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.

Gavin is taking Tae Kwon Do now

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

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!

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

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

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!