Seomun Market

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

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!

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

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

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

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.