Hiking In The Freezing Weather

When we received orders to Korea we started to look at and ask other people about the weather.  The general consensus we learned was that Korea has wet, hot summers and dry, very cold winters with the temperatures ranging around the same as Washington D.C. temperatures.  I guess after living in NC for the last 3 years I had forgotten when very cold meant because it is FREEZING here.  Literally, we haven't had a day above freezing for weeks.  In fact, if it gets up in the 30's it is warm and we all talk about what a beautiful day it is.  And as for a dry winter--well that was a joke.  We have had snow at least once a week for the last 4 weeks.  And a fairly significant amount as well.  We are really regretting our decision to leave the snow shovel in storage.  At first we stayed inside everyday, because it was just to cold to go outside, but after a few weeks inside we decided we needed to venture out in the snow and cold or we would be stuck inside all winter.  The Koreans don't really do snow removal here.  The roads aren't too bad because so many people drive on them, but the snow on the side walks just get pounded down until they are long slick surfaces.  This makes getting out a bit rough since we walk pretty much everywhere.

This is what all the sidewalks look like all over Seoul for days (or weeks) after it snows.

Russ' job here right now is very demanding with long hours and not very many days off.  But his boss took a few days of leave over the Christmas holiday which meant Russ was able to take a few days off as well.  He had 6 full days off in a row!  That was, by far, my best Christmas present.  We spent Christmas inside but after Christmas we decided to venture out and do some hiking.  Our family loves to hike and be outdoors and Korea is the perfect place for that activity.  Seoul is surrounded by 4 mountains and each have numerous hiking trails on them.  The Koreans also love to hike and you may remember from a previous post that I did about hiking that they love to buy all the gear and get all decked out before they go for a hike.  Our family doesn't really do that, we just make due with what we have.  Since we knew there was a bunch of snow on the ground we decided that the girls should wear their snow boots to hike instead of sneakers.  That ended up being a very good decision.  The higher on the mountain we went the more snow there was.  Lucy especially CANNOT keep her hands and feet out of the snow and so it was much better for her to have the waterproof shoes on.

We decided to hike a mountain that was about an hour subway ride away.  The scenery was beautiful and completely snow covered.

This was a frozen, snow covered stream.

 

As we hiked and worked up a sweat we started to strip off the layers we had put on.

The last half of the mountain was pretty much just straight up steps.  They had numbered the steps for us so we could see how many we had climbed.  I don't know if it was encouraging or discouraging to see how many steps you had climbed.

This was pretty close to the top.  A lot of the numbers were covered in snow and ice so this was the last one we could see before the top.

Here we are almost at the top of the mountain at a beautiful, and very cold, lookout.

Once we got to the very top we ate lunch and Russ had packed some hot water to make cider and coffee to drink to help us warm up.  They had a small vendor stand at the top of the mountain where you could buy hot ramen noodles and a few other warm drinks.  Here is a man bringing supplies up to the top of the mountain:

Shorts and a t-shirt in the 30 degree weather.

Eating our lunch at the top.

Family picture at the very top-it was COLD. 

Hiking back down the mountain is always much faster and easier.  We stopped to take a few pictures on the way down as well.

They have natural springs along the trail where you can fill up your water bottles and get a cold drink of water.  

These are especially nice in the summer when it is very hot.

Lucy can't help herself, she has to play in the ice and snow.

We finally made it back to the bottom of the mountain.  It was a good hike but a little bit cold.  We got the girls a snack to eat on the way home.

Heading back down in the subway to go home.

Lucy just wants to eat her snack...she isn't into taking any more pictures.

Taylor got a new ipod touch for Christmas.  Russ saw this cool advertisement in the subway and stopped to take a picture of her beside it.

I didn't let those few seconds of time go to waste...  :)

Russ said "Seriously, I stop for 30 seconds to take a picture and you have gone shopping and purchased something.  That must be a record."

The Koreans have no sense of personal space.  They will just continue to crowd you in until there is no space between you and them.  It was very difficult for me at first, but I'm getting better with it.

I Know It Is Christmas Time When...

 ...I have no time to write a new blog post.  Sorry this one is so delayed.

...I VOLUNTARILY bake for an entire day.  As you may remember from a previous post, I do not like to bake.  But I make one exception to that feeling about 2 weeks before Christmas.  I usually spend an entire day baking Christmas cookies.  This year I did something I have never done before, I invited a friend to bake with me.  She had a few recipes that she wanted to make and I had few to bake.  We both basically doubled our recipes and then split what we had baked between us.  It was a really fun day of fellowship and I got a very good variety of cookies to give out to our friends and Russ' co-workers.

Before

During

After and this isn't even all of them.  We had a few more that were cooling and 2 other batches that were in the refrigerator.  (Donna-since I know you read this-do you see what kind of cookies I was forced to make for myself since you aren't here to make them for me?  They don't taste nearly as good when I have to make them as when you make them for me.  Miss you.)

  I didn't take any pictures of us baking because we didn't look so good that day.  But we had a great time.

...my days are filled with class Christmas parties.  The moms in Taylor's class planned a fun Christmas party for the kids.   The party took up almost the entire last day of school.
We played games:

Made crafts and snacks:

Had a book exchange and a Christmas movie.  It was a fun day in the middle of an intense year for her.

She looks so pretty and grown up in this picture.

...our evenings are busy with holiday events.  As part of a social studies project, Taylor's class started a business this holiday season.  They sold handmade holiday cards, gift bags and gift boxes.  Her teacher used this opportunity to teach the class wonderful lessons on what is involved in running a business but also made it a fun experience for them.  They all had a position and responsibilities in the business and had to work together to make it a success.  At one of the PTO meetings the class sold their products to the parents for a donation and all the profits went to benefit Toys For Tots.

Taylor's friend was in charge of keeping record of the money.  Taylor was a wonderful sales woman.  She had a great little speech memorized that she would say to the parents as they walked by their table.  The class would not have sold nearly as much as they did without Taylor.

Their table with the products for sale.

A few of the class members and their teacher, Ms. Anthony.  The business was named "Ms. A's Holidaze"

...the shops are filled with last minute shoppers.  Another mom and I took the money the class had made from the business and we went out shopping for toys to donate to Toys For Tots.  It is great fun to spend money when it isn't your own, especially when you know it is going for such a good cause.  The class had raised almost $500.00 so we had quite a bit to spend. (remember it was for donation only and it was going to a good cause, lots of parents gave very generous donations)  Koreans don't celebrate Christmas quite the same as Americans do but they still do buy small gifts to give each other.  The stores here, just like in America, have been getting busier and busier as it gets closer to Christmas.  My friend and I had one day to spend all the class money so that we could turn the toys in to the Marine's who then deliver them to local orphanages.   If you remember from a previous post, I talked about toy alley.  We decided that was the best place for us to head to get the most bang for our buck (or won, since we were buying with Korean money) and to get the biggest selection.  The only problem is it was so full we could barely walk and by the time we had purchased hundreds of dollars worth of toys we had huge and very heavy bags that we were trying to maneuver through busy streets.

Can you see my friend waving at me trapped between the 2 trucks that had just parked in the middle of the street?  She was waiting for me while I paid for our purchases.  She has 3 huge bags at her feet and that red cart is our as well.

I can't even see my friend any more in this picture, she got separated from our cart.  It was so crazy full.  There were people everywhere.

...it is freezing cold outside.  The HIGH for the last 2 days has been in the low 20's.  I like the change of seasons and the different temperatures, but 20's for a high is a bit cold for me.  Especially when most things we do involve walking outside.  One day when we were out I saw this cool ice creation.  The man was just spraying water and it was so cold it was pretty much freezing immediately and this was what it looked like.

...we run the Jingle Bell 5k.  Our friend Chino, who is here for a year without his family, is staying with us for Christmas and he was crazy enough to do the run with us.  The Saturday before Christmas the base put on a Jingle Bell 5k run.  Remember my previous point?  It is freezing outside.  I didn't think very many people would be as crazy as we are to run in the 20 degree weather, but I was wrong.  About 100 people showed up to run the 5k and many of them were dressed in fun costumes.  We ran in Santa hats.

After the run.  It was cold before we started but even colder at the end after we had sweated.  Do you see the snow on the ground behind us?

Russ ran with me, but Chino ran ahead of us and took this picture as we were crossing the finish line.  The cold weather must have made me run faster because I ran a personal best on this day.

Buddy the Elf ran the 5k.  He stayed in character pretty much the entire time.  He was great.

...everything is lit up beautifully.  The base here really goes all out to decorate for the holidays.  They have a tree lighting ceremony when they light everything up.  We took these pictures as we were driving so they are a little bit blurry. 

Check out how they line each of the tree  branches in lights.  They work for weeks before Christmas to get all of this ready.

...we attend the Christmas Eve Candle Light service.  This is probably my favorite service of the year.  I love to sing the Christmas songs and celebrate our Savior's birth.  It always takes me back to when I was a little girl sitting in church for the Christmas eve service with my grandparents, family and all my aunts, uncles and cousins.  I love when the church goes dark and we all light our candles and the entire church is lit up. 

This is a funny picture.  I told the girls to really pay attention so that they don't spill the wax all over themselves or burn the church down.  This is the difference in their attention spans.

Merry Christmas from our family to you.  We hope you have a great holiday season celebrating the birth of our Savior. 

Tour of Our Home

I cleaned yesterday.  So, since this is pretty much the cleanest my house will be I decided to take a few pictures of our house to show you all.

First, I couldn't take pictures of the house and not have a Christmas tree picture...

We bought this tree at the PX in October after we got here.  It is pretty small, but since we don't have a lot of room for a tree, it works good for our 3 Christmases that we are in Korea.  I love to watch TV in the evenings with the Christmas tree lights on, so the tree is in the TV room.

Here is the entrance to the house.  Since we live on an Army base it is an unspoken rule that all Marine families proudly display a MC flag. 

This is the view into the house when you first walk in the front door.

The first door on the right is our TV room, the second door on the right is our kitchen and it opens up into our living room and dining room.
The doors on the left are some storage and our furnace.

Entry way:
The Koreans take their shoes off before they enter the house, so there is always a place for some shoe storage right when you enter the home.

The TV room:
Walking into the house the first door on the right is the TV room.  It also has a scrapbook desk in it that I can sit at.

 The massive bean bag sac made the trip to Korea.  We were not sure whether to bring it or not because it take up a lot of space, but we are glad we did.  All 4 of us can easily fit on that thing.  The sac is facing  the TV and the Christmas tree is beside the TV.

Behind the screen is my scrapbooking desk and supplies.  To the left is an opening to the kitchen.

The kitchen:

This picture is from the kitchen looking into the TV room.

The Living Room and Dining Room:

 Walking straight into the house you come to the dining room/kitchen table.  This is where we eat all our meals.  This picture is standing at the table looking into the living room.

This picture is taken from the computer desk.  The hall to the left leads back to the bedrooms and bathrooms.  On the right is an enclosed porch.

The Porch:

We actually have 2 porches just like this.  This one we obviously use for working out.  I didn't take a picture of the other porch, which is right off the the master bedroom, because it is where I store my obscene amount of shoes and it is also where we keep any thing we don't know what to do with.  It is sort of our collect all spot.

The Hallway:

The hallway is directly opposite of the kitchen and right off the dining room.  The "beautiful" accordion door at the end of the hallway to the left is my laundry room and the door to the right is the girls' bathroom.  If you turn left you see the girls rooms and right is the master bedroom.

The Girls Rooms:
This is the first time since Lucy has been born that the girls are not sharing a room. We let them pick out the theme for their rooms.   Taylor choose zebra print with hot pink accents and Lucy choose hot pink, purple and orange flower power. 
Taylor's room:

Looking into Taylor's room from the hallway.

Her homework area at the end of her bed.

On the other side of her bed.

Lucy's room:

Looking into Lucy's room from the hallway.

Standing beside the bed.

The wall opposite her bed.

 The Girl's Bathroom:

Probably the biggest drawback of this house for me is that the girls' bathroom is the same as the guest bathroom.  Other mothers always tell me how dirty boys are, well let me tell you little girls are very dirty too.  I have so much trouble keeping this bathroom cleaned up and guest ready.

I didn't take any pictures of the master bedroom because it is just a plain white room with a bed and a dresser.  Not exciting at all.  There is another bathroom off the master bedroom that Russ and I use.

This concludes the tour of our small home.  Now that I have put a picture of pretty much every room on the internet for anyone to see, I hope I don't attract any unwanted visitors.