Six in Seoul

The last stop S & I made on our journey was the Shinsegae Mall.  I took her to the 8th floor, the children’s & golf floor - yes, about 1/3 of the floor dedicated to golf. I don't know where the golf courses are here in Seoul - maybe on the tops of the high rises?  I don't know - anyway, I took her to the 8th floor  to see pictures of my kids, on the children's side.  Although she was impressed with the photos of my children, she was more impressed by the food court on the bottom floor.

The food court at the Shinsegae Mall (across from the Express Bus Terminal) is amazing!  The picture below is where I wanted to eat, but since S does not like sushi and there were no seats available, we opted to just take a picture of it.  The food is on a conveyer belt, and you take what you want as it passes by you.

The amount of food available at the mall is amazing, it ranges from full dinners as seen here.  (Aren't the guys behind the counter cute?!)

To a counter full of kimchi!

If you aren't into Korean cuisine, never fear, there is something for everyone here!  S decided to go with the chicken on a stick.

And really, what is a food court without a little wine? 

There is also a very large cheese counter where you can get any type of cheese your little heart desires.  (Well, almost any type)  And don't get me started on the dessert and bread areas of the food court.  I can't believe we didn't take pictures of those areas. 

Once you finish shopping, and you realize you need tomatoes for dinner tonight, don't fear, the food court also has a grocery store in it!  Talk about one stop shopping!

This is how it started.....

This pretty red bus almost made mince meat of my van and everyone in it.  I'm telling you, I thought we were going to die.  Once I recovered from the shock of my near death experience I thought we were on the wrong road.  I do not want to be on the wrong road in Korea, so I turned around and went back to start all over again.  The next time we did it, at the same merging area (where the bus nearly ran over us) a taxi cab cut me off, then hit the trucks in front of him!  That will show him to cut me off.  No one was hurt, so I am allowed to say that.  At this point any sane person would give up,  turn around and go home.  Not me, we were on a quest for pottery. I had 2 girls in the car that had never been to Yeoju, and I felt it was my duty to show them this amazing little pottery town.  So we continued on our journey with my not so fancy GPS....

One thing you don't have to worry about here is getting pulled over if you are speeding, there are never police cars out on the roads..........however they do have 'police enforcement' all over the place, and they warn you of it often.

Now when you see these cute little yellow signs, I suggest you check your speed.  If you choose not to heed thier warnings, they will happily take your picture and send a nice little note to you in the mail....

Once we made it to Yeoju, it was all worth it.   We went to a couple of my favorite places, and then to many more places.  This next picture is where I bought our everyday dinner dishes (like I have any other kind); I call it the 'blue and white factory'. The dishes are stunning in person, they are not too girlie, but not too manly either.  They are sturdy enough for this rough family of 6 and they are very inexpensive!!!  Anytime we have someone over for dinner they always compliment our dishes.  My friends S & L liked them so much; they each now have a set to call their own.

Look at all of our boxes after shopping at the blue and white factory.  Only the one little box on the ground is mine.

We took the 3rd row out of the van; it's a good thing too, because by the end of the day, the back of the van was pretty full.

After checking my GPS again....

we headed to another favorite little spot of mine, the white on white factory.

Seriously folks, this is the factory.  You go in through their garage!

Every time I come here this little man is always sitting here spinning pottery with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth.  He took the cigarette out of his mouth for the picture.  I wish he hadn't done that.

All of this pottery is made by hand, most of it by the man above and his wife.

On the way home from Yeoju, I had to stop at a rest stop.  If you have never been to a Korean rest stop, you NEED to go!  They are unlike any other.

Korean's are recycling fools!  They recycle EVERYTHING! (That's a good thing)

They want to make sure you have a place to put your dog,

and your baby....

while you have a snack.

Yes, I ate that.  My friends didn't want to have anything to do with it, but I made them try it.  It is just mackerel, or go/dung/ah in Korea.  It is SO YUMMY!

Our trip home was another story.

NOTE TO SELF #36.....While living in Korea, do not try to take a shortcut home, no matter how bad traffic is.


******Some of these photos were stolen from my friend L's facebook account.

The 2nd time we headed out to the karaoke bar, we did it without the little ones, and this time it was much more enjoyable!  If you can believe this, we did not have any fights and not a single person cried. Although I did almost make my friend K cry when I about ripped her arm out of its socket, but other than that everyone was very well behaved. 

I am such a bad singer....my friend T was WAY better than me.  Even though I can't sing, I had a great time!

The YMCA was a challenge for everyone...and at one time or another everyone seemed to get the "C" going the incorrect way.....

I don't think our friend R moved from this spot all night.  He sat here and drummed the night away...

And because my sister asks, S did not score a 100%. In fact there was only one person that scored a 100% and that was our friend J, the guy in the top picture with the microphone!   He was Karaoke Mack Daddy of the night! 

This is my favorite picture of Hubby and I from this night!

Sock Man...we all know about the sock man.  This was the one thing E was REALLY excited about. She bought her fair share, but her mom totally out did EVERY single person I have ever taken to the sock man. S spent ...............drum roll please............96,000 won in socks.  Math question for.... if each pair of socks cost 500 won each for adults, and 300 won each for children, how many pair of socks did S buy?

Check out the suitcase type bag S is holding.  It is chalked full of socks....96,000 won full of socks. Boy 2, E and Girl were very excited about their purchase.   Aren't Girl's boots cute?!?

Flower market....a trip to Seoul wouldn't be complete without a trip to my favorite place!  Of course we spent several hours here.....

and this is what we came home with....

We celebrated R's Birthday at N Grill, the rotating restaurant at Seoul Tower. (Our favorite restaurant here)

Went to Dongdaemun....

Where we found an empty mall......

and then ran into a few cute guys who wanted nothing to do with me.

I made S eat street food.

We went to Osan where S bought a few purses and mink blankets, and I ordered a custom made cashmere coat. (I pick it up later this week)

Had a few nights out on the town....

After a few of those shots, this is how S started feeing....

In this next picture, hubby took one for the team.  Notice me in the background?  This bar was SOOOO smoky I couldn't breath, AND the mojitos were not very good.....thanks honey!

My first sentence here would typically be... "Building 63 is the tallest building in Korea", but, before we get started, I must inform you that hubby and I are disagreeing on something.  The travel books all say Building 63 is the tallest building in Korea, so I am in agreement with.  Somehow hubby thinks he knows better than all the travel guides and the internet, and he says Building 63 is not the tallest building in Korea.  He does not know which building is taller; he just 'knows' there is one out there.  I did find that there is a 'proposal' to build a Lotte World II in Busan, but it hasn't even started being built yet.  So, back to my blog:

Building 63 is the tallest building in Korea.  It is host to an aquarium, named SEAWORLD, with over 20,000 different types of fish, an IMAX theatre, many restaurants, and the 60th floor is an observatory.  We went to the aquarium in Building 63 last week.  We had a great time!  The aquarium is a great place to take children of all ages, and the price is pretty reasonable. 3 & under is free, 4-12 = 11,000 won, teens 13-18 = 12,000 won & adults are 15,000 won.  You can get a discount if you choose to do 2 or more things, aquarium, observatory & or IMAX.

Here are some pictures of our day:

This floor was a little freaky!  Boy 3 would not walk on it.

The kids really loved the sea otter exhibit and the sea lion show.  The sea otters had a hamster type cage, with tubes running all over the place, and the sea lion show was so much fun, even though it was in Korean, we understood what was going on.  The sea lions had a play ground in their tank, complete with swings, basketball hoops and a couple of slides!

I've told my kids not to play with snakes, but only Boy 3 listens to me.  He was the only one that would not go near the snake!

All in all it was a very fun afternoon.  If you live here you should take your kids on one of these dreary cold days!

After a fun filled day at Lotte World we went back to our friends house in Seoul.  They recently moved here from Suwon, and they moved into a FABULOUS apartment that overlooks the Hann River.  Here are a couple of pictures of their apartment...this one is of the "sides" refrigerator!  A refrigerator that holds all their side dishes....how cool is that?!?!

Their regular refrigerator...isn't it beautiful!  I'm doing my not so marvelous Vanna White interpretation.

The living area....their floors are heated, no wonder they can just curl up on the floor and go to sleep.

A cool wall.

This is their view of the Hann.  It was an overcast day (obviously), so it is not the best picture.

My friend I. taught us how to make kimbap (kim is how you say seaweed in Korean, and bap is how you say rice).  It was fun and quite easy. 

As you can see everyone got into making the kimbap.  I and her husband were so gracious.  They cooked enough food to feed a small army!  Here we are sitting down to dinner. Look at that spread!!

Girl is so cute... check out the pictures she took with her new camera....I wonder where she learn this.

After a wonderful dinner, we hung out playing the piano and singing songs together.

My friend I. was very gracious and invited our family as well as the B family, whom she had never met, to Lotte World (an amusement park) and back to her apartment of a late lunch.  I felt bad taking so many people to her house, and I gave her many outs,  but I she really wanted to show my American friends the way of life for Koreans.   I. and her family were so wonderful to all of us!  Here are some highlights of our day at Lotte World...

If you live in Korea and have never been to Lotte World, you need to go! It was so much fun, and it is a good place to go in the winter.  Half of the park is inside, half is outside.  The indoor area is perfect for small children.  The outdoor area is where the big rides are.  I went outside with the big kids.  We had a great time even though it was -2 degrees C (below freezing).  We rode 4 rides before we felt like our toes were going to break off because they were frozen.

Here is a picture of the second ride we rode......

I thought it was much more scary going up than coming down.  My little friend H was not happy that I made her ride this ride!  :)

Just a side note here....you guys have all heard me talk about the sock man, and many of you have received socks from me.  I know you all think I am crazy with this sock thing I have going on, so here is something else to add to my crazy....I'm not the only one that loves socks here...Koreans are crazy for socks too, check out the cute sock they wear!  

On this ride, we thought the shields were 'barf shields', well come to find out, they are actually wind shields.  Boy 1's shield had a crack in it & he could not breath for most of the ride.  This ride was too scary for me.  There, I said it, I WAS SCARED!  I was more than happy to take pictures though.  Check out S's face in this one.

S trying to warm up with some odang (fish cake soup).

The little one's LOVED this ride!

My friend I doesn't like to ride scary rides, so she went with Hubby and the little kids.

Our tour guides for the day...I and her Hubby.

More fun pic's from the day...

We all had a great time at Lotte World! 

Stay tuned for the 2nd part of our day...going to my friend I's new apartment in Seoul, making kimbap, having a fantastic dinner and singing songs!

My days are starting to run together - I don't know when we did this, I'm pretty sure it was before Christmas.  Karaoke bars are pretty popular here in Korea.  You see song bars all over the place if you are looking for them.  I didn't notice them till about a month ago though, after Hubby went to one while on a business trip, (another story that he will have to tell someday) now I see them everywhere! 

Hubby thought it would be fun to take all the kids.  It was fun, if you think poking your eyeballs with needles is fun.  Hubby didn't even notice all the crying and fighting going on.  He and R were having too much fun singing. I, on the other hand was trying to keep the peace and stop our 2 youngest boys from killing each other.  I really wish I had pictures of the fights and the tears.  OK, I found one picture of tears, but I don't want you to think it was just the little one crying,  every child that was there EXCEPT for Boy 1 cried that night.   At least we had our own private room and we were not disturbing others!  :)

It wasn't all terrible though, we did have fun.  We ordered Thai food which was quite yummy and when the kids were not fighting over the microphone or the tambourines or whose turn it was to sing,  they had great fun!

Check out how tall Boy 1 is.  He is taller than me now.

Oh, how sweet.  You would never know they just finished beating the crap out of each other.

The next time we go out to sing karaoke (which will be tomorrow night) we are going out with just adults....I really hope there will be no tears or fighting