Musical Water Fountains

One weekend we decided to head out towards a musical water fountain show that we had heard about.  We didn't really know very much about it, besides it was water fountains that were programmed to "dance" to music.
Here we are heading out on our adventure...

Obviously the subway has lost some of it's newness to Lucy.  She isn't impressed anymore.

The fountain show was inside of the Seoul Arts Center.

The Seoul Arts Center is a huge complex with a few museums, concert halls and restaurants.  It is free to go into the center but then you pay for the individual activities/events you attend.  We were really excited to find out the fountain show was free.

We got there a few minutes early and the girls had fun playing on these little statues.

When we first got there we were the only ones there.  We started to think we had gotten incorrect information.  But, once the fountains and music started people quickly began to gather around to watch and take pictures.

Even the Korean Nuns stopped to take some pictures.

The girls watching the fountains.

It was pretty cool how they had choreographed the music and the water.

It was extremely hot outside and if you stood at this end of the fountain every once in a while there was a slight breeze and the mist from the water would hit you.  It felt wonderful. 

We really enjoyed watching the fountains dance to the music but quickly realized it would be much better to come back at night when they not only do the fountains and music but they light up the water as well.

 After the show we spent a few minutes exploring the Arts Center.  We didn't do any of the museums that day but decided we would probably come back to check them out another time.

We took this picture of our reflection in a mirrored  building.  As a fun side note...when Russ and I were in Korea, pre-kids back in 2000, we took this exact same photo.  We had forgotten where we took the photo until we were walking around the Arts Center and saw this building.  It was fun to re-create the picture with the girls.  Unfortunately, I didn't bring my old photos with me so I don't have a copy of the first picture to post on here.

As we were leaving the Arts Center we found this awesome water fall and bridge.  We all walked across the bridge and took a few pictures.

It was massive.

Russ took this self-portrait and made it look like the fountain was his hat. 

 

That evening we didn't have any plans and so we decided to make another trip back to the fountain to see an evening show.  It was much less humid and so the crowd was much larger.  The lights made the show quite a bit more entertaining.  We enjoyed the show a lot more in the evening and will definitely be taking family members and friends to see it when they come visit us.

Major Pound

"I, Russell Pound, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the
Constitution of the United States
against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and
allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any
mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and
faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter.
So help me God."

One last picture as a Captain before we left home.

The Marines in formation waiting for the General to arrive.

Sergent Major reading the promotion order.

Russ taking the officer's oath.

Russ asked the girls to pin his new rank on.  It is an honor to pin on a new rank and the girls took it very seriously.

Major Pound shaking the general's hand.

Russ addressing the Marines.

Lucy became a little emotional while he was speaking.

The Marines in formation during the promotion.

Our family with General Regner

Our family with our wonderful friend Mr. Chino.

Russ and Chino

General Regner's wonderful wife, Mary, took all the pictures for us.  Because she was taking the pictures I didn't get any of her.  It was so nice of her to come and support our family.

A Day Date

One of the nice benefits of the military is often for federal holidays instead of just getting the holiday off they will also get the day before or after it off as well.  So for Labor Day, Russ got Monday and Tuesday off.  (Now before you get all jealous, remember he just got back from a year long deployment.  Over all it pretty much balances it self out.)

Another nice thing is the girls only had Labor Day off, which left Russ and I with a day to ourselves.  So, after getting the girls on the bus we had the whole day (until 2:30) ahead of us.

What to do with all the free time...

We started the day with a jog in the pouring rain around the outside perimeter of the base.  It wasn't raining when we started, but about halfway through it began to pour.  Nothing we could do about it, so we just kept running.  At least it kept us cool. 

We came home and got cleaned up and headed out to a restaurant for lunch that I had eaten at right after we first got here.  I knew Russ would really enjoy this restaurant but the girls wouldn't.  I only had a business card with no English on it that I had grabbed as I was leaving the restaurant the first time.  We handed the taxi driver the card and he motioned us to get in the car. 

I didn't realize the first time I had been there that it was a Japanese restaurant.  So, here we are Americans, in Korea eating at a Japanese restaurant.   This restaurant actually specializes in fresh tuna sashimi and the best part about it is that it's very inexpensive.

 The meal is served in courses.  You start with a ton of side dishes, soup and salad.

Next, comes the tuna sashimi.  (you also get some sushi rolls and shrimp sushi with this course)

Next, is the tempora and the entire fish.

Next, comes a rice and vegetable bowl that is so hot the rice is still cooking in it and a bowl of soup with some very questionable things floating in it.

We think this is an open fish head and a fish brain.  There was also a fish body floating in the soup. 

Except for the questionable fish brain soup, it was a very delicious lunch.  (Russ actually ate some of the fish brain soup-not the brain part-and liked it.  I passed.)  And it was only about $11.00 each for us to eat lunch.

After lunch, we ran some errands and went to the grocery store.  It doesn't matter what we are doing, we just love to hang out together.  It was a wonderful day date.

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.