Fresh Vegetable Market

Okay, it wasn't really a market. Just a few vendors on the side of the street, but the produce was fresh from the farm, and organically grown. I can't wait to eat it!

 Shopping with Kristina, Kiku and Kalia at the fresh veggie/fruit vendors. They sell right in front of Kristina's apartment.

 Playing at the park on the way home. Kiku and Kalia (or Elsa and Anna as they were having us call them) are learning to be great sharers :) 

My delicious produce--the lettuce was 1,000 won (which is less than a dollar), tomatoes 3,000, mushrooms 2,000, cucumbers 2,000, nectarines 5,000 (fruit was expensive, but it looked so good!), and the yellow mystery melon was 1,000 won. I think it was about $12 total--much better than the grocery store prices, and much fresher too.

Hiking Mount Dobong

The kids only get Korean Holidays at school, while Tyler gets Korean and U.S. holidays, which means that U.S. Holidays are day-dates for us! So on Labor Day Kristina and Curt watched Kalia (at the beach :) and Tyler and I hiked Mount Dobong, in the Bukhansan National Park. It was amazing!

 You can see little fish swimming in the river.

 At the beginning of the hike...

 We could see our destination way off in the distance.

 Buddhist temple along the hiking path, complete with paper lanterns hanging from the trees.

So many Buddhas! 

 Gorgeous views of the city

 The temple along the way...

 They had a mic on the monk who was chanting, with speakers projecting the music through the forest. It was a surreal experience, hiking through a beautiful forest, listening to the monk singing.

 Half-way up the mountain.

 These signs were hanging from trees along the hiking path. 119 is the Korean equivalent to 911 in the U.S. Comforting to know that help was available should it be needed :)

 The view from the top!!!

 We could see forever in every direction.

 Definitely worth the hike--it took about 2 hours to make it to the top.

 This photo doesn't do it justice, but the last part of the climb was so steep that they installed a metal handrail. The only way to get to the top was to drag ourselves up as we hung on to the handrail for dear life. Koreans are some intense hikers! They've never heard of switchbacks, that's for sure.

This was the drinking fountain. Cold mountain water--refreshing! They had ladles hanging on the sides, and everyone just used them and put them back. I didn't drink anything on the way up, but I was so thirsty on the way back that I didn't mind sharing a ladle with everyone.

This was an octopus swimming in a tank outside a restaurant. Someone's lunch, but not ours. We got some kimbap--Korean sushi rolls. So good! 

Bongeunsa Buddist temple, whitewater rafting and subway adventures

 Beautiful flowers on the walk to the Bongeunsa Buddhist Temple in Seoul

 Kalia and Shayla at the Buddhist Temple. The architecture was amazing.

 Beautiful lilypads and ponds scattered throughout the temple grounds. It was very peaceful and serene, right in the middle of huge skyscrapers and big-city busyness.

 I think a miniature of this elephant would like nice on my front porch :)

 The paper lanterns were EVERYWHERE, and so beautiful!

They had shoe-cubbies outside the temples, and after removing our shoes we could enter and sit inside the temple. People were praying on red rectangular prayer mats. They would stand with their hands together in prayer, and then bow low to the ground, then kneel on their mat, and then repeat. Kalia was fascinated watching them, and then started copying them. I think Shayla has the footage of her praying just like the Buddhists. I'll have to add that here...it was so cute!

 This shows how this temple is in the heart of Seoul, with skyscrapers everywhere. 

Such a blending of the old and the new.

 This monk was singing and playing a drum as he prayed. 

 Miya--someone had just given her a chocolate treat (can you tell?) Koreans love children, and they are so kind, always trying to give the kids a treat or just pet them on the head and tell them they are cute :) 

 This statue was huge!

Kalia is really good at posing for photos :)

Leaving the temple--across the street was the Coex Mall.

We went there to find some lunch...

Ordering at the mall was a feat! We finally figured out that they had one main cash register where you ordered all of your food for the whole food court. They gave us a different pager for each restaurant, and then when the pager went off we had to go pick up our food from the right restaurant. Most of it was not written in English, so we were trying to match Korean characters from our receipt with the right restaurant sign. We were so proud of ourselves when we finally had retrieved all of our food! Pictured above is Shayla, Ty and Kalia eating seaweed soup, some tofu and radish sides, and Bibimbap (I think...)

Miya and Garrett enjoying some potato dumplings. The rest of the food we ate before I could take pictures. We were hungry.

Taking the subway back home...

speaking of which, when we had been in the country only a few days I took the kids out on a subway adventure to visit an outdoor Korean market. We made it there just fine, but coming back it was super crowded. I was so scared we were going to be separated somehow, so i was carrying Kalia, and herding the smaller kids in front of me, with Ty and Shayla behind me. Well, Ty was being a gentleman, and offered to let someone on the subway before him, and then a bunch of people pushed past him, and the doors closed before he could get on the subway. I tried not to panic, Ty and I made eye contact through the closed doors as the train pulled away. He mouthed that he would meet us at the next stop, and I mouthed back that we would wait there. We then proceeded to pray our hearts out that we would be reunited somehow. Seoul is so huge and busy (25 million people), I was so scared we wouldn't be able to find each other. After waiting at the next stop for the longest 10 minutes of my life, the subway pulled up, and Ty got off. Oh the joy!! 

We now have an emergency plan if we get separated again. Luckily it was Ty I lost, and not one of the little ones. 

We went whitewater rafting on the Song River (I think that was the name). It was a 2 1/2 hour drive east of Seoul. Such a beautiful river and scenery. The river was kind of low, so there were a lot of rocks to maneuver around. Luckily we each had a foot strap on the bottom of the raft, that we kept our feet in, or there were a few times that we would have been thrown from the raft. Actually, our guide WAS thrown from the raft once. That was super scary as we tried to navigate the river to safely get him back in the boat. Luckily he was okay, and as he climbed back in the boat he reminded us to keep our feet in the foot strap :)

I wish i had pictures of the river, but we didn't have our waterproof camera. It's somewhere on our boat shipment on the way here.  Next time...

Cousin Time!

 One of the biggest blessings of being in Korea is to live just 5 minutes away from Kris and Curt. 

This was having Sunday dinner at the Magleby's on the 22nd floor. The view from their apartment is amazing! 

Kalia, McKay, Miya and Kiku

 Kalia and Kiku

 Annabelle is a cute puppy. I love that the kids can play with her, and I do not have to be a pet owner. It's a win-win.  Thanks, Kris and Curt :)

 McKay, Kalia, Felicity, Kiku and Eva gathering leaves at the embassy housing. 

We are in temporary housing right now (a 3-bedroom duplex), and will be moving into our permanent home (4 bedroom home with a fenced in yard!) mid-September. We can hardly wait to get settled.

Cute kids! 

The weather has been hot and humid since we arrived, with a few huge thunderstorms to cool things off. I've heard fall is beautiful here, with every shade of changing leaves abounding. We can't wait to get out and hike one of the mountains surrounding Seoul.

Live from Korea!

Hello! I am going to try and post pictures of our adventures here in Seoul, South Korea. My goal is to post once a week, so hopefully it's not too lofty of a goal and I can be consistent. I'll start with the present and try to work backwards. We've been here almost a month, and are really loving it! The food is amazing!

 Tyler and I went on a date in Itaewon--walking distance from the base. We found a little Korean BBQ place called the Maple Leaf. It was delicious! I loved everything except for the giant leaves (sesame) front center in the pic. Kind of bitter, like picking a leaf off of a tree and eating it.

 The meat is brought out raw, and then cooked over a bed of hot coals in the center of the table. Delish!

 Afterwards we had dessert at Cafe Bene--it was Korean shave ice, called Bing-su. This particular one was a kid's dream. It was topped with cotton candy, pop rocks and a rainbow. The pop-rocks would sizzle and sometimes fly off of the dessert when they got wet. I got beaned in the face by one :) It made for adventurous eating.

 We felt guilty eating this without kids present.

 We took the kids another day (actually Ty took us--he had been to this BBQ place with his friends the week before) to eat at The Gogi (which fittingly means, "The Meat"). 

We walked (since we have no car, we walk a TON) off base and kept walking for a mile or 2. Just when we thought we were lost, Ty found it!

 As we were getting settled at the table, I looked over and saw Kalia holding her chopsticks like a native. She's a fast learner!

 Miya (not quite native yet in her chopstick skills), hiding Grant and Garrett

I love this photo because Shayla is taking a picture of the food. I should get her to post her photos on here--she takes great pics! 

Korean style is to have lots of little side dishes and then a main dish (the meat). The side dishes are always being replenished. At The Gogi we had marinated mushrooms, lettuce leaves, some kind of shredded peppers and spicy sauce, shredded cabbage, kimchi, corn, etc. 

The meat was so tender and delicious, and the atmosphere was fun. 

The funny part of the evening was that a group of Ty's friends were also eating at the restaurant.

Ty did pretty good at playing it cool, being seen with his family and all. And we tried not to be TOO embarrassing :)