Happy New Year!
I did not mean to ignore the blog for so long, but we got sick, then went on vacation, then got sick again, so I’m trying to catch up now. The sickness seems never ending, so I probably just need to find a way to get stuff done regardless. Is this what happens when you move to a whole new continent of germs?
A not-so-quick recap…
Connery finished his first few weeks at the new school before winter break started. At the school’s Winter Festival, we got to meet some of the other families, eat some foods, and play some games. A couple things I noticed about my kids: (1) the boy is a natural born athlete. In addition to being highly competitive, he’s got terrific aim and never-ending stamina (he climbed up 30 flights of stairs without complaint soon after his 4th birthday). He was totally rocking their snowball/jingle bell/whatever toss games. However, he has all the strength of a new-born foal. And his parents are total nerds. So… not sure where that’s gonna leave him.
I also noticed: (2) the girl gets swag. Lots of swag. I’m not sure if it’s cuteness, or charm, or luck, or what, but she just gets things. Total fail at pin-the-carrot-on-the-snowman? “That’s okay, sweetie, here, take this prize anyway.” (Connery, I should note, was less than ½ inch off the bullseye, blind fold and all.) You want another temporary tattoo? “Well, we’re only supposed to give out one, but, oh what the heck, I’ll do it.” You want to do the cake walk? “Oh, look at that! Your number was called immediately! Here’s some brownies. And here, take an extra plate of cookies…” I’m not sure I like where this is going. Shop attendants give her freebies. Old ladies give her candy on the subway. I actually had to put a box in our pantry to hold this stuff. And I’m not a big fan of feeding kids candy, so most of it is going to sit there until Aaron eats it in desperation during one of his 2 a.m. sugar cravings playing World of Tanks on the weekend.
After the Festival’s food and game time, students held a performance of winter-themed songs, recitations, and plays. Connery’s class played some kind of keytar with a blow hole? I’ve never before seen this creation. You blow into it to make noise, and press piano keys to change the pitch. It’s kind of like an accordion, but instead of pressing and depressing an air chamber, you blow into this hookah-esque pipe. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a picture of it, but if anybody knows what I’m talking about, feel free to comment.
Anyway, Connery started school too late to practice this song number, so he sat it out. He joined the class for self-introductions (nailed it) and in singing Jingle Bells in English and Korean (nailed the English bit and got through 종소리 울려라 종소리 울려, but I’m pretty sure he was faking the 우리썰매 빨리달려 and 빨리 달리자 bits). I was so worried about getting video that I forgot to take still photos. …And he looked so dapper in his little suit and tie.
The last day of school before break, Connery’s class went caroling around the neighborhood and sang this song. Lena and I met up with them at the bakery to enjoy the performance again with a chocolate donut (Lena) and a hot tea (me). Well, I say “enjoy the performance,” but Connery actually spent most of his time inspecting the goods rather than singing.
One weekend in December, we were invited to the wedding of Aaron’s coworker. There was a lot of people (we couldn’t even fit in to see the ceremony), a lot of bling (think raised glass catwalk with strobe lights inside), a lot of yummy food, and a rather interesting “gift” system. It goes something like this… The only appropriate gift at a Korean wedding is cash. You get crisp, new bills, the number of which depends on your status in relation to the person getting married. If you’re a boss or manager, for example, you would gift more than, say, the college buddy. Put those bills in a special envelope. When you arrive at the wedding hall, you go to the check-in counter (I think it’s just a table if you’re at someplace like a church, but at this wedding hall it looked like a ticketing counter at the airport). You hand them the gift, and they give you coupons for the buffet. Once the ceremony is over, you go upstairs to the buffet, hand them your coupon to get in, then eat and run. Well, most people eat and run; all the Americans hung around chatting until the buffet workers were having their lunch and giving us side-eye for not leaving yet. It was rather fun. The bride and groom wore a white dress and tuxedo for the ceremony, but changed into traditional hanbok to walk around and greet people. They were so cool I wanted to take a picture with them, but nobody else was doing it and I didn’t want to look like a weirdo, so I settled for a family pic next to the sign.
For Christmas weekend, we decided to drive back to Seoul to visit the Christmas festival and make a follow-up trip to IKEA for some random things we missed the first time around. En route, we stopped at Icheon Ceramics Village. This village was the center of Korean pottery production for about 500 years, apparently due to the prevalence of materials nearby. Today, there are still around 80 factories and 300 kilns in use. Now, I’m not the kind of lady who enjoys buying clothes, or handbags, or jewelry, or shoes (in fact, I hate hate hate shopping for those things), but put me in a glass factory or ceramics shop and I’ll be throwing down the won like a fashionista at a clearance sale. And I have a wonderful husband who respects my love of useful handicrafts, so he took the kids on a little walk to give me time to shop. Unfortunately, whether it was the cold weather, or the holiday, or the weekend, I don’t know, but the village was… a little dead. There weren’t many people. A lot of shops were closed. Nobody had kilns running. It was a kind of “meh.” I got myself a super cute tea set and a fancy handmade serving platter, but there wasn’t much that made me excited. Maybe I’ll go back another time. Or maybe not. It was rather far for a weekend trip.
Onwards to Seoul. Christmas morning. We walked to Seoul Plaza to look at a big Christmas tree, then took the subway to Sinchon for the Christmas market/festival. We got there around 2 pm and the street was… a little dead. Korea is a late night kind of place. Shops open late, stay open late, and things happen more in the evening. Normally, this is great, but with two sick and cranky kids in freezing (literally freezing) weather, I didn’t want to hang around for a few more hours till the party started. Aaron got himself a mug of glogg, the kids got a turn on the kiddie ride, we took some goofy pictures with giant angel wings and Christmas-y costumed characters (were we supposed to know who they were?), then we returned to the hotel to warm up in cozy pants.
Connery was promised dinner at his favorite place, Mr. Pizza. The closest one was in Myeong-dong, a trendy shopping district a block away from the hotel. At the corner, we saw lots of twinkle lights and lots of people. Obviously, this was the place to go. And was it! All the shops were having their Christmas sales, music was playing, everything was covered in bright, gaudy LED Christmas lights, the whole street was lined with street vendors, and it. was. packed. Lena hitched a ride on daddy’s shoulders. In her hot-pink puffy coat and owl cap with puff balls up top, she attracted a LOT of attention. Made it pretty easy to find Aaron, too. Post-Mr. Pizza, they shared a foot-tall ice cream cone and gained an equal amount of attention.
I really wish my kids had a more adventuresome palate because some of those food stalls looked amazing. Sweet potatoes cooked in a massive earthen pot. Spicy fried chicken nibblies. Steamed buns. Squid on a stick (okay, I’ll pass on this one… not a big squid fan). Fried noodles. Egg tarts. Tteokbokki. Red bean cakes. Deep fried potato wheels. And the one I absolutely could not pass up: slices of tteok and cheese skewered, fried on a griddle, and drizzled with some kind of sweet sauce. It was soooo good. I’m totally gonna try making that one at home.
In the end, I’m glad we randomly decided to head toward the lights, because that was by far the best part of the weekend.
And by comparison, New Year’s back at home was extremely tame. We had dinner at Mom’s Touch, put the kids by the window and watched passersby poke each other and point at them, then closed out Home Plus with an embarrassingly large cart full of miscellaneous homewares and all the grocery shopping I’d been putting off during this latest cold. But Aaron found some skanky nacho cheese sauce he likes, so he was excited. We also found a 3.6L jug of cheap soju for $10. It smells like nail polish remover and tastes like rubbing alcohol. I tried using it to clean sticker stick off some new plates. Aaron did a little research and discovered that it’s for making your own fruity alcohol drink. Just drop in some fruit, let sit for awhile, and…. yum? I still think it’d be too strong for me. I’m a lightweight, getting lightweightier with age.
We happened to drive past a small protest group on our way to Home Plus. Koreans gathered in protest on New Year’s Eve to demonstrate against (or for) their beleaguered President Park. Searching for something like the Times Square countdown on TV, all I could find was a lot of K-Pop (so many fluffy coats!!) and video of the large protest in Seoul. It was rather calm and somber. Only at midnight did everybody count down, and a group of monks rang a massive bell in the temple. I watched a few more pop performances with more fluffy coats, brooding looks (from the boys), and cutesy smiles (from the girls). Lots of fun dancing. Then I noticed some gorgeous ladies who didn’t look quite like the usual K-Pop starlets. Are they in their 20s, rather than their teens? Hey, Google, who are these mature sirens? It seems as if the first big K-Pop girls group, S.E.S., is making a comeback on the 20th anniversary of their debut. Twenty years? Do K-Pop stars not age?? They’re making me seriously reconsider my skin care routine. Good for you, ladies.
There were several other interesting things that happened this month, but to save time, I’ll just list them here:
(1) School field trip to the Busan Science Museum. It took a couple hours to get there, but it was a large and fun museum. We didn’t even get to see all of it. And the dancing robots weren’t dancing, either. But the kids’ highlight was the outdoor mini-zipline. They scared off all the Korean kids and dominated one line for several minutes until we dragged them away.
(2) Our first visit to Costco (while we were in Busan). Best purchase of the day was a giant-sized bag of Cheetos. REAL Cheetos. Not this sweet stuff masquerading as Cheetos. We somehow miscalculated the amount of cash we had on hand, and wound up with only 300 won to spare (30¢).
(3) Three teeth in one month! Lena lost her first tooth the morning of our flight to Korea. She subsequently lost two more, and another one’s about to fall out. It’s pretty early for losing teeth, and she’s already tall (very tall by Korean standards), so anytime somebody asks her age and I tell them she’s 4, their eyes get big and mouth drops open.
(4) Love-hotel-gone-legit in Yongin. Well, that’s our theory anyway. We spent Christmas Eve at this interesting little place. It had a pretty strong “bro” vibe. I thought it was pretty cool, until I realized that it was a smoking room (I’m highly allergic), the beds and pillows were like rocks (it hurt to turn my head most of the next day), and whole-bathroom showers don’t work too well when the low spot is right in front of the toilet and the lack of a squeegee pretty much guarantees a permanent puddle there (thus requiring the kids to take off their socks and roll up their pants every time they have to potty). On the plus side, it was right next to a fabulous little ramen shop with amazing shoyu ramen.
(5) Purchasing a vehicle. We bought a car! A Hyundai Santa Fe. Our own little contribution to the smog. It has heated seats and 3D GPS with sexy lady voice repeatedly telling us in Korean to pay attention to her advice.
(6) Finding a taekwondo dojang with adult MMA classes. It’s so close, I could watch Aaron from our apartment, if not for their fancy window signs. Instructor paired him up with a high school boy studying for the English exam, but apparently “strike,” “jab,” and “block” are universally used.
(7) Starting language lessons. My goal is basic conversation to get around town and find what I need at the grocery store. Aaron’s goal is to be able to order food for delivery over the phone (Hello, Mr. Pizza). I was able to use my new tea set for the first time! I was also able to drop and break my new teapot lid for the first time. How do you say, “Where can I buy super glue?”
