Fun, Fun, Fun

Hi all.

It's been way too long since our last post. Sorry about that. Deb and I have been busy with school. Homework every night! Classes ended this past Friday, so we have our evenings and days back again. Now we have to get out there and practice all that Korean we learned...

We are all doing well. The weather has been getting warmer (low 30's) but evenings have been cooler, until the last few days. We are learning how the air conditioner in our apartment works.

This weekend we wanted to have some fun. Especially for the girls. We've dragged them around sightseeing or shopping most weekends so thought let's just go play. As luck would have it the outdoors pools in the Hangang River Park system opened up this weekend. So we decided to go the nearest one, called Jamwon which is located just across river from our neighbourhood. It wasn't quite as easy to get to as we thought it might be. The subway lines run east-west around here, so we'd have to go out of our way and transfer to another line, then walk down to the river to the pool. So I figured let's just get a cab, go directly there and then subway home (with our new "command" of the Korean language, we could easily ask directions to a subway station, "odi-eh ji-ha-chol-yawk?"). No probs, except once I got the pronounciation of the place we wanted to go right, the cabbie couldn't figure out how to get into the place. Thats the one problem with this riverside park concept, expressways or train/subway tracks run along between the park and the city so access can be a bit tricky. We eventually found our way into the park and the pools. Good to see that the locals can be just as confused as us getting.

The pools were great! Especially on such a hot muggy day. There were 3 large pools: a wading pool, an adults only pool, and a family pool no deeper than 1m. The capacity of the place is listed at 3,000. I guess maybe only half that were there on Saturday. Bet it is packed in mid-summer! Here is the picture of our 2 happy swimmers. Nice caps!

Everyone has to wear bathing caps, but we hadn't brought any (except for swimmer Deb). Luckily for us they had some for sale at the pool. Not so luckily for us, it cost us $20 to outfit the girls and I in our new hats. And entrance to the pool for the family was $16. At least the umbrella rental was free. We all loved the swimming! It was well worth the money. I'm sure we'll do it again during those long hot summer days to come.

Today (Sunday) we had to do some grocery shopping, but promised Jin and Lili that we'd go to a playground first. We read on a website that there was a good playground in a park at the World Cup Stadium on the west side of the city. The stadium is also host to a large HomePlus department and grocery store. So we could go have some fun and get our shopping done. Bonus!

The stadium is very impressive. It was built for the World Cup of Soccer that Korea hosted in 2002. The parks around the stadium were either old gravel pits or landfills. They have done a remarkable job reclaiming these lands and turing them into useful recreational areas. The park is beautiful, and most importantly to our girls, they put in a fine playground. Here are some shots of the park and playground and a couple of happy campers.

After fun in the park and an ice cream bar/popsicle (which are pretty tasty and cheap here) we reluctantly headed up to the stadium and the World Cup Mall to brave the sunday afternoon shopping crowds. Here we are, before we got to the mall, still happy after our fun-filled afternoon.

The store was crazy! Folks here drive shopping carts just like they drive cars. What rules of the road?! And it was very, very busy. We decided to save our shopping trips for mid-week in the future.

Thats all for now. Have got a couple other posts in the works. Hope to get them to you in the next day or two.

Bye for now,

Derek, Deb, Jin and Lili

Trip to Icheon and Yeoju

Last Sunday (June 22) our language teacher Ki Ro and his girlfriend Mi Jeong, took us for a day trip southeast of Seoul to the towns of Icheon and Yeoju. These towns have a long history of ceramic manufacturing. Our stops on this trip included the Ceramic Museum at Icheon as well as the tomb of the King Sejong, Silleuksa Temple and a great restaurant in Icheon.


The weather was nice, a little hot, but better than Saturday when it rained non-stop all day. The plan was to leave early to beat the morning traffic heading out of town (Seoulites leave the city in droves on weekends). Ki Ro picked us up at a subway station in the southeast part of the city at 8 am and after picking up Mi Jeong in Bundang, we headed south and west out of the city on a relatively traffic free expressway.

First stop was "Yeongneung" the tomb of King Sejong and Queen Soheon. The tomb is located on beautiful grounds in a forest west of Yeoju. You may remember from our post about the National Museum, that back in the 14th century King Sejong commissioned the creation of the Korean alphabelt, "Hangeul". So it was very fitting that we were being taken to visit his tomb by our Korean langauge teacher! Before exploring the grounds we enjoyed a brunch of kimbap made by Mi Jeong's "oma" (mother). Mmmm good homecooking. And Jin wowed everyone with her new-found chopstick abilities.


Here we are in front of a map of the grounds and here is a portrait of King Sejong the Great.

Yeongneung is set in a beautiful forested area - not a hydro line or skyscraper to be seen. In addition to the tomb, there are various memorial (worship?) buildings, stele, statues and other monuments. There is also a tomb for Sejong's brother (who was King before Sejong) and sister-in-law and a museum. Various inventions (mostly astronomical) that were made during his reign are displayed in and around the museum. Sejong's reign is considered a kind of rennaissance during the Joseon period. Here is Lili in front of a cool jade musical instrument in the museum and photos of some of the inventions (celestial globe, armillary and a sundial).

Here is the gateway to the tomb (left) and the main memorial building at the tombsite (right). Below are a dragon's eye view of the grounds and a commemorative stele.

The tomb is a domed hillock crowned with a low stone railing and various statues. In particular there are statues of generals with swords drawn to guard the tomb and scholars commemorating the King's important scholarly contributions.

After enjoying our walk around the peaceful and interesting grounds at Yeongnueng, Ki Ro drove us to the other side of Yeoju to visit Silleuksa (or Shilleuksa) the only Korean Buddhist temple located alongside a river. Apparently Buddhist temples are typically located up on hillsides or mountain tops. This may reflect the importance of the river, the Namhan (or south Han) River, which flows into the Han River and to Seoul.

Here are Deb, Jin and Lili ready to enter the gates of the Silleuksa temple grounds. And on the right Ki Ro and Mi Jeong are leading them up the steps of the main temple building.

Below left a monk walks across the main square. Behind him are sleeping quarters used by monks or visitors. The small exquisite building in the below right photo is a memorial to some of this temples important monks, all who lived in the 14th century.

There were also temples for death and birth. The former was where families would go to pray for the souls of their departed loved ones. The photo below left shows statues of wise men judging the person's life, consulting scrolls that doument the person's life. The fate of the person's soul is determined by which way the feathers they are holding bend when they blow on them. Below right is the inside of the birth temple, where people go who want to have a child or want to pray for the health of the yet to be born baby.

There is a pavillion at Silleuksa, built on an outcrop (granite I think!) overlooking the Namhan river. The apartment blocks in the distant are at Yeoju. Here we are with Mi Jeong overlooking the river.

Mi Jeong is an elementary school teacher. You could see her love for children in how she took to our kids, especially Lili. They played kawi-pawi-po (scissors-rock-blanket, the Korean version of rock-paper-scissors) at almost every staircase. The winner of each round got to take a step or 2. Lili loves this game! And Mi Jeong loved to indulge her. Here they are playing their way down a set of stairs at Silleuksa.

The tree in the above right photo is a 600 year old gingko. Old trees are revered by Korean Buddhists. Something to do with respecting elders and nature I think.

After our pleasant tour of Silleuksa (and a marathon kawi-pawi-po session) it was time for lunch. Ki Ro took us to a great restaurant in Icheon. Here the girls are waiting outside the restaurant and there we are all sitting on the floor ready to tuck in.

Here is a shot of the great spread of food that is typical of a Korean set meal. Highlights included Icheon rice cooked in stone bowls, grilled fish (Jin and Lili loved them!), spicy tofu bean curd soup (I liked it!) and crabs. The last were a bit odd. They were probably boiled. Ki Ro instructed us to suck the mushy innards out of the pieces of broken crab legs or body. It was very salty. Jin loved it!!?! I only had one...



After the sumptuous lunch we went to the Icheon Ceramics Museum. This is the location of the International Ceramic Biennale which was held this past May. The museum had lots of interesting, beautiful and sometimes weird pieces of ceramic art by artists around the world (including some from Canada). No photos were allowed in the museum, so you'll just have to trust me. The grounds around the museum are littered with lots of odd and interesting ceramic sculptures, including at least one of Toya, the "open-minded" mascot of Icheon. Here is the gang in front of Toya and a close-up of his flower "skin".



And here we are "in the frame". And there are my girls trying to say something to me...."sarang-heyo apa". I love you too!


The girls love "nabi" (butterflies). Did I mention that some sculptures were odd?

There was an interesting exhibit built within a mockup of a traditional kiln. In each of the kiln segments there were artistic representations of the ceramic making process. Above left is the firing room and on the right is the cooling room. A video was being projected on an umbrella-like screen. Interesting.


We had a great day with "sawn-sang-nim" (teacher) and and his "yawja chingu". We learned a little about Korean history, Buddhism, ceramics, food and most importantly people. Kamsa-hamnida!


Bye for now.


Derek, Deb, Jin and Lili

Seonyudo Island Park - lazy weekend

This weekend was a pretty low activity one for us. Jin had a bit of a gastro-bug on Friday that lingered into Saturday, so Lili and Daddy went to a neat island park called Seonyudo. Today was a lazy rainy Sunday, so after a late breakfast of pastries from the neighbourhood Paris Baguette we subwayed over to Costco to stock up on some meat (good price for beef) and a few other things they have at good prices (like Kirkland coffee). We'll have more on shopping in a later post...

Seonyudo Park is situated on a small island in the middle of the Han River. Long ago it was a picturesque island with a small mountain, a favourite stop for boatmen crossing the river. The mountain was quarried away and most recently it was host to a water purification plant. In 2002 it was re-developed as an ecological park. The gardens, playgrounds and performance spaces on the island all make use of the ruins of its previous life. It is once again a beautiful quiet spot to escape the heat and bustle of the the city. On Saturday there was some sort of family festival going on, with kids activities and some traditional performances. Lili was most interested in the playground - of course - built from reclaimed industrial pipes and such. Here is what it looked like....

After a nice bibimbap lunch at the waterside restaurant on the island (we sat at the patio) we found an outdoor stage where traditional drum and dance performances were happening. Lili liked the fan dancers the best.

At the west end of the island we walked across a large arch bridge back to Hangang riverside park. Roses were still in bloom. The white domed building in the distance is the National Legislature, which is located on Yeouido Island. The tall gold building to the left of it in the distance is Building 63, the tallest building in Korea.


After a tasty cool ice cream popsicle, we crossed the train-tressel-like pedestrian bridge across the expressway back to the hot busy city. After a quick bus ride to the subway, and a couple of packed subway rides we were home. Jin was feeling a lot better. The weather changed overnight and we awoke to rain on Sunday. Had some shopping to do so we ot theumbrellas out and struck out for Costco to stock up on a few necessities.

Here is a link to the article in the Korean Herald about Seonyudo Park that spurred our iterest in the place: http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/NEWKHSITE/data/html_dir/2009/06/12/200906120063.asp

Bye for now,

Derek, Deb, Jin and Lili

p.s. here is a shot of J & L having a snack at our little patio table in the balcony of our apartment.