Monday, April 10, 2006

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!

Saturday, April 08, 2006

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!

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

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.