Face Painting

One day last week when we picked up Ben and Izzie from preschool, we were surprised to see these works of art!

Ben's Happenings

After a stressful beginning to the school year we decided Ben needed a chance to learn more Korean, get used to life here, work on fine motor skills etc.  Fortunately the preschool across the road from our school had an opening, so now Ben and Izzie are both attending there.  Ben was younger than all the other children in his 1st grade class, so next year he will be the same age as the other children.  He and Izzie are both coming home singing songs (or parts of them) in Korean and they seem to like it very much.  Izzie used to make a fuss when we dropped her off - though according to her teacher she was all smiles as soon as we left - but now she and Ben both smile and wave goodbye to us in the mornings.      

Goofy Girl

We think Izzie is going to be a lefty, although she frequently switches back and forth.

She's giggling here because she was finished drawing and when I asked her to color something she pretended to use the wrong end of the pencil crayon.

Recovered from 2010

I've failed miserably with keeping up the blog since coming to Korea.  First it was that we didn't have our computer yet.  Then we had the computer, but somehow I had accumulated 3 memory cards of pictures spread between 2 computers and organizing them all was too daunting a task to undertake.  Then I started work early and haven't been able to breathe since.  Oh, and our computer crashed (probably because there were too many pictures on it?) and now it's even worse.  For some reason the recovery program we used to get the photos back after the computer crashed recovered multiple copies of every picture.  Because of these multiple copies I have about 30,000 photos to sort through.  Hmmmm.  That could take a while.

In the meantime I figured I would clean off all the old memory cards, and I came across a few photos from when we first arrived in Korea.  

Here are Izzie's stitches after the minor surgery to have her hemangioma removed.

A while after that  Ben and Izzie got balloons from a store that was having some sort of giant sale.   I believe a giant clown on stilts dancing to extremely loud music gave it to them.

Remember the fake mad face?  She hasn't done that in a while, but she has a very, very sad face that she likes to put on much of the time.  We've found that if you say, "Whatever you do, don't smile..." to her, she will usually crack up laughing.  In this picture her stitches are out and the scar is healing.  I'll have to see if I can catch the sad face.

Perhaps the tall clown would have given Ben a heart on a stick too if he had known what a fearsome pirate Ben was going to be.  Here he is, about to run someone through.

 Got me...

Izzie had to wear some bandaids over the scar to keep it pinched together after she got the stitches out.  She (I) also had to put a special gel on it.  The worst part was pulling all those bandaids off.  I wonder if she's fogotten about that whole experience by now.  Good thing she'll have this blog through which to relive her trauma.

Oh My!

It's been more than 2 months since my last post! Keeping it quick so I don't get bogged down...

Baby

Mom, did you have a baby? I really want to see it...

Izzie, at bedtime.

Snow!

We don't get much snow here... usually. Katie and Grandma brought the cold weather with them, though, and we got a lot of snow just after they left. The cold stuck around and we had finally gotten rid of it (it usually doesn't stay more than a day or two at most) when we got another generous helping. It snowed continuously for an entire day. Izzie's preschool closed for two days and our teacher orientation was canceled - everyone stayed home where it was warm and cozy.

Here are a couple of pictures from the first snow. I haven't had my camera out much recently, so I apologize for the older and not so clear pictures! And the runny nose.

Also from the first snow, but taken in the elevator where it was warmer. The kids spent half an hour throwing snow at each other (usually directly in the face) while I made a faceless snowman by myself. Somehow they were still smiling and laughing when we went back in, despite being soaked. Ah, remember those days of playing in the snow until our fingers were so cold we couldn't get our zippers undone when we finally went back into the house?

Korea

Seoul

Mind boggling, isn't it? Not exactly like green Vancouver. Our apartment complex is in a much more rural area within walking distance of mountains and rice paddies.   

A really big escalator in the subway - Colin and Izzie were already halfway up when I took this photo.

More from Grandma and Katie's Visit

New Year's Eve 2010, the night before Grandma and Katie flew back to the US, we decided we'd better get some more pictures!

Ben is usually very cooperative when it comes to pictures.

 See... cooperative.

Izzie is somewhat cooperative (ie when she wants to be) when it comes to taking pictures.

We'd been talking about getting a family photo but kept putting it off.  Here was our last chance, but Izzie was suddenly much more interested in running away and finishing off the last of the dried pineapple than having her picture taken.

 Way to look at the camera, Ben! 

Here's where we decided Izzie might be more cooperative if Daddy had her.  Ben helpfully switches. 

 Izzie starts to cry...

Ah well, sometimes these funny photos are really more interesting than the "perfect" one.  No really...

Footage from my phone

Our phones over here are very high tech.  I no longer carry around my little digital camera to take video with because my phone does that.  Unfortunately it has taken me until just recently to take the time to connect the phone to the computer so I could get the pictures and video off the phone.  (Video taken on November 12, 2010.)

Here's some footage of the kids at the trampoline place just outside our apartment buildings.  Both kids can jump for an hour for less than $2!  That's a price I'm more than happy to pay for an hour of peace. We also discovered that if you go early, you're often the only ones there.  Also, if you're little and cute and get knocked down by somebody else and start crying, the kind lady will give you a slushie for free!

Really, really mad...

Izzie: I'm mad at all you guys.
Me: Okay...
Izzie: May I be as mad as I want to be?

Katie and Grandma's Visit

Katie and Grandma Ann arrived late Christmas Eve and stayed with us about a week. They were troopers Christmas morning even though they must have been exhausted!

Of course we had to have galbi while they were here.  The round silver thing you see in front of Katie is actually a grill.  You cook marinated pork, wrap it in lettuce, add anything else you want from the table (raw garlic, different sauces, salad, onion, etc. and pop it in your mouth.  Tasty!  And all things considered, a pretty healthy meal.

These are boiled silkworms.  Katie was brave enough to try one!  (I tried one 10 years ago and figured that was enough for the next hundred years.)

One day the ladies went out to a traditional tea house.  My favorite one that Karen and I went to when she was visiting for Ben's birth, was closed.  Still, this one was very nice.  I had the date tea - but only because they didn't have the ginger tea.

Tea was served with cookies from a tin, some sort of bread/pastry, and dried persimmon.  I've seen the dried persimmons being sold in the street a lot and had always been afraid to try the them because of the white powder that looked like mold.  (In a country where most vegetables are fermented that doesn't seem so out of the ordinary, does it?) As it turns out, that was powdered sugar to keep the persimmon pieces from sticking together - and it was quite good.

Katie had jasmine tea and Grandma Ann had... hot plum tea?  I can't remember because we had trouble deciding - they lady kept saying they couldn't make the one kind hot, and they didn't have another kind.  Of course those were exactly the ones we wanted.  In the end she decided Grandma Ann's choice could be hot after all.  The tea was comforting on another frigid day and we had the entire place to ourselves.

After tea Katie and I took a cab to the jimjilbang where we explored their various rooms.  Each room was a different temperature and made with different materials that benefited your health in some way.  Or so the story goes...

This is outside of the third room we went in.  Click on the picture and you'll see where we entered the room - we went in the black thing just beyond the green mat - the one that very appropriately resembles an oven. One of the signs on the outside posted the temperature range, and it was not that far from from 100 degrees... Celsius.  We stayed in for maybe one or two minutes and then got out before we roasted. In another room (with a lower temperature) there were stacks of eggs in cartons.  They were being cooked. 

After that we had to cool down in the freezer room. We also used a little foot massage machine.  First we had to wrap our feet in the plastic bags they provided and figure out how to turn it on though.  We had just given up when a helpful guy showed us how to swipe our key to get it to work.   

I'm not sure what the walls were made of in this room, but the hexagonal shapes in the walls made me feel like we were in a beehive - except that everyone was just laying around and talking quietly.  It was very relaxing.

It's quite common to come with your family or friends and just hang out for the day.  It only costs about $7 to get in.  In addition to the bath house and saunas there is a snack bar, a room for watching movies, a sleeping room and a room with internet and computers.  There is even a singing room complete with disco ball and mics.  A lot of these things cost extra, but just swipe the key to your locker and it goes on your tab.

This room had huge logs for sitting on, and a bank of massage chairs by the windows.

There were also these little sleeping pods.  We didn't actually sleep there but I wanted to see what it was like to get in and out.  I believe the orange sign above my head says only one person is allowed per pod.  No doubling up!

The weather was freezing while Grandma and Katie were here so we tried not to venture outside for any longer than we had to.  The winters here are cold, and the summers are extremely hot and humid, but spring - when the cherry blossoms are blooming - and fall - when the leaves are turning colors - are gorgeous. So who wants to visit in spring or fall?

Really Big Leaves

I took these pictures with my phone back in the fall when we were walking downtown. Nobody could tell me what kind of tree they came from though. They look like really big maple leaves to me, but the trunk of the tree they come from looks exactly like the camouflage markings you see on army uniforms.  I've never seen a maple tree with a trunk that looked like that before.  (Should have taken a picture of that too.)

Izzie's Quote of the Day

From about a week ago... "I love you so much, you could eat me up!" 

Bookworm

Ben has moved on to chapter books and is busy devouring the adventures of Henry Huggins, Ralph S. Mouse, Prince Caspian and others.

Izzie's First Day of Preschool

Here is Izzie on her first day of preschool, wearing her school backpack.  Inside she has an extra change of clothes, her lunchbox and a case with a spoon and chopsticks.

We talked about school for a number of days before Izzie went for the first time.  She was very excited to wear her backpack and ride on a bus.  The night before her first day she and Ben played some sort of game for about 2 hours that involved wearing backpacks. 

This is the look  I got after saying "look at me."

Here is Izzie telling me what she thinks she will do at her first day of school.  I promise I was listening, but I don't remember what she actually said.  Play, perhaps.  When we dropped her off the first day she got out of our car and ran to a teacher with her arms outstretched for a hug.

Four days later the novelty has worn off.  This morning in particular she cried a lot and said she didn't want to go to preschool, but my guess is by the end of this week she'll be back to liking it again.