Mustoy!

I read about this little shop where you can paint a Mustoy doll.  I was intrigued, but I had no idea what a Mustoy doll was and I'm sure neither do you so this is what I found out on another blog:

What is Mustoy? First off it is written this way... 無stoy.  That Chinese character has the meaning of "nothing" and is pronounced "Mu". The idea is that you start with nothing, just a blank doll and can draw whatever you want on it.

Sounded like a fun adventure for the the girls and I to try.  I found a map (that was all in Korean) and some general directions and we headed out one hot day.  Thankfully it wasn't to far from the Hello Kitty Cafe so we were fairly familiar with the area.  We found it quickly but decided to have lunch before we went in.  If I'm picking the place for lunch I always pick a Korean place that will serve true Korean food, but since the girls were with me and this was a day for them I let them pick the place.  They decided on an Italian place which was good with me too.  (In our house, they can make a decision, but mom always has final veto power.)

The name of the restaurant was Bambino Cuisine.  Not sure what that meant.  Sometimes they just put 2 English words together and call it a name.

Often the Koreans will take something that sounds familiar to us and put their own twist on it.  This is very common in Italian food.  The  pasta dish the girls ordered was fairly normal.  Just a pasta in a white sauce.  It was actually very delicious.

I ordered a spinach, tomato and bacon pizza.  While it tasted very good, it wasn't anything like what I would have expected in America.

There was no sauce and no cheese!

Another common thing at Korean restaurants is to give a complementary, small dessert at the end of your meal.  This restaurant gave us one of the best we have ever had.  It was a small hot pan with Oreo cookies in it topped with ice cream and cookie crumbles.  The hot pan cooked the cookies and made them soft.  It was delicious.

"Mom, take a picture to show that we ate it all!"

After lunch we headed out to Mustoy shop which was right up the hill from our lunch stop.

A large Mustoy doll outside the shop.

 There were two different options in the shop.  You could pay one price to paint a doll and leave it at the store or you could pay a little more and take your doll home with you.  Lots of people had chosen to leave their dolls in the shop.  The girls and I had a great time walking around checking out all the dolls that were on display.  Some of the Koreans are really good artists.

There were so many to look at.

It was Olympic time so there were lots of dolls with flags painted on them.

IronMan, Angry Birds and Sponge Bob Square Pants

Mario and Luigi

The girls were all ready to start paining their dolls.

The blank dolls that you start with.  You don't actually paint them but rather use permanent markers on them.

They give you a paper template for you to sketch what you want to make your doll look like.

 The girls worked very hard on making the dolls look nice. 

Taylor showing off her completed doll.  She drew a dress on it with a hood.

Lucy and her doll.  She worked very hard to get the stripes just right.

It was fun to see the different personalities come out in their dolls.   Taylor used traditional colors while Lucy's was more flamboyant. (Even the lady running the shop noted the differences in their dolls.)
 I knew I wouldn't display my doll year round in the house, so I drew it with red and green and will use it to decorate at Christmas time. 

Taylor's doll is on the left, mine in the middle and Lucy's on the right. 

Signing the large Mustoy doll outside of the shop on our way out. 

Our "on the way home" subway picture.