Korea Military Academy Cadet Dinner

How blessed we are when we open our homes to receive others in! My husband and I agreed to host two cadets from the Korea Military Academy (KMA) for dinner. At first we thought we should take them to a restaurant on post, but I decided that really wasn't the point. They should be invited into our American home for some real conversation and real cooking. So that led to the whole decision of what to serve. I finally chose to go traditional southern style. After all, I am from the deep south. We had spinach salad, sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole, honey-curry chicken (not so southern I know), and for dessert - pumpkin pie. I was worried they might not like it, it's very different than Korean food, but they seemed to enjoy it and complimented it, so I trust they did. They were wonderful guests to have and fortunately spoke very good English so we were able to converse without difficulty. It also helps to have two adorable little girls; Koreans of all ages and genders love children so they are always good ice breakers. Our youngest performed a couple of 'dance shows' for them so we were able to provide some excellent entertainment!

Like southern culture, but with much more diligence, a host/hostess gift is a requisite mannerism. Our guests brought my husband a KMA coin. (For those of you with no military experience, coins bear a unique meaning to the receiver.) They brought me a beautiful mirror designed in a traditional Korean inlay style.

Wine is apparently a traditional gift of sorts; we got numerous Korean alcohols when my husband was in command. We don't actually drink, so it's almost kind of sad. While all the others were beautifully packaged gift sets, the cadets brought us one with an interesting casing. It is a bottle within a bottle. It came with a whole explanatory paper. It's called pug-toki, or eastern vessel. It is a "scientifically manufactured storage ceramic pottery". You break it inside the netting with the provided mallet. I'm not sure we'll ever open it, just keep the cool packaging on display, but one day my curiosity to see the inside bottle may get the better of me. (The company won an international contest for this packaging.)

We immensely enjoyed their visit and will definitely be hosting cadets the next time around!

Hello Kitty: An Asian Icon

Back at the KINTEX! We rode the subway for another hour and half to get out to Ilsan, home of the KINTEX, to visit Hello Kitty's Castle. I do not know what it is about Hello Kitty (HK), but she is HUGE in every Asian country I've been to. I could completely redecorate my house with nothing but HK items. Microwaves, toasters, dish racks, spatulas, toilet seats, rugs, sheets, towels, bed headboards, toothbrushes; if you can name it they have it. With two little girls in the house I actually do have several of those items listed! So of course I had to take those two little girls to her castle. It's actually a large play area with several rides, bumper cars, a large ball pit, and jump balloons. They had set apart display sections with HK art pieces, HK jewelry, HK picture gallery, and HK house, which was just a mock bedroom & bathroom completely decorated with HK items. Of course, HK was there to greet you, which was very exciting. 

You can see why it's called a castle.

Meeting Hello Kitty!

Everything was emblazoned with HK. Everything.

Anything HK you could imagine!

History of HK. 

My daughter informed me this was a jewelpet. What do I know?

Sejong Center for the Performing Arts; Grand Theater

Grand Theater entrance

I convinced my husband to take me to see an English performance of Notre Dame de Paris at the theater. We have seen two performances at the Daegu Opera House, both in Korean, so it was wonderful to have a chance to see an English performance. After a short subway ride we emerged from below to locate the theater. The center is named for an old king, Sejong the Great, who was the inventor of the modern Korean alphabet, Hangul. Up till the invention of Hangul, only the highest classes were literate due to the complexity of the Chinese based system (called Hanja) in use. Sejong wanted all the people to be literate, so he developed the Hangul system which is phonetic based. It is a very simple system; I taught myself to read it easily. As I was teaching my daughter how to read English at the same time, I had a good comparison, and I could see how insane the English language is to learn!

Statue of Sejong with Gyeongbuk Palace gate in background.
It was dusk, so bad lighting.

It was a fantastic performance; we thoroughly enjoyed it!

Before the show.

Small glimpse of the theater; seats 3,000 +.

Intermission.

The cast doing a little encore performace.

After the show we walked over to Insadong, the artsy side of Seoul, for dinner at a Korean restaurant.

The alley our restaurant was in.

Baby, it's COLD outside!

Wow! In my previous post I stated that this winter had been warmer than last. Well, up to that point it was true. Not anymore. Winter has arrived and made his presence sorely felt. Yesterday was -16 with the wind chill, BRRR! At least he brought some snow, though with these temperatures I've gone into hibernation and haven't gone out to enjoy the snow to much. I step out to take some pictures, then retreat into the warm sanctuary of the glass porch that KOHOM has given us!

Snowball fight!

With the neighbors.

Trying to build a snowman.

Here is a look at our local weather for the month. However, the predictions in Korea generally tend to be inaccurate; I don't put any faith in them.

Previous Month February Next Month Sun Mon Tue Wed   1 OBSERVED Hi  13°F Lo  6°F Precip (in) - Thu   2 OBSERVED Hi  13°F Lo  2°F Precip (in) - Fri   Today Hi  32°F Lo  22°F Precip 0 % Sat   4 Hi  33°F Lo  20°F Precip 0 %   5 Hi  38°F Lo  21°F Precip 10 %   6 Hi  37°F Lo  15°F Precip 20 %   7 Hi  23°F Lo  12°F Precip 0 %   8 Hi  30°F Lo  12°F Precip 0 %   9 Hi  32°F Lo  15°F Precip 10 %   10 Hi  28°F Lo  15°F Precip 0 %   11 Hi  31°F Lo  18°F Precip 0 %   12 Hi  36°F Lo  18°F Precip 0 %   13 AVERAGES Hi  37°F Lo  24°F RECORDS Hi  - Lo  -   14 AVERAGES Hi  37°F Lo  24°F RECORDS Hi  - Lo  -   15 AVERAGES Hi  38°F Lo  25°F RECORDS Hi  - Lo  -   16 AVERAGES Hi  38°F Lo  25°F RECORDS Hi  - Lo  -   17 AVERAGES Hi  38°F Lo  25°F RECORDS Hi  - Lo  -   18 AVERAGES Hi  39°F Lo  26°F RECORDS Hi  - Lo  -   19 AVERAGES Hi  39°F Lo  26°F RECORDS Hi  - Lo  -   20 AVERAGES Hi  39°F Lo  26°F RECORDS Hi  - Lo  -   21 AVERAGES Hi  40°F Lo  26°F RECORDS Hi  - Lo  -   22 AVERAGES Hi  40°F Lo  27°F RECORDS Hi  - Lo  -   23 AVERAGES Hi  40°F Lo  27°F RECORDS Hi  - Lo  -   24 AVERAGES Hi  41°F Lo  27°F RECORDS Hi  - Lo  -   25 AVERAGES Hi  41°F Lo  28°F RECORDS Hi  - Lo  -   26 AVERAGES Hi  41°F Lo  28°F RECORDS Hi  - Lo  -   27 AVERAGES Hi  42°F Lo  29°F RECORDS Hi  - Lo  -   28 AVERAGES Hi  42°F Lo  29°F RECORDS Hi  - Lo  -   29 AVERAGES Hi  42°F Lo  29°F RECORDS Hi  - Lo  -

I do hope we get more snow! I want to get out and see some of the sights decorated in snow without the brutality of sub-zero temps!