Olympic Park

Every two years my family knows that for two weeks I will be MIA.  I love to watch the Olympics.  I don't care if it is summer or winter or what event is on--I will watch it.  Being in Korea has made this a little bit more difficult because most of the popular events are shown in the middle of the night and we don't have any sort of DVR over here.  But, I still love to watch what and when I can.  (Last night I watched fencing, shooting, archery and table tennis.) When I'm not watching the Olympics I'm reading about them (and telling Russ all I have read).  So this past weekend we decided it would be a perfect time to visit Seoul Olympic Park.  (The Summer Olympics were held in Seoul in 1988)

Seoul is a massive city, but in order to allow people to get away from the hustle of city life they have these huge parks scattered throughout area.  I had read that they best way to see all of Olympic park was to do it by bike.  After we arrived, we quickly realized this was a valid statement, so this is what we rented:

Doesn't this contraption just scream tourist?

It was very hot the day we went and the humidity was through the roof.  Thankfully, for the most part the park was pretty flat, but there were a couple of hills.  The girls loved to ride down the hills, but weren't really strong enough to help peddle up them. 

Poor Russ pushing the cart up the hill.

The park is set all around water (it is actually a moat and there is a fortress in the park, but we didn't get to explore that part when we were there this time) with beautiful flowers and huge sculptures scattered through out it.

The busy city right outside of the peaceful park.

Each of the sculptures had the artist and the "interpretation" posted right by it, but even with the description some of them didn't make sense...perhaps something was lost in translation.

The country flags were fun to ride our cart through.

The "World Peace Gate" was massive and beautiful.

Not a great picture with the gate, but when you can't really communicate with the person taking the picture you take what you can get.  Next time we go back we will get a better picture.

They have a free museum that gives the history of the Olympics and has lots of Olympic memorabilia.

Taylor is bummed that she only got 3rd place:)

These were the mascots from many of the past Olympics.  It was fun to try to guess where each were from.

Seoul

Atlanta

They had a huge display for the London Olympics.  This was a countdown clock.

This was the massive drum that kicked off the Seoul games.

The park also had a couple of playgrounds and shaded resting areas.  These stone walking paths are popular in Korean parks.  You will often see people walking barefoot on these bumpy paths and they are supposed to be good for your circulation.  (Russ likes them, I think they kind of hurt)

Interesting fact: In the early Olympics the winners were awarded apples.  That would never fly now, huh?

Vacation Bible School

This past week they held VBS on base at the chapel.  I signed the girls up for 2 reasons:

1.  To hear and learn about Jesus
2.  To help them meet children their own ages

Both of my reasons were a great success.  They came home very excited every day about what they were learning and who they were meeting.  Starting all over making new friends every 3 years is hard.  It is hard on all of us, so if I can get them involved in things quickly it really helps them.
Because of VBS (and the stifling heat) we didn't take any major adventures this week other then to the pool. 

Showing off their VBS shirts

Swimming at the Pool

Not all of our days are filled with running (getting lost) around Seoul.  Some days we stay on base (or post now that we are in Army world) and just go to the pool.  My girls love to do both.  Summer is monsoon season in Korea and so we can go many days without seeing the sun.  The day I took these pictures was very overcast, but look what made a few brief appearances:

The girls love to jump off the diving board.

Here is a sequence of Lucy jumping off (I probably took 15 pictures to get these shots).

"Mom take a picture of us jumping in backwards."  (I hope Lucy closed her mouth before she hit the water)

The best part?...Going to the pool ensures a good nights sleep for everyone.

The Lucy Pie Kitchen

My girls LOVE the TV show "I Love Lucy".  It is hysterical to listen to them laugh as they watch the episodes.  I love "I Love Lucy" because I know that even if I haven't previewed the episode they are watching, it is good, clean entertainment.  So, imagine my surprise and excitement when I found an "I Love Lucy" themed cafe in Seoul.  Even better, it was within walking distance of the base.  Again, my directions were a bit sketchy (walk to the bank and go further, turn right at the 7-11).  And to make this adventure more exciting the only website I could find for this place was all in Japanese, which I was able to get a loose translation with Google Translate.  I actually had no idea how old the website was or if the place was still in business, but I knew the girls would love it if we found it.  Since it was close to home, we decided to go one evening after dinner so that Russ could experience the adventure with us.

We set off, and with today's awesome GPS technology it actually wasn't very difficult to find.   It was a very cute small little cafe that specialized in American style pie.  The girl that was working behind the counter spoke fluent English and told us that her aunt owned the place and she was just helping out for a while.  She gave us a bunch of free cookies and coffee because she it was our first time there.  The girls were thrilled with the "I Love Lucy" decor and the pies all looked delicious.  They had walnut, pecan, mint chocolate, mud, banana creme, cheesecake, blueberry cheesecake and sweet potato pie.   They also had a bunch of different cookies for sale.

We got a few different things and all of them were delicious.  We will definitely be going back again.

We bought these little snowball cookies.  They were awesome.

Snowball cookies, mud pie and a brownie.

We ate it all.

A look inside the cafe, it was really small, only about 6 tables.

"Mom, take a picture of me and the name Lucy."

American Food in Korea

Sometimes a little American sugar and grease is just what we need to cure the homesickness.  (We aren't really homesick, but it is fun to find American places and try them out to see if they taste like home.) 

There are a bunch of Krispy Kremes here, this one is in Myeon-dong.

I didn't actually eat any doughnuts, but the girls said they were really good. 

It is cheaper to eat at Korean McD's than it is to eat at American McD's, and the grease tastes the same.

Don't worry, we didn't eat these in the same day.  We like to spread out the intake of saturated fats. :)

Creative Play

When children don't have any toys, they become very creative in their play.  They find things that normally would be ignored and have a great time.  This has happened A LOT in our empty house over the last few weeks.

Here the girls are playing with a carpet roll and tennis ball.  The played with this roll for over an hour and had a great time.

Hello Kitty Cafe

Since we have been in Korea, everyday has been filled with checking in, running errands and getting set up in our house.  I wanted to do some fun things with the girls during their summer break, so I decided to take an adventure with them once a week.  The first week we ventured out to a cafe called Hello Kitty Cafe.  Hello Kitty is very popular over here, much more so than in the US.  It is popular not just with little girls but grown women and boys too.  Cafes are also very popular over here.  They have tons of themed cafes where you can go get some coffee, surf the free wi-fi and hang out with friends.  When I read about this Hello Kitty Cafe I knew the girls would love it.

Getting to the cafe was a bit of a challenge.  They don't really have road names over here, so my directions went something like this...
Go out the subway at exit 5
Walk to the main intersection
Keep walking for 3-4 more minutes until you see the store that sells cosmetics
Turn right and walk until you see the wall with the graffiti cat

I can't begin to tell you how incorrect these directions were.  Basically after we got off the subway at exit 5 (as a side note, they often will renumber the exits of the subway-I guess to keep things interesting-and my directions were from 2010 so I had the incorrect exit number which started us off going the wrong direction) we were lost.  I mean, how accurate can directions be when they tell you to look for the graffiti cat?    It took us over 30 minutes after we exited the subway and asking 3 different people (2 of whom did not speak English and looked at me like I had 3 eyes) to finally find the place.  I had almost given up hope, but the third times a charm and the 3rd young girl I asked knew where it was and helped us find it.  Ironically, we were only about 2 blocks from it when we were about to give up.

Once we spotted the place and I saw the girls eyes light up I knew my efforts were worth it.  They were thrilled.  To me, it looked like Hello Kitty had vomited and it all landed in this one cafe.  As you can see in the pictures, EVERYTHING in the place is Hello Kitty, even the boys bathroom.

Overall, after all was said and done, we had a great time and I would go back again (but don't worry I wrote the correct directions down so if I go back it will be a much easier adventure).

Yea!  We finally found it.  Let the pink fun begin.

The cafe was two stories.  We sat upstairs to eat our "lunch" (see below pictures) and downstairs to eat dessert.

Hello Kitty in the girls bathroom.

Hello Kitty in the boys bathroom...don't worry no boys were in there when I took this picture.

The cafe is known for Hello Kitty not for it's food...just a hot dog for lunch.

Sitting downstairs waiting for our dessert.

The hot chocolate and chocolate cake were both really good.  The girls thought the Hello Kitty on the top of the drink was awesome.

On the subway, all worn out after our fun adventure.