What We Drank

The day after our Seoul Tower trip was a Monday--the Monday before Christmas Eve. Eric and I still hadn't done any Christmas shopping at this point, because we usually get a sitter and make it a date (of sorts). Since my brother was going to be here (and we had been in school and busy!), we figured we would just wait for him to hang out with the kids while we did some shopping.

Shopping was the only thing on my agenda on that Monday, but it doesn't need to take all day--especially now that we have a car, so we decided to squeeze something in for the morning. The War Memorial is always a favorite among guests, plus it's close to our house, so we figured it would be a perfect trip. The day did not end up turning out quite as I had planned.

Only after we arrived did I remember that many of the museums are closed on Mondays. Including the War Memorial. What a tour guide I am! After checking out the airplanes and tanks in the outdoor part of the museum, we decided to try to salvage the day by heading to Namdaemun. We had barely even started walking through the rows and rows of booths and stores when we ran into one of Kennedy's best friends from school. I had never met either one of her parents, but I'd been emailing her mom about setting up a playdate, so we had something to talk about.

I'm not exactly sure how it happened, but pretty soon we were wandering through alleys trying to find a Korean BBQ restaurant that would seat a party of ten--most restaurants here are really tiny, so it can be a challenge to find one large enough to fit that many people. It was an interesting lunch as it turns out that the dad knows a lot about a lot of things, does a lot of talking, and he's also quick to replenish drinks! For only being in Korea for a few months, he knows a lot about it, and he taught us a few words, as well as the best way to drink Korean beer (with soju mixed in).

After one of the longest lunches I've had in a long time, we were on our way again. We took a bus home, and Eric and I were still able to get our Christmas shopping done. It certainly wasn't what I had planned for the day, but it turned out pretty well in the end. Sometimes expat life (or any life, for that matter) means you just have to roll with the punches. I think we rolled pretty well with that one!

I've now slowed to a post per day of Travis' visit--there's no way I can keep up that rate, so I'll have to pick up the pace after I get through the Christmas posts. Thankfully, things are pretty easy at school right now since we're at the beginning of a unit, so I don't have too much grading to do yet, but it will be getting busy again soon. We've been enjoying our weekend downtime lately, too. Last weekend, we took the kids to see Frozen, which we loved (and have been singing songs from all week!), and this weekend we're going to find our way to the biggest Toys'R'Us in Seoul. Nice, easy, indoor adventures. Nothing is ever as easy as it's supposed to be here, but we always manage.