School!

Hello everyone!

Yesterday Jin and Lili started attending Korean school. Here is what Jin wrote to her teacher and classmates about their new school:

Lili and I started at our new school here in Korea today! Lili is in one class and I am in another. Our teachers are very nice. They speak Korean and a little bit of English. We wear uniforms at our new school. Today we wore our yellow PE uniforms because we went on a field trip to a park. Tomorrow we will wear our new skirts and sweaters. My daddy attached picture of us in our PE uniforms in front of our shuttle bus. The bus picks us up at home in the morning and brings us home after school.

And we have new backpacks too, with special lunch trays. Today we had gimbap (Korean sushi) for lunch.

We really like our new school, but we miss all of you at R.L.Beattie School.

LOVE JIN XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOX

The second photo, taken today, shows them in their regular school uniforms.

We found the school, a kindergarten, through our building manager. Her youngest son is 7 years old (in Korean age, but 5 or 6 in calander years) and attends this school. When we were viewing the apartment we mentioned our interest in having the girls attend a Korean school during our stay. The manager said she would enquire at her son's school to see if there was space and interest in taking on 2 non-Korean speakers. We set up an appointment at the school this past Tuesday to check the place out and meet the principal. She was very nice (could speak some English as she had lived in Canada and the US for a couple years) and they were very accommodating to us. Kindergartens are not part of the public school system here, although most children attend them. They are privately run and for childern ranging from 2 or 3 years old up to 7 or 8 years old, so they are kind of like a combination day care-kindergarten. Being private the costs can vary, but the fees for this school (which includes uniforms, backpacks, lunch trays, lunches, shuttle bus, and all other supplies) were considerably less than day care back home. They also gave us a large discount in consideration of the purpose of our trip to Korea. The school is located in Oksu-dong, the neighbourhood "next door" and only 10 minutes away by shuttle bus when there is no traffic (which is alomst never!). Will take and send some photos of the school itself for a future post.

Today was their first real day of school, as they went on a field trip to Yongsan Park yesterday. So far they seem to love it. Hope the interest and fun continues for them. Deb and I are enjoying being able to travel around the city on our own. Still have some shopping to tell you about (there is a Costco here!) and hope to do some serious touristing as well. We are also going to look into language classes for ourselves. More about these adventures in upcoming posts - we've got some great shopping/food stories to tell you about.

I'll end off with a couple photos of the girls enjoying our local inner-city playground.

Bye for now,

Derek, Deb, Jin and Lili

p.s. I've added a few links and photos to the sidebar. More photos to come. If you have any questions or requests or suggestions for the blog, just post a comment or send us an email at: deb.derek@yahoo.ca. Thanks.

A Day at the Parks

Greetings,

Here it is already Tuesday evening here and we haven't told you about our Sunday trip to the parks. Funny being a half a day ahead of home, around dinner time here we tune our computer to the CBC's broadcast of "Morning North", coming to us live from Sudbury where it is Tuesday morning. How cool is that? We like to catch the news and listen to the weather. Heard that school busses are cancelled in Parry Sound due to snow. It is in the low 20's and sunny here! Anyway, it is great to hear, all these miles away, familiar voices and news of home on the radio. Thank you Marcus and everyone at CBC!

So, back to the park story. Jin and Lili made us promise not to go shopping for the day and desperately wanted us to find a playground. So, being Sunday, we took a day of rest from shopping and went to Namsan Park, a large park in downtown Seoul, centered on Namsan Mountain. The Seoul Tower is located there, but it was hazy out so thought a trip up the tower would be wasted. Instead we visited the reconstructed traditional village called Namsangol Hanok and wandered around the park enjoying the scenery, climbing on some big rocks and having a picnic snack.

Here (above) are photos of some of the old structures with Seoul Tower in the background and the girls in front of cherry trees in full bloom. In the cental area of Namsangol village there were people playing traditional games (standing teeter-totter, big swing, spinning tops, and a board game called yut).

Many of the buildings in the hanok are reconstructed aristocratic houses of the Joseon period (1392-1910). Here are a couple of views (kitchen and bedroom) of upper-class life in the past.

There were people demonstrating traditional things like making rice cakes with a large wooden hammer (they pound it and fold it over, then repeat, many, many times). And of course you've got to have the big characters dressed in traditional clothing (called hanboks).

Here are a couple pictures of our favourite characters.

Despite all this fun, we still had to find a regular kids playground (regular sized swings, a slide, etc.). So we jumped the subway and went down to the Yongsan Family Park. This park is located closer to our neighbourhood. It used to be the golf course for soldiers (more likely officers) from the nearby American army base. Some of our friends on the 2007 Motherland will remember this as the place we hung out on the first day of the tour. It was considerably busier this time, being a Sunday afternoon. There were familes picnicing and playing all over the park. The hit with our kids - seeing as, sad to say there were no swings or slides - was the exercise area. Check out some of the fun we had there....

So that is our saga the parks. Looks like the little urban playground next to our neighbourhood subway station is our best bet for some slide and swing fun. Soon the fun will be over though.....we just registered Jin and Lili for kindergarten! Will report on that and on their first day of school tomorrow.

Good night!

Derek, Deb, Jin and Lili

Food, Seoul Scenes, and Lili's Family Day

Hi all,

It is late Saturday night here. The girls are asleep (Deb too). We've had a tiring couple days touring around the city: getting a cell phone, dealing with immigration about some paperwork, visiting friends at INKAS and shopping for more things for the apartment. Lots of subway trips (which means stairs and long underground hikes to transfer between lines), but we got to see different parts of the city and sample some interesting food along the way.

Yesterday was Lili's Family Day, 4 years since she joined our family. Usually Deb makes one of her cool cakes (check out our home blog for some examples of her cake craft) and we have one of Lili's favourite meals: spagetti and meatballs or sushi (california rolls). We were hard pressed to cook or bake anything special for her this year, as we had yet to buy a pot let alone a cake pan. So we improvised. I think she liked it.

We started the day with a pancake beakfast. We had seen packages of pancakes in grocery stores here, so seeing as how we had no pan or indgredients we thought we'd give these "Chinese pancakes" a try. We microwaved and topped them with yogurt and strawberries (which are very, very good here!). When we cut into them we were pleasantly surprised to find a filling of a dark, honey-like substance. They were actually pretty good.
After a long day touring around, I (Derek) went down the street to pickup some take out food. I found some Korean gimbap (sushi rolls filled with sticky rice, carrot, pickled radish, egg, ham and and maybe something else?), very large Chinese style steamed dumplings and a chocolate cake from Paris Baguette. Here are a couple of photos of our delicious Family Day dinner.

So on Friday we traveled by subway to the Mokdong district of Seoul, to the west and south of the Han River (the large river that runs through Seoul) to go to the Immigration office. We were under the impression that Alien Registration Cards were required if staying longer than 90 days. Turned out, after filling in forms, paying fees and a long wait, that we were not eligible for these cards because we are traveling on tourist visas. Not a big deal, but having these cards would have meant we wouldn't need our passports to cash travellers and conduct other such business. Oh well. At least we got to see a different part of the city. Here are a couple of photos of the Mokdong area. The main street is lined with stores and businesses, like everywhere else in the city. Just off the main street we saw a cluster of what appeared to be relatively up-scale highrises. Here are some school girls in one of these highrise neighbourhoods.

We then subwayed back across the Han River to the Sinchon district, where we dropped in our friends at INKAS. Jin and Lili had to submit drawings there for a Korean children's drawing contest. The contest may be a part of Children's Day, national celebration of children that happens in early May.

There are a number of universities in the Sinchon area, so it is a young, hip and happenin' place. Lots of small shops, boutiques, coffee shops, clubs and bars line the streets. The place is bustling! One of the streets we walked along was lined with beauty salons, probably every second store. We found a square lined with food vendors. We were hungry so thought we'd give it a try. We selected one that had a variety of tempura (Japanese style battered veggies and things) that they call "twi-gim" in Korean. We tried one that looked like shrimp, but turned out to be squid(!) and another that turned out to be a vegetable combo (potatoes, carrots and some green stuff). They were very good. The girls loved them, even the squid!!



In the last photo the girls are buying a drink from a "Pocari Sweat" machine in a subway station (I think it is meant to say Pocari Sweet?). Interestingly, although there are very few garbage cans to be found, Seoul is a very clean city. Typically there are garbage cans are found beside these drink machines and I think people are expected to consume their drinks (fruit, soy, pop or cold coffee in a can) at the machine and dispose of it there. No one walks around here sipping a coke.

We still had some necessities to buy so set out to do more shopping on Saturday. On the way to our local subway station, Hannam, we found a kids playground. The girls were overjoyed! Here is shot of the subway pulling into Hannam Station, an above ground station on Line #1.

Our first stop was a second hand store called the "Beautiful Store". There are a bunch of them around the city and Korea. They accept donations of items that they sell with proceeds going to charities (kind of like Value Village). The one closest to us was in the Ichon district, just a couple subway stops away. The store was dissappointingly small, but we did find a kettle for $4. Now we can make coffee!!! (By the way, we had been looking for a bodom at other stores, but they were all more than $40 and up to $100!) The Ichon district hosts an American army base, so there were lots of foreigners about (likely Americans) and large highrises. Here is a view of the main street, with the above ground subway line and then highrises in the background. One of the friendly foreigners we met there said there are smaller, more charming, bustling side streets behind the row of highrises.

The second photo shows a totally different part of the city, our next destination, the area around Seoul Station (subway and main train station). The entrance to the subway is beneath the dome on the right. In the distance, between a couple buildings you can see Seoul Tower located on Namsan Mountain, a big tourist destination with a great view of the city (we'll have to check it out0. The building on the left is covered in scaffolding that is covered in a huge mural. Here is a better look at it. How innovative!

The second photo shows the interior of our destination at Seoul Station, the Lotte Mart. The photo shows a bakery and soup bar, and in the distance the meat section of the grocery store. This place is very much like the Emarts we've been to here, but prices seemed better. I found a wine section with very reasonably prices plonk from France and Chile. We bought a frying pan and a bunch of stuff for the kitchen, as well as a few groceries.

On our way home at last we promised the girls no shopping tomorrow (Sunday). We hope to get to Namsan Park and maybe go up the Tower there. Deb cooked up a great meal with our new pan. Mmmm! Then we crashed in front of the TV watching re-runs of 24.

Good night,

Derek and the girls

Shopping Trip

Today we had to go out and buy a bunch more stuff for our apartment. So the plan was to take the subway back to the Emart in Yongsan, just a few subway stops away. First though we had to stop for a caffeine fix (Deb and Derek that is) at the Starbucks in Itaewon (just up the hill from our place). Although we brought coffee from home we don't have a pot or kettle yet. The Starbucks is just up the street from the Hamilton Hotel, where we stayed when we were here for the 2007 Motherland tour. A cool thing happened, one of the people working there recognized us from 2 years ago! She used to give our girls free chocolate drinks. Even cooler was that she had only just started back at that location a week ago. Coincidence or what!? Here is a shot of some happy Starbucks patrons.


Then we were off, down into Itaewon subway station for the ride to Sinyongsan station and the Emart. Itaewon is on a hill, so the subway line is about 5 stories below ground. The above photo shows Deb and the girls about half way down the 3 storey escalator in this station.

Below is a shot of the EMart (bottom right), which is attached to the large IPark store at Yongsan. Emarts are pretty convenient and modern stores. With dry goods on one floor and groceries on another, there is also photo shop, food court (pictured below) and many other peripheral shops and services. We mentioned the food court in the last post, but thought it deserved a photo and a few more words. The food court seems to be just operated by the store (not a collection of vendors like we are used to in Canada and that are also common in malls here). In the photo there is a glass display with plasticized(?) examples of each dish on their menu (including squids!). I did not see any hamburgers or fries in this display, mostly Korean dishes. Although there was a pizza and a spagetti in cream sauce on display. Once you select one of the numbered dishes, you order and pay for it at the cash (hidden from view behind the display case). Then go sit down and watch for your order number to be displayed at one of the many cooking/serving stations (in the far background of the photo). You pick up your order which is on a tray, along with various side dishes, including the ubiquitous kimchi (spicy pickled cabbage, eaten here with every meal), pickled radishes (quite tasty) and sometimes a bowl of soup or broth. You get a spoon and stainless steel chopsticks. There may be forks too, but you have to ask for them. The girls use spoons (or "trainer" sticks if we can get them) and Deb and I use the sticks, although find the metal ones to be a bit slippery for us novices. There are self-serve filtered water dispensers (hot and cold) with UV shelf units (about the size of a small fridgeor microwave) containing small plastic cups. We sometimes see these UV units with stainless steel utensils in them. As we mentioned before, the food is pretty good in this food court/cafeteria. And not a french fry or hamburger to be found here.....good for us now, but I'm sure we'll be hankering for a burger in the future. Interestingly, while I was sitting at the food court having a drink, while the kids played and Deb shopped, a man sitting at the same table said hello (in English), asked if I as Canadian (maybe my red and white Roots backpack gave it away) and then gave me a coupon for a hamburger meal at some chain restaurant here. I think he was just being nice or maybe he thought I didn't like the Korean menu (since I was only having a drink?). I thanked him and will save that coupon for the day I get a hankering for a burger.

One observation I should mention is that there is about 95% less packaging at this place compared to our standard fast food joint. The only things we threw away after our lunch here yesterday were drink containers (not the water glasses), napkins and a little left over food. Everyting else gets washed and used again. We didn't see recycling receptacles here, but then again they don't appear to need them as much.

The Emart also has a small children's play area. This was "the bait" to get Jin and Lili to come shopping yet again. They've been troopers on this trip, but one can take only so much endless traipsing around stores while Mom and Dad try to translate packaging (does that say "single" or "king" sized sheets? are they floor mats or mattress pads?) and shop for the best price. And one can take only so many requests to ride in the shopping cart. So this time we were going to the playground. It was pricey, 4,000 won (about $4) each for 2 hours, but well worth it this time. It is not something I would want to do every shoping trip, but our girls deserved a break (so did we). They played in there for pretty much the full 2 hours, so we got our moneys worth. Fun for everyone! Here is a shot of the entrance and one of Lili having some fun in there.

The challenge for us undertaking a major shopping trip here is getting the stuff home without a car. Emart has a solution, they have a couple self packaging stations at the store. Here is a shot of Deb taping up a box of groceries with her trusty assistant Jin carrying a bag of groceries. The row of orange and black in front of Deb are rolls of packing tape. There are also shears chained to the table. Note the broken down boxes to the left of the other woman in the photo. There is also strong ribbon-like stuff with which you can fashion handles and other carrying or strapping devices.

With a normal sized shopping trip, we could probably package it up to carry home on the subway, just like many many people here in Seoul; the subway is very good and used extensively. But we had too much stuff to lug so hailed a taxi (the girls cheered!) and for about $5 we got door to door service. The driver didn't understand my description of where we lived, and didn't have a GPS on the dash like most of the others we've seen here, but luckily I had a city map with both English and Korean labels, so with that and some gesturing (turn right, no the other right...) we made it home no problem. Yesterday, the same cab ride home in heavy rush hour traffic cost us close to $9. The subway fare for the same trip is about $2 (kids under 7 are free!).

We treated ourselves to dinner out tonight (mostly because, despite all this shopping, we still don't have any pots or pans....tomorrow) at a nearby Korean BBQ restaurant. Sorry I didn't bring the camera so can't show you what it was like. Will send one another time, as I am sure we'll be returning there or to similar establishments. For now you'll have to imagine us sitting at table with a gas-fired burner with a grilling surface built into the middle of it. Once we ordered (galbisal, with some extra bap (rice) for the girls), the waitress lit up the burner, brought out a bunch of side dishes, condiments, and soups (including a broth with mussels, which Jin liked...even the mussles!) and started the meat cooking, along with some garlic, mushrooms and onions. The girls chowed down on the rice and beef. Deb and I ate the beef pieces with rice and assorted side items (spicy and not) wrapped up in lettuce leaves. I've heard people jokingly refer to this style of eating as Korean tacos. It's fun, although, as with tacos, sometimes messy. A good and fun, although expensive (about $50) meal. We better get those pots and pans tomorrow.

Better sign off for now. Sorry, I went on a bit longer than expected. Will try to add more photos next time. Tomorrow we will go looking for a cell phone (and get those pots and pans). Although we've just disovered how cheap one can make calls (both local and to Canada) using Skype. The only downside is that you need a computer and internet connection to use it. Better get a couple "hand phones" as cell hpones are called here.

Good night/morning/afternoon.

Derek, Deb, Jin and Lili

p.s. here is a better photo of our apartment block.

We've Moved Into Our New Home!

Greetings from our new Home in Korea! Check it out. Here is a picture of us with Mom at one of the entrances to our building (that's the address on the plaque). It is a 4 storey apartment block that they call a "villa" here.

Our neighbourhood is called Hannam-dong ("dong" means neighbourhood), which is a part of Yongsan-gu (a "gu" is a distict) which is located in central Seoul. The second picture is a view of Hannam-dong. Our place is less than a block to the right of the main road in this photo, at the bottom of the hill (you can't see our place in this shot). There are small shops and restaurants a little further down this road. This part of the city has a lot of embassies and many foreigners live here. The Embassy of Thailand is just around the corner .

The past couple of days Mom and Dad have been very busy, making all the banking and rental arrangements, packing our stuff at the guesthouse and moving us over. They said to say thanks to Debbie at BMO for helping with the money transfer. It was real quick! The people at real estate or rental company were great too. Yesterday they drove Dad and most of our luggage through the afternoon rush hour (Dad said he'd never seen so many cars on the road at once!) from where we were staying in Yeoksam-dong (Gangnam-gu) to our new apartment. And today they came to check in on us and brought us a house-warming gift of laundry detergent. This is the custom here and was good because we need to do some laundry.

Here are a couple of pictures of the inside of our place. Here we are watching TV in the spacious living room. That's part of the kitchen and the dining room table in the foreground. The other photo shows us tucked into our new beds.

We bought these Korean style beds (thin mattresses on the floor with a quilted bottom sheet and a duvet) at the E-Mart at the huge Yongsan shopping complex (bigger even that the COEX mall!). We took a subway to the store but had to take a taxi home because we bought a lot of stuff. The shopping was boring for us, but the subway and taxi rides were fun! While we were shopping we had lunch/dinner at the e-mart restaurant. We had a couple traditional Korean dishes: bulgoki (marinated shreaded beef) and donkasu (breaded pork cutlet). The restaurant was a sort of cafeteria but much better. Mom and Dad said the food was pretty good (we liked the rice the best). We have to do some major grocery shopping and more shopping for house stuff so we can start cooking in our new home.

Although we love our new place, it was really great staying at the SWS Guesthouse for the past week. The people there were great! They even arranged for a driver to take us to our new place. Here is a photo of our family ("uri kajo" in Korean) standing in front of the guesthouse.

The other photo above shows us on an unusually empty Seoul subway. The subway here is great. It gets us around the city fast. And we are learning Korean numbers by counting down the number of subway stops we have to go.

Speaking of learning, the son of the building manager is about our age and goes to kindergarten. We might get to go to his school with him. We haven't met him yet. Hopefully we'll see him tomorrow and then go to his school and make lots of other friends here in Korea.

And speaking of school and friends, THANKS to all our friends and classmates at R.L. Beattie school for sending us your comments and best wishes. We miss you guys too!

Love,

Jin and Lili (and Deb and Derek too)