Meagan in Korea

Random Interesting Photo

2007-07-01T19:33:00.000+09:00

underwear_2
Originally uploaded by megguy44

Can you guess what this is?

We got a good laugh at this....male undies...I took this when we were in the shopping area below Dong-A shopping center.

A piece of the small town

2007-06-26T19:32:00.000+09:00

Court House
Originally uploaded by megguy44

I was going through pictures and ran across some I took when we were home last fall. This one is of the Owen County Court House which is located in Spencer, Indiana...my hometown.

According to Wikipedia... as of 2000, there were 21,786 people, 8,282 households, and 6,194 families residing in the county.

Just feeling a bit homesick today.

K-2 Field Day

2007-06-25T19:29:00.000+09:00

On June 6th the K-2 kids at Taegu American School had a Field Day. It was held at Camp Walker on Kelly Field.

Court was able to take off work to go. I took the girls as well so it was a fun family day for all of us. Each of the classes had different color t-shirts with the school logo on the front and the year the class would be graduating....Gavin is class of 2017....yikes.

gavins_class
Originally uploaded by megguy44

Everyone in orange was in Gavin's 2nd grade class. They are waiting to get the day going. Gavin is towards the back left sitting with his best friend Gage.

gavin_daniel
Originally uploaded by megguy44

Gavin standing with his friend Daniel.

Eventually we broke up into groups of about 10 kids each mixed from the different classes. There was no set routine...just pick a station and go until you were ready to leave. We started with Flag Tag. There were a lot of parent volunteers. Also they had many soldiers there helping with the food and running the various events.

flagtag
Originally uploaded by megguy44

flagtag_2
Originally uploaded by megguy44

I think it was supposed to be Flag Football originally but the football was missing. The kids ended up running around for a few minutes grabbing flags. No winners or losers just fun.

gavin_gage
Originally uploaded by megguy44

Gavin and Gage getting ready to play flag tag. Gavin is showing off his super-ninja-karate kid powers to intimidate the other team.

gavin_flagtag
Originally uploaded by megguy44

All the flags Gavin got.

gavin_scooter
Originally uploaded by megguy44

Now this was fun...the kids sat on these little scooters and went down the track and back. I think instead of a relay they should have just let them do a free for all.

volleyball
Originally uploaded by megguy44

Next up is volley ball. The net was a little high but the kids seemed to have fun. Maddie and Abby got to play this one too. Digging in the sand was a lot more fun than going for the ball though.

abby_eggrelay
Originally uploaded by megguy44

Abby doing the Egg relay.

gavin_eggrelay
Originally uploaded by megguy44

Gavin is waiting for his turn. The kids really liked this one.

hoops
Originally uploaded by megguy44

Instead of horse shoes they used hula-hoops.

maddie_waterrelay
Originally uploaded by megguy44

It was a hot day so we waited a while before hitting the water relay area. In this one you had to run with a bucket of water that had holes in it. The object was to fill up your teams bucket first. Maddie actually participated and I was really glad she did.

gavin_waterrelay
Originally uploaded by megguy44

Gavin's turn....I think their team ended up winning? Abby took a turn with my help as well but did not get a pic of that.

baloon_toss
Originally uploaded by megguy44

More water fun! Gavin and Maddie are up at the front. I am at the back left tossing to Abby.

After the water activities we stopped for lunch. Each class donated various items. There were hot dogs and hamburgers...chips, cookies, fruit and snacks. Lot of food and lots of people. After lunch I think we were supposed to get back into our groups? Gavin wanted his face painted so we headed over there.

facepainting
Originally uploaded by megguy44

Gavin wanted a Pokemon on his face.

gavin_facepainting
Originally uploaded by megguy44

Here is how it turned out. Maddie had a butterfly and Abby did a strawberry.

After this Court the girls and I had to leave. Court got constant phone calls from work and needed to go in for awhile. So that was the end of the day for us.

gavin_gage_school
Originally uploaded by megguy44

The last day of school was June 14th. I had to grab a shot of Gavin and Gage together.

Gavin_mrssharp
Originally uploaded by megguy44

Gavin and his teacher Mrs. Sharp. We really really liked her a lot. She was a great teacher and really seemed to care about the kids.

Donghwasa Temple and Palgongsan

2007-05-30T17:56:00.000+09:00

For the longest time now I have wanted to go to Mt. Palgong and see the Donghwasa Temple. We have planned to go on several occasions but never went until this past weekend. Sunday we loaded up the car and brought a lunch and headed out. We got there pretty easily. With traffic I would say it was an hour or so driving there. The last part of the trip was the best because we were on the outside of Daegu. We saw real houses..not just huge apartments. Since Buddha's birthday had been the previous Thursday the area was packed. We had a hard time finding a safe place to park. We ended up on a curb near a playground. It was packed with kids and as soon as we sat down we were bombarded. Nothing like an audience while you sit. We ended up moving to a more private location.

For the kids (especially for the girls) it was a huge thing to eat outside. Both later said that was their favorite part of the day. So I think we will have to do that more often. We found a nice sized rock and used it as a table and had a quick lunch.

Near where we sat for lunch was a turtle/dragon statue.

After lunch we moved the car to a better spot and started walking towards the entrance of the temple.

It was cheap to enter I am thinking 5,000 won for us all.

Temple Guardians...there are four in all.

It was a short walk down a road to the temple area where we found more parking. The walk was nice and the day was beautiful and windy. Everywhere we looked there were lanterns. I loved the color and took a million pictures of them.

The temple area was packed with lots of people. Abby was upset about something (?) not sure what she usually likes to have her picture taken.

Maddie and Abby. There were all sorts of these figures around. The temple was still decorated for Buddha's Birthday. I think it would have been very beautiful at night with all the lanterns.

Gavin...and after this shot he promptly started picking the figure's nose. I am sure his Uncle Thad can appreciate that.

This place was huge. The largest temple complex I have visited here in Korea.

In this building there were Lotus flower lanterns. I am not sure what the different types of lanterns signify..if anything. I like these the best though.

More Temple information.

A view from above. I think it looks like a big ball pit. I am so glad we visited when the temple was decorated...so beautiful.

Court, Gavin and Abby standing outside one of the various smaller buildings. Inside this there was an alter with a Buddha. Some had offerings...we saw a watermelon inside .

This is not the best picture but it gives you an idea of what it looks like inside. See the watermelon.

Court and Abby.
More lanterns...

Maddie trying very hard to not blink during a picture.

Gavin near a small creek. There was a pool that you could throw money into...a wish well sort of.

This is a different area of the temple...we had a nice walk down the hillside and then up to this part.

These little Buddhas were stuck into the rocks. There were thousands of them.

Women monks praying.

This was the main attraction...this Buddha is huge....very tall. It was a beautiful day and wonderful to be at the temple .
A close up.

It was a really good day for us. On the way home we got turned around a bit but eventually made it. We are making plans to go back to Palgongsan another time as there is a lot more to see there.

Seomun Market

2006-04-10T07:00:00.000+09:00

My dear friend Sue invited me to come shopping with her at Seomun Market. I have wanted to go there for the longest time and I was so glad she asked. She loves to shop as much as I do!

Above is a view from the parking garage. This place is huge. It is like nothing I have ever seen and it was wonderful!!!

There are long alley like things with tables and small shops lining them. Some of it is inside and some of it is outside. It was very crowded and at times I was a bit clausrtaphobic. I am glad I do not have too many issues with personal space because there is none here.

This is some of the outdoor part. All the kids were home with Court. There is no way I could have brought them with me. It was too crowded and a stroller would have gotten stuck.

Loads and loads of people. I was surprised how many people there were considering it was Friday late morning.

There were many, many shops selling Hello Kitty stuff. I love it! But Sue kept telling me to hurry, hurry so I could not stay too long and look. There were so many things I wanted to maybe buy but Sue was looking for something specific and so we rushed through most of it.

After awhile a lot of it looked the same. I felt a little lost like in a maze but Sue knew exactly where she was and where she was going.

We only were in a very small part of the whole market. I need to go back when we have lots of time so I can just walk around and look slowly and not be rushed.

There were a lot of women buying clothes for kids.

Lots of babies strapped onto backs of their moms. I wish I would have had one of these carriers when my kids were babies!

I would have really liked to pick up a few pairs of the sandal/slippers for the girls. But rush, rush from Sue...LOL

So even though Court had given me 200,000 won to spend I only ended up spending around 30,000 of it. I bought a chime for our door and a Hello Kitty Steering Wheel cover for our Kia back home.

I cannot wait to go back!

Cherry Trees

2006-04-08T07:09:00.000+09:00

Wow Spring is here and all the Cherry trees are in full bloom. I had wanted to go to the Chinhae Cherry Blossom Festival. Actually Gavin's class was supposed to go for a field trip but his teacher cancelled it because the weather was supposed to be bad. Turns out the day was sunny. So I am left with admiring them here and there.

Yesterday while Court was getting gas at Camp Walker I took a few pictures of this one tree. Sorry for my lack of updates. With the weather turning nicer we have been outside a lot more. Yesterday I went with Sue to Seomun Market which is a huge outdoor market here in Daegu. Today we are heading up to Osan again for some shopping. There will be pictures it just may take me a few days. Seomun was .....WOW! We did not spend enough time there. I think I could have looked at stuff all day. For now I will give you a small preview of the pictures to come.

Wow! Over 1000!

2006-04-08T06:59:00.000+09:00

I cannot believe that in a months time there have been over 1000 hits to my site. I have had some very nice comments and emails from so many of you and I would really like to say thank you dear reader!

This started out as a way to share my adventures with my family back in the US and I did not figure anyone but my family would ever look at this site. Was I ever wrong! LOL!

Daegya Festival

2006-04-04T07:18:00.000+09:00

On Monday we went to the Goreyong Daegaya Festival. This was a tour put together by the Chaplain and the Family Life Center here on Camp George. It was about an hour on the bus. We had the Daegu City Tour Bus again with the same interpreter as last time.

The girls love riding the bus.

There were a lot of school groups out for field trips. I loved the little kids with matching outfits and back packs. So cute!

There were a lot of vendors and tents set up on the street. The street was closed off to pedestrians only. Monday was a beautiful day so it was great to be outside!

Here is the big dome museum. Inside is a tomb. I am not sure if it was an actual tomb and they built the dome over it or if they just set it up museum style so you could see what it looked like. I asked and was told both things.

I could not use my flash so most of the pictures inside did not turn out very well. It was really neat though. Inside the various little toms you could see pottery or maybe a skeleton.
Here is an old instrument which I believe is called a kumungo?

Here is one of the mounds/tombs near the dome.

They had all sorts of fun hands-on activities geared towards children. We got to sit inside a fake tomb and be shut in.

The girls got to show off their super strength and build their own tombs.

Then they dug for treasure. They had fake bones and pottery buried for kids to dig up.

Both girls got Tattoos which looked like ancient petroglyphs.

Abby and Maddie both colored masks. Here is Abby modeling hers.

We were very popular with the kids. Here my friend Laurel is being mobbed by middle schoolers.

Lastly here is a picture of a Korean Grave yard. It was a good trip and I had a lot of fun. I came home with a huge box of strawberries. Gavin had to be in school that day which is too bad because I think he would have really enjoyed this! If you are interested in more pictures I have uploaded a ton to my Flickr site.

Pohang and Bogyongsa Temple

2006-03-26T07:47:00.000+09:00

Gavin's Tae Kwan Do academy went on a field trip Saturday to Bogyongsa Temple. It located near Pohang. We loaded up around 9 am or so. I rode with my neighbor and two of her kids. Since Court was working I also brought along both girls. Evidently Abby gets car sick. She threw up twice along the way. We stopped at a rest area to see if they had t-shirts but there were none so she wore her coat. The rest area was super nice! So different from the ones in the US! It took us around 2 hours to get there but it was a nice drive.

We had to park and then walk through a small town to get to the temple. I think we could have parked outside the temple but it was such a nice day I did not mind the walk. The town mostly had restaurants.

Here is the entrance to the temple area. I think it was also some sort of park because we had to pay to enter. There are also hiking trails and the purpose of the trip was to hike up to the various waterfalls. There are 12 in all.

Here Gavin is with some spring water. There was some sort of ceremony to drinking it I think but I never managed to get it right. Dip the water toss it, dip it again and drink (?) and then dip and toss I think?

Since I had the girls with me we just stayed in the temple area. Gavin went with the rest of the group. This was actually fine with me because it gave me a chance to walk around and look at things at my leisure and take what ever pictures I wanted to take. Above is the main building in the temple.

I love all the colors and artwork on the buildings. You could hear the wind chimes going and it was so beautiful and peaceful there.

This was inside one of the buildings.

I saw these cuties stuck in the crook of a tree.

Here are the temple bells. You can see Maddie and Abby walking around it.

Abby made a friend. She and this little boy played with the rocks for awhile.

Maddie made a friend too! Now Maddie is very, very shy. This monk came and was trying to talk to her and she would not talk back. Eventually (and I am not sure how) they ended up sharing cheetos and he was even feeding her at one point! This was the highlight of my day! :)

Here is Abby in front of an old Pagoda.

We decided to walk up the trail a ways. I had the stroller so we could not go to far.

We ended up at a dam and sat and looked at the water for awhile. Then we walked back down. My camera died so we walked into town to search for batteries. I could not find any. So we walked back and had ice cream outside the temple entrance.

Song and the rest of the group met up with us and we went back into the town for dinner. I had bibimbap which is rice with vegetables and an egg. You mix it all up and it is very, very good! Then we headed back home. It was a wonderful day and I had a great time.

And lastly...I bring you this. Why would anyone wear these shoes to go hiking??

Costco and Kalbi lunch

2006-03-20T06:00:00.000+09:00

Abby is sick and I was up with her most of Saturday night. Finally got to bed around 3 am only to get back up with her at 6:30. Sue and Rob had invited me to go shopping with them on Sunday and I really wanted to go. Even though I was really tired I got ready and met them at the back gate around 9:30. ...and I went alone. No kids. I think that is the first time I have gone somewhere here without the kids or Court. WOW! It was nice to shop without the kids!

Sue has a Costco membership. It was like a little piece of heaven. For just a second it felt like I was back in the US.

I actually got to go up and down most of the isles. I was not too interested in the food stuff since we can get a lot of the same items cheaper at the commissary. I did end up with a big pack of kids shampoo/conditioner etc. since I have a hard time finding that sort of thing on post.

I ran across these condoms...hmmmm interesting.

Sue did not want her picture taken. I got a huge tray of muffins, a bag of frozen mandu, a pineapple, bunch of bananas, 3 shirts for Maddie, a shirt for me, a Dora DVD set for Abby and For Gavin I got two book sets...one Scooby Doo and the other Clifford.

Then we went downtown to this restaurant. It was across the street from Home Plus. This was my first time eating in an actual Korean restaurant. Usually we just go to Walmart or Home Plus and eat there.

Inside the restaurant. You have two options for seating. One is at tables with really comfy chairs. The other is in private rooms on the floor.

Here you can see the rooms. I would have like to eat in there but Rob does not like to sit on the floor.

The middle of the table has a hole in it. The waitress removes the hole and brings steaming hot coals and sticks them in.

You get a plate of food to cook. This is the beef that has been marinated. Also some yummy mushrooms.

Then you stick on the grill and wait for it to cook. There is a bowl of bean paste (?) and some ginger (?) slices.

While it was cooking we ate some salad.

Here is some sort of something. I am not sure what it was but there were suckers on pieces of it so I passed the plate to Sue. After the meat is cooked you put it on large lettuce leaves, add rice or what ever you like roll it up and eat it. It was very, very good. We also had kimchi which I ate and liked. A plate with cut up carrots and apples that had some sort of white sauce on it. It tasted like yogurt. That was tasty. After lunch we went to home plus then back to Rob's apartment. Sue and I had coffee and chatted for awhile. Around 5 pm or so it was back home for me. It was nice to have a day away from the kids.

Gavin is taking Tae Kwon Do now

2006-03-18T21:21:00.000+09:00

About two weeks ago I signed Gavin up for TKD. He had taken TKD classes back in the states but is was a special program for little kids. Several of his friends attend classes at this school so when he asked to be signed up I did.

His instructor is Master Song. He is a great guy and he is just wonderful with little kids. He also has access to Camp George because he teaches a class on Camp Walker as well. For his 3:00 class he comes to the school and picks the kids up and they all walk to the school together. Gavin takes the 4:30 class though.

This is the assistant. I am not sure what his name is. Since Gavin is new to the class he spends a lot of time one on one with him going over various moves etc. Gavin's previous TKD experience has paid off and I think some of it is just review for him.

Even though Master Song is a great teacher and a lot of fun he is still very strict and expects the kids to listen and show respect. Here he is threatening Zach with his stick. This was the first and only time I have seen this. I have yet to see him use it but I have heard he has a few times.

Here is Gavin with his Nunchucks. He cannot believe he gets to have a weapon and learn how to use it! Friday is Nunchucks day. His are smaller and padded but I think would still hurt if he hit someone with it.
Here is our upstairs neighbor, Song. She is also Zach's mom. She was keeping Abby occupied during Gavin's class. Abby loves everyone and really likes our neighbor a lot.

Thank You Chicken

2006-03-17T08:04:00.000+09:00

Thank you, thank you, thank you. Mmmmmm. This little chicken place is right outside the back gate to Camp George. I have been wanting to stop in because I have heard it is pretty good. So Wednesday I did.

The kids were wild so we waited outside while our order was being made. For 10,000 won I got 20 pieces of Chicken. I chose half to be regular and the other half to be spicy.

I got home with two boxes of chicken, some fruit (?) stuff and a Pepsi.

This is the plain chicken and it is pretty plain. Court ate this box.

This was the spicy box. Ohhh sooo gooood. The sauce was like a really spicy bar-b-que sauce that was also a bit sweet. They are also rolled in sesame seeds. It was very spicy but very good.

We also stopped at the small store right outside the gate. They sell a little bit of everything. We go ice cream. The kids picked these cones out. Court and I shared a ice-cream waffle sandwich that was very good.

The school was evacuated Thursday!

2006-03-11T22:40:00.000+09:00

I was not going do a post on this because of OPSEC. I always try to be careful because we are a military family living on a military installation. However, since it was in the paper I feel like I can post a bit about it. Sorry no pictures for you about this..not sure if that would be ok or not.

Gavin went off to school as usual on Thursday then came back around 7:55 crying because he fell down the stairs. That seems to happen a lot around here. He had banged his shin up so I iced it and gave him motrin. I got the girls and myself ready and headed out the door to take him back to school. I heard a lot of noise...kids talking and then noticed they had pulled all the kids out of the school. I figured it was just a drill so we went downstairs and found his class. His teacher said I could not leave him without signing into the office and I could not do that right then. Which I knew anyway so I let him sit with his class and we waited and waited. Eventually his teacher told me I might as well take him home because they were going to bus the kids to Camp Walker and it would be five hours before they could return to school. So I took the kids and went upstairs to tell Dee, Sheila and Crystal they might want to get their kids and called Tanya to tell her the same. Then...Nosy me grabbed my camera and went back downstairs and walked around and snapped pictures.

They had the gate to post closed and Sheila told me later they were not letting anyone on or off post. She was trying to go for a walk and was stopped. It was a little eerie. I have not worried about my safety here until this very moment. Anyway you can read the article I copied and pasted from the newspaper below. This came from Stars and Stripes

Taegu American school sports, clubs put on hold following bomb threat Activities called off until perpetrator is identified
By Franklin Fisher and Dave Ornauer, Stars and Stripes Pacific edition, Saturday, March 11, 2006
PYEONGTAEK, South Korea Taegu American School called off all sports and other extracurricular activities until the person behind Thursdays false bomb threat is identified, according to principal Helen Bailey.
Officials evacuated the school about 8:15 a.m. Monday. The school kindergarten through 12th grade is on the Army's Camp George in Daegu.
The cancellation was expected to affect the school's robust athletics program, most immediately soccer. Taegu American School's soccer season openers were called off. The boys and girls teams were to host Seoul Foreign on Friday and Seoul American on Saturday in Taegu's Korean-American Interscholastic Activities Conference openers.
The Army's Criminal Investigaton Command commonly called CID said a written bomb threat was found in the girls bathroom on the first floor, which houses the elementary school, an Army spokesman said.
Because of the possibility an elementary youngster was involved, CID officials deemed a criminal investigation inappropriate, said spokesman Kevin Jackson, Area IV Support Activity, Daegu. CID will leave any investigation to school officials, he said.
"We've already informed our students that if they have any information leading to the identification of the person who threatened the school, they should alert an administrator," Bailey said Thursday evening.
Military police combed the school building and grounds with working dogs trained to detect explosives. They declared the school safe several hours later, Jackson said.
Students were bused from Camp George to two nearby U.S. Army installations, where they were supervised and fed, he said.
Kindergartners through sixth-graders were bused to Camp Walker's Kelly Fitness Center; seventh- through 12th-graders went to Camp Henry's post theater.
Jackson said students returned to the school about 12:30 p.m.
At the beginning of the current school year, about 650 students were enrolled in Taegu American, Bailey wrote in a message in the school's Web site, www.taegu_un.pac.dodea.edu.
Bailey said, "We take this very seriously. It's not cost-effective for the military police and the working dogs and the rescue unit to take time out of their schedules to investigate a false bomb threat."
The shutdown of all extracurricular activities extended to practices for all sports as well as games, girls and boys soccer coaches Ed Thompson and Larry Knierem told Stars and Stripes on Thursday. "They'd phoned the schools and told us that we'd not be playing," Knierem said. "The kids have been working hard. It's a shame to see them punished for something they didn't do. But if that's the administration's call, then we'll support them. "
No make-up dates were announced Thursday for the postponed matches. Taegu American athletics director Michelle Chandler and Seoul American athletics director Donald Hedgpath said rescheduling would be difficult.
In a phone interview Thursday evening, Chandler said, "There's nowhere in the schedule for these games to be played."
Said Hedgpath by cell phone from Seoul, "There isn't much room in the schedule to make it up and that's pretty far to travel for one match. It's going to be really tight to get it in. It's unfortunate that this would happen."

Daegu Tour Part III

2006-03-11T22:10:00.000+09:00

Daegu National Museum

This was the last stop on our little tour. I did not mention that we were supposed to go to some other places but so many of us have kids in school and needed to be back no later than 2:20 to pick them up. Friday it was just beautiful out. Very warm and sunny. It was a good day to be outside!

Here is a picture of the outside of the museum. And here is a little tid-bit about it:

Opened in 1994, the Daegu National Museum is composed of three exhibition halls and one event hall. The museum exhibits about 1,300 historical relics collected in the Yeongnam region. Folklore Hall exhibits replicas of traditional houses and other artifacts of Yeongnam that helps visitors better understand the region’s architecture style, lifestyle, religion, etc.

Some shots of the inside. Thank goodness they had a ramp since I was no longer willing to do stairs at that point and I had Abby in her stroller.

These are some old swords. They had a lot of neat things to look at but the girls were pretty restless and not too interested in standing around so I could look. I took a lot of pictures but we could not use a flash and it was pretty dark in the museum so most did not turn out too great.

These are some old crowns. I really liked the folklore hall the best. I think the girls did too because they had little buildings with little people. I liked seeing how the different houses looked and the various clothing etc.

Back outside to enjoy the beautiful day and let the girls run about. These guys are playing some sort of traditional game which involves throwing sticks into a pot.

This is a really old Pagoda that is 1000 or so years old.

Abby always gets loads of attention and she loves it. She is so friendly! Here she is making friends with this lady. She offered her drink and by the time we left the lady was holding Abby.

That was the end of the tour. We got back on the bus and headed back to Camp George. I am hoping they will do another tour. I suggested a temple to Mrs. Webb so we will see. The bad thing about going with a tour is you have to stay with the tour. I would have like to walk around the medicine hall longer and look in the shops nearby and take pictures. The second place we went was ok but really did not interest me too much. I am glad I went though.

Daegu Tour Part II

2006-03-11T21:05:00.000+09:00

Museum of Medical Missionary Works

Welcome to part two of my little Friday adventure. This stop actually was two different buildings or houses near a large church and hospital. The bus parked on the street and we had to walk a few blocks. Our first stop was the missionary House.

Here is a little bit about it. All of the cards for the various items were in Korean and the pamphlet they passed out was also in Korean. I am glad we had a guide to tell us about some of the items.

The mission Museum was built between 1906 and 1910 when missionary work was carried out full-scale in Daegu. Traditional Korean and western architectural styles are in harmony in this building. Many missionaries, including Missionary Switzwer, have stayed at this building. Presently, various items such as bibles, remains from missionary works and pictures are on display.

Before we could enter everyone had to take their shoes off and put on these slippers.

Here is part of the tour group. Our Tour Guide was over to the left in a red coat.

Most of the items were religious in nature. We went upstairs. The floors were wooden and Maddie and Abby were bored and jumping about which made the objects in the glass cases jump too. Here Abby is looking at some sort of little pots.

More pottery and the girls were hopping along. Time to go outside with them! Down the stairs we went and this is where things went down hill for me. If you remember back to October I twisted my ankle really badly. Well it has never been the same and stairs can be a bit difficult. Add to that narrow, steep stairs that are wooden and me wearing slippery slippers on a waxed hardwood floor and I am sure you can guess what happened. Down I went. :( My ankle is doing "okay" but it hurts and is a little swollen. I bought a brace for it and it helps. I have just been trying to stay off of it as much as I can.

Outside a Bride and Groom-to-be were posing for pictures. They were kind enough to let us take a few shots. They get married April 2nd.

On to the next spot. We had about a half block walk to the next house. Which was the Medical Museum.

This building was established between 1906 and 1910. It presents to us the residential and lifestyles of American missionaries. In particular, it is an important historical architectural style at that time. At present, lots of medical instruments from the East and West used between the 1800s and 1900s are on display, which gives us a better understanding of the progress of medicine.

With a hurt ankle I was not going to do a lot of climbing so we just did a quick look at the downstairs.

Here are some sort of old medical devices.

Once again I found the outside more interesting than the inside. Here Maddie poses with some stone pots.

Another pot.

Here is the church that was near the museums.

Outside was a small cemetery. I took a picture of the sign in front for your viewing pleasure. I have always liked old cemeteries. If you look below they spelled Daegu.. Taiku. Interesting.

After this I hobbled back to the bus. Cleaned the girls up and fed them lunch. Then we were off to the next spot. I still have one more post to do on the tour so check back soon!

Daegu Tour Part I

2006-03-11T07:08:00.000+09:00

Daegu Yangnyeongsi Exhibition Hall

The Chaplains office on Camp George tries to schedule family support activities. I have never attended any until yesterday. Mrs. Webb...who is the outreach person here told me about a bus tour they had scheduled. There were quite a few people that want including Dee and Sheila. We caught the City Tour bus at Camp George around 9 am.

The bus was large and roomy with more than enough space. This was the first time I have ever taken a tour like this.

Abby and Maddie all ready to go on the tour. I am glad they allowed us to bring our kids because otherwise I could not have gone.

On the bus was a tour guide. She spoke very good English. She told us a little about where we were going and I was glad to have her along. Our First stop was the Exhibition Hall.

This was a neat gate leading into the courtyard where the building was. It was very pretty and peaceful out. Also yesterday was just gorgeous!

Here is where we entered the building. Lots of steps up as we were on the second floor. Here is a little info about the place that I found from this site.

This is a three-story building on the Street of Yakjeon-golmok. The first floor is a wholesale market of oriental medicine ingredients, to which medicinal herbs from all across the nation are brought between the first and fifth day of each month. The second floor has various medicinal herbs on exhibition, as well as several interesting life-size displays depicting scenes of oriental medicine clinics. The third floor is provided as a venue for traditional performing arts.

We only visited the second floor.

As soon as we walked in we were offered some tea. It smelled really good and I tried it. At first I liked it but after a few sips...I don't know it was like it coated my throat and stayed there. Here I am holding my tea. They also sold medicinal products.

Some bottles with Ginseng root in them I think? At first glance I thought it was some sort of squid or octopus.

After the first room with the tea there was a small museum. It had lots of old books, all sorts of pots etc. for making medicines and a room filled with the various animals they used. We were not allowed to take pictures. I took the one above before I knew it. It is some sort of medicinal text that is from the 1200's. We saw the skin (?) of an animal called manis pentadactyla. I thought it looked a bit like an armadillo because it had a hard outer shell. I wrote down the name and when I came home I found out what it was. Gotta love the internet! You can click here to find out what it is too.

Here is a shot from the outside balcony of the lower courtyard. The smell of the tea was starting to overwhelm me so I took the girls and we went outside.

This fountain was really neat and Abby wanted her picture taken. I would love to come back when the fountain is working. It is probably shut off still for winter.

An entryway into the area we were at. I love the bright colors.

Here is a close up of one of the statues.

This bus was parked near this church. It turns out this is Daegu Jeil Church.

This is the first protestant church built in Daegu. I read that it was founded in 1897.

Overall this was my favorite part of the tour. After looking online I saw all sorts of things I would like to look at in the area. I will have to go back and visit again sometime before we leave Korea. Be sure to check back soon because I have two more posts to go along with this one! :)

Downtown, Donuts and the 1,000 Won shop!

2006-03-06T18:47:00.000+09:00

Dee has been talking about the "dollar store" since before Christmas and we have been trying to arrange it to go shopping. Last week we planned on lunch and shopping today. Dee and her son plus me and my 3 kiddos went in one car. Sheila and Crystal went in another car. Sheila and Crystal both live in my building and I am pretty friendly with both. So we headed downtown. I have been downtown one other time walking about and it was at night. It is really different during the day. We got there pretty early...around 9:30 or so and most of the shops were not open. But there was still so much to see.

Here is a little park in the middle of the city. Underneath it is a parking garage and this is where we parked.

This is a large department store. I have never been to it. I hear it is expensive.

Dee, Sheila and Crystal walking down the street.

Hmmmm the logo for this coffee shop looks pretty familiar.

Narrow streets and store after store after store. Mopeds and car were going down the sidewalks so we had to be careful. I was getting a little anxious about Maddie...afraid she was going to get hit.

I would like to come back when this fountain is running.

We stopped in front of these food vendors. Later on we had lunch at McDonald's. It is just amazing. It tastes exactly the same as back in America. Even the soap in the bathrooms is the same soap. Amazing.

A nice lady hard at work making all sorts of yummy snacks.

I am not sure if this is pork or chicken or something else? Looked pretty good.

Dee wanted some squid... yuck but hey she was the one eating it.

Sheila and I knew there had to be a Dunkin Donuts around here. We walked up and down and got lost and then....FOUND IT!

For those of you who know me...you know how happy I was to find this place. You know how I feel about donuts. Lookie lookie lookie!!! Real Donuts!

And I got a BIG BOX!

Don't they look just wonderful? The glazed were not the greatest but the chocolate were sooooo good! I am hiding them from the kids....I am such an evil mom.

Sheila feels the same way about donuts. Don't we look so happy! :) After the donuts we parted ways with Sheila and Crystal. Crystal had an appointment to go to. So Dee and I went in search of a "dollar store" or a 1,000 won shop.

On the way we saw these. I have seen these plant things before but never had a camera to get a picture. I am not sure what they are made out of but I think they are really neat looking.

Here it is...the first of many 1,000 won shops. This one was kind of small and crowded but it was fun to browse around.

I ended up with a toy for each kid and some other odds and ends.

Just a few shots of the street on our way back to the parking garage.

We found a craft store near the park but it was not open yet. We are making plans to go back another time.

Then it was to Dong A department store. Underneath the store is a mall of sorts. It is connected to the subway. We parked in the Dong A parking lot and took the escalators down. The mall was pretty good sized. I would like to go back when we are not so pressed for time. There seemed like a lot of neat shops I would like to go into.

This was a neat fountain in the middle and since it is inside had water in it.

Here I am with Maddie.

Here is another 1000 won shop. I think the prices varied. I bought three little kid folding chairs for 2,000 won each.

Here is another shop. This one was about twice the size of the other one. It had a really good selection. Time was running out so we rushed through it.

More shots of the same store. It is not unlike Dollar General or Family Dollar store back home. They did not seem to have the food those places have though.

I did not get to go into this store since we were out of time. It looked pretty neat though. Dee bought a dish rack and I waited out with the kids. Then it was rush, rush, rush to get out of there and back home. We got back right at 2 pm just enough time to unload and get kids from school. It was a great time and I always enjoy adventures with Dee. She is getting braver as far as driving about and is always willing to go and see something new. I got my shopping fix and for the first time since leaving the US I actually got my shopping buzz even though I maybe spent 50,000 won and that included the donuts and lunch.

Out to the Ariana

2006-03-05T08:09:00.000+09:00

One of the contractors that Court works with is being transferred to Camp Humphreys next week. So we all went out as a going away party. We met up at the Ariana hotel/bar around 7 pm.
Here is a bad shot of the street out in front of the place.

Here is a pic of the sign on the bar. I am not sure what time it starts but from the time we got there until 9 pm they have a special. All you can eat and drink for 16,000 won per person. A pretty good deal I think. They have a huge buffet. I really like eating from a buffet because it gives me a chance to try new foods.

We have 4 tables reserved up near the stage and 20 or so people showed up. Court and Sue are on the right. Maria and Paul on the left.

On the buffet they had these yummy bugs. I brought this bowl to Court but he would not try them. Okay..I did not either and the poor bugs ended up covered with a napkin because they made all of us want to puke.

I grabbed a sampling of the desserts. The swirl things at the bottom were a sweet bread like thing. The pink slice..I am not sure. It was sort of like ice-cream but not. I am not sure what the other things were but they were pretty tasty and pretty to look at.

The band was the same as the last time.... The Sprint. Not so great of a band and really good for a lot of laughs.
There was other entertainment as well. I actually enjoyed this more than the band. This lady did some belly dancing and I thought she was pretty good.

These two came out and danced as well. This was the best shot I could get.

Then the balloon guy came. This is when the fun really started. We motioned for the guy to come over to our table and so he did. He made balloon hats, a big bouquet of balloon flowers and a balloon umbrella. Beer plus balloons makes for a fun time.

Here I am with Paul laughing our silly heads off.

Rob, Sue and Court laughing it up for the camera. I do not think I have laughed this hard in a long time.
Rock on Court!

Here is Paul with Nate's baby, Xavier. He is soooo cute! It really makes me want another baby.

Around 9:00 or so we all headed out and caught cabs. We went to the VFW because the drinks were cheaper there. Don paid $200 to the bar to make it an open bar so all the drinks were on him.
Tequila shots...cheers!

Bottoms up!

Elevator

2006-02-28T11:59:00.000+09:00

We live in a 5 story apartment building. We live on the 4th floor. Since I moved here last September they have been working on building an elevator. It has been rough doing the stairs with the kids. Grocery day sucks. For most of the time the outside of our building has looked liked the above picture.
Last week they took all of that down and painted the outside!

Also last week they took away the big metal pieces that had been covering the holes they cut for the elevator. I went outside one day and saw this. I think it will not be too much longer!

I added the neo-counter today. I thought it would be cool to see who is online and what country they come from. Although I doubt many people other than my family and friends visit this blog. I also added the cute calendar. It from a pixel site I am a member of. :)

Trip to Home Plus and lunch with Dee

2006-02-28T06:03:00.000+09:00

I got up early this morning and went down to Dee's place. Gavin and her son are now walking to school together. Dropped Gavin off and told Dee if she would drive I would buy her lunch. So we agreed to meet up at 10:30. Originally the plan was to go to the KATUSA snack bar on Camp Walker. But Court suggested Shang-hi grill. Dee thought she might know where that was so we went off to find it.

We ended up at Home Plus instead. They have a McDonald's which is perfect for the kids and a huge food court. This was my first visit to this Home Plus but I think it is my favorite out of the three I have been to. It is HUGE!
Above and below are a few outside shots. You can see how big it is. It is also a really nice place and super clean which I always like. Going during the week is better because it is not so crowded and there are plenty of parking spaces available.

Our first stop was McDonald's. I was soooo tempted to eat here. I have had McD's once since I left the US and I am so sick of Burger King. But I also really wanted Korean and wanted to try something new.

Maddie, Abby, Dee and her son Jaydee wait for our food. Everyone had Chicken Nugget kids meals.
Next stop was the HUGE food court. There were a million different restaurants/vendors including Japanese. Popeyes and Baskin Robbins. For the Korean and maybe Chinese and Japanese food you looked at this case and picked a number. I love these food cases. It is all fake food but it looks so pretty! So many different dishes and I appreciate being able to see what it is that I am ordering! Then you go to the lady and tell her what you want and pay for it.

We had a seat in front of our food place. We had our ticket and had to wait until our number came up. It was maybe a 5 minute wait.

Here is Dee's food. I am not sure what it all was. Top left I tried it and it was good. The middle was a pot/soup with dumplings, clams and squid in it. I did not try this. Bottom right is Kimchi.

Here is my food. In the big bowl/plate...rice at the bottom, top right was potatoes and onions and carrots. A little spicy, to the left of that was spicy beef. The bread stuff sort of tasted like eggs? All super yummy! The top bowl was a salad similar to cole slaw and very very sweet. The other two bowls contain different types of kimchi. I did not care for the one on the bottom but the one on the top was really good! To my surprise under each of these bowls were 3 more bowls with soup in them. One was a rice soup. Basically rice and water...kinda bland but went well with the other spicy stuff. One had noodles and onions in it. Very tasty! The last was a cold soup with cabbage, onions and I am not sure what else. That was good as well.

The amazing thing about these lunches was that each cost just 5,000 won a piece! All that food! And we could not eat all of it. It was fabulous and I really liked what I chose!Here is part of the food court...it was huge.

They had a free play area for kids with all sorts of riding toys. There was also a pay place that looked like fun. Dee says you pay and leave your kids...it is like a babysitting service. Nice!

The girls had to go for a ride on this puppy. Inside was a small screen so it was like a ride and a video game all in one.

If you have some free time you can hop into this booth and practice your singing. It is a Karaoke both/machine.

Dee with Jaydee here getting some pancake dessert things. I was too full from lunch to eat anymore.

After we ate and let the kids play in the play area we walked around the 3 floors of the store. I saw this mini dishwasher. I wish we had a dishwasher at our place. I am sick of washing dishes by hand.
Here is a shot of one of the check-outs which is in the grocery part of the store. As you can see there are 22+ lanes to check out. On the weekends they will all be open.

One thing that is super frustrating for me is people who cut in lines. I know this has to be a culture thing. Dee and I were in line at this check out and this lady and her kids just walks right in front of us like it is no big deal or as if we did not even exist. So I snapped a picture. More shots of the grocery department. It is HUGE!

Here is a cosmetic area. This is also in the grocery area. I made no exciting purchases since I was just basically there for lunch. I ended up with some coffee and bananas though.

Well I hope you have enjoyed this latest installment of my blog!

Trip to E-Mart

2006-02-27T08:27:00.000+09:00

I am a little behind with these pictures but still wanted to get them up. These were taken on presidents day...Feb. 20th. We went out to lunch with some friends and on to E-mart.

Here is the car we rented when we went to Osan. I think it was a Daewoo something or other. Super nice compared to our car. We kept it a few extra days and decided to go to E-mart.

We followed Craig and his family there...got lost a few times but eventually found our way. Thought I would get a shot of the parking garage since it is like all the other ones I have been in for the big stores. Really small spots. They also usually have people directing traffic and telling you where to park. Since this was a Monday it was not as crowded.

The following are a few shots from the parking garage to give you an idea of the local scenery.

Here is Abby in the floor in the toy section. They have a pretty good selection of toys at this E-mart. Way in the background wearing the blue Jersey you can just make out Court. Some of these shots were taken by Gavin. He has gotten into the habit now of taking my camera and going off to take pictures. About half of them are no good and some of them are usable.

Gavin took this one while riding up the escalator. You can see a lot of this one floor. This store is huge and there is so much to look at. We spent several hours here.

Flowers...picture by Gavin.

Some cutesy stuff. Looks like pencils/pens and cases for them. Also bags. Love the Hello Kitty stuff!
After telling his wife "no pets" Craig proceeds to buy two baby bunnies. He later returned them and bought a dog instead.
Here are two sales ladies in the kids clothing section. I never feel like I can really browse in these because a salesperson is always coming up to me. I just want to look and do not need help. I am not sure if they work on commission or not? Pic by Gavin.
The school year is ending here and a new one is beginning for the kids that are Korean so there are a lot of school supplies for sale. Gavin took this picture. These backpacks are pretty pricey. 40,000 won or around $40.

Say Cheese! Another picture courtesy of Gavin. A Korean family having some dinner at the food court. I picked up these two DVD's. They both work on our DVD player are were around $4 each! WOOHOO!

Banana flavored yogurt drink. Abby loves these.

Mini Kimchi pots. I should have gotten a few more of these. They were around $2 each and they will make nice little gifts to take back home.

Awesome strawberries! YUM! The produce is so much better at the Korean stores than at the Commissary.

I took these other shots while we were just off Camp Walker.

I have not been in this place but I have been told you can take a picture of a dress in and the lady can make it for you. A lot of people use her for formal dresses.

Just a random shot of the street off Camp Walker.

Here is a blanket Court bought me. He thought it was mink but it is not so I gave it to Maddie. She is allergic to her Mink blanket so she needed a special blanket like her brother and sister.

The new puppy

2006-02-26T09:07:00.000+09:00

Court and I have been talking about getting a puppy here for some time. Originally we were going to wait until we came back from the states but he came home yesterday with a surprise for me! :)
I am not sure how old he is but he is very young. He probably could have used a few more weeks with his momma. We are pretty sure he is a Shih Tzu. Very friendly and sweet. He seems to love all the kids. Abby keeps telling me.. "him likes me!" and "him so cute!"

Abby had a really good time with him last night.

With all the little girls here last night for the party (there were 5 total) you knew this had to happen.

Still no idea what his name is to be. I think we would like something Korean. If anyone knows a good name akin to the American Fido or Rover let me know please! :)

Gavin is 7 years old!

2006-02-26T06:42:00.000+09:00

Well it is hard to believe Gavin is 7 years old now. We started the morning off bright and early. Gavin wanted to open all but 3 of his presents in the morning so we gathered together in the living room. Sure does not seem like he got much to open but I have explained that he is getting older now and his presents are more expensive.

We left his bike in Indiana when we moved here. He had outgrown it anyways. So we let him pick out a new bike and he got it yesterday. It is a Mongoose. From Grandma Sally and Grandpa Gordon he got two sets of Magnetix, a Game Boy game, clothes and a book. From Mom and Dad he got a new Nintendo DS game, 2 game cube games, Spongebob DVD, a vibrating/noise maker gun, books and the bike.

Gavin had his choice of parties. He could do bowling or Burger King and invite his entire class or he could have a sleep over and invite a few friends. He chose a sleep over. There were a lot of people here throughout the night. Dee and her sons Tizoc (who stayed) and Jaydee. Lois with her two kids Harley and Savannah (both stayed), Thomas and his wife Song...their three kiddos...James, Andrea and Zach (he stayed), Craig, Tanya and their two kiddos Abbie and Trevor (both stayed) and of course our three kiddos and us. So a total of 20 people here. We had 5 pizzas, loads of drinks and snacks.

Clockwise from the top..Harley, gavin, Savannah, Maddie, Abbie and Trevor.

After eating Gavin opened presents. Left to right...Abbie, Trevor, Maddie and Gavin.

Gavin with another present and Maddie.

Gavin got some Yu-Gi-Oh cards...really neat because they are Korean.

Abby, Harley and Gavin playing after opening presents.

With all the kids you know someone would have to get hurt. Well poor Zach got his finger stuck in a door. He had a quick trip to the ER and was back again. Here he is giving the finger LOL with Harley and Craig in the background.

Another shot of the trashed living room and a lot of kids.

Happy Birthday to you! Harley, Court, Gavin, Savannah and Maddie.

Getting ready to blow out the candles on the Kirby cake.

In the back it is Harley, Gavin and Savannah. In the front is Trevor, Abbie, Tizoc and Maddie.

All the kids having cake and ice cream...yum!

Gavin and Trevor really hit it off well and Trevor is a really great kid.

I am not sure what time the boys finally went to sleep. I know I came out at 1 am and told them to be quiet. This was taken around 6 am.

Another shot of the boys sleeping...hard to tell there is four of them jumbled all together.

When I went to bed Abbie and Maddie were sleeping princesses together. Savannah was sleeping in the living room with the boys.

When I woke up Maddie and Savannah were in the bed and Abbie was on the floor.

It is morning now and everyone is up. The girls are all dressed and playing princesses. They boys are playing video games. I think it was a success as far as parties go!

How to make a Kirby cake in Six steps

2006-02-26T06:05:00.000+09:00

Kirby from Nintendo is Pink and cute. He is Gavin's favorite character. Since it is Gavin's birthday he can request any cake he likes. He wanted a Kirby cake.

Step One:
Make 2 cakes. I used a round spring Form Pan and a 9x13 pan. Cook them and let them cool.

Step Two:
Mix your frosting. I made pink, blue, dark pink and red. You will need black and white for the eyes. Make sure to mix enough of the red and pink because if you run out it is hard to match colors.

I used 3 tubs of white frosting and some left over chocolate frosting. We had a hard time finding food coloring so ended up with Neon colors. If I was in the US or near a bigger commissary I probably could have gotten the tubes of icing for some of the colors making this a little easier.

Step Three:

Take the cakes out of their pans. I used a smallish bowl to "trace for the legs and just chopped until I was happy with the arms. Arrange your Kirby.

Step Four:

Take a break and play with your new puppy. :)

Step Five:

Begin to frost. I started with the arms and body. Stick a little frosting between the cake and the legs/arms so it can act like glue. I ended up using some toothpicks to hold the legs on.

Step Six:

Add the eyes, cheeks and mouth. If I had it to do again I think I would have just made a smile for the mouth. But this is how Gavin wanted it. And he loved the cake.
And it is all done...add some kids and candles and you have a Kirby Birthday Cake!

Shopping in Osan Part 2....

2006-02-24T18:39:00.000+09:00

What can I say about Osan...it is like a magical place! If you love to shop (and I dearly love it) then you would love this place. I think we might have went through 1/4 of the streets/shops. Maybe...but I doubt it. It seems like we just hit the tip of the ice berg. I cannot wait to go back!

The next few shots are just pics of the streets and alleys. There are shop after shop. When there is no shop there is a person with a table selling something. They all were willing to bargain with us. I am not used to that. It is hard for me and so I would pull Court or SFC Rippstine in when ever we went into a store. Towards the end of the day I was a little braver...but not much.

Court went into this guitar shop and decided to buy a guitar. I think the last time he played was when he was home last....almost a year ago. The one he got is a Fender and it looks like those above only it is a very pretty blue. He paid just under $200 for it. He later looked online and said the same one he bought was going for $500.
I love Court's smile in this picture. He has since been playing almost nightly. The good thing about the internet is you can find anything on it including guitar music!
Maddie and Abby. Maddie bought a fan in a souvenir type shop. I think by this point it was pretty much destroyed.

Here I am having some coffee.
SFC Rippstine ordering a custom tailored coat. I also ordered one from this gentleman. I am supposed to be getting it this weekend. I will take a picture when I do.
Gavin pushing Maddie with Maria and SFC Rippstine in the back.

They sell everything here.

Sunglasses....I should mention that Gavin took a lot of these photos. He has really gotten into taking pictures with my camera and he is sometimes a little braver than I would be.

DVD's....you will see these sort of things all over here. You pick the movie you want..watch a preview on the TV and the guy burns you a copy from his computer. A lot of times these are movies that have not been out on DVD yet.
Got a favorite team and player? They have the jersey and if not they can make one. Court got a blue Peyton Manning Jersey for $20.
This is a really awful picture of me taken by Gavin. Mink blankets are all over the place here. We bought two while in Osan. One place charged me $16 which I felt was pretty good. The ones we bought on post were $25. I went into this store behind me and the lady told me $20 and I said no too much and started to walk out. And she asked..what color you like? So I told her and she said $18 and started pulling it out. I told her I had bought my other one for $15 and she says..ok! So I got the second one for $15.

More mink blankets. They have all sizes. We have been buying twin size. They are so soft and warm. I have seen many designs. We have Dora, Spiderman and Cinderella.

Silk (?) pillows and blankets. A lot of the wives here have silk bedspreads. You can see the two pillows on top are Sponge Bob and Power Puff Girls.
These are similar only made of the mink.
Lots of pottery.
Loads and loads of purses here. I am not sure if these are the real deal or not. I bought a small "coach" purse for $20. It looks just like this one. Only it is black. It has a label inside in and everything? Well I do not care if it is not the real thing. I wanted a smallish purse and this was the right size and price for me! :)

After shopping and shopping until we were almost dead on our feet we headed back to Osan Air Base. We all gassed up and met at the PX. I do not have pictures of this part but we did a whole lot more shopping. It was mostly dull stuff like clothes and socks. I bought a bunch of books for Gavin and a few birthday gifts. We had some Pizza hut at the eatery and were all ready to go. It was 9:30 pm by the time we left. We had to be back inside the gates no later than 1 am since there is a curfew. The ride home was pretty uneventful. It seemed to take forever. I was just glad to be home. The kids slept almost the entire way.

Shopping in Osan Part One Food and Travel...

2006-02-19T09:10:00.000+09:00

We left Daegu around 9:30 am. This was the first time I have been out of Daegu since arriving here in September. I was so excited to be going somewhere. We rented a car as ours is not reliable/large enough for long trips. We followed SFC Rippstine, her husband and daughter. It was a nice drive. The road was great and it was interstate the whole way...(guess it would not really be an interstate..but you get my meaning ;) )

Just some conversions for you....
132 km = about 83 miles. 100 km/h = about 62 mph. And here is what the hiway looked like. It was mountains all the way and just beautiful countryside.
It was toll road almost the entire way. Traffic did not seem too bad. A few spots it got kinda heavy. We got to Pyongtaek/Camp Humphreys around noon. Since Humphreys is Army SFC Rippstine, her Hubby and Court wanted to go to military sales to see if they had any of the new uniforms available.
We did a bit of shopping at the HUGE Px there. At least it seemed huge in comparison to Walker. I hit the clearance rack and got a bunch of clearance clothes for Abby. $2 each for several tops...did not seem so bad! We gave the kids snacks and loaded back up and were on our way to Osan.

Osan was just a short 30 minute car ride. It is an Air Base and seemed HUGE in comparison. We went to the BX and had lunch. They had a Captain D's, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, Subway and several others. I had Subway and Court and kids had Captain D's.

Maddie, Abby, Gavin and Maria above all looking happy and ready to shop!

We drove to the other side of the base and parked near the gate. A lot of people were out shopping since it is a long weekend for us. As you can see above it was crowded.

I decided to just group all these pictures together. There were a lot of food vendors.

Gavin took this shot. Not sure what it is. Court says some sort of fish.

They have Popeye's on and off post. This one was obviously off post/base.

Chicken on a Stick. I have to tell you it is very very good. SFC Rippstine bought me some and I think I will have to eat it again sometime. A little spicy but still very good.

The two shots above were in a little alley. I thought they were neat. As I was taking the pictures a group of older Korean women were laughing at me.

Now on to the next part....all the shops and stuff to buy!

2006-02-14T16:49:00.000+09:00

Well it is obvious I am no good at keeping up with this blog. I am going to try something different and post a bit each day and then put it up once a week (maybe). It is hoping going to be a fun week because we are going to Osan Air Base this weekend. Plus with President's Day it will be a long weekend (woohoo!)

Monday
Seems like I was up most of last night with Abby. I know she was in bed with us and Maddie came along in bed too. Abby was upset and crying and had a croupy sounding cough. She and I finally moved to the living room. I think she finally crashed around 3 ish? I slept on the couch so she would not bother Court or Maddie. Court got me up at the usual 5:30 and I had him let me sleep a bit longer. I tried for a nap later on but Maddie kept coming in to see if I was sleeping. Picked Gavin up after school and asked his teacher about Valentine's day. Nothing had been sent home and nothing had been said. She said the kids were more than welcome to bring cards to exchange but there would be no class party... *rolling eyes here* Well no of course she would never have a party. That would be something fun for the kids to do. And heaven forbid it has to take away from class time. She was nice enough to send a list of the kids' names home. It would have been nice to do that a few days ago.... I took the kids to the playground until 3 pm. Then Gavin had tutoring until 3:30. Usually it is until 4 pm but they were spraying for bugs at the school so it ended early. While he was tutoring Maddie and ABby played at the little playground next to the school. Then it was back home again and homework time. Gavin had to write his spelling words 3 times each. This week he has 13 words. Doesn't that seem like a lot for First grade?

Gavin went to one of his friend's who lives on the 2nd floor. The rule is if he is going to leave and go somewhere else he has to let us know. We have had problems with this. Court and I were talking in the computer room and I could hear Gavin talking. I looked out the window and see him downstairs walking towards the parking lot. So we had to have a long talk with him again. He is grounded tonight from going anywhere. Zach has already been down to see if he could play. I feel guilty but he needs to learn it is important that we always know where he is.

6:30 pm Gavin and Court went to Tiger Cubs. Gavin wore his uniform this time. And that was Monday.

Tuesday

Happy Valentine's Day!!!

I had another bad night with Abby. She was up until almost midnight. I finally put some blankets on the floor and she layed there with me pulling my hair. I fell asleep before she did. Woke up around 2:30 and got into bed with Court. I sure am hoping tonight will be better for sleep. Abby has had a fever off and on all day. I wanted to go to the commissary but just did not feel up to it. My head has hurt and I am just plain tired.

Gavin went off to school with his bag of cards and candy. His teacher gave them some time to pass out Valentine's but no party. I know school is important and I know there is not enough time to learn all that there is to learn. But give me a break. 30 minutes of one day for a fun little party. It seems like they have taken all the fun out of the schools now that they cannot celebrate holidays. And seriously this is not even a religious thing..it is just his teacher because other classes had parties. I was polling kids and parents after school today.

I have tried to do some housework but just do not feel like it. Sat and did 5 pages of math homework with Gavin. He is doing time. We also studied his spelling words. I am just waiting for Court to come home now. I will finish up Tuesday tomorrow....

Wednesday
Court got me a box of candy and a beautiful necklace for V-day.

I am writing this post more than a week later and my mind has gone blank. I am soooo bad!

Sunday night here

2006-02-12T21:59:00.000+09:00

Monday morning we woke up to snow. It is always so magical to wake up and discover it has snowed outside. Since I do not have to drive in it I do not mind it so much. I walked Gavin to school and since the girls were up they came along too. Court had Monday off for the Super Bowl. It came on around 8 am so he was off at Henry's Place on Camp Henry with friends watching it. After taking Gavin to school I let Maddie and Abby play in the snow for a bit. There was not a whole lot but enough to make some snow angels. By the time school was out the snow was gone. Court was back home and sober enough to pick Gavin up from school. That night Court and Gavin went to their first Tiger Cub meeting. I am so happy that Gavin has an interest in Scouts. I was a Girl Scout for many years. My brother was a Boy Scout and I think it is a wonderful organization for kids. Gavin is really excited about it because he gets to spend more time with Zack...one of his best friends. He ended up making some sort of a frisbee thing that was covered with dried pasta. He came home just bursting and happy.

I think Gavin looks so cute in his uniform!!!

Tuesday we woke up to snow again. This time the weather looked pretty serious. Court left for work and SFC Rippstine called to say school had been cancelled. Wow what a shocker!! We walk to school so I never imagined we would have a snow day. I guess the road conditions were pretty bad which is why they called it off. So we had a fun day at home.

Wednesday it was back to the usual. The bad thing about snow days is they make you greedy...you are always hoping for just one more day off. I had to attend a parent-teacher conference at 3:15 pm. I met with Gavin's teacher and the reading teacher. Gavin is having problems with reading and we are going to try to work really hard on them. Right now he is not at grade level. He is going for tutoring twice a week and we are to read with him 20 minutes per night.

Thursday Gavin had tutoring. I took all three kids to the play ground right after school and they had a good 30 minutes of fun before Gavin had to be back at school for tutoring. I took Savannah with me. She is the daughter of a friend. She is 5 and Maddie just loves her to pieces. They played at our place for a while and then it was back to school once again to get Gavin. Friday was nothing too special. I took the girls to the playground around 1:15. Abby has been real funky with her sleep patterns lately. Staying up late and not taking a nap. I was really tired but wanted her to stay awake for awhile before napping. We got Gavin at 2:30 and then home again. Abby and Maddie crashed and mommy got a nap! :)

Saturday we had to run to Camp Walker for supplies. We had a group of friends over for dinner. It is so nice to do that. I cannot always go out and really I like just hanging out at home with friends vs. going to the clubs. Just not my thing. Anyway....it was a couples thing. We had Rob & Sue, Steve & Ju-he and Paul & Maria. The guys all voted for Meat Loaf. I ended up making a huge 4 pound meat loaf, potatoes, carrots, broccoli, biscuits and brownies. Tons of food, friends and a nice time. Court had bought the movie Doom. It sucked but it was something to watch. The ladies and I sat and chatted about shopping and girl stuff and the guys were all in the living room doing whatever guys do. Abby was a hit with everyone. She was happy to give hugs and share her food. She really likes Paul a lot. He put her to bed and layed with her until she fell asleep. When Abby woke up this morning she wanted to know where her friend was. So cute! My camera is messing up and for some reason none of the pictures I took turned out well enough to post. Sorry.. :(

Sunday and they kids were up bright and early...5:45 Maddie had me up. We were out of the house by 10 am. I am so proud of us! We went to the PX and Four Seasons. Then off to Home Plus. Court was so nice and took me to the Big One downtown.

I took some shots of the traffic and street as we drove about.

Mt. Apsan in the background here. You can see that balloon thing from our house.

This intersection is right by the Outback steak House and (more importantly) the Dunkin Donuts. If you recall last month we went downtown at night and we were right in this area. I took this picture on the way to Home Plus. On the way back we saw a lady get hit by a bicycle. :( Really scary but she seemed ok and was up and walking.

Korea is super high-tech in many ways. I have not noticed a lot of bill-boards like in the states along the roads. At several major intersections they have these HUGE screens with ads on them. In the above picture you can see the green sign with some sort of dinosaur/lizard on it.

At the entrance to parking garages there is always someone out there directing traffic. I would like to sit and just watch for awhile. I am not sure what it all means but their hand movements are just beautiful. They also bow to the cars as they pass. It has to be a crappy job but it is neat for me to see.

I almost got these for my nephew. I then noticed they are not REAL LEGOS. I still think they are neat. The fruit at the commissary is just awful. The apples are mushy and the bananas are bruised and go bad in a day. We ended up with a nice box of strawberries and a bunch of these mini-bananas. We were not sure what to expect. Court thought they were maybe genetically engineered. I do not think they taste all that different. After looking online I found this from the Dole Website:

Baby Bananas, also known as Oritos, Lady Fingers and Manzanos, received their name because they resemble the hands of small children--plump and short. These subtropical varieties of bananas are grown at higher altitudes. The peel has a yellow-pinkish cast. Quite sweet, these bananas taste best at full ripeness, when the peel is freckled with sugar spots.

It must be back to school time for kids in Korea. Home Plus was littered with back packs and book bags plus school supplies. Most of the back packs were really outrageously priced...$40 or more. And this was for Barbie, Hello Kitty and Disney princess ones. But I saw this bag for around 12,000 won and it just had to come home with me. I can never have enough Hello Kitty Bags. :) We have been meaning to get one of these "rugs" for awhile now. It is really a big floor puzzle sort of thing. We have put it out in the play room which is the patio. The floor out there was so cold and now with the rug it makes it nicer to play. They seemed really cheap too. We got the entire Alphabet plus numbers 0-9 and I am thinking did not pay much more that $10 for it.

I don't know if this was a fire or what? I just saw a bunch of smoke and thought I would take a picture. The view is from out the front door off the balcony.

Here is another shot and you can see the moon. Those are not clouds...more smoke. This is what I see everyday and I am still amazed by it. Their is always something new to notice and look at.

Celebrating the promotion

2006-02-12T19:31:00.000+09:00

Uggg I am getting so bad about keeping this updated and I do not know why. Not enough time I guess. Also for whatever reason it takes me a million years to upload my pics to blogger. Anyways....this was last Friday...February 3rd. Since it was Friday we started out at the bowling alley. Court is on a bowling league and they bowl every Friday. It was ok. Sue was there and she and I sat around and talked a lot. I ran to the KATUSA snack bar and had some yummy bulgogi and rice. They have slot machines you can play. This is an awful pic of me. But I had fun wasting $10 and thinking of Gordon while I played.

Here is SFC Rippstine. She was just a tad bit drunk. So much in fact she could not sit up to keep on drinking.

Around 10:30 pm or so we made our way off post to the VFW. Court asked me if it was how I thought it would be....I said I dunno...I always thought of the VFW as having a lot of old guys in funky hats sitting around. It was actually pretty nice and there were quite a few people there.

Court rang the bell twice. This means he bought a round of drinks for everyone there. Ringing the bell causes the bar to cheer. I had a rum and coke. I tried for a Long Island Iced Tea or a White Russian but they could do neither. So I ended up drinking 7-up. I am just not much of a drinker I guess. Here is Rob and Sue. Sue is one of my new favorite people. She is just so wonderful and I really like her a lot!
Here are a few shots of all the people there to celebrate. It was really a good time. Loads of chatting and laughing. Also they had really good music playing....classic rock which is my favorite. Court said that was due to the older guys sitting up at the bar...they were choosing the music.

I have not had a bathroom post for awhile.... The Men's bathroom is downstairs in the VFW...Well lit and I am assuming heated. The women's bathroom on the other hand.... you have to go out a door and up a very long flight of narrow stairs outside on the roof. It is winter here and it is cold! Then after doing your business you have to walk back down the stairs which are really steep and narrow. I am glad I did not drink a whole lot because I probably would have fallen.
Bill the cat on a Kimchi Pot.
Around midnight we had to head out. There is a 1 am curfew here and we needed to get back in time to relieve the babysitter and give her time to go home as well. We stopped off at BBQ's. I guess this is like the local KFC. We got in just before they closed up.

Here is Court waiting while they cook up our snack.And back home again. Pepsi and chicken. They were like big nuggets and there was a sweet bar-b-que sauce for them. It was pretty good.

He made Sergeant First Class!!!

2006-02-03T14:48:00.000+09:00

It has been a long wait but Court finally got promoted to Sergeant First Class. This is the first time I have actually been to the ceremony. Seems like before we were apart or something else was going on.
Here we are standing up front while someone was reading something. Court had SGM Velez and me pin him. It was really nice to get to do that.

Here he is after with LTC Baltich with his certificate.

And here Court is again with his LTC and SGM.
He gave a short speech...nothing fancy.
And then....everyone had a little fun. The backs were not on his pins yet. I guess it is tradition to hit the new pins and try and draw a little blood. I don't have a picture but when he was standing up front everyone walked by to congratulate him and give him a nice few pats. Above is SFC Rippstine getting him good... *insert evil laugh here*

After that Court got the backs to his new rank and put them on.

Rippstine was the only one to get him good enough to draw blood.

Here Court was on Friday. They had a class A inspection. He always looks so good in his uniform.

Sunday Night 0ut with Friends

2006-01-25T09:18:00.000+09:00

A week ago Court had a 4 day weekend for MLK day. We were able to get a sitter..yay! Anyway we started the night out at the bowling alley on Camp Walker. We met up with Rob and his wonderful girlfriend Sue. As you can see from the above score...I am not the best bowler. But I did have a good time and that is all that matters.

After bowling we walked off post to catch a "kimchi" cab...that is one of the regular cabs. You can catch a cab on post. There is one cab company that is contracted with the military. They are the only cab company that is allowed on post. You can always call for a cab but they tack on an additional fee...I think it is 10,000 won? You can go to the PX and sometimes get lucky and there are cabs waiting. Or you can go off post and just catch a regular cab. And for some reason people call these "kimchi cabs".

The benefit of being with Sue is that she is from Daegu. Also she is fluent in both English and Korean. She was able to tell the driver exactly where we wanted to go. And I wanted to go downtown! I have been here since September and I have heard about downtown but never been. So off we went.

I could not believe all the traffic for a Sunday night! And downtown....wow I loved it! Imagine a mall with store after store after store. All in a row. And now imagine all those stores are outside instead of one building. And imagine that mall goes on for blocks and blocks and block. It was heavenly! I spied a gift shop with Hello Kitty stuff so Sue and I dragged the guys in there.

Rob and Court thought there was a little too much pink for their tastes and were not too keen on getting their picture taken.

Ohhhh the Hello Kitty store... *drool* It took me back to my childhood. There was a Hello Kitty Store in the Long Beach Mall in Long Beach, Ca. I remember that was THE PLACE to go. Ohhhhh the memories.....This place had a ton of everything. And I wanted it all. I had picked out a cute basket that would have looked nice on my table for Valentine's Day. But Court said I should not buy it. He said...what if I saw something later I wanted to have more? So I reluctantly put it back. :(

Here are some restaurants....There was also an Outback Steak House. But the line was miles and miles long. We came across a Dunkin Donuts and I about died!!! Ohhhh heaven. We went in and I said I WANT REAL DONUTS! But Court made us leave...without donuts... *cry*

I am not sure if you can tell what the name of this place is or not from the picture. It is called Uncle Tom's Cabin. Hmmmm does anyone find that an odd name for a coffee place? Do you think they could get away with that in the U.S. ?

Above...some interesting plants that had the guys laughing.

So after not getting to buy anything in Downtown (and I am STILL pouting about that!) we caught another cab and went to the Ariana. Court has been there many times. This was my first. It is a club in a hotel. They brew their own beer as well. Court said it is supposed to be a German-style place?? There were many long tables and all they serve is beer (for alcohol). They have some sort of special..all you can eat and drink for 14,000 won. So I was going to get that since there is a buffet. I think the easiest way to try new stuff is off of a buffet. You can get a little bit of everything. Well as it turns out if one person orders the buffet..everyone has to get it. It is an all or none deal. So I did not get the buffet. :(

I tried to order some sort of dumpling similar to the Yaki Mandu I have had before but they were out of that. I ended up with these strange Nachos. They were very good. Just not the nachos I was expecting. They were not spicy at all and had bits of fruit in them. ALso pieces of meat and a tomato sauce as well.

Court got the Buffalo wings and said they were sweet. I had some of his salad. In the bowl..he said it was fruit?? It tasted more like a sweet onion. I am not sure what it was?

Sue got this bowl of stuff. It came with a burner to keep it warm. I am not sure what it is called. She told me but I have forgotten. I tried some of the noodle looking things. Those were good..but oh my it was soooooooo spicy! My mouth and lips burned the rest of the night. There were also clam shells or something like that in there and big shrimp.. (yuck).

Rob ordered a fruit plate. One thing I really like about the way Korean's eat is it is all social. Everyone shares and eats out of the same bowls. So everyone tried everyone else's food. Steve and Ju-he joined us later on. I forgot to take pictures of their food....lol.

Above is Rob and Sue. I cannot say enough good things about Sue. She is just such a nice lady and I cannot wait until we all can get together again!

The beer came in these glass bottle things. I am not sure how many we went through. I am actually surprised that I drank as much as I did. I am not a huge beer drinker..but this was pretty good stuff.

This is not the best picture but it was really dark in the club. Above is Rob checking out the live band.

And here is the band playing. It was nice to have live music. But.....the band sucked. They sang the song Hollaback Girl by Gwen Steffani and in the song they have to spell the word "bananas". Wellll...the mis-spelled that everytime which left us just a rolling.

All in all it was a really nice time out. I had a wonderful time and I was so glad we got to go. The guys have a 1 am curfew so we always have to get back in time to let our baby sitter go home. McNeil (the babysitter) is Army also and she has to be able to leave our place and get home by 1 am. So that usually makes for a short night. I am looking forward to another night out soon!

Kirstie-Raie now has a web page

2006-01-23T20:04:00.000+09:00

Come Home Kirstie-Raie

A dear friend of mine...Dawn Lloyd has set up the page for Roxanna and her family. If you are interested you can click over to that site and it has all of the info, more pictures as well as updates.

Some fun stuff

2006-01-22T11:51:00.000+09:00

Your Heart Is Pink

In relationships, you like to play innocent - even though you aren't. Each time you fall in love, it's like falling for the first time.
Your flirting style: Coy
Your lucky first date: Picnic in the park
Your dream lover: Is both caring and dominant
What you bring to relationships: Romance

What color Heart do you have?

Have You seen Kirstie-Raie?

2006-01-22T08:24:00.000+09:00

DOB: Dec 6, 1989

Missing: Jan 17, 2006

Age Now: 16

Sex: Female

Race: White

Hair: Lt. Brown

Eyes: Blue

Height: 5'3" (160 cm)

Weight: 115 lbs (52 kg)

Missing From: TEMPLE, GA United States

Kirstie-Raie went missing on January, 17th, 2006. She is believed to be with the young man pictured above. His name is Josh Long. The following is information her mother gave to me.

Kirstie-Raie Ward went to school on Tuesday, January 17th at 7:45 and has not been seen since. She was dropped off at Temple High School with her brother by their father. Apparently she got into a car with her friends Ashley McElroy (who has a suspended license and was STILL allowed to drive and had a valid parking permit at high school) and Cody Walker (who is just re-enrolled in school from being expelled for drugs) to skip school and go to her boyfriends home .. Josh Long. By 8:30 am her mother and father knew and were searching for her. Sometime between 11 and 11:30am her friends Ashley and Cody returned to school. Thankfully enough they told the administration that KR was left at Josh's home. When the Carroll county police went to the Long residence (2590 Mandeville Road Temple Georgia) with her mother (Roxanna Ward) they were told that yes they had been there and had left in a Gold Neon. A million things have happened since then and I'm more than willing to tell everybody the tiniest of details. But these are the highlights ...we tried for 5 hours to report her missing but Douglas county and Carroll count fought over who would file the paperwork. even the GBI would not help. FINALLY when Douglas County came out to file a report they were wonderful!!! rumor has it that they went to Alabama to get married and found out that they couldn't. Then things got bad for Kirstie-Raie. She is believed to be with Josh Long, Cody Walker and Zack Walker. All three boys are minors with a long police record. A few of them are possible on probation and in violation of that probation since they are missing.Josh's mother refused to report him as missing because "he'll come back". Cody and Zack's parents can not be found.A few of her local friends have been telling people that they know she is safe. However one of the friends in particular is a 14 year old girl that has ranaway with Cody Walker before and is believed to be covering for somebody. Kirstie-Raie only packed enough for 2 days .. she has been gone for 5. We believe she is in way over her head and have a reward for any information that leads to her whereabouts. We as her parents simply want her safe and at home. We are scared for her safety because of the group of people that she is with. We have every reason to believe that although her intentions were to run to Alabama, that she wants to come home and can't. Her cell phone is off and has not been turned on since Tuesday, however she told her contact friend that we had it cut off. We believe that she may not know that we did not turn off the cell phone and have been trying to call it every 5 minutes for 5 days. Josh's mother is recently out of jail and may be on parole. We are certain she know the whereabouts of her son and our daughter and since he has not been reported as missing .. this leads us to believe that she is hiding something for her son. They have no car and neither have their drivers license .. so SOMEBODY is helping them!!!!We know for a fact that Josh came back to school after dropping out ONLY to see Kirstie-Raie .. we have letters and notes from him that prove this. EVEN more reason to believe that he is doing something to keep her from returning home.We are DESPERATE for somebody to help us find our daughter. TOOO many things are not adding up for this to just be another simple teenager runaway. She is in danger and we need her home and safe. We've started a reward fund and it is literally growing by the second!! The reward fund was started by virtual strangers. Roxanna (me .. Kirstie-Raie's mother) is a member on a Children's Clothing Boutique on eBay and THOUSANDS of members are helping in every way possible from donation their money to donating auctions to help with the money and search, Podcasts, and a webpage for Kirstie-Raie will be going up soon thanks to an on-line parenting community and their support. ANY help we receive will be greatly appreciated!!! The principal of her high school refuses to announce her case to his students .. although that was the last place that she was seen. He even had the missing flyers taken down from around the school. We put her poster on 1-800-THE-LOST and it as mysteriously disappeared. We are getting help from the police, however they donÂt see the danger that we know she is in. We canÂt seem to get ANY real help other than the police and we just want our little baby home safe!
Roxanna and Stan Ward
770-947-1920 Home
678-910-8145 Cell
For verification you can always call 1-800-THE-LOST
ANYONE HAVING INFORMATION SHOULD CONTACT:
National Center for Missing & Exploited Children...1-800-843-5678 (1-800-THE-LOST)
Temple Police Department (Georgia).... 1-770-830-5921

Just need to gripe a bit...

2006-01-07T22:30:00.000+09:00

Mostly this is just gonna be a grip about Gavin's teacher and the school...

Gavin started back to school this week. He had a pretty interesting week. He went back on Tuesday and of course his teacher assigned the usual amount of homework. This is for a first grader... 5 math pages, one science page, page of science vocab words to use in verbal sentences, write a book report, 10 spelling words to learn and he had to write each one in a sentence, paragraph about how he spent his Winter Break and he had to read at least 15 minutes each night. His teacher is an American and despite that we are in Korea he goes to an American school run by the department of defense. He gets all his homework assigned on the first day of the week and he turns it all in on Friday or the last day they are in school. He had 3 days to complete this. I have to tell you there are times we have not been able to get it all done. It can be a real struggle sometimes.

Gavin also had his very first ever spelling test this week. I asked him after how he did and he said he did not get two of the words written down because he ran out of time. And he told me he started crying in class because he could not get it done. WTF?! You think with the very first spelling test his teacher might be a little easy on them? You know it would be one thing for me to bitch, gripe and moan if I had no clue about how classrooms work...but I have taught 1st grade. I have given spelling tests before.

I thought I would take a break in the whining and bring you a picture of Abby. I took this last weekend. Abby got the bike from Santa. She and Gavin got to go downstairs and play at the playground for about an hour. It was pretty chilly so we did not stay too long.

I am impressed with Gavin that he can do the monkey bars. He can make it all the way across. Abby really wanted to get up there and try too.

So I took her to the swings. Now where is her Pa-Pa for times like these? She would have happily sat here and swung all day.

Ok...gripe pause is over with....

Earlier in the year Gavin told me a boy in his class bit him and did not get into trouble for it. I guess Gavin has had some problems with him and says he is a bully. I told Gavin to make sure he always has a friend with him and to stay away from him if at all possible. And to always tell a teacher. Last week this kid took Gavin's drink from his lunch and drank it. So Gavin had no drink at all. And nothing happened to the other kid. I mentioned this to his teacher and she gave me some crap about boys will be boys and blah-blah-blah.... whatever. I told Gavin that if this kid hits him again to beat his head in the wall! Yes I did! I told him that I ALWAYS expect him to protect himself and if someone is hurting him to fight back. Court and I told him he would get into trouble with the school for fighting but it is was one of the few times he would not get in trouble with us.

In other good news...the kids no longer have to wait outside in 19 degree temps to wait for their teachers before school. Friday they moved them to the gym. I was so glad because Gavin's teacher is always the last one out to get the kids. Ok I think I am done griping. Off to show you more pictures of the kids....

OK I just think Abby looks so cute in her panties. Both girls are brushing their teeth here. Everyone got new toothbrushes for Christmas.

Here is Abby in the "playroom". This is really an enclosed patio but I have made it into a play area for the kids. Half of it is set up like a house for the girls. We have acquired a few new items since moving here. Abby is modeling the latest in dishwasher models for little girls kitchens. LOL We got a Step 2 dishwasher and Fridge from neighbors whose daughter had outgrown them.

Here is Maddie with Abby. See our nice new toy box by Step 2? I pulled this out of the trash right before Christmas. It is in perfect condition.

Gavin has lost his brand new Nintendo DS. I dreamed last night I found it in Nanny's Van...that would be Court's grandma. I doubt it is there...lol but if we were in the states I would sure look just to make sure.

I started the South Beach Diet last Monday and after 6 days I have lost 5 pounds. I am looking forward to the end of phase one and beginning phase 2 where I can have some cereal and fruit.

I miss everyone so very much.... :(

Happy New Year!

2006-01-03T19:02:00.001+09:00

I will start off the New Year by showing off our "Hoopty" car that we got a few months ago for $500. It is a Kia Capitol which I believe is not available in the U.S. It runs pretty well and works for what we need it for. I cannot drive it cause it is a stick shift. Also I do not have my license here yet. I am hoping we can get a different car before Court leaves for ANCOC in June. I REALLY miss my Kia Sorento we left back home. *sigh*

The week before Christmas we managed to lose 2 kids and so we tried to finish up our Christmas shopping. We went to Walmart for this and I feel like we found a lot of goodies. They had a huge display of books for kids in English and they had amazing prices on them. I think everyone got at least 2 books. Everyone got some sort of hat/mittens/ear muffs etc. I was able to get P.J.'s for Maddie. Seems like most things for girls are Disney Princess or Hello Kitty which is just great for us. Anyways the above picture I took out the window as we were stopped at a light. It was one of the few Christmas decorations off post.

I took this from the parking garage at Walmart. These are all apartments. This is out towards the edge of Daegu but the area seems to be growing fastly.

Here we have the World Cup Stadium shot from the parking garage also.

Christmas Eve

Christmas eve was a crazy day for us. I spent all day in the kitchen baking all sorts of goodies and yummies. Above is Maddie helping with the Magic Layer Cookie bars. We left the nuts off these so she could eat them. I used nuts in so many things that I think all the chopping must have released some sort of oil in the air. Maddie ended up with an allergic reaction. I will have to remember that for next year.

All three of the kidlets dressed in their new Christmas Jammies. Thanks mom for making them!

Court and I stayed up until 1:30 am putting things together and wrapping presents. You can see here what it looked like after Santa came. The desk was Maddie's Santa present.

And another shot. Abby got the bike and grocery cart from Santa. Notice the commercial on the TV is for Malaysia tourism. We get a lot of tourism commercials I have never seen before...Vietnam, Malaysia (...Malaysia truly Asia.....), India and so forth. Also a lot of different airlines. One showing a Muslim man looking like the King of Saudi Arabia flying about.

Ok so back to Christmas....here is Gavin's spread. A Nintendo DS with 2 games.

Christmas Morning

Would you believe we actually slept in until 8 am? I think that is the latest I have ever slept on Christmas Day! Here we have the girls checking out the gifts. Abby was enthralled with the desk and would not leave it alone. In fact she had me up all night wanting to play and at one point I found her wandering in the living room...think this was at about 3 am or so.

Stockings here....
Abby opening a doll from Grandma and her Papa.

As you can see Abby has morning hair. This is what she did all morning. We kept having to drag her back to the presents. She wanted to play with all of Maddie's things. Gavin and I ended up opening most of her gifts.
Gavin showing off the new Dream Station. He was sooooo happy to get it and he loves Kirby.

Abby with another gift. This is a Little Tikes mirror set with play make-up etc. She was pretty happy with it.

This is how Gavin looked for the rest of the day. The DS is really neat and the bottom screen is a touch screen. It comes with a stylus and I was not sure if Gavin could handle it but as you can see in the above shot he had no problem playing it.

This is what the living room looked like after the kids were done. It still looked this way 2 days later.....

Christmas Dinner

Since we hosted Thanksgiving someone else hosted Christmas. We went to Steve and Ju-he's apartment around 2 or so. They are a super nice couple and I love their apartment.

It was Margie's 26th birthday and here is a gift someone brought for her. I thought I would show the neat wrapping job that was done. It looks like a folded shirt.
Steve and Ju-he made a TON of food for the party.

Oysters or something above. I did not try them since I am anti-fish.

Below we have Sweet and Sour Mandu (?). Those are little meat/veggie filled dumplings in sauce. This was fabulous!

Ohhh this was really good too. Ju-he told me she marinated it in Teriaky sauce.
Ok I am still not 100% sure what this was. I heard mention that it was Acorn or nut Tofu. I was not brave enough to try this. We brought sweet potatoes, rolls and a ton of home baked cookies as well as various alcoholic items. There was also a turkey and a ham. Loads of good food.

Abby is always so popular at these events. She does not know a stranger and enjoys all the attention. Above is Rob and Sue. I really really like Sue a lot. Her English is almost better than mine and she does not care if I ask her a million questions. We are trying to get together to go shopping. She is a teacher...think she teachers middle school math.

All in all it was a nice day. We played some cards, Jenga, Scrabble and so forth and just had a good time.

I have more pictures to upload but this took 3 days to do so I gave up!

TGIF!

2005-12-16T06:33:00.000+09:00

YAY! It is Friday here in South Korea. Today is Gavin's last day of school before Christmas Break. I am positive his class will do nothing special since his teacher is big on NOT doing holidays. Which I really feel is a shame. She did do "A Day Of Giving" on Tuesday though which I guess is as close as she gets to noticing there is a holiday. They had the parents and kids split into 3 groups. Each group came in at a different time. My time was from 10-10:30. All of the parents brought some sort of food item. Mine was juice. Gavin was all smiles and waiting for me to get there. He and I sat and had some food. Then we exchanged gifts. His gift to me was a picture frame he had made with a picture of himself and some beads. My gift to him was a Game Cube game.

It was nice to have some time alone with Gavin. Court was back at the apartment with the girls.
And that was the day of giving.

This last weekend we were invited over to friends of Court's for a BBQ. Yep in December no less. Steve and Ju-he (I think that is what her name is?) live just a few blocks from us. So we took a nice little walk. I was actually pretty happy to be out of the house and I always enjoy a good walk through the streets of Daegu. You never know what you are going to see!

Steve lives off post in a Korean apartment. We get to the door and I noticed there was no fourth floor. I guess Koreans feel that the number 4 is unlucky..similar to American's with number 13. So no fourth floor...Steve lived on the 5th floor. His apartment was really nice. It almost made me wish we lived off post. He has typical heating for this area of the world...the floors are heated. Ohhh and sooooo warm. I decided to sit on the floor while we ate and it was so nice and warm....

Abby is just the friendliest little girl. Here she is with Mike. She just crawled up in his lap and started yapping.

Here she is with Steve's girlfriend Ju-He. This is her new best friend. Not only did Ju-He feed her all sorts of yummy stuff but she put a teeny bit of Lip gloss on her.

This is where all the food was so Abby just sat and made herself right at home!

We brought along the Disney Princess Christmas Movie for Maddie to watch. She sat and watched it with Julian and Rob (above) and Margie (below). These are all people that Court works with.

My favorite part was going up on the roof. I think if we could do that at my place I would sit up there a lot and just look at stuff. There is always something new to see. Below is our apartment complex on Camp George.

Here is just a view of the street below.

The tall building is one I can see outside my kitchen window. I have been watching them build it for awhile now and it is sort of a landmark for me.

Here is the Tower for Woo-Bang Land.

Winter Kimchi stored on the roof. These belong to the landlord.

And that is it from the weekend. It was a nice time. We went home around 7:30. The kids were a little worried about walking in the dark but I enjoyed it.

Yesterday....

Well as yesterday was payday I went out to do some Christmas shopping. First I had to walk to Camp Henry to give Court some money. As we were getting ready to cross the street (with the cross walk sign too) a lady started to run the red light and I had to jerk Maddie back real quick. It scared me really bad!

Gave Court his money and then caught a cab. We went to Camp Walker PX. There is not much selection. I got a few games for Gavin and movies for all the kids. We ate Anthony's Pizza for Lunch. I really wanted Taco Bell but did not want to wait in line. Next we walked over to the 4 seasons. This is where the toys are. Not a whole lot left. We did get a few items for the cat's for their Christmas. Walked back over to the PX and met up with a friend named Lois. We all caught a cab back to my place. Then Lois and I sat and chatted until it was time to get kids from school. That is only the second time I have been out on my own here and it felt pretty good. I had considered going to Walmart today but Court has the money card.

This weekend we need to finish up Christmas Shopping as well as do some major grocery shopping.

Gukchaebosang Memorial Park

2005-12-13T12:02:00.000+09:00

I should have put these up awhile ago. We went to this park the weekend of Thanksgiving. I believe it was the 27th of November? Anyway..it was one of the last nicer days we had. As you can see from the pics no one is wearing a coat!

There was no parking to be had close by so we pulled up on a street. We thought it was free but a guy came along and put a ticket on our window. We asked how long we could park and he stuck a finger up and said ONE! So we thought we had just an hour. Turns out it was 1000 won to park..probably per hour. Above are Gavin and Maddie. There was this art/statue thing in front of the Bank of Korea. Thought it was neat so snapped a pic.

Here is Maddie with Court. Abby in the stroller and Gvain waaaaay ahead. This was a really pretty part of Daegu and as always it was just so nice to be off Camp George and enjoy the beauty that Korea has to offer!

Gukchae-bosang Memorial Park was built to retain the spirit of the National Debt Repayment Movement, an expressive national movement that originated from Daegu in 1907.

This building seemed to be the central attraction. On Saturdays they have a ceremony where they ring the bell. I would really like to see that!

This is an up-close shot of the underside of the building. I think it is just beautiful! The colors are so rich!

We sat for awhile and watched this guy and a few other people practicing with Nun-chucks. This guy was pretty awesome! He had 2 or 3 sets put together and was tossing them. I thought about Hayden while we were there and I know he would have loved to see it.
Here is Miss Abby-Doddle trying to escape. She probably did not want people to know she was with the crazy American Lady taking pictures! LOL
Lookie-Lookie! More birds! They have made their appearance in my blog before. Back when we went to Mt. Apsan. So seeing them the second time I knew they had to have some sort of greater meaning than just birds on a stick.

I did a search about them and this is what I came up with:

Sotdae, long wooden poles with one or more birds on top, were considered mediums between this world and the next, an ancient belief we can contemplate today just by gazing at their earthly forms soaring high into the sky. In Dangun mythology (Dangun was the founder of Korea),sotdae became a passage by which the gods descended from heaven. As they were also erected at the entrance to villages, often alongside the jangseung, sotdae were treated as village guardians as well, although some used them according to the feng shui belief to ‘fill what is empty’ (boheo) and for protection from evil forces and natural disasters such as fire.

For more information about Korean art or Sotdae click here.

I hate Mondays...

2005-12-13T06:49:00.000+09:00

Yesterday got up as usual around 5:30. I got everyone ready and took Gavin to school. I noticed for some reason my cell phone would not stay on. It said it was halfway charged so when I got back I plugged it in. Waited until it was all the way charged and it still was shutting off...grrrr.

Went to get some coffee and noticed it was cold (?) even though the pot was on. Heated up that cup and made another pot and waited...and waited...and nothing. Coffee pot died. Uggggg. So I boiled some water and poured it through by hand and then stuck the rest in our thermos. And wouldn't you know...the thermos is crap too. Went back a few hours later for coffee and it was cold.

And the last reason why yesterday sucked.....I was playing with my PSP7. I just loaded a bunch of new gradients and everytime I tried to use them it would crash. Uggg.

Maddie is sick now. It is making her asthma flare up. I gave her a breathing treatment about 5:30 am and she cannot have another one until 9:30 am but I think I may go ahead and give her one anyway. She is already having trouble breathing.

I just sent Gavin off to school. Court was supposed to come right back home after PT but for whatever reason didn't. I had not planned on taking the girls and at 7:45 Court called to tell me this. I called Dee real quick and so sent Gavin downstairs to walk with her. He was not happy and was crying. So frustrating when he does that!

Here is a picture of our Christmas Tree. It is not my mother's..nor even close to her's. But hey the kids like it.

So I guess that is an update on my boring and dull life. I know I hardly post anything anymore. Just in a depressed mood and do not feel like doing much of anything. I have been playing a lot at Pogo. My new favorite game is Stellar Sweeper which is similar to Minesweeper but of course cooler.

I rejoined Vanilla Fields and Angelic Designs. These are both pixel places. So I have been playing with pixels a lot. That plus Pogo keep my mind off how depressed I am about things. Here is a small sample of stuff I made at Angelic Designs. I love love love her little dolls. They are so cute!

Here are the Logo's for the sites mentioned above. :) I am going to see if I can't somehow get the logos on the side? I am sure there is a way but I am just an idiot when it comes to these things.

Ok I guess that is it for now.

Oh..Hey Berk you need to add a comments section on your blog!

Woobang Land

2005-11-13T11:03:00.000+09:00

Woobang Tower Land

Well we finally did it. We went to Woobang Land. We could not leave town as we had planned due to the APEC conference getting ready to happen in Pusan all passes have been canceled. So we decided to stay close to home. It took us a while to figure out how to get there. I have a map of the city..sort of and tried to read it to get us there. But it is not a very good map. I thought we were going West when in fact it was North...LOL. Anyways we got there with no major problems and had a nice tour of part of the city as well.

We went into the park the backway. We really did not know what we were doing but we got there at least. There was a HUGE fountain as we walked down. Here are Court and I posing for a pic and Gavin took it for us.
Lots and lots of stairs to climb down and a I just took it slow. My ankle is greatly improved but stairs still are a little hard.

There were stepping stones to cross the fountains and Gavin and Maddie had fun hopping back and forth. I was actually surprised no one fell in! Above is Maddie doing one of her new "princess" poses.

I really like this one of Gavin I think it turned out really well. All along the stairs as we climbed down were flowers and landscaping. I think these are the first bits of planted color I have seen since being here in Korea and it did my eyes good.

Here is Abby posing near some of the flowers. She would have really liked to get into them and pick some.

The place was pretty empty when we got there. But a lot of people here work on Saturdays and the kids have school for half a day on Saturday as well. Later on more people came. It was pretty nice while it was mostly empty.

This was outside one of the restaurants there...supposedly a "western BBQ" somehow I doubt that my version of western bbq and the version there were similar.

These guys came walking along and Gavin wanted his picture taken with them. I am thinking they are Transformers? I think it would be really hard to walk all day in these costumes!

Poor Abby...she was too little for almost all the rides there. But luckily they had these mini ride thingys everywhere. 1,000 won and she was driving along in her pink Barbie car.

Gavin, Maddie, Abby and Court all went on the Carousel. Gavin rode on a horse and everyone else went in this carriage.

The Balloon ride. Gavin, Maddie and Court went on this one. Just looking at the pictures makes me want to vomit. I am old and no longer can handle the round and round type ride.

They are in the green and white balloon. I sooo glad to be the one on the ground just taking pictures!

Here are Gavin and Maddie on "Circuit 2000". I think they did this one twice. It was sort of like a mini coaster/train and they both loved it.

Ok so it was finally my turn to ride a ride. This is the Ninja Turtle. Abby could go on it with me too. It moved pretty slow and I was fine until it went backwards. I was glad to get off of it cause I was starting to feel a bit sick....

Look at Maddie just smiling in this one. She does love Roller Coasters. I think this was her favorite ride.

After we ran out of tickets we went in search of food and snacks. Court is buying a waffle of sorts that had some sort of chocolate frosting and honey put on it. Too sweet for me but Abby enjoyed it.

Maddie picked Cotton Candy and look how huge it was! She ended up sharing with all. Gavin had a huge ice-cream cone. No pic of that though.

Court and I went to this place that said it had Carnival food and it ended up just having regular Korean dishes. Above is Rice Kimbap. Looks a bit like Sushi I think. They take seaweed and roll up rice and who knows what else was in there. Maybe some tofu? I ate about half and then decided that was enough. In the bowl is some sort of soup (?) I think (?)

This above is Bulgoki and rice. There is the typical side dish of Kimchi and another bowl of the soup (?). Tried the Kimchi but my lips were so chapped they burned. The bulgoki was really tasty though. I tried that yellow slice thing. I am not sure what it was. Tasted sort of like a sweet pickle.

Near the kid park was a walkway leading to a wooded area. Abby decided to take off. I guess she thought we were going that way.

This was the high light of Gavin's day. They had a Kirby Balloon. Maddie got a balloon with a barbie type doll on it and Abby's has a cat.

They had a few coasters and I would have ridden them but did not want to ride alone. Maddie probably would have ridden with me but she is too small. Anyways I got a kick out of the warning sign. The weak and drunken never get to have any fun!

This shot is of the Tower from the other end of the park. We can see the tower from where we live and I use it as a reference since it is pretty close to where we live.

Those last two shots are of the city as we left. I would have liked to ride in the sky cars but no one seemed interested.

So that wraps up our trip to Woobang Land. The kids had a wonderful time and really enjoyed themselves. And that is what is most important. As far as amusement parks go...well it pretty much sucked. It was great to get out as a family and do something special just for the kids.

Fall photos

2005-11-09T11:02:00.000+09:00

I am sorry there has not been anything new and/or different here. I have been pretty much home bound since hurting my foot. It is a lot better and we had planned to go somewhere this coming weekend but I think that has fallen through now since Court has to work. *sigh*

So I thought I would stick some pics of the kids up. These were taken Monday..the 7th.
Abby throwing leaves up...yay!!! leaves!!! Anytime she sees leaves she is throwing them up in the air. That is Gavin behind her tossing them too.Here Abby is again still playing in the leaves. I had to drag her home because she really wanted to stay and play.
Here is Maddie tossing some leaves up and having a grand time.

We now have 2 cats!

2005-11-09T10:16:00.000+09:00

After a long and hard search for an affordable cat we found two within a few days.

Last week I kept hearing a cat meowing downstairs and I mentioned it to Court. So he tells me there is a kitten in a cage downstairs! Grrrrr. The poor thing had been there all night. So I told him to go and get it for me..but he couldn't do it at that time.

Here is a shot from the computer room down at the cage the poor thing was stuck in.

So around 10 am last Friday..the children and I went down to have a look. Saw that it was in fact a kitten. It seemed pretty wild at the time and was hissing and spitting at me. We went into the management office and I asked the lady up front about the cat. Was it a stray? She told me yes so I just was to the point and asked.. Can I have it?

There was dead silence....I think I must have shocked her for a minute because she asked me to repeat myself and so I asked again. And her response was to say...You want that cat?!? I am not sure if she was so incredulous because it was wild or because it is just your basic cat..no fancy breed. Who knows but I did assure her that I love love love cats and we really really really wanted one. So now we have a kitten.
I am pretty sure it is a male cat...but I could be wrong. He is so young it is hard to tell. I am guessing his age to be around 6 weeks or so. But cats are smaller here so he may be a little older...but not much. He is nothing but skin and bones. I can feel his back bone and it is soooo sad.

Gavin has named him Kirby. After his most favorite cartoon and game character Kirby. I think the name fits. I just hope it does not turn out to be a girl because then we have to find another name.

The other new cat.....

We also got Snowball on the same day. She was found at the Camp Walker Vet Clinic. She is pretty small but full grown. She is all white except for a grey patch right on the back of her head. She is pretty shy so this is the only picture we have so far...

There she is...Snowball. She has one blue eye and one brown eye. Last night I was holding her and she finally purred so hopefully we can become friends real soon.

Do you need a vet?

2005-11-05T11:21:00.000+09:00

I have been meaning to take a picture of this place for awhile now. We were finally stopped in traffic right in front of it so I took the opportunity to take a picture. I think it speaks for itself. Anyway...we won't be using this guy...LOL

Halloween for us

2005-11-05T08:28:00.000+09:00

I am a little late with posting these.....sorry about that! On Halloween we went to the Camp Walker housing area. It is all officer housing and very nice. They are huge duplexes..like real houses and a real neighborhood. They also have front and back yards. Must be nice! I hobbled about with my crutches and let Court do most of the walking/supervising.
Abby was a little witch and I have to say she was just tooooo cute! Here she is holding a light up pumpkin her "Ma-ma" sent us.
And another shot of her...so cute!Here is Maddie. She was a pixie or fairy. This is not the greatest shot of her but the others did not turn out. I put glitter on her face and in her hair. You cannot tell from the photos but she was really sparkling.

Gavin was a Ninja this year. Thanks so much to Mamaw Ginni for sending the costume! We could not find any Ninja type weapons so Gavin picked out this ax.

Here the three of them are all ready to go and get candy. There were quite a lot of people out and it seems like most went too Walker. I was surprised to see a huge line to get on post...loads and loads of Koreans with kids walking on. I am not sure if post was opened for this, if they worked on post and brought their families or other people who can get on post signed them on. Anyways it was a fun time. They had MP's on every corner keeping an eye on things and I have to say I really felt safe and no worries about bad men or kids getting bad candy.

Here is the last picture. Abby is trick-or-treating at one of the colonel's houses. His daughter was a cheese head. Notice they have a porch.

The Ankle Verdict

2005-10-27T16:46:00.000+09:00

Well it is not broken. I am really surprised.

Here is what happened...
I was taking Gavin to school this morning. I had just got to the bottem step put Abby down, stepped off the landing and my left ankle bnt outwards and I heard and felt POP! So I sat down for a few and felt ok so stood up and walked slowly towards school using the stroller to walk with. Took a few slow steps and was good to go then out of no where my ankle gave out and did it again. I felt a crunch like I have never felt before and instant shooting pain that made me yell some bad words very louding and I started to cry. Told Gavin to go on to school without me but he refused and I cried some more. Saw a lady that works with Court and asked her if she could let him know I was hurt. Got back to the bottom steps and had Gavin get Dee. She came down and stayed with the kids while I went up 4 floors to our apartment to get my phone and ID. Then walked back down the stairs. This took a good 20 minutes or so. Got to Dee's van and to the Clinic on Camp Walker. About a 10 minute drive away. Court called and then came. We finished up there and then back home.

Went back to Walker around 2 ish. Took the girls with me (Gavin was in school by this time) got my x-ray and waited and waited and waited. Finally saw the doctor and it is just a very wicked bad sprain. Going up four flights of stairs is sure tough and I have bruises under my arms from the crutches. I have to stay off my foot totally for 4 days and then start bearing some weight but still use the crutches.

Abby keeps trying to pull my crutches out from under me and keeps messing with my foot making me cry out in pain. Ouch! Of all the things to happen...

Hurt my ankle

2005-10-27T10:53:00.000+09:00

Here is my ankle. Not the best shot but it was hard to do it myself. I will update later on how it happened. Not sure if it is broke or just a bad sprain. I am leaning towards sprain. I go back in for x-rays at 2 pm my time...so mignight Indiana time. It really really really hurts! :(

Squash Juice??

2005-10-24T10:25:00.000+09:00

Last week Dee and I went out shopping for Abby's birthday. We went to the big Walmart here which is near the World Cup stadium. I was so proud of Dee because she drove there on her own!!

As we went into Walmart there was a drink machine selling Squash Orange Juice. Now I have to wonder...is it Orange Juice and they just translated it weird? You know...fresh squeezed=squashed. Or is it really squash juice. Yuck if it is!This picture above is of some sort of drinkable yogurt. Dee's kids love it so I bought some for Maddie and Abby. Maddie would not have anything to do with it but Abby enjoys it. It is not thick and creamy like the drinkable yogurt I have bought for the kids in the states. I tasted it and it tasted like pineapple juice.
Legos! Only I do not think these are "real Legos" and I know some people out there would never dream of buying any thing but the real deal. I however do not have issues with non-lego Legos so I will probably be getting this for Miss Madeline for Christmas.
I took this one in the parking garage. Does this rock or what?! I am not sure why they have a ladies only parking level. Maybe for safety? Anyway I saw plenty of men parking and walking inside...so guess it is like maternity parking back home. No one pays any attention.

Some other exciting news.....

I FOUND DONUTS!!!!
Yep there you are...these are the real deal too. Only they just put the glaze on one side but heck who cares at this point. I should have gotten a few more. They were sooooooo gooooood!

Here is Maddie modeling the latest fashion in home refridgerators. When I saw this I had no idea what it was but Dee knew and pointed it out.

doesn't this sexy fella just make you want to buy some Air Wick?

As we were leaving Walmart this was right out front. They are Hermit crabs in designer shells. After all you can dye your dogs ears orange/green/purple so why not have a designer shell for your pet hermit crab?

Here they are up close. You can also buy the shells separately and change your hermit crab to suit your moods and the seasons. Does anyone else find it odd that you can get a designer hermit crab shell for a pet...yet there are no cats to be found???

Dee asked how much and for the crab, shell and aquarium it was around $35. When asked what they eat the guy told us they don't eat and you just spray water on them. Maybe he was confused? So we asked again and he told us the same thing again. So I had to take a second look...maybe they were not real crabs...just wind up ones? Nope they were the real thing. So I came home and had to look just to make sure I was not crazy...that hermit crabs do indeed need to eat and found this site . HA! They do eat food...I just knew it! LOL

Last but not least is a picture of some coffee I bought. I cannot remember the flavor but it was goooood! And it was cold.

Abby's Birthday

2005-10-24T06:10:00.000+09:00

Well my baby is now two years old. It is so hard to believe and the last two years have gone by sooo fast.

Thursday Abby got up and opened one present. She got a My First Disney Princess set complete with musical lipstick. It was a hit! I made a Chocolate Bundt cake with chocolate frosting and flower sprinkles to dress it up. I had hoped to find some Dora figures or something to put on top but no Dora here.
Our tradition for birthdays is the birthday girl/boy gets to pick what ever they want for dinner and Abby wanted pizza. After Dinner it was present time. There she is above. She really wanted to get her hands on the presents wrapped in the Dora paper.

Here she is opening a Dora video that I am already sick of watching...over and over and over and over....

Here Abby is sitting on her new potty seat. It is a Dora seat that goes on a regular toilet and let me tell you it is a HIT! Thanks Grandma and Papa for this great gift. She loves it and sat on it and would not get up. I should have saved this one for last because she was not interested in the rest of her gifts after seeing her new seat.

We finally convinced her to get back into it. Here Abby is opening another Disney my first princess toys. She got 3 in all. The PX does not have a lot of selection here. See the little people? I was ecstatic to see that it is a NEW SET!

The other kids get unbirthday presents as it is hard to watch someone open up gifts when you are little and I like to spoil my kids. Gavin got a bow and arrow set which is already destroyed. Maddie got a Cinderella playset which she loves and has played with almost continuously since getting it.

The birthday cake....I got the Boyd's Bear #2 off Ebay.

Yay we have candles this time!

Here she is blowing out the candles. She had a little bit of help but otherwise did a pretty good job on her own.

All in all it was a pretty good event. Not our usual celebration but still a pretty good one.

Our playground

2005-10-16T12:04:00.000+09:00

Thad asked for some pictures of the playground near our apartment. It is between 4 or 5 of the buildings and during the week Dee and I take the kids there everyday after school for an hour or so. Abby Doodle loves to play at the play ground. I just let the kids run loose! Usually this is ok but lately there have been a lot of kids at the playground playing unsupervised and they get really rough. Abby and Maddie have both been hit in the head with foot balls causing me to go psycho mom on the kids.

Thursday some of the people that work at the apartment buildings were sweeping and left their broom while they took a break. A kids walked up to it and kicked it for no reason other than it was there. Of course his mom was not there to watch him as she should be. Kids under 12 are not to be unsupervised at the playground. So I yelled at him and made him put the broom back up. Then he was climbing into the cart and messing with the brooms and Gavin decided that would be fun to. I could feel psycho mom coming out again but I held her back and just did a little screaming to make them stop. I should really try and take my meds on a regular basis.

Also on Thursday was this one devil child. I think he must be 3 or 4 but he is sooo aggressive. Abby had her little riding toy out at the play ground and was not on it at the time. So this little boy got on it. This made Abby upset and she told him it was her bike. He opened his mouth tried to bite her and then head butted her and knocked her down. WTF? And of course the parents do nothing. So he was there again and kept hitting her with a car so we left.

Here is Maddie on the swings. She really likes to swing a lot.
Those are all the pictures I have of the actual playground but these are the buildings that surround it.

There is a picnic/BBQ area also. Dee and I sit there and have snack with the kids since you cannot have food at the playground. A rule no one else seems to pay attention to but us.

Shopping with Dee

2005-10-16T09:10:00.000+09:00

I am really getting close to my neighbor. I really like her a lot. She is so nice and friendly. I feel very lucky to have met her! She has a van and usually will just drive between the three camps (George, Henry and Walker) but she said she would attempt to go to this toy store she had seen with her husband. She told me she would be willing to go out and leave post more often if she had someone to go with. There are a lot of stay at home mom's here and we talk to them almost daily when taking the boys to school but no one wants to go anywhere. I guess they would just rather stay at home?

Anyways..Friday we set out right about 9 am to find the Toy Store and to go to Walmart. She said there was a McDonald's in it. First we got some money and meant to go to the money changer to get won but totally forgot to do it. While driving towards where she thought the store was we passed Home Plus. This one is much closer than the one I have been to previously. Dee said it is new. So we decided what the heck and went.

I was really excited to see a bunch of toys! And Dee (unlike Court) loves to walk about and look at everything! WOOHOO found a shopping buddy at last! There were a lot of toys I wanted to buy for Abby's birthday (it's on the 20th) but since I had only 15,000 in won I could not really do much shopping. Here is what one of the floors looked like.

I am glad we have the commissary and PX to shop at but the good thing is if we didn't or if I wanted to I could still get some familiar brands. Here is some Pantene shampoo.

Here is Miss Maddie Patty. She really really wanted to go down the escalators and was waiting for me so she could go.

I know I have mentioned the escalators before but I must say...they are just AWESOME! The U.S. really needs to borrow this idea. You push your cart onto the escalator and on the wheels are magnets that stick you to the ramp and away you go. Here is a better view of the up and down escalators. Since space is so precious here all of the stores build up instead of out. So you can do all of your shopping on the various floors and then check out and go.

We went down the escalator to my favorite place to take pictures in a store...the grocery area. And since Dee likes to look we went up and down every single aisle! YAY! I am getting braver about taking pictures. So this time I got a lot of the various fish available. The smell can be really really overwhelming and I am an anti-fish person so sometimes it bothers me.

Here is Maddie looking at the live sea food for sale. This picture has clams. Not pictured were a shark, some funky fish that did not look so healthy and some sort of an eel.

I have no idea what those are in the picture above.

Octopus...or is that octopi?? I remember seeing the Amazing Race episode where they were in Seoul. One of the challenges was to eat live octopus that was chopped up and still wriggling about. I guess the suckers were sticking to their cheeks and tongue. Personally I prefer my food dead, cooked and not moving when I eat it. But to each his own eh?

More fish. These were kind of interesting looking because their tails were really long.

Here is Maddie near the same fish and not at all happy about being that close!

Here are some squid. It is really popular here. A lot of people eat it dried as a snack.

Various little fishies and other items for sale.

This guy was making patties to cook up. Not sure what kind of patties they were.

They had a small food area so I snapped a picture of this.

Here is Dee posing with some coffee in a little bag. I should have gotten some. I really really have been enjoying the various brands of iced coffee. They just don't serve it in large enough containers for me so I end up buying two.

Here we go onto some familiar brands. Kelloggs cereal above. Oreos below.

Above..I am pretty sure this is "Gogurt" which my girls love to eat.

This picture above is for Sun chips. Now I know we have Sun Chips back home. I am not sure if these are the same or not. Can you guess the brand of chips below?

We paid for our purchases. I ended up with some gum called Xylotol (or something like that) and some drinks for the girls. Headed out to the parking garage and bought 2 coffees for myself from this machine. They are iced coffee and soooooo good but really tiny. I have tried the Chilsung cider and it is ok. It is like sprite but 100 times sweeter.

We left Home Plus and made our way back to the Camp George area to change money for shopping. Dee tried to do an illegal U-turn and about 4 cars were honking at her so we drove on ahead for awhile and turned around and came back. I went to the money changer all by myself. Handed the guy $80 and got back around 82,000 won. We decided to go to the Dong-A shopping center. It seemed like a good idea at the time. But...it was lunch time and there was a ton of traffic. By the time we got in there we did not have much time to shop. The girls were hungry. We just went to the food court area. I am a little afraid to make Maddie try much in the way of Korean food since I have no idea what the ingredients are and she is allergic to so many things. I decided to get her some chips and a drink to last her until we got home. I got a bag of Bugles (finger chips as we call them) and some Apple juice. I bought 2 corn (?) dogs for myself and Abby. The breading was questionable so just pulled that off and offered the hot dog (?). No one ate them so I just tossed them and we had some chips.

I took this picture for Mom because it is chocolate. I have no idea if it tastes good or not but it was very pretty to look at.

Can you guess what these are?

Here is the last picture for this adventure. The sign in the parking garage.

After leaving the food court area Dee and I decided we had better head back home since we had to pick the boys up from school. I am glad we did since traffic was pretty heavy. We had enough time to go home and unload and head to the school.

Later that evening Dee came up and changed my finger nail polish.

Monday we are planning on trying to get to Walmart again and this time I have won to spend. I still have to get Abby's birthday gifts. So stay tuned for more pictures!

Went walking

2005-10-14T08:30:00.000+09:00

Thursday Dee and I decided to take a walk. There is a bakery right off Camp George and I have been craving doughnuts in a bad way. Or even a pastry or some sort of baked goods. So we dropped the boys off at school and met up around 8:30 ready to go. Here is Maddie near the back gate. I have wanted to get a picture of this for a while...think it is neat looking.

We got to the bakery and it was still closed!? Makes no sense. Why would you have a coffee and bakery shop and not open early? So I said...well I do not want to go home....lets go walking! Below is a picture of a street sign. Thought I would try and show you that. It is nice they are in English and Korean.

Here is a typical narrow city street. It is for two lane traffic!!! CRAZY!

All along the street near lamp posts or other poles you will see trash just dumped. Sometimes there are trash cans but mostly it is like this just odds and ends of stuff. And the smell can be soooo bad. You get a lot of sewage smell as you are out walking.

Here is just a picture of a typical Korean business building. They build up because there is a lack of space. Looks like there is an English school, music and martial arts in this building.

One of the main reasons I wanted to keep walking was because there is a temple close by. I wish I knew the name of this temple but I have been unable to find out what it is or what it is called. Here are a few pictures of it.

On the top is a large golden Buddah. I really wish I could have gotten some better pictures but they are doing construction so I could not get right in front of it. I can see this temple and the Buddha from Camp Walker and we always look for it. It is a kind of landmark for me. But you would figure something so big would be in a guide book or a web site or something? It is just a beautiful building in the middle of a huge city.

In the courtyard there were about a million hanging lanterns. I would really like to try and get one of these before I go back to the US. They are really beautiful!

Here is a statue sitting out front. If you look to the left of the statue there are people reading from books. I am not sure what they are doing but Dee said we should not go in since there was some sort of religious something going on. I am trying to be respectful so I just stood from afar and took pictures.

Here is another Buddha and I really wanted to rub his belly or something...LOL

Here is one more shot of the large Golden Buddha on top from a different angle. You can see the construction going on right next to it.

Here are some more lanterns attached to someone's house. I just think they are so neat!

We past a meat shop and this pig (?) was just hanging there. Not particularly sanitary. And a little gross.
On to the Bakery.....

After a whole lot of walking and a whole lot of crying on Maddie's part we came back to where we began which was the bakery. And this time it was open.

Mmmm Looks good!

There is Abby. Maddie was sitting at a table.

Lookie what they had!!! I bought this and some sort of roll and paid a whopping 5,300 won for it. Could not wait to get home and tear into some doughnuts.

Don't they look good?

Hate to tell you they really are NOT that good. I tried the one on the bottom right and if it was chocolate I'll eat the plastic it was wrapped in. I did eat most of the one on the upper left and it was ok..just not enough sugar or something. :(

I will continue the quest for doughnuts.....

Trip to Mt.Apsan part II

2005-10-11T19:02:00.000+09:00

Up the Mountain and down again....

So we caught the cable car for a 5 minute ride. It was standing room only and it made me feel a bit queasy. Court on the other hand was white knuckling the hand rail the entire time. He does not care for heights. We got to the top and there was a little restaurant. We walked up a bit and stood near the over look. This picture is looking down and the bottom and you can see two cars.

The view was just magnificent. Daegu is so huge! We could see the mountains on the other side of the city. The city itself is nestled in between mountain ranges. The picture below is a shot of the area we live in. The red arrow is pointing to our apartments.

Tucked into the mountain is a good view of a Buddhist monastery/temple.

All of the tall white buildings are apartments. It is amazing to think that 3 million people make Daegu their home.
A shot of me with the view in the background. The large green area is part of Woobang Tower Land which is a local amusement park. We hope to go there soon.
Here is Court in a good picture of him gazing out over the mountain. Notice he is holding tightly to the rail. We made our way further up the mountain. The path we were walking on had at one time been a stone wall. It was very very steep and lots of stairs.

Here is how Abby went up the mountain. She was having the time of her life.
We went up a little ways and then back down again. Back near the Cable Car station was a bathroom area. Maddie had to go so we went off to try. Now is when my anxiety kicked in. I have heard about the public toilets in Korea. The first set is the mens. Nice and close for them while the women have to walk a bit further down.

We opened the door and discovered this!
EEK!!! No way was I using this. First of all I just can't figure out how to do it without peeing all over myself and secondly it just smelled awful. They were pit toilets and they needed to be dumped. Maddie was not super excited and I would not let her use them. I am sure that those of you who know me (ahem...Thad) are just roaring with laughter. I would have rather pee behind a tree than use this!
Well it was time to go back down the mountain. The ride back was a little better. Court agreed it was not so bad. I think it was because we were able to all sit. We got back down the mountain and took a short 70 m hike to a temple/monastery that was close by. It was all up hill. Maddie complained a lot and so we took a lot of breaks as we went. We found a nice spot with benches and let the kids take a break.
Abby had crashed out after her hike on the mountain. Gavin and Maddie were enjoying their snack so I went on ahead to see the temple. It is daedeok-sa temple. Here are some pictures.

It was really really pretty. I would like to see more temples before we leave here. There are two more at Apsan park so next time I would like to look for those.

Before leaving we found a small pond with Koi (sp?) in it. We let the kids feed the fish for awhile. Gavin took this picture of us. It turned out pretty well.

The rest of the trip was pretty interesting. We walked down the mountain and looked for a cab. All of the cabs were full or going the wrong direction. Maddie was crying and tired of walking. So we put her in the stroller and I carried Abby. We had a pretty good walk. I would say at least 2 miles. I really want a pedometer! We walked to the back gate at Camp Walker and on to post. All the way across Camp Walker to the PX and did a little bit of shopping. Then we caught a cab out front and went home.

Maddie crashed almost as soon as we were home in her clothes and shoes and slept a good 12 hours.

I have to honestly say this was one of the best days I have had here and I really really enjoyed myself.

Trip to Mt.Apsan part I

2005-10-11T10:07:00.000+09:00

Trip to the Mountain and the cable car...

So it was Monday. It was a federal holiday for us Americans. Columbus day. Gavin was out of school and Court was off work and I was sick of staying home. I have been here for a month already and have seen nothing cultural or touristy. So after much begging and discussion (walmart or Apsan Park...tough choice) we decided to try and conquer the Mountain. Court really does not care for outings with the kids. Maddie tends to whine a whole lot if walking is involved. And yes she does make me a bit nuts but after dealing with all 3 on my own for a year and a half I know it can be done. Plus I am just sick of hanging about the house and really wanted to go somewhere!

We headed to Camp Henry for lunch and snacks. Caught a cab and away we went. We were not sure where we would end up. The can dropped us off at a gate of sorts with a guard. Court asked him of the cable cars were this way and he said yes. So we started our walk. It was a really beautiful day out. Perfect weather for a walk. We came into a park like area with benches and signs. Many Ajossi's (older Korean Men) were laying about drinking and talking.

Some of the trees are just starting to change color. I really want to come back when more have changed because I think it will be beautiful! There were all sorts of fall flowers planted and it really added to the color. Even though we were just a 10 minute cab ride from the city it felt like we were miles away.

There were nice wide paved paths to walk up. Occasionally a car would come through but it was mostly people walking and scooters. I am not sure what these "totem" poles are or what they stand for. I thought they looked neat though. There were two of them.

Also near the totem poles were these stick figures. Maybe they are birds? Kinda reminded me in a way of Blair witch.

Below is a statue of something....with Maddie sitting below it.
Another statue and this time I posed with the kids. I think this is the first actual picture I have taken in Korea. So now you all know I really am here.

There were several Ajossi's sleeping. Or maybe they were passed out? Court said I was cruel to take a picture and post it...but hey not my fault you were sleeping in a public park!

Our goal was to get to the Daedeok Cable Car. I took a picture of the map. It was 4,500 won each for adults and 3,500 won each for Gavin and Maddie. Abby was free.

Here it is..the cable car.

Stay tuned for the next post! I have pictures going up the mountain and down the mountain. Also I visited a very small temple and took a few pictures as well.

Random pictures

2005-10-11T07:18:00.000+09:00

Here is your typical Ajumma (older woman) wearing typical Ajumma fashion. Note the visor...you will almost always see one of these ladies wearing one. Also notice her three different plaid patterns. I think in the Ajumma handbook it says you have to do this or you can't be an Ajumma. They generally will stare disapprovingly at you as you walk about and sometimes even shout. Here is a recycling Ajumma. **See the visor** You see these women all over pushing huge carts of items that people have thrown away. I guess it is a good way to make money.
A bus sign. Notice the McDonald's Logo. There is one of these on every single bus sign I have ever seen. I am not sure if they are a sponsor of the sign or if it is as Gavin suggested...get on the bus and it will take you to McDonald's.

These dancing girls appear on a stage in matching clothing everytime a new business opens up. These ladies had been out a good 8 hours at least. I hear they work 12 hour shifts for very little pay. These were also singing along with the music.
An itty bitty truck. These things are so cute I want to take one home with me. I think it would fit comfortably in the back of a Ford Ranger. This car is a Tico. Very very very tiny and cute. I think my hip comes to the roof of the car if that gives you a hint as to how big it is. I wish we could get one of these. So compact it would be easy to drive the streets and fit through the narrow areas.
This is not the greatest shot. But as we passed the pet store we saw this cute little puppy with his ears dyed orange. I have seen this again and again. Other popular shades are blue and purple.

Two nights out

2005-10-10T21:31:00.000+09:00

It has been so long since I have updated...so I am going to put 2 Saturdays into one post. Last Saturday PFC McNeil came and babysat for us. Now I have pretty much only left the kids with family so this was really hard for me to do. I got Abby to sleep and all kids were in Jammies ready to go. Gavin was pretty upset I was leaving and he cried. We were not sure what we were going to do since at the last minute our plans fell through. But I told Court we have a sitter and this is our first time out in months....no way am I going home yet!

So we went to Court's favorite bar called The Voodoo. He knows the owner pretty well and likes to sit and chat with her. The place was pretty small. Just a bar, few booths and a pool table but it was cozy and laid back. This is the first time I have been to a bar since 1998!

This was only the second time I have left post at night. The first being the night we got here. Neon Neon everywhere! Above is a shot of the Voodoo sign. Below just a shot of the street.

A lot of times you see people sitting outside eating and/or drinking. It was raining this night so there really was not anyone out.

Can you spot the difference???

On the left is Nate...one of Court's friends. On the right is Court. I got a kick out of these pics. Here we are at a bar and what are they doing? Messing with the computer! The computer provides the music for the bar. If they do not have it they will gladly download it for you. At this bar they have the "juicy" or drink girls. You buy them a drink and they will sit and talk with you. A regular drink is about $5. But for them it is $10. Some places I hear the girls are full service but not at this place. Court says some of the places the girls are all over you just as soon as you walk in the door... buy me drink? This girl whose name I cannot remember was really friendly. And Nate was just posing for me. He has a wife and 2 month old son.

So things were a little dead until 2 Korean girls came in. Now I was the only non working woman up until this point. Everyone else was male and in the military. So when the girls came in the guys were all over them. I love to people watch so it provided for some good entertainment. Plus I hardly ever get out so I really started to enjoy myself at this point. We decided to head to a different bar. We went to the Sun Club and the girls and several of the guys from the other bar followed.

Here is a picture at the Sun Club. The Korean girl who was very very very drunk and very very very dramatic. Ivan in the middle and he is the one who picked her up. And he is married. Hate that all these married guys have girl friends on the side while their wives are back home in the US missing them. Court said I should not post these pics but I say if he was stupid enough to act like that in front of me AND let me take a picture then it's his own fault. Nate is also there trying to help translate and was pretty bored. He eventually left and went back to the Voodoo.

An old lady came in with flowers for 10,000 won and Ivan bought a bunch for the girl. She seemed pretty happy about it. Now as far as we know she did not go home with him but with someone else. But it was pretty entertaining for me to watch since I was pretty sober.

Fast Forward to Saturday the 8th....

We had a small dinner party and invited Nate and his wife and Paul and his girl friend Maria. I made Stew with mashed potatoes and cheese on top. Guess everyone is jealous of Court getting that "down home cooking" and wanted to come over. This is the first time I had cooked for so many people.

The dinner party was a success. It was nice to have people over for a change. I really would have been happy just staying at home. It would have been nice if we had some games to play or something. PFC McNeil came around 8:30 to watch the kids and load up on some grubb. So we just had to take advantage of having a sitter again. We went to The Sun club which is where Maria works.

Here are Paul and Maria. I think so far they are my favorite couple. Paul is not married and so is not cheating on his wife. Maria seems super nice and a lot of fun to be with. Here is Mike Shaw (another of Court's friends) sitting with Paul. He seemed nice enough though pretty gloomy and dark. I don't think he said two words to me. But that is ok. I wish I had gotten a picture but some Korean Mafia guy came in while we were there. He checked everyone out and was peeking in the private singing room. The bathroom there was unisex...meaning there was just a place to squat. But Maria was kind enough to take me upstairs to the bathroom. It was in need of some bleach in a bad way.

***and yes even at 31 years old I still give bathroom reports! LOL

After a bit we headed to this bar called The Monkey House. It is a little larger than the Voodoo. More girls working and 2 pool tables. By this point I was done drinking and had just a coke. Some drunk guy kept talking to Court and I and I was thinking please just go AWAY! We finally left to get rid of him. It was really nice out so we walked home. It was maybe a mile or so to Camp George. And that was that. Court and I decided he is strange because he is probably the only guy in Korea that will actually take his wife to a bar with him. :) I hope we go somewhere different next time just for a change of scenery. The Sun Club is getting ready to move closer to Camp George and if it is nice I think we may go there since it is so close.

Apartment Pictures

2005-10-10T20:56:00.000+09:00

Ok finally I am getting this put up (fingers crossed) it seems like everytime I go to do a post I cannot get pictures to load or blogger is down. I am about ready to switch to another site because it is pretty frustrating!

You can see the front door here. To the right of the door is the 4th bedroom. We have a bed in it as well as a desk and this is where I connect to the internet.
Here is a view of the kitchen. I seems huge after the last place we lived. My only complaint is there is just one drawer and all the rest are cabinets. The washer and dryer are also in the kitchen.
Here is another view. The stove is really nice. It has the burners built in. Court says it is a glass top? It is super easy to keep clean and all digital as far as setting the temp. You can see the washer and dryer also. Above the stove is the fan and light. There is no switch. You just pull it out and instantly the light and fan come on. Pretty neat!

Here is a close up of the sink. I have a window right above it so I can look out the window as I do dishes. No dishwasher here. Sure would be nice to have one! Something different about the sink. There is no garbage disposal in it. But in each drain there is a plastic strainer that catches all the yucky stuff and every so often you need to dump it out in the trash.Last shot of the kitchen. You can see the entry way as well. We have recycle bins that were provided for us. We try super hard to use them.Here is a view of the dining area. You can see Gavin in the back. The door right behind him goes into the main bathroom. It looks a bit different now because I have moved the furniture around. This is another similar view. You can see down the hallway. At the end is a very large closet. First door on the right is the bathroom. Second door is the master bedroom. You cannot see the other bedroom doors but The girl's bedroom is the first on the left and Gavin's is the second on the left.Here is Miss Abby Doodle watching Dora. The living room looks a bit different from these pictures because I have rearranged. All of the furniture except the TV and Entertainment center were provided for us by the military since we could not ship any furniture here. The glass doors lead out to a screened-in patio. I have made that a toy room of sorts and am working on getting it organized.

Ok last shot below is Gavin's room. It has been moved a bit differently but it is still the same basic room. His A/C is the only window unit we have and really we do not use it because the other 2 stand alone units work pretty well.

Plumbing pics!

2005-10-02T19:28:00.000+09:00

Here are the pictures of the bathroom as promised (here you go mom!). The first one is our bath which is off the master bedroom. It has a sink, toilet and medicine cabinet. As you can see if you look there is also a shower attached to the sink. This is typical Korean as I understand they do not have showers like ours. There is a drain in the floor as well. So I guess if I wanted to I could take a shower in there.
Here is the sink. Took me a few to figure it out at first because it is a bit different. The thing on the right controls the pressure and temperature of the water. The thing on the left is where the water comes from. Underneath the faucet is the place to pull if you want a shower.

On to the main bathroom. Excuse the mess. Here is the toilet. Very American and flushes like "normal" as well. I have run across a toilet that had a button on the side that you pushed. There is a vanity of sorts that covers over the top of the toilet tank.
Here is the shower and part of the tub. The bath is nice sized and very deep. Probably as deep as the one at my mom's for those of you who have been there. Not as wide or long though. The shower head comes off and I like that. Pretty handy I think!
Ahhh a shot of the lovely tile. Dark green swirly on the floor. Lighter green swirly on the walls with a flowery border.

Here is the medicine chest. Someone has covered it with a different light green swirly contact paper which I feel clashes badly with the other swirly patterns. You can see just a bit of the ceiling which is a blue swirl. Be nice if they could have just done the entire thing in blue! Or better yet in white. All of my bath stuff is blue and as I have so much I am not going to match I guess. Both baths are done in the same tile. Both have fluorescent lighting and I think it is really dark in the main bathroom. The main bath also has a drain so I guess I could just spray it down with the shower head if I wanted to. My neighbor, Dee says every so often you need to pour some bleach down the drain or it smells. She also mentioned that she has heard people on other floors talking/arguing through the drain. So we keep the doors closed on the bathroom now just in case! :)

Lunch at the KATUSA Snack Bar and other food

2005-10-02T11:43:00.000+09:00

My neighbor, Dee and I went to the KATUSA snack bar on Camp Walker. KATUSAs are the Korean military that work with the US Army. It is cheap food on post. I have been attempting to try as much of the local food as I can. So many different things to eat and to try out!

Ok starting at the top and working clockwise....

Doraji Namul (Bellflower Root Salad) Raw bellflower roots are peeled, torn
lengthwise into thin strips, and seasoned with salt, vinegar, red pepper powder,
sesame seed, and oil to make a red colored salad.

It was okay...I did not eat all of what was on my plate. It was pretty spicy.

The second thing...I have no idea what it was. It was a little less than ok. My neighbor said it had something to do with fish? EEK! I was eating fish!!! A friend of Court's, SGT Pantle said it was tofu. So if it was that would be the first time I ate tofu....Who knows.

The green stuff is a Korean "salad" It was actually quite bland compared to the rest of the stuff. I did not eat all of it cause after awhile it was just....yuck.

And the last thing...the most famous Korean food....Kimchi. It was very very spicy. Kinda like coleslaw only not sweet and more pickled. A few bites was all I could handle. I will eat more though because there are a million different kinds.Now this is the good stuff! It is called something like Yaki-mandu. It is a friend dumpling similar to an Egg roll. I could eat a million of these things. There is soy sauce spiked with red peppers that I didn't care for to dip them in. I think they are just good plain!. Yummmmmm. We also had sticky rice which goes well with anything. This did not even get near my plate. Little fishies with little fishy eyes looking at you. SGT. Pantle said it was Anchovies.

And I am proud to say that I ate my entire meal with Chop Sticks! My meal cost 5,000 won...about $5 and I could have gotten more sides of the veggie stuff if I wanted.

This is not the greatest picture but I thought I would throw it in just cause...We had this one of the first nights I was here. Court walked up to the KATUSA snack bar on Camp Henry and got this and brought it back.

So clockwise once again from the top.

The first thing is bulgogi which is beef and some veggies and noodles. It was really good! The second thing is more yaki-mandu. On the bottom is spicy pork and it also has veggies in it. I think with the yaki-mandu this is another one of my new favorites. It is REALLY good and my mouth is watering just thinking about it! And the last item is chicken fried rice. There is also a thing of regular sticky rice. A very good meal.

Koreans generally have their own bowl of rice and the rest of the foods are shared.

Gavin lost his first tooth!

2005-09-29T13:31:00.000+09:00

Gavin has had a loose tooth now for weeks. But being that it is his first loose tooth he was a little afraid to work on it or pull it out himself. Another tooth started growing behind it so I knew with patience the darn thing would eventually fall out. Last night Gavin went and brushed his teeth. He came out and told me it hurt to brush his loose tooth. I said let me see you wiggle it and he went to wiggle his tooth and he shouted IT'S GONE!!!!! Of course we had no idea where the tooth was at the time. I looked and it was still in the sink so I grabbed it up. We stuck it in Gavin's tooth fairy bear to await the visit of the tooth fairy.

Now there was a lot of discussion about the tooth fairy. Does she visit Koreans as well as Americans? Would she leave won or dollars? Turns out while in Korea she leaves Korean Won. Gavin ended up with 5,000 Won or about $5.00.

Gavin is in First Grade!

2005-09-27T08:43:00.000+09:00

Gavin is attending Taegu American School. It is on Camp George and run by the Department of Defense. He started Friday, September 16th. So far I think he really likes it. It is really hard for me as I have taught and worked in first grade classrooms. I try to not compare how this teacher works because I realize we all have our own individual teaching styles.

Here is a picture of the front of the school. It is really close to home. If there were not trees hiding the view I could see it from our apartment. We just walk and even if we had a car we would still walk it is super close. I can hear the kids at lunch/recess from our place. It is nice to be so close.

Here is Gavin after school on his very first day as a First Grader. He said it was the best day ever. He is surprised that not only is it school but it is fun too. I hope he continues to love school as much as he does now.

Open House

Last night was the open house for his school and I was very eager to get inside and see what it looked like. When we take Gavin to school he lines up out front so I had yet to see his classroom.

It is a small school. Maybe 600 students total and that is k-12 all in the same school. This is a shot of the hallway going into his classroom. It was packed with parents and students all coming to the open house.

His room is really tiny and crowded. I am used to Spencer and McCormicks creek rooms. They are about twice the size. This shot is part of the class. There was not much room to move around and take pictures.

Here is Gavin at his desk. They have tables of 4. He is at the front of the class room which I feel is a good thing! The books on his desk are the various books he will use this year. I think there are 3 literature books, health, science etc.

His class has centers. Gavin is showing me the computer center. There is another table of computers I think there were 4 in all? I could be wrong. He told me they have to work on the computers. No games.

Here Gavin is by the job chart. His job this week is the "standards helper." I am not sure what that is and he did not know either.

Here is Gavin and his teacher, Ms. Shinholster. She reminds me of my elementary school principal Mrs. Smith.

Gavin is super excited this year because he gets to go to art class. He also has P.E., music and library. I think they also do Korean Studies of some sort but I am not sure if his teacher does it or someone else.

The last two pictures are of the playground. It does not look so great from the pictures. But the equipment is new and under the play equipment the ground is padded/spongy. I just think the painted concrete looks tacky. Of course the fence all around has razor wire. Guess they don't want the kids getting out? LOL

Maddie's birthday again

2005-09-27T07:37:00.000+09:00

Maddie got the rest of her birthday presents from the grandparents last Friday. She was soooo excited. It was like Christmas at our house. So many gifts!

Mamaw Ginni got her a Disney Princess Sheet set.

Mamaw also got a matching comforter. Also included but not pictured are a purple princess pillow and a pink princess mesh canopy that we have hanging from the ceiling.
A princess camera that talks and has pictures of princesses inside.
A yellow princess cell phone. Every princess needs a phone to chat with the other princesses!

From Grandma and Grandpa came a bunch of Angelina Ballerina stuff. Not only is Maddie a pretty princess but she also wants to be a ballerina. She is all girl!
A nice sized Angelina doll.
Another figure to go with the neat Angelina Ballerina playset from Grandma Sally and Grandpa Gordon. You can see Gavin looking on in the background.
Grandma and Grandpa also got Maddie an Angelina book and DVD and 2 outfits. Thank you to all the grandparents for the wonderful gifts!

Walmart Part II

2005-09-27T06:41:00.000+09:00

Here is another shot of the walmart we visited on Sunday. The first floor and then the 2 basement floors are for shopping. The upper floors are a parking garage.

They seemed to have a pretty good DVD selection here. You can see Brother Bear and Kim Possible. It is neat to see how their covers look compared to the titles in the US. I know that a lot of DVDs will probably not play on our machine but they had a bin with DVDs in it for 3990 won which is around $4.00. Pretty cheap not unlike the $5.50 bin back home. And they had this in it so I said what the heck and we got it. I read if nothing else we could watch it on the computer. Well to our delight it works on our DVD player! Maddie is in heaven because it is her all time favorite movie ever. It is in Korean but I messed with the settings and was able to get it in English. The funny thing is even when Cinderella speaks with Korean dubbed over she still sings in English.

Here is another food shot. They're GGGGGRRRREEEAAATTT!!! Frosted flakes. They had several different American type breakfast cereals available.

We decided to be brave and try some Korean Dessert. This is some sort of rice cookie. We took a bite and it tasted exactly what I would imagine Styrofoam to taste like. YUCK! Spit it out and tossed the whole thing. The kids did not even try it. We ended up with some really sticky hard candies that are pretty good. I do not have a picture though.

Walmart

2005-09-26T14:13:00.000+09:00

I finally got Court to take us to Walmart. I was just so happy to leave the house and be out in the city and off post. We called a cab and went to the Walmart way on the other side of the city near the World Cup Stadium. It was an expensive cab ride...9000 won or around $9. The walmart was 5 stories tall and was also a super center. It was like walmart back home...but not the same thing either. Here is a picture from across the street. You can see how huge it is. It is much bigger than back home but the selection was not the same...of course.

The cab ride was great and I really was happy to get out of the house and off post and get to see something new and different. It was a beautiful day out and the kids were all for the most part pretty well behaved. Here are some diapers. Generic, huggies...and looks like pampers but they are called cutie. Probably the same thing just a different name.

I tried to get some pictures of various items in the... grocery part but the battery on my camera was about dead and I did not know how the store would feel about me taking pictures.

It comes in a can and goes great with beans...it's.....SPAM! Up yours? They are slimmer and taller than the stuff back home but the can assures me it is the same American flavor of 7-up! Oh and evidently it is NEW!Here are some eggs. The ones on the right appear to be just your typical brown eggs. The ones on the left??? Couldn't tell you what kind they are. They were small and speckled and Gavin and I had the strange suspicion that the specks were poop. Ew. Also this was really weird but they were not refrigerated. Not sure why? In the US our eggs are and I am thinking that an egg is an egg right? Or maybe we stick different hormones and such in them? Who knows. Court and I laughed about getting the little eggs and making fried eggs with them. I am sure they would be really cute! But I am not that brave.

I have a bunch more pictures but for whatever reason Blogger is not letting me put up any more. I have been messing with it since last night. Argh. So I will do this in a part two later on.

Maddie's Birthday

2005-09-20T05:49:00.000+09:00

Maddie turned 4 on the 15th. We had a big scramble to get gifts for her but we seemed to manage ok. At least she seemed happy enough with what she got.

Here she is in the morning with a doll set that came with a crown. The crown lights up and she loves it.

Present time! Here Maddie is that evening digging into her gifts. She got a DQ food set which she loves. She also got Korean toy food set that came with a little table and burner/stove to cook with.
Here is the food set. She really likes it and the table folds up. You can put the food and dishes in it and carry it around.
Another pic of her out in the patio/play area with her new stuff. She also got a Hello Kitty Shirt which she is wearing. Some other clothes. The new Lilo and Stitch movie. Barbie cup, chopsticks and spoon set.
The cake did not turn out so great. I usually do a fancy special cake but I have none of my baking stuff here. Could not even find candles for the cake. But Maddie did not seem to mind.

Last one. Yummmmmm licking the frosting off the bottom of the bear. I cannot believe she is 4! Seems like just yesterday she was born.

The search for a cat

2005-09-17T09:59:00.000+09:00

We saw a cat like this in a pet store off Camp Walker a few days ago but the owner said it was not for sale. Too bad. Because it is the only cat I have seen since being here. It is really strange because in the US there are free cats everywhere. Thousands to choose from. I have emailed some breeders that are listed for this area and gotten no response.

Last night while Court was out at the bars he was told there is a pet store off Camp George so we may try and check it out. Not sure if it will be open since it is Chusok. Which is Korean Thanksgiving and many places will not be open.

At first I wanted a kitten but I am now to the point where I will settle for any sort of friendly healthy cat.

Update

We went on a mini adventure Saturday after lunch to search for this store Court was told about. We went out the back side of Camp George and walked and walked. We saw several pet stores but they only had dogs. And then we thought we hit the jackpot! We found this store. Maddie is just grinning up a storm so glad to finally find cats. They had at least 20 or more and most were in cages. They were almost all persian but a few were siamese as well. So we are all excited because we think we will be getting a cat. And then Court asks how much.....

The cute puffy persians were going for 400,000 won and the Siamese kittens were 150,000 won.

Most of the cats look sick. They all had the runny eyes and crusty stuff around their eyes. No way am I paying that for a cat unless it is 100% healthy and comes with papers and has had shots etc. etc. Maybe I am expecting too much?

Here is a shot of some of the cats. Don't know if you can tell or not but their eyes are all yucky.

Oh well....we will keep searching.

Welcome to my blog

2005-09-16T22:22:00.000+09:00

I am just your typical Army wife who has followed her husband to Korea. We live on Camp George in Daegu, South Korea.

Court has been here almost 18 months now and me and the kiddos only arrived a week ago. It has been a long long hard separation and we are slowly getting reacquainted as a family.

We left the US on the 7th of September. It was just me with 3 kids, 8 pieces of luggage, 3 car seats, 4 back packs and a stroller. I am amazed that I managed it!

Here I am with all the kids...Abby is on the left, Gavin, then me and Maddie.

The flight from LAX to Narita, Japan was about 11 hours. We were super lucky to have bulk head seats. The kids were actually really good. Abby who is not quite 2 was a bit fussy but numerous trips to the bathroom helped. AS well as a bribe of candy now and then....

We did not have a lot of time in Japan to look at the shops. So I just gave the kids time to run around and stretch their legs.

We flew into Busan and met Court there. Took a shuttle to Camp Henry where one of Court's friends picked us up and took us to Camp George. We like on the 4th floor of a 5 story apartment building and there is no elevator. The good news is that they are putting one in and I think it should be done by the end of the year.

Here is our apartment building. You can see the green construction fence around part of it. The windows you see on the 4th floor are part of our apartment.