Where We Went

Today was one of those days. One of those days where you think to yourself "I wouldn't have this problem if I didn't live in Korea." "This would be so much easier if I were in the States." Eric's cough has come back again this week--the pneumonia that never really went away because he decided not to finish his antibiotics. So, we both laid awake much of the night. Even after he moved out to the couch because his coughing makes the bed move so much that I get motion sickness, I could still hear everything through our thin walls (and yes, I had earplugs in). All I could think was that it would be so much different in our house.

Today, I managed to do something more ridiculous and air-headed than anything I've done in a long time. First of all, I chose to go to the mall after school--something I never do--but soccer starts on Wednesday, and I don't have any athletic pants to wear. How ridiculous is that? After Cade and I wandered around for an hour or so trying to find something that cost less than $50 and might actually be long enough for me, I realized that I had neglected to grab my wallet out of my school bag--which was at home! We immediately raced back to the car and counted the change in the ashtray, praying that parking wouldn't cost more than $5.00. It was $4.00.

But, the reality is that these things happen anywhere. Eric can get pneumonia in the States. I would probably still hear him coughing, even if he went downstairs to sleep on the couch. (Though I don't think our bed moves quite as much there; this bed is so flimsy!) I could easily go to the store in the States without my wallet. (In fact, I think I have.) And no doubt, I would have had a cart full of stuff, rather than a pair of soccer socks and shin guards that I'd just picked up a moment ago, when I realized it. (Those are for Cade, not me!)

None of this was very dramatic.We've dealt with plenty of sickness here. My biggest panic when I realized I didn't have my wallet was wondering if I could pay for parking (I counted out change for the lady. She was not impressed.) Cade handled it pretty well, too. I know that I've covered these struggles on the blog before (some in much more dramatic ways based on tougher situations), but it doesn't go away. It's always this thought in the back of my head. My question is: are expats alone in this? Does it ever go away? I feel that we're now in a pattern of never being totally content wherever we live. Is this just new to me because I'd never lived outside of Washington state? Do people who move from one state to another feel the same way?

These few pictures are of our trip to Busan on the bullet train. It was one of the things that my brother really wanted to do while he was here. How often do you get the chance to travel 300 km/hour? Even the train itself was a bit of a cultural learning experience. We bought the last few tickets both directions, so we couldn't book tickets all together. Those seat assignments? They mean something here. And they mean something on every.single.stop. So, even when you've explained (and by "explained," I mean point and gesture) to a couple of people already, you're bound to still have more stops and more gesturing to do. Aside from that, the train itself was pretty standard and eventually you forget to be enthralled by the speed at which you are traveling. It was nice to make the trip down the entire peninsula in such a short time, though!

Gyeongbukgong Palace...again

This is our last week of normalcy for awhile. While all the rest of you Seattle-ites are suffering from "Seahawk fever"--taking the day off to attend parades and such--we're still in our normal routine, for a few more days. Next week, I start soccer again--high school, varsity soccer. More time than I'm prepared to invest right now--my heart races at just the thought of trying to keep up with everything! I have a feeling I'm going to get way more "I told you so" than I've ever heard (or deserved) in the next ten weeks.

I realized last night, after having made homemade naan and tikka masala, red beans and rice (from scratch), Greek pasta salad, and beef stroganoff this week, that I might be cooking out of guilt in preparation for the next couple of months. With practice ending at 6:00 every night (except game nights when it's even later), I'm not going to be doing much cooking for the next ten weeks. Eric is going to have to start stretching his cooking skills again. I'm not sure why, but he has still not started cooking here, even though he did the majority of the cooking while we were in the States. Okay, maybe it's because he had to do the majority of the cooking, and he doesn't have to now.

You may have noticed--especially based on these posts from when Travis was here--that I don't normally cook often enough. And when I do manage to cook five out of seven nights, at least a couple of those are things like tacos or pasta with sauce from a jar, so for me to cook that many legitimate meals from scratch in one week is pretty impressive. (I probably shouldn't admit that!) But, I will say that we have such a wide range of options for takeout here (and some of them are even healthy), that I don't even feel guilty about it anymore--until someone comes to visit.

Travis' trip was 26 days, I believe--he counted, not me--and I am 6 posts in, covering about 7 days, I think. It's time to pick up the pace! It's made easy by the fact that I didn't take pictures for two days. The boys took the kids to Bukhansan to go hiking one day, and I stayed home to grade essays. I'm sure they took some good pictures, but I don't have them.

We spent the next day doing a few random things. We went swimming for a few hours in the morning at the school pool. When I say "we," I mean "they." I sat near the pool grading essays while they swam and played with a few other staff families. Then, we went home had lunch and soon after the boys headed back to the War Memorial (trip #3, I think?). Cade desperately wanted to go sledding there, so Eric took him sledding while Travis finished up the museum. Kennedy and I stayed home and worked on our puzzle, of course. We had gyros for dinner (see? we have healthy options!), and then the boys went out for a guys' night with some of Eric's friends from school. None of it picture worthy.

The next day it was back to the tourist thing--I had a list, we had things to check off, and we were wasting time! (I say tongue-in-cheek, but really I mean it...) We headed back to Gyeongbukgong, confident it was not going to start snowing this time. The only thing we weren't confident in was our route for getting there.

Eric was pretty sure that he'd seen the palace on the bus route they'd taken returning from the mountain a couple of days previous, so he chose our bus and where to get off. It was true, he had seen a palace, but it wasn't the one I was planning to go to. Again, if the weather had been warm, it would have been fine, but we really needed to go the one that also has a museum, so that we could go inside and warm up. We didn't have any luck orienting ourselves on iPhone maps, nor did I see a bus that I knew went to the other palace, so we hopped in a cab and arrived there shortly after (all of the palaces are conveniently within close proximity--the benefits of replicas).

There's something about this particular palace, though--maybe it is the fact that there is a museum there--or just because it's so big, but we always end up splitting--with someone going back early. This time it was Eric and the kids. We went through the children's museum while Trav did (1/3 of) the regular museum. By the time we were done with our paper cranes (great light in there!), they were done and Travis hadn't even seen the palace yet.

So they headed home while we finished up. Travis was fully intending to go back and finish the museum (it's so nice that they're free!), but it never happened. We'd skipped lunch, so he stopped and got a chicken skewer from a street vendor, missing out on an ideal opportunity to try some silkworm larvae; I couldn't believe it! (We still haven't tried it, either. Apparently, if you can get past the smell, they're not so bad, but the smell is awful!)

That evening, we had a "family play date" with Kennedy's friend--the one whose family we had an impromptu lunch with the week before. They have quite a large house, as he works for one of the most prominent businesses in Korea, so they invited us over to play and have dinner. It was another long meal, but we had good food and good conversation, and the kids had a blast! We had to be up early the next morning, though, so we had to end the fun before it got too late.

I had better get some more of these pictures edited, if you're ever going to see them! The week after soccer starts, I have essays due in class, so my posts will probably be less wordy in the near future. (And just know that we're dying over here--one of the biggest events in Seattle sports history--and we're in South Korea. Sheesh.)

What We Did

Four day weekends are the best, aren't they? I'll admit that part of the enjoyment is that while everyone else in the country was concerned about making lots of food, traveling to visit relatives, and family traditions, we were relaxing. We enjoy the lack of people in the city. We enjoy the fact that we can't really do anything, because everything is closed. (But you do have to plan ahead to make sure that you have your groceries!) The weather has warmed up a bit, so we had 40 degree rainy days, which made it that much easier to relax inside--going to a movie, playing games with friends, or just working. The only problem with this warming trend is that it makes you feel like maybe spring is on the way, and then you realize that it's only February--there's still a lot of winter left in Seoul!

Today was a big day for those of us from Seattle! Eric and I were in school for Super Bowl Monday, of course. Ironically, we felt guilty about taking the day off to watch the game, but we didn't feel too guilty about having it on the projector during our classes. Thankfully, my students were able to stay focused (enough) on reading the Epic of Gilgamesh, though there were a couple who got into the game. More than half my class had never watched American football, so I figure they were learning something. When the game drew to a close, I even had a couple of students from WA in class, so we were able to cheer together. From what I heard, I wasn't the only teacher with the game on. Things like the Super Bowl always make us feel a little farther from home, but we were grateful to at least be able to see the game and cheer on our Seahawks! Super Bowl champs!!!

On the day after Christmas, we were all ready to get out of the house, and of course, I had plenty of tourist-y things on my list for Travis to do. So, we headed out early so that we could get a few things checked off the list. When the weather is nice (though we never have guests when the weather is nice!), it's nice to head to Gyeongbokgung Palace and walk the grounds, then we head to the Folk Museum (inside the palace grounds). After spending a few hours there, we can comfortably walk to Gwanghwamun Square, then down to the Cheonggyecheon, and end up in Insadong.

But, that's on a nice day. When coats, gloves, scarves, hats, and boots are not required. No such luck on this particular day. We headed out and things were looking good--until it started to snow. By the time we got off the bus, the snow was coming down hard and the street vendors were beginning to close up shop. My original brilliant idea of checking out some street food, winding through alleys, and finding a good Korean restaurant was not looking to brilliant anymore. It was bitterly cold and wet, and we needed a new plan.

The boys decided that the easiest plan was to head back to Itaewon to go screen golfing. If I had to go back to Itaewon, I wanted to go to my favorite Turkish restaurant. So, we jumped on the subway and had a new plan for the day--all was good again. Until we got to Itaewon and discovered that my very favorite restaurant had shut its doors and was under construction. I was not a happy camper. We headed to one of the other kebab restaurants (that doesn't even compare!) and picked up lunch to go.

Screen golf was semi-warm. I was still cold because if I'd turned the heat up as warm as I would've liked, the boys would've had sweat dripping off their foreheads. It was uneventful, and I wished that I'd brought work to do, but that's life--rolling with the punches.

After golf, we picked up some coffee to warm me from the inside out, jumped into a cab, and headed back to the War Memorial to check it out when it was actually open. We made it through about a third of the museum before it was closing time and time to head home to make dinner. We did eat a few dinners at home, I promise!

Christmas in Korea

Our lives have revolved around one central theme for the last week: Frozen. Typically, we are years behind on the movie scene. People talk all the time about movies I have never seen or even heard of. Because we haven't had TV for the past several years, we've gotten used to being out of the loop on all things pop culture. Our students think we're nuts, and while it can be challenging at times, it always leads to an interesting conversation.

Eric went to see Frozen with the middle school students who were rewarded for good behavior, and he came home talking about how the kids needed to see it. He was willing to pay for his entire family to see a movie that he had already seen. In the theater. I was sold.

As it turns out, everyone else at school saw the movie that same weekend. (Remember how we went to the theater twice that weekend? We saw multiple people that we knew both times we were there.) The movie was the talk of even my high school classes. It wasn't long before we needed to buy the soundtrack, and nearly every class I had last week requested to listen to it while they worked on writing their epics.

This weekend, we have a long holiday weekend for Seollal, and Kennedy asked to have one of her friends over for a play date. The brilliant child came home one day and said that her friend still hadn't seen Frozen and really wanted to see it. She even played to our sensitive sides when she told us that Arianne didn't understand any of the games at recess this week because she hadn't seen the movie. Needless to say, we gave in, and Kennedy and I have also seen the movie twice in the theater now. There's just something about this movie.

Our Christmas, on the other hand, had a different soundtrack. I'm thankful that after more than two months Cade was finally willing to give up the Christmas music, but I'm sure it won't be too long before I'm ready to be done with this soundtrack, as well, considering he requests it from the time he wakes up in the morning until he goes to bed. I only get some respite at school. I am grateful to add some variety to our Disney soundtrack repertoire, though; he was only content with The Lion King and Cars up to this point.

Our Christmas was very laid back. We had caramel rolls after opening stockings and then breakfast casserole after we opened all of our presents--sometime around noon!

We were on FaceTime with grandparents from both sides while opening presents (which is why I have pictures of both the boys holding their phones). We're so thankful for that technology!

My brother brought a gift to continue the "pickle" tradition that my mom began years ago. As kids, she used to hide a pickle-shaped ornament on the tree and whoever found it, received a bonus gift--usually a game of some type. We don't have a pickle ornament here in Korea, so we just hid a random one. Kennedy had a distinct height advantage, so she found it and scored a puzzle, which we all enjoyed.

Cade had desperately been needing some new boots, and he was pretty excited to discover that his new boots matched Uncle Fraffy's. He wore them around the house with his pajamas all day long!

The afternoon was spent with all five of us hunkered on the floor playing with, building, and sorting Legos. When the boys' eyes started hurting from staring at Legos for too long, they began working on the model airplane that Kennedy bought for Cade. It still hasn't made it much past this stage; it turns out that they're hard to complete when the directions are in a foreign language.

We were so busy playing that we didn't even eat any of the food that I planned to have. We ended up eating leftover fried chicken and cereal around 9pm before we put the kids to bed because no one felt up to making anything.

It was certainly a relaxing day; but this year more than most, we missed being with family. Most of my family was able to be together this year on Christmas day with my grandma's funeral just a couple of days afterward, so it was hard not to be with them. We were happy to have my brother here, and I was happy to be with my kids and not an airplane somewhere over the Pacific. And, we were so grateful for all of the gifts that were sent--these kids were beyond spoiled this year! We kept looking at the tree thinking about the fact that we had never seen so many presents under a Christmas tree before!

Our Latest Adventures & Christmas Eve

In my last post, I mentioned the fact that nothing is ever as easy as it should be here. I mentioned that last weekend we went to see Frozen. We originally planned on going Saturday afternoon, after I returned home from a baby shower. The last time Eric and I went to the movies, he was able to buy the tickets online and then our challenge was printing them at the theater. This time, our second movie-going experience in Korea, he wasn't able to purchase them online--everything was in Korean. So, we just drove to the theater. Of course, the afternoon showing was nearly sold out--we couldn't get four seats together, so we bought tickets for Sunday afternoon after church. No big deal.

On Sunday, we arrived at the theater early--turns out there is no need when 1) tickets have already been purchased and 2) seats are assigned. Our second learning experience occurred when Eric realized that the alphabetical rows in the theater begin with row A in the front. He had purchased four tickets in row D--four rows from the front in an IMAX theater. Oh joy. I only got slight motion sickness and the movie was great. All is well that ends well.

This past weekend, we decided to check out the only full-sized Toys'R'Us in Seoul at Jamsil station. I had heard about it, but wasn't too optimistic, until recently when a friend of ours said it's worth the trip. Typically, we would take the subway to get to a station, but she said it's easy enough to park there and get parking validated, so I figured we would venture in the car--iPhone maps said it would only be a 20 minute drive (ha!).

Naturally, we made a few wrong turns, so it took us just over an hour to get to the line. The line for parking. We waited in line to park the car for over 30 minutes. I'm not exaggerating. Just waiting in line to get into the parking garage. Thankfully, the kids were so excited to see the store that they happily listened to music in the car and even let Eric nap the entire time.

The store was decent--though I can't say I was impressed. Eric and the kids said it was worth it just to see the impressive Lego display they had in the store. The kids spent the rest of their Christmas money on more Legos, then we were able to (fairly easily) find something we were all able to eat for dinner, and made it back down to the car. Here, we had yet another new Korean experience. The car was double-parked (not a new experience), but here they had parking spaces that are intended to double-park. We discovered that these people leave their cars in Neutral, so that they can be moved. Interesting.

This week is only a three day week with Lunar New Year at the end, so we're looking forward to another short break. Christmas Eve, which feels so long ago now, was spent doing much preparation for the big day. Because we got out of school so close to Christmas, I hadn't done much to prepare--including shopping, as I already mentioned.

We had been invited to my principal's house in the afternoon--and I had planned on going, too--but it quickly became clear that I was not going to get everything done if I took a few hours off. It's a bit ironic how much preparation we put into making memories, but for me, it was just one day, and I wasn't that enthused about the "Christmas Eve open house" anyway.

So, I focused on making mom's caramel rolls--Kennedy had been reminding me for weeks that I promised that I would make them this year. That was one aspect of Christmas that she felt she missed out on being in Thailand last year.

Eric and the kids baked and decorated sugar cookies for Santa. He's been talking for years about how he's the baker in our family, so I wasn't letting him get out of the sugar cookie tradition. That was one challenge he hadn't taken yet.

So, I made the glaze and the kids taught him how to decorate the cookies. You might remember that I decorated cookies back in the middle of November with the kids, so they were well-practiced. In the meantime, I made the breakfast casserole for Christmas morning--for after our caramel rolls.

Sometime in the late afternoon, my brother started getting a little antsy. I hadn't put him to work yet; I think he spent much of the day playing Legos with the kids. He decided it was time to get out of the house.

So, we sent him on a mission to find two of the local breweries and to a very particular fried chicken place to pick up dinner. We provided him no directions to the breweries, but I gave him walking directions to find the chicken, because that's what we wanted for dinner. He refused to bring a phone (with service) and stuck with oral directions.

After a few hours, Kennedy began to get concerned about him, and she wondered at what point we were going to go out and look for him. The last time we thought we'd lost a person in the city was when Gretchen came to visit, but I wasn't too worried this time. We had taught him what to tell the taxi driver to get home, and he could contact us if he found wifi, which isn't too difficult.

He showed up not too long after, with chicken--from Mom's Touch--in hand. He hadn't found the breweries, but he'd found the right chicken restaurant and managed to get back before it got too cold, too. Success! After we put the kids to bed, we wrapped presents while watching the classic Christmas Vacation, and then I took way too many pictures of the tree, presents, and stockings!