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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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!
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