Christmas in Korea

Another last, and a wonderful first! Our last Christmas in Korea was my first white Christmas ever! We only got about half an inch or so, but combined with the remnants from a few days ago, it was enough to cover everything and make it a true white Christmas! Unfortunately it has been so bitterly cold we didn't go out to play in the snow, but we cozily sat on our porch and enjoyed the view as the girls enjoyed their stockings and hot cocoa. And that was just Christmas day.

We weren't able to go out and accomplish the many plans I had due to some things that I had to do to help a friend - priorities you know. I had hoped to see the parade at Lotte World and the lights around the city, some ice skating at city square, but we simply couldn't. Now the Koreans are all on winter break and everything in Seoul is crazy packed, which is not something I deal with well, so we missed those things. We did make it to the Hilton where they have an enormous revolving tree and electric train set up, as well as a 'gingerbread' house with souvenirs.

For some days before Christmas there was enough snow to make sledding possible. (It was also warm enough to not be miserable!) Since Korea is full of hills, finding a good hill was not a problem at all! Finding a clear, open one is a little more troublesome, but fortunately there was one just down the sidewalk from our house! Since I never got to do these things growing up, sledding makes me feel like a giddy 6 year old, and I had a blast!

We also took a short trip down to some old favorite places in Daegu and saw some of the decor there. About this time the temperatures really started to drop, so seeing the lights was a brief occurrence!

Dongdaegu Station

Jongno area

in the hotel lobby

I also decided I wanted to take part in a popular Korean tradition - the Christmas cake. I don't actually know if it's a tradition, but they sell them everywhere (I bought mine in a subway cafe), and they're always marvelously decorated! This one is a little more simple than others.

So, our last Christmas in Korea was fairly uneventful, which in my opinion is a good thing, and I will treasure it!

Autumn Wanderings

I LOVE AUTUMN! The best season to me. Cooler weather and gorgeous colors! I've been out and about to take it all in, because this is my last fall in Korea (sob!) and I don't want to miss it. I'm just going to share pictures of the foliage. These were taken at Olympic Park, Changdeok Palace, Changgyeong Palace, and Seoul Grand Park, all located within Seoul.

It's also persimmon time!

I like how the mountains always seem to pop up in
the background.

Olympic Park

The weather is getting cooler and cooler, and the leaves are turning redder and yellower! Autumn is here! I've been trying to get out of the house as much as possible before the weather turns too cold (it's shaping up to be a COLD winter) and to see the beauty of the leaves before they fall.

Peace Gate; the main entrance.

 The choice of the day was Olympic Park, site of the 1988 Olympics and located on the eastern side of Seoul. It is another large park, 370 square acres, or 1.5 million square meters for any non-Americans reading this.The brochure I picked up from the information center said you can "upgrade the quality of your life" by visiting the various areas of the park. I don't know about that, but you can certainly enjoy a lovely day outside! Within the park there are also three museums: the Olympic museum, the SOMA museum of art, and the Seoul Baekje museum. There is also an outdoor sculpture garden and several other things as well, including two playground areas, with snack stands scattered about. Always a good thing when you have kids in tow!

Inside the Olympic museum.

 The only museum we had time to visit this day was the Olympic museum. The first exhibit hall was an excellent history of the Olympic games, and the second hall was focused on the 1988 Olympics and mostly on Korean athletes. It was a very educational museum.

Flags of participating countries. I love a good flag display!
Also good for geography lessons!

 After the museum visit we walked around part of the park. (We certainly didn't attempt the whole park at once!) Some of the scenes:

A very popular sculpture, and of course the lovely roses
still in bloom!

SOMA museum with sculpture park in foreground.

You could walk through the field of flowers. So beautiful!
Notice the changing leaves in back.

Of course there were plenty of lovely leaves, which I will show in a separate post. The girls and I really enjoyed this park and can't wait to go back!

Dance at Seoul Tanz Station

I have been watching my girls dance ballet for over 3 years now, and I developed a desire to do it also. I stumbled upon a website while looking for English speaking art classes for my daughter that was about classes for adults. One of them was for dance. The location is in the Sinchon area, near Ewha Women's University, and the studio is Seoul Tanz Station. They offer a wide variety of classes from ballet to club dance, and yoga and pilates as well. Of course they are all in Korean, but I just watch closely and it's not hard to follow along. At times the language barrier can cause a problem on my part, simply because it would help if I could ask a question or understand some of the more complicated steps before we start, but overall it's not an issue. They do have English speaking staff at the desk, which is very helpful. Their set-up is quite convenient as well. You can either pay per class, or buy a pre-paid punch card for a set number of classes. The more pre-paid credits you buy, the cheaper. however, there is a time limit on redemption. The schedule is published and you can choose any class, show up, and dance! I was surprised at the number of older (non-college) students in my basic ballet class, but it was encouraging to know I did not enter this youthful vicariousness alone! I like what I read the other day, "Live life vivaciously, not vicariously!". Hopefully, that would be me!

Bulletin board with current & special classes and photos.

Sungshin Women's University Tour

I had the opportunity to be part of an escorted tour of Sungshin University that was arranged by a Korean officer's wife who works there. (At this point, Korean etiquette would dictate that I say wonderful impressive things about this couple and my connections to them, but I'm not Korean, so...) I went solo, my husband's exact words being "Why on earth would I want to tour a women's college?". To my surprise, since this was arranged primarily for American servicemembers and their spouses, most of my fellow tourists were Korean. Someone said this was due to the above parenthetical comment; I don't know, I just found it surprising.

We had a brief talk about the university founder, then over to the ROTC section. After that it was the small art museum that houses a 150 year old and very special map of Korea called daedong yeojido, or grand map of Korea. (They explained it to us, and while it was interesting, I won't go into details here.) Then we had to sit through a propaganda talk about the Korean education system, in which he even used a brief clip of President Obama speaking. I have many of my own thoughts on the Korean system, the American system, Korean v. American systems, and Obama, but this isn't the forum. Neither was that, so I kept my mouth clamped shut. Next, we were shuttled over to the second campus, called the eco-campus, composed of four buildings. I think it was 'eco' because it had several trees planted and they made use of natural light so as not to rely so much on electric lights. It was a very small and compact campus by any standard. We were served a delicious Korean lunch, and then had a tour of this campus. This included a small natural history museum consisting mostly of plants, and what they called costume museum, but was actually a hanbok museum. We also got to sample three different traditional teas and rice cakes and rice candy. These rice cakes were different from what I've had before, and were quite good. The tour concluded with performances of traditional Korean dance performed by students majoring in traditional dance.

Learning about the founder.

eco-campus

yum!

Art gallery A, at the eco-campus, a spiral ramp with art
work displayed. You can see the natural light.

tea & rice cakes

I wish there was more to write, but that's pretty much it. I didn't learn anything new or exciting, but I did enjoy the day.

Seodaemun Natural History Museum and Hello Kitty Cafe: Sinchon

We're back into school days around here, which simply means more focused outings and a little more sit down table work. I discovered this museum and thought it looked like a good place visit. Off we went, rainy day and all, to the subway. Unfortunately, I forgot to get the name of the museum in Korean. Since we had to take a taxi from the subway exit to the museum, this was a problem. Fortunately, some random, kind, English speaking Korean lady saw I was having trouble with the taxi and graciously and accurately interpreted for me. (Score for the Koreans!)

main lobby

The museum is divided into three main sections, labeled in my own terms: environment, animal history, and geology. There is no English except for the main titles, so I had to figure out and explain it to the girls on my own. (It wasn't that difficult.) The size of the building belies the scope of the exhibits inside. The actual museum displays are not that expansive, but they are very well done.

The above picture is part of the display on land animals. They are all real, stuffed animals. They also a large display of birds, one section being birds native to Korea, and displays on insects and fish as well.

Han River eco-system display

geology

In my opinion it was a great museum and well worth the trip out there. After all this schooling, I decided to treat the girls to the Hello Kitty Cafe, which was located near the subway. HK is popular even among the college age gals here. Hello Kitty fans, eat your heart out.

hanbok Hello Kitties

All the couches and chairs were HK emblazoned. And tables,
and dishes, and food...

Ttukseom Seoul Forest Park

I think this park is my favorite of all the parks we've visited. It is large and involves much walking, (map) but there is so much to see and do that the walking is not wearying. The park covers nearly 300 acres of what in ages past used to be kings hunting grounds, then much later a golf course, then horse track, then sports field, and now a great place for families to spend the day. It is now topically divided into five parks, all seamlessly connected. They are Cultural Art Park, Eco Forest, Experiential Learning Park, Marsh Plants Garden, and the Han River Waterside Park.

The main entrance opens to the Cultural Art Park, starting with a statue of racing horses.

Beyond that is a small sculpture garden and "Mirror Lake", which is a black stone bottomed large puddle really. It's only about an inch deep, but with the clouds and trees clearly reflected of its surface, it was quite pretty to look at.

Mirror Lake with the sculptures in back.

In the culture park there is also an outdoor stage and fountain play area. The fountains were off when we arrived, but later in the afternoon they had been turned on. I discovered later that the hours are 11:00, 1:00, 3:00, and 5:00 for one hour each, April to October. They have gender separated tents set up to allow for changing clothes. Up the path a bit from the 'lake' is a large playground area where the kids had tons of fun!

Kids can climb inside this from one foot to the other.

On the back right is the two level slide; super fun for the kids!

After a snack, we strolled through a small part of the specially planted wood area...

...then over to the Eco Forest where they have a deer corral. You can buy food to feed the deer, but we just used grass.  

After this, it was past the waterfall area where we had a brief science lesson on water-skippers...

and over to the butterfly room and insectarium, which was really a greenhouse with an area that had dead bugs on display.

Trying to get the nabi on her finger!

Insectarium

The paths are beautifully landscaped and well tended, so even just coming to stroll provides entertainment. All this, and that is only about half of the park! We will definitely be going back, especially now that fall is knocking on the door!