Last Post from Korea

Our time in Korea is coming to an end. Internet service to our house will be turned off tomorrow morning and the movers will pack up our computer and other belongings. We are excited about being back in North America again, excited about being closer to our families, but it is also bittersweet. When I first came to Korea I was single and six months out of college. I came back twice, the second time after getting married. This is the only place Colin and I have lived as a married couple, and of course it's where Benjamin was born. Korea has played a large role in our lives and will always have a place in our hearts.

I wanted to put together a slide show of photos from our years in Korea but didn't have time to get it together. After we get settled in Tennesssee I will post it.

Ben's Favorite Things: the Moving Truck

It has to be a guy thing. I have no idea why (not being a guy) but Benjamin is fascinated by the moving trucks here. They have big ladders that telescope up and attach to the balconies of apartments. The movers load up a platform and then send it up the ladder to the balcony where another team unloads and unpacks the belongings. It's much more efficient than using (and waiting) for the elevator. If we are out for a walk and happen to see one of these trucks Benjamin insists on staying to watch it. Even if it's really, really cold. Or raining. He will usually cry when I finally leave to take him into the apartment. One day there were two trucks moving people into two buildings that form an L shape. We stood in the center so Ben had a good vantage point of both trucks. One truck would send up a load of stuff and then it would pause at the top for the movers to unload. In the meantime the movers at the other truck would do something really exciting like load a couch onto the platform and send it up! I could only take so much excitement in one day though, and eventually I decided we should go in. And Benjamin cried.

Bye-bye Daycare

Ben is officially finished daycare here. He really loves the daycare lady and I think he is going to miss playing with the other little kids and all the toys. One day we stopped by the daycare to pay and Benjamin clung to the owner's neck and wouldn't let go. She invited us in so we stayed for a while to let him play. I was glad for the opportunity to see what kinds of things he does there and it made us happy to see how much Ben cares for her.

Ben has had a tough winter so far, probably because I'm working (around germy children) and Colin is working (around germy children) and he's playing - with germy children. Last year Ben had two colds all season but this year he's already had three colds and we can't seem to get rid of his double ear infection. It's back again and he's on his third round of antibiotics. Our plane leaves on Tuesday so pray we can get these ear infections under control by then.

In the picture, the lady holding Ben is the owner. The little boy with the flashcards is her son.

First Haircut

We suddenly realized that Ben was sporting a mullet and decided it was time for a real haircut. (The three snips I took off the back months ago don't count.) Colin wanted to do it himself but I was silly and sentimental and wanted a professional to do the first one so it would be cute for all the pictures we're going to take with our families! I know, Ben doesn't care how his hair looks. I fully admit that this haircut was more for me than for Benjamin. On the other hand, it only cost 5 dollars and I promised Colin he can do all the subsequent ones. As you can see, Ben wasn't too impressed with the situation. He kept wanting to get off the chair and into my arms. The woman was quite good though; she was quick and accurate with the scissors despite the moving target - and Ben's new hairdo looks very cute.

Ben's Favorite Things: Unpacking

Unpacking: Benjamin loves to unpack anything and everything. As soon as we get in the house and set a bag of groceries down he's into it, pulling items out of the bag left and right. Sometimes he has trouble removing particularly bulky or heavy items and starts to get frustrated. In addition to unpacking groceries he likes to pull all of his clothes out of his box. (Yes, that's right. We store all his clothes in an old diaper box.) Then of course there's the tupperware cupboard, the diaper bag, the bookshelf, and last but not least my wallet. He likes to remove all the cards and either put them back or scatter them over the floor depending on his mood. He's developing some good fine motor skills - it takes a lot of finesse to get those cards in and out of their slots in the wallet - but it also makes for a lot of cleaning up. Fortunately he takes directions pretty well and is generally helpful. He understands the Korean for "give it to me" and will hand you items when you ask for them.

14 months

Ben is past the 14 month mark now. He still isn't walking, although he has taken a few steps. He took his first step at Charity's house two weekends ago. He spends a lot of time practicing going from squatting to standing - which usually involves a lot of clapping for himself when he finishes - but isn't interested in walking as a mode of transportation. I guess he's more concerned with developing his fine motor skills - he can use the roller ball on the mouse!

In the past week he has suddenly started communicating a lot more. He's been waving bye-bye for months, and has now started shaking his head when he doesn't want something. He has also picked up the sign for more and will sign it without being prompted. When he wants something he points to what he wants and says, "ga." We're not sure what word that is supposed to be, if any. He also uses ga and points when he wants to go somewhere, so he might be saying go... which in Korean happens to be "ga." I don't think we can claim he's speaking Korean though.

If you greet Benjamin in Korean and bow he will bow back. We assume he learned this at daycare. I was curious, however, so we performed an experiment and it turns out he'll also bow if you say, "smell my stinky feet" and bow at the same time. So, it's not really the words he's responding to. On the other hand, if Ben's in the bathtub I can say, "bye-bye water" and he'll try to pull the plug out.

He's obviously understanding more and trying to communicate with us. I guess it doesn't matter whether he's saying a real word in English or Korean, what matters is that we understand what he's (trying) to say.

I expect it won't be long before Colin and I will both be fluent in Benjamese.

Pohang Steelers

After all this time in Pohang we finally managed to take in a game of the local semi-pro soccer team, the Pohang Steelers. (Pohang is home to a huge steel mill which owns the team, hence the name "Steelers.") The tickets were only $5 and the home team won 4-1! It was almost as interesting watching the Korean soccer fans as it was watching the game.

All the guys with red shirts are marines. There wouldn't usually have been that many there, but it happened to be a holiday. In the bottom left corner are four guys with drums - they were some of the more benign fans. Others were throwing paper airplanes and long streamers of toilet paper onto the field!

'Tis the Season to Give Spam

In September or October Koreans celebrate Chusoek - it varies from year to year according to the lunar calendar. Chuseok is roughly equivalent to Thanksgiving. People usually travel to their hometowns, visit with their relatives, go to their ancestors' graves, and eat a lot of good food. They also buy gift packs from department stores and give them to people. The most common gifts are attractively packaged fruit, - think ten huge Asian pears for about $80 - boxes of soap, toothpaste and shampoo, and of course Spam! There are a suprising number of Spam varieties around and (apparently) people buy these and give them to other people they genuinely like. I couldn't resist taking this picture of Ben with the Spam gift bag in the background. These gift bags had 8 to 12 cans of Spam and were going for $25 to $35 depending on the size.

Ben's Fusion Birthday Part Two - Korean Style

In Korea, first birthdays are a big deal. We didn't go all out, but we did want to do something uniquely Korean since it will probably be Benjamin's only birthday in the country where he was born. So,he wore a hanbok (traditional Korean clothing) which was a gift from our friends Joanne and Tom.

Also, we set a table with fruit, rice, rice cakes and seaweed soup. Seaweed soup... it will forever be a reminder to me of giving birth. At the hospital they served it to me 4 times a day! The iron and iodine are important to mothers who have just delivered, and it is supposed to help milk production. You are supposed to eat seaweed soup every year on your birthday. (Also, my students tell me you shouldn't eat it before a test. The seaweed is so slippery the test answers might slip away from you. I guess you're in trouble if your birthday is the day before a big test!) Munju made the seaweed soup for Benjamin, who enjoyed it for the next week. Our table was not elaborate compared to how it is usually done, but as we were not entertaining hundreds of guests, it sufficed quite nicely!

The last thing we did was to put some items on the table and let Benjamin choose whatever he wanted. Traditionally the items were thread to signify long life, money (wealth) and a pencil or writing brush to signify that the child would be a good student. These days people are updating and getting more creative with the items - a credit card instead of money, or a golf ball - because of several famous Korean golfers!

When it came time for Benjamin to choose something he got a little stage fright. After a couple of false starts (we exclaimed too loudly and scared him into aborting his first grab) he finally picked up the pencil and paintbrush. We cheered and I played a little drum roll on the table. Benjamin enjoyed that so much he cried when I set the pencil and paintbrush down!



The tears were short-lived, though, and Ben spent the rest of the evening modelling new clothes and playing with Jeff's cell phone.

Eating Like a Grown-Up

Ben has developed an interest in using a fork and spoon. On more than one occasion he has refused to let me feed him - he'll only eat when I hand him the fork with the food firmly speared. He hasn't mastered the art of getting the food onto the utensils - or keeping it on - but every once in a while with a really sticky food he will complete the entire process by himself. He's also getting better at drinking from a cup. He does less biting and blowing bubbles and more drinking now! (I think he has been practicing at daycare.) The other day we were at Kentucky Fried Chicken and I handed Ben a french fry to eat so I could get a couple mouthfuls in myself. I dipped my fry into some ketchup and two seconds later there was another little hand dipping his french fry in the ketchup too! He was quite taken with dipping and proceeded to dunk his french fry about 10 times before deeming it properly covered and fit to be consumed. Besides fried chicken, the restaurant also happened to be selling some of those trucks that can climb up anything, flip over and keep driving. Our friend Tim bought one for Ben and he (Ben, not Tim) has had hours of fun and exercise chasing it around the living room giggling like a madman!

Technical Difficulties

I switched over to the new Blogger beta because it sounded like they had some interesting new features - and they said we'd all have to switch eventually anyway. It turns out they also have a lot of annoying bugs to work out. At the moment I can't post any pictures even though I've worked through their so-called fixes. Hope to be back to posting soon!

Ben's Fusion Birthday...Part One: American Style

To celebrate Ben's birthday we invited friends over and had Domino's pizza and an ice cream cake. Benjamin had his own mini cake since he is still sensitive to dairy products. At first he was tentative, as if he couldn't believe we were actually going to let him eat it. He started out trying to use a spoon which didn't get him very far. After a few moments he gave up and opted for his hands. The cake decreased in size but most of that went into my lap, onto the floor, or got all over his face!

One Year of Blessings

Benjamin's Post

Benjamin wanted to contribute to the blog too, and this is what he had to say:

lxcvc9--

' jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj
xxpxgg gg
+-
gggzzzsqzsssssssssssggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggxx

gggggg0gggg 0 Zz08 xx WCXC YTMN

B

(He hasn't learned to post pictures yet...that will take a while, I think!)

Happy Birthday!

Ben's New Uniform

Ben in his new daycare uniform, fishing for some pumpkin biscuits.

I've been doing some teaching for a friend who broke her arm, so for a few hours each weekday Benjamin has been going to a daycare facility in the building next to ours. I checked out the daycare with the help of our friend Munju and Ben actually cried when we left the first time because he wanted to stay longer and play with the toys! The first few days when I handed him to the daycare lady Ben looked at me with a confused expression. The fourth day he smiled at her and on Friday he held out his arms to her! This week I got him to wave bye-bye to me when I dropped him off, but first I had to attract his attention away from one of the other little boys! (He has yet to cry when I leave!) The daycare is quite inexpensive and provides meals, snacks, diapers and even the uniforms!

One day we decided to drive one of Colin's bike routes through the mountains. We stopped at a rest area to stretch and take this picture with our little white Kia Pride in the background. We bought the car more than two years ago for about $500 and it's still getting us where we need to go .

Camelbak Boy

Recently Colin purchased a Camelbak so that he could keep hydrated on his long rides. Colin was pretty excited because the weather has been so hot and humid. Little did he know that somebody else would enjoy his purchase just as much.

Playdate and Reunion

This past weekend three of the teachers I used to work with came to visit. Because of the hot weather we were forced to turn on the air conditioning and eat the Baskin Robbin's ice cream that they brought.

Just after Ben was born Ally moved to Seoul to find work. She recently changed jobs and is now working for the Bank of Iran.

Anna just returned from a trip to Europe. Here she is laughing at Ben trying to eat his toes. Tanya's daughter Yoon-Seo was born one month after Ben. Tanya is expecting another baby next year!

Yoon Seo and Benjamin face-off.

It was Benjamin's first time to get down and play with someone his age so I was curious as to how he would react. At first he was hesitant but he soon became braver, even daring to touch Yoon-Seo's hair.

The two babies had a lot of fun with Benjamin's expensive toys. (A water bottle filled with popcorn and the tupperware cupboard were the hits of the day!)

Colin claimed there was too much estrogen in the apartment and made his exit, but not before charming Yoon-Seo. Although Tanya says she usually takes a while to warm up to people, Colin had her giggling moments after meeting her.

It was great to catch up with these ladies. They all taught at Catherine during the time Colin and I both taught there, and we loved working with them!

Weapons of Mass Consumption

While we were up in Seoul for the visa interview we ate at Bennigan's...more than once. Would you believe more than twice? We ate there as soon as we got off the train, stopped in for dessert one night, and also ate there after getting the visa! The "Death by Chocolate" dessert really did almost kill us - although two desserts between three people didn't seem excessive when we ordered them. (No, we're not counting Ben as one of the people - Grandma was still with us at that time.) On our third trip one of the waitresses helpfully gave Ben two balloons. Ben was delighted and proceeded to see how much of our meal he could pick up by whacking it with the balloons. We usually leave a precautionary swath of empty table around him because he manages to reach much further than it looks like he should be able to. Unfortunately the balloons extended his reach so that there was no safety zone. Needless to say, one of the balloons didn't make it back to the hotel, and the other one mysteriously missed the train.

Like Father, Like Son

The top three comments when we take Ben out are these:
1. He's so cute!
2. He's just like his father!
3. He looks like a doll!
Sometimes we even hear all three from the same person. (Does that mean Colin looks like a doll?)
Number one - readily apparent! (No, no, we're not biassed. And anyway, all those comments prove us right.)
Number two - check out the above pictures.
Number three - a comment I never would have expected to hear as much as we have. The truth, however, is that most Koreans we meet have never seen a caucasion baby except on TV...or dolls.

Testing the Waters...

More from Grandma's Visit

Ben was delighted to have company in the backseat!

Downtown Pohang. The writing on the road says, "One way."

Benjamin lapping up all the love he can get!

Riding in the shopping cart up the escalator at Costco - our big "trip" while Grandma was here! Don't laugh, it was very exciting for us!

Ben wearing his new shirt from Grandma with the appropriate words, "I'm a sticky little critter!"

Since Grandma left Ben has already developed some new skills. He can now pull himself up and unlatch the child safety lock on our cupboard under the sink. (Not exactly the most childproof latch.) He can also pull himself up and get water from our water cooler. Colin was washing dishes yesterday when we suddenly heard the sound of flowing water - not coming from the sink! Ben was happily standing at the cooler while water steadily poured out!

Visa

Thursday we had our interview appointment at the American Embassy in Seoul. Our "appointment" was at 8:30 and I thought that meant our appointment, but no (Colin was right) everybody had an "appointment" at 8:30! We were let into a room with a bunch of other people where we had to take a number. Nobody could get a number at first though because the machine was broken! Finally someone fixed it and the line started moving. We were number seven so we didn't have long to wait. We gave a lady all our documents and discovered that they had changed the specs for pictures. Not to worry, they had a picture booth in the waiting area. The lady who interviewed me was very nice and the interview was brief. Of course it probably helped that the lady was due in August and Ben was flirting shamelessly!

We left with a sigh of relief, only to realize I had written our old address as the delivery address for the visa. Colin was unable to get back in as he no longer had an appointment...

The American Embassy is heavily guarded by Korean soldiers, a wire fence surrounds it, and we had to show our passports, appointment sheet and go through a metal detector to get in.) On the other hand, Colin's mom and I waltzed right in to the Canadian Embassy without anyone checking anything. No guards, no wire fences, no checks... even the doors were wide open!

We took the train back to Pohang formulating a plan on how to make sure the visa got to us safely. As it happened, we missed a call from the delivery company as we were sitting at our favorite coffee shop. I called the number back and the owner of the coffee shop talked to the delivery man for us. We were surprised to find out he was just down the road so she and I ran out to meet him. A few minutes later the visa was in our hands!
Here's Benjamin, Mr. Lee and his wife. Ben often sees more of them than us while we're at Id. Once I went to the coffee shop alone and was greeted with, "Where's Benjamin? Next time bring Benjamin!"

Red Mango

During Grandma's visit we spent a lot of time lying low around the house, venturing out for food and shopping. The weather alternated between pouring rain and energy-sapping humidity. On one trip downtown we were deposited by the taxi short of our destination because construction workers were demonstrating. We started out feeling enthusiastic but by the time we made it to the exchange bank to get money we had wilted. Instead of shopping we decided on iced coffee and pineapple yogurt from the Red Mango. Ben was delighted with this turn of events because at the table next to us sat a mother and two little girls. Benjamin hasn't had many opportunities to be around other children and up till now hasn't been interested in them. At first he just sat and smiled as the mother encouraged her youngest daughter to touch Ben's hand and chuck him under the chin. Then the little girls stood up on the seat and started bouncing. By this time Benjamin was thoroughly enraptured. He studied every move they made and became enboldened enough to stand up and try jumping himself. Without the Jolly Jumper, though, he couldn't seem to figure out how to get his chubby legs off the ground. The girls thought bouncing on the seats was great fun and the more the girls laughed the giddier Ben got!

Grandma's Here!

Actually, she's been here for almost a week now. Benjamin loves the shape sorter toy she brought and when she woofs like Midnight! I think he loves having Grandma, Dad and Mom all around to amuse him. Of course, it takes all three of us to keep him out of trouble! He's been soaking up the kisses and hugs from Grandma and holding out his arms to her.
It was Grandma's turn to occupy Ben while Colin and I made dinner. (Yes, that is a broccoli box!) Sorry the picture is blurry, but check out Ben's newest skill: clapping. He has also learned to wave and practices it every chance he can get.

More (and clearer) pictures to come soon.

Outing

Recently Benjamin and I went on an outing with two friends: Timmy and Munju. We ate lunch at a great Korean restaurant and walked around taking pictures. Munju brought along her dog which delighted Ben to no end. He kept waving his arms and legs and shrieking with excitement. Usually when we're out we hear people comment on how cute Benjamin is, how pretty he is... With Munju and her dog instead of "What a cute baby!" we heard, "That dog is wearing shoes!"
The restaurant keeps a peacock, a peahen and a rabbit outside in a cage. Benjamin was very interested in the animals and so was Ye-gang (Mun-ju's dog). Somehow the rabbit worked up enough courage to come over and touch its nose to Ye-gang's nose, but then it got spooked and tore around the cage, startling the peacock which let out a honk I never dreamed could come from a bird. The flurry of noise and activity set off Ben and resulted in this picture... poor little guy! We took pictures at a random person's house because it was so pretty! Timmy has a great eye (and a great camera) and took most of these pictures.

The building in the background is an educational repository for a nearby Buddhist temple.