Things that make you go hmmmmm.....

There's no shortage of badly translated or spelled English over here, but this really makes me scratch my head.  You think they'd be pretty clear on how we spell the name of their country.  My friend and I found this shirt at Home Plus and we could not get to it fast enough!  At only 5,000 won ($4.20), it was SOLD!! 

Seoul Tower

We rode the subway, then used very vague directions to find the cable car station from there - first going up one hill to a dead end, then having to go down that hill and up another hill.  Luckily the second time was a charm!  We took the cable car up to N. Seoul Tower, which is situated on top of a hill.  You can see some pretty amazing views from many places up there w/out paying the money to go up the elevator to the observation part of the tower (which we did - but wouldn't do again).  It was a pretty gray and hazy day, and we marvelled over the size of the city.  It really is a huge metro area, with 14 million or so living there.  Here's some little slices of our afternoon there, though pictures rarely do cityscapes justice.  Okay, well I guess professional landscape photographers might do a pretty good job... we did the best we could!

Luke taking a drink and a quick break on our way up the hill.

Rayna, my very cooperative photo subject.  :)

I guess to symbolize your neverending love you could put a padlock on this railing... to stay there forever, or something.  Permanent, I guess?  You get the idea.  There were a ton of them, it was kind of neat.  While we were there guys were welding together some metal trees of sorts for people to attach their locks to.

Observation deck (covered in padlocks)

Luke taking a peek

360 degree observation tower

A small sliver of the view.  Man, I need a wide angle lens!  Right?

Seoul Weekend Continued...

So, after the 4th, we woke up, ate our donuts, and figured out how we were going to get to Insadong.  I talked to the travel service in the hotel lobby and asked about taking the subway.  The guy showed me where to get on and off, then asked if we'd ever taken the Seoul subway before.  When I said no he looked at me like we were all kinds of crazy for wanting to just hop on with our 3 kids.  I admit I was a little nervous for us, too, but it all turned out fine, and was actually pretty convenient.  Involved a lot more walking than taxi or driving, but it was cheap and direct.  As I'm sure I'll say a bunch more in my next post about the Seoul Tower... this city is HUGE. 
Here is the Subway map.  There's like 500 lines.  Well, okay, maybe not 500, but a lot.  And a lot of stops.  And thankfully, maps posted in English at the stops and on the train.  Also, also thankfully, usually someone around who speaks some English, like the employee who helped us get our T-Money cards to ride.  I'm glad we finally got this all figured out... only took a year to try it but now I feel like we can go so many more places in Seoul!

I just loved this sign above.  Instead of some generic figure warning you about getting your bags stuck in the doors, there's this cute little lady and her curled hair and red lipstick, and her fancy schmancy shirt with sparkles and purse with a heart.  Koreans are so fashion forward - even their signs!!  I also like just imagining what the text says, since I have no idea what it actually says.  :)




The kids at "Insadong", a street in Seoul with lots of "artsy" stuff.  Art shops, stationary shops, coffee shops, and much more, I'm sure.  We walked up and down the street and then the kids were ready to go.  Well, they were ready to go as soon as we got there, but they put up with us at least walking up and down the street.  Someday, I will return sans children, and actually go into one of the little shops... A girl can dream...



Here these guys were giving a demonstration of how they make a traditional Korean "sweet" (and then selling us a box of them, of course!).  It was basically honey stretched into really thin threads (in corn starch, that's the white stuff) and then wrapped around different kinds of crushed nuts.  It was good, but ironically not really that sweet.
Alrighty, stay tuned for the next installment of our Seoul adventure.  We finally got out of Osan - I'm going to milk this for as many blog posts as possible!!

The 4th on the ROK

Dan found himself unexpectedly not on call last weekend, which meant that we (or he) could travel more than 30 minutes from base, which meant that we could use our 4 day weekend to do something fun!  People around here take advantage of American holidays - days that Koreans are working - to go sightseeing.  We've heard you just don't want to be out and about some places on a weekend or Korean holiday because of the massive crowd factor...

All that to say, we spent a couple of days in Seoul.  Dan had Monday and Tuesday off, so we went up on Sunday evening to the Yongsan Army Base, where they have a hotel called the Dragon Hill Lodge.  A little mini-vacay!  Yay!  We knew Yongsan would have a fireworks show, just like Osan was having, so we checked in and headed out to dinner and fireworks.

Above:  happy Tessa.

Below (2 minutes later):  unhappy Tessa.

This happens anytime I set her somewhere like this for a photo. All I did was take her out of the stroller and set her on the grass right next to her siblings, and she immediately freaked out!  It's so uncharacteristic of her.  Well, except in this situation - it's becoming quite annoyingly characteristic.

Me and Dan with the kiddos = me trying to get pictures of not just the kiddos.

I seriously don't know how to explain this guy.  At this point of the evening I was feeling a little bit of Air Force pride, since the entertainment at Osan events has always been pretty great.  And I knew on the 4th they were going to have static aircraft displays, kids stuff, etc. and Yongsan had this guy in a yellow I-don't-even-know-if-you-can-call-it-an-outfit outfit!  Interesting!  I guess his talent may have been a little more appreciated had his look not been so distracting.

Well, we were really there for the fireworks, and they did not dissapoint!

To our amazement, Tessa LOVED them!  They started up loud and unexpectedly, and she didn't even bat an eyelash.  She watched, clapped, pointed, and looked super-cute.  Dan and I were way more entertained watching her than the fireworks!

Rayna liked watching the fireworks, but she is not a fan of loud noises.  :)

A Swimsuit Model and a Couple of Fishies

About a half hour from here is Camp Humphreys, an army base that has an amazing little waterpark.  We went last week and the kids had a great time.  There's 3 different areas that the kids can play in with waterslides and/or shallow water.  There is a perfect pool, about 3 feet deep, I think, that comes up to Luke and Rayna's neck at the deepest part.  It's great for them because it's deep enough to "swim" but also to stand up... easier for Mommy to supervise with Tessa.  I see many trips to "Splish and Splash" in our future!  And I finally got the kids into a couple rounds of swim lessons soon, so hopefully it will go well and we'll be able to undo the trauma of last year's swim lessons.