Cherry Blossom Fail

Call me silly, but I always have to post pictures of flowers and nature in the springtime. Last April I posted pictures of trees blossoming near our home in Minnesota. It was truly a glorious event, because Minnesota winters are long, cold and depressing. Every year I feel like the winter just might last a full 365 days.

The winter of 2009-2010 here in Seoul was quite bitter. It snowed at least four times. Not Minnesota-style knee-deep snow, but we actually had to *gasp* cancel classes because of snow one day in January.

That said, I feel like the winter here lasted longer than it should have - or at least longer than I was expecting. So maybe you can imagine my elation when the Golden Bells started blooming last weekend:

Believe it or not, but I used to hate these flowers. They were just too bright for me - not dainty enough.

Now I welcome them with all my heart.

There were plenty of Golden Bells decorating the National Assembly Building. They make a lovely fountain of gold against drab white concrete.



There was plenty of lovely green foliage, as well.



While in the area, we visited a park on a hill that was full of all kinds of strange, bizarre, and inappropriate sculptures. We also saw at least three kindergarten classes walking around the park and/or picnicing there, also. Probably the least strange sculpture was this one, which I happened to really like:

I have no idea what the significance of this statue is, but I thought it was lovely.

There was plenty of running around, waving hello to anyone who was not made of metal or stone, and chasing magpies to be had. TheFry has been up to his same old tricks, but with some new habits, as well.

He has started covering his face while laughing, which is pretty common here. Most of my students laugh this way.

However, there were no cherry trees in bloom as far as we saw along the road where the cherry blossom festival will be held this week. It's been just a little too cold the last few weeks probably. However, there were a few shrubs here or there who offered a little bit of hope.

We're going back on Saturday night after I get off of work. We'll probably take some snacks with us and mingle among the throngs of people who will likewise be enjoying the graceful loveliness of these flowers as well.

Happy Cherry Blossom Viewing Season, everyone!

Seoul in White, Part One

Last week, Seoul got the most snow it’s had since 1937. However, I am so behind in posting that I only have a few pictures of the light dusting we received just after Christmas:

McDonald’s near our house.

The building where I work.

A walkway dusted with snow.

Cart belonging to “The Snack Man” (yes, that is his official name – given by yours, truly). In the summer he sold fried spiraled potatoes and in the winter he sells those yummy fish-shaped cakes stuffed with bean paste or custard.

Bicycles lined up at a neighborhood building.

Belated Christmas Tree!

CAMERA!!!!!

Finally, we got a camera! It cost less than $40. We shipped it from the USA because cameras are extremely overpriced in this country.

So, of course, we had to take a few obligatory pictures of what life is generally like for us.

First of all, we needed a memory card because the camera would only hold about four pictures without one. We bought one at HomePlus – 4GB for less than 10,000 won (1,000 won roughly equals $1).

HomePlus is like Wal-Mart combined with Macy’s on some kind of weird illegal substance. Whenever we go to HomePlus, we eat at the cafeteria because they have super huge portions of food for less than 6,000 won. The three of us can share one meal, and I find the taste to be delicious.

Behind PapaFish you can see Overpriced Baby Studio on the right and a children’s play area on the left. The children’s play area costs something like 4,000 won for two hours of child-free freedom.

Probably the biggest bonus of eating at HomePlus is the fact that they have highchairs. Anywhere else we go to eat – except other supermarket-on-cocaine-cafeterias – requires holding TheFry on our laps, trading him back and forth so the other person can eat. We have a portable inflatable highchair seat, but we use it permanently at home, and I guess we’re basically just too lazy or forgetful to tote it around with us everywhere. Maybe we should make a better effort…

TheFry gives a “whaddup” to his homies.

I require tonkatsu from the HomePlus cafeteria. It is a tenderized pork cutlet, breaded and deep-fried Japanese style. This kind of Japanese-style cuisine is pretty popular in Korea these days. Also we got a big helping of omurice, which is basically fried rice wrapped in an egg. That’s ketchup squiggled on top of the egg.

Tonkatsu, omurice, cole slaw, kimchi and miso soup cost us 5,500 won.

TheFry absolutely loves tonkatsu. He is the main reason why we order it. At home, if we can’t get him to eat his vegetables, sometimes in a moment of desperation we will dip a small bit of it in tonkatsu sauce. He will usually eat it, unaware of its original form.

In other news, TheFry is getting his top two teeth at the same time. This basically means we get to hang out with this every day:

Sometimes he still looks like this, though.

This is fine, too.

At the end of the day, PapaFish is more exhausted than TheFry.

“Milk” and “Mama” are two words that TheFry knows. He can say “Mama” but not milk. However, when we ask him if he wants his milk, he sometimes gets hysterical. If we go to the fridge without asking him if he wants milk, he sometimes gets hysterical. And sometimes he just gets hysterical.

Also, he doesn’t just call me “Mama”, he basically says it all the time. He knows that “I’m the Mama”, but he has been known to call PapaFish “Mama” also.

Up until recently, TheFry had a really clingy fixation with me, preferring me in most circumstances to anyone else, including PapaFish. I prayed and hoped that this would change. Maybe I wasn’t specific enough. Now, if I get home from work and PapaFish needs to go grab groceries, take out trash, run some other errand or just plain go out to relieve some steam, TheFry will cry when he leaves. However, when PapaFish is home, I still have to be with them. So really, TheFry has learned to prefer having the three of us together to any other arrangement at all.

We’re hoping to go out this weekend to see some fall foliage; it’s supposed to be the peak time for viewing the red maple leaves. The bad thing about having a super-cheap used camera is that the batteries only last a couple of hours at a time. Hopefully we can find some good rechargeable ones somewhere without having to travel too far to buy them.

Chuseok 2009: Namsangol Hanok Village

Saturday, October 3 was Chuseok. Chuseok is one of the biggest holidays in Korea. I got almost the whole week off, and about a dozen Asian pears, to boot!

Apart from baking pies the whole week and doing pretty much nothing around the house, we did venture out on Chuseok Day with some friends. We visited Namsangol Hanok Village.

A Hanok is a Korean traditional-style house. The Hanok Village is thus a cluster of Korean traditional-style houses set up with rooms to look as they would have in ye olden days. There are a number of Hanok villages in Korea, and the one at Namsan has a large open area for big events.

When we arrived, the place was packed. There were people doing traditional crafts and playing traditional games everywhere.

It was quite a lovely day. Some people were flying kites. That is Namsan Tower at the top of Namsan in the background.

There is a little pond with foliage. It is a nice spot for some nice landscaping, with the modern buildings towering in the background.

There was a large pavillion in the middle of everything where people would gather to rest in the shade on the warm day.

Different rooms of the Hanok were set up to look like they might have some time ago. Here is one room with a bed, a dresser, a table, and a lamp in the background.

Here is a kitchen. There is a spindle but also some kimchi jars.

Kimchi jars sit amongst the lovely autumn foliage.

This is a rice-cooker.

I find Korean architecture to be quite aesthetically pleasing…

A garden. There was traditional music playing, and we were all fooled at first, thinking someone would actually be sitting around the corner playing the fiddle. Alas, it was a recording, broadcast from strategically-planted speakers.

Near the Hanok Village is the Korea House, a super-expensive tourist destination where people can eat a meal and watch traditional performances. They had many food displays. Above is a table set up with foods for ancestors.

Cabbage kimchi, standard fare for most meals in Korea.

Rice cakes steamed on pine needles – traditional food for Chuseok

The outside of one of the buildings – I can’t remember if it is the Korea House or one of the Hanok buildings.

So what did we do besides just look around? Plenty of stuff! One of the things I love most about Korea is that, while you may be able to do a lot of cool stuff that costs money, there’s almost always something to do that costs nothing (or next to nothing).

PapaFish plays jegi chagi, or, as we call it, Korean Traditional hacky-sack…

Here’s a game I can’t seem to remember the name of…or find it on the internet

PapaFish is kind of a natural at games, of course, so he was a pro from the start!

There was, of course, the obligatory hanbok-wearing event. TheFry hates hats.

This one is a little better…

So what does a munchkin like TheFry do at an event like this? He chills! He watches games, he looks at the rooms, and he charms people! There was even a point where we had to give a premature goodbye to some lovely people because a crowd was starting to form around the stroller!

And who can blame them?

By the end of the day, he was a little tuckered out.

He made a very lovely courtesan.

Thank you to our wonderful friends, who lent us their camera and took us around! We had a lovely time.

One-Year Photos!

Today we got TheFry's One-Year Photos taken!

We took them ourselves at Igloo Self-Photo Studio. PapaFish actually took all the pictures, and I was on distraction duty. The studio lent us a DSLR, lighting, props, and a large choice of outfits, and we did the rest ourselves!

We took over 200 photos in one hour, and got to keep all of them on a CD. There were many outfits available for free, but we chose to use mostly our own clothing. We did pay an extra 5,000 won for TheFry to wear hanbok (Korean traditional clothing). In the end, the total bill came to just over 50,000 won, around $50 U.S.

Of course not all the photos were spectacular, but at least half of them were very, very good. Here are the best photographs from each set we took:

The first set was a bakery. TheFry loved the bread and all the other props. He looks the happiest in these sets because, well, he's not as tired and hungry as he would be an hour later!

The second set had this really cute mini telephone booth. He loved standing by it but his face was always "behind bars". There were some cute shots, but this was probably the best one. He's got that signature smirk on his face - the same one he wears when he's about to pull a plug from the wall!


He didn't like this set much. This was basically the last time we could get him to sit down on anything for the rest of the hour, and that's only because we bribed him with grapes. Puppy tagged along for shoot.

The clouds was one of his favorite sets. It was soft and bright and he could sit down comfortably with his back propped up against something stable. There were a number of classic shots taken with this set but this is my favorite, because he's being himself.

My favorite set was the toy car. This is my favorite picture: dude in a red convertible, wearing a scarf, windswept hair, and a dog along for the ride!

At first he was wearing a cute little red hat, but he hates hats, so he figured out how to rip it off and throw it to the floor. Then the person who was running the studio thought it would be a great idea for him to wear this:


This is by far my absolute favorite picture out of the whole set. It has so much personality, so much emotion. I laugh a little every time I see it. It never gets old.

Finally, it was time for TheFry to get dressed up in Hanbok, Korea's traditional costume. The first birthday is actually a huge deal in Korea, with a formal party and the baby wears hanbok.

This hanbok features cherry blossoms and it is definitely for boys. Pink is a very stylish color in Korea for both men and women, and pink on boys' and men's Hanbok is in fashion right now.

This is probably my favorite photo for photographic value of the whole set:



And I really, really love this one also:



After the shoot, one of the photographers thought it would be a great idea for us to do a family shot. I had no idea this was coming. I had skipped a shower and makeup application because we had been running late, I was sweating profusely, and I had been puked on in transit to the studio. Nonetheless, we managed to take a decent one:



And another one which was a little more honest:



After getting TheFry back in his more comfortable clothes, we took a pretty good one:

We couldn't have managed all this without the assistance of some terrific friends who translated the directions on how to use the camera, assisted us with getting TheFry's attention during the shoot, changing clothes, cleanup, and taking a few pictures of their own! In the end, I would call it a success.