COEX

I am a little behind on posting. The week before last, we visited the COEX mall. COEX is the Seoul Convention and Exhibition Center. The mall is underneath the Center and is the largest underground mall in Asia (I don't know what kind of competition it was up against to get this title). Since we have been here we (mostly Benjamin and I) having been anxious to get our hands on good Mexican food. We were not sure where to begin to get good tasty chips and salsa. So I asked Ben’s teacher and she suggestioned that we try “On the Border” at the COEX mall. We were all up for that. What’s 45 minutes on a subway, riding three different trains, to eat lunch? We had another couple join us with their two kids. We got off at the subway station and started walking toward it and it was like being in heaven. We went inside the mall and stood at the entryway for awhile so the kids could play with the touch screen info map. We quickly found “On the Border” and walked around some more before they opened up. As we were walking through the food court I noticed a Sbarro Pizza. See, I told you it was a true mall. We finally ate lunch and it was delicious. Ben ate several bowls of chips and salsa. It satisfied our Mexican craving, but I do truly miss Jose’s back in Seaside, California.

Since we were there we went ahead and went to the COEX Aquarium. It was really neat. We walked under an arch and James read it and it said “strange things”. We were surprised that it was not strange animals or fish, but strange exhibits. We had a wonderful time and would definitely do it again.

Here we are posing in front of a display made to look like a traditional Korean home:

These next few photos are part of the display of strange habitats

The first one shows you what happens to those fish when you flush them:

Here's the kids lying on a bed and looking at some strange, upright fish in the headboard:

As we were leaving, we actually saw a penny-pressing machine for the Aquarium. Instead of pennies, it just smashed round pieces of plain copper, but to the same effect:

Yellow Sand / Asian Dust

We noticed that the Koreans wear surgical masks over their mouths and noses so we decided to check into it. Apparently, Yellow Sand season is upon us in Korea. In the spring, dust from deserts in Mongolia is carried by winds across China, picking up their pollution, and is carried to Korea (as well as parts of Japan). An Air Quality Index of 100 of more starts to cause concern, and levels over 300 require changes in outdoor activity and you shouldn’t even go outside if it is over 800. Here’s a look at what it was one day in late February:


We went to a local pharmacy and bought masks for everyone in the family. Then we realized that they were way too big for the kids’ faces so we had to run to Emart to pick some more up. We have already had to wear them a couple of times. Luckily, just like weather forecasts, there are Yellow Sand forecasts available on the internet (click here if you want to see the current levels in Seoul), so we know when to expect higher levels a day or so before it happens.

Philippines Trip

A quick post from me (James) to get some photos from my trip to the Philippines on the blog. I went to a week-long conference in Manila and spent most of the first few days at the hotel sitting in on a number of briefings. On Thursday, we got a little time to get out and about in the city and on Friday, we went on a tour of the island of Corregidor, located in Manila Bay and site of two very famous battles during World War II.

Here is a photo of Rizal Square in Manila:

This is one of the world famous Jeepneys, one of the public transportation systems in the Philippines:

Another form of public transportation in Manila, the tricycle bike (not made for larger people, that's for sure):

Not public transportation, but transportation nonetheless, here is a boat in Manila Bay:

An ingenious way to recycle old tires and provide a trash receptacle at the same time:

This is the view of Bataan from Corregidor Island:

Topside Barracks (also known as Mile Long Barracks) on Corregidor Island. This large building was heavily bombed during WWII.

This is another section of Topside Barracks showing some of the heavy damage brought about by the bombing:

Flying Solo

James had a 7-day trip to the Philippines the week before last. So I was left to run things as smoothly as possible while he was away enjoying the beach, warm weather and fresh pineapple. I think I should also point out that I finally got my Korean driver’s license a mere three days before he left the country. I managed to survive and so did the children. Ashley started hourly care that week so I managed to schedule her at the same time Ben was supposed to be at school. I dropped him off at the “kiss-and-drop” spot and then took her to daycare and then, since I had a couple of hours without the kids, I went to the gym. What a way to spend some alone time. The week flew by since Ben has Taekwondo three days a week and Ashley has gymnastics once. I’m glad it’s over and we can get back to normal. Two parents are definitely better than one.

Continuing saga of our fish

We have been back to Emart again. After buying the first two gold fish and bringing them home, they both died about a week after we got them. We felt really bad about this and after researching more about fish care, we had to go back to Emart to buy two more fish. Benjamin decided to go with a different color one thinking that it might not die. So we bought the fish, took them home and things were great. Yeah right…Benjamin’s died first (again), only three days after buying them. Then Ashley’s got “the Ich” (short for Ichthyophthirius multifiliis). So we rushed out and bought some things to make the fish get better. It worked well; the spots disappeared and we thought we were in the home stretch, but then a week and two days after bringing him home, we woke up to find him floating. I am beginning to think we are cursed with killing fish, but the kids want to try round three. We’re going to completely empty out and clean the tank, fill it with fresh water and run the filter and oxidizing wand for a week to prep the tank first, and then we’ll see…

Ashley's fish, "Sugar Cube" (in front) and Benjamin's fish, "Hot Rod" (in back) right after we got them home.

Back to Emart

All right, we went back to Emart. This time the sole purpose was to buy two goldfish for the kids. Benjamin wanted a gold one and wanted Ashley to have another color. So when we got there she picked out a black gold fish (a Black Moor variety) and we got Benjamin (he was in school) a gold colored one. We had looked around a little first, then bought the fish and left to go to the food court and have lunch. I really don’t why the States hasn’t caught onto this but here is how you order at a Korean food court. There is one central area that the registers (in this case, there were three) are located at. That is where you place your order, regardless of the restaurant you plan to eat at. After you pay they give you a receipt with a number on it (or multiple receipts all with the same number if you ordered from different restaurants). You then walk around the food court to whichever place you ordered your food from and wait for your number to show up on the digital marquee sign. You pick your food up on the tray and take the tray and dirty dishes back to the same location after you are done. The only problem is you can’t order drinks. They have water coolers located throughout the food court with cups (for free, of course). I guess Koreans don’t drink Diet Coke with their meals. I ordered (I guess I should say that James ordered…) my favorite dish Japchae (glass noodles with some vergetables and rice). My meal also came with this soup which looked like it might have been spicy. I thought I would give it a try and see how it tasted. I started to stir it around and realized there were little pieces of squid in there. So yes, I pretended I was on Fear Factor, found the smallest piece and ate it. It was rubbery and bumpy but didn’t have much taste (just the spicy flavor of the soup). At least I can say I tried it. When we got done eating, James ran back into Emart to buy a Korean microwave. We didn’t have one sent over and found after being here for a month we really miss having one. Plus, we figured that all the other appliance are in Korean and we don’t understand them, so why not get another (plus the kitchen is one of the few rooms in the house that is 220 volts). Electric and electronic devices are pretty easy to get here (it’s a Samsung after all) and it only cost us 93,000 won (I will let you do the math).

Spicy squid soup and Japchae (in background)

Lotte World

The weather is still very cold and since Benjamin was off from school for President’s Day, we decided to surprise the kids with a trip to Lotte World, an amusement park. We rode the subway to get there and only had to change lines once. Lo’ and behold, when we got off the train it was like walking into a mall back in the States. There were tons of stores: a Lotte Department store, Lotte Mart, a Build-a-Bear work shop, more little shops than you could count and even a Krispy Kreme. It felt like we were in heaven and I loved it. We kept walking past the stores and getting stares (mostly Ashley) and we saw the ticket booth to Lotte World. I knew that a large part of the park was indoors, but didn’t realize you don’t have to go outside at all after you got of the subway; everything was connected underground. We bought our tickets, which for the entire family only cost 83,000 won. It was pretty cool when we got inside. There were multiple levels to the park: the top four levels (aboveground) were the rides, the next level down was like a food court and the bottom one had a large ice skating rink. We walked around and checked things out before we ate lunch and then rode some of the rides. We were able to ride the park’s monorail around and it took us outside to see the rest of the park (the day was far too cold for us to walk around in this part). The outdoor portion, Magic Island, even had what looked like the Disney castle in the center of it.

Photo of the inside of the main park at Lotte World. You can see the dome roof above.

Here is the Magic Island Castle

Benjamin and Ashley riding Treeble's Hopper (I think this was the second time through).

Right before we left we decided to get ice cream cones and watch a show. The ice cream was kind of neat to watch. You told them what flavor you wanted and then he pulled out little ice cream cups, took the lids off, loaded the cups into a machine, held your cone under it and the machine filled it up. The kids decided they both wanted blueberry, James went with melon and, just in case the kids didn’t like theirs, I went with the safer choice of chocolate and vanilla swirl (figuring they would end up wanting mine). However, everyone was happy with their choices. The show was a non-verbal cooking comedy called Nanta. It has actually been shown on Broadway back in the States. It was really fun to watch and very entertaining to the kids. We then headed back home, making a stop at the aforementioned Krispy Kreme, and jumped back on subway, feeling very exhausted. What more can anybody ask of me?

Performers of Nanta after "tasting" their creation

Big finale

Here's the Krispy Kreme at the Jamsil subway station

Movies on a Cold, Wintry Day

The weather has turned from being kind of warm and tolerable to stepping outside and having your faces instantly freeze. So on Sunday we decided to go to the movies. We went to the 3:30 showing of Madagascar 2, which we had already seen, thinking that the kids would like to see it again. Afterwards we went to the food court on post and had dinner before heading back to the movies to see Beverly Hills Chihuahua. The kids seemed to enjoy both of them and were very well behaved for our first ever double feature (in the same day). Both movies were fairly entertaining. It made us feel just a little bit guilty since the movies here are free for us and we watched two in one day. But I guess since the theaters weren’t full, it isn’t like we took up anyone’s seat. Now that we know the kids can sit through two movies, I think our future has changed. We have made it to the next level.

E-Mart

Okay, so we have been dying to visit a Target or Wal-Mart since we got here. I am having withdrawals for some good indoor shopping. Not the “let’s pop a tent up outside on the sidewalk and sell some hats” shopping experience. Plus the kids, especially Benjamin, have been begging for a pet fish. So I did some research and discovered that the Wal-Mart that we visited the last time we lived in Korea is no longer around (the company shut down all stores and left in 2002) and they were bought out by Shinsegae, a company that owns stores called E-Mart. Sounds slightly familiar, huh? So we went out on another shopping adventure. It was just across the road from the Costco (from the previous posting), so we knew where we were going. We went into the parking garage and parked our little car. When we went up the moving sidewalk/escalator to the entrance of the store, we spotted the shopping carts all lined up. So we went to get one (cause you never know what you might need to buy, right?) and discovered they were all chained together. After a little tugging and looking, standing back and looking some more, we discovered you have to put in a 100 won coin to get them released from their chains. Since this equates to about seven cents (saved you the effort of doing the conversion on this one), we decided to go ahead and splurge. As soon as we walked into the store, it was like being in a department store back in the States (except all the products were Korean). The store was sort of a “Super E-Mart” (forgive the pun), since it also had a supermarket, so we got to walk around and see all the different foods for sale. We found that the store did have a small pet section with aquarium fish, not to mention a baby hedgehog and Japanese Rhinoceros Beetles. We are still not sure if those would be illegal to bring back with us. We did not buy any fish because we thought Benjamin might like to pick out his own (he was in school). I was also happy because I finally found a coat rack there. I had been trying to find one here, with no luck. We have no closets in the living room or entryway to hang jackets up and I was really tired of looking at them thrown on the back of the chair. It got even better: not only did I find that, but I also found a clothes drying rack. Since our all-in-one washer and dryer takes 4 hours to wash and semi-dry a load of laundry, the clothes are still a little damp at the end of the cycle, so I have to hang some up. It’s far too confusing to try and figure out how to dry them just a little longer (if you would like, this might be a good time to go back and re-read the posting below on “getting settled into our home” where you can see a photo of the washer/dryer panel). So I felt like a princess getting the two things I so desperately needed. We did discover when we were leaving that when you kindly return your cart, your 100 won magically reappears. Maybe Wal-Mart back in the States should consider this method. More people would think twice about stealing a shopping cart if it was going to cost them seven cents! I have to say that I was very impressed with E-Mart and will definitely be going back.

Costco

So we heard there was a Costco here in Seoul. We checked on the internet and there are six of them in Korea. First, I guess I should say that we bought a car after we got here and finally got all the paperwork and such taken care of so that we could drive it. Then last Saturday we got brave and decided to go driving to find Costco. It was only about 5 or 6 miles away from our house, but getting there was a little crazy. It wasn’t just the traffic: we drove by the store at first because we could not figure out how to get in. So we did like everyone else here and made a U-turn in the road. The Costco here has a guy whose job is to just wave you towards the parking garage. On top of that, each level in the building has another employee waving you on to the next level. We got (un)lucky and ended up parking on level 5, so we got to see a lot of the employees. The only way we could have parked any higher up would have been to go up to the roof level. We got out of the car, walked to the elevator and rode it down while everyone stared at the Americans going to Costco (mostly they stare at our kids, of course).


We got inside and James signed us up and paid our membership fee of 35,000 won. No, they don’t take American Express or debit cards like back in the States; they only take Samsung cards. Unfortunately, we didn’t think about that and so didn’t bring a lot of cash with us. After standing in line for a short while, we finally got our photos taken and membership cards made and then we were off shopping (aka, dodging people). Apparently, the Koreans love Costco. We were a little disappointed because the entire store was fairly Westernized. We were expecting to be able to buy Korean products in bulk, but it turned out they stocked the products we were accustomed to. We ended up buying some bottled water ( 1900 won for six 2-liter bottles…yes, we must learn to love the metric system here) a bag of frozen chicken, and James’ favorite snacks made of rice and bean paste (찹쌀떡, known in Japan as daifuku - 大福). In total, we only spent 17,000 won. That is by far the least I have ever spent at Costco. The cool thing was it was two floors and you rode on moving sidewalks/escalators that were made to lock your carts in place. I managed to get a few pictures while we were in the checkout lane before an employee asked me kindly not to. I am not sure if Costco will be a weekly thing. Even though the samples they give out here include alcohol and they have a great selection of fresh octopus, I think I need a little more than that to go back in. Maybe a football helmet with a face mask, shoulder pads and a motorized cart…then I might be ready.