Home Plus

We went to another EMart type store called Home Plus. They have a kid's play area (that you have to pay 4,000 won per child to use - about $4.00). The kids could have played here all day long, it was so fun! You can leave them and shop if they are 4 or older, so Rayna doesn't qualify. That's alright, though. I wouldn't feel that comfortable leaving the kids alone with no one around who speaks English. If they needed something or something happened, I would like them to be able to communicate with the adults!! And, the first time we came here, another kid bit Rayna. Really bit her! Like upper and lower teeth marks on her forearm. She wasn't able to tell me which kid did it, but if she could have... um, I don't speak Korean so what would I have done anyway? Thankfully it didn't break the skin, but it was close. Poor girl. Luckily that day there was a Korean/English speaking woman nearby who helped me talk to the woman attending the play area who felt terrible and offered to refund my money if Rayna didn't want to go back in. But she did, so I guess she wasn't too traumatized!

But besides that random incident by random child, it's really great. Clean, and pretty quiet on a weekday during the school year! There was just one other kid there besides my two and their two friends who were with them this time. 3 of us went together, so we just took turns standing by the play area keeping an eye on things while a couple of us shopped, so it worked out pretty well. Enough of my blabbering, here's the pictures!!

A cool ball launcher!

A floor piano

In this little room the balloons are being blown all around.

Where the balls get launched.

A little rotating, swingy thing.

Luke and Rayna with their friends Alicia and Josh.

A picture of the whole place.

It's funny how even things like a play place are so different... like the colors are nothing like what you would find in the U.S. And everything was in motion... lots of rotating platforms and the balloons blowing and the balls launching. Fun, fun, fun.

It was my first time driving anywhere off base (so far Dan's done all the driving). Since I sort of knew where I was going and had the aid of the GPS, it wasn't so bad. It was much less stressful for me than being a passenger (since as I've mentioned before I have control issues and I guess driving at least lets me feel like I'm in control of something, even with everything still out of control all around). On the other hand it was only a 20 minute drive down basically one road. So we'll see how I feel when we go somewhere like Seoul and I get behind the wheel!

Either way it was a big milestone for me and now I feel like I'm not trapped on base for fear of driving in Korea! And don't worry, we've got one of the biggest cars on the road, so we're quite safe. :) We can't park anywhere. But we're safe.