This Morning

Because Dahin is such a big girl now, she has insisted that she wants to ride the bus to school with her friends. I suppose Apa dropping her off at school is totally not cool. ;- ) Now, in the mornings, she meets her friends by their building and the group of 2nd graders walks together to the bus stop. This morning, the girls were running a little later than usual. Ronan pulled a chair up to the window to wait for Dahini-nuna and her friends to pass. When he saw them walk down the hill he started yelling, "Hiiiii!" and I heard the girls laugh, "Oh my gosh, Dahin, there's your brother!" You can imagine the embarrassment. : ) Then, when I started shooting photos, the girls yelled, "Camera!" and shot down the hill. No better way to make the doddling kids hustle then pulling out a camera. Works like a charm. Poor Dahin--he, he; it's fun to be a mommy.

Around Town

We took a late afternoon trip to the National Theater right by Namsan (a small mountain--more like a tall hill--in the middle of Seoul. It used to mark the southern border of the city, but the city has grown so much it's now smack dab in the middle). After doing some sight-seeing and walking around, we headed to Myeongdong where driving through the streets is like trying to part the Red Sea. The reason for the 'street walking' is that there are no sidewalks so people have to walk in the street. If there were to try and build sidewalks, there would be not street. The streets of Myeondong are typical of all older neighborhoods north of the Han River (the older part of town)--narrow, winding, crowded. It gets extremely congested, so cars going through have to go through very slowly. Still, some idiots (you can imagine; mostly motorcyclists) make efforts at barreling through the crowd, which makes me very, very nervous when I'm walking with my kids through the streets. The evening sky was pretty stormy, which made a pretty nice picture. The weather is cooling day-by-day and the leaves on the trees are slowly turning. Pretty soon, we'll be deep into autumn. I'm pretty excited about this since the Bay Area has only very subtle season changes and I haven't experienced a real fall since leaving Indiana.

We parked the car by Myeongdong Cathedral and walked to this Seolleongtang restaurant. According to Wikipedia:

"Seolleongtang is a Korean soup made from the bones of the four legs of an ox, with the front legs giving better taste. Generally, only salt and green onions are used as seasoning. Usually, ground black pepper is served with the dish. It is typically cooked over a period of several hours to an entire day, to allow the flavor to be gradually extracted from the bones. It has a milky off-white, cloudy appearance and is normally eaten together with rice and several side dishes; the rice may be added directly to the soup."

Well, there you go. It's, perhaps, the one food the kids eat unfailingly well. While barbecue is usually a favorite, the kids will aways go for seolleontang when given the choice. It's similar to gomtang (literally 'bear soup' because it gives you the strength of a bear; i.e. it' healthy) and the kids, especially Dahin, LOVE both equally well. Gomtang is only different because it is made with different beef parts, but you boil it for a very long time just like seolleongtang and the taste and look are similar. This restaurant, apparently, was featured in a drama and next to our table hung a photo of the two stars of the drama dressed in the same clothes as the people working in the restaurant.

Jack cuts up the kaktugi (hot radish kimchi), a type of winter kimchi that now (thanks to kimchi fridges) is seen all year round. I think it is Ronan's favorite type of kimchi.

Below, Ronan enjoys some kaktugi with his seolleongtang.

Oliver demonstrates the delicate eating method for seollangtang--add some salt, dump some rice in your soup, and go for it. Poor baby--he's getting eaten up by mosquitos. All the kids are covered in mosquito bites, and the closer we get to cooler weather the more aggressive those suckers are being. Even with mosquito repellent, the kids, especially, are being attacked nightly. You can see that, on the boys, their faces seem to be a favorite snacking spot for those nasty buggars.

We strolled through Myeongdeong a bit after dinner. I took a shot of the crowd to show how jam-packed the streets get. People had also congregated outside the coffee shop on the right because a minor celebrity was on the second floor, seated by the window, with his girlfriend. It only added to the crowding a little; Myeondeong is just congested no matter what time of day you go and not matter what's happening.

Seoul Museum of History

We try and make time once a week to do something together as a family. On this day, the house was a total wreck. In order to clean it up efficiently, I needed everyone out, so Jack took the kids out for some lunch. I joined them a couple of hours later at the Seoul Museum of History. For anyone in Seoul or planning a trip to Seoul, I recommend this place without hesitation. It is so well done. The exhibits take a look at Seoul's history and material culture. The exhibits are wonderful and I will say that the English translations for the exhibit descriptions were the best I've ever seen. Most of the time, even at the national museum, the English description does not equal the detail of the Korean description; usually only an English title and maybe a short sentence summarizing the content of the exhibit. But, in the Seoul Museum of History, the English and Korean exhibit descriptions were equal. I mean, I know this is Korea, but considering the fact that more and more different kinds of people are living here and the number of foreign visitors, it's about time I found such a well-done exhibit. I can honestly say, the museum's goals of educating people--Korean or foreign--about Seoul's history were really well accomplished. Most museums claim to do this, but I feel really sorry for foreign visitors trying to make their way through exhibits for which a museum has made little effort to make the content understandable for non-Koreans, despite the fact most museums claim to welcome non-Korean-speaking visitors. For more information on the fabulous Seoul Museum of History, you can visit their site here: http://museum.seoul.kr/eng/eh_main.jspCertainly the highlight of the museum was this massive miniature version of Seoul. Wow! The kids loved it, and we had a lot of fun trying to identify the different neighborhoods. Oliver's main concern was whether or not there were sharks in the river (guess I should have never told that story about bull sharks found in fresh water).

Below, Jack and the kids look at our neighborhood. Through close examination, we could see that the model was not exact, but then again Seoul changes so fast. It could have been built a few years ago before a lot of what is present in our neighborhood now came into existence. Dahin's school was there, and one building representing our apartments was there.

The exhibits were just so well done and so well organized. The interactive elements were not impossible for the kids to figure out as in most museums we've visited (I won't even talk about the war museum--interactive my ass; couldn't even figure out how to do the computers and there was no one there to assist us). Here, we needed no assistance because everything was so well designed, but there were plenty of volunteers around to help if you needed it.

The museum exhibits combined models of older and current versions of Seoul (as in the massive one above) as well as plans for neighborhoods in Seoul and Seoul's new satellite cities. In recent years, a number of satellite cities have emerged. Known as 'planned cities,' the goal is to make living comfortable and clean for everyone (focused on environmentalism). Planned cities attempt to knock out those divisions that can occur between 'good' sides and 'bad' sides of town, among other things.

The historical artifact exhibits included recreations of archaeological digs and remants from the Japanese colonial period (above). I would have taken more pics of the murals and poetry/paintings in this exhibit, but I was told photos weren't allowed there (the one fault of the museum: no signs up to say this; plus, people, I wasn't using flash like the family next to me that took a dozen flash photos before being told to put their cameras away).

Oliver poses with the 'royal family.' I tried to get all the kids to pose, but since Jack had taken a photo of the kids there earlier while they were waiting on me to arrive they refused to sit for another photo. Ah well; like hearding cats....Oliver sat for several poses--can't seem to shake that Korean 'v' pose. : )

In the back of the museum, they had a garden with some recreations of pagodas, etc. It was beautiful, and the cooler fall weather meant that walking around outside was a very pleasant experience.

After leaving the museum, we wandered over to Gyeonghui Palace for a little visit. It was one of the five grand palaces of the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910), but during the Japanese colonial occupation period (1910-1945) it was torn down and replaced by a school for Japanese citizens. In the 1990s, the government rebuilt it in an effort to restore all five palaces of Joseon, but because the area had been built up over the years there was only room to rebuild about 30% of the former palace. It's located right behind the museum, so it was a great historical stop before heading out for dinner.

Above, the three men in my life posing under Sungjeong-mun, the main gate/entrance to Gyeonghui-gung. Posers, all. : )

Above, Ronan runs toward the main throne room, after which he notices the official ranking stones and decides to pose on one (an apology to any former official with that particular ranking--yikes!) Oh, the things kids do in palaces; fabulous sites to run around in, for sure.

Above, Ronan proudly displays the print he made in one of the museum's interactive exhibits (you had to buy the paper, but this was genius since I know it cuts down on paper waste).

The boys pose in front of Sungjeongmun. Dahin had bought Ronan a little traditional knotwork thingy from the museum at the store (using her own money that she earned helping me clean a little that morning--I know, sweet, huh?). He turned it into an 'earring' with a rubber band. My kids certainly are resourceful!

After we left the palace grounds, we made a b-line to Mapo-gu (a district in northern Seoul famous for its bbq) for some galbi. Mmmmmm, barbecue! Love it. The problem was, every place on Tojeong-gil (Tojeong road) in Yonggan-dong (Yonggan neighborhood--the heart of Mapo-gu bbq country--they were having a galbi festival) claimed they were the 'original' (원점) Mapo jumulreok (refers to a specific, unique recipe of galbi marinade) and charcoal roasted galbi house. Oh, the dilemma. Which one to choose? We finally settled on one and this place was really, really good. We like going to galbi places because the kids tend to eat very, very well.

Bibimbap Party

Our apartment association organized a bibimbap party yesterday. Bibimbap is a rice dish with thinly sliced vegetables, meat, and egg on top of rice, mixed together with a sweet red pepper paste and sesame oil. 'Bibim' means to mix, so it literally means mixed rice dish. The bibimbap party is one of 5 yearly get togethers we have (others include the Children's Day games and barbecue and an early summer catered barbecue party). The President of SNU (below) came with his wife (his house is adjacent to the apartments) and ate dinner with some of the faculty who got a seat inside the community house/library.

I didn't do much to contribute beyond making some rice and helping a little with cleanup. The women below really worked hard serving the food. Along with the bibimbap there was also ddeok (rice cakes), baby tomatoes, bananas, grapes, and oranges.

The head of the resident's association, ssangdeunggi eomma (I only know her as the 'twins' mommy' since we never do first names here--she lives in my building, so there are two sets of twins here; because I have an older child plus the boys, people here call me 'Dahini eomma') worked really hard to make this a fun event for the kids. There was a treasure hunt and games. Dahin and friends, below, wait for the beginning of the cookie relay--kids raced in sets to cookies hung on a string; first to finish 'won.' Older kids, highschoolers, helped with the games.

A sibling of one of Dahin's friends, below. She's so cute--had to snap a picture.

Ssangddeunggi eomma takes a brief break--she wore herself ragged. We had a couple of tables set up near our building where the people in our 'line' (apts 101,102,201,202, etc) sat together. The gourmet chef among us (the woman wearing black and white) fried up some sweet potatoes, squash, and carrots for the group. Really fabulous and perfect with some beer.

Dahin and her friend from Nashville were creative with their balloons. The girls walked around with mouse ears pretty much the whole time.