December Snow

"Oh the weather outside is frightful..."; I guess that really depends on your point of view. It has been a much colder than normal December this year and we've gotten a fair amount of snow, at least for Waegwan. So we've been having some fun in it since we can't do much else!

There have been several days of on again/off again snowing, some leaving more than others. There's still snow left around all over the ground because it's too cold to melt completely away. It melts some during the day, then refreezes at night. Hence, our parking lot is one big sheet of slick ice.

That is solid ice on the ground, about a 1/2 inch thick.

First snowfall; scraping a snow angel.

Second snowfall had more accumulation.

You can see the snow just poring down in this picture!

So it's been fun and I'm almost certain we're going to see more in January!

Christmas time in Korea

Yes, they do celebrate Christmas in Korea. It's not quite the shopping craze it is in America, which I think is a good thing, but they decorate and sing carols and all that.

We went to Busan to have an aquarium field trip and do some Christmas shopping at the International Market. Busan has a large Russian population, and some Japanese and Filipinos as well. After arriving by train we walked over to a restaurant we had eaten at last time we were in Busan, and while eating our Chinese food gazed out the window at the numerous Russian signs, a few Japanese signs, and also some in English advertising a Filipino karaoke bar and another for a Filipino church. (I know, ironic.) I almost forgot which country we were in!

I really should have taken more pictures of those things!

Aquarium photos

street decorations in the shopping district

Fountain show with music inside Lotte Shopping Mall. Not a great picture, I know. The show, however, was. They even had English letters made from the water falling out the ceiling that said "Welcome" "Busan" and "Lotte".

Jeongdongjin

Veterans day, a four day weekend! First, I want to say how proud I am of my husband, my own beloved veteran, for all he does for our country and family, and his work here in Korea helping to keep this beautiful country communist free.

We spent our four day weekend at the Sun Cruise Resort on Jeongdongjin beach on the East Sea, or Sea of Japan, depending on which side of the sea you live on. November in the northern part of the ROK is not the best time to have a beachside vacation, but it was still fun. Windy, but fun. The hotel was the reason I wanted to go. I saw it on Korean tv and thought it looked pretty neat, so I found it online. As you can see from the picture, it's modeled to look like a cruise ship, though the rooms were considerably larger than what you'd get on a ship. I can't go on a real cruise because the thought of being cramped and enclosed with so many people who will, at some point, talk to and/or touch me is unbearable. The blue lights in the middle top are in a Korean/American style restaurant, and the other blue lights on the top right are from the Sky Lounge, a revolving observation room where they serve coffee, drinks, and dessert. It made me slightly woozy to sit in there spinning while eating! Our room was very nice and incredibly spacious (palatial for a Korean hotel!) and had a spectacular view of the beach and the mountains.

In the bottom right/center you can see an observation point jutting out; it has a glass floor, though I'm not really sure why. There's nothing to see underneath except the side of the hill.

In the center of the picture above you can see the (dead) grassy area. This is part of the hotel grounds and is a sculpture park. There is also a totem park with numerous Korean style totems that they say were transported from Andong several years ago. There is actually a ticket booth at the main entrance of the hotel grounds where you must buy tickets to see these things and enter the hotel for its' observation deck and the above mentioned observation deck if you are not a hotel guest.

Taken in the evening dusk. You can barely make out the ever present mountains in the background.

Totem park

We didn't do a whole lot on this trip; there's not much around here to do. We went to Unification Park, not the only one so named in Korea, during one afternoon. They have a retired Ameri...I mean Korean naval vessel you can tour with displays on the history of the Korean navy. The ship actually is American; it was built in America in 1945 and donated to the ROK in 1972. In the same area is a DPRK spy submarine that sunk just off the nearby coast in 1996. There is also a manned guard tower at this site where they continue to watch for DPRK vessels and you can sometimes see ROK navy ships on the horizon. The guard towers are also present all along the shore line. This place is obviously close to the DMZ. Just down the road is a museum we did not go in, and an outdoor ROK army and air force display. All of those are part of Unification Park. Once again, all the aircraft were American made, at least according to my husband. Since it is his area of expertise, I'll trust him on that.

The wooden boat above was built by about a dozen North Koreans who used it to flee to South Korea. (I can't remember all the dates.)

Air Force exhibit with flags of the countries who had part in the war.

Jeongdongjin is also very proud of its hourglass. It is a one year hourglass. It is supposed to have 8 tons of special sand that drop at a steady, regulated pace and surrounded by argon gas to keep humidity out. Kind of neat.

night view

Cute little bridge nearby. You can see half the town here! Small place.

I must interject here one thing I especially love about Korea; how safe it really is. I walked around taking these night pictures at 10 o'clock at night alone. I would never feel safe in the States doing that, but never once did I or have I ever felt unsafe alone at night in Korea.

Another little story about our trip: almost all the restaurants in town were raw fish servers. We went in one to eat and the only thing on the menu not raw was jeonbokjuk, abalone porridge, which I like, and the girls ate some also, but my husband refused to even try. He did eventually find some fried chicken to eat, which they served with popcorn. Another restaurant we ate at in a neighboring town had no English or picture menus, and the waitress spoke no English. I can read Hanguel, though I can't translate much, and know the word for rice, which is 밥 bap, and was able to order for myself and the girls. Since my husband is so picky, he was out of luck. He had to make a pig noise for the waitress to order pork. It was and still is hilarious to me, not to him. Fortunately for him, coke is a universal word.

Another stop was Hassla Art World, a sculpture park really. It was beautiful scenery with the mountains, ocean view and fall colors.

Hassla hotel/restaurant in background.

Art made from poo. Really? Who accepts this? Am I supposed to admire this because someone supposedly "in the know" says so? If I pee on it does it add to the attraction? Sheep; they all say baaa.

There was one small problem with our hotel: the 20 minutes before sunrise wake-up bell. Every morning they ring a bell in each room to wake you so you can view the sunrise over the East Sea. The Koreans apparently believe strongly in sun rise good luck; when we were in Jeju-do you were supposed to climb Ilchulbong to see the sun rise for good luck. Personally, I think it's good luck to still be asleep when the sun rises, but whatever. One morning my husband so sweetly got up and took some sunrise pictures for me.

"He's got the whole world in His hands..."

It was a nice, relaxing get away, with time spent on the windswept beach each day and night, once with our own fireworks!

Fall in Korea

Just a quick update! The air has been cooling, and the leaves have been changing. Oh, how I love fall! It is my favorite season, and fall in Korea is simply breath-taking. I took the girls to the Arboretum to view this spectacular time of year. It was wonderful weather and many other people had the same idea that I did!

Gooam Village

The "Colorful Daegu" metropolitan government graciously provided us with a free day trip to Gooam Village this past Saturday, complete with several translators and a couple of press people as well. Unfortunately, someones mistake at work prevented our husbands from coming with us as planned, but we wives still went and had a great time.

Gooam Village is a farming community and also includes traditional style craft workshops. From March to November there is a different crop in season that you can pick. October is for radishes, Chinese cabbages, digging sweet potatoes, and picking apples. We picked apples on our trip. There was a short walk to the harvested rice field, where my oldest found a stalk with grains still on it that she proceeded to eat. So I tried one too; it was like chewing a tiny pebble!

'sheaving' the rice stalks

After this stop, a tractor picked us up and drove us to the apple orchard. We were given our instructions and set loose! It was pretty fun, though I wish we could have picked more.

While we were in the orchard I found these prickly things, which I looked up when I got home and discovered they were chestnut shells. I tried to pick one up to bring home, but they are extremely sharp!

The itinerary we were given said we would be digging sweet potatoes, but for some reason we didn't do that. I was kind of planning on cooking them for dinner, and Korean sweet potatoes are awesome, so that was disappointing! Our next stop was glutinous rice cake making. It's simply rice flour mixed with water to make a play-dough like dough, then you fill it with whatever. We were provided with what we were told was crushed dried Korean red beans to use as filling. Fun to make, not to eat. My oldest did a really good job, once we figured out what to do, but the youngest thought it was play-dough and kept making a huge mess! Still, they had fun.

This Korean lady kept talking and talking trying to tell us what to do, and I'm thinking "I have no idea what you are saying!!". Finally another lady came over and slowly showed us each step, which was considerably more helpful. One of the translators told us that when he was a boy it was a family affair to get together and make these before their version of Thanksgiving, but they don't do that anymore. I'm not sure if he was referring to his family specifically, or Korean families in general.

Next stop, lunch! Delicious! I don't really know what it was; something with bulgogi, mushrooms, noodles, among other things. It was kind of like shabu shabu, but not. Of course there was also rice along with the Korean style side dishes (collectively called banchan) to include bean sprouts, tiny dried anchovies, fishcake, and obviously kimchi.

After lunch, we could choose to participate in using natural dye derived from a root of something (I never did quite catch that part) to dye a handkerchief or we could make some natural soap. The dye was my personal choice, but the idea of staining two small children overrode that desire. Soap it was. I believe they used glycerin, melted it in a large metal pitcher which we then poured into a cup, added flower petals, honey, orange extract, mixed and poured into a silicone mold. Simple.

demonstrating the soap making

the dying

While we waited for the soap to cool and harden, we watched a re-enactment of a traditional Korean wedding. Two members of our group participated as bride and groom, and one was her bridal attendant. In olden days the bride and groom met for the first time during the ceremony. She kept her arms up over her face (see picture) during the entire ceremony except for about two seconds where the groom was allowed to see her face for the first time. The table was set...

...the chickens are bound to represent no fighting between husband/wife and to bless with many hatchlings.

The groom was carried in on a chair......then the bride was led out (since she couldn't see)......there was bowing between mothers and fathers and bride and groom......and talking and that was that. The end of our day here. It was really great and I'm so glad they had this for us. Here are a few other pictures of what we experienced.

with a loofah plant