate Thanksgiving between the Canadian Thanksgiving and the American Thanksgiving, so we had lunch after church on Sunday. It was an interesting spread. We started with the traditional turkey and mashed potatoes. The gravy was see-through, so I didn't go for that. We moved down to the stuffing and here's where things started to get iffy. It didn't look like any stuffing I'd ever had because you can't buy cubed stuffing here, but I went ahead and tried it anyway. Then we ran into the 4 green bean casseroles and one of them even had french fried onions on it! Next up was the kimbap (complete with Spam and processed cheese!), so I opted out this time. This was followed by spring rolls, fried rice (also with Spam), and kimchi. Then came the Indian samosas (which taste good regardless of the meal...I mean fried dumpling with curried potatoes and peas...what's not to love? Seriously, I really like these), mint chutney, and tomato sauce, followed by the plain white rice (this is what the kids consumed the most of). The dessert table was pretty typical actually--a lot of pumpkin pies purchased at Costco, as well as rolls, and several bags of American style chips. What a feast! If only I had pictures!

While we're on the topic of food, I must share the fact that I finally made cooked my own bulgogi last night and it was delicious! You can actually buy already sliced and marinated meat for bulgogi in all of the local markets here, and it is so good! Then all you have to do is cook the meat, saute some onions and mushrooms, throw on some rice and you have dinner! We even wrapped it all up in lettuce leaves while eating with our chopsticks...we're so Korean! The only downside is that I had planned to have that for dinner without looking at the school lunch calendar. It turns out I got to have for lunch and dinner yesterday. Lucky me! Eric went for the Western side at the cafeteria with the "piccata milanese". Since I wasn't sure what kind of meat that was, I went with the Korean side. If you haven't checked out our school lunch calendar yet, you should really do it. It's very entertaining!

Everland...the happiest place in Korea!

We've been in Korea nearly two months now, and we've already taken our kids to an amusement park. In the States, we said we wouldn't do that until they were much older. There was no point. They're too short for the rides. All they would do is whine about the heat and the lines. We wouldn't even get to go on any fun rides. These are the things we've been telling ourselves for the past 7 or 8 years. Since the last time we went to Disneyland.

Granted, there are no big amusement parks in Washington, and the most of the ones in the States are outrageously expensive. But, it still floors me that we've already taken our kids to a Korean "Disneyland"! I guess that's what happens when you move across the world. Things that you never would have expected! We got to take advantage of the "Foreigners Discount" (pretty generous) and the lack of lines as all of Korea spent time with their family. An awesome bonus for being an expatriate!

Our day did not start of too spectacularly, though. I tried to be relaxed and get up just an hour before we had to leave. I tried not to stress about leaving too early and whether or not we would be able to catch a cab in time, especially on a holiday. I don't think I was too successful, though. It turned out I had reason to be stressed.

Cade's favorite ride!

We walked down our hill, where on a normal day, there are many taxis either parked waiting for a patron or driving down the hill in the direction we needed to go. That morning, there was one taxi sitting at the bottom of the hill, so we kind of jogged down the hill toward it (the best a four and two year old can jog down a hill!). Just as we were nearing the bottom of the hill, a woman got in it and it drove away. Strike one. 

So, we walked the rest of the way down our street keeping an eye out for a taxi. No such luck. We took the tunnel to the other side of the highway we needed to get down to try to catch one going in the right direction. Still no luck. The ones that were there, flew right by us like we were invisible. At this point, it was the time we were supposed to be meeting our group. I was more than a little stressed now.

We finally managed to walk into Itaewon, get on the correct side of the street, and find an open taxi. We arrived about 15 minutes late. Not too bad for a Butler, I guess, but pretty stressful for this Carlson. Thankfully, the family that we were riding with had waited for us and we arrived just 15 minutes after the park opened.

Kennedy and Nora

We spent the day with two other families who have a total of 8 kids between them. A total of 10 kids ranging in age between 5 months and 12 years. Needless to say, we had a busy day of parents taking turns on different rides. Cade had a hard time with the fact that he couldn't go on all of the rides that Kennedy could, but he really enjoyed the rides that he got to go on. He went on roller coasters, water rides, spinning teacups, and he drove the cars a lot! Kennedy did the same and more! She loved running around with the other girls (ages 3, 4, and 5) and feeling like she had some independence! In the afternoon, the other parents offered to take the kids for us so that we could go on the huge wooden roller coaster. It turned out to be more than a 2 hour wait and I can't believe they were willing to do that for us. It was an awesome roller coaster, though!

7 of 10 kids riding the train

We had a great time, but I'm glad that we won't be back for another year! It was a little stressful that Kennedy wouldn't eat all day and that Cade ate everything we'd brought for her and everything we bought for her. I guess that's what happens when you get left behind on a lot of the rides! They were pooped by the end of the day, and I was glad I'd brought pajamas when they both fell asleep shortly into our 45 minute drive home.

Namsangol Hanok Village

I managed to convince my family to go on an adventure on Saturday! We went to the Namsangol Hanok Village which is basically on the other side of Namsam Park which we live pretty close to. It's such a big park, though, (and there is Mt. Namsam right in the middle of it) that we had to take the subway to get to the other side of the park. Our closest subway stop is about one mile from our house. It seems close until we have to walk there with two young kids. They're really getting better at walking, though, and they don't whine too much about it anymore. Eric wanted to try one of the restaurants on the way to the subway station, so we picked up our tacos and took them with us. 

We got on at Naksapyeong and did our first transfer from line 6 to line 3 at Yaksu station. Then we went a couple more stops and got off at Chungmuro. I think the toughest part of the day was when I realized I wasn't sure which of the 8 exits at Chungmuro we were supposed to go out. When I read about it online, it said it was just a few minutes from one of the exits...but we picked the wrong one. It turns out it is actually visible from 4 different exits, but not the one we went out. Oh well. It only took us about 10 minutes to find it and then we were on our way!

Kennedy painting her fan

Eric and I finally got to eat when we arrived at the park and then we started exploring. It is basically a park that has replicas of original traditional Korean houses that were located around the country. I thought that because it was Chusok weekend, there wouldn't be many people there, but again, it turns out I was wrong! There were a lot of people checking out the traditional Korean culture and houses. The kids enjoyed watching the drummers. Kennedy got to paint a fan to take home as a souvenir, and she really enjoyed seeing the women dressed up in traditional hanboks ("Mom, they look like princesses!"). Cade enjoyed playing with the water from the wells, playing with the Korean kids, and running away from us every chance he got!

a pair of traditional baby slippers woven with straw

After a couple of hours of exploration, it was clear the kids were getting tired and we needed to start heading home. One thing that I can't seem to get used to is the fact that whenever we are done with our activity, we still have the trek home. It's times like this when I wish that we still had that big Durango to plop the kids into at the end of a long day. They would sit in those big car seats and go right to sleep. It is a very different experience now! When we decided to leave the park, Eric and Kennedy were walking pretty far ahead of Cade and me. By the time Cade and I got to the bottom of the hill, Eric and Kennedy were nowhere to be seen. I looked in all directions and couldn't see them anywhere. I called Eric and he didn't answer. I really didn't know what to do. I figured Eric would head back the way we came because he is comfortable with what he even vaguely knows. But, there were 4 subway stops right in front of me. He could have gone in any of them...I didn't know what to do, so Cade and I were just standing there trying to figure it out when they came out of the 7-11 where they'd gone to buy water. Phew! That was stressful! Because Eric felt so guilty about disappearing on us, he even let me go to the Starbucks across the street where I got my $6 Frappuccino and my first souvenir Seoul travel mug...it may have been worth it!!

We made it safely back to our neighborhood, taking roughly the same route (we did utilize the closer exits to the subway) and Kennedy and I picked up some Thai food from the local "Buddha's Belly". Certainly not the best Thai food I've had (doesn't hold a candle to Jasmin Thai in Stanwood), but it was cheaper and it's a whole lot closer!

The night ended with my cake baking escapade...what a day!

In Preparation for Chuseok

This weekend is a HUGE holiday here in Korea--Chuseok. Expats here refer to it as the "Korean Thanksgiving" which basically means they spend days traveling, preparing, and eating food. For us, it means we have two days off of school (every other year it lands in the middle of the week and we get a whole week off from school--although I still end up with a whole week off!). We have learned many things about the practicalities surrounding Chuseok (though nothing of what the tradition behind it is). 

One of the first things I learned is from a 6th grader: make sure you do not hang your laundry out to dry with the windows open over Chuseok. In her words, "They're all cooking their smelly Korean food, and your clothes will smell so bad, you'll have to wash them again." Point well taken. Our laundry is done and put away and it's only Friday night.

One guy told me about a month ago that he went to Costco here in Korea the weekend before Chuseok his first year here. He's lived here 3 years and never been back to Costco. Again, point well taken. We will just have to live with our lack of American food (in bulk) until after Chuseok.

Another guy told us that you do not want to try to attempt to travel outside of the city on the 3 days preceding the holiday. The highways are gridlocked like you wouldn't believe. Traffic doesn't even move for hours. On the plus side, he said Seoul empties out and is as close to a ghost town as you will ever see it. I find this very hard to imagine and look forward to what that means!

As my preparation, I have been doing research on places to visit, must-sees in the city, and have planned out a little itinerary for our four days off. Now, I just have to see if my family is game to visit one of the traditional Korean hanoks, Namsongal Village, Everland (an amusement park), and whatever market I can find that is actually open this weekend. And then I have to convince Eric that he actually wants to do something to celebrate his 30th birthday. That'll be the hard part.